We’ve put together 11 top tips to consider when planning your design. They are all key elements to ensure the success of your site, and are something to discuss with your designer. 

1. Great user experience

A good website is one where users can easily find the information they are looking for. This means having a clear button to your booking page, information on your rooms and rates and any special offers you may have.

Your potential guests will have hundreds of hotel or restaurant options to choose from and if they can’t find what they need within a few seconds, they will simply go to a competitor’s website instead. For example – how easy is it to check availability on Eagle Brae’s website?

2. Responsive design

Not everyone is using your website on a Windows desktop or iPhone. There are many different screen sizes available, including Androids phones, tablets and laptops. Make sure your website can adapt to any screen your potential customer may be using.

3. High quality images

People look at images first on websites, so you need to make sure they are high quality in order to draw them in further. We can arrange for a professional photographer to make your hospitality business stand out online. For example, look at the stunning photography of the lodges at Loch Lomond Waterfront.

4. Compelling content

Before anyone spends money online, they like to ensure they are spending it wisely. You can help in this decision by providing quality content about your business, including pages about your rooms or food, and even blogs on daily life in your area. Adding a bit of personality to your writing can really help you engage with potential customers online, further encouraging them to book. For example, Mackays Hotel in Wick sits on the shortest street in the world, and they use this to engage guests. Do you have anything unique that can hook in an audience?

5. Online booking

Whilst some people do still prefer to book over the phone, online booking is preferred by many. This means customers can see all available dates and even change their dates themselves without needing to call. You are also able to get an overview of all availability for the coming months.

6. Encourage reviews

Ask previous customers to leave reviews. This can help future customers decide to book with you. You may decide to host reviews externally on your social media, like Kingsmills Hotel.

7. Interactive features

Virtual tours of rooms or a chat assistant can help people decide to book. This is because you are immediately engaging with them and building a connection. An excellent example of both of these features can be found at Ness Walk in Inverness.

8. Loading Speed

Fast loading times are crucial for retaining visitors and improving SEO rankings. If your site is too slow to load, then people will simply click away and look at the next hit on their Google search results. We can help you optimise your website pages.

9. Consistent Branding

Each page of your site should be consistent in branding and tone of voice. Pages should feel a part of the same family, just like here on our own website!

10. Accessibility

It’s vital to ensure your website is accessible to all potential customers, including those who use page readers. We can do this by making sure your site uses alt text and readable font sizes.

11. Security

Finally, when dealing with people’s payment details, it’s important to factor in site security to keep them safe. We can help you decide what is best for your needs.

By incorporating these elements you can ensure the best hospitality design for your website. If you’d like to discuss any of this further, or would like to work with us on your project, just get in touch!

The post The best hospitality website design appeared first on POSH Agency.

How to use ChatGPT

In order to do anything with Chat GPT, you will need to actually know how to use AI. Follow these simple steps to start your ChatGPT journey:

• Visit chat.openai.com and log in (or sign up).
• Type your prompt in the message box on the homepage. This will tell ChatGPT what you want it to do.
• Once you receive a response, you can enter a new prompt, regenerate the response, copy it, or like/dislike it.

What can ChatGPT be used for?

You can use ChatGPT for a huge range of things. Plenty of people use Chat GPT on a daily basis, for small, personal tasks as well as larger professional ones. Here are just some of the uses of ChatGPT:

Explaining complicated topics

Sometimes, no matter how many times you re-read something or research it in different ways, things just do not make sense. If you’re struggling to understand a concept or a topic, you can use ChatGPT to get an easier-to-digest explanation.

You can simply give Chat GPT the prompt “explain x to me like I’m 5”, and it will provide you with an explanation much less convoluted than pages like Wikipedia. This can really useful for theoretical concepts, especially if you don’t want to pause reading a text or a brief but are stuck on one word. Rather than spend half an hour researching, simply ChatGPT it.

Solving maths problems with a step-by-step explanation

For people who simply cannot get on with maths equations, ChatGPT can help hugely. Not only will it answer your question, but it can break the answer down into a step-by-step of working out. It allows you to get an answer, but most importantly, it shows you how to do it yourself. This can be really helpful for revising students.

Creating a meal plan

Trying to decide what to eat each and every night can be exhausting. With the help of ChatGPT, however, that is a thing of the past! No more getting to 6 pm and ransacking the fridge to see what you can make – give it prompts about the kind of foods you want it to make.

For example, you could ask ChatGPT:

• “What are some high-protein meals that use red peppers, beans and cottage cheese?”
• “Can you suggest some low-fat dinner ideas that only take 20 minutes?”
• “What can I cook for someone who is gluten-free, vegetarian and lactose intolerant?”

Any of these will give you a handful of meal suggestions, allowing you to get your tasty evening meal without having to do too much thinking.

Suggesting things to do

If you’ve got a group of friends over, ChatGPT can be really helpful in picking something to keep you all busy. You could ask ChatGPT for ideas for card games, or questions to ask to break the ice, you could even try to ask it for a murder mystery game!

Using ChatGPT for business

Chat GPT has uses beyond just personal projects. You can also use it to help with a variety of business tasks. For example, it can help you to plan your time effectively, conduct market research or plan online content and social media posts.

Coming up with hashtags and keywords

Since ChatGPT can scour the internet, it can be really useful in finding social post hashtags for you to use in your marketing. Likewise, ChatGPT can be used to find keywords for you to use in your articles. All you will need is to type in a few of the keywords you already have and it will provide a list of related words.

Creating outlines for articles

Once you’ve got keywords and a title, you can ask ChatGPT to provide you with a list of subtitles and headings for a piece of content. It will keep them as closely related to the keyword that you’ve given as possible, and make sure that the article has as much information as possible.

You can then provide your writers with the outline to shape the content perfectly. Just make sure you give the outline a once over before you send it out, as sometimes it might include headings that don’t fit your content plan.

Creating business strategies and schedules

If you outline your target audience and goals, ChatGPT can help you to create a marketing strategy with content calendars and schedules. It can help you with processes, time management and workflows across many areas of your business, such as HR, sales and payroll. Within your industry, it can identify current trends and gather market research and insights. It can also carry out competitor analysis and suggest improvements. Even if it isn’t perfect, it provides a good base to work off!

When not to use ChatGPT

So if ChatGPT can do all of these things, surely you should use it for everything? It would make life easier – right?

Well, the short answer is no. Using it to create keywords, strategies, and outlines is fine. But beyond that, you run the risk of it harming your performance. Google’s algorithm, as it stands, can identify AI-generated content, and it will penalise pages accordingly. If you use ChatGPT to write content for your pages, you may find that the pages do not do as well as you’d like them to. No matter how many keywords it has or how much you promote the page. You may also find that some of the generated content has inaccuracies or irrelevant information, which can add to the spread of misinformation.

