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Your website is your online salesperson, showcasing your products, and inviting customers to engage with your brand. Leaving your website idle is like letting dust and spiderwebs gather in your shop window. Customers will notice that you’ve neglected your site because it runs slowly, products aren’t listed correctly, and links are broken. It’s not an enticing look.

Your website’s a vital part of your business you cannot afford to neglect. Below are five website maintenance mistakes you can’t afford to make, and how to avoid them.

Mistake 1: Doing nothing

We’ve said it above, but it bears repeating: a stale website will not convert leads to sales. Maybe you like your website the way it is and see no reason to change it. Or perhaps you don’t believe investing in website maintenance offers a strong return on investment. The problem is that allowing your website to sit idle will see it sink to the bottom of the search engine results.

Search algorithms love a regularly-updated site. They find and promote websites that contain up-to-date information. So when you add new pages to your site, you give search algorithms more pages to index, which gives you a better shot at a top search ranking.

To keep pages fresh, you have to add high-quality content to your site, fix broken links, and remove redundant pages. Experts recommend updating your site with new pages at least once a month

Mistake 2: Relying on hosting companies for backup

Remember all those hours you spent building your website? Not to mention the sales information stored there? Without regular backups, that content and information could be lost to the ether.

Even if your hosting company will back up your website, their services might not work for you. Hosting companies may not backup as often as you’d like, and they may not store your data for as long as you need. Let’s say they backup daily but erase the previous day’s data: that means you only ever have one day’s worth of site data available, so if you need to roll back your website to four days ago, you won’t have the data to do it.

If your website goes down, you’ll want to know that someone is working on restoring it immediately. But if you’re relying on your hosting company to backup your site, you could be waiting days before you receive a response from them. You’re never really sure who, if anyone, is working on fixing your site, and you’ll be left in the dark on how long it will take.

You should also consider where your backup data is stored. You need a solution that stores your data on a different server than the one that hosts your website, so if a disaster takes down your website’s server, the backup data doesn’t go down with it.

To back up your website information, download it regularly and store it in at least two, but preferably three, external storage solutions. This could be cloud storage or an external hard drive. Backing up routinely may be a pain, but it is essential.

Mistake 3: Not having a disaster recovery plan

Tied closely to failing to back up your website’s data is failing to plan for a site crash. Even if you have backed up your site content, you also need to know how to get it back up and running quickly. 

Disaster recovery plans are highly technical. They require meticulous planning, working through every aspect of the recovery. Your plan should list:

  • The things that could go wrong with the site
  • An inventory of your site’s content
  • Where the backups are stored
  • Who is responsible for reinstating the site
  • Who is responsible for dealing with customers affected by the site outage
  • The steps required to rebuild

If your site is down for days, you are losing customers. Rebuilding a website from scratch could take weeks, if not months, but a professional using a disaster recovery plan can revive your website faster.

Mistake 4: Trying to do everything yourself

As a business owner, you’re probably an avid subscriber to the do-it-yourself mentality. But you’re busy, and chances are you’re not an expert in website maintenance, so the hours you spend trying to keep your site updated may not be incredibly productive ones.

Every task associated with website maintenance eats away at the time you need to run your business. Even simple tasks like managing website updates require user-testing your site afterwards to ensure it’s still functioning. 

Plus, your website probably comes with a slew of analytics tools that could inform your online strategy – if only you knew how to use them. Taking care of a website is a whole other job – most likely one that you don’t have time for.

Mistake 5: Failing to think like a customer

You know your website, and you’re familiar with how it works. But your customers only visit your site periodically. Returning customers want to make a purchase as quickly and painlessly as possible. New customers want to learn about your company quickly and painlessly, too. If you’re not checking your website regularly, it could be riddled with broken links, slow load times, and the dreaded “404 Not Found” message. 

On top of the other maintenance tasks listed above, you’ll need to quality-check your site for the following issues a customer may encounter:

  • Check that newly added products load quickly and correctly
  • Check that the steps for completing a purchase run smoothly
  • Add blog posts on a regular basis to improve search results
  • Read old site content to ensure it still reflects your brand and doesn’t contradict newer material
  • Check meta tags and descriptions to ensure they are consistent with brand messaging
  • Reread all calls-to-action and click their buttons to make sure they are easy to follow

You should ideally run these checks once per month, and more often if you are adding new products or blog posts several times per month. Performing regular checks can feel like a burden, but if customers can’t use your website easily, they won’t stick around for long.

Mistake 6: Lacking website building expertise

Building and maintaining websites requires expertise. There’s a lot going on in the back-end of your website, with plenty of buttons you definitely do not want to click. You could lose entire pages or products as well as precious sales information. You may not have a backup of your site content, and you may not know how to reinstate the data even if you can find it again.

Acknowledging that you may not have the expertise to maintain a website is a wise disaster-avoiding strategy. Letting professionals maintain your site allows you to focus on what you do best: running your business. 

Design Box Media cares for your business and your website

You can view our Website Care Plans at https://designbox.co.uk/website-care-plans/, but we’d love to talk to you about your website maintenance needs. Call us at 01702 416 431 or email info@designbox.co.uk.

Even if your market is full of stiff competition, a unique value proposition (UVP) is an opportunity to get your business above your rivals. A strong UVP (also known as a unique selling proposition) demonstrates that you understand their problems and can offer a uniquely effective solution to your customers. 

Website visitors become customers when they see that your product or service targets their needs better than the competition’s solution. A UVP tells readers quickly and clearly why your product is the best choice for them.

It’s catchy but not a tagline. It shows off your company’s strengths but doesn’t sound like a gimmick. It walks the reader past their problem and straight to the solution you offer.

When you get your UVP right, it works hard for you. It’s worth spending some time crafting an excellent UVP because when it’s done right, it makes both marketing and sales easier.

What are the benefits of writing a unique value proposition?

An easy-to-understand UVP delivers the right customers to you, so your chances of converting a lead to a sale are much higher. Potential customers who read your UVP know what you do and why your product or approach is right for them. They are visiting your website because they want to answer the question: which company/product is the best fit for me? Your UVP should provide a quick and easy answer for them.

A UVP can help filter out the wrong customers, too. A potential customer who is a bad fit for your product or service will know immediately from your UVP that you will not meet their needs. 

By removing the “bad fit” customers from the conversation, you gain higher-quality leads. Eventually, those high-quality leads become successful sales and long-lasting customer relationships. You’ve not wasted time on customers that never needed your product in the first place and can instead focus on growing the leads that will convert to satisfied clients.

When done right, a UVP also becomes the cornerstone of your marketing campaigns. It informs all of your messaging, so your brand voice is consistent. It builds confidence within your sales team because they know the unique benefit of what they’re selling.  

Your UVP creates a baseline for the clear communication of your company’s offering. Like a beacon, your customers, marketing team, and sales team can look to your UVP to define your valuable niche in the market.

Customers will pay higher prices when you can demonstrate why your product is of higher value. A strong UVP supports that by telling customers why your product is distinctly valuable. This “product differentiation” shows them that you can meet their needs better than your competitors, and they are happy to pay more for your services.

Writing a compelling UVP doesn’t happen without a deep understanding of your customer and your niche in the market. These three steps will help you write a UVP that resonates with your customers.

3 examples of effective UVPs used on business websites

These companies have created UVPs that clearly communicate the problems they solve for their customers. Using the three steps above, you can create your own version of these great examples for your website.

Shopify.com

Here Shopify uses a catchy headline, yet also sends a clear message of growing customers. They follow the headline with one sentence that says exactly what the product does for customers, and their image shows how slick even a small business can look on their platform.

MailChimp.com

In this headline, MailChimp immediately addresses why customers would be interested in their product: to grow their business with email marketing. The following sentence expands on their headline’s claim with more information while also addressing further pain points: that MailChimp is advanced yet easy-to-use.

Xero.com

In this headline, Xero explains what it is (accounting software) and the benefit / sales point for a healthy business. The following sentence expands on their headline’s claim with a less salesy explanation and more straight to the point explanation: manage your finances in real time with Xero accounting software. This is a great UVP and makes it very easy for anyone coming to the website to understand who they are and what they offer. 

Are you looking to write an effective UVP? 

Here are 3 steps to writing a unique value proposition

  1. Research your ideal customer

Understanding your customer’s pain points is essential to writing a UVP that converts website visitors to customers. A customer’s pain points have driven them to your website, and it’s the UVP’s job to articulate how your company will solve them better than the competition

If you’re unsure of your customer’s pain points, take yourself through the simple exercise of describing your customer and exploring why they have landed on your website. These are called customer personas, also known as customer avatars, and they help you to get inside the mind of your customer. By listing their goals and their values, you can overcome any potential objections to buying your product. You can download free worksheets from Digital Marketer here to take you through this exercise.

When you understand your target audience, you can write a UVP that addresses their pain points and hesitations. Your offering then becomes more than just a product –  it’s the answer to their problems.

  1. Explore your true value

Writing a compelling UVP is actually an exercise in knowing your own company, too. Take some time to reflect on your company’s offering from all angles – in relation to your customers, the market, and your competition’s positioning – and make a list of the features that make your offering unique. Spend some time examining the competition, understanding their UVPs, and noting where your product fills a market niche. 

Your UVP may include features that set apart your product, or your company, or both. It may even be as simple as offering incentives like  “free shipping” or “no long-term contracts” that are attractive to your customer. Even if your product is very similar to the competition, you can stand out by communicating your product’s benefits more clearly to your customer.

  1. Write a clear, concise UVP

If your UVP isn’t obvious and easy to understand, your customer will lose interest and move on to someone else. While a UVP isn’t a tagline or a slogan, it should be concise and get straight to the point. 

Grab customers’ attention with a simple headline. Avoid hyperbole in your language. Sweeping claims that your product is “the best in the nation” are almost impossible to prove, and they’ll sound like white noise to the customer. Aim for simple language that speaks directly to the individual customer. Promising to “make life easier” is nice, but not very specific. State precisely what your business does to solve their problem.

The one or two sentences following your headline should clearly and concisely elaborate on your headline. Avoid jargon, as it is the death of sales.

Shopify recommends borrowing language from your current customers to attract future customers. Take inspiration from customer testimonials, or ask for survey feedback from some of your loyal buyers. Look for common words they use to describe your business and your product, then integrate those words or phrases into your UVP. The language your customers use will resonate with other customers like them. They’ll see their pain points reflected and their problems solved by your product.

Remember that your language should be clear but also inviting and engaging. Again, avoid jargon. Use language that positions your company as professional yet friendly, reliable and approachable. Complete the pitch with a hero image that mirrors the statements you’ve made in your UVP. Avoid stock images if possible.

Design Box can craft an unforgettable UVP for your business 

We’ve been helping businesses throughout the UK increase profits through online strategies for over a decade, and we’re here for the long-term growth of your company. If your looking to get content writing services for your website or business why not get in touch with us? Our team is always happy to help. 

Give us a call on 01702 416 431 or email us at info@designbox.co.uk to craft a compelling UVP and attract more of the customers you love to work with.

The time has finally come, where we digital marketers get to update our strategies and frantically review and update our websites. That’s right, it is time for another Google algorithm update. 

Although this was announced a while ago now, and despite some delays, it seems that the Page Experience algorithm update has finally started rolling out in June 2021.

To be brief, Google is rolling out a new algorithm that will include factors such as page experience and user engagement. To start with the initiative, they’ve launched Web Vitals – an endeavour to measure and enhance users web browsing experiences on sites across all industries

What is Page Experience and what does it entail?

To put it succinctly, Google wants to know if a user’s experience on the page is satisfactory. The following metrics are used: whether or not the site loads quickly; how mobile-friendly it is; and whether users can view content in one place without jumping around as they wait for additional information to load.

Google’s core web vitals are a major factor in page rank experience. The mobile-friendly update, Page Speed Update, the HTTPS ranking boost and intrusive interstitials penalty all contribute to how Google determines which pages are high quality or low-quality content based on their own set of metrics for determining this.

Bad Page Experience signals

  • Low Engagement: The truth is that people want to be engaged with on the internet. Notice how many sites are failing at this? They just don’t care about their customers’ feelings, or what they think of them as a company and an individual. People today want more than sales – they also need entertainment! It’s not enough for websites these days to have good prices; you must provide your users with something worthwhile too like empathy or understanding if you hope to get anywhere in 2021.
  • Slow Load Times: It’s no secret that we all hate waiting. It can be annoying to click on a search result and wait for the page load, but it feels like a lifetime while you are doing so! This is especially true when your potential consumers feel this way too; they will undoubtedly get put off by how long it takes which could cost you sales in return.
  • Poor Page Design: You know what they say: every page is a journey, but some pages are more difficult to navigate than others. It could be because the design feels outdated or uninspiring and there’s no clear content structure. Again, this can prove to be harmful to your target market in the long run.

Good Page Experience signals

  • Core Web Vitals: Google’s Core Web Vitals are a series of metrics that provide insight into how quickly your site loads. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) is the speed at which your largest page element renders, First Input Delay (FID) measures the time between when you input something and when Chrome responds to it, Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), quantifies how many elements on each webpage shift as they load in so together these three measurements help quantify whether or not your website is loading as Google expects. If you see positive results for these on a search console report, you should be in good stead.
  • Usage of HTTPS: Data encryption is a necessary measure to preserve the privacy and safety of web users. By using SSL certificates that scramble this data during transit all while maintaining security through verification checks like domain validation, for example, websites protect customer communications so hackers cannot intercept it or misuse it for malicious purposes such as identity theft and financial frauds among other things.
  • Non Intrusive Interstitials: Google has taken a stand against intrusive popups and ads with their intrusive interstitials update. The devaluation algorithm aims to keep users focused on the content they are requesting without being interrupted by unnecessary advertisements or obtrusive options, such as popup screens that take up most of your screen space. Therefore, if you adhere to these requirements, it should reflect positively on your website.
  • Good Mobile Usability: The world has gone mobile, and so should your website. Mobile sites account for over 60% of Google searches with AMP pages being the go-to site optimization solution to speed up page loading times on a smartphone or tablet’s browser. The AMP Page Experience Guide offers an easy way to analyze what can be done better in terms of performance by looking at key metrics like time spent reading content, bounce rates, load speeds and more.
  • Safe Browsing: The internet is a fast-paced, interactive space for sharing information. Sites that feel unresponsive will turn away users in droves and they may never come back. It’s important to make sure your site doesn’t contain any malware, spyware or other potentially malicious scripts to protect both you as the owner of the site and visitors who may be tricked into visiting other sites with harmful content because it was advertised on yours.

