How many times have you seen instructions like "Subscribe Now" - "Sign Up Today" - "Contact Us To Find Out More" - "Buy Now" online? Do you have any on your own website? If not, we strongly advise that you get some!

Calls To Action (CTAs) help your website to work hard for you. They are also very valuable in email campaigns, because one of the purposes of an email campaign is to get your potential customers to take an action.

CTAs are a marketing necessity. Get them right and you have the means to drive your customers to just the conclusion you want, for example:

• purchasing goods or services
• signing up for a newsletter
• downloading your latest white papers, etc.

Get your CTAs wrong and you are potentially damaging your digital marketing efforts.

So how can I make them work for me?

They should be:

1. DIRECT
Make it clear what the customer will achieve by clicking on your CTA. Use concise language. If you want your customer to ‘Download full report’ then say so. Not ‘Click here to be amazed by our survey’s results’.

But at the same time...
2. UNAMBIGUOUS
Avoid open-ended invitations such as ‘Click here’ or ‘Submit’. Instead, state a clear outcome, such as 'Buy now’, or ‘Download your free trial’.

3. PROMINENT
Whether presented as a button, advert, text or image, your CTA needs to stand out from the rest of the page in terms of colour, design and position. Don’t hide it away where it won't be found.

4. WELL PLACED
Its position on your web page is vital. Generally, lead generation or eCommerce CTAs should be displayed prominently near the top of the page, whilst more complex pages might warrant a CTA below the 'fold'.

5. CONSIDERED FOR MOBILE DEVICES
If you’re aiming at a mobile audience (and most people are), don’t bury your CTA at the bottom of your page - users will be required to scroll endlessly to reach it. Also, don't use tiny buttons that will go unnoticed on a small screen.

6. PERSONALISED
People like the personal touch. Think about the language you use. Amazingly, a case study from the MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2013 showed a 90% increase in sign-ups by altering one word in a CTA, from ‘Start your free 30 day trial’ to ‘Start my free 30 day trial’.

7. TESTED
Testing will allow you to maximise the impact of your CTA and understand the preferences of your audience. It's worth trying different wording, and placing your CTA in different areas to see what works best.

8. REALISTIC
Make sure your CTA does what it says. If you've promised a free report, make sure the CTA leads straight there, not to your homepage or to a series of complex sign-up procedures. Potential customers may get frustrated and leave the page.

9. OPTIMISED
If your CTA is embedded as an image, make sure you alt tag it with strong keywords. You may need to ask your web developer for help! Alt tags ensure your content is correctly indexed with search engines, and will help to maximise traffic and improve your SEO.

10. FEW
Don’t confuse your visitors with too many CTAs or buttons per page. Where more than one CTA is necessary, create a hierarchy to prioritise. The most important ones should be bigger and placed in a prominent position to maximise clicks.

What are the steps involved in getting a website built for your business?

Firstly, some facts.

1&1 Internet recently carried out some research showing that:

• 46% of users have walked away from a small business because of a poor website
• 7% have opted to spend less with the business as a direct result
• 45% say that a bad website makes a worse impact than a business having no website at all

If you're a small or medium-sized business, it's unlikely you'll have big budgets, teams of people, or lots of time to invest in a complex online strategy, but there are some simple steps you can take to start reaping the rewards of visible online.

Advantages of having a website

• The internet is a fact of business life now - if you have no web presence, no-one will find you
• You'll appear outdated if you don't have one
• It's a way of both summarising your offer, giving more detail and showing testimonials
• It's cheap compared to many other types of marketing communications
• Easily accessible – with mobile technology you can be found on any device
• Acts as a shop window for your business
• It's open 24/7
• It's international – available (almost) anywhere in the world
• You can be in control of it

Do it properly

So we've had a look at how important it is to have a web presence, but you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot by spending time and money getting a website up and running, if all it actually does is show your company in a bad light.

You don't need to have a huge budget to get something good – you can start small, and add to it later as your business grows.

The most important thing to do is to put yourself in the user's shoes.

SIMPLE STEPS IN GETTING A WEBSITE SET UP

1. Check out the competition

Create a list of URLs of your competitors, and determine the strengths and weaknesses of their websites.

What are your favourite websites – and why do you like them? Pick out a few sites that look the way you’d like yours to look, considering things like design, colour scheme, and layout.