It is also important to consider that while ChatGPT can be used to craft content strategies, others may do the same. If your competitors are also using ChatGPT to create their strategies, you might be using the same strategy. That won’t work well for either of you.

Real humans still needed!

So, in summary, ChatGPT can be really useful for some things. It can reduce the number of hours you need to spend doing some things. Meaning you can get on with other things that you wouldn’t normally have time for. Or spend more time on special projects. And, of course, it is still learning. Future iterations will no doubt give even better solutions to the tasks detailed above.

However, what is clear is that using a real human being is still the way forward for other things! So, if you need help with your website, content creation, blogs, etc., we have real human writers and marketing experts. Get in touch to see what we can help you with.

The post How to use ChatGPT appeared first on POSH Agency.

That’s where we come in. Here at POSH Agency in Scotland, we have years of experience working with hotels to make sure their site works for them and their guests. 

Best hotel website designs

We believe a successful hotel website has to look good. It also needs to be easy for users to use and book their stay. We have plenty of hotel website ideas but the most important thing is to speak to you about what you want your site to say about your accommodation offering. Are you appealing to young backpackers? Older retired guests? Or families on holiday with their dogs? 

At POSH Agency, we always take the time to get to know our clients and gain a thorough understanding of what they want their website to like, and what they want it to do. Of course, we have plenty of ideas, insights and suggestions gleaned from years of creating the best hotel websites to add to these discussions. Whether you have a firm vision of the end product or are just tentatively looking at creating or updating your current pages, we’d love to get involved. 

Create perfect copy

No website is complete without copy, and we can fill your site with perfect written text that will get you seen by Google and in front of your target customers. We’ll agree on a tone of voice to use. This means that if you would like a stately, authoritative website, you’ll get it. Similarly, if you are looking for a website that is cheeky and funny, our copywriters can do that too and anything in between. 

We’ll create everything from your home page to offer pages. In order to further encourage people to find and stay on your site, we can create regular blogs. These can talk about the local area and offer your site visitors reasons to stay at your hotel whilst exploring the region, including wildlife, shopping and outdoor activities. 

Furthermore, if you would like us to take on social media management of your pages, we can ensure that new pages are promoted at the best times to get them in front of as wide an audience as possible. 

How can we help to bring your hotel website to life? 

Sometimes the best way to explain how we can help you is to show how we have helped others. 

We recently undertook a website revamp with long-term clients Parliament House Hotel in Edinburgh. Sat at the foot of Princes Street, this affordable hotel has many unique offerings to highlight including breakfast served in an historic bothy, and a useable Victorian-era elevator. We updated their site with beautiful images and information on all aspects of the hotel that a guest could need. We also incorporated an Edinburgh Guide so that guests can discover all about Edinburgh and the Lothians without needing to leave the website. Regular blogging is also great for SEO purposes. 

We are also the agency behind one of Inverness’ newest five-star hotels, Ness Walk. The website for this luxurious hotel has many useful features, including a ‘Book Now’ button that never leaves your sight and an online personal assistant feature to give people live and interactive help whilst browsing. 

So how can we help you? Just click on the contact us button below and let’s find out together by choosing POSH Agency as your hotel website developer. 

The post Why you should choose POSH Agency as your hotel website developer appeared first on POSH Agency.

Well, let’s say you are looking to build a new website? And you’re picking between your web agencies, well one of the biggest questoins we urge you to ask is:

“So, do you use an opensource platform or your own bespoke CMS?”

And if the answer is the latter…. BIN THAT PROPOSAL!

Yes, the only option, for longevity, security, and a reduction in long-term costs is an open-source platform such as WordPress. But why WordPress?

Well, WordPress is not only free but it is an Open source content management system (CMS). This means it is open to all developers to contribute via building compatible plugins, fixing bugs, issues and finding solutions. And it holds the largest developer community in the world. So, no agency, no matter how good they are, can top that! As WordPress holds the largest developer community in the world, it means:

1. It holds the biggest bank of functionalities and plugins for you to choose from.
2. Plus, these plugins have been tried, tested and fixed, and scored by performance for you… No, you don’t have to pay the world to make your website do what you need it to!
3. Also, it’s more secure… yes it’s been tested rigorously. And the bugs have been fixed for you.

So, not only can using an Open-source CMS such as WordPress save you money, it can also allow you to shape, modify and mould the site as you see fit – with much more flexibility. Meanwhile, with a bespoke CMS, it can be a lot more costly and take longer when it comes to fixing issues and adding new features. Plus, anything you want to add has to be built from scratch. Oh, and did they tell you that you are the guinea pig too?

Just how bit is the WordPress Community?

At present, there are around 64 million websites using WordPress. Over 400 million people also visit WordPress websites every month. Named as the most popular CMS choice, there are many answers to the burning question: Why WordPress?

So, we’re going to explain exactly why WordPress has become the go-to open-source CMS for so many of our clients.

Why bespoke sites limit you and cost more money

And, whilst bespoke websites will often be sold to you as being the best thing since sliced bread, they’re often extremely expensive and time-consuming. Moreover, bespoke sites bring the risk of the ‘unknown.’ It’s bespoke! So, it’s one-of-a-kind. Further, whilst the bones of the CMS might be there, any specific functionality you need must be created from scratch. Finally, to add further pain to the scenario, it hasn’t been tried nor tested. So that’s why there’s no escaping the comparatively pricier cost of bespoke CMS.

Why WordPress is the best CMS for you…

Other advantages to using WordPress to build your website are the frequent updates. Code quickly becomes out of date. As do design techniques – and that is why a website that isn’t continually worked upon has a shelf life of just 3 years! WordPress is continually updated and so your site speed and security and adaptability are all taken care of. And they have a huge shop of plugins, quick and ready to add to your site.

Take control of your online presence

Further, WordPress makes sense for those who want to remain in control of their website. Not only is it foolproof, but it also protects you from making big mistakes (with version controls) and has excellent security options.

Finally, WordPress is designed with end-users in mind. This allows visitors to access the information they require at ease. As a result, this optimises online conversions and improves the online customer journey.

Why the right developer is important?

In conclusion, by picking a really good website developement agency, you will be assured that they will pick the safest plugins for you. And they will design a website that works for your brand, and not use WordPress themed sites. So, whilst these are great for low level brands; they are not well designed for adaptability and high conversion rates for bigger brands.

Here at POSH, the most important for us is maintaining long-term relationships with our clients. We are keen to ensure we do the very best job that we possibly can. And to make sure that you get the biggest possible return for your money. And that’s why so many of our clients remain with us long term. Meet our clients >>

The post Why WordPress? Why is Opensource So Much Better Than A Bespoke CMS? appeared first on POSH Agency.