Quick things you can do to prepare for Page Experience

Even though the update has begun rolling out, it is a gradual process that is not likely to be fully implemented until August. To get your website ready for this update, the most obvious thing to do would be to conduct an audit of your website and ensure that your pages meet the criteria for positive ranking signals as mentioned above. However, there are also some quick things you can do either in the meantime.

Firstly, you can focus on compressing or resizing images. This is something that commonly affects the speed of your page and from our experience, it tends to crop up a lot when using PageSpeed Insights which allows you to see ways you can make your web pages faster. 

Next, you can take a look at the links on your website. You’ll want to see if there are any broken links as they can be detrimental to your website’s performance if they are not monitored efficiently. If you have links that are leading to 404 pages, you’ll need to find an appropriate redirection destination as soon as possible. 

Furthermore, you need to look out for any potentially toxic links that are pointing towards your website as you don’t want your website associated with anything that isn’t directly related to the company. This is more geared towards making sure your customer feels safe when visiting your website.

In any case, the most important thing is to be aware of the update and keep in communication with your colleagues in order to create an effective strategy for meeting Google’s requirements and mitigating any potential disasters.

We hope that you can take all the steps necessary to ensure that you are ready for Page Experience. After all, as digital marketers, we like to see everyone succeed when Google gives us something new and exciting to deal with.

The world of online marketing is a crowded one, and everyday businesses are being bombarded with messages from different companies vying for their attention. For your business to be seen by the right people at just the right time, you need an SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) strategy that will help promote it in all areas where people might find value, commonly being search engines like Google.

You may have heard of SEO as a general digital marketing solution, but there are different avenues to explore including organic SEO and local SEO. This is why, within this article, we want to answer the question ‘What is the difference between organic and local SEO?’

What is organic SEO?

Organic SEO is the low-cost investment that creates excellent content and does not require any advertising. It involves optimizing web pages by writing high quality, highly relevant material to make it rank higher in search engine results page (SERP).

The strategy includes incorporating meta tags that represent keywords of your business or blog posts so that they can be found easily on Google when someone searches a keyword related to what you offer.

Organic SEO also incorporates backlinking through guest blogging or commenting on blogs within the industry because these links show how popular this site has been among online communities thus helping them appear more legitimate with their competitors who may have spent thousands of dollars for paid ads but ranked lower than an organic website ranking well based solely off social media shares.

Here’s some examples of Organic SEO methods:

Provide high-quality content:

In today’s digital age, content is king. Without quality content that provides a great user experience, you won’t rank as high on search engines like Google and Bing because they want to provide their users with the best possible experiences. To accomplish this, search engine algorithms need to determine the most relevant content in relation to the term the individual is searching for. To ensure that the content is quality, it should be very informative with a word count that at least matches or exceeds competitors. The content should also be completely unique and offer things that can’t be found elsewhere.

Use multiple forms of media:

To add to creating rich content for users, utilising different forms of media on your web pages enhances the usefulness of your content. People digest information differently and being able to provide several different ways of understanding that information infers that your content is much more user-friendly as it incorporates the attitudes of many different people. Providing images, videos and graphs are great examples of how you can improve a page significantly.

The image above just shows how images can complement content as well as other things like videos and tables.

Enrich pages with keywords:

One of the most well-known ways of generating organic traffic through SEO is by incorporating keywords into your content. Beginning with some keyword research, you can understand the terms that prospective customers use to find goods and services that you may provide. By mentioning these keywords on your page, you can expect your content to be more relevant to people searching those keywords.

Of course, you have to be careful not to overdo including one specific keyword too much on the page as that can have a negative effect. However, using semantic keywords related to your main keyword can help get around this and once again improve the performance of the page.

This image shows a small snippet of the use of the keyword ‘SEO vs Google Ads’ in different areas of the page.

Build links internally and externally:

Backlinks refer to the links between different web pages that are highlighted commonly through coloured text. By creating quality content, you can expect other websites to refer to your work with their own content.

Because your content is a reference point, people will usually create a backlink so it allows users to go straight to the source material, which again enhances the user experience.

Internal links work in a similar way but they are used across your own website, linking certain pages to others. One of the best examples to find this is through Wikipedia.

This small snippet above is from Wikipedia when you enter ‘search engine optimisation’. As you can see, the blue text highlights links that take you to another page on the website.

Enhance your user experience:

Everything you provide on your pages should be geared towards making the content as useful as possible to the people that are searching for it. Yes, many of the previously mentioned methods contribute to that, but there are other more obvious ways that you can accomplish this.

One thing that has become a lot more important in recent years is the readability of content. To make your content as easy as possible to see and understand is to make your user experience superior. It could be as simple as changing your font or spacing out text content better so the user doesn’t feel overwhelmed.

What is local SEO?

Local SEO is the practice of making sure your business gets found on search engines like Google and Bing, by people searching for it in their locality. The main thing that sets Local SEO apart from regular old-fashioned organic SEO is its focus on location-based searches to improve local rankings.

Google searches for these location-based terms are different than regular search queries. For instance, Google can tell the geographic location of a person by tracking their IP address so they provide results that suit your area and include local businesses you might not have been able to find otherwise.

Google uses geo-location information from people’s smartphones or computer browsers in order to determine what type of data its users want when searching online. This way, it provides certain types of content like restaurants near me which make it easier on them instead of having an entire internet full of all possible places where food could be found.

Here are some examples of Local SEO methods:

Submit your company to local directories:

One of the best methods for local SEO involves submitting your company to local directories, popular examples include Yell and Yelp. The great thing about this is that it is usually fairly easy to set up as well as being incredibly cost-efficient.

Because there are so many directories that allow you to list your business for free, you are able to be represented across many different areas without putting a dent in your marketing budget.

Above is an example of one of our listings on the free directory website Spoke.

Utilise Google my business:

Another free service that Google provides is Google my business. This is incredibly useful as it supports businesses without their own website as well. By registering on Google my business and filling it out with as much information about your business as possible, you are able to appear in search results on Google when someone searches with a location-specific term.

SEO in Essex

Here is the listings from Google My Business when you enter the keyword ‘seo essex’.

Create location-specific pages:

If you do have a website, you can create sub-pages branching off of your main services to cater towards a certain service area. Let’s say you provide a service that operates across several counties in England, you may want to create a page for each location with unique content that allows you to rank for searches related to that location.

Keep your NAP profile consistent:

A NAP (Name/Address/Phone number) profile refers to the representation of your name, address and phone number across several different digital locations. The idea behind this being a useful technique is that it bolsters your other local SEO efforts.

The important thing to strive towards is to make sure your NAP profile remains consistent, meaning that whether it be on your actual website, on a directory or on a Google my business profile, your name, address and phone number do not differ.

What should be my focus – Local or organic SEO?

To decide whether you need to utilise local SEO, organic SEO or both, you need to think about the search intent of your prospective customers. This means to decide whether they are more likely to do a local search or an organic search.

Organic search is based on relevance, links, and other factors. Organic search is the best way to reach a large audience, as evidenced by featured snippets and e-commerce stores.

After just entering ‘ppc’ as the keyword, you can see that with organic search, the results are solely driven by Google Ads results as well as organic results which you can see at the bottom of the image.

Local searches are a little different—they take into account the user’s intent when they enter their query in addition to information relevant for that area. While local searches still serve informational needs for consumers, they also contain heightened purchasing intent when it comes to products in your immediate area.

Above is an example of a local search, because a specific location has been included in the search. As a result of this, the Google map shows up with Google My Business profiles as well as ads at the top, followed by organic results below.

With this in mind, you should be able to determine what your target market is after. For example, if you are providing basic services within a specific area, it clearly wouldn’t be wise to try and rank across the country as it will be misleading to potential customers.

However, if you were in the business of selling products worldwide, you would more likely want to target general terms as opposed to localised ones so you’re not limiting your audience. Again, this is all dependent on each individual business as circumstances can always be different.

Using both Local and Organic SEO in harmony is of course the most ideal situation providing you have a large enough marketing budget.

Today is Earth Day, and what better day to announce the changes we are implementing here at Design Box. Over the last year, we have been looking at how each service we provide impacts the environment and how we operate as a digital marketing agency from home or at the office.  

It’s been a bit of a minefield, but the more we learnt, the more we have realised how much of a difference we can all make.

“We all need to do our part for a better future no matter who we are.”

Why is becoming more eco friendly so important to us?

We may be considered a small web and digital marketing agency, but some of our clients wouldn’t be regarded as small. The services we provide to host and build websites use energy, and as these clients grow, they receive more traffic and use more resources, which will require more energy. We decided to start making more eco-friendly websites and offer a hosting solution that is as green as possible.

We may not look like groovy hippies, but we have a responsibility to do what we can to make the place we live in a better place. It’s surprising how much we can all do. 

Here are some interesting facts about how important this is for a web agency and why it shouldn’t be overlooked. 

How much energy does the Web use? (Data from 2020)

Even before the Covid-19 epidemic, the electricity consumption of the internet represented as much as that of Great Britain! Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) accounted for 6 to 10% of global electricity consumption, or 4% of our greenhouse gas emissions. And this figure increases by 5 to 7% each year! The usage is now more than the equivalent of all air traffic globally, prooving this is not something that we all should ignore. 

How much C02 does the average web page use, and what does this mean?

The average web page produces 1.76 grams of CO2 per page viewed. For a website with 10,000 monthly page views, that’s 211 kg CO2 per year. That’s the equivalent of boiling water for over 30,000 cups of tea per year or enough electricity to drive an electric car 3,200 km per year!

(Data sourced from https://www.websitecarbon.com/)

What are we doing at Design Box to help with our environmental impact?

We are offsetting Carbon by planting Trees and contributing to great projects around the world. 

Last year we teamed up with Ecology to offset the Carbon we use for each team member by planting trees every month and contributing monthly to funding and supporting projects around the world, from turning waste in Thailand to electricity to fuel-efficient cooking stoves in Honduras.

Over the last 10 months, we have helped plant over 1000 trees, create a positive climate workforce and culture reduced over 60 Tons of Carbon emissions. 

This is just the start. Our mission is to have planted a forest of over 10,000 trees in the next three years and do more to help worldwide on many other projects.

Checkout out our little forest over at Eco logi: https://ecologi.com/designboxmedia

‘We switched our website hosting provider to Google cloud?

In 2020 we began with a search to find not only to find a green website hosting provider but to search for a provider that would increase our client’s hosting service. We knew Google was one of the world’s largest providers for website hosting the speed and reliability would be second to none. After many thorough tests with different providers, continuous researching, and constant hosting environment tweaking, we managed to create an environment for all of our WordPress clients that improved website speed and reliability and morally provided an eco-friendly service.  

We switched all of our clients in August 2020. The transition went smoothly, and the constant niggles we had before were almost non-existent. The service was such an improvement we couldn’t ever consider looking back and looking forward to further future changes. They are one of the most eco-friendly website hosting providers in the world, making this a no-brainer to switch providers and upgrade our clients’ hosting service.

Some facts about Google Clouds website hosting services 

  • 100% renewable energy for all cloud regions
  • 50% less energy than average data centres
  • 90% waste diverted from landfills

Google’s mission and carbon commitments: https://sustainability.google/commitments/

Switching the energy, we use in the office and at home to a green provider

Thanks to the help of Wildfire Energy, we managed to source a green energy provider for our office using Total Green. Tom and Marc also recently switched all of their home energy providers to Bulb, a great green energy provider. Doing this means we are doing our part to run the electricity we use from a more ethical energy provider.

What are we working towards at Design Box?

Check out some of the things we are working on at Design Box over the coming years. 

More eco-friendly websites

We will continue to redevelop some of our company processes for how we create websites. It’s a big project to not only keep them more eco-friendly but profitable as a business too.

Rewarding new clients and incentivising client reviews by planting more trees

For every new client we bring on, we will be planting 50 trees in their name.

We will also be planting trees for any client that leaves a positive review on each platform, whether Google, Clutch and even bonus tress for video testimonials. 

Working towards a paperless business by 2022

There are many factors for using paper in our business: contracts, proposals, accounting, and day-to-day business use. We are working towards transitioning all of this to go digital, so our printer will soon live cupboard to Mr Fax machine. 

Just the start of great things to come. 

It’s an exciting new chapter for us at Designbox and we cant wait to see how this part of our company evolve.

You can read more about our Eco-journey here https://designbox.co.uk/eco-friendly-web-design-agency/

Happy Earth Day!

Pantone's famous swatch guide
Pantone’s colour swatches as most commonly featured as a supplement guide.

What is Pantone?

Pantone Colour is a colour-matching system which is known and used in many industries such as Graphic Design, Print, and Illustration on top of many others. Each colour in the Pantone system has a unique number and allows an exact value and match for each colour to be printed precisely and accurately. Pantone quotes more than 10 million designers and producers around the world that are using their products and services to “help define, communicate and control colour from inspiration to realisation.”

Introducing Pantone of the Year 2021

It’s that time of the year where keen-eyed artists, illustrators and everyone in-between come together to await the news of the new Pantone of the Year to be announced. In an exciting twist of events, it has been revealed that not only one colour takes the spotlight, but it shares itself with another swatch, giving itself to ‘Colours of the Year’.

It’s a less traditional approach where this hasn’t been seen since Pantone selected two colours in 2016; Rose Quartz and Serenity. It is well believed that these new two shades are matched together to inspire optimism and bring some clarity to the more anxious era we are growing accustomed to.

Chosen by Pantone for 2021

The bright yellow shade, titled Illuminating, is meant to evoke the “optimistic promise of a sunshine-filled day”. Ultimate Grey, is a much quieter, toned-down colour, speaking to people, full of “composure, steadiness and resilience.” Pantone goes on to say “the colour can almost be compared to durable natural elements, like time-weathered pebbles on the beach”. As people all across the world are looking for ways to bring clarity and positivity to what has been the most challenging times in 2020, Pantone is seeking to bring energy and clarity. Something that we all need after the events of 2020. These colours almost feel like the representation of the clean break we all look for sometimes.

Leatrice Eiseman, The Executive Director of Pantone’s Colour Institute, goes on to say… “The unions of an enduring Ultimate Grey with the vibrant yellow Illuminating expresses a message of positivity supported by fortitude. Practical and rock-solid but at the same time warming and optimistic, this is a colour combination that gives us resilience and hope. We need to feel encouraged and uplifted; this is essential to the human spirit.”

