Time goes by quickly, especially on the constantly changing web. Technology evolves just as rapidly as trends come and go, and consumer needs and expectations shift. For that reason, to compete in the online marketplace website owners need to adapt. For the day to day, that means keeping their content up to date and doing regular maintenance. However, even the best-maintained sites need an overhaul at some point – time for a website redesign. If you are currently thinking about redoing your web presences, here are four things you need to pay attention to.

While not an exhaustive list, here are the absolute essentials you need to know for a successful redesign of your website.

Know Your Audience and Define Your Goal Accordingly

One mistake many people make when planning a website redesign is thinking that their website is for themselves. However, nothing is further from the truth. A website is always for the people who end up using it – your clients and visitors. Consequently, the first thing to keep in mind is that the redesign is all about coming closer to their needs, not yours.

Aside from that, it’s important to define the overall goal. A fresh start should not just be about updating the looks. Redesigns should always be aligned with your business goals, preferably in the form of specific, measurable priorities. Assess the weaknesses of your current website for ideas on how to improve the next iteration.

Make Mobile a Priority

The worldwide shift to mobile devices is one of the biggest changes in the online environment of recent years. These days, more people access the web via phones and tablets than with laptops and desktop computers.

For website owners, that means mobile responsive design is an absolute must. Without a mobile-friendly site, you will lose out on loads of visitors who expect websites to cater to their needs.

Plus, search engines will punish you. Google doesn’t even show websites in their mobile search results anymore that don’t also offer a mobile-optimised version.

Concentrate on Performance

Website speed is just as important as a site’s aesthetics. Mobile devices often have slower Internet connections than their larger counterparts and are less equipped to handle large websites.

Attention spans are short. Consumers expect websites to load within two seconds. If yours takes significantly longer, they will move on to someone else.

Claim your business on Google Webmaster to be up-to-date with aspects of your website that need improvement. Google Webmaster is one of the tools we use for our clients in order to see what needs to be modified and improved.

Choose a Modern Design that Fits Your Brand

Your website’s design is a testament to your professionalism, trustworthiness and expertise. It greatly influences how people think of you and your company. If your site looks like it’s stuck in the 90s, this will most likely reflect poorly on you.

Therefore, when embarking on a website redesign, it’s important to create a design that is up to date and fits your brand, identity, and mission. That way, you also avoid confusing your customers and stay consistent across your marketing channels.

How Can We Help?

A website redesign can be a tall order. However, you don’t have to do it alone. Our expert team can help you with every step of the process, from branding and design to website development, deployment, and SEO. We even take care of all maintenance tasks for you. Want to know more? Then please get in touch with us.

The post 4 Things to Get Right When Redesigning a Website appeared first on MBJ LONDON.

If you want to learn more about what website maintenance entails, in this article, we show you everything you need to pay attention to to properly care for your site after launch.

What is Part of Website Maintenance?

Here are the most important items on your website maintenance checklist.

Software Updates

Websites are nothing but pieces of software. Just like the operating system on your computer, they need to be kept up to date for security and performance reasons. In WordPress websites, this means regularly updating both the core software as well as any plugins and themes. When doing so, always perform a backup first. That way, if there’s a hiccup, you can roll back to a working site version.

Backups

Talking about backups, regularly saving copies of your site is also part of website maintenance. Imagine you lose your precious website, and there is no way of getting it back. The horror! Having an automatic backup solution in place will make this scenario much less adrenaline-heavy.

How often should you back up? That depends on your site. If you have an active blog, backing up daily can make sense. Sites that change less frequently can do with longer intervals.

Security

Anything connected to the Internet is exposed to at least some risk. Hackers and other shady individuals are always looking to compromise sites and use them for their own purposes.

For that reason, security is an important topic. Website maintenance not only involves setting up security measures from the start but also keeping an eye on their performance.

Speed

With mobile devices on the rise, site speed is an increasingly important topic (as is mobile design). A good website needs to load quickly so as not to alienate visitors.

However, over time websites accumulate data and can be slowly bogged down by that. To avoid this, regular clean ups and speed tests are mandatory.

Content Updates

Of course, part of maintaining a website is also keeping the content up to date. After all, you want to give your visitors the latest and most relevant information. If your contact information is faulty or your site still sporting ads for the Christmas sale in June, it will make you look unprofessional.