2. What is your market?

Create a clear understanding of your website’s users. A good way of doing this is with "personas" - they are a great way to pinpoint who your users are.

The goal is to describe the target customer as a real person:

• Give them a name and image
• Age, gender, interests
• Situation – when do they buy / use this product?
• Key information needs – what do they need to find out?
• Decision making factors – what influences them?
• Increase the personal description for B2C situations, e.g. cosmetics, clothing
• Understand the decision-making role for B2B situations, e.g. user, purchaser

You can create a few personas to help clarify your different market segments.

e.g. Florist in Leamington Spa

Persona 1

Woman who comes in every week and buys a different display for her living room

Persona 2

Man who wants to buy his partner a bouquet on special occasions

This helps you to understand what you need to put into your website from a user's point of view.

3. Set your goals

Make sure your users' needs are met. For example, do they need to reach you urgently or are you persuading them of your expertise?

What do you want your website to do?

• Get new customers
• Launch a new product or service
• Reassure potential customers
• Reassure existing customers
• Remind existing customers
• Inform
• Increase product awareness
• Generate more sales
• Offer e-commerce
• Create a community

...or a mixcture of the above.

4. Decide what type of website you need

• eCommerce site or 'brochure' site - will your site be an online store or simply a 'brochure' type site that tells people about your business?
• CMS – what is it? Why will it be cheaper for you? CMS stands for Content Management System. Many customers prefer to use a CMS as they have control over their own content, and it works out cheaper for them. WordPress is a type of CMS. It started as a blogging platform but is so easy to use, it's now a very popular platform for developing all types of websites.
• Bespoke or theme – what's the difference? Have a look at some of the themes available from businesses like ThemeForest and Template Monster. You can't just download a theme and start adding content – you'll still need to get a web developer to configure and customise it for your brand. Buying a theme saves your web developer time and therefore saves you money. BUT there are drawbacks – a theme can drastically limit your choice of website design and functionality. Also, if you decide to make big changes to your theme, you are adding web development time which costs you money.
• Responsive or not? - our website MUST be responsive, i.e. configured to display properly on mobile devices. Over 50% of John Lewis online sales are now made on mobile devices, and this figure will only increase. It makes sense to get responsive design built into your site upfront so it's future-proof.

5. Choose a domain name

We see URLs all day every day. A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is basically a web address.

www: Worldwide web

publicagency: Domain name

.co.uk: Top level domain

You can select and buy your domain through a website that sells domains e.g. www.123reg.com, www.1and1.com, www.godaddy.com, or through your hosting company (more about hosting below).

You may have to compromise on the exact name, as your first choice may be gone.

There are now a large amount of TLDs available e.g. .photos .clothing .kitchen. It might be worth buying a few TLDs e.g. .co.uk, .net, .co, .org to save competitors snapping them up.

You're renting the domain name, and the rental lasts 1-2 years. Make sure you renew it, or it's gone.

Expect to pay between £3 - £30 + per year, depending on the popularity of your name.

Tips:

• It should be easy to spell
• Try to avoid using dashes – it makes the URL easier to remember without them
• Remember – it's not case sensitive
• Make sure there are no howlers!

e.g. Choose Spain = choosespain

e.g. Lawyers Exchange = lawyersexchange

e.g. Speed of Art = speedofart

6. Arrange hosting

Like domain registrations, there are many companies that offer website hosting with varying pricing.

Web hosting companies own huge servers with lots of space for websites to 'live', and they basically rent out space on these servers. Web hosting is generally charged to you on a monthly or annual fee.

You can ask your web developer to arrange this for you, for you can arrange it yourself. If your web developer does it for you, make sure have a copy of the information you need to access all your files, in case you ever want to change developer. You will need the username and password to the place on the server where your site is hosted.

Larger hosting companies will offer cheap deals but as with any cheap service, you may not get the best customer service.

The amount you pay depends on the size of your website. A large eCommerce website, for example, will cost more than a small site with five pages of content. This is because you're taking up more space on the hosting company's server. For a very basic website, expect to pay from £8 per month.

Examples of hosting companies are 1and1, Fast Hosts, GoDaddy, United Hosting.

7. Get your website designed and built

The big one!

Do you 'do it yourself' or pay a professional web developer to do it? Play to your strengths – if you have some design or coding experience then give it a try. If not, we suggest you get it done properly! Consider your needs, your technical abilities, and your budget when making a decision about how your site will be created.

