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.

Certain colours make evoke different emotions and it’s important to make sure you’re using colour psychology to your advantage. We’ve all heard that blue is supposed to be soothing and serene, but what else do we know about colours?

Whether you’re a young, up and coming fashion brand trying to connect with your audience or a legal firm wanting to gain trust, colours can help you to be perceived in that particular way. 

How? Read on to find out more…

Reds, Oranges and Yellows

Red is the universal colour of love and lust. But there’s a bit more to it than that. Red is exciting, it’s passion, danger, energy. In colour psychology, red is the most intense – meaning it can evoke the strongest emotions. Red is typically a good colour to use for a call to action button as it stands out and entices you to click it by subconsciously giving you that sense of excitement. 

Orange is creative. It’s success, enthusiasm, adventure. Orange is a good colour when you want to be playful, especially as it isn’t as demanding as red. This colour is used to add fun to websites, marketing materials and logos. 

Yellow, to no one’s surprise, revolves around sunshine. Sunshine brings happiness, positivity and optimism, just like the colour yellow. It’s the perfect colour if you’re wanting to bring a little positivity and care-free sunshine vibes to your brand.

Pinks and Purples

Pink is a popular colour for brands with quite a large female demographic. The colour pink itself revolves around femininity, playfulness and unconditional love. With such a bright and bold colour, it’s no surprise that fierce and typically feminine brands focus on pink.

The colour purple is connected with nobility, luxury and wisdom. However, it is more commonly used as an accent colour, as too much purple can be perceived as arrogant. Brands that want to be defined as luxury jump at the chance to use the colour purple, and it’s really no surprise.

Blues and Greens

Earlier I said that blue was calming. Let’s look into that. The colour blue is linked to the sea and sky. It brings emotions of harmony, peace, tranquillity. Not only that, but it’s trustworthy and stable. You’ll find a lot of brands use the colour blue to show that they’re reliable and safe. 

Tied to nature and money, green is the colour for growth, fertility and health. A lot of health brands will use green as their base colour to give you the sense of being connected with nature and your surroundings. Outdoor brands can also use this colour to entice a certain demographic, as green looks good and blends beautifully with the landscape. 

Greys, White and Black

Grey represents neutrality and balance. It’s simple and it’s easy. Grey is a good accent colour, as it’s hard to be put off by it and it can transition beautifully with almost any shade of colour.

White is pure, innocent and good. White is an extremely common background colour, as it keeps the website looking clean and minimal. It’s commonly paired with Greys and Blacks, but white can be paired with anything to clean up a website.

Symbolic of mystery, power and elegance, black is an extremely popular colour in retail. Typically contrasted against white, high end designers will use the colour black to showcase their premium products in a way that oozes sophistication. 

Now you’ve read a little bit about colour psychology, you can start to apply it to your brand. But don’t be afraid to think outside of the box, you don’t have to follow the rules.

Choose colours that represent you and your brand, and you can be sure that everything else will fall into place. Victoria Lilly Photography picks their colours beautifully, with their main accent colour being a gorgeous dusty pink. When your brand is about treasuring those precious family moments, the colour of unconditional love seems to be fitting!

Looking for a fab new website? Contact Newcastle Web Design today!
Email: hello@nclwebdesign.co.uk | Phone: 0191 603 1069

The post The Importance of Colour For Your Branding appeared first on Newcastle Web Design.

1. Overhaul your imagery by focusing on authenticity

In 2019 there’s going to be a real trend for visuals that switch from stock images, to genuine photos. This focus on authenticity can help you in building visitor trust (a notoriously tricky challenge when it comes to the world of websites). If your web pages are graced with that image of the Shutterstock Receptionist (who literally works for everyone in the world), it’s time to make a change and introduce the real faces of your business to the world.

2. Be mobile ready

Google has long since emphasised how mobile websites are now essential for ranking within their search results. However, if you’ve been putting off a re-design to move to mobile, now is the time. Google is now effectively ‘marking down’ websites that don’t present a beautiful online experience for every device – desktop, tablet and mobile. If you’re not sure whether your website is already mobile-friendly, you can check using Google’s simple tool.