Search Engine Optimisation

Finally, you need to keep an eye on how your site fares regarding SEO. Tracking rankings, sniffing out broken links, analysing your webmaster tools, updating title tags, meta descriptions and other parts of on-page SEO are also part of successful website maintenance.

Could You Use Some Help?

Taking care of a website all by yourself sounds a bit overwhelming? Don’t worry; you don’t need to do it on your own (or at all for that matter). All maintenance tasks listed above are part of our website service. What’s more, we will even build the website, to begin with. If you are interested, learn more here or get in touch.

The post Your Complete Guide to Website Maintenance appeared first on MBJ LONDON.

For small businesses especially it has become a fact of life and an incredibly helpful tool in developing brand awareness and loyalty. Fact is, there are many benefits of having a website for your small business. Here’s why yours could do with one too:

• Increases credibility. Everyone likes transparency and your customers are no different. Today, consumers expect companies to have a web presence and might be turned off by businesses that don’t. Additionally, professional contact details are often a customer’s quickest way of vetting a company’s legitimacy at-a-glance. With a website, you can create your own custom email addition a touch of professionalism to your address.

• Extends your reach. Studies show that, in 2017 over half of humanity will be online. That means that your website has the potential to reach billions of people, some of which are potential customers. Especially if you have products to sell, a brick and mortar shop just can’t compare to the power, accessibility and visibility of a digital storefront. Your website can extend well beyond the local market and appeal to clients on a global scale.

• Cost effective. Unlike a physical retailer or print advertisement a website is always open, always available, and can be updated with the click of a button. Considering its reach, websites are endlessly more cost effective, especially if you use a website concierge service, which can save you both precious time and money, turning your website into an affordable commodity instead of a large investment.

• Great communication tool. Think of your business website as an online brochure or catalogue. You can use it to keep your clients up to date and informed about your company. Yet, in contrast to other media, you are able to use many different ways of communicating and engaging your customer base including videos. Plus, websites are great networking tools and a way for others to get in touch with you.

• Effective customer service. Since most customers nowadays expect you to have website, not having one is doing them a disservice that might drive them to the competition. In addition to that, you can create a lot of extra value for consumers by providing additional information such as FAQs, press releases, tips on how to use your products and much more.

As you can see, there are endless reasons to have a invest a little in building a site. What is a website if not the communication tool the 21st century?  Businesses who are not present online are sure to miss out on a lot of opportunities, visibility, and ultimately, customers.

The post What is a Website (And Why Does Your Business Need One)? appeared first on MBJ LONDON.

In 2013, American Express performed a service study. When 1,620 consumers were lab tested, 63% reported their heart rate increase when they thought about receiving great customers service. For 53% of those tested, receiving great customer service triggered the same reaction in the brain as feeling loved. The takeaway? When it comes to customer service, it’s not about what consumers think. Great service is about feelings.

So there’s that. But if feeling loved is not getting you all excited, consider this: creating and running a website yourself is a lot work.

First, there’s the hosting — it needs to be secure. You are going to probably also need a designer (including mobile design). If you aren’t an adept writer, you may need a copywriter. Hiring an SEO expert may also be crucial if you want to get noticed and rank high in search results. Then you are going to have to occasionally update and perform regular website maintenance. If you want to learn precious customer info from your site, you are either going to have to hire someone with analytics know-how or you are going to have to learn Google Analytics real fast. No wonder most companies have dedicated personnel and entire departments for all this.

In addition to lengthy development times, a website can also be a substantial investment. Most web design agencies charge thousands for even a simple website with costs escalating quickly for additional functionalities. Additionally, freelancers are quite often unreliable and intransparent about pricing, leading to inflated costs for products that seem to fall short of expectation. What’s more, after handing over the keys your site, they often leave clients to fare for themselves.

As a consequence, maintaining a web presence can be a tall order for many small and medium-sized companies who have neither the staff nor the budget to do it properly. Yet, going without one and missing out on the thriving online market is not an option.

So, what are businesses to do?

Website concierge! Wouldn’t it be better to not have to do all that work and instead employ a single team of experts to handle all of it for you? And in record time? Website concierge services allow even small businesses to have high-quality websites. Instead of dealing with all the spinning plates, a dedicated external staff builds, develops and manages the site, freeing up precious time an entrepreneur can spend focusing on growing the business.

So, to recap, website concierge services make your life easier by…

Eliminating needless guessing, busywork and liaising.

