We continue our birthday celebrations here in the Full Circle office by adding some more special offers to our current ones. Check this out: It makes sense to us to pass on that which has helped us to grow throughout our first year; a proud sense of branding with a clear message to our audience. To be seen in any market (and to stay in the minds of our potential clients) we need to be consistent in approach and message. This is why we are offering some FREE products for anyone who purchases a website package from us between now and the end of October 2017. If you would like any further information on what we do or to book a website with us then head over to our CONTACT page to get in touch. Make sure you scroll through this blog page too. There is plenty of useful free information that will benefit your business when it comes to promotions and marketing. See you soon!

It's our birthday! Full Circle Website Design is now officially one year old and we are very chuffed about it too, thank you very much! Don't be fooled by our youthful exuberance and fresh business face though: we carry many years of tried and tested experience on our shoulders despite our apparent youth! One thing is certain on birthdays and anniversaries though: presents. It seemed that when I worked in offices it would be the unwritten rule that the person who owns the birthday would be the one to buy the do-nuts. Or sweets. But never anything healthy for some reason. Well we are changing that by offering some healthy discounts on our products and services for the rest of September 2017. Contact us for more information and if there is any other digital service that you need and would like a discount then just ask! There are discounts across the board! We look forward to hearing from you soon!

In our previous post I wrote about how we undertake regular training to maintain high standards in the products that we offer and the services that we provide. So in the spirit of this here is another one: Our head designer Adam was recognised by Google as having completed the fundamentals of online marketing.

Here at Full Circle we are constantly striving to maintain high standards. Becoming a website designer is not a 'one size fits all' qualification: systems change. Expectations change. Technology evolves. So we make sure we are constantly training and keeping up to date with industry standards and progressions. Since our inception we have produced plenty of websites using the Wix platform. Although we don't use existing templates (everything we design is 100% bespoke) Wix have recognised the work that we have done and have recognised us as professional designers using the Wix Platform. We're really happy about this! It's always nice to be recognised for hard work; and you can rest assured that any project that we take on will be undertaken to the highest of standards that we have been offering.

Point of difference. Unique selling point. Call it what you will. The question here remains the same: as a paying customer, why should I choose YOUR business over the myriad of other professionals out there who offer the same thing? What do you do so differently that will make me book that appointment, buy that product or sign on the dotted line? In the competitive world of business this is a fundamental question that you should be asking yourself not just once but every day so that you can stay a cut above the rest; and it may not be as easy as you think. I attended a seminar once that was hosted by a lady who was a world leader in brand marketing and the promotion of businesses. Sat in front of her were about 30 high profile business men and women from local businesses of various industries. She talked about the importance of making your business unique and a cut above the rest and then challenged the owners to tell her why she should choose their business. Several wrong answers came out: "Because we are the best". Not good enough. Everyone can say that and it isn't a quantifiable statement. "We offer the best customer service". Not good enough- anyone can claim this. "You can have the best coffee while you wait". What is stopping your competitor saying the same? (assume the customer had never been to either business). The best answer that was given was simple: "I'm not sure now that you ask me." Honesty in this case led a business owner to go away and maybe implement that point of difference that is crucial to being perceived as the best, most reliable, best value or however you wish your business to be interpreted. So your customer is on the phone and they ask you this question: "Why should I choose you?". Now you can consider your reply. Backtrack a bit though... How has this customer even found you in the first place? This is where your website comes in. It is not headline news that the majority of customers search online for goods and services. You need a good website. You have a very short amount of time to make a first impression so your website needs to have a fresh, clean design and a clear purpose for your customer. You need to get them on the phone, sending you an email or walking through your door. This is where Full Circle Website Design can offer you what you need in a website. Whether it is a restaurant menu and takeaway ordering system, an informational website or e-commerce we can provide fully bespoke sites with unique design that will drive your customers to you. "Ok," you ask, "but why should I choose Full Circle Website Design?" Good question! I'm glad you asked! We do websites. That's true. We will design you a website AS GOOD AS (if not better than) anyone else out there; but the reason you should choose us over everyone else out there is what we offer through our digital management packages on top of your website. Let me briefly explain: For £60 per month we can: Maintain your website. Provide SEO behind the scenes to drive traffic to your site Brand your social media with bespoke ads Regularly post to your social media sites Audit your Google products (Business, Google+) Link your site to everything Provide you with up to 2 business email addresses Design your logo We will even design adverts for you to use anywhere. (we have designed business cards, online ads, print ads,car detailing, mugs, hats, clothing, doormats, display stands... anything). That is why you should choose us: Because for the sake of just £60 per month you simply WILL NOT find what we offer for you for the same amount from any other online marketing company. Best value. Comprehensive. Relevant. Call 07825559642 or email info@fullcirclewebsitedesign.co.uk for a meeting or conversation to discuss your requirements. 07825559642