What’s more, beyond Google’s word of warning on the matter, it simply makes sense to provide a website that scales to your visitor’s device. After all, what good is a web presence if mobile visitors (who now account for 51% of all internet surfers [Smart Insights] can’t interact easily with your site?

3. Review and rewrite your copy by asking “WIIFM?”

How long have you featured the same words on your website? And how much thought was placed into them when they were written? Your copy should act as a sales person – it should be persuasive, speak in your visitors’ language and compel them to act with calls to action that feature throughout.

Finally, on your homepage, you should talk of benefits, not features or product specifications. To achieve this, you need to place yourself in your customers’ shoes and always ask “What’s In It For Me?” If what you’re speaking about doesn’t matter to your visitor by explaining what they’ll gain when purchasing your product or service, you simply won’t make the sale, gain an enquiry or get that brochure download.

4. Content – It’s always reined as King, but in 2017 it’s going to be judge, jury and executioner

Your blog should serve as an essential marketing tool – it should drive search engine visitors to your blog, demonstrate your expert insight and grow your social media audience. If you’re yet to make the most of your blog, 2019 is the year to finally tackle it (and if you’re already blogging, then the following tips will serve you just as well):

• Carefully consider what your target customers’ pain points are, and how your content can provide guidance, hints, tips and tricks as to how they can overcome them.
• Undertake keyword research using Google’s keyword planner to ensure you’re targeting the right terms.
• Check out your competitors and the ways in which they’re creating content that’s useful to their (and your) audience.
• Share your posts on social media and always reply to responses – whether on social media or in the blog comments

5. Be sociable

Social media is only becoming more important for business, and with 90% of marketers achieving a return on investment with just 6 hours a week (MediaKix), it makes sense to ensure that your social strategy is on-point, and this begins with your website.

• Add social share buttons to your blog.
• Enrich your content with shareable images that provide valuable information (such as infographics, graphs and useful tips).
• Use a tool such as Hootsuite to see how much social engagement your blog posts are receiving – from this you can create more content that your audience are showing interest in.
• Add a ‘Click to Tweet’ feature, allowing users to quickly and easily share short sections of your content.

Looking for a fab new website? Contact Newcastle Web Design today!
Email: hello@nclwebdesign.co.uk | Phone: 0191 603 1069

The post Make 2019 your best business year yet – with our five simple website tips appeared first on Newcastle Web Design.

As one of Newcastle’s leading web design agencies, we’ve helped countless people on smaller budgets create top business websites. Over time, we’ve learned some incredible tips that can make any small business website better and in this short article, we’re going to share three of them. Let’s take a look.

Responsive design is essential.

Creating a website used to be a relatively simple process. You’d make something that looked incredible whilst viewed on a landscape screen and leave it at that. Then things got complicated with the arrival of smartphones and tablets as we created dedicated mobile websites to display on these smaller screens. Now? Well, it’s simple again – with responsive web design. 

Responsive web design means that your website reflows perfectly to fit any screen it’s displayed on. By going responsive you save money on multiple designs and present your customers with a unified design across all platforms. 


Local, not broad, SEO.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) might well exist somewhere between science and art, but there are ways to make it work for you. As a small business, you’re working to a limited budget, so why try to take on the big boys? 

By tailoring your SEO for a local market, you’ll save yourself a good deal of money and appear at the top of Google for local customers – something that can’t be sniffed at. So, instead of optimising around words like ‘web design’, try for ‘web design north east’ instead. The same goes whether you’re a butcher, baker or candlestick maker. Be specific!


Encourage interaction.

Everyone has a contact page on their website, but few actually draw any real leads from them. So, why not encourage that interaction through the form of a scroll triggered box on your website?

Scroll triggered boxes are becoming increasingly popular online, in fact, you’ve probably seen one today! They’re those boxes which appear in the middle of the screen when you’re scrolling down a page or moussing over to leave. Sometimes they ask you for an email address, sometimes they encourage you to call. Other times they’ll offer a special one-time discount. Research has shown that scroll boxes dramatically increase engagement levels on websites of all sizes.

