Author Archives: pioneer

Important Elements That Will Improve Your SEO

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The internet is a huge sales platform now as it allows you to reach a large audience quickly. Yet, with the popularity of the internet, this means you have a lot of competitors fighting to be seen. So how can you be seen by your audience online? The most important channel for online is through search engines. With Google currently dominating the search engine market.
 
Content:
Your content is quite rightly important to your search engine optimisation plans. Your content is scrutinised by Google looking for relevant and recent information. Google wants to ensure that your website is active and informal to the right target audience. Therefore, blogs, testimonials, on-site optimisation and press release are examples of content that you should look to optimise.
 
Links:
Links have been linked to search engine optimisation since the term was first coined. Links are important as they revert back to your site and are an effective channel to your website. You would think the more links reverting back to your website the better. The truth is it’s about the quality of the inbound links. A well-respected authority, for example, carries much more weight as a link in comparison to 100 links from unknown websites.
 
Social Media:
Social media now carries more weight than ever. With so many social media channels available with different purposes this can increase your search engine optimisation substantially. It is believed now that there is a link between Google + likes for a web page and that pages search engine ranking. Google + posts are easier for Google to index than some content on Facebook and Twitter
 
Speed:
Speed means quality. There are even tools in place now to measure web page upload speeds. People are impatient and with upload, times increasing. Fast upload speed means your website is high quality and reliable. Google also sees this as an important aspect when considering Google Ranking.
 
Security:
There is still doubt about the security of sites when you can’t see the identity of the person on the other side. The older generations tend to be less trusting as their lack of understanding scares them. The increase of Cybercrime in recent years on a large scale doesn’t help either. Ensure your site is secure especially if it is an e-commerce site.
 
Overall, search engine optimisation creates organic visibility of your business. Search engine optimisation services in Preston are examples of where you can receive Search engine optimisation to support your business.

5 Must Haves When Building An E-commerce Site

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E-commerce websites are an essential modern sales channel. They have benefits over stores as the sales process is generally quicker. There is less wastage of resources such as stock and places to hold stock. Bearing this is mind what must you consider when creating an e-commerce site. We will explore this with 5 must haves when building an e-commerce site.
 
1. Easy To Use And Manage
 
Make the navigation of your e-commerce site as clear as possible. The easier it is to navigate the more likely they are to stay on your website thus the more likely they are to make a purchase. Effective management of your SKUs is also important. Ensure products are listed in detail and categories are set up to aid product navigation.
 
2. Responsive Design
 
Creating a good experience for mobile shoppers. You don’t need me to tell you that mobile searches are growing rapidly. More people now are purchasing from mobile devices than ever before and this will continue to increase. Having a mobile first strategy is essential to ensure you are reaching all your target audience.
 
3.Checkout Process
 
This is the most critical element of the sales process. An effective checkout process could be the difference between doubling and halving your overall sales. Make your checkout process easy, clear and secure.
 
4. Provide Support
 
As this process is completed online there is no direct contact. So any misunderstandings or confusion needs to be addressed as practically as possible. Through live chat, a help section, FAQ section or guidance through the checkout process or e-commerce site. This will add reassurance to the user and lower any potential bounce rate.
 
5. Product Photography
 
As the customers cannot feel the product it is important to heighten the sense of sight. This is their first point of contact with the product and an eye-catching image could lead to a sale. Make sure your images are high quality and good lighting. The option to zoom in and out, different angles of the product or elements of the product are beneficial. Also, the product photographed in real live experiences creates a connection with the viewer.
 
It is important that you have an e-commerce strategy that fits your brand. The most important thing to consider is that your e-commerce site is fully functional and easy to use. If you’re looking to increase your online presence and create sales then consider T & G Web Design. They have experience in building e-commerce sites.

5 Things You Need To Know About WordPress

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WordPress is the most popular Content Management System for many reasons but what makes WordPress so good. We will look at 5 things you need to know about WordPress.

1. There are many well-known brands that use WordPress:

TED talk blogs use WordPress and so do The Wall Street Journal. Not to mention UPS and eBay. Along with Mashable, PlayStation and General Motors. If WordPress is good enough for these sites, then it should be good enough for you.

