Of course the obvious advantage is that a local web design company is; well, local! With easy access to their office you can simply inform them when you can go down to visit. This way you will be able to keep check on progress and anything else that you may urgently need to see, of course actually viewing any problems is difficult if using a company many miles away.

A local web design company will also grant you the happiness of no language barrier. As communication is absolutely vital to achieve successful end results, being able to have free flowing conversations face to face and of course over the phone is vital. A local firm will also, or should also; be aware of your company or business. This way they will have a better grasp as to understanding your views and visions of what you need your website to be.

Also from the web design company’s side, they will be able to understand and target the specific marketing scenario in your particular area. It will also allow for the firm to create a website that is better than other similar topic sites surrounding that area. The firms will be able to target other similar themed sites and basically use what they have used by only make it better.

The beauty of a local web design company is that they will be a lot more dedicated to your work, not only because you are a local company; but to build reputation in the area with the whole that success could open the company up to more clients further away.

The local web design firms will also be a lot smaller in size; this will be very handy to you as you won’t experience any faceless names. It is entirely frustrating ringing a large company up and never actually speaking to who it is your spoke to previously, then of course you have to repeat what it is you were calling for with the entire back story. Now with smaller web design companies you can speak to just one person direct who will know and understand all issues and be able to sort them out and contact you directly with any results or problems.

A logical mind is what will aid this navigation in order to earn success. Without clear and logical steps, the website won’t be user friendly and will therefore become a waste of time. So, what do you need on the homepage?

Well, this is essential for first time or returning viewers to your website. Everything that the visitor needs to see or could possibly be looking for should be shown all above the fold. You must have clear icons explaining what the company does; this is always important as it has been shown that virtually every visitor will always look for this and read it. You must have contact details available, whether online chat, email address or telephone number; if all are clearly displayed you will have more chance in maintaining a successful site.

It all depends on what sort of website you have. For an ecommerce site, it is absolutely vital that it is easy to use. All instruction should be clearly stated right from the word go. You must make sure that buyers can clearly ‘add to basket’, press pay and have no worries in entering card details, by offering paypal services and other means of payment will also be beneficial.

Now navigation to all products or ideas on your website must be very easy to get too. You need a list of all key products that the visitor can see and select, there then must be a filtering list that is of course very easy to use.

It is useful to allow for previous visitors who may have made an account on your website, to access it straight away with just one click. It is also handy to promote any delivery services or special offers.

Now for non-ecommerce sites, it is still all very similar. Everything must be easily navigated with relevant links and relation to each page. All basic areas such as ‘about’, ‘contact’, ‘account’ etc. must be written clearly on the top underneath the H1 tag so that it is clear and concise.

So starting with the homepage, a common mistake here is that too much information is sprawled across one page. Despite the illusion that the more detail you put on; the less time a visitor will take in clicking through various drop down lists, this is wrong. By having too much on the opening page, it can ultimately scare people away. The homepage should be clear, concise and simple; it should promote exactly what you are selling or whatever opinion or view you are creating the website for.

The homepage should contain only important and vital information, for instance contact details and what the site does. It’s also important to put all this information above the fold, as usually a common mistake is to appear rather fancy on top and then leave all the necessities behind.

Another mistake that tends to be made is the insistent over use of colour and fonts that are just too unclear. The website will be pointless if Google or other search engines do not recognise it, and they will be unable to read the writing if it is ‘too much’. Another thing search engines cannot read is flash and images, these take a lot of time to load which of course results in a slower website. Now despite looking relatively impressive and pretty, this will appear to search engines that you do not have much or any content on your website. This is so important to make sure that the content is written clearly and completely unique in order to achieve some success.

A popular mistake regarding content is that people don’t always hire a content writer or go direct to an agency; they usually use templates of other peoples work and change a few words. This is a complete waste of time as the search engines will recognise that the words are elsewhere and not even visit the site again, rendering it pointless.

In order to avoid major mistakes when creating a website, it is probably best to go direct through a web design agency or company. These will specialise on every part of your website that will aid in its success, from content to search engine optimisation; by placing your website into their hands; you no longer have the worry.

Now it is all well and good attempting to create a brand new website from scratch, however a DIY website may not be the best option.

First time creators tend to make similar mistakes. They tend to cram a vast amount of information onto the homepage; this will therefore not get what is actually needed over to the visitor and the bombardment of words and colour may be a little too much. First time website creators may also not understand the importance of some features, such as the fold and how everything above that should really be everything the visitor needs handed on a silver platter.

