FRIDAY 4TH OCTOBER 2-5PM KINGS HOUSE, AMPTHILL ROAD, BEDFORD. If you run a small business and could benefit with knowing more about how to improve your online visibility and marketing then this is for you. This workshop will help you to leverage the internet in the most cost effective ways possible (usually completely free). To book a place please send your name, business name and what you hope to learn to info@fullcirclewebsitedesign.co.uk Big thank you to King's Arms Church, Bedford for supplying the venue. Refreshments will be available for purchase from Ground Floor Coffee Shop on the day.

WHAT IS DARK SOCIAL MEDIA? A phrase coined because it cannot easily be tracked by reporting platforms like Google Analytics. The word ‘dark’ is not an implication of bad or illegal but rather private. Think private conversation platforms like Messenger or WhatsApp. So, whereas a brand can track conversation on open channels like a regular Facebook post, they cannot on a private conversation on dark social platforms; but dark social is on the rise and is here to stay. In fact, dark social has been around for decades. We used to call it Word of Mouth. It used to be the most powerful form of advertising and guess what? It still is. THE STATS According to The Drum - 63% of people prefer to share information on dark social media compared to 54% on open channels. That’s a large majority of social media users and many people overall. Drilling down on the stats further reveals a split in popularity across various platforms as follows: Facebook messenger 83% Whatsapp 56% Instagram 34% Snapchat 32% So, if we look at this from the perspective of the owner of a business, people may see adverts in open channels but prefer to discuss them in closed channels. This can partly be attributed to people feeling that they can ‘be themselves’ in private channels. Have you ever seen a sponsored Facebook post with loads and loads of comments, but all the comments are tagged people? It’s likely that these people are then going away and discussing the post in private. Wouldn’t it be great to know what people are saying about your business and your post? Well, you can’t. Not through a private conversation on Dark Social Media anyway. Not unless you’re invited to the party or… …create your own party. Now there’s a thought. OPEN SOURCE Open sources of social media are open to the public. An example would be a regular post on Facebook or a Facebook advert. The advert is pushed out into the crowds and with a little help from some targeting we sit back and wait for a response. Sometimes it works which is great but look back in this blog about people being tagged and the buzz leaving your ad and going dark. We have been asked to leave our own party. How embarrassing. We could post in a targeted group which covers a geographical location or that focuses on a certain activity or interest. In this way we are moving towards getting to know a certain group of people with a common interest which is a positive step (as long as we build a relationship with them and not just sell a product). Another positive step would be to have a referral made about your business on a referrals page. Why shout about yourself when other people will do it for you. Taking this one step further, who would you trust to refer a business to you: a stranger who might have a vested interest in a business (I’ve even seen referrals from people and later found out that they hadn’t even directly used who they referred!) or your own friends and family? It's friends and family all the way; and where do we source their recommendations? You got it- dark social media (which, in my opinion, covers a phone conversation or a good old chat in person over a cup of tea). IMPLICATION The true extend of the reach of open source advertising is not going to be accurate due to the presence of dark social (which is clearly on the rise). Even Google analytics will chuck all website referrals through dark social into a bucket and label it ‘direct traffic’. Not exactly useful… According to a blog on Global Web, as many as 1 in 2 people will share a link to a website to recommend a service or a product. Imagine how many links go unnoticed on dark social media… Businesses need to take control of dark social for themselves and certainly shouldn’t ignore dark social in favour of more time-honoured methods because of the difficulty in being invited to the party. Time to start writing your own guest list… Greggs Bakery took the initiative in 2016 by creating a WhatsApp group for their biggest fans called ‘Festive Bake Lovers’, created a buzz on open source platforms about it, added exclusivity by implementing genuine scarcity through limiting the number of members to 250 and then guess what? Everyone was talking about Greggs. It went viral, newspapers reported on it, and Greggs infiltrated Dark Social like a sausage infiltrates a roll. Well done, Greggs. REMEMBER: SOCIAL MEDIA Dark social, in a greater way than open social media platforms, is about being… well…. social! It is fundamentally important to realise that people spend their time on these platforms in order to converse, share info and build links through trust. This isn’t about selling a product at people at all. Start a conversation. Create a buzz. Inspire. Provoke thought. Discuss. Seek advice or opinion. This is about getting to know your audience and giving them a reason to do business with you when they are ready. I mean, have you ever had a cold call from an energy supply company or internet provider and came away from their call thinking ‘wow, that caller really built up trust. I’d be happy to buy from them!’ I didn’t think so. People buy from people. It’s about having a reason to choose you over your competition. So, if you manage to break through to dark social take the time to converse with your tribe and really value them as people and individuals. They will be your best advocates. Although reach may never be as big as more traditional forms of advertising, you have the ability to talk directly with social media influencers and people whose reach does expand further than you may think. #socialmediadarksocialmediadigitalmarketing