Yellow and grey everyday objects
– The idea of both colours are seen in every day objects, to give us that subtle reminder.

My personal thoughts on this years colours…

It’s evident that both elements complement one another and this is why I believe as one tone elevates you, the other naturally provides reassurance, steadiness and is a resilient counter partner to the vibrant swatch of Illuminating Yellow. As a trend itself, I have seen this combination of colour present itself in ways that have been visible through packaging, advertising and many more mediums.

I think what stands out more is that it feels like the majority of 2020 was quite grey and dull, so we could all do with a little more colour and radiance, something coloured which beams light and energy as the sun does, and Illuminating does certainly that.

We’d love to hear from you.

What are your thoughts on the new Pantone Colours of the Year? Do you feel like Pantone have got it right? If you could substitute these two colours for something else, what would your selections be? Please leave us a comment below. Happy 2021!

That’s right, we’ve gone and done it. We’ve created a new brand identity. A completely reimagined look for our company. We believe this is the most significant jump we have made for our brand and we couldn’t be more excited to tell you all about what we’ve been up to… It’s been four years, and we have decided to rebrand as an agency to increase awareness of our brand further.

Going through different iterations of the project, we can recall the idea of a rebrand officially started back in March 2020, at the time talks of an office move were being proposed, to make space for our growing team. Unfortunately, Coronavirus seemed to halt a lot of our initial progress as we doubled down our focus to help our clients through these difficult times. Naturally, the rebrand was a little stop-start in the early stages, where our focus was less about finding time to put back into ourselves, and more about aligning ourselves to our client’s goals and survival.

We focused on the integral ideas of what Design Box Media means to us and our long term goals. Many companies around us can switch up their look because of being reactive in this market, we’ve seen agencies rebrand almost instantly to help them keep up with the times, which is not a bad thing on paper.

We wanted to dig deep and come up with a visual identity and brand personality which would reflect who we are now. Although a quick fix could have been more cost effective, no expense had been left behind. We wanted to focus our thoughts on how we can stay ahead, from internal processes to our impact on the environment, and in the process show that we are more relevant than ever before.

Researching into branding that works well
In the very early stages we researched into brands that have undergone this process, and identified who did it well.

In July 2020 we welcomed back Marc Baker who is our Senior Designer. Marc has worked with many brands including Monitor Audio, Bulb, Zoopla and more. Marc was the latest addition to our Design team back in July, as we were preparing to embark on a complete company rebrand. Marc gained sufficient experience knowing exactly what goes into a rebrand when starting out, as these sorts of projects can naturally take many twists and turns. We needed someone to oversee the process and manage the teams inputs and research collectively. “We were very excited at the idea to work with Marc again, where he had previously worked with us five years ago” said Thomas Amos.



On re-joining the Design Box team, Marc had this to say…

“I was delighted to be given the opportunity to come back to Design Box Media. What was meant to be a 4-week contract turned into a new role being created for me. No matter if I was working for another company or studio, Tom would have me drop by from time to time for a catch-up. Even though some time had passed since we last worked together, I would always make remarks about coming back one day and working with Tom again. We’ve achieved so much in what feels like little time and to be heading up a team and moving forwards with our ever-growing client base, we are really excited to roll out this new rebrand, and the next chapter for Design Box.”

Moving office

As the rebrand was starting to take shape, there was the other big news of an office move across the road to a much larger premises. This created more work for our team, and naturally, the excitement started to build as the rest of the team started putting together a much wider plan of how we want our new office to feel. As the ideas accumulated, one thing was essential to Design Box Media’s growth: the culture. Once the office had been refitted for purpose, culture was at the heart of everything important to creating a workspace that everyone can enjoy and look after. The intake of a new state of the art coffee machine was to the delight of everyone’s mood as there are eight coffee options to choose from, and every kind of tea you can imagine under the sun is stocked up in our new space. Not only will our staff enjoy these hot beverages, but it’s also our clients and partners who we can’t wait to welcome into our new space, and take a coffee from our own freshly roasted beans.

A new break out area means the team has more space to enjoy the things they love. A favourite between everyone is that our Google Foosball table made the journey over to our new office and has brought a lot of new competition to the fold, as everyone clambers together to try and compete for the glory! The new Design Box meeting room boasts space and entertainment options, as well as the chance to pitch and present wonderful high definition concepts to our clients.

As lockdown reigned in tighter on our abilities to be able to have everyone in the same place at one time, the team had to shift gears and be able to access vital communication points when working from home, which had us introduce a new booking system for our clients to meet with our team on an appointment basis. So zooming aside, we also had a handy delivery from our communications partners with brand new phone systems setup. We want to thank our partners Wildfire Phones and Wildfire Energy for helping us to source a green energy supplier for our new office space as we strive forwards to be a complete Eco-Friendly company, putting back in what we take out.

Going Green!

On the topic of being Eco Friendly, we partnered with Ecologi. One of the many ways we’ve sought to improve on our own practices is implementing an entirely new hosting infrastructure. With more updates including improvements and reliability we are proud to offer Google Cloud to our clients. One of the many reasons we are making good positive changes is all to help the ecosystem.



It’s now common knowledge that one of the best tools to tackle the climate crisis and keep our temperatures from rising above 1.5C is to plant trees. They are also crucial to preventing ecological collapse. We feel encouraged that more work now than ever is being done to tackle this crisis.

New additions to the team

We brought in two new faces to the company as we welcomed Dan Boyden, our Junior Apprentice in Web Development and Support. And we said hello to SEO Executive – Joe Turbin. Joe arrived in August and spent the first month doing research on our existing clients. He then implemented SEO techniques across key pages on the site, making sure the content is plentiful where necessary, keywords are properly inserted and spaced and more. Since then, this client (Firework Crazy) have had a significant increase in rankings, making them have a lot more presence in Google Search Engines.

Rankings increase for Firework Crazy

Speaking about joining the Design Box team, Joe had this to say…

“I’ve really enjoyed my time at Design Box since joining. When I first joined, I was incredibly eager to get to work after a difficult start to 2020. Since then, I feel like I have thoroughly progressed as an SEO expert and have made some great friends along the way. I truly feel like an integral part of a family, ready to play a part in our clients’ success and subsequently, Design Box’s success.”


We are delighted with the changes made to Design Box over the past six-twelve months but we are a long way off being finished yet. We can’t wait to reveal plenty more exciting improvements to you in the latter part of 2021… Stay tuned..

We wanted to take a moment to share what the Design Box Media office will look like for the next couple of weeks, and more importantly, what this means for your sites and business. 

We want to assure you that Design Box Media is running smoothly. We have been closely monitoring the Coronavirus situation as it unfolds. At this current time its business as usual but we have set up a contingency plan in place should we all have to work remotely. There will be no change in the support, service, or experience for you and your sites or business.

What does this mean for your business?

  • All current and future meetings have now been rescheduled via online meeting software (Zoom chat or Google Hangouts). Should you need to book a consultation or meeting please Book an online meeting here.
  • If you have any website or support requests you must email support@designbox.co.uk to ensure we can allocate the correct person to your request. 
  • Business opening hours will be the same as normal 09:00 – 17:30 Monday to Friday 
  • Please only call the mainline 01702 46431 or 0800 1933 655. Staff direct numbers may not be in operation.
  • Out of hours, support will remain for emergency situations (read below)

What to do in emergency situations

What we consider to be emergencies for out of hours support. 

  • Your website goes down (support available for website maintenance and or website hosting clients only).
  • If you can not send or receive emails (support available for email hosting clients only).
  • Should you suspect or experience any security issues (support available for website maintenance, website hosting and or email hosting clients only)
  • If you have an online web store and are unable to receive payments due to any technical errors (support available for website maintenance clients only).

If you are not on any of our website maintenance and support plans and or need assistance please email info@designbox.co.uk

If any of the above apply please call 0800 1933 655 or email support@designbox.co.uk and the team.

Out of hours you may incur slower response times and we may not able to always attend the phone, should this be the case please leave a short answer message or email support@designbox.co.uk and we will address your issue ASAP. 

We are here to help

Right now, we believe it’s more important than ever to provide you with peace of mind that your website will be looked after. We’ll continue to offer 24/7 support for your sites, provide successful marketing campaigns, and create helpful content for you and your teams. 

Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have experienced changes to your business that you need to discuss with us. 

Since the situation is fluid, we will continue to keep you all updated should that change.

2020 is going to be an exciting year for web design. With technology and devices evolving, the world of web is opening up to some exciting new design concepts to attract the user and improve their online experience. 

If you are looking for some design inspiration or catching up on some of the up and coming trends. I’ve put together a list that has caught my eye already this year. 

1. A collaboration of photos and illustrations

We’ve already begun seeing illustrations mixed with photos to add a 3D perspective and accentuate movement in images. This effect is curated to attract and sustain the viewer’s attention for longer while their mind breaks down what they see in the image. We hope to see more of this in 2020 and are excited to see how creative designers will go with this.

2. Creating 3D effects with layering & shadows

Layering & shadows can make or break a design; when done right like the images here by JPS Design, it can create a fantastic 3D effect, bringing the design to life. We are also starting to see these 3D effects with some slight animation to bring the designs to life. 

3. Precisely placed imperfections

This year we predict that designers will be pushing the boundaries of creativity more so than ever before. For quirky themed websites, brilliantly planned deliberate errors can create a quirky theme. Combined with some fun animation, this effect will keep the viewer want to explore more into your web pages.

4. Single line icons & Illustrations 

We saw abstract line icons come in to effect last year, with the likes of Facebook and many others jumping on board. These one-line icons take this trend to another level by combining simplicity with creativity together to form an elegant impression.

5. Gold patterns & accents

With the dark mode becoming increasingly popular, we are noticing striking gold/ metallic tones starting to appear in many designs. The colour gold conveys luxury and sophistication to offer an impressive impact. These also work amazingly well on minimalist designs and are perfect for contrasting on dark themes. 

I’m sure there are some more exciting things to come with designers & developers always looking to push the boundaries of what’s possible. 

Have you noticed any web design trends this year that you like?

Let me know in the comments.

SEO vs Google Ads

 SEO vs Google Ads: It is the big, debate everywhere, and everyone seems to fuel it with their own hard, opinions and brash tips and tricks.

Before we jump in, Google Ads and SEO – short for search engine optimisation – are two separate ways to boost your online presence and get your website, content, or business out there to thousands of potential leads, customers, and people. 

They’re different in the fact that SEO is all organic, meaning that you have paid for none of your clicks, leads, or customers directly, and that you have used the very best parts of your brain to formulate a great website with great descriptions and titles to impress google enough for it to go: “hey! i like this website and many of the pages inside it – let me show it to more people!

Google Ads on the other hand is PPC (pay-per-click), with you setting a budget where google places your created ad into an auction-like arena where your ad and others metaphorically battle it out to rank top. The winners are always those who set the right budget, but above all, have the most high-quality and relevant ad out of the bunch. The ads that win are placed at the very top of every keyword they won the battle in, always placed above your organic results where the SEO comes to place.

Now that thats clear, maybe you can begin to ponder the most common of questions: “which one is better?”

Don’t get worked up in that question – its a whole battle in itself: you don’t need to go there.

What Google Ads looks like within the search results page.

A SEO & Google Ads Scenario

So okay, let’s put the size of the business aside for a minute and imagine two businesses are competing in the same sowing industry: one company is called SowingCo, and the other is called KnitForU. Now, SowingCo detests the idea of spending money on ads, so they use SEO alone, while KnitForU decides to listen to those pesky blogs about how SEO is dead and decides to choose Google Ads exclusively. 

Okay scenario set, right?

SowingCo finds that they have to put in a lot of effort to really push for good SEO, and the task ahead is daunting, especially when those Ads hang right above the organic rankings. However, after a few months, their website begins to rank higher and higher and they begin producing leads. Now, they sell sowing products, which don’t sell for too much, so SowingCo doesn’t even have to worry about the cost of these leads because they’re all organic (for now). They pump in some SEO work, and boom they’re beginning to make money. So far – they’re very happy with SEO!

Now, there is KnitForU rustling through the endless steps to set up their Google Ads and then suddenly: boom – they do it. they’ve set up their account, made a campaign with various ad groups, with plenty of great ads, and the Ads begin popping up instantly. They see how they get quick results, and they notice SowingCo just beneath their ads. They are very happy with Google Ads bringing in their targeted leads, being above SowingCo.

Sounds all great?

Well, Here’s The Problem…

KnitForU notices how expensive their Ads are in comparison to the price of their products and begin to worry about their ROI (return on investment). They’re making a profit, but they’ve heard SowingCo doesn’t have to spend much money at all on their leads. They also begin to notice that their brand name is completely overshadowed by KnitForU in the organic ranking. They brush it aside because their Ads still run at the top of the screen.

SowingCO now taking over the organic rankings, are over the moon. Business is well and they have put SEO on this grand pedestal they keep recommending to all their business friends at their annual Christmas party, much to everyone’s distaste. They notice, however, it is very hard to maintain. It’s getting more and more time consuming and content creation is getting harder as the bowl of ideas runs dry. Soon, SowingCo begins to drop in ranking simply because they are struggling to manage it all and they realise truly how inexperienced they are. So, they hire somebody for their SEO. Happy days, right? Well – no. the reason they didn’t want to use Google Ads is because of the cost and now look at them: paying an entire wage they can barely afford just to maintain their organic ranking. They also found that it took too long to start wielding results, but they brush that aside because it’s been a few months now and it’s fine – they like to say.

Yeah…

Both companies realise that there are pros and cons of both, and in the end, they settle for a good blend of both. They find that their leads fluctuate from time to in both categories, but SowingCo can now relax their SEO, gaining a boost from Google Ads, and KnitForU recaptures their top rank for their brand name and the mixture of organic and Google Ad sales help soften the ROI, giving them a long-term hold on their online future.

You see, even that example isn’t a solid one, because it requires a small/large business to find what works best for their industry, size, and capacity. but whatever you do, don’t put one aside for the other. This isn’t a debate, but more of a misunderstanding between two sides. SEO isn’t dead, and Google Ads isn’t unnecessary. They have their pro’s and cons, just like anything else

Alright – we’ll drop the scenario for some proper facts and points you may seriously consider when finding your sweet blend between Google Ads and SEO. For example, did you know that 72% of marketers on the Internet state that SEO is the most effective tactic for content marketing?