How to Pick a Website Design Company

There’s more to designing a website than you might think. Not only should it look good, it needs to work well too. What is your objective? To gain sales? To drive enquiries? Or maybe to grow a powerful followship? You might be surprised to hear, but to achieve all of the above, more important than a beautifully designed website is the user journey. And your site’s connection with Google.

So, here are our tips for finding the best designer for your website.

A Strong Design

Looks aren’t everything, but they are very important when it comes to web design.
A website needs to have visual impact. It needs to reflect the look and feel of your brand. And it needs to make a great first impression for new clients. It should also be easy to navigate around it, with clear calls to action. If you don’t make it easy for customers to contact you or buy online, they simply won’t. What’s more, generally, unless you specifically ask them or tell them what to do… they won’t! So, be sure to add plenty of guidance and instruction to every section and piece of writing on your site.

Imagery is all important too. But that doesn’t mean just using your own images (unless they are out of this world: artistic, inspirational, different, engaging). Often, opening up with lifestyle stock imagery (with emotive straplines added) are the best way to get your customers to convert.

To begin with, find a few local web designers and have a look at past examples of their work. Make a note of which ones you like the look of, and which are easy to use. Ask them to share performance growth data or for references to speak with their clients. You need to ensure their beautiful work has the ability to deliver before you get into bed together. Ask your agency what user testing experience they have and just how they will make sure your website works for you. Remember, you can have the best chef in the world, but that doesn’t mean they can run a 5 star restaurant. Equally, the best website designer won’t necessarily be able to deliver your comercial needs.

Web Content and SEO Services

It’s no good having a beautiful, easy-to-use website, if nobody can find it. Some agencies will only design the site and will then expect you to populate it with your own content. Or they will take content from your previous website or written documents. But we would recommend finding a company that will either create the content for SEO for you from scratch. They should even optimise your provided content for SEO. They must be experts in making sure it’s easy for people to find your business in Google and on other search engines.

Make sure you ask your shortlisted agencies about their SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) techniques. What tools do they use? What SEO score will they expect to provide your site? And ask them how they plan to make your site visible online. Make sure they will deliver the following SEO checklist of basic website needs for your new site: Title Tags, bespoke Keyword strategy per page, H1 Tag per page, H2 tags per page, commercial meta descriptions, user-friendly URLs, focus keyword per page. Optimised copy with clear USPS, keywords, contextual links and calls to act. And remember, each page must have a minimum of 300 words and a maximum of 800 words per page for Google to love you.

Open-Source CMS vs Custom Built CMS

Agencies can either build you a website completely from scratch, or they can use today’s prefered method (it’s safer for you as a consumer and simpler for them as a developer), an open-source platform. Open-source CMS (Content Managment System) platforms include WordPress, Joomla, Magento or Drupal. WordPress and WooCommerce are the biggest open-source platforms on the market, and may be the best option for your business.

Custom built websites aren’t common today. Such systems are more likely to be used for large-scale bespoke systems, such as websites for the big banks or websites that have very specialised, high-cost needs. Beware of agencies offering bespoke websites on their own custom platforms. Once your site is built, not many other agencies or developers will be willing to take over their system should your relationship turn sour. This hold also often adds more cost to your ongoing payments, as you have little flexibility to move agency.

Ask your web design agencies what platforms they work with. In our longterm experience, open source websites such as WordPress offer the best platform. They are easier to use, cheaper to build and manage longterm. They are tried and tested – offering ratings for the safest and best solutions to add to your site. Plus they can grow easily with your business.

WordPress is completely customisable, user-friendly and SEO-friendly. And if you decide to have your site redesigned at any time, either by the same agency or a different one, you can just import all the content from one WordPress website to another. Making the job much easier, cheaper and with fewer mistakes!

Pick a Trustworthy Agency

Finally, choose an established website design company that has good reviews from previous clients. Ask around your contacts for their recommendations. And try and meet with your designer, so you can talk through your requirements in person. Be sure to get a few different quotes and ask for a breakdown of everything that is included in the price. Then, you can easily compare them and choose the right service for you. And don’t be afraid to ask to speak to their past and present customers for a reference.

Web Design Scotland

POSH Communication is a Scottish website design company offering impactful design solutions for businesses of all sizes. We are experts in SEO and content creation. And we can help with hosting and management of the site going forward too. If you’d like to speak to our web design team, please get in touch with us for an informal chat.

The post Choosing a Business Website Design Agency appeared first on POSH Agency.

A guide on how to reduce bounce rate

So you want to reduce bounce rate on your website? Who doesn’t! If they bounce they are gone and that is not good for any business trying to capture the online user. There are many elements that can reduce your website bounce rate. If you have a good digital agency behind you, they will be taking care of this, monitoring user behaviour all the time to make sure your users stay engaged. So what can you do if you have hit a stumbling block with a high bounce rate?   Well, help is in hand in this interactive and non-bouncy blog. We are going to take a look at one of the key elements that can and will improve your bounce rate.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”1769″ img_size=”600×450″ alignment=”center” css_animation=”right-to-left”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”1954″ img_size=”600×450″ alignment=”center” css_animation=”left-to-right”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]

Bounce rate statistics

For your understanding, before we go any further, a good bounce rate is anything between 26-40%. An average bounce rate is between 41-55% and higher than average anything from 56-70%. Things are bad if it is above 70% and you need to take a good look at what is causing this. Below 20%  indicates there is probably an issue with your analytics set up and again should be addressed.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Engaging Design and Functionality

