Posts Tagged ‘website design’

Why it pays to keep your website up to date

Welcome to the latest version of the Areoff website. Not a great deal has changed under the bonnet but we are now an award winning website design and SEO company. We have also angled our sales message towards our largest sector of clients: insurance and financial websites.We have a portfolio of customers in these sectors selling both niche insurance products such as payment protection insurance, pension annuities, credit card and bank charge claims as well as those selling general insurance and IFA’s. We have also taken a look at how we describe what we do and how we do it. After much deliberation have decided to keep it simple: website design and SEO.

So why does all this matter beyond the point of me going on about what, how, where and who?

As we head into a recession the obvious reaction is to put the website on the back burner to save costs. This could turn out to be a bad move. More and more people are using the internet as their first port of call when looking for insurance and finance products as well as almost all other products and services. Your company online is competing with all those around you in trying to capture the attention of potential customers with your products, prices and service.

One of the easiest ways to loose the attention of visitors is to have a site that is not up to date and doesn’t present your company in the best way possible.I’m not just talking about making sure you have a pretty looking website (although the design and look of your website is highly important). All the bells and whistles are superficially great but pointless if your site is not up to date with your latest and most competitive products. You should also keep your site current with the latest news and unique content (like informative guides) about your company like awards, association membership and other credibility building information. Now is the time for all companies to work harder to generate new business and retain the loyalty of existing customers by communicating about your company on your website in the best way possible.

Award winning website design and SEO company provides Outstanding Online Solutions

Specialist website design and SEO company, Areoff are proud to announce that they have just won the 2008 award for Outstanding Online Solutions by The Global Business Excellence Awards. The award has been granted to Areoff because of the excellent quality of work they provide to their clients and how this enables businesses to be more effective online.

Areoff have been specialising in effective website design and SEO services for insurance and financial clients since 1999. The bespoke service and professional approach that Areoff provides helps clients to get more visitors to their websites, achieve greater sales and make increased profit.

Commenting on the award, Andrew Areoff, Director of Areoff Limited said, “we do not get to attend a self-congratulatory presentation dinner for this award but instead we celebrated with a round of coffees and chocolate biscuits while integrating the awards logo on our website”.

Simon Burgess of British Insurance who nominated Areoff Limited for the award said: “we believe Areoff are worth winners of this award because their service is indeed outstanding. Their website design and SEO service is a valuable asset to our online business and we fully expect that the team at Areoff will continue to build on their achievement by working for insurance and financial clients with renewed passion and expertise”

Neil Inns of Trafalgar Risk Management, one of many satisfied Areoff clients echoed the sentiment by saying, “Areoff have been working with us successfully for several years and have given us excellent service and advice. We are now able to transact our entire business online and capitalise on the lucrative market that exists on the internet, reinforcing our position as a formidable insurance broker.”

The Areoff approach to website design and SEO is comprehensive and they concentrate on the key issues of usability, functionality and credibility with careful consideration given to the technical and content aspects of a website. With a set of Quality Assurance criteria, Areoff enable clients to confidently promote their website, be seen by internet users and serve as an effective sales tool.

Areoff Limited are always looking to work with professional firms within the insurance and financial industries and look forward to hearing from companies who want to achieve more from their websites.

Find out more about the Global Business Excellence Awards.

The Global Business Excellence Awards awards aim to recognise and reward business excellence across all sectors, private and public. Open to organisations of any size, based anywhere in the world, entries are encouraged from those that feel they are working smarter than their competitors to create a business edge. Entrants do not have to be conducting business globally to enter and you may enter your own organisation for an award or nominate a third party.

The financial consultants web design specialists

When planning your financial consultants website design you do have to design it with the consumer in mind. Financial products can be confusing to the majority of individuals and they need the key facts and information relating to the products they are considering buying. These should be given on the website and should be easy to find and to understand.

There is a lot of information that you can make available for the consumer. This can make choosing products and deciding which is most suitable easier and does the job the website is supposed to do. Articles can be included in the design to give the user an insight into what the products are capable of doing. The articles can be divided into relevant sections; this ensures that navigation is made simple for the consumer. You can also include sections that hold hints and tips that again go a long way to helping the consumer make the right choice.

However, there is more to planning a financial consultants website than just adding the content. Once the website is up and running then keeping it up-to-date is essential. Keeping the consumer informed of current trends and new products along with changes in financial products is essential. The inclusion of a news web page can make this easy, as can making a newsletter available.

The content you include on your website is so very important. The Financial Services Authority (FSA) regulates financial websites just as they do financial products. They ensure that consumers are treated fairly and information is clear to understand. In 2005 and 2006, they reviewed 77 finance websites and found the majority did come up to scratch. However, around 25% of them were found not to give pertinent information relating to their products. Some websites were also poorly designed and hard to get around. The FSA are going to be reviewing a snapshot of finance websaites again in the future and say they will crack down on those who they believe are mis-leading consumers with sketchy or incorrect product information.

Careful thought also has to be given to the financial consultants website design if you want your website to feature highly in search engines. The higher up your website is on the search engine then the more people will know it is there. MORI says that around 22 million people now go online and roughly, 40% of these do so to find out information regarding products they are considering buying. Research from Mintel highlights that 18% of these will then go on to buy a product online. As your website will be viewed by so many consumers – and potential customers – looking for advice and information, ensuring the information on the website is correct is imperative. Also, if the website is hard to navigate then consumers could make a rash decision when it comes to buying. On the other hand, they could also leave the website and go elsewhere.

A website can boost business along with ensuring the consumer gets the information needed. However currently it is thought that around 40% of independent financial advisors do not have one. A portion of those individuals that do have their own website say that their site is nothing more than an online brochure. A well-planned financial consultants website design will be more than this and can ensure that both the company and the consumer benefit.

For expert financial consultants website design and programming contact us.

Google wants fast web page design

If you’re using Google adwords for your pay-per-click campaign then you need to read this post on their official blog.

Piling on the webpage calories

Now broadband is commonplace, webpages can easily contain more code, more images, more animations and the odd video clip because it will all download in a nano-second? If only that was the case. Not everybody is on broadband yet and even if they are speeds vary wildly and at peak times surfing web pages can slow to a fast crawl.

Not done in a Flash

I am constantly amazed at other web design companies websites that are built either entirely or mainly using Flash. Yes, it is a ‘flash’ way of showing off your design and animation skills but this technology does not address many of the issues surrounding effective website design.