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Website refresh for JSM Passive Fire Protection

We've already stressed the importance of keeping your website up to date in our blog, 'Why it pays to update your website regularly'. We compiled what we thought were the 3 most compelling reasons for keeping your site up to date - allowing it to evolve over time rather than be left to fester until it gets to the point where a complete rebuild is necessary. Just over a year old and the website we designed and built for JSM Passive Fire Protection has already undergone a refresh. ...

Why it pays to update your website regularly

Having worked in digital for over 20 years now (good grief - has it really been that long?) there’s a popular misconception that every few years or so a company should look to completely revamp their website. I would argue for a number of reasons that this is ill-advised with potential negative results for the small business owner. Now let’s be honest here, a small business owner cannot compete with the well-oiled machine of a corporate marketing department with its unlimited resources ...

Buzzwords - have we forgotten how to communicate?

How many of us adopt various buzzwords in our business dialogue and written correspondence? Then ask yourself how many of these buzzwords are actually meaningful and how many could be avoided. Buzzwords, it would seem, can do more harm than good and their overuse may well make you stand out for all the wrong reasons.  In our second blog in the series on verbal communication (our first blog is entitled 'Barriers in business: Mind your language') we discuss how we often rely on ambiguous term...

Barriers in business: Mind your language

Understanding how we communicate and interpret meanings online is pretty fundamental to website design. Keeping visuals and content simple and accessible, reducing the amount of jargon and terminology (thus appealing to the widest audience) should be the primary focus. Any deviation from that may impact on your brand and your business. If only verbal communication in business settings was as straightforward.  This blog is the first in a two-part series on the theme of communication. In Barr...

How much should I be paying for a new website?

Whether you're starting up a new business, an existing business going through a re-branding exercise, or are looking for an easier to use website back-end after many years struggling with an antiquated interface, we're here to advise you about the process of shopping for a new site. First and foremost, let's make some basic assumptions (and importantly, these are our areas of expertise). A basic 'brochure' site will roughly have 6 elements: Home pageAbout usWhat we do/services pageNews/blogsCont...

Should my business be doing email marketing?

This is a question we get asked frequently at the Digital Doctor. It seemed to be the way a decade or so ago that everyone felt compelled once a month to spend hours compiling a newsletter that no-one read; or if they did, it would be someone with time on their hands and whose sole concern was finding the odd typo or two. Newsletters died a slow and demeaning death and we know this is exactly what happened from our past web agency experience. However, with the advent of some good and intuitive p...

Social Media Trends for 2022

As we close down the year that was 2021 and look forward to a more hopeful 2022, the giants of social media strategy, marketing and research are alerting us to the trends for next year and beyond.  With social media evolving at the rate of knots, we’re assuming the trends they’re predicting today will actually come to bear next year. We’re hoping so as The Digital Doctor has contributed some precious thinking time to the narrative to help our clients and blog readers focus on how soci...

Breatherapy works

We responded to a brief from a potential new client. Alan Ball wanted to promote his new venture, Breatherapy and educate followers in the practice of Conscious Connected Breathwork. From Alan's own personal experience, he'd found that breathwork had literally transformed his life. Having suffered from chronic back pain for some time and investigated various techniques to alleviate his symptoms and improve his mental wellbeing, he had been introduced to a beginner's class in breathwork principle...

Does it pay to outsource your marketing function?

Well of course, we will say yes since we’re in the business of selling but for non-marketers, having a ‘go-to’ team to devise, manage and execute a digital marketing plan has so many benefits. We’ve listed them here and should convince you to at least think about it. Contact us, if you want to know more:  Cost-effective Peace of mindLong term strategyUtilising expertsFree your timeConsistency across all things digital We’ll now take a look at these benefits in more detail&hel...

North Wales holiday let - Hafannedd

The proud new owners of a beautiful holiday let in North Wales asked us to design and build a website for their new undertaking - Hafannedd in Denbighshire. The brief was to provide prospective vacationers with information about the self-catering properties (there's a mill and a cottage), booking availability, an enquiry form and provide a useful resource for people visiting the area. In addition to content writing to highlight local attractions and places to visit, we initially wrote 3 blo...

Should I include social media in my marketing plan - we've put together FAQs

Curious Elf has written a series of blogs about social media and why you should get on board with the idea of using platforms to promote your business and your brand. In our blog 'Why is social media good for small business', Curious Elf provides an overview of the social media platforms, provides some usual statistics and demonstrates how the likes of Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn can be used to extol the benefits of your organisation.  How do you build that knowledge into a marketing p...

