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web design

EWD Named by Clutch among Top Web Designers in the UK for 2021. Photo shows Clutch Top Web Designers Award 2021 badge.

EWD Top Web Designers 2021

EWD Named by Clutch among Top Web Designers in the UK for 2021

EWD Named by Clutch among Top Web Designers in the UK for 2021. Photo shows Clutch Top Web Designers Award 2021 badge.

We have been named among the Top Web Designers in the UK for 2021 by Clutch. There are many resources online that will help you separate your work from your competitors. After all, the more unique your presentation is, the more people will notice your presence. Still, if you really want your business to take off and dominate the online space, investing in web design is one of the most effective ways to capture unrealized attention.

For over 20 years, EWD has been helping businesses craft a sleek and modern identity through web design. Every time a client engages us, we do our best to embody their vision, allowing us to create a presence for them that will stand out. With that in mind, we feel especially joyful to hear the news that we were included in Clutch’s rank of top web designers in the UK for this year.

Clutch is a ratings and reviews platform in the B2B space that aims to eliminate the tedium of sifting through irrelevant information about service providers. Since its inception, Clutch has become the one-stop-shop of reviews for buyers that are searching for the best company to hire. Each year, the platform evaluates and groups the highest-performing firms, regardless of their size and popularity, in the Clutch Leader Awards.

We’re grateful to be recognized by Clutch as a leader in the industry. Our CEO, Jonathan Roberts, said, “We are delighted to have been named one of Britain’s top B2B firm by Clutch.”

Here are what some of our clients have said about us:

“Their willingness to adapt to what we need has been very impressive.”

— Barrie Roberts, Managing Director, Aberconway Consulting

“The knowledge base for the industry they are in is unmeasurable.”

— Martin Roberts, Director, Electroquest UK Ltd

Want to Know More?

Be sure to check out our Clutch profile
If you are interested to know more about our projects with these lovely customers. Or, if you’re looking for a partner in your next project, our inbox is waiting for you.

Responsive web design article by EWD. Graphic shows a WiFi icon to the left in black with the wording responsive web design to the right on a yellow background.

Responsive Web Design

Responsive Web Design

Responsive web design seems to be a hot topic at the moment. I am sure you have received emails from companies offering to make your website responsive, or provide a new website.

In this article, I want to help you cut through jargon and find out what Responsive Web Design is I will also look at why it is important to your business.

blog post: responsive web design. Couple using mobile devices to make a purchase, woman holding mobile phone with a card in one hand ready to buy with her partner looking on.

What is Responsive Web Design

Simply put, responsive web design is all about ensuring your website looks good on any device. This is regardless of whether it is a mobile phone, a tablet, a laptop or a traditional computer.

Note that I did not say that your website will look the same on any device. Often, it will look different on the device your customer views your website to what you see on your computer.

You may be viewing your website on a traditional desktop computer with a screen size of around 19” or greater. However, your customer may view your site on a watch! If your site looks the same on a watch and a computer screen, the site would be impossible to read. This is because it would be a smaller version of your site.

Instead, because of responsive web design, your site will display in a single column. This type of adjustment is repeated on millions of different devices ensuring the site looks its best.

Your website, whilst having the same content and colour scheme will have a different layout for each device.

This isn’t achieved by having a different version of your website for each of the devices. This was normal a few years ago. When you had a new website built, you would also receive a version built for mobile phones. The likelihood is it would have a URL similar to this https://m.yourdomain.com.

This has changed with the advent of responsive web design. Instead of having multiple versions of your website for each of the device types available. There are special codes behind the scenes how your website is to look on each of the different devices.

Why Should You Have a Responsive Website?

If your website isn’t built responsively it can look bad on devices other than the one it was built for. Older web design technologies didn’t have the code to ensure your website looked great regardless of the device. Many times we have seen a company or sole trader lose business simply because their website was unusable on a phone or other mobile device.

Statista is a company who constantly gather information about how we use the internet. They produce a report each year about the growth of the internet is viewed on mobile phones.

52% of website traffic was on a mobile phone during 2019 statista.com June 2020

Mobile Traffic is up by 222% in the last seven-years broadbandsearch.net 2020

With the growth of mobile phone use across the world, it is becoming more and more important to ensure your website can be viewed on mobile phones and the design of the website ensures it is easy for mobile internet users to navigate through your site and either make contact with you or buy your products and services directly from their device, regardless what that device is.

Quite often you will see savvy shoppers browsing in a store using their mobile device to check if they can buy the same product online. Your website must be easy to use on their devices to ensure they use your website and not competitors.