In fact, let’s list some pro’s and con’s down below, just so we can grasp the facts which people may point out and either praise – or hate about both Google Ads and SEO.  

Here’s Some Pro’s & Cons:

Google Ads Pros & Cons

The Pros:

  • Instant results for your business
  • Can appear on various formats, like display, video, search, and app , unlike organic results.
  • Easier to micro-manage and control.
  • Businesses make a good average of $2 in revenue for every $1 they spend on Google Ads
  • Using various Ad formats drives an 80% higher rate of physical store visits for local businesses

The Cons:

  • 80% of users actually ignore advertisements on Google.
  • Is not a long-term solution.
  • Can become expensive quickly.
  • Stricter policies on what is accepted on your site and ad.
  • Takes time to master and gain experience with.

SEO Pros & Cons

The Pros:

  • 61% of mobile users are more likely to contact a local business if its site is SEO optimised.
  • SEO is a long-term solution.
  • 51% of searchers are at more chance to buy items from mobile if the website is SEO optimised.
  • SEO creates 20 times more traffic potential than PPC does on all devices.
  • Organic traffic accounts for over 40% of all revenue.

The Cons:

  • Results from SEO will take time to come through.
  • SEO is unpredictable. The algorithm changes constantly.
  • Less access to reports on audience, conversions etc.
  • SEO isn’t guaranteed to reach a 1st page ranking.
  • Show below ads at all times.

In Conclusion:

Try both. 

Maybe eventually you’ll form your own harsh, brash opinions on which one you believe is best and argue endlessly till you collapse; but one thing is for sure: don’t brush one or the other off, even if one aggravates you to the core. You’ll quickly realise that using the two in cooperation yields great results. You may see that one does better than the other, but that is no reason to throw the lesser away.

I go back to my first point: it’s subjective, and there will always be a different answer for different businesses, 

Here’s a blog about Google Ads which may help with your choice: Click here!

Is Your Business Ready For Christmas?

Christmas is coming FAST.

We all feel it, and we all know it’s coming. Once summer ends, Halloween and Christmas always take centre stage. As we’re all very well aware, Christmas is a big time for business each year (it’s why you’re reading this, right?).

Some businesses are preparing, and some are not; and so, we present: “how to prepare your business online for Christmas”.

Late To The Party?

If you haven’t started already, things may be a little harder than usual, simply because the ideal time to begin mapping out your Christmas strategy is in August. 

Ideally in August, you’d have begun an SEO, long-term plan (Search Engine Optimisation) and have had your website ranking up in Google by the time Christmas swang around. A new website isn’t an option either – leave that for the new year or spring – as a quality website will take much more than just a few months to construct, code, create, design, test, and all that malarkey.

However, don’t you concern yourself with missed opportunities, but instead let us focus on the possible actions you can take with these Christmas marketing tips.

Information Sourced From: “https://www.theatlas.com/charts/BkEvv8kpX”

Create A Newsletter

Creating a marketing campaign for Christmas is vital if you want to increase Christmas sales. Your business will thrive on returning customers, so focusing on your email lists is essential. Remarketing is essential at Christmas: people like building trust with the companies they purchase from. So, why don’t you construct a few new Christmas-themed emails, create an email list or use one you might already have, and get those emails flying!

Here’s a blog built entirely around this topic if you want to learn more: 

“10 reasons you need to start email marketing”

Get In The Christmas Spirit!

It sounds like an obvious one.

But honestly, getting into the Christmas spirit is the right direction if you want to rake in all that Christmas-rush euphoria. People love Christmas, that’s why they spend so much on it each year. 

Let’s put it this way: let’s imagine trickle treaters on Halloween as customers, and your house is, well, your company. It’s common knowledge that if you don’t have decorations on your home, the trickle treaters won’t come to your house.

This analogy is valid for business at Christmas too as customers will overlook your brand if you haven’t embraced the Christmas spirit as many bigger companies do each year perfectly. Yeah, you’ll get some sales, but to truly tap into that Christmas rush, you need to become apart of it. 

Add a little extra to your website this Christmas, decorate your shop, create a themed event, post Christmas social media posts: whatever you do, the Christmas possibilities are endless!

Information sourced from: “https://www.marketingweek.com/uk-consumers-to-spend-7-less-this-christmas/”

Google Ads

It’s an effective way to get your business in the search engine almost instantly. It’s also a  great remedy for a last-minute Christmas business plan, which is probably what you’re trying to concoct up now by reading this. The ads are fully customisable, can link to a phone number, your website, and more. This means you’ll be thrown straight to the top, if done correctly – almost right away!

This would be ideal for you and your business at Christmas, as you really don’t have time to implement strategies like SEO at this point in the year. So, if you still want to be apart of Google this Christmas, then Google Ads might suit you best.

This is especially the case when it comes to ecommerce websites. When it comes to Christmas, many more opportunities for keywords start to crop up.

When you have sales before Christmas, Google Ads becomes very important because it is a quick way to get people to click on your website.

This becomes essential when you are working within a limited time period and you want to ensure that you are appearing as high as possible in the search results.

Black Friday & Cyber Monday

It’s easy to focus on Christmas so much that you forget about the other great holidays for business in the season. Hop in on the discount wave this Black Friday and Cyber Monday; or, consider merging my last few tips back in the blog with Black Friday & Cyber Monday in mind too.

For example, make an email campaign to target these holidays. Google ads too? Prepare some ads to put out when Black Friday comes round the corner!

Anything we’ve already mentioned, apply it to these holidays too. This is when most people buy their Christmas presents in preparation, and you sure would be sorry if you missed out on that.

For some businesses, this is potentially the biggest day of the year so you should allocate enough capital into your marketing budget as possible.

Yes, it may cost more than you are used to spending on marketing, however, you can expect to make back that money easily if the fruits of your marketing efforts are successful.

This isn’t just dependent on the money you put in, but the time as well. By doing extensive research into your target marketing, you can ensure that this increased use of budget will not go to waste.

Customise Christmas To Your Market

It’s easy telling you how to do this all; however, you have to take all advice, including this blog, lightly. Apply what tips suit your market best and ignore that which may detriment you in dangerous ways. 

For example, Google Ads may not be the best option for you in your industry at Christmas time, especially if your competition is plenty and your products are cheap. You may find yourself throwing your valuable money into Google Ads just to keep up with all your competition at Christmastime. You may even lose money.

Just do your market research, see how Christmas affects your particular industry and pick and mix whatever works best. You might be mistaken that Christmas means good business for every single sector, but you might even find yourself in an industry which might find little benefit from the Christmas rush.

In Conclusion,

In conclusion, the Christmas rush is a great time for business, including the smaller holidays that are included in the season like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

However, you need to find Christmas marketing tips that work for your business, and if you want to catch the rush this year, then consider the faster options like email campaigns and Google Ads.

Whatever you do, at Design Box Media, we hope you’ll have a prosperous and merry Christmas this year.

If you don’t feel ready this year, don’t rush either: there’s always next year.

Why Use Email Marketing?

Why should your business start implementing email marketing? Could it be the impressive ROI of £30 for every £1 spent? Or the potential reach of 5.6 billion active email accounts

As a company that is experienced in providing email marketing services for all kinds of businesses, we wanted to share out thoughts.

Here, we list our top 10 reasons to start email marketing today.

Well, What Is Email Marketing?

Email marketing promotes your products and services whilst simultaneously creating a healthy relationship with both existing and potential customers.

It can be entirely cost-free and still stands as the most successful method of marketing, providing you with direct access to your target audience’s personal mailbox, whether this is viewed on their desktop, tablet or mobile.

Email is an extremely simple (and eco-friendly) method to convey your message, with your customers being 45 times more likely to see your email compared to a post on social media.

1 – Personalised Marketing

Email allows you to create a persona for your company; a writing style which suits your approach to business and a tone of voice which will appeal to your target audience.

Email is a platform to express yourself and appeal to your customer directly, whether this is through the design of the email, the main body of text or even the subject line.

Many email platforms such as ActiveCampaign, MailerLite and MailChimp include features which allow you to create a subject line targeted to the recipient, such as “{First Name}, a £10 voucher code just for you!”.

Using this technique creates a personalised experience for the reader, resulting in them feeling important and gaining trust in your company.

2 – Expanded Exposure

A main advantage of email marketing is the huge and ever-expanding reach it creates for your company.

With 5.6 billion active email accounts and 99% of consumers checking their email every single day, this is evidently a platform which receives attention, regardless of which industry you are promoting.

Any customer who provides you with their email address (this could be through a social media competition or even a simple newsletter signup) automatically turns into a free audience for your products, services and offers.

3 – Build Trust And Credibility

Customers purchase from companies who they know and trust, by sending regular emails to your contact list, this helps to keep you in the mind of potential clients, and when given the choice, people tend to purchase from companies they are familiar with and have had past communications with.

4 – A Reach Across Multiple Devices

With emails being able to be accessed anywhere and at any time; on desktops, tablets and mobiles, email allows your company to create a communication platform which conforms to all of these devices.

Mobile phones account for 46% of all email opens, meaning a mobile-friendly email creates the perfect way to showcase your business and its benefits.

5 – High Return On Investment

Email marketing is the most effective method of digital marketing, resulting in a 122% Return On Investment, a figure that is four times higher than any other marketing channel.

6 – All Capabilities

Email marketing can be a low-cost method for reaching your customers, with the ability for any non-tech-savvy business owner to create a basic email template.

Of course, you can create highly engaging and perfectly designed emails with a professional image if you have a creative flair and the ability to navigate your way around the many email marketing software available.

We also offer a service to create your email newsletters on your behalf, find out more here.

7 – Create Automations

Automated email marketing is a popular solution for companies to promote their services at all times, automatically.

One example is through “abandon cart” when personalised emails are sent to customers who have left specific products in their cart without purchasing.

These can work as reminders and also incentives if paired with an enticing offer. Another example is creating an “email marketing funnel”, where a series of emails are sent to new or existing customers based on their interests and can alter depending on which actions they take when receiving the emails.

8 – Discover What Works For Your Customers

By using email marketing, the software available provide you with statistics which let you know how your emails are performing; giving you an indication of what works and what doesn’t work.

This could be a simple detail such as adding an emoji into your subject line, a technique which 56% of companies experienced a higher open rate when using.

9 – Increase Traffic To Your Website

By including “call to actions” in your emails, potential customers who are interested in your products and services tend to click through to your website, ganging an increase in traffic and potentially an increase in leads.

Clicks to your website through emails is also measurable on many email marketing platforms.

10 – Create Relationships

When customers receive regular and personalised emails, they feel connected to your business, building a foundation of trust and credibility.

Additionally, giving the recipient an option to contact you directly or including social media links in the footer of your emails adds an even deeper level of communication and a feel of humanity towards your business.

Email Marketing Problems

Segmenting your audience correctly:

Your customers would rather not be inundated with copious emails for a variety of products and services they may not be interested in.

By sending multiple and irrelevant emails to people may result in them unsubscribing entirely from your email list.

To ensure this doesn’t happen, your segmentation needs to be organised perfectly.

To do this, you need to divide your audience into sections such as age, gender, their purchase history, geographic location, sales funnel location and even the paths (webpages) they interact with on your website.

Following this method will assist with sending your customers emails that they will be personally interested in, resulting in higher conversion figures for your email marketing. 

Forgetting about your existing customer base:

Many businesses focus on bringing in new customers; with offers for first time purchases and incentives to drive potential new customers to purchase your products/services.

We find that your existing customers should be who you focus on retaining, offering loyalty programs and special discounts for your loyal customers.

Practising this method aims to create healthy relationships by building trust and credibility for your brand. 

Low open rates:

If your emails are not being opened, the main reason for this will be your subject line, as this is the only element of your email which can be viewed without the email being opened.

Your aim is to capture the interest of your audience to entice them into opening the email.

To overcome this, the best method is to carry out subject line testing; discovering which subject line receives the highest amount of opens and which ones are less successful. 

Gaining subscribers:

If you have brilliant content, it’s completely useless if you have no audience to share it with.

To help build your list of subscribers it may be worth offering a discount or an incentive, ensuring your sign up process is quick and simple, and show what material/content/offers they will gain by signing up to your newsletters. 

Why Use Email Marketing?

These ten reasons are only a handful of advantages to starting email marketing, a simple yet extremely effective method of marketing to gain exposure, awareness and new customers for your business.

Being an inexpensive technique for all industries, this method is risk-free and easy to improve once you start creating emails have the ability to see how they are performing.

Feel free ask any questions in the comments section below.

Our new Client marketing dashboard

Do you ever feel like you struggle to keep track of your online marketing and get lost on the many different platforms? To make things simple for our clients, at Design Box Media we’ve created a brand new, fully customisable marketing dashboard displaying over 30 marketing integrations including SEO, PPC, Social Media and many more. Our new dashboard sends automatic monthly reports to our clients for any chosen integration. We will be offering this service completely free of charge to our existing marketing clients and will provide them with their personally dedicated login.

Our main goal is to be transparent and completely honest with our clients, giving them the same access we have to their marketing statistics. We also want to ensure our clients understand their online marketing, our new dashboard breaks down all the components of online marketing into a number of sections with easy to read pie charts, graphs and statistics with an extremely easy to use interface.

What Exactly does our dashboard include?

seo

  • View your rankings for all your keywords in a both Google and Bing and the live changes of these rankings.
  • See all of the backlinks to your site along with their trust flow score and citation flow score. You can also find out if your site has any new links, lost links and if these links are follow or nofollow.
  • Keep track of your competition by being able to add up to ten competitors.
  • Run site audits to keep up to date with any errors, warnings and notices.
  • See which pages and keywords gain the most traffic to your site.




analytics

  • View how many sessions your site has and if these sessions are gained from organic search, direct, paid search, social or referrals.
  • Gain information on the average time of each session, the percentage of how many of these sessions are new and the average bounce rate.
  • Take a look at your who’s interacting with your business, our new dashboard displays where your audience is (worldwide), their age, gender and the device they use.
  • Your conversions.
  • Which pages get the most traffic and which are the most popular pages to exit your site on.



social

  • Our dashboard integrates with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, LinkedIn and Google+.
  • See how much engagement your social media receives, including likes, shares and comments.
  • Where your engagement is coming from; showing the top countries, cities and languages interested in your business.
  • Who is engaging in your social media; find out the age and gender of your audience.
  • See how much of your engagement is organic compared to being paid for.




adverts

  • View all your adverts in one place, keeping track of all your campaigns, ad groups, ads and conversions.
  • We can integrate your dashboard with Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, Bing Ads, LinkedIn Ads and Ad Roll.
  • See how much you’ve spent overall on adverts, how much you’re paying per conversion and how much you’re paying per click.
  • Find out which campaigns, ad groups and adverts are the most successful.

email

  • Keep track of email campaigns, how many emails have been sent and how many have been opened.
  • View the percentage of recipients who have opened your email and the average bounce rate.
  • See how many people have unsubscribed from that particular email.
  • View the date and time of every email campaign you have sent.




reports

  • Receive a monthly report on a specific date straight to your chosen email inbox.
  • Reports include updates on every component that is featured on your custom dashboard.




