Over the last few months I’ve been a bit quiet on my blog. Is it because I have been without anything to say – far from it? I have been busy with many different kinds of web builds and over the next few weeks I’ll be doing some case study style blogs on why my clients came to me for a website, their reasons and what they hope to achieve by their “new” website.

Two of the websites I have built have been WordPress re-creations of existing websites. If you have the enthusiasm to work social media, blog and grow your website with your business this is a cost effective way to start on the next stages of your marketing campaign. We can also add a little Navitas spin by bringing some of the fonts and styles slightly up to date.

I have had the pleasure of building a large website with a corporate feel as well as a simple home page build for the fabulous Lindys Cakes, a site that I feel privileged to have involvement in. Lindy’s Cakes have really come of age by losing their static web front and over the last 12 months migrating their huge website to WordPress.

Navitas has been building websites for Marketing Companies and Graphic Designers, something which I love doing. It’s great to work in the different ways that other project managers work and lessons are learned from every build and client that I work with.

The Navitas Design team is also growing with a fantastic network of Web Developers, Graphic Designers and Marketing Gurus. In particular the dynamic Sarah Brambleby who I work very closely with.

2012 has been busy, fun and tiring so far and I’m looking forward to sharing my customers successes with you in my forthcoming blogs.

I went on a copy-writing course a couple years ago with Business Link presented by a marketeer called Nigel Temple. He gave some fantastic advice on how to improve your copy and I’m sure a lot of it I have forgotten.

What has stayed with me was his words regarding reading. He said to read much more than you have ever done before, read everyday and switch between fiction and non-fiction, everything that you read is new information you are learning and taking on board. This has been great advice – if it has improved my writing skills remains to be seen.

I spend a lot of my working day uploading copy and reading it looking for keywords, descriptions and links and today it suddenly struck me that through my job I am learning an enormous amount about different markets and occupations.

I know we all have things that we love about our jobs but I genuinely love learning about my clients and their strengths as well as producing a website that will help them develop their business. Hopefully it will help me a better Networker too with a greater understanding of business benefits.

Cowen Accountants are a diverse accounting firm in Aylesbury who try to work closely with their clients in a very informal manner. The website didn’t give off a modern feel and didn’t have the ability to update with the latest advice and news that could be shared with their clients and other interested local businesses.

Navitas Design provided Cowen Accountants with a fresh modern website built on WordPress that will be perfect for them as they embark on their first social media campaigns. With a little training from Navitas Design and a follow up specialist session by June Dean of Elevation we eagerly await their first tweets in Mid January.

Good Luck to Debbie Winfield and her team and I for one will eagerly re-tweet their valued information for you to read and share.

What does maintenance mean to you? Is it paying for something that you may never use in! Is it an insurance policy? Why would you need maintenance on a website – they can’t break surely..? Well they can.

Navitas always gives value for money so we don’t believe in taking anyones well earned money just in-case something goes wrong so by listening to what businesses have said they need and seeing the need for a maintenance policy we have came up with a couple of options.

Website Updates, back-up and recovery plan

When your website is complete you must update the content regularly to ensure that Google continues to visit your website and this is a major ranking factor on your website. Every website from Navitas comes with a training session showing you how to alter page content, add new posts and images and use the search engine tools – we even show you how to get that content in the eyes of the masses through social media.

Not everyone feels comfortable taking on their website as another task, we can provide you with a managed service which will cover a monthly backup of your website and database and we will do whatever work is required up to your hourly quota.

This can include:
Adding your written blog posts and resizing images in them.
Changes to content
Adding / removing shopping cart items
Tweeting Posts
Adding items to Galleries
Working to a wish list

The maintenance element of the package will cover us securing your website against spam attacks and updating your WordPress Plugins and correcting any issues following the upgrades. Virus and spam attacks can also have devastating effects on your website, your package will cover you in the event of an attack and we can recover your website from your back-ups.

If you are running an older version of WordPress that does not support some of the newer benefits of WordPress we will make you aware of what will not be possible.

Package 1. Back-up, Recovery and One Hour of Updates per Month £30.00
Package 2. Back-up, Recovery and Two Hours of Updates per Month £50.00
Package 3. Back-up, Recovery and Three Hours of Updates per Month £72.00

Contact us now by email or call 01869 278217 if you are an Aylesbury based business looking to get more business.

Are you asking yourself if your website is actually bringing any value to your business?

If your answer is yes then you can use our marketing Guru Sarah Brambleby to review the current brand, design and messaging that your website gives to your potential customers.

The review will be independent as we are not trying to sell a website package – this is a service that will utilise what you have where-ever possible.

What you get!

