A recent big success at B Websites has been the website revamp for fluentintuition – a local language training facility based in Woking.

fluentintuition is run by the amazingly focussed Nikki Oliver Pentucci who came to us after being recommended by the equally amazing Caroline Arthur for whom we created a website last year. fluentintuition provide a range of innovative language learning courses and experiences, such as book clubs, cookery classes as well as the more traditional training.

The branding was already in place so our brief was to reuse the company colours to create a new accessible and easy to use website with 50+ pages and on-line booking system. 

The entire website had to be planned from the ground up. Part of the challenge was that we had just 3 weeks to plan, design and build the site since it needed to be ready for the September term and to top it all Nikki was to take a (well deserved) holiday half way through our development time. 

In terms of the back end and user experience we included a massive list of features:

• 50 + pages all with their own custom banner
• Tweet this, send to friend, bookmark this
• Print button with print friendly version
• Facility to upload and store 100′s + PDF downloads
• E-commerce to allow visitors to book and pay for courses online
• Secure area for fluent training materials
• Newsletter sign up
• Easy to use navigation (so no drop downs!) which includes a breadcrumb (the “you are here” but at the bottom of the page)
• Integration with the existing fluent database
• Extensive cross browser testing (let me know if you spot anything…)
• Lots of work on SEO to retain the links and credibility obtained from the previous website

And to top it all fluent can manage every aspect of their website using our bespoke SMART CMS (which we’ve tailored specifically for this project) along with full technical support from us for the lifetime of their website.

We have thoroughly enjoyed working on this project. Designing websites that are easy to use and include such a lot of data is not always easy.

So hands up – who has a content strategy? Who’s never even heard of one?

Content strategists would be horrified to learn about the ad-hoc approach that small businesses often take to their content.

You do not need to have a zillion online pages to benefit from a strategy. The typical small business with a small website and blog and using social media will benefit from regular content audits.

By understanding your content and where it lives you will be able to identify redundant or missing data. Inefficient content on the web can often do more harm than good. You’ll be able to identify a strategy in-line with your business goals and plan for improving your content over time.

So what does a content strategy look like?

There are a number of steps involved. You will need to ask yourself a number of questions. The key elements are:

• What content do I have?
• What does the content look like?
• How large is this content?
• Where is my content?
• What is it for?
• How do I measure my content’s effectiveness?
• What is the metadata for my content?
• How do I manage my content?
• When was the content last updated?

And the list can go on and on.

Documenting your content will be both productive and liberating. Once written down in black and white you should easily be able identify content that needs urgent attention and formulate a plan for refining the remaining content.

I’d suggest that content strategy is key – the website is ALL about the content. Have you heard the phrase “content is king”?

It’s probably true to say that anyone can get a website on-line these days. But getting on-line and building an effective and functioning website are not the same thing at all.  

Clients frequently come to us with websites that are poorly designed or coded.  Even those who have paid a lot of money to have one built. 

Here are my top 10 snags… 

5. Optimising images.  A tell tale sign of an inexperienced designer is a poorly optimised image.  This might be an image that is stretched/skewed or massive file size or just really poor quality resolution. Either way poor images will let a website down. 

If you have a website that you are not sure stacks up (even if you have only just had it built) ask us for a free review…

We have had an amazing few months working on some fantastic new e-commerce websites. First up was BuyStudentArt, then What Katie Did Next and this week we are working on a new website for Petit Poppet.

Laura founded Petit Poppet after spotting a niche in the market for baby slings. Laura’s unique idea was to allow her customers to try a sling before they commit to purchase. Even better still is that all profits raised from the “try before buy” are donated to the very deserving charity: Sands. Personally I have experimented with a number of slings and have never found the perfect sling for my body weight, type of baby and lifestyle. So I am certain that Petit Poppet is a winner!

I love planning e-commerce websites, they are very different from a standard website or blog. The e-commerce website absolutely has to sell. It has to provide visitors with masses of reassurance before they will place an order and technically they have to be spot on (have made a note to write a blog re do’s and don’ts for selling on-line!).