Each of our marketing clients will be able to have their own personal log in, giving you exclusive access to your own personal custom dashboard. All of these features can be viewed in a monthly, weekly, daily or custom basis, allowing you to see your statistics in a specific timeline if needed. For example, you can view your spend on Google Adwords throughout the month, week or specific day.

Our new dashboard is nearly ready to launch, coming to all of our marketing clients in August. If you have any questions or are interested in gaining access to our dashboard by becoming one of our marketing clients, feel free to contact us.


CONTACT US

7 Tips For eCommerce

There is SEO, and then there is SEO for eCommerce. While some of the typical SEO tips you will see on the web are certainly relevant for eCommerce sites, there are some best practices that are unique to the web addresses of online retailers. In this blog, we run through seven SEO tips for eCommerce websites: 

1. Optimise your product pages

There are plenty of ways in which you can improve the product pages on your e-commerce site for the purposes of SEO. There are many ways in which product pages can easily be ineffective in your push for search engine ranking leaps. Duplicate or substandard content can be just some of the typical weak spots. So, ensure your product descriptions are unique, that you include metadata, and encourage user-generated content such as reviews.

Another thing to consider is alt descriptions. Alt descriptions are important for any website to improve the accessibility of web pages for images. However, when it comes to e-commerce, this is absolutely crucial. Since your focus is on individual products, it becomes more important to provide alternate descriptions for images so that people are fully aware of the product they are looking to purchase.

This goes without saying, but remember to add mentions of your target keyword into all the key areas of the page, this would be the title tag, h1 and within the first 100 words of the body content. Adding a mention in the meta description and alt description can also be good, but try not to make it look like you’re adding the keyword for the sake of it.

2. Optimise your category pages

If you are looking for a home for your top-level keywords, you have one right here on your category pages. This is a way of driving high traffic by including keywords that are focused on the product terms online shoppers are searching for.

Your text should be rich, with at least a paragraph describing what the category is about and which kind of products are included. And if you’re in the process of link building, try to focus on including links to these category pages, as this is recognised as a helpful SEO practice.

Because you ideally want your product pages to not contain too much unnecessary content, category pages are the perfect place to add that content instead, making them a great resource to internally link to as well as providing further opportunities to mention target keywords.

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3. Organise your site navigation

Structuring your site in a Google-friendly layout is essential:

  • Consider adding several landing pages for specific brands or product types. This allows you to optimise for multiple keyword groups and multiple pages – in turn this increases your site’s visibility when search.
  • Include category level navigation on drop down menus.
  • Organise your URLS in the following formation:
  • yourwebsite.com/category
  • yourwebsite.com/category/sub-category
  • yourwebsite.com/category/sub-category/product-name
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4. Say yes to HTTPS

Switching to HTTPS can be beneficial for all websites, but it is especially pertinent for eCommerce. That’s because this security feature assures encryption for visitors to your website and protects their activities. It is even more important considering the personal details which can be exchanged over eCommerce sites, including payment information. An HTTPS URL gives visitors to your site the reassuring padlock symbol and green part of the address bar. More importantly, users need not be issued a security warning that your eCommerce site is not encrypted and risks being a deceptive platform. This can see many potential visitors turn back before they even start shopping.

5. Understand the potential problem with a filter system

Filter search systems can undoubtedly be helpful to eCommerce customers, allowing them to narrow down items as they browse for a particular product. But they can also be counterproductive when it comes to SEO. That’s because they have the effect of producing a large number of indexed pages, on which it is likely that there is a lot of duplicate content. Google is recognised as not liking duplicate content, so if your number of index pages are spiralling out of control, the best answer could be to add a parameters noindex follow with a meta robots tag.

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6. Use internal links naturally

Google will notice when you’re overusing internal links, ensure your use of internal links is natural. For example, placing an internal link to another related product on a product page would be natural. Opposed to overfilling your pages with irrelevant internal links. In addition, placing links on your homepage to your products will also help the product’s page rank score and be easier for customers to navigate.

One way to prepare for this is to plan an internal linking structure. If you can map out each of your pages, you should be able to see which ones are relevant to each other and therefore, which pages should logically be connected to each other. This is not so much experience and technique as it is applying logic and what you as a customer would expect upon visiting a web page.

7. Keyword research

Keyword research should be the main priority for any SEO plan. Knowing what your customers are searching for helps you gain an insight into what they are physically typing into search engines when searching for certain products you sell. This allows you to focus on keywords and phrases which will get noticed by potential customers. This of course does not mean filling your pages with keywords. There is no need to constantly use the same keyword throughout your page. Google’s Latent Semantic Indexing means Google uses context clues to recognise what the content is about. Top sites for keyword research include Google’s Keyword PlannerSEMRush and Moz.

SEO for eCommerce websites takes on a whole new importance and offers a real incentive for site admins to keep up with all the latest tips and tricks. We hope these SEO tips for eCommerce websites can help boost your SEO traction.

eCommerce and the end of cash

eCommerce and the end of cash!

Scary, huh?

Well, whether tech scares you or not, we are moving closer and closer to a cashless society. Bank accounts and contactless cards have allowed us to pay for items in shops without handing over any cash and the same is true online – eCommerce websites function without the need for anything physical.

In a world where physical cash is fast losing relevance – don’t worry – this is a competitive edge.

You may be panicking: scared of an ever-changing world where the physical becomes the virtual, but you’d be mistaken to throw eCommerce aside as just another beast of technology. Once you learn how to command that technology you’ll no longer fear change; but instead, you’ll openly accept it as you notice how much it can benefit you!

In the last few decades, the online world has changed enormously!  Global business has moved onto the internet and today, the biggest companies in the world are built entirely on technology. Facebook, Google, and Amazon are all online, and they simply could not function with cash alone.

It’s Astonishing…

eCommerce websites are an incredible tool for consumers and businesses alike. With sites like Amazon offering one-day delivery for absolutely everything you need, we are closer than ever to living in a world where almost all transactions take place online.

But what does this mean for businesses? 

Well, it means that you need to be just as ready to accept card and bank payments on your site as you are to make them in the real world. Whether you offer services or products, you need to be able to get paid for it.

What do you need to take payments online?

Firstly, taking payments online requires a number of tools.

If you sell products then you will need cart functionality attached to your site so that products can be added to a basket and bought all at once.

You will also need to have online payment gateway functionality added – this will mean having a secure site with the right software added. It is worth looking into this as there is a range of options available – some are more suitable for specific industries, and almost all payment gateways offer their own benefits and price plans.

You will also need a merchant account. Whether you are taking payments by card in person or online, a merchant account will facilitate it. Most merchant accounts will work with payment gateways – mentioned above – to ensure that your customers have a streamlined, secure and easy payment process, from start to finish.

Plugins or bespoke functionality?

Depending on the website builder or CMS you use, there will be a range of options when it comes to setting up online, cashless payments for an eCommerce website.

On common platforms like WordPress, for example, there is a range of plugins available that can be easily and securely set up so that the entire online shopping process can be integrated. Other CMSs may require a bespoke approach and will need the work of web designers and developers. Neither approach is wrong, but the one you choose will depend on the system you have in place.

In conclusion

You need to get online.

Whether you like technology or not, if you want your business to thrive, you have no choice in the matter. A business with an online presence is a happy one.

Thriving businesses need to make use of the online world, and they need to be able to operate without cash. Think about how often you actually carry cash nowadays.

If you don’t expect to pay with physical money, then why would your customers?

Top 10 Things To Look For When Purchasing Website Hosting

So, you’ve decided to take the step of building a website. It could be for a number of reasons. A new business venture, a personal blog, or an online resume are among the more popular choices, but regardless of your reason, you will eventually come to one of the most important decisions you have to make: purchasing website hosting.

Making sure you buy the correct website hosting for your needs is a crucial part of the process, and will make other factors easier to deal with down the line.

1. Identify What Your Hosting Needs Are

This is the first step you should be taking. You have to understand what your hosting requirements are before you make any kind of decision.

Some questions you may want to ask yourself include:

What kind of website are you building? What platform are you using? Do you have a rough idea of the level of traffic you’re going to be getting? Are you looking to build and then scale within the next year?

Write the answer to these questions down and you’ll have a clearer picture moving forward of which website hosting is right for you.

2. Are You Using WordPress?

WordPress websites now account for 30% of all websites in existence, so to say it’s a popular choice would be a large understatement.

Most start-up company tips that involve information about building a website will touch on WordPress, and with good reason.

When it comes to hosting though, you should look at what WordPress-specific services they offer if you’re choosing to go down the WordPress route. Many offer “one-click” setup these days. This is a great option for those who aren’t as tech-savvy and want to get their site up and running as quickly as possible.

3. Look For Reliability And Server Up-time

Before choosing a website hosting provider you have to make sure that the provider has a great record when it comes to reliability and server uptime.

You want your website to spend as little amount of time offline as possible – as a rule of thumb, anything below 99% is not considered reliable – so working with a hosting company which offers a stable network connection and uses high-quality hardware is crucial.

Our WordPress server auto-scaling service https://designboxhosting.co.uk/wordpress-hosting-platform/ is load-balanced, ensuring your hosting reacts to your user demand and doesn’t experience sudden downtime due to unexpected traffic.

4. Initial Cost And Renewal Cost

Many website hosting companies will try to draw you in with very attractive signup costs, but what some of them will do is increase the renewal costs.

It is pretty standard for a hosting company to offer a discounted price when you sign up, but look out for companies who increase the cost of renewal by a sizeable amount.

You’ll have to make a judgement call when it comes to the cost of renewing, and remember to take other factors into account when weighing up this decision. Don’t go for the cheap option if the company providing the service isn’t up to scratch in other ways.

5. Upgrade Options

When you first get started you’ll find that shared web hosting will suffice; unless you’re anticipating high levels of traffic from the get-go.

For most new sites, shared hosting is the sensible option, allowing you to grow your site while paying web hosting costs that won’t break the bank.

One of the most important things to consider when choosing a web hosting provider is how well they can accommodate your future needs. I

f you plan on running out of space for all those photo galleries and video uploads in the near future, it would be wise to find an affordable website host that can provide enough storage for your site’s growth before anything bad happens!

You’ll want to check the upgrading options of your chosen web hosting company to make sure that you can upgrade easily if and when your site starts to grow to the extent that a dedicated server may be required.

6. Number Of Websites

An important factor to consider if you plan on running more than one website on your hosting plan.

You may initially see web hosting available at a low introductory price, but be sure to check the number of websites you’re permitted to have.

Many of the lowest-cost options only allow for one site, and this is fine if you’re only planning on creating a single website, but if you think that there’s even a small chance you may decide to increase that number then you’d be better going for an option that provides some flexibility. Usually, the next pricing tier will offer this option.

7. Customer Service

A non-technical factor in your decision, and for that reason, it’s often ignored.

You’ll want to make sure that if you run into problems you’ve got access to a good level of customer service.

Do they offer email support? Or do they provide a live chat feature? How long do they take to respond? Are they available 24/7? Or only during business hours?

A good host should provide 24/7 monitoring and support. This way, if anything goes wrong you will be able to get help quickly from your hosting provider without having to wait for someone’s availability or worrying about what time it is there.

If this kind of support cannot be guaranteed by your hosting provider then you should seriously consider other options. When it comes to hosting, there are many opportunities for things to go wrong and if you’re struggling to get in touch, everyone loses.

8. Migration Services

In the near future, you may find yourself needing to make significant changes to your website, whether that’s in terms of the structure, the content or the underlying coding itself.

A poorly-handled site migration can result in a costly drop in search engine traffic which can take a long time to resolve, so when looking for a website hosting provider, you want to make sure that they can handle a full site migration in a planned and professional manner.

We offer free migration services for both websites and emails.

9. E-Commerce Compatibility

Depending on the type of business or site you’re looking to create, e-commerce website options will be an important factor in your decision.

Look for e-commerce specific factors, such as SSL certificates, dedicated IPs and data centre location. It may also be worth checking that your hosting is PCI-DSS compliant – this is a necessary certification to have if you handle customer credit or debit card information.

E-commerce web design is a huge factor for any website owner who has plans to provide their visitors with any kind of online store.

10. Site Backups

A website crash is every website owner’s worst nightmare.

Website backups allow you to restore your website to a point where it was working perfectly, so it’s the safety net that all website owners require.

Website backups are often included in the hosting plan, but it’s important to ask when you’re signing up. Backups will usually be taken off your website daily automatically and kept for seven days, enabling you to restore your site if need arises.

Make sure to check that your web hosting company backs up their sites regularly, and also look for other options such as assistance in restoring your site, especially if you’re not all that tech-savvy.

At Design Box Media, we can help you address all of the above 10 points with our specialist WordPress hosting service. To find out more about how we can help you with our hosting, please get in touch with us today.

How Much Does A Website Cost in the UK?

How Much Does A Website Really Cost?

That is the defining question we all like to ask! Well, when it comes to creating a website, the term “you get what you pay for” really is put into place. If you’re hoping for a prize-winning website that’s dynamic and eye-catching; you’re unlikely to recreate similar effects using free website templates, but web design service costs do vary tremendously!

Comparison Of Different Website Designs And Their Costs

In many ways you could compare website designs to cars.

How?

The top-of-the-range, all-singing, all-dancing sites are like exclusive sports cars. They’re fast, reliable, feature many gadgets and most of all, engage visitors. Upmarket sites purr along like BMWs or Mercedes; they look professional and have high success and conversion rates. Everyday websites might be looked on as the runaround cars that chug along and provide a basic design and minimum details, these need a lot of work and extra features if success is to be achieved. Finally, free template designs and website hosting plans are similar to those cheap, second-hand cars, being unreliable and unlikely to be found by search engines.
So, what does this car metaphor mean for the costs of different website designs? Let’s take a look!

