There is no substitute for relevant information on your website.

Relevant to: your product, your service, your industry sector, your customer, their demographic and their needs.

For web design help call David Woodroofe at Create Design Studio on 01962 737 989 or visit www.createdesignstudio.co.uk

How the design of your site affects customer perception
If your website looks as though no thought went into the design, then the impression your customers will have is that your company does not care about its image. Good design improves customer perception of your company and shows you care about your image, your company and hence your customers. It also makes it easy for your visitors to navigate website pages and access information. Look at the website from the perspective of your customer, the site visitor, don’t add bells and whistles unless they help visitors to find what they are looking for and enhance their perception of your company. Sound effects, music and animated graphics that loop endlessly can distract from your content and may annoy site visitors, prompting them to go elsewhere.

Keeping in touch with customers
When did you last update your website? If it was ages ago then not only could your site drop down the search engine rankings but also your customers may assume that you have disappeared and will be less likely to re-visit your site. Updates tell visitors you are in-demand and give customers the perception that you are good at what you do. Tell them about the great projects you are involved in, about your new services and introduce them to new staff members.

If you would like your website to be easier to update and you want to be able to do the job yourself call Create Design Studio and ask about turning your website into a Wordpress Blog, it will allow you to update your site whenever you want to. We can teach you how to use the free software in around 30 minutes. Moving your existing site to a Wordpress template can usually be completed in less than a week, what are you waiting for? Call 01962 737989 and ask David about Wordpress today.

The hotel laid on a lovely spread of sandwiches, cakes and cream teas.

Some 40 people attended and everyone had 30 seconds to introduce themselves and their business to the whole room.

What is the point of business networking?

The number of communications and messages that each person receives every hour and every day means that it is becoming increasingly difficult to identify, make contact with and communicate to potential customers for your products and/or services. Business networking can help you to overcome some of these obstacles and gives you another channel to market.

What is business networking

At its simplest, business networking means that other people introduce you to their clients or customers having established that they have a need for your products and/or services. What this means is that you are awarded a customer, with the relevant need, and to whom you are able to introduce yourself to , with a level of trust and capability already established.

What can I expect to get out of it?

Business networking is not a magic potion which will solve all your problems. However, it can be an additional and valuable element of your Marketing Mix. It is difficult to quantify and value results but the chance of success can be increased dramatically by following a few key principles.

Regularity – for people to feel comfortable enough to recommend you to their customers, they need to get to know you, your organisation and above all, they will need to trust you and your capability to deliver. Regular attendance over a period of time at networking meetings can help to build up this trust.

Description – for people to be able to recommend you , they need to clearly know and understand what you do. Learn how to encapsulate what you do so that people, when they meet you, will be able to understand what you do and the type of clients whom you are looking for.

If you are able to do this, you could expect to receive introductions to valuable clients who are looking for suppliers just like you.

How much does it cost?

The cost of business networking differs greatly as does the regularity, type of venue, style and time of meeting.

My advice would be to go to several and find one that suits you. Basingstoke Business Club charges £ 10.00 per breakfast meeting with no membership fee. Prices of other groups vary considerably.

How long will it take before I start seeing some results?

This is virtually impossible to define but a good rule of thumb is that it will take a minimum of six months if you are looking for larger value sales. Smaller value sales can be obtained much more quickly.

I have already done some networking and it has not worked.

There are no guarantees but you could ask yourself a few questions

• In the groups where you went, did you know everyone and did everyone know you reasonably well?
• Did you attend regularly enough to become a recognised, trusted and respected member of the group?
• Were you able, perhaps over the course of a few meetings, to clearly communicate what you do and whom you are looking to meet?
• Did you take the time and trouble to understand everyone else’s needs and requirements? – in networking, statistically, those who give the most also receive the most.

I hate having to stand up and talk to everyone in a room. (the 60 seconds)

First of all, very few people like doing this at first but here are few tips and thoughts for you.