Have you ever made a purchase on-line and instantly worried whether or not you’d receive the goods? E-commerce websites need to break down all barriers between the visitor and the checkout page.

The current Petit Poppet website was a low cost project aimed at testing the market before committing to a major investment. The creative logo was drawn by Laura’s brother and we really liked the shades of blue and pink.

We identified the need to be able to search for slings by type or brand. Not wanting to take up too much on screen “real estate” we have used a nifty tab system so that the visitor can select their own default.  Laura also plans to incorporate some other baby related products into the site so we’ve included these in the early design stages to prevent major re-engineering later. We have also helped Laura to de-clutter the website and she will be using a new integrated blog and chat forum to house extra content.

I love the design, the colours are vivid and engaging and I can’t wait to hear about all Laura’s new sales!

We have recently been lucky enough to work with the very talented Kashmira Jhaverim: the brilliant graphic designer at antdesign.  Kashmira designs cards, calenders and corporate graphics based on her unique style -  a fusion of  Asian images and healthy living.

Kashmira came to us because – in her own words “I have a design that I have created for a website but I do not know how to code it”.

The requirement was a small 7 page website with integrated blog and scrolling home page banner – all done on a strict budget.  To be fair coding it was a challenge even for our developers –  with 10 years experience a piece!

Converting flat graphic designs into fully functional websites are always a bit of an undertaking.  We had to give Kashmira a bit of a crash course in website design (and use a bit of creative thinking ourselves!)  in order to adapt the vision into a fully functional website with as little compromise to either design or functionality as possible.

The main differences between print design and web design are as follows

1. Colours.  Whilst colours can be coded into a website, the actual colour on screen will depend on the visitors screen.  Their monitor settings and may be a bit more red, more blue etc – the end result is that the shade you specify will not be the same shade that is displayed on screen.  As for matching print colours to websites – forget it!
2. Fonts. Although it is looking optimistic for the future, we are currently stuck with a limited number fonts that we can use reliably on the web.  Websites can only use fonts that are installed on the visitor’s machine (yes really!) and there are only a small selection that are reliably safe to use. In many cases an image may be used instead of a font but these cannot be read by search engines.
3. Font sizes.  The visitor ultimately has control over the font sizes.  As you can imagine changing the size means that the entire website needs to grow/shrink accordingly.  It’s possible to cripple the font changing functionality but this is really poor practise.
4. CMS.  Every content management system has its limits.  The antdesign website has been built using our very own SMART CMS.  Using any CMS means that the website needs to be coded to allow for change and variety of content (different sizes of text and images).
5. Design port.  Porting a design to a CMS in pixel perfect precision is very time consuming. I like to use the phrase “approximation” – which essentially means that we will reuse as much of the existing design as possible. In many cases a pixel perfect port is possible but the additional time required to pindown the last 5% can be significant.  Opting for an approximation can really help to keep the budget down.
6. Text formatting.  Having been so used to print, Kashmira was really keen to have the text line up and include breaks in very specific places.  In print this can work but the reality of a website (particularly one with a CMS) is that it will need to grow and shrink. Web designers take a much more organic approach to seeing their website looking different on varying screens/browsers & devices.
7. There are many other significant differences also (pixels and not cms, SEO, accessibility, writing copy for web, image optimisation, download speeds, user experience…)

Back to ant design… One of the features that we are particular pleased with is the image gallery.  SMART already supports a number of gallery formats and creating Kashmira’s vision almost perfectly was simple with a bit of CSS know-how from the developers at B Websites!

The thumbnail gallery allows user to see all the images on the screen and to select the image that they would like to see bigger.

We absolutely love Kashmira’s work and are chuffed to bits that we were able to do such a great job on translating the website design from print – to web. What do you think?

A few years back I embarked on a weight watchers diet. I was successful and lost 6 stone in just one year! During this year I became an expert in calories and weight watcher points. I noted that the “diet” versions of foods were not always the dieters best choice.

