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There are good reasons why the layout of some web-sites appears to follow an unofficial set of design rules that guides location of the menus and content.

How visitors use your web-pages
Research into the way that people use websites called ‘eyetracking’ has revealed that users tend to scan in the first instance along the top of the web page from left to right and then down the left hand side of the screen from top to bottom.

These places correspond with the usual menu and headline locations and these would appear to be the places people look to gauge content and navigation links. The obvious place for your branding is in this area so visitors can recognise who the site is about and where the information comes from. The amount of time site visitors spend looking for the thing they want is tiny, measured in seconds, so make it as easy as possible for them to find what they want. Clear and concise link titles mean visitors stay with your site rather than moving on to your competition.

Get their attention with a strong headline
The headline is the next thing the visitor reads. It is the most effective way to grab their attention. Writing concise headlines can help visitors find the information they want quickly and keep them on your site pages.

Use typefaces carefully for maximum legibility
The fonts you use should make your text easy to read, legibility is key to helping visitors actually read the text on your site pages. Don’t mix lots of different fonts on a single page, stick to one or two so that all your pages are consistent and look as though they come from the same source.

Colour can draw attention where you want it
Use colour to draw attention to your headlines, or to pull out quotes from customers from the main body text. However, don’t use too many colours on any one page – it’s visually distracting to page visitors. Stick to one or two colours and consider using tints of them if you need variations. Using clashing colours on web pages make it less likely that visitors will read your text and raises the chances of them choosing to go elsewhere.

The designer’s favourite: white space explained
Incorporate blank spaces around your content so site visitors don’t have to struggle to find what they want in a clutter of things. You don’t want your site pages to resemble a jumble sale where locating the right thing becomes a chore because this will drive away site visitors. Clear space also acts to draw attention to the most important things on the page, for example:

Any paragraph of text with wide margins assumes more
importance because it is isolated on the page.

For more impact, just add images
If you add pictures, choose ones that enhance what your story, illustrate your product effectively and show your visitor the thing they are searching for. Beautiful pictures are attractive but on their own they may not hold visitors on your website unless you happen to be selling the images as art. If your business is in the service industry associate your pictures with people, they could be your staff, your clients or stock images of the kind of people who might be interested in your service. This helps visitors to identify personally with your service and guides them to imagine using it.

Show off your business with the best possible images
A professional photographer will take pictures with better composition and lighting than any amateur snapshot, investment in good quality photography will give your web-pages a professional image for your business to present to potential clients.

Finding images that don’t cost a fortune
If you can’t afford a photographer there are sources of professional quality photographs that can be obtained from stock photography websites. Prices can vary, as can the quality of the images, and it is a good idea to check out several sites and browse the images they hold, before making any purchases. Check the terms and conditions of the site and make sure that any images you buy can be used freely on your website or in your printed materials.

Useful links:
Blogpost: Why you should update your website little and often
Blogpost: Your business is unique, let everyone know why
Webpage: The Create Design Studio Website Design and Build Service

As markets contract businesses need to maximise their promotional activities and make every promotional pound count.

Strategies for updating your website
Our advice to website owners is to carry out modest updates and additions on a regular basis rather than major annual updates and overhauls. This is because search engines, such as Google, love fresh and updated content and making modest monthly changes to your website will heighten their interest. Regular updates will also encourage visitors to return as well.

But don’t fall into the trap of updating for the sake of it.

Making your updates more effective
Whatever content you add or update on your website, it must be of interest to your customers and relate to the problems and issues they face. Unless you are a market leader, it is unlikely web surfers will be particularly interested in you or your business. What will be of interest to them are helpful tips, free advice and solutions to solve their problems, make their life easier or businesses more profitable.

Write about THEM not YOU!

Spread the cost
The little and often strategy can also help your wallet by spreading the cost over 12 months, rather than having to budget for a large bill.

What are your options for updating your website yourself?
If your site does NOT have a Content Management System (CMS)? An alternative solution to adding a CMS to your website is adding a WordPress Blog, for maximum benefit the Blog should be hosted as part of your website under your domain name.

The cost for us to install a WordPress Blog and integrate it into a typical website, following its design and style, is £595 ex vat. (for more information on our blog services see our website.)