2. WordPress has more uses than blogging:

WordPress started as a blogging platform. Yet, it was soon realised that it was much more than this. Now WordPress is a multi-purpose Content Management System. WordPress is great for any business regardless of size and is still great for blogging.

3. WordPress Plugins:

Plugins expand your capabilities on WordPress. Plugins can be free or paid for. The purpose of plugins is limitless. There seems to be one for everything you could possible use on WordPress from writing code from scratch to Google Analytics. You can even customise your own plugins if you happen to know PHP or build your own plugin from scratch.

4. WordPress.com and WordPress.org are not the same, but they are similar

The one major difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org is who’s actually hosting your website. With WordPress.Org, you host your own blog or website. Whereas WordPress.com take care of all hosting for you. You don’t have to download software, pay for hosting or manage a web server.

5. WordPress is much more than a Content Management System

WordPress is also used for Amazon shop through combining WordPress with WooCommerce, then adding Amazon as your supplier. Making it possible to sell without having your own stock. With help from a theme called Forum Engine, you can turn WordPress into forum app. There is another App Theme called Clipper which offers integrated coupon management at a very advanced level. Another theme called directory incorporates many specific directory features on it’s listing pages. Other uses include customer feedback, memberships, booking systems, issue tracking, job board and twitter look-alike.

If you are looking to strengthen your online presence and believe WordPress is the Content Management System to use why not get in touch with T&G Web Design, Leyland. They design responsive websites through WordPress so customers can easily edit or navigate their website if they feel the need to do so.

10 Quick Tips About SEO

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Search engine optimisation is important for building website traffic. Search engine optimisation is and has always been complex at the best of times. Just when you think you can understand the ranking algorithm it changes. For example with the different google ranking algorithm programs like panda and hummingbird. This is why we have created 10 quick tips to help you understand how you can improve your SEO.

1. SEO Keywords:

If you want to be found for certain keywords it is important to use those keywords in your site’s content. You are looking to add keywords that are likely to receive high search queries which will, therefore, rank your page highly for the keywords relevant to your business.

2. Consistent Theme:

Search engines look for a consistent theme within a website. This tells google that the website is relevant and reliable.

3. Linking:

Although there are debates about the effectiveness of link building, backlinks are effective. The more reputable the back link the better. So 1 backlink from a trusted and reliable brand could be worth 10 times more than 100 backlinks from unknown sources. The more back links available the more content added to a site and the more channels to reach a site. So overall links are a positive SEO strategy.

4. Page Speed:

This is a critical factor when considering SEO. A quick page can be achieved through condensing coding. Customers will react better to fast page uploads and so will search engines in terms of ranking.

5. The 3Rs:

The 3Rs stand for relevance, recent and reliable. Search engines like webpage’s to be highly relevant. If a search term is for women’s shoes then search engines will rank terms that continuously mention women’s shoes. As for recent, search engine will rank web pages that have maintained and fresh content. If content is continuously maintained and updated this highlights the company is active and the content is relevant as it is up to date. Finally, reliability is determined as google has a tendency to rank based on web page history. If a web page is reliable and trustworthy then search engines will want to have that web page on its first page.

6. Brand Mentions:

The mentioning of your brand is again another positive in terms of SEO. If your brand is mentioned in a good light across social media, blogs or web pages this will show relevance and reliability.

7. Write Like A Human:

Search engines like content to have a personality and originality so does the reader. This gives your brand a personality that can be understood my customers and ensure your relationship and their understanding of your business.

8. Website Analytics:

Web analytics are an effective form of understanding who is visiting your website. This allows you to understand who your audience is, the duration of their visit and if the visits are going on to other web pages from the original one they entered.

9. Relevant Meta Descriptions:

Your meta description is the little snippets of the information below your headline and URL in the organic rankings. This gives a short description of what the web page is about. This information is read by the viewer and the meta description is effective in google ranking. This is important when considering SEO.

10. Social Signals:

The introducing of social media has meant that there are other channels to reach your website. Your social media page is an effective link to your website also social media can create discussion about your brand.

Overall search engine optimisation creates organic visibility of your business.  intangible value and can be the difference between two similar products and make you unique from your competition. Search engine optimisation services in Leyland are examples of where you can receive Search engine optimisation to support your business.

The Value Of Marketing

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Marketing involves putting your product or service on a platform to be identified by your target audience. Marketing is an effective way to sell your product. It adds value and relates to your audience.

