What is SEO?

SEO stands for search engine optimisation. It is all about making your website and content rank higher on search engines like Google. Good SEO helps your site show up better in search results, making it easier for people to find you. Since most people use search engines to find online content, using SEO practices is important. It helps draw more visitors to your site and increases your traffic.

Benefits of SEO best practices

More traffic for your website

One of the biggest benefits of SEO is that it attracts high-quality traffic to your website. Unlike traditional marketing, which can be hit-or-miss, using SEO best practices ensures that your website shows up in search results when people are actively looking for what you offer. This means you reach them at a key moment when they are focused and looking for solutions, rather than when they are distracted by other activities, which generates more leads.

Boost brand awareness

SEO helps people notice and remember your brand by making sure your business appears often in search results. When people see your company frequently, it increases the chances that people will recognise and recall your brand. This repeated exposure builds trust and makes your brand more familiar to them.

Boost your credibility

Another benefit of SEO is that it helps make your site look more credible. When your site appears at the top of Google’s search results, people are more likely to trust it. Being on the first page makes your site seem more reliable compared to others that are lower down. It also increases the chances that people will click on your link rather than your competitor’s.

Make your website easier to index

Faster indexing is also a benefit of using SEO best practices. When you make your website easier to index, Google can find and list your new or updated pages more quickly. This means your content appears in search results sooner. With quicker indexing, you get better visibility on Google, leading to more visitors and higher click-through rates.

Boost conversion rate

SEO helps bring people to your website for free. Once visitors arrive at your site, the goal is to turn them into customers or at least get their contact information. The percentage of visitors who do what you want, like making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter, is called the conversion rate. Your goal is to make this rate as high as possible. Since SEO increases the number of visitors to your website, it will also boost the conversion rate.

Decrease advertising cost

SEO best practices help you save money on ads and marketing in the long run. When your business appears on the first page of search results, you can spend less on ads and use that money for other things, like improving your content. Many businesses discover that SEO is cheaper and more effective than traditional ads. Often, within the first year, they find that SEO not only costs less but also brings better long-term results.

SEO best practices

This section will give you practical tips to help your website rank better on Google and other search engines.

Do keyword research

SEO isn’t just about getting any visitors to your site. It is about bringing in people who need what you offer and could become customers. To do that you have to rank for the keywords they are searching for, otherwise, they won’t find you, even if you are at the top of the search results. That is why good SEO starts with figuring out what words your potential customers are using in their searches.

Focus on UX

In June 2021, Google introduced its Core Web Vitals update, focusing on user experience (UX) rather than just content. This update evaluates three main factors: how quickly your site loads, how stable it is, and how responsive it is to user interactions. Google’s goal is to provide a better experience across devices, especially mobile, following its move to mobile-first indexing in March 2021. To stay ahead make sure to optimise your site’s loading speed, stability and responsiveness to meet these standards. Additionally, consider updating your website design to enhance these elements and improve overall user experience.

Use internal links

Internal linking or connecting one page on your site to other pages is a powerful yet often overlooked SEO tactic. Good internal links help search engines understand your site and make it easier for visitors to find their way around. Using internal links helps Google understand the context of your content through anchor text (the clickable words in a link) and highlights the value of your pages.

Remove or fix weak content

Every piece of content on your site should have a clear goal, like attracting visitors, turning leads into customers, or improving your site’s reputation. Regularly check how your content is performing to make sure it is effective. If something isn’t working, consider updating or removing it as it could hurt your site’s performance. Search engines favour the latest and most relevant information, so keeping your content updated can help you rank higher in search results.

Relevant meta titles and descriptions

Meta titles and descriptions are short summaries of your page that show up on search engine results. They help people decide if they want to click on your page and help search engines understand what it is about. To make them work well, use your main keywords at the start, add details like numbers or dates to make them pop, include a call to action (like learn more or buy now) and keep titles under 60 characters and descriptions under 160 characters. Make sure each page has a unique title and description.

