Thursday 29 October 2015

How Can Custom Website Development Help in Online Marketing?

Website development and online marketing are inter-connected. A website shouldn’t be created without considering how you intend to stimulate customer growth, and this is where these two worlds collide. When researching web design companies, ask the question as to whether their marketing and development teams collaborate – if they do, your website should have a more potent online presence.

Custom Website Development
Off the shelf templates can easily be found, but very often they don’t offer all the functionalities that a business requires. Moreover, it’s more expensive to purchase plug-ins if you find you need them afterwards. With the bespoke website development option, your web development company can code any extra functionality at a fraction of the cost.

Custom website development considers;
  • Features - effective call-to-action buttons, strategically placed, to encourage customer engagement and contact
  • Adaptability- make changes or add new features whenever needed, keeping up with evolving business requirements
  • Brand awareness - create a loyal and strong customer base, with a robust and engaging online presence
For these reasons, hiring a custom website development company means you’re significantly more likely to;

  • have a website that shepherds user behavior to take the desired action
  •  showcase the character of the business
  • contain dynamic content
If you are looking for a unique and results-oriented bespoke web development, Five Rivers can help. We also offer software and mobile application development, Digital Marketing, copywriting services, and IT Support. Get in touch with us today to see how we can propel your business forward.


ACCELERATED MOBILE PAGES (AMP) - THE LATEST IN MOBILE WEB TECHNOLOGY

Rarely will you go anywhere and not find someone looking at their mobile device. Whether it’s for shopping, dating, or research, tablets and smartphones are dominating the way we get online to access information.
We stream, we watch, we interact. The mobile web can’t be ignored.

Frequently however, even responsive (mobile friendly) websites can take a while to load; the user’s interest can wane, frustration sets in and they move on to a competitor’s website looking for the same information. To tackle this, Google has released Accelerated Mobile Pages that offer custom components for making websites load faster.

What are Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)?
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is an open source initiative that allows mobile optimized content to load instantly. This new open source HTML-coded framework is all about content sites. Google’s AMP is designed to enhance the distribution ecosystem and to improve the mobile web. It allows users to see web pages with graphics, animations and videos on their mobile phones, minus the unwanted delay.

Limitations of the Accelerated Mobile Pages
Today, the mobile web has become an easy and convenient way to reach customers. Google’s algorithmic change in April 2015 helped to promote business owners to make this possible. However, the AMP come with certain limitations. They are;
  • No input elements, such as “textarea”
  • No third-party or developer written Java Script
  • Only one style tag in the document head
  • No inline styles
  • Styles must be 50kb or under

AMP allows publishers to enhance engagement on a wide assortment of platforms, such as Google search. This will push readers to publisher websites. Without doubt, this new initiative is a great idea for mobile friendly websites, and beneficial for publishers, advertisers, and users alike.

Today, AMP is becoming as important as implementing a responsive design for website owners, which automatically resizes the content according to the size of the screen on which it is being viewed. According to Google, the Accelerated Mobile Pages will allow web designers and developers to design and develop websites that are even more mobile friendly than they are currently.

If you are looking for responsive website design services for your business, here at Five Rivers we can help. We implement the latest technologies on every project, ensuring to provide a competitive edge to your business. For more details call us on 0203 397 7545 or drop us an email to info@fiverivers.net

Wednesday 28 October 2015

Why use Google’s Search Console?

For many years, Google Search Console (formerly Webmaster Tools) has been widely used to help business owners and web developers monitor their website. This free service offered by Google allows you to check many aspects of your website. Whether you are a web developer or a website owner, if you’re not currently using these tools, here are some reasons why you should.


Notifications and Warnings

When signing up for Search Console, (you can use an existing Google login if you have one) you will receive notifications and warnings related to your site. These include;
  • If Google thinks that there some security problem with your site, or if it has been hacked
  • Google finds issues with accessing your site (eg. If the server is down)

Geographical target settings

You can set a geographical target as to where you want your website to be found in search results. While this doesn’t stop traffic from the rest of the globe, Google will endeavour to show the majority of traffic to your intended audience.

Find errors in your website

Broken links and crawl errors are identified to help you find out which areas of your site need immediate attention and repair. This feature helps to ensure a continuously positive user experience.

Keywords

Search Console identifies how people are finding you. A list of keywords is provided, and you can use this information to be part of your marketing strategy. For example, if you see you have been found for a search term that you have not added to your website, you should consider using it as part of your campaign. It’s important to build on keywords that are already providing web traffic.

