Customer reviews are crucial to any business – one might argue that the reason so many of us flock to Amazon whenever we’re looking to purchase something is because of the reviews. Whilst we can’t all run a multi-billion pound global super-business, there’s no reason every size of business can’t harness the power of reviews. We’ve been working with Avery …
The Best SEO Company in 2016: How to Choose
If your business sector is even vaguely competitive then you’ve probably come to the conclusion that your website needs to rank highly in the search engines to grab your share of the market online. The problem is that even in 2016, most business owners still have little idea of how SEO (search engine optimisation) works or how to choose the …
What Really is The Point of Your Website Home Page?
During most website design projects, we typically have long and detailed discussions with our Clients about their new home page and what information they want to add to it. These discussions usually center around the fact that the Client wants to add a myriad of different sections to their home page to give the impression that their website is jam-packed …
How An Effective Website Could Easily Increase Your Sales by 4900%
One of the most commonly asked questions we receive is about the difference between the websites we design and those from most other Web Design Companies. In short, we design effective websites whereas nearly all other Web Designers will simply produce something that looks good (and some don’t even accomplish that). So what exactly is an effective website and why …
Is Your Website Trying to Sell Cows?
Imagine you’re sat on a train after a long day at work, or in meetings. You’re nearly at your destination but then the train stops momentarily at a junction so you gaze impatiently out of the window and you see the following scene… Chances are you probably wouldn’t give it a second thought and why should you – you’ve seen …
Marketing Essentials: Targeting Proactive & Reactive Customers
If you run a business of any size then you’ll be acutely aware how much of your heard-earned income needs to be reinvested in marketing and advertising. So it stands to reason that you’ll want to ensure you’re squeezing every last penny of value from your budget right? Unfortunately, the vast majority of businesses are still failing to understand the …
SEO For a House Clearance Company: The £500k Case Study
How do you take a small house clearance company with a turnover of £70,000 and in 4 years, turn it into a business that generates income in excess of £500,000? Well, that’s precisely what we’ve helped Avery Associates (formerly City Clearances) achieve with our SEO and online marketing services. The Background We first heard from Jeff Avery, the Managing Director …
How Much Does a Website Cost?
Probably the question we’re asked the most is “How much does a website cost?” We appreciate that if you’re in the market for an effective website and you’ve never commissioned one before, the choice of options might appear bewildering. So the purpose of this article is to give you some useful insight into the way websites design is priced and …
Why Your Business Needs a Positioning Statement
There are an awful lot of marketing strategies that doesn’t necessarily translate well from large corporations down to smaller businesses. However, one element of marketing theory that we wholeheartedly believe in is the positioning statement. It’s so simple yet it can deliver incredible clarity to any business. So before you dismiss the positioning statement as just another bit of marketing …
Why a Small Business Needs Effective Branding
We’ve worked with hundreds of small business owners and whenever branding is mentioned, the immediate reaction we receive is “That’s just for corporates isn’t it?” We suspect this is down to a fundamental misunderstanding of what branding actually is and what benefits effective branding can deliver to a small business. Branding is not just for the Apple’s and Nike’s or …
7 Must-Read Books For Small Business Owners
Whether you’re buying for yourself or as a gift, the following books are our ‘must read’ books for anyone who runs, or is thinking of starting a small business. The shear amount of incredible information in these books has a value that is almost unmeasurable in comparison to the cost – we’ve read them all and they’ve been an incredible …
5 Things Your Customers Hate About Your Website
We all know that design is subjective – what one person likes, another will hate. However, when it comes to website design there are some basic rules that every business owner should adhere to when they decide how they want their website designed. These rules are not subjective; they are based on sound usability practices and commercial research so ignoring …
Website Design Prices UK: Cost Versus Value
If you’re in the market for a new website, you probably don’t need us to tell you how website prices in the UK differ greatly from one Website Designer to the next. There are a myriad of options available with prices that vary from a few pounds a month to many thousands of pounds, but here’s the thing; there is …
The 10-Second On-Page SEO Testing Tool
If you want your website to rank near the top of the results in Google, you’ll need to ensure that your website pages are correctly optimised. There are actually over 200 individual factors that affect where a website page will rank when a user conducts a search however, some of the most crucial SEO elements are often the most overlooked …
It’s Time to Start Worrying if Your Website Isn’t Mobile Friendly
We’ve now reached the point in the UK where more people browse the web on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets than with desktop and laptop computers. This shift to mobile is only likely to increase going forward so Google has decided that if your website isn’t ‘mobile friendly’, you’re going to be in for a hard time. So if …
The Golden Rules of Logo Design For Business Owners
When the time comes to commission a new logo for your business, it’s often fraught with problems that arise from the Client not quite understanding what their logo is actually supposed to represent. All too often, emphasis is placed on the personal tastes and preferences of the Client rather than considering how their prospective customers will interpret the logo. That’s …
Fleet SEO: Hiring The Right Company…
If you’re looking for an SEO Company in Fleet (or anywhere in Hampshire for that matter), then we hope by the very fact that you probably found this page via a Google search, it suggests you might have found a company who can help you. FREE SEO Consultation For Fleet Businesses We understand that for many business owners, online marketing …
White Text, Dark Background: Lose Half Your Website Visitors
One of the most common design mistakes we come across is where a website has the bulk of it’s page content in White text with a dark-coloured background. Here at Avara, we are passionate about website usability because let’s face it, the more accessible your website content is, the more people will read it, share it and act upon it. …
How to Get Free Exposure For Your New Website
Well, you’ve done the hard bit and you are now the proud owner of a shiny new website. But regardless of how great your new website looks, a website with no visitors is a bit like owning a Ferrari with no petrol in the tank – it’s just pointless ‘eye candy’. There are lots of companies (including ourselves) who can …
The Small Business Guide to Posting Free Adverts on Facebook
If you run a small business then it’s likely that you’re working with a really small marketing budget. So it make sense to take advantage of every bit of free advertising you can and one of the most popular ways to advertise for free is on Facebook. But do free adverts on Facebook actually work? Well, the data tells us …
Why Website Designers Always Ask About Your Budget?
Here’s a situation that might ring a couple of bells: you have a website that hasn’t been updated since 2005, half the links are broken and many of the images have been reduced to ugly red crosses on the page where high res photos used to be. There’s no Facebook link because back then social media was only for techies …