Member Blog

Website speed and responsiveness are factors which are increasingly important for all websites across the world. There are many reasons why it is important to have a site that functions and responds properly and according to users’ needs and requirements. Whether your website sells clothes, payroll software or simply a service such as consultancy, engaging users and search engine ‘spiders,’ which crawl [read and analyse] all websites is fundamental to your online and sometimes even offline success.

There are various factors to consider with regards to the speed of your website and understanding this could be the difference between your business ‘breaking even’ and potentially thriving and becoming an unrivalled success.

Speeding Things Up

How you address site speed issues will very much depend on which content management system (CMS) your website uses, who, how and where your website is hosted and whether or not you have the knowledge and knowhow to implement the various actions needed to speed things up.

Content Management System (CMS) – Different CMS’ allow for different permissions for everyday users when it comes to sitespeed. For example, WordPress allows you to do more than Wix or SquareSpace, but with the right development input, Drupal can thrive too. Consider speaking to a website developer before choosing your CMS

Hosting – Your website needs to ‘live’ somewhere and where it lives will be a strong factor for how it performs. Many websites find themselves hosted on huge and commercial platforms which work well for very small sites such as personal blogs but which are not suitable for businesses’ needs and websites. Consider researching dedicated server space which could help propel your website’s speed to new heights. Not having to share server space with other websites will mean that your site can make use of all of the server space it needs for things like images, videos and content.

Page Loading and Rendering – As well as where the site loads from (in the case of hosting), how and the precise nature of how individual pages on your site load is an equally important factor. Many websites retain render blocking on their sites which often slow things down. Render blocking is only really needed for sites that do not have much server space. this blocking of page rendering means that pages will loan slower and in layers to allow for the server to respond in cases of slower hosting. However, removing this script [code] makes for a much faster page loading experience

Error Pages – All websites will, at one time or another play host to 404 response pages. These are pages which are effectively dead ends; links point to their URL, but there is no page existing with the URL label in question. Easily fixed using 301 redirects and implemented via your website’s htacess file, consider redirecting the broken links [URLs] to their closest equivalent page. By pages not being flagged as ‘broken,’ users will enjoy a much better experience on your site and will be able to naturally follow a user journey, rather than reaching unfortunate ‘dead ends’

Pensions are the main way most people will pay for themselves once they’ve retired from the working world. You save for decades to build up a nice pot of money to keep you going. 

Now, imagine the money you accumulated during all those years of saving disappears. How will you support yourself as a retiree? 

Pension scams are on the rise in the UK. Fraudsters are scamming victims out of tens of thousands of pounds of their hard-earned savings. 

How to know if you are being scammed

Scammers are now creating convincing websites and an online presence which means it might not be immediately obvious that they are up to no good. There are, however, a number of signs that you can look out for to keep you safe from the scammers. 

Here are 5 questions to ask yourself if you are suspicious:

1 – Is the company regulated by the FCA? 

The easiest way to tell if you are in contact with a genuine financial company or a scammer is to check whether the caller is registered with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). These companies are regulated so are able to offer sound, professional financial advice. You can find a list of all registered companies on the FCA website. This should always be the first place you check. 

Most pensions companies will not directly contact you about your pension without your permission. The best thing to do if you get a cold call about your pension is hang up. If you get emailed or texted, ignore the messages. 

The government is currently working on a scheme that will ban pension cold calls. So soon it should be easier to spot when someone is attempting to scam you.

2 – Are you under the age of 55? 

Be wary of people encouraging you to release cash from your pension before the age of 55. This can be called ‘pension liberation’ or a ‘pension loan’. 

Should you take money from your pension pot before the age of 55 you could face a large tax bill of 55%, plus other charges, on what you withdraw. This is definitely not in your best interests!

3 – Do you feel pressured or is it a limited time only offer?

A reputable pension adviser will never pressure you into making a big decision there and then. So, if you are feeling under pressure to commit to an offer you should just walk away. 

4 – Does it sound too good to be true? 

