DCL Business Services, Newark

We met up with Duncan from Newark based DCL Business Services to discuss replacing an aged website that wasn’t allowing them to make the most of their blog. The blogs didn’t have an actual page but rather appeared in a popup window, meaning they couldn’t link to a particular blog from their email newsletter. The site wasn’t mobile friendly either, so making it “Responsive” to work with smartphones and tablets was also part of the brief.

Domain and website hosting

Tracking down the domains and hosting was a particular challenge with this project. The importance of clients having control of their own domains was underlined as we struggled to find out who was hosting the site and who had control of the domain! The original freelancer had transferred it to a Newark company, who were then bought out by another company further afield. We eventually got things sorted out but fully recommend that you keep control of your domain names yourself rather then leaving it to a third party. The site runs on green web hosting so it’s good for the environment too.

We also set up a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate for the new site so web browsers show the site as being secure.

Website Design

A ‘wireframing’ stage starts the design process, followed by mockups of key site pages in desktop and mobile formats. This allows us to work out what content is required on each page and how it will be presented before the final designs.

We created a fresh new web design for the upgraded website, making it change shape for all screen sizes rather than having a separate mobile site. We design all sites from scratch so they can match the client’s branding and have exactly the features required.

WordPress website build

We specialise in WordPress for small business websites as it’s so easy for clients to use. We add custom fields for things like banners and secondary content areas, so editing each page makes sense in the control panel. The admin area allows new blogs and pages to be added whenever you need them, all handled with an easy to use editor.

Search Engine Setup

Our fast loading code and various optimisation tweaks mean our sites pass the Google Pagespeed tests and look as attractive as possible to search engines.

We install a search engine optimisation plugin that helps you optimise your own website pages for a particular keyword. This amazing plugin is free of charge and means you don’t have to pay a search engine optimisation company to get your website noticed by search engines.

The client’s Google account is used to set up Google Analytics and Search Console and we can also help set up your Google Maps listing.

Email Newsletters

DCL offer a high value newsletter with genuinely useful content rather than dubious ‘special offers’ and other low quality content. A matching template was created for Mailchimp, allowing DCL to manage their email newsletter list and send out attractive newsletters to their subscribers. The blog content is used for the newsletter too, supplying the latest legal news to small businesses.

Need a website upgrade?

If you’ve got a tired old website that you’re finding hard to manage, or that doesn’t allow you to edit your content, we can help with a fast, easy to use WordPress website. Call us today on 01636 812 551 or contact us here to get a quote.