• It is a good skill to develop as you may find yourself in such situations with customers.
• Everyone who is in the room watching and listening to you, is on your side, it is not a test and everyone is trying to understand what you do and how they could help.
• Practice and rehearse what you are going to say at home before coming to your meeting – make notes if that would help.
• Change your 60 seconds at each meeting so that what you say continues to be interesting, give examples of current clients.

Successful branding helps to make sales easier because trust has been created between customer and organisation. Creating this kind of successful brand doesn’t happen overnight but it can be supported by making your organisation accessible to customers on the web.

A blog is a type of online diary, often used by businesses to publish articles about issues and events relevant to their industry that will be of interest to their customers and their peers. It can be hosted separately from your main website or the free blogging software can be installed on your web-server to integrate your website and your blog. Some smaller companies or freelance workers only have a blog as the software is versatile and can be used in a similar way to a traditional website with pages for services, products and contact information. You can update your blog as often as you like and as soon as you hit the ‘Publish’ button your articles are live on the web and can be indexed by search engines.

Blog-posts can be effectively promoted through the use of the social networking site Twitter where users write their current status in messages of 140 characters or less. These messages can contain hyperlinks that direct readers to your blog post, your website or to any other online resource you want to promote.

Your Twitter status can also be linked so it updates your Facebook status and your status on the Ecademy business networking site, meaning you only have to write updates once and all the people who ‘follow’ you will be informed. If you are trying to spread the word out about a new product or service it is obvious that linking your updates this way could provide an effective and low-cost way to promote them online.

These websites can also prove useful in other ways. By posting questions to those in your network others can respond quickly with personal recommendations and links to information resources. Additionally, social networking can enable you to keep in touch with friends and business contacts you may not often be able to meet up with in-person due to geography or lack of time.

Social networking has received coverage in the mainstream media and on the BBC news website an article by Claire Prentice explains how small firms are harnessing social networking for their marketing. As many small firms cannot afford to spend large sums on advertising they have turned to the social networking websites to reach a global audience with a minimal cost. Promoting special offers, new services and even to fill cancelled appointments at the last minute, updates on Twitter or Facebook build trust between customers and your organisation because they know the information comes from the source.

Social networking sites invite your customers to enter into dialogue with your company and the feedback you receive can be used to improve your services. However, your organisation also becomes open to criticism. Approach criticism as a chance to improve your service and potentially win back a customers and even this aspect of social networking for business use can have a positive outcome.

Are you new to social networking online? Here’s some tips on how to begin:

Online social networking site www.twitter.com, uses short messages to help you stay in touch with other twitter users and www.facebook.com is a full social networking site that allows you to upload photos, update your status and instant message other friends online at the same time as you.

Business networking sites include www.ecademy.com which is a large site with users from all over the world with clubs and regional networking groups you can join. You may also like to look at www.linkedin.com for opportunities to network with other professionals.

If you’d like to start your own blog visit: www.wordpress.com. Try reading a few blogs to see the breadth of writing that exists on the web. You can search Google for blogs or you can visit a blog search engines like www.technorati.com which has a list of 100 top blogs to browse. Also try mashable.com for blogs about the world of social media online and a series of articles on ‘How to’ that should help you if you are struggling to use any of the sites mentioned in this article.

Create Design Studio have a dedicated service for those of you who would like to start your own blog but don’t know where to begin. Setting up blogs on your existing website, designing the pages, showing you how to login and write articles as well as using Google Analytics to see how well your blog is doing. Call Create Design Studio’s Managing Director David Woodroofe on 01962 737989 if you would like to discuss having your own blog.

If you decide to take the plunge why not look up Charlotte Lamb, Creative Director at Create Design Studio, on Twitter by searching for @charlotte_lamb to read Charlotte’s Tweets on Graphic design. Or visit the Create Design Studio website to find out how we can help you with web design, graphic design or e-marketing.