If the answer is yes, then it usually is! Be suspicious of anyone who is offering high/guaranteed investment returns or ways of avoiding paying tax.  

Once you have transferred your money across to the scammer it is unlikely that you will get it back. If you use a firm who is not FCA registered you will not have access to the Financial Ombudsman Service or Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FCSC).

If you think you have a scammer on your hands, check the FCA’s Scamsmart website where you’ll find information on any known scams and firms on their warning list. Always report a scam if you come across one. Help others avoid becoming a victim. 

It is always recommended to get independent advice when you are considering doing anything with your pension. Get that advice from a reputable, FCA authorised company and you will be in safe hands. 

Until quite recently, starting a business of almost any nature meant having to account for and arrange high-cost expenses and overheads which without, the business would simply not be able to take off in the first place. This was likely to include business premises, stationary, computers and office equipment and much more. More recently, the business owner may have had to remortgage a property or consider a second mortgage to fund these costs.

However, nowadays, it is entirely possible and feasible to start up a business purely online; massively reducing the overheads and start-up costs incurred from the outset. It is important though that the most important aspects of the business are accounted for and taken care of first as there are various considerations to be made when starting a business up purely online.

The Nature of the Business

The first thing you should consider is whether or not your business will be able to survive being totally based online. Some businesses, for example many retailers, need business premises in order to store their stock before purchase and delivery. Hence, whilst a business that sells goods online without retail premises will not need a ‘shop,’ it will need storage facilities to store the goods.

Therefore, the business owner will need to account for the renting or leasing of those premises that are needed. There will however, be savings made compared to a ‘traditional’ retail business as the running costs of a warehouse or other storage facility are likely to be considerably less than those required for retail premises.

Your Website

Being based online, by its very nature requires a website to enter the online world of business. When planning and creating a website there are a number of things to consider to make sure that your website reflects the values of the business and offers something appealing and useful to prospective customers. Therefore, consider the following:

Type of Website – You should consider whether the website going to be used as an e-commerce website, where customers can make purchases online and whether the website will securely accept payments. If this is the case, you will need to invest in a secure card payment provider such as PayPal or otherwise. Alternatively, the site may be used as brochure site that showcases your work and promotes contact by customers. In such cases, you may be able to design and build the website yourself.

Build of the Website – There are many different platforms upon which you may build the website. This includes the likes of Drupal, SquareSpace and WordPress, three of the most popular content management systems (CMS). When picking which CMS to use for your site, you should consider which is better for each type of website. WordPress very often works out as the most cost effective as well as the most customisable and functional.

Marketing your Website Online – You will need to market your website to the online world in order to be discovered and for the website to generate leads, interest and business. There are various different online marketing channels that incur different costs, but all of which are likely to drive traffic and customers to your website. These include:

• Pay-per-Click
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
• Social Media Marketing
• Email Marketing

It is important to note that some businesses, for example those targeting much older demographics, are likely to see only limited success via social media marketing, with older audiences possessing a lesser presence on social media channels than younger audiences.

After a great turn-out for our training session on successful event marketing & exhibiting with Norfolk Chamber, we are delighted to see some of the diversity in local businesses preparing to exhibit at Norfolk B2B!

With just over a month to go until B2B opens its doors once more, it’s the perfect time to make sure your stand, stands out!  From a simple banner or display plinth to bespoke portable systems, we have a huge array of products to suit any size project or budget, with our in-house design team on hand to bring your ideas and your brand to life.

