A time when they’ve hired a web designer and found the process painful. They didn’t see a return on investment. And the whole process took way longer than expected! 

You’ve probably heard these stories too. 

Or worse, you’ve experienced it yourself. 

And that’s why you want to hire the right agency. 

You don’t want to spend time and money working with an agency only to realise they’re total pants, and you’re not going to make a return on your investment. 

But how do you find such an agency/freelancer? 

How do you know who you can trust? 

How can you make sure you’re not just another business owner with a ‘bad web designer’ story. 

Easy! In this blog post, we’re going to give you a list of top web design agencies from across the world. 

Why Are You Writing This? Don’t You Know You Offer Web Design Services? 

Yes, we do offer web design as a service (we didn’t forget about that). But we know that we’re not for everyone. And there are many reasons we may not be the right fit for you. 

And we’re certainly not arrogant enough to think that we’re the only agency good at web design! There are lots of people in the industry whose work we admire and value. 

So we made a list of who we think are the top web agencies in the world. 

How did we choose these top agencies?

We have followed most of these agencies for a while (at least 12 months) and we’ve always admired what they do. Not only do these agencies create amazing websites, each and every one of them invests in their education to continually improve their knowledge. This was a HUGE factor in creating this list. 

How do we know they are the best agencies in the world?

Obviously, we don’t know every web designer in the world so we can’t include them all BUT we feel confident that the agencies we have chosen will deliver an amazing experience for you and a fantastic website. We fully appreciate that our opinion, might differ from yours and that’s ok but we can only include web designers we know and trust.

The Website Success Framework

This is what we have called the Website Success Framework. It’s something that we created in order to help you understand what makes a PERFECT website.

We’ve selected agencies that have knowledge and understanding of the six key factors that make a website a success. Here’s a fancy-pants wheel for you to see what these are. And you can learn more about the 6 key things that make a successful website in our blog post. 

Ultimately, a good website is not just a pretty website. And a good web designer is not just someone who makes pretty websites. 

Good web designers (like all the ones in the list) have an understanding of these 6 key things. And the web designers we’ve selected also have particular strengths in one or more of these areas… 

1. Appearance

Appearance matters if you want to make an impact, build a brand and stand out from the crowd. Sometimes web developers get a little caught up in the functionality and code, and they fail to make the site actually look good! 

2. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

SEO is vital to your website’s success. We all want to show up on Google, right? There are particular ways and methods of building websites that make them more likely to rank in search results – such as making them mobile-friendly or fast to load. 

3. Content Marketing 

Content marketing can increase rankings, drive traffic and generate leads for your business. Good web design agencies should help you with content, such as figuring out how a user can view and search your content, or how to convert readers into leads. 

4. User Experience

This is a biggie. Every web design agency should understand user-experience. User experience is essentially how easy your website is to use. Agencies should create websites that will help your users flow through your site with ease.

5. Lead Generation 

If you want your website to convert visitors into customers then you need an agency to help you do that. Everything from call to actions (size/colour/text) to the placement of lead magnets has to be carefully thought-through. A good agency will do this for you. 

6. Website Copy 

We’re not saying that web design agencies also have to be copywriters (although some certainly are!) But a good agency will guide you on how to create your copy and convert readers into leads and sales. 

Web designers you can hire

So now you should have a good understanding of our criteria – agencies with knowledge in all of the above, and particular key strengths in one or more of them. It’s also agencies who continuously learn and improve, so they can pass on that knowledge to their clients, and apply it to their websites. 

The list is in no particular order but we have broken down the different countries to make it easy for you. You can select a country from the list below.

The BEST web designers in the world

*DRUMROLL

Without Further Ado Here Are The Best Web Design Agencies in the World…

UK Web Design Companies

Dickiebirds Studio

What They Do: WordPress Website Design and Development | White Label Services 

Who They Help:
Businesses
Personal Brands
Web Design Agencies (White Label Service) 

Overview:
The team at Dickiebirds Studio Design create phenomenal websites that focus on converting your visitors into leads and sales. They are all about the strategy and user-experience! 

Peter and Paul also have a white label service that can help other agencies create incredible WordPress websites. 

SO The Agency

What They Do: Branding | Web Design | SEO | Digital Marketing 

Who They Help:
Small business owners
The education sector (with a strong background in working with universities and FE Colleges)
Web design agencies offering a white label SEO service. 

Overview:
We’re big fans of Pete and the team at SO. They offer a wide range of services from web design to branding and are super knowledgeable when it comes to SEO. If getting first page rankings is important to you then get in touch with SO and see how they can help. They also offer an amazing white label SEO service specifically for agencies.

Due North Creatives 

What They Do: Website Build | Graphic Design | Copywriting | Website Amends

Who They Help:
Business owners across Tayside, Angus and Aberdeenshire

Overview:
Amanda and her team are based in Montrose, Scotland and offer a wide variety of services from web design to social media management. Amanda has created a wonderful agency with a great group of people. She has a wealth of knowledge and is incredibly passionate about getting great results for her clients. 

Flat Cap Creative 

What They Do: Website Design | Website Support Plans

Who They Help:
Sole-traders to businesses with a turnover of 3million+
They have a particular speciality of working with the education and medical sectors

Overview:
Nik runs Flat Cap Creative. A fantastic, Leeds based agency that is always highly sought after. Although Nik builds websites for all types of businesses, he tends to work mainly with medical companies and education providers. He’s fantastic at website copy too, and does offer as a service. 

Design Box Media

What They Do:
Web Design | SEO | Ads | Content Marketing

Who They Help:
Small to Medium Enterprises

Overview:
Thomas Amos and his team run a full-service agency in Essex, they do everything from paid advertising to email marketing. Not to mention they build incredible websites too. If you need a larger agency to manage all your marketing needs, then Design Box Media will be able to help.

Funeral Director Websites 

What They Do: Web Design & Development 

Who They Help:
Funeral Directors 

Overview:
Gerry King creates websites exclusively for Funeral businesses. This means that he knows his niche inside out and always creates high performing websites. Gerry’s reputation in his industry is rock solid, and although he’s based in Newcastle, he helps funeral directors all over the country build a better online presence. 

Umbrella Digital Media

What They Do: Web Design | Digital Consultancy | Maintenance Plans

Who They Help:
Business Owners

Overview:
Imogen Allen who runs Umbrella has a real passion for content marketing and has a wealth of knowledge in this area. She builds fantastic content-led websites that are extremely user-friendly. Imogen is always developing her skills and investing in her learning so she can deliver the best service to her web design and consultancy clients. 

Fiona Robertson 

What They Do: Branding | Web Design | Logo Design | Graphic Design 

Who They Help:
Small business owners

Overview:
Fiona is such a talented graphic designer and web designer. Fiona has a particular speciality in branding and this is reflected in all the websites she creates. They’re memorable and beautiful, but also extremely user-friendly too! We’re huge fans of her work.

No Label Studios

What They Do: Web Design | Development  

Who They Help:
Solo Agency Owners

Overview:
Oliver runs No Label Studios and offers a white-label, web design service to other agencies. If you’re struggling to keep up with client projects and need an extra pair of hands, then Oliver is your guy. You’ll see from his website that he has a real eye for design. He’s also a genuinely nice guy.

Amber Phillips Design

What They Do: Web Design | Development  

Who They Help:
Service-based Entrepreneurs

Overview:
Amber offers a unique web design service where the entire site is built within 1-2 weeks. Perfect if you’re on a tight time frame. Amber also has a monthly design retainer where you can have some graphic design assistance on a regular basis. 

 USA Web Design Companies

OGAL

What They Do: Web Design | SEO | WordPress Consulting 

Who They Help:
Small Businesses

Overview:
OGAL web design is run by Kyle Van Deusen who’s based in Granbury, Texas. I’m sure you’ll agree that Kyle’s website is AMAZING and so are the websites he builds. But, the thing that impresses me most about Kyle is his complete dedication to delivering incredible content to his potential customers. Every other agency should take note of what OGAL is doing. 

Thrive

What They Do: Web Design | Branding | Marketing

Who They Help:
Service-Based Business Owners

Overview:
I love this agency and their website. Noah, who runs Thrive is a super nice guy and he’s 100% committed to delivering honest help and advice to anyone looking for a website. All Noah’s websites are highly conversion-focused and the design is always fantastic. Noah is based in Seattle, Washington.

Impact

What They Do: Inbound Marketing | Content Marketing | Web Design | Hubspot Training & Support | Video | Ads

Who They Help:
Businesses

Overview:
Impact is a full-service agency based in New Haven, Connecticut. They have 60+ full-time staff members and offer a broad range of services from video training right through to technical SEO and even CRM support. They create incredible data-driven websites that are super focused on getting results. And for anyone who doesn’t know the owner, Marcus Sheridan, they pretty much know everything there is to know about Content Marketing. 

Kriss Did It

What They Do: Website Design | Brand Strategy

Who They Help:
Creative entrepreneurs

Overview:
Kriss creates stunning websites for personal brands and creative entrepreneurs. I love how Kriss just gets how to create a website that reflects your personality and brand. She’s created some AMAZING websites including Marie Forleo’s website and Franchesca Ramsey. In terms of branding and design, Kriss is one of our favourite web designers. 

Canada

Propel

What They Do: Web Design | SEO | Copywriting

Who They Help:
Business owners in Toronto, Canada

Overview:
Propel Digital Media is based in Toronto Canada and is owned by Chris Castillo. First and foremost, I LOVE this agency’s website. I don’t mind admitting… I’m a bit jealous of it. Chris’s design skills are also clearly visible from the amazing websites he builds. His attention to detail means his projects are always breathtaking and conversion focused. 

South African Web Design Companies

Lonely Viking

What They Do: Websites | Branding | Conversion Optimisation 

Who They Help:
Business Owners

Overview:
Lonely Viking is owned by Shane who is based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Shane is an incredible designer and is highly sought after. Shane has an incredible brand that you won’t forget any time soon and his web design and branding work for his clients are extraordinary.

1 Day Website 

What They Do: Web Design | Sales Pages | Care Plans

Who They Help:
Creative female entrepreneurs 

Overview:
Chantal offers an amazing service – one website in a day! The websites are aimed at female entrepreneurs, and Chantal does a fantastic job of reflecting their brands and personalities through the website design. And you’d never tell that these websites are created so fast. So if you’re looking for a beautiful website in no time at all, check out 1 Day Website. 

Australian Web Design Companies

Launch Digital

What They Do: Web Design | SEO 

Who They Help:
Small to medium-sized business owners

Overview:
Tina runs Launch Digital which is based in Melbourne, Australia. Tina focuses on building high-performing websites that also look incredible. She can also help with SEO so that you can get more visibility in search engines. As a side note, I love Tina’s own branding, it’s so memorable.  

Elk Creative

What They Do: Web Design | Logo Design | Branding | Graphic Design

Who They Help:
Entrepreneurs to large business owners 

Overview:
Elk creative is based in Victoria, Australia and I can’t help but LOVE their branding. Although they offer web design services, they are super passionate about branding and design. This is clearly obvious when you see their portfolio of work. I especially love how transparent Corey is with his pricing information. You don’t often come across agency websites that are honest enough to do this and it’s, it’s really helpful.

Summary

There you have it, a list of the best web design agencies in the world. Don’t forget, a successful website is not JUST a pretty website. If you want to access our 54-point checklist on what makes a successful website, then download it below.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Who Are The Best Web Designers in the World? appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

“Don’t tell them it’s for a wedding, otherwise they’ll charge you A LOT more.”

I imagine that’s what it must feel like if you work for a larger company. You may think to yourself, ‘Are these guys going to charge me more just because we’re a large business or are well known?’

And you know what, you’re right. We do charge more to larger companies. And by larger, I’m talking turnover of a million+.

Our web design packages start from £4497(+VAT), with the average being around £7,000 – £9,000(+VAT). For large companies, this jumps to £20,000+(+VAT).

But it’s not for the reasons you might think. We don’t sit there rubbing our hands together with glee and pound signs in our eyes when we see you coming. There are genuine reasons why we charge more to larger companies.

In the interest of honesty and transparency and all that malarky, we’ve listed these below.

1. There’s a lot more communication with you

When we work with larger organisations, generally there are more people involved in the process. Yes, we communicate with one, designated person, but this one person has to get input and feedback from the different teams within the organisation.

Often, we’ll have video calls with the different teams to go through what they need from the website, or feedback on the designs, or any particular questions. Each team has it’s own priority. For example, people who work in finance want something different from the website to the people who work in HR.

So, why would this cost more money? Essentially, it takes A LOT longer.

There’s a lot more communication needed when we deal with larger companies. And this isn’t a bad thing. The level of communication with many different members of staff is what will lead a website that serves the company, the individual teams within the company and the customer.

A typical website design project will take us 3 months. With larger organisations, it takes us 6-9 months. When we take on a website design project for a larger organisation, we have to schedule in time in diary, and we take on fewer clients around that time.

The reason we charge more is that you get more of our dedicated time.

2. You need more page designs

All our websites are built from scratch, and we follow a particular process.

The first thing we do is research. We spend time with you figuring out what you need from your website, understanding your brand, your customers, the issues you have with your current website etc.

Once we’ve been through this discovery phase we create a wireframe of the homepage. Once that’s been approved we then design your homepage, and finally, once that’s been approved we move on to building the homepage. We follow this process with every single page on your website that needs an original design.

Larger organisations tend to need a lot more page designs. Not just a homepage, about page and a single service page. Larger organisations sometimes need 10/15/20+ page designs. This is because they tend to offer a wide range of services for a wide range of sectors. This means more time has to go into the project, which is why it costs more.

3. Your website has to serve lots of different people

For larger organisations, a website redesign is not just a way to generate more leads and sales. A website is also a way to make business processes easier and more streamlined. Each team within a large organisation generally has a ‘wish list’ of things they want from a website.

For example, HR might want to make the process of attracting new candidates to the organisation easier. Administrative staff might want the website to do some of the heavy lifting in terms of administrative tasks. The sales team may want an online portal for potential customers to view videos, submit documents, view proposals, etc.

Because each team wants something different from the website, websites for larger organisations usually have more functionality. This all adds to the cost.

4. There’s a lot more integrations/software development

Similar to number three, larger organisations need their website to integrate with lots of different software, for example, relationship management software, apps, internal communication software etc.

We sometimes have to work with software developers too, assisting them in connecting the software to the website.

This all takes extra time.

5. We provide you with a lot more training

One of the main reasons larger companies come to us for a website is, well, they’ve been treated pretty badly before. We’re under no illusion that we’re a pretty unusual choice for a large company – who can have their pick of fancy agencies with big offices, teams of staff and one of those coffee machines we’re super jealous of. Whereas we work from home with our cats, a kettle and a tub of Nescafe Gold Blend.

But all the same, we do attract some large companies and one of the reasons why is because we give them access to the entire website. We don’t force them into contracts where we update their websites for them at an obscene cost. Because, quite frankly, that would bore the hell out of us.

But that does mean we have to provide extra training upfront. A lot of different people in the organisation need to know how to update or access different parts of the website. Marketing wants to delve into the blog, administrative staff want to know how to create intelligent contact forms that send information to specific people in the company, HR wants to see the CVs of potential candidates etc. All that needs explaining.

FYI – Don’t worry, backups mean you can’t break the website. There’s very little you can do to break a website if it’s backed up correctly.

6. There’s often consulting too

Once larger organisations have invested £20/30/40,000 on a website, they often want to know how to get the most out of it too. Makes sense.

So, we often consult on things like SEO, copywriting and content marketing during the project and after it’s live. This all adds to the cost of the website.

7. There’s a lot more content

Larger organisations usually have mammoth websites. There are often thousands of pages, some which need to be culled. This needs to be done carefully and strategically. We don’t want to lose any traffic when the new website is launched, which is why setting up appropriate redirects is important.

The majority of the pages though will need migrating over to the new website. And you may think, ‘oh, this can be done automatically, right?’ Yes and no. If it’s WordPress to WordPress redesign, there is some software that helps you pull over the content from one site to another BUT every single page still needs checking. In our experience, this is never perfect. There’s always missing images or incorrect URLs. This all needs to be fully checked and corrected before the website goes live.

If the original site is not on WordPress then the content will need to be moved over manually, and this is a huge part of the extra cost.

8. We have to consider your ROI

Charging 5k for a website to a company that turns over millions quite frankly does not make sense.  We charge more because you’ll get a lot more in return.

In Conclusion

So there you are. These are the reasons why we charge more for large business/public sector websites. If you work for a large business or public sector company, I hope that’s put your mind at ease. If you’d like more help with choosing a web designer, you can also download our free, totally unbiased, website buyer’s guide below. Of if you have any questions, feel free to ask us on our contact page.

P.s. Do you bid for projects?

We also get asked this a lot. Typically, the answer is no. Although we have done. The reason we generally don’t do it is that it takes up a lot of our time.

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post Why we charge large businesses & public sector organisations more for website redesign appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Martin here from Jammy Digital, where we help business owners like you to make your mark online. If that’s exactly what you want to do, then click on the subscribe button, and then click on the bell icon to get notified, the very next time that we release a video.

WordPress theme problems

So why are we talking about problems with WordPress themes? It may baffle some of you because we actually have a membership where we teach people how to use themes and plugins and all of that good stuff. So why are we releasing a video talking about the problems that you might face?

Well, because you may face problems, no tool out there is 100% perfect. And I wanted to outline the key issues that you’re likely to face if you’re building your own website using a theme. And at the end of the video I’m going to tell you how you can eliminate a lot of these problems. So make sure that you stick around to the end.

1. Your website NEVER looks like the demo theme

Okay problem number one, when you install a WordPress theme from a third party vendor, what’s likely to happen is you’re going to see a really nice theme and you’re going to think this is the theme for me. This is exactly what I want to use on my website. You download it, you maybe even bought a theme, you click on install and nothing. You don’t see that amazing design that sold you that theme in the first place. What you essentially have to do with most themes is actually rebuild that theme again, using their features within the backend of WordPress.

Now this isn’t a very good thing. They sell you on the design, but then you install it and then you have to build it yourself to make it look the same. Well that’s not really what you paid for you want it to just be one click and then it installs all of the sample data. And that does happen on some themes. It does, but not all of them. So you have to waste even more time spending the time, creating the theme, working out what does what, and already you’ve wasted all of this time. And really you just wanted to click a button and have it look like that theme and it just doesn’t happen. So that’s problem number one.

2. WordPress themes are basic

Problem number two is that WordPress themes are quite basic if I’m being honest. So what they usually do is they showcase a really amazing homepage with all of these really nice designs. Maybe they’ve got some sliding stuff down here, maybe they got a nice testimonial section, and then you click through to the about page and the service page and the contact page, and they’re all really basic. They sell you based on a really nice homepage, but we all know as online shoppers and as looking around for online services that you don’t just need a nice homepage you have to click through to other pages when you’re doing your research, you want those pages to be as good as the homepage.

Now with WordPress themes, quite often they focus all of their energy on the homepage and you click through to the other pages and they just don’t look that great. So you’ve essentially installed the theme just for the home page. And that happens a lot. Yes, there are some themes out there that come with really nice different page designs, but it’s not very common. So be on the lookout for that one. That’s problem number two.

3. All WordPress themes are created differently

Problem number three, most WordPress themes are built completely differently. That means you install one theme from this third party provider and it will be different from this theme on this other third party provider. So all of the themes are different. How you edit them is different. You may have spent five years editing one website, you install a brand new theme and it’s completely different. And from the ground up, you’re going to have to learn the ins and outs of that theme and it can be quite tricky. So that’s problem number three, it’s not very adaptable, it’s a lot of time and energy and effort for you to learn how to customise that theme the same way that you have done in previous theme so that’s not very helpful.

4. You’re relying on the theme developer to keep it updated and secure

Problem number four, you’re reliant on the developer of that theme to keep you up to date. So we’ve just been through a major update with WordPress where they released Gutenberg and version five and there are a lot of themes that people were using beforehand that when version five came out, something developers just said, “Nah, we’re not going to update that theme.” And people were left stranded and they’re still using the previous version of WordPress. So that’s a real issue. You may have paid 20, 30, 50, maybe even $100 for this theme, and then 12 months later the developer decides to go and find a job, do something else with their life, and you’re left with this theme that is no longer updated.

If this is your entire business, you know that’s a pretty scary place to be. We’ve had people come to us before that say, “I’ve got this website. Can you help? We’re really stuck because there’s no latest version of the theme and plugins don’t work well with it.” Everything needs to be ideally on one of the later versions so that you don’t have issues with compatibility. And that’s another problem with using WordPress themes.

5. Stuck with the header and footer of your theme

Problem number five when it comes to using a WordPress theme is you’re pretty much stuck with the headers and the footers of the theme. Most of the other things can be changed around and moved around a little bit, but usually the headers and footers are not very adaptable. This is what makes a theme. It’s the headers and the footers. Everything else in between it can kind of be changed, but the headers and footers are there. So you have to check to make sure that the theme that you using has interchangeable headers and footers, and it’s only a small issue for a lot of people, but it matters. It’s a potential problem that you might face.

6. Not enough control over the layout

Now, problem number six is a big one. You do not have much control over the layout of the individual pages. Now this is a theme by theme problem. You may get more access to change the layout of the individual pages on some themes, on others you might be stuck with what you can see. Obviously the more that you pay for a theme, the more functionality it might have, but overall you need to have 100% control over your website and if you don’t, that’s a major issue. So I mean we teach a lot about what you should include on your homepage, what you should include on your about page, your service page, your contact page. This is what we do. And when we give you that advice, you want to go to your website and you actually want to say, “I want to move this up here. I want to delete this thing that’s no longer relevant. I want to add an FAQ here and a gallery here and some testimonials here.”

But chances are if you’re using a theme, you’re going to be restricted in what you can do and how you can make it look. And that’s a real issue. So there you have it, there’s six issues that you could be facing. If you’re trying to install a theme on your website, however you’re not alone. People struggle with WordPress all the time and people struggle with WordPress themes.

WordPress page builders

This is exactly why we do things differently for our clients and for our members. Anyone that’s a part of our membership knows that we actually provide page templates. So we actually recommend that you install a baseline theme, something very, very basic, something that you can have a lot of control over. Something like the Hello Theme by Elementor, something like OceanWP, Astra. These are all very, very basic themes that you have more control over. So they might not look great, fresh out the box, but actually what we recommend is that you plug in a page builder, something like Elementor or Beaver Builder, one of the page builders where you can actually have control over the design itself and that’s exactly what we teach you how to do in our membership MakeYourMarkOnline.net

We guide you through the steps and tell you exactly what you should be including on your homepage and your service page and your about page and all of the other pages on your website. And then we give you the tools in order to do it. Here’s exactly how to do it as well. So you’re not stuck relying on a WordPress theme that you paid $50 for 12 months ago in the hopes that your WordPress developer or the developer who designed it to build that theme is not going to run away and have a trip around the world and you’re stuck with this outdated theme that breaks your websites. The worst thing in the world, and there are lots of other problems, we’ve seen that with WordPress themes. Take back control of your website, make sure that you have access to change the layout, add features that you want. And again, don’t get trapped in the WordPress theme cycle of just swapping your theme out because it doesn’t work. Swap for another theme. You need control over it. And like I said, that’s exactly what we teach you how to do in the membership. MakeyourMarkOnline.net.

What now? How else can you improve your website?

If you found this video useful, then you’re going to love this. We’ve created a 54 point checklist that goes through loads of different things that you can do in order to improve your website, even more than what we’ve been talking about in this video today. So go to jammydigital.com/54ways, and get access to our very own, brand new checklist.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Biggest Problems with WordPress Themes appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

The good news is that there are tools you can use to help you grow your business and website The bad news is that researching, reading reviews, and testing out different products can take a long time. And it can hold your business back.

Luckily, we’ve tried everything! And in this post, we share six areas that will help you improve your website and grow your business. And for each area, we give you a list of tried and tested tools that we’re happy to recommend, so you can spend less time researching and more time growing your business.

Some of these links are referral links that we earn money for or awards. In all honesty, this does not bring us a lot of dough – enough to buy cat treats. And we wouldn’t recommend anything that we don’t use ourselves. We’ll let you know if it’s a referral link you’re clicking on.

1. Creating high-quality imagery and graphic

If you want your website to look professional, you have to use great photos, images, and graphics. If you’re planning a photoshoot for your website, you might enjoy our podcast episode How to prepare for a photoshoot for your website.

But having professional photos of yourself might not be enough. Sometimes you need to add text over an image or re-size it to fit in a certain area of your website. And unless you’re a skilled graphic designer (or have one you can call on a regular basis), you might need to use photo editing software.

Canva

A tool we always recommend is Canva (if you sign up, we get awards and stuff). It has a free version with a lot of functionality, and a paid-for version you might want to upgrade to if you need to. It’s much easier to use (and much cheaper) than Photoshop. And it’s perfect if you want to create images for your blog posts, for example. You can easily overlay text onto existing photos or simply add nice graphics to your website to make your pages look more interesting.

Placeit

Another tool we use regularly is Placeit. Placeit allows you to take a screenshot of something – an eBook cover, for example – and place it onto a device like an iPhone, an iPad, or a laptop. So if you want to create the mock-up for a downloadable PDF or lead magnet, you can create a professional-looking, tangible product in minutes. At the time of writing, you can subscribe to Placeit for about $29 a month and get unlimited downloads.

Deposit Photos

When it comes to stock images and photos, our go-to website is Deposit Photos (referral link) We know, we know, we do tell people not to fill their websites with cheesy stock images, but sometimes, a stock image is a necessity.

2. Videos 

Video is a great tool to improve user experience and build trust with your audience. But it’s also great to improve your SEO efforts, as when watching videos, your users spend longer on the page. And this tells Google and the other search engines that your content is worth consuming.

There are different ways you can use video on your website – you may want to record yourself talking to the camera or do presentations, for example. But whatever you decide to do, where can you host the videos?

YouTube

The obvious choice is YouTube. It’s free, and it’s incredibly easy to set up. You just create an account, upload your videos, and you’re done.

However, you need to be aware of the fact that after playing your videos, YouTube will advertise other content that may or may not be appropriate or relevant to your audience or your business. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But just bear in mind that you’re not fully in control of the user experience you’re providing through your website.

Loom

We love loom! If anyone has a question in our membership about, well, anything, we hit the loom button which starts recording our screens and us immediately. To see an example of how Loom works, watch below…

Vimeo

A great alternative to YouTube is Vimeo. They have a free plan, which only allows you to upload a small number of videos per week. If you need more, their cheapest plan is quite affordable at £6 per month at the time of writing. Unlike YouTube, Vimeo won’t advertise other content.

Wistia

Another tool we’ve been using, which offers professional, attractive designs is Wistia. At the time of writing, it’s $99 a month for about 10 videos, which is a lot more than what we originally paid for a few years ago.

The tool certainly comes with a higher price tag. But if you have the budget, if video plays a huge part in your business, and if you require the professional look this software offers, Wistia gives you an extra edge.

3. Email marketing

Another tool you might need to integrate with your website when growing your business is an email marketing tool. Companies like MailChimp or ConvertKit allow you to build a database of customers by capturing contact information for people who visit your website. Through email marketing, you can build better relationships with your customers (or potential customers) and contact them and market to them on a regular basis.

But which one is right for you?

MailChimp

You can have a free account with MailChimp for your first 2,000 subscribers. The functionality of the free version is limited. But if you’re just starting out with email marketing, the software probably has everything you need.

ConvertKit

We now use ConvertKit, which, at the time of writing, comes with a $29 a month price tag. Their interface is modern, clean, and very easy to use. It enables us to group our subscribers into lists. So we know whether people might be interested in a website redesign, in joining our membership, or having a website critique, for example. Plus, with our plan, we get additional support from ConvertKit, which is always handy.

Keap (used to be Infusionsoft)

Another piece of software that a lot of online marketers recommend is Keap, which used to be known as Infusionsoft. Plans start at around $99 a month at the time of writing. So it’s quite an expensive tool if you’re just starting out, have a small number of subscribers on your list, and don’t need access to complex functionality. The software is definitely more sophisticated, so if you need to set up complicated marketing funnels, it might be the one for you.

4. Website design

Another important element to consider when taking your business to the next level is design. At some point, you might need more control over the design elements of your website, even if you had your website professionally designed. And for this,  you might want to consider using a page builder.

Page builders allow you to build on an existing theme or template and with drag-and-drop functionality. You can add or amend design features in minutes, especially if you don’t know any coding and feel that what’s the standard WordPress editor functionality may be too basic and bland.

We don’t normally, but a lot of website designers use page builders nowadays. With a page builder, you can literally create design elements and templates in minutes. And the added advantage is that the website owner can then use the same page builder and continue to make changes themselves.

We shared more information about page builders over on our post How much does it cost to build your WordPress website? If you’re interested, go check it out!

Elementor

Elementor (affiliate link) is the page builder we recommend to all our members inside the Make Your Mark Online membership. It has a free version with basic features, but the Premium version will give you everything you’ll ever need. With just a bit of practice, you can add pricing tables, testimonials, quotes, and create attractive pages in a matter of minutes.

Other alternatives to Elementor are:

• Thrive Themes, which starts at around $67 per year at the time of writing.
• And Beaver Builder. This is a more advanced page builder (with a steeper learning curve) and is used by a lot of developers.

5. Taking bookings on your website 

Do you want to start taking bookings through your website? A tool a lot of our clients use is Calendly. It allows you to set up your diary, block times out, and allocate times to certain appointments, so your prospective clients can book directly into the tool.

If you run discovery calls, coaching calls, or other consultancy appointments, you can manage your diary without having to go back and forth exchanging endless emails with your clients. If you upgrade to the paid-for version, you can then set up different types of appointments with different durations and take payments through your website. We use a similar tool called Acuity Scheduling.

Alternatively, you can install a booking plugin onto your website and integrate it with a payment provider like PayPal or Stripe. A popular online booking and scheduling plugin that comes highly recommended is Bookly.

6. Taking payments on your website

And last but not least, if you’re a service-based business and need a way to take payments through your website for online programmes, courses, or memberships, for example, you can set up products on your website for your services or packages. You then sell them in the same way you would on an eCommerce website that sells physical products.

If you want to see an example of this, check out our Website Critique service on our website. When you buy the product directly from our website, you get an email confirmation of booking and payment, and within 7 days, you get the actual video with the critique. And an invoice is automatically generated, so you don’t have to remember to do this manually.

PayPal and Stripe

When it comes to payment providers, the most popular options are PayPal and Stripe. If you have a PayPal account, you can set up a ‘Pay Now’ button on your website in minutes. Stripe is also easy to use and has cheaper fees than PayPal. Just make sure you have an SSL certificate installed on your website that allows you to capture customer card details.

Other payment providers

If you’re looking for something with more functionality, another option is Sam Cart, a shopping cart system that processes customer transactions on their website. And they have awesome checkout pages!

We use a tool called Thrive Cart, which, with an upfront fee of approximately £500 is quite expensive. But it allows us to set up quick sales pages, send people the link, and take payments via credit or debit card. So if you don’t want to use PayPal or Stripe or add buttons to your website, Thrive Cart is a solid, robust tool that ensures your customers’ data is secure.

And finally, you can install a shopping cart plugin to your website, like WooCommerce, which allows you to set up virtual products through your website shop.

Would you like us to help you with your website? 

If you’re ready to improve the experience you provide to your existing and prospective customers and position yourself as an expert in your field, we have plenty more advice and tips to share with you! if you’re after a WordPress website that ranks, gets you traffic, and delivers you more sales, we’ve got what you need.

It’s time you stop faffing about with your website and make changes that will help you close more sales. If this sounds like music to your ears, come and check out our signature membership, Make Your Mark Online. With our easy-to-use and edit page templates, our video courses, our weekly live Q&A and a private Slack group, we’re here to help you get results through your website. Come and check it out!

Martin & Lyndsay

The post The best website tools we use to help save time and money appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Martin here from Jammy Digital, where we help business owners like you to make your mark online. If that’s exactly what you want to do, then click on the subscribe button, and then click on the bell icon to get notified, the very next time that we release a video.

Most common website mistake

So what is this big mistake that we talk about? Well, we’ve reviewed hundreds of websites, maybe even thousands of websites over the years, and we see the same mistake happening over and over again. And this one thing is the reason that so many websites fail. So you could be out there, and you could be promoting your business on social media. You could be going out to networking events, or maybe even spending some money on advertising. But when that visitor reaches your website, they’re not converting into a lead, or an email subscriber. They’re just not interested. You might not even be getting the visitors that you need.

Why do websites fail?

And this one mistake will stop you in your tracks, and stop the customer in their tracks as well. And this one thing is, you treat your website like an online business card. Essentially what you’re doing, is you’re saying, “We’re really awesome. Come and work with us. Here are all our services. Goodbye.” That’s what you’re essentially saying. You’re in sales mode, and people just don’t like being sold to. That’s the top and bottom of it. You wouldn’t like it either, if you went into a shop and the first thing somebody did, was try to sell to you, that is what you’re doing on your website, when you have things like, hire us, buy now, get in touch. Without actually giving some value and some trust upfront, what you’re essentially doing is saying, come and see how good I look, which is not going to deliver leads and sales.

How to fix your website if you are making this mistake

So what can you do instead? What you should do instead, is treat your website as a customer service tool. There’s a few different things that you can do.

Treat your website as a customer service tool

You can change your language. So rather than actually have your services right there in black and white, like we offer editing and proofreading services, why not switch it around, and put the emphasis on your visitor? Like, are you struggling to get your book finished? We might be able to help. You’re showing that little bit of empathy, and people will stick around a little bit longer. Yes, that’s me. I’m struggling to get my book finished. What can I do? That’s the first thing that you could do that could potentially lead to a sale.

Focus on the problems you solve

Another thing you could do is to focus on the problems that you solve, the problems that you help your visitor solve. So on the about page for instance, don’t just talk about you and when you graduated, nobody cares about that. Talk about, these are the issues that most of our customers face, and here’s how we can help. Yes, have a little bit of information about yourself. People want to know who you are, and what you do, and where you came from. But ultimately they care more about their problems. So where possible, always try to say about us, and how we can help. That’s a great way to write an about page, for instance. About us, and how we can help. And you reframe your mind to say, we know you don’t care about us, but you only care about us enough to be able to verify that we know what we’re talking about. Everything else should be focused on, you’re struggling to get your book finished.

You’re struggling to get a deadline in the diary. You’re struggling to get this off to your publisher. Whatever the issue may be, you can absolutely reposition it, and talk about the problems that you help people solve.

Deliver helpful content…consistently

Another thing you can do is create helpful content. People will find you online more if you create helpful content. They’ll find you in search engines. They’ll share content that you’ve created. If you help someone get off the starting block, then they may well eventually hire you later on down the line. Too many business owners just hold back all of their knowledge in the hopes that people will hire them. You need to use your website as a customer service tool, to build that trust element, and eventually when that customer is ready to buy from you, who are they going to go to?

When they’re ready to invest money, are they going to go to some randomer, who doesn’t offer helpful content, who doesn’t talk to their problems that they’re facing, who only talks about themselves? No, they’re going to hire you, because you’ve spent the time showing that empathy, creating a website that’s more of a customer service tool, rather than an online business card. And that’s the number one mistake that people make, and hopefully now you’ve got some ideas on how you can prevent that from happening to you.

What now? How else can you improve your website?

If you found this video useful, then you’re going to love this. We’ve created a 54 point checklist that goes through loads of different things that you can do in order to improve your website, even more than what we’ve been talking about in this video today. So go to jammydigital.com/54ways, and get access to our very own, brand new checklist.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Most Common Mistake Most Websites Make appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

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Up until 2017, we did nothing to market our business.

Instead, we relied on referrals.

But when you only rely on referrals to fuel your business, you will hit problems.

In this podcast episode, we’re going to tell you…

• Why referrals are bad for business
• The bad things that can happen when you rely on referrals
• What to do instead of relying on referrals
• How to turn a referral into an ‘ideal’ client

Resources

Make Your Mark Online Membership 

Jammy’s Content Planner

Facebook Group

Website Buyer’s Guide

Time Stamps If You’re In a Rush!

1.03 – Why are referrals bad for business?

1.52 – You don’t know who they are

2.41 – Are they the right fit?

3.39 – Combat this through content

5.07 – Don’t shut down a referral

7.02 – How we can help you plan content

7.41 – Why your business stays still when you rely on referrals

9.34 – The benefits of actively marketing vs referrals

10.56 – The importance of being able to pivot

Transcript

Welcome to the Make Your Mark online podcast where we help personal brands build and grow a successful business website. Please welcome your host, husband and wife team, Martin & Lyndsay.
Welcome to Episode 39 and series three of the Make Your Mark online podcast. Today we’re going to be talking about why referrals are bad for business.
Now this season, I will be running the podcast myself – myself being Lyndsay, just in case you weren’t quite sure which one was which on that one. And Martin is going to be doing lots of video. So I’m going to be focusing on the podcast at the same time. This actually suits us really well and because it kind of plays to our strengths. So we’re both very excited to have our own little individual projects here.
So before I get into the episode, I just want to say that the show is sponsored by the Make Your Mark online at community. This is our signature community where we help small business owners build and grow a small Successful website. So let’s get on with the show.
So why referrals are bad for business? Now, this can be kind of a controversial thing to say because we all feel good when someone recommends us right? And I know I feel really good when someone says good things about me like the guys at Jammy digital are great and they make great websites. That makes me feel really good. And it’ll probably make you feel really good too, when you know other people actually recommend you or previous clients or people that have come across you before actually recommend you to others.
But in this podcast episode, I’m going to tell you why that’s bad. And we for very long time actually, before 2017 we relied solely on referrals to our business, and then we switched. I’m going to tell you why that happened. And I’m also going to explain to you kind of what the benefits were as well.
So firstly, why is it bad to actually have referrals coming to your business. So one of the main issues with having referrals come to your business is that you don’t know who they are. You don’t have a clue who this person actually is. And I’m going to refer to it kind of using a dating analogy. So it’s kind of like your mum saying, you know, I’m going to set you up with Tony from accounts or Jane from accounts. And you’re thinking…
yeah, I don’t know who Tony or Jane is. They they might be super nice people, we might connect we, you know, it might just be a fluke, we might get married. Or they could be really creepy. They could have a weird doll collection, you know, you never know they could be a serial killer, you don’t know.
And it’s kind of the same referrals, you know, people keep referring these people to you, and you don’t have a clue who they are. And you don’t know whether they’re the right fit for you. You know, you could be perfect, you could work together really well, or you don’t know whether they’re completely the wrong fit. And you know, everything could go kind of wrong. And, and that’s because they’ve been referred to you. So they don’t know anything about your business and how you operate and who you are, and you don’t know anything about them and what their expectations are. And that’s a huge, huge problem. And because, you know, they may not understand what your processes, they may not be willing to pay what you charge, and they may not understand, you know, what’s expected of them through through the whole thing.
You know, there’s lots and lots of things that that they won’t know, and, and that you don’t know how they’re going to react to. So there’s a big there’s a big problem there.
Now, to combat that, we started content marketing, in 2017. And we kind of go on about this being the the the life changing thing, not even the business changing thing, but the life changing thing that happened to us. And it actually was, and we always say, and it sounds super cheesy, but it was it was life changing for us because of when we started content marketing about things that people would ask us, you know, clients and potential clients would ask us things like, how much do you charge? Why are you so expensive? Why are you so cheap? We’ve had that one before. And what’s what’s the process? How long did the project take? Why does it take longer than than you think it’s going to take? You know, why should I work with you? What’s wrong with you? We actually blogged about all of these things. So that when someone comes to our website and finds us naturally, they gain all the information they need to decide whether we’re the right fit for them, or whether they’re like, nope, these people are really weird, I’m going to go somewhere else.
So they actually make that decision for themselves by being informed by our content. That gives them the power and then when they come to us, they’re likely to be a really, really good fit for our business. S
o the problem is, obviously whenever a referral comes to you is they haven’t seen that content. They haven’t seen you. They might have not even been on your website, they might have not even heard of you before. They don’t know how you work, and you don’t know how they work as well.
So I’m not saying this point, what you need to do is when you get a referral, is just say no, go away. I don’t want to speak to you. We don’t want that, obviously. But equally, we don’t want to just, you know, dive into this relationship straight away and start working with someone when we don’t know what they like.
So what we do is when we get a referral, actually, when we get any kind of person who contacts or someone wants to know more information about our website project, who wants to get on a call with us, we say that sounds great! We cannot wait to learn more about your business, which we genuinely can’t, and and the project. And first off before we actually jump on a call, here are three and four pieces of content that you might not have seen from us haven’t read over them. Then we’re going to jump on a call you’re going to ask us any questions that you have. And these pieces of content are usually things like you know how much we charge for our website. This is our process, and you know how long the project takes. And we also have a website Buyer’s Guide thrown in there as well, which teaches people how to actually sort of buy a website. And it’s completely unbiased. And so we give people these pieces of content because, particularly with referrals, if they’ve not come across this before, that’s their opportunity to learn more about us learn about how we work, and then again, go back to the point where they’re like, these guys are weird. We don’t want to work with them.
Or they might be like, we like the look of these – let’s work with them. And that’s great. And then we jump on a call. And we know by that time that we’ve jumped on a call that, they’ve gone through our content marketing, and they’ve still kind of committed to that process in some sort of way.
And so that works really, really well so we’re not saying you know, when you get referral through just completely shut it down. And that would be that’d be quite rude and mean, but you know, use your content marketing still educate and inform people of how you work and then if they still don’t work with you, then they can do.
And if you actually need help with planning this kind of content, and we have something called our content marketing planner, which we created, and which will tell you the type of content that you should be producing, and in order to educate and inform people properly, but also to actually increase sales and leads to your business, and it’s actually a really, really good planner, which helps you plan all that out, by your products and services. So you actually go off your products, services and plan copy content for each of those products and services that you offer. So it’s really really cool. And and I recommend that you download that is completely free to anyone who downloads it and I’ll pop it in the show notes as well.
So I’m just going to go into the second reason why you shouldn’t rely on referrals for your business. And that is because you won’t grow your business if you rely on referrals. Now it sounds obvious, but pre 2017 old we did we didn’t do any marketing that was no content, marketing, social media marketing, any of that. We just relied on referrals. And so past clients saying, you know, this, someone I, you know, I had my website built with these guys, you should have your website built with these guys. And that was kind of fine. You know, we kind of bumbling along we got the same amount of money, the same kind of clients, we did the same thing every day.
Until we realized, actually, we’re not growing our business. So when you do this, when you rely on referrals, your business stays still. It doesn’t develop, it doesn’t get any better, doesn’t get any worse. It just kind of stays the still stay stagnant. And, and this is fine when things are going good. But you have to think about, okay, in six months time or in a year time or whatever it might be, you know, do you still want to be doing the same thing?
Firstly, and what happens if those referrals dry up? That’s you know, it’s a major, major problem with those referrals dry up, you’re kind of left stranded, you haven’t got any leads in the pipeline, you’re kind of stuck, so when relying on referrals your business sort of stops – it still doesn’t go anywhere. You don’t get any website traffic, you don’t get any email subscribers, you don’t get any extra leads and sales, you don’t build your personal brand, and and that means yeah, you don’t have a pipeline of leads and you’re stuck doing what you’ve always done.
You you can’t increase your prices, you know if someone says oh, Jammy Digital designed my website for a grand and you know, you can do the same. We can’t then turn around to then go actually it’s two grand now or three grand or four grand or like five grand is what we what we charge now.
You know, so it’s it’s very, very difficult actually doing that your business remains still. But when you actively start marketing and in particular content marketing, then you can charge more for your services because you’re, you’re telling people you know, this is how much I charge and then they’re going through your content marketing and that they’re getting in touch with you knowing how much you charge. You can select who you want to work with, you know, things like our article on who will not be th right fit, actually, you know, repels people who aren’t the right fit for our business, you become a leader in your industry.
You know, if you write a lot of content, if you become kind of the leader in your industry of answering people’s questions about your particular products and services, then people aren’t going to view that if you that way, they are going to trust you and see you as an authority.
And you can even pivot so what we found was by content marketing by building our email list by doing more marketing by doing more to promote our business, we able to build you know a base of people and who I am will basically you know, they they invest in us and and they like working with us, and whatever kind of products or services that we offer, they will they will look at those and then they will work with us and they then they’ll probably buy them from us just because they know that we know what we’re talking about. They’ve they’ve dealt with us before
The’re constantly coming back to us – reading and consuming content, they trust us. And so we could able to pivot and that’s why we introduced our, our membership. In 2018, we introduced our making mark on my membership, which was aimed at people who were wanting to build a websites and what we’re struggling with it. And it’s just kind of struggling to grow it and not really knowing what to do with it, it’s just kind of sitting there like a billboard, and it’s not actually doing anything. And we actually launched that product. And we were able to do that because we built such a base to begin with.
So remember you you might not be offering the service or product that you do forever. So you need something now you need a backup of people that are you know, invested in you that know you know what you’re talking about that trust you where you can go actually, guys, I’ve got this new product, this new thing coming out, I think it’s going to really benefit you. And they will happily give you their money because they know of the value that you offer.
So those are the major reasons why you shouldn’t rely on referrals. And as I said before, I’m not Saying shut the referrals down before anyone starts thinking okay, well, I’m just gonna say no referrals. And equally you know, if you referring people to us yeah, we still accept those. Thank you. And it’s just about thinking carefully about it. It’s about being aware, okay, this person coming in, it’s great. It’s really nice. I like it.
It’s an added bonus. That’s what you should treat referrals as – an added bonus to your business. But it isn’t your isn’t the lifeline of your business. It shouldn’t be the blood pumping to your business. Definitely not. And should be an added bonus and you should still get that person before you let them into your business. You know, you should still get them to read your content, consume, consume your content, see if they’re the right fit for you. That’s really, really important. Otherwise, you might head to problems down the line.
So I hope you enjoyed this episode. It is a little controversial one but I hope that you found it useful. Going from relying on referrals to going it alone is scary, but if you do it right, you will find that you won’t need to realize referrals. And actually, you prefer to get clients kind of finding you naturally rather than were being referred to you. And I’m community, we are actually launching a 90 day Content Marketing Challenge on Monday the 13th of January. And that will help our members do just that. It’s a simple challenge, you just need to produce one piece of content every week for 90 days. And we provide personalized weekly feedback via kind of live video on that content too. So you write a piece of content or you record a video or podcast episode, and then we’ll tell you exactly how to improve it for conversions or SEO or, you know, the headline or the copy and things that we’re really excited about to actually start it. And so you’ll be able to attract better people to your business naturally, and you know, be able to actually work with the people that you want to work with. So if that sounds like something that you’d be interested in, head over to Make Your Mark online.net find out more and that’s it for today’s as episode we’ll see you next time on The Make Your Mark online podcast.

