Web Design, SEO and other Stories

On-site POS interviewing

2014-02-21T07:25:00.002-08:00

As part of our ongoing development program...

Made in Wycombe

2012-03-15T03:08:00.000-07:00

ihd-solutions.com is proud to be involved in "Made in Wycombe". A new promotional marketing concept designed to help promote companies that still manufacture, produce and design products and services in the Wycombe District area. Made in Wycombe is supported by Skills Centre Bucks, Bucks New University and Arts4every1 and is promoting local businesses, suppliers, artists within the area. As part of the launch there will be an exhibition as part of the Wycombe Arts Festival May 4th - 12th 2012.

Made in Wycombe website

Online reporting dashboards, Research Operations Support and Design

2011-12-18T17:23:00.000-08:00

In order to differentiate the website design and the website application design aspects of ihd-solutions a new brand website has been launched at reportingdashboards.co.uk

The new site outlines the data and analysis aspect of the work we do with example dynamic reports and access to the ihd-solutions.com customer document portal.

We hope that if you are looking for research support, CATI scriptwriting, a document portal or some online reporting you will take a look around and see just how much we can do for you.

DG Virtual Assistant

2011-06-21T06:01:00.000-07:00

Deborah, the founder of DG Virtual Assistant was looking for a new look and brand to market her Virtual Assistant company through. As a professional personal assistant, it was key to the brief that she marketed herself clearly and to show just how professional her services were. Virtual Assistants are springing up all over the place with various levels of experience and expertise. After a solid blue chip career, it was imperative that the new branding reflected her skills and put her ahead of the other assistants with regards to what she does and how well she does it.

The design was simply put together in a limited palete (avoiding the dreaded purple!) utilising fonts, shapes and a thin border to define the website. The consistency of the red and grey allows the content to stand out against a white background, and not confuse the viewer with unnecessary clutter or vector images that detract from the message that is being put across.

ihd-solutions wishes Deborah the best of luck in her endeavours as an online virtual assistant, and please check out her website or contact her should you need to hire a PA for any of your office/entrepeneurial requirements.

Long time no write!

2011-03-08T13:02:00.000-08:00

I admit it, I am as guilty as charged, it has been 6 months since my last post. The first one of 2011 in March is a good representation of how busy we have been, but not good caretaking.

As a web designer I am always telling my clients to constantly update their news items, even with small items just to keep the content ticking over. But time goes by too fast and before you know it the last time you wrote was six months ago...

ihd has been extremely busy since the last article - software and database support that involved rewriting an entire reporting suite for a major car manufacturer (blast those NDAs!) and still finding time to design and promote a few websites. I will present each client with the respect they deserve over the next few weeks and not try to fit everything in one post so in no particular order here is the first of many to come...

Service Monitor Group
The Service Monitor group is a mystery customer/mystery shopping/market research company based in Berkhamsted. They are great busy company and as with many great busy companies had not found the time to update their image and website to match the organisation. this is a common problem for a lot of companies - work is good, everyone is busy, just get on with it and then one day someone looks at the website and thinks "wow that is so dated!".

ihd was engaged to look at the overall logo/design for the company and to present them with a brand that matched their dynamic working style. Nothing too crazy, but colourful and engaging enough that it could reflect the company across all media.

After a briefing and a few colour debates, we decided on a five colour bar to visually represent the company. The colour theory was actually the three primary colours and then two secondaries (not our theory we have to admit it was the thought process of their marketing director!). To give this simple design some life it was put into a javascript accordian, each colour representing a different part of the company. This has to be one of my favourite front pages we have built. Front pages are not something I usually recommend as they tend to be difficult to optimise and lose some of the website's potential ranking. However as the main traffic was to be driven by business cards and active face to face marketing this was a secondary concern when compared to the visual imagery.

Please visit this site as it is definitely one of my favourites. It is bright, cheery and the colour "lozenges" definitely lift the site throughout.

As a side note, the actual logo (the wording styled at the top) was actually just a design draft that we put in to fill the space before the "proper" logo was put together. The MD liked it so much off of the draft he had already started using it on other marketing materials before the website spec had been agreed (and before we had started designing a logo!). Shows that sometimes simple is best.

So please visit the site and let me know what you think. I will be writing an update for some of our other great clients and their sites very soon

Perfect Wedding Photographer

2010-10-18T05:01:00.000-07:00

ihd was approached to provide a "new" website and branding for Gareth Hendley, a wedding photographer based in Buckinghamshire.