Get in touch today for more information on any of our products or services, plus if you’re disappointed you missed our training session, we can offer informal advice to anyone looking to make the most out of their experience at B2B.

www.image-display.co.uk/exhibition-shop/ 

The company behind ResourceSpace, Montala, has received Royal Warrant of Appointment to Her Majesty the Queen – one of the few software providers to be awarded the honour.  ResourceSpace is the web-based Digital Asset Management (DAM) software of choice for leading commercial, academic and not for profit organisations, offering a convenient, productive and easy to use solution for organising and sharing files. ResourceSpace is available as open source software, meaning that there are no license fees to pay and no vendor lock-ins. A highly sought-after privilege, the Royal Warrant is granted to companies or people who have regularly supplied goods or services to either the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh or the Prince of Wales for no fewer than five consecutive years. Montala is one of only 14 companies to be newly appointed a Royal Warrant by the Queen in 2018. Warrant holders are required to demonstrate that they have an effective environmental and sustainability policy. Dan Huby, Managing Director of Montala and ResourceSpace Project Lead said: “For our work to be recognised in this way is a huge honour and I’m very proud of the team here at Montala in providing consistently first class service to our customers.”

Welcome to our Youth in Tech issue – just in time for the new term! It was no coincidence that our August issue is all about younger developers, but we’ve also included articles about how it is important to never stop learning, even when we might think we know everything!   The world of tech is always evolving, sometimes it feels difficult to keep up with new developments and technologies. It’s important to spend some time investing in ourselves and staff to make sure we keep abreast of this ever-changing sector. We hear from Luminous PR and netmatters about the importance of learning in their articles.   Of course it wouldn’t really be a Youth Issue without the view of an actual young developer, and we knew just the chap. Teenager James kindly gave us his opinion on the best bits of being into technology and where he thinks the future of development will be and student developers Emily and David were also kind enough to give us a developers view of their university project ‘Theia’, which aims to use machine learning to help students.   On the lighter side of things developer Adam sent us an amusing code piece (just try not to spit your tea while reading!) and we were also lucky enough to have an insider view from the recent Apple conference in San Jose, California, so if you’ve ever wondered what actually happens inside Apple, see inside!   Download now: https://www.norfolkdevelopers.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/norDEVmagazine-201808-e05.pdf

Our client, Auerbach & Steele are a leading luxury optical and eyewear store based in London. It was very important that every aspect of their website design and their search engine rankings reflected their luxury brand. 

In order to achieve what we wanted for Auerbach & Steele, we had to make sure we fixed all website errors and provided optimised meta-data and images. In more detail, here is how we helped Auerbach & Steele with their SEO and website.

Meta-data

One of the main focuses when aiming to boost the performance of a website on Google or Bing is to make sure that the meta-date is optimised and written well. We analysed the current meta-data and identified where it was missing. Then, we updated it to make it more SEO friendly with the current Google algorithm in mind.

Meta-data consists of meta-titles and meta-descriptions which should all feature target keywords such as bespoke glasses and boutique glasses, and also alt-text should be present on each image used on the website so that Google can read them. Carefully constructed and well written meta data can quite literally be the difference from ranking on the first couple of pages on google and on the last few or just lost somewhere in the middle. Google will prioritise pages dependant on optimisation, relevance to the search and how well written it is.

Website clean up

Like with all of our clients, we conducted a full clean-up of their website to make sure it was optimised and all errors were removed. A site clean-up involves identifying the errors and broken links and simply redirecting them to a page that works.

Having broken links and crawl errors present can seriously affect the speed and the user experience of the website, since the user may not be able to find where they want to go and give up. Furthermore, Google favours a website which is considered clean and ideally not showing errors to their users.

Adjusting to the new algorithm update

Google will regularly introduce new algorithm updates to continue to clean out the web search results and ensure that the most authoritative and useful sites are ranking. The most recent update was introduced in early August 2018 and the key points including making sure the mobile version of the site is readable and easy to use and ensuring good site speed to aim the user experience.

We have rigorously tested the Auerbach site to ensure that every page works on mobile effectively and have used a range of techniques to ensure that the site speed is effective. Using Google’s Pagespeed Insights Tool, they provide suggestions so you can stay on top of speed including image compression, browser caching, js compression and more.

We are delighted to see Auerbach and Steele ranking in position 1 and 2 for all their main keywords in the Chelsea and Kensington area. We continue to work on more competitive terms such as bespoke glasses, luxury glasses and boutique glasses and expect these to rank on page 1 within 3 to 6 months.

