Instead of us going into all of the detail about this scheme have a peep at the quite brilliant infographic that Ray Keohane of our Graphic Design team prepared to explain it easily!
Well done Ray …
Instead of us going into all of the detail about this scheme have a peep at the quite brilliant infographic that Ray Keohane of our Graphic Design team prepared to explain it easily!
Well done Ray …
We’ve all experienced it at one point or another: you go to a website and find it lets down the organisation – dated design, chaotic structure and last updated over 5 years ago are typical issues, You dig around but can’t find the information you need, the home page keeps crashing, the links don’t work, etc., so you leave frustrated and with a poor opinion formed about the organisation to which the site belongs to.
And you most probably will never come back…
A bad or outdated website can make you look unprofessional and will cost you potential clients. A well-designed one, however, can impress quickly and will add credibility to your organisation and make you look instantly more progressive and professional. Internet users are much more sophisticated than they used to be and their expectations are a lot higher – they decide quickly if the website is relevant for their needs.
Capturing your story
When you are looking to design/redesign you must realise that your website is one of the most visible representations of your organisation or business. What story is it telling the viewer and how will this affect the way people view your business? Is it professional looking, does it capture what you are all about? Does it capture the personality and ethos?
It is important to keep in mind that your website also has to be well designed in order to get your visitors to do what you want them to do. When you build a website it is usually with a specific purpose in mind: be it to make direct sales through it, to have people sign up for your mailing list, direct them to your social media accounts or simply to provide them with useful information.
Mr.Google
Beautiful looking websites can be fantastic to make a great impression but they also need to be designed in such a way that there is sufficient opportunity to carry word content as this is essential for SEO purposes. Mr. Google loves words and you need to be sure that your site carries enough of them and in the right places so that people can easily find your site. Getting the balance right between imagery and words is important.
Responsive
In recent years it is also vital to design sites that are responsive – this means that if a user is viewing your website from a smartphone or a tablet that it functions best for that device allowing easy navigation via touch-screen buttons, and only displaying relevant information and content for the users’ needs.
The 24/7 Salesman
Today it is quite possible that more people will potentially see your website than actually come to your physical location. It is accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to potential customers from all around the world. Your website is your most powerful marketing tool as no printed brochure or advert reaches more potential clients or offers the flexibility to easily update content as your business grows and develops.
However, you don’t have a well trained person greeting them and explaining what is great about your products and services and dealing with any queries and nor do you have a person gauging their reaction – this hard working website has a big job to do!
Getting it right ..
Don’t take shortcuts with your public online face, make sure it is easily found, looks great, that it tells the right story, that it functions well, clearly communicating your key messages and it does what it is supposed to do.
The design of your website may be the one thing that tips the scale between a potential customer doing business with you or going elsewhere… make sure it tips your way!
Basia Kozlik is a Graphic Designer with Fuzion
Fuzion offer a full range of Web Design and Digital services from our Cork and Dublin offices in Ireland
Recently a girl on work experience asked me about how I got into PR, what I studied, and how I’ve seen things change in the industry.
It reminded of one particular class in college in 2006 with John Gallagher, our Course Director for the MA in PR at DIT. John was chatting to us about these things called ‘blogs’ – not one of us, out of a class of 40, knew what a blog was, and it was only when one of my ‘brave’ class mates piped up and asked the question, that we were enlightened!
This got me thinking, and I doubt John has been asked that question since… things have changed so quickly in the 8 years I’ve been involved in the PR industry with the advent of social media and advancing technology.
When I joined Fuzion in 2007, Facebook was just rearing its head, Twitter had barely been heard of in Ireland – and as for Pinterest and Instagram, well they were more commonly known as ‘Post-Its’ and ‘Polaroids’! Now me, I’m ‘old-school’ when it comes to PR, I love to pick up a newspaper or magazine, and see a physical press clipping for my clients, but I can’t deny that social media and technology have certainly been a big help in my job, particularly when it comes to event planning and management.
In the ‘olden days’ hours would be spent drawing up invitation lists, and gathering people’s postal addresses, and stuffing envelopes with snazzy invites that so much time had been taken designing and printing. While now, I simply walk down the office to the guys in our design department, brief them on what I want the invitation to look like, and voila…. A file arrives in my inbox that I can simply upload to a system like Mailchimp along with my database of invitees and their email addresses (very little need for postal addresses anymore), I click send, and off it goes into cyber space, arriving in inboxes of everyone I want to reach within mere moments… simples!
But that’s not all, I can analyse exactly who’s opened the invite, how many times they’ve viewed it, if they’ve clicked hyperlinks to bring them to social media pages for the event; the list goes on. If I really want a particular person at the event, but they haven’t opened the invite for some reason, at least I know, and I can make sure to get in touch with them.