You run a business. It was a dream come true for you when it happened: you could finally be your own boss and throw yourself into something that you love doing. You wake up in the morning positive and looking forward to the productive day ahead. Those of us who run our own businesses can probably relate to this opening paragraph. Whether you are a plumber, book keeper, shop owner or any other trade it is possible that part of your plan did not involve spending hour on end hunched over a laptop trying to compete with the constant stream of online traffic and being confident that you are on the right track. ‘Online’ is the way forward and many businesses now plough their advertising and marketing budgets into online promotion. It can be a very time consuming endeavour though especially if you want to make the most of it. It is also possible that you don’t have the time or the desire to learn about websites, social media, online marketing and SEO (whatever THAT is…!). Here are your options: Learn. It’ll take time for sure as things are constantly evolving and changing online so this will be an ongoing project. You will need to dedicate time to learning and then maintaining whatever products you decide to start. Even if you have the desire to learn you might not be able to invest the time and why should you? You started your business to do what you love. Not to advertise and market online. Besides, who is going to tell you that what you are learning and doing is up to date and correct? Hire a marketing manager. This could be awesome: you would have someone who comes ready prepped to do everything you need from websites to mailing to point of sale to advertising…. Assuming that they do have this broad range of skills. They might not. Assuming that they do you will then need to brief them on everything that is required so there will be a large initial time investment until they know what they need to do for your business. The main drawback of this is you will have to pay them a salary for what they do. Full time this could cost quite a bit. Hire an online specialist. This is where Full Circle Website Design sit in your options. There are a multitude of companies out there. Some will design websites but not optimise them. Some will optimise but not do SEO. Some will do this but not do social media. Or logo design. Or advertising design. If you can find the right company, you could get everything that you need for a fraction of the cost of hiring a marketing manager and retain your valuable time to do what you intended to do when you started your business. Do nothing. Your business is doing just fine without all this online stuff. Maybe it is and if so, you’re in a good place. I would certainly argue that your competitors will be found online though and to rely on word of mouth or repeat custom alone can be a brave move if your business is paying your mortgage and putting food on your table. Consider this: if you work with us we will get your website designed and online. From there for the sake of about £50+vat per month we can host and maintain it, sort out your SEO on and off page, create and manage your social media, get you listed on Google, provide analytics of your online products and traffic and more. For us this option speaks for itself. Pay us £50+vat per month to get the job done or hire a marketing manager. At the very least, call us for an informal chat or meeting. You might be surprised at what we can do!

