As a writer with oodles of interesting ideas and creative flair you might be tempted to explore your artistic side every now and then and create custom visual content that will compliment your copy. So, if you're in the mood for some light experimentation, what tools are available to you, and how easy are they to pick up and give a go?
Here's a short guide to the best free assets for your visual content toolkit.
If you have ever trawled through a stock photography website in search of images to represent your business, you will already appreciate that it can be a bit of a minefield. On the one hand, stock image sites give you easy access to professional photography (or illustration) and save you valuable time and resources.
The flip side is, frankly, there is such an excess of naff material out there. It can take some effort to source images that truly reflect your brand.
Are your website designs sensitive enough to modern SEO tactics?
Incorporating SEO best practices into your website from the ground up will help you to increase the quality and volume of website traffic, and deliver a more pleasing user experience for your site visitors.
Follow these tips to build a business website that both bots and people will love.
Image optimisation can heavily influence the way search engines calculate your site rank, and, consequently, control how easy it is for searchers to find your site. Behind-the-scene elements such as page load time and keyword usage come to play here. If you want to be the number one search result for your product or service on Google or other SERPs, you really have to get a reign on your images.
In this post, we take a look at the benefits of a website image audit, and identify a handful of best practices.
'Call-to-action’ (CTA) describes a website element that is designed to promote an offer and guide visitors toward it. Typically, they come in the shape of a button, image or textual hyperlink. CTAs are a powerful marketing tool that help to increase awareness and invite meaningful engagement from potential - or existing - customers. They can be thought of as a directional cue that shows interested parties where to head next.
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Call-to-actions (CTAS) are the smallest nuggets of copy on your web page, with arguably, the biggest job.
We could be talking as little as two words. However, two words that are the difference between a visitor converting to a lead or bouncing off the page. It's for that reason they demand so much time, effort and research to develop.
There's a common misconception that writing microcopy is 'easy' because it's so short. However, having fewer words and space means there's even less room for error. Conversions can hang on as little as one word or colour; get it wrong, and you risk losing leads.
If you’ve been involved in a website redesign before, you may not have fully enjoyed the process. Did it take longer to launch than anticipated? Was it over budget? Maybe there was a significant up-front cost?
These are common pain points.
But what if you could take away the pain of traditional web builds?
What if there was a faster, more agile process that would produce better results and ROI?
Well, good news - there is. If you haven’t heard of it before, it’s called Growth-Driven Design.
If you’re using an inbound methodology you may have all the right strategies in place to get your buyer personas to your website. You might be using the right keywords, blogging regularly, and promoting your content on social media.
But how good a job is your homepage doing to convince your prospects that they’ve come to the right place?
UX or User Experience is a crucial factor in the success or failure of your marketing efforts. But what is it? Why is it important? Why can you not afford to ignore it? Let’s start with an analogy, or two.
Suppose you were walking down the high street and you came across a shop selling something you were interested in, but for some strange reason they had a four-foot wall across their doorway.
A few doors along is another shop with what you need in it with an open doorway. Which do you choose?
Or imagine you wanted to buy a coffee, but you had to fill in a long form before you could get served? Would you stay, or would you more than likely go somewhere else?
