Tag: Web design

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Design & technology

Tips on how to optimise your professional website

When used properly, a professional services website can account for the majority of your income. Unfortunately, most businesses think of it as an afterthought that doesn’t help improve the bottom line.

That’s a mistake which you shouldn’t repeat. In this article, you’ll learn simple but effective ways to create a website that works as a powerful lead generation and acquisition channel for your business. Additionally, we take you through some easy steps you can take today in building a winning first impression.

Think about the look and feel

First impressions always count, so put your best foot forward with a professional, secure and fast-loading website full of content curated specifically for your target client. Take the opportunity here to differentiate yourself from your competitors and make it clear why you are the best business for the job. 

Inundated with questions? Set up an FAQ section

Nip the commonly asked questions in the bud by directly addressing them on your website. Assume your customer has zero knowledge of your services so use clear and concise language, and take the time to explain things coherently. Using keywords here is also a great opportunity to boost your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) ranking!

Get straight to the point

By the time a customer has reached your website, they’ve potentially been on dozens of others researching. Make their journey to book or purchase as easy and seamless as possible. For example, consider adding in your unique selling points, telling your story and clearly displaying your contact details at the top of every page on your website. Businesses on the Oneflare platform use their Oneflare profile as the designated one-stop-shop for explaining who they are, what they do and offer, what people are saying about them and how to get in touch with them. 

Let customers know what your website is all about straight away / Source: M.R Design & Marketing

Content is king

If appropriate, use pictures and/or videos on your site, especially in the FAQ section. Rich media is fantastic for SEO and makes it easy for customers to understand what you do. Build trust from the get-go with some positive reviews and trust badges on your site.

Build content mapped to funnel stages

When people have challenges, they follow a series of steps before they settle on a specific provider. People often first research the problem, figure out the kinds of solutions available, take a look at the service providers, and finally choose one. There’s another step that most people miss – retention – which focuses on maximizing the results of a client or getting them to come back when another relevant problem arises.

For example, if someone’s roof is leaking, they’d first search online for causes. After finding several answers, they’ll look at multiple types of solutions such as DIY or hiring a contractor. Next, they’ll vet different contractors before finally settling on one.

Use your website content to lead people through every step of this process. With the example above, the kind of content they create may look like:

  • An infographic that explains the different reasons a roof may leak
  • A blog post that dives deep into the different ways you can stop a leaky roof
  • A comparison guide that shows how your service stacks up against the competition
  • Landing pages, targeted at different buyer personas, which detail how your service will help them solve the specific problem
  • Host a podcast or video tutorial that shares insights about how to maintain the roof going forward.

Once you’ve got all the pages set up, you may want to consider launching a local link building campaign to improve your search visibility. When it’s successful, you’ll be the first business that shows up when potential clients are looking for solutions to their problems.

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Clear and relatable social proof

The last piece of the puzzle is arguably the most important. Social proof has been proven time and again to improve conversions on almost any website.

It can be a case study, client testimonial, or even mentioning how many clients you’ve served in the past. Use the type of social proof that makes the most sense for you and supports a promise you’ve made on your landing page.

For example, if a plumber promises to get to a client’s house within 30 minutes for any plumbing issue, they would show social proof that supports that claim. Maybe a client called at 2:00 AM because of a burst pipe. A testimonial from them about how the plumber saved the day would be perfect.

Think about the biggest promises you’ve made and your value proposition then gather testimonials or even case studies that support it. Interested in learning more? Our Oneflare HQ industry leaders in sales, marketing and SEO recently discussed best practices, new technology and how to build trust with potential customers online.

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Design & technology

The best tools to use if you’re building an app

Creating an app is a tall order. However, it’s also one that’s well worth the time, dedication, and resources that go into it. According to the Business of Apps, there were 194 billion app downloads in 2018 alone. In other words, the field of app development is a large market, and it’s only growing.

