Blog

If you are looking for ways to market your company online you should consider using targeted ads to reach your audience. These ads are created to shown to specific people based on very cleaver use of information gathering. Certain websites will gather information about what pages, products and services a user has viewed. This information is then stored in terms of a cookie. These cookies are often shared within a community of websites and allows the adverts that are being shown to become highly relevant to the viewing, which in turn increases the chance of a sale.

I experiences this for myself recently when I had been viewing a number of second hand cars on Gumtree that I was interested in. I then logged in to my Outlook email account and down the right hand side was the list of adverts. But these ads were showing me cars for ale on Gumtree that were exactly the same spec that I had been looking at. Although this can be a bit strange to start with, it is actually very clever and sometimes useful.

When it comes to digital marketing, having the right design for your business website is very important. This is one of the few ways through which you can drive traffic to your site especially when dealing with SEO campaign. Both small and large businesses can benefit from professionally designed websites, increasing the possibilities of landing a link through search engine rankings. Northampton businesses that are reliant on lead generation can in particular reap huge benefits from well structured sites. A new web design can help your business attract more opportunities and make more sales than your competitors. Do not lose your sales simply because of a clumsy web design, create a site that will draw your audience’s interest and cause them to come back more and more. A good website design in Northampton should always be:

Easy to navigate: – Your audience does not have all the time to peruse through a website. Instead, they want a site that they will be able to find what they are looking for without spending too much time. Your webpage windows should be compelling, include list of labels or navigation bars to make it easy for the audience to find what they are looking for and comprehend. Research has shown that many website users are interested in sites where they can find initiative website navigation which does not complicate matters for them.  (more…)

Calls to action are essentially small advertisements that aim to lead the website visitor of another page of the website, possibly a product, a contact form or an offer page, and these will need to be updated form time to time if you want to spark new interest.

Rather than having paragraphs and paragraphs of persuasive sales talk or product information, CTAs can break up the content slightly, and give people the information they need fast. The text in CTA graphic could say ‘click here to place your order’ while it could contain elements of photography and text, but images and typography should be chosen carefully.

It should match your businesses brand and fit in with the design of your website, yet also do its job – persuading people to visit an important page. If you want to give your website a bit of a fresh feel then you should update your CTA’s you may find that makes a big difference, possibly influencing conversions.

As the social media continues to become a very powerful and effective tool for online communication, it has proved to be an impeccable marketing platform for many companies. Among the most effective and popular social media networks effective for marketing include Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn etc. Using social media to reach new audience is effective since it provides not only a way to maintain contact with your customers but also a way to reach new clients. You can easily leverage your business’s profits by carrying out intensive and extensive marketing through these social networks. Below are some of the methods you can employ to reach new customers and to foster your business through social media.

Get Rid Of Negative Publicity 

Over social media, people express their feelings about various products. Therefore, with your business’s Twitter or Facebook account, you can find out what potential customers and other people are saying about your product. Many people make their own opinions online through various social media sites. You can analyse what people say about your products and this will enable you to get a pulse of what people think about your brand. This will not only allow you to make relevant improvements but it will also help you manage the effects of negative online reputation.

Negative publicity online can bring down sales drastically. The Social media provides you a platform to tackle the bad reputation by convincing clients otherwise. You can counter the negative publicity immediately by conversing directly to the people and make them understand that the information they got is deceptive. On the other hand, if your brand has good reputation, you can look for ways of improving it by analysing the useful comments made by customers.

Intensify Your Communication 

Once you have an established a social media account for your brand, you can utilize the variety of tools and programs available so that you can send all important updates and vital information to your prospective clients. However, there are few problems which arise from this impersonal approach of communication. Many people know when you are talking directly to them. Avoid using direct messages for marketing your brand unless you are trying to send urgent and vital updates. Instead try to send personalized messages and show your clients that you are ready to engage in conversation with them. Remember to be realistic with your information.

Constantly Update Your Customers

One of the benefits your business will enjoy on any social media platform is increased number of clients and consequent increase in sales. Posting updates consistently will attract more potential customers to be interested in your brand. Conversing with people frequently shows them how you are willing to participate in an interactive business. As your customer base expands, each update sparks little conversation here and there thus increasing the number of people who want to test your product. The hardest thing normally in business is trying to woo as many customers as possible to buy your product. Thankfully, social media marketing has helped business people reach new clients with ease.

(more…)

If you one day feel as though your designs are worthy of a high salary and you feel you have the entrepreneurial credentials to go it alone, then you may one day go freelance, but it is challenging.

When you’re starting out as a freelancer, you may find that demand for work just isn’t there. This means that you don’t have that security of knowing you have a regular pay packet, but success may be just around the corner once you build a portfolio.

It’s likely that your previous design will be copyrighted by the organisation you worked for, so it can feel as though you’re starting a fresh. The first thing to do (especially if you’re bored) is to make sure you website is as fabulous as it possibly can be. Then get into the habit of thinking like business, owner, market your website, show people your portfolio and start out with discounted design. Then when you spread the word and pick up important clients, you can pick up your prices and then laugh out loud at the sum of money you used to get paid.

Just like in print design, on-screen design has a great deal of things you should understand at early stages. It is therefore recommended that you focus on studying the whole concept about screen designing before you completely transit to the trend. One thing you will definitely like about screen designing is that it has a lot to offer as compared to its print counterpart.

It is important to bear in mind that transition from print to screen design can be somehow tricky. This is because the process entails a complete change of the things you used to do in print design. Essentially, on-screen design is an advancement of the traditional way of the same. The whole concept involves employment of modern technology and applications meant to turn the traditional hustle into something digestible.