Link building

Building high-quality backlinks is one of the most challenging aspects of SEO. Google doesn’t say backlinks directly impact rankings, but sites with few links usually don’t rank high. To figure out how many links you need, check how many links top-ranking pages have for your keywords. Start by analysing your competitor’s backlinks and trying to get similar ones with tools like Ahrefs. Focus on creating great content that naturally earns links from respected sources, like through guest posts, shareable infographics or participating in online communities.

Fix broken links

Broken links can hurt your SEO rankings. Google likes sites that are up-to-date and well-maintained, so too many broken links can make your site look outdated. They also cause crawl errors because Google’s bots cannot fully index pages with broken links. To follow SEO best practices, regularly check for and fix broken links to prevent any negative impact on your rankings.

Optimise images with alt-text

Images make your website more attractive and can help with SEO. To use them effectively, choose high-quality, relevant images instead of generic ones. Make sure they load quickly by keeping file sizes small. Also use alt-text (alternative) to explain what each image is about, so both people and search engines can understand them.

Mobile-first indexing

Since most website traffic comes from mobile devices, you should make sure your site works well on phones and tablets. Use a responsive web design that adjusts to different screen sizes and make sure your pages load quickly by compressing images and minimising heavy scripts. Google primarily uses the mobile version of your website for indexing and ranking.

Optimise content for voice search

Voice search is growing fast and might soon replace traditional search. In 2023 60% of UK households with 16-24-year-olds had a smart speaker. Optimising schema markup (the language in which search engines communicate) for voice search helps search engines find your website faster and reach a bigger audience using voice search.

SEO best practices are always evolving because search engines and user habits change over time. To keep your site ranking high, it’s important to stay updated with the latest trends and techniques. Which aspect of SEO do you find the most challenging: keyword research, link building or something else? Let us know in the comment below.

What is a one-page website?

A one-page website is precisely as it sounds – a website that has all its content on single page. This can include everything from the homepage to the contact page, all accessible through single scrolling motion. At first glance, this may appear limiting or impractical, but in reality, one-page web design offers a range of advantages over traditional multi-page websites. One-page websites are frequently created for small businesses or individuals who want to showcase their work or services in a simple, but premium manner. They can also be used for events, portfolios, or product launches.

Examples of one-page websites

Blakeney.com is an example of a one-page website. We created this sleek and modern one-page website for a company that specialises in investing in Africa. The website’s one-page design allows visitors to easily navigate and access all the essential information they need. Despite its single-page structure, the websites layout is optimised to present a comprehensive overview of the company.

Sociicapital.com is another example of a one-page website that was created for a venture capital firm. The website showcases information about the firm’s services, team members, and portfolio companies, in addition to contact details for prospective investors. The website is designed to be clean and professional, with a focus on conveying the firm’s expertise and credibility.

Another example of a company that utilises a one-page website that you can check out is website we have created for financial consultancy firm axxacapital.com. A one-page website design was the perfect solution for Axxacapital.com’s needs, as it allowed them to showcase all of their services, team members, and contact information on a single page, without overwhelming visitors with too much information or requiring them to navigate to different pages.

The pros of one-page websites

Simplicity

One of the biggest advantages of one-page web design is its simplicity. With all of your website content on a single page, visitors can easily find what they are looking for without having to navigate through multiple pages. This can be especially beneficial for websites with a small amount of content, such as portfolios or single-product sites, or websites targeting a specific niche.

Mobile-friendly

With mobile devices becoming increasingly popular for web browsing, it’s important to have a website that’s mobile-friendly. One-page web design is perfect for mobile devices because it eliminates the need for visitors to navigate through multiple pages, which can be cumbersome on a small screen.

Easy navigation

One-page web design typically includes easy navigation that allows visitors to quickly find what they are looking for. This can be accomplish through a menu that’s always visible or by using anchor links that allow visitors to jump directly to the section of the page they’re interested in.

Increased user engagement

The attention span and patience of internet users have never been shorter. We don’t want to endlessly navigate through complex websites to find the information or products we need. In fact, the average web user will stay on a web page for just 15 seconds, so the sooner you can get your message across the better. By having all your website’s content on a single page, visitors are more likely to engage with your content. This is because they don’t have to navigate through multiple pages to find what they are looking for. This can lead to higher engagement rates and better user experiences.