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post Ep 39 – Why referrals are bad for business appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

And we find this really sad because we have friends who are great web designers and who are constantly looking at ways to improve their clients’ websites. Yet, so many business owners have horrible experiences with web design. Does it mean the industry is full of ‘bad agencies’?

Probably not.

It’s more to do with the fact that business owners struggle to find the right web design agency for their needs. 

And sadly, that’s why this industry has such a bad reputation. It’s easy to hire an agency because of their ‘wow factor’. We make buying decisions based on their glossy website and fancy offices.

But what if the big agency with the comfy chairs and the shiny coffee machine isn’t the right fit for your business?

Why we aren’t right for some people

Not all web designers are clear about who their ideal clients are, and that doesn’t help consumers who are looking to make an informed choice and pick an agency that works for them!

That’s why we’re so passionate about using our copy and our content to spell out who we’re right for and who we’re not right for. Take this blog post – 10 Reasons We’re Not the Right Fit For You, as an example.

We’re probably a ‘bad agency’ for some people. If someone isn’t prepared to work on their website once it’s live and expects us to write copy and blog posts, change images for them, etc. then we’re not for them.

Because that’s not what we do.

And that makes us a bad choice for that particular client.

As an agency, we are right for people who are quite proactive, want to learn, don’t mind getting their hands dirty and are happy for us to provide them with remote support through training videos and emails. We’re the perfect agency for some people, and a terrible agency for others.

Why big web design agencies aren’t right for some people

Equally, a big agency with an amazing portfolio who will charge tens of thousands of pounds might not be right for someone with a small local business.

To give you an example, we once spoke to a florist who had her website designed by a big agency who worked with the likes of the BBC and Cadbury. They were industry leaders. And of course, this lady’s website turned out to be amazing (and very expensive!).

But in hindsight, she told us she’d have rather hired a freelance web designer because all she needed was a great-looking website that ranked her locally for her keywords. And the agency she hired didn’t help with that – they were almost too big for her business and her needs.

If you’re a small business (with a smaller budget), you’re better off hiring a web designer who cares about your business and will take the time to ask you exactly what you want to achieve with your website.

So, if you’re in the market for a new website or a website re-design, how do you know which web design agency is right for you?

How to Find the Right Agency For You

1. Be clear on what you need from your website

First of all, what kind of support do you expect from a web design agency? Do you want to work with a big fancy agency or a local freelancer?

Both are fine. There’s no right or wrong here – as long as you understand the differences between the various options and the pros and cons of each.

So start by identifying what’s important to you, for example,

• Do you want to rank highly in search results? Then you need an agency with SEO knowledge.
• Are you a luxury brand, and do you need your website to be all about the design? Then find an agency that fits the bill for that, with previous experience of dealing with luxury designers
• Are you a total technophobe and would find it helpful to have lots of face-to-face time with a web designer? A local freelancer might be best for you.

If you want some help in identifying your needs when it comes to creating or re-designing your website, download our FREE Website Buyer’s Guide. It’s an impartial guide that we created to help you find a web designer that’s right for you.

And if you want to hear about the time when we made a bad buying decision by hiring a designer who wasn’t right for us, listen to our podcast episode: Why our first website failed miserably!

But what other signs should you watch out for before you go ahead and hire a web design agency?

2. Stay clear of web agencies with a bad website

This sounds quite obvious, but an agency with a bad website probably won’t be right for you!

So don’t hire them! Even if you’re friends or if someone you know recommended them to you because they are friends! (Or even family!). If their website isn’t great, chances are they won’t know how to design a great one for you.

3. Make sure you are given access to the backend of your website

You need to have access to the backend of your website.

So before you hire anyone, make sure that the agency gives you full access to the backend (or Content Management System) of your website.

Even if you’re not yet sure how to navigate your way around it, you can always learn. And having access will definitely work better (and be cheaper) for you in the long run. You just don’t want to be in a situation where your web designer quotes you a ridiculous amount of money whenever you have to make a tiny change to your website!

If that happens, you’ll be angry. And you’d have a right to be!

4. Watch out for the web designers who use a lot of jargon

So you’ve been researching web design agencies, and their websites are full of talk about HTML, CSS, and PHP.

Great.

You conclude that having a website is technical and confusing, so you’re better off just handing it all over to these guys who sound like they know what they’re talking about.

Stay. Away. From. them.

They might (or might not) know how to build websites. But their copy is telling something else – they have no respect for you. Because they choose to ‘explain’ things in a way that makes no sense to you!

And you know what?

There’s no need to use jargony language at all – we don’t do it! Just have a look at our website, we’re not writing to impress our peers or confuse you, we try to explain things in a way that’s easy to understand.

We have no interest in wasting precious space on our website using words that mean nothing to our prospective clients. For us, it’s a missed opportunity to connect with our visitors and tell them exactly who we’re right for and who we’re not right for.

5. Beware of those who don’t want to show their face

Have you ever noticed how a lot of businesses seem to hide behind their website and never show their face? We call them hermits. And we feel so passionate about this that we even wrote a blog post a while ago called Show us your face.

We always recommend to website owners that you use professional images of yourself on your website as it helps you to build trust and authority with your audience. You can read more about this in our blog post What is the B.R.A.N.D. website framework.

Think about it. As a consumer, don’t you find it difficult to make a buying decision when you can’t see the person you’re going to be working with?

We find this very off-putting. Why hide? What’s so bad about being able to put a face to a name?

Of course, not having photos of themselves on their website doesn’t mean a web designer isn’t good. Maybe, just like a lot of business owners out there, they’re a bit shy about putting photos of themselves on their website. That’s all.

Just beware of this and do some more research to make sure you’re clear on who you’re hiring for the job.

6. Big or small doesn’t matter, as long as they meet your needs

Equally, we’ve seen plenty of examples of people who started their business from their kitchen table (nothing wrong with that!) who then went on to plaster their websites with stock images of shiny offices and big teams – essentially making themselves look much bigger than what they are.

There’s no need for that. And most people are genuine and honest about who they are and who they’re not, but not everyone is, so just be careful.

If you need a huge company or even just a team, don’t get caught out by one guy in his basement trying to be all things!

7. Stay away from obscure Content Management Systems

What will your web designer build your website on?

You may have heard of WordPress, Magento, Shopify, or Joomla, for example. These are common Content Management Systems.

So if the web designers you’re thinking of hiring use a specialist and obscure Content Management System you haven’t heard of before, do some more research! You don’t want to be in a situation where you’re fully reliant on your agency to support you.

The reason why we only use WordPress is that it’s the most popular and well-trusted Content Mangement System. If you need help with something and for some reason, we’re not immediately available, you can still find answers and resources on the internet. But if your website is built on a rare platform, you may struggle with that!

8. Avoid a web designer with a questionable portfolio

One of the first things we suggest you do when researching web designers is to look at their portfolio to get a sense for:

• what level they’re working at,
• what kind of websites they’re designing,
• and what kind of industries they specialise in.

A word of warning on this though.

If the web designers you’re considering tick a lot of boxes, but you’re not convinced about their portfolio, get in touch and ask them for more examples of their work.

We know from personal experience that keeping your portfolio up to date is time-consuming – we have a lot of websites we’ve built over the last few months that don’t feature on our site because we haven’t had time to add them. So do reach out to a prospective web designer if you want to see more of their work – they’ll be happy to oblige.

9. Watch out for web designers who don’t offer a discovery phase

If an agency or a freelancer doesn’t factor in how they’re going to find out more about:

• your business,
• your target audience,
• what you want to achieve from your website,
• and what kind of goals you have for your business,

stay well clear!

We have what we call a ‘discovery phase’ where we delve into all our new clients’ businesses. We get to know a lot about them during this process, and it’s the only way we get to design a great website for somebody.

So if a web designer doesn’t offer this service, consider this a warning sign that they aren’t invested in your business.

The price you pay will have a lot to do with this too. The agency you hire for £500 might not even know what a discovery phase is. And in a way, that’s understandable – the price tag doesn’t cover for that! But the agency that charges £5,000+ should get to know you as a vital element to the web design process.

10. Be wary of the agency that doesn’t put their prices on their website

We are huge believers in putting prices on your website.

Yes, projects and requirements vary and so do prices. That’s why we use a minimum package price on our websitethat our potential clients can use as an indicator. We even publicly write about the process we use to come up with our prices! Head over to our blog post Why We’re Increasing Our Web Design Prices to find out more.

But a lot of web designers won’t display prices on their website.

And while that’s not in itself an indicator of a bad web designer, you’ll want to get a quote quite early on in your research. The worst thing any business can do is to make you jump through hoops to find out their prices. What happens when you find out that the price is way over your budget? What a waste of your time (and theirs)!

So stay away from anyone who’s putting pressure on you to have several discovery calls before they give you a quote! They’re probably trying to make you feel so invested in the process that you won’t be able to say no to them. It’s an old-school sales technique that no longer works. And frankly, it shows that the other person doesn’t respect your time.

So how exactly do you find someone who’s right for you?

We’ve given you a lot of pointers to avoid picking the wrong web design agency for your needs. But how do you find one that is good for you?

Ultimately, and above everything else we’ve mentioned, look for someone who:

• cares about helping you move your business forward,
• you can trust and connect with,
• you see yourself having a good working relationship with.

We find this always happens with our clients. We get so close to their business that we end up getting to know them really well. And that’s both a pleasure and an honour.

Would you like us to help you with your website?

We are passionate about helping business owners build and grow successful websites. We also understand that people might have questions and concerns as they get into this process for the first time. Or maybe because they’ve had an awful experience in the past!

• That’s why we don’t use code or jargon.
• That’s why we are open and honest about the type of web agency we are.
• We are transparent about the type of clients that are right for us and those who aren’t.
• And that’s why we publish our prices on our website.

We want people to be able to make informed decisions.

So if you’re looking for a web design agency who cares about your needs and your business, and you think we may be right for you, get in touch!

Martin & Lyndsay

The post How to Avoid Hiring a Bad Web Design Agency appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

You do that with a Big, Bold Statement.

Often called your ‘Value Proposition’ or ‘You statement’, the Big, Bold Statement is what it says on the tin. It’s the big, bold message you publish on your website for your visitors to see. It defines exactly what you do so your users know they’re in the right place.

Why is it important to have a Big, Bold Statement on your website?

We review a lot of websites in our FREE Facebook group. And one of the main issues we come across is that business owners find it really difficult to explain what they do.

It’s important to remember that your visitors (i.e. your potential customers and clients) won’t initially be spending a lot of time on your website. You only have 3 to 4 seconds to make an impression!

So you need a clear, defining Big, Bold Statement that helps them work out:

• where they are,
• what services you offer,
• whether you have the solution to their problem,
• and whether they should stay or hit the back button!

So your job is to make who you are and what you do abundantly clear to your website visitors. Explain it so clearly that a 5-year-old would get it.

Seriously.

Don’t make your web visitors spend any brain calories trying to work out what you do. It’s not a puzzle. And they don’t win a prize. So don’t be vague or fluffy with your Big, Bold Statement!

Where should the Big, Bold Statement go on your website and how long should it be? 

Your Big, Bold Statement only needs to be a few words long – 10-15 words at the most. That’s because people need to immediately, at a glance, be able to understand what you do.

And it should sit in the top third of your website.

This section of your website is also referred to as:

• ‘above the fold’,
• ‘the top third’ or ‘the first third’,
• the ‘slider section’,
• or the ‘feature area’.

We call it the hero section. And it’s the first thing you see when you get onto any website before you have to scroll down the page to see the rest.

That’s where you want your Big, Bold Statement to go.

So how do you put together a Big, Bold Statement?

Here are 9 ways to help you do just that.

1) Ask a Question

This method works no matter what industry or business you’re in, but let’s use an example to explain what we mean.

Let’s say you’re a speaking coach – you help people with their presentations and with speaking on stage.

If you use the question method, your Big, Bold Statement could be something like:

Does the thought of public speaking make you want to cry?

Your question immediately draws your website visitors in. By asking it, you’re telling your audience you understand the issue they’re facing, and at the same time, you’re illustrating what you do.

When coming up with the question to ask, speak directly to your visitors – remember that it’s about them.

Ask the question you know your ideal customers have been asking themselves. You want them to nod in agreement as they read it.

2) State a Promise

Can you make your ideal customers or clients a promise? Going back to our speaking coach example, you could use:

Feel more confident on stage in five weeks or less.

or even,

The only speaking course you’ll ever need.

Now, that is a promise.

It’s Big, and it’s Bold.

It allows you to explain what you do by promising something to your visitors. It’s your way of standing your ground as the expert you are.

Just be mindful of not falling into the trap of using fluffy marketing lingo though! One of the biggest mistakes we see people make with their Big, Bold Statement is that the language is too vague.

“I can make you prosper.”

is a promise. But it doesn’t tell your readers the first thing about what it is you help them with!

3) Use your Unique Identifier

What makes you unique? Do you have a niche? A Unique Selling Point, or USP? Something that allows you to differentiate yourself from your competitors and specifically describes your products and services?

Then find that ‘thing’ and feature it in your Big, Bold Statement.

Say, for example, that you have your own methods of teaching people. Your Big, Bold Statement could be something along the lines of:

I am the creator of the seven-minute speaking formula.

This doesn’t just tell your visitors what you do. It also gives you a valuable edge that makes your people perk up and listen.

4) Create a Power Statement

This is the type of Big, Bold Statement we use on our own website.

Make your mark online.

This is our Power Statement, and (in case you hadn’t noticed) it’s also the name of our podcast and our membership!

Underneath that, we’ve added a ‘supporting statement’ that reads:

a website you can be proud of.

Let’s break it down for a second.

With our Power Statement, we aim to appeal to our ideal clients (people who want to make their mark online) by triggering emotion in them. The supporting statement helps us clarify how we do this – by helping them build websites.

Our Big, Bold Statement speaks directly to our ideal clients by evoking emotion. And at the same time, it provides the clarity our ideal clients need to understand what we do.

That’s why this method is so powerful.

However, out of all the methods we teach, we find this is the one people struggle with the most, as it’s easy to fall into the trap of being too vague.

So our speaking coach may want to say something like:

Make them believe. 

It’s powerful, it’s emotional, and it’s likely to stop you in your tracks. But without a supporting statement, it doesn’t really say what our coach does.

So they might want to add:

 turning mediocre presentations into magnificent ones.

or even,

public speaking training for CEOs.

That’s how you get the perfect combination of emotion and clarity. When you get this right, a Big, Bold Statement that’s based on a Powerful + Supporting Statement can be extremely effective.

5) Use a Customer Testimonial

Did a client give you an amazing testimonial that perfectly sums up what you do? Then why not use that, word-by-word, as your Big, Bold Statement?

For us, this could be something like:

The best website I could have ever dreamed of.

Our speaking coach could use:

I’ve never felt so happy after leaving the stage.

or,

Public speaking has never felt so achievable.

As long as the testimonial is clear and specific enough (and tells people what you do), this emotive approach can work really well.

Up until recently, Chris Marr of Content Marketing Academy used a testimonial on his website, CMA Live, and it was this:

The best marketing conference I’ve been to in 25 years.

Isn’t that perfect? It tells you immediately what you’re getting but also gives you enough social proof to help you make an informed buying decision.

6) The Exact Statement

Just say exactly what it is that you do – it’s as simple as that.

Using our speaking coach as an example again, they could say:

Public speaking, training, and workshops.

It’s obvious. It’s simple. And it’s effective.

But it also makes it abundantly clear what it is you do.

Just stating the facts is much better than going for something too complicated that could potentially end up confusing people. It may not be the fanciest of approaches, so if you’re pressed for time, just do this first, and then go back and refine your Big, Bold Statement later when you have a better idea.

7) Who You Help

The original idea for this particular method of coming up with a Big, Bold Statement came from Michael Port and his book Book Yourself Solid. And it’s as simple as answering this question – who do you help and what do you help them do?

The speaking coach in our example would say:

We help CEOs master public speaking.

or,

Helping academics to deliver memorable presentations.

This is a particularly great way of illustrating what you do if you have a niche. When your ideal customer or client lands on your website and sees this, they’re going to feel really special. And that’s all you can ask for!

8) Who You Help+

With this method, you’re combining the Power Statement with the Who You Help statement to enhance it and clarify it.

Our speaking coach could use:

We help CEOs deliver outstanding presentations that inspire action.

So with this Big, Bold Statement, you’re telling someone what you’re helping them with (‘deliver outstanding presentations’), but you’re also letting them know how helping them will affect them (they will be able to ‘inspire action’).

That additional bit at the end (the ‘plus statement’) is impactful. It adds that extra punch which gets people in the heart (in a totally good way!).

9) The Guarantee

Do you offer a guarantee with your services? Not every business does, but if you have the right kind of product, this can be a good way for you to come up with your Big, Bold Statement.

Here’s what our speaking coach might say:

Deliver outstanding presentations or your money back.

This works because it gives your visitors confidence. If you’re prepared to stand behind your product in such a big way that you’ll give money back if they don’t get results, whatever you sell must be pretty good!

So which method is right for you?

There’s no right and wrong here. Jot down a few ideas, try a few methods, and test your Big, Bold Statement out.

Ask your friends and family, check with your followers on social media, or ask your email subscribers what resonates with them the most.

Remember that your Big, Bold Statement isn’t set in stone – you can always change it when you come up with a better one.

Would you like our help? 

You may have got your big, bold statement sorted, but what about the rest of your homepage? Download our homepage blueprint for personal brands, which tells you EXACTLY what to put on your homepage.

Better still, if you want our help, week in and week out, as you build your personal brand website, check out our membership, Make Your Mark Online (or MYMO, as our members call it!). You’ll get access to our best advice and to our thriving community as well. What’s there not to like?!

And if you’d like to hear us talk about how to come up with your Big, Bold Statement in more details, go and check out our podcast episode Why You Need a Big, Bold Statement and How to Create One.

Martin & Lyndsay

The post 9 Ways to Create a Big, Bold Statement for Your Personal Brand Website appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Our B.R.A.N.D. framework for Personal Brands

We’ve come up with a simple way to explain what a perfect personal brand website should look like. It’s a framework we use to create every single website we build. And we call it the B.R.A.N.D. framework.

You do not have to be a techie to follow this framework, in fact, we created it with non-techies in mind.

B.R.A.N.D. is an acronym and is based on 5 core areas that each website should have:

1. B for Build trust.
2. R for Relevancy.
3. A for Authority.
4. N for Noteworthy.
5. D for Direction.

So let’s break down every single area in more details.

1. Build trust using your website

Building trust is the first and most important aspect of the entire framework. We need to trust the people we buy from. If your visitors don’t trust you, they’re not going to stick around long enough to buy from you.

It’s as simple as that.

So when someone lands on your website for the first time, they’re probably going to ask themselves a few questions. Things like:

• Do these people know what they’re talking about?
• Will they try to sell me something?
• Does this website look secure?

Your job is to reassure your visitors. And you do that by building trust.

So how do you actually build trust with your audience through your website?

1.1 Building Trust: Branding 

Does your website look and feel like a nice place to be? Does it ‘look the part’? In other words, is your website ‘aesthetically pleasing’?

Now, when you’re building a website yourself this can be difficult. After all, you’re not a designer, right? How can you design a beautiful website if you don’t have the skills?

The likelihood is, you’re website is not going to look the same as a website designed by a professional agency BUT this does not mean your website won’t be successful.

In this case, we recommend you find a good WordPress theme that you like (there are thousands out there) and stick within the parameters of the theme. I.e. don’t change too much! What you want is something clean and professional.

You can edit fonts and colours to match your branding. You can add your logo. And, most importantly, you’ll be able to add your images and text which will really help you stand out.

Ultimately, this is about avoiding a crappy looking website that looks like the 90s threw up on the page. No one trusts those websites! So, keep it simple, stick to a theme and use other methods to stand out!

Example of Good Website Branding

It’s no secret that we love Col Grey’s work. His website is a great example of good branding – bold, memorable colours, consistency of fonts and text, plenty of white space, great use of shapes and consistent use of images.

You instantly feel at ease on Col’s website. You know you’re in the hands of a professional. 

1.2 Building Trust: Images

One of the best ways of making your reader feel at ease is by using images of yourself on your website.

But a lot of people feel nervous about using their face on their website. Will it make you look egotistical? Or self-absorbed? 

Hell no!

The purpose of having your image on your website is so your reader can see who they’re potentially going to work with/invest in. It’s for their benefit, not yours. You’re not self-centred for putting your images on your website. Far from it.

Using images of yourself and your team throughout your website gives the reader a sense of who you are. We actually recommend business owners invest in professional photography BEFORE they invest thousands and thousands on a website. It’s amazing what you can do with a half decent theme and some good photographs.

We’ve written an article with some tips on how to get some amazing photographs for your website.

Example of Good Website Imagery

We love Teresa’s images on her website. As soon as you land on her homepage you feel at ease and welcomed by Teresa. It automatically builds trust and a connection.

1.3 Building Trust: Testimonials and Case Studies

Do you have any testimonials or case studies that tell a story? Testimonials and case studies can be a great tool to help you build trust with your audience. Remember though, your visitors know that testimonials can be manufactured. So don’t share testimonials that simply say how good you are! (We know you are!)

Instead, feature examples of customers or clients who came with you with a problem and experienced a transformation as a direct result of buying your products or services.

If you want to find out more about how to get great testimonials from your clients, head over to our blog post How to get client testimonials for your website. Or you can listen to episode 17 of the Make Your Mark Online podcast.

Example of Good Website Testimonials

Chris Marr, at Content Marketing Academy, features fantastic testimonials on his website. They aren’t just the standard ‘Love it’ testimonials, they are real stories and experiences that give detailed results.

1.4 Building Trust: Security 

And last but not least, in order to build that trust with your visitors, make your website is fast and secure. If your website takes over 3 seconds to load, your visitors may get impatient or suspicious. They’ll be wondering whether they’re being re-directed elsewhere and asking themselves why it’s taking so long. More often than not, they won’t wait for your page to load.

They’ll click the back button.

So get yourself a nice speedy website. If you’d like to buy a speed up service, we recommend TechCrunch.

Also, get an SSL certificate to make sure your website is secure. And by all means, always comply with any applicable mandatory requirements, including GDPR or privacy policy, for example. Tell people what you’re going to do with their data (i.e. you won’t sell it the highest bidder!)

2. Relevancy and why it’s so important for your website

When someone visits your website,

• are they clear on what you do?
• Can they see how relevant you are to them?
• Can they see how you can help them get from A to B? Solve a problem they have?
• And can they immediately tell whether you’ve helped people like them in the past?

If your visitors don’t understand how you can help them, they won’t stay on your website long enough to listen to what you have to say.

People don’t want to waste their time.

And you don’t want to waste yours, so get to the point quickly and show your ideal customers and clients exactly what it is that you do.

Show them that you’re relevant to them.

Here’s how.

2.1 Relevancy: Your Big Bold Statement

A big, bold statement is the first sentence or phrase someone will see when they land on your website. It’s usually situated in the first third of your homepage, and it’s where you should clearly state what it is that you do. If you don’t do this right, your visitors won’t know whether they’re in the right place.

Your big, bold statement doesn’t have to be overly creative or clever. In fact, sometimes it’s best to avoid this and just clearly state what it is you do.

If you want to find out more about what Big Bold Statement, you can listen to episode 5 of the Make Your Mark Online podcast – Why You Need a Big Bold Statement and How to Create One.

Example of Good Big, Bold Statement 

Mike and Callie at Membership Guys are so clear about what they offer and who they help. Take this big, bold statement you see as soon as you land on their website ‘Proven Practical advice for successful memberships’ – couldn’t be more clear!

2.2 Relevancy: Images and photos

We already mentioned photos and images in the context of building trust with your audience. But photos can also go a long way to show your readers that they’re in the right place and allow them to connect with you.

Take us, for example. Some people might want to work with a huge agency with a big team. They can clearly see from the get-go that there are two of us. They’ll know straight away that we’re not right for them.

A lot of people use stock photos to try to hide who they are, but using images makes it clear whether you’re the right fit for your end-user.

Example of good images and photos

We love Sara’s images on her website. She shows herself in her home office at her laptop and drinking coffee, looking very relaxed and so approachable! These images show the reader immediately shows the reader who Sara is and what she does.

2.3 Relevancy: Testimonials and Case Studies 

Testimonials and case studies might help you build trust, but they also show the reader the type of clients you work with. So if you’re targetting well-known speakers, make sure you only feature them in your testimonials and case studies! It’s also a good idea to cull old testimonials that might not be a reflection of who you work with anymore.

Example of a good case study/testimonial

We love Lauren Pearman’s case studies such as this one. Lauren puts the focus on her client, not herself. She talks about what they want to achieve and how she helps them do this through photography. But best of all, Lauren shows exactly who her ideal clients are through her case studies. It’s very clear to see the types of people that she works with.

2.4 Relevancy: Website Copy 

One of the best and most obvious ways to convey to reader what it is you do and how you help is through your website copy. But it’s amazing how many people get this wrong. They focus on ‘fluff’ – when they were established, the entire work history to date, or they use generic terms like ‘we’re professional and friendly’.

Your copy should focus on the reader, not you. It should show them who you work with (and who you don’t work with), and it should people how you help and why it’s beneficial for them to hire you.

Example of good website copy 

John Espirian is the king of good website copy and making the complex, simple. In the example above, you can see how John helps solve a problem for his clients with the phrase, ‘Let’s help your clients go from “umm, what?” to “ahh, I get it now”. There’s no ‘extra fat’ in John’s copy, it’s concise and most importantly, it demonstrates to the reader who he is, what he does and how he helps.

3. Authority building for your personal brand

Being seen as an authority in your field or niche is fundamental because, in order to buy from you, people need to see you as an expert.

People want to know things like:

• Are you qualified to help them?
• Can you be trusted?
• Have you got any proof of things you’ve done in the past?
• Is working with you a safe investment of their money?

So how do you build authority on your website?

3.1 Authority: Big Hero image

We talked about images before. They can help with trust and relevancy, but also with authority.

If you’re a speaker, use images of yourself speaking on stage, for example. If you’re an author, have a photo of yourself signing books.

Use that Big Hero image on the home page of your website wisely – it’s a great opportunity to tell your website visitors that you’re an authority.

Example of a good authority image

Love him or hate him Gary V does showcase his authority in this image on his website. His back is turned away from the reader, which gives us a full view of an engaged audience. It speaks to his authority.

3.2 Authority: Media badges and social proof

Have you been featured on The Guardian, the BBC, or the Huffington Post? Have you appeared in a well-known podcast?

Then add those media badges to your website.

This tells your audience that you’ve received ‘the stamp of approval’ from well-recognised sources, and it will help you build trust with your website visitors more easily.

Similarly, if you have a good number of subscribers on your email list, you could add a section on your website that includes something along the lines of: “Join another 500 like-minded business owners who are already on our list”.

This boosts your social proof and makes you come across as trustworthy.

Example of good social proof

Amy Landino is an international speaker and YouTube expert. Her website does a great job at reflecting her level of expertise and authority. Amy uses the logos above subtly on her website, but it works to show what an authority she is. We also like how she’s worded it ‘Brands Who Trust Amy’. Nicely done!

3.3 Authority: Signature Programmes 

If you offer any sort of coaching or consulting, then having your own ‘signature programmes’ can really help you be seen as an authority. These programmes are your proven steps to success. They’re based around your experience and what’s worked for you and what hasn’t. And they’re usually given a name that’s unique to you.

Example of good signature programmes

Janet Murray delivers her own signature programmes that help people build their audience and grow their business. She named the above programme ‘The build your audience’ programme. Only Janet offers this unique programme and with it all the training and resources. Having your own proven programme such as this one helps show your authority in your industry.

4. Noteworthy

• Are you noticeable and memorable?
• Interesting and entertaining?
• When people land on your website, how will you make sure they stay long enough to listen to what you’re saying?
• Can people relate to you?

Because that’s all we all look for – human connection. And if your visitors can’t connect with you, they’ll just find someone else to connect with.

Truth is, you’re not going to be loved by everybody.

But that’s fine because you don’t want everybody to be your customer. You just want a selected few.

So how are you going to use your website to relate to your ideal customers and clients on a one-to-one level? How are you going to show people that you’re noteworthy?

4.1 Noteworthy: Your Tone of Voice

What’s your personality?

One of the biggest mistakes people make with their website copy is making it boring and stuffy. A lot of people get their personalities across on social media, but when it comes to web copy they go formal.

Make sure you show people who you are. Yes, not everyone will love you, but it doesn’t matter about the people that don’t like you. They aren’t your customers.

If you’re still struggling with this, check out our article on how to create your tone of voice.

Example of Good Tone of Voice

We love Amy’s site from Joy Junkie. You can immediately get a sense of who she is from her copy. Her personality just shines through and you will remember her! She writes very much like she might talk and it feels like you’re having a real conversation with her when you read her words.

4.2 Noteworthy: Your story 

Do you have an interesting story to tell? One that your readers will connect with? If so, then your story is definitely going to help you to stand out and make you memorable.

So make sure you tell your story well – don’t be scared of adding a bit of character and personality to it.

But make sure it’s a genuine story too. A lot of people feel the pressure to tell something amazing. But keep it simple and real. None of this I had $1 in my pocket and now I’m a millionaire with a Lambo crap.

Example of a Good Story

Patt Flynn tells his story of how he started Smart Passive Income. What we love about this story is that it’s humble, simple and something we can all relate to. Patt talks about how he struggled in his career after the 2008 economic crash. He talks about how he set up his business so he could be closer to his family and work around them. There’s no ego in his story. And no Lamborghinis!

4.3 Noteworthy: Images and videos

By now, you’ll have noticed that images come up a lot when talking about the features a great website should have. That’s because they are a key element for creating a great personal brand website. Use them to be memorable and stand out and create a sense of who you are.

Think about your brand values – are you fun, cheeky, humourous, serious? Let this show through your photography and use props if you want to help you.

Example of a Good Personal Brand Photography

Andrew and Pete nail their brand. Everything they are is reflected across their website, and in particular in their photography. Their photos are fun, relaxed and relatable, just like Andrew and Pete themselves!

4.4 Noteworthy: Colours 

Your brand colours are often what will make you memorable. There are many things to consider before choosing your brand colours…

• Who you are and what you stand for – for example if innovation is your thing you wouldn’t pick something super traditional looking like maroon
• What your competition does – sometimes, it’s good to go against the grain of your competition (think someone with expertise in plants going pink rather than green!) But this is a risk. It will make you memorable but sometimes it works and sometimes not!
• Colour psychology – red symbolises passion or danger, pink symbolises femininity or happiness. Think about what the colours could mean to your audience before you choose them.

Example of a Good Personal Brand Colours

When I go to conferences and say I’m from Jammy Digital, I often hear people reply, ‘You’re the guys with that green and pink website, right?’ Yup! Our weird combo of bright colours does make us memorable to a lot of people. They’re also very much a reflection of us and our brand.

4.5 Noteworthy: Your Opinions 

We all have our own opinions about industry, right? We work in it every day and we live and breathe what we do. Sometimes, you might go against the grain of your industry or work in a unique way with your clients. Part of you brand values might be honest and transparancy. In which case, stating clearly how you work or what makes you different can work well. It makes you memourable and unique.

A Good Example of Sharing Your Opinions

I always remember this website from A Little Bit of Something. They really do get their feelings across on their website (and we can certainly relate!) Again, some people might hate this, but it doesn’t matter, because their target audience will love it. It creates strong emotions either way. Remember, it’s better to be loved and hated rather than forgotten.

5. Direction

Direction is the last piece of the puzzle and the fifth component of the B.R.A.N.D. framework.

If you want your website to perform well, you need to consider how you’re directing people from page to page. Because if your visitors don’t know what to do next, they’re going to do nothing.

Or click that dreaded back button.

When people land on your website, they want to know things like:

• What do I do next?
• Where do I start?
• How do I get in touch?
• What services do you offer?

We’ve written more about how you can use your Home page as the ‘reception area’ of your website, directing people to where they need to go, especially if you have more than one audience. Check out our blog post How to Appeal to More Than One Audience Using Your Website.

So here’s what you can do to help people navigate your website easily.

5.1 Direction: Menu items 

Use obvious phrases on your menu items to help your readers go where they need to go. Don’t call your menu items something vague or obscure that people aren’t familiar with like ‘my journey’ for ‘blog’ – you’ll just end up confusing them!

Example of Good Menu Structure

Amy’s website is so easy to use and follow. Amy has clearly thought about the pathway her end-user will follow. Amy has a simple and clean menu structure, no obscure names or complicated dropdowns.

5:2 Direction: Buttons and Calls To Action (CTAs)

Use colourful buttons and clear Calls To Action or CTAs. Make sure your CTAs are prominent and enticing and include them in the body of your content as well. If you’re going to ask your readers for their email address in exchange for some in-depth content, for example, the best time to ask them is while they’re consuming your content.

But also use language and tone of voice that helps you direct people to where you want them to go in a non-intrusive way. Use words like ‘get’ and ‘grab’, for example, when you’re asking people to download a free resource. Or ‘click here’ to help hop onto the next page on your website.

Example of Good Buttons and Calls to Action (CTAs)

Ann Handley makes it really clear what you need to here. There are four clear pathways to her services, each with a bold-coloured button to click. This may seem obvious, but it’s amazing how many websites get this wrong!

5.3 Direction: Promo Area on Your Homepage

The ‘promo area’ of your homepage is usually under the big hero section. It features 3 or 4 different options for your end-user to choose. This could be your services, blog, about page etc. You’re the best person to decide what goes here, but it’s a great way of directing people from your home page to the next page.

As we’ve said before, think of your home page as the ‘reception area’ of your website. People will visit the home page looking for more info about your services, your blog, your contact page – and your job is to direct people there.

Example of a Good Promo Area

When we worked with Janet Murray, she did a great job of streamlining what she offered and coming up with three key areas for her audience to visit on her website. We created this within the promo area. It creates a clear path of where to go.

5.4 Direction: A Learning Centre 

For those with a lot of content or content on different formats – such as blog posts, video and a podcast, a learning centre can prove helpful to your visitor. Instead of trailing through all of your content or only seeing your most recent content, a learning centre allows you to search through content easily. You can break down content via the format, the topic, the date published, your most popular pieces etc.

We wrote a more in-depth article about how to create a learning centre here.

Example of a Good Learning Centre

Pete at Meaningful Money has had over a million downloads of his podcast which has spanned over 14 seasons! He really did need a learning centre for the amount of amazing content he produces. Now, it’s much easier for his readers to find what they are looking for.

5.5 Direction: Contact information

And last (but certainly not least!) have visible contact information for your business. If you rely on people getting in touch with you over the phone, have your phone number at the top of the page and a button that says, ‘Get in touch with us’. Make sure it’s mobile friendly too, so people can just click on the number and call you straight from mobile.

Would you like some help to build your own personal brand website? 

So this is our B.R.A.N.D. website framework. We use religiously to build personal brand websites for our clients. But we also share this framework inside our signature membership, Make Your Mark Online, where we help personal brands build and grow a successful business website. All the videos in our membership library are based on these 5 key components. And this framework can work for any website, not just personal brands.

So if you want to find out more about each individual area of the B.R.A.N.D. framework and understand how it can apply to you, check out our membership community. The doors are currently open, and it’s been amazing to see so many of our members get great results with their websites since they joined in October last year.

If you enjoyed this post, you can also listen to our podcast episode How to create the Perfect Personal Brand Website (ep 30).

Martin & Lyndsay

The post The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Personal Brand Website (with examples) appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Listen on iTunes | Soundcloud

Does your blog content look a bit naff? There are so many blogs out there and it’s sometimes difficult to stand out. If you want to make your blog posts sparkle then listen to this week’s episode.

We talk about all the different things you can do to make your blog posts more interesting and easy to read.

Everything from font size to Tweetables, headings to bullet points. Everything in this list is what we do to make sure our blog content looks the part.

In this episode we discuss:

– Using Headings
– Creating featured images
– Fonts
– Images and links
– Videos
– Tweetables
– Internal Linking
– Coloured Boxes
– Lead Capture

Resources

Make Your Mark Online Membership 

Facebook Group

How to Make Your Blog Posts Less Boring

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post Ep 32 – How to make your blog posts look good appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

There’s nothing that quite divides business owners like whether you should put your prices on your website. In this episode, we explore whether your prices should go on your website and the best way to do it.

In this episode we discuss:

– Why you might not have your prices on your website
– Benefits of putting your prices on your website
– What WE did and the results we got
– What I’d recommend that you do

Resources

Make Your Mark Online Membership 

Facebook Group

Why You Should Put Your Prices on Your Website

Our Pricing Page

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Ep 31 – Should You Put Your Prices on Your Website? appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Why do some Personal Brands attract a huge following whilst some fail to gain any real traction? We’ve found that there are 5 key elements that will allow you to attract more potential customers using your website.

In this episode we discuss:

– How to build trust on your website
– How to use your website to attract your ideal clients
– How to be viewed as an expert
– How to stand out from your competitors
– How to transform your readers into paying customers

Resources

Make Your Mark Online Membership 

Facebook Group

The post Ep 30 – How to create the Perfect Personal Brand Website appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

So you’re not exactly proud of your website. The information is a bit out of date. The design isn’t great. But that’s okay. You get plenty of word-of-mouth referrals. You do really well on social media. Is it that much of a big deal if your website looks bad?

Actually, yes. Having a bad website is bad for business.

In this episode we discuss:

How people end up with a bad (or ineffective) website
– The downsides of a bad website
– How this could be impacting your brand confidence
– How this could be impacting your sales process
– Why we paid 3x more than we needed to based on someone’s website
– How a bad website can impact your SEO
– How your website could be affecting your conversions

Resources

Make Your Mark Online Membership 

Facebook Group

The post Ep 29 – The REAL cost of a bad website appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

It’s tough when you serve different audiences. How can your website copy and design appeal to different people with different goals, pain points and different reasons for being on your website?