OK so you have a website.Maybe you had it designed fairly recently or maybe you have had it for a while. Either way you want to be seen. NOW! So why is it that every time you speak with your clients or colleagues they can never find your website online? Hide and seek is only fun when both parties actually want to play... I once heard an analogy that is fitting for this article: Having an awesome website is like having the best shop window display around. When people pass this shop they can't help but go inside to check out what is on offer. But without any pathways leading to your shop you might as well build it in the middle of a ploughed field. You need roads and paths leading to your shop. Some signs would also help as well as some advertising. Don't build the best shop in the world in the middle of nowhere. A good looking website is the tip of the iceberg. What goes on behind the scenes is what counts to a large degree in helping to source traffic (customers). On Page SEO (search engine optimisation) is a way of making sure the pages of your website can be seen in the right places. Behind the pages they should be labelled with relevant text to help viewers find you. The content on the page should also be engaging and relevant too. You should make sure your pages are laid out correctly and aesthetically and there is plenty of good research material online to help with this process if this is a project that you have time in which to investigate. Your website should also have a sitemap. This can be likened to an index and chapter list of a book. It makes your website more easy to navigate for all those enquiring, searching minds out there. It also helps when search engines like Google try to find stuff out about your website too. From page titles to image labelling, meta tags in the header, data capture points and more, you can see why a website is a time expensive project (from set up to maintenance). Then of course once your website is done you need to start building pathways to it from other locations too. This is 'off page SEO'. Think of 'On Page SEO' as PULLING traffic towards your website and 'Off Page SEO' as PUSHING traffic towards it. Off page SEO could be building social media pages that are linked to your website. Links need to be from reputable sources to earn brownie points for your website. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Google Plus, Instagram, Pinterest and many, many more are out there to be used. Each have their own way of reaching out to customers and each will often have a way to offer paid advertising methods too which can be cost effective (that's another article though). Social media pages for your business can be great way to engage with your customers and help to be seen in a competitive market. You might also want to consider other reputable links to directories, local council websites, newspaper websites, niche sites and more. I think of this as a spiders web where your website is the spider sitting in the middle and the web is all of those sites sitting around you which all lead towards you and are all linked to each other in some way. You can see how roads can start to increase around your website using the above methods. BE WARNED THOUGH! Whatever you set up you need to maintain. You can't just set up a Facebook page and then leave it stagnating for months on end assuming it is doing something. It won't. You would need to update it a couple of time per week and work to grow your 'likes' (audience) whilst engaging and interacting with them. The more you have the more you need to maintain so make sure you get in control of one project before you start another! I will cover paid advertising in another article. Having a solid presence online is invaluable for business now. It really can be the making or breaking of a business. In our experience the main reason for SMEs falling behind online is not a budget issue but rather a TIME issue. Many hours can be spent correctly promoting a business online. Indeed it is a full time job in many cases and you can choose to pay a marketing manager thousands and thousands of pounds per year to manage this (as well as stumping up further funds for ad budgets) or you could give us a call at Full Circle Website Design, based in St Neots to handle it for you at a fraction of this cost. We can build your website, your other pages, link them, update them and manage them. Total control for you in one place with one contact to really get to know your business. Contact us to find out more on fullcirclewebsitedesign@gmail.com or call our project manager on 07825559642