In order to easily adopt the design-for-screen trend, here are key things you should know:

Knowledge And Skills are Mandatory
It is important to understand that designing on the screen is way more complicated as compared to print design. However, the whole thing is only tough and intimidating for people without all the necessary knowledge in the respective field. Note that the trend involves the use of different skills such as copy writing, enlarging layouts, interface control design among others. You may not be good in all the mentioned specialisations but you should at least be familiar with one or two of them. You should also have a sketchy concept of what all the rest entails. In other words, designing on the screen cannot be done by someone who is not familiar with both theoretical and practical perspectives.

Collaboration Is A Must
Just like in most specialisations, on-screen design calls for a very active team work. Like earlier stated the field entails a lot of divides and you might not be good in each one of them. You can be good in enlarging layouts but fail in coding PHP as well as JavaScript. This means that you will require someone with the respective knowledge to work with. The same case applies to all the other categories of designing on the screen.

It is important to understand that most successful designers always know the benefit that comes forth with combining different technologies in what they do. They also know that the technologies cannot be applicable without adequate efforts from each team player. The whole idea behind a successful task is to work as a team and speak in one voice.

Rich Media Is Applicable
This happens to be one of the key differences between on-screen design and print design. It is actually more like the compelling benefit attached to the trend. With rich media you can use videos and audio as well as other enhancing tools. In other words, the designer is not in any way restricted to the use of text and pictures as it is the case with print design. This means that you can actively involve and engage your audience and have their complete attention.

However, you must understand that the use of rich media does not mean that you should hook each and every tool in your design. You must come up with a blend that will bait your audience rather than driving them away.

When you have chosen a company or individual to create a website for you, ensure that you are entirely happy with the design before it goes to the programming stage. Remember that you are paying the company to design you a site but also listen to their recommendations. It is important to remember that they are in the business and very often tend to know what works and what doesn’t?
Once you have agreed the design of your site and it is in the development stage, changes to it can be costly as it can take the website company some time to implement the changes you requested and very often mean work they may have already done is wasted.
Go through each section of the site and be aware of how the finish product will look. If you are not sure of any components or feel that you would prefer it to look different discuss your views with the company at the design stage to avoid wasted time and cost for all parties.

Nowadays, most businesses are thinking about developing an effective mobile strategy as well as mobile experience that will help to define their brand. Before going into the business considerations for this it is important to understand what the mobile strategies are all about to help you make the best decisions for your entity.

Mobile websites are optimized so that people can view the site using tablets, mobile phones and other mobile devices. Most of these sites are normally simplified versions of the sites accessed on the PC giving users a better mobile experience.

Mobile application on the other hand can be described as an application that works on specific operating systems where the user has to download them on phone so that they can perform their functions. There are some apps that are device specific like iPad and iPhone apps.

Some of the business considerations to think about when dealing with mobile websites and applications include:

Goals and purpose 

It is important to ask yourself what is the goal or purpose of developing the mobile initiative. This will help you make sound decisions that will move the business into the right direction. It could be that you are looking for more traffic that the mobile website could help bring or you are looking to set up an application that will help your clients customize a widget that can help them with the process of ordering online. Be sure to define your goal before making any decisions so that you can know exactly what to do at the end of the day.

Audience

It is also important to think about the audience that is going to use the site or application and define the classic cases that would actually inspire them to utilize them. Think about how frequently the people engage with the business or brand. Know that an app needs to be discovered so that people can download them. Think about the kind of lifestyle they deal with so that you can come up with something that will really interest them.

User experience

While thinking about mobile websites and applications it is also important to consider the kind of user experience that you will be offering them. Try and imagine how the users will be interacting with the application and site. This is one of the main things that help to determine whether the site or app is appropriate. Think about whether you want to deliver server based information or robust and graphical user experience to settle on the direction the overall mobile strategy will take.

Budget 

It is also important to think about the costs when dealing with mobile websites and applications. This is especially important for mid sized and small businesses. Developing individual apps that will be used for various devices and operating systems can be quite resource intensive as it can prove to be expensive. A broader audience can be reached using the site which may prove to be more economical and easier. If you are working on a tight budget start with the site first before moving on to the apps.

If you’re looking to reach a mobile audience, then a mobile version of your website can be ideal. This is essentially a design for people browsing your website on a mobile device and it’s essentially a user friendly version for mobile users.

A mobile version can be completely different from your desktop website design, and it should be created to make the experience easier for those using mobiles yet the functions of the website should remind the same.

If your goal is to gain subscriptions then the mobile design should be created with this in mind, perhaps with standout calls to action, a revised mobile friendly navigation menu and suitable sized images.There so many different way to design a mobile version of your website, and an experienced designer will be able to make it function well for those using mobile devices.

There are certain considerations that need to be made when you’re deciding on a colour scheme for your website. The first and the primary consideration is your target audience. You need to take into account who they are; would powerful sharp colours work better or would they prefer a calmer looking website? Do they merely want to see the content in an easy way and would detailed attractive designs work for them?

This can give you a good understanding on the colours you chose for your website, but you may also need to take into account your current logo. You see, you may already have a colour scheme and not actually know it. If you’ve been trading for some time your websites theme should compliment your logo. It doesn’t necessarily have to take on the same colour, but your website should at least work well the logo, so it’s important to make sure it doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb.

Another (of many) consideration, is to choose colours throughout the whole of your website and not just on the homepage. Every single page on your website is of importance to your visitor, and whilst you home page may be more significant, the other pages require the same amount of though, care and attention.