What about video?
Should I put videos on my website?
The simple answer is that it depends. Video can allow you to connect with your audience more effectively than just words and images. Video gives you the chance to entertain and inform your audience. It can reach out to people, it can make them laugh, be moved or just be better informed about what it is that you do.
It is an old cliché, but people do business with people they meet, like, know and trust. Video gives you the opportunity for people to know what you like and what you sound like before they get in touch with you, and it is just another way that builds confidence.
I can remember turning up to meeting someone for a business meeting in a coffee bar some years ago and not having a clue what the person I was meeting looked like. I asked a few people if they were the person I was due to meet and I got more and more embarrassed as they kept saying no! That is, of course, far less likely to happen these days, as you can usually find out what someone looks like through their LinkedIn profile or via their website, however, video allows everyone to hear you talk and feel even more comfortable before making contact.
How should I go about it?
Before the advent of smartphones and YouTube, the only way would be to hire a video production company to create a video for you. The advantage of this is that the finished product will be professional, it will be scripted, edited and give you a polish that you would be unlikely to achieve on your own. There is the additional cost but if you see this cost as an investment in your business, it is certainly money well spent.
There are many fine video production companies around and it is worth talking to some of them and get a feel for the kind of videos they produce, before deciding which one is suitable for you.
The alternative, of course, is to do it yourself. Today's smartphones can shoot in 4K resolution and achieve some quite remarkable results. I would recommend that you also invest in some lighting so that your video does not look dull and perhaps a lapel microphone to get better sound quality.
There is a whole array of inexpensive accessories available that should make the technical side of the process easier and I would also recommend do this anyway, even if you plan to use a professional video company. The reason for this is simple: the more time you spend practising, the better you will get at this and is it not better to spend your spare time getting over the fear of being on camera than waiting until the day of filming with a professional company? Time, after all, is money and you will get better results if you are confident about being in front of a camera in the first place!
Run Your Own Website
Beautiful, accessible, web design, Chichester, West Sussex
What about images for my website?
Why is it important?
Using good quality images on your website is important for several reasons. The first one is obvious, if your image is of a low resolution (it might be very small), it will be unwise to use it because it will look pixelated when shown on your website. This will diminish the overall impact your website has on visitors because you only have a few seconds to make a good first impression. Most people tend to see images first and if there are of -poor quality, this will work against you.
Mobile phones are great but…
The same goes for photos that may have been taken with a mobile phone. If the pictures are out of focus or at a slight angle, it does not matter if they are of a high resolution, this will still affect that critical first impression. You know your business inside and out and you are rightly proud of the goods or services you provide but visitors to your website do not know anything about you and will make a judgement on what they see. Is it not worth taking the time to make sure your images are of high quality?
Avoid Google Images!
You may well be tempted to go to Google Images as a resource for images for your website. We would strongly advise against you doing this because most of the images on Google Images are subject to copyright and if you use them without a license, you risk heavy fines and legal action. This has happened to people we know personally and we would not want it to happen to you.
Free images are available
There are some websites, such as Unsplash or Pixabay, that do offer excellent images with no commercial fee, you just need to make sure that you credit them appropriately. Please see their websites and read their licence information carefully.
We have a Getty Licence
We have a licence with Getty Images and we have access to literally millions of stunning, high-resolution images of all shapes, sizes and subjects. Our clients have access to this licence and may licence images through us. They do this singly, at £10 per image or in bundles of 10 for £50. Our licence includes usage for both websites and for print, such as brochures and leaflets. It does not cover promotional merchandise such as T-Shirts or Mugs etc., a separate licence is required for that.
Pictures speak more than words!
Regardless of where you source your images from, we suggest that you use ones that you feel will communicate your message effectively. With our bespoke clients, we always suggest images that we feel work best and they usually agree with our choices.
Why not give us a call?
If you would like to talk to us about using imagery on your Run Your Own Website, why not give us a call on 01243 952087, we would be delighted to talk to you!
Run Your Own Website
Beautiful, accessible, web design, Chichester, West Sussex
Could you write the words for me?
Writer's Block
One of the problems that our clients can have is Writer's Block. They know their business inside out, of course, but, now they have opened Word and are staring a blank page, they simply do not know where to start. This is why many of our clients pay our Copywriting Team to take care of the words for them. The advantage of having the words written for you means that these words will be written by a professional whose job it is to present your business in exactly the right way for your visitors. A visitor may come to your website at any time, day or night, and they will make a snap judgement if the words do not speak to them, if they do not engage them.
The impact of your words is so important
The words on the main pages are the most important ones, especially your Home page, as this will be the first page that people will usually see. Would it not be nice not to have to worry about whether your words will have the right impact? Having a professional copywriter interview you and then write the words in the way that best reflects your business message would be an invaluable investment. You could also consider having our copywriting team write blogs for you on a regular basis.
