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Category Archive: Web Development

  1. That one time I saved a business over £40k in retainer fees

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    I can’t believe I haven’t been shouting about this way before now!

    I had been doing a bit of a browse through my portfolio from my time as a freelancer at KP Kreative and asked myself why have I kept this positive outcome so quiet. I guess because the visual side of the project wasn’t where the wins came from (more of a backend project), it was more difficult to present as a case study.

    The customer in question has been using Hubspot for their website and marketing needs. They had been using an agency that was charging around £4k a month regardless of any support needed or not, it was just one of those tied in contracts where there was a set fee.

    Now don’t get me wrong, Hubspot development and support can be costly, as its very niche, though there isn’t always the need for that level of support continuously from outside the business. I think an adhoc approach may have been better in my opinion.

    I was approached by the head of marketing who asked if I could help assist with making the backend of the website more accessible for internal staff,  so things could be added and edited much more simpler, without the aid of having someone else needing to pick up the changes.

    Approach

    Without a complete redesign of the website, I proposed to work on some custom modules and made some of the existing page templates flexible, so that they could be much simpler accessed and edited by the in-house team, not only to edit current pages, though add additional pages with the newly created templates and modules to choose from.

    Over a calendar year, this would save the business around £48k.

    Adding customisation and blocks of content that can be re-used and have flexibility to move, the team reduced their workload significantly to creating new content for their website.

    No matter if it’s a WordPress website or a Hubspot website, I build with the view to making it user friendly for the customer to make as many updates as possible themselves. This may sound like it’s an opportunity missed to make more income, though I feel there is more value in longer term trust with a client allowing them to save budget and spend it elsewhere in their business and come back to you when they need additional support from one of your other services, such as printed material, graphics etc etc.

    Photo by Camylla Battani on Unsplash
    Why have I used an image of a dog for this article? It was meant to represent a high five and also... I love dogs more than humans!
  2. New Years resolutions – Plan ahead

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    I read an article recently on Linkedin from a Business coach, who encouraged business owners to plan ahead in advance for your company goals for the new year. I couldn’t agree more, though as a business owner myself, i know that attention may be elsewhere in your busy working schedule.

    Falling into that mindset for your business may be a new website or branding makeover.

    Whatever your decision, make sure that you think about the purpose of your website and what you aim to gain from your new website or re-design. The most common goals from business online is to promote your business locally, show your services, sell products online, or match up to, or out punch your competitors who have similar services.

    The most common reasons for a re-design, can be down to re-branding, an out-of-date look and feel, a lagging speed of loading time, or it is no longer user friendly and does not work on mobile devices.

    Plan in advance

    It is advised if you have future plans to launch a new website or a re-design of your current one in the new year, to consider taking action now in the planning of your content and structure of pages. If you have an existing website, take the opportunity to review your analytics and the pages that are the most visited, where are visitors dropping off, how did they arrive at your site? It is key to see how you market your business including visibility of the pages of your website, which could take between weeks and months for search engines to pick up on with impact.

    If you are interested in working with KP Kreative on your new website or re-design, get in touch today for a free quotation.

  3. What Are The Top 4 Features Of A Purposeful Website?

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    By guest contributor Kayleigh Alexandra @ Micro Startups


    If you want to achieve business success in 2019, you need to have a website with a purpose.

    A purposeful website is one that is entirely geared towards your business goals. Beyond simply looking and feeling nice, it is designed to generate conversions, grow your subscriber list, expand your readership, or whatever your specific business goals might be.

    So how can you tweak your website to give it more drive? Here are my suggestions for making your website more purposeful.

    1. Align your marketing with your website goals

    Over my years of entrepreneurship and blog management, I’ve learned that a website is not the be-all and end-all of a business. It is the nucleus at the heart of your business ecosystem, incorporating your email marketing, social strategy, paid ads, guest post backlinks, and so on.

    Check out the diagram below for a handy visualisation of how this network operates:

    Image Circle Studio

     

    Your website is like a spider sitting in the middle of a web, your customers are the juicy flies that crawl towards it (albeit with a happier ending for them). For example, my own websites have a variety of paths leading to them: social media, email, guest blogs, landing pages, and so on.

