Starting a website

Keeping your website alive

4th February 2015 by Alan Leave a Comment

And we don’t mean the up time of servers!

We are continuing our theme that websites are live, living things that need to be fed and nurtured on a regular basis.

Websites objectives

Somewhere in the not-so-distant past, we have talked about website objectives. For all the fancy words and umpteen bullet points, extracted from your team over tea and biscuits, at some point we are sure, you will have mentioned getting traffic through to your site.

This means ‘traffic’ as people and, in many small, online business cases, websites objectives are about turning this traffic in to paying customers. Once you have attracted them the first time, you have the heady task of attracting them again… and again… and again…

On the face of it, this might not seem like too big a task but only if one of your website objectives it to ‘maintain the interest’ of the passing populace.

To maintain interest you must maintain the website, with up to date, vibrant content that, for many websites, means adding new content.

It is a story you will have heard before. Search engines constantly crawl websites looking for the juicy, new bits and so, making sure you have a plan to revamp or add new content – and sticking to it – is essential.

The worst case scenario – if you are worried about your website (it seems to be sinking without a trace), then take a walk through it.

Do the links work? (Nope).
Does it load quickly? (Nope)
Is the information current? (Nope)
Is it sleek, modern and fits your business? (Nope).

Need we go on?

Take away lesson – websites that are kept up to date, load quickly with fabulously engaging content will have a better chance of success and being ‘spotted’ by the search engines as being authoritative and trustworthy.

The basics of website upkeep

Just like we need to vacuum the office, wash the tea cups and take the tea towel home once a week, there are basic, menial website tasks that need to be done to maintain the website. You will need to assign this task to someone; we also suggest setting time at least once a month, to check out the whole website (we are not talking social media engagement here – that should be a daily occurrence).

Basic tasks:

Ensure information is up-to-date – does a product description, price or P&P rates need adjusting, for example?
Proofread the main pages and texts – is there an error that needs correcting? Could you re-write a paragraph so the message is clearer?
Graphics – these also need to be checked; are they still relevant? For example, all your Christmas graphics should be safely tucked away till next year
Accessibility – do customers know how to contact you? For many potential customers, knowing how they can contact the business (and when) is a sign of trustworthiness
Content and news – ensuring thee are kept up to date is also essential along with expansion tasks such as regular newsletters to people who have signed up to your mailing list
Announcements – do you have a feature that allows you to advertise promotions of flash sales? If so, have a plan for how to use these.

Take away lesson – although flashy bits are all well and good, if the basics of your website are either not functioning at all, or are not functioning to their full capacity, adding fancy extras will be a waste of time.

Create possibilities

Your website should be active in the sense that it can ‘read’ your business and market place, and create possibilities for people to engage and, if possible, buy from you. But once you have looked at your website and you think you are happy with it, then all is rosy in the garden… or is it?

Just as important as creating your website in the first place with professional help and services, so is keeping it alive and active.

Extend your thinking…

Step 1: The Website Review

YOU review your website in a regular basis, picking up odd bits of spelling and grammar mistakes. You have changed some graphics you no longer like or think are appropriate and you have some new content on there too.

Try shaking up this process:

If you have staff, then pass the Website Review task from one person to another; getting different perspectives can be incredibly useful but rather than going for the scattergun approach, get them to look at certain aspects
Feedback from customers is also a great way of gaining some knowledge and thoughts from those people who use your website; there are several ways you can entice people to do this, including a prize or two (makes a great news item for your website too!)
Test the findability of your website on the various search engines
Create a set of recommendations for a future plan for the website

Step 2: Prune, as well as add

New content is essential. In fact, a lot of your time should be about creating or finding new content for your website but, a rose bush will only grow to its true splendour if it is pruned back after a growth spurt. Getting rid of the weaker tendrils on your website will make the core stronger.

Adding more and more content can mean the ‘white space’, the place where the eye rests can be lost, making your pages appear cluttered and slightly chaotic. Look for duplication, as well as content that is no longer relevant.