Having an app for your business can help increase your profit margins by drawing more customers in and making shopping with you more convenient for existing customers. Also, it can help you drum up important brand recognition and loyalty.

Making an app isn’t an easy task, though. It requires plenty of planning and works on behalf of the app company. To get the job done efficiently and to the best of your ability, you’re going to need the right tools for the trade. Luckily, there are plenty of different types of tools you can take advantage of during the process that will help pave the way to your new mobile app!

General workflow management

One of the hardest parts of project management is making sure that every step is done in order without fail. If a step is skipped in app development, you’ll find it difficult to move forward or even struggle with bugs within the program. So, a way to easily track what needs to be done is essential.

There are a lot of options out there for this, but Casual is one that’s quickly gaining steam. It offers a simple interface that displays a flowchart of what needs to be done and which users are taking care of that step. This is incredibly helpful when it comes to handling large projects that require many smaller tasks or need to be done over a longer period of time.

Contact local mobile app developers

If you want something slightly more streamlined that gives team members their own individual tasks without necessarily tying them all together. If you’re seeking this level of individual anonymity, apps like Asana focus on individual task lists. They allow for task assignment with a description of what needs to be done and space in each task to instant message back and forth on the specific job. With its simple interface, there isn’t much room for confusion, and you can easily communicate what you need between team members without any trouble.

Note-taking tools

As you go through the app development process, you’re likely to find that you come up with ideas as you go along that you can’t put into practice immediately. In these cases, you’ll want to keep these ideas in a central, easy-to-find location. If you’re just scrawling them on spare pieces of paper, it’s very easy for them to get lost or forgotten about. In a dedicated area, though, you can find them as you need them. You should have a clear mobile app development process follow to be able to manage any small or big mobile app development task.

One example of a handy service for this purpose is Evernote. This is a tool that is often marketed to college students, but it’s just as valuable to businesses and individual employees. It allows you to keep track of any notes on or ideas about a project and search and reference them as you need to. Since it’s a cloud-based system, you can even access it from a different computer, or it can be accessed by a different team member working on the project.

All of these tools will help you keep your app development projects on track and give you a profitable and polished end results. This is crucial in a world where the tech industry is not only growing but an essential arm that businesses can’t survive without.

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Design & technology

How SEO drives business growth

The 21st century has seen the world turn digital and thus so should your marketing efforts. Traditional print media is slowly becoming a thing of the past. Now, businesses can track the return of every dollar they spend through their marketing efforts through digital marketing.

Through digital marketing, businesses have access to a wide array of avenues to grow their online presence. Traditional-style online directories are a common starting point. However, more complex channels, including social media, pay per click (PPC) advertising and search engine optimisation (SEO) lead the way.

Through these marketing channels, businesses can drive targeted traffic to their websites. Thus, resources are spent as effectively as possible. Alongside PPC advertising, SEO is one of the most effective inbound marketing strategies that businesses utilise. In this article, you will learn what SEO is and how you can grow your business through this digital marketing strategy.

What is SEO?

The purpose of SEO is to be the first organic result on search engines. Thus, SEO is the set of practices that are employed to achieve that first place. Why is this important, though? Here are some facts:

  • Over 90% of all internet traffic starts from search engines – whether people are looking for information or buying a product
  • In terms of looking for products, over 81% of people turn to search engines as a starting point to perform their research
  • After conducting an online search for a local business, 72% of people will go ahead and visit the physical location

These are just some of the facts that outline why focusing on search engines is important. SEO is important, thanks to something known as the click-through rate (CTR). This is the percentage of people who visit your website after seeing your link.

On average, SEO has the highest CTR of any inbound digital marketing channel. Thus, you are driving targeted traffic to your website more efficiently than any other related channel, for example, Google Ads.

Website using SEO / Source: Nucleo Pty Ltd

How does SEO work?