BASIC BROCHURE WEBSITES
SECOND-HAND VEHICLE TYPE WEBSITES (£0 – £1000)

You could compare DIY websites to second-hand cars; these sites are often built using standard templates offered by web-building platforms and can be very similar to each other. Platforms like Wix and Weebly are popular for DIY site creation. Owners will only need to pay for domain hosting, which could cost anything from zero up to around £1000. It is possible to build your own eye-catching website using web-building platforms; however these sites take a lot of time, effort and creativity. DIY sites also have a large amount of limitations. If you’re on a very tight budget of under £1,000 then consider using a DIY site.

CUSTOM BROCHURE WEBSITES
EVERYDAY RUNAROUND STYLE WEBSITES (£1,000 – £5,000)

Typically, small business websites could be compared to your run of the mill, runaround vehicle. These sites usually cost between £1,000 and £5,000 to build; although developer costs do vary. They generally feature a fair amount of business information; such as employee bios and downloadable product data. These will usually have integration with social media sites, Google Maps and Google Analytics. Hiring a website developer to build these sorts of sites helps to create a visual brand image and add a professional touch.

ECOMMERCE WEBSITES OR CUSTOM FEATURE WEBSITES
BMW OR MERCEDES STYLE WEBSITES (£3,000 – £25,000)

E-commerce websites and custom bespoke websites could be a typical example of the luxury, professional style epitomised by BMWs or Mercedes. The most popular e-commerce sites need to be slick and professional in order to attract customers and integrate the entire order management system. These sites also provide a higher level of functionality and would cost between £3,000 to £40,000 (the most we’ve done) to design and build.

ALL-SINGING-ALL-DANCING WEBSITES
SPORTS CAR WEBSITES (£10,000 – £50,000+)

You could consider the bespoke websites created by larger companies as upmarket sports cars in the world of website design. These sites are custom created; tailored to meet the needs of individual corporations. They can be lead generating websites or Ecommerce, either way, they are perfectly moulded for their intended purpose. These sites don’t feature any of the standard website templates that are common to smaller sites and tend to require advanced functionality. Some of these sites are database driven and update content on an automated basis as a result of customer interactions. Websites of this nature can cost from around £10,000 to £50,000 + to produce.

What are the differences in hiring a digital agency or a freelancer?

Now that the whole car metaphor is out of the way, let’s consider some another aspect which may affect the cost of a website: hiring a digital agency or a freelancer. We can start by throwing out some thoughts on the matter, before we get to that pesky price:

An Agency:

  • Will have a whole team working for their clients. Agencies will have a team of people focused solely on the design of your website who are fully skilled in this single component.
  • Will cover marketing and SEO to an extremely high standard. Even if you have an exceptional site, it will be worthless if people are unable to find your site on search engines. If wanted, an agency will continue working with you and set up a marketing strategy to ensure success for your business.
  • Will once again have a team of people who will be ready for any questions and queries; normally having an individual dedicated to your website.

A Freelancer:

  • Will take on all the components on an individual basis. A freelancer may still be skilled in a few fields, although it is rare to find a freelancer who is fluent in all areas.
  • May have many clients and be stretched between communicating to them all on their own; this can effect the communication quality and quantity.

The cost comparison between freelancers and Agencies

If you felt like the last part was too harsh; well, freelancers do tend to be cheaper than digital agencies in terms of hourly or daily rates but this isn’t always reflected in the end cost. It all varies on whether you have a time limit, a tight budget, a larger budget, etc!

  • A freelancer will on average charge around £25 – £50 per hour or £200 – £300 per day.
  • A digital agency will on average charge around £50 – £200 per hour or £300 – £1000 per day.

When looking at the prices above it’s clear to see a freelancer is cheaper than an agency on paper, but, in the long run they may be more expensive! A freelancer is only one person creating a site; meaning the length of time taken will be significantly increased compared to that of a team of people. An agency will normally have more experience due to a larger client base and a wider range of websites. This enables an agency to have more skills to create your desired site, especially if you require bespoke components.

OUTSOURCING FOR YOUR SITE?

Alright, i know what you’re thinking: outsource?
Lets be honest and go on the record to say that there are many problems when outsourcing from cheaper countries for your website:

  • Unable to meet with face to face.
  • Time inconsistencies and delays.
  • Language barrier may be a problem when communicating your desired requests.
  • Harder to source a trustworthy company to share your data with.
  • Although cheaper there can be hidden costs you are unaware of until completion due to terms and conditions not being stated.

Overall; if you’re looking for a site with all components taken into account, a digital agency would be the better choice. If price is an issue remember an hourly/daily rate isn’t always as clear as it seems.

Payment Gateway For Your Online Shop

As a business owner with an e-commerce website, you know how important it is that the whole transaction is smooth, quick and easily accessible. We go through a payment gateway comparison for your online shop.

Browsing and buying your product/service is key to the customer experience, but what about paying for it? How do you ensure you create a good quality end-to-end customer experience, which is also good for you? Which payment gateways will work best for your business and be economically viable at the same time?

Read on for our comparison of some of the best known and most used payment gateways:

Stripe

Stripe is the new kid on the block having only been established in 2010. It doesn’t have an offline option but has a lot of flexibility online including being able to create regular subscriptions and offer mobile payments which put it ahead of some of its competitors.

Pricing with Stripe is good, in the fact that there is no monthly fee, the fees are fairly transparent and quite low in cost. You will find though that fees are the same for credit and debit cards, and that it’s fairly complex to integrate; so, it is probably not the best option for small businesses.

PayPal

PayPal is one of the big players and seems to have been around forever. A well-trusted brand, PayPal has fairly simple payment mechanisms, and is easy to use, and so is better for the small business owner rather than Stripe.

One of the key differences between PayPal and Stripe is that PayPal fees tend to be slightly higher.

Sage Pay

One of the key benefits of Sage Pay above the other payment gateways is that you can also use Sage Pay at the point of sale and on the telephone so it’s great for diverse use.

Sage Pay comes with the brand of the Sage accounting software, so it’s well trusted. Sage Pay has a flat fee per transaction, rather than a percentage of the transaction cost. This means if you’re making bigger sales this is likely to work out better for you.

The downside is that opening an account isn’t always speedy. It can take up to five weeks to activate and authorise accounts, so one of the other payment gateways would be a better option for taking transactions quickly. It also has a monthly fee, so again better for organisations with a larger turnover.

Worldpay

Worldpay offers a global payment system and if you’re a larger business making international sales, this is a very secure option. It’s well-known, trusted and offers fraud screening.

There is a monthly fee, although with larger numbers of transactions charges can decrease, therefore this benefits a business with bulk sales. It isn’t really ideal for small businesses, and it can take some time to set your account up, but it’s a good option for large, global e-commerce organisations.

Having compared the four, you’ll see that if you’re a small business with limited technical knowledge PayPal is likely to be the best option for you. If you operate outside of the e-commerce world and need telephone or point of sale payments, then Sage Pay is the one that offers this seamlessly.

Stripe is great for flexibility and taking multiple types of digital payments and Worldpay is first class when it comes to large, international companies.

Google frequently makes changes to its search algorithm. Since 2000, Google SEO updates, both large and small, number in the hundreds, and they all affect the way content climbs or falls down the search engine results pages (SERPs). As such, marketers must accept that there is always a new Google search algorithm on the way.

These frequent changes are not often explained in detail. This leads to great speculation around how to change Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) strategies to stay high in the rankings. While we are never certain of precisely how the algorithm has changed, we can look at a few areas to pay attention to for your SEO strategy in 2018.

1. Mobile-first indexing

Around 60% of searches are now performed on mobile devices. This means mobile compatibility will become essential as Google moves from ‘mobile-friendly’ to ‘mobile-first’. The index of the search giant has already been split in two. One for desktop, and one for mobile – and it seems the time of mobile taking priority is finally here. The two indexes are now combining into one, and mobile will be prioritised.
Reference.

2. Increased focus on Featured Snippets

‘Featured Snippets’ are what appears above regular content on SERPs. If you manage to rank for them, they can significantly boost click-through rates and site traffic. They take many forms, from reviews to lists to answer boxes or event dates.

Google is continuing to expand Featured Snippets in 2018, giving greater preference to structured data. This is a line of code that can be added to a website’s HTML to provide Featured Snippets. With the addition of structured data, you can do things like creating a knowledge card that offers a more visually pleasing overview of your business.

3. Linkless mentions

In 2017, it was suggested that Google had developed the ability to recognise mentions in the same way as a physical link. These so-called ‘linkless mentions’ could be testimonies, positive reviews or other unlinked mentions of your company, and this will play a real factor in SEO.

4. Security is paramount

Google announced some time ago that they give preference to HTTPS sites for security reasons, and thus rank them higher. In their latest roadmap, they revealed that 2018 is the year they start punishing websites that don’t add an SSL.

5. Voice commands

Voice searches through technologies like Cortana, Alexa and Siri have grown enormously over the past ten years. This upward trend is expected to continue, placing even more focus on mobile optimisation. It could also change the way search terms are structured, with more ‘neutral’ search phrases likely as people voice more fully formed questions.

Voice search is also set to work in tandem with Featured Snippets moving forward, as technology like Google Assistant will read them aloud as an answer to voice searches.

Keep in mind that the specifics of Google’s algorithm updates are always kept under wraps. But if you focus on the areas covered in this article, you are in a strong position to carry out SEO best practice in 2018.

GDPR Website Checklist – See If Your Website Is GDPR Compliant.

The General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, is a new set of rules which will replace the current UK Data Protection Act of 1998. The purpose of GDPR is to give people greater autonomy over how their data is used by companies, and this means hefty penalties could be levied at companies who fail to comply with the new rules. Every aspect of your business, from web maintenance to marketing strategy, is likely to be affected by GDPR – and it’s time to act now. Here we will go through GDPR for websites.

GDPR comes into legislation on May 25th 2018. Achieving GDPR compliance may seem like a struggle, but with this handy checklist you should be able to get your data up to scratch. While this list is far from exhaustive, it should give you a brief outline of the processes your business should be implementing to remain compliant in the following categories:

Legitimate interest:

• Use a layered privacy notice, with the most important information upfront, and more detailed policy underneath.
• Explain why the data of an individual is needed when collecting it.
• Inform individuals of what we will do with their data.
• Offer the right to refuse marketing.
• Collect the minimum data necessary.
• Delete records after use.

Asking for consent:

• Ask customers/prospects to opt-in to marketing.
• Use plain, easy-to-understand language.
• Let individuals know they can withdraw their consent.
• Inform individuals withdrawal of consent won’t be to their detriment.
• Don’t make consent a pre-condition of service.
• Keep a record of when and how consent was obtained.
• Don’t use “pre-ticked” boxes as standard in web design.
• Keep consent separate from terms & conditions.

Provisions of information – make individuals aware of the following:

• The contact details and identity of your organisation.
• Details of your assigned data protection officer.
• The details of any third parties their details may be passed onto.
• Details of countries outside the EU in which their data may be processed.
• How long individuals’ data will be stored, and why.
• If statutory or contract law requires the data of an individual.
• The right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office if the individual feels their data has been misused.
• The right of the individual to request the deletion of their data.
• The reasons for processing data.

Third -party data – if purchasing data, you must:

• Know how the list has been compiled.
• Know whether consent has been obtained/updated.
• Request that data has been screened against the Mailing Preference Service/Telephone Preference Service.
• Ensure your organisation was named during the data collection process.

Profiling:

• Explain how you profile an individual for marketing purposes if they request such information.
• Give everyone the option to opt out of profiling.

While implementing these points into your current data collection processes may seem a little bit complicated, don’t worry – you’re not alone. GDPR is set to affect thousands of businesses throughout the entire world, and if you feel like your team could use some help in ensuring compliance by May 25th, the good news is that Design Box is currently offering a service which updates seven key website areas to ensure compliance for just £99.

What does GDPR mean for your website?

If you own a business website, it’s essential that you’re up to date with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This represents four years of EU-wide effort to bring the Data Protection Act up to date in an increasingly digital world.

What does GDPR mean? GDPR gives people a far greater degree of control over the way that they allow organisations to save and make use of their data. Crucially, it also brings in hefty fines for any business that doesn’t stick to the rules or which has a data breach. It applies all across the EU – so Brexit isn’t a ‘get out of jail’ card!

Why has GDPR been brought into law?

Basically, the pace of change online means that organisations have been able to use – and sometimes abuse – individual data in ways never dreamed of when the original data protection acts were created across the EU. Tech giants and the Cambridge Analytica Scandal are just two notable reference points! GDPR also acts to standardise regulation in the field across the EU as a whole for consistency of approach. At the same time, the new act gives organisations far greater clarity over how they need to behave.

When does GDPR come into effect?

The GDPR is enforced across all EU member states as of 25th May this year. It’s a regulation too – which means that it applies in the UK automatically.

What happens if my business doesn’t comply with GDPR?

Hefty fines can be levied – both if you are found not to be compliant or if your business experiences a data breach. Fines of up to 20 Million Pounds or 4% of a business’s annual turnover have been specified.

Who does GDPR apply to?

GDPR Applies to all organisations that control or process data. Data controllers define how data is gathered and processed and how processors carry it out. So the act applies to all businesses – profit or non-profit, government organisations and charities who deal with any kind of personal data. Data controllers who outsource work to processors retain responsibility for the compliance of their customer data.

What does data processing look like within GDPR?

The key driver is that controllers must guarantee that all personal data that they hold is being processed transparently, lawfully and for a clear and defined purpose. Crucially, once that purpose has been achieved, the data should be removed and deleted.

The question of consent

One highly visible and vital aspect of the new regulation is the issue of consent. Pre-ticked consent boxes simply won’t suffice anymore. Data usage consent must now be affirmative and active by the customer. If you have started to receive emails from subscriber lists that you follow asking you whether you want to continue to receive communications, this is an example of GDPR being implemented. The controller must then keep a full record of when consent was obtained from an individual. The individual can then withdraw this consent at any point, and it must be fulfilled.

What is personal data now?

The definition of personal data has greatly expanded and it can even include IP addresses. It can also include cultural, mental health and economic information.

The right to be forgotten

GDPR also introduces the right to be forgotten, which allows individuals to request that their personal data be wholly and completely deleted from corporate records. Remember, if the regulation is now followed or a data breach occurs, heavy fines can follow.