Software to help you with updating your website
If a Blog does not appeal, you can buy a web editing software package. We recommend Adobe Contribute CS4, it isn’t expensive and you can buy it directly from the Adobe website. It is very simple to set-up and use, it will allow you to update and create new web pages, including photos, PDFs and media files. When you hit the publish button it will also upload any new photos and PDFs etc to your site.

We provide full support for Contribute and can assist with setting up the software, as well the provision of templates for creating new pages. In our experience it takes no longer than half an hour to teach someone how to update their website using Contribute.

For those site owners who don’t have the time or don’t feel confident about doing the updates themselves, we offer fixed priced packages that are paid for on a monthly basis by standing order.

Call David at Create Design Studio on 01962 737989 for more information.

Useful links:
Making your website work harder for your business
Create Design Studio Website Design and Build Services

In short we think that building customer confidence in your ability is made easier when you demonstrate your ability by writing about what you do and publishing it for free online using a blog.

What is a blog?
A blog is a collection of web pages that can easily be updated without the need to seek help from a web designer, programmer or use any special software.

Most blog software is free to download and easy to use and once you start writing, unlike on a normal web page, your readership can publish comments on the blog making it a truly interactive communication tool.

Why blogging will benefit your business
There are two answers, firstly it is a no cost option to keeping your website up to date. Secondly Google and the like love fresh content and a regularly updated blog, published as part of your website, will keep Google coming back for more and improve your rankings.

Your blog can also become a stream of links that you can promote using Twitter and a Facebook page for your organisation, spreading your words further than your website and blog can manage alone.

A blog will help show potential customers your abilities
Use the informative, relaxed style, of a blog to give your company a more personal and friendly online voice, than may be appropriate on your website. Build trust as you provide relevant news and views on issues that matter in your industry. You may also find your blog acts as a magnet to draw in new readers who then move on to your company website.

If you want to create an online information resource centre for your company a blog is the perfect tool
Some large companies also use blogs to encourage their employees to share information and expertise with one-another to build a shared knowledge resource. The software used for blogging also doubles as a content management system that allows you to give customers the most up-to-date information on your website.

A blog can help with the SEO of your website
Finally, using blog postings to update your website will cost you nothing (unlike using a web designer) and will boost your search engine rankings as websites that are updated regularly are ranked higher than those that aren’t.

Do you want a unique blog template that compliments your business branding?
We have installed blogs and designed bespoke templates for many of our customers. We can get your blog up and running in just a few days and we are happy to show you how to begin, as well as upload photographs, video clips and create links to other websites.

Do you want to know how to integrate your blog with your main web pages, your Twitter account, Facebook page and any other networking websites you use? We have the answers. Call Create Design Studio today on 01962 737989 to get started.

EBS (Elvetham Business Solutions) provide services for Performance Improvement and Interim Assignments for businesses. Their specialities include: change management, working capital management and business analysis and improvement.

The website has a refreshed colour scheme and plenty of space for EBS to detail their services to their visitors. To visit the EBS website please click here.

TekTanks is a company that specialises in the design and manufacture of plastic tanks suitable for boats and vehicles. Their range of tanks and fittings is expanding so they needed a website where their customers could find exactly what they want and use the website to buy it.

We designed a clean site with a clear menu system and simple page layout to make it as easy as possible to find just the right tank by it’s application. Each tank has a written specification about that particular model to help customers decide on their purchase. Customers can buy from the site knowing they have exactly the tank and fittings for their needs. The website also have a potential to expand whenever a new product needs to be added. To visit the TekTanks website please click here.

This fresh and classy website was designed for Lifestyle Manager Joan who can help you with all those everyday tasks that prevent you from doing what you really want to do.

We were able to get together with Joan and discuss the kind of style she wanted for her website and enable her to update it herself by putting the design into WordPress. Now Joan can blog to her website visitors about the kind of tasks she can help them with whenever it suits her. If you would like to visit the website please click here.

A common mistake that many business owners make is to pigeon hole their website under IT. In actual fact designing a successful and profitable website has very little to do with IT,  today web design is about good old sales and marketing, IT just makes a website run NOT sell.

Learn to think of your website as more than just code and make the most of the potential of the web to find customers and make sales.

Is your website working effectively to grow your business?