One of the key things in engaging a user is your content. How you display your information is key to grabbing someone’s attention. Take a look at the 2 examples below. Which example engages you most?[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1502457655892{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 20px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 20px !important;}”][vc_column][ultimate_heading main_heading=”Example 1″ alignment=”left”][/ultimate_heading][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1502454070063{margin-bottom: 20px !important;padding-bottom: 20px !important;}”][vc_column][ultimate_heading main_heading=”Example 2″ alignment=”left”][/ultimate_heading][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” content_placement=”top” bg_type=”bg_color” css=”.vc_custom_1502459511874{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1494502622439{padding-bottom: 2px !important;}”][interactive_banner banner_title=”Header Title” banner_desc=”Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore.” icon_disp=”both” banner_icon=”Defaults-smile-o” banner_image=”id^1470|url^http://poshagency.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/OnPage.jpg|caption^null|alt^Desk and computer screen with blog written on it|title^OnPage|description^null” banner_height=”ult-banner-block-custom-height” banner_height_val=”280″ banner_style=”style21″ banner_bg_color=”#009dc2″ banner_overlay_bg_color=”rgba(0,157,194,0.75)” banner_title_font_family=”font_family:Work Sans|font_call:Work+Sans|variant:300″ banner_title_style=”font-weight:300;” banner_title_font_size=”desktop:30px;” banner_desc_font_family=”font_family:Work Sans|font_call:Work+Sans|variant:300″ banner_desc_style=”font-weight:300;” banner_desc_font_size=”desktop:8px;”][vc_btn title=”Read More” style=”custom” custom_background=”#009dc2″ custom_text=”#ffffff” align=”center” css_animation=”appear”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][interactive_banner banner_title=”Header Title” banner_desc=”Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore.” icon_disp=”both” banner_icon=”Defaults-smile-o” banner_image=”id^1475|url^http://poshagency.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Branding-1.jpg|caption^null|alt^Colour swatches and logo on a table and people having a branding creative session|title^Branding|description^null” banner_height=”ult-banner-block-custom-height” banner_height_val=”280″ banner_style=”style21″ banner_bg_color=”#009dc2″ banner_overlay_bg_color=”rgba(0,157,194,0.76)” banner_title_font_family=”font_family:Work Sans|font_call:Work+Sans|variant:300″ banner_title_style=”font-weight:300;” banner_title_font_size=”desktop:30px;” banner_desc_font_family=”font_family:Work Sans|font_call:Work+Sans|variant:300″ banner_desc_style=”font-weight:300;” banner_desc_font_size=”desktop:8px;”][vc_btn title=”Read More” style=”custom” custom_background=”#009dc2″ custom_text=”#ffffff” align=”center” css_animation=”appear”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][interactive_banner banner_title=”Header Title” banner_desc=”Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore.” icon_disp=”both” banner_icon=”Defaults-smile-o” banner_image=”id^1473|url^http://poshagency.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Web-design-1.jpg|caption^null|alt^People working round a table having a web design creative session|title^Web design|description^null” banner_height=”ult-banner-block-custom-height” banner_height_val=”280″ banner_style=”style21″ banner_bg_color=”#009dc2″ banner_overlay_bg_color=”rgba(0,157,194,0.74)” banner_title_font_family=”font_family:Work Sans|font_call:Work+Sans|variant:300″ banner_title_style=”font-weight:300;” banner_title_font_size=”desktop:30px;” banner_desc_font_family=”font_family:Work Sans|font_call:Work+Sans|variant:300″ banner_desc_style=”font-weight:300;” banner_desc_font_size=”desktop:8px;”][vc_btn title=”Read More” style=”custom” custom_background=”#009dc2″ custom_text=”#ffffff” align=”center” css_animation=”appear”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Most of you probably found example 2 to be most engaging given it is interactive. The next stage in engaging the user is to make sure that your content in these sections is relevant and interesting with call to action buttons leading them to the next stage of the user journey. You can help make these stand out using animation, inviting colours, sizes and relevant wording like the below examples:[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_btn title=”Read More >>” style=”custom” custom_background=”#009dc2″ custom_text=”#ffffff” align=”center” i_icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-book” css_animation=”appear” button_block=”true” add_icon=”true”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_btn title=”Book Now >>” style=”outline-custom” outline_custom_color=”#ea1d5a” outline_custom_hover_background=”#ea1d5a” outline_custom_hover_text=”#ffffff” align=”center” css_animation=”top-to-bottom” button_block=”true”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_btn title=”Get In Touch Today >>” style=”gradient-custom” gradient_custom_color_1=”#f37d1e” gradient_custom_color_2=”#ffd200″ align=”center” css_animation=”left-to-right” button_block=”true”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_btn title=”Get In Touch Today >>” style=”custom” custom_background=”#69338a” custom_text=”#ffffff” align=”center” css_animation=”bottom-to-top” button_block=”true”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