1. Insight into Audience:

Marketing is an avenue to understanding your audience. Understanding your audience can decrease spend trying to reach certain people and can let you create a message that will speak directly to your audience. Overall, this is more effective and fits their needs.

2. Brand Awareness:

Marketing is a way to support sales. Through reaching a larger audience you increase your chance of sales. Millions are spent to increase awareness of brands as this is the start of the sales process. Once the customer is aware it offers the chance to create interest in a product or service.

3. Shareable Content:

This is hugely important in modern marketing. There are so many avenues to share content with different networks of people. If your content is shareable than it can multiply its reach each time it is shared.

4. Marketing comes in different forms:

This can include digital marketing, promotional marketing and offline marketing. All of which hold the same end goal to reach people and make them aware of your product or service.

It is important that any attempts at marketing support sales and spread the understanding of the business as much as possible.

Overall marketing creates intangible value and can be the difference between two similar products and make you unique from your competition. Marketing services in Leyland are examples of where you can receive Marketing assistance to support your business.

3 reasons why print is still important in today’s digital world

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Wondering why the practise of printing still exists today, despite the fact that we’ve developed so many ways of communicating digitally? Even though we’ve swapped letter writing for texts, emails and WhatsApp messages, print is yet to become obsolete.

Whether you need printing in Preston or elsewhere in the country, here’s why most companies still use it.

  1. Print is more difficult to ignore an actual letter

You likely receive quite a few emails a day, a lot of which probably end up clogging your spam folder. Even if you trust the sender, you’re unlikely to open every single one that lands in your inbox.

However, it’s much harder to ignore a letter that you have to open by hand. It can be almost exciting to receive something that has your name on it – after all, who knows what may be inside?

What’s more is that some form of action is required when dealing with a printed letter or flyer. Whether you read it or throw it away, you’re acknowledging it exists just by picking it up.

  1. A way of demonstrating your effort

It takes more effort to design and produce hard copies, so if a company has taken the time to do so, it shows they have gone the extra mile to address you. This can make you feel more appreciated as a customer or client, as opposed to an afterthought.

  1. Print is more eyecatching

With so many pop ups and spam emails to contend with whenever we use the internet, our brains seem to go into instant filter mode when viewing ads online. On the other hand, it can be hard not to notice that colourful poster in the shop window with the interesting font, or the flyer with the thought-provoking image that’s been pushed through your letter box.

5 tips for designing a great company logo

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Want to create a logo for your business but not sure where to start? Take a look at these tips before arranging your logo design in Leyland.

  1. Make sure it conveys a clear message

You want your logo to accurately represent what your company is about and convey the right message to your target market. You therefore need to consider how font, image and colour will combine together to create something that’s instantly recognisable. And make sure the font can be read easily!

  1. Think about colour

Will your chosen colours make your logo eyecatching and exciting? What will your customers think about when they look at it? If your logo features multiple colours, will they stand out against each other?

It’s also best to stay away from colour combinations that people immediately associate with big-name brands, especially if you’re in the same industry; you don’t want customers or clients to get confused.

  1. Try and make it unique

You need to check there’s nothing else out there that’s quite like your logo. Try and think outside the box, and don’t immediately choose the most obvious image or colours.

  1. Consider scale

Your logo might look great when enlarged and sat above your shop, but what about on a desktop or mobile? It needs to be something that people can clearly identify regardless of what size it is.

  1. Keep things simple

Don’t overcomplicate your logo design by adding too many colours, images and words, because this will dilute the message it’s trying to convey. It may be clichéd but in this instance, less definitely is more.

What is UI design exactly?

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Wireframes. Mockups. HTML. Fonts. Elements. Users. If you’re familiar with user interface design, these terms will be your bread and butter.

An integral part of any website or application, user interface design is also arguably one of the most important. This is because your design is what your users see and interact with. If your site or app functions poorly and looks terrible, that’s what your users are going to remember.

But isn’t UX design and UI design the same thing? Or is there just an extremely blurred line between the two? What’s involved with UI design and, more importantly, what makes good design?

What is UI design exactly?

If you’re wondering how to test UI on your website, it’s a good idea to first learn some of the differences between UX and UI design. Although UI design and UX design look similar when written down, they’re actually two totally separate things. However, they should most definitely complement each other.