A great website is like a salesman working 24/7 on your company’s behalf: always providing information and reassurance to customers who are looking for goods or services. Making your website more effective means:

• helping visitors to find you easily,
• getting visitors to stay longer once they arrive,
• making visitors more likely to initiate contact or leave their details with you,
• and, reassuring visitors to make them more likely to buy from you

Finding your site:
Search engine optimisation means using keywords, meta tags and including appropriate text on your site pages to enable searches to identify your website as a good match. Use Google Analytics to find information on what customers are really looking at on your site and to identify pages that are working well and ones that aren’t. Always promote your site in any way you can. Use online directories, referrals and reciprocal links to publicise it and add your URL to social networking profiles or business networking websites to increase your chances of being found.

Getting visitors to stay:
is all about relevant, interesting and useful content on your website, for driving sales nothing beats finding exactly what you are looking for online. Try to understand what motivates your customers to buy your product or service and orientate your content towards it. If your site is easy to use well designed and has great content it will encourage longer visits as people browse the pages. Try to use appropriate imagery to represent what you do and the kind of customers who buy from you so that visitors can feel that they ‘belong’. Get a neutral third party to test drive your site and tell you if it is easy to use and easy to find your contact details and easy to make a purchase. This exercise often reveals problems we would not spot on our own.

Get in touch:
Provide articles and newsletters in exchange for email addresses so you can contact visitors who are already interested in your site and contact them with relevant information on a regular basis. Make sure your contact details are clear and concise and easy to find on every page so that visitors can call, email or fill out a form to make contact, include your Twitter or social networking details so that visitors can make contact in a way that suits them.

By demonstrating your skills and expertise and providing plenty of relevant information on your service or product, orientated towards what your customers want and keeping in touch with them you are giving yourself the best chance to make sales from your website.

Keep in touch with your customers and benefit your business by generating more enquiries and leads to get more sales

Email-newsletters allow you to keep in touch regularly and cheaply with your customers. Publicise company news, useful information and details of your services straight to interested customers. A newsletter to customers puts your contact details into their in-box regularly and builds confidence in your abilities. By keeping in regular contact with your customers you can receive prompt feedback on your offers and gauge which ones will be successful in future.

Show your clients what you can do for them using a blog

Blogs are websites that you can update yourself by writing your own articles. Visitors can post comments back and ask questions, so a blog is a truly interactive website.

The software is free and it functions like a content managed website so you can amend your articles or add to them when you like. Update your technical information, product ranges or services and publicise company news and events quickly and easily.

Blogs are great if you are an expert because you can build up a comprehensive collection of your knowledge online, share it with others and get feedback or share ideas with your readers. You may have picked up ideas, expertise and ways of working that you could share with others. Your customers may want to know that you are an expert before they will buy.

A lot of our clients use them for business blogging, building up confidence in their readers that helps them to make contact and eventually make a purchase.

Don’t forget old fashioned promotion of your website, newsletter and your blog

Using your business cards, stationery, invoices, brochures and flyers. When you are networking, direct marketing and attending exhibitions ensure your URLs are at customer’s fingertips. Direct marketing will drive customers to your sites where you can give them more information to help them decide to buy.

Social networking isn’t just for students, use it to promote your online activities

Whenever you update your website, write a newsletter or post a blog article promote it on Twitter, LinkedIN, Facebook and any other social networking or business networking sites you belong to and help people to find quality content online.

Think connections and always try to direct people towards helpful, useful or interesting content on your website, blog or newsletter.

Create Design Studio can help you to plan your website, design your website and build the pages. Call David Woodroofe and Charlotte Lamb on 01962 737989.

It is now taken for granted that an organisation will have a web presence of some kind. Even if this is simply a single web page with information and contact details, however, your website can do more than act as a virtual business-card. Because it is available 24/7, and increasingly on the move via smart-phones, your website could be seen by potential customers day or night and in almost any place around the world. Your website can act as an salesman for your products or services at any time and in any place.

Researching your customers can help you to work out what your website should look like and what information or functions it should have. When you understand what your customers want and need to give them confidence in your organisation it will help your website planning. Once you design and plan your website to fulfil their needs and to suit the way they want to buy the chances of them making personal contact or making a purchase are increased.

Identifying who your customers is important because once you know who they are and what they will be looking for on your website it becomes easier to:

• write the text on each page with them in mind,
• organise the pages so they can find what they need,
• include e-commerce or other website functions that they find useful.