It’s all about information and how it is displayed

As you have started to see, the way information is displayed is key to engaging a user when they hit your page. Below you can see some more examples of how to display relevant information in engaging ways. However, one thing you must make sure is that the content you are using is relevant to your product and enhancing it. There is no point adding information for the sake of adding information or people will get bored and disinterested. It is like a beautifully wrapped present that entices you to open it, only to find a single knitted sock inside![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1502454070063{margin-bottom: 20px !important;padding-bottom: 20px !important;}”][vc_column][ultimate_heading main_heading=”Banner Example” alignment=”left” main_heading_margin=”margin-bottom:10px;” sub_heading_margin=”margin-top:10px;margin-bottom:20px;” sub_heading_font_size=”desktop:18px;”]Movement with emotive messaging to engage the user…[/ultimate_heading][rev_slider alias=”home”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1502459388343{margin-bottom: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”][vc_column][ultimate_heading main_heading=”Interactive Information Boxes” alignment=”left” main_heading_margin=”margin-bottom:10px;” sub_heading_margin=”margin-top:10px;margin-bottom:0px;” sub_heading_font_size=”desktop:18px;”]With calls to action to lead the user through the site…[/ultimate_heading][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” content_placement=”top” bg_type=”bg_color” css=”.vc_custom_1502459511874{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1494502622439{padding-bottom: 2px !important;}”][interactive_banner banner_title=”Header Title” banner_desc=”I am text block. Click edit button to change this text.” icon_disp=”both” banner_icon=”Defaults-smile-o” banner_image=”id^4243|url^http://poshquixites.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/025_SBP080814.jpg|caption^null|alt^null|title^025_SBP080814|description^null” banner_style=”style21″ banner_bg_color=”#009dc2″ banner_overlay_bg_color=”rgba(0,157,194,0.56)” banner_title_font_family=”font_family:Work Sans|font_call:Work+Sans|variant:300″ banner_title_style=”font-weight:300;” banner_title_font_size=”desktop:30px;” banner_desc_font_family=”font_family:Work Sans|font_call:Work+Sans|variant:300″ banner_desc_style=”font-weight:300;” banner_desc_font_size=”desktop:12px;”][vc_btn title=”Read More” style=”custom” custom_background=”#009dc2″ custom_text=”#ffffff” align=”center” css_animation=”appear”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][interactive_banner banner_title=”Header Title” banner_desc=”I am text block. Click edit button to change this text.” icon_disp=”both” banner_icon=”Defaults-smile-o” banner_image=”id^4243|url^http://poshquixites.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/025_SBP080814.jpg|caption^null|alt^null|title^025_SBP080814|description^null” banner_style=”style21″ banner_bg_color=”#009dc2″ banner_overlay_bg_color=”rgba(0,157,194,0.56)” banner_title_font_family=”font_family:Work Sans|font_call:Work+Sans|variant:300″ banner_title_style=”font-weight:300;” banner_title_font_size=”desktop:30px;” banner_desc_font_family=”font_family:Work Sans|font_call:Work+Sans|variant:300″ banner_desc_style=”font-weight:300;” banner_desc_font_size=”desktop:12px;”][vc_btn title=”Read More” style=”custom” custom_background=”#009dc2″ custom_text=”#ffffff” align=”center” css_animation=”appear”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][interactive_banner banner_title=”Header Title” banner_desc=”I am text block. Click edit button to change this text.” icon_disp=”both” banner_icon=”Defaults-smile-o” banner_image=”id^4243|url^http://poshquixites.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/025_SBP080814.jpg|caption^null|alt^null|title^025_SBP080814|description^null” banner_style=”style21″ banner_bg_color=”#009dc2″ banner_overlay_bg_color=”rgba(0,157,194,0.56)” banner_title_font_family=”font_family:Work Sans|font_call:Work+Sans|variant:300″ banner_title_style=”font-weight:300;” banner_title_font_size=”desktop:30px;” banner_desc_font_family=”font_family:Work Sans|font_call:Work+Sans|variant:300″ banner_desc_style=”font-weight:300;” banner_desc_font_size=”desktop:12px;”][vc_btn title=”Read More” style=”custom” custom_background=”#009dc2″ custom_text=”#ffffff” align=”center” css_animation=”appear”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1502459388343{margin-bottom: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”][vc_column][ultimate_heading main_heading=”Gallery Carousel” alignment=”left” main_heading_margin=”margin-bottom:10px;” sub_heading_margin=”margin-top:10px;margin-bottom:0px;” sub_heading_font_size=”desktop:18px;”]Imagery sells and movement captures attention…[/ultimate_heading][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row bg_type=”bg_color”][vc_column][ultimate_carousel slider_type=”full_width” slide_to_scroll=”single” slides_on_desk=”4″ speed=”400″ autoplay_speed=”2000″ arrow_style=”circle-border” arrow_border_color=”#ffffff” border_size=”5″ arrow_color=”#ffffff” dots=”off” pauseohover=”” item_space=”5″ css_ad_caraousel=”.vc_custom_1502462114704{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 10px !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”1769″ img_size=”full”][vc_single_image image=”1768″ img_size=”full”][vc_single_image image=”1766″ img_size=”full”][vc_single_image image=”1767″ img_size=”full”][vc_single_image image=”1749″ img_size=”full”][/ultimate_carousel][vc_btn title=”View Our Gallery >>” style=”custom” custom_background=”#009dc2″ custom_text=”#ffffff” align=”center” css_animation=”appear” button_block=”true” link=”||” css=”.vc_custom_1502459921427{margin-top: 0px !important;}”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1502459388343{margin-bottom: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”][vc_column][ultimate_heading main_heading=”Animated Testimonials” alignment=”left” main_heading_margin=”margin-bottom:10px;” sub_heading_margin=”margin-top:10px;margin-bottom:20px;” sub_heading_font_size=”desktop:18px;”]Animation captures attention, good reviews sell…[/ultimate_heading][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row bg_type=”image” parallax_style=”vcpb-default” bg_image_new=”id^1767|url^http://poshagency.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Floors-Castle.jpg|caption^null|alt^Floors Castle at dusk with a hot air balloon in front of it|title^Floors Castle|description^null”][vc_column][ultimate_carousel slides_on_desk=”1″ slides_on_tabs=”1″ slides_on_mob=”1″ speed=”1000″ arrow_color=”#ffffff” item_animation=”pulse”][ultimate_heading main_heading=”Joe Blogg” main_heading_color=”#ffffff” sub_heading_color=”#ffffff” main_heading_font_family=”font_family:Work Sans|font_call:Work+Sans|variant:500″ main_heading_style=”font-weight:500;” main_heading_font_size=”desktop:20px;” sub_heading_font_family=”font_family:Work Sans|font_call:Work+Sans|variant:300″ sub_heading_style=”font-style:italic;,font-weight:300;” sub_heading_font_size=”desktop:18px;” main_heading_margin=”margin-top:50px;” sub_heading_margin=”margin-top:10px;”]Fantastic service with superb results! I highly recommend working with this company![/ultimate_heading][ultimate_heading main_heading=”Joe Blogg” main_heading_color=”#ffffff” sub_heading_color=”#ffffff” main_heading_font_family=”font_family:Work Sans|font_call:Work+Sans|variant:500″ main_heading_style=”font-weight:500;” main_heading_font_size=”desktop:20px;” sub_heading_font_family=”font_family:Work Sans|font_call:Work+Sans|variant:300″ sub_heading_style=”font-style:italic;,font-weight:300;” sub_heading_font_size=”desktop:18px;” main_heading_margin=”margin-top:50px;” sub_heading_margin=”margin-top:10px;”]Since working with this company our ROI has increased dramatically. Well worth the investment. I wish we had found them sooner.[/ultimate_heading][ultimate_heading main_heading=”Joe Blogg” main_heading_color=”#ffffff” sub_heading_color=”#ffffff” main_heading_font_family=”font_family:Work Sans|font_call:Work+Sans|variant:500″ main_heading_style=”font-weight:500;” main_heading_font_size=”desktop:20px;” sub_heading_font_family=”font_family:Work Sans|font_call:Work+Sans|variant:300″ sub_heading_style=”font-style:italic;,font-weight:300;” sub_heading_font_size=”desktop:18px;” main_heading_margin=”margin-top:50px;” sub_heading_margin=”margin-top:10px;”]We had hit a stumbling block and we did not know how to rectify things. Since working with this company things have completely turned around and we now growing steadily. We couldn’t have don it without them[/ultimate_heading][/ultimate_carousel][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1502459388343{margin-bottom: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”][vc_column][ultimate_heading main_heading=”Interactive hover boxes” alignment=”left” main_heading_margin=”margin-bottom:10px;” sub_heading_margin=”margin-top:10px;margin-bottom:0px;” sub_heading_font_size=”desktop:18px;”]Engaging but can be problematic in responsive design…[/ultimate_heading][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1502493256512{margin-bottom: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1502493373262{margin-bottom: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”][ult_ihover thumb_shape=”square” thumb_height_width=”250″][ult_ihover_item title=”Header Title” thumb_img=”id^1556|url^http://poshagency.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Web-Design.png|caption^null|alt^Green speech bubble with computer screen and paint brush icon in it|title^web-design|description^null” hover_effect=”effect18″ effect_direction=”bottom_to_top” desc_font_color=”#ffffff” info_color_bg=”#009dc2″ block_border_color=”rgba(0,157,194,0.65)” block_border_size=”8″ spacer_width=”150″ spacer_border_width=”1″ divider_margin=”margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;” title_responsive_font_size=”desktop:22px;” title_responsive_line_height=”desktop:28px;” desc_responsive_font_size=”desktop:12px;” desc_responsive_line_height=”desktop:18px;”]Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation[/ult_ihover_item][/ult_ihover][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][ult_ihover thumb_shape=”square” thumb_height_width=”250″][ult_ihover_item title=”Header Title” thumb_img=”id^1555|url^http://poshagency.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Social.png|caption^null|alt^Pink speech bubble with social icons in it|title^social|description^null” hover_effect=”effect18″ effect_direction=”bottom_to_top” desc_font_color=”#ffffff” info_color_bg=”#009dc2″ block_border_color=”rgba(0,157,194,0.65)” block_border_size=”8″ spacer_width=”150″ spacer_border_width=”1″ divider_margin=”margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;” title_responsive_font_size=”desktop:22px;” title_responsive_line_height=”desktop:28px;” desc_responsive_font_size=”desktop:12px;” desc_responsive_line_height=”desktop:18px;”]Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation[/ult_ihover_item][/ult_ihover][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][ult_ihover thumb_shape=”square” thumb_height_width=”250″][ult_ihover_item title=”Header Title” thumb_img=”id^1550|url^http://poshagency.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Branding-1.png|caption^null|alt^Yellow speech bubble with an artists paint palette icon in it|title^branding|description^null” hover_effect=”effect18″ effect_direction=”bottom_to_top” desc_font_color=”#ffffff” info_color_bg=”#009dc2″ block_border_color=”rgba(0,157,194,0.65)” block_border_size=”8″ spacer_width=”150″ spacer_border_width=”1″ divider_margin=”margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;” title_responsive_font_size=”desktop:22px;” title_responsive_line_height=”desktop:28px;” desc_responsive_font_size=”desktop:12px;” desc_responsive_line_height=”desktop:18px;”]Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation[/ult_ihover_item][/ult_ihover][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1502493245924{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”][vc_column][ultimate_heading main_heading=”Interactive Blog Post Grid” alignment=”left” main_heading_margin=”margin-bottom:10px;” sub_heading_margin=”margin-top:10px;margin-bottom:20px;” sub_heading_font_size=”desktop:18px;”]

