Writing for a webpage is considerably different to writing in other forms, such as in letters, stories or for print. When searching for a product or service online, people will not read every part of a webpage but will skim through the site to find relevant information.

You should highlight words and phrases that readers might be looking for so they stand out and so your page is easy to navigate. Bullet points, numbered lists and text split up into sections can enhance the website layout and make sure people can easily find the facts they are looking for.

The posts found on the Sizzle Media web design Manchester blog will give you an indication as to how to prepare content for an online audience.

Sentences should be simple and easy to read and set out in a comprehensive and informative way. Sub-headings should be clear, meaningful and contain keywords so people know what they contain.

Reading on the web

Think about how you read websites you come across. You will probably scroll up and down the page, trying to find the information you want as quickly as possible.

People will expect a website to be much shorter than they might want their other reading material to be and will be put off by overly-long articles and complicated or confusing paragraphs. English-language websites will still be able to reach an international audience through their online presence and the language used should accommodate this

Although certain webpages may frequently be read in full, such as newspaper articles, recipes, stories and blogs, it is a more user-friendly and pleasurable layout if the text is punctuated with images and broken up on the page.

The F-shaped reading pattern

Studies have shown that web users typically scan pages in an F-shape. They will look along the top of the page and read the first few words in every paragraph to find out whether or not the content is relevant to them.

This should be a key consideration when writing for an internet audience. The most important facts and products that you wish to highlight to your readers should stand out and be located somewhere within this F-shape.

Other experts discuss the concept of the reverse pyramid. This means the most important information should be put at the top of any article online so web users and search engines can instantly understand the concept of the page.

Search engine optimisation

Search engine optimisation should always be a consideration when writing for a business webpage. You should take advantage of keywords, dynamic content and inbound linking in your website content to boost your position on Google and enhance your internet marketing strategy.

Every aspect of the textual content on your webpage should be written for readers and search engines and should focus on usability and simplicity. There are other considerations that must be made, such as the type of font and the contrast between the colour of the font and the background of the webpage. Website design professionals may be able to help you to understand these issues.

Web design should be user friendly and attractive to visitors, enhancing their first impressions of a website and leading them to spend more time on it, perhaps purchasing content or sharing it with their friends on social networking sites. At Web Design Manchester, we consider great design as the corner stone of successful website.

There are many aspects involved in producing a strong web design, but here are some key features of a good webpage:

-          It loads quickly

Although you may have a high-speed internet connection, not everyone in the UK does. Figures from OFCOM's UK Fixed Broadband Map 2011 reveal around 14.8 per cent of residents and businesses receive internet access of under 2Mbps, although 39 per cent of the region has superfast internet speeds of over 24Mbps.

Even if your site looks brilliant, people will not pay any attention to it if it does not load properly. Many of the best sites have streamlined and easy-to-navigate pages and avoid unnecessary graphics, such as Google's homepage.

-          Compatibility

Many people do not have a website that can be viewed properly in all browsers and on different platforms. There are many different browsers in use at the moment and although the majority of web users have Internet Explorer, Firefox or Chrome, you will miss out on a sizable chunk of audience if you fail to make certain that it works properly on other popular browsers, such as Safari or Opera.

Further to this, companies are increasingly making sure their website design accommodates hand-held computers and mobile devices and their associated browsers. This emerging market is likely to become incredibly important in the immediate future and companies that fail to design their pages in a way that is compatible with this technology will be left behind.

Computers nowadays are set to a vast array of screen resolutions and you cannot expect web users to change their settings in order to visit your website. Therefore, you should design your site so it can be viewed in all resolutions.

-          Clear

Casual web users will not stay on your website if they cannot navigate it properly or find the information they were looking for and will instead close your page and search for a competitor. Failing to clearly display the products and services available on your site will reduce your custom and harm your business.

It is a good idea to use inbound linking throughout the website so visitors can easily go between pages. Menus on the side or top of the page leading to all of the different areas of the site will allow web users to easily find the information they are looking for. Areas of the page that cannot be easily accessed are likely to be missed out in comparison to other pages and you will lose out on business.

There are many other factors involved in having a successful web design and many people need to contact a professional web design company to make sure their page is going to be successful.

A properly-designed website can help a small company reach an international audience cheaply, effectively and flexibly. Businesses can adapt to changing market conditions and trends and update their pages with new products and services through an effective internet strategy.

Good e-commerce sites are convenient for shoppers and are open all day, every day, allowing sales to be made at any time by anyone.

Internet shopping has rapidly become a challenge to traditional high street retail and is becoming a vital place to businesses to operate in. Bricks-and-mortar stores can highlight their presence, sell more of their stock and keep in contact with their customer base throughout promotions, renovations to their commercial property and relocations to other premises. People can be informed of new products and services and will be able to highlight a business to their friends through social networking.

Succeeding in online retail can boost a firm's profits by cutting out other expenses and enabling them to market and sell directly to their client base over the internet. Web Design Manchester are highly skilled at creating websites that attract new customers.