If you are building a website “the-old-fashioned-way” you have to interact with multiple parties. Resulting in you — the business owner — becoming more of a coordinator that entrepreneur. A website concierge service eliminates all of this. Everything is taken care of in one place, with single points of contact.

Working with a team of experts at a fraction of the cost.

Website concierge service gets you access to your own dedicated IT department without having to worry about the cost of hiring and overhead. These experts guide take care of hosting, web design, web development, search engine optimisation and everything else involved in running a website.

Saving you time and energy.

Most importantly, however, without the need to constantly worry about or deal with your website, you can use that time and energy for other things—like running your business.

In the end, working with a website concierge service is all about prioritising. It allows you to outsource an important part of your business to someone who can give it more attention than you yourself might be able to. That way, you have the chance to divert more effort to other important parts of the business with the peace of mind that your online presence is taken care of. Oh, and did we mention the amazing customer service?

Interested in having your own website concierge service? Reach out to us at MBJ to see how we can help you improve and manage your online presence: info@mbj.london

The post The Benefits of Working with a Website Concierge Service appeared first on MBJ LONDON.

We set out to raise £350,000, and after analysing countless platforms, we decided that the most suited for MBJ, was Crowdcube. By the end of our 30-day campaign, we had raised a total in excess of £700,000.

Running a successful crowdfunding campaign can make your business into the success that you have always dreamed of. Equity-based crowdfunding is one of the best ways for early stage startups to source funding, and build networks of stakeholders and supporters.

However, an unsuccessful campaign can be disastrous. If unsuccessful, it can put off potential customers, partners, as well as future investors. If you want your raise to be successful, it is important to take it very seriously, and make sure that you have fully prepared.

This article should serve as a kind of checklist to help you to get ready for an equity-based crowdfunding round.

There are no right or wrong answers. You must think very carefully about what will suit your company best, your overall strategy, as well as how, and where will you find the right investors for your business’s needs.

How much time should you allocate?

Much of the hard work towards running a successful crowdfunding campaign is done long before your pitch goes live.

Think carefully about the amount of time that you will be able to dedicate to your campaign, whilst ensuring that your business continues to run smoothly. The last thing that you want is some bad press in the middle of a raise.

Whilst we only gave ourselves three weeks, depending on the amount of resources you can dedicate, we suggest that you allow yourself at least one month (preferably two or three) to adequately prepare for a successful raise.

Which kind of crowdfunding is best for your business?

• Donation based crowdfunding sees the public donating their money out of good will, and support for an idea.

• Reward based crowdfunding such as can be found on Kickstarter, is where companies offer certain non-financial rewards for investing, or are selling a product or service before it has been produced.

• Loan based crowdfunding sees investors repaid over time.

• Equity-based crowdfunding is basically like a mini-IPO – you are selling shares and ‘equity’ of your company. It is normally used for raises of £50k upwards. Investors receive returns on their investment when either part, or all, of the company is bought back (either internally or externally), or when the company goes public on a stock exchange.

These are very different concepts that require different preparations, and different strategies.

What kind of crowdfunding should you engage in?

Are you looking to increase sales, gain exposure, or find serious investors to invest sizeable sums into your company, or all of those? At what stage is your business? Are you looking for a few thousand pounds to get off the ground? Or have you been trading for several years and are looking for a boost of several hundred thousand pounds (or more) to take your business to the next level?

If you have been trading for at least one year, have a solid plan for growth and scalability, have a strong understanding of business fundamentals, as well as a clear exit strategy for selling all, or part, of the company down the line, then equity-based crowdfunding could be the best option for you.

Develop your pitch

This is one of the most crucial parts to any campaign. The way you sell yourself will strongly influence potential investors.

Most seasoned angel investors will tell you that they invest in teams, more than ideas or products. Of course you need a great idea, product or business model, but investors will be looking closely at whom they will be giving their money to.

What kind of investors are you looking to attract? How do you want them to perceive you? Are you looking for an experienced businessperson to come on-board and actively help you to grow your business and mentor you?

Put yourself in their shoes. Many angel investors do not want to be involved in the day-to-day running of the business; they just want to sit back and see a sizeable return on their investment.

What is your story? What makes you unique and stand out? How will the video of your pitch be structured? Make sure that you achieve the balance right between coming across as a serious businesswoman/man, as well as someone who is likable and investable. Don’t smile too much; yet don’t smile too little either.