More affordable to build and maintain

Overall, single-page websites take less time to develop and design compared to multi-page websites, therefore a one-page site is going to be more affordable. One-page sites are also easier to maintain. Less content usually requires much less time to update, and the chance of something going wrong is lower. If something needs fixing, adjusting, adding, or removing, it’s all on one page.

The cons of one-page websites

While one-page websites offer several advantages, they also come with a few disadvantages that should be taken into account before choosing this type of design. Here are some cons of one-page websites:

Limited content

One of the most significant drawbacks of one-page websites is that they are limited in terms of content. Since all the information has to be displayed on a single page, there is only so much that can be included before the page becomes cluttered and overwhelming.

Might take longer to load

If you try to add a lot of content and assets into a single web page, the website can become quite heavy, especially if it includes high-resolution images, videos and animations. This can cause the website to load slowly, which can be frustrating for users and may lead them to abandon the site altogether.

SEO challenges

Each page of a website can be optimised for different keywords. Since there’s a limited number of keywords you can target on a single page of a website, a downfall of one-page websites is that you can’t target as many keywords, which is not great for your SEO.

Navigation issues

Since everything is displayed on a single page, one-page websites can be challenging to navigate, especially for larger sites that contain a lot of information. Users may have to scroll through the entire page to find what they are looking for, which can be time-consuming and frustrating. If you are concerned about the amount of scrolling, add a menu at the top of your page that will jump down to a particular section of your page, so users don’t have to scroll as much, yet are still confined to viewing content on a single page.

Limited customisation options

One-page websites often have a fixed structure, which can limit the customisation options available to the web developer. This can make it challenging to create a unique and engaging website that stands out from the competition.

Web analytics challenges

It is difficult to track analytics (such as Google Analytics) across the site as you just have one page which simply means you will collect data from your users on the usage, likeability/dislikability of your website.

Limited space for advertisement

One-page websites may not be the best option for every business because there is limited space available for advertising placements on the site. With only one page it may be more difficult to target specific audiences and create landing pages or service pages that are tailored to different customer segments. When having multiple web pages, companies can create these types of pages that are ideal for paid ads, as the content on these pages will be more relevant to the ads, increasing the chances of conversion.

So, what kind of website should I build?

The answer truly depends on your business and your brand. Take close look at who your target audience is and what your goals are for your online presence (and for your brand as a whole). Also, strategically think about how you may need to organise and display your content to best reach your target audience. At the end of the day, multi-page websites are going to be more beneficial, especially if you want your site to rank well with SEO. However, in certain specific cases, you may only need a one-page site (at least to get started). Now that you understand the pros and cons of a one-page website, you will be able to determine if it is the right choice for your brand online presence.

If you’re thinking using one-page web design for your website, consider working with a professional web design and branding agency, who can help you make an informed decision and create a website that meets your specific needs and goals. Please feel free to contact us to discuss your project and see how we can help you with your one-page web design needs.

What is branding?

Branding is the process of creating a strong, positive perception of a company, its products or services in the customer’s mind by combining such elements as a logo, design, slogan, mission statement, colour palette and a consistent theme throughout all marketing channels. It is not just the physical features (e.g. “the shoe is light-weight”) that create a brand but also the feelings (e.g. “the shoe makes me feel powerful”) that companies or consumers develop towards the company or its product. The brand identifies and distinguishes a product, service or company from its competitors.

The importance of consistent website branding

Consistent website branding is important for several reasons:

„Personality“ of your brand

Brand identity design essentially sets the tone of your brand and it can be used to evoke specific feelings in your audience. A brand’s personality stands out in brand messaging, images and marketing campaigns. If your brand’s personality differs on your company website compared to your social channels, it will be more difficult for consumers to learn who your brand is and what it stands for. Your brand identity should be designed to communicate your company’s overall message and promote your business goals.

Establishing trust and credibility

A consistent brand identity across your website creates a sense of trust and greater credibility with your audience. When your website has a cohesive look and feel, it communicates that your business is organised, professional and trustworthy. This is especially important for small businesses that may not have same level of brand recognition as larger competitors. A strong, unique brand image is an essential part of building a good relationship with customers. If they feel that you both share the same values, they will be attracted to your brand and will likely feel comfortable choosing you over the competition.

