This is how the current Lobler & Delaney website looks.
We designed this website a few years back and it now needs a bit of a revamp. The team has been working on a quick and simple redesign to bring the website up to date with current standards - things change so fast in the world of technology. We are suggesting implementing the following changes.
- We have reused the logo, brand and colors for consistency. This was intended as a revamp and not a full redesign.
- The existing website is a skinny 800px wide which was normal at that time, the new website is larger at 1000px. Providing more room for their content and information.
- The existing website was stuck on the left hand side of the screen. With so many different screen sizes available now (I use a laptop with a larger widescreen monitor), it is no more usual to center the page in the middle of the screen.
- The menu position and size allows for a bit more space, we thought that you might like to add a blog for example.
- Contact numbers/emails displayed prominently in the banner.
- The main page will no longer have the internal scroll bars - instead the entire page will just grow if there is a lot of content.
- New images are being used in the banner to brighten up the website, yet still retaining the same look and feel.
- The left hand side of the page (next to the vertical line) have been earmarked for some interactive content. Testimonials, links to blog, links to twitter, twitter updates, recent news - that kind of thing.
So what do you think?
website design | 23.06.2009 17:32 | LEAVE COMMENT >>
A website will not function in the same way as brochure. A brochure is tangible, can be taken away by your potential clients and read at their leisure. Your potential clients can flick through the pages, feel the quality of the paper and generally ooze a bit more time over reading about your products and services.
A website has none of these luxuries
- Websites will not leap out at potential clients
- Your visitors will not read the web pages in the same order
- Website are rarely browsed at leisure
- Hardly ever do people look at websites in groups or pairs
- Websites are flat and if your website uses a poorly designed menu structure then it is easy to accidently burry important information deep within it’s virtual pages
Your website needs to act as a tool to get people to call/purchase something and its needs to do this efficiently. Help people to do this by cutting out all the waffle and keeping this simple. If you need a lot of pages to explain your products or services then try to provide a hierarchy and plenty of methods for people to find out *more* information - including emailing you, calling you, signing up for news letters, downloading PDFs, requesting full information by post, and extra web pages.
And never assume that people will read your pages in the same order. If you have some really important information that people should read - include it on every page.
101 website tips | 16.06.2009 22:07 | LEAVE COMMENT >>
If I may refer to the economic climate - I am sure that most of you running your own businesses will agree that it’s pretty dire at the moment. Closing a sale is much more work than it used to be. People are a bit unsure about spending their money and are quite rightly taking extra care and consideration before parting with it.
If your business is service related then now is the time to start working extra hard! Whilst it is not possible to always give away free products, giving away some of your time could really work for you. Especially if you are not as busy as you were this time last year.
When I think about how much work we gave away when we first started out it makes my eyes water - however giving away free websites was an effective method of getting us “out there”. Now that we are established we try not to give away free work as much as possible.
However due to the economic climate - we have had a bit of a re-think. We have selected two existing clients to receive a complimentary website overhaul. There are a number of reasons for this
- We are a bit quiet at the moment and I cant have the team twiddling thumbs!
- I believe that the owners of the website can provide some great referrals for us once their website are updated
- The website owners use their websites all the time and over the past few years have pretty much outgrown the current designs.
- Both website were for start up businesses two years ago which now have a clear online strategy and know how they will be using their websites.
- Most importantly I think we could now do a really marvelous job and that the new revamped websites will look great on our website portfolio.
Having a great portfolio is so important to us. Currently our website gallery pages show a range of websites that we have completed, those with smaller budgets and those with larger budgets. We ultimately want to improve our reputation and portfolio, so giving away free upgrades to wonderful existing clients seems like a great idea.
What can you give back to your clients?
marketing, running a business | 10.06.2009 16:28 | LEAVE COMMENT >>
Where possible use original images. Stock images are great, but you must have noticed that some just seem to appear in all the mags, brochures and websites?
Its always much more refreshing to see some original photography. If you have products to sell then using a professional photographer is a must - they will ensure that your products look a million dollars and the investment will pay for itself in no time. If you sell a service then a nice picture of yourself (with a smile!) will go a long way.
Remember that the images you use on your website are there to aid the selling process and not to confuse your visitors.