Looking for a fab new website? Contact Newcastle Web Design today!
Email: hello@nclwebdesign.co.uk | Phone: 0191 603 1069

The post Top Web Design Tricks for Small Businesses appeared first on Newcastle Web Design.

Today, it’s an entirely different story. Smartphones and tablets have fundamentally altered the way we use the internet and ultra-fast broadband speeds have meant that the internet has moved away from luxury and towards utility. In today’s super-connected digital landscape, the design of your small business website is crucially important.

Check out our top three web design tips for the ultimate small business website:

Mobile-First Design

Web design has been trending towards responsive layouts for a number of years now, but most people still don’t know much about it. That’s for a reason, of course, because responsive web design means that your website displays natively on screens of all sizes and shapes. Whether you’re looking at a website on a smartphone or on your TV, responsive design ensures you’re getting a layout which fits your screen size perfectly.

Strong Content

I’m sure you’ve seen it across your travels on the internet, but there’s an increasing number of websites which abandon balance in favour of full screen videos, or image heavy websites. Those websites can look beautiful, but for the majority of us, a skilful blend of graphics, text and media is the best way forward. Bold, bright images paired with clear and compelling copy is a winning combination, especially when paired with video content.

Geo-targeted SEO

It’s no secret that search engine optimisation (SEO) is utterly crucial to ensuring that your business gets found on search engines like Google, but don’t fall into the trap many companies do. Instead of targeting big keywords like ‘web design’, instead target phrases like ‘web design north east’ or ‘web design Newcastle’. That way you’ll be narrowing down the amount of competition and finding local customers in the process.

There’s a lot more to good small business web design practice, but with these three elements in place, you can start to build a website that will not only attract online visitors, but turn them into paying customers. Don’t hesitate to get in touch with our friendly team if you need help setting up your small business website.

Looking for a fab new website? Contact Newcastle Web Design today!
Email: hello@nclwebdesign.co.uk | Phone: 0191 603 1069

The post 3 Pro Web Design Tips For UK SMEs & Startups appeared first on Newcastle Web Design.

In the past simply having a website was good enough and so many of us had simple landing pages built so people could find out basic information such as physical locations and opening hours. However, the way we use the internet has changed dramatically, and you might find your website is no longer converting visits into sales, won’t load properly for the ever-growing number of customers using their phones to access information, or it simply isn’t getting the traffic it deserves. If that’s the case, it sounds like your website needs a spring clean. Here are our top tips for sprucing up your website on a budget:

Rewrite your content: A recent study found that 70% of those who use online dating websites wouldn’t respond to somebody with bad spelling and grammar. It’s a rule that applies to businesses too, so take a look at the words on your website. It could be that poor phrasing, incorrect spelling and mixed messages are turning customers off.

Make sure your details are up to date: If the internet isn’t a major part of your business, there’s a good chance you haven’t touched your website since it launched. Over that time, you’ve probably moved, changed numbers or at least are using a different email address. Keeping that information up to date is essential to landing new customers.

Consider a redesign: This might sound drastic, but there’s no denying your website will be many peoples introduction to your business. Ugly, poorly designed websites present a bad image to your potential customers, and shouldn’t be accepted. There are countless companies offering affordable web design in the North East (including our good selves!), so don’t rule out a website overhaul. It may sound like a cliche, but investing in a good quality website really does pay for itself.

Don’t ignore SEO: If you want your website to be at the top of Google, it won’t come with luck – you need SEO. It might seem more art than science, but search engine optimisation is the only way your website will get found on Google. Do your research and target local keywords, not national ones. ‘Web design Newcastle’ is much more achievable than, say, ‘Web design’. Be smart, you can compete if you think carefully about your keywords.

Looking for a fab new website? Contact Newcastle Web Design today!
Email: hello@nclwebdesign.co.uk | Phone: 0191 603 1069

The post Is It Time To Give Your Website A Spring Clean? appeared first on Newcastle Web Design.