Step 3: a re-shape, at some point

When you decorate your lounge, you wallow in the newness of it all but, in 2 years’ time, that same paint and finish can start to look tired and dated. You may also decide that now is the time to invest in new flooring, hence the space that was once shiny and new, is re-shaped… and you will need to do this at some point with your website.

But websites are expensive and so you need to get the very best out of your current one, before you go for a re-vamp

Step 4: Seek help

If your website is not working for your business, and it seems like an expensive waste of time, you may need the beady eye of a professional web designer, content writer or marketing ‘expert’ to help you out…

** With the new Growth Voucher scheme in England, you could get up to £2,000 towards the cost of digital help **

Usability, your website and some hard lessons…

20th November 2014 by Alan Leave a Comment

The festive season is nearly upon us and those of us who do not leave our Christmas shopping to the last minute on Christmas Eve, may have already started to cast about on the web for THE perfect present for him, her and the dog.

Invariably, you will come across websites that you will quickly navigate away from; somehow this is not a conscious decision, it just seems to happen. And there may have been many reasons why…

It doesn’t feel, look or sound right.

We came across a brilliant, frank and comprehensive usability checklist that should you choose to work through it, will ‘catch common usability problems’ on websites. If your website does not strike the right chord with the consumer – trust, authority and security – then you could be losing an awful lot of sales.

Here, we have highlighted some of the more common aspects that you may need to take a look at on your website in order to answer the question, is it cutting the mustard?

The checklist

To publish the whole thing here would be keeping you logged on till Christmas, but all flippancy aside, we believe that the very comprehensive nature of the checklist highlights just how important your website or online presence is to your evolving business.

Frankly, if it is not sleek and delightfully easy to use, then your website falls way below standard. Here we have summarised the key points from under each heading…

USER EXPERIENCE

This looks at everything from currency, language as well as pricing being clearly displayed. It also suggests that users are look for measures of credibility. For example, on Locally’s newly designed and launched website, we have several written ‘references’ from people who have been more than happy with the websites we have designed them, along with the service we offer. We do this, like many other business, to lend a sense of credibility and authority to our website.

It also suggests that in terms of user experience, your website also needs to look and feel uncluttered, with text that can be easily scanned and images that can be enlarged or zoomed in on.

This section has 7 areas that the checklist suggests that you look at in detail.

HOMEPAGE

Your homepage invariably is the landing page – the first page – that your website visitors and potential customers see; the feel of this page needs to be spot on! There is no room for error.

As well as checking for the obvious spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, the checklist suggest 8 additional checks such as a clear to call action (tell your customer what they need or must do!), along with all the important information the visitor needs to know. It also suggests that all images and video used needs to be relevant to the page.

ACCESSIBILITY

This section has 4 checks that all play an important part in ensuring that your visitors can access the parts of the website they need quickly and easily. It points to technical aspects of your website that are not immediately obvious and to factors which you think may not be important… but they are! For example, when a customer hovers their mouse over a graphic, what is the caption that is displayed…?

NAVIGATION

This section is about how your website is mapped, especially in the case of larger websites; sitemaps are important and that any links are descriptive – the ‘click here’ is no longer sufficient! It also suggests that sorting information is not done along alphabetical lines, unless there is no better way of doing it. Customers, it seems, prefer information to be grouped in sections that are related e.g. items and accessories that are related to ‘kitchens’, and another section for ‘bathrooms’ etc. How is the information navigable on your website?

SEARCH

Being able to search your website quickly and easily is important, and it seems that websites that have this function stand head and shoulders above the rest. The search facility needs to be on every page, in the same place. But a common pet hate, it seems, that customers detest are search bars that are too narrow or small, meaning that as they type the words or phrase becomes obscured.

LINKS

According to the usability list, important commands should not be links, but buttons such as ‘pay now’ etc. and small details make all the difference; for example, the colour of a link changes once a customer has clicked on it.

But the most important part of this section is making sure that any links of your website are still active; there is nothing more off-putting for a potential customer when they click on a link only to find that it is broken one.

LAYOUT

This is section that looks at more than just the aesthetic appeal of a website; for example, is all the important information a customer needs at the top of the page?