In this blog post, we’ll tell you how.

An Example of a Website with Multiple Audiences

Let’s look at an example we’re all familiar with – recruitment agencies. They have to appeal to the candidates (the people looking for jobs and submitting their CVs) but also to businesses (the companies that are looking for the perfect candidates). We often come across businesses with similar setups. One of the first questions we get asked is whether they should create separate websites for the different segments of their audience.

So let’s answer that question first.

Should I set up separate websites for the different types of audiences I want to appeal to?

While we know of business owners with multiple websites, we also know that having just one website takes a lot of work! If you want your website to have an impact on your business you’ll need to add content and update it regularly.

And it’s not just about that.

You’ll also have to think about driving traffic to that content. Managing more than one website can be very time-consuming, so it’s something we always advise our clients to think through carefully before making a decision. Plus, having two websites potentially means creating and managing separate social media accounts. Is this something you could currently accommodate in your business?

When in doubt, here’s a quick question that should help you make the right decision for your business.

Does your offer need its own branding in order to appeal to the audience you’re serving?

If the answer is yes, then you need completely separate websites with different logos, branding, and content. But if the offer fits within your brand, then you could create an additional product within your business and ensure you direct the right people to the right places on your website.

Ways You Can Appeal to Multiple Audiences Using One Website

You’ve established you’re going to use one website for your entire business, so how do you appeal to more than one audience in the one website?

Use buttons on your home page

Your home page is what you use to signpost people so they can take the next step on your website. You’re the one who needs to direct all the traffic coming to your website, so imagine you’re stood there with your little (metaphorical) whistle directing visitors left, right, or straight on.

If you want to appeal to multiple audiences, you need to quickly get everyone to where they need to be on your website. Unfortunately, a lot of people get this wrong on their home page, but it’s literally the biggest and best thing you can do for your business when you’re serving multiple sets of clients or customers.

An easy way to do this to have clear call-to-action buttons.

So, using the recruitment agency we mentioned earlier as an example, you might have two buttons:

“Looking for an exciting, new career?” (for candidates), and
“Looking for the perfect candidate?” (for companies).

Your audience can then immediately identify which button they need to click to get to the right place.

Use Your Big Bold Statement

If you haven’t come across the concept of the Big, Bold Statement before, head over to episode 5 of the Make Your Mark Online podcast – Why You Need a Big Bold Statement and How to Create One. In the episode, we give you 9 different ways to create a Big Bold Statement.

But for now, let’s just say that the Big Bold Statement is a summary of your business and what you do. It sits in that very prominent first third of the home page – the area you see straight away when you land on the website. And it tells your visitors they’re in the right place.

Coming up with a Big Bold Statement when you have two audiences is slightly trickier. It means you’ll have to think about both of your audiences and give your Big Bold Statement a broader appeal. While we’d always advise you to be as direct and as specific as possible, if you have multiple audiences, you may need to think about a different way of communicating what you do that appeals to both sets of people.

Take us for example. We have two audiences, one that wants a done-for-you web design service costing upwards of 3.5k and ones that want to create a website themselves. Coming up with a big, bold statement for these two audiences was tricky. We came up with: ‘Make Your Mark Online, A Website You Can Be Proud Of.’  – it clearly says that we specialise in (websites) without being too specific to one particular audience.

Use the promo area

The promo area is essentially the area where you show your 3 or 4 key, main services, and people can click on them and take the next step to find out more about the services they’re after. Normally the promo area sits under the Big Bold Statement.

This is your opportunity to direct people where they need to go on your website. Take a look at Janet Murray’s website as an example, she has three key services – speaking, membership and consulting. These are completely different audiences but she uses her website to direct them where they need to go straight away.

But it isn’t just about your homepage. Let’s have a quick look at your other pages.

Follow the one-service-one-page rule

Should you have all your services on one page?

Of course, it’s tempting to fall into the trap of using the same page to suit all your audiences and talk in general terms. But you’ll find that if you do this, your website won’t convert as well. If you group all your services and your audiences together, your website won’t be as effective and may end up confusing your visitors.

So if you want to see results, it’s worth putting the time and effort into thinking about your different audiences and then writing specific pages for them. Every page on your website should be geared towards one particular audience segment. This is true of any website, but it’s even more important if you’re targeting multiple audiences. So, to direct people to the products and services that matter specifically to them, create a unique page for each service.

Using the recruitment agency as an example again, if you have a candidate looking for information about what jobs you have available, there’s no point in sending them where they can find out what you can do for companies! Don’t even show them that page – they don’t need to see it!

Focus on your audiences’ needs and problems

Each segment of your audience will have their individual concerns and problems they need you to solve. If you speak to them generally about how great you are, you won’t be as impactful. So make your content really targeted and specific. On each page, focus on the needs and problems your audiences are having and create content that’s relevant to them. Everything you have on that page needs to be geared towards that person – remove any content that isn’t specifically for them.

Think of each of your web pages as its own tool – almost like its own salesperson. You want to use your copy to convert these people to become leads. So be intentional and share testimonials and links to blog content that are relevant to the person who’s on that page.

So if I create different pages for different services, does each page need its own design?

Not necessarily. There’s no reason why you should have a completely different design for each of your audiences. In an ideal world, this might be nice and might work, but your time is precious!

We suggest that you keep the same design, layout, and structure, but make sure that the content and the calls-to-action are different and always speak to your individual audiences. You don’t have to make each page a different design, but you need to make sure the copy, the images, the testimonials, and the links to your blog posts are different.

Would you like personalised advice and feedback on your website?

We are still offering FREE website critiques every Wednesday, so join our Facebook group and put your name forward so we can give you feedback on your website.
And if you’re after more in-depth advice and personalised tips, we’d love to be able to work with you inside our membership Make Your Mark Online. This is our signature membership program, where we teach personal brands how to build and grow a successful business website. We teach you all about WordPress, SEO, how to define your personal brand, and build a website that you can be proud of.

Martin & Lyndsay

The post How to Appeal to More Than One Audience Using Your Website appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Testimonials help build trust, authority and make it clear what kind of clients/customers you want to work with.

Anyone can get a testimonial and add it to their website but getting an effective testimonial can be difficult.

In this episode, we’ll cover…

• • What makes a ‘bad’ testimonial
  • What makes a great testimonial
  • How to get the kind of testimonial that connects to your target market
  • What questions you should be asking your clients to get the perfect testimonial

Time Stamps: In a rush? Get to the section you need to below!

0.54 – Benefits of testimonials
2.15 – How testimonials can help attract your ideal clients
2.42- Examples of bad testimonials
5.15 – What kind of testimonial should you be looking for?
8.32 – Avoid web designers with bad websites
12.32 – How to get the answers to these questions without emailing
16.10 – Marcus Sheridan and the power of three

Useful Resources and Links

Membership Community 

Free Facebook Community

World Class Communication

What To Do Next

Thanks for listening to our episode. If you found this episode useful, please feel free to share it via social media using the links above.

If you want to know about search engine optimisation (SEO), website conversions, content marketing and website copy, then join our FREE Facebook Group.

We would love it if you subscribed to our podcast and left us an honest review. This helps us reach more people and produce more podcast episodes.

If you have any questions about this episode or you want us to cover something new, then contact us on hello@jammydigital.com or leave a comment at the bottom of the page!

• • Join Our Facebook Group
  • Subscribe and review
  • Contact Us

Episode Transcript Below

Welcome to episode 17 of the Make Your Mark online podcast. Today we’re going to be talking about how to get client testimonials for your website, but before we get into the show, this podcast is sponsored by the Make Your Mark online membership. This is our signature membership community where we help personal brands build and grow a successful business website. The doors for the membership are now closed, but you can check out the details at makeyourmarkonline.net and you can join in the wait list and we’ll notify you as soon as we open the doors again in January. So let’s get on with the show. So we’re talking about testimonials. What kind do you need or how to get them. Isn’t that right?

Yeah, it’s absolutely vital that you have some kind of proof of the work that you’ve done in the past. I mean, they help you build trust instantly depending on the type of review, they allow you to show results that you’ve gotten for people who’ve worked with you in the past, which is another great thing that people look for when they’re on your websites and they can actually help you elevate your level of authority. So if you’ve worked with people in the past, their authority is quite high and they’re quite respected in the industry and you’ve got testimonials from them, that can immediately allow you to kind of increase your prices and charge a lot more than your competitors. So they also help on that level as well. They also help you showcase the types of clients you want to attract. We noticed this for ourselves because we like to work with personal brands and we mainly feature, examples of websites we’ve built for personal brands and the testimonials that people have left. So yeah, it really, really helps build trust and authority and allows you to position yourself differently.

Yeah, definitely. And people forget that don’t they? Because I think people just like to collect testimonials and particularly the showcase and the types of clients that you want to work with, some people have testimonials that were given sort of five, 10 years ago from there.

Yeah. 2013.

Yeah. Next door neighbor Barbara type thing and your clients or your ideal clients have probably changed a little bit since then. So that’s a really good point. But I think the big question is, and we get asked this quite a lot, is do you people actually trust these reviews these days? I mean, it seems like everywhere you look, everyone has these big boastful testimonials that only promote themselves. I mean, do people actually trust them?

It’s true that not all reviews and testimonials are created equally. They’re not all as effective as one another. And that’s the problem I think, especially for anybody starting out in business. You just want to get some testimonials on there and that’s fine. If you need to ask a friend or a family member, do a little bit of work for them in exchange for a testimonial. Then fine, if you’re just getting started, but if you have an established business and you’ve got reviews like, “Oh, I really enjoyed working with Martin. He’s very friendly and professional and I would highly recommend.” These are the kind of reviews that you don’t want on your website. They don’t offer anything in terms of content or contacts at all and they don’t allow the reader, the visitor on your website to imagine what it’s going to be like to work with you. That’s one of the biggest problems.

Yep, that’s absolutely true. We do see those kinds of fake testimonials all the time. Don’t we? The kind of often nothing and just say, “Oh, this person was really friendly and professional.” And yes, kind of the minimum that I would expect from working with any company. So it’s-

Does that mean the people that haven’t left you a review, don’t think you’re professional or friendly?

Exactly. So it’s not really that impressive as it. If someone says that you’re professional and friendly.

No. But I do feel as though, there’s so many review websites out there like TripAdvisor, like Yell, like all of these other places that have an abundance of these types of reviews. Everyone just cares about the star rating on these websites. I just need five stars. I just need more than 4.5 stars and I want to get my scores up so an abundance of these reviews helps on those websites, but it doesn’t help on your website. We need some actual value here because you don’t have a star rating that everybody uses and funnily enough, every testimonial that you add to your website just happens to be five stars. That’s just … Because you’re not gonna add a three star review to your own website and that’s where this trust thing comes in and that’s why people have a problem sometimes and why sometimes people glaze over when you have 15 reviews that say you’re professional and friendly.

Yeah, definitely. I totally agree with that actually, that there is a difference between TripAdvisor reviews or Yell or whatever it might be, and the reviews on your website you do have control over and it should be about appealing to your potential customer by using those reviews. That’s really interesting. So what kind of reviews are we looking for then?

Okay, so now that we’ve discussed what kind of reviews we’re not looking for, I want you to kind of reframe your mind a little bit really, always remember that people don’t care about how amazing you are. They care more about the results that you can help them achieve. So having 25 reviews on your website that just say you were great is not as effective as having two or three that actually walk people through the story of that client. Actually walk people through the ups and the downs and what’s happened throughout there project and what results you’ve gotten out of it.

Now we don’t want to [inaudible 00:05:49] on kind of a case study here is just a testimonial, but I still want you to think about your client as being the hero of the story essentially, and you’ve probably heard the analogy quite a lot and it is important that you think, this visitor that’s coming to my website, they want to know how this other person, Julie or Bob, what problems were they having before they hired us, what did we help them achieve and what results did they get at the end of it and how are they happier? It’s a tall order actually getting someone to leave your review without some guidance here. And this is exactly why we wanted to record this episode.

Okay. So yeah, you were talking about getting those kinds of reviews from Julie and Bob, but that’s quite difficult to get out of a client, isn’t it? I mean, how do you actually get that good meaty review that’s going to appeal to your website visitor as well? How do you do that?

Well, I’ll tell you what you don’t do. You don’t email them after the website’s gone live or after you’ve finished working with them and saying, “Please can you leave me a few lines of text?”

Like we used to do.

Like we used to do. Yeah. This is the biggest problem. If you are in the routine of kind of emailing them afterwards and just asking a vague question or, “Please would you leave me like a Linkedln recommendation?” That’s fine if that’s what you want, a LinkedIn recommendation or just a general review, but we’re talking about actually allowing your testimonials to act as a little bit of a sales tool. If Bob has had a problem that he’s been struggling with for years and you help him achieve all he’s ever hoped of from his business and his life.

All his dreams came true.

All his dreams came through and is now rich and living on an island. Why would you just say, put his testimonial on your website. That’s great, “It was friendly and professional and it helped me get what I wanted.” You wasted that amazing project that you’ve worked with people on. I mean, especially from our point of view, when we work with clients for months on end, we have lots of different ups and downs and stories to tell and for us to leave a kind of vague review like that it wouldn’t work very, very well. You’ve wasted it. So we actually created a system that we try to use as much as possible and we want to talk to you a little bit about that in this episode, about what you can do to get the answers that you want without manufacturing them, without getting your sister to write them. Actually asking specific questions that you want the answers to that allow you to create a testimonial.

Okay, that sounds really good. So have you got any examples of what kind of questions we should be asking our customers or our clients?

Yeah, I mean it completely depends on your industry and the types of questions that you might ask, but on an overall level, we’re trying to get people to answer questions about, what frustrations they were having, what problems they were having before working with you, what were they really struggling to do that they couldn’t do so they needed to hire you for? And again, this is going to change quite drastically depending on your industry, but for us, for our example, we might say the first question would be, what problems were you having before working with us? Another question might be, why did you hire us? There’re two very different questions there and it’s important that that person answers them individually. For us, we might say, how does your new website solve your original problem? So you’d have to work out what that would sound like for your business.

So if you are a fitness trainer, then how did the new fitness class or fitness regime help you lose all that amazing way that you’ve lost? Another question might be, what results have you got since going live? That might be a question for us. It might be what results have you got since implementing the tips on the coaching call that you had for whatever industry that you’re in? Another question might be how did you find the service you received? So this is a question that sounds a little bit kind of like the previous reviews we’ve been talking about, about actually, what did you like about us? But it actually is a nice question because it allows you to do a little bit of research, what did you like about the service? What didn’t you like about this service?

I’m not saying you have to include all of these different elements in the testimonial, but you might as well get a little bit of honest feedback from your previous clients to ask them, what did you like? What didn’t you like? What can we do to improve? The more questions that you ask like that it shows that you care. Not that you’re just ringing up for a testimonial, it shows you that you’re asking specific questions that will allow you to improve your service. So these kinds of questions are the ones that we’re talking about and they should help you formulate a testimonial that you could potentially add to your website.

Yeah. So we’ve actually had, for my asking these types of questions, we’ve had some really, really good answers that we never would have gotten, just like you said, just from emailing a client. So what problems were you having before working with us? A lot of clients said that they’d had nightmare experiences with the web design industry before and-

Absolutely.

… Things that aren’t, and you actually uncover things. You actually discover more things and problems perhaps within your industry or that people are having and you learn so much from these testimonials don’t you? And you start to actually talk to your customers on their level. You really start to listen and understand your customers. So these testimonials are really, really powerful in actually helping you understand your customers and your potential customers. And so they really work very, very well.

Definitely. And this is the important thing as well, is we’re only sort of data gathering at this point. It’s a case of asking the questions first so that we can think about the testimonial second, and this is where we’ve got kind of from asking these questions from a research purpose as well as an information testimonial gathering phase. We’ve got lots of great ideas for content as well. I mean sometimes when we’re in the business it becomes very difficult for us to see it from a brand new perspective, clients perspective. And this is why it’s really important that we ask these questions because it gives us lots of content ideas actually reaching out to people after you’ve worked with them as well. And asking these questions just in general is a good idea. It’s just a great thing for customer service, but we’re talking about testimonials here and it gives you lots of different information that you can use for the testimonials as well as blog content and podcast episode content. Hence, the reason that we’re doing this episode is because of what people ask us this question.

Okay, so I mean we’ve established how good these questions are and that we need to use them, but if we send like a client, someone who’s really busy, like a big list of these questions, it might take a while to get this back up them. What’s the best way of actually getting these testimonials and getting them quite quickly?

Well, what we like to do is shortly after we take a website live, we like to actually set up, a final call with our clients. So we just want to tie a few loose ends. “Are you available at 3:00 o’clock on Tuesday? We just want to give you a quick call.” Or you can do it over video call. We do all our calls over video mainly.” And actually say to them. “Okay, so we just finished the last few bits. This is how you update your website. This is what you do. Let us know if you need anything, but we just wanted to ask you a few questions that we’d like to use in your case study and some testimonials on our website.” Nine times out of 10, everybody’s going to say, “Yeah, of course. Ask me whatever questions you want.”

So you’ve got these questions prepared. You then actually ask them the questions on the call, “So what problems were you having before you worked with us, what were you struggling with, what was keeping you up at night?” Ask them in whatever way that you like, but get the problems that that person was having and the struggles that they were having. And then ask them the other questions as well. The trick with this is to actually write them down or record the call if you feel comfortable doing that. If your client’s happy with you doing that, then record the call or document the answers and then repeat them back to them. “Okay, so you said you were struggling because you couldn’t find a web designer that could build a website within your budget that allows you to have a blog and have all of these fancy features. Okay. So that was the problem you were having.”

Great. You write it down, you repeat it back to them, and then you say, “Okay, so then why did you hire us? What specifically was the reason that you came to us?” And they may say, “I stumbled across a blog post from these people.” And before you know it, you’re creating your own client story with each question that you ask, and by repeating it back to them, they’re not in a haste. They’re saying, “Yes, that’s true.” And you actually go through these questions, create the testimonial, live on the call, and then once you’re done, you just say, “Okay, so I’m going to write this up for you and I’m going to send it to you and I just want you to make sure that you’re happy with it. I’m not going to add anything that you’ve not said yourself, but you ask the questions you want to ask so that you get the answers that you want,” And this works so much better than just relying on them to give you the testimonial.

Yeah, definitely. So these are really, really good points and I think you also have to probe a little bit, don’t you? When you’re on these calls, because we’ve been on calls with clients and let’s say for example, that problem was that they’ve had bad experiences with web designers in the past. You have to say, “Okay, so what effect did that have on your business?” You have to push a little bit further and then they might say, “Well I was wasting so much time and so much money.” And then you start to get to the real core of the problem then. Don’t just kind of take the first answer to the question because they need a little bit of pushing to get the actual answer that’s going to be really good for a testimonial.

So you’ll know kind of what kind of answers you want them to give, but just kind of, really kind of coax them a little bit and ask more questions. Don’t be afraid to ask them, “Well, how did that make you feel? Or was that having an effect on your business?” Ask those deeper questions and you’ll get some really, really good answers out of that.

Yeah. In the past. I mean, I’ve been on the WCC, which is World Class Communication speaking course with Marcus Sheridan and Chris Maa. This is something that Marcus talks about a lot about the rule of three, which is the first answer that somebody gives is usually the surface level answer. It’s only when you ask three times that you really get down to that root cause of the problem.

That’s good.

I know. So it’s like, “Okay, so why did you hire us?” “Oh, well your websites were great.” “Okay, well why did you think that was going to be beneficial?” “Well, I wanted an amazing website for myself.” “Okay, so why is that important?” “Well, because it will allow me to attract my ideal clients.” You get in deeper and deeper and you get in to the real juicy stuff. This is the kind of like proper stuff that everybody wants is just if you just ask the questions, like you said, you’re going to get surface level answers.

Now, those are still pretty good because you’re coming up with the questions yourself, but it makes it more of a conversation. It shows how much you genuinely care about your previous clients. When you’re going that deep and you’re allowing them to uncover their own thoughts and feelings. It might be six months ago that they initially got in touch about our website and they may have forgotten those immediate emotions, those first emotions that they had that made them pick up the phone and call us, and what you’re doing now is you’re bringing those new feelings to life so that they remember and that’s when these people go out and there’ll be like, “It feels amazing that I hired these people. I’m going to recommend them.” And they’re going to be more than happy to let you use this testimonial because you pulled out all of these amazing feelings that they had when they initially got in touch.

This is a very feely podcast episode.

I know. I’m getting emotional right now.

That’s the way we want. We want people to get emotional. Okay. So those are all really, really good points and I think that’s great for actually a written testimonial. How would you go about getting a video testimonial about that? If you’ve interviewed someone, you’ve asked all these questions, would you say, “Okay, that’s great. Would you mind just doing a quick video testimonial just straight after this call?” Or how would you do that?

Yeah, well, video testimonials are absolutely amazing.

They are.

Lots of people are afraid of videos. So if you work with people that don’t mind doing them, then literally it is going to be the best thing.

Jump on it.

Definitely. And that’s why it’s so good that we work with personal brands because usually, they’ve got video going in their business and recording in a quick iPhone video is not going to be a problem. It might be different for you and your industry, but more than anything, I mean you’ve got the testimonial there by setting up a call with somebody and asking these questions. All you have to do, what you’re going to have to do anyway is actually put it into a document, something that they can read potentially on a video and the only final step rarely is you’ve got that testimonial in text that you’re going to add to your website.

Why not just send it to them and saying, “Would you mind recording a video?” Some businesses actually hire a video company to go out and sit with the client, actually shoot a video and do it all professionally. So it all depends on what industry you’re in. But for us, our clients generally don’t mind sticking their iPhone on a tripod and actually just reading the testimonial back to you, especially if you’ve gone through the effort of asking these questions and getting to the root cause of why they hired you in the first place and what amazing results that you got out of it in the end. And that’s the important thing. That’s what everybody wants. It’s what results did you get for these previous clients that I can imagine that you’re going to get for me as well? And that’s kind of overarching theme here, is to allow your potential customers to imagine getting the same results for them that you got for your previous clients.

Yeah, that’s a really really good point to end on it. It’s all about how they relate to the testimonial. Definitely. Okay. So I hope you found that episode useful. I thought it was really good there.

I found it useful.

Yeah. I found it useful. I was learning still. I know many of our listeners struggle with this. So maybe now you have a few action points to take away with you. If you didn’t already know, we do actually have a free Facebook group. We’d love you to join it. So head to jammydigital.com/Facebook. We do training, we do free website critiques and we’d love to help you get better results from your website. So feel free to join and say hello. So that’s it for today’s episode. We’ll see you next time on the Make Your Mark online podcast.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Ep 17 – How to get great testimonials for your website appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

The web design industry has a bad reputation. It seems like every business owner you speak to, from large, corporate companies to freelancers, have had a crappy experience with a web design agency.

Why is this happening?

Personally, we know many fantastic web design agencies and freelancers. Are people just not finding them? Or is there something else going on?

In this episode, we unpack how to find the right agency for YOU, and how not every agency will work for your business. We also give you our run down on how to spot a bad web design agency or freelancer.

In this episode, we’ll cover…

• • Why some agencies might be right for others but not for you
  • Why we’re a bad agency for some people
  • How can you find the right web design agency for your business?
  • Signs of a bad web designer or agency

Time Stamps: In a rush? Get to the section you need to below!

0.58 – Business owners have had a bad experience with a web design agency
2.20 – People aren’t finding the right agency for them
2.50- Examples of agencies that won’t work for some business owners
5.53 – How can you find the right agency for you?
8.57 – Avoid web designers with bad websites
9.26 – No access to a content management system
11.32 – Using jargon to confuse
13.33 – No faces on the business
15.31 – Obscure content management system
17.57 – Look at the portfolio
19.38 – Is there a discovery phase?
22.20 – Jumping through hoops for pricing

Useful Resources and Links

Agency Trailblazer 

Membership Community 

Free Facebook Community

What To Do Next

Thanks for listening to our episode. If you found this episode useful, please feel free to share it via social media using the links above.

If you want to know about search engine optimisation (SEO), website conversions, content marketing and website copy, then join our FREE Facebook Group.

We would love it if you subscribed to our podcast and left us an honest review. This helps us reach more people and produce more podcast episodes.

If you have any questions about this episode or you want us to cover something new, then contact us on hello@jammydigital.com or leave a comment at the bottom of the page!

• • Join Our Facebook Group
  • Subscribe and review
  • Contact Us

Episode Transcript Below

Welcome to the Make Your Mark Online Podcast where we help personal brands build and grow a successful business website. Please welcome your hosts, husband and wife team Martin and Lyndsay.

Welcome to episode 16 of the Make Your Mark Online Podcast. Today we’re going to be talking about how to spot a bad web design agency. But before we get into the show, this podcast is sponsored by the Make Your Mark Online Membership. This is our signature membership community where we help personal brands build and grow a successful business website. The doors for the membership are currently close, but you can check out the details at MakeYourMarkOnline.net and you can join the wait list and we’ll notify you as soon as we open the doors again in January. Let’s get into the show.

Today we’re talking about how to spot a bad web design agency before you invest your money. Is that right, Lyndsay?

Yes. We wanted to in this episode because so many business owners have had a bad experience with a web design agency, haven’t they?

We hear it all the time.

We’re not a good industry.

No.

We actually had a discovery call with one of our members in our community. She said in the past finding a web designer you can trust or even recommend is really difficult. That made us kind of sad.

Yeah. We cried that night.

I know. We did. No. I mean we have friends who are web designers. We’re not all at each other’s throats. We might be competition, but we know ourselves some really good web designers. We’re part of a community called Agency Trailblazer run by the wonderful Lee Jackson, who’s a fantastic web designer.

We love you, Lee.

We love you, Lee. The community there is full of amazing people. We know that good web designers exist. We know plenty of them ourselves. It’s just why aren’t people finding them?

Yeah, exactly, because we know they are out there. We absolutely do. We’re part of our own membership community that Lee Jackson runs for agency owners. There are people in there that are constantly looking at ways to improve their business and improve their client’s websites as well, but why is it that people actually struggle to find them? If there are so many out there, which we know that there are, then what is the problem?

I think it’s a really interesting one because I don’t think people actually struggle to find a good agency, although that’s how they perceive it. I think people struggle to actually find the right agency for them and I think that’s the real issue really with it. Sometimes when people say they’ve had a bad experience with a web design agency, it can mean they haven’t found the right agency for what they need. Take us. We’re probably a bad agency for some people, although we shouldn’t really say that, should we? But we are.

If someone wants a lot of handholding and they don’t even want to touch their website once it’s live, they want someone to do the text and image changes and writing blog posts and all that kind of stuff and they need that much support, that’s not what we do. We work with people that are quite proactive, who want to learn and don’t mind getting their hands dirty. We support them through training videos and emails. We don’t just leave, but we want them to get stuck in. That means we’d make a terrible agency for some people because some people need that level of support.

Of course. Yeah. I mean if you take for instance somebody who just refuses to do anything, often they’re see clients, if they’re not prepared to market their business, I understand that marketing’s important, then absolutely don’t hire us as your web design agency.

Even if they’re a big business and they essentially want to throw 20, 30, 40 grand day and they need someone to manage their marketing on that sort of level, there are only two of us, so we’re not the right agency for them in that sense. Yeah, there’s loads of different factors really. I remember speaking to a florist who said she’d wish she’d gone with us and that’s not being big-headed. The website that she had was fine, but she had her website designed by a big agency. I think she spent a lot of money on it. A lot, a lot of money. This agency worked with big players like BBC and Cadbury.

They specialize in so many different areas, but what she actually needed was just a great looking website that ranked her locally for her keywords. She was annoyed because she felt like she paid a lot of money. The problem was the agency just wasn’t right for her. It was too big for her business almost.

Yeah, exactly. People get drawn in by these big industry leaders. We’ve worked with BBC. We’ve worked with Virgin. We’ve worked with Barclays. People think, “Oh, well, if they’ve helped them, they can help me,” but actually a big agency like that is right for those kind of businesses. They’ll be there if you need them to. They’ll have the company retreats. They’ll have bean bag chairs and coffee machines. They’ll wow you. But for a little small business, you just need someone that gives a crap about your business. Somebody who’s prepared to ask you what you want to achieve and that’s why there is such a problem out there in the industry.

It’s that people hire because of the big shiny things and they don’t actually hire the agency that’s right for them based on exactly what they need and that’s what you’re saying really.

Yeah. Essentially yeah. Definitely. Definitely. Really the problem can actually stem from both sides. The agency might not be clear who they’re a right fit for. We take the responsibility personally to say, “Look, we’re probably not the right fit for you.” Usually in our website and in our content marketing we say who we’re kind of not the right fit for and who we are the right fit for, but some agencies don’t do that. In the case of the florist, the agency might have or should have arguably said, “We might not be the right agency for you,” but it’s kind of your call whether really they should have said that.

What can you do if you’re looking for an agency then? How can you spot these signs to know if they are the right agency for you?

I think be very, very clear about what you need. Take the time to establish what support you want from an agency, what kind of agency you want to work with. You want to work with a big fancy agency? Then it’s fine. If you want to work with a local freelancer, that’s fine too. Take the time to understand the differences between them and the sort of plus points and sort of negatives of working with both. Just identify what is important to you. You could want to rank highly in search results. Then an agency with SEO knowledge is going to be important. You have to think about all these things. What is actually important to you.

If you’re a luxury brand and design is absolutely everything and you want it to be absolutely perfect, then find an agency for that. Just think about your business and how it’s unique and try and find an agency that really sort of fits with that.

Yeah, great point. Okay. Fantastic. This is why we actually wrote the Website Buyer’s Guide, isn’t it?

Yeah.

We wanted to give our listeners and our website visitors a tool so that they can go out and find a web designer that’s right for them. This absolutely isn’t just kind of a sales pitch tool that we use. It is actually pretty useful. We put quite a lot of time and effort into it for you to sit down and go through the Website Buyer’s Guide before you even think about hiring a web designer or even speaking to a web designer. You may go into like Lyndsay said thinking, “I just want a website that looks incredible.”

Then you pay out a few thousand pound for this amazing website by this award-winning designer and then you can’t rank in Google or they don’t know what they’re doing in terms of content marketing. We see that quite a lot.

We do. Yes. Yeah. It’s a good point about the Buyer’s Guide because I think a lot of people might think that yeah, we just promote us, but we don’t because like we said, we’re a right fit for some people, we’re a wrong fit for some people, so it is quite an impartial guide. If you are looking for a web design agency, then definitely check that out.

Absolutely. But there are still a few warning signs that you can use as indicators even if you don’t actually take a look at the Buyer’s Guide. You can actually have a plan when you’re out there looking for a web designer. Is that right?

Yeah. There are some kind of indicators of a terrible web designer should I say or perhaps one that you might not want to work with or consider perhaps delving into doing a bit more research on definitely. We are a packed industry. There’s web design agency industries. There’s thousands of us. Probably millions of us. There are going to be some bad ones are out there. That’s inevitable. We’ve made a little list really of things to look out for in terms of a bad web designer. I suppose the first one would be if they have a bad website.

Yup. Sounds obvious, doesn’t it?

That’s always a clear indicator, but it’s amazing actually how many people do sort of go with web designers who have bad websites.

I think it’s partly down to the fact that they might be friends. They might be kind of word of mouths. Someone’s said, “Oh, you should go with them. I know them. They’ve been to my networking group that I go to every Wednesday morning.” People naturally want to recommend people, but yeah, clearly a bad website should be a bit of a warning sign.

Yeah, exactly. Another one is no access to a content management system and this really, really irritates both myself and Martin because we …

More so you. You get really angry about it.

I get really angry about it because we’ve talked to so many business owners who say, “I want to make a change.” It could be a simple change of a word on their website, but they are not allowed access to the backend of their website. If you’re searching for a website, ask the web designer, “Do I get access to the content management system?” You should get access to it. If not, pay for the access to it because it’s going to work out a lot better in the long run because you don’t want to be making small changes and being charged a horrendous amount for doing so. It just makes people so angry and I totally get why.

Absolutely. This is something that we find with really kind of like codey web designers. “We want to hard code everything and you’re just a business owner. You shouldn’t be accessing the website. If you want me to do it, I’ll do it for you and I’ll make sure you don’t break anything.” But there is a balance there. You should have access to be able to make basic changes such as text changes. I want to add an image. I might want to change some information on the contact page. You should be able to do the bare minimum without having to pay for a web designer to do it.

But I would say that most of the things on your website obviously you probably have to pay for to update if you want to change the layout or the images. But if you don’t have any access at all, that’s a bad sign there.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, of course, there’s some things. If you’ve had purposefully designed your homepage and you’ve got actual specialist designs that are bespoken from scratch, that’s kind of hard for you to change. You should be able to go in, edit the text, maybe change some images on your further pages on your website. Maybe add further pages and things like that. You should be able to do those things, so certainly ask your web designer about that. It is sometimes a way of some web designers making extra money.

It is.

That they can charge you when you need to change your telephone number or something ridiculous like that. Make sure you do have access. Another thing is the use of jargon which we see all the time which irritates us. HTML and CSS and PHP. If web designers are mentioning all these things on their websites and you’re like, “Oh, this sounds very technical. This sounds very confusing-

These guys must be right for me.

… These guys know what they’re talking about,” then they just don’t have respect for you because they’re not explaining things in a way that you will understand. It’s like when I go to a garage, or both us, a car garage because we know nothing about cars, do we?

No. I’m not even ashamed to say that I know nothing.

Nothing. If the guy was like, “There’s something wrong with the left falange, you need to pay £500,” we’d be like, “Oh, okay. I don’t know what that is, so I’m just going to pay it,” but you kind of feel like you were being ripped off a bit I think. It’s kind of the same thing with web designers. We do get into this sort of or I’ve seen a lot of web designers get into this sort of codey language on their website. There’s no need for it at all.

I don’t actually understand why they do it. I mean it’s just crazy. It’s like when people put on the wrappers the ingredients. It comes with all of this like blah, blah, blah.

All the different names for sugar.

Yeah, exactly. It’s like I don’t really care about it. Just tell me exactly is it healthy? Is it not healthy? This is part of the problem with using language like this is because they know that you don’t know what it means. It’s just they put it in there to make themself, “Oh, well, we’re specialists because we know what this jargon means.” I can’t remember the last time we mentioned HTML or CSS on our website because it doesn’t actually mean anything to anybody, so it’s a waste of space. We are quite pretentious about that I think. We don’t want to waste any space on our website. Why would we put something on there that has no relevance to anybody?

I think it might even be an ego thing for them.

I think so.

They want to impress other web designers, but if a web designer’s got other web designers in mind or other designers in mind and not you, then that’s not the kind of person that you want to work with. That’s something to think about definitely. Another thing that a lot of web design agencies do for some strange reason is not put their faces on their business.

Hermits.

Hermits. Yeah. They are hermity. A lot of them. It’s difficult I think when you’re looking at a website and you can’t actually see who you’re going to work with. It’s kind of off-putting and you don’t really know who it is. Sometimes they’ll put cartoon images and things like that, but it’s very, very difficult I think not to see sort of who someone is. They’ll kind of hide away. I’d just do some further digging as to what kind of agency they are. I wouldn’t say it was a major point, but I would say do some further research.

I think people naturally are a little bit more timid about putting their face on their website like many of the listeners to the show. It’s just if you’re going to be picking up the phone and speaking to somebody, every time you phone, every time you want a question about your website or you need some help with it, you’re probably going to be speaking maybe one or two different people. What’s wrong with actually showing your face on your website?

More often than not, we see agencies do this all the time where they’ll just use like big agency stock images or they’ll use like a weird video that makes it feel like it’s this big exclusive agency when really it’s just Jenny who … She started up a web design agency in the back of her Truman. That’s all well and good if you’re open and honest about it.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean Jenny might be perfect for some people. But if she’s pretending to be a big large web design agency, then that’s not going to work because you think you’re investing in one thing when actually you’re not.

Exactly. It’s more misleading than anything else, which is exactly why we wanted to include it in the list.

Yeah, definitely. Another thing is sort of using an obscure content management system. Now what we mean by that is using a kind of content management system, so the backend of your website, that hasn’t really been heard of before. Now you may have heard of things like Magento, WordPress, Shopify, things like that, Joomla, and that’s fine if you’ve heard of those things. But if you’ve not heard of the content management system, just do a little bit more research. The reason we use WordPress is because it’s so popular and well-trusted.

If you have a problem with your website and me and Martin get hit by a bus, I don’t know why we’re getting hit by a bus, but let’s say we get hit by a bus.

Are you planning on it? She is the most skeptical I must admit.

It means that you can actually google a problem about … Someone on the internet will have answered the question about WordPress because it is so popular. Agencies that use sort of very specialist content management systems, quite unique ones, you’re reliant on them a bit more to help you. You haven’t got that outside resource. You can’t just go to YouTube and watch loads of videos and things like that to actually help you with it. You are relying on them a lot more. That can be a little bit of a warning sign, but as I said, it’s not a major point.

You just want to do a little bit more research on that content management system that they’re using.

Because it kind of ties you in. I mean we remember a few years ago actually when we used to like bid for work and stuff like that and go up against other agencies. There was an agency that used something … I don’t even think I heard of it, but they insisted that all of the websites they built … This was a big agency. Clearly they just wanted to tie you in. They knew that most people will be out there recommending WordPress. If they built on this obscure content management system that nobody ever heard of, then it would literally tie you in.

If you ever wanted to leave, other web designers don’t do it, so you’ll have to pay them the £500 a year hosting fees, whatever they were charging.

That’s a really good point because if you need to leave them, move to another agency, we’ve had people come to us who have a WordPress website and we can kind of take it over and look at it. But if you have a really obscure content management system, a web designer might say, “You know, I’m not used to this,” it becomes more difficult definitely.

Absolutely.

Another one is having a questionable portfolio. Check out the web designer’s portfolio. Have a look at the kind of websites that they’re designing. As you go on the websites themselves, do have an understanding that when people take over their websites, they can change it. What the web designers featured on their portfolio can look different on the actual website if the owner of the website has changed some certain elements, but you’ll get a sense really of what kind of level they’re at, what kind of websites they’re designing, what kind of industries they also specialize in as well. If they do a lot luxury brand websites and you’re a luxury brand, perfect.

That’s starting to look quite good. But if they do something completely different, if they do a lot of online shops and you’re something else, then you might just want to have a look at that really.

If they’re ticking a lot of boxes for you and the one kind of problem might be the portfolio, then reach out to them and say, “Is this up to date?” Because we know ourselves, finding the time to update your portfolio can be tricky. We’ve got loads of websites that we’ve built over the past six months and we’ve not just had the time to add them. It might be worth actually reaching out to some of these agencies and saying, “Look, I’m a personal brand or I own an online shop. I see that you sell online shops, but I can’t see any on your portfolio. Please could you send me a few that you’ve done so that I can actually have a peak?”

There’s nothing wrong with that. It shows that you’re interested and you’re doing your research and you’re being due diligent.

The web designer will appreciate it because they’ll go, “I really need to update my portfolio.”

Exactly. Exactly. If they ever get a chance.

Yes. That’s a really, really good point. Yeah. Not to rely on it completely. Just to actually ask as well. That’s a really good point. Another problem that a lot of people have with agencies is there’s no kind of discovery phase is what a lot of agencies call it.

This is so important.

What we call it too. If an agency or a freelancer doesn’t really talk about how they’re going to find out more about your business and what we mean by this is we have a discovery phase with our clients where we talk about who’s your target audience, what do you want to achieve from your website, what kind of goals do you have for your business in the next five years. We delve into all about their brand and all about their business. We really get to know a lot about them in this phase. The only way that you can design a good website for a business is by doing this discovery.

If a web designer doesn’t really indicate that they do that, that’s kind of a warning sign really that they’re not very invested in your business.

This is something you’ll tend to find when you start spending a little bit more on your website. The agency that you hire for £500 might not even know what a discovery phase is. Whereas the agency that might charge 5,000 might actually understand that this is a vital aspect to the web design process. It’s funny because when we do discovery phase, sometimes due to clients going on holiday, things like that, we could get delayed up to six months when we’re building a website.

It makes it great because if a client’s ready to go live with their website and we say, “But in the discovery phase you wanted a video live brought into your website. We’ve got it written down here,” and they’re like, “Oh yeah. I did want that,” and then we can build it for them and it worked well.

Yeah, definitely.

But if you don’t have a discovery phase and you’re completely reliant on, “This is what you said you want via this email and this is fine. That’s what I’ve built for you,” and you’ll be like, “Well, I’ve got all of these amazing business goals and these big ideas,” but you’re not going to get a website potentially that will allow you to do that unless you have a really in depth discussion with your web designer before you hire them.

Yeah, definitely. I would actually say just as a caveat really, it really does depend on how much you’re spending. I mean if you have a budget for 300 quid, you’ve got to be realistic. You can’t expect someone to spend hours trying to understand your business because then they’re going to be on, I don’t know, four quid an hour or something.

Might as well work at Marky’s.

Yeah, by the time they’ve actually finished everything. You do have to be a bit more realistic with that. But if you are spending a bit more money, then it’s something that I would expect from a web design agency certainly.

That’s quite interesting actually because it brings us quite nicely onto pricing. Is there anything pricing related that we can look for on an agency’s website?

We are huge believers of putting our prices on our website, even just an indicator because our prices vary depending on what people need, and people need a lot of extra things going into their website, which adds the price on, but we have a minimum package that we sort of advertise on our website. A lot of web designers don’t display their prices on their website. It annoys me, but I won’t say that it’s an indicator of a bad web designer because it isn’t.

It’s just so like you kind of think people copy each other. People are like, “I can’t really give a price because it’s a bespoke service and it depends on what you need,” but what you’re saying is, “Give people an indicator.” That’s all.

I would like it if web designers gave people an indicator, but they don’t. But what really irritates me and sort of shows me that you’re a bad web designer is when web designers make you jump through hoops for prices. I mean if someone gets in touch if someone calls, if you call a web designer and you kind of don’t still have an indicator of price after that phone call, that initial phone call or email, then it’s very, very difficult I think to start trusting them. If they want to have more meetings with you, if they want to have like three or four meetings before they actually give you a price, that’s going to be very, very irritating for you.

