7 Most Common Errors on Websites

As written by a website reviewer

Having a look through my archives, I’ve found that I have been reviewing people’s websites as a service, for over 4 years now. Given that I started off reviewing websites on a forum back in 2004, I can safely say I have reviewed websites for more than 20 years.

Some of my reviews have resulted in lasting client relationships, some have fizzled out to nothing and some people just ghosted me as they didn’t like the sound of someone criticising their beloved website. And one woman just snapped her fingers and said “Oh send the report to my VA so she can make the changes” I did not because that was just rude.

But I do not criticise: all I do is look into your website, see how old it is, how Google see it and how the general public see it. Then then make recommendations of how it can be improved.

In the 4 years, there are some common mistakes that the average web builder overlooks. I have picked 7 of the most common and what you can do to fix it.

1. A Tiny Logo

First things first, your company logo is the identity of your website. I get that you want to save space and have it inline with your toggle menu, but does it have to be that small? Twin this with a logo that includes a strapline and you are onto a losing streak before your page has even loaded.

I recommend: Make the logo larger. Look at it and ask yourself honestly “can I read this?”

Another good tip is to keep the logo separate from the strapline. This will save vital space in your logo plus the strapline can be emphasised more in a larger format still in a prominent position.

Social Media Links at the Top

I do cringe inwardly whenever I see this. Here’s why. Someone has taken the trouble to come and visit your website, so why would you have your social media links up the top of your page?

If they click these, they will be diverted away from your website and now they cannot take the desired action on your website to buy from you, enquire about your services and so on. Done enough times, Google will also get suspicious as to why people are clicking off your website so quickly.

I recommend: Add the social media links at the bottom of each page. Then your client can look once they have read your page and can simply visit your channels if they want to know more or view your content.

No Call to Action / Contact Details

The internet is a very impatient place. If you are not making it as easy as possible for people to take action on your website then they will click back and try another company. Maybe your competitor.

I also include contact details in this section because sometimes even a location seems to be a big ask. If for example you are based in Rural Essex but want to appeal to people in London. This does not contribute to know like and trust. Instead it just comes across as really suspicious.

I recommend: Make your buttons eye catching and prominent on each page. Did you know, you can also link phone numbers?  So all the user has to do is press the button to get a direct line to you.

With location, if you really must appeal to a specific area, then get a virtual or mailbox address. It will cost you anything from £30 a month onwards.

Unoptimised / Massive images

Cover images are very popular. They are also the bane of a slow loading web page. If I ever find a page is slow to load, this is the first thing I check out.

An image that spans the entire screen on say a 23″ monitor would need to span 1920 pixels. You could get away with a 1200 pixel wide image. But when you see the image is 4000 pixels wide and the filesize is about 1Mb.

That image hasn’t been optimised at all, its just been swipted form a phone, and directly added to your page.

But this isn’t exclusive to cover images.  Any image slows down your website if you haven’t taken the time to resize it. This reduces the filesize and should help to improve the download time for your page. Also Google loves quick loading pages.

I recommend: Resize your images. This is easy to do on both Mac and Windows PC’s using their default image editors. For cover images use 1200 pixels wide (but test the quality). For other images, aim to resize a maximum of 800-1000 pixels on the longest side. And optimise your images in .webp format as this is also a game changer.

No Back to Top Link

Have you ever seen it when someone on a mobile is looking through a web page that they get to the bottom of and have to manually scroll up again? No one is going to thank you for making it look like they are spinning the wheel of fortune. So a dynamic button on your website make for a better user experience.

I recommend: Add a back to top/scroll button.  These are easy to add to your website, with just a couple of lines of code or a free plugin. I use WPFront Scroll Top https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/wpfront-scroll-top/ which literally takes 2 minutes to configure.

Optimising just the Home page.

I am of course talking about search engine optimisation. Many times I have had to utter the words, “Google ranks web pages, not websites.”

Therefore, every page on your website is a potential opportunity. Yes your home page is the most visited page on your website, but just adding a concise page title, description and content to just your home page is a wasted opportunity.