Is the layout, design, colours etc. and the ‘feel’ of the website consistent throughout the website? And finally, is your website responsive? This section also includes that website should fit the screen of the user – did you know that horizontal scrolling was a non-no?!

PROCESS

This section of the checklist looks at the whole practical process of building and testing a website; with the excitement of either a new or re-vamped website taking over, companies and business tend to have a habit of launching it… without really checking every single aspect of their website and hence, the small but important ‘teething issues’ are not spotted and repaired prior to launch. This can not only mark you down with customers, it can also cause problems in the all-seeing eyes of search engines…

Just like you wouldn’t launch an expensive advertising campaign in the press without intense consideration, launching your website should go through the same process of consideration and goal-setting.

FORMS

Increasingly, websites are inviting customers to be part of a newsletter drop or a ‘join’ a website and this necessitates forms. However, it seems that customers are put off by lengthy, complicated forms hence, this checklist has 5 essential must-check factors, from your form supporting auto-fill and being simple, usable forms rather than lengthy version that seem to collect information that feels superfluous (why do you need to know how old you customers are?!)

CONTENT

Finally, is the section on content that has 6 must-check factors:

Contrast between text and background
Content is ‘scannable’. That is, customers and visitors are able to scan down the page, looking for key information they need
Written in language that is understandable
Contact and company information clearly displayed
Content is useful and up-to-date
Upper case letters are avoided unless they are in the right place!

Having the right look and feel to a website is more than just pretty pictures and flashy bits; there is far more to creating a delightful, successful website. Is your website due a re-model?

Check out the FULL checklist – how does your website do?

WordPress – a counter argument

23rd September 2014 by Alan Leave a Comment

Here at Locally, we use WordPress as the basis for great business websites. We work with a growing range of clients, all local businesses making their presence felt online too.

We work with start-ups through to larger companies who offer a range of high quality products and services locally, as well as nationally and, in the vast majority of cases, globally too.

We know that websites need to be creative showcases that have high quality content, great graphics that are not overdone and that the whole thing needs to search engine optimised.

We also know that every business is different and so every website needs to be different; what suits one free school in one area of the country will not suit another free school is another area. Businesses may occupy the same trade or industry, but it doesn’t mean they offer the same product or service, in the same way.

So, we don’t have ‘templates’ as such, although we have an innate understanding of what a business could want and, working alongside our clients, we create great websites that work.

WordPress – not everyone’s cup of tea

WordPress is an open source platform, which, without getting too technical, means that brilliantly technically minded people (like us here at Locally!) can create rather wonderful and spectacular websites for businesses (for anyone, in fact). Associated with a vibrant and fabulous blogging movement, you can create, with the addition of plug-ins and design creativity, a bespoke WordPress website.

But it’s not everyone’s cup of tea as highlighted in a recent article we came across and so, we think it is only fair to present the other side of the argument and why WordPress can create fabulous, creative websites that really do work…

The criticisms levelled at WordPress websites were:

WordPress sites are not ‘truly’ able to be updated or created in a bespoke way – not true! And we think we have a growing portfolio that points to evidence to the contrary. There is also mention that people who create such websites do not know much about code and that they hitch a ride on other developers, using their ideas and creations. Here at Locally we add to the WordPress community, as well as share ideas. Since when has this been a bad thing?
Plug ins – as an open and sharing community, developers from across the web community create plug ins that others can use of their websites to enhance it. Detractors suggest that these plug ins often conflict and break, suggesting that the security of the website will be compromised. With all the recent hacking scandals and dodgy photos making their way online this is, to all intents and purposes, playing on people’s vulnerability. With the right technical help from a company like us, these breakages and conflicts in plug ins can be avoided.
Security – continuing with the theme of security, some industry experts also suggest that the open community behind WordPress is also its greatest weakness. As the platform is written by and shared by large numbers of people, suggestions are it is easier to hack and therefore, your WordPress website could be compromised. Funny how the recent hacking scandals have not affected WordPress but other open source programs…
Every site is the same – again, a common misconception we feel around WordPress is that people assume that because there are thousands of themes to choose from that this means every website looks and feels the same; we disagree. We do create bespoke WordPress websites. Simple.
Lacking in originality – another criticism of WordPress is the perceived lack of originality and that search engines, such as Google, will note this, giving such website a ‘miss’ when it comes to page 1 rankings. This doesn’t seem to affect Beyonce’s WordPress site… hers seems far from lacking in originality and ranking. In fact, research any major topic online and you will come across many bespoke websites that use WordPress and do not seem to struggle from lack of originality.
Updating – apparently the penchant for updating WordPress every few months is an issue that some find deplorable. We think that keep your website fresh, with all the latest technical wizardry a rather fabulous thing…
SEO – ah, the old search engine optimisation argument. In fact, we think our earlier point about WordPress websites figuring high in the rankings more than blows this point out of the water…