I think it’s a big warning sign really. I only say this because I used to work for a university and I had to find a website. I had a budget. I was going to quite large agencies. Actually getting a price out of them was so difficult. In the end, it was just sort of they were asking, “Well, what’s your budget? What’s your budget? What’s your budget,” and all they wanted to know was what was my maximum and then they said, “Oh, believe it or not, that’s exactly how much we’re going to charge.” That process took about four weeks and it was just so irritating. It was just very, very awkward for me.

It’s because they don’t respect your time as much as they respect theirs. It’s this old fashion sales mentality, which is tell me what you can afford and I will work out a deal for you. There is a simple way to do this. Just say, “Look, I don’t know what I’m supposed to pay for a website. I don’t even have a budget in mind. What is the average, what is the minimum that generally you take on clients for?” You can ask these kind of questions. I’m not going to tie you into anything, but I don’t have a clue. I don’t have the foggiest how much it should cost for a website.

We find a lot of people have said that to us in the past and that’s exactly why we put a minimum price on there. We are a lot more expensive than some other agencies, so it would make no sense whatsoever for us to just have an hour long conversation with every single person if we know that they literally don’t have that much money.

Yeah, definitely. Oh, sorry. I think as well that’s a really good point about you asking what the average is because if someone ask what our average price for a website is, we’d be able to answer them within the click of our fingers really, giving them sort of an approximate average, but yeah. When a web design agency is looking to take you through lots of hoops for prices, that’s when it gets difficult. Understandably, they have to understand what exactly what you need because a basic website is very different if someone needs a lot of extra sort of software or extra sort of page designs and things like that.

That does add on to the price. You’ve got to expect a web designer maybe to ask you some probing questions, but if it’s taking a lot of time, certainly if it’s taking weeks, then that’s a sign that they’re not respecting you as Martin said. These are just a few things that may give you an indication of what kind of web designer someone is, but the best thing for you to do is to try and find someone who is going to move your business forward and who you can actually connect with and have a good kind of relationship with. I mean our clients, we’re actually quite close to our clients, aren’t we, because we find out so much about their business, don’t we?

Yeah, exactly. It’s just a more enjoyable agency for us to run I suppose. That’s why we do it that way. But like you say, a lot of that comes down to we know you might have these concerns, we know you might be looking at our portfolio, we know you might have a budget in mind, you might not know exactly what you want to spend and that’s exactly why we’re putting off a lot of work into our website to make the communication easier for you to understand as well. It’s exactly why we don’t put HTML and MySQL and all that kind of codey stuff on our website because we always think about our visitors more than we think about our competitors I suppose.

But yeah, those are the things that we found over the years of people … Mistakes that people might make.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

Okay. I hope you found this episode useful. I know many of our listeners are building their own websites, so it should help. I hope you found that episode useful. If you are looking for a web design agency, then hopefully there is lots of information in this episode that you’ll be able to use when you’re out there looking for one. Please check out the Website Buyer’s Guide. Again it’s not a sales pitch. It’s a tool that you have to be able to print off and go through and take your time with because a website’s such a big money investment, but also a massive time investment as well. You don’t want to make a bad buying decision.

Hope you found that episode useful. If you are not a part of our free Facebook group, then feel free to check it out. Every Wednesday afternoon we do some free website critiques where we review your website for around 10 minutes telling you what you can do to improve it. We’d love you to check it out, if you go to jammydigital.com/facebook. That’s it for today’s episode. See you next time on the Make Your Mark Online Podcast.

Martin & Lyndsay

The post Ep 16 – Warning signs of a bad web designer appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

We were bright-eyed twenty-one-year-olds when we invested every penny we had (and hadn’t, to be honest) into a brand new website.

It failed miserably.

In this episode, we uncover what went so wrong in our first ever business, so you don’t make the same mistakes as us.

In this episode, we’ll cover…

• Why you need to do your research into web design agencies
• Why investing loads of money didn’t work
• How having no backup funds is dangerous
• Finding a web designer that’s right for you
• Researching the right framework for your website

Time Stamps: In a rush? Get to the section you need to below!

5.00- Why did it fail?
5.10 – Our lack of research into web design agencies
6.20 – A ‘build it and they will come’ mentality
8.00 – Don’t expose yourself financially
9.30 – Understanding that you need time
11.00 – Getting no traffic to your website
14.00 – Investing in a website in an extremely competitive niche
15.20 – Going too fast
16.00 – The website is the beginning of your business
19.15 – Getting obsessed with the website
20.25 – Try taking your heart out of it
21.30 – Don’t invest when you don’t have the money

Useful Resources and Links

Jammy Digital SEO webinar 

DIY Website vs Agency

Website Buyer’s Guide 

What To Do Next

Thanks for listening to our episode. If you found this episode useful, please feel free to share it via social media using the links above.

If you want to know about search engine optimisation (SEO), website conversions, content marketing and website copy, then join our FREE Facebook Group.

We would love it if you subscribed to our podcast and left us an honest review. This helps us reach more people and produce more podcast episodes.

If you have any questions about this episode or you want us to cover something new, then contact us on hello@jammydigital.com or leave a comment at the bottom of the page!

• • Join Our Facebook Group
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Episode Transcript Below

Welcome to episode nine of the Make Your Mark Online Podcast. In today’s episode, we’re going to be talking about why our first website failed so badly, and it’s gonna be a really interesting episode, but before we get into the show, we wanted you to know that we are running a free online webinar all about SEO for personal brands. Now this is taking place on Thursday, the sixth of September at 8:00 P.M. BST or 3:00 P.M. EST. Now if you’re listening to this podcast when it’s just being released, you still have a couple of days to sign up to the webinar. If you just go to JammyDigital.com/webinar, then you’ll be able to pop your name and email address on the page there, and we’ll send you our unique for the webinar. Okay, let’s get on with the show.

So Martin, this is a really funny episode actually ’cause it’s kind of going back in time, but we weren’t always web designers, were we?

No. Yeah, surprisingly I didn’t just happen to know HTML as a toddler. Yeah, it’s definitely something that we’ve picked up later on in life.

Yeah, definitely. We’re talking about our first website, so this was when we were probably 21, 22. We were real babies.

Yeah, eight, nine years ago, something like that.

Yeah, something like that. Makes us feel very old. But like I said, we weren’t always web designers, but we did start up a completely new business, didn’t we?

Yeah, it was completely random really. We bought kind of these cushions and some home furnishings and just some odd bits that we wanted to sell online really. So we’re selling stuff on Ebay, and we were doing odd market stalls, and we actually really enjoyed it. It kinda got us out and about, and we’re obviously glutton for punishments, because we just gave up our entire free time to run this business while we were both working full time. So it wasn’t easy, but we enjoy it, yeah.

Yeah, definitely. And like you said, yeah, it was pretty much our weekends we spent. We actually went to sort of farmers markets and things like that. We sold our soft furnishings on there, and yeah, like you said, it was our evenings and weekends, even though we’re working full time that we actually invested into this sort of extra business. So we did try and make the decision to take it one step further and invest into a website.

Yeah, exactly. And we’ve always enjoyed design. Lyndsay, you’ve got your marketing background, and I’ve always known a little bit about HTML and CSS, so I had the skills potentially to be able to build a website, but we wanted it done properly at that point, wanted to make sure it was an online shop, people could buy from anywhere in the world. And we just wanted to hire a professional really, so we actually paid a web designer to build this singing, all dancing website. And it was a real struggle financially for us to do it, but we managed to get the money together, didn’t we?

Investing in a New Website

Yeah, we did. And I remember now, I think it was 1400 pound, which I mean money is relative, isn’t it? So at the time, that was all the money that we had in the world. We had to save up quite a while for that, and yeah, it was a really, really big investment for us because we weren’t massively well paid from our jobs at the time. We were just starting out in our careers, and so, yeah, this was a big, huge investment, and we put everything into it. So I think this episode really is about how we can help all the people not make the gigantic mistakes that we did when we first got a website.

Yeah, we just want to kind of give you our experience, so that you can, yeah, avoid the same mistakes. It’s as simple as that really because there are a few simple mistakes that listening to us, you’ll probably be like, “Well, that’s stupid. Why did you do that?”

“What are you doing?”

Exactly.

Remember we were 22.

And we were just excited, and we were trying to be proactive, and we were trying to be positive. And the business model in general that we had was actually quite risky in the fact that you buy products with your money, and then you have to try and sell and recoup the costs. So it’s not like a freelance business, is it? Where you can just make money just by doing your service. There’s a lot of risk there, and we actually put quite a lot on our credit cards to start off with, which is never a good move.

Yeah, and it was, even though, you said it was quite a risky business strategy, probably was one of your better ideas, Martin, if I’m honest, wasn’t it?

Martin’s Crazy Business Ideas

Yeah.

Because Martin, bless him, when I first met him, he had every business idea under the sun.

Of course. That’s how businesses start. I wouldn’t be here today, if I hadn’t come up with random ideas that never would’ve worked.

Yeah, no they were terrible. Please if you do ever run into Martin, just ask him about the business idea, karaoke toilets. That was one of his worst-

Moving on. Moving on.

… Business ideas that he’s ever come up with. But yeah, this one was actually, even though you said it was a difficult one, it was probably one of your better ones to begin with, Martin.

Thank you.

So why did it fail? That’s the ultimate question. Why did this business fail? And why did the website not work?

I think a lot of the reasons why it didn’t work were basically based on our lack of research. So our actual approach to hiring a web designer was pretty quick. We didn’t do an awful lot of kind of asking friends and family for recommendations. We looked around at a few local businesses, and we hired somebody who had the best looking website. I blame you for that actually ’cause you were kind of the more aesthetic one, so-

Yeah, I was hooked in by the prettiness of it.

But that’s a mistake that I think a lot of people make. You potentially look at the web designers that have the glossiest website, and we actually hired somebody who was fine. I mean he was a nice guy. We got along with him very well. Nothing to do with him. It’s just that if we’d had done more research, if we would’ve spend more spent, we’d have potentially gone with somebody else.

Doing Your Research Before Hiring a Web Designer

Yeah, definitely. I completely agree with that. I think what advice anyone now is to do their research before they actually hire a web designer, but we were just really excited. We kinda jumped into the process. But I think the major problem was that we had this mentality of if we invested in this web designer who had a really glossy website and had built other websites that were nice and looked nice before, then if he built ours, then people would flock to it. We’d get loads of customers, wouldn’t we? And we kind of had this “build it and they will come” mentality, which was probably one of our biggest mistakes, wasn’t it? We just kind of thought, “Do you know what? We just have to throw some money at this, and then all will be fine.”

Yeah, exactly. And like I say, it was a nice process. There was nothing wrong with it or anything, but we invested all of our money in that, so essentially what we did is we saved up so much, and we’d already got lots of stock piling up in our spare room, and we spent the rest of our money on this web designer. And we didn’t have anything left, so in our minds, we were like, “Well, I’ve gotten nothing left, so this has to work.” And we didn’t have a leg to stand on.

No, no. Definitely. I think it was a combination of having this mentality of, “We just need to have a pretty and functioning website, and that’s all we need. And this is the last penny that we’re investing, so it has to work.” And two of those things kind of really collided, didn’t they? And kind of ended up in a disaster. And yeah, having no back up funds, no money for extra marketing, just no money for food in some cases was not a good place to be. We really exposed ourselves, didn’t we? And it wasn’t great.

And this is why we advise people now to not hire a web designer with a brand new business because we should have built a website ourselves. We should have tried to do it ourselves. Maybe even if we really struggled, actually hired a cheaper web designer that perhaps didn’t design websites as nice as this other agency, but at least we could put one foot in front of the other and protect ourselves a little bit more. We kind of just went in at the roof level and just said, “We’re gonna throw it all, and it’s just gonna happen to just start throwing money out of the screen of our computer because we’ve paid this money in, and we want the money back.”

Yeah, definitely. And I think this is something we actually talk about in episode one of our podcast. The first episode that we wanted to say was, “Don’t invest loads of money in a web designer, especially if you’re a new business because-”

And now you know why.

Exactly. That is due to our own, not even our client’s experience, but our own experience. We never want someone to go through that themselves because it really did leave us really financially vulnerable for quite a long time, didn’t it?

Getting the Right Support from Your Web Designer

Yeah, exactly. And it is a struggle. But aside from that also, again we don’t think that this web designer was probably right for us, as well. I mean, yes, if a big company was to hire him, and they’d get a nice glossy website, that’s fantastic, but we actually needed quite a bit of support, and it’s not his fault. It’s our fault for not doing the research, but when it comes to support, we didn’t know anything about how to update the framework that he’d given us and how to optimize our website for search engines, things like that. We didn’t have the tools to be able to really make the most of our website that we’d spent a lot of money in and invested in.

Exactly. We didn’t have the tools that you said, and we didn’t have the time to sort of learn all that stuff either. Especially after the website went live, we were like, “We just need the money back now,” but we didn’t have the time to actually think, “Well, what do we need to do to learn to make this website a success?” We just expected it to come back straight away.

And I think, yeah, the web designer, it’s absolutely nothing of his fault at all, but we did need that extra support. It was built on a platform called … It was OpenCart?

That’s the one. Boo.

Boo. Booing it. But it was really difficult for us to use, wasn’t it?

Yeah. If any of you have used that platform in the past, you’ll know exactly what we’re talking about, but it’s not the most search engine friendly. The URLs that they create are just horrible, and it’s really difficult to optimize it. And that’s why we’re very particular these days about the framework that we use, and we have to trust it. If somebody came to us and said, “I’d give you 50,000 pounds to build a website in OpenCart,” I don’t think I’d be able to sleep at night taking someone’s money and actually creating a website like that. And it’s partly due to the fact that we didn’t have a choice. We just got the platform that we got given.

But we didn’t even research, did we?

No.

Researching What Platform Your Site is Built On

I don’t think we were even aware that there were differences, but certainly, we didn’t do our research about what platform to use for a shopping website or even what platform to use for a website. We would always tell people to do their research first and find out platform actually works for them. But yes, for us, that was a real struggle, and we spent our time, rather than actually learning how to market our business, how to do better with our website, we spent our time just learning the nitty gritty bits of how to organize postage and how to do all these little things that were really complicated. And it was just a lot of work. A lot of evenings, weekends actually spent just doing that, while we were losing money essentially on the website itself.

And what we really needed at that point was just a lot of traffic. We just needed to try and drive as much traffic to our website as possible, and we didn’t have the time to do that because we were focusing on the nitty-gritty parts of managing the website. But that for the most part, would’ve solve a lot of problems. If we’d had spent more time promoting it on social media, maybe focused on learning more about SEO, which we didn’t have a clue about at the time, then we could’ve still moved forward, but I think it was just such a big weight on our shoulders with the money that we’d invested, and we just wanted it to work. And it was just a real struggle.

But I do think, if we’d of had a website buyers guide, for instance like what we’ve created, then we would’ve been able to protect ourselves to a certain extent, and we would’ve potentially hired another agency, and we’d of had a better mentality really about going into a business and accepting that “Build and they will come” was going to just miraculously happen, probably wouldn’t have been the case.

Yeah, definitely. And I will put a link to the website buyers guide in the notes because it’s useful for anyone who wants to get a new website or redesign their website. We don’t recommend us, by the way, but it’s a guide for you, if you’re shopping around for a website, so it’s really useful.

Yeah. We spent quite a lot of time on that because we wanted you to be able to avoid making the same mistake that we did. That was one of the big drivers for it.

Getting Traffic to the Site

Yeah, definitely. So just talking as well, when the website went live, we didn’t get, as Martin mentioned, any traffic to it at all. We really struggled. And we had this mentality that once it was built, it would just magically get traffic. We were quite naïve about that. And I remember you coming home one day from work, and I was going, “I’ve heard of this thing called SEO, and I think it’s quite interesting actually. I think this stuff works, but I don’t understand any of it. Will you help me with it?” And that was kind of the first time we’d ever heard of SEO, wasn’t it?

Yeah, and then what we did is obviously … ‘Cause we’re quite positive at that point. We just launched, and went to web designer, and we said, “SEO. What can we do? How can we do it?” And he said, “Oh, well. It’s expensive. If you want us to do it, it’s gonna cost this much.” I think he quoted it at over a thousand pound a month that some clients pay for SEO.

For us then, may have well been a million pounds, really. It was just impossible.

Yeah, it was impossible for us to be able to invest even a couple of hundred pounds a month, never mind that much. So it was a real struggle, and that was really deflating, especially because that’s when he decided to tell us, “Well, you’re in a very competitive niche,” which was an even bigger blow because it meant that even if we did optimize our website, it’d still be a real struggle because we were trying to optimize for unique gifts or home furnishings or cushions or whatever it is that we were selling at that point. So it was a real kind of de-motivator at that point to know that we’d spent all this money on this website, and it was a real struggle. It felt like we were at the bottom of a mountain, didn’t it?

Yeah, it did. And I don’t think it was his responsibility to tell us, “You know, you’re in a really competitive industry.” We’re selling cushions, so we could’ve realized really that we were in a competitive industry, but yes, I think it was just this naivety that we sort of took to actually doing the website.

Yeah, definitely. And that’s something, I think, we need to discuss a little bit, as well. Sometimes, we actually let our excitement for the business, and Lyndsay’s passion for these owl cushions that we just had an abundance of.

I loved the owl … I miss the owl cushions.

That we actually went sort of too fast because we were so excited about the business, which it sounds like a good thing, but actually it can lead you to make the wrong business decisions, hence hiring a web designer at the point when we didn’t necessarily need to. We believed in the products so much, and our enthusiasm would just sort of take us to be a successful business, and we could live on a beach. That kind of business model.

Our Naive Outlook to the Work Involved

With cocktails, selling owl cushions and being millionaires.

Yes, it’s all done to our naivety, and the fact that we didn’t realize how much work it would be to be able to build a website and grow the website. And I think that’s the thing. You think that the website is everything. You think it’s going to just generate business, but it is means to an end really.

Yeah. Yeah, I always say that the website is not the end. It’s the beginning. Getting a new website is just the beginning of your business, and we viewed as the end. “That was it. That was all we needed. We were going to be a success.” No, it’s actually the beginning of everything because a website is the heart of your business, but you’ve still got to kind of pump blood to it in a way. You’ve got to make sure that you’re building a business on it. You’ve got to get traffic to it. And we didn’t understand any of that, really. We were just selling a product that was available on Amazon, on Ebay, on hundreds, probably thousands of other websites, as well, and we didn’t really give anyone a reason to buy from us, did we?

No, we didn’t differentiate ourselves. We were trying to compete on price. There was no benefit from hiring us, or buying from us, rather than buying off Ebay, and you could probably even get it a bit cheaper. So the profit margins weren’t there because we were competing on price. We were too scared to do any kind of content at all. We were brand new to social media marketing at this point, and we barely even touched Facebook. But again, we had that encouragement. We didn’t mind getting out of there.

I remember the day when we went to a park with all our products and decided to take photographs of them. Like with the little owl cushions, we’d put them in trees-

Well, we had owl cushions. We had lion cushions. We had monkeys. Yeah, so we did some really fun stuff, didn’t we?

We enjoyed it.

Yeah, like Martin said, we went to the park, and we even stopped at a zebra crossing, and we put our owls on the zebra crossing, like on the cover of a Beatles album, I think it was, and we tried to emulate it. And yeah, we took pictures. We gave all the owls their own names. We made poems for them.

She’s very proud of the name thing. I don’t know.

And I am very proud of the names because the supplier actually stole that from us, I’m sure.

She still says that. It’s true. They didn’t have names before, and they did after.

They didn’t, and then they had names afterwards.

And our names were better, I think.

Our names were really good, yeah.

Sebastian the lion cushions.

Sebastian the lion cushion, yeah.

It was a very fun business.

It was.

Not Everyone is as Excited as You

It was exciting, and I think that’s why we let our hearts rule our heads. And that’s why because we were so enthusiastic about it, we just assumed that the world would be, as well. And it’s not the case, and that’s why it’s really important that you have a strategy behind how you’re going to market your business once the website is done. And like Lyndsay said, the website is just the starting line. It’s not the end line. And by considering what your buyers might want, it’s a good place to start on your content marketing. Literally, your website is such a fraction of the effort in your business, that as long as the website’s set up a certain way, and it’s built to convert people, and it’s built to attract search engine traffic as well, then the rest of the effort goes into the marketing and the promotion and writing helpful blog posts and going down the real kind of nooks and crannies really of content marking.

Getting Obsessed with the Small Detail

Yeah, and I think the biggest mistake that we also made … There was lots. There’s lots of biggest mistakes we also made. Was probably that we were so obsessed with the website and how each little bit looked, so we thought, “Oh, we could move that bit down there. Or we could change the color of that button. Or we could make that slightly bigger.” And we got so obsessed with the details, but like what we said what we really needed was to do content marketing. We needed to drive traffic to the website because changing those little details is pretty useless ’cause no one was on the website anyway, apart from my mom. Thanks Mom. She went on the website. I think she pity bought a product, which is never a good place to be.

So yeah, it was a struggle. So from what we’ve learned from this whole process, what would you advise people to do in future if they were going to get a new website?

I think the website buyer’s guide is going to help. I know it’s our product. We don’t get anything. We’re not selling it to you, but we definitely put it together to avoid this kind of scenario. So definitely check it out. But the research mentality is so important. Try and take your heart out of it. Try and use your head when you’re making buying decisions in general, never mind when you’re hiring a web designer. But if you are brand new, then try doing it yourself first. We’re never going to stop teaching this. Try doing it yourself first, get on Shopify, or try and launch a WordPress template that comes with the shop. Just try and do it yourself first. See how far you get. If you struggle and you’re having problems with it, then try and find someone that can help you move forward one step at a time. Don’t just go straight to step ten, which is pay over a thousand pound for your brand new website with a brand new business that you’ve not been able to validate yet.

Yeah, definitely. And we’re not just talking about shopping sites either. We’re actually talking about all websites. Obviously, it’s a bit more complicated with a shopping website, but I think this applies to all new business. Make sure you do that research first ’cause it’s not just shopping websites that are complicated. Web design itself is very, very complicated, so make sure that you do that research and, yeah, that buyers guide should be able to help you.

And don’t use OpenCart.

And I think another thing would be, like you’ve touched upon Martin, is don’t invest when you shouldn’t. So we made a bad financial decision, and that is on us that we invested every single penny that we had into a website, and that kind of made us put everything into this website. And it felt like life or death, didn’t it? And it’s really not a good place to be. If you’re-

No, and it definitely ended in death. Flat lined completely.

Yeah, definitely. And I think if you’re finding yourself struggling to pay for a website, it’s not a good time to invest in it. We would never ever want a client that was not financially comfortable giving us their money. It would just be horrible, and it’s not a nice place to be.

No, it’s okay if you’ve already got a business, and you’ve generated it. Like go back and listen to episode one, if you’re concerned about whether or not you should or shouldn’t invest. But if you’ve already got a business, and it’s established, and you’re already getting customers, then yes, maybe at some point, you need to think about hiring a web designer. But with a brand new business, it’s a very risky tactic, especially if you’ve got three or four thousand on a credit card for these piling owl cushions.

Yeah, definitely. And finally, I think it’s just to understand and have the mentality that once the website is built, that’s when the work starts, that’s when your content marketing has to start, that’s when you have to think about CEO, social media marketing, email marketing, all these kind of things. You need to start getting blood to the heart really. You need to just start getting traffic and conversions, and that doesn’t just happen on a website. That requires a lot of work itself.

And we don’t want to put people off, but we don’t want to lie to you or tell you that it’s easy because it’s not. It’s not easy, but it is worthwhile doing it and learning this stuff, as well.

Yeah, and we never want to be the kind of podcast hosts that just kinda tell you that it’s all sunshine and rainbows. And that’s kinda why we wanted to kinda break it down a little bit and tell you that we’ve been in the same position that potentially you’re in right now, or have been in the past. And it’s all about us being open and honest about it, so that if you are in that position, don’t beat yourself up about it. We made the same mistake, as well. We’re just here to hopefully prevent other people from making that mistake, as well.

A Positive Outlook to Failure

Yeah, we cannot possibly look back and think, “This is a bad thing.” We never look back now and think, “That was awful,” because it led on to so many different things because in the process, we learned so much more about web design, we learnt everything about SEO during the process and conversions, content marketing, all those different things. We actually learnt so much from it, but we also learnt what it was like to be a customer buying a website. It’s been absolutely priceless in growing our own agency because we kind of understand how you guys feel, and we’re able to provide this advice like “Don’t invest thousands straight away, if you’re a brand new business, and this is all the money that you’ve got.”

Yeah, and we obviously try to be as supportive as we can, as well. So we send training videos and lots of help for resources to be able to help businesses grow, and that’s something that we don’t feel that we got, so that’s something that we’ve learnt that we’re able to give back now.

Yeah, definitely. Usually after we’ve built a website, we have like an hour with the client, don’t we? Where we say, “Okay, this is the kind of stuff you could possibly do to sort of grow your website further,” isn’t it? But it’s definitely not something where I look back and think, “I wish that would have had happened,” because without it happening, we wouldn’t be where we are today. So I definitely do regret it one bit, but it was fun.

But I think how we reacted to that disappointment is what really changed things for us and how we could’ve looked at it in a negative light and thought, “You know what? We tried doing a business. It’s rubbish. You can’t do it. I’d rather just get a normal job.” We truly believed in the life that we wanted to live, and that didn’t involve working for another company. So yes, it didn’t work this time, but we kept going on that road, and we pushed forward, and we then launched our very first web design business and got out first clients, and immediately, we saw the benefit of the failure that we’d lived through.

Yeah, definitely. And we’re still learning now. We learn every day all new things, and we keep investing in learning, isn’t it? Because it’s just so important that you do. I mean we never ever stop learning, and everything is an opportunity to learn, even the massive failures. So this got really all philosophical, didn’t it now [inaudible 00:26:11]?

I’m glad you was able to pull that word off. Let’s hope you don’t have to say phenomenal ’cause you-

No, don’t make me say that word. Pheno … Can we edit that out please?

Never. Never been able to say that. No.

He’s not going to let me edit that out.

No chance.

So I hope you found that useful and not too negative because like we said, we did bring some positives from the experience, and I hope that you were able to hopefully learn from our mistakes at least. So before we go, don’t forget to register for our SEO webinar on the sixth of September. Like we said, there are limited spaces available, so make sure you get your name down for that. You can’t access it without actually giving us your email address, and then we’ll send you an unique link. Make sure you turn up early because we do have limited spaces, so make sure you get a space, and we’ll see you next time on the Make Your Mark Online Podcast.

Martin & Lyndsay

The post Ep 9 – Why Our First Website Failed Miserably appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Personal Brand sites should include a number of key elements in order to make them a success. In this episode, we whizz through the eight top things you should include on your personal brand website.

In this episode, we’ll be covering…

• What is a big bold statement and how do you come up with one?
• What kind of images should you include on your website as a personal brand?
• Does including images of yourself on your website make you egotistical?
• How to show you’re an authority through your website
• What is a brand story and why your audience might be bored of the ‘rags to riches’ story
• Why showing your vulnerability helps you connect with your audience
• Why you need to have an opinion, even if you get some haters!
• Why you should avoid the phrase ‘sign up to my newsletter’

Time Stamps: In a rush? Get to the section you need to below!

1.11 – What is a Big Bold Statement?
3.06 – Being clear about your services
4.00 – What images should you include?
6.17 – Is content marketing important for personal brands?
9.12 – What is social proof and how should you use it on your website?
10.43 – What is a brand story?
13.00 – Why you have to have an opinion
15.02 – How to grow your email list on your personal brand website

Useful Resources and Links

Marcus Sheridan: You Ask, They Answer 

The Sales Lion

Content Marketing Academy (Chris Marr is a genius. That is all.)

What To Do Next

Thanks for listening to our episode. If you found this episode useful, please feel free to share it via social media using the links above.

If you want to know about search engine optimisation (SEO), conversion rate optimisation (CRO), content marketing and website copy, then join our FREE Facebook Group.

We would love it if you subscribed to our podcast and left us an honest review. This helps us reach more people and produce more podcast episodes.

If you have any questions about this episode or you want us to cover something new, then contact us on hello@jammydigital.com or leave a comment at the bottom of the page!

• • Join Our Facebook Group
  • Subscribe and review
  • Contact Us

Episode Transcript Below

Martin: Hey guys, welcome to episode two of the Make Your Mark Online podcast. In today’s episode we’re going to be giving you eight essential elements of a personal brand website. So, this is a really interesting topic obviously because we’ve all got website or we all need websites, but far too often people actually get them wrong a lot of the times.

Lyndsay: They do, Yes, Yes.

Martin: I suppose that’s why, that’s what gave us the, especially with the website critiques that we do in our free Facebook group, we see a lot of personal brands in there and certain elements that their missing to their websites. That’s why we suggest you to do this episode.

Lyndsay: Yes, definitely, and I think, people actually don’t think there’s any difference between a personal brand website and a normal service based website, but there’s actually quite a few differences between them. There’s definitely certain aspects of a personal brand website that should be there, that a lot of personal brands do miss.
Martin: Exactly, and that’s what we’re going to be going over today. So, let’s get started shall we? The first thing that a personal brand website needs is a big, bold statement. Talk to us a little bit, what’s a big, bold statement Lyndsay?

What is a Big, Bold Statement?

Lyndsay: Well, essentially a big, bold statement is a kind of a summary of what you do, what you offer, and how you can help people. It sounds really obvious when I say it, but we know from the website critiques that we’ve done and the web design that we’ve done over the past I don’t know how many years, that people often miss this. It’s something that should be quite prominent as soon as you land on a website.

Lyndsay: We always recommend that this big, bold statement should go on the first third of your homepage. So, we say above the fold. As soon as you land on a homepage you can see exactly what it is that someone does. A good example of this is actually from Pat Flynn. So he says, “Let me help you build a passive income driven online business.”

Lyndsay: That’s really clear what he’s offering.

Martin: Really obvious, isn’t it.

Lyndsay: Yes, exactly. I think it’s very, very important that all personal brands do this, because you need to tell your audience that they’re in the right place.

Martin: Yes. Isn’t it obvious though sometimes?

Lyndsay: No.

Martin: Okay.

Lyndsay: Definitely not, definitely not obvious. If you’ve got like for example Lyndsaycambridge.com, and someone lands on my website, how is that obvious?

Martin: Yes.

Lyndsay: You know, if you’ve just got your name or whatever. Plus, you can be a bit more specific. If you’re, I don’t know, a business coach, who is it that you coach?

Martin: True, specificity.

Lyndsay: Exactly. Yes, Yes. No one can say that word.

Martin: No one can say, I nailed it though.

Lyndsay: You did, I was impressed.

Martin: Mic drop. I’m not going to drop my mic, it will ruin their ears.
Lyndsay: Exactly, so Yes, think about how you can really hone it in and be very specific to your audience, definitely.

How Should You Display Your Services On Your Website?

Martin: Okay, so big, bold statement, perfect. So, in terms of your actual services then, surely that’s important as well.
I think that’s probably the next big important aspect to it, is what do you actually offer?

Lyndsay: Yes again, and I think people will be going, “Well Yes, duh.” But, we see this all the time, and especially with personal brands. They kind of say, “Okay, well this is all about me and this is all about what I do.” They kind of forget to say, “Okay, this is what I’m selling.” Because, you know, your purpose of your website is to sell your products or services.

Martin: Yes, otherwise what’s the point.

Lyndsay: Exactly, it’s to make you money, so you need to be kind of clear about what services you offer and make that very clear on your website. As soon as someone lands on your homepage you need to be directing them to these particular services. So, if you’re a personal brand that could be say coaching, and then you have that as a service quite prominently on there. Another one could be speaking. You know, those are two very different audiences and you need to make sure you’re very clear with your services and where you want those audiences to go.

What Images Should Personal Brands Use on Their Website?

Martin: Yes, definitely. Okay, so let’s move onto number three, images. Are images of yourself more important and why is that so important?

Lyndsay: Yes I think, well it’s incredibly important for personal brands, and I know that a lot of people do find this quite scary. They don’t like to put images of themselves on their website. It’s really important that you do because if you’re a personal brand, people aren’t just buying your product or service, they’re actually investing in you. They’re wanting to trust you, and they need you to be able to actually see you to trust you.

Martin: Okay, so is it not a little bit egotistical though to put ourselves on our website and make it all big and bold around us?

Lyndsay: I think that’s the biggest roadblock we hit with people isn’t it, they do feel a little bit shy and they feel like they’re being egotistical when they put their images on their website. But, it’s kind of expected. People are used to it and I don’t think anyone would judge you for having a picture of yourself on your website. They need to be able to actually see you in order to trust you, so I don’t think there’s a problem with it at all. I think that’s more peoples own shyness or reluctance to put their own pictures on their website, rather than …

Martin: I think you’re right, because I mean when we’re meeting people in face-to-face meetings, like business networking, it’s so much easier to build up a connection with them because we’ve seen them face-to-face.

Lyndsay: Exactly, Yes.

Martin: I suppose online we don’t always meet people face-to-face, and it’s nice to actually see what they look like so that I know that if we ever did speak I know who they are. I know that weird personality quirks and, do you know what I mean? It’s just one of those things, isn’t it.

Lyndsay: Yes, definitely, definitely. I’m not saying have every part of your website with a picture of your face on it, but it certainly is important for personal brands. Again, I would say that the first thing that someone when they land on your homepage should see is an image of you. There’s different kinds of images that you can do. Obviously the normal head shot photo, or you can have an action shot. So, if you work normally in a café with your laptop, then have that action shot picture and have it on your website. But, there’s lot of different things that you can do.

Martin: Yes, it’s a nice easy way to build up some trust, isn’t it?

Lyndsay: Yes, definitely.

Why Content Marketing is Important for Personal Brands?

Martin: I think that leads us on nicely to the next point, which is content. So, how can you build up a little bit more trust to wave your content efforts on your website, what’s that about?

Lyndsay: Yes, I think again for personal brands, content is to important. Because again, people are buying from you, they want to trust you, you need to be an authority. The best way to do that is producing content that proves to people that you know what you’re talking about. You know, having content on your website is important. Don’t hide your content away on a block page, which can only be accessed in the footer or whatever of your website. Actually make your website very interactive with your content.

Lyndsay: So, every personal brand website that we build, we ensure that they’re content whatever that might be, it might be blog posts, it might be your podcast episodes, are actually pulled through to the homepage so people can click directly on your most recent content and go through to that. It’s very important I think that personal brand websites are quite content focused.

Martin: Yes, good point.

Lyndsay: Yes, definitely.

Martin: But, I think as well it’s not just about having a lot of people think, when they think content or blog they think oh news, like just news, I’ve got to keep my latest news updated, that’s another job. But, we’re not actually talking about that, are we?

Lyndsay: No, no. We don’t kind of recommend we do the latest news blog post, or add-

Martin: Yes, we’ve been nominated for an award.

Lyndsay: Yay, no one cares.

Martin: No.

Lyndsay: No, I think the main thing with content marketing, and we could spend about a million hours talking about content marketing and what to do, but you know it’s about educating your readers. It’s also about answering questions that they might have about your products and services. Try and think about, okay, well what would by audience kind of object to? What would make them think I actually, I’m not sure about investing in this guy, and actually answer those questions.

Lyndsay: In our our Jammy Digital website we have, “Why are you so expensive?” Another one is, “Why are you so cheap?” “How long will it take to build a website?” You know, those kind of questions that people genuinely have.

Martin: But, nobody else answers.

Lyndsay: Exactly.

Martin: That’s what’s great. We do, we can’t take the credit for this, this wasn’t our idea. We actually got this information from a book They Ask, You Answer, which is by Marcus Sheridan.

Lyndsay: The guru himself.

Martin: Yes. We wouldn’t know about Marcus without Chris Mar, so big shout out to him, because he helped us really hone our craft when it comes to content. Definitely if you want to see how they do it, then check out those resources there. We will leave links in the notes, in the show notes section as well.

Lyndsay: Yes, absolutely. Because it’s absolutely changed our business and we help our clients now with it don’t we as well.

How to Use Social Proof on Your Website

Martin: Definitely. Yes. Great stuff, so Yes, content obviously helps with building trust and educating. Another great way to build trust is with social proof, which is our next point. This is number five, social proof. What is social proof?

Lyndsay: Yes, it’s a bit of a strange phrase actually, social proof.

Martin: Yes, confusing.

Lyndsay: It’s essentially about proving to your audience that you know your stuff and you can be trustworthy. The best way of proving that to your audience is not by saying it yourself but getting other people to say it about you. Lots of examples with social proof would be testimonials, you’ve got reviews, case studies. Even things like, “Join 5000 of your peers on our mailing list.” That’s kind of social proof. It’s saying 5000 other people just like you have joined us, so you should, too.

Martin: Exactly.

Lyndsay: There’s lots of ways of incorporating this into your website, but I think it’s very important, again, to have this on your homepage.

Martin: Yes, it kind of shows, it builds the trust, but it also says, “Other people have been in your situation too, and this is how they’ve benefited.”

Lyndsay: Yes, exactly, exactly. I think that we’ve seen a lot of websites actually forget this. I think we’ve done some critiques recently where personal brands have been featured on the BBC and The Guardian, and we’ve only found that out when we’ve gone done like a deep dive into their website. We’re like, “Why isn’t this on your homepage?” Now, I’m not saying that you have to have the whole article on your homepage, but just a logo of you know these kind of corporations that you’ve worked with.
Martin: Can have a big impact.

Think About Your Brand Story

Lyndsay: Exactly, exactly. So, have a think about how you can incorporate that into your website, but make it prominent.

Martin: Yes, Yes, great idea. Okay, so number six, have a brand story. What’s a brand story? Sounds like one of those like kind of fluffy marketing things that we talk here about.

Lyndsay: Yes, I mean I can understand why someone would think that, definitely. Again, I think this is one of those things where we could spend 10 hours talking about it. But, essentially, people want to know why is you do what you do. What is it that drives you. What is it that made you get started with whatever it is that you’re doing, and how has your product or service helped you?

Lyndsay: I’m talking about, so we do see a lot of these brand stories that start with, “I started on my mums couch and then I worked my way up and now I’m a millionaire.”

Martin: Yes, exactly, “I had four dollars in my bank account and I was broke and out on the street.” Yes, don’t do that. It’s been done to death.

Lyndsay: No, don’t do that, it has been done to death. It’s very much like ’90s marketing.

Martin: Exactly, and nobody believes it anyway, so.

Lyndsay: No, no. I think the thing is with a brand story you have to make it believable, and you have to make it realistic, Yes. I think stating that you had four dollars in your bank account and now you’re a millionaire, people are just board with it. Just be honest.

Martin: Exactly, we’re all, we’ve been on our own journey’s, haven’t we. We’ve all got two different places based on the decisions that we made in the past. You’re saying it’s about actually displaying that kind of story on our website.

Lyndsay: Exactly. I mean, with us, we started out because we actually started a business, we got a website. The website as totally rubbish, we invested loads of money, and it was crap. That’s actually how we started, and then we started looking into webdesign and SEO, didn’t we?

Martin: Yes, exactly.

Lyndsay: There’s no magic at the end, we’re not millionaires now, but we work from home with our cats and we love it. You know, it just has to be kind of realistic and normal, and you don’t have to go kind of overboard with it. But, people do like to know these things.

Martin: They do.

Lyndsay: They do find it interesting.

Martin: It’s about being vulnerable as well to a certain extent, because that does literally just allow people to say, “Oh, they’re not just trying to sell me something, they’re actually being honest about it.” It cuts out a lot of that friction that you might have if you’re trying to sell your products and services.

Lyndsay: Yes, definitely.

Martin: Okay, so we’re talking about putting that maybe on the about page?
Lyndsay: Yes, I mean we always say don’t talk about yourself too much on the about page, but certainly reserve a section for your story, definitely.

Why Personal Brands Should have an Opinion

Martin: Yes, no good idea, okay. That leads us on nicely to the next point, which is to have an opinion. Have something that you can stand behind.

Lyndsay: Yes, definitely. I think this kind of scares people, because we don’t want to offend anyone do we when we’re in business. When we don’t want to offend people, sometimes we end up sitting on the fence and we end up being a little bit boring. We’ve all done it. You know, there’s times where I’ve thought, “Oh, I don’t really want to say what I think, because you know, it might polarize things.” But, as a personal brand, you need to have an opinion. It sets you out from your competitors and it also helps strengthen your following.

Lyndsay: Now, if you put other the people off, that’s fine, because hopefully they’re not your target market so why would it bother you anyway? So, with us, I mean we’ve had some instances because we don’t, we say we refuse to wear a suit and we refuse to meet the clients face-to-face. Now, that’s actually annoyed quite a few people because they’ve said, “Well, that’s not how I work.” We’ve gone, “Well.”

Martin: We want you to come to us.

Lyndsay: Yes, exactly. But, they’re not our target audience, so it doesn’t matter to us that they’re offended by that, because they’re not people that we would work with. And them, you know, on their point of view, we wouldn’t be a good fit for them anyway.

Martin: No, they want an agency that will just be yes men and turn up in suits and wine and dine them. That’s not what we-

Lyndsay: We’re not good at wining and dining.

Martin: No.

Lyndsay: Not unless you just want pizza.

Martin: Yes, or a kebab.

Lyndsay: Yes.

Martin: Well, it’s true. It’s a great way for you to say, to connect with people you actually want to connect with, and repel the people you don’t want to work with. It’s quite a simple way for you to do it. You can do that just by saying, “I don’t wear suits, and if you do that’s fine, but I hate wearing suits.” You know what I mean, it’s just one of those things.
Lyndsay: Yes, exactly. Exactly, Yes, Yes. It’s a good way of, as Martin said, strengthening your followers and repelling those that you don’t really care about anyway.
Martin: No, exactly. So, once we’ve got the people to our website. We’ve got all this amazing traffic and we’ve got a brand story and we’ve got an opinion, what do we need to do then?

Building an Email List Through Your Website

Lyndsay: Well, we always say to personal brands it’s so important, it’s actually important to every business but particularly personal brands that they build an email list. Now, a lot of people come back to us and say, “Well, I’ve got a Facebook group, or you know, I’ve got a really great Twitter following, I’m really great on Linkedin. Why do I need an email list, I’m fine.” The reason being is an email list is in your control. You decide how you communicate with your subscribers, as long as they’re within GDPR rules.

Martin: Oh, god, she said it. Two episodes in and she’s mentioned GDPR. Boo.