You only get a few seconds to convince a web visitor that they’ve come to the right place so it’s important that your website reflects professionalism.

An "amateur" website isn’t likely to give you the results you’re hoping for. Investment in your own website will improve your bottom line in the long run.

7.a. Get a brief together

The more you can tell your web developer about what you want, the better – you'll get a more accurate quote and will end up with the website you want.

What should you put in it? See our client questionnaire which was the subject of another of our blog posts.

7.b. The quote

As with any purchase you make, you should send exactly the same brief to a number of web companies, so when you get the price back you are comparing like with like.

Check to see if you've been given a quote for the entire job or at an hourly rate. If it's for the entire job, see what's included.

We recently met a small business owner who had asked web developer to design and build a new website. The business owner was shocked that the web developer wouldn't be designing the logo, writing the words, and arranging the photography. They thought all this work was included in the quote – which led to both him and the web developer parting on bad terms. So check what's included and what isn't.

7.c. What the web developer will need from you

Most web development companies will assume that you will be providing the following:

• logo
• pictures
• text
• links to your social media accounts

Good web development companies will check to see what you will be providing, and if you have any gaps they will supply a quote for the missing elements.

Consider deadlines. It's always worth giving yourself and your web developer a deadline, otherwise jobs can drag on.

7.d. What the web developer will do next

Between you, you'll agree the 'architecture' of the website.

Different web design companies will use different processes at this stage. For a bespoke website, good practise is for them to supply you with a wireframe so you are both agreed before they even start coding.

If you've gone for the 'theme' option, the web developer will purchase the theme at this stage.

Your web developer should design your page layout (especially the home page) with a hierarchy in mind.

They should consider the F-shaped reading pattern:

• the viewer first notices the logo top left;
• then moves onto the slideshow/main image which is the most important element on the home page;
• as the reader moves lower on the page they notice the information about the business.

There should be plenty of space to make it easy for users to scan through and find the relevant information. Resist the temptation to cram everything in, and think about what the users are actually looking for.

7.e. Other things your web developer should consider

• Create a call to action on every page.
• Include an “about” page and testimonials to identify yourself and appear more human.
• Make your contact information very easy to find.

7.f. Images

Again, find out up front if you or your web developer are responsible for supplying the images for your website. If you are supplying your own, try to find compelling images that match your branding and company image – consistency is key.

A good quality image can make a website look instantly professional (and of course, the reverse is also true). All image files should be 72 or 96dpi and saved for web. As a rule of thumb use GIF format for computer-generated graphics such as simple logos, buttons or animations, and JPEG format for photographs or scanned material.

Try websites like iStock or Shutterstock for cost-effective stock imagery. Images usually start from a few pounds each.

• Avoid poor quality images of any kind – it's better to not show anything than to show something pixelated, badly resized or low resolution.
• If possible, use photos that have a single main subject.
• Photos of people are good – people relate to seeing other people.
• Even though photos of people are good, try to avoid clichéd “business people shaking hands” photos!

7.g. Text

You can have the best looking website in the world, but if you’ve got spelling and grammar errors, nobody will take you seriously. Proofread everything, then get a colleague to go over it again.

• Break the text down into separate sections to minimise individual pages.
• Use short, precise words in your navigation links (e.g. About Us, Services).
• Important navigation links should remain constant on every page and organised in order of importance.

7.h. Fonts

Of course you want to be memorable, but don’t be fooled into thinking a fancy font is the way to do it!

• Stick to web-safe fonts like Google Fonts, or "reliable" ones like Arial, Helvetica, Georgia or Verdana.
• For text and heading styles, stick to one or two typefaces and two or three type sizes and colours.
• For ease of use, keep link colours in line with the page colours.
• Don’t use all-caps text for anything other than a heading.

7.i. Important things your web developer should be checking

• The loading time of your pages. Loading speed is key to getting repeat visitors (and in our experience, anything over 15 seconds is too slow). This is one of the reasons you need 72 or 96dpi images saved for web. Huge images will make the page loading time too slow.
• Check the 'depth' of your pages – how many clicks does it take to reach any page? The fewer the clicks, the better.
• Check your browser compatibility (does everything still work on IE, Chrome, Safari, Firefox etc.)?
• Check for broken links.
• Optimise your footer area with links, copyright, terms and conditions, privacy policy, disclaimers, contact info (as well as being either legally required or just good practice, this helps your SEO).