101 website tips | 10.06.2009 16:01 | LEAVE COMMENT >>
Calls to action.
If you want your website visitor to book, buy or register for something then ask! You could waffle on for a full page but if you do not include instructions on what you need your visitor to do next - the chances are they will just move on.
Provide plenty of opportunity through the whole website for people to get in touch and convert to a lead.
101 website tips | 5.06.2009 20:08 | LEAVE COMMENT >>
Baby Hollie arrived on 26 May.
For those of you who commented on the size of my bump - you will not be surprised to learn that she weighed a whooping 9lbs 15oz!
I am now officially on maternity leave for a few months. However for the rest of the team it will be business as usual, I know they are working on some exciting new projects that we hope to share with you soon.
I am sure most of you will spot me on twitter or here on the blog sharing my thoughts, tips and idea’s. If you have any specific questions for me then please do email me as usual.
women in business | 5.06.2009 19:57 | LEAVE COMMENT >>
And the answer is… “about the same as a car”
It’s true to say that you can spend almost as little or as much as you want on your car.
The old banger + DIY. If you go for an old banger then you risk the car breaking down or not functioning at all. The old banger might even cost you more in the long run to get working correctly, might be uneconomical and the chances are you will end up scrapping it and swapping for another quite quickly. Your Dad, Brother or Neighbour might say that they can do it up for you - but you will never be proud of this car. It will get your from A to B (just) but you have to wonder what other peoples’ perceptions are of you driving it around.
Good Reliable Car. Once you have reached a certain price bracket you can be pretty confident that your car will work and that its going to last for a while. You will have spent enough money and selected a trusted brand for this car, and without even checking under the hood you will be sure that it is safe and is going to last the distance.
Flashy Sports Car. Finally at the highest price bracket this car is the envy of everybody that you know. People might even say that you have a bit more money than sense when they see you driving this baby! At this price oddly enough, functionality comes at a lower priority and the car serves just one purpose - to show off. These cars are super expensive and actually less practical than the reliable cars, perhaps with less seats and not quite enough boot space for all that shopping!
I don’t think anybody really wants an old banger of a website - these will ultimately cost more in the long run. Any saving here is a false economy.
B Websites are very much focused on the reliable website. Just like a car there are certain things under “the hood” that you might not understand but you can take as standard (like compliant XHTML/CSS, well written code, accessibility, cross-browser testing etc). Our websites will perform for you and will make you more money in the long run.
Finally - the flashy website. This is akin to some of the websites of major companies like Mercedes Benz or Disney. These websites might be flashy but in many respects are less reliable and functional. These companies don’t mind, since for them the website is a statement of status and works at a level of showcasing how expensive their brand is.
So how much should your website cost? What do you think - I would love to hear from you.
website development | 19.05.2009 10:00 | LEAVE COMMENT >>
Lovely bright new website launched for www.q5partners.co.uk - Change Consultants . We revised the website a number of times before the websites was the right side of energetic and corporate. We all loved the bright colours, yet carefull use of white space.
The best news is that the clients can update the text and images on their website anytime they like using our SMART content management system.
website design | 17.05.2009 21:43 | LEAVE COMMENT >>
Yell used to be the directory. They used to have adverts on the telly and everybody knew that they were the place to find a local service. Where do you look now? Well, I find it very hard to find a local business. I might look on Google, Yell, Scoot, Thomson Local, Gumtree but generally I find it very hard to reliably find a local service.
As a business it is harder again. I would like for people to be able to find our business on the web for local searches. We are based in Woking and I can use “Woking” as a keyword for search engines. But what about if I wanted to appear on Google for all the towns and areas in Surrey? All the postcodes in surrey? Not so easy. Google is not an online directory and although they have implemented features like Google maps, Google does not know about locations and postcodes and it does not allow users to search for a business by area. Local searches are the tools for online directories. Google is a search engine.
There is currently massive gap in the market for a really good local directory, proof of this is in the lots of smaller directories popping up all over trying to get in on this action. Most of our clients need to promote their business to the local people. They are tradesmen or small businesses with small websites and want to be found easily on the internet. Currently they are relying on the smaller or free directories and SEO, neither of which are ideal or reliable. SEO can also be very expensive. Ideally they would like people to be able to search for a town or postcode in Surrey and have their advert or web link turn up online.