Stand out from the competition

No matter what you sell, there is someone else out there selling the exact same thing or something similar. The truth is no matter how unique your products or services are, you will have stiff competition. Key to success in the market is to differentiate your brand from others. It will help people notice you and give them reasons to choose your business over others.

Creating memorable experience

Consistent branding makes it easier for customers to remember your business. When your website branding has a consistent colour palette, typography and other visual elements, it creates a strong visual identity that is easy to recall. This can help your business stand out from competitors and improve brand recognition.

Increasing conversions

Consistent website branding can also help to improve conversions. When customers visit your website, they should immediately recognise your brand and understand what your business offers. This can help to build trust and encourage visitors to take action, such as making a purchase or filling out a contact form.

How to achieve consistent website branding

To achieve consistent website branding requires attention to detail and clear understanding of your brand identity. Here are some tips for small businesses looking to create a consistent brand across their website:

Define your brand identity

Before you can create a consistent brand identity across your website, you need to define what that identity is. This involves creating a brand style guide that outlines your brand’s visual and messaging elements, such as your logo, colour palette, typography, voice and tone.

Use your logo and colour palette consistently

Your logo and colour palette are two of the most important elements of your brand identity and they should be used consistently across your website. Your logo should be prominently displayed on your website and your colour palette should be used consistently throughout your site. Your logo is often the first thing that your customers will see and make an opinion on. Always keep things simple. Simplicity is key. Nike, McDonalds and Apple are all great examples of branding and how a simple logo design can be so powerful.
Tip – always ensure the logo is prominent when tested in black and white, grayscale and with a limited colour palette.

Maintain consistent typography

Typography is another important aspect of your brand identity. Choose a font or set of fonts that aligns with your brand identity and use them consistently across your website. This includes headings, body text and any other text elements on your site. In general, limit the number of font families to a minimum (two is plenty, one is often sufficient) and stick to the same ones through the entire website. If you do use more than one font, ensure the font families complement each other based on their character width.

Use consistent imagery

Consistent imagery can also help to establish a cohesive brand identity. Use images that align with your brand’s style and tone and avoid using images that clash with your brand identity. Some of the most successful companies will include headshots of the team and photos of customers interacting with your brand. Tip – creating your own photos will allow you to choose colours that harmonise with your brand.

Maintain a consistent voice and tone

Your brand’s voice and tone are important for creating a consistent brand identity. Develop a style guide that outlines the tone and voice you want to use across your website and ensure that all content on your site adheres to these guidelines.

In conclusion, consistent branding is an important part of creating a strong brand identity for your small business. By maintaining a consistent look and feel across all your marketing channels, including your website, you can build brand recognition, establish trust and credibility with customers and differentiate your business from competitors. Follow these tips to ensure that your website reflects your brand identity and appeals to your target audience.

Reactive Graphics have years of experience designing and developing websites, so whether you’re a new business looking to create your first website or have an existing business that needs a new look, you’re in the right hands. Why not get in touch with us. We are more than happy to help.

Communication has already evolved in favour of the visual with the majority of people preferring images, gifs, and memes in order to communicate online. This big shift that came alongside the social media era promoted the concept of visual communication as faster, easier to digest, and way more efficient. This is why it’s always great to have a big library of resources to make your work easier when it comes to making data visualisation, marketing purposes, or presentations for your team or clients. These collections of free illustrations are a great way to add character and personality to your designs. Most of the free illustration websites also offer paid illustrations to download, most of which are not available on stock illustration websites.

Pixeltrue

Pixeltrue has a variety of illustrations which are animated. There are some premium illustrations, but they have a section dedicated to free animated illustrations. You can download it as JSON format or .GIF.

Source: Pixeltrue

Rocketstock

Rocketstock is an animated font website. Its very rare to find nice animated fonts for free. This font called Ribbon and it is afree animated typeface for editors. All you have to do is drag and drop the letters you need into your project. If you want to customise the colour, size, or saturation of each letter, simply apply colour correction in your video editing application.

Source: Rocketstock

Icons8

Icons8 is a great resource for amazing icons that fit a wide range of styles and needs. You can get here animated icons in form of JSON, .GIF and After Effect format. Most of this icons are free illustrations.