Benefits

Using Search Console can save you time by identifying issues you may not otherwise see. Rather than checking each page of your site manually, a quick review here will tell you instantly if there is anything you need to address.

At Five Rivers, a Digital Marketing Agency based in London and Wolverhampton, reviewing website issues is just a very small part of what we do. Our Digital Marketing campaigns are fully customised, and we only implement a strategy once a full evaluation of your business aims has been discussed. We also offer a wider range of services, including mobile app development, software development, web development & design, and Copywriting services. Contact us today by calling 0203 397 7545, or drop us an email to digital@fiverivers.net

Tuesday 27 October 2015

How to Hire a Digital Marketing Firm For Your Business

The majority of online businesses are currently clamouring over themselves in order to be found above their nearest industry rivals in search results pages. According to a recent Google study however, nearly 40% of business owners aren’t aware, or don’t have the understanding, that simply having a web presence is just not enough – without a marketing strategy, your ability to reach your target demographic is extremely limited. You wouldn’t buy a car and not put petrol in it….

Thousands of websites lack the necessary optimization that would otherwise make them more visible to potential customers.

This could be made possible however, with digital marketing solutions. If you’re looking for an effective online marketing strategy for your brand, hiring a Digital Marketing company is your best foot forward. But before you select one, here are some considerations;

  • Experience
Experience counts everywhere. Have they been in existence long, and what type of clients have they dealt with? What factors are they going to evaluate for your specific business?

  • Work History
A professional Digital Marketing Agency is always open to sharing its work history. As a potential client, ask for examples of what they have done for others, and what success it has attained for them.

  • Online Presence
 Every Digital Marketing Agency must have an online presence. How does their website compare to others within their industry? Is it using the latest in software technology?

  • Social Media Presence
Experienced digital marketers must have a constant social media presence to showcase their knowledge. Quite often, you’ll find they have a social media account they prefer, but most often you will find them on Twitter or Google+. They’ll be interacting with their peers, and sharing the latest articles on industry relevant topics. The more knowledgeable among them will be conversing with other marketing professionals, and using relevant hashtags to increase the reach of their intended audience.

Digital Marketing is one of the most cost-effective methods of reaching a targeted audience. The benefits of a long term, organic strategy will ultimately save you money over a pure paid advertising campaign through Google Adwords or Facebook Advertising. Pay Per Click campaigns should run only as an accompaniment to an organic strategy, whereby your business will be seen in the natural search results, rather than as adverts at the top and side of the page.

Whether your approach should include Search Engine Optimization, Pay-Per-Click advertising, Social Media Marketing (SMM), search engine marketing (SEM), or email newsletters, (amongst others) at Five Rivers we evaluate and customise every individual marketing strategy, because we understand that every business is unique.


Get in touch with us today to get started - dial 0203 397 7545 or drop us an email to digital@fiverivers.net

Monday 26 October 2015

2016 Web Design Predictions

Web design trends are ever changing. 2015 is almost concluded, but we’re perennially hunting for the latest developments. Consideration towards a responsive web design has been the biggest change this year. Here are some predictions for 2016, and what we might expect from leading web design companies;

  • Prediction 1- Storytelling websites
The concept of a storytelling website hasn’t taken off as much as first thought when they first appeared in 2011. However, their popularity may soar in 2016, as the type of website featured here - http://www.dangersoffracking.com/ - helps to increase the time a user spends on your website, and customer engagement and interaction. All search engines reward websites with high user engagement by placing them higher up the search results pages. Since this is every business owner’s goal, there’s no reason for this not to take off in a big way.

  • Prediction 2- High Quality moving images/Cinemagraph
If you are unsure whether to use video or images on your website, then prepare to experience “moving images”. These high quality images, also known as Cinemagraph, is a still image which uses less bandwidth when compared to videos. Here are some examples - http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/cinemagraph/

  • Prediction 3- Quirky Illustrations
In comparison with hand-drawn illustrations, few design components can add character to your website more than Quirky Illustrations. These give a friendly edge to your business, adding personality, and can’t be replicated easily. We predict that they will appear more frequently in websites in 2016, and even more so within social media campaigns. This Pinterest board features plenty of them - https://uk.pinterest.com/nanettebratton/quirky-illustrations/

We’ll be sure to keep our finger on the digital pulse in 2016 and beyond. At Five Rivers, our focus on technological advancements helps us to make our clients the talking point within their industry.


