Always have the end user in mind:

• What would make the customers journey easier? Think about the design - keep it on brand but simple and easy to navigate. Talk to your designer!
• What can you change to make them book or make that all important purchase? This is where you need to think about Call To Action (CTA). A good CTA can make the difference between making that all important purchase or walking away.
• What quick fixes are there that will help my customers? A great way to keep your customers is to have great customer service, think about your FAQ’s and any help sections - make sure they are top notch. Again, think about the design!

 
Why would you need to do this?
Anything that can help improve user experience, engagement and stop users moving on is going to have a lasting impact on your business. The steps you take now can save you time and money in the long term, boost sales; automate some of your business processes and create a loyal customer base.
 
What is available?
Regardless of what platform your website uses, website automation and functionality is available but not limited to:

• Email newsletter sign-up - an easy way to stay relevant with your customer and keep them updated with changes to your business.
• Contact/registration/sign-up forms - another great way to keep your customers informed and boost engagement.
• Image gallery - such a simple yet effective way to boost engagement. Images are a way for you to really showcase your business with products and services and add a personal touch.
• Booking system - if your business requires customers to book (appointments, events, etc) it must be easy to use. Put yourself in your customers shoes and think about what makes you book (or not) through certain websites.
• Ecommerce - it’s important your visitors have a great shopping experience in order for them to want to return to your online store in the future. Your website needs to be simple, easy to navigate and have great search options so your customer can easily find the product/service they are looking for.
• Social media feed - keeping on top of your social media (regular posts, using hashtags, joining groups and engaging with connections) will really help you get more exposure.
• Landing page - this is different to the rest of your website in that it will have some type of form for your customer to fill in, in exchange for an incentive such as an offer.
• Blog - a regular blog will increase your online presence and connect with your customers.
• Google Analytics/reporting - keep on top of what is working for your website with this fab free tool!
• Mobile friendly/Responsive Website Design (RWD)
• Survey and feedback tools
• Live chat options - there are plenty to choose from such as Zendesk or LiveChat. These are a great way of creating trust with your customer and providing great customer support. Speak with your designer to find what would suit your needs.

 
It’s always a great idea to chat with your designer about your website. They will have some great ideas for how to boost engagement and build a functional web strategy.

Project overview:

• Website refresh
• Home page re-design
• On-going marketing
• Website maintenance
• Marketing advice

What we wanted to achieve:
We wanted bring our website up-to date and to improve on our overall marketing.
Our existing website was built in 2015, technology moves on and it was performing a little slower than we wanted. With Covid-19, Lockdown and moving out entire class schedule online we needed customers to find and join our classes quickly. We wanted to promote our therapies and treatments easily. 

Outcome:
We removed the scrolling image banners and replaced them with static graphics to  promote classes, treatments and therapies. Call to actions 'Book Now', 'Register' and 'Login' has reduced admin time and given customers more control.

Insights from Google Analytics have shown since the refresh the website has received a 65% increase in website visitors, users are staying on the website longer and navigating to more classes, treatments and therapies. The design has consolidated our brand.

Here are 8 ways you can get more out of your website and make it work harder in 2020:

1. It’s all about the “Call to Action”
A call to action (CTA) is a prompt that tells the user to do a specific action such as sign up to newsletter, call or subscribe to content. It’s important to make sure you have a strong, well placed call to action in order to have a good conversion rate. Placement, colour and the design of the CTA are all important points to consider.

2. Create landing pages
A landing page is designed to convert visitors into leads. It’s different from the rest of your website pages because it will have a form that allows you to gain visitor information in exchange for a certain offer or promise.

3. Create more content to ensure customers return
If you neglect to update your content or blogs your customers will soon lose interest. Keeping content up-to-date and relevant and it will give users a reason to come back to your website.

4. Rethink your landing page If you find your landing page isn’t working well for you then look at how you can change it to make it more engaging. Better still come up with several designs or versions, test them all, and see which landing page performs better.

5. Reviews
Reviews are so important to the success of your business, they create brand loyalty and build consumer confidence. Be sure to ask new customers for reviews, contact previous customers, display more reviews and make it easier to find reviews on your website.

6. Get a fresh design
This doesn’t have to be a brand new website, most are template based but speak to your designer about a fresh new look for 2020. Don’t forget to keep up with the maintenance of your website as well, it’s no good making it look amazing if the content isn’t fresh!

7. Get secure
Make sure your website is secure with https, it adds an extra layer of security which is especially important when dealing with sensitive data on your website such as contact forms or purchases. Google puts up a warning (an unlock symbol) when a person navigates to a non secure site which can have a negative impact resulting in loss of traffic and sales etc.