Lead people to your latest blogs…

[/ultimate_heading][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”3″ item=”2554″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1580466514603-be04ff94-70c4-9″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1502493306794{margin-top: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;}”][vc_column css=”.vc_custom_1502493315424{margin-top: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;}”][vc_column_text]

Web Design that works

Hopefully, all the above functionality has kept you engaged and led you to here. In which case the above is proof that interactive design works. All the above are examples of functionality that will improve your bounce rate. Good website design will include these types of features and will be styled to suit your branding. Here at POSH we design and build sites with all the above in mind. If you want to know more then get in touch with us today![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

The post Reduce that Bounce Rate appeared first on POSH Agency.

A

• Above the Fold: Basically, anything you can see on a web page without scrolling down.
• AdWords: Google’s paid search program and the first PPC provider, which allows you to outrank your competition – once you’ve paid a small fee of course.
• Affiliate Marketing: Another word for piggyback marketing whereby you partner with other websites or companies to send traffic to your site.
• Algorithms: Like KFC’s 11 herbs and spices, algorithms are secret formulas search engines and social platforms use to rank your website or determine how many people to deliver your post to.
• Analytics: Data gathered from a website and its users, which gives online marketers insight into the online road ahead.

B

• Backlinks: Links from other websites and platforms which link back to your website.
• Big Data: An evolving term that basically means analysing large volumes of data to identify trends and patterns.
• Black Hat Practices: Shady SEO and social marketing practices like link farming or buying likes.

C

• Click Through Rate (CTR): The number of times someone clicks on your ad, in relation to the number of times your ad is shown.
• Community Management: Taking care of your online audience by liking, sharing, commenting, re-tweeting and engaging with your fans.
• Content Management System (CMS): An insanely clever platform that allows you to make changes to a website without obtaining a technical degree first.
• Conversion Rate: A metric that tells you how many people have clicked on your ad and completed the desired objective.
• Cookie: An online tracker and complete invasion of user privacy, willingly consented to by a user.

D

• Delisting: When a page or website is removed from a search engine’s index – usually because some black hat practices has caused it to be banned.
• Domain Name: A website’s main address. For example, poshagency.com

E

• E-Commerce: Or etail, as it is sometimes called, is a snazzy name for selling stuff online.
• EdgeRank: The name of Facebook’s algorithm that ranks your page and decides which posts will appear in your fans’ Newsfeed.

F

• Facebook Retargeting: The ability to deliver a Facebook ad to someone who has visited a specific page(s) on your website.

G

• Geo Targeting: As the name suggests, this is a smart way of delivering an online ad to someone who lives in a specific location.

H

• HyperText Markup Language (HTML): The programming language of a website. Which is why it is important to have a developer that is fluent in HTML.
• Hyperlinks: Much like a virtual portal, hyperlinks allow users to navigate to other websites or pages.

I

• Impressions: The number of times someone views a page that shows your ad.
• Index: A bunch of information search engines have gathered to help users find what they’re looking for.
• Internet of Things (IoT): Pretty much any device that connects to the Internet – i.e. warables, drivables, flyables.

J

• JavaScript: Another programming language that improves user experience and functionality on websites.

K

• Keywords: These are words or phrases people type into a search engine. Using the right keywords can attract the right traffic to a website. Kind of like how typing “understanding technical jargon” has led you to this blog.
• Keyword Stuffing: Since search engines love keywords, some SEOers started plugging pages with high-ranking keywords in order to drive traffic to a site. Thankfully Google’s algorithms have wised up since the dark keyword stuffing days.

L

• Landing Page: The first page a user lands on when clicking a link to your site.
• Link Building: Just like LinkedIn allows like-minded professionals to connect with you, link building allows like-minded websites to link to yours.

M

• Metadata: Simply put, metadata is data about data. It describes who, what, when, where and how a particular set of data was created.

N

• Natural Listings: Another word for organic results. In other words, search engine results that haven’t been paid for.

O

• On-page Optimisation: Making a page more search-friendly by using the right www.ordergenericpropeciaonline.com keywords, images and links at the right time.
• Organic Results: See “Natural Listings”.

P

• PageRank: In other words, where your page ranks on Google.
• Paid Search: a.k.a. Paid Placement, ensures you rank on the first page of a search engine when a user types in a certain term or keyword.
• PPC: Since you have to pay for Paid Placements (which could cost a pretty penny), you can ask search engines to only charge you once someone clicks on your ad or link.
• Pop Ups: A sneak attack online marketers use to get people to sign up for news letters, follow you on Twitter or like you on Facebook. It can be very annoying or very effective – there’s no middle ground.

Q

• Quality Traffic: If you’re selling a luxury car, you try to generate leads from potential buyers who can afford your product, not someone straight out of Uni. It’s the same with online traffic. You want to attract people who want (and can afford) to do business with you now and in the future. This is what we like to call quality traffic.