I recommend: Optimise your home page for your main keyphrases (what your company is about) and optimise your more niche keyphrases for your other pages (Your services/product).

Rewrite the page title, wite an off page (meta description) and either write your text to reflect your niche keyphrases. Or hire a copywriter that specialises in web content.

No Privacy Policy/GDPR

The final most common issue is the one that can land you in the most trouble. You will have cookies on your website for things like Google Analytics, if you use a page builder or CMS/Ecommerce platform to run your website.

These need to be declared when someone calls up your website and you need to ask for consent from the user to visit your site).

More so, if users are volunteering their personal information to you (via a form or email), you need to include a privacy policy on your website. Outline what information you collect, how long you keep it stored for and what you intend to use it for. These seldom get read but they serve as peace of mind to your user.  Mainly that you are not going to exploit there details and sell it to every spammer in the world.

I recommend: Two things: Have a good read of https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/advice-for-small-organisations/ which outlines everything you need to include and comes up with a few good tips and resources. CookieYes provide a plugin that can generate a privacy and cookie policy. https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/cookie-law-info/

Conclusion

I could write about 10, maybe 20 more common website errors, but these 7 cover the basics.

Basically, if you keep your website efficient, simple, easy to use and make everything blatantly obvious, your website will be your greatest asset for years to come.

If you are struggling with your website and would like a reality check covering everything from SEO to pagespeed, Google Business pages to general layout, contact us for a free no-obligation website review.

Book web review today

How to Bring Expired Domain Names Back from the Dead

This is a true story of a domain name that expired and what you can do to get it back.  But any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

About this time last year, I took on a customer of a family run business.  Their original website had been created by a “friend”.  This friend had created the website, set up their .co.uk domain name, their hosting and kept it updated. 

Then to cut a long story short, this friendship went sour.  The friend stopped communication and as a result I got a frantic phone call from the client to take it from here.

Everything was going well, their website was re-designed, we set up on a new hosting provider and everything was going great. All we needed now was the access details so could set up the  domain name to point to the new server.

And that was a problem.  Because the friend was not playing any more.  This was a red flag.

Is the domain name in your name?

This was my first question.  If the website is at least in your name, you can go to central registry (Nominet for .co.uk, ICANN for .com) and dispute/claim your domain name.

Sadly, GDPR doesn’t allow Joe Public to view a domain owner’s personal details anymore.  So we could only assume that it wasn’t set up in their name at all.

This was confirmed when the client requested this and the friend replied he would change this when the domain name expires in 6 months time. Red Flag number 2.

In the meantime we used a new domain name if just to launch the website.

The Honourable Thing

So fast forward to expiry day and I try the domain name transfer feature on my registrar.  The friend will get the email and in theory, he just needs to log in and change the IPS Tag to the new registrar.

Just so it wasn’t a big surprise, the client also sent a nice polite email just keeping the friend in the picture of what was going to happen and what he needed to do.

They got nothing back.  Not a sausage.  I however got a notice from my registrar telling me that the transfer had been refused by the owner.

I tried this a couple of times.  And got the same outcome.  Oh boy.

Expired.  Now what?

So of course the domain name expired.  So that meant that now the domain name would be released and we can call first dibs on it, right?  No.

A domain name doesn’t become free as soon as someone forgets to pay for it. It varies depending who you are registered with but domain registrars tend to give you a grace period of around 30 days before that domain name is suspended officially.  It can still be renewed in that time but friend did not take any action. 

When a domain name is finallly suspended, the registrar cannot touch it.  But now neither could we. In fact there is a separate little problem now.

The unwritten rule

Everything I have written so far, I already knew, but this bit was a little bit of a grey area. 

So, when a domain name is finally suspended by a domain registrar, is goes into a quarantine period for 91 days.  On the 92nd day, it gets deleted.  On this 92nd day only then is it available for anyone to reclaim or register.

The salvation

By this time, I was having nightmares about Google Calendar reminders set for 90 days time and whether I should be getting up at midnight to ensure I register this little delight.

