There is more competition than ever before in regards to online services, so it’s important to be engaging right away. You don’t want to lose potential customers because of a simple design mistake do you?

This is where imagery comes into play.

Users spend 5.59 seconds looking at written content. However, the same users will then spend 5.94 seconds looking at imagery. People spend more time looking at images than written content on a website. And that’s a fact.

If you want to learn more why imagery is so important for your website, read on!

It can bring more views and clicks.

As mentioned earlier, humans are very visual beings. Images not only attract our attention a lot quicker and easier than words, but they also have the power to evoke strong emotions.

If your website has appealing imagery, there is a higher chance of keeping your users engaged and clicking through your website. Don’t be afraid to use full bleed, stand out, gorgeous imagery. More often than not, your potential customers would rather understand your business in a visual way.

Abbey Masterbatch uses strong and engaging imagery to bring their hero to life. The colours and shape of the splash quickly grabs the users attention and piques interest.

It can bring your product or service to life.

Obviously the copy that you write is extremely important on a website. Your products and services need to be fully explained. Whether this needs a full web page to explain or merely a couple of sentences is up to you, but it may pay to have a think about the use of images.

Images can help bring your product to life. It can help your customers envisage the product in their own home, and it can go a long way in the world of marketing.

The key to sales is making sure your customers can’t imagine their life without the product. What easier way is there than using imagery?

It can improve your SEO.

Ah, the dreaded SEO. It may seem complicated to get your head around at first, but if you break it down, it can be really simple.

It all comes down to this: images can benefit your indexing on search engines. The alt tags (captions) you label your images with is another clever way to tell search engines what you’re about.

Search engines pick up these alt tags and if they include your targeted key words, you’ll show up!

Optimising your images for SEO means you can significantly improve your chances of being found on search engines. What is there to not like?

It can help with social media.

It’s obvious that having a presence on social media can help increase traffic and conversions. In 2019, it’s almost essential that your business has various social media accounts.

Social media accounts give customers a more well rounded view of your business. It builds trust and rapport and it’s a great way to make people feel more involved.

By using imagery, you can get people to ‘like’, ‘comment’ or ‘share’ your content. Don’t forget, every ‘share’ is free advertising for your business! All of these actions are significant in promoting your business and encouraging more visitors.

There you have it! There’s 4 top reasons as to why you shouldn’t let your imagery fall by the wayside.

Want to find out more about how imagery can help you? At NCL Web Design, we specialise in beautiful websites to truly reflect your brand. Get in touch now to see what we can do for you and your business!

The post The Importance Of Imagery In Web Design appeared first on Newcastle Web Design.

You may think that you don’t have the time for blogging or you don’t see how it’s relevant to your field, but read on to find out exactly how important a blog is to your business.

It boosts Search Engine Optimisation

Google loves fresh content. So much so that it will boost your website up the rankings if it sees your website producing it. Blogging is such a simple, inexpensive way of creating content, it seems obvious that every website should have one.

Consistent blog posts means that search engines are given fresh content to index. It’s really as simple as that.

Blogging is also a clever way to insert those keywords that your customers are searching for, improving the chance of showing up on their searches. What more could you want?

It strengthens relationships with consumers

It seems obvious, but having a blog is an excellent opportunity to connect with you customer base.

Blogs provide you a way of being more relatable. Speaking to your customers in a more conversational way shows them that you’re not a large, faceless corporation. Instead, it shows them that you care and understand.

A comment section also gives you a way of responding directly to your customers responses. Your consumers will appreciate that you are listening to them and taking notice. Having trust and rapport is extremely important, as increasing customer retention by 2% can have the same impact as reducing costs by 10%. Remember that the next time you debate having a blog.

It establishes you as a leader

No matter how small your business is, if you can talk the talk, you will be seen as an expert. And what better way to show that off than with a blog?

By providing content that is seen as valuable by your customers, you are automatically seen as someone with knowledge and therefore someone they can trust in.

Consistently posting blogs will, in time, ensure that you’re the go-to business in your field. This will subsequently lead to a high conversation rate and a lot more enquiries.