R

• Real Simple Syndication (RSS): Technology that allows information to be shared easily on websites or with switched on users who have opted in.
• Results Page: What comes up when you search for something in Google. I.e. the results Google generates.

S

• Search Engines: Search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo etc.) are places people go to search for things. Much like an encyclopedia or the yellow pages or yesteryear, they connect people with what they are looking for quickly and easily.
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): A fancy way of saying you’re making your site search-engine-friendly.

T

• Targeting: Making sure your website or ad is only seen by the right target market. It’s one of the easiest ways to ensure you’re driving quality traffic to your site.
• Tracking Code: A piece of code that is added to the URL of a website or page in order to measure online performance.
• Tracking Pixel: Specific to Facebook, this little piece of code is online marketing gold. By placing a small amount of code onto your website, you can create ads that target people who have visited a particular page. Pretty impressive wouldn’t you say?

U

• Uniform Resource Locator (URL): A crafty name for the words, letters and symbols that make up a web page’s address. For example: http://poshagency.com/blog/understanding-technical-jargon/

V

• Vanity Metrics: These are things like the number of likes you have on Facebook, the number of followers you have on Twitter or the number of people who click through from your ad. The figures may look good in your quarterly report, but if they aren’t adding value to your bottom line, what value do they ad?
• Viral Marketing: Fashionably called “word of mouse”, this is a form of marketing whereby an ad you create or the content you share goes viral. Within hours, your brand could reach hundreds of thousands of people around the world.

W

• White Hat Practices: Online tactics that have been identified as “best practice”. Unlike the quick results you’ll see with Black Hat Practices, the results are slow and steady. You’re also unlikely to be banned on Google for them.
• WordPress: Is a smart, simple, intuitive Content Management System that allows you to update, edit and optimise your website.

X

• Extensible Markup Language (XML): is a simple, flexible text format. It doesn’t actually do anything, but it’s what content developers use to enable users to define elements and pull the data they want to receive at their own pace. It is also, conveniently, the only “x” term we could find for our Tech-ionary.

Y

• Yandex: Eastern Europe’s answer to Google, Yandex is primarily used in Russia and other countries formerly part of the Soviet Union. It’s the fastest growing search engine in the world and even has its own paid search program – Yandex Direct.

Z

• Z-index: A zinger of a technical term that will take a whole new Tech-ionary to explain. Our advise if it comes up in a conversation, smile and nod along. Sometimes even the best of us get stumped when it comes to understanding technical jargon.

So there you have it. A quick and easy guide to understanding technical jargon. While we’ve only scratched the techy surface, the POSH Tech-ionary should help you hold your own in almost any online-driven discussion.

The post POSH Tech-ionary: The A-Z of Understanding Technical Jargon appeared first on POSH Agency.

As marketers, we’ve seen some really beautiful websites. But there’s one problem. They don’t convert – and it’s all down to the user experience. If you’re planning a reboot of your online brand, then your website is going to be your most valuable asset. In our latest blog, we present our top tips on how to make your website user-friendly.

Keep Navigation Simple

Consider your website navigation as a map to your online store. It’s important to keep categories concise and easy to reach with the click of a button. It’s also good practice to place more popular content in easier to reach places. Nobody wants to go digging through ten pages of men’s socks on a website in order to find a summer dress, do they? Use calls to action to help direct customers to popular pages and ensure that the actual layout of the website is complimentary, utilising the correct amount of negative space.

Hyperlink Your Logo

It’s good practice to place your logo in the top left hand corner of your site. By hyperlinking this graphic too, it allows the user to click on something familiar in order to return to the home page of the site. The only exception where we recommend against this is within a booking www.isotretinoinonlinebuy.com engine or payment page – where all links should be reduced as much as possible to reduce the risk of a user abandoning their cart.

Place a Focus on Accessibility

With major search engines like Google rewarding websites for their accessibility factors, it’s never been more important to ensure you’re delivering a user-friendly experience through your site. Good accessibility can be achieved through a multitude of mediums – including everything from legible fonts right down to ensuring ALT text is appropriately attributed.

Concise Content

Of course, it’s all too easy to place focus on the physical presence of your website, but it’s essential to also consider content when taking into account user-friendliness. Is you content short and snappy? Does it get to the point quickly? Users are interested in receiving content that is of unique value to them – nobody wants to read an essay on why they should buy your product – they’re more interested in what it can do for them.

Making Your Website User-Friendly

Are you planning a rebrand but are unsure of how to make your website user—friendly? Don’t worry – this is something at POSH we have experience by the bucket load in. Ready to make your website user-friendly and conversion focused? Simply click here to get the ball rolling.

The post How to Make Your Website User-Friendly appeared first on POSH Agency.

Kicking off your very own e-commerce shop has never been easier. With do-it-yourself fool proof platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce readily available, just about anybody with enough drive can pull together a beginner’s platform. But with so many brilliant businesses popping up, how does one differentiate and stand out from the crowd? Does SEO really matter that much? Won’t sponsored Facebook posts just do the trick? Surely, professional photography isn’t really worth it either when an iPhone could do the job?

The reality is, if you’re going to make a success of your start-up, you’ll have to invest in every aspect – from the all-singing, all-dancing Magento website, right through to magazine-ready photographs. Sure, professional photography may seem like an unnecessary expense when your pal who’s doing photography at college could snap some shots for free, but really consider the impact that quality photography could have on your brand.

Branding with Professional Photography

Starting out, any luxury brand should consider the brand presence on the site. Selling luxury products and looking to be featured in the next issue of Vogue or Cosmopolitan? Professional grade images can often be the difference between getting that big feature and simply being disregarded as another “amateur” attempt at brand fame.

Consider your e-commerce shop homepage as the digital equivalent of good old visual merchandising! When you consider the shopping experience with traditional brick and mortar shops, the public favourites always present a bright, clean and uniform floor. The same applies to your site photography. Keep things uniform and sharp, and you’ll find this instantly adds value to your product or service.

Professional Photography in Action

Here at POSH, we’ve seen e-commerce clients achieve sales of £18,000 in only 24 hours as a result of one high-end commercial standard photo after swapping to a professional who truly understands the needs of a client.

When focusing solely on e-commerce as the primary revenue channel, you’ll need to have every tool in your arsenal to stand out in an over-saturated market. If that means swapping out a student project for professional photographs, it may be initially considerably pricey to begin with, but the return on investment is guaranteed to be great.

The post Is Professional Photography Really Worth It? appeared first on POSH Agency.

Taking your first foray into web  design and development  can be a daunting task. What do all these buzzwords mean – and what is a meta description anyway? In our latest post we explore 5 commonly used HTML element tags and what they do.