Get the help that you need

If you aren’t yet up to speed with the changes needed on your business website before the new regulation goes live in May, we are offering a website GDPR 7-point update for just £99. Get in touch if you want to know more.

In our modern day and age, opportunities abound, and lots of them come from the internet. Yes, there are those who resent the moral decline of our teenagers and the evils of technology, but for most people, having access to the online world entails only good things: improved relationships with long distance friends and family, an easier and more streamlined day-to-day existence, and lots of chances for the entrepreneurial to make their mark on the world, including starting an eCommerce store.

At Design Box Media, we’re big fans of it, as you might imagine from our line of work. We see what people can achieve with an internet connection and eCommerce websites are something of a speciality for us.

Here to help those who need it, we’ve picked up some great e-commerce store tips and tricks along the way, so before you consider breaking into the business yourself, here are a few hard-earned insights you might find helpful when starting an eCommerce store…

#1: The customer is always right

Good customer service is a must for any successful business, and eCommerce enterprises will find they’re no exception to this rule – in fact, they’re probably even more bound by it than most.

The thing is that most people want just a few things from you, but if you fail to deliver on these, you’re highly likely to disappoint, and in doing so, to find yourself being criticised online.

The best way to avoid this is simple: provide a strong client experience from the word ‘go’. This means ensuring an easy checkout, quick posting, and a cost-effective but competent couriering service too. On the odd occasion that you do get it wrong, don’t quibble – apologise and try to make amends instead.

Even if an incident arises where you have been at fault to the customer or vice-versa, instead of using it as a mistake to dwell on, use it as a lesson that will allow you to ensure a more positive experience for customers moving forward.

It is important to take criticism in your stride and communicating your acceptance to learn from that criticism and improve upon it is something that can even turn a leaving customer into a returning one once again.

#2: Be explicit

Rule number two is another that should be obvious but sometimes isn’t. You need to be explicit with regards to your website content. Whereas a product bought in-store is available for inspection, buying remotely is a whole other ballgame.

People want to know exactly what they’re purchasing before they take the plunge. Make absolutely certain that any important information is included in your listing. You’re more likely to make a sale and less likely to find an item winging its way back to you.

This can go beyond just simply describing your product clearly. You need to ensure that the images of your products are high-quality images that are exactly as the product will appear in the hands of the customer.

Furthermore, there needs to be alt descriptions provided for each image in order to improve accessibility on your website.

This is partly because you need to consider people who may have disabilities that make it difficult for them to see certain images.

One more thing to bare in mind when it comes to being explicit with your product information is to ensure that the product is described well both on the page as well as within the title and meta description.

If you outline the specific features of the product, it is not only likely to catch more attention, but it will also reassure the customer as there are more areas that confirm the details of the product.

#3: Utilise every available opportunity

Last but not least, make sure you use the opportunities that are open to you when starting an eCommerce store. The internet provides a fantastic platform for raising your brand profile, but only if you take advantage of it.

One of the best things to take advantage of is Google shopping Ads. As some searches related to products will appear right at the top of SERPs, it is important to strategize around this so you can improve your chance of visibility for your products to prospective customers.

Market yourself, make the most of the free advertising offered by social media platforms, and be sure to brush up on invaluable skills like search engine optimisation and social media strategy.

We hope these tips for starting an ecommerce store will help you with your path to success. To learn how Design Box Media could help you with your eCommerce store, get in touch with our team today.

Google to mark HTTP insecure – From July 2018, Google is rolling out huge changes to the way it considers sites without SSL certificates. Sites with HTTP instead of HTTPS will be labelled as “insecure”. This will have huge implications for these site owners – particularly those operating retail or eCommerce websites.

Of course, this is nothing new – over the past couple of years, the search engine giant has been pushing hard for sites to adopt encrypted communication protocols. If your site is yet to offer an SSL certificate, here’s what you need to know:

1) Your search engine ranking could suffer

Sites which use SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) or Transport Layer Security (TLS) currently enjoy a boost in search rankings as per Google’s algorithm. When these sites are visited in Chrome, a green padlock icon is noticeable in the address bar. This highlights the fact that the site is safe to browse, and safe to enter personal details into. As you’ll no doubt be aware, search engine optimisation is important and now security is an increased part of it.

2) Consumer confidence in your site could drop

Sites simply without SSL don’t display the green padlock at present. As of July 2018 these pages will be marked as “not secure” within Chrome. This will ultimately result in a drop in overall consumer confidence, causing your prospects to convert elsewhere, after all, who would feel comfortable entering their credit card details on an insecure site? Don’t risk visitors abandoning your site at the first click – get secure today.

3) You may need to prepare straight away

Migrating from HTTP to HTTPS can be a reasonably large task. This depends on the scope of your project and the size of your site. If you’re still operating without an SSL certificate, perhaps it’s time to begin liaising with your eCommerce web design team to begin making the required changes – the sooner the better.

Ultimately, there’s no longer an excuse for sites to remain unencrypted. For more information on how to get your site ready for Google to mark HTTP insecure in July 2018, why not contact us at Designbox Media to discuss how to implement the changes required to retain or improve your current SEO rankings?

Planning The Launch Of Your Website?

For launching a new website when it comes to WordPress websites, at Design Box Media, we follow a meticulous process. Find out more about our top 40 checklist that we use to ensure everything goes well below…

Let’s Begin

  • 1. Determine your goals. What are the objectives the website is aiming to achieve?
  • 2. What offer are you going to include with the launch?
  • 3. No doubt, you expect the launch to be big. It is a good idea to contact your merchant account provider to warn them that you will be expecting a large number of sales.
  • 4. Are you going to offer a payment plan? This is something that needs to be considered for higher priced services or products.
  • 5. Make it interesting and fun.
  • 6. Set a date and time for your launch.
  • 7. Clear your schedule in the lead up to the launch and create margin.

 

Pre-launch Website Checklist

  • 8. Now, you’re into the pre-launch section, which involves creating the campaign. All blog posts and emails should be mapped out.

  • 9. Craft a genesis story that evokes emotion.
  • 10. Create a sense of identity and belonging to your service and product.
  • 11. Ask your target consumer base if there is something they are interested in before you build it.
  • 12. Acknowledge and include any audience involvement so you can demonstrate their commitment.
  • 13. Release special pre-launch content to help you get some results in advance.
  • 14. Prepare additional marketing materials.
  • 15. Create the sales video or page.
  • 16. Do something original that is going to make you stand out from the rest.
  • 17. Review what is working so far.

Diversity Teamwork Discussion Meeting Planning Concept

Mid-Launch Website Checklist

  • 18. Set up an order and checkout process.
  • 19. Put together a welcome email, and make sure you follow up.
  • 20. Get other people to review your sales page.
  • 21. Triple-check everything.
  • 22. Proof and edit the sales page and get someone else to as well.
  • 23. Send everything – your email announcement and blog post – out.
  • 24. Post on social media.
  • 25. Update affiliates
  • 26. Update people regarding the launch feedback so far.
  • 27. Ask strategic partners for assistance with spreading the word.
  • 28. Listen to your feedback and respond – often the most important point of them all!

Website Post-Launch Checklist

  • 29. Now the launch is over, you should celebrate.
  • 30. Follow through with initial buyers.
  • 31. Create a survey.
  • 32. Smooth out any kinks.
  • 33. Wrap it up – remove bonuses and close carts.
  • 34. Over-deliver on value.
  • 35. Make the experience memorable.
  • 36. Automate feedback.
  • 37. Give your audience an update.
  • 38. Review.
  • 40. Plan ahead for your next launch.

October 27th. Day 27 of october month, wooden color calendar on teacher or student table, yellow background . Autumn time.

In conclusion:

So there you have it!

The 40-point checklist we use to guarantee launch success! We hope you took something useful from this blog to assist you in whatever way it has. If you’d like to learn a little more, or find out something interesting, then check out the blogs below!

Our Most Recent Blog Posts:

Firstly, What Is Google Adwords?

Google AdWords is an incredibly effective way to drive new business if you know what you’re doing. If you don’t, it can be incredibly easy, yet frustrating, to spend a lot of money without seeing concrete results. In this article, we’ll highlight a few tricks of the trade that can help you to get a handle on your Google AdWords campaign and achieve the results that your business deserves.

Lets start simple!

We all have to start somewhere, so why not begin with your account? 

If you consider your account clean, organised, and you’re still having other issues, then just skip this simple bit; but, if you are really, horribly stuck, just press these little things down below!

Organisation

You must order your Google ads account: that is first thing on your agenda. A messy account is only going to slow you down, throw you aside, and eat you whole if you let it descend into chaos. 

Campaigns & Ad Groups

Right, create a campaign for your entire company. I recommend sticking to one campaign overall as it may throw you off and the time spent may be pointless. Once you have your campaign, create some lovely Ad groups and theme them according to your business. For example, if you sell a range of toys at a toy store, try considering splitting Ad groups into things like “garden toys” and “inside toys” etc.

Theme Them

When filling your lovely Ad groups with keywords, consider the theme you’ve placed your ad under to keep things orderly. Your “outside toys” should only have keywords related to outside toys. this will help get the most relevant clicks and leads too!

Negative keywords

Okay this is the one which probably sounds the most daunting…

I mean what is a negative keyword? What do they do? Are they bad to use?

Don’t you worry, you may be using broad or phrase match keywords and not negative keywords. This means there’s every chance that you’re wasting a lot of money on the wrong type of visitor. Put simply, negative keywords allow you to exclude people who won’t be interested in your products or services. For example, if you sell windows, then you probably want to make the word ‘Microsoft’ a negative keyword to avoid paying Google AdWords a small fortune for visitors who are actually interested in software. 

Be sure to check the ‘search terms’ report regularly and update your negative keywords list at least once a month. Negative keywords can be used to your advantage when fixing up your google Adwords!

Extensions

Sometimes, people won’t want to visit the website page you’ve selected for them. They might be looking for information that’s on another page or they might prefer to phone or visit you in person. Ad Extensions allow your visitors to do all of these things and it won’t cost you a penny more than a normal ad. In fact, since ads with extensions are proven to have higher click-through rates, it might even save you cash.

If you’ve never set up ad extensions before, then we’d recommend that you start with Sitelink Extensions. These allow you to select a number of additional pages that display underneath your ad and give potential visitors additional options. Contact details, other products, pricing information and special offers are examples of common extensions. Once the extensions are set up, your search ad will be far larger and more eye-catching and you may well notice an improvement in your click-through rate.

Hopefully, our advice will help you to improve your Google AdWords account and avoid some common newbie errors. Once you’re past these, the sky truly is the limit.

What is my hourly rate? As a freelancer or a small business, it can be hard to know what to charge for your services. Set your rate too high and you could put off potential clients. Set it too low, and you could be greatly underpaid for your services.

Whether you are just starting out or you are well established in your work, it is important to make sure that the price you charge is the price you are worth. Once you have set a rate, be sure to review it regularly and make sure it still fits you well.

Use our hourly rate calculator to find your ideal cost

Our rate calculator is designed to help small businesses and freelancers identify exactly what their costs are. To find the right hourly price for the work they do. It works for designers, writers, programmers, artists and anyone who offers services or goods on a contract basis, either part or full time.

All you need is your annual expenses, information on your working hours, and your anticipated profits. We take this information and turn it into two simple figures: your breakeven rate, and your ideal rate. From here, you can set your charges.

Try Our Online Hourly Rate Calculator
No data will be collected. This is just fun free online calculator we have made to help small business owners and freelancers work out their hourly rate.

Your business costs

The first thing to consider is the cost you incur by running your business. From rent, power costs and furnishings to equipment, materials and communication services, you incur costs every day that your business is open. You also need to take into account legal and financial services, travel, office supplies and advertising.

Your personal costs

You also need to consider how much you need to make to manage your personal costs. These include your rent and household bills, your daily expenses and one-off costs, and your savings and investments. If you work from home some or all of the time, these costs may cross over with your business expenses.

Your working hours

Your working hours each day include time spent directly working with clients, and also time spent working on your own business. You should take into account days you will take as holiday leave and days that you might need off sick or for appointments when calculating your working hours. Write down how many hours you work per day, and how many days you work per year. These are important factors when determining your hourly rate.

What do you expect to earn?

Finally, you need to consider how much you want to make from your business. If you’re just starting out with a new venture, you might be aiming to break even and cover your costs. If you have established yourself in your industry and have a steady workload coming in, you want to take home a good wage that can support you and your family. Decide how much you want to make at the end of the year, after costs.

Once all these factors are added to the calculator, you will be left with your hourly rate. Use this when pitching for work, when setting up contracts, and when advertising your services. Remember to adjust your rate annually in line with inflation, or to recalculate your costs each year to take into account new expenses and company growth.

Try Our Online Hourly Rate Calculator
No data will be collected. This is just fun free online calculator we have made to help small business owners and freelancers work out their hourly rate.

Top 10 SEO Tips For Noobs

SEO is something that all businesses need to be concerned with today. It doesn’t matter what type of company you operate or your target demographic; having a dominant online presence is a necessity. So, with that being said, let’s take a look at some basic SEO tips for beginners to get you started…

Top 10 SEO Tips: Let’s Jump In!

1 – Google Analytics!

Use Google Analytics to track your keyword performance. It will help you to extract useful information, that you can use to make informed SEO decisions down the line when that data may be needed. After all, how do you expect to improve your marketing efforts if you do not know how you are performing at present?

Not only this but being able to effectively track each page of your website allows you to optimise them accordingly. By looking at things like bounce rates and session times, you can understand the behaviour of customers/prospective customers. This allows you to revise your marketing strategies to ensure that they become more streamlined over time, further providing you with the opportunity to reach your intended audience.

2 – Link-Building!

Develop relationships with other websites. Incorporating links into your content, and getting others to do the same for your company, is a great way to boost your search engine ranking. However, don’t just choose any old website to partner up with. Make sure it is a high-authority website, i.e. one with a considerable audience that is relevant to your business.

There are several different methods you can take in order to build quality links for your website. One method would be to utilise your existing clients and ask them to provide a link to your website from their. This can usually be a mutual agreement where you can link to each other, providing your client is understanding of the benefits.

Another method would be to look for unlinked mentions of your brand. By entering your brand name into Google search results or using specialised tools, you can identify pages where your business has been mentioned. It is always worth reaching out to the owner of that website to see if they will change the mention to be linked to your website. Sometimes people will refuse but there are always some that are willing to help.