There are three parties to think about when it comes to SEO ~ the user, the search engine and the website. We’ll explain how the relationship works between the three in the shortest way possible:

  1. The user enters a query into the search engine
  2. The search engine generates a list of relevant search results
  3. Websites at the top of those search results inherit traffic

For a site to show up at the top of search results, it must be correctly optimised, so that search engines can determine whether it’s the best fit for the query.

One of the easiest ways to make sure your website is correctly optimised is to engage in a marketing agency that performs SEO services. Otherwise, you can learn about SEO and go it alone.

How does SEO drive business growth?

Each month there could be tens, hundreds, thousands or millions of people searching for a product or information that you offer. For example, there could be 100 people who search for “lawyers in Sydney” on a monthly basis.

If your website is optimised to target the keyword and you’re the first to pop up in the search results, then you’re likely to inherit 30% of the traffic. That’s 30 people who are looking for lawyers coming to your website every month, and that’s just for one keyword.

Though in reality, websites compete for many variations of a keyword and many completely different keywords. Also, as the target visiting your website is targeted, it is much more likely that your visitors will become customers as well.

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SEO FAQ’s

Those who are new to SEO – particularly if they’re looking to hire someone – often ask two main questions. We’ll cover them here for you.

What’s the difference between SEO and Google Ads?

Search engine optimisation focuses on ranking for organic search results and is thus commonly considered a long-term digital marketing strategy. Due to the nature of SEO, you would almost never run a three-month campaign. This is because things take longer to unfold in the SEO world.

By comparison, Google Ads is all about immediate results. Thus, you pay for clicks. In exchange, Google sends traffic to your website, and you hope to land a sale. With Google Ads, you can run a one-week or one-year (or longer) long campaign. It is both short- and long-term oriented.

There’s no one better strategy either if that’s your next question. If you can only have enough in your budget to engage in one of the two channels, then it’s entirely up to where you’re at as a business. If you have no existing source of income, then Google Ads may be the way to go for you. On the other hand, if your business already generates an income, you might prefer an exclusively long-term focus.

How long does it take to get to the first page?

Every case is different. It depends on your website and how competitive your market is. In general, though, it could take anywhere from six to twelve months to get to the first page of Google for a low- to mid-level competition keyword.

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Design & technology

How to use WordPress for website design

WordPress is a popular CMS platform that is carefully designed to cater to all users. No matter if you’re designing your first website or your hundredth, the design of WordPress aims to offer a suitable platform for you.

A big part of why WordPress works so well for so many different skill levels is the availability of so many various features. For instance, according to CodeinWP, WordPress offers more than 11,000 different pre-made themes to users.

These themes offer a variety of different benefits:

  • They’re easy to use
  • They provide a quick route to designing a WordPress website for you or your company
  • Both individual developers and WordPress development services can use these themes during the development process

Benefits of WordPress themes

Pre-made themes are ready to go

One of the most significant advantages of using pre-made WordPress themes is that they’ve already set up and ready to use. With a few quick clicks, developers can use these to set the basis for their site design. This saves a lot of time compared to a developer or WordPress design agency, taking the time to build a custom base theme for the website.

Themes are user friendly

Not having to code a custom theme not only saves time for advanced developers, but it also makes WordPress very accessible to new website designers. After all, users don’t need to possess any programming skills to choose a theme and apply it to their site. However, working with a more experienced service can give even a website using a pre-made theme a unique edge.

Website Design / Source: Sombrilla Digital

Themes come with tech support

Another advantage of themes is something that WordPress does well – tech support. This is mostly thanks to the huge community that WordPress boasts. Since many users are using a similar theme, other users have experienced the issues you might run into. As such, it’s much easier and quicker to find answers than to try and go through and find problems that might come up when creating a completely custom website design.

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Themes often feature demos

In the same vein as depending on reliable tech support, if you run into a problem, WordPress themes guide you through the process from the beginning and get you started right away. To ensure that developers understand their purpose, many have demos that they can watch to get an idea of how the theme runs and supports a website. These are also handy in determining if a theme fits the design that a developer has in mind for the site they’re building.