Develop your strategy

Once you have chosen the best platform for your campaign, start analysing other pitches on it.

Make lists of, and follow the other pitches over time. Take note of their campaign strategies, and how successful they have/have not been. Do not just look at the very successful ones, closely examine pitches that ARE NOT successful. What did they do/are they doing wrong?

Are the campaigns using social media much? If so, which platforms are they using? What kinds of posts and updates are they making? Which ones have had the most success?

Have any of the pitches been featured in any press or media outlets? Which ones? Take note of where they have gotten exposure from, and who the journalists/bloggers are. Maybe they would also be interested in writing about you/your business.

Whilst you should take notes, and learn lessons from other pitches, it is important to develop a pitch, and a story that is unique to you. It must convey a strong message, and identify the path for financial returns to your potential investors.

Make lists of people, or organisations that could help you to get exposure for your campaign (journalists, bloggers, social media groups, interest groups etc.).

Make lists of upcoming events where you could go along and pitch, or just meet people and tell them about your campaign.

Make lists of different groups of investors. Where do they congregate (either online or in person)? Ensure that when you target different groups of potential investors that you take a targeted approach, and that your communications are tailored to that particular person, or group.

Basically, make all different kinds of lists, and keep them safe.

Prepare a date in the middle of your campaign, to hold an investor Q&A session. This will give the opportunity to potential investors to meet you face-to-face. Make sure that there are no other big events going on that day that could attract your target audience away from your event.

Building personal relations brings a face to your business. Individuals are much more likely to invest if they have had personal interactions, or connections with the business.

You should also research, and read all relevant legislation regarding the sale and promotion of financial investments. Make sure that you are not crossing any boundaries.

What should you do to ensure that your business is ready for all the exposure that you are about to get?

Get your finances in shape (or as in shape as they can be!). But do not, ever, lie or sell a false reality.

Write a comprehensive list (yes, another list!) of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). Make sure that you, and everyone in your business knows what the opportunity is for potential investors, and that you are adequately prepared to answer tough questions.

Get your website looking great. Investors will naturally have a thorough look at your online presence before investing, and this may well be the deciding factor. Reach out to MBJ if it is not. Building great websites, and helping to create a great online presence is what we do best!

A business that is asking people to invest into it, but cannot be bothered to ensure that its online presence is looking perfect, cannot expect to be taken seriously by investors.

Once the campaign is live

Now the hard work really begins. You will need to work tirelessly towards communicating to the world that your pitch is live, and that there is an opportunity of possible financial returns for investors.

Attend as many of the events that you have listed as possible.

Prepare social media content for updates along the way such as milestones, updates, and general news. Consider Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media ad campaigns, which target your ideal investor profiles.

Make sure to monitor and reply to comments and discussion boards on your profile. This gives you the opportunity to offer personalised responses and explanations as to the current status of your business, and why things are the way they are. Your pre-prepared FAQs should help you to quickly respond to any tough questions.

Write emails to your new investors and show them how much you appreciate their commitment. Think about incentives for your new support network. Most seasoned angel investors have extensive networks that you can try to tap into.

Have contingency plans in case things do not go as well as you hoped they would.

Conclusion

You should now have more of an idea of what, and how, to begin to prepare for an equity-based crowdfunding round. If you follow these steps and guidelines, you should be well on your way to developing a successful pitch, raising those funds, and hitting your target.

If you have any questions and would like to reach out to MBJ, we are happy to share our experiences that we gained during our raise.

It was by no means easy, we had highs, and we had lows. It took many long weeks of hard work from a team of highly motivated and dedicated individuals working together.

In the end for us, the rewards far surpassed our best hopes and expectations. Following our raise, we found ourselves in a position to begin scaling our business, and working towards bringing returns for our investors.

Was it all worth it? Definitely.

The post Crowdfunding: Preparing and Running a Successful Campaign appeared first on MBJ LONDON.

Exactly six months ago, five teams from around the globe were getting ready at Google Campus in London to make their last pitches at the final of the MBJ LaunchPad 2015 competition. In front of an audience of hundreds of people, they were trying to win the top prize – a £100k equity-free investment to develop their business. We reached out to some of the finalists to see where they are now and how their business ventures are progressing.