Akin to the iPromote Online line course that I wrote: this was a short course designed to cover the fundamental principles of online marketing from the eMarketing Institute. A house that lasts will be built on strong foundations. The foundations of anything are vital in building something that lasts and this goes for a solid online marketing strategy too. Link to certificate: https://goo.gl/2WT56 #Onlinemarketing #StNeots #DigitalMarketing #WebsiteDesign

We're never too old to learn new tricks and better ourselves... So I'm delighted to have completed the Hubspot content marketing course. I continually take courses, seminars, webinars and research to ensure that I keep up to date with online practices and consolidate what I know. In turn this knowledge is passed on to my clients to ensure that their products and online portfolio contains the best content that can be written with the best chances of it being found by the right audience.

A lot of my customers ask me if I ‘do SEO’ and whether I can help them ‘get to the top of Google’. It would be wonderful if I could simply say ‘yes and yes!’ However, the process of optimising websites for search engines is quite a bit more involved than this. Just to add to the deluge of advice that is available online you will also find that if you seek advice from several SEO ‘experts’ you will probably end up with different opinions from all of them. I feel your pain! That said if you are the owner of a small or medium sized enterprise or business (SME) then my advice is: take a deep breath, stay calm and know that there is plenty that you can do to help your business get seen on line. All of the following are pieces of the puzzle that makes up a solid SEO strategy for your business: YOUR OWN WEBSITE SEO – believe me you can do this! There are plenty of website builders out there than have some great SEO tools and plug ins that can be completely without the need of a professional. Wix has an SEO Wizard that gives suggestions on what to do as well as an easy to use interface. NOTE: I’d like to mention right now that your website SEO will not be affected if you use Wix instead of Wordpress. Use whichever platform you like for your website but no one site is specifically better than the other. CONTENT IS KING – Do you have a flair for writing? If so, you can write for your website or blog. Search engines really like good, informative and relevant content to give to its users. Make sure you consider the following when creating articles or posts: Give your article a relevant title with subjective keywords Give the reader useful information but do not sell to them. Make sure that you use paragraphs and have plenty of white space Include images to break up the text and make it more digestible Avoid jargon. Your readers may not understand technical terms BECOME AN INDUSTRY EXPERT – don’t be afraid to use the term expert. There are probably lots of other websites that you can write for like Quora or Reddit. It is free to create and account on sites like these. Put a link back to your website in your articles and you have a back link which also helps your SEO. SOCIAL MEDIA – Another free but extremely useful tool is to create a Facebook business page. This can include all of your business details, product or service info, images and a link to your website. A link can also be put on your website to your Facebook page. Do the same with Twitter and other social media platforms and you will have built more backlinks. Make sure you post regularly with interesting and engaging info. PUT A PIN IN THE MAP – Have you ever searched for something on Google and your results give you a map with a few businesses right there at the top of the list? There is nothing stopping you from having a pin in the map. It is free and instantly places you above all of the organic listings. You will go through the process of setting this up when you set up a Google My Business page. You can do this by: Go to Google My Business and hit the green START NOW button Follow the instructions to set up your page Verify your page Get pin in map. There is plenty more that you can do. The above are just some examples taken from the iPromote Online system which is specifically designed to put the small business owner back in control of their business. CLICK HERE to go through to Amazon to check this system out. For more information visit www.fullcirclewebsitedesign.co.uk and head over to our learning hub for loads of useful articles and advice.