DIY websites focus a lot on the aesthetics, just because a website or webpage looks good; it doesn’t actually mean it’s good at all. A lot of people tend to put a lot of flash and videos onto the website in order to promote and impress. However, as search engines can only read words, these animations will not only slow down the loading time; but it will appear to the search engines that there is no relevant content on the pages.

Unless you are a search engine optimisation expert along with conversation rate expert, a content writer and a rather good web designer, using the DIY website will be rather useless. Without a website being started properly and professionally, it will never really be likely to gain any success.

Now going through a web design agency will be the best option to eradicate any faults on your website. With a budget in mind, you can contact an agency and discuss the steps that need to be taken in order to get your website up and running. You must know what your target audience is and exactly what you intend to get out of your website as it is finished.
If the price of the web design company scares you away, then that is your prerogative; however if you are serious about building this website then you need to let the professionals take control. In fact overall after attempting to complete all the aspects of website creation yourself, or just paying content writers and search engine optimisation experts, it will really all be rather tiring either way.

It will definitely be worth; in the long run simply handing the website over to an agency to take a look at!.

Now off-page search engine optimisation is achieved solely by building anchor text rich backlinks from relevant content written. These links should always stem back to the relevant pages on your website. There are a variety of different ways to obtain these links, such as from content on a forum or posts on a blog. The keyword or phrase anchor text needs to be repeated and clearly accessible by Google so that it can be placed in a local directory. This will also allow for more and more visitors to your website as you will be a registered site, have information linked back from various websites and will ultimately allow for your website to rank higher.

In regards to content for your website, it is just as important off page as on! Third party articles containing backlinks will boost site rankings drastically. The content can be as specific or ‘out there’ as you like. As long as it contains at least some relevance and links back to your website; you have the freedom to appeal to a wider audience through various themed articles.

Press releases are also an excellent way to increase the exposure of your site, whether you are promoting an idea or selling a product. A good press release will expose your website to the media and supply you with, if done well, tons of free publicity.

Now the use of H1 tags and content is absolutely vital. These tags will be what the search engines will read in order to recognise exactly what your site is about. The content below must be short and clear and basically expand from what the title tag has already stated in a nutshell. If search engines are able to clearly read the H1 tags and the content, and also if there is a recurring theme throughout your website, Google for example will notify this and drive any searches towards your site.

Content is essential, It must be unique, interesting and be clearly written to your desired target audience.

Planning for a brand new website is absolutely crucial, without careful planning and structure the website will simply fail.

The most important thing that you must do during the initial making of your website is to think about what your target audience will be. You also have to think about what the point of the website is, what message are you trying to get across? Are you selling something? Without a clear target and goal the creating of the website will be rather difficult.

If you are aiming for an ecommerce site then you need to think about if you need a marketing strategy to promote your site in order to actually sell something. You will have to have a shopping basket feature and allow for products to be paid online. You need to think about what content you will need on your website. You need to target keyword based articles, blogs, product descriptions and general information pieces of the best quality and all unique.

You will need to prepare all of these perhaps simple things in order to continue, as long as the basics are recognised; some things can be altered later on.

The navigation of the website is also essential; you need to work out what you want to have on the homepage and how many links off you require. It is best not to cram so much information into the homepage as it will all become just a little too much.

So the design must be addressed, the developing of content, promotion and where all the links will come from and where they link too. If this doesn’t seem to flow first time round, then it’s back to the drawing board for another go.

Once you are pleased with the overall design, you can test your website and all its tools on a test server. This will show you whether all links placed in the texts actually link, it will show you how easy the navigation is around your website and it will highlight any changes that need to be made.

You need to plan out how the site will get traffic; this will need to come form on site and off site search engine optimisation. When will the launch date be for the website? Also if you are preparing a website solo, you must be aware of everything that needs to be done, and if you are a part of an agency; all responsibilities must be taken on and completed in order to gain a successful website.

Over the next year every business will need to have a mobile friendly version of their website. I know that is a bold statement but if you don’t have a website that is readable on a smartphone then you are giving your competition your business. The statistics show that 60% of users of mobile phones looking for a business are more likely to go to a competitor and even worse is that 40% will never come back to your website. Can you afford to lose this revenue from mobile phone customers?

Recent research into the use of smartphones and tablets predicts that mobile searches will overtake desktop searches in 2013. Mobile searches have QUADRUPLED in the last year and this means that if one of your friends used their mobile device last year to search for something…today it’s FOUR of your friends.

Today one in 3 Mobile searches are local. That means if you put 100 consumers doing mobile searches in a room-33 of them are searching for local businesses! So if your site is mobile friendly it is more than likely to be found, especially if used in conjunction with Google places pages.