For example Special K – marketed as the choice for ladies who are watching their weight. The truth is, if you study the packet, it’s actually slightly more calorific than good old Cornflakes.  It’s not a huge difference but was enough for me to opt for Cornflakes to start my day. But for Kelloggs, Special K was not about calories (although it would have been reckless for them to chocolate coat them). Special K was always about brand and marketing.

I was talking to a client a few weeks ago about her complimentary therapies. Claire offered a range of services at fixed prices. I suggested that she package them up to target a specific market – for example weddings, maternity, parties… etc.  Claire was not immediately certain of my suggestion since on paper her treatments would be the same regardless of who was receiving them.  However after a bit of creative thinking we looked at how to bundle treatments together and add some extra value.

Packaging up your products to target a smaller market will result in a product much easier to sell and easier to buy.

So how can you package up your products and services?

There are so many ups and downs to running your own business, long days and hard decisions. It can be very easy to lose track of why you started it all in the first place.

For me, running my own business was borne out of love, passion and desire. On a practical level it also means that I am able to manage my work commitments and office around my own family.

So lets remember why we started this journey: love, passion and desire. Keep these thoughts close by and you will be forced to focus on what makes you tick: the projects that turn you on, your core skills and the type of customer you really want to attract. Stay faithful to this formula and you will succeed – because I say so!

The concept behind BuyStudentArt is original:  BuyStudentArt is an on-line art community where students can upload and sell their art to the public. Students are allowed to upload 5 pieces at a time to sell in different sizes formats and prices. Visitors to the site can browse or search for artwork and purchase on-line.

As a start-up business we had a fairly tight budget for this project. The graphic design was created by http://www.pellingdesign.co.uk who also worked with the client on their brief/specification/functionality.

In order to stay on budget we advised the client to make a small number of sacrifices to the desired functionality. In an ideal word the students would have their own secure admin area to manage their accounts, see stats & upload products. But we have kept things for phase 1 very simple. BuyStudentArt will have some manual processing of student accounts. The idea is that we can get the project up and running and revise the back end functionality in a later phase.

We like to phase many of our clients projects for a number of reasons:

1. Start ups can test the market without massive initial investments
2. Phasing allows investments to be made in-line with growth/return
3. Project to go live sooner (and start earning money quicker!)
4. Live user feedback will allow for better specification of future enhancements

The key to a successful phasing is identifying the core elements of a project that must be in place to launch. To ensure the best possible chances of success the look and feel of the website need to be spot on from the outset. It also goes without saying that it’s also really important that  the site should be really well coded – skimp on this and you’ll miss out on all important visitors. Where you can make some cost savings without too much sacrifice is usually in the back end/processes. But it’s really important that you discuss these with your developer so that the site can be built to grow – you don’t want to have to start from scratch 12 months down the road.

Back to BuyStudentArt. This website has been built using Actinic v10. This powerful e-commerce platform includes a ton of brilliant features which we have been able to incorporate without reinventing the wheel.  Chris is an experienced developer so has been able to dig deep into the core Actinic code to customize functionality to allow us to create a pixel perfect interpretation of the original design.

The site is not live yet, we have a few custom forms to add in and then we are ready to go!

There are lots of different reasons for starting a blog.  But I will assume that you started yours: to drive traffic to your main website and to help with being found on Google.  In this scenario  integrating your blog with your main business website is absolutely the best way to go.

The key to a successful website is simplicity – everything needs to be really really easy to find and use.  Place hurdles (no matter how small) in the way and you will lose visitors.  So if you are writing 3 blogs a week,  promoting your blog via twitter/facebook and eagerly checking your blog visitors stats – please please please consider integrating your blog with your main website.  By this I mean that the main website menu should remain on all your blog pages.

