Positive People - Self Employment - Website Design (Plymouth, 07/02/2019)

1. Self Employment Programme
www.cosmic.org.uk

2. What we are going to share with you?
Introduction
• The importance of having a website
Why you need one
• Site planning
Who is it for, what is the purpose?
• Final agreed 'brief’
A document that someone could build from
Break
• What to consider
Content, images, competitors, 3rd party systems
• Design guidance
What you should gather and do before the build
• Newsletters and GDPR
How to communicate with your audience
Close

3. The importance
of having a website

4. The importance of having a website
• A website is the one place online that you can control
• Social media platforms could change the way they look - your
website is something you control entirely and will only change if
you want it to
• All online content should link back to your website so it
manages expectations, sells at the right level and puts across a
consistent message

5. The importance of having a website
• The majority of your potential clients will now visit the internet
first to start searching – without an online presence you are
missing out
• Search engines need content in order to index and then return
results, so you have to be online to even hope to show in
Google results
• Without one, people will still Google you or your company and
they will form opinions based on what they find – this might not
always be good or even related to you or your business

6. For example…

7. Which one is best?

8. This must be good…

9. Wait…who made this list?

10. Online reputation
• So, we want to control what people see and read about us –
this is called your online reputation. The best way to manage
this is to first be aware that it exists

11. Online reputation
• Next, look at how information is presented about you and
your business
• Include social media which blurs the line between work and
home
• Have you Googled yourself lately?
• Would you pay for services from the results you find?
• It’s not too late, create higher quality information

12. Online reputation
• Create your own website and you are in control
• Create a professional presence on social media
• Create a clear line between your personal and professional
life

13. Importance of having a website
• Think about your own buying behaviour:
• You buy from people you trust
• You buy from people your family and friends trust
• Prove you are good at what you do – deliver a great service
and trust will spread your business
• Your website is an extension of this

14. Site planning

15. Site planning – Details are important
1. What is it you really do?
Get to the bottom of the purpose of your business and therefore your website:
• Selling or bespoke service
• Information only (brochure)
• Events and bookings
2. Who do you do it for? Identify your audience.
By understanding your main audience you can tailor the website specifically to
them.
• Age groups
• Businesses or individuals
• Specialist or mass market
3. How do they use the internet and websites?
• Mobile or office based
• Time sensitive or research (influences amount of information)
• Text heavy or image based

16. Site planning – Details are important
4. What are some competitors already doing and what can we learn from
them?
Start in your local area and then search more widely on Google.
• Make notes
• Keep the best site addresses saved somewhere
5. What pages are standard on most websites?
Most sites have at least
• Home
• About
• Contact
• GDPR compliant information – privacy policy, privacy notice, cookies – more
on this later
6. What other pages do you need for your specific service?
You need to decide on your pitch, are you selling your services, to audiences or
naming the problem your potential client is experiencing.
• Plumbing
• Businesses vs. Residential
• Got a leak?

17. Writing a brief

18. Site planning - Exercise
With the example of a gardening service, what pages would you
expect to find?
• Shout them out and we will make a list to review

19. Writing a brief – take away points
• Write down a bullet numbered list – then you can add more details
to this structure
• Start with the main parent pages
• Add any desired child pages
• Start to add descriptions for the pages

20. Writing a brief – take away points
• The home page is where it all starts – but why is the home page
different?
• Focus buttons (call to actions) – why do we need these?
• Large images and videos / icon based
• Short wording, but bear search engines
in mind

21. 15 minute break

22. How things have changed

23. 1998

24. 2018

25. 1997

26. 2018

27. What to consider

28. What to consider – Content and SEO
• Now you have your site plan, don’t forget to write content
• How do you please a search engine, and when do they index your website?
• Keywords
• Authentic
• Clear
• Accurate
• Dated content (news, blogs or events)
• Social media
• Responsive
• Index roughly every 4 to 6 weeks (caching should be considered)

29. What to consider - Images
• Images – Good ones vs. bad ones, professional vs. amateur
• Stock photography (paid vs. free)
• Modern technology allows everyone to take good photos
• Using images of your own is more authentic
• Consider hiring a photographer
• A bad image can do harm
• Be aware of copyright

