When you are having a new website designed it can sometimes feel difficult to know how to communicate your ideas to your website developer. Often meeting with your developer may be done through an online video calling service so it sometimes is harder to show them what ideas you like.

One idea is to take some time prior to the meeting to create a mood board.

So, what is a mood board?  Well basically it’s a collage of things that you like, this may include colour schemes, font styles and pictures to create a suitable tone for your website.

To create this, you could look around at other websites for ideas but also look on any form of printed media such as magazines or leaflets. You could also research the use of colour and what psychological effects different colours have on potential customers.

Once you have a collection of ideas simply put them onto one document (be it a physical one or a digital one) and give your mood board to your website designer. 

This is a great way of communicating what sort of thing you’d like to see on your own website and will allow the developer to throw in some additional ideas.

Every educational setting is required to have a website and quite rightly as it is an important link between the educational setting and home for parents with children at the setting but also for teachers, governors and other stakeholders. However, the ongoing maintenance of the website such as keeping it up to date and uploading fresh content can be time consuming for already busy staff so the responsibility for updating the website usually falls to the setting administrator who may not have a great deal of expertise in this area and will therefore require specific training to enable them to fulfil this role.

Choosing a web design and web maintenance company to set up the website and give continued support to the staff is probably a wise option as the time it would take an inexperienced member of staff who is already very busy would be huge. The company will be able to design the website after consultation with the educational setting management so that it meets the needs of the users.

Many web design companies offer a support package to schools so that they can be contacted if there are any issues that staff cannot resolve and will conduct regular maintenance work on the website to make sure it is functioning as it should.

Although not every page have to follow the same structure on your site it does help to keep to some sort of consistency in the design. For example. The Nav bar should ideally stay in the same place as you go through the site along with the footer. You may have a big header image at the top of the home page which you decide to remove for the other pages to ensure you get the most important content towards the top. If you have an ecommerce site then you may have category pages and then product pages. The category pages should all follow the same structure, and the product pages should also follow the same structure even if they are different to each other. This will allow customers to learn where to find the information they want and allow them to easily compare.

It can sometimes be a good idea to ask visitors for their feedback on the site – whether they found it easy to navigate round, what additional functionality would be helpful to them. This can help you focus your attention where needed and may help increase conversions on the site as people are more like to compete a purchase or make an enquiry if they like suing the website and find it easy to navigate.

If you are thinking about building a directory website, there are a lot of things to consider. You need to think carefully about how your website is going to work. Are you going to charge a fee for people to create a listing for their business or are you going to charge to sell advertising space around the site, or maybe you chose to do both. It can be hard to make money from a directory website, especially to start with as you will need to prove to people that it is successful before they will want to part with any money to be advertised on there.

Often directory websites have to start off small and then over time as the site grows in popularity, you can start to charge more money. You will need to have a decent budget in which you can pay your graphic designer, programmer and hosting.

It is important to work out how you are going to enable people to list on it as you probably want it to be as automated as possible. You can buy prebuilt systems out there that you can then adapt to work how you want it to. They will usually have payment gateway options already installed.

A website is one of those marketing tools that you might know you need, but you’re not quite sure why. If you decide to have a website designed and built, it’s usually a big project, so make sure you are going into it with your eyes open and know what you want to get out of it. Here are some of the reasons why a website will help you:

• Brand awareness. People will have the option of finding your website and you will become established as a better-known name in your field.
• More sales. This is especially true of an eCommerce website, one where you sell products directly online. A user will be able to pay for your products online, making you more money.
• Better exposure. It will be easier for people to find you with a good website that is optimised for search engines. If they like the experience of using your site, then they will be more likely to use you again.

A budget website might have its uses for your business, though in general, it’s often advisable to get the best website you can afford. However, if you really are just starting out and don’t want to generate any leads with your website, then it might be enough for you to have a simple budget website.

This will give you an online presence so that you are able to begin to compete in the online world. Your customers will generally expect you to have a website, and it may put people off if you don’t. This is a good starting point and will ensure people can find you if needed.

When you buy a domain, think about longevity. Choose something relevant and on brand, so that you can use it to expand your website in the future as your business grows. A simple website won’t be relevant to you forever and in time, you will want something with more functionality.

Web marketing is a specialist field that should be taken care of by someone who knows the industry inside out. For lots of UK companies, the cheapest and most beneficial way to do this is to outsource their marketing to an external agency. This will give the company all the expertise they need and they will have someone specific to maintain their account.

Outsourcing web marketing is something that companies of all sizes will do. Smaller companies find it useful because they won’t then have to take on their own in-house marketing employees. Larger companies will often have their in-house marketing departments work with agencies, pooling their resources to draw on some of the best minds in the industry. Many agencies will have a certain expertise, so it pays off for companies to identify this and use their marketing budgets in the right way. For example, some agencies will have a strong SEO background, whereas others will specialise in social media.

Many businesses wonder whether it would be more beneficial for them to hire a web marketing manager, or use an agency. Both options have pros and cons, which will be discussed here to help you make your decision.

In-House Marketing Department 

The main benefit is that the person or people you hire will have excellent knowledge of your business. They will have a thorough understanding of what you do and will be up-to-date with products and new developments. You will also be able to directly discuss campaigns with them whenever you need to. The downside will be the cost and office space you will need.

Marketing Agency 

Lots of businesses opt for an agency because they don’t have the resources to have their own marketing department. An agency isn’t a bad option anyway, because you will have access to people who are highly experienced and very well informed about their industry. The downside may be the lack of control – not all agencies are good and meet deadlines.

Web design is a collaborative process. Of course, the web design company or agency you select will be the experts in their field, but that being said, you also should have a say in what they are doing. This will ensure you are happy with it once you are presented with the final product. It is your website and need to be representative of you. Here is the general process for ensuring a good design:

• Discuss what you would like. It is best to do this face to face. Tell the design agency about your ideas and take along some websites you like the look of.
• Review the designs. You should first be presented with some preliminary designs, drawn up by a designer. Amend them as needed.
• Be involved in the build. Make sure you are happy with the functionality and navigation that are going into your website. Take advice from the agency as well, as they will prioritise user experience for you.

The images and content you use are the real ‘meat’ of your website. They are going to be what give it substance, make it unique and give your potential customers a real flavour of what your business is like. If you don’t have images and good content in the first place, this is going to make the web design process harder.

Often, a site will be designed around the content and image layout. This is due to the structure that the content has been given – if there are subsections, smaller paragraphs and bullet points, the design need to correspond to this. It is often a lot easier for a web designer if they have the copy first.

If you are designing a site for a client, try to get their images first. The site will feel instantly more personal and appealing once it uses their images. If you can do this from the off, they’re more likely to be sold.