Category: Web Design

With 2019 well underway many businesses are starting out on a new marketing plan or planning for when they get their new marketing budget later on this year. With Brexit looming over our heads, some businesses have a number of marketing strategies up their sleeve, and will not decide which one to use until they know more about the implications Brexit will have.
Every year you should have a number of goals. Some of these need to be things that you want to do short term and others may be long term goals. When setting marketing goals you need to be realistic and also specific. There is no point in juts saying we want to increase sales, you need to establish exactly how you are going to achieve this. It may be that you want to bring a number of new products or services to market. Each product should have an ideal launch date and a strategy in place as to how you are going to inform your target audience of its release, what marketing platforms you are going to use, which geographical locations you are targeting and how much you are going to spend on the marketing.
Your long term goals may change over time but that’s ok, they do not need to be set in stone. You often find that things happen outside of your control which mean plans have to change and the businesses that are most successful are those that are able to adapt to new situations.

The job of a web developer and designer can be very interesting. If you work for a design agency then you will often get the opportunity to work on a number of different projects for different types of industries.

Some developers decide to go self-employed so they can run their own business but it is important to ensure that you have the skills and confidence to gain sales too. Some developers are great at programming and designing, but struggle to sell their business to others and do not like pitching for work. If this is the case then you may need to hire a sales consultant or subcontract to a third party who will find the work for you.

Networking can work wonders within the web design industry as many business owners like the opportunity to meet with their programmer/designer face to face before agreeing to a project. Social media is often another way in which you can gain more work. Lots of businesses now have a presence on the social media sites and if you can advertise on there too, you have a good chance of being able to gain a few enquiries through Facebook or Twitter etc.

Your website may be a very important selling tool for your business and it is important that you get it correct. When planning a new website it is important to think about how the site will be laid out and the steps they will need to take to get to the information they want to find.  A great way of doing this is to create a site map and a wire frame.  This will allow you to think carefully about the pages that are going to be on your website and how they are all going to link together.  The wire frame will be able to show the flow of pages from one to another.  If you have an ecommerce website where people can find products or services online then you need to make sure that the check out process is as simple and easy as possible.

A good way to start is to have a look round at other people’s website possibly competitors and see what information they have and how it is laid out.  From this you can then work out what you like and what you wouldn’t like to use on your website.  Try not to make your website too complicated as people will get frustrated and often leave without completing an enquiry form or completing a purchase.

Some companies make the mistake of not considering their mobile version of the website until the main site is built. They may then find that many of the elements do not work as well on the mobile sites as they do on the desktop version.

You need to find out who your main audience is and what devices they are likely to be using. If you have a stats package on your website such as Google Analytics then you can see the devices that are being used to view your site. This will give you an idea of how much of your business is being impacted on by the mobile version of your site. You may be surprised as to how many people browse online through their phone or tablet even if its only as an initial look prior to using a desktop to make a purchase.

If your website is not very user friendly then you should consider creating a new one or updating your current one to allow more users to interactive with your site. If you want to offer a lot of functionality then you could create an App that will allow people to download it on to their phone or tablet.

People sometimes do not realise how important it is to make the right choice when deciding on which hosting company to use and what type of server you want. You may find it a little confusing all the choices you have when it comes to the different services offered and often you may have to base your choice a lot on the cost of it. Dedicated servers are usually the most reliable, allow you to have the most control and also the best for search engine optimisation, but these servers often come at a price of upwards of £100 per month, which for a small to medium sized business is a lot.

Shared servers can be good for most small to medium businesses but they do have their down sides. As this server is shared with potentially hundreds of other websites you may not have any control on how it is set up. You will also find that if one of the other sites on the server is causing issues such as having a high load of traffic, this may mean your website and emails also go offline.

Shared servers can sometimes have a negative impact on your search engine rankings especially if the IP address of the server becomes blacklisted.

You may think that being creative is a great skill to have as a web designer and that you can never be too creative, but you may be wrong. Yes, it is important to have a creative streak and know what works and what doesn’t but being over creative can take away from the main purpose of the website.

It is important to understand you are not just designing websites that you like or even your client likes, but for the users of the website. There is no point in having a flashy quirky web design that puts your visitors off and does not convert visitors in to sales or enquiries.

Research shows that people make their aesthetic judgment on your design in less than 50 milliseconds and that first impression can tell them if they want to stay or leave the site.

Users like websites that look clean and simple and also have some familiarity about them.

For example, on a blog website you would expect to see a sign up box somewhere on the top right hand side. When someone visits your site, this is the first place they are going to look for it and a percentage of people may not bother or leave the site if they cannot see it instantly and where they expect it to be.