Marketing

What’s New for Responsive Web Design in 2020?

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At Moocow, we make sure you’re up to date with all the latest UX/UI know-how, ensuring your site gets the attention it deserves. With technology and techniques developing daily, take a look at what 2020 has in store for responsive design.

For web design newcomers or those looking to get an insight into how we create our sites at Moocow Media, responsive design is fundamentally the method of using CSS to generate a web page which re-adjusts and arranges itself to display its content correctly on any sized device. This technique works side-by-side with mobile first.

Companies now only need to buy a single site which squeezes all the best info from your web page and efficiently displays readable content on any gadget, whether it’s a desktop, tablet or mobile device. Not only does this save you a small fortune, it also allows customers to benefit from having a website that will allow Google to enhance its rankings. And as Google now only promotes sites which are designed for mobile devices also, it’s really the only choice for your website. Sites that aren’t mobile-friendly will be digitally wiped off the map.

Mobile First

Over the last year we’ve focused a lot on the importance of making sure your website is mobile first. And with m-commerce transforming and developing daily, making sure your site is mobile first is vital for the successful functioning of your business and web page. Mobile transactions are set to rocket in 2020, with the vast majority of orders already being made from mobile devices accessing your website. So if you’re still yet to update your site to mobile first, make this your new year’s resolution. Making sure your mobile site is responsive and easy to use is a number 1 priority, otherwise you risk customers not even being able to access your site in search engines at all.

Thumb-Friendly Mobile Navigation

2020 will see a step up in simply focusing on previously making your site mobile first. Sites are now being challenged with the task of making mobile sites “thumb-friendly” allowing for better ergonomic use, “user-friendliness” and increasing the ability to access site navigation with greater ease.

 

Source: Smashing Magazine

The above diagram shows a good example of how our hands naturally grip our phones and the restrictions in our thumbs natural manoeuvring across phone screens. Opting for bottom hand corner navigation, for menus, social media or contact buttons over traditionally placed top, right hand navigation could significantly help to improve UX. These changes might seem simplistic, but all add up when combined in providing a website that’s both customer and Google friendly.

How to Boost Your Brand Using Twitter

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Twitter has become hugely popular across the globe since its creation in 2006 by founder Jack Dorsey. The popular social media platform has become a favourite amongst businesses, and with 126 million daily users – its followers are constantly growing. With our easy to use guide, Moocow can show you how to use Twitter to help utilise your social media skills, boost your brand and get you the followers you deserve. With Twitter paving the way for businesses to show off their creative flair, using Twitter correctly allows consumers to see a more personal side to how your company works, as well as showing off what your brand has to offer. Below are 6 ways you can improve your site following using Twitter.

1. Reach out to brands you know and interact with them. Re-tweet work that is being produced, show an appreciation of what they are involved in and it’s likely they will return the favour, getting you a greater amount of impressions from new viewers.

2. Use video to market your company via social media. Statistics shows that 85% of Twitter users prefer video content or visual graphics as opposed to just ready a clump of text. Create short videos that focus on your products or offer an insider view into what’s going on behind the scenes at your company. For ideal posts, use a max length of 140 seconds to keep viewers entertained.

3. Repeating yourself can be a good thing, so don’t worry. Be sure to re-tweet content you’ve previously posted and tweet your content multiple times throughout the week. Posting a blog or image just once is unlikely to get it seen by all of your followers. By re-tweeting it and sending out reminders to your audience to check out certain posts you are more likely to get your content noticed.

4. Be sure to monitor analytics to see what type of tweets work best. Twitter itself has some quite handy options for doing this. And in addition to this, you can use sites like Google AdWords and Google Keyword Planner to help you identify what keywords will be most effective in boosting the SEO for your business.

5. Collaborate with other companies or people of influence to help push your twitter following. This can be by getting well known Tweeters or companies to re-share or write a blog on your work, or even by doing a social media takeover where your audience has the chance to do a “ask me anything” event with your chosen social media celeb.

6. Although it may appear tempting, don’t use sites where you can buy Twitter followers for a set price. Most of them time bought followers are either fake sites, or its quite noticeable to the public they are not genuine followers that have been earned. Instead use Twitter ads, campaigns and promotions to reach out to new audience members and gain a greater following.

 

5 of the Best WordPress Themes for Creating a Portfolio

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At Moocow, we pride ourselves on having the most up to date knowledge on the latest web news, tips and trends. With technology and techniques developing daily, Moocow are continuously working hard to help find new ways to develop your business.

