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Best Practices For Dealing With Web Designers
22 Feb

7 Tips For Business Owners On The Best Practices For Dealing With Web Designers

Web Design

When business owners hire web designers, it should create positive working relationships between both, with each client confident that they are going to have the website they desire, and each web designer striving towards having another completed project and a happy client who hopefully will be singing their praises.

Unfortunately, the ideal scenario we have just described does not always transpire, and on some occasions, both the client and the web designer are unhappy with the experience. This can occur for several reasons, and sadly, it can occur because a client has no idea as to how they should deal with web designers.

We must state that this is not an exercise where we are bashing clients and saying that they are the only ever reason web design projects flounder. There can be blame on both sides, and no doubt there are some web designers who do not reach the high standards that the vast majority of web designers do.

However, given that clients are not dealing with web designers every day, may not have had a new website designed before, and we also have to bear in mind they still have a business to run, so they might be unaware or unable to properly deal with their web designer, rather than being deliberately uncooperative.

What we want to do here is provide business clients with some tips as to how they can best deal with the web designers who are creating their website, to the benefit of both parties, and ultimately, so that the website created is one both are delighted with.

Be Crystal Clear On Your Requirements: Instructions and requests you send to your web designer must be crystal clear and leave no room for confusion. Best practice is to follow up to ask if they require any clarifications.

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Domain Name
03 Aug

How To Choose A Domain Name For SEO

Digital Marketing, SEO,

The question, ‘What Is In a Name?’ is one that has been taxing business owners for many years, especially when it comes to choosing a domain for their new website. Often their hands are tied as the only option they have is to use the brand name of their business.

For SEO purposes that may limit them somewhat, but there are other aspects of a domain name that can be considered with regards to SEO, and if you are at the point of choosing a domain for your SEO strategy, here are some of them.

Exact Match Domain Names

There are probably more SEO arguments over whether exact match domain names still carry any weight than any other subject. As it stands, they certainly seem to, albeit maybe not as much as they used to.

Getting an exact match domain that is the same for your main keyword is often difficult as lots of them have already been taken, but if you were a mechanic in Albany, then albanymechanics.com could be an excellent exact match domain to own…and at the time of writing, it is available.

Top Level Domains

While the impact may not be huge, Google does regard the top-level domains in a more favourable light than many of the countless new domain suffixes that are now available.

While it gets more difficult to find one that has not already been taken, a ‘dot com’ domain should be your first choice. After that, you should look for either a ‘dot net’ or a ‘dot org’ domain.

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Ways To Implement Local SEO
15 Jun

5 Ways To Implement Local SEO Properly

Digital Marketing, SEO,

Anyone who is a genuine SEO expert will tell you that SEO is not one single set of skills and techniques that apply equally across the board. The truth is that each individual website is different and what it needs to be optimised for search engine ranking will be different from any other.

Those differences also apply at the level at which the website is hoping to rank with respect to its target audience. The SEO required for a business that has a global reach and only operates online will be different to the one which has a physical store and only targets customers within a certain city.

The latter needs what is known as ‘Local SEO’ and there are several ways in which this can be best applied. Here are 5 of the most effective:

Include Location Pages Within Your Website

If your business has more than one store, office, or other type of premises, then each of those locations should have a page within your website. Some people will be searching for those specific locations and if you have a page that is optimised for that location, it is more likely to show up in the results.

You should include address details, opening hours, telephone numbers, and even the parking information to make it as easy as possible for anyone landing on those pages to make the decision to visit.

Make the Content Local

Let us take the example of a local pet store that has a website and adds lots of great content about looking after pets of all shapes and sizes. While that is better than no content at all, if it is generic, then there is no appeal for anyone reading it who lives locally.

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11 Feb

Should I Use Minimalist Website Design Techniques?

Web Design

The world of web design has expanded rapidly over the past couple of decades. There are now millions of websites on the internet, and each of them has a unique design.

There are numerous different design techniques that you can use when you’re creating a new website, but some stand out above the pack. In recent times, minimalist techniques have become increasingly popular.

However, just because something is popular doesn’t mean that you should use it, and in this article I’m going to explore minimalist techniques and when they should be used.

What Are Minimalist Website Design Techniques?

To put it simply, minimalist design involves keeping things as basic as possible. The idea is that the absence of distractions will help draw people’s eyes to the important parts of your website, reducing distractions and improving the user experience.