MoonROK – Winner

MoonROK is one of the only English language media outlets dedicated to Korean pop music (K-Pop) in the world. K-Pop has one of the largest fan bases of any genre in the globe, with many of its artists boasting hundreds of millions, and in some cases billions of views on their videos.

Ever since winning the MBJ LaunchPad competition MookROK have gone from strength to strength. Not long after returning to their native USA from the MBJ LaunchPad final, MoonROK won the KIC Challenge competition in Washington D.C. As well as a $10,000 cash prize, the team won one year of office space and accommodation in South Korea. They are due to move their headquarters from New York City to Seoul in June 2016.

MoonROK also recently returned to the UK in April 2016, having got to the final of yet another competition. This time it was for the Business Rocks event in Manchester. Whilst the team did not win the overall cash prize of £50,000 for their category, they came fourth out of several hundred finalists. Being in the UK also gave MoonROK the chance to pop into the MBJ office for a couple of days and work alongside our growing team.

To top things off, the team look set to have closed their first seed round of investment. As they continue their upward trajectory, we strongly advise you to keep a close eye on MoonROK.

moonrok.com

Beep Beep – Runner Up

BeepBeep, like most startups, have gone through several makeovers. The team has now found a winning formula: “On Demand Valet Parking”. They are initially focused on serving the city of Amsterdam, and soon, The Hague with further expansion planned in the pipeline.

When the Beep Beep team came to London for the final of MBJ LaunchPad the team was comprised of three co-founders: Scott Moran, Karan Bagai and Shashank Batra. Since graduating from their MBA program, Karan accepted a sought after position with an investment bank. Shashank took a position at one of the Big Four accounting and consulting firms. Scott has remained CEO of Beep Beep and has since taken on three (soon four) new members.

The revised Beep Beep business model offers users the ability to drive up to anywhere in city centre, call a Beep Beep Expert Valet, who will whizz along on a scooter to meet the user and park their car for them in a local partner garage. When the user needs their car back, Beep Beep will guarantee its return within 15 minutes to anywhere in the city centre. Users can track the whereabouts of their car through the app to ensure that it is where it’s supposed to be at all times.

Avennu – Runner Up

Avennu is an online market place based in New York City whose vision is to connect professionals and businesses to urban spaces suited to their unique needs. They cater for a multitude of potential requirements such as weddings, photo shoots, charity events, and many more.

Since MBJ LaunchPad, Avennu has made big strides, partnering with London based Sofar Sounds. Sofar Sounds has a large presence in NYC hosting over 100 intimate music shows per month. Furthermore, Avennu has partnered with a 2000 sq. ft. event space in downtown Manhattan. They plan to use the space as a laboratory to try out several new technologies that will strengthen the business and its product offering.

Avennu are currently seeking new partners that share their commitment to community and creative industries.

www.avennu.com

After the huge success of MBJ LaunchPad 2015, the project was put on hold for 2016. This enabled the MBJ team to focus on growing the company internationally and to implement MBJ’s new Websites As A Service (WaaS) product model. Waas offers high quality, fully managed websites to small and medium sized businesses at affordable rates.

MBJ LaunchPad will make a big comeback in 2017. The MBJ team has already begun putting some stokes in the fire so keep an eye out for updates![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

The post MBJ LaunchPad Update appeared first on MBJ LONDON.

1. Branding & Design

Convey the brand suitably and creatively. Your website design should reflect the business the way you envisage it and how you would like it to be perceived by the public including prospective customers. Think of your website as a 24/7 public relations representative. Your website design should encompass the mission and vision which can be displayed in the user experience. When designing your website, consider the user journey and what your ideal customer should learn and/or do when they leave your website. Don’t underestimate the importance of good company branding.

2. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Readiness

Keywords: Keywords are an essential aspect of search engine optimisation that you frequently hear about. Keywords are relevant words or phrases that your prospective customer may enter into search engines to find your website. You should consider the incorporation of keywords in your website design.

Body Text: The body of your web page should be informative, describing your product or service with relevant keywords that your website is eligible to rank for.

Page Loading Speed: Slow loading times can highly effect search engine optimisation. Factors such as a low-quality host server and an overload of large images reduce the loading speed. It is also essential to make sure that any media on your website is optimised and has a satisfactory loading speed. You can test your page loading speed on GTmetrix. A good webpage combines fast loading speed with an appealing website design.

