Working together with Fortunesoft, Toshiba have created an essential guide to digital marketing for the modern day business.

1. Strategic Digital Marketing
Adapting to the digital marketplace

2. What makes a good website?
Ask 100 people what their favourite website is and you’ll
probably get 100 different answers. Its quite subjective and
everyone has their own priorities which they judge their web
experiences against.
However, when you look at the answers that do get given to
the ‘favourite website’ question there is a definite pattern.
The large majority of sites that people cite are functional and
allow their users to perform one or more useful tasks simply
and easily. So sites such as Google, Rightmove, Autotrader
and the BBC iPlayer often feature in responses.
When you reverse the question and ask what sites people
don’t like the answers almost always revolve around two
categories. Either the site referenced didn’t work, “I spent two
hours filling in the form and then it lost all my data!”, or the
site was just plain ugly.
This document will guide you through the best
practices required to create a company website
that meets the needs of your customers and
can be easily managed by your own staff with
minimal effort.

3. Good design
The most important job of any website is to represent the
organisation, product or company behind it. You can’t hide
from the fact that, these days, any potential employee,
supplier, investor or customer will immediately check out your
web presence. In many cases it will be the first interaction
that a user has with your brand, so it needs to impress visually
before a user even tries to click any links.
Usability & Accessibility
Any site should be simple and intuitive to use. Avoid obscure
navigation designs or an over reliance on animation,
particularly if its reliant on a plugin (such as Flash).
Since something like 50% of all your web visitors will be
visiting using a smartphone or tablet its also vital that this
audience is well catered for with a fully ‘responsive’ layout.
The law demands that you should take all reasonable steps to
make your website accessible to all, regardless of disability.
There are many well documented steps that you can take to
achieve this and any decent web development agency should
have no problem implementing them.
You should also instruct your web developers to comply with the
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) guidelines. This will ensure
that any code they write is valid, is search engine friendly and
works on the widest range of devices.
For all of these reasons its worth having your site
professionally designed by digital design experts
who understand both your brand identity and
how web interfaces should work. Many agencies
are good at one or other of these, ensure the one
you choose is good at both.

4. Content
Think about who your web visitors are and focus on creating
the content for your website that they want. In most cases,
when we talk about web content we mean words, images and
occasionally videos. Remember though, the best websites
give their visitors useful tools so try to think of ways you can
add value to your content with downloads, calculators, guides,
database searches and similar resources. However, even
without these tools you can take a few simple steps to
improve your content.
Words
Web visitors don’t like reading as a rule. So when you have
something to say try to say it succinctly and keep to the
point. There is a place for longer articles (particularly for SEO
purposes) but users will usually prefer to see a summary
paragraph and make their own decision whether they wish to
read further.
Whilst you don’t want to say too much its important that what
you do say is well crafted. The tone of voice you adopt is as
important as any visual aspect of your brand identity. Its also
important that what you say ties in with any wider SEO (search
engine optimisation) strategy and features the keywords or
phrases you have identified as being key to your visibility.
Images
Imagery is vital. Nobody wants to be confronted with a wall of
type and images help break up the content as well as conveying
(often subtle) messages about your brand identity, ethos,
products or service offering.
The images you use should be high quality and sufficient
resolution. Its fine to use royalty free and stock imagery but try
to find images that are more unique and not likely to feature on
a direct competitor’s site.
Original images that are unique to you and that you own the
rights to are by far the best option. Its true that a professional
photo shoot can be expensive but its possible to commission
a photographer on a day rate to do a large number of digital
shots that are ideal for web usage.
Do not use an image unless you are 100% sure you have the
right to do so. Some rights managed images cost hundreds
or even thousands of pounds to use and image libraries have
sophisticated software to hunt down sites that infringe
their copyright.

5. Videos
Web users tend to love videos. They convey complex
messages in an easily digested format that is far more likely
to get viewed than a long winded text article. They also
feature prominently in search engine results pages.
Videos don’t need to be complicated. A video of someone
simply talking to camera can be really effective. If you have
access to a decent agency that can create engaging videos
and animations so much the better but as long as its stable
and well lit it can prove to be valuable content.
Your content should always be up to date and
relevant. Many sites leave outdated news
articles or features online and rarely add new
content. This creates a negative impression for
site visitors and Google hates static sites that
are rarely updated and will penalise you in the
search listings.