I mentioned this whole escapade to my IT friend, Sebastian, From T Star Tech.  He sent me the link of Dropped.uk. At Dropped, you can back order a suspended domain name and they keep an eye on the dates and do all the donkey work so you don’t have to. 

You have to pay for the actual back order but only if they successfully obtain the domain name for you. 

The 92nd day

So finally we get to the day where the domain name was going to be deleted.  I checked the login panel at dropped and the actual release date was announced for 10.30am.  I did have a training session booked for the same time, but thankfully the client was late for his meeting.  This enabled me to check at the exact time the name would be released.

Almost immediately it came up with “Successful, please pay us”.  So I did.  In this case I paid £35, which considering that they’d taken the guesswork out of what had been a long saga and rescued my client, was an absolute bargain.

All I had to do now was add the correct registrar details and transfer the domain name to my actual registrar and we were good to go.

Cue me sending a good news phone call to my client.  Which I wish I could do many more of!

Happy Ending

So the domain name now redirects to the current website as it should have done a year ago.

Whether it still holds any of its former weight from an SEO perspective will definitely be covered in a later post.

The Takeaway from this

I already know that I harp on a lot in my blog posts, but at least hear me out on this one:

The domain name on a website is vital.  More vital than the design, layout (these can be changed). But do yourself a favour and either register the domain name yourself. In your name.

Reliable Web designers etc can do this on your behalf, but be transparent from the start and ask for documentation.  This is a service that I provide when asked to.

And just remember, even if you trust your friend into doing something that you are not sure about, remember relationships of any sort can go sour.

Sometimes its just easier to be brave or get in the professionals.

Just Launched: 12 Week Training Programme

I have been busy over the Summer months.  Not just with going on holiday but with planning and the setup of my new mini recording studio.

And today I am proud to officially announce my new 12 week web design programme.

Designed with business startups in mind, in just 12 weeks, I will guide you through setting up your own 5 page website.  I begin by setting up your hosting , encryption and WordPress setup.  From there, my 12-weekly video series will guide you through:

• Setting up your own email address.
• Setting up a temporary website coming soon page
• Creating your own web template.
• How to build each page and what you should include.
• Setting up GDPR and privacy policy.
• Testing and launching.

But we are not just offering the 12 weekly video series:  We will also provide a weekly accountability, a fortnightly Q&A Session on Zoom, and a Facebook Group.  We have also got set up a monthly Speaker in our Zoom group, to give you online and business advice.  This will be available to all our subscribers as a monthly resource.

After you have the completed the 12 weeks, you have the choice to either move your website away to your own hosting provider or subscribe for ongoing support and advice, maintenance updates and our online video library to add other elements to your website.

We are offering this 12 week programme for a one-off cost of £197.  However for our first 10 signups, we are offering this at a discounted rate of £147. 

We have 9 spaces left, so get in touch today to take the first step in the right direction for your online presence.

How many pages should you have on your website? Part 5

Page 5️⃣ – Contact us

I have touched on contact details being on every page (especially if your service is location based), but this page is the go to for all of your contact details.

So include your Business address, phone number(s) and a location map.

You can also provide details about your company location (for example, can people just show up at your address, or do they need to book an appointment?), your business hours, and any links to social media profiles or WhatsApp groups.

Alternatively, instead of an email address, you can also take this time to include an enquiry form so people can contact you directly. If you take this route then you should include:

Page 6️⃣ – Privacy policy.

This outlines how you handle and store any personal details volunteered by your online users and how long you keep it on file for.

Privacy policy wording can be obtained by either a solicitor, the FSB or an online privacy policy generator, such as https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/make-your-own-privacy-notice/

Conclusion

So there we have it, a brief rundown of 5 pages that you should be including on your website. Along with the content you should be including to get the best results from your users.

Have I helped? Please let me know in the comments below if you feel I have missed anything.

How many pages should you have on your website? Part 4

Page 4️⃣ – Reviews/Testimonials

So far we have given your users content to tell them about you and what you offer, even to the extent of blowing your own trumpet. But not everyone is that spontaneous, so page 4 should really be the page that both backs up your brilliance, and serve the slightly more sceptical visitors to your website.