New business opportunities can be found online and organisations can find a variety of ways to grow by pursuing an internet strategy and rolling out a well-designed website.

In many cases, a company's first website will be a small page providing details about the services the firm provides where it is located and its contact details. These may function to give people who are already interested in the company further information about what the enterprise actually does and could even interest new visitors.

As the website and company expands, it frequently begins to use search engine optimisation strategies to attract relevant traffic and heighten the business' reach. It could also begin to provide a list of products and services and begin to become more expansive in scope. Contact forms, blogs and sales points are often added at this time.

Many businesses find their online presence is more effective than their stores on the high street and can find great benefit from using the internet. A simple, user-friendly and functional website design is essential for this and will ensure that any interested consumers will be attracted to the company and willing to purchase goods from it.

In some instances, the company's site can be designed in an ineffective way, which can lead many businesses to want to find companies like Web Design Manchester. These professionals can ensure an online strategy works to its full potential, providing a convenient and easy place for web users to visit and purchase products and services. Call 0161 820 8577 to find out how the internet can benefit your business.

We have been waiting weeks for the news and today, the results where announced via The Drum website and RAR's twitter page.

After months spent collecting and collating the financial data of hundreds of recommended agencies, the Recommended Agency Register's definitive guide to the Top 100 marketing services companies outside London has now be revealed - and there we are Sizzle Media website design Manchester. All agencies in the list have been highly rated by their clients through the RAR's ratings programme. The agencies in this elite group not only have the high regard of their clients, but have also demonstrated that they have remained strong across our financial rankings in spite of difficult trading conditions.

We all get bombarded by spam emails, no matter how high we set our security, no matter how many captcha codes we use, they still get through. In our haste to delete these annoying emails, we get in to the habit of surfing through subject lines and binning those emails that seem spammy.

And here lies your opportunity to get through to your target market. If you have recently conducted an email marketing campaign and found that your results are very poor, it may be something as simple as you subject heading that has either been blocked by email security software, or has simply been deleted because it sounded much like the rest of the emails that the recipient didn’t want.

Creating strong subject lines that gets to the point and gains a positive response from the recipient is a very important marketing skill to have.

The best source of inspiration is your very own inbox. For one day only, whilst dealing with your spam, pay attention to the ones that make you hesitate before you delete them, what is it about the subject line that made you hover over the delete button, rather than hit the digital shredder?

Some great tricks that emails have been using recently in email subject lines has been the use of familiarity tactics – ‘Re: Can you send me that email again please’ ‘Fw: This may have been sent to me by mistake’. Although being proper shady tactics, they do give you the impression that the email has come from someone that you know, and gives you an indication of the direction email marketing firms are taking. Using generic social media type subject lines ‘Dave suggested you might like our website’ – we all know at least 5 Dave’s so that one seems to work as well.

However, the best subject lines are the ones that not only get an email opened, but also continue the message with a genuine offer and message. The best email marketing firms are people like PLAY.com or Amazon.co.uk, which can email you based on the items you have recently been searching for, making the content and email highly relevant to you. This is the same approach you must take with you email marketing, make it relevant to season, product, current affairs – anything that ties in with what’s going around in general media to your product or service.

How quick would you open an email received over the last few days if it read ‘Snow tyres fitted outside your house for FREE – anywhere in the UK’ yes you might have to pay for the tyres but you would certainly have a look at what was on offer. Or maybe even ‘We will come and grit your drive for just £1’ – ‘Learn how the professionals wrap Christmas gifts’ – ‘Perfect Roast Turkey recipe’ – ‘Christmas party dresses for under £20’ etc... The point of the exercise being not getting your email deleted and driving traffic to your website, special offer and making the phone ring.

Find out more about email marketing, call Sizzle Media today on 0161 820 8577

Here we go again. Our first dusting of snow has landed on planet Manchester, causing travel disruptions and delays pretty much across our entire lives. The one thing you should be able to rely on is your business website. It doesn’t have bad weather problems, illness, mood swings and bad hair days to contend with, nor does it sleep and ask for days off. It’s probably your most efficient and cost effective business asset if looked after and nurtured.

Making your website is as effective as possible should be a business priority. Always consider how your website can be improved and what can be done to keep your site up and running, generating enquiries and sales, especially if you have an ecommerce website with the busiest shopping season rapidly approaching!

1. Update your content. As online traffic increases during the festive season, people will spend more time looking for bargains and looking past the first page of search engine results. It’s important that when they do find your ecommerce website that the latest news item isn’t from June 2009. Make sure your content is updated and relevant to your business.

2. Special Offers. Now that you have a buyers attention; you need to entice them and encourage them to purchase something. There is little use of reducing the price of a product that cannot be found quickly. Add a seasonal graphic that promotes your special offers and allows your visitor to click through to the page to find more detailed information.