Easy to update themes

Much like developing a custom theme, updating a custom theme design is often a complicated process because developers have to build the updates themselves. WordPress themes, on the other hand, typically entail periodic update releases. From here, all individual website developers or services need to do is ensure that they periodically update their website.

These updates also often target important features about the site as well, such as added security and functionality. They may also generally improve upon flaws that existed in the previous version of the theme.

WordPress themes are handy and help developers create a quality website with less hassle and in a shorter time frame. Themes allow developers to get the groundwork for a website set up immediately without having to commit to any coding and even update them later in only minutes. If you’ve given it a go and you can’t seem to get your website right, speak to a professional web designer to find out how much their design and developing services can cost you.

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Design & technology

The do’s and don’ts of managing your online reputation

Having a positive reputation online can often mean the difference between winning the job, or losing the customer. Think about your own browsing habits when deciding on buying a product or requesting a service. How often is your decision swayed by the number of stars on an item listing? Do you look at how the product performs in the real world, beyond the advertised? 88 per cent of customers say that they determine the quality of a local business based on their reviews.

Here are the best practices of online reputation management and exactly how you can make your review forums work in your favour. 

The wider your coverage, the stronger your credibility

Firstly, ensure you’re set up on a number of trustworthy review platforms and forums such as:

A good starting point is to check out where your competitors are, chances are you should probably be there too.

Eliminate the barriers

Make it as easy as possible for customers to review your work online. One of the simplest ways to do this is to send clients a direct link to your business’ review page/s via email, SMS or even at the top of your invoice. The review process should be quick and streamlined, not long and tedious. Top-performing Oneflare businesses also suggest a follow-up call to ensure the client was happy with your work might be a good option and, if they are indeed pleased with your performance, it’s the perfect time to ask for a recommendation.

Determine the right timing of the invitation

Ideally, you should engage with your customer and ask them to leave you a review when they’re at their happiest. For example, if you’re a wedding photographer, it might be helpful to ask for a review when you deliver the photos of the big day. Nothing wrong with taking advantage of peak customer satisfaction! If, however, you’re a builder and you’ve been delayed on finishing a project, you may be better off holding off asking until the service is complete.

Make it as easy as possible for customers to leave reviews / Source: Shutterstock

Incentivise

While you are not legally allowed to buy or pay for a review, you can gamify the process by:

  • Placing any one who leaves an honest review (good or bad) in the draw to win something; or
  • Organising a ‘surprise and delight’ for one lucky customer who has left an honest review. 

Find opportunities

If someone sends you a review via email, text message or over the phone, feel free to either send them the direct link to your preferred review platform or ask them if they’d be happy for you to copy and paste/type out the review on their behalf. Alternatively, you can post it as anonymous. 

Include the good, the bad and the brutally honest

A page full of glowing reviews is usually a red flag for prospective customers (fake alert!). Each comment is a useful insight into how your business is performing, so always listen and aim to do better! It is, after all, a valuable learning experience. The aim is to collect as many positive reviews as you can and turn each negative experience into a positive one.

Never reply to a negative review when you’re frustrated

Just like the old adage of never going to bed angry, resist the urge to bite back when you’re upset. Take a breath and take the time to process the comment before responding, you might find you’ll learn some valuable feedback. If you’re certain you’re not in the wrong, make sure to describe what you did to resolve the situation before the review was posted publicly. 

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Resist the urge to say, ‘I’m sorry you had a bad experience’

Instead, kill ‘em with kindness. Empathise and get on the front foot by showing prospective customers that you are a professional business willing to fix genuine mistakes and rectify the situation if required. Promptly offering an appropriate solution to their problem will likely eventuate in a return customer.

