The Benefits of Blogging
If you have a company website, it should probably include a blog. Many businesses, especially, smaller ones might not see the point. However, some great benefits come with setting up a blog on your website, five of which we’ve listed below.
Increases search engine traffic
Having a blog on your website increases the number of times you’ll appear in search engine results and drives traffic to your site. Create content using keywords and phrases that are likely to be used by your target audience and make sure these are included as often as possible in your posts (without affecting the flow of anything you write).
Increases leads
The more often you appear in search engine results and the more often those looking for information visit your site, the more likely it is that you will be able to create leads and convert these into customers.
Personalises your brand
No matter how wonderfully written your website is, it won’t do as much to personalise your brand as a blog. This is because a blog gives you a voice beyond any corporate messaging. You can share that voice with your employees by having them write blogs on their jobs or project they’re working on, or you can let customers and clients know how you feel about key issues facing your industry.
Makes you an industry expert
Sharing your opinions on major issues is a great way to turn yourself into an industry expert, someone people turn to for information, advice and guidance. This, in turn, builds trust in your brand, increases website traffic and improves conversion rates.
Builds a connection
Perhaps the most significant benefit of blogging is that it helps establish a relationship between you and your customers through the comments section. Knowing what your customers are thinking will help you make sure your brand and any messaging are relevant to what they want and need.
Finally, it’s important to remember that these benefits come at the price of blogging regularly and delivering interesting content that engages customers.
How To Make The Most Out Of Your Facebook Advertising
Advertising your business can be costly, and there’s no guarantee that the campaign itself will actually bring about any value. Making sure that you’re approaching Facebook advertising in the right way is key to success. Furthermore, there are a number of different things that you can do to ensure that you’re getting the most for your money.
If you’re searching for success with Facebook advertising, then you’re going to need more than just a bit of content and a fancy image.
Three Ways To Make The Most Of Your Facebook Advertising
1. Target your advertisement to appeal to the audience
The copy you include in your advertisement can make or break it. Manipulating the copy to appeal to your audience in different ways can significantly increase the amount of traffic it attracts, meaning that the likelihood of you gaining a new customer is also increased.
Advertisements that appeal to a customer’s emotions are much more likely to attract customers than a piece of poorly written copy that offers little. Use audience insights to give you more information about your specific audience and use this to build your advert accordingly.
2. Look at what your competitors are doing
More often than not, looking at the way in which your competitor is advertising can be beneficial to you as a business. If you know that your closest competitor is clued up on the advertising side of things, then using their methods but ‘up levelling’ them to make them sound even better value could work for you in terms of attracting business.
Tell a story to enthral your customers, undercut their price slightly… do whatever it takes to make your advert sound better than theirs.
3. Monitor existing advertisements
There is absolutely no point in setting up an advertising campaign if you’re just going to forget about it once the budget or time allotted is up. Don’t just monitor the advert when it’s finished, either- going back to your advertisement while it’s running and seeing where it’s having successes (or not) means that you can adjust the ad to increase engagement further.
What Is PPC? An Introduction To PPC Advertising
PPC, or pay-per-click, advertising is a model where advertisers pay every time an internet user clicks a designated link. PPC advertising is an efficient way of using search engines to generate clicks onto your website. Because these clicks are paid for, the traffic that it generates to your site isn’t considered to be organic traffic that would come through users finding your website in other ways.
While not organic traffic, traffic generated through PPC advertisements can lead to them being returning customers as well as the possibility of a significant return on investment through sales.
How Does PPC Advertising Work?
Every time a user clicks on the advertisement that you have paid for and is sent in the direction of your website the search engine takes a small fee. PPC advertising works in such a way that, when the adverts are well designed, any traffic that is directed to the website is of higher value than the cost of the click itself. PPC advertising is particularly useful if it leads to sales on your site.
How Will It Benefit My Business?
PPC advertising is beneficial to both advertisers and people making the searches. People are not afraid of being advertised to, with research showing that often, paid search ads are more frequently clicked than other types of advertising. As searchers use search engines to look for specific products, the paid adverts are usually relevant to the product or service that they are looking for, increasing the chances of a sale following the click.
