Posts Tagged ‘Bristol’

5 Website Redesign Essentials

Monday, November 28th, 2011

Thinking of giving your website a revamp? Great stuff! It’s probably the best thing you can do in terms of your online presence. After all, almost everyone will look up your website when considering your services.

A fresh well thought out website can provide a much better experience for your users and there are several important factors to remember when doing a website re-design.

Content and Blog

Your actual content is obviously an important part of your website but amazingly this is still overlooked by so many businesses.

So ask yourself whether your existing copy needs a refresh as well? If so you’ll certainly want to optimise your copy for the search engines and make sure it is unique and demonstrates your expertise. You should also provide a strong call to action for users to get in touch, purchase your products or do whatever the goal of your website is.

Regular fresh content is essential in today’s online world and integrating a blog into your website is the best way to add regular news, articles, videos or podcasts that the search engines can index.

Search Engine Friendly

Your website should be built with the following in mind. Well coded websites mean faster loading websites, which is just one factor in how your website ranks in Google.

Meta data such as keywords and descriptions, although not as important as they once were should still be a part of your website.

  • Ensure keyword phrase is in the tags of a post if your site is blog based.
  • Keywords should appear in the first paragraph of content, be in bold, italicised or underlined.
  • Keyword phrase is used as the anchor text of a link within the page or post
  • Phrase is the alt text and title tag as well as the image

Browser Tested

Your website should work on modern browsers as well as older ones. There are fantastic new evolutions in CSS and HTML which can help your website load faster in modern browsers and bring functionalities to give your site that special touch. A future-proof site should be optimised for modern browsers with backwards compatibility with older browsers.

Mobile Friendly

How does your website look on smart phones and mobile devices? It may well be worth considering having an optimised mobile version alongside your main website that helps mobile users navigate around your website more easily. Almost half of UK internet users are going online via mobile phone data connections, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Social Media

If you want to tap into the viral power of social media then you may want to consider linking to or integrating your social media platforms on your website.

Think about whether social media will enhance your online marketing efforts as it may not be for everyone. What you want to achieve? Increase communication and get feedback from customers? Establish your expertise in a given area or just drive traffic?

Redesigning your site is an excellent move  – just don’t forget these basic ingredients

If you’re thinking of a website revamp don’t hesitate to contact us for a no obligation chat

Getting Social with SEO

Friday, May 13th, 2011
socialseoWith the announcement of Bing Social last year and now with the recent launch of the Google +1 button to challenge the famous Facebook ‘Like’ button, it is crystal clear that Social and SEO are on the same course. With Google’s +1 button users will be able to vote up search results, and pretty soon search results will be recommended to you based on whether any of your contacts have +1ed a webpage. Admin will show Activity stats such as who has +1′d your site as well as age and sex and location. Facebook’s social tools such as commenting, like buttons and the recent addition of Share buttons are quickly spreading across the web. So do they have an effect on your SEO? Well not in Google, as they cannot read Facebook data, therefore cannot see how many ‘likes’ your webpage has, for example. But Bing can thanks to their exclusive deal with Facebook. Both Google and Bing have confirmed that Tweets now impact rankings. Twitter should certainly now be considered part of your SEO strategy. However the real impact will be when you actually get Tweeted and Retweeted by “influencers” on Twitter. Both search engines look at the social authority of the person Tweeting, so someone with a lot more followers than they follow themselves carry a lot more weight. Whilst traditional SEO methods aren’t suddenly disappearing – going Social should be top of your list.

Calling Freelancers and Homeworkers: Get out of the house and into Jelly!

Friday, December 4th, 2009
JellyJelly is a coworking concept that began in New York in 2006 when two roommates realised that they loved working from home, but missed the creative brainstorming, sharing, and camaraderie of the traditional office environment. They invited friends to come and work from their apartment for one day a week and so the ‘Jelly’ concept was born and offshoots now span the globe. Well we checked out the Bristol Jelly equivalent which has been kickstarted by Lee Cottier, a Bristol based Learning and Development specialist, which rotates around different locations in Bristol and Bath and relies on the generosity of cafes, studios and open office locations. Earlier this week eOffice Bristol kindly allowed twenty odd freelancers to bring in tea, coffee and biscuits (actually provided by Lee, thanks Lee! :-)   and work from their funky offices for the day. It was refreshing to meet new people, make contacts and work in a great environment right in the middle of the city. Lee had organised it down to a ‘T’ and made a great host, greeting everyone that came in to join the ‘Jelldown.’ Lee says, “Jelly is so perfect for Bristol and Bath’s large community of freelancers and entrepreneurs that I was really surprised it wasn’t already happening locally. So I thought I’d better help get it started myself! After only a few months we already have one of the most developed series of local Jellies in the UK.” Other locations visited so far have included: Jika Jika Coffee House in Bath, The Office Bristol, Orchard Street Business Centre Bristol, and eOffice Bristol. Lee is keen to find more venues in Bristol and Bath willing to hold the occasional Jelly: “It’s a win-win. The attendees get all the trademark Jelly benefits of inspiration, motivation and networking, while the venues get exposure and a little gentle publicity for the services they can offer the local solo worker and micro-business. At the same time we’re spreading the idea of the larger coworking culture, which can only be good for both parties.” Founder and CEO of eOffice Pier Paolo Mucelli says, “It was a great coworking day @eOfficeBristol this week and really cool to share our open plan environment with twenty local freelancers, self employed and entrepreneurs. We plan to support the Jelly initiative with our creative spaces across the UK and provide the suitable physical environment and assist small businesses to generate more contacts and business opportunities.” So if you are going stir crazy at home and need to get out of the house and network with likeminded people check out more information here or follow @CoWorkingWest on Twitter. Another local Jelly inspired day is the regular Open Studio Friday at the equally cool space, Pervasive Media Studio which is located on the Bristol Docks and is also well worth a visit with your laptop.

Networking to help your Business

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009
business couple shaking hands on puzzle piecesThis friday Code 9 are heading to the bstartup exhibition at the Olympia in London for a bit of networking as well as a chance to meet associates and clients. We’d thought we’d share some networking groups we’ve come across in the Bristol area as it is something we’ve been looking at ourselves. Networking is a slow burn process and involves building relationships, which takes time, but is well worth it as people ‘buy’ people as we’re sure you already know :-) . All of these groups offer opportunities to visit as guests to see whether they are a good fit for your business. GWEBusinessWest | Networking in Bristol | The Business League | BNI 4Networking | NRG Networks | Business Network SW | Business for Breakfast | Avon Business Club Happy Networking!

Thanks for Coming!

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
Thanks to everyone that turned up on friday evening at the Severnshed in Bristol to help us celebrate our relaunch! Freelancers, Clients, friends and associates all came down to say hello and chat on a very fine September evening. It was also good to put faces to names and brainstorm over a pint and there couldn’t have been a better location right by the river. See you all again soon

A few drinks to celebrate

Monday, September 7th, 2009
Code 9 Design has helped clients with branding, design, illustration, web development, and integrated marketing for some time now. We created Code 9 as a sideline and fanned the flames as much as we could to build something we truly believed in. When it became our full-time business it was a dream come true to be living and working our passion. Well, very recently we completely revamped our business to better serve our clients and decided to have a few drinks to celebrate.

severnshed

Everyone is welcome to come along and chat, network, make new friends or just slump themselves against the bar. :-) We’ll be at the Severnshed, Bristol from 6pm on 25th September so block out your diary. View Larger Map Come and join us if you’re around for a chat. It would be great to see you there! Our boat-races (faces) are on the board >>> Click  Here