M.A.D Communications regularly uploads informative blogs on copy writing and social media management. By writing about these topics, they’re showing their knowledge and expertise and in turn, shows you exactly why you should hire them.

It creates opportunities for sharing

With social media being a fully integrated part of a lot of peoples lives, it’s important to create shareable content. No matter who you are or what your business is does, creating shareable content will put you a step above the competition.

We’ve all heard those stories of small businesses that suddenly went viral overnight and are now large, popular retailers. Why would any business pass up on the potential of viral traffic and exponential market growth?

There is no easier way of creating shareable content than with a blog, and shareable content is the epitome of free marketing.

Overall, it’s easy to see just why having a blog is so important. Just a little extra time every few weeks could grow traffic and retain customers with ease. It really is a no brainer.

Need help with web design? Get in touch to see what we can do!

The post How Important Is A Blog? appeared first on Newcastle Web Design.

Different companies have different reasons as to why they use/don’t use a phone line, but have you ever thought about those reasons?

There’s a lot of work that goes into creating the perfect website for your brand, so absolutely nothing should be overlooked. Especially if the overlooked item has the potential for a detrimental impact on your business and its customers.

So should you put your phone number on your website? Let’s look into the pros and cons.

Yes, You Should

It Builds Trust

Having a phone number on your website can build trust with your customers. It can be comforting for a customer to know that whatever problems they may face, they can speak to a real person about it.

Another added benefit to a local business would be that the phone number would also be local. At first, you may not think this is important, but people are more likely to support local businesses that have personality over a large, faceless corporation.

By having a mobile phone number at the top of the page, Neuroradiology Consulting really builds trust and rapport. It also gets across that this website is all about one person and their qualifications.

It Betters Peoples User Experience

People often have queries about certain products and services, so what better way to ring up and ask? It’s all well and good having emails and contact forms, but there is no quicker way of getting an urgent answer than using the phone.

Not having a phone may even be a negative in this situation. Taking too long to reply with an answer can mean your customer has already moved on to a competitor and even preferred the service over there.

Not only does Leigh’s Nurseries add a phone number to the top of the page, but they also have three different location specific numbers on the contact form. This ensures that they won’t be missing any opportunities for potential parents to get in touch.

It Can Clear Up Confusion

Have you ever been emailing someone and suddenly they seem to go cold? It puts you in a bit of a mood and you work yourself up. Only when you go over and ask what the problem is, they’re completely and utterly fine and the only problem is that you just overthought everything. It’s easy to do isn’t it?

When a customer is already confused and frustrated, they may be more likely to pick up on social cues that aren’t there. Too short of a sentence could make it seem like the company is disinterested, further adding to the customers annoyance.

Over the phone, it’s much easier to get your point across with your tone of voice, and the customer can truly know that you do care and only want to help.

No, You Shouldn’t

It Costs Money

Having a phone line means having someone to operate the phone line. This means either taking someone off their normal job to help operate the phone line, or hiring someone totally new to take it on completely.

This may be something that is worth doing for you business depending on what it is, but it isn’t always necessary.

If you’re a business that can do without a phone line, and you have other methods for customers to contact you by, why spend more money?

You Shouldn’t Have To

Jeff Bezos, CEO and co-founder of Amazon, says: “The best customer service is if the customer doesn’t need to call you, doesn’t need to talk to you. It just works.”

The Amazon web services page has no phone contact details in sight, and they are by no means struggling.

In today’s era of social media, there are multiple different ways to get in contact with people without picking up the phone. From the standard contact form to a Facebook messenger chatbot, there’s no end in ways for people to contact you and your business.

If it works for Amazon, there’s no reason as to why it shouldn’t work for your business!

It Takes Too Much Time

The main reason for companies not having a phone line is that it simply takes too much time.

When you’re on the phone, there’s not much else you can do. All of your attention is on that call that you’re on and it doesn’t give you too much room to multitask. However, with something like a chatbot, you can be answering multiple queries at the same time, keeping more people happy with the same amount of labour.

Now you’ve heard the pros and cons, will you be putting a phone number on your website or leaving it off?

If you have questions or want to see how we can help you with your business, get in touch!

The post Should You Put Your Phone Number On Your Website? appeared first on Newcastle Web Design.