At the same time, advertisers are able to put their product or service across to an audience in a unique and specific way. Analytics are readily available to advertisers, meaning that the number of clicks to conversions can be tracked and advertisements modified according to their success. Such an advertisement is usually win-win, leaving both client and advertiser content in their decision.
LinkedIn Tips For Small Businesses
LinkedIn is a particularly powerful online website, and when used well, can be an amazing tool to use as a means of networking and growing your business further. Getting the most out of your LinkedIn profile is key, but you need to make sure your profile is up to date and includes authentic content that will draw in clients.
LinkedIn works to build networks, allowing you not only to appeal to people that you already know but also appeal to people that your connections know. This gives people the further scope of your business.
Three Top LinkedIn Tips To Benefit Your Small Business
1. Post updates
LinkedIn can be used as a way of building relationships with customers, and a sure-fire way of doing this is through posting updates about your business. Make sure that the information you share is authentic, brief and relevant to your business to work with LinkedIn’s algorithm.
Content that adds value to your brand should be shared regularly to your connections and will increase the likelihood of your business growing.
2. Take advantage of groups
LinkedIn allows you to join up to 50 groups – take advantage of this by joining groups most relevant to your business and participating in them regularly. Doing so will enable you to speak to and make connections with potential colleagues and clients, as well as adding value to your brand.
3. Maximise your marketing strategies
While it’s all well and good setting up a page for your business, but you need to make sure you’re using effective strategies to market it. LinkedIn supports small businesses in a number of ways, and these businesses should take advantage of the features available to them. Try out the different features and keep track of any data acquired during marketing campaigns you carry out. These analytics could help you further develop your marketing strategy.
Hiring Design Staff Or Using An Agency - What’s The Best Option For You?
Running a business can be tough. While taking on lots of clients is rewarding and shows that your business is growing from strength to strength, it can be a struggle for your maxed-out team of workers. The time may come where you have to make the decision to get the support of additional designers to help you keep on top of things. However, should this help come from an agency or should you recruit more designers for your in-house team?
Things To Consider When Deciding Between In-House Or An Agency
Cost
Deciding between in-house and agency workers isn’t as simple as weighing up whether a monthly salary works out to be less expensive than paying for agency staff. While it may be cheaper in the long-run to employ someone to work for you, there are other things to consider. Hiring someone to work for you in-house means that you would have to pay for paid holidays, sick leave and pensions– something that would not be the case if you went down the agency route. You also need to consider the cost if the work does dry up, can you afford to keep an employee on the books if you lose clients? An agency can help to reduce the risk by working on a project-by-project basis.
Consistency
While it may well be more expensive to hire in-house staff, ensuring consistency in your work is also essential. Consistent usually comes from the in-house team that live and breathe your brand. Work that you decide to delegate to an agency will need to be consistent with your brand, which will mean setting clear projects with brand guidelines. Get this wrong, and you will not only have to pay the agency, but you’ll also give your team more to do. Most agencies will spend a great deal of time getting to know your style and brand before a project, however, so there is less chance of a fundamental mistake.
Equipment
An in-house team may well need specialised equipment to do the job. This is equipment that you as an employer would be required to purchase, so this should also be taken into consideration. An agency will usually have access to the latest equipment they need. While sometimes it will be added to the cost of the project, most of the time an agency will work out cheaper than buying additional licences and equipment.
Experience
One of the most important things to consider when deciding between in-house and agency is an experience. Being able to hand-pick your employee is one of the benefits of in-house employment; whoever you take on, you can be sure that their experience matches your requirements and your expectations. You will be able to oversee their development within the company, ensuring that their work is reflective of your own.
At the same time, a company wishing to flourish should look at how outsiders can effectively influence their work- in this case, someone working for an agency with an outside perspective and different skills may well be of more benefit to you.
So, which is best?
At the end of the day, whether you decide to employ permanent design staff or outsource using agencies, ultimately you should go with the choice that is best for you and your business. Weigh up all the options, costs, pros and cons, and the answer will likely be right in front of you.