Source: Icon8

DrawKit

Drawkit is perfect for designers and business owners looking to create new projects with limited design skills. They have lot of cool collections of free illustrations and icons. On this website you can download 10 free vector illustrations for your website, UI or app design.

Source: DrawKit

Drawer

This website offers high-quality Lottie animations for busy startup owners, designers & developers. Drawer Lottie animations and illustrations come with Ae source file and in multiple file formats – Ai, Xd, Sketch, Figma, SVG, EPS & PNG.

Source: Drawer

Lordicon free illustrations

Lordicon is a powerful library of carefully crafted animated icons and free illustrations, ready to use in digital products, presentations, or videos! You get access 1,494 free animated icons. Lordicon also has a customising editor, where you can for example change colour of the icon, size of the stroke, padding etc. You can download free illustrations as JSON and .GIF.

Source: Lordicon

We’ve introduced you to some of the best websites where you can find fantastic illustrations for your next project. Illustration can turn an average website into something really unique, it’s a powerful and creative medium which can identify and communicate the brand message and transmit ideas universally, through the use of just one image.

If you require a website for your business then Reactive Graphics can help.
Get in touch with us today to see how we can get your project off the ground! To take a look at how Reactive Graphics have applied illustrations within their own website, please take a look at our services page here.

Any new content or updated content can be considered fresh. Content comes in the form of blog posts, infographics, videos, quizzes – really any informative piece of media you can put online.

However fresh content is not just making small updates or changes to existing pages on your website. While some changes and significant overhauls to existing pages may improve ranking on search engines like Google, slight updates do not dramatically improve SEO.

Fresh content means adding new, fresh pages. One of the most common forms of content is a blog. New blog posts add fresh pages to a website. Adding these pages can help your website rank for more keywords, boosting SEO for keywords relating to the website’s industry.

Major search engines, like Google, use bots or web crawlers. This is to find and index recently published content that can be shown in the search results. This means that the more often you release updates, the more search engines will look at your website. As a result, you have better chances of achieving higher rankings based on the content you offer.

Landing on the top page of search results can greatly affect the number of your potential visitors. And this can have a huge impact on your ranking.

Every time you publish a new piece of content, you get the opportunity to optimise for your target keywords. So, if you published one new post a day for 365 days that amounts to 365 keywords. Now imagine what this could mean for you in terms of search engine visibility.

Over time, your website will be populated with all relevant keyword phrases and it could have a better chance at ranking higher up in the search engine result pages. However, you must have to remember that Google always looks at the quality of content and not the number of keywords you have.

By consistently publishing fresh content, you can become an industry expert in the eyes of Google. A quick Google search will tell you that more authority websites have tens of thousands of pages indexed in Google. The more quality content you post, the higher are your chances of becoming an authority site in your niche.

Adding new pages create a new link for your website with a unique URL. Building these links is important to grow your website and create relevant pages. Interlinking between pages can also help share traffic and improve SEO. Backlinks or inbound links are especially important to SEO.

Another good reason to update your website with valuable content is to keep current subscribers updated, as well as provide necessary information for new visitors to convert to customers.

Updating content on your website gives visitors more to see. Publishing fresh content regularly can help build a returning audience, which drives more regular traffic to your site.

If you require a website for your business then Reactive Graphics can help your company to correctly position itself in the marketplace.
Get in touch with us today to see how we can get your project off the ground!
Or you can view our portfolio of work here.

Your brand strategy is how, what, where, when and to whom you plan on communicating and delivering on your brand messages. It will map out how you are different, trustworthy, memorable and likeable by your ideal customer. It will convey your purpose, promises and how you solve problems for people.

Research is arguably one of the most important steps in developing your brand. Don’t begin the creation of your brand until you have finalised all required research for the basis of your brand.

When developing a brand strategy, identify three core components of your business to use as a blueprint for marketing tactics; purpose, consistency and emotional impact.