This might come in the form of testimonials, case studies, a portfolio of your work, before and after shots, the list is endless!

You may have reviews on external sites like Google My Business or Facebook, but don’t be tempted to just provide a link to these pages. Remember, not everyone has an account and you want your users to stay on your website as much as possible. So include your testimonials here.

You can also use this page to display any awards or accreditations: Anything that proves you are a genuine and trustworthy business and not likely to do a runner with anyone’s money.

How many pages should you have on your website? Part 2

Page 2️⃣ About us/you

The second page should be used to both tell the user your story and about your business. For example:

• What is your background?
• What inspired you to start your business?
• Why are you selling this particular product?

Remember the mantra “facts tell but stories sell”.

Include an image of yourself

Come on don’t be shy! 😀 People buy from people so a professional, well taken headshot associates you with your business and builds trust even on a web page. Larger companies normally include this for every key member of their team.

About your company

You’ve introduced yourself, now touch on your company: Who are they? How long have you been established? What are your ethics? What makes you different than Fred down the road that sells the same product/service?

Any evidence?

If you have a fancy award or an accreditation, here should be the place to add it. Are you an investor in people? A sustainable business? Touch on it here.

How many pages should you have on your website? Part 1

I was asked this question last week and it’s given me an idea: Everyone has their own opinion on what should be included on a business website, but if you are stumped for ideas and need guidance, well hey, that’s what I do, right?

Over the next 5 days, I am going to give me top 5 pages and what you really should include content-wise.

Page 1️⃣ – Home

This goes without saying. Every website needs a page to begin with. 99% of the time, the home page is the most popular page on your website.

So what should this page include?

Your logo

Ideally this should feature on every single page of your website (even the 404 page not found). It tells your users that they have come to the right place to see you.

Your call to action

Again having this prominent throughout all of your pages is a no brainer, but if someone has already visited your website and are ready to take action, then make it easy for them by linking them to your shop, subscription button or your phone number or email address.

Who you are

You can speculate more about yourself in another page, but at least introduce who you are and what makes you different from all of your competitors.

What you do

Again are they in the right place? Give an outline of your product/service as well as any images, videos or a good review.

Focal point

Just text is very offputting, so break it down with a visual of either you, your product or service should feature quite high up on the page. A Smart way of covering a few key points about your business (eg awards, news, products, etc) is to use a carousel (image rotator)

Contact details

There is a contact page, but bearing in mind this is your home page that your user may have visited before and they want to be able to contact you for more information. Again this should really be on every page of your website.

GDPR

Love it or loathe it, if you’re requesting personal data from your users or even if you are tracking how people behave on your website (for example Google Analytics) You need to include a consent banner or window throughout your website asking your user if they consent or not.

Why haven’t my web changes updated?

This is one of the most common questions I get asked when updating a website.

Let’s say you’re working on your website. You have a brand new image in place which should look great on the page, and made a few minor changes to update your content. But then you come to view the live site, and all you see is the same old website. Even clicking refresh doesn’t change anything. Why can’t you see your new content? Ack!

I’m going to get a bit teccie here: When you visit a web page, your browser stores the files from that web page. This includes:

• The location of the site.
• All the files used to build the pge and run any applications
• Any downloads (documents, forms, etc)

Then if you visit that page again, instead of reloading the entire page again from your server, it uses this file to load the page quickly and reduces the bandwidth and time it takes to load the page from scratch every time.

Unfortunately, if you visit a page constantly and its being updated, the browser still loads the old files. Even refreshing a good few times doesn’t seem to prompt the average web browser. A very frustrating situation when the web designer can see the changes but the customer cannot.

So we need to prompt the browser to ditch its old files and look back on the website to reflect the new changes.

• If simple F5 or browser refresh isn’t working, then try holding down the Shift key while pressing the refresh button. Try this a few times to prompt your browser into action.
• Clear your internet cache for your web browser. https://kb.intermedia.net/article/1160 gives a great step by step guide for the most common browsers used
• Close your browser and re-open it on a different page.
• Use a different web browser
• Restart your computer

I hope this helps some poor soul out there. Trust me as a web designer, more people need to be aware of this issue.