Lyndsay: As long as it’s in those rules, but with social media you’re at the whim of Mark Zuckerberg or whoever, and they may change their rules. You might find that you’re not hitting as many of your followers as you were the day before. With your email list it’s completely yours, and it’s your way of communicating with your followers whenever you want, with whatever offer you want, too. You don’t have to boost your post or anything like that to your email subscribers. So, it’s very, very important that you put an effort into building that list.

Martin: Because, it is important in general for all businesses to have a pipeline. A list of potential customers, or people you’ve worked with in the past, and having an email list and actually focusing on building an email list is a great way for you to have some level of control. I mean, we go on websites all the time and you never go on them again. You click on for whatever reason and then you click back and you never really go back to it again. But, if you’re giving something away for instance, or you’ve got like a special offer and you want to get people on your email list, then again, that’s a great thing to do to keep people to come back to your website.

Lyndsay: Yup, exactly, exactly. There’s a good point that you’ve actually touched on there, is that you should give away something for, in exchange for an email. We have a hatred of the words … Martin knows I’m going to say this, that’s why he’s laughing. We have a hatred of the words, “Subscribe to my newsletter.” This is me having an opinion right now, like I said in number seven.

Martin: I can’t wait, I mean subscribe, I’ve never heard that before, let’s join this newsletter and subscribe to see all the gloriousness.

Lyndsay: It’s just Yes, it’s just not appealing enough to get people onto your email list.

Martin: No, but we’ve all done it.

Lyndsay: Yes, we have.

Martin: We even started, well we’re seeing this on this website, maybe we should have it, too. So, it’s understandable and we’re not poking fun but it is something you definitely want to fix.

Lyndsay: Yes, definitely, definitely. It’s much better to give something away in exchange. It might be a video, it might be an email series where you walk through a course with your email subscribers.

Martin: Yes, or a website buyers guide, like what we’ve got on our website.

Lyndsay: Exactly, yes, a website good plug.

Martin: A bit of a push there.

Lyndsay: A website buyers guide, exactly, Yes. So, you need to do that on your website, and don’t forget to actually do that through your content marketing as well. We drop a normally a call to action in the middle of a blog post just to say, “We’ve got this website buyers guide, it might be interesting to you, but pop your email in here.” That’s in the middle of a blog post, so don’t forget to do it not just on your homepage and other pages but also through your content as well.

Martin: Yes, makes a lot of sense. Okay, sounds like a great list. I mean, now we have eight essential elements of a personal brand website, and it doesn’t actually matter whether or not you’re building the website yourself or you’re paying a webdesign agency. Just by making sure that you include these essential elements, you’re going to be onto a real winner, really. Just by including these elements and making sure you’re doing it for the right reasons, like what we discussed, and you’re doing it the right way like what we’ve been through in the episodes. So Yes, you should be able to generate more customers and more traffic to your website.

Summary

Martin: I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. If you’d like more advice on anything to do with webdesign or even SEO or content marketing, then please join our free Facebook group at jammydigital.com/facebook. As we mentioned in the previous episode, we are at the minute doing free website critiques. Every Wednesday we will spend an hour on a video call and we’ll review your websites live.

Martin: Usually we review six within that hour, and then if we decide to go on longer, which-

Lyndsay: We generally do.

Martin: … has been known to happen.

Martin: Yup, we love the sound of our own voice. So, by all means drop your name in the Facebook feed and we will happily review that for you, no problems at all. Another thing we really, really would love you to do, is please subscribe to this podcast episode and leave us a review based on what you think about the episode as well. It really helps us reach out ideal customers, and we’d be very, very grateful for it. So, that’s it, we’ll see you next time on Make Your Mark Online.

Martin & Lyndsay

The post Ep 2 – What Should You Include on a Personal Brand Website? appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

You’re ready to get the ball rolling and kick off the new project.

Just one more question…

How long will it take?

It’s one of the most common questions we get asked.

In this blog post, I’ll be breaking it down so you get a clear understanding of when your new website can go live.

So, how long does it take us to build your new website?

The short answer is websites that we build take, on average, 8-12 weeks.

The long answer is, it depends…

In all honesty, there are two parts to this question

How long will it take us?
How long will it take you?

That’s right, in some cases, the length of time it takes US is not the right question to ask.

More often than not, websites tend to take longer due to things outside our control.

Additional website features

For us to give you an approximate amount of time, we’ll need to understand exactly what you need from the new website. What extra features might you need that aren’t included in the core package?

Understandably, the more features you want us to build into your website the more time it will take.

What extra features add time to the website?

These are just a few examples of the kind of features that will add time to your website.

• A shop – we design your shop from scratch which needs your approval, plus we transfer all your products, including descriptions, images, stock levels etc.
• Specific page designs – such as a bespoke design for your about page or speaker page
• Portfolio – we’ll need to design this from scratch
• Website content – we can write your content for you if you wish
• Landing pages – we can either integrate Thrive Themes or design your pages from scratch. The costs vary but either way, this takes time
• Features like a booking calendar, email marketing integration, video library etc.

We understand that you want your website to be perfect and some, or all, of these features might be needed. Be aware that the more features you have, the longer it will take to complete the project.

Based on your requirements, we’ll always make you aware upfront how long we think it will take to get your website live.

Top tip

Be very specific at the start of the process with exactly what you need. Knowing all the information upfront will allow us to build this into the package and give you an accurate timescale. Changing things, later on, will delay the project further.

How many people are involved

This is something we’ve noticed over the years, the number of people involved in the project WILL impact the timescale of the project. It’s just a fact.

Dealing with one person will be quicker as there is only one person giving feedback and making decisions. On the other hand, if there are more people working on the project, they’ll generate more ideas and opinions. This is a great thing, as you get a wider range of perspectives and ideas. However, it does take more time.

Top tip

If you are part a team who is working on the project in-house, try to have one key person who will act as the contact and liaise with us throughout the process. Dealing with multiple people from your company might cause information to missed and feedback to be different.

Try to get your team to agree with feedback and suggestions before sending them over to us. In the past, we’ve been sent information from multiple team members with dramatically different suggestions, which has delayed the project.

How long does it take for you to get back to us

You want your website to be perfect (we do too). This is why you might take your time getting feedback to us.

While working on your website, we’ll send you some video updates, screenshots and emails. We’ll ask you questions, and we might need you to give us some feedback so that we can move on to the next phase of the project.

The time it takes for you to give us feedback can dramatically affect the timescale, and in some cases, it can halt the process entirely.

In the past, we’ve waited two months for someone to tell us they were happy with their homepage design.

Top tip

It’s important that you take some time before offering feedback on designs, sleep on it and take another look the next day. It’s surprising how much your opinions might change the next time you look. However, if it’s taking longer than a few days to hear back from you, this will delay the process.

Waiting for stuff from you

During the web design process, we’ll need some things from you to allow us to complete the website.

This could include;

• The copy for your website pages
• Images for the different pages
• Contact information
• Videos that you want to include
• Your logo in the correct file format
• Product information and pricing (for online shops)
• Staff timetables (for booking calendar)
• Event information (for selling tickets)
• Login information (e.g. your website, Mailchimp, Stripe)

In the past, we’ve been waiting 12-18 months to get content from clients. Meanwhile, your website project has completely stalled.

Top tip

Try to be extremely organised and proactive with this task. The quicker you get this done, the fresher it is in your mind, and it will keep the project on track. When it comes to getting the information together, use one main tool for storing all the documentation such as a Google Drive or Dropbox folder.

We do offer website copy as a service. If this is something you’re struggling with, then we can build this into the website package.

We are constantly testing new methods to make this process easier too, and we’ll have more information about this coming soon.

Things change dramatically throughout the process

The benefit of our process is that you get to see all page designs before they’re built. Nothing is done without your prior approval. That way you can have a look, make some notes, give feedback and we’ll make amendments.

Once you’re happy, we can then build the website based on those designs.

There are bound to be changes you’ll want to make, and that’s completely fine, but these are usually small tweaks that don’t impact the overall structure of the site.

If we agree on a design and later down the line things change dramatically, this will, understandably, extend the process, and in most cases, the cost of the website.

Top Tip

Before starting the project, make sure you are fully aware of what you want. This includes…

• The features of your website
• Your key messaging
• The key products and services you want to promote
• Your brand and style
• Your target audience

If you haven’t already, check out our website buyers guide for extra help on this.

The more preparation you do, the better the starting platform for us to build you a high-impact website.

Much like the previous point, it’s always best to take some extra time before giving feedback on the initial designs. It’s important that we have included all the features you need at this stage to avoid adding more time to the project later on.

Website timescale examples

Below, I’ve given some examples of how your project might look depending on your requirements

10-week example – Core package

• One person involved
• 2-3 unique pages designs
• Feedback within 1-2 days
• Three online meetings
• You already have content for the new website

16-week example – Core package + Additional features

• Two people involved, for example, an extra designer
• 3-6 unique pages designs
• Feedback within a week
• 3-5 online meetings
• 3-5 additional features, for example, a video library, booking facility, email marketing integration
• You might need to create new content and send images for the new site

26 week example – Bespoke package + 3+ staff

• 3-5 people involved
• 6+ unique page designs
• Feedback within two weeks
• 6+ online meetings
• 5+ additional features, e.g. video library, booking facility, online shop, email marketing integration, event calendar
• New content pages

Summary

As you can see, the timescale of your web design project depends on many factors, and it can change dramatically during the process.

There’s no clear answer to how long it will take. It could take eight weeks if we have everything we need upfront or it could also take 18 months+ if we’re still waiting for things from you.

At least now you have some handy tips to keep the timeline as short as possible so we can your new website live sooner.

Plus, we’re always super excited about getting your website on our portfolio, so it’s our best interest to keep you on track.

Over to you

Do you have any top tips you want to add? Maybe a productivity hack or a team management tool? We’d love to hear from you, so please leave a comment below.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post How long will it take to build your website? appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

A ‘personal brand’ is someone who markets themselves and what they do as their brand. Their knowledge and expertise IS their product and they’re able to charge money for it. Examples of personal brands include Pat Flynn, Amy Porterfield, Chris Ducker and Janet Murray.

With the rise of social media, it’s now easier than ever for personal brand businesses to connect with their audience, however, it’s also becoming increasingly competitive.

What’s the difference between a personal brand website and a standard website?

Personal brand websites should have their own set of unique features. These features should help you:

• build an audience
• build trust
• inspire action

Ultimately, there’s no difference between what a personal brand website and what a service-based/ecommerce website should achieve. You’re still aiming to solve your customers’ problems. The goals are the same, but it’s how you get there that’s slightly different.

What should a personal brand website include?

Your website should reflect you and be unique, but if you are a personal brand, you might consider including some or all of these on your website.

1. Images of You

This is a no-brainer. I’d argue that EVERYONE must include pictures of themselves on their website, but for personal brands, I’d say it’s essential.

What’s the difference between images of you for your personal brand website and images of staff on a service-based/ecommerce website? Remember, you’re selling ‘you’. People need to buy into you and trust you, so your image needs to be displayed prominently throughout your website.

A service-based/ecommerce website can get away with having images of the team on the about page, but you can’t.

How to Display Images on a Personal Brand Website?

If you’re planning on having a photoshoot for your business, check out our blog post on What We Learned on Our Business Photoshoot, for some hints and tips.

– Images need to be on brand

You need to think about who you are, and who you’re not. Your images should represent you. If you’re relaxed, fun and adventurous, then don’t, whatever you do, dust off your suit for your photographs!

You might think this is obvious, but we often see people get this wrong. I get why. It’s ingrained in us to look our ‘best’ for a photographer (especially a professional one).

If you are suited and booted for your work, then great, but if not, avoid looking too smart and causing confusion about who you are as a brand.

Finally, think about the setting of your photography–what do you want your reader to see? What props/set best get across who you are?

– Images need to be of good quality

Investing in high-quality images for your personal brand is a good idea, and ideally, you’ll use a professional photographer to do this.

For service-based/ecommerce websites, I’d say they could get away with just using a good quality camera, but for personal brands, your image is everything. If you’re deciding where to invest, I’d say professional photography should be up there on your essential list.

Good Examples of Imagery on a Personal Brand Website: Amy Porterfield

We love the use of images on Amy Porterfield’s website. She hasn’t overloaded her site with too many images of herself, but the few that are there are of good quality. They’re relaxed and give you a sense of who she is.

2. You Need to Build an Email List

Every website should encourage your end-user to do something, whether that’s sign up to your email list, give you a call or hit that ‘buy-now’ button.

However, more often than not, personal brands focus on their email list.

Your email list is important because it’s yours. You don’t have to rely on a platform like Facebook or Google. Even if you’ve got thousands of Facebook followers or impressive search results, things could change in an instant.

Your list is controlled by you, and it’s a base where you can grow and nurture your followers. For personal brands, nothing is more important.

How to Grow Your Email List on Your Website

Your website is the main platform you’ll use to grow your email list. Below are some ways you can do it.

– Call to Action Above the Fold

You should also include a clear call to action in the ‘above the fold’ area of your website. This is the first section of your website your user will land on, and, if you can, you’ll want to encourage them to sign up for your email list.

We always recommend giving something away in order to encourage sign-ups (just make sure you’re GDPR compliant!). One thing we don’t recommend is a generic ‘sign up to my newsletter’ call to action. One, it’s boring, and two it says nothing about how you’ll help your target audience.

– Add Your Call to Action within Your Content

Content is particularly important to personal brand businesses, and I’ll talk about that in a little more detail later.

Each piece of content you produce, whether that’s a blog, podcast or YouTube video, should encourage users to subscribe to your email list. On a blog, that’s fairly easy as you can include little reminders throughout your blog post, encouraging your end-users to sign up.

Example of Building Your List on A Personal Brand Website: Chris Ducker

Chris Ducker does a great job of encouraging users to join his email list. He hits you with it as soon as you land on to his homepage and he clearly outlines the benefits of joining. He also has call to actions throughout his content as well.

3. A dedicated speaker page

A lot of personal brands want to showcase themselves as leaders in their industry, and there’s no better way of doing that than through public speaking at events, workshops and seminars.

If this is something you’re doing (or want to do in the future) then it’s worth having a dedicated speaker page on your website.

What Should Your Speaker Page Include?

A speaker page is slightly different to the other pages on your website and should include some different elements, including:

– Images and video

For someone to book you as a speaker at their event, they’ll need to see you speak confidently on stage and deliver an engaging presentation. That’s why it’s important to include images and video on your speaker page.

Even if you’ve only spoken at small events, it’s worth getting someone to take pictures or record a video of you in action. Just seeing you speak to a crowd builds instant credibility.

Many successful personal brands have a speaker reel (a short, snappy video of them on stage) or even a full forty-five-minute keynote.

– Topics you cover

Don’t assume people will know what you speak about. It’s helpful to give people an idea of the topics you cover and also the kind of talks you deliver, e.g. are they workshops/seminars/presentations etc.

This is where you can be ultra-specific in what you offer, and the more detail you can give, the better.

Also, try to give an indication of how much you’re likely to charge. There’s no point people contacting you with a budget of £100.00 when your price is £1000.00. Learn more about why you should add your prices to your website here.

– Call to action

Don’t forget to include a call to action on this page. This is your opportunity to get people to get in touch with you directly or check your availability. Encourage them to book a call with you to discuss how you can help them.

Example of a Good Personal Brand Speaker Page: Ann Handley

Ann Handley has a fantastic speaker page. She encourages you to check her availability and she outlines the kind of topics she covers. She also features images and videos of her speaking.

4. Put Your Content at the Forefront

Creating consistently good content is a sure-fire-way to position yourself as a leader in your industry. How are you going to build loyalty and get people to trust you, without proving you know your stuff?

Content marketing works to benefit most businesses but for personal brands, I’d say it was essential.

How to Showcase Content on a Personal Brand Site

Content is a key component of the websites we build for personal brands, and it can be somewhat different to how we present content on service-based or ecommerce websites.

– Feature Your Content on Your Homepage

To show your readers that you are knowledgeable, it’s a good idea to showcase your content on your homepage. This could be in the form of your most recent content or the best resources you have. The reason it’s important to put it on your homepage is so it’s easily accessible for your end-user.

This is better than having a simple ‘blog’ link in your main menu, as (hopefully) your content will encourage your user to click through.

– Build a Learning Centre

If you want to get really fancy-pants, then build a learning centre. I’d like to say this was my idea, but actually, it came from Marcus Sheridan, who we’ve learnt so much from in terms of content marketing.

A learning centre houses all of your content (podcast, blog, videos, guides etc) in one place. It’s a space for people to explore more about what you offer and how you work, as well as learn from you.

Example of a content-driven personal brand website: Andrew and Pete

Andrew and Pete are expert content marketers, so it’s no wonder they feature content marketing at the forefront of their website. Their website is a showcase of their (vast) knowledge and expertise. It’s a great resource we use often to learn more about marketing.

5. Online Shopping page

A lot of personal brands also sell physical products as well as their coaching, speaking or membership. But even if you don’t sell physical products you might want to sell event tickets and ebooks. It’s, therefore, a good idea to include an online shop on your website.

How to present your products on your website

This will depend on the platform you’re are using but here a few tips to ensure your shop works well.

– Use amazing photographs

When it comes to selling products on the web, good quality photos are essential. People won’t buy your products if you don’t take the time to showcase them properly.

If you’re selling books and diaries, pay a designer to create mockups. Alternatively, pay a professional photographer to make your shop items look amazing.

Even if you’re selling eBooks or event tickets, make them look good. Just because they’re not physical products doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put the effort into presenting them well.

– Create great product descriptions

We wrote an entire article on how to perfect your product pages and product descriptions are one of the most important elements. Creating persuasive descriptions for your products will go a long way to convincing your visitor to buy from you. Not to mention that the words you use will help you get found on search engines.

Example of a Personal Brand Shop Page: Janet Murray

Okay, we’re not just saying this because we built the site! But we love Janet Murray’s online shop (and the products too!)

The effort that Janet puts into marketing her products is incredible and the items on her shop look fantastic. Janet knows that the products need to look the part for people to buy, which is why she takes the time having them professionally designed.

6. Sales Pages

Most personal brand websites sell online products such as video courses, memberships, eBooks, etc. As a personal brand, you’ll need to be able to create sales pages quickly and easily in order to promote your products.

How to Create Sales Pages

Sales pages are quite different to content pages. Rather than having a very helpful page with links to other pages on your website, you want your visitor to stay on the page and take just one action.

– Get Rid of Distractions

You’ll need to change the layout of your page so it’s more conversion friendly, potentially getting rid of menus and other links across your site. This is the page where you need to maximise conversions, so you need your reader to do just one thing.

– Think about the Copy

The copy on a sales page is often slightly different to the copy on your main website. You’ll want to feature stories from people who have benefited from the specific product or service you’re offering (rather than just you in general). You’ll want to use persuasive and emotive language, and an exclusive offer to hook them in.

These are just a few of many examples of what you can do on a sales page!

Example of a Good Sales Page: Gavin Bell – Amplify

Gavin Bell’s Facebook advertising course is an excellent example of a sales page, it includes video testimonials, persuasive copy and impressive social proof. There are no distractions in the form of links to other pages or social media. It convinces you to take just one action.

7. Include Social Proof

Social proof is important for every business. Having testimonials, reviews, press, expert endorsement and awards etc, all go a long way in building trust in your brand and products.

This is doubly important for personal brands as the key to your success is showing that you have the knowledge and skills worth investing in.

How to use Social Proof on Your Personal Brand Website

Social proof is essential if you want to build instant credibility for your personal brand website. Here are some ways you can use social proof on your website:

– Media/publication logos on the homepage

It’s quite common to see media/publication logos on the homepage of a personal brand website, usually within the first third of the page (right under your big, bold statement).

These logos are usually from places you’ve been featured in the press, such as the BBC, Guardian, Huffington Post etc, or where you’ve been speaking, such as Social Media Marketing World. People trust these brands so if you include these on your website, you’ll be seen as an authority in your space.

– Genuine Testimonials

Make sure you feature GENUINE written or video testimonials on your homepage.

Video testimonials are golden, and if you can get video testimonials from your clients, it shows clear evidence that you know your stuff. And of course, you can create text testimonials out of these too.

If video testimonials aren’t possible, then try to get someone’s picture at the very least, include their full name and maybe a link back to their website.

Example of Good Social Proof on a Personal Brand Website: Content Marketing Academy

Throughout Chris Marr’s (Content Marketing Academy) website, you see little video testimonials dotted through the copy. This is a great way of integrating social proof. Chris clearly has a lot of fans (including us!) who are more than happy to get themselves in front of the camera and sing his praises.

This is really powerful stuff that goes a long way to building trust in your brand.

8. The Copy Must Reflect You

This is your opportunity to speak to your audience. When your users read your web copy, they should have a sense of who you are. Your reader should feel like they’re having a conversation with you personally.

How to Write the Right Copy for Your Personal Brand Website

This is vital for personal brands to get right. You’re selling you, and it doesn’t matter whether you want to develop a friend, teacher or influencer relationship with your audience, they still need to feel some kind of connection.

– Talk to them like you would your clients

It’s tempting to go formal when we start writing, but often this isn’t a reflection of how we communicate.

Before you start writing, have an idea of who you’re talking to. I create a profile of my ideal client. I give them a name, think about their goals, their issues and what keeps them up at night. Only then can I speak to them on their level.

– Make it about them

The word ‘you’ is your new best friend. You need to consider what problems your audience is having and address them within your website copy.

Don’t say generic stuff like you’ve been doing what you do for twenty-five years and blah, blah, blah. It’s dull. Address your audience’s issues head on and tell them how you can help.

Examples of good personal brand copy: Hot Content

Natalie from Hot Content is a great writer. When you read Natalie’s writing, it feels like you’re in a coffee shop talking directly with her. In this snippet, you gain a real sense of who Natalie is. Her writing is informal yet professional. She doesn’t patronise. Or like she says, make you feel stupid. She does a great job.

9. Give a Personal Touch

The majority of the copy on your website should be geared to your target audience (what problems they’re facing and how you can help). However, for personal brand websites, it’s nice to have a personal touch too.

How to Add the Personal Touch to Your Personal Brand Website

It’s cliche, but people do business with people, so give your readers a glimpse into who you are.

– Talk about your story

A good story is a great way to build a connection with your reader, especially if your story starts with the same problem your audience is facing. You can tell them how you overcame your problem and how you like to help others do the same.

Make sure the story is genuine. It’s easy to spot someone who’s disingenuous. We know that you need to make a living and you’ve not set up your company out of the goodness of your heart. However, it’s also good to show people that you do care about their problems, that you’ve been there and that you have a genuine solution that can help.

– Use Your About Page

Don’t talk about yourself on your homepage. Keep it reserved for a section (not all, just a section!) of your about page. Not everything should be about you, but it’s good to give an insight into your life if you feel comfortable.

A Good Example of Including a Personal Story on Your Personal Brand Website: Pat Flynn

I love Pat Flynn’s about page. I love how he talks about the downturn in the economy in 2008 and how it impacted his life. He also shows pictures of him and his family. From this, you get a sense of what he’s like personally, making it easy for you to develop a connection with him.

Summary

Your personal brand website should be unique and be completely different from other personal brand sites. However, there are many similarities when it comes to how your website should work to promote your products and services. Hopefully, you now have a list of things you can add to your website to improve it.

What do you think?

I hope this post has helped you think about your personal brand website. Do you think there’s anything I’ve missed off the list? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Martin & Lyndsay

The post 9 Essentials of a Personal Brand Website appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Yes, you definitely should put your prices on your website. Why? What’s the first question you ask yourself when buying a product or service? Yep, How much does it cost? Now, imagine you answered that question on your own website – you get tons of traffic and build up so much trust and credibility.

But, even with all this, the majority of business owners still shy away from displaying their prices online. It’s a debate we get into often. So, we’re here to put forward our view on why you SHOULD display your prices on your website.

Prefer video? Watch our Video on Why You Should Put Your Prices On Your Website

You Don’t Need a Pricing Table

Before you run and hide, hear me out. I’m not saying you should have a pricing table on your website that clearly defines what you charge. That would be bold. However, the least you can do is talk about your prices.

If you take a look at our pricing page, you’ll see we don’t tell you exactly how much a new website will cost. Not because we’re sneaky, but because it depends on a number of factors.

We say our prices start from £3497, and we tell you what that includes. We also describe what will add to that cost, for example, an e-commerce shop or a booking system.

You don’t HAVE to be too specific, although the more detail you give, the better. The least you should do is open up the conversation and give your reader an idea of your prices.

What About E-commerce Websites?

It’s worth noting that I’m not talking about B2C e-commerce websites here. Hell, if you’re wondering whether to display your prices in this instance, the answer is absolutely and unequivocally, YES!

If you run a service-based business and you’re currently not displaying your prices on your website, here’s why you should:

1. It Builds Trust

The biggest benefit to displaying your prices on your website is it builds trust with your audience.

Your potential audience will feel comfortable dealing with you if they know what you’re likely to charge. They won’t have those thoughts. You know the ones I mean: ‘Will this guy rip me off?’ or ‘Will they charge me more than someone else?’

By displaying your prices, you smash your potential customers’ protective barrier, and they’ll feel more comfortable in dealing with you over your competition.

2. It Avoids the Awkward Conversation

Customer: So…er…what are we talking?

You: Well, that depends. I mean, what’s your budget?

Customer: Well. I’m not really sure. What do you normally charge?

You: Well, erm….it all depends really.

I hate that conversation. You hate that conversation. And most importantly, your customer hates that conversation. So why the hell are you having it?

Since we started displaying our prices on our website, it’s so easy to talk money. Nine times out of ten, the potential client already knows how much we charge. We don’t have to ask them how much money they’ve got (it’s none of our business), and we get to delve right into the good stuff of learning more about them and their business. No awkward conversations. It’s a win/win for both.

3. It attracts the customers you want

Displaying your prices on your website helps attract the kind of customers you want. You may think that your potential audience will go to a cheaper competitor, but often that’s not the case.

By displaying your prices, you’re making it clear who you’re targeting.

We’re not cheap by any means, but we also don’t charge ‘high-end’ agency prices upwards of 10k. This makes it clear that we work well with established small-business owners and personal brands. We’re not the right fit for new business owners or huge corporations.

We find that our target market responds well to our prices, and you can do the same. If you’re cheap as chips and wanting to attract the very price conscious, then fine, say it! If you’re more expensive and want a different kind of client, no problem, but explain what makes you different, and why they should choose you.

4. It Could Save Hours of Admin Time Per Week

Before we started displaying our prices on our website, we spent approximately two-three hours per week having calls or replying to emails to people who were completely wrong for our business.

Some had a budget of five hundred quid, and some had a budget of twenty grand.  We spent time getting to the bottom of what they wanted, when in the end we were either too expensive or not the right fit. We wasted our time, and there’s too.

5. It Will Make You Stand Out

One of the most common concerns business owners have when it comes to displaying their prices on their website is this: It’s not the done thing in our industry.

Our response?

Well, that’s bloody fantastic.

Imagine being the first in your industry to say, hey! You know all these guys (this is where point to your competitors), they’re not going to tell you their prices. But guess what? I am. I have nothing to hide. I want to be upfront, open and honest with you.

Do you know how powerful that is? It’s huge! We’ve seen countless examples of this working, and your potential customers will respond positively. It makes you stand out from the competition and positions you as a leader in your industry.

6. Search Engine Optimisation

How on earth does displaying my prices help search engine optimisation?

Good question. Do you know what’s likely to be one of the top questions about your industry? How much does it cost?

How much does it cost for a website?

How much does it cost for an editor?

How much does it cost for a business coach?

Cost-related keywords and phrases are highly popular search terms. If you discuss your prices on your website, especially when much of your industry shies away from it, then you could be looking at so much more traffic to your site from Google.

But more than that, you can write articles about it. Yes, entire articles just about your pricing. We do it all the time. Look at…

Why are we so expensive
Why are we so cheap
Why New Businesses Shouldn’t Spend 1000s on a New Website
How Much Does it Cost For a Website

Not only do these articles get huge amounts of traffic from Google, but they also explain what makes us different, attracts our target audience AND builds trust.

Where did we get the idea?

We’d love to tell you that this is all our idea, but it’s not.

If you want to know more about why we started displaying our prices on our website, then check out Marcus Sheridan’s book, They Ask, You Answer. This book has been hugely influential in our lives and has transformed our business for the better. We couldn’t recommend it enough.

I hope this article has shown you the benefits of displaying your prices on your website. Are you still considering it? Is there anything holding you back?

I’d love to know your thoughts. Let me know in the comments below.

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post 6 Reasons You Should Put Your Prices On Your Website appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

“Can we pay you to make amendments to our website?”

In most cases, the answer is, no.

Unless we’ve built the website, we DON’T take on clients to make ongoing changes or odd jobs.

Please note, this post DOESN’T apply to you if we’ve built your website and we will certainly help you with ongoing changes if you need them.

Honestly, we hate turning customers away. We always feel terrible about it.

Up until recently, we’ve tried to help as many customers as we can, but we’ve now made the decision to focus entirely on building websites from start to finish.

In this post, I wanted to explain why we made this decision.

1. Every website is built differently

No two websites are built the same, even if they’re both built using WordPress they can be created using entirely different methods and frameworks. This makes it very time consuming for us to get to know your website and make quick changes.

You might want to pay an hourly fee for the work to be done, but it could take a few hours just to get to know your website before we even think about tweaking things.

Not to mention that most WordPress websites use child themes and 3rd party plugins that can change as time goes on. If these aren’t kept up to date, it can have severe consequences on your website. This could cause even more headaches and slow the process down even further.

When we build websites from start to finish, we use the same method every time. We use a framework and tools that we trust, and we wouldn’t use anything else. We know what to expect and can make changes easily.

Chances are, your site is not built this way, which is why we can’t begin to know how much time it might take, and how much we might charge.

2. We want to focus on what we do best

We specialise in full website redesigns, and we love every minute of it. The process we use to create websites has proven to work over and over again.

However, this process takes up all of our time, and we can’t stop doing this to make website amendments.

All of our time is spent either:

• Speaking to existing and potential clients
• Planning out projects and schedules
• Sketching grid layouts to come up with page designs
• Designing websites with tools like Photoshop or Illustrator
• Coding websites to make it look like the designs
• Migrating existing content onto the new site
• Moving physical products onto the new website
• Transferring over your SEO settings

As you can see, there’s a lot of work to do, and we want to make sure we don’t let our process suffer.

We love to take a website that may not be performing well and redesign it piece by piece to bring it back to life. We need to focus 100% on this for us to be effective.

3. There are only two of us

Let’s be honest, there are only two of us and how me and Lyndsay spend our time is very important. Building websites takes on average 2–3 months and every website is unique and comes with a different set of challenges. We have to plan our projects months in advance to make sure we build high performing websites and keep to deadlines.

If we were to take on small, random jobs for additional clients, it just couldn’t work. Our schedule would be put on hold, and our web design projects would be delayed. Even if we plan it in months ahead, we would still have to rearrange other projects around yours.

This simply isn’t feasible and we would never want our core services (e.g. full website design.) to be affected.

4. We might not agree with your suggested amendments

This is a tough one. We try to be as helpful as we can and we always share our knowledge and experience with our clients when they ask.

Occasionally, we’ll get asked to make website amendments that we DON’T think are a good idea. Certain changes may impact your website in a negative way, and user experience or SEO may suffer.

Other companies may say “no problem, whatever you want” and then make the changes.

We can’t do this, we’d rather explain why it’s a bad idea and then come up with other suggestions that might work better. We would hate for you to hire us to make changes and then leave with a worse-off website.

Unfortunately, this takes more time for me to explain and then implement the changes we agree. All the while, we’re not working on our main projects.

We still offer advice, of course. If you need some direction on what to change on your website, then check out our website critique page. We’ll review your website and tell you how to improve it.

Summary

Ultimately, it comes down to time. If we had more time in the day, we’d happily help everyone.

At this point, we want to focus 100% on creating epic websites from start to finish. We love getting fantastic results for our clients, and if this means we lose a bit of extra money here and there, that’s ok.

Building stronger relationships with fewer clients is our goal with Jammy Digital and we’d love to work with you in the future.

Over to you

Hopefully, now you’ll understand why we don’t take on more clients for ad hoc amendments. If you do need some help and advice, why not join our Facebook group… Website Tips for non techies. We’re a lovely bunch and we’ll help where can.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Why we DON’T do ad hoc website amendments appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

We’re a web design agency. We charge thousands for websites. You might think we’re a tad strange for dissuading brand new businesses from investing in us. But there’s method to the madness.

This isn’t something we’ve come up with on a whim. Every phone call or enquiry we get now, we ask: are you a brand new business?

What Do We Mean By Brand New Business?

We define a brand new business as business owners who have never owned a business before. We often design websites for business owners starting a new venture, but that’s slightly different. We’re talking about people who are completely new to business.

Do We Not Trust New Business Owners?

Of course we do! Everyone starts off as a new business owner. We started off as new business owners. This isn’t about not having faith in your business. It’s about doing you a disservice.

When we set up our first business we invested thousands in a website and we made HUGE errors that cost us both financially and emotionally. All worked out well in the end. But at the time, we would’ve appreciated someone telling us straight: investing thousands in a website right now might not work.

I’m going to tell you why investing a boat-load of money into a new business website might not be a good idea.

You’ve Got to Test Your Idea

Ideas are wonderful, aren’t they? Sometimes they just pop into our heads at the most inopportune times (usually when you don’t have a pen) and they light a fire within us.

You might think you’ve got a great idea, but do people fully understand what you’re offering? Are they willing to pay you money for it? Is the business viable long term? You’ve got to test your idea out first.

How to Test Your Idea

1. Start by setting up a cheap website

Yup. That is what we recommend! In fact, Martin tells you how to set up a cheap website in his blog post.

2. Get to grips with social media, content marketing, email marketing and SEO

Think of your website as the heart of your business, but you still need to get blood to it! This is where your marketing efforts come in. Now is the time to learn as much as you can, create a buzz about your business and drive traffic to your site.

3. Join membership groups like Content Marketing Academy and Atomic

Not only will they teach you more about content and social media marketing, but they’re also great places to gain feedback, ask questions and make friends. There are plenty of membership sites out there but we’re personally part of these and they’ve transformed our business for the better!

4. Evaluate

Once you’ve underway with all of these things you can evaluate how successful your idea is. Most of the time, businesses stay within the same industry but they tweak their offering to something more desirable for their target audience. They often niche down too, offering more targeted services.

I’m not going to lie, when I started out I felt so overwhelmed with all the information out there. That’s why it’s good to start off slow without the pressure of spending huge amounts of money on a new website.

If you’re looking for helpful advice and support about web design and SEO, why not join our Facebook Group – Website Tips for Non-Techies.

2. Things Change

Businesses are constantly evolving, but nothing changes quite so quickly than in the first twelve-eighteen months of business. Imagine investing thousands in a website, only for your business to change a few months later?

You might think, not such a big deal, I’ll just change the text on my website, right?

Wrong.

Any good website (and, in particular, one that’s going to cost you thousands!) should be informed by certain key factors.

Things that Might Change Early On in Your Business

1. Your target market

Not just the age, sex and location of your target audience, but other stuff. Deeper stuff. Things like what issues are they facing, what’s their ultimate goal, what’s their biggest fear? Your website should be designed in a way that appeals directly to your target market.

2. Your key services

As I said before, a lot of business owners change their offering within the first twelve-eighteen months. They often niche down. In fact, we did this very thing. Over a period of five years, we’ve gone from offering web design, social media marketing, SEO, email marketing and graphic design to just WordPress web design.

3. What you want your users to do?

It’s not always as simple as ‘buy now’. Often people need a little more coaxing to invest in you, that’s why we encourage our clients to think about their users’ journey. Should they sign up to your email list first for example? If so, every page has to be geared towards this action.

These are just a few examples of what we take into consideration when we build your website. There’s a heck of a lot more that goes into it. As well as a lengthy video call with our clients, we also send them a website questionnaire and undertake our own research too.

So if you’re not clear on the answers to these questions, the likelihood is, you’re not ready to invest.

And that’s okay! It’s expected that within the first twelve months of business these things will change. If you have a website professionally designed before then, you might find yourself spending money again to put it right, or your website won’t speak to your target market. Either way, its lose/lose.

3. There’s Less Pressure

We never underestimate the cost of our website packages. £3500 – £6000 is a lot of money to spend for most small business owners, so they have to be confident they can make that money back. If you want to find out why we specifically charge what we do, then read Martin’s post, Why Are We So Expensive?

The likelihood is, investing thousands in a new website will put a dent in your business finances.

You might think, what do you care, we have the money to spend!

Well, actually, we do care. We want our clients to be successful, and you cannot gain success from a website alone. The days of ‘build it and they will come’ are well and truly over. If you invest in a website straight away, you’re already thousands down, with no knowledge of content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing or SEO behind you.

Now you have to spend your time learning about those marketing tools.

If you have an existing platform behind you, you’re at an advantage. You’ll already know how to promote your business and use content management systems. You’ll know exactly what you’re selling and who your target audience is. You might have even built up a loyal audience already. This takes the pressure off when investing in a new website because you can focus on what’s important: your business.

4. You Need to Establish Who You Are

If you’re going to invest thousands into a website, you need to understand who you are and what you stand for.

Before we design your website we ask you to describe your brand using certain words like cheeky or funny, bold or innovative. How you position yourself within the market informs everything from the design, images and copy.

Even if you think you have these nailed down, you’d be surprised how much your business will change. When we first started, we were ‘yes men’, designing websites for under a thousand pound for anyone that would come through the door. As our skills and knowledge has developed, so have we. We now see ourselves teachers in our industry.

This process takes time, and there’s a lot you need to consider when it comes to brand. Of course, this includes your logo, fonts, colours, branding and style. But it’s also your tone of voice (i.e. how you speak to your audience).

Are you formal or informal? Do you incorporate humour? Do you have a teacher relationship with your audience or more of a friend relationship?

It takes time to solidify your brand, and there’s no point having a website designed if you haven’t considered who you are and how you present yourself to your target market.

Conclusion

Recently, a client approached us about having a website designed. He was a brand new business owner, and instead of taking his money we recommended he set up a website himself.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we’re angels here. We want our clients to be on the same page as us: with a strong sense of who they are and armed with the knowledge they need to make a successful business. He was thankful for our advice, and we’re pretty sure that down the line when he’s ready, he’ll come back to us.

Successful clients are happy clients, and they’re far more likely to trust us, work with us and recommend us in the future if they gain success from their website.

Over to You

Have you ever invested thousands in a brand new website? How did you find the process? Or perhaps this article has made you think twice about investing thousands? If so, I’d love to know your thoughts.

And don’t forget, feel free to join our FREE Facebook group to help newbies get to grips with web design and SEO – Website Tips for Non-Techies.

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post Why New Businesses Shouldn’t Spend Thousands On A Website appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Wrong!

Your product page is the final page your customers look at before they hit that buy now button.

When optimised correctly, it’s also a page that can rank highly in Google for certain keywords.

I’m amazed by how many business owners put such little emphasis on their product pages, viewing it as an afterthought. But I get it. If you have so many products it’s difficult to keep up the motivation. Or you might be unsure how to create a good product page.

This post can help. Below, I give you my guide on how to perfect your product page, with examples of how to do it right and how to do it wrong.

Get yourself a brew and let’s get started.

• Product Title
• Product Descriptions
• Buy Now Button
• Product Images
• SEO Elements
• Social proof
• Video
• Related Products

Select the Right Product Title

A million years ago, Martin and I set up an ecommerce site selling gifts. We offered adorable cushions for kids in the shape of owls, monkeys and lions. I gave them product names like Sebastian, Matilda and George.

Cute, right? There was just one HUGE problem. No one in their right mind would search for Sebastian when looking for a cushion, so we were never found on search engines.

It’s tempting to be creative with product titles. But try to think about what your audience will search for too. Don’t make my mistake by naming your products something completely unrelated to what they are.

Bad Example: Chanel

Chanel has tons of watches with funny names like J12. For them, it’s easier. They can get away with pretension because they’re a well-known, high-end brand, and their customers likely search for ‘chanel watches’ rather than just ‘watches’. You might not have this luxury. Until you’re a huge powerhouse, dial down the pretension and name your products what they are.

If you insist on giving your product a funny name or number, then do something like this:
‘Luxury Black Watch – J12’.

Good Example: Hugo Boss

Hugo Boss does a great job with their product descriptions. The product title is a great place to describe the features of your products using keywords consumers might search for. This watch appeared on the first page of Google for the search terms, ‘sliding buckle watch’ and ‘blue plated watch’.

So Is Boring Better?

Yup. It pains me to say it because the creative in me doesn’t want to concede. But in this case, boring is better for search engine optimisation. It doesn’t mean you can’t be creative at all. Just make sure to include your specific keywords in the title at the same time.

The product description is where you can get a little more creative.

It’s also a good idea to do a little keyword research before naming your product. Keyword research is the process of looking at the search popularity of certain words and phrases. Learn how to check your keywords for free in Martin’s blog post.

Product Descriptions: Time to Get Creative

When reading your product description, your audience is asking themselves questions such as: will this product be suitable for me? Is it worth the money? Do I really need it?

Your job is to answer those questions so your reader feels comfortable enough investing in your products. It doesn’t matter what you’re selling. Your users need to trust you.

So, how can you build trust through your product description?

– Write for Your Target Market

Identify who your target market is and write specifically to them. Picture your buyer in your mind. How old are they? What do they do for a living? What do they struggle with and what do they hope to achieve? What attributes and hobbies do they have?

This exercise helps you build up a ‘buyer’s persona’, and you should use this persona when writing your product descriptions. Talk to your buyer as you would do face-to-face.

Don’t just use your buyer’s persona in your product descriptions, use it throughout your content marketing, social media marketing and even in email correspondence.

Bad Example: House of Fraser – Wedding Shoes

Oh dear, House of Fraser. Is that it? This is a classic example what not to do. What they needed to do is connect with their reader. This is probably the most important shoe purchase of a woman’s life, and they need to sell it much better than this.

This is something we see a lot of. It’s amazing how many companies list the features of the product only, and it’s a bad idea.

I’m not saying negate the techy stuff. That’s always needed. But place it outside of the product description, under a ‘specifications’ tab, for example. You don’t want to clog up your valuable description space with boring stuff like measurements or materials.