For more about our services, feel free to visit us at http://www.fiverivers.net/ or call us on 0203 397 7545.

Tuesday 20 October 2015

Software Development trends seen in 2015

Hardware and software were two distinct things that required completely different skills. But, today, hardware needs some kind of sophisticated software to function, whether on a remote interface or an on-board code. Let’s go through some trends we’ve seen in Software Development in 2015;

  • Go Mobile
GPS navigation on mobiles is one of the most used technologies today. However, this can be used for much more than just directions and traffic news. Whether for a game, social media or navigation, applications often require access to a mobile’s GPS. This helps developers to better understand their audience.

  • Sacrificing Privacy
Developers understand that an individual’s desire for privacy will be further eroded over time, in order to obtain the best apps. Striking a balance between progress and privacy is always a challenge for developers. The most crucial rule to keep in mind is that as business professionals, you have to be transparent. Dishonesty with customers won’t help here.

  • Wearables and sensors
Wearables and sensors are currently the most sought after tools. For software developers, these hardware devices require software for creative applications, allowing consumers to use these them. Marketers will need to learn how to embrace this new tech, as it’s completely different to anything gone before. With such small screens, understanding how best to exploit them for marketing campaigns may prove difficult. However, this is where the creativity of software developers can help.

  • Open source
Every digital device, such as mobiles, desktops, tablets, and Kindles, depends on open source software. This is not to say it’s new, but its rapidly growing popularity certainly is. It allows users to openly collaborate, and share code to make software better and faster.


If you are looking for software applications for your business, whether to align new software to existing systems, or to create a fully customised software solution to improve business processes and reporting, Five Rivers is well equipped to help. We’re a software development company that establishes ourselves as a Business Partner, rather than just an IT solutions provider. Call us on 0203 397 7545 or drop us an email to software@fiverivers.net to see how we can help.

Monday 19 October 2015

Latest Digital Marketing Trends Dominating Coming Year

Digital marketing has undergone a substantial transformation over the last few years – not that anyone expected it would be any different! Here are some of the latest online marketing trends you will see in 2016;

  • The continued growth of Content Marketing
With the growing awareness of the need for professional content marketing, companies are paying more attention to the quality of their website content. Websites with blogs are predicted to generate 67% more leads as compared to companies that don’t. The key to successful online marketing will be relevant and high-quality content written by professional copywriters. Web copy that has been poorly written through bad grammar and syntax, whether via a novice writer or someone with English as a second language, will only turn customers away. It creates distrust and exhibits a lack of attention to detail.

  • Stop depending on Google
That is by no means to say don’t optimize for Google – you definitely should! Marketers spend considerable time looking to Google to promote their products and services to achieve effective Search Engine Optimization; but for truly effective marketing, learn some techniques to optimize for Bing and Yahoo also. Any relevant web traffic you receive via these channels will improve your relevancy and rank in Google’s eyes anyway, so indirectly, by optimizing for other search engines, you will simultaneously be doing the same for Google.

  • Adwords / Pay Per Click will become more expensive
The cost of advertising through Google or Bing PPC will only accelerate with increased competition. The way to keep this down is either by gaining a full understanding of how you can reduce spend by improving the quality of your landing pages, or hire a digital marketing company who has Adwords Certification.

  • Information Hierarchy
When you land on a page, there is only a certain amount of information you will be able to see, based on the size of your viewing window and font. Here, you need as much of your important content as possible, before a user has to scroll. This is called placing information “within the fold”. Anything that is “below the fold” may not always be seen, depending on whether the user is engaged from what they have seen so far.


Looking to gain further brand awareness? At Five Rivers, we adopt the latest online marketing trends, to help take your business to the next level by considering your main business objectives, and translating that to a web page that engages your web traffic. Contact us today - http://www.fiverivers.net/contact-us.aspx and see how we can help.