Our design team believe WordPress ranks above all the rest as a hosting platform. The open-source CMS works as an ideal model for creating a wide variety of sites for both small and large businesses, and is ideal for showcasing portfolios and products. Having a portfolio that’s professional, visually captivating and clearly showcases your work is vital for your business to achieve success and gain interest from new clients. So below, we’ve hand-picked some of the best WordPress themes for putting together a high end portfolio, that will grab your audience’s attention and gain you new clients and sales.

 

Oshine

Creates beautifully fresh and contemporary portfolios with 12 unique layouts to choose from. Comes with access to over 500 fonts, colour choices, shortcode modules and so much more. Oshine also supports a large variety of plug-ins, including WPML, BuddyPress and Gravity Forms. A great choice if you’re looking for a stylish and modern way to display work visually.

 

 

Adios

A great theme that’s easy to use, extremely fast loading and is ideal for those working within the creative industry. An elegant and artistic approach to portfolio design, you’ll have access to hundreds of fonts, colour choices, layout elements and designs and you’ll be able to use a variety of great options for animation. Adios allows for superb compatibility with all devices and browsers, and will ensure your site is noticed worldwide.

 

 

Art.

Perfect for colourful, chic and customisable design, this theme comes with a coding-free content builder for ease of use. Ideal if you’re looking for an artistic and simplistic portfolio design, it’s packed with beautiful layouts with drag and drop options, fashionable headers and plenty of options for blog posts. You can also create stylish home sliders to showcase large images, and with SEO by Yoast you’re sure to have plenty of great options for getting noticed in search engines.

 

 

Kalium

A sensationally designed theme for those looking for a cool and contemporary twist to showcase their work in style. With numerous options for layout, images and blog posts, this WordPress theme also includes Revolution Slider, allowing users to display work through slideshow. You’ll be able to personalise the slides and create your own unique animations and visual effects too.

 

 

Studio 8

Rated as one of the best WordPress themes on the market, Studio 8 has a superbly sophisticated and stylish design. Beautifully fast and responsive, the theme provides great portfolio options to businesses of all backgrounds. You can upload custom headers and access built in short codes to make editing and designing easier. Known for creating attention-getting websites, this theme will help put your portfolio on the map.

 

 

Tips to Help Your Website Show You’re A Business Clients Can Trust

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At MooCow, we pride ourselves on having the most up to date knowledge on web design. With technology and techniques developing daily, take a look at our tips below to see how small changes to your webpage can help boost your recognition as a company your clients can trust.

1. Keep your website as up to date as possible, a professional website should not only visually show off your brand, but also be easy to access. Making sure your site is regularly updated, fast-working and mobile friendly are the best ways to ensure a reliable site.

2. Clearly outline who you are as a business, show your customers you have nothing to hide. Make sure your site has a clear ‘About’ section so your clients have a good understanding of what services you provide, your mission and goals. Always be true to the values advertised on your site.

3. Show off your credentials, make visible any companies you have partnered with or worked for. Provide proof of any qualifications or awards your company has received, recognition allows for your company to be seen as dependable as well as capable of providing an excellent service.

4. Be direct. No one wants to find out about hidden costs further down the line, hidden in small print. Make sure you stand by any promises stated on your web page. With online shops, make sure details like shipping, cancellation, return policies are all clearly visible with no hidden. Make sure customers can contact you easily, always have a contact number or email address listed on your site that is kept up to date so any queries can be dealt with rapidly.

5. A strong social media presence helps back up who you are. Social media sites such as Facebook, twitter and Instagram are the first place potential customers are going to head to, to check out your authenticity. Having a varied amount of reviews and testimonials from previous clients can help to give proof your company can be relied upon.

6. Vocalise your brand’s mission statement, personalise the values and ethics your company holds, speak to your clients in a relatable manner and get your audience interested in what you do. Use examples, statistics and present data visually that will showcase exactly what your company can achieve.

Using Instagram to Boost Your Brand

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Instagram – the world’s most popular photo sharing app. With 300 million monthly users, the social media site currently has a larger following than Twitter, and its followers are constantly growing. With our easy to use guide, Moocow can show you how to use Instagram to help utilise your social media skills, boost your brand and get you the followers you deserve.

A large majority of online shopping traffic occurs through social media, sites like Pinterest and Etsy have made online shopping even more popular, with buyers being drawn in by adverts and promotions that are visually exciting. Instagram is paving the way for businesses to show off their creative flair, allowing consumers to see a more personal side to how their company works, as well as showing off what their brand has to offer. Below are 5 ways you can improve your site following using Instagram.

First steps – setting up your account!