Barista Training, why it’s important…

Here at Green Farm Coffee, we get a lot of people through our doors just starting up a coffee business, be it a cafe, mobile coffee shop or catering.  More and more people are lacking the important barista skills that are essential to success in the market.  You can offer all the trendy new fads, and the latest fair trade, green, eco-friendly and all around good to the planet coffee but if your barista skills are not up to scratch then you’ll be shooting yourself in the foot every time you hand over a barely there latte or overpowering mocha.

We run a full barista program here at Green Farm Coffee, to ensure that everyone understands not only the importance of good barista skills but also where coffee comes from and the roasting process. Through our time of being a base for barista training in Norwich, we have discovered also that even well-established businesses need a refresh and hone in on their skills.

Fully trained and confident baristas ensure the smooth running of the establishment and can transform customers visit from an everyday one to something special.  Every cup of coffee is important, it’s what we stand by. Having your staff take this feeling on board too and really put their soul into coffee. If you have a friendly good barista experience you are more likely to return there for your daily coffee.

You may be completely underutilizing your staffs’ skills, and improving the quality of your drinks will ensure your ingredients work a lot harder too towards success.

 Long queues with well-trained baristas will not phase them, as they will have the confidence behind them to whizz through each drink and still produce the best quality.

Training on the traditional espresso machine staff use daily can easily be done, or we invite you into our HQ where you can also see the roasting process. Adding another level of knowledge to your skills.

Our training includes everything from coffee production, espresso styles, milk texturing, latte art and troubleshooting.

You may have seen our work with The Feed in Norwich, an amazing charity who help vulnerable people gain skills and training in the food industry and help them get back into work, houses and better lifestyles.

We have been working with them to offer trainees days at our head office to learn about coffee, how to be a barista and tonnes of skills they can take away with them for future employment. Our training is always well received, and we have a fantastic time delivering and giving them the resources they need to succeed in their next steps in training.

Skills and training is so important, this could help yourself and your business stand out from the crowd of coffee shops.

Offering perfect and skilled barista coffee each and every time.

Barista Training

Most businesses want repeat custom. OK, for some like funeral services it probably doesn’t really happen, however, generally a business will want to deal with the same customer several times. For this to happen a business needs to have delivered what the customer expected to even stand a chance of a second sale. Let’s assume that has happened – what then? Keeping your brand front of mind with great display campaigns, making sure you are visible in search and being generally active in a market will all help, but sometimes you need to take direct action to keep a customer loyal – especially if the competition is keen. By asking for permission from customers to keep in touch (keep the GDPR rules in mind here, folks) any business can build lists of interested, active and relevant people to re-market themselves to. How many customers do you deal with on a weekly basis? If you can engage just one-third of them and send them super-interesting, exciting and useful content that makes them love your brand, you stand a better chance of getting them to buy again. Repeat customers are valuable – social media, email and direct marketing are just a few ways you can keep in touch. What is crucial here is the content. Don’t just send waffle or sales bumph: people have seen it too often and it doesn’t work. Invest time and effort (and if need be money) in generating really useful, engaging content for your customers. Send useful how-to videos, send stories giving advice and inspiration, send humour and insight, send something quirky and different but don’t just send offers… 10% off the thing I just bought isn’t going to make me like you, let alone buy from you again! We know how to use this kind of customer re-marketing, and we have some very smart people who can create this kind of loyalty-driving content and even help deliver it to your market. If you are interested in finding out how, have a look on our website: the email marketing to turn contacts into customers page is a good place to start.

Two members of staff at Somerleyton Estate – Nina Lynes and Jude Wilson  – are climbing Mount Kilimanjaro this month.

Here’s the story behind the amazing challenge they are undertaking.

While the idea originated on a yet another drunken night out, it was to aid Nina in being able to say she was doing something worthy of a surprised reaction (or, at the very least, a raised eyebrow) when asked the question “What are you doing on your sabbatical”? The idea of climbing Kilimanjaro was then born.