6 WordPress Tools you Should be Using

Every other website I have worked on over the last 5 years has been a WordPress website. I do recommend using WordPress, as it is quite a robust platform and ideal if you are planning on adding and updating the website yourself.

Over the 6 years that I have configured WordPress websites, these are a handful of the plugins that I insist on adding along with the basic platform:

WP Cerber Security

I have used other security softwares in the past, but I find that WP Cerber is quite literally the guard dog of your website. It defends against hacker attacks, spam, trojans and viruses.

Among its other many features, it also gives you an insight into intruder activity onto your website and hardens up WordPress with comprehensive security algorithms, spam protection, bot detection and reCaptcha.

Ninja Scanner/Firewall

NinjaScanner and NinjaFirewall is another plguin I use to protect websites. NinjaFirewall is a web application firewall that stands in front of WordPress. It can hook, scan, sanitise or reject any HTTP/HTTPS request sent to a PHP script before it reaches WordPress or any of its plugins. It also gives login protection with either a code or logging in twice.

Even directories, sub-directories and scripts outside of WordPress are protected. It can also sync seamlessly with NinjaScanner which scans your blog for malware or viruses.

Yoast SEO

WordPress in its core form, has no Search Engine Optimisation features. Yoast SEO is one of the best plugins for SEO. You add a page title and meta description for every page, post, product or testimonial on your website. It can also analyse your SEO and readability for each page, Generate XML Sitemaps and verifies your Google Search Console account. There’s also an education center where you can learn to get more out of promoting your web pages.

The premium version’s main features help you rank better with synonyms and related keyphrases, gives real time suggestions for internal links and comes with a redirect manager for deadlinks.

WP Fastest Cache

As WordPress is such a large robust platform useful for any website, the number of files and scripts can bog down the website’s performance. Therefore a Cache plugin such as WP Fastest can dramatically improve your site’s download time and general performance. It can minify your style and javascript files, combines files with reduces the number of http requests and reduce the size of files sent from your server.

The free software with the basic settings can improve your Google PageSpeed score by about 7 points. The premium version goes further with mobile caching, image optimisation and allows you to delete cache logs.

WPFront Scroll Top

If your web template doesn’t have one already, an arrow that allows the user to get back to the top of the page with one click goes a long way (especially on a mobile device) WP Front is a simple no-nonsense plugin that enables an arrow at the bottom of each page. It comes with a library of preset buttons or you can upload your own custom button or create one using FontAwesome

UpDraft Plus

Last but never least, UpDraft Plus backs up your web files and database, very handy if you need to undo a change on your WordPress site or if an update breaks your website (this does happen unfortunately). You can also restore previous backups from their control panel.

The free version should serve you well. The premium upgrade gives you automatic backups, a migration feature and automatic backup before updates.

Conclusion

There are many great plugins available to make your website experience better or more adaptable to your needs. I could name many more but these are the essential plugins that tackle, security, SEO and basically cover your back. But a word of warning: Too many plugins on your website will slow down your site performance and makes it vulnerable to security breaches. A rule of thumb would be to not exceed 20 plugins. If however you are on shared or budget hosting, this should be reduced down to 5.

Resources

My own website 🙂
https://torquemag.io/2018/02/wordpress-plugins-many-many/

New Year, New Website

If you own or are responsible for a business website, it makes good sense to perform an audit at least every 6-12 months to ensure that your web pages are still alluring and your content is still up to date. A lot of advances have been made online, so even if your website has been revamped in the last couple of years, your good intentions already look dated.

Tend to your website like you would tend a garden: Sure you don’t have to be in it every single day, but regular tending to keep it fit for purpose. For example, remove the weeds and the plants that didn’t take. Maybe once a month add something fresh.