If you’re already an Instagram user, be sure to keep your personal account separate when setting up a new account for your business. This enables users to identify you and your brand as separate, and allows for any embarrassing selfies to be posted completely out of eyesight of any potential clients. Use your brand logo throughout your page and as your profile image so viewers can establish that your Instagram directly relates to your company. Make sure your bio is short and sweet, but packs a punch. There’s a million or so users out there, you want to make sure your company stands out from the crowd. Last but not least, always attach a link to your website – whenever a user views your profile, it directly boosts traffic to your site.

Make an impression

Be big, beautiful and bold! Boost your brand by using product shots that are eye catching, colour co-ordinated and fun to create. Believe it or not, certain colours are actually more of a hit than others on Instagram, with blue being one of the most desirable colour trends with followers. When creating adverts always use HI RES professional photographs, opt for a text overlay on one of Instagram’s photo editor apps to create quick and trendy ads.

Identify trends

Keep up to date with what’s hot on Instagram – which users, hashtags and themes are trending. Do your research, take a peak at your favourite brands, look into companies similar to yours and see what gets them plenty of likes. What styles of posts are popular? The main aim is to boost your brand professionally, but customers and clients want to see you have a fun side also. Outdoor shots that show your customers actively using your products are a great way to show off your adventurous side. Whether you’re having some downtime with your team, or are busy getting creative in the office, these are great opportunities to capture your company’s creative side on camera.

Get #Hashtagging

When posting your pics, pair catchy descriptions with relevant, trending hashtags. Picking a popular hashtag allows any user across the world to view your post. Use hashtags that relate to your area of business, such as company name, location, what you’re doing, and words that describe exactly what you’re posting. Research hashtags that are currently trending, be it colours, days of the week, events or features in the news, and use these to help shape the audience you want your post to reach. Use a minimum of 5 to help boost your audience range, so don’t be shy. You can even create your own hashtag relevant to your business name.

Network

Get networking! Make sure to share on other social media platforms your company uses such as Twitter & Facebook. Encourage clients to share, like and comment on your posts, and return the favour too! Keep an eye out for new business opportunities by connecting with new users and building a rapport with relevant brands.

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Why Marketing Through YouTube Can Help Boost Web Traffic and Sales

Posted on | by moocow

At Moocow, we pride ourselves on having the most up to date knowledge on the hottest web and marketing trends. With technology and techniques developing daily, Moocow are continuously working hard to help find new ways to market your business.

One of the most popular ways to help boost your brand is with the use of video content. More than 80% of all internet traffic is video, with both large and small independent businesses opting to target their audience members through channels such as YouTube. As it stands, YouTube currently has over 1 billion active users monthly, and despite the popularity of social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, video is quickly taking the lead as an essential platform to successfully market your business on. Choosing to tackle video marketing could give you an advantage over your competitors as well as giving you a rise in your Google ranking.

Setting Up a YouTube Channel

Think of YouTube in the same way as you think of the layout of your website. Your YouTube channel represents your homepage, and the videos you add are like the pages you populate your site with. The more videos you post the more chances you will have at reaching a higher audience and potential new clients. The greater audience you achieve, the more likely you are to see positive changes to your ranking on Google. When getting started, be sure to make your videos relevant to the theme of your business and channel, ideally making each video no longer than 3 mins in length, or if necessary, stick to under 10 mins for training or ‘how to’ guides.

How Can a YouTube Channel Benefit My Business?

Wondering why you should bother? Having a YouTube channel linked to your business can benefit your company in several different ways. It can help to bring new viewers to your actual web page, help to show off your brand on a nationwide level, and even help you to make direct sales. Creating video reviews or filming ‘open box buys’ are a perfect way to generate sales by creating a link off the video directly to your site or online shop. The same as any social media platform works, the more views, likes and connections you make from posting your videos, the better ranked your channel and website will be on Google. With more and more companies making the switch to video marketing, 2018 is not the year to be camera shy!

 

 

5 Brilliant Social Media Plug-ins for WordPress You May Not Know About

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At Moocow, we’re constantly striving to make sure we’re ahead of the game when it comes to having the most up to date tech and web knowledge. When it comes to digital marketing and social media, it’s important to fully take advantage of social media platforms, plug-ins and widgets to allow you to achieve greater sales potential and expand your following. Below we’ve compiled a list of what we believe to be the best in social media plug-ins for WordPress to give you a helping hand in getting started.