An instance where this rule might not apply is if the specification is something your customer really cares about. For example, the engine size of a car, or the amount of RAM on a computer. If it’s something your customers search for, you might consider adding it to the product title too.

Good Example: Think Geek

Think Geek is genius with their product descriptions. I highly recommend you take a look at their website and go through their products for inspiration.

Think Geek speak to you as a friend. In this instance, they use humour by suggesting that you wouldn’t want to go grocery shopping in their shoes, but to send them a video if you do. They also use slang to connect with their reader, such as the word ‘plz’.

Now, obviously, this wouldn’t work for every company, but it works for their specific market. Your job is to figure out what works for yours.

– Show me the benefits

It’s your responsibility to make me care about your product or service. And the best way to do this is by selling the benefits. How will your product benefit your target market?

Features are exactly that, they are facts about your product. Benefits tell your potential customers why your product’s features are worth investing in.

What you need to do is tell the reader the benefits of your product, and make sure the benefits relate to your target audience.

Let’s use the example of an internal locking system on a car.

The feature is the internal locking system. The benefit is safety. But when you add your target market to the mix, you might want to think how you convey this benefit.

For example, if your target market is busy families, you might say ‘the car features an internal locking system, so you don’t have to worry about the kids popping out while you’re doing 70 on the motorway’.

If your target market is single women in their twenties, you might say ‘the car features an internal locking system, so you can feel safe on your journey home after working late’.

Bad Example: Marks and Spencer

Meh. Marks and Spencer’s description lacks oomph. There’s nothing that tells you the benefits of the product.

You might think, so what? It’s just men’s underwear. The benefits of underwear are pretty obvious, right? Well, as you’ll see from the example below, focusing on the benefits can really help you stand out.

Good Example: BN3TH

BN3TH make men’s boxers. And what could possibly be said about the benefit of boxers? Well, lots apparently, such as the ‘3-dimensional pouch provides for amazing support for your man parts and reduces the need for shifting and adjusting’.

Yep. They’ve really sold the benefits of their product. But it works, both for connecting with their audience and differentiating themselves from the competition.

You could argue that this would alienate some readers. People may be put off by BN3TH’s description. It’s up to you to weigh up that risk. You don’t want to offend but equally, you can’t appeal to everyone. If you try universal appeal you’ll only come across as boring (exactly like Marks and Spencer).

– Give me sensory details!

Get your reader to smell, taste and see your product. This is especially important for products like perfumes, bath products, chocolate and drinks. But also, holidays, furniture, gardening products, and things like surfboards or musical instruments. By doing this, you get your reader to visualise what your product will do for them.

Try writing down words that describe what your product (or the result of your product) smells, takes, looks, feels and sounds like. Keep writing and you’ll soon have a great list to work from.

Bad Example: Hotel Chocolat

Hotel Chocolat’s copy fails to get me excited. Their products taste amazing, but I can’t get a sense of anything in the example above. I don’t know what it’ll be like to taste their products (well, I do, but only because I’ve eaten my own body weight in them). But the product description feels like a lost opportunity to really capture their reader.

Good Example: Innocent

If you’re looking for good product descriptions then look no further than Innocent. This product description wakes you up! Even when you don’t have the image next to it, you still get a real sense of what the product looks and tastes like.

It’s memorable, and they use words like tangy, zing, bold and bright to really give you a sense of the flavour.

– Don’t Use the Manufacturer’s Description!

We see this all the time. If you’re using dropship or a manufacturer that supplies products to other companies, it’s best not to use their product descriptions. This is because other businesses might use the same copy too. Not much of a problem on the face of it, but it runs the risk of being labelled ‘duplicate content’ by Google. If your text is labelled as ‘duplicate content’ then there’s less chance it will be displayed in search results.

For example, we found these two product descriptions by two major retailers. It’s amazing how much it happens, and even big companies are guilty!

Plus, you can probably do a much better job than the manufacturer because you know your audience.

– How Many Words?

As you can see from the examples above, some of the product descriptions are a little sparse.

As a writer, I try to use as few words as possible to make my point. There’s no point having ten words when three will do, right? However, for ranking in search engines, you’ll need a minimum of 300 words.

This often means that copy is at odds with SEO. I’d never advise you write for Google, always for your end-user. But if you include all of the points I’ve made above, along with the specifications of the product, you should hit that easily.

Conclusion

That’s a lot of information to take in about product description. But to summarise, you should:

• Create a buyer’s persona and write for them
• Sell the benefits
• Tailor the benefits to your target audience
• Use sensory details
• Create an original description
• Make sure there’s a minimum of 300 words on the page

So what would a product description look like that incorporated all these things? Remember the first bad example I showed you of the wedding shoes? I’ve had a go at rewriting their description to include everything we’ve discussed above.

Wedding Shoes Product Description Example:

“So you’ve finally found the one. No, we don’t mean your future husband. We mean your dress, of course! And what’s the second most important wedding purchase after the dress? The shoes.

The last thing you want on your precious day is achy feet, which is why these shoes are designed for extra comfort. So slide your feet into the soft satin lining and dance the night away in these beauties.

These shoes come in a beautiful presentation box so you can keep them safe forever as a memento of your special day.”

How to Create a Compelling Buy Now Button for Your Product Page

It’s easy to miss the importance of your main call to action, but it’s vital you get it right. Your job is to make this button irresistible. It should coax your reader to click it.

We put a lot of thought into our client’s call to action buttons. A call to action is essentially a button that gets the reader to take action, and in the case of your product pages, these would be your buy now buttons. Here are our rules for creating the best buy now button.

– Buy Now Button: Make the Colour Pop

A lot of research has gone into what colour your buy now button should be, but ultimately, you want your colour to stand out. Make it different to what’s already on the page.

I’ve seen a lot of companies use transparent buttons, or text with just a border, or simply just text. And although they may be pretty, they don’t pop out to the reader.

Bad Example: Lush

Lush is one of my favourite companies, and yet, my eyes still roam around the page looking for the buy-now-button. From the screenshot, you can’t tell too much, but it’s just not clear enough! If I was them, I’d recommend they test filling their ‘Add to Basket’ button in a different colour. Perhaps all white with black text and icon.

Good Example: ASOS

Look at this example from ASOS. It’s not exactly the most exciting of product pages but see where your eyes are drawn? Straight to that green button that sticks out like a sore thumb!

– Buy Now Button: Above the Fold or Below?

Above the fold means everything your user sees without having to scroll down the page.

Now, the jury may be out on this one, but I still maintain that buttons above the fold work better. Sometimes, your users only want to scan the basic information before they click to buy.

It’s a little more difficult when it comes to complicated products that need to give the reader a more in-depth description and understanding. But I still think that a buy now button should go above the fold, mainly because users expect it to be there.

Bad Example: Not On The High Street

Ah! Not on the High Street, so pretty, right? Yes, it is. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved. I often click the favourite button thinking it’s the add to basket button.

Good example: Amazon

Amazon’s product pages aren’t pretty. But they work. They keep their ‘add to basket’ button way above the fold, even on long-winded product descriptions.

– Buy Now Button: Give it Some Room

It’s a good idea to let your button breathe a little, away from the product description and image so it doesn’t get lost.

It sounds obvious, but a lot of companies get this wrong.

Bad Example: Next

Next’s Add to Bag button kind of gets lost because they’re also trying to promote their store card. Save it for the next page, Next! Leave the space around your button clear.

Good Example: Staples

Staples do a great job of this. The button is to the side with plenty of white space around it, plus the colour just makes it clickable.

Pretty isn’t everything

What you’ll notice from these examples is that it’s not necessarily the prettiest websites that get it right. Sometimes there’s a battle between what looks good and what increases conversion. I’m not saying make your buy now button ugly. But make it stand out. Your job is to find the balance between what looks good and what attracts attention.

Images

Product photos are one of the most important elements of a product page. If you’re anything like me, you’ll head straight to the images first. It’s vital that your product images are of good quality.

There are two kinds of product photo; isolated images on a clear background, and ‘lifestyle’’ photographs such as an image in the garden.

You’ll know what kind of photographs are best for you to use. I’d recommend, where you can, using a combination of both styles so your users can see it close up, but also in action.

If you’re taking the photographs yourself, check out this post from Shopify which shows you how to do it and what tools you might need.

Once you’ve got your photographs nailed down, it’s time to get them on your website, and trust me, your hard work hasn’t finished yet.

How to Optimise Your Product Images

Search engines can’t see your images, but they can read ALT text and what your images are called.

To maximise your chances of getting seen in search results, you need to optimise your images correctly.

Image File Name

When we take pictures, our camera automatically assigns the image a name. It could look something like this: IMG_738736

But what does that tell Google? Absolutely nothing.

Here are our three tips for naming your images:

• Keep your file names to two-three words maximum
• Separate your words using a hyphen (-) – not an underscore!
• Try to include your main keywords

A good example of a file name might be: Ceramic-Cat-Mug.jpg

Image Size

Make sure your images are a minimum of 800×800 pixels, so when someone clicks on the thumbnail of your image they can view the image much larger.

The biggest mistake people make when it comes to images is resizing the image in the backend of the site. This should be done BEFORE it’s uploaded the website.

An iPhone picture might be 1.5mb, and 3000×4000 pixels. Triple the size of what you actually need.

If you continue to do this, your website will run slow and sluggish. You’ll run the risk of irritating your end-user and getting punished by Google. Ouch.

So, before you upload your image to your content management system, use a website like PicResize to reduce the size of your images without losing the quality.

ALT Text

When you’ve uploaded your images to your website, it’s a good idea to give it some ALT Text. ALT Text, which stands for alternative text, is a phrase or sentence that describes your image. You’ll be given the option to fill this in when you upload your image to the backend of your site.

ALT text is what Google uses to rank your image in their image search results (the image tab on the search engine).

Here are our tips for assigning ALT text to your images:

• Use sentence form, not words
• Include your keywords
• Describe the image as if you couldn’t see it

A good example of ALT Text might be: A ceramic mug featuring a funny black cat

SEO Elements

A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that their customers will land on their homepage directly from Google. But with ecommerce websites, you’ll often find that people access your site via your product pages first. This is because they’re searching for the product you’re selling. Your job is to increase your chances of getting your product pages to appear higher in search results.

So how do you do this?

Well, we’ve already covered the product title, image file names, image size and ALT text. But below, I’ve highlighted some further ways to optimise your pages.

Every good content management system or shopping cart will allow you to edit these elements of your product pages.

– Title Tags

Title Tags are what appear in Google when you search. It’s the title that introduces your page to the user from Google. It also tells Google what your page is about, and it’s important you get it right. Here are some points to keep in mind:

• Make it Keyword Friendly
  Consider what your customers will search for when looking for your product and include these in your title tag. But do it naturally.
• Avoid Keyword Stuffing
  When you read it does it sound spammy? If you’ve stuffed a bunch of keywords in so it doesn’t make sense then Google may punish you. Don’t do it. An example of this would be: Red dresses, dresses that are red, red dress. Eugh.
• Keep it 50-60 characters long
  Typically, Google will display 50-60 characters of your title tag. Make sure you keep within the 60 character limit, that way it won’t get cut off partway through.

Example Formula

If you’ve got a lot of products it can be tiring assigning a title tag to each and every one. Here is an example of a formula you could follow to help you.

It might look a little something like this:

Little Black Dress | Going Out Dresses | Topshop

We often use this symbol |, called a pipe to separate phrases just because it looks more attractive. You could also use a hyphen if you wanted too.

– Meta description

A meta description is the text that comes directly under the title tag in search results. It has little benefit to SEO but it’s still worth spending some time on your meta descriptions. It’s that nice bit of copy that will coax your reader to click. Think of it as a piece of advertising for your business

• Keep it between 100-200 characters
  Google increased its limit for meta descriptions in December 2017. Technically, meta descriptions should be less than 300 characters, but it’s best to keep it below 200. Shorter and sweeter is far more beneficial for your end-user.
• Make it natural
  Your meta description should talk to your reader. It is not an opportunity for you to stuff every keyword known to man in there. It should be in sentence form and flow naturally.
• Coax Your Reader to Click
  How can you stand out from the other people on the first page of Google? I’ve given an example of one below:
  Need a little black dress that stands the test of time? One that will work for every occasion, both formal or informal? Well, we’ve found it for you…

Conclusion

I get it. If you have thousands of products, this can look like a daunting task. But try to come up with formulas you can stick too. Make sure you do it on products going forward and fill in the backlog as you go. It’s not a fun task, but it’s worth it.

So Far, So Good!

What I’ve covered so far is everything that makes a good product page. Below, I’ll go into further details on how you can add more oomph to your product pages. These are just examples and you certainly don’t need them all!

Social Proof

Social proof is a way of showing your audience that other people have benefited from your product. Common forms of social proof are customer reviews or testimonials.

Including social proof on your product pages can help make a sale. It can give your user that little push (or hard shove) to click that buy now button.

Below, I’m going to outline ways you can incorporate social proof into your product pages.

– Customer Reviews

This is where customers give your product a rating. It’s usually between one and five stars and they’ll also be asked to volunteer a review. If you want to get super helpful, ask your customers to rate you out of five for specific things such as value for money, delivery, quality, appearance, etc.

Pros

• You don’t have to do anything – it’s all automated
• It’s easy for your customer to do too
• Your customer can do it anonymously, making them feel more comfortable giving an honest review
• You can gain valuable feedback

Cons

• You could get negative reviews
• You could get no reviews, which makes your site look like a wasteland!
• Often you don’t get an effective review that describes how the user has benefited from your product

I recommend using customer reviews when you plan on shifting a lot of products. Far too often, I see websites with no reviews and it looks like no one is buying! A good tip for gaining customer reviews is to send your customer an email after their purchase requesting they leave a review on your site.

– Featured Testimonial

Kidly do a great job of featuring a customer testimonial in the form of a ‘parent test’ section on each product page.

A featured testimonial allows you to have more control than you’d have with customer reviews.

These testimonials allow you to ask your customer specific questions, giving you the opportunity to shape a really good review.

Pros

• You only show good testimonials, obviously
• By asking questions, you can create compelling customer stories
• With your customer’s permission, you can add their face or a picture of them using your product to the testimonial, enhancing your social proof further

Cons

• This is a time-consuming task
• It may look more disingenuous if you only use customer testimonials, although featuring their image should combat that
• This kind of feature is quite advanced which means it might cost you more money to develop

To me, the benefits of featuring customer testimonials on each product page far outweigh the headache of actually doing them!

– Your Thoughts/Staff Picks

Giving your thoughts about what you love about your products can be a great way of connecting with potential buyers. This is especially true if you have a lot in common with your target audience, i.e. your target audience is essentially you!

For example, if you’re a mum who sells kids’ clothing, you can talk about how your products have benefited you and how much your children love them. This adds social proof but also gets your reader to connect with you on a personal level. They’ll feel like they’re buying from you and not just your logo.

Pros

• Requires no research and little effort on your part
• No bad reviews!
• Gets your audience to connect with you and see the benefits of the product

Cons

• • Not as authentic as reviews from your customers

Even if you decide to use customer reviews or testimonials, there’s still no harm in adding your own thoughts as to why you love your products.

I’m on the fence whether this is technically classed as social proof, but I do think it would be beneficial.

– Good Press/Awards

Good press and awards are a great way to show social proof. Even just an ‘As featured in…’ with links to said organisations, are enough to show your potential customers your products will benefit them.

But have you considered gaining reviews and opinion pieces about your products outside of mainstream media, such as BBC/Guardian/Daily Mail etc? Research bloggers and key influencers in your area and see if they’re willing to do a review of your product.

Pros

• High-impact social proof
• The added benefit of sending traffic to your website
• Improved SEO (if they include a ‘do-follow’ link to your website)

Cons

• It takes a lot of time and effort to go through the awards process
• You may have to learn how to write a press release and approach journalists
• You might have to give-away or highly discount some of your products in order to have them reviewed

Conclusion

The above might appear daunting, but try to feature at least one on your product pages. It might be tempting to try to cover all four but you can always test out others later.

If you already have reviews on your website but you’re only getting very few or none at all, try adding your views of the product as well.

Video

As well as having images why not use video too? This is becoming increasingly common. People have different preferences as to how they want to consume content. Some (like me) prefer reading, others (like Martin) prefer video.

To maximise sales, it’s a great idea to include both platforms. Depending on your content management system, you can add video to the same place you add images. Or you could add it to your product descriptions. Have a play about with it and see works best.

Ways you can use video on your product pages

– To Run Through Features and Benefits

You can use video to describe everything you’ve included in your product description. The only difference is the platform you’re using to communicate. You often see this with things like washing machines or coffee makers, but you can pretty much use it with anything. I’ve linked to an example of this from Currys here.

– To Showcase The Product

It’s often hard to visualise a product using only images. That’s why you find a lot of clothing/shoe companies showcase their products in video. Your audience gets a sense of what your product would look like on the move.

I’ve linked to an example of this from ASOS here.

– To Explain How the Product Works

Often consumers can be put off by installation and setup. If you can show your readers how easy it is to set-up your product by walking them through the steps then you’re onto a winner!

Not a lot of companies do this, which is a surprise because I think it would really help push sales.

Related Products

By including related products at the bottom of your product page, you will encourage your end-user to explore your site and products further. Some people worry this takes your user away from their purchase, but if they do want to buy they will find their way back. This is about you presenting them with all the buying options, which can only be a good thing.

There are numerous ways of presenting your related products, such as:

– People Also Viewed

– Customers Also bought

– My Recently Viewed Items

– Related Items

What you can achieve is really dependant on how advanced your content management system/shopping cart facility is. But most good content management systems will at least give you the option of including the related items. You can usually add related items by using your product category tags. This is by far the most popular version.

Conclusion

I know there’s a lot to think about. I’ve also designed this as an easy-to-follow checklist that you can use when creating your product pages. Eventually, this will become second nature, but this will help in the meantime.

You certainly don’t have to include everything, particularly of the social proof and featured products sections, otherwise, your product pages might become huge!

If you have thousands of products, please don’t worry! Just start slow and incorporate some of what I’ve talked about going forward with any new products. You can always backfill at your own time and pace.

Good luck.

If you think I’ve missed anything, please let me know in the comments below. I’d love to hear your thoughts

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post The Ultimate Guide to Perfecting Your Product Page appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

It could cost you anywhere between £500–£5000+ depending on who you choose and what you need.

For example, when we build websites we charge between £3,500 – £5,000. That being said, we usually work with established businesses who are already making money. For more info check our web design pricing visit this page.

But what if you’re just starting out in business? You might not have a big budget and every penny counts.

This is why I wrote this article; I wanted to give you five ways to get a cheap website and talk about the pros and cons of each.

My advice for anyone when starting a business for the first time is to set up a cheap website so you can test your idea and see what works.

1. Free website builders (Free – £20 per month)

Head over to Google and type in “free website” and hit enter. You’ll be presented with lots of companies that allow you to sign up for free and create a website DIY style.

Companies like Wix, Weebly and 1and1 allow you to pick from pre-made templates and get your website online fast.

You can even create your website from scratch if you’re brave enough. You can use their drag and drop software to move your images and text around the page until you’re happy.

Pros of using cheap web builders

• It’s free or very cheap to get started
• Most of these platforms are user-friendly
• Because they’re bigger companies, they usually have support departments to help you if you get stuck
• Hosting and domain fees are usually included

Cons of using cheap web builders

• The cost can increase with every additional feature
• If you do stay on the cheapest plan, they will usually advertise themselves on your website
• The added software that comes with drag and drop can sometimes slow down your website
• Some of these platforms don’t have search engine friendly system which means you could have lower rankings
• You don’t get any 1-2-1 advice about how to build and grow your website like you would if you were working with an agency

2. Use a cheap WordPress template
(Free – £30+ plus hosting)

WordPress (.org) is the most widely used system of its kind. This is the system that I use to build all our clients websites, and I love it.

As long as you have paid for hosting with a company like Siteground, you can install WordPress for free and add a cheap pre-made template for around £30. You can then customise the template and add your content.

WordPress also allows you to add lots of additional add-ons (plugins) for things like image galleries, social media sharing buttons, emails signup forms and lots more.

WordPress websites are also set up for blogging too, which means you can keep your website up-to-date with new content all the time.

Pros of using a WordPress template

• You have a huge library of FREE and paid templates to choose from. Just Google “WordPress templates”
• There are 50,000+ FREE add-ons (plugins) available for all your extra functionality. There are thousands of websites online that help with WordPress problems so you’ll always have help if you need it. Including the WordPress forum which is free.
• WordPress is widely recognised as one of the most search engines friendly platforms

Cons of using a WordPress template

• WordPress comes with a learning curve. Although you don’t have to know code, this can take more time than the DIY option.
• Most templates are built differently, which means if you change it in the future you might have to spend some time learning the new framework
• Like the DIY option above, you don’t have advice along the way. Yes, you can ask questions online, but you don’t have someone guiding you like you would if you hire a company

3. Find a cheap web designer (£100–£300 plus hosting)

If you really don’t want to do it yourself, you can hire a very cheap web designer. There companies online who will build you a website for around £100-£300.

This means you don’t need to spend your time building a site and have the headaches of trying to make it look how you want it to.

These companies can vary from freelancers just starting out or big companies who sell hundreds of these websites a month.

This could be an option for you if you really hate technology, but you only have a very small budget.

Pros of hiring a cheap web designer

• You don’t have to do anything yourself
• It’s cheap; there are many web designers who charge between £100–£300

Cons of hiring a cheap web designer

• The quality of your website will vary dramatically depending on who you choose
• The level of support you will get will be limited. You can’t possibly get much support for such a low price
• You might not have access to update the website once it’s been built
• They might charge you for additional changes which will cost more
• These companies probably won’t take the time to make your website search engine friendly
• For the price you’re paying, they will usually use a pre-made template

4. Ask for favours from friends and family (Free–? plus hosting)

Another option you have when trying to keep costs low is to ask a friend or family member to help design your website.

Everyone knows a “techie”; it’s usually someone’s cousin, niece or nephew. You might think that because someone uses technology more than you, they’re able to design a website for your business. You might get lucky and end up with a half decent website saving yourself hundreds of pounds in the process.

On the other hand, it might take you a lot longer if you’re asking for favours, and you might not get a website that isn’t of the highest standard.

Pros of asking for favours

• It’s free or at least very cheap

Cons of asking for favours

• Your “techie” friend probably doesn’t know how to build websites properly which means there might be lots of website errors
• They probably won’t understand SEO either, so your rankings might suffer
• They might not understand the basic principles of design which will impact your user experience
• If anything goes wrong, they probably won’t know how to fix it.

5. Outsource your website overseas (£50 – £100 plus hosting)

Over the past few years, businesses have become more open to outsourcing certain jobs overseas.

If you’re looking to save money on a website, you can hire a web designer at a fraction of the price of one back home.

Companies like Fiverr and Odesk allow you to browse through hundreds of freelance web designers who are all eager to work with you.

Pros of outsourcing abroad

• It can be a lot cheaper than working with someone in the UK
• You have “some” protection if you use a marketplace like Fiverr

Cons of outsourcing abroad

• The quality of the freelancers work can vary dramatically
• There could be a language barrier which makes communication difficult
• It can be difficult to vet the freelancer or company
• Freelancers will generally do what you ask but won’t usually offer advice or suggestions
• It can be risky if you hire the wrong freelancer and they don’t complete the job
• All round, it can be a bit of a minefield if you don’t know what you’re doing

My thoughts on the cheap web design options above

So there you have it, five ways to save money on your new website.

None of these options are ideal, but if you’re just starting out and budget is an issue, they can be a great starter platform until you start making money.

It depends on your circumstances, but my advice is to use option 2. Use WordPress and install a cheap template.

Spend some time playing around and learning the system; it will allow you to grow your business at your pace.

If you do decide to hire an agency in the future, chances are they will also use WordPress, so you don’t need to learn a brand new system all over again.

My clients have seen great results simply from switching from a DIY website to a WordPress website.

Over to you

Have you tried any of the options above, how did you find the process? I’d love to get your opinion so please leave a comment below.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post 5 Ways to get a CHEAP website designed appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

But when you’re not pulling in enough enquiries or sales, it might be time to examine what’s going wrong.

The only thing is, it’s often difficult for you to identify any issues with your site, especially if you’ve designed it yourself, and haven’t had a professional to help.

When you’re building a website yourself, you tend to focus on one thing…how it looks.

This isn’t a bad thing, but it’s only ONE of the MANY factors that go into a successful website. And if you’re not careful, you could be missing out on business.

Over the years, we’ve noticed that many business owners make the same mistakes with their websites. Consequently, they see limited results.

This is why we launched our “website critique” service. This is where we review your website and send you a 30-minute video with our advice and feedback so you can make improvements.

Over the past 12 months since starting this service, our clients have experienced dramatic growth as a result of our feedback.

But how do you know if YOU will benefit from a website critique? Below, I’ve listed the six main reasons you might need some honest feedback about your website.

1. You need some honest feedback on the design

The way your website looks is SO important, and it can make the difference between generating sales and hearing crickets. If you have an attractive, easy-to-use website, then more people will stick around and potentially do business with you.

However, if your website looks dated and it’s difficult to use, it WILL affect your bottom line. It’s a real shame because you might have spent time creating a useful website, but an unattractive or un-user-friendly design will put people off.

How will a website critique help?

We’ll give you some honest feedback about the design of your website. From our years of experience, we understand what makes a good website and what doesn’t.

In a website critique, we will tell you what we think about your site and what we would change. It might be as simple as changing a few colours or fonts, or we might suggest changing the layout and style to make it more user-friendly.

2. You’re not ranking well on Google, and you don’t know why

Every day, people are using search engines to find products and services like yours, and people trust Google to deliver the best results. This is why it’s so important that you are found online.

If you’re not ranking on the first page of search results for relevant key phrases, you’re likely missing out on visitors and sales.

For most businesses, organic search is the number one source of traffic, so it’s understandable why so many people need help increasing their rankings.

How will a website critique help?

We will analyse your website from a search engine perspective and give you specific changes that you can make to improve your search engine rankings.

We’ll look through your website and tell you if you’re making any mistakes and how to correct them.

We’ll also run a full technical audit to see if there are any underlying issues that are preventing you from being found online.

3. You’re not converting visitors into leads

Your website is not just an online business card, it has a job to do. It should be delivering a steady flow of new enquires all the time. The type of lead or enquiry depends on your business but here are a few examples:

• Contact form entries
• Phone calls
• Free online consultations
• Email subscribers

Whatever it is you want your visitors to do, your website needs to encourage your users to take some kind of action.

Far too often we don’t give our users clear direction. We leave them to wander around our website in the hopes that they will get in touch, and they rarely do.

How will a website critique help?

We’ll review your website fully and assess how you can increase your lead generation. There could be a problem with the design and layout of your website, or there could be an issue with the copy you’re using. We’ll give you some tips to improve your leads and enquiries.

4. You’re not making enough sales

You could have the best-looking website in the world, but if nobody is buying from you what’s the point? There’s nothing worse than spending time and money building a new website only to have it generate no sales.

The old adage “build it and they will come” is simply not true when it comes to your website. There is so much competition out there you have to be extremely focused on making your products and service stand out from the crowd.

For someone to feel confident buying from you, you need to build up a certain amount of trust. Your prospects want to feel like they’re making the right decision and it’s your job to make them feel safe when handing over their cash.

How will a website critique help?

There are a few key things you can do on your website to build trust, that you might not already be doing. We’ll review your website and identify any opportunities to improve this and increase sales.

We’ll also take a look at you sales pages and product pages to see if you’re including all the right information and addressing your visitors objections.

Another reason people might not buy from you is because they have certain questions that you might not answer on your website. We’ll help you come up with a content plan so your visitors learn more about your products and services, which should lead to more customers.

5. Users are leaving your website quickly

You only have a few seconds to grab someone’s attention when they visit your website. Fail to do this, and they’ll lose interest and click the back button. You probably do this when browsing online too.

There are many reasons someone might leave your site quickly, including a lack of clear direction, inability to communicate what it is you do, messy design, etc.

All of this will impact user experience and cause your visitor to be frustrated and leave quickly.

How will a website critique help?

We can advise you how to captivate your audience before they leave your site. There are certain design principles you can do to engage your visitors and keep them around for longer.

We’ll take a look at your website and tell you what you can do to help your users consume more of your content.

6. Your traffic numbers are low

If your website isn’t getting a lot of traffic, it can be really frustrating. You’ve spent time creating a website, and nobody is visiting it. The more relevant visitors you have, the more potential buyers you have.

It’s also worth mentioning that without a consistent flow of visitors, you won’t be able to get a good understanding of how people are using your website, what you can improve and what you may need to get rid of.

Having the data will allow you to make certain adjustments to your website that will increase sales.

How will a website critique help?

There are many things you can do to start generating more website traffic, and I’m not talking about paying for advertising.

We’ll help you come up with a strategy so you can start reaching more people. This might mean making your website more search engine friendly, or we can spend some time looking at your content to see if it’s good enough to attract more visitors.

Summary

If you’re concerned about your website and think it might not be performing well enough, let us know. We can tell you if we think a website critique is the right way to go.

If you want to book your website critique now, then click the button below and get started. We’ll send you your 30-minute video in the next seven days.

Over to you

Have you suffered from any of these website problems before, how did you overcome them? I’d be interested to know in the comments below.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post 6 warning signs you need a website critique appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Thinking about the colours, the styles, the layout, the endless possibilities.

It’s understandable that you would want to jump into it feet first and hire an agency quickly to build your new website.

Before you do, I wanted to make you aware of a few hurdles you might face.

I’ve been running a web design business for over five years, and I’ve noticed a number of frustrations and problems with other web design companies.

I’ve made an effort to listen to what people say so I can understand their frustrations, that way I don’t make the same mistakes with my business.

What are the main problems you might face when hiring a web design agency?

1. They don’t put their prices on their website

Most web design companies don’t display any pricing information on their website. They expect you to call them up or fill out an online form to be able to find out what they might charge. This is pretty frustrating.

You might have a budget in mind, it might be high, it might be low but if you can’t find any information on their website you could spend hours contacting a number of companies and explaining what you want, only to find that they are way out of your price range.

Obviously, websites are not all built the same, they have many different features, and the price for one can be completely different for another. However, wouldn’t it be easier for everyone if they gave you some indication at least without having to contact them. Even if they said “starting at £5,000” if you only had a budget of £1,000 you would know they are not the right company for you.

What we do instead

Like many other companies, the price for our web design packages varies depending on what you want. But we know that most of the websites we build cost between £3K–£5K. This is why we clearly state this information on our website. There are rare occasions that we might charge outside of this range, but at least you know what kind of figure we’re likely to quote.

We’ve also written a number of blog posts about our pricing structure and what you get for your money. We allow you to compare our service with other companies in your own time. You get to see our entire process from start to finish and make your own decision.

2. They might use a lot of jargon

Website design is a technical skill, and it can get pretty complicated at times. Web design companies like to use lots of jargon, some of which ends up on their website.

Phrases like CSS, HTML5 and PHP may sound impressive, but they don’t mean anything to ordinary business owners looking to hire a web designer for their new website.

It’s more likely going to confuse you and leave you with more questions.

What we do instead

We know that your website needs to look good, work well and deliver traffic and customers. You shouldn’t need to worry about the technical aspects of how it’s built. You just want results.

We understand that what we do may seem complex. It can be, but it doesn’t have to be complicated for you. We do our best to eliminate the fancy jargon when speaking to you about your project via Skype, email and phone and make things easy to understand.

We also created a jargon buster on our website which will help you understand all the fancy lingo that techie folk like to use.

3. They might not understand SEO

Search engine optimisation or SEO will play a big part in the success of your website. It’s about how well your website follows the guidelines that Google set.

Some web design companies focus entirely on DESIGN. They tend to focus on making your website look good and leave the SEO stuff to you.

That’s ok if you know what you’re doing but wouldn’t it be good if your web designer at least thought about search engines while building your website.

After all, you could have the best-looking website in the world but if nobody can find you on Google then what’s the point.

What we do instead

We have an extensive knowledge of SEO and have been lucky enough to work with hundreds of clients over the years. We teach SEO, run workshops and offer 1-2-1 private coaching.

We build every website with SEO in mind, everything we do will have some impact on your search engine rankings. This is why we take our time throughout the design process. We think about website content, page layout, menu structure, technical SEO, page speed and much more.

Yes, we STILL design great looking websites, but we also build search engine friendly websites too.

4. You don’t get the support you need when you go live

Another major problem with web design companies is the level of support you get from them once your website has gone live.

It’s only natural that you’ll have a few questions once your new site is live and you’d expect to be able to contact your web designer for a little support.

Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. Some agencies feel that once your website is live, you are now on your own. They may even try and charge you hourly for any additional support time, every email or phone call.

It’s sad, but it happens.

What we do instead

We love helping clients with their website. Especially after you launch. There may be the odd tech question you want to ask, or maybe you want some advice about blogging. We are always happy to help.

Depending on the level of support you need, we may suggest taking out a maintenance package with us, but this is optional.

Some of our web design packages include a 1-2-1 coaching session once the website is live so we can help you make the most of your new website.

We also send you a series of video tutorials showing you how to update your website yourself without having to speak to us.

Whatever you need we are here for you.

5. They don’t take the time to understand your business

A lot of web designers don’t take the time to truly understand your business. They tend to focus on surface-level information, e.g. how many pages do you need, what do you sell, how can people get in touch.

By only focusing on the basics, they will miss some really important information that could lead to you getting more enquires and sales later down the road.

To design a high performing website your web design company should understand:

• Your target market
• The features of the products/services you offer
• The benefits of these products/services
• What makes you different from your competitors
• Your future goals for the business
• Any much more

Without gathering this information, it’s pretty much impossible to create a website that’s good enough to do what you want it to.

What we do instead

Before we start building your website, we arrange a video call so we can gather as much information as we can. This usually lasts for an hour.

Once we have done this, we’ll send you a questionnaire to fill out where we ask more questions about your business. This will allow us to get a clearer understanding and set an action plan for moving forward.

Once we have all this, we’ll then do our own research into your competitors and your target audience and come up with a plan to designing a website that truly works for you.

Summary

As you can see, there are many key issues you will want to look out for when approaching web design companies about your new website.

Be very careful to do your research before hiring a web design agency for your new project.

Over to you

Have you ever hired a web design agency? What were the problems that you faced? I’d love to you hear from you, so please leave a comment below.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post 5 common problems with web design companies appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

It’s a decision that we didn’t take lightly but one that we are happy with.

SEO has been a huge part of our business, and it’s going to be an interesting transition going forward.

Did we fall out of love with SEO? Did we have a bad experience? The answer to both questions is NO.

We love helping our clients get incredible results (who wouldn’t) this is why it took us a long time to make this decision. Stopping something you enjoy doing, and are good at, is difficult for anyone.

Even if you’re doing it for the right reasons.

1. We love building websites

We want to focus all our efforts on building the best websites possible.

I actually started my journey as a web designer 5 years ago. I only added SEO to the mix later on once I learned as much as I could about it.

Learning SEO and getting great results for our clients has helped us build better websites. They tend to rank better, they’re more user-friendly, and we can advise our clients what they could do to improve SEO.

My real passion has always been in building websites. Taking an idea or basic sketch and turning into a reality is what excites me. Creating a website from nothing and see it make money for a client is the best feeling in the world, and we want to spend more time doing this.

Another part of what we love about building websites is seeing the finished product. It’s true; a website is never truly “finished” but there is a point where we launch a new website and hand over the reigns to our clients.

At that point I feel a sense of accomplishment.

However, the very nature of SEO means, it’s never-ending. It’s a continuous service that happens month after month and it never really feels complete. Although this is very profitable, I still miss that sense of completion that I get from my web design projects.

2. We didn’t want to hold anything back

We’ve always tried to be as giving as possible when it comes to our knowledge. SEO is a topic I personally love to talk about and could do so until I was blue in the face.

However, when you offer a service like SEO, there’s always a feeling that I should be saving some of the information for my paying clients. Surely the REALLY valuable stuff should be given to paying clients only…right?

NO!

This is another reason we gave it up. We didn’t want anything to be held back when speaking to clients and prospects.

Our goal is to be 100% transparent with our audience, and now we’ve taken money out of the equation, we get to spread our message without any filter.

And I feel really excited about it.

3. We want YOU to learn SEO rather than pay for it

SEO is easier than you think.

Over the past 4 years since I’ve been offering SEO, I’ve realised that Google are making it easier for small businesses to have an impact on the web.

SEO is easier to understand and less technical than ever before.

There are thousands of SEO blogs out there giving free advice on how to optimise your website for search engines. Not to mention all the books, video courses and podcasts that offer guidance too.

Content management systems like WordPress, Weebly and Shopify allow you to optimise your own website easily and start seeing results within weeks.

It’s far more cost-effective for you to learn and understand the basics and try your hand at at it first.

Even if you decide to hire an SEO agency later on, you’ll be able to understand the work that has been carried out. You’ll have a better grasp of what and why things have been done and save yourself some time and money in the process.

4. We get to spend more time helping our clients

We’re developing a new online training centre for our clients where we’ll put together a series of videos and downloads that will help them understand SEO better.

When you hire us to build your website, you’ll have the opportunity to join the training centre and learn everything you need to know to drive more organic traffic to your website.

We’ll teach you everything we’ve learned over the years, and you can implement it yourself without the need for an SEO company.

Now that we’ve stopped providing SEO services, it means we have more time to invest in training.

5. We are still offering SEO consulting

Although we are not taking on new SEO projects, we are not going anywhere, and we can still help you with your SEO strategy.

We offer hourly 1-2-1 coaching via Skype, and we also offer a website critique service where we’ll review your website and send you a video with our feedback.

These services allow us to help more people for a one-time fee. No contracts, no monthly fees, just 100% help and advice tailored around your needs.

What happens now

So what does this mean, is the last time I’m going to talk write about SEO?

Nope.

I’m planning on writing a lot more SEO content for my audience; I want to start recording more videos and creating ebooks too. I just want to give away my knowledge, rather than save it for my SEO clients.

Summary

It’s never easy cutting a service from your business. Especially one that’s been very profitable over the years. I made this decision even though it went against my business instincts. I went with my heart instead. And I’m happy that I did.

If you want to take advantage of our website critique service, hit the button below. We’ll send you a 30-minute website critique video telling you how to improve your SEO.

Over to you

Have you ever made a decision that didn’t make sense on paper? Maybe like me, you chose to go with your heart rather than your head. Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Why we’ve stopped selling SEO appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

You know you need to hire a web design agency to create your new site, but you’re not sure where to start.

You could work with a small agency like us, or you could hire a big agency with a fancy office.

But what’s the REAL difference?

I’ll be honest; I would never class us as “cheap”. We charge between £3K–£5K for a website, which is significantly more expensive than WIX and your bog-standard local web designer. People often ask why we are more expensive. You can find out why we’re more expensive by reading this blog post.

That being said, we have ALSO been asked this question too…

“Why are you so much cheaper than larger agencies?”

You may be thinking:

• Are they cheaper because they’re not as good?
• Do they have the right skills?
• Can they handle my project?

How much do larger agencies charge for web design?

Many of our clients have been quoted 5K-10K for a basic website and upwards of 15K-20K for a website needing additional features. Comparatively, we usually charge between 3K-5K on average.

What’s the difference between us and them?

In this post, I’ll explain exactly what you will (and won’t) receive from us when it comes to getting a new website. And why I think we’re cheaper than other agencies.

1. No big fancy office

We work from home.

We make no bones about it. We love working from home. There’s no traffic for one thing, and my wife and I each have an office with all the space we require.

But many website design agencies rent spaces. Depending on the agency, some of these spaces can be extra fancy, complete with cool bean bag chairs and coffee machines.

After a brief search on Rightmove, renting a decent space, suitable for meeting clients, could set me back £2000 per month. That cost, along with public indemnity insurance, furniture and heating/gas costs, would need to passed onto you, the client.

With the exception of the slightly higher utility bills from using the kettle 18 times a day, there’s very little extra cost from me working from home.

Working with us:

• Overhead costs are lower, and these savings are passed onto you

Working with a larger agency:

• You get that ‘red carpet’ experience
• Bean bag chairs!

Understandably, some people are put off by this. They like the idea of a big agency who can roll out the red carpet for them in the style of a dedicated office space. And I get it, I really do. Having a website designed is exciting, and a fancy office adds to that experience.

But a lot of our clients, most of which live over 3 hours drive away, don’t really care that we work from home. They just want a good product.

Which brings us nicely onto our next point….

2. We don’t do in-person meetings

“Will you come and meet us?”

99% of the time, the answer to this question is no.

It’s not that we don’t want to see you. We love communicating with clients. And personally, finding out about you and your business is the favourite part of my job.

But we still won’t come and meet you. Instead, we communicate via video call, phone, emails and recorded videos.

Why do we do only communicate online?

How does this make the cost cheaper for you?

It’s true, the cost of travel isn’t much. Travel from Manchester to Edinburgh for two people is £150.00 (ish). A hotel is about £100.00.

So you’re probably thinking, ‘well £250.00 out of the three grand you’re charging for the website isn’t bad, right?’

And you’d be right.

The biggest issue for us is time. Say we did that two or three times a month. We could lose 4-6 days out of each month travelling and in meetings. It’s just not feasible.

Time is money, unfortunately. And the more time we spend dedicated to travelling for your project, the more we’d have to charge and the longer the project would take.

We’d have significantly fewer clients, which means we would have to charge a smaller pool of clients more for each project.

Plus, we’ve found a whole host of benefits when communicating online compared with face-to-face.

Working with us:

• You get to see your website and the progress as we go along. There’s not just one meeting and then a brand new website, we have a few video calls throughout the process.
• We’ll send you training videos which will last forever. If you want to update your website at 8 pm on a Friday night and you forget how to do something, you don’t have to wait until Monday to find out!
• You have time to formulate feedback – you’re not put on the spot as you may be in a face-to-face scenario
• Cheaper overall costs, which are then passed onto you.

Working with a larger agency:

• Sometimes it’s easier to explain what you want face-to-face, but we find a video call is always good for that too! Especially with our screen-sharing software.
• Free coffee – we can’t give you a frappuccino through the computer screen, but we are hoping technology catches up soon!

