Social media, especially the site Twitter, has been blamed for helping the ‘rioters’ decide on meeting times, places and also act as a platform for people to encourage others behaviours.

Though these sites have come under criticism, they have also allowed others to organise ‘clean-up’ campaigns, communicate and make sure friends are safe, show support for those affected and defy negative opinions of Britain.

There are some suggestions to cut off Twitter, Facebook and others but those suggesting such things forget that social media has gone far beyond catching up and chatting to friends, it is now used as a powerful marketing tool for businesses and losing such a tool would lose a lot of business for many companies.

Social media gives your business the chance to interact with others and get involved in current issues, debates and show support for worthy causes. A huge selling point of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook is to allow customers to interact with their favourite brands and businesses and see you on a more personal level and with some management by companies like ourselves; you can succeed and be a part of this growing phenomenon as well.

Thank you

SmarterWays

Having regularly updated media such as Twitter, blogs and Facebook – lets your customers see you on a personal rather than corporate level and this can be a great thing especially when trying to establish and build relationships.

Making different connections on social networking sites can open up your potential list of customers hugely. In our experience, not only have we been able to speak and get in touch with some exciting new customers but we are also able to engage with our suppliers, keeping up-to-date with some of their big news and also broaden our network by speaking to their customers as well. At the end of the day, one of the best ways to get recommended is through word of mouth and this can be done through social networking sites – they give suppliers and customers chance to give real feedback about your products and services.

One of the best sites we have come across is LinkedIn – it lets you socialise and interact with professional business people with similar attitudes and intentions to yourself. Joining different groups and getting involved in discussions increases your profile and also gives you a stage to voice your opinion on topical matters. Being clued up on relevant matters and issues will push users in the direction of your profile and in turn your company.

Being based in Burton, Staffordshire, we benefit from some great networking opportunities – many groups have been formed, with the most recent being ‘Future Faces’ which gives individuals and businesses that are new to business the opportunity to interact and get ideas from those more established than themselves and which are ideal to our team at SmarterWays. We welcome businesses of all sizes, ages and professions as nowadays, IT is the key for any functioning organisation.

The Burton Chamber of Commerce which we have recently joined, seems to be an ever expanding group giving us all some great networking opportunities as do the Chambers all over the country.

Being on top of social media when there are so many different sites and so many different ways of doing so can be incredibly time consuming which is why our SmarterWays team of Internet marketers want to help you. Whether you simply want advice or want us to completely take over a social media campaign for you, we are always here to help. Please get in touch to find out more.

Thank you

SmarterWays

We work with you to get an understanding of what is important to you and will design your site around that – visual reminders, their viewing history, safety and security – whatever you want the SmarterWays design team will achieve for you.

Your site needs to be properly designed so that a visitor can easily navigate and follow the links logically to complete their online transaction.  We understand when designing your e-commerce website that simplicity can be key – we don’t want to scare users by directing them here there and everywhere. Many people can get confused by complex designs and will be put off buying if they have to click on too many links and if it takes too long to get to their desired page or to buy the product.

Another key thing is safety… users are now very wary of fraudulent payments and websites, when the SmarterWays team design ecommerce websites, we only use secure payment methods or refer customers to the secure payment websites – this is to give customers faith in you and give you faith in us as web designers.

Online shopping can be hard for both site owners and customers. It is hard to portray the physical features of your products, for example the feel, smell, size and any other factors that play an important role in the buying decision. We always emphasize the importance of having high quality pictures… and lots of them. These can help your customers in getting a real feel of what they will receive if they were to purchase a product.

If getting such high quality pictures is hard, we have an in-house photographer who can help you create images that capture the feel of your brand and the products that make it. Something that really helps customers as well is details of pricing as well as reviews and customer comments – preferably positive ones!!! You can even place the details of pricing as well as small information regarding the product with links to reviews and user comments.

The SmarterWays design team have a lot of experience in designing and building some very successful ecommerce websites and we would love the opportunity to work with you to see what we could create for you. We want to help you provide your customers with the best shopping experience possible so please do get in touch!

Thank you

SmarterWays

In the last few months, you may have seen a considerable change in your search results in Google – your website may have once stood high up in the rankings but has recently seen a dramatic drop and you don’t know why.

Google has recently updated their search engine algorithm with the latest Panda update. Earlier this year, they launched and applied the changes in America to see how sites would be affected and would fare and this new update has recently been released all over the world.

The bigger question you need to ask yourself is, ‘how does this change affect my site’s SEO?’