If you'd like to explore your options working with an agency, don't wait, drop Brand+Code an email today!
What Is Responsive Web Design, And Why Does It Matter?
Having a website is a business essential in a technology-driven world. While in the past having a website that worked on a desktop or laptop computer was enough, this does not apply anymore. People are using portable devices such as mobile phones and tablets exclusively to do their browsing nowadays, meaning that websites are no longer operator friendly.
What Is Responsive Web Design?
That is where responsive web design comes into play. Responsive web design is an approach where a web designer creates a website or page that is able to resize itself depending on the device that it is being accessed through.
While this means that the website would align itself to fit a smaller screen such as on a phone or a tablet, it also works in the opposite way where the monitor used by a visitor is larger than the standard. Responsive web pages use a concept called fluid grids, where proportion, as opposed to pixels, determines page elements. Images are resized relative to the rest of the page.
But, Why Does It Matter?
With the significant growth in the number of people using mobile devices to access the internet, consequently the number of small screens out there are substantial. As a result, designers need to take this into consideration when putting together website designs for clients. How the device will look across multiple devices and whether it is optimised for mobile use is very important to consumers and website owners alike.
Websites that use responsive design make sites much more readable on smaller devices, with images resizing, text splitting across multiple columns and so on, making the experience a positive one for mobile users. Having a website that doesn’t have this ability can be extremely detrimental to your business, often deterring customers away from the site and encouraging them in the direction of your competitors.
Is your site responsive? If your answer is no, you need to think about moving to a responsive platform. Contact Brand+Code today to learn more about improving your website!
Five Groundbreaking Graphic Design Projects Of The Last Decade
- The Calendar Puzzle
We take the mundane desk calendar for granted, often complete with dull stock images and a logo from the supplier who gifted it. However, in 2017, Katsumi Tamura took the desk calendar to the next level with his Calendar 2018 Puzzle. As well as being attractive and fun desk accessory it is also useful and inspires your creativity. The users that the ability to create their own designs and forms thanks to its pieces of square, triangle and circle shapes.
- Dropbox Redesign
Dropbox has long been used as a useful business tool, and its design showcased this with simplicity and functional design work. In 2017, Dropbox delivered a somewhat controversial redesign. The focus of their design was to celebrate the creative work of their customers although some corporate users found the bold design unprofessional. However, the purpose was to shift the brand message of Dropbox away from the file storage system to a collaborative tool and undoubtedly celebrated design professionals.
- Sound Meets Type
A finalist of the 2015 Fast Company’s Innovation By Design awards, Sound Meets Type is a creative typeface, that looks like someone sounds. Combining simplicity with complexity, it is a letterform that is designed to be used in both a technological and artistic context using sounds to create new letterforms.
- 2014 Norwegian Passport Designs By Neue Studio
With inspiration from the lakes and mountains of Norway, the covers feature calming colours of red, turquoise and white. These are fun, sharp, stylish and contemporary. Furthermore, they are a long way away from the stony-faced designs that we hand over to the often stony-faced officials.
- Réka Baranyi - Souldrops Detergent
When it comes to laundry detergent, you’d think it was hard to stand out when placed on an aisle of similar products all vying for attention. However, Réka Baranyi’s innovative design for Souldrops really does catch the eye. Undoubtedly revolutionary in the industry, the beautiful pastel colours and unusual bottle shapes certainly makes the product unique.
How To Write Your Design Brief
When planning a project, on whatever scale, a design brief allows you to identify the direction, image and core details of it, ensuring that everyone working on it is on the same page. The design brief is one of the most powerful tools for companies. It can influence design decisions and guide a project from its initial conception to its completion.
Having a design brief ensures that there is no miscommunication between client and company. This means that you reduce the risk of unnecessary revisions and complaints that the final product doesn’t match your or your client’s vision.
A successful design brief provides designers with the expectations of the client, as well as budgeting time and money, and underlining the do’s and don’ts attached to the project.
What Should You Include In A Design Brief?
While design briefs come in different shapes and sizes, depending on the project itself, but most briefs follow a particular template to ensure their success.