Understanding your target audience and how they use social media

This is our second blog in our series on social media and its potential impact on your business. Posting on social media sites will extend your reach and gain you more customers. In our previous blog 'Why social media is good for small business' we looked at the statistics, why people access social media and what that all means for your marketing strategy. In this blog we'll look at social media users in more detail and where you should be concentrating your marketing efforts....

Why social media is good for small businesses

Why should companies embrace social media? Understanding what, where and when to post can boost customer engagement, encourage sales and develop kudos for your company. If social media is still an area that your business is yet to exploit, we've written a series of blogs to entice you to investigate....

What's the name of the game?

This month celebrates 250 years since the birth of William Wordsworth and 170 years since his death. Here at The Digital Doctor, Poetic Elf took a break from her sonnets and pondered. How significant is the English (beautiful yet complex) language when embarking on the right name for your startup?  You probably won't be surprised to learn that coming up with the right name for your brand is key. Do it well and you'll inform your target audience of your product or service, signpost your valu...

The laws of the logo

Curious Elf was reminiscing this week, daydreaming of a time when car journeys involved a holiday rather than the unexciting weekly food shop. Cast your mind back to being loaded into the back of a car whilst you were still half asleep in your polyester quilted dressing gown (nice) and squabbling with your sibling about whose head was going to get the middle armrest. The journey was endless (cue wistful sighing) and tedious (oh the joy) and the only game that kept your attention was identifying ...

Pandemic encourages entrepreneurship growth

Here at Digital Doctor, we often feel swamped by the constant influx of bad news about the pandemic. The hospitality and travel and tourism sectors are in decline, job creation is non-existent, retail footfall has obviously taken a beating and unemployment is rising just about everywhere. And we know it's not just the UK - a recent BBC article tracks what is happening in the world's economy. But wait, we were watching BBC Breakfast today (consuming leftover panettone from Christmas) and the...

Design trends for 2021

Let's say goodbye to 2020 as quickly as possible and look forward to 2021.In our final blog of this year we're looking at a number of design trends as reported by those in the know.Interestingly, some of the web conventions we've spoken about in previous blogs are going to be put to the test if these reports are anything to go by.Curious Elf has cleaned up her brushes and has got to work....

Tools to assess your website's design

As promised, we've taken a look at various software tools available to help guide you through the web design process.  Psycho-Elf has produced this blog which covers colour choices, button tracking, how to extract user behaviour stats and more. Applying what we now know about the psychology of web design and in turn, user behaviour is great - but where do you start?...

Bad habits applied to web design

Look at your website - how many conventions does your site ignore? In our previous blog 'Applying psychology to web design' we looked at why the aesthetics shouldn't dominate how a website is designed. ...

Applying psychology to web design

Updated March 29, 2023Wait! Before you dismiss this blog as psycho-babble, we ask you to spend 2 seconds with us!One...two...Hopefully Psycho-Elf now has your attention!She'll set the scene:You're re-evaluating your website as all diligent and conscientious website owners should and you think you might like to give yours a bit of a refresh. You like the look of that website you saw yesterday and want to replicate it. With remit in hand you commission a web designer to come up with something simi...

Website launched for Cartref House Loch Ness

We were asked by the owners of Cartref House to build a website for them that would showcase the lovely features of this self-catering property as well as provide a useful resource for people visiting the area. We wanted to help boost organic traffic by including a page of places to visit, which detailed visitor attractions and recommendations of what to see and where to eat. This page should also serve as a landing page for Google-derived traffic.  Cartref House has so much to offer and we...

Content strategy

Does yours have all the right ingredients?...

We love Rocketspark's website builder

Rocketspark sum up exactly what they can provide:Beautifully simple websites....

How to write a blog brilliantly

Perfect the art of blogging and you'll be in business!...

Linden Hill Homes - new website launch

Being a UK Rocketspark Silver Partner, Linden Hill Homes were referred to us by the guys at Rocketspark who had been approached about using the platform to build a new website.  A property development firm based in London, Linden Hill Homes required a new website to replace its current one. After an initial phone consultation, we then offered to create a logo and SEO-optimised content as well as marketing straplines.  The design brief concentrated on the showcasing of 3 property develo...