So many times I have seen unattended websites that are the garden equivalent of overgrown grass, thriving weeds and the rusting remains of an old car!
But before contacting any web designer, with a long list of what needs to be done, have a look at what you currently have online and perform an audit on your website. Here’s a quick how to guide:

Feedback

You know something is amiss with your website when you (or your sales team) stop referring people to the website for further details. You may instead be using Twitter or Facebook to keep your client base updated on the latest buzz. That is fair enough, but don’t forget they will out of curiosity look at your website as well. And what’s to say you cannot include social media updates on your actual website? You can.

Identify your quiet period

Every business has a quiet time: For business to business companies, this could be in the time between after Christmas and before new year; around March and before the financial year or during the 6 week Summer holidays. For online shops, this could be after both Christmas and the January sales. Whenever your quiet period where there are few distractions, this is when you should focus on this task and take the time to assess your website.

What needs to be changed

This is where you need to roll your sleeves up and look at your website objectively. Start at the home page: Does this still look stunning? More importantly does it still reflect your business?
From here, go through the other pages of your website: Do you still offer these products/services? Is the content still persuasive?

Also is your news page, portfolio and/or blog updated on a regular basis? How long ago was it updated? If they are not already, your social networks can be set to automatically update every time you post on your blog.

If your website performs an online function, (for example, completing a form, making a purchase, etc), does this still work ok?

In general, is your website easy to navigate? What is the general feel of the site? Is it still good? Try to put yourself in your customer’s position when going through your website: Would they be impressed or disappointed?

Check your stats

Any serious website owner should be set up on Google Analytics, as this can reveal a lot more about your website, how visitors find your website and how they behave on your website.

NB: If you are not on Google Analytics yet, then every hosting provider does provide basic analysis data from the control panel (but take this quiet time instead to get registered and setup on Google Analytics).

I could dedicate an entire article (even a few) to the various functions and filters of Google Analytics, but for now, The main areas to focus on should be:

• Bounce rate this is where people click onto your website and then come off it within a short period of time. If this figure is high, then you definitely need to revise your website.
• Time spent on website: There are two functions for this: The average duration that each visitor spends on your website or more usefully, a breakdown of the tally of people spending a fixed amount of time on your website (for example x% spending less than 10 seconds, x% less than 1 minute, etc) again the less time spent, the less engaging your pages and content are.
• Number of pages on website Again provided as an average per visitor or a breakdown. Is your content compelling enough that people want to read more, or are your visitors visiting one pages and then leaving. Or have they found what they wanted on that one page?
• Popular pages This section can be used to answer that question. There are 3 various breakdowns: Top content pages, which show the most visited pages on your website, Top Landing page (the first page one visits on your website) and Top Exit page (the last page visited on your website). This gives an indication of the path people are using throughout your website. The exit page may be your contact page, indicating that they are ringing or sending you an email.
• Goal Analysis. Depending on the main focus of your website (for example, download a guide or make a purchase), take the time to set up each goal on your website, making sure to record every page in the process. This is the most worthwhile tool on Analytics because you can monitor the success of the whole process and see how many people are abandoning the process halfway. For example are people giving up on page 2 of your 4 page checkout process? if so why?

The WordPress version as seen from the control panel (circled)

Responsive layout

Another area you should analyse on Google Analytics, is how people are viewing your website. There may only be about 30 people per month viewing your website using a tablet or smart phone, but this figure is anticipated to get bigger. Also these could be the visitors that want to buy from you or find out more information, so make sure that your website can accommodate the mobile user.
View your website on both a tablet and a mobile: How does your site look? Is it still easy to read and to navigate? Can you perform everything on a handheld device that you can from a desktop?  You should.

Security

If your website is set up using sophisticated software (for example WordPress, Joomla, etc), one final word about security: 2014 has been known for online security breaches from vulnerabilities in software to brute force attacks (link to 2014 hack list). Brute force attacks are automated but target your administration panel using simple passwords, and have been rife since the start of 2014 (ask your hosting provider, they may already have security measure in place to eliminate this).

So can your login be easily guessed? Now might be the time to create a more secure password.

The Joomla Version as seen at the bottom of each page and the update notification (both circled)

Even better is your website software up to date? Software companies regularly revise the software to include all the latest security patches which keeps the nasties out. You can check the latest version of software by logging into your admin panel. Most software providers post a message on your admin panel when there is a new revision available.