3 – Original Content!

Create content that is original, interesting, and engaging. people aren’t on your site to dribble at the sight of your design: they want to read stuff too! If your content isn’t as eye-catching as your website, then people will simply click off the moment your content lacks substance. 

This has become more apparent over time where unique and rich content has become perhaps the most vital ranking factor for the Google algorithm. When it comes to creating this content, the use of different forms of media is a great way to ensure the content is more useful. If you are able to provide video content, image content as well as text content on one page, that page is already deemed to be rich with useful information.

The most important thing to remember though is to ensure that you do not create duplicate content as this can lead to negative performance for your pages. Not only do you run the risk of your own pages trying to outrank each other, but you are also running the risk of confusing visitors to your site.

4 – Include Alt Text In Images

Make sure your images have descriptions. Search engines cannot see images as we can, so you need to add a description to make your website more prominent in search engine result pages. It doesn’t take long, and most of all, it really does make a difference. (google will love you a little more!)

Another reason for this is to improve accessibility for your page. For some people, they may have trouble viewing some images so being able to provide alt text allows us to provide each user with a suitable page experience.

5 – Keyword Placement!

Incorporate keywords naturally. Gone are the days of the more keywords, the better. If your content looks like it has been keyword-stuffed, this can actually have a negative impact on your ranking. Imagine reading this blog post and every sentence had the word “SEO” slumped in there – it’d be awful! Balance your content!

Keywords should be included in key areas of a page including the slug, title, headings and body text. It is important to balance these out with other keywords that essentially have the same meaning too, once again to prevent the idea of keyword stuffing.

Furthermore, adding semantic keywords that are both closely and loosely related to your main focus keyword makes the information on the page seem more relevant and therefore supports the efforts to rank better for your primary target keyword.

6 – Avoid!

Avoid flash. Flash may make your website look pretty, but it can ruin your SEO strategy. Google cannot pull information from flash, so therefore it is essentially a blob of nothingness when google comes searching round. 

7 – URLs Must Be User-Friendly!

Make sure your URLs are search-engine friendly. Name them with clear keywords. URLs are the things people see, copy and paste, put into their essays, and more! They are the lifeline of your website and if you don’t treat your URL with some serious respect, then your rankings will tell you a different, worse story…

8 – Sitemap!

Create a sitemap. A sitemap is a page that lists all of the other pages on your website and links to them. This makes it easier for spiders to search your website. If not, google might not even find your site in the first place, so all that SEO work will be for nothing as google won’t even be able to find your hard SEO work, bearing in mind read it.

9 – Link To Yourself!

Link back to yourself. This is one of the most basic yet essential SEO strategies. Integrate internal links to improve traffic to your individual pages. You want to keep your visitors on your site for as long as possible, so use links effectively to do that. Google will pick up on your linking efforts!

10 – Review, Review, Review!

Constantly review your strategy. The world of SEO is ever changing. If you don’t move with the times, you are only going to get left behind. Even refer back to the first point and use Google Analytics to review your SEO work. Sometimes you just need to sit back – and observe.

In Conclusion

Use all ten tips together and i guarantee that your rankings, visits, and everything, will improve for the better. Just be aware that SEO takes time to show results, so don’t grow weary of how little impact the work has in the short-term. Google is a slow reader, so give the old bot some time to read your site.

Why Should You Take Website Maintenance Seriously?

Just like anything in life, if you don’t look after something, it will eventually break or stop working. A website is no different: they require maintenance to keep them working just how they should be.

Avoiding website maintenance is like avoiding regular oil changes and servicing on your vehicle. You wouldn’t drive your car for very long if it weren’t serviced and maintained?

You’ll probably end up with a blown head gasket broken down on the side of a road at the most inconvenient time. Believe it or not – this is precisely the same for any website.

I like to think of website maintenance like insurance, giving you some peace of mind. In short, it’s like getting insurance on your car, but not only are you making sure your vehicle is covered, but it’s also upgrading the car at the same time.

And what happens if your website gets hacked and is not backed up or being looked after? Not only could you lose all of the hard-earned money you’ve invested into your website and marketing, but you could also be losing money while the site is down.

Angry crazy modern designer in glasses with beard yelling and crumpling paper on his workplace

 

The Worst Scenario That We’ve Come Across!

We had a very terrible situation just over a year ago.

A company had approached us after their site (from another provider, we won’t mention for obvious reasons) had been hacked and had malware injected across their whole website.

The company was top of Google for some competitive keywords and relied on these positions for their primary income. Unfortunately, it took us weeks to repair the damage and to rebuild a good part of the website. Not only did they have a hefty bill for the repair, but Google noticed that their site had malware and that it was a security risk for anyone going into it.

They disappeared off all of the top spots in the search engines.

All the hard work they had invested over the years was lost. In turn, they lost thousands and thousands of pounds all because someone wasn’t taking care of their website. Your website should be live 24/7/365 days a year — Ready for customers to view and be representing your business at its finest.

The Biggest Mistake Businesses Make…

“Great I’ve got my new website now time to relax”

Wrong, websites are not “Set & Forget”. 

If you don’t have website maintenance in place, you could be throwing your hard earned money out of the window. If a customer goes to a website and experiences problems, they often lose confidence and don’t stick around for long. 

Most website owners won’t check their website and all its functions. Missed website issues or downtime could lose you potential customers and potential sales.

We always encourage you to publish new content on your website and manage your website if you can, but that can be covered in website maintenance too. Fresh new content will always help you in the search engines and updates to your site will also help your site to stay fresh and up to date!

Updating or repurposing old content is another way of keeping your website fresh. Not only does it mean that this content will not be forgotten over time, but it means that you are making your content more relevant for the prospective customer. If they see content that states it was last updated 5 years ago, they may doubt your content and feel more inclined to look somewhere else for information.

What Are The Benefits Of Website Maintenance?

Many people don’t understand the primary benefits of having website maintenance, so here’s just a few:

The website’s performance, loading time, uptime and downtime can all be jeopardised. These problems can happen if the WordPress software isn’t functioning as it should be and plugin versions aren’t up to date.

The growth of any website is paramount. Keeping the users engaged and showing search engines that your site is active, relevant and current. Fresh content, analytics monitoring, design improvements and updates are all dependent on someone making sure all updates to the website are done in a smooth and error-free fashion on an ongoing basis.

Websites are moving fast into the future, and nowadays it’s important to have features on your site that integrate with social media. This wasn’t as important 10 years ago, but through steady website maintenance, forward-thinking companies have been able to easily adapt.

Also, online security is an area that can be improved through maintenance because this will allow customers their personal details safe with you through encryption of communications. This is another benefit that directly positively affects the customer, allowing them to feel safe when browsing, solidifying their trust with you in the process.

A website is a representation of your company. It should reflect the image you want to project and represent all that it offers, such as products or services for sale in its online store. This is why user experience is so important.

If something on your site looks amiss then this could be limiting customer interest from potential new clients who visit just once yet never return again because they are disappointed with their initial experience at navigating through pages full of error messages rather than relevant information about what you provide them

 

Our Maintenance Workflow Will Help Your Website

At Design Box Media, we take the utmost care to ensure we always backup the website. We have ongoing back-ups to ensure nothing is lost or broken when updating the website. Once the site is updated, we always double-check for any issues.

Our software will keep a complete record of all of the plugins we update too!

If there is ever an issue with a function on the site, we can see what plugin version was changed, and we will revert it to the last working version and then investigate the issue.

We also include in our “monthly website maintenance packages” reports of the sites performance and constant security scans. If in the event there is an issue with a plugin on the site, we set it up as an urgent support ticket, and we address the issue promptly before you even know there’s a problem.

The Dangers Of DIY Website Maintenance

If you’re maintaining your website yourself, it could cost you much more than you may realise. For example, you just press that update button on your website because it tells you that there’s a new update (everybody loves a new update, right?

What if the site breaks or stops working after you update it? You most likely won’t have a backup of how it was before you clicked update. 

How do you even back the site up? 

If for any reason an update for a plugin created an issue on the site a few weeks later, it’s going to be hard to know when it went wrong, how it went wrong and how you should revert back without restoring a very old backup (and possibly losing content changes, sales orders, contact entries, you name it).

 

It will cost more to fix than it will to maintain.

Neglect or inexperience will damage the look and functionality of any website. When that happens, you’ve got to make a decision:

  • Option 1: You try and fix it yourself, in which case you may do further damage or spend a huge amount of time trying to learn code or rebuild the website.
  • Option 2: You can then pay the (sometimes hefty) price for someone experienced to fix it when it breaks.

Just like your cars servicing, it costs more to change a blown engine than it does to service and change the oil ona recommended basis. Regular servicing will help keep your car running properly, regular site maintenance helps keeps your website running properly.

Price value SEO

Call In A Professional

Why not spend your valuable time doing what you do best and let us deal with what we know best? Would you try to fight a court battle without a lawyer? Then why try to maintain your own website if you’re not a web professional?

By securing an experienced web professional to update and maintain your site properly, you are actually saving potential lost sales and visitors.

If you’re interested in securing a maintenance contract for your website, contact us to learn how we can keep your site in proper working order.

SEO is such an integral part of any company’s online marketing strategy. It is important for even small businesses to have a basic understanding of how search engine optimisation works.

SEO Basics: Explained Simply

Search engine optimisation is the process of making sure that your website is visible to potential clients and customers.

In this digital age, search engines are most people’s first port of call when looking for services or products. People tend to search for words associated with that particular service.

For example, a person in Essex who needs a tap fixed is likely to search ‘Essex plumbers’. If they need the tap fixed right away, they might search ‘emergency plumbers in Essex’.

Implementing basic SEO simply means that when writing social media posts, blog posts and website content, a smart plumbing company includes the keywords ‘Essex’, ‘plumbers’ and ‘emergency’.

That way, their website appears in potential customers’ search results, increasing the chances of business.

Types of SEO

Organic SEO:

Organic SEO is a marketing strategy that allows you to rank at the top of organic search engine results pages without paying for it. Understanding how to gain customers organically is part of the basics of SEO.

It’s made up of sub-strategies like keyword research and link building which help your website get there faster than if you were just waiting on natural rankings alone.

Organic SEO may not be as flashy or well known as its paid counterpart, but with this organization, small strategies such as keyword research and linking will give your site an edge in ranking higher when people are searching online – all while being more cost-effective!

Organic SEO usually combines three key areas of SEO strategy, these are:

  • On-Page SEO: On-page SEO is a practice in which individual web pages are optimized to rank higher and earn more relevant traffic. Optimizing the content of your page includes adding keywords that can be searched for, as well as using headers, summaries, descriptions and more.
  • Off-Page SEO: Off-Page SEO is a term used to describe the actions one can take off of their website, which may help boost up your site’s ranking in search engines. Some examples are getting links from other websites and social media sites such as Twitter or Facebook.
  • Technical SEO: Technical SEO is the process of improving a website’s ranking in search engines by increasing its technical aspects. Technical optimization includes making websites faster, easier to crawl and understandable for search engine algorithms.

Paid Search:

Paid search is an attractive marketing channel for many businesses because it’s measurable and controllable.

Unlike other forms of advertising, with paid search you only pay when someone clicks on your ad – this makes sure that there isn’t a hefty bill at the end of the month in case no one ever clicked on the advertisement!

Ad formats vary depending upon how much you want to spend on advertising; if you have no budget whatsoever then text ads will provide some exposure for your business from time-to-time.

Shopping overlay campaigns show products directly above the organic listing so that searchers know exactly what they’re getting into right away when clicking through.

Not Just Website Content

SEO also applies to image searches and video searches, and improves a site’s organic, or unpaid, results. In other words, it’s free marketing.

All businesses need to do is make sure their content is in line with what their audience will search for!

SEO is pretty straightforward for us and most businesses work on it as part of their online marketing strategy. There is a lot of competition for those first page Google search results though.

That’s where experts like the people at Design Box Media comes in: we look after your online marketing so you can focus on your business, safe in the knowledge that your business has a strong online presence it deserves.

Our Online Marketing Services

We offer SEO services; including keyword research, error analysis, back-linking, press releases, monthly reports, keyword implementation and content writing.

These all boost your site’s chances of reaching that all-important first page. We can also take care of your social media marketing; from reviewing the design of your social media profiles to planning a strategy around your business’s goals.

Additionally, we offer pay per click services with total transparency; targeting specific audiences and boosting your online visibility. We started in 2002, and have built a service that will propel your business to the top. If you’re already enjoying success, we will make sure it continues!

Is my website user friendly? When was the last time you visited your website and tried to see it as a customer would? What makes a website user-friendly?

Accessing your site from the perspective of a potential client rather than as a site owner can frequently reveal that your perception of what you’re offering is markedly (and perhaps disappointingly) different from the reality of what customers discover when they land on your homepage.

Here are four common errors that can result in consumers going elsewhere. With just a little website tweaking, these consumers could be giving you their business. So how user-friendly is your website?

Poor content

Today’s content not only has to be more entertaining and engaging than ever, there’s also a need to mix things up by uploading videos and other entertainment to satisfy shoppers’ growing need for immediate, effortless access to the information they want.

If you’re not sure how to do this, professional web design can provide the solutions you need for user-friendly websites

Unclear calls to action

Is it immediately obvious to online visitors what they need to do in order to get further information? Do they leave their details or purchase your products?

Quickly identifiable calls to action are critical to guide customers into the behaviours you want to see more of.

Mobile-unfriendly design

When you access your site from the small screen, does it still give access to all the important bits and pieces?

With a growing number of users accessing the net through their internet-enabled mobiles or tablets, a responsive site is also vital in displaying what makes a website user friendly.

To find out if it is mobile-friendly, take the first step and use Google’s free Mobile Site Tester tool to see if it can access your site at all now. If so – great! You’re in luck and won’t have to do much work here.

However if not currently accessible on mobile devices there are some simple things you can do for free with help from web-based builders like Hootsuite that allow users to easily create their own responsive versions of websites without any coding knowledge needed.

No connection with social media

Making sure customers get access to the same information and updates no matter how they communicate with you is now a must-have prerequisite to online success.

Web designers can build in methods of ensuring all your modes of electronic communication interact seamlessly with each other.

The constantly evolving environment of website design is frequently difficult to navigate without skilled assistance.

So how user-friendly is your website? For many busy business owners; professional website design and maintenance is the most cost-effective and sustainable solution to the problem of ensuring that your online presence is optimised for maximum business success.

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