The project involved revamping the existing websites, giving them a modern, stylish and connected look. All four websites use content management systems ensuring content is fresh and up to date.

Amanda Williamson is a mobile hairdresser that specialises in bridal hair design. She came to Sleeky looking to not only create an online presence but also to create a brand that captured the elegance of the hairstyles she creates. After much discussion over what would be best for her site, she opted for a 10 page information site, with 2 galleries and a built in booking form for her bridal hair service. We created the branding and the site to match creating a site that is easy to navigate and elegant in it’s simplicity.

This is why “Web Safe Fonts” are most commonly used, and while they can be a little boring because most sites use the same ones, there is a reason for them. This is because they are found on pretty much every computer be it Windows, Mac or Linux, which means that when a site is viewed the user is guaranteed to see the site how you meant for it to be seen because they will have the right font.

Why not just use images for the text, that way any font could be used?
While images are fine to use for small amounts of text, like for headings and sub headings, it is not a good idea to do this for a lot of it. Here are just a few of the problems you might encounter if you did use images for all your text:

1. Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing will see all this text simply as an image which will mean that indexing a site that uses just images will be hard as the search engine cannot pick up on keywords and place your site ranking in a high position is unlikely.
2. Some visitors could have images switched off when viewing sites, which means all they will get is a blank page.
3. Some visitors will use screen readers and rely on the text being spoken to them, which can’t happen if it is all an image.

So while your site might not have the fonts that you want to use on it, you will get the most out of your site by sticking with a fonts that everyone has. This way you know your site is being viewed correctly, it is user-friendly and search engines will be able to see what your site is about.

The Albatross Newcastle were looking to completely redevelop their existing website as they felt their old one was looking dated and didn’t really portray the right image. They wanted to keep their existing colours and elements of their identity but make their site more contemporary and less boxed in. Along with the look of their site they wanted to be able to completely manage the pages content themselves, as well as have a blog, a gallery and local event listings.

ellis training consultancy have been delivering management learning and development programmes since 1995. The came to sleeky looking to get a redesign of their existing site to give it a more professional appearance and make it more informative. Along with the site design and new logo we also added a blog and a latest news page that they can edit themselves to help keep their clients and visitors up to date.

Quayside Building Contractors approached us to create a website for them as they wanted an online presence. After discussing their requirements and needs they decided on a 6 page information website with a built in gallery.

The site we designed was clean simple and easy to navigate, which also matched their newly created branding so it is instantly recognisable as their website.

Crochet Hats came to us looking for an e-commerce website to sell their crochet hats and scarves. She had previously been selling on ebay and decided that it was time to have her own store. Along with the website we have also created an email template, business cards and are currently creating a new look for her ebay store.

While having a blog can help with SEO, just having one on your site purely for that reasons is a bad idea, as it does need to be updated regularly for you to get any benefits from it. Also having a hardly used blog on your site could give a potential customer the impression that your site is no longer being used, especially if your last blog was a year before they visited. So make sure that you do have the time to update a blog regularly with relevant content before you place one on your site.

If a blog is something that you are interested in here are some reasons why blogs can help your site and its SEO:

RSS
Rss feeds are heavily crawled by search engines, it can also be added to your visitors RSS readers meaning that when ever you update your blog they will be notified and could return to read it.

Structured content
Blogs have a natural structure to them which will help search engines make sense of the content. By having categories and placing relevant content within these categories it helps give your site structure and makes it easier to establish important keywords to your site.

Updated content
Search engines like new content and it encourages them keep coming back to crawl you site to see what’s new.

Could lead to one way links back to your site
By writing interesting articles not only would you be giving people a reason to visit your site but it could also lead to other promoting your site because they want to share what you have written with others and post links to it on their sites. The reason why this is useful is because often search engines give more value to one way links then reciprocal ones.

Promotion, promotion, promotion
Blogs are a great way to promote events, competitions, open days and keep visitors to your site informed of all the latest news about your company. With the RSS feeds this means that those following your blog will automatically be updated with your latest promotion, as does anyone visiting your site or anyone who visits one of the many sites that show latest blog posts with certain keywords in them.

Newsletters/e-newsletters
Just because you have a blog doesn’t mean you should stop any printed or e-newsletters that you send out. A printed newsletter could easily take information from the blog posts as not everyone who reads the newsletter will read the blog, it would also be a good promotion tool for your site and encourage people to visit to get more information. An e-newsletter again could simply take articles from the blog and link back to your original post to drive traffic to the site as it serves and as a reminder to visit your site.

Getting people involved
A blog also gives your visitors a chance to get involved and share their opinions on what you have written. While this is great for customer relations, it also can keep your website fresh with new content when you aren’t updating it yourself if others get involved in a discussion you posted. As comments are managed by you, anything questionable can quickly be removed if it hasn’t already been caught by the automatic spam catchers.

If you would like some more information or a quote to implement a blog onto your website then please contact us by email or by telephone on 0191 487 1834.

Karen James is a virtual assistant, she came to us to revamp her website and blog design so that it would compliment her new branding for Cloud VA. While she wanted a site that was eye catching and modern it still needed to be professional and easy to navigate. Sticking closely to the look and feel of her branding we were able to create a website with an integrated blog that met her specifications and was both professional and fun at the same time.

This includes a free domain name, free email addresses and a two page professionally designed website including contact form.

Also available is our £499 10 page package for clients that need a bit more room.

For more information, please contact us.