Monday 12 October 2015

Let Google Search Console optimize your website

The Search Console (formerly Webmaster Tools) is a very useful feature used to identify website issues. Created by Google, there are naturally plenty of benefits on offer, for those willing to use it. There’s an online guide as to how to link it to your website, in order that it can probe every web page for possible problems. Here are some examples;
  • Crawl errors
When Google crawls your site, it’s looking for issues such as broken links. This most often occurs if for some reason you have altered the URL of a web page, and neglect to change the links from other pages on the site that link to it.
  • Top search queries
The Search Analytics section displays the most popular keywords that have been used to find your website in results pages. By identifying what is driving your web traffic, you can build on this by incorporating these terms into your marketing campaign. You can also view the average position of your website for any particular keyword in search results.
  • Sitemaps
Sitemaps are an essential tool for allowing search engines to crawl your website more easily. Simply type in “sitemap generator” into a search engine, click on a link, submit your website address, and download the XML Sitemap option. Then go back to Search Console, and upload it there, as well as asking your web developer to add it to the website code. This will give you a small boost in search results pages.
  • Demote a web page
In Search Console, you can find this in the Sitelinks section. Google randomly exhibits extra web page links underneath your home page URL. In order to ensure a higher chance that your most important pages are chosen, you can demote pages such as Careers or Meet the Team.

Other Benefits
  • Enables you to access useful data and metrics, relevant to any specific aspect of your marketing campaign
  • Use it to assist with your link building campaign
  • Detection of any security breaches via malware / hackers
Website developers, digital marketers and website owners alike use Google Search Console to help monitor, diagnose and optimize. The overall aim is to make sure that your web traffic isn’t suffering from a bad user experience, and therefore helps to encourage customer growth.

Tuesday 6 October 2015

Benefits of Using Social Media for Your Business

Over the last few years, social media has transformed the way people play games, share information and communicate. Today, it helps many businesses to connect with new as well as existing customers, while allowing people to connect with their services and products. Deployment of social media marketing lends an increased opportunity to reach out to new and targeted audiences, thereby enhancing brand identity, and the ability to communicate directly.

Other main benefits of using Social Media for your business are;
  • Brand Management

People are increasingly turning to social media to voice their opinion, whether good or bad. This allows you to identify and address issues your business may have, and allows the opportunity to correct them.
  • “Return on Relationship”

Liaising directly with customers can stimulate loyalty and respect for your product or service. By creating social media accounts, you will need to keep a daily eye on what people are saying about you, in order to show that you care about the customer experience.
  • Increase Sales

Social Media is a great digital marketing tool that helps in increasing revenue. When customers see posts about your products and services on a social media website, it generates anticipation and traffic to your website. The ability to target very specific demographics and online communities, is one of the major benefits of social media marketing.

Reviewing customer feedback will ultimately help you in making your business more effective, and successful. Positively encouraging this feedback will help you be seen in a positive light, and may even help to generate online referrals, and the sharing of your posts.

If done correctly, Social Media Marketing is very useful for small businesses to achieve great returns.


If you’re looking to outsource your digital marketing campaigns, Five Rivers can help. Contact us for a FREE one hour consultation on 0203 397 7545, or read more about what this entails here - http://www.fiverivers.net/free-digital-consultation.aspx

Monday 5 October 2015

How effective is SMS Marketing for Businesses?

The internet has the influenced the lives of many people. Whether it is for shopping, information, or business, we are all turning to digital. Every business wants to stand out online, and effective marketing strategies are therefore almost mandatory. However, with the global popularity of mobile phones, SMS marketing has grabbed the attention of many businesses. This is not only inexpensive, but an effective way to advertise your products/services and reach your targeted audience directly.
Here are the latest trends of SMS Marketing;
  • Personalised and customised SMS

Turning visitors into buyers requires a knowledge of your target market. If you are looking for an effective strategy, customized and personalized messages are widely considered to be the best option. A personalized message doesn’t just grab the attention of the potential buyer, it can increase business output.
  •  Location-based

Not considered as effective as personalized SMS, however location based SMS marketing still stimulates customer engagement. This strategy targets mobile users within a specific geographical area. The messages can be sent through location-based broadcast, Bluetooth, or Wi-Fi.
  • Narrowcasting and bulk text messaging

Both of these terms represent mobile marketing. Bulk text marketing has been around for many years. You can send bulk SMSs to convey your services/ product information to potential customers.
Narrowcasting is not a particularly familiar term. This marketing strategy is all about sharing details and information with a select and targeted demographic.
  • Micro SMS

Micro SMS or very short SMS is considered by many businesses. The small texts are quick to read and understand, and therefore encourages someone purely due to their brevity.


SMS Marketing can be an effective marketing method for businesses, as it offers direct contact to individual customers. This is an inexpensive, yet valuable marketing strategy that could be adopted by many businesses.