With an open brief with regards to the look and feel of the site, ihd provided a simple and clear design, promoting the quality and feel of the wedding photography.

Often when designing a site, one of the biggest challenges is to work without a clear client provision of photographs and images, with a professional photographer that is obviously not the case - in fact the reverse is true - "which photos to use?" and "where to put them?". It is very easy to overkill a site with imagery, to build a site that looks fantastic, but ultimately fails in its primary goal to impress visitors and convince them to contact your client. Graphic design or websites always has to stike a balance between a good looking site, and one that provides a usable and welcoming experience for visitors.

By the subtle use of imagery, we have delivered a site that utilises the amazing library of photographs available, but also does not detract from the text used. The navigation is very simple, and the pages provide enough information for visitors, the overall experience hopefully meshes together to form a comprehensive "brochure" site for the business, and a suitable platform to deliver wedding albums to clients, and their guests.

As the site was required to show the photographs off to their best, and to deliver an easily updatable gallery to view, purchase and download pictures, a piece of software was sourced and embedded within the site. After a large review of the market, jAlbum with a Fotoplayer skin was used. This software offered the best value for money, and the most appropriate functionality for the site.

We hope that Gareth enjoys the site, and that his business starts rolling in. With a few tweaks for optimisation still to come, we are confident that with his obvious skills, he will be the wedding photographer for a lot more people this year!

Quiffs and Tiaras

2010-10-08T02:41:00.000-07:00

Quiffs and Tiaras is a new boutique hair salon based in High Wycombe. Their custom built salon is a 1950's styled space above Woody's Tattoo Studio on the High Street.

When QTs approached ihd-solutions with their branding project, they wanted all of their media to follow this retro theme.

Starting with logos and business cards, we took a 1950s pantone palette and went to work.

Using retro styling presents a whole different set of challenges when compared to usual design. The colours are "dull" by today's standards and the options for making logos "pop" are limited to flat layered images.

By using simple symbols, styled fonts and retros shapes, we put together a theme that could translate to the business cards, fliers, shops signage etc.

Once the business cards and logos were agreed, we then went to work on the rest of the marketing materials. Through the website and flyers we decided to continue the theme, but to raise the colour palette to modern colours. Taking the blues and pinks from the business cards, we extrapolated them out to their modern day "electric" equivalents, building a site that while still retaining the 1950s styling, represented a modern business.

Now the salon is up and running the focus is on bringing customers to such a unique salon. Flyers and marketing materials are created to entice different demographics into the shop and so far (this is written in their first week) it seems to be working.

By creating such a unique brand, the opportunity to differetiate is unlimited. Good luck to the girls and we are proud to be involved in such a great business idea!

Come2SeeMe.com ReBranding and Search Engine Optimisation

2010-08-18T15:35:00.000-07:00

After a year of sitting on the internet, chugging along with its content, the owners of the Adult UK dating site Come2SeeMe.com decided it was time for a rebrand. The original site had been set up on a limited budget, and as such was very basic, without much consideration for the overall image portrayed to its visitors.

With a new budget (generated by traffic to the site) ihd-solutions was commissioned to rebrand the site to improve traffic and conversion rates. The new design was required to be inclusive, informative and above all attractive to visitors in a way that would improve the conversion rates to potential members.

While staying "sexy" the new imaging brought a 70s feel to the site. Not overly sexual but retaining a level of cheekiness the new site immediately portrays a strong brand and an impressive level of design and conversion "funnelling". The pages were limited in their up front text, and the links to pages pushed to the front of the design.

Full optimisation was also applied to the site, so far three pages have been formatted in this way, within two weeks bringing the site a 100% increase in daily search engine visitors (now 50 per day) and increasing the conversion rate by over 100% over the same period.

To talk to ihd-solutions about how we can improve your sites funnelling and conversions through bespoke webdesign and SEO whatever they may be, please talk to us today.

North London Dog Walker

2010-07-16T04:00:00.000-07:00

After inheriting what can only be described as one of the most SEO hidden sites I have ever seen (even the home page was invisible to google), I have created a new site for northlondondogwalker.co.uk a dog walking company based in Muswell Hill, London.

After a quick rebrand (minimising the clip art and focusing on the marketing aspect of the site), the site was optimised and added to the search engines.

One week later, Google and Ask have picked up the site and given it top ten rankings for nearly all the terms we wanted! Result!

I will leave it for a couple of weeks to let it bed in, then hit the optimisation again, hopefully we should start seeing some conversions quickly and the site will be a nice cash generator for the business.