Page Titles: The page title is one of the most significant aspects of a website . Every page on your site should have a title starting with a relevant keyword and it is important that the context of the title matches the content of the page. Page titles should help you rank for a keyword and make users click through to your website.
The length of the page title shouldn’t exceed the recommended amount of characters. We usually advice page title not to exceed 65 characters where your focus keyword is at the beginning.

H1 Headings: An H1 tag or heading will usually be the title of a post and the most significant text on the page. The H1 heading is not to be confused with the page title, which is the title that is shown on the SERPS. There should be only one H1 heading per page.

URL Structure: A clear and concise URL structure should be in line with your page title and H1 heading. For instance, https://mbj.london/products/ has a crisp URL structure and clearly displays the content of the link.
Meta Descriptions: A descriptive text explaining and summarising the content of the page. The main purpose of a meta description is to get people to click through from search engines. We recommend meta description to be between 135 and 160 characters. Meta descriptions should be unique, it is better to leave them empty than copy/paste or have irrelevant content. If it is not filled, then Google will pull a snippet from the text containing the keyword used.

3. Social Media Integration

With 2.3 billion social media users in the world, it is safe to say that a thorough social media strategy is essential for businesses. In addition to a well designed website, a social media presence is important when attracting and maintaining customers.

4. Blogging

Bringing your brand name into the blogging world allows you to establish yourself as a credible source and a knowledgeable leader in your industry. Both on-site and off-site blogging are advantageous for SEO.

5. Maintenance

Developing and managing your website through a subscription-based Website as a Service (WaaS) option ensures that your web presence receives ongoing maintenance. Regular upkeep typically includes long-term (quarterly and yearly) updates to your web presence to ensure your website is running smoothly. Other important aspects of web maintenance include fast page loading, fixing any broken links and backlinks, as well as web analysis through Google Analytics and MOZ.

Bonus Tip – Hosting

The quality of your cloud hosting will also determine your website’s SEO ranking. Server Speed: Although the optimal loading time for a website is under 3 seconds, if the loading time exceeds 10 seconds, visitors are more likely to leave your website and go to one of your competitors. Speed and security are vital to the amount of traffic on your site.

Downtime: It is important to minimise downtime and make sure that pages do not become overloaded. This can interfere with potential customers reaching your site as well as search engines accessing it for crawling purposes. Amazon Web Services (AWS): At MBJ, we use AWS as our preferred hosting partner. Popular companies such as Netflix, Expedia, Coursera, and UniLever use AWS. It is the world’s largest and most secure cloud services provider.

The post Website Design Advice from our Team appeared first on MBJ LONDON.

Our SEO London team provides Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) advice to a wide range of clients on a daily basis. It is important to understand the importance of SEO and how it is interlinked with the creation of a flawless web presence.

The process of SEO all begins with a want or need from the potential customer. Subsequently, this encourages them to use a search engine to find what they are looking for. For example, an individual’s want/need for an Italian restaurant in London will prompt this search: “Italian restaurant London”. As an Italian restaurant in London, you would strive for your business’s website to be the first, if not, then at least on the first page, of the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) for these keywords. The world’s most popular search engine, Google, has implemented various algorithms, which are designed to determine the ranking of websites. Here are the 5 tips from our SEO London team to help you optimise your web presence for SEO successfully.

1. Great Copy & Content

A website should be a credible and reliable source of information on your product or service. A clear and concise structure is vital to your website as well as carefully crafted copy. The objective of creating great content is so that it is shareable therefore increasing your authority and rankings. We advise that every web page has a minimum of 300 words.

2. Social Media & Listings

The integration of social media on your web presence is, of course, interlinked with the best SEO practices. Signing up to some of the biggest social media platforms in the world, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn can boost your rankings. For instance, an active presence on Twitter allows for a search engine such as Google to discover your content much faster, thus getting more organic traffic to your website. Search engines like Google include social media sites in their algorithm. In fact, Google highlights Twitter accounts in their search results. Google and other search engines also have databases of local business listings. Placing your business in these databases is extremely helpful when implementing your SEO strategy. It is advisable to register your company on Google My Business; this listing allows you to post your opening times, social media handles, to enforce trust.

3. Measurement Tools

The best way of keeping track of your SEO progress is through tools such as Google Analytics. Amongst many metrics available through Google Analytics the most used ones include the number of impressions, number of clicks, and the overall position of your website.