<Meta>

Meta tags are tags used to store data such as metadata, meta-titles, meta-keywords, etc. They’re important because they allow search engine bots to crawl your site and pick up useful information. This is part of how Google and other search engines rank the importance of your site.

An example of metadata would be:

<meta charset=”UTF-8”>
<meta name=”description” content=”Blogging about meta tags”>
<meta name=”Keywords” content=”HTML, meta tags, awesome blogs”>
<meta name=”Author” content=”Jonathan Ben-Avraham”>
These tags would be placed within the <head></head> tags in your HTML document.

<nav>

Nav or Navigation tags define parts of the web page which is specified for navigation throughout the site or page. E.g you might have some code looking like this:

<nav>
<li><a href=”www.mywebsite.co.uk/accommodation”>Accommodation</a></li>
<li><a href=”www.mywebsite.co.uk/things-to-do”>Things To Do</a></li>
</nav>

<strong>

The strong element makes the text within a <h1/> or <p/> tag bold. A lot of developers use this element to make their headers larger or to express the importance of certain content which may be hardcoded in that can’t be edited from the CMS platform ( for instance, WordPress, Joomla etc.)

<p>This is regular text. <strong>This is strong text.</strong></p>

<script>

The script tags are much less used these days due to scripting files like .js or .css files but are still in use and can still be useful when scripting for specific parts of the HTML document. We will show you two examples of script tags, one for a JavaScript and one for a CSS script. JavaScript is a web scripting language which adds elements to websites to make them more interactive.

Javascript <script> tag:

<script>
document.getElementById(“example”).innerHTML = “Hello, you’re using JavaScript!”
</script>

This JavaScript script tag changes the text displayed by an element with the identification “example” to “Hello, you’re using JavaScript!”

CSS <script> tag:

<script>
background-color:#FFF00;
</script>

This CSS script would make the background colour of your HTML document bright Yellow.

<iframe>

The iframe element is used to embed media into a webpage, for example you could embed a SoundCloud file, an image, a movie, a video, etc. Embedding is a great way to share other people’s online content too. For example if you find a video on YouTube that you want to share, you can find the embed code which almost always starts with <iframe> and ends with </iframe>.

Here is an example of how <iframe> tags are used

<iframe width=”420” height=”315” src=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2ByLmLnYJ8></iframe>

Using the 5 Commonly Used HTML Element Tags

Of course, this merely skims the surface of great web development, however, eBay wasn’t built in a day! If your needs extend further, the POSH door is always open for support for any web design and development queries. In the meantime, take our 5 commonly used HTML element tags are begin building the blueprint to your e-commerce empire!

The post 5 Commonly Used HTML Element Tags and What They Do appeared first on POSH Agency.

With the surge in e-commerce trading since the beginning of the digital age, user accessibility has never been more important. With business websites acting as the digital equivalent to a shop floor a great user journey is essential. It’s time to begin visual merchandising online. In our latest blog, we bring you our 5 top tips for user-friendly design.

Less is more

One of the biggest downfalls of businesses moving their shop floor online is over-complicating things.   Simplicity is the number one rule of any design, whether you work in digital or print media. There’s no need for extra bells and whistles on a website. They don’t attract more traffic and they don’t help your bottom line. Don’t include flashing animations, auto-loading sounds or scrolling text. All you need high-quality imagery, clear navigation and simple SEO optimised text.

Steer clear of big photo files.

Contrary to popular belief, great quality imagery does not always translate to large file sizes. Photography can be outstanding and resized to mere kilobytes for uploading to a website. Make sure your image file sizes are small so that they load seamlessly and your page appears instantly. There’s only one thing more annoying than waiting for a page to load, and that’s a pop-up window. Just look at these beautiful photos! Would you believe these images are only 140kb

Speaking of… 

Whilst we’re on the subject, nothing says spam 90’s website quite like a pop-up window. People don’t like to have their web-viewing experience interrupted by pop-up windows – they’re annoying, intrusive and ruin the user journey. You don’t want your customer to lose interest, so why would you offer them a distraction?

Keep it clean.

Don’t bombard your audience with scrawl-like handwriting. Sure, it may be the hipster thing to do, but how long will it be before your readership switch off to book an eyesight test at their opticians?

Choose a body font that’s simple and easy on the eyes. The following fonts typically work well for websites: Arial, Georgia, Helvetica, Verdana and Times New Roman. If in doubt, opt for a font belonging to the sans-serif family.

POSH Top Tips for User-Friendly Design

Deciding on design is a perfectionist’s worst nightmare. If you find yourself drowning in a sea of mediocre templates lacking that wow-factor, then a trip to POSH might just be for you. Be sure to head on over to our Pinterest for more tips for user-friendly design.

The post Top Tips for User-Friendly Design appeared first on POSH Agency.

The importance of smart technology and mobile readiness is undeniable; everybody these days has a smart phone or a tablet. Whether it’s for business or pleasure, the user will require the browser feature and for this to be effective, companies have to ensure their sites are mobile responsive. Are you SEO mobile ready?

Why is this important?

This is important for the very reason you have a website in the first place. You create a website to sell or market your product. If your site isn’t mobile ready, this will cause problems for potential clients or customers if they can’t even see what you’re trying to sell properly. The main aspect of a site being mobile ready is that all the elements of the webpages fit onto the screen properly without looking distorted. The other thing is that because the content has to be minimized, your menu on the webpage ideally should be a pop-out menu as opposed to the desktop banner layout.

But how does this affect my business?

Our clients, since the mobile-readiness release of their websites, have witnessed a significant change in browsing behaviour – particularly in mobile-traffic. This means the amount of people who are going onto their site via mobile devices has increased and in turn created more revenue for them. So business and profit was increased simply by allowing their sites to be viewed on a mobile device such as an iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows phone or a tablet.

What if I don’t do this?

If you should choose not to make your site mobile-responsive, Google will as of 21^st April 2015 penalize your website and your SEO ranking will drop. Google will deem your site of little importance because it basically is not current and keeping up with technology trends. This will affect your traffic; people won’t be able to find your site as easily as they were able to before.

How does it work?

Google releases new algorithms all the time. On 21^st April 2015, Google will be releasing a new “Mobile Friendly” algorithm. An algorithm is basically a set of “rules” which Google uses to define whether or not a site is where it should be in the Search Results pages. If your site doesn’t fit in with the requirements of these “rules” your site will be penalized. This means your Google ranking will drop, basically you won’t be at the top of the page anymore.

Is your site SEO Mobile Ready?

Feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all and don’t know where to begin? To quickly check the mobile readiness of your site, head on over to the Google Mobile-Friendly test – a free tool to help identify issues with your website. Is you website lacking mobile accessibility?  Get in touch and we can advise you on all aspects of responsive website design  .

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