Avoid using emotion or sarcasm

Sarcasm and tone don’t necessarily translate well online. As an attentive service provider, you’ll need to give the customer the benefit of the doubt, while remaining rational, cool and factual at all times. 

Act fast

A negative review is a ticking time bomb, so ensure you address the complaint respectfully and appropriately in a timely manner. Leaving the review unanswered can turn away potential clients so make sure to prioritise a response. Interested in learning more? Our Oneflare HQ industry leaders in sales, marketing and SEO can tell you all about new technology and how to build trust with potential customers online. Check out the video here.

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Design & technology

Top 5 website design mistakes

The internet provides unlimited access to knowledge which means that just about anyone can teach themselves how to do web design. Unfortunately, this can have a negative impact on the effectiveness of the DIY website they create as a result. Here are several common web design mistakes small businesses make that must not be overlooked.

1. Cramming too much on the homepage

While you may be in a rush to present your audience with all you stand for and show them everything you have to offer, trying to cram too much on the homepage usually isn’t a great idea. There are two major reasons behind this. First, it will make your navigation counter-intuitive, seeing as your audience won’t know where to click. This results in bad user experience. 

Secondly, every single element you include requires an additional HTTP request. This can slow down your website significantly. Due to the fact that your audience expects a website to load within the first 2 seconds (on average), this might become a significant problem. If your website fails to load within the first 4 seconds, as much as 25 percent of your audience may move on. It’s also a negative signal for search engines.

2. Failing to introduce yourself

One of the greatest mistakes you can possibly make in your web design is assuming that the visitor will know what you are all about the moment they click on the link. Sure, some of your audience members are more intuitive than others, while a great deal of them knew who you were even before they clicked the link, however, this should not be your initial assumption. Your design and your content must first be oriented towards the introduction.

Web designers can optimise your website for all types of devices / Source: Webilicious Web Design

3. Rushing with your CTA button

Every website out there has an agenda. You may want your visitors to buy a product, leave an email, subscribe to your newsletter or simply encourage them to learn more about the topic at hand. Unfortunately, pushing them to make this decision before they are ready to do so may backfire. In order to avoid this, make sure to introduce yourself and show them what you have to offer, before presenting them with your call-to-action (CTA) button.

4. Failing the consistency test

These days, more people are browsing the internet through their smartphones than through their desktop setups. On the other hand, more people use PCs than tablets, which puts you in a complicated situation design-wise. Sure, appealing to one audience may seem a preferable choice but you simply cannot allow yourself to ignore all the rest. Your website needs to show consistency in both visuals and functionality across all devices and failure to do so will impact negatively on user experience.

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5. Ignoring white space

Earlier on, we talked about cramming too much content from the perspective of the website loading time. In addition to this, ignoring the white space and inserting too many interactive elements into your design reduces the readability of your content. Separating paragraphs within your content and leaving enough space between different elements of your webpage is something that will make it more visually appealing. In this way, you are increasing the chance that people (especially those on mobile devices) will actually skim through or read your content. In a world where 8 out of 10 people don’t read past the headline, this is very important.

By acknowledging these important failures of web design, you are ensuring that your website will make a great first impression on your audience. In this way, you are also increasing its reach and its average conversion rate. Finally, while the above-listed principles are quite intuitive, a lot of DIY designers tend to ignore them. Nonetheless, keeping them in mind at all times can ensure your web design is always on point.

Categories
Design & technology

How to plan your web design

There is seemingly no end to web design businesses in the market. They price themselves from as low as $199, and all the way up to $25,000. Sometimes there is little difference between what you get as an end result.

After 10+ years running my web design business I have learnt that there is a way of doing things which will ensure the highest chance of success for your website build.

The biggest mistake people make when buying a website is looking for web design right off the bat. Then a web designer will ask them to pull together their content, some images and make them a website without really knowing their business or their clients.