The Panda has been implemented in order to eliminate ‘low quality’ content, or in other words, spammy content trying to rank in the search engines. Google has a reputation for producing the best and highest quality results and so they needed to bring in new algorithms to maintain that reputation. People learn the ways around SEO and how to get to the top of the search engines which is why sometimes in the old system, spammy sites and useless content was allowed on the first page of Google.

Google is trying its best in eliminating results that are not relevant or not useful because its users have requested it. The way Google will stay top of the search engines and retain popularity is through producing top quality results.

The Panda update has affected many sites so far, some being popular websites and many being poor quality sites. Some popular blogging websites or sites where users are allowed to contribute their opinions have been ranked poorly – meaning site owners will have to be stricter and much more judgmental on their choice of articles.

Publishing content just for the heck of traffic is not a good idea. This is the main reason why Google made the update – because a lot of sites take a lot of content just for them to attract more visitors from the search engines to go to their site and give some impressions and clicks to the ads.

They don’t really care about the quality of the content as much as the traffic they are getting from it. We have to always keep in mind that people want real, useful, quality content – and Google is just trying its best to deliver us that which we desire.

You should be more mindful of the things that you publish. Make sure it’s unique, original and helpful to people. Don’t make articles just to suck-up to search engines as some people do. If you have local content farming websites, try to look at
which keywords you could grab from them when the Panda update is implemented in your country. Perhaps you can be the one to rank first for that keyword phrase that you want since they’re getting kicked off the picture. Look at how your
competitors are doing and how their site adopts the changes to Panda.

As this is a new change to Google, the SmarterWays web design team and doing a lot of research and finding how to get a good ranking in the search engines. It may be useful for you to take a look and see what our SEO and internet marketing team can do for you

Please feel free to get in touch with us and find your way around Panda and take advantage of it before the spammers do!

Thank you

SmarterWays

Keeping a website up-to-date is incredibly important, especially being web designers ourselves. We have a great service and a great team of web designers and the best way we can show that is through producing a website that depicts that. Having a content rich and up-to-date website lets customers know that you are fresh, exciting and most importantly… still in business!

Not only do we want to have a great SmarterWays website of our own but we also want to be able to boast a portfolio of top-of-the-range websites and we do this by putting all of our creativity into your website and treating every customer as different to the last.

The past two years have seen some very exciting introductions to technology including the newly popular tablets e.g. the iPad and the Blackberry tablet. Mac computers, new operating systems, new smart phones and new and updated web browsers are also a part of the technology surge! The introduction of all these means that the website that you currently have, may not be being viewed correctly with the latest of the technology and viewing options available.  

The cross-compatibility of your website is now nearly just as important as the actual design and content of the site. If you have a site that can’t open or display properly on one browser, you could be losing some great potential business. The SmarterWays web design team train and design their websites with the latest technology so they can ensure your site will work with every available option.

Our confidence in being able to provide you with a fully functioning website means that you only have to worry about handling all the sales that come through and you won’t have to go out and buy every bit of latest technology to make sure your site’s working… unless you want to of course!!

Thank you

SmarterWays

To best explain the reality of what SEO means for most businesses we need to think how the search engines work. Most people use Google to carry out their searches as it is renowned for giving users the best results relevant to their search. Not only do users want to find results on Google but they also want to be found on Google. Google’s brawn in internet business creates opportunities for companies wishing to promote themselves to a vast audience.

In essence, SEO is about making the most out of Google. It is about making the content of your website relevant. Nowadays, the simplest way to promote your company is through the internet, and Google dominates internet searching. Recent reseach suggests that it’s share of searching stands at 65 per cent. Considering Microsoft’s search engine Bing has just 11 per cent share, and Ask.com has just 3.7 per cent of internet searching, this highlights the influence of Google.

Writing the content full of important, rich information is the easy bit – it is making sure that Google picks up on this content and your website that is the hard part and that is where the SmarterWays team step in and help you.

Google have ways to help them ensure your site is relevant for a particular search and are seldom fooled, gone are the days when you could fill your content with keywords and you then appear at the top of the search engines.

Through links, meta tags, rich content, keywords and much more… your website can get high in the search engines. The SmarterWays web team are here to give you advice and do the background work that gets your website noticed.

To find out more about it please get in touch with our team.

Thank you

SmarterWays

At SmarterWays we know how detrimental a good website can be to a business, as web designers ourselves, we often get judged on our website and portfolio… one quick glance can be enough to be the deal breaker in whether somebody wants a new website or not. 