An audit needn’t cost anything and seeing where you might be going wrong is a great way of improving your SEO. One useful option is a site such as woorank.com, which allows the user to get a free review of their website; it will highlight any errors or areas of improvement that you might not thought of. It will also detail common problems such as broken links, load and usability issues, which could all be affecting your SEO ranking.

Once you have that information to hand, act on it and see the impact it has on your site’s SEO over time.

Improve your share-ability

Social media engagement and shareable content are imperative to SEO. If you already have social media buttons on your site but they don’t attract a lot of shares, then there are a few basic tweaks you can make. First of all, make sure that the social media buttons are easily visible to the reader and experiment with positioning. If you don’t already, then end every post by actively encouraging readers to share your work.

Next, you’ll need to look at the content itself. Is there anything you can do to make content more compelling? Try engaging visitors by adding striking images and video, creating polls or infographics, and encourage readers to interact.

Keywords

Keywords are the most obvious aspect of a site’s SEO, however, many businesses don’t make the best use of them. Take a moment to review your current use of keywords. Are they featured in the URL and meta tags? Can you change page titles and headings to naturally include your targeted keywords?

Next, analyse your current content. Ensure that the keywords read naturally and are relevant, and that the content on the page has been written with the reader in mind.

Build authoritative links

Relevant, credible links are an important factor in the ranking of your website. Building or completing your social media pages should be the most obvious place to start, and regularly sharing your links on Twitter, Facebook and bookmarking sites is one of the easiest ways of creating backlinks yourself, which can bolster rankings. Other options for building links include guest posts on blogs in your chosen niche, and posting regular press releases.

Build a sitemap

There are so many reasons why a sitemap is necessary for your site. A sitemap will make everything much easier to find and it allows the search engines to be notified as soon as you’ve added new content to the site, thus aiding SEO. This is one of the simplest steps any website owner can take to improve their search engine rankings, and if you need any help building one, there are plenty of free tools and plugins available online.

Looking for a fab new website? Contact Newcastle Web Design today!
Email: hello@nclwebdesign.co.uk | Phone: 0191 603 1069

The post 5 Simple SEO tips to boost your website traffic appeared first on Newcastle Web Design.

Be Bold

Traditionally, website designers have usually gone with black text, but this is something you can expect to see changing in the coming year, especially for non-corporate websites. Design expert Boris Dzhingarov predicts 2018 will be the year of bigger, bolder or colourful fonts, which are more attractive to the reader’s eye and guaranteed to gain and hold their attention.

Engaging Content

In order to compete with other websites, it is essential that the content is engaging; one way of doing this is to introduce more imagery in the form of animation and retina-ready pictures. New technologies have made it possible for the average website owner or designer to create exciting visuals such as cinemagraphs and animations, so consider using these if you truly want to wow your audience.

Storytelling

Another trend that you can expect to see a lot of in 2018 is storytelling. Storytelling has become an increasingly popular means of engaging visitors, and it will help to keep them on your website longer, helping to reduce your bounce rate and improving your chances of making a conversion.

The best approach to this is to ensure that you create an interactive story that will draw your visitors in, and make sure to incorporate different means of engaging your visitors such as audio and video.

Responsive Design

Responsive web design is one trend that cannot afford to be ignored. There are now record numbers of people using mobiles and tablets to access the internet and this means that your website needs to be prepared for these visitors.

If you want to meet the demands of the modern day audience, who expect fast loading, accessible webpages while they are on the go, then a responsive website needs to be part of your digital business plan for 2018.

Clean Navigation

Website designers need to find ways of catering for the increasing amount of mobile visitors and this means implementing a cleaner navigation system. For this reason, a side menu, or a hamburger menu as it is sometimes known, is expected to become a popular option in the coming year.

Looking for a fab new website? Contact Newcastle Web Design today!
Email: hello@nclwebdesign.co.uk | Phone: 0191 603 1069

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