A review of:
• Customer Relationship Management Strategy
• Promotions
• Incentives
• eNewsletters
• Social Media
• New customer engagement

Our 2 hour review is just £75.00 until December 2011

To find out what you can do to bring more business from your website contact us today on 01869 278217 or email us now.

When I first met Kelly she complained that she couldn’t update her website.  As a photographer it’s important to have an up to date portfolio and show off your latest work.  Kelly was also looking to promote her wedding photography more as this is an area that she loves.

Gaining control of your content

Kelly now has the ability to change the front page images on her website as well as the text.  We have provided Kelly with a slideshow tool that gives her the freedom to add dynamic moving images to her blog posts.  As well as the ability to blog Kelly can also change the content on her pages.  With a little training Kelly has jumped in immediately and begun building a blog and is currently embarking on a new Social Media campaign.

Integration with other web packages

Kelly hosts her images with a specialist photography provider.  The old website Kelly had looked different to her photography package.  By doing things a little differently and thinking outside the normal box we found a solution and both sites now integrate beautifully.  Kelly has the ability now to add her galleries from the photography package into her blogs posts however she is choosing to take things one step at a time.  Watch that site; it’s filling up gorgeous images.

If you are a photographer and you need help getting online I have experience with SmugMug integration and dynamic galleries call me now on 01869 278217 or email us now.

If you can I hope that you can help in anyway, my client has asked as many people as they can to re-post this on Social Media and spread the word. Anthony Nolan needs Stem Cell Donors..

Dear Lorraine

My wife, Gilly, is young, blonde and beautiful, with a great job, loads of energy and two lovely young children. But she also has Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. You might be able to save her life. You could take the first steps in the next few minutes.

Hodgkin’s Lymphoma is a deadly cancer of the lymphatic system.

The condition is often cured by chemotherapy. Gilly has endured two gruelling courses of chemotherapy, but both have failed to cure her.

On Monday, Gilly starts another course of high-dose chemotherapy. At the end of that, she will need to have a stem cell transplant. Without it, she will die.

We need to find a stem cell donor. Quickly.

It’s real needle-in-a-haystack stuff. Even Gilly’s brother and sister do not match.

But someone out there is the perfect match – and that could change everything.

Please can you help? This is what social media was made for.

The more potential donors we can recruit, the better our chances of finding a match.
Donors need to be aged between 18 and 40. You may not fit into this bracket, but who do you know who does?

Donors need to register at the Anthony Nolan Trust.

It takes just 10 minutes to register. The Anthony Nolan Trust sends you a saliva test kit in the post. You spit in the pot, send it back and wait to be matched with someone who needs a transplant to keep them alive.

PLEASE ONLY REGISTER IF YOU ARE SERIOUS ABOUT BECOMING A DONOR.

It costs the trust £100 to process each application, so it’s important that you are fully committed. There’s a FAQ page that will help you with your decision.

Whatever else you do, please bring this email to the attention of all your friends. We need a viral spread to find a donor in a million.

Someone out there can save Gilly’s life. But we don’t have much time.

Blue Frog Digital Print of Aylesbury were on the start of a new marketing campaign. They had taken the decision to advertise locally on the radio. Lee Priest the business owner had self built the website but felt that it needed to be taken further with the facility to blog and wanted some of the social media features he had seen else where.

At the beginning of the campaign they had not had any contact via the website. Just one week later and with the website live for just a few hours the first enquiry came through the contact form.

I was fortunate enough to win a headshot competition by AS Photography in Milton Keynes. I don’t enjoy having my photo taken but I knew I needed a professional headshot.

The day was a pleasant surprise and I found myself a little more relaxed than I expected. If you want some really professional looking headshots for your website I would highly recommend using Andy’s services at AS Photography. Visit AS Photography Headshots Milton Keynes here.

Gain Control of your Website

What causes most business owners a headache with their website?

Is it search engine rankings? Well yes!
Is it not being able to blog? Maybe.
Is it not being integrated with their social media campaign? Possibly..

All these things have a more simplistic cause. The business owner has no control over their website.

Navitas Design small business website packages can give you back the power to take full control of whatever you want to acheive from your website. By sitting down and working out the end goal of your website we can create a website with your company targets in the centre of the design.

If you feel that a Social Media campaign will suit you then the tools you need to move forward with that will be foremost in the design and the after build training.

If you are going to target keywords or phrases in a Search Engine Optimised campaign that will be implemented during the build ready for the next part of the process.

Whatever your aim we do not just build websites. You can build a great looking website but traffic will not come to you. You have to drive traffic either through Social Media, SEO or good old fashioned sales and networking. Part of our ethos is to teach you that your website is just a small part of your marketing strategy and although central to it the site is just one of many cogs.

To find out how to gain control of your website contact us by email or take a look at our affordable website packages.