 

Social Snap

This social sharing plug-in allows you to increase engagement and take control of how well your social media performs. With over 30 social networks to choose from, you can place share buttons wherever is easiest, be it a floating side bar or via short-code or widget. You can also use animations and colour coordinate your layouts. Insights are easily available to track web traffic and you have the option to control how your social media posts look on any device.

Social Warfare

Great for speed and won’t slow down your site, Social Warfare has been specifically built by marketing and web developer experts. Although more limited in how many media platforms you can access, it’s an extremely well designed and powerful little plug-in. You can display how many times your content has been shared, pin images, use analytics to track your progress and use short codes to place social media icons anywhere you choose.

Add to Any

Increases traffic and works alongside over 100+ social media platforms, so this is the one for you if you’re connected to a huge variety of media channels. You can access share counters and floating share buttons, use email sharing and customize appearance. There’s also great analytics integration, with simplistic support for WooCommerce and other eCommerce platforms too.

Social Icons by WPZoom

A 5 star rated plug-in that supports both Skype and WhatsApp with over 80 social media platform choices to share from. You can edit over 400+ customised icons with FontAwesome integration. The plug-in has easy to use drag and drop options to help you position your sharing buttons across your site. There’s also newly updated colour options to help alter and mix and match the colour schemes for your social media share buttons too.

ShareGrapes

Easily customisable, ShareGrapes also has over 80 social networks you can access for your site, including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. With multiple design options for sharing posts and links to social media, the plug-in comes with easy to use guides and help to get targetted traffic to your sites. It’s mobile compatible too, which means you won’t find the layout of your posts and share buttons suddenly changing when switching devices.

 

How to target your audience through Email Marketing

Posted on | by moocow

At Moocow we are continuously striving to find new ways to help market your business. One of the most popular ways to market web content is via email, with a recent survey stating that 82% of business professionals opt for email marketing over social media to successfully boost their brand. This research means that email is still currently leading the way for digital marketing in spite of the growing popularity of Facebook, Twitter and other sites, with only 66% relying on social media to reach the targets they require. In the guide below, we will offer you tips on how to market your company via email.

 

  • To begin with, be sure to send any emails from a professional email or company email address, don’t send from your personal account. If you don’t yet have one, make sure this is set up first. It’s normally good to include a brand logo also.

 

  • A welcome email is always a good start, something that thanks your customers for being part of your business, or even an incentive such as a deal or discount to make signing up worth their while, allowing them to pass this on to potential new customers.

 

  • Talk to your subscribers and let them know what they can expect from the email or newsletter, whether this might be a letter from your CEO, business updates, deals, promos or advertisements.

 

  • When writing your newsletter, make sure that it correctly represents you or your brand, fitting in with any house styles for writing web content, adding images that fit in with your business, website or logo.

 

  • Keep it short and sweet, use text that is concise and easy for readers to skim through if needed, nobody wants to read through an entire essay. Make sure your content is appealing and speaks out to an audience relevant to your business.

 

  • Keep your emails regular and send on a specific date to avoid confusion. Research what days and times of the week you feel would be best to target your clients or customers.

 

  • Make sure emails are mobile friendly and can be read on any device. A high amount of clients and working professionals will access their emails from their phones so make sure that your newsletters are compatible, similar to how your website is.

 

  • Check your text, avoid using special characters, writing in caps & sending across broken links, remember to write subject headers that make sense. These tips should help you stave off heading directly into the spam folder. Spam filters can pick up on minor issues such as these and can automatically stop your emails from reaching your customers.

 

  • There are several email marketing services you can use to help do the job for you. MailChimp, Constant Contact or CoffeeCup are all worth a look.

10 Free WordPress Marketing Plug-ins That Are A Must Have For Your Business

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At Moocow we’re all about knowing what’s best for your business, whether it’s design, branding, SEO or marketing. And when it comes to getting you your perfect website, we know exactly how to get you there. We’re huge advocates of WordPress, and we believe they have the tools to really launch your brand towards profit. Below is a list of 10 of the best WordPress marketing plug-ins that are a must have for your business site.

With WordPress you can take away the hassle of creating lengthy marketing plans, by using their plug-ins to create new strategies and interact with others at the press of a button. They’re ideal whether you’re a small, local business or a nationwide company and there’s plenty to choose from. We’ve narrowed down what we think will help you the most.

Jetpack

Great design, marketing and security features. Comes with customisation tools, mobile integration and options to edit CSS. You can also access SEO and Ad tools, and monitor your stats and statistics to see how well your site is performing. There’s also security extras for spam and malware protection.