If Yell.com established themselves as the place to go for local searches and provided a really good local search facility then people would use it and more businesses would register. More businesses would mean that prices could become more competitive. At the moment their adverts are very expensive and I have seen a big shift in companies moving away from Yell.com and trying to spend money on SEO instead.
- They could become a community website, with forums, ratings, interactions between businesses and their clients.
- They could be cheaper and therefore increase the number of businesses registering.
- They could spend money on adverts on the telly (like they used to) instead of wasting it on SEO.
- They should concentrate on being the best online directory because of the quality of their data.
- They could have a slogan like “Don’t Google it, Yell for it!”
But instead Yell.com are trying very hard to appear high up in search engines for relevant searches. They have recently spent millions of pounds in re-launching their website so that it shows up in Google. I can see why they might try and want to do this but its not going to work. Primarily (and most scarily) I think its really dangerous for a company as large as yell.com to invest so much time and money in piggy backing upon the success of another company (Google.com). As we all know Google is always changing its algorithms and methods for doing things and yell.com can only ever be playing a game of catch up.
At the moment Yell.com, are not much of anything. The new re-launch is not particularly good for the customers searching or for the business spending money on ads
- Yell.com still do not appear on Google.com for any of the relevant searches for my business. And to be fair I dont really want them too, if I wanted to be up on Google then I would invest in SEO. In fact Yell.com appearing on Google for my searches would be a bit annoying as it could appear as a direct competition for my number one position.
- They have implemented an automated tool that creates keywords for your business and automatically creates some text for the “about us” section. Well this automatic crawler does not work and our advert has all sorts or random and irrelevant keywords. Yell.com don’t care too much about this, it’s just important that they have some keywords, it does not matter that my website design agency includes the keywords “complimentary drinks”. This crawler can be turned off but from looking though local companies I am not sure that many people know as I can spot lots of very broken adverts. I wonder why it was not off by default, with an opt in? Surely this would be better for the businesses paying £100s for adverts than create random and inaccurate information?
- The actual yell.com usability is poor.
- Why for example on the home page do I care about things that have been recently searched for by other people? Yell.com care because they want to cram as many keywords and links on their page as possible, but it does not help me find my service and nor will it help people find my paid for advert.
- Why do I want a Wikipedia definition of “website” when I perform a search for a local website company? Again yell.com are trying to increase the number of keywords per page. I trust if someone is searching for a “plumber in woking” that they do not need to know what the word plumber actually means?
- Why is the right hand side filled with sponsored web search links? These are links to businesses that have not paid £1000’s for an advert on yell and they directly compete with my advert. As a user of the directory they are both distracting and not helpful, whilst as a business paying for an advert they are simply taking up space that my advert could use. Again, another example of yell.com trying to fill the page with keywords.
- The result displays on yell.com are confusing. The results are now split into: Sponsored Listings (there use to be just one but now three display), Businesses in the area (just 16!) and Business also Servicing the area. As a client searching I just want all the results listed in a sensible order. Yell.com want to sell as many spaces as possible so including three sponsored listings instead of one increases their money; allowing people to pay for a listing in the “Businesses also Servicing” section will also increase money.
I know for sure that 100s of our customers would be interested in increasing the number of hits online for local searches. And the bottom line is that yell.com are missing a trick by trying to be something they are not. They should concentrate on being the UK’s number one online directory independent of Google.
To be a great directory you need to have good quality data, to get the data you need to have the traffic. There is always a chicken and egg situation for any directory, but for a company as large as yell.com, with a huge marketing budget I would have expected that this hurdle would have been easy to overcome had they not become slightly obsessed with Google and search engines! They currently risk failure by refusing to acknowledge the needs of both the end user and the paying businesses.
What do you think? Leave a comment or email me - I would love to hear from you!
marketing | 15.05.2009 10:29 | LEAVE COMMENT >>
Following on from yesterdays Grow Your Business Exhibition in Guildford I have completely cleared my diary for today and Friday. I would be really happy to speak with you about anything to do with websites - no obligation and no hard sale, just good free advice.
Call the office on: 0845 625 5075 and ask for me, Zoe.
I look forward to hearing from you!
offers | 14.05.2009 12:58 | LEAVE COMMENT >>