These points alone should give you a clear idea on what needs to be improved on your website. Updates to the pages could easily be made by you or a members of staff, but the more involved areas, such as updating the software or re-development to accommodate mobile devices can simply be handed to your web developer or IT department.

This is a brief guide to get you started. DVH Design will shortly be compiling a more in-depth step by step analysis checklist for you to use on your website every year. Please contact or comment below if you would like this document when it goes live.

Unique or Sheep? 5 Ways to stand out From the Crowd

It is good to see that the economy has recovered. It’s even better to see more people than normal starting up their own business.  What has got me bothered is the general attitude towards competitors. So often I have heard, “I want my website designed just like company X” or “as much like competitor Y’s site that we can legally get away with.”

Even after 14 years of trading, I know that the market is very competitive and some companies are more established than others, but you are going to have a website that’s an exact replica of XYZ company what is the point? If they had a shop, would you buy a shop nearby and kit it exactly in the same way? It offers no value whatsoever to the consumer and makes your business look flimsy and very short-lived.

But whether you are just starting out or already an already established business, you don’t have to be a clone. You can make your website unique. Here are a few steps:

1. Look at your Competitor’s Sites

Competitor websites are a wealth of information and a good place to get your initial inspiration. Visit the websites of a few of your closest competitors. What parts of the site draws your attention? What do they offer? What information do they provide on their website, that seems to be popular? What is the feel of their website?

And then piece together how you can combine all these positive features into your website. By adapting this method, you aren’t necessarily copying anyone’s company, you are merely striving to be better than all of your competitors.

2. Focus on your Strong Points

On planning any business, one of the first things you should have done, is planned, amongst a few things is your unique selling point(s).

So is your customer support efficient? Do you explain terms in plain English? Do you go that extra mile to keep your clients happy? If so, then make this clear on your website.

If you are already established, then ask your clients: What do they like about your service? What makes you different from the store up the road who sells X widgets. Here might be the time for a survey offering some sort of incentive (eg 25% off next order).

Just please do me a favour and do not say because “we are cheaper”. That isn’t a unique selling point and seldom have I seen companies that undercut their competitors succeed in long-term business. Cue a well-known phrase surrounding peanuts and monkeys.

3. Flaunt your credibility

Even with a website with unique content and all these good points about your business, how further can we prove your company a long-term establishment and not another flimsy site that’s here one minute and gone the next?

• Membership from professional bodies related to your industry. It is standard practice for these organisations to provide you with their logo/badge to use on your website
• Accreditations These could also be from professional bodies or could even be a management standard or a general seal of approval that you may have received.
• Customer reviews Do you have good snippets of comments from satisfied customers? Or an online review system on your site (especially for shopping websites)
• Photo of your shop/building. It sounds basic but with so many websites popping up for the same sector, bricks and mortar reassures potential clients that you are a genuine business. As a classic example: one of my clients had their website re-designed to the extent where the image of their premises was somehow discarded. 1 month later while we were working out why they had no sales, they realised this image had made all the difference. Within one week of adding it back on, sales had picked up again.

I received a lovely giftbox from my satisfied clients, myperfectgiftbox.com

The contents of the beautiful gift I received from a satisfied client (the chocolates were bliss and the candle still smells gorgeous)

4. Get Social

Connecting with both existing clients and other like-minded businesses on the social networks gives you a chance to engage with your audience and done correctly, gives your company a unique voice.

Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus and Twitter are the most popular, but picture platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest are great for portfolios, artwork and photography. All are free to signup to, and Facebook and LinkedIn have a wealth of groups that you can join and meet like-minded people.

You can save time and set up all your profiles using a social media tool such as Hootsuite or Tweetdeck.
Just remember, the golden rule with Social Media: tell tell tell, not sell sell sell.

Hootsuite.com is an ideal marketing tool that saves time visiting Social Media sites and comes with a URL shrinker to save valauble characters

5. Action, Monitor, Repeat

The thing that drives me most nuts with some websites, is they seem to get to a certain point and then stop trying. Social media dries up, effort stops and then what? Hopefully not sit back and relax and watch the orders come flooding in.