There are numerous things to consider when it comes to minimalist design. Some of the most important include:

  • Maintaining a content focus, which means that your written work needs to be impeccable. Ultimately, the lack of distracting design elements means that people are going to be more likely to spend time reading your work.
  • Keep your website useable. Minimalist designs are great, but it’s also very important to make sure that your website is still useable. Keep important buttons and navigation links prominent, and make sure that you include the elements you need to.
  • Using simple colours and fonts, rather than fancy or distracting ones. Many minimalist websites use basic black and white colour schemes along with standard sans-serif fonts. The idea here is that your content is the important thing, not your design.
  • Leaving whitespace if you don’t have something to add. Although you might be tempted to add something to every empty space, don’t. Whitespace works well to draw the eye to important elements, and is a crucial minimalist design technique.

As you can see, minimalist design tends to focus on creating attractive websites which don’t use too many elements or components.

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23 Oct

5 Ways To Leverage Social Media Marketing To Your Benefit

Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing,

We asked Slinky Digital and they said like most forms of digital marketing, social media marketing (SMM) is difficult. Although it might have been easy to get great returns on your Facebook ads in the past, SMM has become a lot more competitive, to the point where it’s very easy to lose a lot of money if you’re not careful.

Luckily, there are numerous different ways to leverage social media marketing for your business or website. I’ve outlined five of my favourite in this article, but remember, it’s always a good idea to do your own research and identify the most profitable techniques for your situation.

  1. Use Heavily Targeted Ads

It’s important to make sure that you don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you can create one advertising campaign and present it to all your potential customers. In fact, doing this will only lose you money.

Instead, you should be creating numerous small, highly targeted ad campaigns which appeal to specific groups of people. This will increase your chance of conversions, boosting your return on investment.

  1. Test, Test & Test Some More

In reality, there’s no such thing as testing your social media advertising campaigns too much. Although you might be a little impatient, and thus tempted to jump straight into a full-scale campaign, to do so would be suicide.

Instead, think about what sort of ads are going to appeal to your target audience and put together a number of possible campaigns. Test these out with a small percentage of your marketing budget, and then choose the ones which perform best.

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22 Jul

Top 5 Web Design Practices

Web Design

Unless you’ve had comprehensive training, web design and development can be difficult. There are a lot of skills involved, and it can be hard to put together an attractive website from scratch, so selecting an expert from the online directory is advised.

Luckily, there are a few important things you can do to help streamline the web design process. Keeping the five things outlined in this article at the front of your mind should reduce the risk of problems when you’re designing your site.

  1. Focus On Consistent Branding

One of the most important things when you’re designing a website is consistency. This is especially important when it comes to your branding.

Essentially, consistency is the key to developing a strong brand. Make sure that your web design is compatible with your brand. Things like logos, colour schemes, font pairings, and navigation menus should be the same throughout your website and social media profiles.

  1. Use Call To Action Buttons

If you’re trying to sell something or encourage people to perform a specific action, you need to include compelling call to action buttons. These buttons should be prominent and should encourage people to click on them.

For example, if you run an eCommerce store, you should make sure that your add to cart button is large, obvious, and in a readily visible position. Similarly, your checkout button should always be there, encouraging customers to complete their purchase.

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04 Dec

Should I Redesign My Website?

Web Design

Working in the web development industry, I often get asked questions like “should I redesign my website?” and “what’s the point of redesigning my website?”. Although the answers to questions like this can be complicated, it’s important to understand them.

With this in mind, I decided to put together this short article to help you decide whether or not you should be redesigning your website. I’ve included things like the benefits of redesigning your site, how to decide when it’s time to redesign, and a few quick tips to help you on your way.

What Are The Benefits Of Redesigning My Website?

If you designed your website a few years ago, the chances are that your audience has grown and your long-term goals have changed since then. With this in mind, you should immediately be able to see that redesigning your site could help you cater to your visitors more effectively. Other benefits include:

  • You can boost your SEO rank by structuring your website in a search engine friendly manner.
  • You can improve your marketing effectiveness by including things like landing pages and call to action buttons designed to encourage a specific action.
  • You can change your site’s navigation menus so that it’s more user friendly and easier to get around.
  • You could even rebrand entirely by creating a new logo and changing your entire design. This could help you launch yourself towards online success.

As you can see, there are numerous benefits associated with redesigning your website with a professional such as Slinky Web Design. But, it’s not for everyone.

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