Examples of blogs with an integrated main website menu

The alternative I often see are blogs with “click here to visit the website” links from the blog. The Integrated websites/blogs solution is superior for the following reasons:

1. Simplicity. Your blog visitors will be just a single click away from all your important top level website pages: services, offers, contact, about us and main website information.   The rule of thumb is that less clicks is better.
2. Visibility. Your main website menu will be very easy to spot. No matter where you place a  “visit website” link (or even a fancy graphic) people can and will miss it.
3. Usability. Information is much easier for your visitors to find if people know that it is available.  Why hide the most important links on your website?
4. Engaging. You will be encouraging people to move more freely back and forth from the blog and website.
5. Motivation. The “visit website”option is hardly motivating is it? Including a keyword rich menu is more likely to catch the attention of the visitor.
6. On-site SEO. The website menu will naturally include keywords, including them on your blog pages will help with your on site SEO. 
7. Funnelling traffic. Using the “visit website” option is a massive wasted opportunity for potentially the largest source of inbound traffic to your website.  The clicks won’t help towards your SEO unless they include keywords (like your menu).
8. Consistency. One of the first lessons in user interface design is that consistency is key.  If you visit a website and click on the blog link  – you do not expect to be whisked away to a new website,  pop up window or for the main menu to move/change/disappear.  Integrating your main website menu is far less confusing.

To summarise: integrating your website with your blog will result in more visitors to your website.

Of course there will always be exceptions to this general rule.  I am a big advocate of using the right solution for the job (and every business and on-line marketing campaign is different).  But if you run a small business and want to use your blog to drive traffic to your main business website – I can’t think of a better way to set up the blog. Can you?

Integrating your blog does not have to be expensive. If you already have a website (with a design that you like) and hosting that can support a blog then this can usually be achieved by an experienced web developer in just a few hours.

I must admit that this may sound odd since I am always preaching about why DIY websites just do not cut it (another post!). But I am a complete believer in DIY search engine optimisation.

SEO is effectively broken down into the following types of task

1. Competitor & keyword research
2. Updating your website (on site SEO)
3. Monitoring

And the process goes on. 

You can spend as much or as little time on SEO as you like.  The more time you spend the better the results and the more skilled you’ll become.  There are some HUGE  benefits for small companies to SEO their own website(s)

1. Budget.  Initially there may be some costs involved, I would definitely recommend a good training course or mentor to ensure that you have a sound foundation of the process.  And you may need to pay a professional to make some changes to your website (that you can then self maintain).
2. Control.  I outsourced SEO to an external company about 4 years ago.  I paid the money and then they wanted FTP access to my site to make changes – I am a bit dubious about this, I didn’t really want people playing around with my website without understanding or reviewing the changes first.  I’d invested a large amount of time on my wording and just couldn’t have a stranger changing it around!
3. Realistic goals.  If you are optimising your own website you will be forced to set realistic goals.  You will soon realise that optimising is not all about getting a top stop on Google – hits mean very little if you do not convert them to paying customers.
4. Font-line.  Part of the process of optimising your website will involve searches on Google and looking at competitor websites.  And this is good.  It’s so important to be checking your completion and to be aware of change. 
5. Context. Fancy tools are not required to optimise a website – you can do it all by hand. It’s all very well receiving a report each month from your SEO company with your new Google position – but far better to do the search manually and see who is ahead of you.  If the only people ahead are the major players like: wikipedia, yell.com, tesco or argos then you can pat yourself on the back.  If your arch rival is ahead – then you’ll be inclined to take a peek at their website and see why.

DIY SEO is not without it’s issues.  It will take time and you will want to ensure that you have a firm grounding in the process before you start.  But once you get going I am certain that you will see lots of benefits including more customers!

“Thank you so much for such an interesting and invaluable training session on SEO, your pitch was exactly right and I can’t wait to start using my knowledge!” – @katielevett

“I really enjoyed this SEO workshop – thank you so much” – @BojangleComms

“Lot’s of information, great support and endless knowledge” -  @q5partners

“I just wanted to thank you for yesterdays SEO workshop. It was so informative and such great added value and support for your clients” Giselle -www.infocus.co.uk

If you would like some more information about how to DIY SEO then I would love to hear from you.