Digital Buyer’s Guide

Digital consists in 3 services: Website design, Website Development and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Website development can range from a single static page of plain text to the most complex web-based internet applications.

A project is typically broken down into three stages: planning, design and development.

Each stage represents approximately one third of the entire timeline of a project.

1. Website planning

• Create an outline of the site content.
• Create the website ‘wireframe’.
• Gather general information including samples, style guides, images and graphic files.
• Begin writing content.
• Create wireframe layouts of key pages showing the position of content and graphics on pages.

2. Website design / prototyping

• Create colour layouts based on approved wireframe layouts
• Shoot photography or research stock photography
• Develop graphics
• Create a style guide of colours and fonts for site development

3. Website development

• Develop style sheets
• Develop web page templates
• Programming

4. SEO

• SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation – growing your website visibility via organic search engine results
• SEO is the process of increasing the visibility or ranking of a website in the unpaid section of a search engine’s results. There are a number of ‘organic’ ways in which a website’s ranking can be improved. Organic search results are listings on search engine results pages that appear because of their relevance to the search terms, rather than paid advertisements.
• Increasing a website’s ranking can bring it higher visibility, which, in turn, increases website traffic. This is valuable traffic, as these website visitors are reaching for the product or service you offer, which means they are often warm business leads.
• This is why organic web traffic (i.e. traffic driven by natural search rankings, rather than paid search ads) usually converts to customers at a much higher rate.
• The key is to align SEO to keywords and content that get the highest rankings possible on search engine results.
• SEO can be a complicated task and there are several variables that affect a website’s SEO performance. With digital communications an increasingly integral part of public relations, at Curzon PR we have developed our own unique approach to SEO, using it to boost a client’s website ranking and, ultimately, the brand’s online visibility.
• SEO encompasses both the technical and creative content elements required to improve rankings, drive traffic and increase awareness in search engines.

With the exponential growth of the digital market in recent years it is essential for any brand to have a website. It is a primary source of information about your brand and the products or services you provide for your potential customers as well as existing customers.

A effective website is a strong tool for your marketing and contributes to the following:

1. Online Presence 24/7

Having a website means customers are always able to find you anytime, anywhere. Even outside of business hours, your website continues to find and secure new customers. It offers the user convenience as they can access the information they need.

2. Information Exchange

At its simplest, a website provides a quick and easy way of communicating information between you and your customers. You can list your opening hours, contact information, show images of your location or products, and use contact forms to facilitate enquiries from potential customers.

You can even upload promotional videos to really engage your customers and sell your brand’s products and services in an effective and cost efficient way. This is also a good way to promote your social media channels and build up a community with your customers.

3. Credibility

In today’s digital world there is an expectation for any reputable brand to have some kind of online presence. Having a easy-to-use website makes customers feel comfortable using your services, as they will assume they can expect the same positive experience from your brand.

4. Reaching a Wider Audience

As your site is accessible to anyone all over the world, the ability to break through geographical barriers has never been easier. Anyone, from any country, will be able to find your brand and as such, is now a potential customer.

5. Consumer Insights

Analytic tools allow you to identify who your typical customer is, how they found you, what they like, and adapt your business to maximise purchases through your website.

The diverse range of data available can also help you better understand how your social media channels affect your brand, and can even highlight opportunities to change the offline aspects of your brand such as events, promotions and new services or product.

6. Publicity & Advertising

• Tools like Google AdWords or advertising on Facebook give you the power to reach customers with much more accuracy and reliability than with traditional offline advertising methods. SEO and online advertising are a great way to help build up awareness, if it’s done correctly traffic to your website can see an increase.
• Be the first company that a potential new customer sees when searching for a specific product or service online, and use your website’s contact page or e-commerce features to make purchasing a product or finding a retail outlet easier than ever before.

7. Online Competitors

If you don’t have a website it is highly likely that your competitor will do, this means that you are missing out on gaining new customers and can be in the forefront of their minds. It is crucial that no opportunities are missed and are gained by the competition.