Planning your website build will help save time and money in the long run / Source: MG Datacomm

There are 5 clear steps to building a quality website, if followed step by step you should end up with an awesome website and great results.  These are website planning, content creation, web design, web development and hosting.  In this article we will focus on planning your website and follow up with a little more about the other areas.

Web design planning

When you open a new business you would rarely do so without a business plan. Any real investor will not release funding until they have seen a strong business plan. This should be the case for your website as well. Why would you invest time, energy and money into building a website without planning its future and how it will benefit your business?

When you plan your website in advance you get to choose who it will appeal to and therefore the calibre of your future sales leads.  You also get the chance to plan your search engine ranking, content direction, the user experience and the way they think about your industry – their worldview.

Search engine ranking

I have rarely met a business owner who doesn’t want to ensure their website is benefiting from regular search engine traffic. Some people even pay Google thousands per month for this honour. By researching your keywords and planning each page to be compatible with those search terms you will give yourself the best chance of that happening. Planning the next 12 months of your blogging efforts is also wise, ensure you base each blog article on a search term which you want to be seen on as well.

Content direction

Your written content is of huge importance, people actually will read your website. If it’s boring or not what they were looking for, you will lose them in the first 10 seconds.

When writing your content you need guidelines planned. The guidelines should give an idea of the goal of your article, how it will help your reader and what you want the reader to do after reading it. If you have someone write your content for you professionally, that person should be able to ensure they shape the content in a way that compels your reader to want to spend money with your business. That’s called ‘converting content’.

User experience

When planning your website it’s important to think about what the visitor will experience on your site, how the site will encourage them to move between pages and the overall subconscious emotional response you want to trigger. Ensure that you plan the site so there is not too many clicks between landing on the site and converting as a customer. The more clicking a visitor has to do the more likely they are to get annoyed and look elsewhere for their information. Likewise on forms, the more fields a user must fill in – the more chance there is of abandonment.

Website images

In the planning of your website you need to ensure you select the images which will be used in the web design phase. Ensure they are high quality and represent your business well. Ensure you choose images with people who are similar demographic to your potential clients. Don’t forget to use images with people smiling! You can also get some wonderful images from Stock Photo sites. These can really make a difference and save you a fortune on photography.

Check out sites like Pexels, iStock, Shutterstock and Adobe Stock. They are often a real help to Web Design.

Website framework

The most common web design framework in the industry today is WordPress. Once you get used to it you will find it is not too hard to use and has a lot of added bonus features which can be installed as plugins from within the CMS.

When selecting a WordPress theme, make sure you don’t just buy the first theme you find.  Many of the cheap themes are sourced from hobby web developers who want to make extra money while they study. They may look great but they often let you down in the code department. This leaves you open to future malfunction not to mention security holes allowing some hackers to penetrate your website. I like to stick with premium theme clubs for my web design. I use Yootheme for many of my projects due to their clean code and great layouts. Yootheme does have the ability to build your site with a site builder, however I avoid complications by just using Widgetkit and raw wordpress.

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Planned web design

There have been many sites I have planned or re-planned in the past. Here are a few of those which were planned for success and succeeded as a result.

I have a client who owns a web hosting company which specialises in looking after businesses who have large server needs. His business Website is Amaze.com.au.  I was commissioned to re-plan their website. It was built by a large agency who had done nothing about planning the SEO or implementing onsite SEO. 

I planned the site over the course of 1 month. I created a development version of the website to work on so as not to cause any issues with the live site. The plan was then implemented onto the website page by page until I was finished. Once the site was put live, it saw great results within just a few days of launching!

One of my longest held clients is Occupational Safety Solutions, who sells SWMS Templates through their online store. We planned the search engine success for this site as well as the visual user experience. This client had huge benefits from our web design planning and went on to grow their business. 

Wrap up

I sincerely hope this article helps you realise the benefits in web design planning and what it will do for your future web design project. If you have any questions feel free to contact myself or one of my team for some great answers!