The Future

I do not need to get the crystal ball out to predict that more and more people are going to use the internet to make purchases, book events, contact companies etc. they are going to use traditional computers less and less because of responsive web design. This is easy to predict because it is already happening. Just as people have moved away from using traditional phones to mobile phones (many households do not have a landline anymore!) so they want to be able to use the internet wherever they are, this means mobile devices are here to stay and will be used more and more.

Conclusions

People are being freed from being stuck in the spare room to view the internet and do their shopping, more and more they can use the internet on different devices wherever they are. As people are using mobile devices over the traditional desktop computer, you need to ensure your website can meet their needs or they will go to a competitor.

Responsive web design ensures your website will be seen no matter what device is used.

Don’t give your competition your business, check if your website is responsive at https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly. If it passes, congratulations. If it doesn’t contact your web developer. Of course, we can help you too, get in touch now to discuss your new website and ensure you don’t lose customers to your competition!

Reach Your Customers Wherever They Are

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Web Design Basics - Html Course By Esthetig Web Design. Icon Shows A Whiteboard With Mountains And A Circle For The Sun, A Pen, A Light Bulb And A Cloud Around The Whiteboard.

Web design basics

Web Design Basics

In the past, I have looked at marketing your website, a very basic HTML course, choosing images and fonts for your website. Web Design Basics is going to guide you through the whole process of designing a website. First things first, let’s get the planning started.

Before you Begin

When looking at web design basics we need to start right at the beginning and ensure we plan correctly and have everything in place.

Strategy > Plan > build > Promote

Strategy

Plan

  • What information does the site need to give? Here you need to look at databases; what information/data does your website need to gather and where will it be stored.
  • Create a sitemap for the website – this will help you determine the navigation structure
  • Put a drawing together of how the overall website will look and any sub-page special features (be consistent though, don’t want your visitors thinking they are on a different website).
  • What calls to action will your website include? Good marketing practice dictates every page that sells something (a service or a product) must have a call to action – don’t forget even pages such as your contact page may need a call to action, especially if you are hoping to encourage people to sign up to a newsletter.
  • What is the brand identity for the website? This should match your company in the real world.
  • Are there any special requirements for the code language? (Will your site be HTML, PHP, ASP etc)
  • If you are using content-management or e-commerce systems do you require a bespoke system or are you happy to use a robust “off-the-shelf” system such as WordPress, Joomla, Magento, Zen Cart and so on.

Build

  • Valid code is vital – make sure that your developer adheres to standards established by the W3 Consortium.
  • Content Management System needs to be put into place
  • E-Commerce platform needs to be built
  • Elements such as movies, buttons, banners etc need to be built a this stage
  • The database/source needs to be built
  • Test and implement the site.

Promote

  • Search Engine Indexing – add your website to the major Search Engines (but don’t forget the smaller niche ones too!).
  • Search Engine Optimisation – On page optimisation should have been completed in the build stage; but further enhancement of your site needs to be carried out here.
  • Email and Mailshots are great tools to get the message about your new website across quickly – getting to the top of a search engine for your chosen keyword/phrase will be much more successful if your campaign includes real-world advertising thrown into the mix.
  • Keyword research – recheck at this point to ensure your keywords/phrase are the most effective.
  • Social marketing – will you use Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest etc? You should use a selection of these in every campaign for your website – which you will choose may be down to personal preference. But also, consider which your target market is using – if the demographic group you are targeting tend to favour a particular platform you MUST also use that platform.
Great Websites Start With Great Web Design. Icon Of A Brain (to Show The Creative Process) With A Tick And A Person Icon Around

Great websites

Great websites start with great planning!

However, before you start planning the design and functionality (these are important – but later) it is important to start at the beginning.
The beginning of any design to achieve a great website is to consider who your market is. Who are you aiming your website to? Who will use it the most?

Just deciding to target your great websites for everyone is ok if your product or service is something that everyone will want and you can provide your product or service to everyone. For example, here we must consider who everyone is. This is all age groups including children – would children need your product or service? It also means in every country regardless of trade restrictions (your country may not allow you to sell to certain countries – if in doubt check first!).

By now I am sure that you are realising that targeting your website at everyone isn’t the best use of your time and resources. As an extra bonus, you will be rewarded by the search engines for not targeting everyone with higher rankings – you will always achieve higher rankings and great websites by narrowing your target audience.

Narrowing your target audience

Realistically, your great websites will be used by a certain demographic – i.e. a certain age group and geographic region. You may only supply to your own country – if this is the case, you can narrow your keywords to your country. If your product or service is most likely only to be used by a certain age group then target that group.

Before you even think of the design of your site getting your target audience right is vital, this will determine the look and feel of your website; differing age groups or even genders respond differently to websites depending on the look and feel – the design is determined by who you are targeting – get it right and you will be onto a successful website.

It is important to design your website for your audience, not for your business. 

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