6. Search engine optimisation (SEO)
For many websites (although not all) being high up the listings
in Google is a vital measure of success. There are some
technical things that will make a difference to your ranking (well
formatted code, meta data, sitemap, mobile responsiveness
etc.) but these days Google is sophisticated enough to
compensate for most of these.
What really works is to have the most relevant
content for any specific search term. By and
large if you are the most relevant result you will
rank highly regardless of technical factors.
So the trick is to make your site more relevant. To do this
you need to understand the search terms that people use to
find products or services like yours. You then need to ensure
that those keywords and phrases feature in your page titles,
headings and text. It can be tricky to do this and still have text
that remains engaging and reads well for ordinary site visitors
but there are specialist copywriters and SEO services that will
help. However, avoid any SEO agency that tells you they can
improve your rankings simply by adding to or modifying your
code as the measures they are taking are probably out of date
and of little use.
Blogging
As we said earlier, Google hates sites that are out of date and
not regularly updated. Since much of what you want to say
about your company (its history, products, ethos, contact details
etc.) may not change that often this can prove challenging.
The easiest way round this is to create a blog where you can
supplement the static content on your site with regular articles
that you write. Typically these should be industry comment,
insights, tutorials, guides and how to’s that will be of value to
your visitors. Google will be impressed that you have lots of up
to date, relevant and helpful information on your website and
your rankings will improve.
Social media
You can further supplement your blogging by embracing social
media sites such as Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin. These sites
offer you the chance to reach a far greater audience than you
could ever achieve without them. Building up an audience of
followers won’t happen overnight but if you persistently offer
useful commentary or information on your website and then
shout about this on social media you may be surprised how
many people want to connect with you. As more and more
people link back to your blog posts Google will further reward
you in it’s rankings.

8. Other things to consider
Domain registration
You’ll need to own an existing domain (ie. www.
yourcompanyname.com) or register a new one. There are
several well known companies that offer domain registration
websites and a multitude of domain types. If you are at all
unsure get either a .co.uk or .com domain.
Website hosting
Unless you have a skilled in-house IT team you will need to
purchase some space on an Internet Service Provider’s servers.
This is where the actual files and images that make up your
website live. When someone types your website address into
their browser special servers (called DNS servers) point the
user to your hosting provider’s server.
Website hosting can be very cheap (often under £10 per month)
but you don’t get much for your money at that end of the
spectrum. Your site files and databases won’t be backed up,
you’ll be sharing your server with up to 200 other sites and
you’ll likely only get telephone support. Therefore these very
cheap hosting deals are only really appropriate for sites with
low traffic and minimal content.
Most companies won’t want the hassle of running their own
web server and will prefer to get a specialist digital agency to
host their site who can react when any server maintenance is
required. The site will still share a server with other sites but
these will likely be other clients of the same agency who are far
more trustworthy and there will be far fewer of them.
If you do have a site with high levels of anticipated traffic its
worth investing in a dedicated server package where only your
site resides on a particular server.
Content management
The simplest and cheapest websites will not have any content
management tools. If you want to change, add or delete
anything you will have to either learn how to do this yourself or
get an external digital agency to help you.
For a few customers who don’t make many updates this is the
best option. However, if you want to control your content in
house or write a blog and not rely on an external agency you
will need a content management solution (CMS).
There are common open source CMS systems (such as
Wordpress, Joomla or Drupal) that are free to download.
However, this does not mean they have no costs associated.
Even a free CMS will need setting up, styling, configuring and
maintaining. Usually you will need a specialist digital agency

9. to help you get started but once you are up and running you
should be able to perform most website editing tasks in
house with your own staff.
Many digital agencies offer their own CMS systems that they
have written themselves but these should be approached with
caution. They are rarely as well developed or bug checked as
the previously mentioned solutions and tie you to that agency.
Much better to choose a widely known solution that can be
taken over by any skilled web developer.
A little time
Keeping your website up to date and creating new content
will undoubtedly need a little of your time. Try to set aside
a little time each week to plan your online marketing - it
becomes easier when its part of your routine.
If you don’t have much time help is available. If you are not
confident enough to write your own content there are SEO
focused copywriters who will write articles for you at very
resonable rates. Digital marketing agencies can also create
and monitor social media posts on your behalf. All you need
to do is set a few minutes aside regularly to decide what you
want them to say.

10. Summary
Many companies retain poor websites that are several years old
in the mistaken belief that because they don’t secure business
directly through their website its not a high priority. These
companies rarely consider how much business they lose when
people see their poor web presence or how much additional
business they could secure with a well designed site and decent
search rankings. Having a good online presence is akin to
having a good shop front so you have to ask yourself - do you
want to be Selfridges or Poundland?
For those not familiar with the terminology and
technology, creating a website can seem like a
daunting exercise. By partnering with a quality
digital specialist you can focus on the message
while they deal with the jargon.
Whether you decide to get outside help or go it alone make
sure you get the most from your site with these simple rules.
Stay on top of it - going live should be the start of your journey
and not the end. Over a short period of time you’ll start to see
the benefits.
Great design - make sure you have a well
designed site that is in harmony with your
wider brand identity.
Mobile friendly - you cannot afford to
ignore this audience. Make sure your site
is fully responsive.
Great content - invest time and energy
into creating good content that is useful
to your visitors.
Embrace social media - drive visitors to
your site.

11. Expert web solutions
We’ve put together a range of digital marketing solutions
specifically tailored to help you create and nuture an industry
leading online presence.
All these solutions include unlimited access to free, expert
consultation from digital marketing specialists who work hand in
hand with you, creating a trusted resource.
To find out more talk to Lee or Darren for a detailed discussion.
Tel: +44 (0)1403 793808
lee.rendell@fortunesoftuk.com
darren.richmond@fortunesoftuk.com

12. The Courtyard, 30 Worthing Road, Horsham, West Sussex RH12 1SL
www.fortunesoftuk.com
Tel: 01403 793808