Having a website is great. It means you have a 'shop' that is 'open' 24 hours a day and 7 days per week. This is great but only if your website is up to date and relevant for your business. I looked online today at a business with whom I used to work and their most recent article on their news page was from 2009! Clearly that website needs updating. You won't earn any brownie points with Google either for being out of date and stagnant. In fact, a website that has been left alone too long could be detrimental to your business. If information on your site is incorrect you could lose customers as a result.Consider this: A shop in a street could be open from 9am until 5pm. With 1 hour for lunch this would be 7 hours per day. If the shop is open 5 days of the week then that is 35 hours per week. There are 24 hours in a day and 7 days per week which is 168 hours per week. In this case this shop is open for just under 21% of the time. You need to be reaching customers a lot more than this so why would you spend all that time and money getting a brilliant website designed only to neglect it and let it churn out incorrect information to your potential customers? Once you decide to get a website built you need to ensure that you keep in 100% up to date with your products, services, prices,events, special offer and whatever else you need to shout about. You wouldn't expect to find food on the shelves of a supermarket which is past it's use by date and your client will feel the same way about your business. It is worth making sure that you understand at least the basics of how to update your website information.If you are working with a website designer then you should be able to get some tuition from them to enable you to amend your website. This will save them time to an extent so they will be happy to help. Alternatively if your website designer is managing your online products for you then you are responsible for keeping them updated with developments with your business. They will contact you from time to time to ask how things are going but you are the one who needs to tell them what to amend as required. Consider that your website is an investment in your business and you intend for your business to be trading for many years to come. Using this optimistic premise it is likely that your business will grow and therefore so will your website. As you add products, services, staff members, offices or more then make sure you can amend or instruct your designer to amend your website to reflect your growing business. Another thing to consider with your website is that is has the right pages. We have covered how to lay out a homepage. Consider also the following: - ABOUT PAGE - would it benefit you to tell your clients all about you and your staff or business? - GALLERY - do you fit blinds? Landscape gardener? Photographer? You need a gallery. Visual stimulation is what sets you apart from your competitors. - TESTIMONIALS - nothing will advertise you better than word of mouth; and who better than your customers to tell potential new clients how awesome you are? - CONTACT - the end goal of your website will likely be to get customers to call you. Make sure you have a page dedicated to this. Search engines like it too. - BLOG - You're reading this, aren't you? People like useful info. Search engines can also lock onto blogs as searchable pages. Either get writing or get someone to do it for you. Remember: your initial website project should cover all the right information at the time of being built. As your business develops then make your website develop with it. At Full Circle Website Design we don't just build websites. We manage them too. Our passion for your business will show in how we maintain your online products so that they flourish in the right way and in the right places. If you would like to discuss an online project in more detail then call us for an informal chat on 07825559642 or email fullcirclewebsitedesign@gmail.com

What a minefield. Websites. The internet. The interweb. There are many small businesses out there some of which have websites and some of which do not. For those that do there will be some who have awesome, interactive, totally clever sites that look beautiful, load quickly and do everything the owner needs. There will be some that are just OK and do the job but could really do with some TLC. There will also be some which are, quite frankly, trying to punch above their weight and could use a complete makeover. Or deleting and redoing. As small business owners we need to ask ourselves why we want a website. What does it need to achieve? One thing is for sure: there is a high probability that our competitors already have a website and are getting custom from them so if you feel left behind you are probably right. One objective is achieving new customers but that is not enough. We all want to do that. We should also ask HOW we want to achieve our objectives too. Some examples: A restaurant wants new customers. They might do this online by offering a special offer for online bookings with a sample of their menu specials to entice people in. A conservatories company wants to tap into the homeowner market and can add a catchy QUOTE option on the front page to capture data from potential customers for emailing. They would also want a gallery of previous work done with testimonials. A photographer would want a highly visual website to showcase their portfolio as well as the usual ABOUT and CONTACT screens. Their pictures are what make them different or better from the rest. One thing we all have in common with our websites is a homepage.Every website has to have a page that the viewer land on once they find our website (we will deal with that in another article). In our opinion there are some rules that should be followed when designing a homepage. Yes, this is just our opinion but it is tried and tested and we have chatted with some really clever people with marketing experience too so we stick by it. Here are a few tips: Try not to clutter your homepage with too much text. Viewers will find text if they are that interested on other pages Put a clear message on your home page as to why the viewer should spend time looking over your site. In conjunction with the point above try to direct people to where you want them to go. Our conservatory company might have a CLICK HERE FOR A QUOTE button which directs the viewer directly to their CONTACT US page or even a hidden info form. That way they get all the data from that customer for future use as well as the option to speak with them in person and increase their chances of a sale. Don’t be afraid of bold statements. If you are unique or exclusive in an area then say so. If you offer the best value then say so. You need a clear reason why the viewer should contact your business instead of one of your competitors clawing at your heels. Consider the size of the screen. If your homepage is longer than a screen and requires scrolling to see the bottom then make sure you put the most important info at the top. At Full Circle we follow tried and tested yet simple rules to ensure that a website offers a friendly and enjoyable user experience which is why we design beautiful and useful websites. If you would like to consider what we could do for your business then do please give us a call on 07825 559642 to arrange a chat with a project manager, see our website (www.fullcirclewebsitedesign.co.uk) or email us at fullcirclewebsitedesign@gmail.com