As well as sending invitations by email, I also have the opportunity to share details of the event on the various social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Never has it been so easy to communicate with target audiences. To ensure I’m reaching them, I can allocate a small advertising spend targeting a certain demographic if necessary; as well as interacting with them and sharing updates and news about the upcoming event.
Managing a guest list is so easy now. I either receive RSVPs directly into my inbox and manage the guest list from there, or I can set up a registration page using an online ticketing service like Eventbrite, where all registrations are tracked and I know how many tickets are remaining for example. This saves hours of phone calls, making this sort of event preparation and management so time efficient for us and cost efficient for our clients.
As I already said, I’m ‘old-school’ so I won’t dismiss the more ‘traditional’ methods, and will certainly make that call or post that letter if required; and I’ll almost always recommend that we issue a press release with a great PR photo to help promote an event.
For me, it’s a combination of the ‘old’ and ‘new’ that go a long way to making a great event come together.
Alison O’Brien
Alison O’Brien is a Senior Account Director with Fuzion PR, Marketing & Design which has offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland
A Simple test ….do a Google search using the keywords that describe what your organisation does and see how your website performs.
‘Crisis PR in Ireland’ , ‘PR firms in Dublin‘ …. Do your own search for your relevant keywords and see what happens. Include your location in the search, which is what most people normally do when they are searching.
From a business point of view it makes clear sense that if someone is looking for what your organisation is offering that they find you easily online. The very best way is for your website to perform for these ‘key‘ searches organically or naturally. If this is not the case your website is more than likely not properly optimised.
If you have done all you can to optimise your website and it is still not performing well enough then it makes sense to implement a Google Adwords campaign to ensure your website is appearing for ‘key’ searches in a prominent position.
While your website performance is essential for business is this the only reason your site should perform well for searches?
I feel another big reason your website should perform well is that it is an integral part of your overall brand. This might seem like an unusual reason at first as we normally thing of ‘descriptors‘ when we discuss someone’s brand attributes.
Jeff Bezoz of Amazon described a brand as ‘what other people say about you when you are not in the room‘. While it might be up to others to describe you this can clearly be shaped by how you portray your organisation through your actions, behaviours, products, services and all the visual cues or representations of your brand.
Your website plays a key role in this, not just in how it appears but also where it appears when searched for.
It’s difficult to appear as a ‘leader in the sector‘ if a random Google search for the services and products you provide has you appearing well below your competitors or possibly so far back on the search results you are not found at all.
If this is the case you need to optimise your website, which is mostly a very straight forward but methodical process and if necessary support this with Google Adwords pay per click advertising.
Where you appear is just as important as how you appear!
Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion
Fuzion are delighted to be working on two great initiatives that have been introduced by the Government and are being operated by the Local Enterprise Boards.
One of these is the Online Trading Vouchers initiative, which is designed to encourage and assist Irish businesses with eCommerce potential to get trading online and not miss the opportunity to expand their business. Vouchers of up to €2,500 are available to qualifying businesses.
This is a huge opportunity for the right business to literally ‘Take Off‘ by reaching new online customers for their products and services.
With the trend ever increasing towards online spending it is estimated that only 23% of small Irish businesses are engaged in any meaningful way in eCommerce sales.
For businesses employing less than ten people this percentage could be even lower. It is now believed that of online purchases made in Ireland that 70% of these are done in overseas markets. This is a huge lost opportunity for Irish businesses.
There is now an urgency to ensure that businesses recognise that this is happening and that they are encouraged and supported to respond to this digital reality in a meaningful way.
In order to support this goal, the National Digital Strategy aims to get a further 2,000 businesses trading online by the end of 2015.
The Online Trading Voucher scheme has been introduced to support those who wish to grasp this opportunity to expand their business.
Applications are now being accepted in the Pilot Regions of: Dublin City & County, Cork City & County, Kerry, Louth, Sligo and Waterford.
The €2,500 match funded Online Trading Vouchers are targeted at:
The Online Trading Vouchers can be used for the development or upgrade of an e-commerce website such as implementing online payments or booking systems.
Other usage includes the purchase of internet related software, online advertising, development of an APP, implementation of a digital marketing strategy, consultation with ICT experts for early stage adopters of online strategy and training/skills development specifically to establish and manage an online trading activity.
In order to make an application those interested must attend one of the information seminars which will provide all the details as to how to apply but also how to best use and gain value from the voucher to support the business online trading proposition.
This is an opportunity not to be missed by anyone who has a small business with products or services suited to eCommerce sales.
Please spread the word and advise anyone who is interested that they must attend the seminars – Attendance is FREE and pre-registration is essential.
Are you ready for Take Off?
Check out the other terrific initiative, Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur, which is a new competition to find Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur, with a total fund of €2 million available to invest in winning businesses and entrepreneurs in every county in the country.