​8. Measure changes with Google Analytics It’s so important to keep track of what is working well (and what is not) and Google Analytics is a great free tool that gives you in depth information about your website and its content and how well it is performing for you.
 
So how is your website looking? Is it going to perform as well as you want it to in 2020?

Why do I need a website?
Think about why you want a website (not just because everyone else has one) and then think about what you want to achieve from it. Everyone wants to sell products or services and inform their customer and attract new ones, but other than these reasons why do you want a website?

The answer to this question will inform all your choices about how to develop your website. Always refer back to this when making every decision, having your target audience in mind.

An example
I would like a website to be able to display my finished designs and it needs to let people sign-up for my newsletter.

Q: What colour should my website be?
A: Who is my target audience and how can I appeal to them through my choice in colour?

A good plan to a website that succeeds is broken down into four parts:

1. Website Research
2. Website Build
3. Planning
4. Marketing

1. Website research

• Your target audience
• Your competitors
• Search engine marketing (SEO)

Before you start any business or even begin to think about your website, take a look at your target audience, your competitors and this is the time to be thinking about your search engine optimisation. Any keywords relevant to your industry and service should feature in the written content of your website.

2. Website build

• Navigation
• Content
• Structure (map/tree)

The website structure form the outline build of your website, this includes your navigation (how many pages to feature on your website). A tree or spider diagram can be drawn up to map out all the pages on your website. Your website content needs to be identified, from text to images and other media such as video.

3. Planning

• Design
• Functionality
• Specific requirements

People often make the mistake of starting with the design and shifting the content around to match. A better way is to collate all your content, develop the structure then think about the design when you know of everything that needs to be included. Functionality is anything that has a function for example email newsletter sign-up or a contact form. Specific requirements covers anything that isn’t strictly off-the-shelf e.g. a message board or a booking facility.

4. Marketing

• Publish
• Promote
• Measure your success

You publish your website and promote it through networking, word of mouth, on your business card, you direct people to it through emails but how do you know what content people are looking at and where they are spending their time? We install Google Analytics on every website we build, it is a FREE tool from Google and helps you find out much more than you will ever need to know!

Have you found any useful tools that could help others, plan, organise or build their website? Share your finds here:

So what can we expect from Google as they move forward? Earlier on in the year Google held its annual I/O developers conference and announced some exciting changes and developments.
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• Google Assistant will have an update that makes having a conversation with the app much more natural. It will also have the capacity to understand multiple questions at once.
• There will be more AI features for Google Photos and powerful tools to edit and organise your photos as Google strives to become the home for all your photos.
• Google Assistant is coming to Google Maps. In order to better personalise the user experience with Google Maps, the new AI features will help provide better recommendations for local places.
• AI is also coming to Google News which will let users read about the news they actually have an interest in and understand the whole story.
• Gmail Smart Compose is a new addition which sees AI suggesting ways to finish sentences as they are being written.
• Google Duplex is the name given by Google for the new technology resulting from the research and development into “natural language, deep learning and text-to-speech”. The aim of this technology is to create computers that sound and behave like humans during interactions.
• Dashboard to help users find the right balance. In an attempt to help users moderate their use of technology Google have designed features that will help identify how much time they are spending on their device (and on which parts), a feature that will put the device to sleep and in silence mode when it is placed face down and a “Wind Down Mode” feature that will put the device on hold and dim the front of the device at a time set by the user.

Here are 7 free Google tools you should make sure you have on your device:

1. Google Calendar is a free, time-management web app. It allows you to create, edit and share events as well as  many other time saving functions
2. Google Docs this free app lets users create, edit and share all manner of documents, from invoices to resumes.
3. Google Analytics is a free app that allows you to analyse the data from your business and give you a better understanding of your customers.
4. Gmail Using Gmail as your email client for your domain specific email address is easy and free. Find out how here >
5. Google Drive is a cloud storage app, giving you 15GB of free storage space.
6. Blogger is a free publishing platform which lets users easily upload their content to their blog via email and other apps. It’s also integrated with other Google apps such as Analytics giving the user access to valuable information about their audience.
7. Google Voice is an internet based app which allows you use one phone number and forward it to multiple phones. This means as you move, change jobs etc your phone number stays the same for your contacts.

So, the future is looking great for Google and the end of Google+ seems to have been a mere blip for this innovative company. AI is a major development which sees Google moving from strength to strength.

For more information and downloads to the Google apps click here >