3. Cross Promotion. Many an ecommerce website is guilty of using festive seasons to try and flog everything from the homepage, therefore confusing your customer by giving them too much to choose from too quickly. If you have a great offer on, use that product page to draw visitors attention to other products that they may be interested in. For example, if your website sells children’s designer jeans, on the same page you might want to present offers you have on knitwear, woolly hats, gloves etc. Take your visitor through a shopping experience, like visiting a real shop they may well need several items.

4. Data Capture. Now that you have made a sale, be sure you send a confirmation email to your new customer thanking them for their business. Don’t underestimate the value of this customer and be sure to add them to your database for when you have new special offers on your ecommerce website, and when the next special day or season arrives, and there are plenty throughout the year, you can send an email promoting you new offers and directing them to specific products on your website. Make sure you give the recipient the opportunity to unsubscribe from your email newsletter or it may be reported as a spam email, and don’t overdo it.

If your website is out of date or not generating any business for you, contact Sizzle Media website design Manchester today on 0161 820 8577 and let’s get your website updated and ready for business.

Due to strong run of project wins, Sizzle Media website design Manchester have expanded by taking on an additional two members of staff and moved to larger offices within The Sharp Project. Initially occupying one of the trendy container offices, we were soon finding it difficult to move around.

Taking a further 500sqft office on the ground floor and converting the office container in to a meeting room has given Sizzle Media space to develop in 2011.

Turning our container in to a board room has been creative exercise in itself. Wanting to do something different where clients experience the creative process, there were lots of ideas from creating a blackboard type surface, or pull out paper roll,  eventually our Creative Director came up with the idea of turning the surface in to a large dry wipe board.

Sizzle Media Creative Director Aftab Ali said “The dry wipe table has proved to be very popular and has been used extensively in meetings with clients. Sketching concepts directly on the table surface has really helped with brainstorming some excellent ideas with clients, It’s also been useful in explaining the technology behind projects. At the end of the sessions clients can simply take a picture of the doodles on their phones for their own record.”

In keeping with the our policy of minimising our carbon footprint, the table was made completely from salvaged materials.

To experience our unique service call us today on 0161 820 8577, and discover how much of a difference Sizzle Media Web design Manchester can make to your business.

It’s been a very exciting year for us at Sizzle Media web design Manchester, we’ve surfed the high and lows of the economy, battled against the sever bite of the credit crunch and attempts from competitors to poach clients and staff. Through all this Sizzle Media has continued to grow and refine a market leading web design service.

Our main base of operations has been in the home of the co-op, Rochdale and after 18 months of steady progress Sizzle Media have created a large client base that is mainly based in the Manchester area. Our hard working sales team have clocked up thousands of miles travelling between Manchester and Rochdale, and we have finally decided that it’s time move our team to Manchester to best serve our clients and be more accessible to new clients and opportunities.

After a lengthy search for suitable offices, from various REGUS offices, city centre locations, we struggled to justify the costs that some of these locations sought. They lacked parking and charged for every single add-on conceivable. We then came across and office environment that we all instantly took a shine too, plenty of parking, lively atmosphere, accessible and looked really cool.

We will be disclosing our new Manchester office location very soon, once we have completed our paperwork and got ourselves plugged in. Needless to say, we are all very excited about this new move and are really looking forward to continuing our success and bringing some Sizzle in to Manchester.

Born out of the recession and credit crunch, whilst people were shutting their doors and going out of business, Sizzle Media web design Manchester invested in growth and stability, and now employ an industry leading team of business advisers, website designers and web developers at our North Manchester offices.

Sizzle Media web design Manchester deliver strong online websites, critical for any business to succeed in today’s competitive marketplace. Sizzle Media Web design Manchester helps any business make strong gains on the web by creating a complete corporate identity, online advertising campaigns and designing stunning websites that deliver results.

If your one of the brave business people who are setting up a new business in the Manchester area and need a website, or are looking to revise, expand or re-develop your existing website, Sizzle Media web design Manchester can give you a 'Stand out' online presence that is now so vital to online success. If your business hasn't yet seen the excellent results achievable from the internet, then contact Sizzle Media web design Manchester today on 01706 759 344 for a free 1 hour consultation with our experienced advisors.

Sizzle Media Web design Manchester would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

It's been a tough year for most of us and Sizzle Media have been no exception. Although we are an established agency, many web design agencies became victims of the credit crunch as advertising budgets were held back and projects paused.

That said, we have much to be grateful for. With a loyal team and an excellent customer base we managed to not only remain strong as business, we also continued to expand our web design team and continue to offer our trademark customer service.

January 2010 will see 2 new members of staff join our web design team in Manchester, and a further 2 starting in March. We have also been very successful in providing NESTA selected businesses our services, and continue to be one the leaders in providing web design services to businesses awarded Creative Credits in the Greater Manchester area.

All in all 2010 looks to be a very positive year for Sizzle Media web design Manchester and we would like to again wish you all the very best for 2010.. See you on the side!