SEO comparison test pt2

2010-03-04T15:55:00.001-08:00

Ok, so an update as promised. Following on from the non appearance of decordivainteriors.com site for Decor Diva Interiors, the new luxury uk interior designer, www.decordivainteriors.co.uk is flying! All the work put into optimising the original site to no avail has now paid off, instant top ten rankings on the localised searches, now time to start working on the more generic ones and get the traffic flowing!

Will post the ranking reports as it progresses and beds in properly, but the .co.uk domain was definitely the thing to get the rankings going. At least it was an easy fix even if I feel a bit stupid for not realising it earlier! Oh well, a lesson learnt, won't make that mistake again!

Best wishes and good luck with your websites

Iain
High Wycombe Web design

ihd-solutions.com - How to Choose a web designer

2010-02-11T08:25:00.000-08:00

ihd-solutions.com - Research Support - Web Design - Application Support and Training - Home

How to choose a web designer - A few pointers when choosing a provider (download as pdf)

Looking for a new website designer can be a confusing process. Almost every company will tell you they are the best, and they will give you all the traffic in the world straight through to your site. It sounds too good to be true, and in all honesty it probably is.

Website design is a type of computer programming. That aspect of the process has been eroded over the past few years by the influx of art design companies into the business. Flash graphics, corporate branding and making a site “represent” your business have many a time diluted the reasons that your website exists. When choosing a web design company it is important to consider just what you expect from your website, rather than how it looks. You can have the greatest looking website in the world, but if the only people who see it are those that visit it through links you have provided, are you really getting your money’s worth? The following considerations should be made when choosing your web design company to make sure you are actually getting what you pay for, and not a site to satiate the designers’ vanity. Equally, if your site gets a lot of visitors, but when they arrive they find a site that is confusing to use, slow, or not to a standard representative of your business, what exactly does that say about you?

Usability
A strong corporate site can provide your business with important leads, brand awareness and a validation of the quality of service or product you provide. Visitors to your site should understand immediately what you do, how well you do it, and if you are offering products – how to find them, and how much they cost. It has been proven time and time again that visitors (in the majority of cases) will not read the content of your site in any detail, they will scan, find (or not find depending on the quality of your site) and click through the link they want. This entire process takes seconds, if they cannot find the link they want, they will simply hit the back button and go to the next entry on the search page. Not exactly the glossy image of quality and in-depth concentration some web designers would have you believe. When considering a web design company it is important that their planning incorporates these processes, and provide your visitors with the links they need - clearly and obviously placed within your site.

Optimisation/Optimization
Website and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the clear trend in sites and web companies over the past few years, but what exactly is it? and how is it achieved?

By “organically” promoting your site in the search engine rankings, you will achieve more visitors to your site. Much is made of this by designers, offering various “grey-smoke” solutions that are all unique secrets that they alone have learnt over the past few years. In reality, this is where the “programming” aspect of web-design becomes more important. Bearing in mind that search engines such as Google or Yahoo depend on automated processes (robots) to list and rank your site, a complete and proper specification design based around your company is needed before your site is written, aiming the content around the visitors you want. By planning your site properly, you will achieve an honest ranking based on the content you provide to the robots. This firm basis for your site will give you a natural starting place from which you can build your traffic through relevant press releases, marketing and content updates. Without a carefully worded starting point, you are always fighting against the tide. Post web design optimisation can be expensive and fruitless - if some of that money is well spent before you start, the hard work is already done.

Ad-Words
Ad words from any of the search engines can be a useful tool to drive traffic to your site. However if a web company offers this as a primary marketing tool, walk away unless you understand what you are actually paying for. It is important to remember that if you are working on a budget you can do this yourself, there is no reason to hire someone if you don’t need their time. A lot of companies will offer to manage these services as part of their package, but ask yourself, is this a quick fix for your site while the organic listings grow? or are they simply bandaging the lack of natural search engine compatibility in their design with your money?

Adwords guarantee a position within the search engines “premium” listings if a specified word or phrase is typed in. How prominent your listing is within these searches depends on the amount of money you are willing to pay “per-click” (PPC). Catch-all and generic terms such as “market research”, “financial advisor” or “florist” will cost the most, more specific searches such as “florist in High Wycombe” will cost you considerably less, so it is important to understand your customers before you begin. If you are a local, national or international company then work out how you would honestly search for your business online. You don’t want to be paying for students, researchers or the casual surfer to visit your site unless they are your target audience. Look on the search sites to judge the costs before you start and try to be as specific as you can. Remember that all clicks cost you money, so you only want to pay for those with the potential to make you money. If you are a local company offering local services then be realistic about who you want to visit and target those users. Being listed as number one in the search engines for your town will bring less general visitors, but guarantee that those that do come have a need for your business. More visitors may improve your designers’ claims for optimisation, but ask yourself, will they bring more money to my business? And will that pay for the work being done?