UX design, according to Nielsen Norman Group, “encompasses all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with the company, its services, and its products.” Meanwhile, UI design focuses more on a user’s interaction, the overall design, look and feel of a system. The two still sound similar, right?

For those of you still trying to wrap your ahead around the difference, Nielsen Norman Group has a great analogy up on its site that helps to explain it: “As an example, consider a website with movie reviews. Even if the UI for finding a film is perfect, the UX will be poor for a user who wants information about a small independent release if the underlying database only contains movies from the major studios.” This just goes to show the complementary relationship between the two and why it’s so important.

User interface was popularized in the early 1970s, partly thanks to Fuji Xerox’s ‘Xerox Alto Workstation’ — an early personal computer dubbed “the origin of the PC”.

This machine used various icons, multi windows, a mouse, and e-mail, which meant that some sort of design and design principles were needed to create consistency for the future. It was here that human-centred UI was born.

Web Design Lytham UI design also covers graphical user interface design (GUI design). A GUI is the software or interface that works as the medium between a user and the computer. It uses a number of graphical elements, such as screen cursors, menus, and icons so that users can easily navigate a system. This is also something that has stemmed from Fuji Xerox back in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Since then, UI has developed quickly and so has its design principles. When the Xerox Alto Workstation was first born, Fuji Xerox came up with eight of its own design principles. These were:

Metaphorically digitize the desk environment
Operating on display instead of entering on keyboard
What you see is what you get
Universal but fewer commands
Same operation for the same job at different places
Operating computers as easily as possible
No need to transfer to different jobs
System customized as desired by users
Over time, these principles have evolved and now you’ll likely find many more added to this list. Here are just a few of the most important ones identified in “Characteristics of graphical and web user interfaces” by Wilbert Galitz.

Marble4Life New Website

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Over at T&G (the company who made and hosts our site) have created an incredible website for a marble company. Since we are a blog that specializes in helping its readers improve their webdesign skills, so as soon as we saw it we thought it will be a great idea to share it with our audience as a fine example of UI and design. Coupled with a great place to buy all your Granite Worktops Lincoln and their other depots in Granite Worktops Harrogate and Granite Worktops Cheshire, Quartz Worktops and all things kitchen surface. Just click the link in granite worktops and head over there!

How should I start attributing my marketing?

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As online marketing has grown in importance the question of how to attribute the resulting sales has become more and more challenging. Many businesses don’t even track it, which can be a costly error. The aim of attribution is to solve the ‘I know half of my marketing spend is wasted but I The importance of attributing e-commerce sales

 As online marketing has grown in importance the question of how to attribute the resulting sales has become more and more challenging. Many businesses don’t even track it, which can be a costly error. The aim of attribution is to solve the ‘I know half of my marketing spend is wasted but I don’t know which half’ problem.

How should I start attributing my marketing?

If you’re not looking at attribution then you’re over-counting your sales, and spending on marketing that isn’t really working for you. And until you start using Web Design Southport attribution then you can’t fix that. So, where do you begin? Google Analytics offers a free package that is relatively simple to use, offering a good starting point for start-ups. Once installed, there are five easy steps that can be followed to help you understand your marketing performance: Step one: Make sure you’re tracking the conversions that happen on your website.

Once all that’s set up you need to sit back and let the data roll in. Step two: While you’re waiting, identify each of the ways you are getting traffic to your website (email, social media, flyers etc.). Step three: Then work out how much each costs you every month (both the money and the time). Too many start-ups undervalue the use of their own time or haven’t considered applying a ‘cost’ to what takes up their day. Step four: Ensure you can recognise each source of traffic in your Google Analytics account (look at the traffic sources report).

You will need to tag some of the links – with some systems this is easy (you can link your Google Adwords and Google Analytics accounts), with others you’ll need to create the links yourself – type “Google URL builder” into the search engine for the tool you need to do this. Step five: Now you can see in Google Analytics which traffic sources are driving your sales/leads. If you want to see how the marketing channels each help with the sales then take a look at Google’s Assisted Conversions & Top Conversion Paths reports – in Analytics go to Conversions / Multi-Channel Funnels. Here you can see how all the marketing activity works together to drive your sales.