8. What happens after it's built?

Once the site is up, what’s next? Regardless of whether you build it, hire someone, or a combination of the two, traffic won't just arrive on its own. You'll need to use marketing tools and tactics to promote it.

To find out more, drop us a line.

So, your website's been built. What next? You need to think about your website content.

The golden rule is to MAINTAIN YOUR WEBSITE. Don’t just get it built and then forget it – you'll be ignoring a valuable marketing channel and potential for growing your business.

There are many ways you can increase traffic to your website:
• Optimise your site with search engine optimisation techniques
• Google Adwords pay-per-click campaign
• Promoting your site through advertising on popular industry websites
• Newsletter marketing
• Promotion through social media
• Promotion through traditional marketing such as press adverts and flyering campaigns

Another way of driving traffic to your website is to continually update the site with fresh and valuable content, which we'll talk about here.

So, do you do it yourself or outsource? This depends on your own time and your skill. If English isn't your best subject, this may damage your business' image. If you don’t have the time or skills to maintain your website, use the skills of a professional.

What is website content?

Basically, it's words, pictures and video.

Your web developer might enter the initial content to get you going (make sure you know if this is included in the quote).

People assign more credibility to sites that show they have been recently updated or reviewed – and it's also great for SEO. When a website is updated regularly, Google sees it as an active site and therefore ranks it more highly in search results pages.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is taking your website content one step further.

Many customers nowadays shut themselves off from the traditional world of marketing. They own a Sky Plus box to skip TV advertising, put themselves on the TPS to avoid cold calls on the telephone, often ignore magazine advertising, and skim-read online information without looking at banners or buttons.

Content marketing aims to reach these people in a different way. It's a technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving customer action.

Content marketing is being used by some of the biggest companies in the world, including P&G and Microsoft. It’s also carried out by small businesses and one-person shops around the globe. Why? Because it works.

It can include, blogging, social media posts, e-newsletters, videos, articles on other websites, infographics....the list goes on.

Copywriting

If you're going to write your own words, here are some tips:

• Try to be clear, direct, and sincere
• Remember ‘KISS’ - ‘Keep it Short and Simple’
• Avoid long sentences - split them into two where possible
• Avoid errors of all types, no matter how small they seem. Get someone to double check what you've written
• Avoid “wishy washy” words like: may, maybe, hope, wish, try, but, could, perhaps and strive. Instead, use words like will and can to describe what your business will or can do for your reader
• Avoid the passive voice where possible, e.g. use “We created ten new designs” instead of “Ten new designs were created"
• Consider why your customers should buy your product or service
• Know your target audience and use a writing style that suits them
• Break text into small easily read chunks separated with headings and images for easier scanning – most people skim-read website text
• Create a call to action as often as possible (without becoming repetitive) – more on this next

Calls to Action

Call to action help your website to work hard for you. Calls to action are also very valuable in email campaigns, as one of the purposes of an email campaign is to get your potential customers to take an action.

Calls to action are a marketing necessity. Get them right and you have the means to drive your customers to just the conclusion you want, for example:

• Increasing leads and revenue
• Purchasing goods or services
• Downloading your latest white papers, etc.

Get your calls to action wrong and you are potentially damaging your digital marketing efforts.

Blogging

Some people have a blog separate to their website, and sometime it's incorporated into the actual site. It's best for SEO to have everything in one place, but if you've got a separate blog, just make sure that you've got obvious links back to your main site.

Your goal with a blog is to:

• Show yourself as an expert in your field
• Showcase your products and services – within a good story
• Make it interesting so that it's shared, thus increasing your brand awareness
• Having obvious 'sharing' buttons on your website will help get your content shared

Some tips for writing engaging blogs:

• Identify and understand your target audience
• Be original
• Don’t be afraid to make it a long, magazine-style post. If it's interesting, people will read to the end
• Make it positive – positive blog posts are shared more often than negative ones
• Use current trends and recent news events as inspiration when you are creating content
• Use pictures
• Make is useful – maybe it will help people to solve a problem
• Make it easy to read, using the copywriting tips above
• Think of a headline that demands attention. For example:

- Include a promise in your title: “Everything You Need to Know About Web Design” (sound familiar?!)