Claim your business on Google Webmaster to be up-to-date with aspects of your website that need improvement. Google Webmaster is one of the tools we use for our clients in order to see what needs to be modified and improved.

4. On-site vs. off-site blogging

On-site Blogging: Incorporating a blog on your website provides you with the opportunity to increase your search engine rankings whilst offering useful information to current and prospective customers alike. An on-site blog allows you to showcase your business and act as a resource for information that is up-to-date and relevant to your industry. Additionally, having control over your blog allows you to link internally to your own website.

Off-site Blogging: Establishing a blog presence off-site is especially useful for public relations and publicity purposes. In regards to SEO, posts on external blogs need to be high-quality backlinks; having a blog link back to your website will boost your credibility and rankings.

5. On-Page

H1 Heading – The H1 heading is essentially the newspaper headline of your page. The heading should consist of relevant keywords and clearly display the subject of the content.

Page Title – Page titles are especially important for SEO – they are the text that will appear on the tab of the browser window as well as in the search engine result.

Alt Text and Image Description – Optimising SEO for images on your web page involves implementing keywords into the file name. For instance, if you have a photo of Tower Bridge in London, the file name should be tower-bridge-london.jpg instead of IMG4958.jpg.

URL Structure – The website URL should have a clear path and display the content of the page. For instance: https://mbj.london/portfolio/

At MBJ, our professional SEO London team assists our clients every step of the way. We offer a subscription-based package called Website as a Service (WaaS), which is inclusive of the essential design, development, and maintenance required to craft an impeccable web presence. Website as a Service from MBJ also allows for clients to improve their website with extra add-ons such as SEO services, faster maintenance, as well as email and calendar accounts.

Get in touch today with our SEO London team to see how we can begin to help you improve your SEO and get more organic traffic onto your website.

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Consumers are steadily leaning towards more straightforward buying processes. In recent years, there have been numerous examples of the success and increase in subscription-based business models across a wide of array of industries. Fewer and fewer people buy movies, instead they have a Netflix subscription, they no longer buy physical data storage, they use Dropbox, and consumers no longer buy music singles or albums, they pay a monthly subscription for Spotify. These are amongst the most successful companies to adopt the subscription-based model, but are by no means the only ones. Recurly is a San Francisco-based company that guides companies through the process of offering subscription services to their clientele. CEO and co-founder of Recurly, Dan Burkhart, says, “For businesses, it’s peace of mind; for customers, it’s a reprieve from worrying about this stuff themselves.”

In the world of business-to-business (B2B) consumption, it important to be well informed of the changes and trends that occur in the sphere of subscription-based models. While it is currently a popular trend, with an ever-increasing amount of companies adopting the model, it may be especially beneficial to consumers looking for tech-related services. Amongst the most prevalent are Software as a Service (SaaS), cloud-based packages Platform as a Service (PaaS), and most recently, Website as a Service (WaaS).

Key Factors

Cost-effective Solutions: Premium and tailored services catering to businesses and consumers have become increasingly costly. Upfront costs for various services and products can be overwhelming for the budget of a small to medium sized business. However, subscription-based services are certainly a more economical solution. The lack of upfront costs allows customers and businesses with varying budgets to reap the benefits of a consistent subscription service. As a potential consumer of web development services for example, it’s simpler and much more manageable to process that you will only pay from £79 to £200 per month for services and is certainly more gratifying to hear than an upfront cost of £4-5,000 for a typical project.

Boosts Customer Service: The old saying “the customer is always right” is particularly true with subscription-based models. These businesses are designed to provide long-lasting and supportive customer relationships. The idea of the subscription-based business is to create an efficient workflow in which customers can expect steady and dependable maintenance coverage. For instance, a website management project can be particularly daunting for a business owner that lacks technical experience, or that simply needs more time to dedicate to the many other tasks involved with running a successful business. However, the usage of a subscription-based service and website as a service (WaaS) can guarantee that the latest technology and appropriate updates will be implemented. Naturally, a supportive customer service team backs these services.

Hassle-Free Maintenance: The nature of the subscription model allows a business to gradually grow a stronger relationship with its customers. The structure of a subscription-based service enables the customer to test the quality and experience of utilising the service before continuing with a more permanent commitment. The subscription model is applicable amongst various industries and is cropping up in the daily lives of business owners, marketing teams, and managing directors alike. Many companies are often faced with the challenge of ensuring that their technology is reliable and up-to-date. In this day and age, technology is the perfect example of an ever-changing industry that affects the operations of nearly every type of business. For instance, the subscription model for Website as a Service (WaaS) allows a small business’s web design, web development, digital marketing and indeed every aspect to their online presence to be maintained at the hands of a reliable IT partner for an affordable cost, thus allowing the business to focus on what it knows and does best.