And it is not just local businesses that are benefiting from mobile phone searches. Jeff Bezos from Amazon states that “In the last twelve months, customers around the world have ordered more than $1 Billion of products from Amazon using a mobile device or Tablet

Social media is also used more on the go. Facebook on mobile is now 44% of Facebook users. And Twitter is higher with 55% of all active Twitter users are on mobile.

From our own research we can see that Google has a different index for mobile websites. It looks like Google is dropping from results delivered to smartphone users any website that does not have a mobile version of their site. So expect to never make page one in google if you do not have a mobile friendly site.

So what do you do if you do not have a mobile friendly site? You need to contact a website design company that has experience in mobile website design. There are important criteria that needs to be taken into consideration. It needs to be:-

• The correct size to be viewed in a mobile screen
• Compliant across all the main mobile platforms
• Small file size for quick download – you customer is paying for data downloads
• Easy click buttons to call you
• A map and location finder – especially if you are a shop or restaurant.
• The site should automatically redirect to the mobile version of the site

Choose carefully the website design company and check they have already designed and delivered good quick mobile websites – don’t forget to try it on your own mobile phone! So don’t get left behind – get a mobile friendly website today before you lose any more customers.

This week was different and we all need to look carefully at what they are saying. Here is what the Google blog says:-

Many of the changes we make are so subtle that very few people notice them. But in the last day or so we launched a pretty big algorithmic improvement to our ranking–a change that noticeably impacts 11.8% of our queries–and we wanted to let people know what’s going on. This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites–sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites–sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.

So what does this all mean? Unique content will be rewarded if it is of a high quality and if it offers real value to visitors to the site. This is all good and how the search results should be. We see a lot of sites pushed down the rankings for specific keywords because of sites offering no benefit to those searching – its just that these sites have lots of key worded content that is trying to make you click on the on page adverts for financial gain.

People out there on the net are calling it a return to “on-page optimization “ but the important lesson is as always – Users need to always see unique and good quality content when they visit your site.

This update does impact on “Content Farm” websites mentioned before. These are sites where content is not totally unique or recycled from other websites. Even the larger quality article websites such as EzineArticles will feel the impact and have increased the quality checks on the articles accepted to its service.

And remember that Google is including Facebook and Twitter results in its results. So if you do not use these Social media services, your site will start to see a drop in its position in the search engines and specifically Google. These are services that are easy to set up and maintain and excellent tools for businesses to engage their current and new customers. Its is powerful stuff if done correctly and benefits businesses with good public relations and ultimately more website sales.

Many businesses spend lots of money and time on chasing new customers, organising offline marketing in newspapers, paying for flyers, running TV / Radio adverts and just always chasing the fresh £. How often do you see adverts which apply to “new customers only” and feel slightly frustrated and maybe irritated that you are not allowed to apply for the promotion because you are a loyal customer already?

Isolating your existing customers in pursuit of the new breed is a such a bad thing to do, especially if you are selling products that frequently need to be renewed like food, clothes or peripherals, because your existing customer base is always the easiest to encourage back onto your store to buy from you again.

Imagine if you have a database of 1000 people that have purchased from you before. You could easily email every single one of them using your own system or a dedicated email sender for less than £10. But you decide to spend hundreds of pounds on a newspaper advert and mailing list trying to get new customers. Not only have you overlooked your perfect target audience, but you have just wasted money on chasing new customers which will be harder to convert rather than targeting your existing database which will be much easier to convert.

There are a few things that you can do to keep your existing customers satisfied and buying from you and these can include:

• Special Discounts / Voucher Codes – Discounts will always work for all of us, especially in these hard times. You could offer returning customers 10% off or maybe free postage and packaging.

• Exclusive Promotions And Offers – Exclusive BOGOF (buy one, get one free) are a cracking way of getting people to buy from you again and also to make them feel rewarded for their loyalty.

• Personal Product Promotion – How often do you get product information through from certain retailers and actually connect the product with something you want? Again, this makes you feel looked after as a customer.

• Loyalty Schemes – As most of the major supermarkets will testify, loyalty schemes work because you are encouraging customers to keep spending with you to earn something back.

• Previews And Specials – One of the leading clothing retailers offer their customers 24 hours exclusive access to the sale items before the general public can see these items as this kind of thing makes people feel rewarded.

If you can implement some of the above then you have a very good chance of getting that customer to buy from you again or at least come back to your site.

New customers are always great and sometimes have a higher disposable income with their first order, but it is always cheaper and more effective to get sales from your existing customer database than to spend thousands of pounds of trying to chase the new customers.