Consider your products or services from the perspective of your customers, what do they need to know before they can buy from you? This can be difficult to put your finger on so try asking some of your existing customers why they buy from you. It’s an opportunity to find out why people buy from you that could really help your website plan. Identifying the benefit your particular products or service offers to your customers is the key to communicating that benefit to all the visitors to your website to increase sales.

It can also help to think about how your website visitors will access your website, are they likely to be at a desktop machine with plenty of time to browse your pictures and words, or are they likely to be using a smartphone with a small screen, possibly between meetings? If your customers are pushed for time they may not read all your text or appreciate scrolling through lots of images, although they may also know what they are looking for and will need specific navigation to specific pages to speed up the process. Customers at home may have more time to spend reading your pages and you can take this opportunity to include detailed specs and photographs.

If you have used the web to make purchases and to find information analyse what made you use the websites you chose to do business with. Where there useful features on the website you used? Perhaps there was a convenient way to pay. All of this research can be used to help plan your own website.

If you are selling products online it can is a good idea to make your site look as much like a shop as possible to help visitors know that you sell from the website. Include symbols to show what payment types you accept and make sure you have clear photographs and good descriptive text for each item. Make it obvious that this is a place to buy from.

Your customers need to understand how your website works, find it easy and convenient to use and it must suit their particular style of buying if they are to purchase from you rather than going to another website. That’s why it pays to understand your customer before you plan your website.

If you are planning an e-commerce website this topic is covered in-depth in the FREE Create Design Studio e-newsletter, sign up to receive it on our homepage.

There are three really important Meta Tags that will help get your website found by search engines: the Meta Page Title, Keywords and the Meta Description.

The Meta Page Title appears in the bar at the top of a browser window, in the case of Microsoft Explorer it is the text that appears immediately before the wording in the blue bar that says Microsoft Explorer. Most search engines place a lot of importance on this title when ranking web pages, so you should ensure that you have a unique title for each web page and that it contains your top search phrase for that page.

The Meta Description, is as it sounds, a description of what that particular web page is about. It is also the text that many search engines use to describe the web page in their search results. Again this is an important Tag that can help get the website found. Like the Title Tag most search engines do read these descriptions and place a lot of importance on them.

Meta Descriptions should also be written with real people in mind, as a well-written Meta Description can attract people to click on that site when faced with dozens of listings on a results page, even if it is listed towards the bottom of the page.

The Keyword Tag started life as the place to put all the phrases that you wanted your website to be found by, however many website owners found that they could out smart the search engines using them, most search engines no longer pay much attention to them. However some do use them and most will check to see if they have been included, so it is important to include them.

Keep in touch with your customers and promote your website at the same time
Any correspondence that you send from your organisation to a customer can also promote your website. Think about printing on your envelopes, having printed headed letter paper, printing your website address onto your invoices, comp slips, flyers and anything else you post out. Also have an email signature with your website address on it, these can be updated easily so you can always promote whatever you are doing online to any clients you communicate with via email. If you hand out any promotional items like pens, postcards or notepads then have these printed with your website address in addition to your logo.

Create Design Studio offer a range of new media marketing services, and we have years of experience designing and building websites and blogs, speak to our MD, David Woodroofe on 01962 737989.

A well thought-out website works hard acting as a salesman working 24/7 on your company’s behalf: always providing information, reassurance and your contact details to potential and existing customers who are looking for goods or services. Now that mobile devices are increasingly used for internet access your website could be guiding customers straight to your door.

A really effective website is updated regularly to remain at the top of it’s game. Without new information on products or services and company news it can slip down search engine rankings and customers may drift away from a site that always looks the same.

Take an objective look at your website: are there parts that could do with an overhaul? Make a list of things you could add to your website that could make it more effective as a sales tool for your business, always think from a customer’s point of view and try to imagine what they would be interested in. Why not survey your customers to find out what they would like to see on your website or take a look at the websites of your competitors to see what they do. Critically assess websites that you visit and work out what features you find useful that could equally be applied to your organisation’s website.

Making your website more effective means helping visitors to find you easily, stay longer once they arrive and more likely to initiate contact or leave their details with you. Once site visitors engage with your web site they are more likely to buy from you. These topics will all be covered in the next few weeks on this blog.

Personalised support to update and change your website is available from Create Design Studio if you would like to speak to us about your website please call 01962 737989.