Summary
In all, your website can be a key part of your business marketing plan, but only if done correctly from the outset. It is important that you trust the company from the beginning, and check their history before you hand over any money. Anyone can call themselves a designer, and with a few hundred pounds worth of software, build you a site that looks impressive, but does it really do what you want it to?

ihd-solutions.com are committed to our clients' needs, providing properly planned sites honestly, based on the requirements of your business. Please contact us here to see how we can help.

SEO comparison test

2010-02-09T05:59:00.000-08:00

I created a site about six months ago for a client www.decordivainteriors.com and it is not appearing in Google's organic rankings. I have followed all my usual procedures, submission, social media, keywords etc. even written to Google and asked them if there was an issue - they assured me there was not.

I have come to the conclusion after eliminating all other options that it must be the hosting company, and their location in Scandanavia.

I don't know for a fact if this has a serious impact on the rankings in search engines, but if it does, then this is a big blow to budget hosting. I don't usually host anything for my clients, I recommend companies to them, they go off and buy the domain and usually take the hosting as part of that domain posting for free or at most a nominal fee. In the past that arrangement has worked very well. I go back and do maintenance or updates, but the actual "virtual" location of the website, email and anything else their site contains stays between the client and the hosting company.

As a test I have now put this particular client's site on my UK based host with a uk domain www.decordivainteriors.co.uk. I really don't know if it will make a difference or not to the listings, but if it does I am going to have to go back to a lot of my old clients with the news and tell them "sorry, we need to move your site!"

If this new site now starts to appear, there is definitely and issue with the location and settings of a hosting company's servers. There shouldn't be, but that as far as I can tell is the only thing wrong with it. I hope for my client's sake that this is the problem, but then if it is, this just opens up a whole additional set of issues in the future and the value providers of hosting will definitely move down my list of recommendations!

I will keep the blog updated, and if the website starts to appear let you know

Thanks

Iain
www.ihd-solutions.com

High Flyers Network - 2010 Happy at last!

2010-02-01T05:02:00.000-08:00

Good Afternoon,

How many times do we get to work on a project we truely believe in?

I have just finished a great one - HighFlyersNetwork.com. Normally by this point in the development process I am sick of the sight of any site, the graphics look wrong, some words look weird in the fonts I chose, there is a colour that I think drains an entire page away from the design. But for once I can look at a site and I love it!

I am not sure if it was just getting away from the daily brochure sites, the competition against wordpress providers, or just the enthusiasm of the client for my ideas, but for some reason it worked. Fonts, layout, database, all of it seemed to fit together.

I have decided this year to take everything positively, 2010 will be a positive, prosperous and enjoyable year! Maybe that has brought the project higher in my acceptance of a successful site, but then again, it could just be that I enjoy what I do, and to get a project that gave me the freedom to do that brought the level of quality that I actually wanted for a change.

Clients can be strange, they come to a "consultant" to ask opinions, but for some reason with websites they feel that they know better than the person they are paying. I feel that can be the most frustrating part of development - present your designs, explain the theories, and then spend the next week arguing why they shouldn't revert to the awful clip art logo they bought for £50 and printed on their £25 business cards! It is normally always cheaper to rebrand your business than to lose business from being corny. So from now on, I will focus on clients and projects I believe in

So anyway, HighFlyersNetwork is up and running, a video subscription site focussing on the property and investment market. Take a look if you get time and send any comments through the site or through the blog

Thanks for reading

Iain
www.ihd-solutions.com

First time for everything

2010-01-19T08:24:00.000-08:00

Well I guess the first post always introduces the writer. I have avoided social media for as long as possible and at this point there is no way to avoid it, so here I am.

I am a web designer/consultant based in High Wycombe Buckinghamshire. My old website needs updating, everything looks dated so as part of the revamp the blog comes too.

I hope to use this blog as a way to introduce the techniques I use in webdesign, SEO, graphic design and business consultancy. If you have found this, I hope that the content is appropriate to you, if not, I hope there are at least morsels of interest, or answers to a particular question you have

So in short, hello and welcome, all comments are welcome

Iain
www.ihd-solutions.com