Author: David

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Can a school website be managed in house?

Post author By David
Post date March 24, 2020

Every school is obliged to have a website that gives parents and other stakeholders access to school policies, term times and other essential documents relating to the school. Most schools employ a web designer to set up their website initially and to upload the documents that are required but is it essential to pay for a company to manage the site or is it something that can be undertaken in house.

The answer to this is dependant upon the expertise of the school staff and their time constraints. The management of the school website usually falls to the school administrator who has to be able to turn their hand to lots of different tasks in a short time. If they are to take on this role, they will need to be given specific training by the web design company so that they will be able to upload documents, children’s work and school newsletters.

If the task of maintaining the school website falls to a member of the teaching staff, they will need to be given time to do this as it would be seen as an extra responsibility.

Some schools make the decision to pay for support from the web design company so that they know that updates are being carried out without putting pressure on teaching staff although this will come at a cost.

Web Design

Setting up your own website for your business

Post author By David
Post date February 11, 2020

Marketing is an important part of any business model and it is becoming essential for any successful business to have a web presence both in terms of a website and on social media platforms. With the cost of paying a professional web designer out of many small business owners reach some decide to try their hand at designing and setting up their own website.

There are plenty of tutorials online to help the novice designer and so it is a good idea to spend some time before you start watching these and collating ideas. Look at examples of websites that impress you to get a notion of what you want your site to offer and to compare layouts.

When you are ready to begin your design, many sites offer templates to get you started. These can be customised to your business with your brand name and logo. Next your content can be uploaded including photographs and text. Built in SEO tools enable your site to be visible when potential clients search online for your company which is invaluable.

Keeping your website up to date is usually straight forward on these sites and any customer support can be accessed through online chat.

Web Design

Is your web design business in need of a copy writer?

Post author By David
Post date January 16, 2020

If you own a web design / programming company or are a freelance web design / programmer, then you should understand the importance of content. Content is king when it comes to websites and marketing as not only can it help persuade the reader to enquire or buy etc, but it can also help get you further up the rankings on Google or other search engines.

As a programmer or a designer, you may not really have much interest in writing copy for sites. Sometimes the client will write the copy and provide it to you to upload, but other times they may ask you to do this.

To be able to write the content to go on their website you may need to interview them to find out a bit more about what they offer. Ideally the person that writes the copy should have a good knowledge of SEO (search Engine Optimisation) to ensure that it is written in such a way that it will improve the SEO on their site. If there is no one within the business who has these skills then it may be time to look at outsourcing the copywriting to someone who is experienced in writing SEO friendly content.

Web Marketing

Make sure you don’t make these mistakes when it comes to SEO

Post author By David
Post date November 28, 2019

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation and is effectively optimising your site in such a way to improve its rankings on sites such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. Every website should be built with SEO in mind but often, especially older sites are lacking some of the basic elements let alone the advanced SEO techniques. If your website seems to be lacking in traffic and you cannot find your site on the first page or so on Google for your mains search terms, you need to start looking at your SEO.

If when you had your site built, you did ensure it was SEO friendly, that may have been great to start with, but over time this will need to be tweaked and new pages optimised to allow your SEO to build.

Getting SEO wrong can be worse than not doing it at all as you can find your site penalised and therefore removed from the search engine listings entirely. Simple mistakes such as putting text in white on a white background or having duplicate pages with the same content on can get your site blacklisted. When doing SEO be sure to use a company or individual that has the relevant experience to carry out the work.

Web Marketing

Building up your business through referrals

Post author By David
Post date July 10, 2019

As a business owner, it is important to constantly be thinking of ways in which you can grow your business. You may decide to do a Pay per Click advertising campaign, invest your time and money in SEO to improve your organic rankings and therefore increase traffic to your website, or to get your existing customers to help.

If you are confident that you offer a good level of customer service and your customers are happy with the products or services you sell, then you can use this to boost your business. Offering existing customers a referral process where they get rewarded will undoubtedly help bring in more customers. You need to make sure that the referral process is quick and easy. Making people wait months for their reward can put some people off. If you have an ecommerce website then you can automatically send people a voucher as soon as the person they referred places an order. This may be money off voucher, free delivery or free gift.

You may also want to give the new customer a special offer too as this will entice the refer and the new customer into completing a sale. Be sure you have a way of tracking the referrals effectively to ensure everyone gets the reward they should.