1. Company profile
Making sure that your designers are very familiar with your client and their brand is important, so include a company profile detailing their company information, mission statement, their competitors and so on. The target audience of the client should also be stressed; this ensures that the design correlates.
2. Project overview and objectives
In this section of your plan, you should provide your designers with a detailed description of the project, ensuring that you meet the client’s needs for the project. Finding out what your client is looking for from you is key, so learning their objectives before putting together your design brief will help you out considerably.
Establishing these goals and objectives before starting your project ensures that you make the most informed decisions for meeting these goals. What you want your project to look like, in terms of dimensions, themes and colour schemes should also be included in the design brief.
3. Budget and schedule
Sticking to a budget and a time schedule can be difficult and particularly where money is concerned, having a budget well and truly established before design starts is key to avoiding any uncomfortable situations further down the line. Discuss whether you’re going to be regularly checking in with your client as the project progresses or whether they want to receive your work at completion. Every client is different and has different preferences; find out what your clients are and stick to it.
While a design brief may well seem like hard work, ensuring that your vision matches your clients is important and makes the process a lot easier in the long run. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.
The Power Of Copywriting
In a technological age such as this, the importance of content writing and copywriting has never been greater. However, in spite of the continued influence that content writing has, it is often overlooked in favour of other business strategies. Being able to market a product into the client’s view in a subtle and interesting way is key to driving sales and effectively marketing your business.
So, just why is copywriting so powerful?
Appeal To Your Audience
A customer is much more likely to use your service or buy from your business if what they’re reading to them appeals to them on a particular level. Customers like to know what’s in it for them – how are they benefitting through using you? What value is your product, and ultimately the copy, providing to them?
Copy that is fresh and a little bit different will not only keep your audience interested but will also show that there is more to your brand than sales and a sales drive, giving your business that added personal feel.
Encourage The Sale
All that said, the content you choose to attach to your brand should be reflective of the products and services you offer. While grabbing your potential client’s attention is all well and good, you need to keep it long enough to make the sale. To do that, your content needs to be relevant. Drive your clients towards certain aspects of your business through the copy you expose them to.
Drive Returning Clientele By Building Your Brand
Successful content and copy are used as a means of supporting your brand and building it up in the client’s mind. What about your brand is going to encourage them to return at a later date or recommend their friends?
Building your brand through specialised copy, matched to the needs of your company expands on the professional relationship, making it personal. Personal branding encourages long-term clientele, meaning that you’re well on your way to building a successful business that is powered by copywriting.
Three Signs It’s Time To Get A New Website
When people are searching online for a service, the company’s website is the first impression they get of the way in which the company works. Like it or not, first impressions leave the lasting impression so making sure you get it right first time with your website is very important. While you may well be perfectly content with the site you currently have (after all it took a lot of work and money to make it look that way), you may find that actually, it’s terribly outdated and could do with an upgrade.
- It isn’t very appealing to customers
If your website doesn’t look particularly good, such as when there’s inconsistency across the themes you’re using, or else the fonts across different pages don’t match up, then it’s likely that customers will be put off using the company.
An out of date site that lacks organisation and consistency can make your business appear unprofessional. This could cause a potential client to go elsewhere for the service they’re seeking.
- It’s not mobile friendly
The vast majority of internet users browse the web from their portable device, whether that be on a tablet or a mobile phone. Therefore, having a website that lacks the ability to be mobile friendly comes at a detriment to your business. The rate of traffic that comes from mobile devices currently sits at a higher percentage than desktop traffic, meaning that your website should be easy to navigate on both desktop and mobile devices.
- Your site isn’t ranking very well
SEO, or search engine optimisation, is critical as it determines just who is coming across your website in their searches. Even if your site is beautifully designed, if no one can find it because it doesn’t rank well on search engines, its design is entirely futile.
The usability – how your website presents its information to users - of your site, alongside the content and use of qualifying keywords, plays a massive role in determining what Google considers to be a successful, high ranking website.
Guilty of one of the above? Then it’s high time you got yourself a brand new website. It will only do good things to your business and its success. Need some help? Get in touch with Brand+Code today!