Purpose: This explains why you are in business and the specific customer needs you fulfil. “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.” – Simon Sinek

You can use the 3 parts to The Golden Circle to find your purpose for your business:
What – the products or services you offer to your customers
How – the things that differentiate you from the competition
Why – the reason you are passionate and why you exist

Consistency: Be able to define what allows you to provide your services day in and day out.

Emotional Impact: This is what helps form a bond or a connection between you and your customers. A brand strategy should develop this impact and build upon it.

By identifying the key components of your business and the focus of your marketing plan, you have the basis for crafting your brand strategy.

Brand identity is the way you convey this to the public with visuals, messaging and experience. Your brand strategy will influence how you present your identity and align it with your purpose for the most impact.

Even though brand identity is often confused to be the same as brand image, both are very different. Brand identity is how the brand wants its customer to perceive it. Brand image, on the other hand, is the customers’ perspective of the brand. Brands are perception – the audience’s perception, not yours. Consider the words and associations you want people to think of when they think of your business.

The elements of brand identity are both visual and non-visual. Brand design is more than just logo design. It is important to have consistent typefaces, weights and colours throughout all of the material within your business. You need to be certain of your chosen themes for your brand as you will inevitably be seeing a lot of it throughout the brands lifetime. A brand has a personality and a style, and is expressed through emotional attributes.

Brand design is more than just logo design. It is important to have consistent typefaces, weights and colours throughout all of the material within your business. You need to be certain of your chosen themes for your brand as you will inevitably be seeing a lot of it throughout the brands lifetime.

Brand design is more than just logo design. It is important to have consistent typefaces, weights and colours throughout all of the material within your business. You need to be certain of your chosen themes for your brand as you will inevitably be seeing a lot of it throughout the brands lifetime.

Brand marketing is the way that businesses or organizations highlight and bring awareness to products or services by connecting values and voice to the right audience through strategic communication. From the beginning of your business adventure, it is crucial to define your values and goals for the brand.

Effective branding is the result of understanding the audience’s needs first, and then defining the communication strategy. A successful brand does not attempt to be everything to everyone. It knows who its audience is, and appeals directly to them. Narrow down, and focus.

Most businesses tend to include branding as a marketing strategy and leave out brand marketing. The two terms may seem the same but they are different. Brand marketing seeks to work more on customer retention and satisfaction. Ideally, branding brings in the customers as brand marketing makes them satisfied and loyal to the product.

1. A brand is more than a name, a logo or an advertising campaign. A brand is a promise
2. A brand has a personality and a style, and is expressed through emotional attributes.
3. Modern consumers feel loyalty toward brands that share their value system.
4. Brands are perception – the audience’s perception, not yours.
5. Effective branding is the result of understanding the audience’s needs first, and then defining the communication strategy.
6. A successful brand does not attempt to be everything to everyone. It knows who its audience is, and appeals directly to them.

If you require a brand identity for your business then Reactive Graphics can help your company to correctly position itself in the marketplace.
Get in touch with us today to see how we can get your project off the ground!
Or you can view our portfolio of work here.

Have you ever felt tricked by a website? Perhaps walking away from a subscription has been difficult. Or maybe, you just can’t unsubscribe from that one intrusive e-mail you receive every week.

The truth may lie in the fact that many companies incorporate ‘dark patterns’ into their web design. Dark patterns are UX (user experience) design techniques used to deceive user in some way, for the benefit of their company.

We believe that learning about dark patterns is super important in 2020. With users less likely to scroll through terms and conditions, the ability to deceive and hide information within the small print is easier than ever.

Whether you’ve tried to simply close an account and a website has taken you through a David Bowie-like labyrinth path to get there or you’ve run out of your free trial without any warning – dark UX design patterns are designed to make it difficult for users to get out of the rabbit hole companies have created for them.

When it comes to dark UX design, communicating to your users that you are trustworthy is vital. Too often, clients become disillusioned by the entrapping nature of many company websites who incorporate dark patterns.

These can range from essential information hidden in the terms and conditions to simply using language to deceive users – it’s avoidable, and raising awareness to others is a helpful way to challenge the controversial dark UX design surge in 2020.

If you’re looking to create a professional website for your company, you can find out more about what we can do today by visiting our portfolio pages or simply get in touch today.

Contact us today Monday to Friday at our Soho office.