Fully expecting this stupid idea to fade away, as Nina became more determined they should climb, Jude’s mum, Marg, became increasingly sick. Having already shown cancer who was boss for many years, her body was no longer responding to the treatment. In December 2017 Jude’s mum passed away, leaving a massive hole in the world. It then became clear they should climb to raise funds to fight the devastating C word and make Marg proud (though it should be noted that Marg had thought the climb a truly daft idea!).

So they’ve chosen to raise money for The University of Southampton’s Immunology research fund. This ground breaking research is saving lives by using the body’s immune system to eradicate cancer. But revolutionary research needs revolutionary facilities. Both Nina and Jude want to help raise £25m to build a new state of the art centre for Cancer Immunology. THEY want to be part of the cure, and invite YOU to be too.

The trip to climb ‘that damn mountain’ (as they now refer to it) will be self funded, so every penny raised will go straight to the charity.

If you would like to make a donation, however small, please visit their JustGiving page.

The whole team at Tudor Lodge Consultants is proud and excited to announce that we are now working with MoneyBoat, a well-established instalment and direct payday loans provider in the UK. MoneyBoat have been established for a number of years and have steadily been increasing and growing their customer base via various on and offline channels which have included pay-per-click (PPC) and affiliate marketing.

However, our marketing, design, user experience and conversion teams are now working very closely with them, expanding into search engine optimisation (SEO) on Google and online via search engines.

What We Are Doing for MoneyBoat

MoeyBoat’s website was functional but in desperate need of a redesign and a refresh for both the brand as well as for their online marketing and overall digital strategy. With Google having just rolled out one of their most significant updates to their ranking algorithm, it has been particularly important to ensure the website is up to speed and performance.

We have therefore been working with MoneyBoat on their newly launched website which has removed many of the functionality issues of the past and which is much more fit for purpose with regards to SEO and online marketing. As part of the ongoing process with MoneyBoat we have carried out the following work thus far to good effect:

Crawling and Indexing Updates – Important as ever is the ability of Google and other search engines to crawl [rank] websites. This is key as the content and features on a site would be worthless if they weren’t able to be crawled. We have therefore tidied up all broken response codes across the MoneyBoat site and have ensured there are no empty or dead 404 response pages. We have also updated all of their meta data and the necessary URL structures across the site to allow for easy crawling and positive rankings.

Mobile and Speed Updates – One of the most recent Google algorithm updates has pertained to website speed and mobile device performance. We have therefore worked very closely with MoneyBoat to optimise their website’s speed and to ensure that performance on mobile is not hindered by any desktop features or otherwise. We have also worked to ensure that all content and all features on the site can be properly ranked in respect of mobile as well as desktop Google rankings by updating the source code where necessary.

Website Content – As with many websites, MoneyBoat have need a big update and improvement in their on-site content that is presented to users. We have therefore built a comprehensive content strategy for the website and have already started working on this to good effect. We have formulated and written a number of fully optimised pages of content to be crawled and ranked by Google online.

What We Have Achieved

Although still in the very early stages of this project, we have already seen some increases in organic, SEO rankings for the MoneyBoat site as a direct result of the works we have been and continue to carry out. Furthermore, the site now performs much faster than before, a huge positive for users and also performs well on mobile and tablet devices, which is increasingly important in today’s time-shy online loans market. We are looking forward to the coming months and working with the MoneyBoat team.

We explore some of the key current stats in the exhibitions industry & share why you should be considering event marketing for you & your business. From growing exhibition space, to numerous venues spreading across the globe & ongoing investment, event marketing remains one of the most powerful & growing tools a company can use to promote their brand, advertise, share new products and services, network and more.

Enjoyed the video? Then let us know & stay tuned for more exclusive content, advice, tips, tricks and more on the way! 

If you and your business are ready to harness the awesome power of exhibitions, why not check out our special offers, previous projects & let us know how we can help you achieve success in your events.