This should be a refreshing change for some of you small business owners out there because I want you to understand that you can get something for nothing online. As business owners (myself included) we all want to be able to promote our products and services to the right market without the requirement of spending our life savings in the process. How do we do this? We LEVERAGE the internet. I’ve seen some amazing and often hilarious quotes from marketing companies asking for hundreds of pounds every month from small businesses to ‘ensure’ that their business ranks highly on Google or is heard over the noise of the internet. In amongst all the ways you can pay to be seen online (PPC, adverts, AdWords, etc.) are a plethora of ways that you can advertise your business completely free of charge; and you should use them! They are effective and work. If they don’t work, you haven’t lost any investment. CLICK HERE for something that you could print out and use and remember that the key word here is leverage. You are aiming to leverage these platforms to your benefit. Good luck!

From the Daily Mail website article, you might be surprised how we spend our days. What we do can, of course, have an impact on what we should be doing or want to do. I had a look at some examples of how we spend our lives and found out that it gave a solid reason for why you should be asking us to manage your digital portfolio. Let’s consider one week of your life. 168 hours. 10,080 minutes. The article starts of by suggesting that we spend an average of about 50 minutes partaking in nookie. I’ll let you make if that what you will… We can knock off 3,276 minutes sleeping each week for a start leaving 6814 (I’ve also removed some nookie…) Then of course there is our work life. Although varying greatly, let’s assume a work week of Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm. 2,400 minutes and we’re down to 4,414. Although the article doesn’t mention eating the Food Network suggests we remove 494 minutes on eating time and 238 minutes on food prep and clear up. 3682 left. Social aspects add up. Each week we seem to spend 379 minutes posting to Facebook, 100 minutes on certain types of surfing (The Daily Mail says it, not me!). around 1000 minutes can be taken up with shopping apparently too! 42 minutes shaving, 450 minutes smoking (if appropriate), 203 minutes travelling, 531 minutes doing chores and even 252 minutes hungover and we are down to 252 minutes. Taking 205 minutes of exercise away leaves us with 47 minutes left to relax. I haven’t even covered TV time yet! Time: it’s such a valuable commodity that, if you run your own business and require a website and digital presence (and you certainly do) then what are you going to give up to invest the time to do all of this? Hiring the right Digital Agency can be invaluable in not only providing you with the right products for your business but also give you free time back to do what you need to do. Full Circle Website Design has been doing website stuff for a long time. We have our own systems in place to complete work at an astounding pace with maximum efficiency and provable results. Contact us for a free consultation and let us take the time so that you don’t have to. I wonder why nookie wasn’t considered a social activity…..?

Your logo is part of the brand of your business. Part of it’s personality. Your logo should be an eye catching and appropriate graphic that sends the right message to your market. We recommend that you get an ACUTE logo designed. A adaptable C catchy U uncomplicated T targeted E enduring ADAPTABLE You should visualise your logo in as many different formats as you think necessary. Your logo should be adaptable enough for a business card, vehicle signage, website, print ad or more. It should work in a horizontal or vertical format. It should be clear whether as a tiny graphic or a huge billboard. It should even be usable on a black background as well as a white one. A good idea can be to create a black and white logo to observe simplicity and clean lines and then add colour as required. The colours used should be practical for the medium on which it will be displayed. For example, red colours are typically difficult to work with for newspaper print whereas simple colours from the CMYK colour palette are better. CATCHY Along with its simplicity a log should be eye catching; enough so that the eye is attracted to it and the mind remembers it. A logo certainly does not need to portray the subject matter. Indeed, the subject matter and a graphic can sometimes be impossible to link and may even be inappropriate to create a logo whilst forcing the subject matter into the design. Consider an accountancy firm who insists on pound signs in their logo. It would not portray a trustworthy image of the company regardless of what they do. A logo simply needs to be clear, unique and memorable. UNCOMPLICATED Simple logo designs are a lot easier to remember and thus convey a message with longevity and therefore are better at conveying a message to the client. Imagine your logo on a bill board on the edge of the motorway- are drivers going to be able to remember your logo whilst safely driving past at 70 mph? Some of the best logos in the world are as simple as it can get: Nike’s swoosh, McDonald’s Golden Arches etc TARGETED You want your logo to appeal to the right market. It would be appropriate for a child’s toy shop logo to have plenty of colour and a childish font yet an undertaker would adopt a more dignified and sensible approach. As previously mentioned: a logo does not need to contain the subject matter to be effective. Think of as many car brands that you know; do any of their logos actually have a car in them? ENDURING A logo should be able to stand the test of time. It needs to endure decades of societal changes and buying trends and display a stoic presence in the market. A good example of this would be the Sony logo which has hardly changed throughout the years. If you then look at the Pepsi Cola logo you will see many distinct changed For a list of the top 50 brands in the world check out THIS LIST from www.complex.com