30. What to consider – Responsive design
• Different devices – Don’t forget mobile, tablet, computer, laptop and TVs;
how will your site display?
• Use the right tools to create the site
• Ensure you know if it will be responsive
• Google penalises those sites that are not

31. What to consider – Website hosting
• Hosting – Where the final website and the files that make it work live,
usually rented space on a computer somewhere (try to ensure EU based)

32. What to consider – Domain names
• A domain name is the address where users go to see your website
• Should be easy to spell and memorable
• You can have more than one
• There are many different endings (i.e. .co.uk, .com)

33. What to consider – domain names: Exercise
For the example business “Cosmic Gardening Services” who are based in
Honiton…
What is the best domain name?

34. What to consider – SSL certificate
SSL – All big tech companies pushing towards a secure web. Many major
browsers will warn a user if your website does not have an SSL certificate
installed – your website would be branded as potentially unsafe.

35. What to consider – Emails
• Emails – You can use Google Mail or Microsoft Office, or be a forwarder
onto an existing email account.
• Professional appearance vs. personal email addresses
• jamie@cosmic.org.uk looks better than jamied94@btinternet.com in a
business capacity

36. Design guidance

37. Design guidance
• Branding is not just a logo; it can be simple text

38. Design guidance
• Colours you like – these are important in setting highlighted elements

39. Design guidance
• Typefaces or fonts – The style of text you like, should be clear and
readable

40. Design guidance
• Other sites you have seen that you like to look at – not necessarily in
your area of work

41. Design guidance
• Lead images – the best you have or can find

42. Design guidance - layout
• Consider layout of blocks – we talk in terms of
• Header - the top (this can have multiple elements)
• Large header images, rotating images, contact info, social
media links, translate features etc)
• Navigation – menus (should be kept short and to the point)
• Feeds – News, Tweets or events displayed in grids of the latest
few
• Focus buttons – Call to actions that draw attention, these make
decisions for the users
• Footer – the final section (this can also have multiple elements)

43. Newsletters & GDPR

44. Newsletters and GDPR
Keeping existing clients (who have agreed) up to date with your service and
offers

45. Newsletters – sending bulk emails
There is only one service really worth considering – MailChimp
Market leading system
Self cleaning un-subscribes (user led control)
Free for a certain level and number of subscribers
• Subscribers – Peoples email addresses added into a list that
receive you newsletter campaign
• Campaigns – Each mailout to a list of subscribers
• List – A group of peoples email addresses that you can send to
• Opt-In – A person has read a clear reason for being signed up to
receive your emails and has actively clicked on a yes box, you
cannot send if they have not done this.
• Unsubscribe – A person has to be able to leave the list via a link

46. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
In basic terms a company cannot just take a persons data and start
sending marketing or keeping that data as the companies asset, it
always belongs to the person.
You must be clear about
• Why you gather a persons information
• When you will contact them
• What they will receive from you
• How long you will keep it
• If they ask you to remove it or see what information you hold on
them you must explain the process
• If you lose their data you must inform them and the Information
Commissioners Office (ICO)
What you should do
Consider writing a single page with Terms, Conditions and Privacy
policy (this includes GDPR).

47. What next?

48. Questions
We know it is a lot of information to take on board and you are bound
to have questions.
Feel free to ask any questions you may have before we finish the
session for the day.

49. What next?
Support beyond this course
• Free handouts from Cosmic
• Individual one to one mentoring
• Speak to change coach and ask for one to one
• They will book a day and the allotted time slots with us
• This could be any support on website planning or help and
assistance on challenges faced with current websites
• Not all systems can be used as we have expertise on a dedicated
selection of content management systems
• We can assist with more general SEO, content, planning, design
and certain aspects of domain and hosting issues, again
dependent on the supplier or software being used
How is the support delivered?
• 4 sessions of 2 hours each
• One to one
• Face to face
• Follow on 6 hours of email and phone support

50. Thank you!