The key to a good website is to constantly monitor your progress on a regular basis. What has worked this month, which doesn’t seem to be working? Would it make any difference if I try X instead of Y? How can we improve?
Also check go back every few months, and check your competitors’ website: has anything changed? have they added and improved their website since you went live?

You will constantly have to go through this cycle, but if it means you having the edge over your competitors then its time and effort well spent.

Taking Stock of Web Images

Go to any business website and chances are there will be at least one stock image, maybe more on the pages. A stock image can save you the time and trouble of taking your own images, gives a visual representation of the theme of your web pages and clearly portrays your message. Stock images can be bought from reputable stock image websites and vary in price from £1-£30.

The early days of the internet saw a lot of shameless copyright infringement:  Images were plucked from other sites and used; content was copied off other websites and passed as their own. Around 2008, the image companies said “Enough!” and began to clamp down on anyone seen to be misusing images.

The one story I tend to share with my clients when emphasising the importance of image copyright and how it can all go wrong, was from the MD of a local company: Before we got called in to help with his website (I must stress that this all happened long before we were on the scene!) He bought two images to use on a corporate presentation about 10 years ago. When he came to updating his website a couple of years later he used the same two images on his website thinking that this was ok.

Two months later, two envelopes landed on his doormat.  Both were royalty bills from the photographer for each of these images: £7,500 each or the special offer price of £15,000 for 2. Money that is better spent elsewhere for any small business!

In this case, the person involved didn’t read the small print, because if he had, he would have known that these images were not permitted for web use. This is just as big a problem as using Google Image search and pinching the image for your own use.

There are many stock photographs website out there that provide a wealth of stock photography at various sizes and formats for you to get your message across. the main two being www.istockphoto.com and www.shutterstock.com.

It is free to register on both websites and then you can either pay per image, or pay in advance by, purchasing credits (iStockPhoto) or subscribing for a fixed time (ShutterStock). The unit price does get cheaper if you buy more or subscribe for longer, but my advice is only buy what you will realistically use.

There is also www.sxc.hu which is a free stock photo website, but the quality is not always as good as the paid stock image websites. Also still make sure you read the Standard restrictions and availability first as some photographers do ask to be notified and/or credited.

Here’s a few pointers to make your credits/subscription go even further:

Check out the free section: Both websites have a free section. If you have a clear idea of the image you want, see if you can find it here first.

Read the small print: Before buying anything, take the time to read through the Website’s Licensing terms. It is a lengthy document but stock image websites do make it a bit easier for you by listing what you’re allowed to use their images for and what is not permitted. If you’re planning to use an image or graphic as a logo, you will need to buy an extended license, which does cost a bit more. Most sites permit you to use their images for small-scale printing but check the impressions limit given as this varies from site to site.

Size and resolution: Each image comes available in about 3-5 different sizes, from a small 500 pixel image version to use on a web page to a high resolution, 6000 pixel wide image ideal for posters. If you know you’re going to crop an image then buy one slightly larger than you need to. If you are only using the image for the website then opt for a resolution 72 dpi (Dots per inch) which is more affordable than the ideal print resolution off 300dpi.

Get it right: I know a lot of you are probably saying “Duh!” and slapping your foreheads at this one, but it is one worth mentioning: Shutterstock do not have a refund policy and as of 1 July 2013, iStockPhoto will no longer issue refunds for errors. So if you don’t check you have the correct image, size and resolution, it’s your loss. So just double check again before before hitting the download button.

Steer clear of Editorials: Most stock websites include images used for editorial purposes. These are found under a separate section but may appear if you are running a search. These can include, logos, people, places or events. If they’re highlighted in red or have clear warnings on their page, then find an alternative because these are strictly for non-commercial use.

Conclusion

Just by following these basic guidelines, then no one needs to receive any hefty royalty bills for thousands for an image you realistically only need to pay a fiver for.  If anyone can think of any other good tips or something that I’ve missed then please do feel free to leave me a comment below.