Keeping a website up-to-date and fresh will tell clients that you are still in business, that you still care for that business and it also lets you build up a relationship with your users through sharing new news and reviews!

With design and in particular web design, we see every new website and project as something new and unique. Every customer has an idea about what they want their website to look like, when every company’s philosophy, ethics and brand ideas are different, it is wrong to simply design a bog standard website.  

Unlike a lot of other web design companies, SmarterWays do not have a set of templates, we start every design as a blank page and work with a brand’s logo and mission statement as the basis for our initial design. Having a website says a lot about your business which is why the SmarterWays design team bring such a personal element to it

We know that people do judge websites as soon as they land on a page which is why we ensure that those first few seconds leave a lasting impression.

With over 255 million websites now live on the Internet, it is hard to design something completely different and unique but at SmarterWays we try our hardest to create that website for you. Whether you want a simple three page website, an online shopping experience or a website that you can be in control of and change whenever you wish… we can design that for you and turn your ideas into a reality.

Please give us a call or make an enquiry and we can get the ball rolling and designing you a wonderful new website.

Thank you

SmarterWays

Within SmarterWays we have qualified staff who have been on courses to become competent in these skills which is why we are confident in our abilities to offer it as a service. Not only are our staff qualified but they also have years of experience behind them in this field. Due to this experience we have helped a variety of companies from accountants and lawyers to footwear providers and clothing companies, we like to help everyone and don’t restrict our services to any company.

The SmarterWays staff can not only proof-read or write content for websites but also help with any of your literature you want  to send out to clients and help build up your brand, online and offline.

At SmarterWays our prices for proofreading and copy-editing are not expensive and definitely make it worthwhile paying for for piece of mind.

Nowadays when there is so much competition within every sector and industry people are in, the first impressions people have of your website and branding are key. One simple spelling mistake can lose you potential business worth millions. By not spelling words correctly or using incorrect grammar and therefore getting the wrong message across – people will assume you are an unprofessional company and go elsewhere.

Even if you are confident with your text, at SmarterWays we are strong believers in having another pair of eyes to check over your content… when looking over something for so long it gets hard to see mistakes and sometimes you need a fresh view just to spot the most simple of mistakes.

Please call us to find out about what we can do for you or even to get some hints and tips on writing your content.

Thank you

SmarterWays

Whilst we can’t help being annoyed by some of the demands and restrictions on parts of the economy – as are most – we are a little relieved for IT and for small businesses like ourselves and also excited for the potential given to our sector.

Being the business we are and specialising in web design, email marketing, IT support and server installations (to name but a few!) we obviously rely on IT for the efficiency within the company.   

What we at SmarterWays are also excited about is the apprenticeship schemes that the new budget is allowing for. With an experienced team of designers and developers here at SmarterWays, we are more than qualified to train young apprentices and are fully encouraging the push to get young people into IT , share their creative ideas and introduce some freshness into our business.

The budget has also given businesses a tax break, freeing up their cash flow and allowing companies to invest in their IT and marketing infrastructure. Nowadays having a website designed and adopting Internet marketing techniques is much cheaper than traditional advertising methods as well as more measurable allowing for precise results. 

Websites are much more of an efficient marketing tool which is why we would love to hear from you and help you to build your online business profile through whatever medium you wish.

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Thank you

SmarterWays

Just this morning, Kaspersky have warned about the latest malicious virus going about and it can be found on Facebook chat messages that look like the following:

Many users see Facebook as a trusted site and so might click on the link out of interest which will then lead them to quizzes and eventually the user having to pay out money.

Due to the nature of SmarterWays as a business, we look after our client’s social media, websites, IT support and much more.

Our social media and Internet marketing team help users with their different activities online including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, PPC campaigns and much more. Because of the experience we have in this field it means that SmarterWays can manage your media so that it is used to full effect and that not only do your accounts avoid being intercepted by the viruses but also that your followers, fans and potential clients don’t receive spam from you.

Working so closely and in conjunction with Kaspersky also gives us a lot of confidence in avoiding viruses and threats both online and offline. When a new virus is caught, Kaspersky will ensure they can do everything about it for example telling Facebook and making sure that any users spreading the link must be removed straight away. They also try and ensure that their anti-virus will eliminate the threats that the virus contains and protect your computer and operating systems.

To find out more about the protection Kaspersky can give you and about the help that SmarterWays can give you with your internet marketing and social media then please call us or look through our websites for more details.

Thank you

SmarterWays