- Numbers let your reader know what to expect: “10 Ways To Build a Great Website”

- Ask questions to stimulate curiosity: “What's Your Favourite Ever Website?”

- Write a “How To” article: “How to Become a Web Design Expert”

Content schedule

With so many options for content marketing out there, the biggest challenge SMEs face is – how do I find the time? You might be a sole trader struggling to fit everything in. Or an SME with a small number of staff covering a multitude of different roles.

Large organisations will either outsource their content marketing, or have staff whose sole role is to work on the content. SMEs don't have that luxury.

We can't create time, but what we can do is draw up a content schedule to fit what can do within the limited time we have to do it.

And as always in marketing, think about who your target audience are.

If you need any help or advice on getting your website content written, drop us a line.

Ask yourself these questions about your current website:

1. Is it immediately obvious what it's for? If you can't tell in the first five seconds what the website is selling or telling, then it isn't doing its job effectively. Amazingly, this is the amount of time viewers will spend deciding if they want to stay or leave. If they can't tell what you do in that time – they'll be off.
2. Is it optimised for mobile devices? Have a look at your website on a smartphone or iPad. It should be simple to navigate and text should be easy to read.
3. Is it too cluttered? If you've had the same website for a few years, it may have been tempting to 'bolt on' more information, perhaps as your business has grown. To gain a competitive advantage, you need a crisp, clean design that's easy to navigate.
4. Is it flexible and adaptable? What if your business launches a new product or service? You don’t want to have to revamp everything to accommodate it. Using a CMS (Content Management System) can allow for future expansion, and enable you to add new features to your existing website.
5. Are my competitors doing it better? Have a look at what your rivals are doing. If their sites rate above yours in search results and look more professional, it may be time for a refresh.

If you'd like to a chat about what you need to go forward, give us a call.

The website brief - thinking about getting a website built but not sure what to ask for?

Let's turn the question on its head. When people come to us for a cost estimate for a new website, we ask them to answer the questions below. These questions will help both us and the client understand exactly what they want from their new site.

1. YOUR BUSINESS
What products do you sell or services do you provide?

How big is your business?

Do you trade within the UK only?

Describe the company using five or ten words (e.g. young, vibrant, technology based, etc.)

2. YOUR CURRENT WEBSITE
Why is it no longer suitable?

What do you like and dislike about it?

Do you know what levels of traffic is it currently receiving, including from mobile devices?

3. YOUR AUDIENCE AND COMPETITORS
Who are your target audience for this website?

What's the purpose of the website? (e.g. sell products, provide information, educate, etc)

What actions do you want visitors to take? (e.g. contact you via email or phone, fill out an online form, follow you on social media, make a purchase, etc)

Please list the names of two or more of your competitors.

Please list the names of two websites that you like and two that you dislike. What do you like and dislike about them?

How will your target audience be accessing your site – via their phones, tablets or desktops?

4. DESIGN
Do you have any ideas for the look and feel of your website?

Do you have existing logo/branding/business cards or other printed materials, or should branding be part of our quote?

5. GENERAL
We will link to your social media so please provide the links.

Do you need to purchase a domain name or do you already own it?

Do you need to purchase hosting?

Do you have an idea of budget and a deadline date in mind?

6. WEBSITE FRAMEWORK
Please place an 'X' to identify any pages or features you envisage as part of your site:
Basic
 Home
 Products / services
 FAQs
 Directions
 About Us
 Contact Us with contact form
 News / blog
 Upcoming events

Special Features
 Home page slideshow
 Video
 Map
 Search facility
 Newsletter / email list sign-up
 Information / request forms

Applications
 Registration / customer login
 Store / shopping cart
 Online payment
 Forum
 Reviews
 Customer surveys/polls

Please list any additional or custom pages you would like.

7. AFTER IT'S BUILT - WEBSITE CONTENT
How often will you need to update the website content?
Hourly
Daily
Weekly
Monthly
Rarely

How many content pages do you expect to update on your site each month?

Who will be responsible for updates – your website developer or yourselves?

Who will be responsible for generating content – text and images?

As with any purchase you make, you should send exactly the same brief to a number of web companies, so when you get the price back you are comparing like with like.

Ready for the next steps? Check out our blog post about the stages involved in getting a website built.