3. We don’t have lots of staff

A lot of agencies have project managers, a sales team and administrators as well as web designers and graphic designers, etc. This varies from agency-to-agency, however, comparatively we’re very small.

The obvious reason our projects are cheaper than other agencies is because we don’t  pay for a team of staff.

As well as the research and design, we also do all the admin, accounting (alongside an accountant), marketing and brew-making between the two of us.

This means we have to carefully plan-in each project, and a single web project usually spans over two months.

Working with us:

• You speak directly to the person designing your website – Martin. There isn’t a number of people you must go through in order to talk design.
• You don’t have to explain your point to numerous people
• You get to speak to the people at the top! We make all the decisions – there’s no waiting around for things to be signed off by managers
• We’ll never put you on hold with crappy background music
• You don’t get lost amongst so many different projects
• And the biggie…it’s cheaper

Working with a larger agency:

• It may take them less time to design a website – our websites take a minimum of two months to create (from research to launch).
• As long as you have the budget, larger agencies tend to be able to work with anyone. Whereas we work with fewer clients who we can truly help
• If you don’t like your account manager personally, you can usually request another one.

4. We provide one main service

We offer one service: Bespoke WordPress website design.

Don’t get us wrong; this service encompasses a lot of different things. We think about the whole process your user must go through, and how best to get them to do exactly what you want them to!

We don’t just design, there’s so much that goes on in the background, such as email marketing integration, online payments integration, and crafting attractive copy to increase click through rates, for example.

But, we still only offer one product.

Why does this save you money?

Firstly, this saves you costs because we don’t have to spend time and money learning and keeping up-to-date with many different things.

The second reason is that we don’t bundle in lots of services under one roof like many integrated digital agencies.

We’ve had to learn this the hard way.

In the beginning, we offered too many products and stretched ourselves way too thin.

However, a larger agency doesn’t have this problem. So you may find that many of these items are bundled into a large package, which of course, increases the cost, but can be a good thing depending on what you need.

Working with us:

• Highly in depth knowledge and skill about one particular subject – how to turn your visitors into customers using a bespoke WordPress website.
• Staff training costs are low
• No added extras bundled into our packages

Working with a larger agency:

• Can usually handle all of your marketing and branding under one roof
• No need to go to multiple suppliers – such as a web designer, logo designer and copywriter
• Your marketing and branding is consistent as it’s all completed in one place

5. We hate suits

There. We said it. We hate them.

We don’t wear them, and we don’t expect you to pay for them.

Summary

In some ways, we’re quite a low key agency.

We’ve created a business that we love, and it never feels like we’re working (except when we’re filling in a tax return). We don’t have any ambitions of becoming a huge agency complete with a team of staff and a fancy office.

That’s ultimately why we’re cheaper than some others out there. However, that’s not to say we’re the right agency for you.

It’s not just about the cost.

There are advantages and disadvantages to working with us over other agencies, and we hope we’ve made this a little clearer for you! Our aim has always been to minimise the small agency disadvantages as much as we can.

Over to you

So, have you ever worked with a smaller, cheaper agency? What did you like about it? Or perhaps you prefer larger agencies with a strong presence and name? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Why Are We So Cheap? Working with us vs a Larger Agency appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

A lot of these mistakes occur on the homepage. Most people spend the majority of their time thinking about their homepage design, how it will look and what impression they want to give. But they forget the simplest rule:

The purpose of your homepage is to get your user to the next page.

It’s rare that someone will land on your homepage, pick up the phone and buy from you. Your homepage should act as a hub for your website. A reception area, if you will, which is designed to guide your user to the places you want them to go.

So, with this in mind, what are the most common errors we see on homepages?

1. You don’t make it clear what you do

This is the number one error we see. You haven’t told us what you do and why we should care.

The second we get to your homepage you need to clearly describe what it is that you do.

We call this a BIG BOLD STATEMENT.

Thinking of one for your business is harder than it sounds, so I’ve included some great examples below.

Freshbooks

Freshbooks say they offer ‘Small business accounting software that makes billing painless.’

You gain so much information from this one statement alone: their target audience (small businesses), what they do (accounting software) and their USP (painless billing).

Imagine if they didn’t have that statement and you had to figure out what they did from their business name?

Content Marketing Academy

CMA asks, “Ready to grow your business with content marketing?” and their sub-headline is “At the CMA we teach forward thinking business people and marketers to master content marketing, get better customers and increase revenue.”

Again, you get so much information from their statement: their target audience (forward-thinking business people and marketers), what they do (teach you how to master content marketing) and their USP (help you get better customers and increase revenue).

Users are lazy and impatient, and I can get away with saying that because I’m the worst. If I don’t see what I’m looking for within the first 3 seconds, I’ll hit that back button and go to another website. Don’t lose potential customers through something as simple as not explaining what it is you do!

How to fix it

A handy little tip to create a big bold statement for your business is to think about your products or service as a solution to your prospective customers’ problems.

We help [these types of people] get [this solution] by [feature of product]

We help [kids] get [more exercise] by [making it fun]

We help [business owners] get [invoices paid on time] by [sending reminders automatically]

There are many ways you can come up with your own statement, but the most important thing is clarity. Do you make it obvious who you can help? And how you can help them?

2. No Call to Action

Remember what I said earlier about your homepage acting as a reception? We’ve come across so many websites that give their users no clear direction.

I’m not talking about the top navigation bar; I’m talking about the pages you want to show your user. It’s best to keep these call to actions above the fold, so your users know where to go once they land on your homepage.

You could send them to service or product pages or your latest blog post. But think about the buying cycle. Don’t just shove your about page there because you feel that’s where it should go. Your user is on a journey and your aim is to shimmy them along to the end.

Good examples of this include:

SEO Moz

SEO Moz does a fantastic job of this. They combine both a call to action and clear instruction. As soon as you land on the homepage you have two options: one, ‘Get Started with Moz’ and two, ‘Get my free listing score’ – a very tempting call to action, especially with the word free!

They’ve clearly thought about their user’s journey, which goes a little something like this…

Homepage ——– Get Started With Moz ——— Start My Free 30 Day Trial

And that’s it. 3 steps and they have your details (including your card details).

Hotel Chocolat – ‘Exam Success’ Call To Action

Marks and Spencer ‘Back To School’ Call To Action

I always hear how e-commerce websites are different to ‘standard sites,’ but there’s no reason e-commerce businesses shouldn’t be directing their customers to their preferred web pages.

Both Hotel Chocolat and Marks and Spencer do this well. On their homepage, they’re predicting what their users will need. It’s Summer holidays, so both have identified that ‘exam success’ chocolates and ‘back to school’ supplies, will be something that their users will be looking for. Instead of having to traipse around the site, the user is presented with exactly what they want on the homepage.

Of course, getting a designer to design new images and then uploading them to your site can cost time and money, but it’s worth it.

How to fix it

Think about the one thing you’d like your users to do when they visit your website. How will you convince your visitor to take the next step with you?

Ideally, it would move them closer to becoming a customer, e.g., book a free consultation, check availability, etc., but at the very least your call to action would allow them to build up more report with your business and help them to consume more of your content.

3. No Lead Capture

Your website users will very rarely buy from you straight away. You’ll need to build up some trust before they do. This is why it’s a good idea to offer them something in return for their contact details.

This could be in the form of a tempting offer such as a discount on the first order, free delivery, free trial, free e-book/video, etc. Not only do you get their contact details but you also build trust, getting them comfortable with potentially making that first order or enquiry.

Good examples of this include:

Hubspot

Like Moz, Hubspot instruct what they want their users to do with an attractive call to action, offering free access to their products with a clear ‘Get started’ button. From here, they capture your details, and you’re now in Hubspot’s (very helpful) email machine!

If I could only critique one thing, it would be to make the text, ‘Free versions of every HubSpot product. Start now and upgrade as you grow’ larger, as I didn’t spot it right away. But, hey. They’re Hubspot. They know what they’re doing!

Also, notice how they also use the same, ‘Get Started’ button on the top right and bottom left? As the user’s eyes roam the page, they’ll be hit with both call to actions loud and clear.

Mum’s Meal Planner

We did a similar thing when we designed the Mum’s Meal Planner website. We crafted the words ‘Weekly Meal Plans Straight to Your Inbox’ along with a tempting lead capture offering a free sample in exchange for the user’s email address.

Notice again how there are buttons to sign up on both the top right and bottom left? Similar to how Hubspot does it, and yet they look completely different.

How to fix it

To be able to capture your prospects contact information, you can use anyone of these popular email marketing tools;

Aweber – Free Trail
ConvertKit
MailChimp

Each of these services will allow you to add an email signup form to your website and start gathering contact information.

Don’t forget to tempt people with a freebie of some sort in exchange for their information. And yes, it does need to be more appealing than “join our newsletter”!

4. Contact details

How would you like your customers to contact you? A phone call, contact form, carrier pigeon?

Whatever you decide, you need to make it obvious for your website visitors. I can’t tell you how many websites get this wrong.

If you want someone to pick up the phone and give you a call, put your phone number in a very prominent position on your homepage (and on every other web page for that matter).

Good examples of this include:

Jammy Digital

On our website, we feature a clickable phone number and option to contact us for a ‘quick chat’ via our contact form.

You have to be careful not to overwhelm people with too many ways of contacting you, but it’s a good idea to feature two or three. This is because some people may prefer phone or skype, but they might like to email instead.

How to fix it

You need to respect your visitors time, and making them scour through your website to find your details is going to frustrate them. This goes back to your call to action. Make your intentions clear and direct people without pissing them off.

Get your web designer to add your contact details on the top of each page including your homepage. 50% of searches are now completed through a mobile device. So please, make it easy for people on the go! Display your phone number clearly (as text, not an image) and make it clickable for people to call you

5. Attack of the logo

Logos are important. There’s no doubt about it. They encompass everything you are as a brand. People are proud of their logos, and I get that. But your web user is looking for information fast. You don’t need a humongous logo on your homepage, taking up all that valuable space!

Have a look at the brands below with logos hailed as the most iconic logos in the world. Look how small they are in comparison to the rest of the website. That’s exactly how logos should be displayed.

Good examples of this include:

McDonalds

FedEx

BMW

How to fix it

Speak to your designer or web developer about resizing your logo if it’s too big. Our logo at the top left is 317px by 65px.

It’s big enough to see and read but not too intrusive.

6. No Unique Selling Points

Yeah, I know, industry jargon. But highlighting your unique selling points is a grand idea. You don’t have to do this high up necessarily but have it somewhere on your homepage. And actually think about what makes you different from others. This does NOT include the following:

• Delivers excellent customer service
• Have been in business for over fifteen years
• We provide solutions to your problems

Think about what makes you stand out from your competitors and list them on your homepage.

Good examples of this include:

Grammarly

Take Grammarly, for instance. They state that they’re far better than a normal word processor and they that they can correct your grammar and spelling in email and everywhere across the web.

How to fix it

Think of what will appeal to your target audience and what concerns they may have about working with you – address those concerns head on.

You’ll need to think about what you do that no one else in your industry does and shout about it.

7. Social Proof

The term ‘social proof’ is not to be confused with social media. Social proof is about influencing people in a positive way. In business, social proof is used to make your potential customers feel more comfortable investing in you. It’s about gaining trust by providing proof that your product or service will be valuable to your audience.

Good examples of this include:

Social Media Examiner

Social Media Examiner uses some compelling phraseology to get you to sign up to their free report. They say ‘Join more than 620,000 of your peers’.

How powerful is that? It’s the kind of thing to get you thinking, well if so many other people like me have joined, why shouldn’t I? It’s a hugely influential phrase, added in bold for extra oomph!

Marie Forleo

Okay, so it might not be possible to get a photograph with Oprah Winfrey or Richard Branson. But Marie Forleo does a great job at presenting her social proof on her homepage.

If you can gain the attention of industry leaders, then it’s certainly a good idea to feature them on your homepage. This also goes for big companies you’ve worked with too.

How to fix it

There are many different kinds of social proof you can feature on your homepage, including:

• AUTHENTIC Customer testimonials
• Links to case studies
• Feeds from review websites such as Tripadvisor or Trustpilot
• Think about what will build trust in you and your business and showcase this prominently.

Summary

These are just a few examples of common mistakes people make on the homepage of their website.

However, please be aware that we’ve barely scratched the surface!

If you’d like us to tell you what costly mistakes you’re making on YOUR website, then book a website critique and receive a 30-minute, personalised video.

Over to you

Have you encountered any of these mistakes on your website? Or, is there anything you think we’ve missed? Let us know in the comments below…

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post 7 mistakes you’re making on your homepage and how to fix them appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

And I don’t blame you. Getting a new website is expensive.

After all, you might be pretty IT savvy. How hard can it possibly be?

I just want to make one thing clear.

Creating a good website is NOT about technical skills.

It’s about much more.

There are many experienced IT companies out there that have terrible websites. IT skills alone won’t deliver a profitable website.

So if you’re thinking about creating your own website, please take a few minutes to read this post. It could be the most important article you’ll read all year.

Drag and drop web design

For those who have limited technical skills, it may be tempting to design your website using drag-and-drop software via companies like WIX, Weebly or Squarespace.

These companies would have you believe that you can knock up a quick website within a day, sit back and let the money roll in.

It might seem easy enough to get started but you’ll quickly realise that there is a LOT more to it. Especially if you want to add or change anything which is outside of their restrictive templates.

Even if you do spend a few weeks or months getting it to look exactly as you want, chances are the final design is not what you’d get from an experienced web designer.

This is why I wrote this article. I wanted you to be fully aware of the complications before you waste time and money trying to build your own website.

Here are the 7 main reasons why you should avoid building your own website without any help and support.

1. Design limitations

Design is not something you can simply pick up in an afternoon. You can’t learn how to design a website without years of experience.

• It’s about how it looks
• It’s about how it makes people feel
• It’s about how it makes people act
• It’s about user experience
• It’s about the character of your business
• It’s about your message to the world

Above all else, website design is about building TRUST.

Without a solid understanding of design, you’ll almost certainly get it wrong. Your competitors on the other hand, might choose to hire a professional web designer and avoid any mistakes.

If you feel like your design skills are limited, then it’s best to stick within the confines of a theme or template. Most people go ahead and try to change a lot about the theme, but this is where you can look amateur.

And if you can, get feedback on your website from a professional website designer, even if that means paying for something like a website critique.

And if all that scares you, then hire somebody to help. You’ll save yourself a lot of time and get something that looks professional.

2. Lack of SEO knowledge

SEO or search engine optimisation is an ever-changing landscape. Search engines change their rules all the time and what worked last month might not work this month.

I’ve been helping clients with SEO for years and I’m still constantly listening, watching and testing to see what’s changed with Google and the other search engines.

I need to have my ear to the ground to be able to keep up to date and build search engine friendly websites. Not only that, if you build your own website, you’re going to have to have an understanding of:

• 301 redirects
• Backlinks
• 404 error pages
• Schema markup
• DA and PA
• Anchor Text

If you don’t feel comfortable with SEO, you could be making some critical mistakes with your website. Mistakes that could cost you 100’s or 1000’s of monthly visitors to your website. We at least recommend you get to know the basics of SEO if you’re designing your own website, such as investing in our SEO Starter Pack.

3. You are NOT your customer

Nobody knows your customers better than you. You live and breathe your business every day and it’s fair to say you know your stuff. We like to think we’re exactly the same.

However, when you’re so involved with running the business, it’s sometimes difficult to see things from your customers’ perspective. It’s difficult to imagine what it might look like seeing your website for the first time by a prospect. This is known as “the curse of knowledge”.

That’s where we can help. We run a membership community where we help and support people building their own websites (and our own plugin page templates to help!) We give regular feedback to our members on their websites. Here are just a few of the common errors we see on websites, just within the first third of your homepage!

• No prominent contact details
• No clear call to action
• No statement explaining succinctly what it is you do

4. You might need help along the way

Like anything technical, building a website is not easy and there will be hurdles along the way. You might be able to pull something basic together with some tutorials and the odd YouTube video, but what happens if something goes wrong?

How will you be able to fix it?

You could try to figure it out yourself by digging through lots of forums and using trial and error, but this could take days. You could hire a techie and pay for a 1hr consultation but this can cost hundreds of pounds.

It’s worth either using a web designer or joining our membership where you get help and support along the way.

We’ve spent years educating ourselves on the technicalities of designing websites and have come across plenty of problems and solutions over that time.

There’s no need for you to do the same.

5. You won’t have the right tools for the job

Designing websites is a specialist skill. Like any creative skill, it requires a number of tools to ensure the job is done correctly.

Here is a list of tools we use to build highly successful websites;

• Adobe Photoshop
• Adobe Illustrator
• WordPress
• FTP
• Premium Plugins
• Technical Audit Tools
• Rank Tracking Software
• Competitor analysis software
• Email Marketing tools
• Landing page software
• Cross Browser Software

Most of these tools are expensive but they are necessary. Especially if I want to create high impact websites for my clients that perform well in search engines.

If you don’t have these tools and/or know how to use them, then you might not get the result you’re hoping for.

It took me a good few years to learn how to use these tools and even longer to use them effectively.

Hiring a web designer or joining our membership will help. A web designer will already have such tools and in our membership, we give you access to tools and templates which make your life so much easier.

6. It will take you much longer than it needs to

Learning to build a website from scratch can take a long time, especially if you aren’t very technical. Even if you’re using drag and drop tools you may need to do a lot of tweaking to get it right. Not to mention all the image editing and resizing to make it look good and load quickly.

As you know, time IS money and whilst you’re learning how to build a website, you’re not managing or marketing the business.

In our membership, it takes our members around 2-3 weeks to build their website and that is because they have our support. A web designer will probably take longer but your time isn’t taken up with building the site yourself.

7. Your competitors

Even if you do have the time to create your own website, chances are your competitors’ websites will look superior. I’m not trying to be mean, but if they have paid for a professional website to be designed and you haven’t, the likelihood is that theirs will work better.

Many businesses understand the importance of quality, which is why they choose to pay a web design company instead of doing it themselves.

If you are trying to stand out then you’ll want a high-quality website then looks better than your competition.

When you should build your website yourself?

Now it’s not all doom and gloom. Not every business owner should go to a website design agency or freelancer to build their website. Some can and should build it themselves. These are business owners who are just starting out, or who aren’t clear on their audience, products or services just yet.

Also, remember, it doesn’t have to cost thousands for a new website. You can get a website at £1000 or even £500.

For those who are wanting to learn and don’t want to spend thousands on a website, our membership is a great option.

And for those who do have the funds, we recommend using a good web designer to help you.

My biggest frustration

This may appear like a shamelessly unbiased blog post. And it is! But the reason I’m writing it is that I’ve had client after client tell me their frustrations when trying to build their own website completely on their own with zero support.

Believe me, at some point you’re going to have to pay a professional (even if it’s just a small amount) if you want your website to be a success and not a time-suck!

Over to you?

Remember, the next step once your website is live (whether you build it yourself or get someone else to do it) is to drive traffic to that website! And you can do this through something like our SEO content writing service.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post 7 reasons you SHOULDN’T design your own website appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

With all the jargon floating around, how can you even begin to get started?

It’s not enough that you have to manage your website yourself, now you have to have a degree in marketing to work out what people are talking about.

That is exactly why I wrote this blog post; I wanted to break down all the different words and acronyms you might come across and explain what they all mean.

Let’s get started.

301 and 302 redirects

A redirect is used if you want to redirect your visitors from one page to another. You might do this for numerous reasons:

• You’ve changed your domain name
• You’ve altered a URL,
• You may have deleted a page.

The difference between the two: A 301 is a permanent redirect and 302 a temporary redirect.

404 Pages

A 404 page is the error page that appears on your website if someone mistypes a URL or tries to visit an old page that no longer exists. They will reach the 404 page. The standard 404 error page is usually not very attractive, so it’s a good idea to amend it if you can.

Alt Text

Alt text is short for alternative text. It can be used to describe your images as you add them to your website. Search engines will use your Alt text to determine what is depicted in the image so they can list it in search results. You can read more about ALT text and how to use it in our blog post: how to optimise your blog posts.

Anchor Text

Anchor text is the text you use within a hyperlink. For instance, the anchor text used in this sentence is “web design”, and it links to the web design page on our website. Search engines take note of the word/phrase within the anchor text when ranking a website in search results.

AMP

AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages. It’s one step up from having a responsive website. A website that uses AMP will load instantly, creating a better experience for your mobile visitors. It will get rid of any unnecessary clutter that slows down the website. It’s still early days, and in my opinion, it’s not necessary right now for you to use AMP.

Adwords

Adwords is Google’s advertising platform. It is a pay per click service that will display your advert in the paid sections of the search engine results page.

Backlinks

Backlinks or inbound links occur when another website includes a hyperlink back to your website. Generally speaking, the more high quality backlinks you have, the more credible you are to search engines. You can learn more about backlinks in our blog post, SEO for Beginners.

Back-end

The term “back-end” refers to the back office of your website. This is the login dashboard area where you can make changes to your website.

Browser

A browser is a tool used to access the internet. Popular browsers include Google Chrome, Firefox and Safari.

Black Hat

The term “black-hat” refers to a type of SEO (search engine optimisation). Black hat tactics are used to manipulate search engines into believing a website is more credible than it actually is. This includes buying lots of backlinks, spam comments, keyword stuffing.

Generally speaking, black hat techniques work well for a very short period of time but then you risk having your website penalised.

CMS

A CMS or content management system is a simple editing system that allows you to make changes to your website easily. Most people will be able to make changes without any technical web design background. As long as you learn the basics of the framework, you’ll be able to add, edit and delete text and images on your website.

Content

Website “Content” refers to all information that’s visible on your website such as blog posts, regular pages, images and videos. Generally speaking, websites that have more valuable content will perform better in search results. It will also help your potential prospect to gather more information before they get in touch.

Content Marketing / Inbound Marketing

CM or content marketing is the process of using your own content to attract more interested customers. This could involve blogging, recording helpful videos and spreading the word with social media. This is usually cheaper than paid advertising and has proven to be a lot more successful than traditional forms of advertising.

CSS

CSS stands for Custom Style Sheet. It allows you to take your basic HTML website and add some styling. Everything from colours, font styles and font sizes right through to the width of your website, the size of your header and footer and everything else in between. Without CSS every website would look exactly the same.

Conversion

A website conversion means you have taken your website visitor and ”converted” them into an enquiry or sale. You have taken them from a browser into a genuine opportunity. Learn more about how to ‘convert’ your website visitors into leads or sales. 

CRO

CRO stands for Conversion Rate Optimisation. This is the process of fine-tuning the style and layout of your pages in the hopes of increasing the number of enquiries and sales.

CAPTCHA

CAPTCHA is short for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. That’s a mouthful. Essentially, it’s a tool that’s used to prevent spam messages. You can add it to the comments section of your blog posts or at the bottom of your contact forms. It will validate that the user is human.

Domain

A domain name is essentially the name of your website. It’s the address for anyone looking to visit your website.

E.g. Jammydigital.com

You can buy as many domain names as you like but you would normally only use one per website.

A lot of people ask us if they should use their name or company name as their domain name. And it really does depend. Have a read of the article to find out more.

DA

DA stands for Domain Authority, and it’s calculated by MOZ (an SEO software company). It measures your domain and scores it out of 100 based on a number of factors. A brand new website will score 1/100 and Facebook.com scores 100/100. DA is calculated based on the number of backlinks you have, the quality of those backlinks, your social media activity and a few other metrics.

Duplicate Content

Duplicate content refers to website content that is the same (or very similar) to another piece of content on the internet. This can happen by mistake on your own website or content can be stolen and placed on someone else’s website. Either way search engines may penalise the websites in question.

Dofollow

Every single link on the internet will either be classed as a do-follow link or nofollow link. Dofollow means that the website who created the link wants search engines to take note and count the link as a “valuable resource”. This is generally done by default and you don’t have to do anything else.

DNS

DNS is short for Domain Name Servers. Without getting too technical, DNS will translate your domain name (which is what humans see) into an IP Address (which is what computers see). Each website has it’s own identity and by checking the DNS you can find out more information about the domain and hosting.

Disavow

Building backlinks is an important part of SEO. However, not all links are high quality. If you do have a number of bad links, Google will allow you to remove or DISAVOW them using Google Search Console.

EMD

An EMD stands for Exact Match Domain. This relates to a domain name which includes the exact keyword you want to rank for. If we had chosen to opt for an EMD we might have bought webdesignmanchester.com or web-design-manchester.co.uk

Editorial Calendar

I use an editorial calendar to plan my blog posts. It’s like any other calendar but it allows me to see the status of a piece of content (to-do, draft, pending review and scheduled). It’s a great way for me to stay ahead of the content I’m planning to produce.

Favicon

A Favicon is the small icon that appears in the tab on any given website. It usually measures 16×16 pixels, and you can create your own and add it to your website.

File Name

Each image that you upload to your website will have its own file name. It will be whatever it was saved as. E.g. image3215.jpg. Google recommend that you use a descriptive file name e.g. black-cat.jpg. That way you have more chance of search engines listing your images in search results. To learn more about how to name your images correctly, read our blog post on how to optimise your blog posts.

GeoTagging

GeoTaggging allows you to tag images and videos with a specific geographical location. This is useful for anyone wanting to rank highly for a location e.g. A restaurant in Manchester. Google are more likely to list images of your business for these search queries.

Google

The light of my life. When Google says jump, I say, how high?

Google Analytics

GA or Google Analytics is the go-to visitor tracking tool for most website owners. It’s free and provides a lot of information about your visitors e.g. number of visitors, how they found your website and your most popular pages. You can add your website to Google Analytics here.

Google Search Console

Previously named Webmaster Tools, Search Console is the best way to check on the health of your website. Providing you add your website sitemap to your search console account, you’ll be able to check for any broken links, crawl errors and check for new backlinks.

H1 tags and H2, H3, H4, H5, H6

H tags are headings on a page. You can label certain text as headings to show search engines that the content is important. Pages headings and subheadings are also important for your users, as it breaks up the content making it more digestible. H1 is usually the main heading on a page and H2 to H6 tags are used for the sub-headings. Learn more about how to use headings correctly for SEO.

Hosting

Every website on the internet needs hosting. It’s the only way people will be able to access your website. Think of hosting as like renting space on the internet. We recommend using Siteground as a host as they offer great support (online chat, which is always handy!)

HTML

HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. It’s the main method used to build most websites. HTML will allow you to create a website using tags such as;

<H1>-<H6> to assign headings on a page
<p> to assign standard paragraph text
<img> to add images

Websites that only use HTML look very basic and it’s very rare that this will be the only method used to create a website. If you want to add any kind of style or theme you will need to use some CSS.

Indexed

The word indexed refers to your website being listed in search results. New websites usually take a few days to be indexed by search results, and this also goes for new pages that you add.

Infographics

An infographic is an image which is usually made up of statistics and graphs. It’s a more interesting way to take bland research and make it more visually appealing.

Inbound Links – Backlinks

An inbound link is a hyperlink from someone else’s website to yours. You can check how many inbound links you have using various online tools such as Majestic SEO.

Internal Links

An internal link is a hyperlink on a website that points to another page on that SAME website. For instance, this link goes to my about page so it’s classed as an internal link. To learn more about internal links, have a read of our post, the Ultimate Beginners’ Guide to SEO.

Jetpack

Jetpack is an all-in-one WordPress plugin that allows you to add additional features to your website easily. It’s a great tool for beginners who want to quickly add contact forms, extra sidebars and related blog posts.

Javascript

Javascript is a method used when creating websites. It allows web designers to improve your website with additional features like image sliders and pops ups. It’s very uncommon for a website to NOT use javascript.

Keywords

Keywords are words/phrases that you are trying to rank for in search engines. You might have a number of keywords you would like to be on the first page for. It’s a good idea to collect these and include these phrases throughout your website.

E.g. Hotels Manchester, Manchester hotels.

Keyword Research

Keyword research is the process of finding better keywords to target. You can use free and/or paid tools to search for popular phrases people use online. You can accumulate a list of keywords and then plan how you intend to include these topics on your website. One of the biggest mistakes when it comes to SEO is a lack of keyword research!

Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing is classed as a blackhat method. It’s trying to manipulate Google by including too many of the same words. It’s very easy for Google to spot and it makes for a terrible user experience. When your write a sentence like this: “We do web design for people looking for web design services. Check out our web design experience here…” It does not read well.

This happens a lot and my advice is to keep things natural and avoid this practice.

Logo

A logo is your company identity. It can be created using a combination of text, icons, images or all of the above. It’s usually saved using the following file type .jpg, .jpeg, png.

Lead

A lead is a sales opportunity for your company. It might be a phone call, an email enquiry or a call back request.

Lead Capture

A lead capture is how your website captures your customer’s data. This might be a form on your website that allows people to fill it in so that you can speak with the prospective customer. To understand more about how to capture leads on your website, have a look at our blog post: how to create a lead generating website.

Lead Magnet

A lead magnet is used to increase the chances of gaining leads through your website. This could be a free gift in exchange for your customer’s contact information e.g. a free ebook, a free video course or a free consultation, which are all common forms of lead magnets.

Long Tail keywords

Long Tail keywords are longer keywords that you’re trying to rank highly for e.g. “WordPress web designers in Manchester” as opposed to shorter keywords such as “web design”. Yes, the long tail version is not searched for as frequently, BUT it’s a lot easier to rank higher because it’s not as competitive. One of the biggest SEO mistakes people make is not considering these longer keywords, and instead, aiming for a highly competitive keyword.

Meta Data

Metadata is the data for your website. It’s used by search engines to find out what your website is about. You might not be able to see this information from looking at your website but search engines can so it’s important you optimise it.

Meta Description

Each page on your website can have its own meta description. You can use it to describe the content on that page using 155 characters. This snippet is displayed in search results in grey beneath your website URL. Although search engines do not use this text as a ranking factor, it is still extremely important. It is best practice to have a unique meta description for every page. We teach you exactly how to write a great meta description in our SEO starter pack.

Meta Keywords

Adding Meta Keywords to your website is no longer effective. It used to be a great way to optimise your pages by adding a list of keywords that you wanted to rank for. I haven’t used them in years and you don’t have to either.

Nofollow links

There are some occasions where a website may want to class a link as “nofollow”. By creating a nofollow link, this means you are telling search engines to not pay attention to it. There are many reasons you might want to do this e.g. paid links have to be nofollow. Links within blog comments are usually nofollow to prevent them from being spammed.

On-page SEO

On-page SEO is the process of editing the different elements on your website to make it more appealing to search engines. Everything from your title tags to alt tags can be optimised for a more search engine friendly website. We cover everything you need to know about on-page SEO in our SEO Starter Pack.

Off-page SEO

Off-page SEO can also be described as online PR. It’s the process of building a strong reputation with search engines using guest posts, social media and business directory listings.

Opt-in

An opt-in is when someone signs up to your email newsletter or a free giveaway. They “opt-in” to receive some kind of information. This is sometimes called a conversion.

Plugins

Plugins are like add-ons for your website. If you want a new image gallery or an email signup form you don’t have to build it from scratch or pay a developer. You can simply find a plugin. If you’re using WordPress, then you can search the plugin library and install it yourself in seconds.

PPC

PPC stands for Pay Per Click which is a form of online advertising. It’s different from traditional advertising such as radio ads and billboards because PPC only charges you if someone physically clicks on your advert.

Quick

How quickly your website loads could impact your search engine rankings. Test your speed using GT Metrix. Providing that your website loads in under 5 seconds you’ll be ok.

Responsive

Having a responsive website means your website takes the shape on any device, no matter how big or small it is. Having a responsive website is very important, and Google will penalise you if your website is not classed as mobile friendly/responsive.

SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It’s the process of increasing the organic rankings of a website in search results. Google use over 200 different rankings factors when deciding how high you rank in search engines. An SEO agency would optimise as many of these ranking factors as possible to give you the best chance of ranking highly. SEO can be split into two major categories: On-page SEO and Off-page SEO.

Have a read of our article, if you’re not sure whether to hire an SEO agency or do SEO yourself.

SERP

SERP is an abbreviation for Search Engine Results Page. This is the page that appears after someone has typed in a phrase in the search field using Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Title Tags

Title tags or page titles are an extremely important ranking factor. It’s vital that every page on your website has a title tag so that search engines know what that page is about. You have around 55 characters to use and it’s always best to include your main target keywords within the title. You can also see the page titles in search results. It appears in blue above the URL. We teach you exactly how to optimise your title tags in our SEO Starter Pack.

Themes/Templates

Themes or templates allow you to create a good-looking website quickly. You can install a free or paid template to make your website without the need of a web developer. Websites like ThemeForest allow you to install templates for less than £100.

UX

UX stands for user experience, and it’s used to describe the experience a website visitor has navigating through your website. There are lots of web developers that don’t consider users when designing their websites and this could have an impact on your enquiries and sales. User experience is one of the 6 key elements that make a successful website.

Voice

You may have heard of the term “finding your voice” when discussing website content. It means finding a style that suits you and writing in a way so that people would recognise you. It takes practice to write like this, but when you do find your voice, people will generally engage more.

WordPress (.org)

WordPress (.org) is the most widely used content management system. It’s a free tool that you can add to your website that allows you to make changes easily without the need of a web developer.

WordPress (.com)

The .COM version of WordPress is completely different from the .ORG. It’s confusing I know. It’s far less popular and has far more restrictions. It’s quite handy if you want a simple personal blog but not so useful if you want a high-quality business website.

White Hat SEO

White Hat SEO is classed as the ethical method to increasing your organic rankings in search engines. It involves following the rules that Google set, such as earning backlinks with valuable content and avoiding any unethical tactics that may harm your rankings. White Hat techniques are what we teach in our SEO Starter Pack.

WYSIWYG

WYSIWYG is short for What You See Is What You Get. Most content management systems come with an easy to use editing system that allows you to make changes using a WYSIWYG editor as you can see below. It allows you to format your page or post with ease.

XML-Sitemap

A sitemap is a list of web pages that you have on your website, and an XML sitemap is a file containing the list. You can download your XML sitemap and give it to Google so they can list your pages in search results.

Yoast

Yoast is one of the most popular WordPress plugins. It allows you to optimise your website easily to make it search engine friendly. It’s free and fairly simple to use. Click here to find out more information about Yoast.

ZIP

A zip file is an online folder that holds large documents. It has been compressed so that it doesn’t take up much memory whilst being downloaded or sent via email.

Summary

There you have it. 80+ words and phrases that you’re likely to come across at some point or another. At least now, you’ll know what they mean. I will keep adding jargon to this list so be sure to bookmark this page and come back to it as and when you need it.

Over to you

Have I missed anything out? I’m sure I have. Feel free to leave a comment below, and I’ll add it to the list and let you know once it’s done.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Web Design & SEO Jargon Buster appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

It’s not always easy to answer this question. If you’re not a designer or a techie, then how would you know where to start?

You might like the colours and images, or the general layout and design but a website is so much more than that.

Friends and family could offer feedback and tell you what they like and don’t like, but with so many conflicting views, who should you listen to?

In most cases, you’re going to trust that your web designer has delivered a high-quality website, or that the software you’ve used to build your site is good enough.

But what if it isn’t?

What if you’re missing out on enquiries or what if your design is turning people off?

What makes a website great?

From experience, it’s not enough to simply HAVE a website. A website should deliver you results, and if it’s not, then something is wrong.

I’ve created a website self-assessment tool. You can use it to grade your own website and get immediate feedback on what you can do to improve.

How does it work?

Having reviewed so many websites over the years, I realised that most businesses make very similar mistakes.

I’ve put together a list of the 30 questions that you can answer about your website. The answers will give an indication of how well your website is performing.

Each topic has three scenarios. All you have to do is read through each of them and select which statement is most accurate for you.

Once you’ve done you’ll be given your score.

What do the scores mean?

Please be as honest as possible when answering the questions. If you need any clarification feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this page.

Let’s get started.

Grade my website

Or…

use the guide below and add up your scores

Q1 – How would you describe your use of taglines?

Q2 – How accessible are your contact details?

Q3 – How does your logo look on your website?

Q4 – Do you have a strong call to action?

Q5 – How would you describe your use of images?

Q6 – Are you clear about what services you offer?

Q7 – How much content do you have?

Q8 – Is your website customer focused?

Q9 – Do you use jargon on your website?

Q10 – Do you capture your customer’s email address?

Q11 – How useful is your blog?

Q12 – How would you describe your menu/navigation?

Q13 – How would you describe your use of colours?

Q14 – How readable is your content?

Q15 – How would you describe your choice of fonts?

Q16 – How do you use internal links to your advantage?

Q17 – How quickly does your website load?

(Note. You can check your page load speed using GT Metrix)

Q18 – Is your website mobile friendly?

(Note. You can check if your website is responsive by using the mobile friendly tool)

Q19 – Do you use a variety of media throughout your website?

E.g. video and audio podcasts

Q20 – How do you use social media within your website?

Q21 – Do you use testimonials on your website?

Q22 – Do you use case studies on your website?

Q23 – How unique is your content?

Q24 – Do you use added software on your website?

E.g. drag and drop software that may slow your website down.

Q25 – How many content web pages do you have?

*Not including shopping pages.

Q26 – Does the personality of your business shine through?

Q27 – Do you show your staff/team on your website?

Q28 – Do you answer customer questions?

Q29 – Does your website look cluttered?

Q30 – Do you discuss cost or pricing on your website?

What score did you get? Comment below!

Summary

Hopefully, you now have a better idea of how good (or bad) your website is. You shouldn’t be disheartened if your score is low, but you will certainly want to look at the questions again and spend some time planning how you’re going to improve it.

If you would like our help, why not book a website critique via the link below. We’ll record a personalised video telling you exactly what you can do to improve it.

Book a website critique

Over to you

How did you get on with the self-assessment? Were you surprised with your grade? I’d love to hear from you so please let me know in the comments below.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post How good is your website? Grade it yourself appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

You might have a number of questions and concerns, but, without spending hours on the phone speaking to dozens of web designers, how will you know who to choose?

This is why I wrote this article.

I wanted to lay it all out on the table and show you our entire process from start to finish, so you know exactly what you get when you hire us.

Below, I’ll walk you through the 31 steps we use to create a high-performing website that works FOR you!

1. We talk, usually via Skype

Before we start working together, we’ll book in some time to have a chat about your project. We’ll usually do this on a live video call and discuss what you want to achieve from your new website.

We’ll take a look at your existing site (if you have one) and we’ll go through your ideas for the new site. We can use this time to talk about your goals and objectives so that we have a better understanding of how we can help.

Essentially, this call is to work out whether we are a right fit for each other. I work only with clients who I can truly help, which is why this call is important. We’ll also discuss your budget, and I can give you an indication of what we charge.

2. Questionnaire

Following on from our initial call, we will send you a website questionnaire to fill out. This will allow us to gather additional information so we know as much as possible about your business before we start designing and building it. The more information we have, the better the finished product.

3. We send you a quote

Once we have all your requirements, we will send you a full proposal for our services, including all the website features you requested. We may also include additional elements that we think would work well for your website. More often than not, the fee for our services is similar to the price we discussed on the call.

We can also include a quote for creating your website content. Most of our clients hire us to write the text for their new website. This is an option for you, too.

4. Research

Using the information you provided on the initial call and the questionnaire, we will begin our own research. We will do a deep dive into your world, learning as much as possible about your industry and your competitors. We’ll perform some keyword research to find out what your customers search for online. During this time we’ll look at dozens of different websites, leaving no stone unturned before moving forward with any designs.

5. Initial concepts

Once we have enough information from the research, we then move onto the planning stage. This is where the fun begins. This is the creative part that I personally love the most. We’ll start by sketching out some layouts on a whiteboard. We use a lot of post-it notes and marker pens to come up with a basic wireframe of your pages. This begins the initial framework of your new site.

We’ll also discuss the main colours we’ll be using and taking into account what you already have and what we would recommend. We’ll decide on the best use of fonts and where to place your headlines and content for the most impact. We’ll also decide where your calls to action will go and how to ensure they are clearly displayed for your users.

6. Mockup

The next stage of the process is to take all the rough sketches and post-it notes and turn them into a work of art. Your website. We use Adobe Photoshop to pull together all of the pieces from our planning to create a mockup. We’ll position each element one by one and add some content to bring it to life.

Everything from your logo to your social media icons will have its own rightful place. Every inch of the design will be considered, informed by the research and concepts we’ve previously completed. Some of the initial ideas won’t work when we add them to Photoshop. And that’s fine. At this stage, there will be a lot of testing and trial and error along the way.

Chances are the design will change numerous times throughout the mockup stage until we are happy. This is one of the most import steps, and we’ll keep working on it until we have something that looks spectacular, is user-friendly and ensures maximum results.

Here’s an example of us building a mockup

7. You see the design

This is the fun part for you. This is the first time you get to see the design since we’ve started working together.

Once we are happy with the mockup, we’ll send you the homepage design via a video link. In the video, we’ll walk you through the design and talk you through each element one by one. By using a video, you get to see the full design as if it were a real website. We’ll explain why we’ve designed it the way we have and you’ll get to experience it before we move forward with the rest of the project.

Please note

Some of the items on the mockup will act as placeholders. This means if we are waiting for images and text from you, we may use stock images temporarily until we have all the correct information. Currently, your mockup is still a static document; the extra content can be added later on in the process.

8. Feedback

Once you’ve watched the video and had chance to reflect on what you’ve seen you can tell us what you think. You can also ask us any questions, and we can discuss what you want to change, if anything. This is your opportunity to let us know if we’ve missed out any key information so we can add it before moving forward with the build.

9. Continue with designs

Once we have the homepage nailed down, we then design the layouts for your other pages. You will generally have 3 unique layouts to choose from for your website. A homepage, an inner page and a blog page. We’ll design the additional pages using Photoshop like we did before. The colours and style will match the homepage, but the structure will be different.

10. Domain name

When we are happy with the designs, we then move onto the technical aspects of the process. We will register your domain if you haven’t already done so. If you have already done this, then we will use a temporary domain, which we’ll work on while we’re building your site.

Please note

Even though we register (and purchase) the domain for you, you will own it. It will be registered in your name.

11. Hosting

Along with your domain name, we’ll also purchase hosting. This will allow us to install a coming soon page and set up your email accounts so you can use them while we’re building your website.

Please note

If you already have an existing site, this will already be set up for you.