Search Engines will read every word
After Google and other search engines have assessed your website for build quality, hosting, accessibility and so on, it will look at the words on your website. If you have one of our Run Your Own Websites, it passes these other tests with flying colours, of course. Would it not make sense to have the words have the same impact on Google and all other search engines?
How we can do it for you
Our copywriting team will interview you and find out about what makes your business different. They will find out about your ideal client and write the words in a way that will appeal most effectively to them, whilst also being written in a way that is optimal for Google and other search engines. You are, of course, free to add more content yourself at any point and our clients often find it easier to add new content once they can see what has already been written.
If you want to find out more, just give us a call!
Our charging structure is very reasonable and the more pages you pay for, the less you have to pay per page. This is because the background research and interview takes the same amount of time, regardless. Why not call us today on 01243 952087 today to find out more about how our Copywriting Team can transform your Run Your Own Website!
Run Your Own Website
Beautiful, accessible, web design, Chichester, West Sussex
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Can I have a blog?
Of course you can!
Every Run Your Own Website, has an unlimited blog or news facility included. They give your website life and they give Google and other search engines a reason to come back to you website!
What does a Blog post and a News item have in common? They are essentially the same. Each is more than one piece of information grouped together under the same category. A web page, on the other hand, can only exist in one place on a website. You would not want to keep adding another blog directly to your blog page because you would very quickly end up with a blog page several metres long!
Instead, your Blog Page (or News, Case Studies etc.) acts as a container, like a drawer in a filing cabinet. Every time you add a new blog, you put it in the front of the drawer, all the other blogs are now behind it. This is why you will always see Blogs and News sections on a website listed with the most recent post at the top, with every other one behind it. They may be displayed on a page with just the first few lines of each shown. This is called an excerpt and it will usually be followed by a link to allow you to read the rest of it. Sometimes the excerpt may only be a few words long.
A blog is forever, not just for Christmas
It is very important that you do not delete your blogs because, no matter how old they might be, Google will have read and indexed them, and they will appear in Google searches. It does not matter to you how people come across your website, the important thing is that they come across you in the first place. If you take down a blog post, Google will discover that it is no longer there and this will have a negative effect on the position of your website with Google. Google does not like directing people to a page that is no longer there as it does not reflect very well on Google either.
If you do have a good reason to take a blog or news post down, you should make sure that your sitemap is rebuilt and Google is informed right away that the blog post is no longer there. If your website has been set up correctly, this should happen automatically but it is worth checking this with your web designer. Your sitemap, by the way, is an index of all your pages, blog posts and pretty much everything else on your website. Google uses this sitemap to look up all the pages that appear on it.
Why your blog is important
Your blog or news posts are effective ways to not only keep Google and other Search Engines coming back to your website, they are also an excellent method of keeping your customers and prospective customers up to date with whatever is going in on in your business.
This is why we ensure all Run Your Own Websites, have an unlimited blog. We never want to restrict the amount of fresh content you might write and tell the world about!
What should I blog about?
Or what should you not blog about?
This is a very interesting question. It depends on the type of website you have. If it is a personal website, you might want to write freely about anything that interests you. A blog is never wasted. Provided that your website has been set up correctly, every blog you write will notify Google as soon as it is live. Google will then come along and read it and it may well start appearing in search results in a few days or even a few hours, depending on the popularity of your website and the popularity of what you are writing your blog about.
We take the view that, as long as your blog is interesting to at least one other person on the planet (which is statistically almost certain!), it will be fine. If you have a business then it is always worth remembering that people build up trust in your business usually through the people they encounter. Therefore, your blog is an excellent opportunity to enhance your reputation as some who speaks with authority, no matter what the subject matter may be!
Build your own reputation
Your website is your shop window on the world. When you are writing your blog, you are putting yourself on display to everyone, which can make you feel slightly vulnerable in one sense but in another way, it can be an incredible opportunity for people to find out more about you and build up that personal level of trust.
People do business with people they meet, like, know and trust, as the saying goes. Everything you write has value.
Where should you start?
One step you could take first is to write a series of headlines, one headline for each blog. Just start writing ideas. You will find it much easier once you have actually started to do this, I promise! It is a lot easier to write headlines first. Once you have written, say, 10 or 20 titles, pick on one, copy it to a new page and start writing.
You can write about events going on in the news, if they relate in some way to you and/or your business. Once you start this process, your brain will start automatically looking for new information that will inspire the next blog and ideas may come to you at odd times. Make sure you either have a small notepad and a pen or pencil with you at all time or use the equivalent feature on your smartphone. I prefer to use my smartphone because I can dictate faster than I can type and make fewer mistakes!
In another blog, we will look at some ways that you can structure your blog so that it is effective with search engines.
Run Your Own Website
Beautiful, accessible, web design, Chichester, West Sussex