Gift Focus inc Attire Accessories - Page number 109 - July/August 2021

109 BUSINESS Julaine Speight is a director at First Internet, an online agency creating websites and managing digital marketing for the likes of Sew Direct, Secret Spa and PZ Cussons. For further information, visit: www.firstinternet.co.uk optimising and utilising something called ‘lazy load’ also greatly improves experience, as the user can scroll and interact with a page while an image loads, without having to wait for every single image to load up. In addition, look at reducing the number of plug ins used on your site – plugins are used to achieve certain functionality and can be very useful, but using them unnecessarily can backfire and slow the site down. When you first click through to a website, lots of processes are kick-started behind the scenes: HTML, CSS and JavaScript are gathered and loaded. This can drag the experience downhill and the browser struggles with other tasks in the meantime. It gets technical, but you can tell the browser which page or part of a page is most critical, so do consider this for delivery menu pages − you aren’t necessarily making the page load faster, but giving the illusion that it is, which gives the user experience that all important boost and sends them to the right area. MAKING IT MOBILE Over half of global traffic comes from mobiles so you need to make sure your offering is suitable to use across all types of device. In fact, it should be developed using a ‘mobile first’ mentality. If your site does not render properly or cannot be used effectively on mobile then you’ll be penalised by Google. KEEPING IT SECURE Security Magazine has reported a 31 per cent increase in cybercrime during the pandemic as less secure home servers are manipulated. Interpol’s cybercrime threat response team reported a ‘significant increase’ in attempted ransomware attacks around the world. If you’re asking consumers to pay online, or taking any information, you need to ensure your system is intact. Does your site have the little padlock next to your URL? If not, you’ll need to install an SSL certificate. Your potential customers will be warned away without it. CONTENT Is there enough content on your site? It sounds obvious but without sufficient content, how do you expect your user and, indeed, Google to understand your offering? Remember also, that Google can’t see images, so, even if your site boasts lot of lovely pictures, that’s not going to tell Google a thing about how great your site is or what it is about. Tell your story, promote your background, shout about what’s different about you. This is your USP and great for your customers to know, as well as Google. EASY TO FIND CONTENT Ease of use and encouraging people to place orders quickly is the priority, so that content needs to be managed well. Sites deemed to have good usability will be labelled as such, immediately making them more appealing to consumers. Is your website sitemap intuitive? If you have content hidden away on your site and it takes a number of clicks to find it, then both your user and Google will be displeased. BROKEN LINKS A broken link is quite literally a link on your site that no longer works, be it to another page within the site or an external site that has now closed or deleted the page. It’s vital to keep an eye on these and tidy up broken links on your site – not only does it look messy, but this also leads to a poor experience and is a really quick fix. Craft may be seen as a traditional business, but it’s very forward-looking. The Creative Industries give figures that show that the industry contributes almost £3.5bn to the UK, and with almost 12,000 UK craft businesses employing around 150,000 people, it’s a vital part of our economy as well as our culture, and one which needs to perform online as well as face to face. As more craft businesses look to sell online going forward, it will be imperative that they keep their websites up to date and adhering to the changes put upon them.