12. Setup of emails

It’s time to register your email accounts. This is where you get to decide which emails you’d like to use. You can have as many as you like. A few popular choices are yourname@yourdomain.com, info@yourdomain.com, sales@yourdomain.com and enquiries@yourdomain.com.

13. Install WordPress

The very first thing we need to do before we build your website is to install WordPress. WordPress is the content management system we’ll be using for your site. It will allow you to make changes easily, so you don’t have to pay us every time you want to add something. If you want to know why we ONLY use WordPress, then this article will explain all.

14. Add coming soon page

Once we’ve installed WordPress, we will add a “coming soon” page. This means we can start working on your website and we don’t have to worry about your customer stumbling across a half-built website. Instead, they’ll be greeted with a nice, warm welcome in anticipation of your brand new site.

15. Install the Genesis Framework

We use something called “Genesis” to build your website. It’s a WordPress framework that allows us to have 100% control over the technical aspects of your website. It also allows us to take your truly bespoke design and turn it into a fully functional website without additional “drag and drop” software.

16. The techie bit – Photoshop to website

We then take the Photoshop files we created for your mockup and your other pages and add them to your website. To do this, we create page templates for each unique design using a number of fancy tools and techniques (Code editors, FTP, CSS and PHP).

This sounds complicated and confusing, and it often is. It can take a lot of trial and error and is probably the most time-consuming part of the project. It needs to be done properly otherwise the website won’t look like the initial design you fell in love with.

We also have to prepare the site for mobile devices. The website will need to look good no matter what device is used to view it. We’ll assign a specific layout for mobiles, tablets, laptops, etc,.

17. Add pages and assign templates

We will then create all of the pages for your website within WordPress. Usually, we’ll just add blank pages with the titles, to begin with.

If this is a redesign of an existing site, we’ll also need to make sure that the URLs for these pages are the same as the old site. This isn’t always possible, so we’ll need to be extremely careful setting up redirects as we don’t want any broken links when you launch your new website. More on this in step 25.

18. Choose page style

Once we have added your blank pages, we then need to choose how each page will look by selecting the relevant template which we created in step 16. Generally speaking, the homepage and the blog page will be unique, but most of the inner pages follow a very similar style.

19. Add menu items

We then add your menu items to their assigned position. This is where we choose which pages will appear within the main navigation area of your website and order them appropriately.

You may have more than one menu on your website (e.g., sidebar, header, footer, etc.) so we’ll need to be careful not to duplicate pages. We also need to keep in mind the end user and how they can navigate through the site easily.

20. Add content

Once we have added all the menu items to your website, we can then add the content. We take the text and images for each section of your site and place them on the correct page.

We will arrange your content in a way that makes it easy to consume. There’s nothing worse than blocks of text with nothing to break it up. We’ll use images and headings to make it as readable as possible.

21. Plugins

We then install any relevant plugins to your website. Plugins are like website add-ons, and we’ll use them for most of the advanced features on your site. There are over 45,000 plugins to choose from, another great reason to use WordPress. Things like image galleries, contact forms, and social media sharing buttons can all be added by using these pre-made applications.

We may also adapt the plugins to make them look more in keeping with the style of your website.

22. API integrations

Aside from using plugins, we may also need to integrate additional applications from third-party websites. Services like MailChimp and PayPal use APIs so they can communicate directly with your website. Think of them as plugins on steroids. They will make your life easier and most major companies make their software WordPress friendly.

23. Test contact forms

We’ll go through your website, testing all of the contact forms, ensuring that they work properly and that emails go to the right place.

We can edit the form so you can gain any relevant details you’ll need from your prospect. We can also add more email recipients, meaning multiple people can receive your enquiries.

24. 301 redirects

If this is a redesign of an existing site, we’ll need to ensure all of your old pages are correctly transferred over using 301 redirects as we said in step 17. On occasion, you may not want to keep the old pages, or you might want to change the URLs. That’s fine. But we will need to set up 301 redirects for each page you plan on changing.

Essentially, we’ll communicate with Google exactly what you’re changing, so it knows where to redirect traffic if users land on a specific page in the search results.

Take this example below:

Old URL: exsistingwebsite.com/about-us
New URL: exsistingwebsite.com/about

We’ll make sure that if your old URL is displayed on Google, the page will automatically redirect to the new one. So no lost traffic.

25. Mobile friendly test

We will then test your website on different sized screens to see how it looks. During the website build stage (step 16) we assigned a different layout depending on the size of the device e.g. iPhones, iPads, laptops and desktops. However, we’ll still need to check it to make sure looks OK now that we’ve added plugins.

26. Page load speed

We need to check one last thing before we feel comfortable releasing your website to the world. We want to test your page load speed to make sure the site is running as quickly as possible. Google advises that all websites should load within 5 seconds to avoid any kind of penalty.

We use a number of tools to confirm your new website is as quick as it can be and we might even install some additional features to improve it if it needs it. The quicker your website loads, the better the experience for your users.

27. Cross browser test

There are many different web browsers, Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer to name a few. Each browser will display your website slightly differently. There’s no real way to avoid this but we do make sure to catch any major differences and glitches.

28. Yoast SEO plugin

We will then install the Yoast SEO plugin to your website. This is the tool that will allow you to optimise your website so that search engines can find you more easily. We will set it up for you and use it to verify your website with Google in the next step.

29. Submit sitemap to Google Search Console

Using Yoast, we can connect your website directly to Google. This means they can provide you with extra data about your website, and send you an email if you have any errors going forward.

We then provide Google with a list of web pages from your site so they can start listing them in search results. This is known as your “sitemap”. Chances are they would find your site over time anyway but this way they will keep their records up to date every time you make a change to your site.

30. Google Analytics

Once we have given your site to Google, we can then create your visitor tracking account. Instead of using fancy plugins for this, we use Google Analytics. This is a free tool that Google provide to show you everything you need to know about your website visitors. This will show you everything from monthly visitor numbers to the most popular pages. It’s a very valuable tool which you want to keep an eye on.

31. Rank tracking

We’ll add your website to our rank tracking software and keep an eye on how well you perform. From the day we launch we’ll have a record of your Google rankings and keep track of how they adjust within a month of launching. The main reason we do this for you is to make sure there aren’t any technical issues affecting your website’s performance.

Summary

So there you have it, our entire web design process from start to finish. I didn’t want to focus on the technical aspects of what we do. Instead, I wanted to show you the broad outline so can see what’s involved when designing a website. Hopefully, I’ve answered a few questions along the way. But if you have anymore, feel free to comment below!

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post How we build your website from start to finish appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

It’s a tough question. But if you’re looking for a new website for your business then this article should certainly help.

I’ve decided to put together a list of the top ten agencies in Manchester who specialise in website design.

And in case you’re wondering; the answer is…

NO!

We didn’t include ourselves in the list below. That would be a bit weird. But if you like, you can…

Get A Quote Here or call 0161 410 1990

What I wanted to do instead was to take a completely unbiased approach when writing this article.

We understand that not everyone is going to hire us to build their website and that’s fine. My goal is to only work with companies who we can truly help.

Just because we are not the right fit for you doesn’t mean we can’t help you choose someone else.

How we came up with the list

Obviously this is my personal opinion based on many years experience in the industry but we did take a few things into account before including them in the list below.

• How good is their agency website
• How good are their client’s websites
• Their online customer reviews
• User experience of their site
• Branding and overall style

We’ve also included a short description of our favourite project for each web design agency.

1. Soap Media

There’s no doubt about it, Soap Media are a hugely impressive agency, specialising in all things web and digital. In their ten years+ in business, they’ve worked with Pontins and Booths, to most recently, the AA.

Favourite Project

I’ve always been a fan of Blackpool Grand Theatre, so I was intrigued when they launched their new website. Soap Media was their agency of choice and they built them a fantastic website. It’s bold, clean, vibrant and, most importantly so easy to navigate. Managing how the user flows through your website is tricky. Soap Media got it spot on.

Google Reviews:
4.9 stars (7 reviews)

2. Shape/Made by Shape

Made by Shape are based in Atherton, just outside of Manchester. They’re well known for web design and in particular, e-commerce websites. They have a team of around nine staff, an impressive portfolio of work and a hugely helpful blog which they update regularly.

Favourite Project

An e-commerce website for Rachel Bates Interiors caught my eye. The great thing about this site is that it doesn’t look like an e-commerce site. With over 17,000 products this site offers a lot of functionality but with a beautiful, delicate design.

Google Reviews:
5 star (11 reviews)

3. Supremo

Supremo are a team of three but don’t let their size fool you. The hallmark of any good agency isn’t the number of staff it has, it’s what they produce; and Supremo produce some great work.

Favourite Project

I love the Jam PR website. Supremo are right when they say “this site certainly doesn’t look like your bog-standard PR agency site”. It’s unique and quirky, and I love the illustrations which just give the site a real sense of character.

Google Reviews:
5 star (4 reviews)

4. Carbon Creative

Carbon Creative lead from the front when it comes to being green. They’re mindful of their environment, and even plant a new tree for every new client they take on. They’ve done some real creative and innovative work, particularly for charities and public sector organisations.

Favourite Project

The Joseph Chamberlain Sixth Form College website. Sometimes, you have to speak to many different audiences through one website. This can be difficult. But Carbon Creative have achieved it with this project. They designed a site that appeals to prospective and current students; as well as staff, parents and carers.

Google Reviews:
5 star (1 review)

5. Creative Spark

Creative Spark are a tight-knit team who’ve worked with some jaw-dropping clients such as Virgin Money and The Ministry of Sound. They’re hugely active on their blog and also social media, offering helpful advice and opinion pieces that give you a real insight into how this agency operates. Their work speaks for itself–hugely creative and original stuff.

Favourite Project

Okay, maybe I’m a little biased with this one. I am a huge Manchester City fan, after all. However, the Manchester City, Cityzens site, is a membership website packed with functionality. It makes you feel part of a community, allowing you to engage with fans from all across the world. It’s enough to get you singing Blue Moon.

Google Reviews:
5 Star (3 reviews)

Need A New Website? – Get A Quote Here

6. Urban Soul

Urban Soul are a digital agency based in Rochdale with an impressive client history, including Interflora and Leeds Council. They particularly specialise in web design and print media.

Favourite Project

I really liked IDEM Living. Urban Soul designed the logo, which is a colourful sketch that really fits in with IDEM Living’s brand. The website is clean, easy-to-use and most importantly fun!

Google Reviews:
5 star (10 reviews)

7. 22 Group

22 Group are a creative agency who have a particular specialism in brand development and management. They’re a highly creative agency, producing some exciting work. They’ve worked with the NHS, New Look and Santander.

Favourite Project

Meyers Family Run Estate Agency. 22 Group really ‘get’ branding. They reflected the estate agencies family run values and different approach through some really quirky and original designs, which were then mirrored across their website and marketing material.

Google Reviews:
5 star (1 review)

8. Digital Next

Digital Next was born from two brothers in 2009. It’s grown rapidly in such a short period and they now have over two hundred and fifty staff worldwide. They offer SEO, PPC and web design services as online PR and content marketing.

Favourite Project

Digital Next do some great work in SEO and online PR. But I really liked the website they designed for NCC Home Learning. Again, this is an e-commerce website built using Magento, but one that doesn’t look like an e-commerce site. It’s highly engaging and user-friendly with lots of functionality.

Google Reviews:
5 star (21 review)

9. Candid Sky

“Champions of Search and CRO (conversion rate optimisation)” Candid Sky are not just another web design agency. They also specialise in the technical aspects of websites i.e. development, conversions and search engine marketing. They’ve worked with some pretty big clients such as Sage and Royal Mail.

Favourite Project

The Peninsular Law firm website. This particular website is amazing in so many ways but what I love most is the strong “conversion focused” design. Every inch of this website has been built to increase enquiries. It’s a great looking website but it also does it’s job too.

Google Reviews:
5 star (17 review)

10. Fat Heads Creative Studio

Fat Heads Creative Studio was born in 2007 with a team of two. They offer design services including print and brand identity as well as web design. They are still only a small team but have worked with some big clients including many Schools and Colleges across the UK.

Favourite Project

I really like the Hartlepool College website. It’s fun and interactive. They use a vibrant set of colours that bring the website alive. It has a unique layout that draws your attention and keeps you engaged.

Google Reviews:
5 star (3 review)

Summary

Writing a blog post about 10 OTHER web design companies may seem a little…odd. But as I said earlier, we might not be the right agency for you. If that’s the case, you now have another 10 companies you can choose from who we’d be happy to recommend.

Now What?

If you found this blog post useful, please share it on social media and feel free to link back to it if you think it can help your audience too.

Need A New Website? – Get A Quote Here

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Top 10 Best Web Design Companies in Manchester appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Common misconceptions about WordPress

• “WordPress is that crappy blogging thing isn’t it?”
• “Why would I pay a web designer when I can get WordPress for free?”
• “WordPress is drag and drop, I need a proper web designer who knows code.”

I’ve heard these concerns plenty of times before. Usually from first time business owners who are just starting out or old fashioned web developers who are too stubborn to change their ways. Either way it’s time to set the record straight.

WordPress.org vs WordPress.com

Before I go on, I just wanted to clear something up. We use WordPress.ORG to build your website and everything we talk about in this article is in reference to that. WordPress.COM is different. This is a separate product all together and is usually used as a DIY blogging tool and it tends to be very restrictive. I wouldn’t recommend it for a business website.

Below I’ve outlined 9 reasons why wordpress.org is the only platform you’ll ever need.

1. You can make changes yourself easily

First and foremost, this is why I love WordPress. You, as the client have control over the website which means you don’t have to pay your web designer for every little change. WordPress is a content management system (CMS) which means that once the site has been built you can add, edit and delete things yourself.

It comes with a basic editor that looks like this…

As you can see, it’s very similar to the formatting palette on Microsoft Word or any email provider such as Outlook or Gmail.

If you’re still worried about the learning curve then please don’t be. We send all our clients helpful training videos on how to use WordPress. We’ll teach you how to make changes and keep the site up to date. There are also plenty of resources on the web that teach you how to use it, some of which I’ve included further down the page.

2. Complete control over the design

Some people think WordPress is a basic platform and doesn’t allow for much customisation. This is simply not the case. WordPress allows us to build completely bespoke websites that are tailored around your business.

Some platforms don’t allow for advanced customisation which make it’s difficult to create truly awesome websites. They only have basic options that deliver basic results. It is important to have complete control and you might not have this option with other platforms.

We design your website using Adobe programmes such as Photoshop and Illustrator. We make it look exactly how we want it to before we touch a line of code. We then build your site on WordPress by transferring each design element over one at a time. Your business is unique and your website deserves to be too.

3. Free & paid plugins

Another huge benefit of using WordPress is that you can install extra “add ons” to your website. These are called plugins and they will make your life so much easier.

Let’s just say you want to add an image gallery to your website, this can be achieved very easily by searching the WordPress plugin library for “image gallery”. You can then browse the extensive list of free and paid plugins, most of which can be installed in less than a minute and you can start adding your images.

There are over 45,000 plugins in the WordPress library and most things can be accomplished if your know what you’re trying to do. Below I’ve added a list features you might want to have on your website. I’ve also included a link to a FREE plugin so that you can achieve it.

• An online shop facility – Woocommerce
• Social media sharing buttons – Sharaholic
• Image Gallery – Envira Gallery
• Email signup form – Email Subscribers
• Display your testimonials – Strong Testimonials

We will obviously install what you need whilst we are building your website, however you may want to add additional features once you’ve gone live and plugins are a great option.

There are great benefits to using plugins. Imagine having to build everything from scratch – gallery, calendar, contact form etc. All that costs money, and it could send your web costs spiralling. Most of the time a free plugin will give you what you need for a fraction of the cost.

4. Free and paid Templates

WordPress allows you to quickly install pre-made templates very easily. Much like plugins, there are 1000’s of free and paid themes to choose from, each with their own own style and layout.

If we are building your website, you don’t have to worry about this as everything is built from scratch. However, it’s nice to know that if you wanted to change the style of your website in the future you can do so using a 3rd party template.

WordPress have their own template library you can browse to see if anything takes your fancy.

5. Free Online help

Obviously, if we build your website we are always happy to help where possible, but most of our clients end up learning a lot themselves too.

WordPress is the most popular CMS of its kind. This means that if you get stuck along the way, chances are you’ll be able to find articles and videos online to help you.

WordPress Support

WordPress do have their own support forum which is free to join and very useful.

Google

Google is the first place most people go to if they have a problem. A simple Google search for “how to install an image gallery on WordPress” will give you more than enough information.

YouTube

Youtube is a great resource for WordPress help. If you’re like me and you’re more visual, watching a few Youtube videos will save you some time.

Udemy

Udemy is another great resource. Technically Udemy is a paid service but they do have free WordPress courses from time to time. Here’s a cheeky link from me to you.

Udemy WordPress Training (free)

6. Paid support

Sometimes, free WordPress support just doesn’t cut it. If you need more urgent assistance and advice, then there’s no shortage of companies who can help.

If you’re looking for an in-depth WordPress course that walks you through the A-Z of what you need to know, then WP101 is a great option. They also have a very helpful community where you can ask additional questions and get support from a dedicated team member. For me, the WP101 community is the real benefit of this service. It’s also very cheap with prices starting at $19 per annum.

If you are a technophobe and you need (done for you) tech support then you might want to consider something like Go WP who offer dedicated monthly support for around $79 per month. They’ll make small changes for you and will keep your site running smoothly.

You can also find an abundance of WordPress experts on Upwork who are available for you to hire on an hourly basis. You can post your job and have people reach out to you or you can simply search the Upwork database for freelancers and approach them individually based on their skills, reviews, price per hour etc.

7. WordPress works with (almost) anything

This is another reason why we love using WordPress. We never have to worry about integrating 3rd party software with your website.

Due to it’s massive popularity, companies tend to bend over backwards for WordPress. Whether it’s an email services provider like Mailchimp or industry leading payment processor like Stripe, it has to be COMPATIBLE with WordPress.

Many software companies create their own WordPress plugins because they know how important it is. They also understand that if they didn’t make it easy for people they would lose a lot of customers. It’s in everyone interest to create WordPress friendly software.

8. Search engines love WordPress

In my experience, WordPress websites ALWAYS rank better in search engines than other platforms such as Joomla, Wix and Squarespace.

Why is this?

Clean URL structure

Your page URL’s are extremely important in how Google rank your website. They look at the keywords within your URL to determine what you should rank for. WordPress is great as it allows you to create unique URL’s for each page very easily and doesn’t add any messy gibberish like so many others do.

Website Speed

Some of the other content management systems and website builders are built with a lot of unnecessary code. This extra code can cause the site to feel heavy and load slowly. WordPress on the other hand is fairly lightweight and most themes and plugins are built with this in mind. There ARE some exceptions but generally speaking WordPress websites are quicker.

SEO plugins that allow you to optimise your pages easily

Every page on your website will need to be optimised for search engines. That way you have more chance of ranking on the first page of Google.

There are hundreds of different plugins that you can use to improve your on-page SEO in different ways but perhaps the most widely used plugin is Yoast.

Yoast SEO Plugin

The Yoast SEO plugin is free and you can use it on multiple websites. It comes with an extensive number of features that you can use to make your website more search engine friendly.

9. Mobile Friendly

Having a mobile friendly website is no longer a luxury, it’s a necessity. And if you want to keep Google and your users happy you’ll need to make sure your website passes the mobile friendly test.

When we build your website we make it responsive. This means it looks great when viewed on a mobile device or tablet. This is nothing new and should happen anyway but with WordPress it makes the whole process so much easier.

Responsive Plugins

Most plugins are built to be responsive. This means they look great on smaller screens and we don’t have to customise them manually which saves us a lot of time.

Responsive Templates

Again, because we are building your website for you. you won’t really need a template but it’s good to know that if you did in the future it would likely be responsive.

You can make your website responsive

WordPress have a number of tools that can actually turn your website from non-responsive to responsive. That means, if Google change their guidelines in the future you can use the tools to stay inline.

All round, WordPress will make it easier for us to deliver a fully responsive website.

Summary

So there you have it, 9 reasons why we only use WordPress to build your website. As you can probably tell, I’m pretty fond of WordPress and hopefully after reading this article you now understand why. I need to be able to trust the tools I use 100% so I can continue to build the best possible websites.

Over to you

Have you tried using WordPress in the past? How did you find it? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Why Do We ONLY Use WordPress To Build Your Website? appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

Below, I wanted to outline the main reasons why we think you shouldn’t work with us.

1. You can’t afford it

Website design prices can vary. The average website can cost anything from £500 to £10,000+. Our web design prices range from £2997 – £4997. This can be off putting to some business owners. We get it. Our websites are a significant investment, but they’re exactly that, an investment.

The reason we charge this amount is based on the time it takes and research that’s involved. We create a design concept that is tailored around your specific goals, whether that’s getting your users to sign up to your email list or to fill out a contact form on your website. We have to understand your business fully to be able to build you an effective website.

Some business owners don’t want that. They just want an online billboard. If that’s what you want, we’re probably not right for you.

We want to deliver you a healthy return on investment. For a more detailed idea of what you can get for your money, read our recent post, How Much Does It Cost For A Website?

2. You don’t want to do any work

To able to create the best possible website, we need some help from you. If you were hoping that we’ll do 100% of the work and that you won’t have to lift a finger then things are going to be difficult.

Before we begin building your website we’ll have a meeting, usually via Skype. We’ll spend an hour or so talking about your business and finding out more about your products and services and overall business goals. We’ll need to ask you a few questions to try and understand as much as possible before we move forward.

We’ll then send you a questionnaire to fill out, where we ask you more detailed questions. It’s a worthwhile process, but it does take some effort on your part. We really want to understand your audience, the benefits of your products or services and why someone would choose you over your competitors. All of this valuable information will add to the final design which makes it extremely important. It takes some time but it’s worth it.

3. You want a website fast

If you’re looking for a rush job, then we are not the agency for you.

Our websites take 6-10 weeks on average to complete and for good reason. Your website is the most important tool in growing your business online.

Below, I’ve detailed our process and why it takes longer than you might think.

Research (1-2 weeks)

To be able to design a website that’s right for you, we need to spend a certain amount of time researching you, your market and your competitors. Along with doing our own research we’ll be gathering information from you via our initial Skype call and your questionnaire. We’ll also send you a few emails if we need any more clarification.

Planning (1-2)

After we have enough information from the research, we can start planning out your website. This will include lots of sketches on a whiteboard, post-it notes and lots of coffee. After all, we want to be wide awake when we’re getting the blueprints together for your new site.

Mockup (1-2 weeks)

Once we are happy with the plan of attack, we then move onto the design stage. This is where we bring together all of the research and planning to create a mockup of your new website. We will design you a homepage layout on photoshop that shows you how the website will look before we build it. We’ll also send a helpful video explaining why we designed it the way we did.

Build (3-4 weeks)

After you’ve seen the mockup and are happy, we then get to work designing your new website. This includes all the geeky stuff such as; coding your website, adding plugins, creating search engine friendly URLs and all the other stuff that comes with creating a high performance website.

Factoring all these things in, the whole process can take 2-3 months and believe it or not we see that as a good thing. I think we’d be doing you a serious disservice if we could get your website up quickly, which is why we just don’t work that way.

4. You don’t have time to provide us with information

We understand, you’re busy and you have a business to run. We will need around 5 -10 hours of your time if you choose to hire us to build your website. If you can’t find this time, we might not be the right fit for you.

Below, I’ve included a breakdown of how much time you will need to set aside.

• Initial chat – 1hr
• Filling out your questionnaire – 1hr
• Reviewing the mockup and giving feedback – 1hr
• Emails conversations and phone calls – 1hr
• Creating content* – 5 hrs
• Sending us images and text – 1hr

*Some of our packages include content writing so you should consider using this if you’re short on time.

Let’s face it, you know your business more than us, and we treat you as the expert.

Yes, we will research, plan, design and build your website. However, for it to work effectively, we need your help. The more information we have, the better the website will be.

5. You want a Yes Man (or woman)

Some people know exactly what they want their website to look like. They’ll have the exact design in their heads. The colours, the layout, the font…everything. They just need a web designer to do it for them. Unfortunately, we are not that kind of agency.

Unless you’re a digital marketing specialist with years of experience, it’s likely that your ideas need some improvement. It’s ok to have a vague idea of how you want the website to look, however, you need to trust that we know what we’re doing. That’s why you’re hiring us, after all.

We have years of experience in building high performance websites that look great, convert visitors and work well on search engines, why would you not want to use our expertise?

We view the relationship with our clients as a partnership, where we invest ourselves into your business and it’s success. Sometimes, that might mean we come up with new ideas, or make suggested changes. Plus, if I’m being honest, I’d struggle to keep my mouth shut if I thought something wouldn’t work. It’s in my nature.

6. You want to sit back and let the money roll in

Build it and they will come, right? Not exactly.

It would be great if you could just pay a web designer to build you a website and then you sit back and let the money roll in. This is rarely the case. If this is you, then you may have to go back to the drawing board.

Once your website is live, it will require some work from you to promote it or you could always pay someone to do it for you. Either way, you would have a plan of action in place to attract visitors to your website such as;

• A Content marketing strategy
• Facebook advertising campaign
• SEO strategy
• Google AdWords campaign
• Email marketing strategy

If you do understand that marketing is important and you’re prepared to do the work then we have some good news. After we build your website you get a free 1 hr digital marketing coaching session via Skype or a personalised marketing plan as a PDF. That means you’ll have a marketing strategy to go along with your brand new website.

We want you to have every possible chance to succeed and if you’re prepared to do the work, we’ll be right there with you.

7. You want the next Facebook

Unfortunately, we’re not Zuckerberg, making the next Facebook, Google or Amazon is going to be difficult. If you wanted the next big social media thing, you’ll need a team of developers available 24/7 to keep the site going. We just don’t have the capacity nor would we want to.

Summary

So there you have it. The 7 reasons you shouldn’t work with us.

We pride ourselves on being upfront and transparent, which is one of the reasons for this particular post. We would hate for any business owner to hire us for the wrong reasons.

If you’re still here and excited, then great! We’d love to hear more about your ideas, your business and what you want to achieve.

If you’re interested in getting a website, call us on 0161 410 1990

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post 7 Reasons You Shouldn’t Work With Us appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

But wait!

Before you run off and hire the first web designer you find, you might want to take a minute. Over the years I’ve reviewed hundreds of websites and had many conversations with customers who have been burnt in the past. There are quite a few mistakes people make when getting a website and I want to help you avoid the pitfalls as best I can.

1. The final design doesn’t look how you want it to.

This happens a lot. You pay for a new website, and you wait weeks or even months to see the final design before it goes live. It’s only then you find you don’t like it or it doesn’t fit within your style or branding.

This is a common issue. It’s too late to start the project again and trying to change it to something else entirely can take just as long. You’ve spent money, and you’re now stuck with a design you don’t like or want. It’s not your fault, you trusted a designer and their expertise.

We’ve heard this story plenty of times, and in most cases you’ll end up sticking with what you have. A lot of people end up resenting their website. Not much fun all-round.

Before committing to a project, ask your web designer how they will prevent this issue from happening. Will they show you a mockup or at least a wire frame of their proposed design before you invest too much money?

What we do to solve this problem.

At Jammy Digital, we don’t take a penny of your money until you know exactly what your website will look like. We design a mockup of your homepage before we send you an invoice. That way, we can talk about the design together and what you like/dislike about it before we build it.

If you decide you don’t like it, you can simply walk away. No harm done.

2. The website doesn’t appear in search results

Your website is live and has been for a few weeks. But there’s just one problem. You can’t find your website in search results. Maybe you’ve searched for your business name and you’re nowhere to be found on Google. Understandably, you’re a little concerned.

This can happen for a number of reasons, there might be a technical issue preventing it from being indexed by search engines. Your site might not have been released to Google or maybe there is an underlying issue with the website that’s causing search engines to ignore you.

What we do to solve this problem.

All of the websites we build appear highly in search results. This is because we use our extensive knowledge of search engine optimisation (SEO) to plan and build your website.

The way your pages are laid out, the menu structure, the URLs all count towards a search engine friendly website. This means that you will already have a solid foundation to start with, even if you don’t hire an SEO company further down the road.

On the day your website goes live, we create an account with Google Search Console (previously Webmaster Tools). This is the system that communicates with Google and tells them that your website is live. We then give them a list of your website pages so they can start listing them in search results as soon as possible.

If there are any technical issues with your website, we will receive an alert directly from Google. That way we can address any issues immediately.

3. You don’t have access to update the website yourself

It always surprises me when business owners don’t have access to update their own website. I understand if you’d rather NOT do it yourself if you haven’t got the time or skills, but still, the choice should be yours.

These days you don’t need a web developer to make minor changes to your website. Most websites come with some kind of editing system which makes it very easy for you to change text and add images.

Your website will continue to change and evolve, and you will need to be able to update it when you want. You really don’t want to have to ask your web designer for every simple edit. Knowing how to make changes yourself will save you time and probably some money too.

What we do to solve this problem.

Every website we design is built using WordPress. WordPress is a content management system (CMS) that makes it very easy for you to make changes. Even if you’re a technophobe (like my dad).

WordPress is by far the most popular CMS and it’s used by some of the biggest companies in the world.

The main reason WE use WordPress is so you can update the site yourself whenever you like. We will also send you a training video on how to make changes. You will get to log into the backoffice of your website and edit things as you wish.

4. The website is difficult to use on mobile devices

Over the past couple of years, search engines have made it essential to have a mobile friendly website. This means if your site doesn’t work smoothly on mobile devices (smart phones & tablets) then you are less likely to appear in mobile search results.

Although your site may work on mobile devices, it may not be classed as responsive. This means that it’s more difficult to use than it should be.

To check if your website is “responsive” you can use Google’s very own mobile friendly test.

Some web designers treat this as an afterthought, so they don’t spend the time and effort to make an effective mobile design and opt for a “smaller version” instead.

Before you hire a web designer, tell them that site will need to be RESPONSIVE – no, you don’t want a “mobile version”, you don’t want the website to be just “accessible”, you need it to be responsive. You shouldn’t really have to ask as it should come as standard. But you’d be surprised by how often I see new websites that are terrible when you use them on a mobile device.

What we do to solve this problem.

We build responsive websites that pass the Google test every time. Simple. This means that you are more likely to appear higher up in mobile searches.

However, we go one step further. We build your website with a “50/50” mentality. This means that when we design your desktop site we are also considering how this will work on a mobile phone or an ipad.

Your site will not only work on smaller screens, it will be user-friendly and convert more visitors into enquiries.

5. Your traffic numbers are low and you don’t know why

This happens all the time. Your website is finally live and has been for a few weeks but when you check your visitor numbers you want to cry. Nothing but crickets.

Yes. It can take time to build up your numbers, but there are things you could be doing to speed the process along. You shouldn’t be waiting around, hoping that it will naturally increase by itself.

Ideally, you would have a strategy in place before you launch. Marketing is much more than clicking “go live” and shouting about it on social media, which is why having a plan as vital.

What we do to solve this problem.

When we take you on as a client we first spend some time understanding your business. We send you a questionnaire to fill out before we begin building your site so we can discover your goals, your target audience, your place in the market. This will help us develop a site that performs well from day one.

As well as this, we also include a free digital marketing strategy session which consists of a 1 hour Skype call to enable you to get off to the best possible start once you’ve launched. This is where we’ll discuss a plan of action to increase your visitor numbers and enquires as quickly as possible.

This might consist of things like:

• An email marketing strategy
• How to develop a content marketing plan
• How to use videos to reach more people

This will be a unique plan built around your business. We’ll only give you the advice that will work for you.

6. You don’t know how to track your visitors

So you have a new website which you love. There’s only one problem. How do you know if anyone is visiting it?

You should be able to check some statistics on how your website is performing. Things like:

• Visitor numbers
• Popular pages viewed
• How people found your website
• How people are accessing your site

These are basic stats that will allow you to measure your success and it’s important that you know where to find this information. In my experience, what gets measured gets improved.

What we do to solve this problem.

Every single website we build will have visitor tracking enabled. We will create a Google Analytics account and link it to your website so you can view your stats any time you like.

We will also send you a free training video on how to use Google Analytics, so you don’t have to scratch your head trying to work out how to use it.

7. Your pages take too long to load

If your website runs slowly, you might have a problem. Slow loading websites can be very frustrating for your visitors who won’t stick around if they have to wait.

Search engines care about their users and want to deliver the best possible experience. This means you have to keep your site running smoothly if you want the best possible rankings.

There are many reasons your site may take longer to load, such as:

• Images not optimised properly
• Bad web building software
• Low quality hosting
• Too many add-ons or plugins
• Unnecessary functionality and code.

All of these are contributing factors in slowing down your website.

You can check your page load speed for free using GT Metrix. It will measure your load speed in seconds and will also give you a performance grade out of 100.

What we do to solve this problem.

All our websites are built to be lightweight. This means we’ll keep the site updated and free of any excessive plugins and extravagant code that may slow the site down.

We’ll optimise your image sizes individually before we add them to the website so they are the smallest possible size without losing the quality.

We also use a high quality hosting company to keep your website running smoothly. Our hosts come with unlimited bandwidth, 20GB of disk space, 2GB Ram and 99.9% uptime.

Wow, that sounds geeky!

Essentially, it means our websites are speedier than a Gazelle, and yours should be too!

8. Your website isn’t generating any leads or sales

Getting traffic to your website is one thing, converting your visitors into enquiries is another. Your website should have one main purpose and that should be to generate its own leads and sales.

Here’s a list of things you might want from your website:

• More phone calls
• More email enquiries
• More call back requests
• More applicants
• More donations
• More prospects to build your database

Whatever your intent, if you haven’t thought about this before your website has been built then you may find it hard to convert your users.

What we do to solve this problem.

As part of our discovery session at the start of the process, we’ll find out what the overall purpose of the website is.

Before we even think about coding, we will know exactly what you need from your site, meaning we build it with your overall goal in mind. This will then inspire the whole design, including the layout, the colour scheme, menu structure, images, the headlines. Everything.

Before we begin building the site, we’ll design you a mockup of the homepage and record a video walkthrough explaining the different elements of the site. In this video we’ll show you how the design will persuade your visitors to do what you want them too .

Summary

Take your time to find the right web designer for you. Please don’t buy based on price alone. It’s almost always the wrong thing to do. The majority of the issues in this article can be avoided as long as you find someone who really understands your business goals and has the experience to advise you correctly.

Over to you…

Have you faced any of the problems listed above? Or have you encountered any other problems that gave you a headache. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Problems that occur when you get a new website… and how we prevent them appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

But just how much does a website cost? And how much should you spend on a website so it delivers what you need, without paying over the odds?

My personal guide to how much a website costs

I’ve experienced what it’s like to invest in a website. Eight years ago, before Jammy Digital was born, I paid a company £1400 to design me a website for my first business. This was a huge amount of money for me at the time. After stock, it was my biggest investment.

However, my return on investment was pitiful. I barely made a thing from the website and what I did make was mainly from kind friends and family who felt a bit sorry for me.

Why am I telling you this?

Ultimately, I’m going to tell you what I tell all my clients and potential clients. My service and price might not be right for you, and that’s okay. There are plenty of options when it comes to website design, all with their own pros and cons.

I don’t want any client or business owner to experience what I did eight years ago.

Why do you need a website?

It’s tempting to start researching or contacting web designers straight away. Before you start looking for a solution you need to identify what you want to achieve from your website. Every website should have a purpose aside from being just another online business card.

You need to be sure that your site is generating a return on investment. It shouldn’t be written off as a business expense. Your website should come equipped to provide enquiries and sales on an ongoing basis.

Here are a few ideas for your own website purpose…

• Collect website enquiries
• Increase the number of phone calls you get
• Sell your digital products online
• Showcase your work
• Increase donations
• Build an online community
• Promote your event
• Share your knowledge & expertise
• Build an email list of prospects

You may need your website to do numerous different things but it’s important you know what they are before you build your website.

Your website should be crafted around the overall purpose of your business. So every aspect of the website’s design, copy and usability should be focused on driving your end user to do what you want them too.

What do you get for your money?

Self-build DIY services like WIX, Godaddy, Weebly etc.

Approximate price: free – £20.00pm

Building your own website using a service such as Wix, GoDaddy or Weebly is an attractive solution to many business owners, bloggers and entrepreneurs. And it’s easy to see why, these websites are usually free or cost very little on a monthly basis.

Limitations with Self Builders

As attractive as these low cost websites are, they do come with some limitations. The first one being design. These services work by getting you to choose a template from a selection of prepared designs. This means you’re usually working within the limitations of that particular design.

The good thing is, these website builders are generally very easy to use with their ‘drag and drop’ features.

Attractive Designs

Some templates are very attractive. Some not so much. And some are downright awful! But from personal experience, I’ve had a lot of clients’ approach me having tried a DIY service and failed to get anything remotely like what they want.

Some of my clients have had success by starting out this way, but as their business has grown they’ve wanted something a little more tailored.

How Search Engine Friendly Are DIY Websites?

There’s also the small factor of SEO. There’s a lot of talk about DIY builders and what impact it has on your search engine rankings. Does it work? Or does Google dislike DIY builders?

If you’re thinking of building your own site using this method then make sure you consider this beforehand to prevent any headaches later on.

Pros and Cons of DIY Websites

What to do before investing in this option:

• Research what people say about the company. Forums are a great place to see what people are struggling with!
• Look at what others have done with the templates. Templates look great when designed by a professional, so check them out after a novice has looked at it!
• Check the other costs – URL, hosting, email accounts, help from a coder/designer if you need it etc. It all adds up!

A Basic Business Card Website

Approximate fee: £99 – £500

There are hundreds (if not thousands) of website design companies in the UK who offer website design packages within this price bracket. Unlike the first option, these are suitable for those who simply don’t have the time or skills to invest in building their own website.

These websites generally display your information, just like a business card. They are usually built using pre-made html templates.

They tend to be very basic in terms of design and they’re not usually built with SEO in mind. That doesn’t mean they won’t rank highly in search engines, it just means that certain things won’t have been considered before or during the build. This means it might take a lot of work on your part to get the site up to scratch once it’s been built.

The low cost might be appealing to some but there are a few things I recommend you ask before hiring a company.

Firstly, does the website come with an easy to use CMS (content management system). This enables you to easily update your website once it’s been built. The likelihood is, you won’t be able to edit anything extensive, but you should be able to edit the text and images with ease. If not, the company may charge you for this, so you’ll need to ask them how much they charge in order to avoid costly headaches in the future!

Secondly, you’ll need to make sure the website is mobile/tablet friendly. Almost 50% of web searches happen over a mobile or tablet. Google have actually said they will favour mobile friendly websites in mobile search results! If your website isn’t mobile/tablet friendly, you’ll be missing out on potential customers.

Pros and Cons of a Business Card Website

What to do before investing in this option:

• Make sure the website comes with a content management system. Even ask to see how it works beforehand. If it doesn’t, be clear on how much it will cost to update your site.
• Check that the website is mobile/tablet friendly
• Check what is included! Will you get a blog, social media integration, URL, email accounts, hosting, images (stock photos cost) etc.

A template website using WordPress / Joomla / Drupal.

Approximate Fee: £399 – £1200

Sometimes, website designers will build your website using pre-existing templates on WordPress, Joomla or Drupal.

These kinds of websites usually achieve a more polished and professional look than those who go for the DIY or basic options. In fact, I used to use this method for some of my clients, as it was an affordable alternative to the more expensive options. However, even though the website looks better, it’s still a template, and therefore still quite restrictive.

The appeal of this option is you get a decent looking website (designer depending, obviously) along with the easy-to-use CMS of WordPress, Joomla etc.

Pros and Cons of using Wordpress Template

What to do before investing in this option:

• Ask the designer what they can do with the design, how much can they change to tailor around your needs?
• With any design company – check that the website is mobile/tablet friendly!
• Check what is included! Will you get a blog, social media integration, URL, email accounts, hosting, images (stock photos cost) etc.

A Custom Made Website

Approximate Fee: £999 – £5000+

Many web design agencies and even some freelancers will charge within this price bracket for a custom built website, myself included.

At this price, you should expect more for your money than the three options above. Your website should be designed in line with your branding and should appeal to your target market.

Your home page should be completely bespoke, along with your standard pages and perhaps your blog/contact page.

The agency or freelancer can often spend a lot of time in the research and preparation stage, making sure everything is to your liking and set up for ultimate conversion. Every element of the design should encourage your reader to do something, such as contact you, fill in a form, or hit that buy now button.

You may also get added extras to the option above, such as a bespoke blog, email marketing integration or even copywriting and on-page SEO.

Pros and Cons of Custom Made Website

What to do before investing in this option:

• Ask the web designer what their process is. Will they show you a version of their design before you invest? Or will you receive different design versions to choose from?
• Ask if the website also comes with a CMS
• Check what is included! Will you get a blog, social media integration, URL, email accounts, hosting, images (stock photos cost) etc.
• Will you need to provide the stock images or will they provide some of them as part of the service.

Big Project Website

Approximate fee: £5000 – £100,000+

This option is suitable for those looking for the ultimate bespoke website design service. You may find you need every single page of your website to be tailored to your needs. Or you may need a website that fits within your business’s internal processes.

These websites are generally very technical and intelligent. They have a large amount of functionality and attention to detail…hence the price tag. You’re paying for a knowledgeable and experienced team of people who can build you every single thing you need from scratch.

Pros and Cons of Custom Made Website

What to do before investing in this option:

• Consider whether you really need this level of support and technical help
• This is a big project, I’d certainly recommend meeting the agency!
• Put a full proposal together and go out to tender. It’s more time consuming but it’s worth it to get the right company for you.

Final thoughts.

You may be tempted to head over to Google and type in “cheap web design” and try to save some money in the short term. I would ask you to consider the REAL cost of getting a cheap website. What will a basic online presence do for your business in the long run? The amount of business you lose from not having a high quality website may leave you worse off.

On the flip side, think about your average sale amount, how many customers will you need to pay for a £5000 website. If the numbers seem out of reach then it may be worth going for one of the cheaper options to begin with.

My advice is to spend some time doing the research and find a web design company you can rely on, someone who truly understands what you want to achieve and can build a website that performs well and delivers a return on your investment.

Over to you

What is your experience of hiring web design companies? Have you found it to be an easy process or have you had a few catastrophes along the way? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post How much does it cost for a website? appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.