This month's special offer is a bit closer to my heart. The little girl that you see in the advert is Sofia. She is my niece. That smile on her face is the most glorious and heart warming smile that I have ever seen. Sofia is a cheeky, bubbly girl with a tendency to fall asleep on me. Sofia has Down's Syndrome. She has to have regular trips to specialists in London to have check ups and tests and will live her life dealing with ailments that lucky people like me don't have to deal with. However....! This has not stopped her pursuing a modelling career, learning some sign language and more- all things that I can't do; and she is only 2! Sofia is great and she cheers me up whenever I see her. She just needs a bit more help sometimes and that is why I want to donate some money to this cause to help those who struggle with Down's Syndrome to have an awesome and happy life. If you need a website you'll find someone to do it anyway. If you book with me at any time of the year I will still design an amazing website for you. However I'll also donate £20 of what you pay towards Beds Down's Syndrome Support Group too. If you want a logo I'll throw in another £10 too. In the last year I've designed 30 websites and 15 logos. That would be £750 towards this cause! Imagine that?! You can find out more about World Down's Syndrome Day at https://worlddownsyndromeday.org/ and don't forget to wear odd socks on the 21st! Even better, buy #lotsofsocks HERE to help raise even more money! Head over to our contact page to have a chat with us or drop us a line to talk about your website project.

Every month Full Circle Website Design give a fantastic offer to businesses as highlighted on our front page. Our February offer is for some amazing discounts on websites and more and Valentine's (in our minds) covers the whole of February. So take advantage of our offers while there is still time! You can contact us for info and to book in your project.

I'm only 40 but I still say 'times have changed a lot since I was young'! About 12 years ago I was working with a large newspaper company. At that time these companies were moving towards a digital world as the print industry (newspapers) was declining. Businesses were moving towards digital media to promote themselves and the newspaper companies had to keep up. In the last 10 years I have seen a change in advertising and marketing that is more radical than changes in society that I have seen in the last 40 years. In fact, these huge shifts in advertising and marketing trends are not happening every 10 years. They are happening every year. Every month. All the time. People are trending more towards digital devices for goods and services all the times and no business can afford to be left behind. Here are some obvious but important reasons why your small business needs a top notch website to ensure your survival: A 24/7 SHOP FRONT By far a website is the most cost efficient form of advertising that is accessible to anyone with the internet at all times of every day. The stats for June 2017 from the Office for National Statistics are: Online sales (excluding automotive fuel) increased year-on-year by 15.9% and by 1.8% on the month. YOUR COMPETITION ARE ONLINE If you don't have a website you will be losing ground on your competitors who do. So by doing nothing you aren't even standing still; you are being left in the dust! 'GOOGLE IT'. A phrase so well used that it is now a recognised verb. Even if your business is 100% local your potential clients will still 'Google' where to find goods and services. You should be directing them to YOUR website. ONLINE SHOPPING with e-commerce spend increasing year on your most people will at least research products online before a purchase (whether online or in store). An online store can improve not only online sales but also off line sales and is another channel for your customers to make a purchase. WHY ARE YOU NOT ONLINE? What reason is there? Unless you have more business than you can handle and are going to remain this way for the rest of your career (which is a wonderful situation to be in) then I cannot think of a good reason why you would choose to be left behind online. If you would like to talk about how to purchase a domain name and get a website designed then give us a call on 07825559642 or head over to our contact page to send us an email.