    A purposeful website is one that fosters this ecosystem, drawing customers down your marketing funnel towards conversion. A strong website design should reflect this, designed in a way that facilitates the customer journey from start to finish.

    Look beyond your website at the paths that connect to it. These paths go both ways too. Visitors to your website want to visit your social profiles for third-party reviews and a taste of your brand personality. So too do they want to sign up to your email newsletter from your homepage.

    Make your website URL visible on your social profiles, and scatter links to your homepage, blog, and product pages in your emails to drive traffic to your site. Similarly, your paid ads should mimic your website’s branding and vice versa.

    Takeaway tip: don’t look at your website as a single entity. Instead, view it as the center of your business network, and ensure the paths flowing to and from it are friction-free.

    2. Choose a CMS that works for you as well as your customers

    A purposeful website should work for your customers, delivering a positive UX and providing a seamless experience from start to finish.

    But it should be just as fluid and intuitive for you as it is for your customers. As entrepreneurs, we need to be able to manage our websites with ease, wherever we are.

    If you can’t manage your website effectively, you will struggle to craft it in a way that drives conversions — it will not fulfill its purpose.

    Consequently, I recommend choosing a content management system that helps you build a site with a purpose.

    From popular blogging platform WordPress to dedicated ecommerce solutions such as WooCommerce. These are intuitive and easy to use, and offer plenty of scope for creating a purposeful website.

    For example, most good site builders provide drag-and-drop design interfaces, which in turn let you create landing and product pages that hook customers and drive conversions.

    Similarly, the content management system you choose should provide for a variety of payment gateways. This streamlines the customer journey, helping you meet your business goals through design.

    Takeaway tip: my advice is to choose a content management system that has the perfect blend of functionality and usability. Its features should support your business model, helping you grow your store and connect with your customers.

    3. Create a website design geared towards profits

    Did you know? Our first impression of something is 94% design-related. When a customer arrives at your website, your design should look and feel slick and professional.

    But your web design is about more than pure aesthetics. Yes, an attractive-looking business website is important. But so too is a design that fosters conversions.

    Take the example of family and baby gift store Cole & Coddle. Prospective customers arriving on the homepage are immediately met with a selection of the brand’s best-selling products.

    Image Cole & Coddle

     

    At first glance, this might seem like a simple design choice to show off various Cole & Coddle products. But by deliberately showcasing the products that are most popular, the brand increases its conversions.

    And the strategy works — the brand generates an average of $121,490 per month as listed on Exchange. When the products that are most likely to be sold are placed front and centre, you shorten the customer journey and conversions shoot up.

    Takeaway tip: your web design should play into your customer psychology. Make the most pertinent products or information easy to find, and you will naturally generate more conversions as a result.

    4. Let your website tell your story throughout

    While your website’s purpose should be reflected in your site design and structure, so too should it be embodied in your website’s story. I believe that a site’s purpose should be entwined with your brand’s purpose, weaving a narrative throughout that solidifies your message in your audience’s minds.

    To accomplish this, you need to give your website a human element that connects with your target market on a personal level.

    Let’s look at your copy. How you write on your website should be personable and informal — even a business website should adopt a natural, conversational way of speaking.

    Take this personal approach further by addressing your target market’s pain points and providing a solution to them. Tell a story with your customer at the center, highlighting the problems they face. Position your product or service as the solution to those problems.

    For example, let’s say you sell online courses helping people develop healthier eating habits. How would you market that? As a customer, I don’t want to read about an online course that helps everyone live healthier — I want to know how it will help me.

    So tell a story about one specific customer, and make it real to them.

    Takeaway tip: when you write your website’s copy, don’t write for everyone — write for one specific person. Write as though you are speaking to an individual in person, rather than addressing your entire audience. By making your purpose clear to one person, you make it even clearer for everyone.

    When your website goals are aligned with your business goals, you will enjoy more conversions, a lower bounce rate, and increased customer value. Follow the tips above and create a purposeful website that serves your business time and time again.

     

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