Overall Impact on Business

Over the last several years, the subscription-based business model has become a revolutionary element in the way consumers purchase services and has revolutionised many industries and continues to do so. The subscription model applies to consumers across numerous industries. For consumers, signing up for a subscription model makes services and products easier to use than ever. The lack of upfront costs coupled with the hassle-free maintenance and updates that the subscription model provides allows for businesses to save time and money as well. The introduction of Website as a Service (WaaS) is particularly attractive to small businesses that lack an in-house IT department. The subscription model in the case of website design and management enables consumers to “step away” from their project and let the company do the work. Signing up for the WaaS model provides peace of mind for companies in the long term and delivers the most modern and up-to-the-minute website.

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Design & Branding

Branding a business properly is essential to building s successful brand and implementing an effective marketing strategy. The brand will become a symbol and represent the image of what a business does. The imagery, designs, and phrases associated with a brand can help a business gain, and maintain a loyal clientele. Our WaaS packages provide the support of a graphic designer as well as a brand expert that will assist with the visual details of your website. Customers tend to stick to what they know and expect consistent and unique branding that will make your business memorable.

Colour: The colours that are selected to represent a brand typically come with subconscious undertones from the perspective of the consumer. Think of some popular brands and what their colour schemes represent and the message the brand is trying to convey. Companies such as Virgin and Coca Cola exert a sense of energy, passion, and confidence through their bold, red logos. Other companies like The Body Shop, Lacoste, and Starbucks utilise green in their branding to exemplify a feeling of balance, growth, and equilibrium.

Consistency: Consumers generally like to see consistency in a brand, and a memorable sequence of imagery such as logos or certain designs is an effective method. The repetition of important details on a website as well as any key phrases or slogans will reinforce the strength of the brand’s power.

Mobile Responsiveness

According to a recent forecast, the number of smartphone users worldwide will reach 2.4 billion by 2018. In the UK, approximately 76% of adults have a smartphone and over 32 million smartphones are purchased annually (source?).As a result, the need for a mobile-friendly website is key to maintaining a steady pool of clientele. Mobile responsiveness has now become an essential feature and a definite expectation for smartphone users throughout the world. Google and other search engines heavily penalise websites that are not mobile responsive meaning that those which are not, risk falling behind the competition and loosing business. WaaS provides the ability to effortlessly adjust the page from desktop to mobile.

SEO Readiness

With WaaS, your website’s Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) will be updated on an on-going basis. There are certain strategic aspects of SEO that should be incorporated right from the start when developing a website in order to create a successful SEO and online campaign.

Keywords: Selecting suitable and appropriate keywords to place on your website are also crucial to a successful SEO strategy. The right keywords will not only drive traffic to your site but also increase the amount of prospective customers. SEO- friendly keywords can be added to various places on your website including anchor texts and links, page titles, or captions related to multimedia content. Choosing the right keywords will increase the amount of relevant traffic that will reach your website and ultimately, the fluctuation of sales.

Meta descriptions: A key aspect of your description should be on your business’ competitive advantage and unique selling point(s). What differentiates your business from your competitors? From an outside perspective, why would they click on your site in Google search as opposed to many others? What makes you stand out? Are you a non-profit? Keep in mind that a value proposition simplifies SEO. Are you an exceptionally user-friendly e-commerce site? Do you provide top-class customer service? Do you offer high quality products discounted prices? Free shipping? These are examples of important details to include in keywords and meta descriptions.

Maintenance

One of the most important aspects of a successful web presence lies in the maintenance and upkeep of the relevant technology. The Website as a Service model allows for regular maintenance and updates to be included in the overall package. With the fast-pace of technology in today’s world, it is often difficult for business owners to keep up with the ever-changing cycles of technical innovations, updates, and changes.

Website Hosting

The foundation of a website lies in the server that it will be hosted on. Our Website as a Service model boasts Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud hosting as our partner. AWS offers secure, reliable services to a multitude of clientele including Expedia, Unilever, Airbnb, and many other large companies.

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