Developing your school website

Each school in Britain whether it be an academy or local authority-maintained school is obliged to publish information online that parents and other stakeholders can access and so a school website fulfils this requirement.

A school website is essential as many parents both current and potential will use it to keep abreast of developments in the school and access details such as school term dates, staffing changes and upcoming events.

When deciding on the design of the school website thought should be given to the ongoing maintenance of the site so that there is a straightforward way that content can be uploaded especially as many schools like to share photographs of work pupils have completed on a regular basis and often this task falls to the school administrator or a member of the teaching staff who are already over stretched in terms of time allocation.

Parents who visit the website to confirm the school policy on areas such as school uniform requirements and homework need to be able to follow clear links to direct them to the correct pages. General pages about the school can be accessed by everyone but a section of the site may only be accessed by the use of a password so that children’s images or information pertaining to the governance of the school is kept secure.

Does your website colour theme matter?

When you are designing your website or employing someone to develop a website for you one of the questions that you will need to answer is what colour scheme you want to use. Your answer to this needs careful thought as the colours you choose may affect the popularity of your site. Research has been carried out into colour psychology and the effect it has on people’s perceptions of a brand and although not everyone agrees there are some aspects that are thought to be true.

Depending upon the intended audience for your website you may want to adapt the colour scheme you choose. Many school and nursery websites have vibrant colour schemes sometimes using the primary colours. This promotes a feeling of fun and is therefore suitable for sites either aimed at children or about children’s settings.

If your website audience is intended to be gender specific your colour scheme choice may reflect this. Traditionally black and blue colours are usually used in brands to target males whilst purple and pink are used to attract female audiences.

Blue is a colour often used to communicate trust and reliability and so is the choice of many financial institutions for their branding colour schemes.

Using a website to learn a new language

If you want to learn a new language either because you are going on holiday and want to be able to converse with the locals or just for your own interests, there are a number of options open to you. Probably the cheapest and easiest way is to use one of the websites that claim to be able to teach you a new language in a few weeks or months. Discipline and determination on your part is obviously a must when learning anything new but using a website to guide you through the process is advisable.

When you first visit the website look at the navigation links to choose the language you would like to learn. You will often be offered the choice of which level you would like to begin with. It is a good idea to begin with the basics even if you find that you can quickly progress to a higher level as this will allow you to become familiar with the user interface and navigation.

Some websites will require you to use a headset with a microphone so that you can listen to the language and respond. These can be purchased quite cheaply either online or from the high street shops.

Marketing your business through social media

Social media is a great way of connecting with people online and marketing your business. Its uses have grown drastically over the past few years. There are a number of social media websites that you can register with to interact with people on a personal level but many companies are also opting to use social media too.

Marketing your business through social media can be very profitable as much of it is free and therefore the only overhead you have is your time or member of staff’s time.

Some companies find that different social media sites work better for them than others for example if you deal direct with the public such as a hairdresser then you may find that Facebook works really well for you. Facebook often works well as it allows you to target groups of people based on interests, location or age. You can do this by joining certain groups and advertising on their or by doing paid for advertising.

Running competitions on social media sites also is a great way to increase your followers and therefore your reach when promoting a product or service. If you are unsure of how to use social media marketing then why not talk to a digital agency who will be able to advise you what route to take. 

Taking the first steps into the world of online marketing

If you are a start up business of have been going a while but invest little time and money in to marketing, it can be hard to know where to start. There are a huge number of different ways in which to market your business online and if you are not careful you can end up investing money in to areas that are not profitable for you and do not offer a good return on your investment.

The first thing to do is to sit down and work out who your target market is and what types of  customers you want. It may be that you wish to expand your business and so want to reach out to new locations or maybe you want to target a specific product to a set age group of people. Once you have this information you can then start to work backwards to see how is best to contact them. 

It may be that you find social media is the best way to market to them. It is a very popular way to market to online consumers. If you have a business that deals direct with the public then social media can work particularly well. Facebook advertising for example, allows you to target people within a certain age group or geographical location.

Which design software package should you use?

If you are a designer, then you will already know the importance of finding and using the right software package. Having the correct software to do your designing tasks will make your job easier and the whole process quicker.

Some designers prefer certain software over others and even certain devices. It may be that you have become accustomed to using one such as Adobe Photoshop or InDesign and are nervous about trying something else. Adobe has always been a major player in the design industry and with its compatibility with PC’s and Macs, it can be used by millions of people regardless of the device they choose to use. You use to be able to buy software packages from Adobe such as Photoshop or InDesign but with prices often over £1000 Adobe soon realised that they needed to find a more affordable way to market to the masses. This is where their creative cloud software came in. Rather than buying a version of Photoshop to use, you can now subscribe on an annual basis and pay for it monthly. You can tailor your package to include software you want rather than having to pay for a whole design suite. This made the product more affordable to many people which has in turn increased their sales.

What it takes to create a directory website

If you are thinking of creating a directory website then you need to think carefully about how you are going to do it as often they are not cheap and may require a lot of hard work to start with before you start to see any benefit.

Many people have great ideas about building a directory for people to search for suppliers or companies that can offer the services or products they need but these types of sites need to be designed in such a way that they are extremely user friendly and that there is a reason to use your directory above others. It can also be tricky to get directory websites ranked on the search engines, so you will need to consider how you are going to market it on and ongoing basis.

 You need to consider how you are going to make any money off the site. Some people choose to let people add their business for free to the directory and then make money from selling advertising space on their site others will charge businesses a subscription fee to be listed on the site. Getting the initial subscriptions can be hard as you will not be able to prove that they will get much traffic through initially.

How to choose the right content management system

A content management system is the part of your website which you can log in to and make changes to pages and products etc. You may also be able to make small design changes and add new pages and new buttons in the top navigation. You can choose to use an off the shelf content management system or a bespoke one, which will be made to include all the functionality you need. There are pros and cons to both types of content management systems and deciding the one to choose depends entirely on the website development company and the functionality you require. Some off the shelf content management systems simply do not give you the ability to change everything you need to and therefore you will need to get a bespoke system created. If you are just looking for a basic website that will offer information or that is a simple ecommerce site, then you will probably find an off the shelf content management system will do the job.

Most bespoke systems can also be added to at a later date if you want to add further functionality in to it. The developer will be able to amend the content management system and add in the elements you require. This is handy if you are looking to grow your business quite quickly and need to ensure your website will be able to keep up.