Yoast

The number 1 plug-in for SEO, Yoast gives you complete power over how you use and access site breadcrumbs, with great tips and templates for title and meta descriptions which you can edit and alter for better branding and snippets in Google and other search engines.

WooCommerce

An open source e-commerce plug-in for WordPress, WooCommerce lets you sell both physical and digital products online, with ease to use shipping and payment options including BACS and PayPal. Adaptable for both developers and beginners, it’s perfect for store owners, whether your business is large, small, local or worldwide.

WPReview

This little plugin helps you create reviews or testimonials with ease, without any problems loading your page or alterations to site speed. You can create reviews with a choice of using stars, percentage or a point rating. It also includes support for translation, WPMU, Google rich snippets and unlimited colours.

Google XML SiteMaps

Rated as the best ever WordPress plug-in, Google XML SiteMaps helps improve SEO and allows search engines including Google, Bing and Yahoo to index you site more clearly. This makes sure your business is on the map when it comes to web traffic and will help move you up in search rankings.

Editorial Calendar

If you need a bit of help getting yourself organised when it comes to posts and marketing, the Editorial Calendar is a handy extra. You can create helpful schedules for when you want your posts to be published, with easy to use drag and drop features and an easily visible calendar to help you keep track.

W3 Total Cache

This plug-in aids website performance and boosts download times through content delivery network (CDN) integration and is recommended by web developers and web designers worldwide. It vastly improves conversion rates, and in turn helps boost your rankings on Google

Google Analytics by MonsterInsights

If you’re wanting to link your WordPress site to Google Analytics to manage site conversions, this plug-in by MonsterInsights is the way to go. It shows you stats, site performance and how easy people are accessing your webpage and products. You can access the Google Analytics dashboard inside your WordPress dashboard also.

Envira Gallery

Envira is a “drag and drop” photo gallery plug-in, great for sites that are using a lot of hi-def photography or product images. Envira will ensure your images will look great on all devices whether it desktop, mobile or tablet. There’s also great options for watermarking your work, creating video and slideshow galleries and linking with social media platforms.

Popups by OptinMonster

OptinMonster helps you grow your email list and get more subscribers with pop-up opt-in forms, templates and email marketing services. Take your pick from forms, floating bars, slide-ins, sidebars and more, this nifty plug-in is compatible and works alongside many popular email marketing sites including Mailchimp, Aweber, MailPoet and many more.

 

3 Crucial Ways Your Social Media Impacts Your SEO

Posted on | by moocow

At Moocow, we’re constantly striving to make sure we’re ahead of the game when it comes to having the most up to date knowledge on the latest tech trends and SEO advice. When it comes to SEO, businesses and marketers alike can benefit from knowing the relationship between SEO and social media. Increased web traffic from social sites such as Twitter and Facebook can all have an influence on how well your site appears in search engines. It can also impact how social media profiles stand out in Google. Take a look at our tips to help enhance your social media to help boost your SEO.

Your followers
It’s no secret that the more of a following you have, the larger an audience you can reach, however if you’re starting off small you shouldn’t let it panic you. Building up a genuine following comes with patience, but it always pays off. Organic followers are far better than paying for fake ones. Make sure your thread is packed full of content that’s informative, run and relatable and feel free to throw in a few discounts and offers here and there. This will help to grow your following naturally, and the more info you post leading back to your website, the more of an increase in traffic you’ll find. If you’re willing to fork out, use promotions like Facebook Targeting or Twitter Ads instead of outsider brands claiming they’ll get you 5,000 followers for a fiver (they won’t)

Your content
Make sure you are posting things relevant to your brand and just any old thing that’s trending on Twitter. Your followers follow you for one reason only – they’re interested in your brand. If you start posting off topic, you may find yourself losing out on followers. Keep it topical, you can still use themes that are trending but make sure you relate it back to your brand. Videos, GIFs and memes are all great visual ways to get your audience interested, and they don’t need to be tacky just because it’s a GIF, you can get making your own easily online. Remember not to overdo it with the sales talk too, obviously you want to make sales, but you don’t want to bombard your audience with nothing but ads.

Your link building
Social media is a great way to stay connected with others, you can link others to
your sites, get your content shared, and help boost each others posts. Guest blogs or social media takeovers are a great way to boost your brand to a larger following. You can also join in with group Twitter chats by adding a particular group hashtag to get your posts re-tweeted and talked about. When posting blogs, adverts or any other form of media, always remember to include a link to your site, products or another related external source. Branching out to profiles with a nationwide following can be great, but don’t forget to go local too, supporting and sharing with local companies can attract both attention and new clients if you’re working together within a local area.