8. Growth Opportunity

Websites in general are great ways to in providing a place that potential investors can be referred to. It shows what your company is about, what it has achieved and what it can achieve in future.

9. Build Your Reputation

Become or remain the expert by demonstrating knowledge and expertise in your area of work. Write blog posts and articles on the site that educate visitors and help them understand your business and offerings.

How does SEO Benefit My Brand?

1. SEO helps create user-friendly websites

SEO helps brands to create faster, smoother and more user-friendly websites. Although most people think it is only about optimising for search engines, SEO is also about improving user experience too.

Well-structured, clean and uncluttered websites compel a casual visitor to stay on the site longer, thereby decreasing ‘bounce rate’ (the percentage of visitors who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page) and increasing page views. Similarly, highly relevant content (sales pages and blog articles) keeps readers happy, as they are more likely to answer questions and help them find what they are looking for.

2. Brings in more customers

• The main reasons for having a website is to stand out from your competition and increase your customer base.
• SEO helps bring in customers who are actively seeking to find your product or service.

3. Higher conversion rates

SEO-optimised websites load faster, are easy to read and surf and will display properly on almost all devices, including mobiles and tablets.

Websites that are easy to read and navigate are more likely to grab and hold attention, with readers more likely to become loyal customers, subscribers and returning visitors.

4. Builds brand awareness

One of the benefits of getting higher rankings on search engines is building brand awareness. When your site appears on the first page of search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing, your potential customers are more likely to trust your brand when they search for a particular term than brands that don’t have a strong web presence.

This is why brands that want to build better brand awareness invest in SEO – to gain top rankings for the key terms related to their brand.

5. Helps bypass competition

An SEO-optimised website will attract more customers from local searches, as customers looking for your product or service are more likely to find your website on the first few pages of search results than non-optimised websites.

1. Initial meeting and planning

Before the website build can begin, several processes need to be carried out.

After receiving your initial brief and site outline, we begin our research. We will research your industry, current web trends, as well as suitable functions to include in the site build. This research is then presented in our initial meeting. Together, we can discuss your brief and our initial research, deciding on what suits your needs most effectively.

After this first meeting, we will work on putting together a design outline, allowing you to see broadly what your new website will look like and the estimated timeframes.

After further research by us, we will look into the structure of your site, any analytical data that is available and build on comments made during the proposal stage and our initial set of meetings.

At our next meeting, having integrated all the research and feedback, we show you how we will tailor your website to your detailed and specific needs.

Overall, this first stage will take up to one week. It is important to ensure throughout that there is a plan and timeline in place. This allows the next steps to go ahead more quickly, as we are working towards a clear and defined goal.

2. Design

Once we’ve managed to secure a plan for your website, it’s time to start designing.

Our team will work on creating initial designs based on the structure decided in the previous stage. As before, this is a collaborative effort, so we continue to encourage feedback. We will do everything we can to ensure your website portrays your brand accurately and professionally. We can then make edits and amendments to the design in light of our meetings and present them again for approval.

Once approved, our team will work on the resultant designs. Responsive design allows designs to be compatible with all technology devices. For example, a user viewing your site on a smartphone will see a slightly different layout compared to a user viewing your site on a desktop computer.

Once these responsive designs have been signed off, we move on to the actual build of the site.

Overall, this stage will typically take up to two weeks.

3. Build

Our web developers will work on turning the approved designs into a working website, integrating any functions required, such as e-commerce or log-in portals. All of our builds include responsive design and this is integrated from the beginning. Whilst this is happening, we ask that you start preparing the content for your site (if you have not already contracted Curzon PR to create this for you).

We will then send over a link to your site and request your feedback. This will allow our developers to complete the final stages of the development, including building any news feeds or blogs to be included as part of the final site.

Once the build and development have been finalised, we can start inputting the content that you’ve prepared and the site is ready to go live.

This stage typically takes up to three to four weeks.

4. Review and support

Once your site is live, there’s still work to do. As well as continuing to support your site, we will organise a performance review four weeks after it goes live.

This gives you an idea of how it is performing and what you can do to improve your results, including digital marketing strategies.

This stage typically takes one week.