For those that knock WordPress we think you are trying to kick an open door; it is a futile exercise! Take another look at what this platform can offer your business.

Where to begin – How to start your website

24th October 2013 by Alan Leave a Comment

How to start a website

Whether you want to start a website to sell sock monsters or to showcase your handy photography skills, the process you go through to start your website should be the same. By the end of this post you will realise how simple & straight forward it can be getting your website online in an affordable & efficient way.

As with pretty much everything on the internet, information becomes dated over time so I felt that it was time for some new relevant & straight forward information to help you get your website up and running!

Put your wallet away

Before you even think about getting your bankcard out and buy a domain or hosting you need to have a clear picture in your head (ideally on paper as well) of what you want or expect your new website to do for you. ‘Make me money!’ I hear you cry, but more specific than that – how?! Will you be selling a product through your website or will you be offering a unique service only you can provide?

Jot it down

Create a document & call it ‘my new website’ every time you think of a good idea or come across a website you like the look of place it in the notes section – no idea is irrelevant until you explore it first. Another handy tool that I like to use is Pocket. It works as a cross platform bookmark – you can save all the websites you come across & want to keep note of in one place – so if you’re on your laptop you can bookmark the website & have a closer look later on the train whilst browsing on your smart phone – very handy!

In your ‘new website’ document decide how many pages you want and what you want to call them – For example if you were a gardener you might want to title your webpages by the services you provide as well as a gallery of the work you have done. If you’re a small company you are the unique selling point or your company, many businesses fall at the first hurdle by not ‘selling’ themselves. Think of your new website as your shop window, you have one opportunity to give a good first impression, make sure it’s a good personal one that is relevant to the passerbys.

Once you’re happy & got a clearer idea with your new websites structure, you need to decide who is going to write the text to go on your website. The content on your website is a key ingredient to catalyse business to your website, if you’re confident & got the time doing it yourself would be the cheapest (free) option, otherwise you can outsource the work to write website content .

On your level

OK so you’ve got a fair idea how your website to be laid out & the text & images to load up to your website now all you need is someone to help put it all together.

The quickest and easiest way to find out within 10 secs whether the website company you’re thinking of going with is worth its weight is to ask this simple question. “Will my website get to the first page of the search engines”. If they answer “YES” run a mile, if they answer “Your website can get to page one for certain keywords, but it won’t happen magically over night, we can point you in the right direction” Then you know you’re in safe hands.

From experience I would recommend getting your website built on a well known content management system (CMS) like, for example, WordPress. The reason for this is that if you leave yourself with options if you decide it’s time to move on. If you get your website built on a homemade CMS that only your web developer and his mate knows how to use, you have immediately placed yourself into a monopoly. I’ve heard many horror stories where developers charge £100’s for small changes that they could have done themselves with a decent popular content management system.

Get training if you can, good reliable website developers should, as part of the project build, show you how to add pages content & images to the website – if they don’t ask how much they charge. The last thing you want is to be stuck with a website that you cannot change when you get a new telephone number.

To summarise

Put pen to paper and structure your website, a simple word document will be fine.
If you are promised a website that will make you a first page cash-printing wizard, run away faster…
Get your website build on a well known CMS like WordPress
There are good developers out there, if yours doesn’t sound transparent your probably not talking to one of them

Because I’m feeling nice I’ve put together an example of how you could structure your website using Goalscape – a tool we and or members find very useful to use.