Not every website design company is the same. There are many out there and choosing the right one can be difficult, especially for a new business or if you have little or no knowledge of the digital world. To make your job a bit easier, here are 10 reason why Full Circle Website Design should be your first and only choice: 1. WE BUILD PROFESSIONAL WEBSITES There are plenty of sites where you can download a ready-made template and put a website together yourself. Templates have been around for some time now; but we don’t use them. You can rest assured that what we build is built from scratch and will be unique to your business. 2. YOU WILL BE HIRING EXPERTISE AND PROFESSIONALISM With 16 years of experience, Full Circle designers carry the know-how and ability to interpret the personality of your business and design sleek and beautiful websites that people want to see. This expertise will then carry through to all aspects of design from point of sale to vehicle signage and more. 3. WE HAVE THE RIGHT TOOLS AND RESOURCES FOR THE JOB We invest in the right software to design all sorts of graphics for you. More than this we have the right selection of knowledge in various areas. Your website alone requires expert input in design, SEO, layout and content. Full Circle Website Design also have access to those with knowledge of blogging, social media and Google products. We like to consider ourselves the ‘place to be for all things digital’. 4. WE WORK TO A TRIED AND TESTED MODEL You can’t just throw a load of details at a website and hope it all comes together. Building a website is a carefully structured process which carries on far beyond the ‘go live’ date. Full Circle Website Designers are experienced in using the right process to produce the right product: initial brief, collaboration, draft, assess, amend, all the way to going live. We get it right, every time. 5. YOU SAVE TIME AND MONEY Probably the two most important things for your business: time and money. We have seen lots of websites built by relatives, sons, daughters, friends, those with good intentions…. Without the right expertise these fall way below what is optimal to represent your business. It is simply not a good idea to try and save money this way and will lead to lost business and therefore more expense in the long run. Hiring us means hiring a professional who can have your website up and running within the shortest space of time and therefore earning you money more quickly. 6. IS YOUR BUSINESS UNIQUE? Our websites are. As mentioned above we do not use templates and design our own graphics so you will own a completely unique website. One question we ask our clients at initial brief stage is: ”why should I use your business instead of your competitor?”*. We probe for you to find that unique selling point which is an essential message for new customers. Well we practice what we preach: we offer unique sites that carry your unique blueprint. (*See our blog ‘Why should I choose your business?) 7. PEOPLE WILL ENGAGE WITH YOUR WEBSITE By understanding your business, we ensure that websites are designed to get viewers to interact with your site. A website is a vehicle to carry someone on a journey, be it contact you for information, ordering a product or understanding more about your business. We make sure they complete their journey. 8. YOUR WEBSITE WILL BE SEO FRIENDLY Your website is the tip of the iceberg (of which you see 10%). Underneath the water is the rest of the iceberg. Similarly, behind the scenes of your website is SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Think of this as the roads that people use to find your business. In a nutshell, we ensure that you are listed on search engines and that they put you in front of the right people. 9. YOUR CUSTOMERS WILL TRUST YOU With a visually beautiful and professionally presented website, your customers will trust you to adhere to the same professionalism in your business practice. With packages that manage all of your online promotion as well as print and point of sale products, Full Circle Website Design can extend this trust across your whole business. 10. WE ARE THE BEST VALUE FOR YOUR BUSINESS We truly believe this too. Full Circle Website Design offer packages that are unique in this industry and offer more for your money than you will find elsewhere. We are proud of what we do and going beyond what is required for the customer is our normal disposition. For more information head over to our contact page and call us for a chat or to arrange a meeting.