The winter of 2021 is going to be a particularly tough one for countless families across the country. Deciding to support Home-Start UK by taking on a mud run was one of the easiest decisions Infotex has made.
Back in October, the Infotex Home-Start team took part in the gruelling Whole Hog challenge. The eight-strong team completed a cross country run complete with 30-mud based obstacles, all in the name of charity.
Home-Start has been there to support thousands of families across the UK who have struggled with the difficulties of isolation, disability, mental health issues, bereavement, poverty, financial difficulties and multiple births, among others.
Thanks to the support of our family and friends, the Infotex Home-Start team managed to raise more than £2,500 to help the charity continue its much-needed work.
At 18 weeks into her second pregnancy, mum-of-three Katherine was told her daughter had Down’s syndrome. Three weeks later, she was told her daughter had a number of holes in her heart.
Her baby arrived at 35 weeks and spent her first month in hospital. That’s when Katherine’s health visitor referred her to Home-Start.
“Looking back, I was surviving on pure adrenaline. Everything else was falling apart, but I had my blinkers on – I could just deal with what was in front of me – everything else would have to wait. That included the house,” Katherine, 35, said.
“My health visitors referred me to Home-Start so I could get a little bit more help at home. There was always so much to do in the flat and I could feel the pressure building on me. To have someone come in and remove that pressure gave us the space we needed to focus on my daughter’s health needs. This was especially important because the gruelling feeding programme continued once we got home.”
The volunteer helped four hours a week with laundry and cleaning and stayed for a chat.
She added: “When you are in such an intensive situation, it’s really refreshing to talk to someone who isn’t emotionally involved.
“Our volunteer helped to ensure our eldest always had clean clothes to go to school in. Things that may have been missed with everything else that was going on. Looking back, I don’t know how we coped. But I do know that it would have been so much worse without Home-Start.”
Katherine’s daughter spent a further four months in hospital for heart surgery and the volunteer frequently called to ask if there was anything she could do to help. She also supported the family when the baby was discharged.
Katherine and her partner then fell pregnant with their third child and again, a Home-Start volunteer was there like clockwork.
“When lockdown happened and took away this support it was devastating,” Katherine explained. “Our third baby was just six months old. I also had a one-year-old, was home schooling a six-year-old, in a one-bedroom flat, and living with the after pain of symphysis pubis dysfunction which left me hardly able to move some days. The only aspect of lockdown I didn’t actually mind was not seeing people. I actually liked that part of it. My upbringing was hard. I don’t have happy memories of adults. “
She added: “During lockdown, Home-Start was very proactive in sending us activity packs to do. They’d often call to ask if we needed anything. My eldest got really into painting rocks after Home-Start dropped some off along with some paint.
“You can’t adequately convey the impact of Home-Start. Everyone has problems and everyone needs a helping hand, but Home-Start provides a hand, an ear and a heart. I’m so grateful to have Home-Start in our lives.”
For more about Home-Start and how you can help, visit www.home-start.org.uk
With Stripe’s Payment Link system you can quickly create a page for customers to safely provide their contact details and purchase. This could be used for selling tickets to a one-off event (with a fixed value), gift vouchers, or even for recurring subscription payments. As the name suggests, you provide a specific link to your customer which relates to a certain product. They go to that page, hosted on Stripe’s secure servers, and enter their details.
Customer’s can even pay via Apple Pay or Google Pay, making it a super quick way to checkout. Not only that, Stripe’s clear pricing model of 1.4% + 20p a transaction with no monthly fees makes it very competitive.
We’ve created a demo Stripe Payment Link example here, with the majority of features enabled. Note that the system doesn’t work like a shopping basket, you can only buy the product the link has been created for, so its not a substitute for an e-commerce store.
Firstly, go to stripe.com and register for an account if you haven’t got one already. At this point you can choose to use the ‘test mode’ to see if this solution will work for you, or if you’re happy to dive in select Activate Account.
Go to the Payments section of the Dashboard, and select Payment Links in the left hand navigation.
Select New from the top right to create your first link.
You’ll need to create a new “Product” to sell. This could be for a service or subscription you offer, or for a physical product. Click into the “Find or add a product” box then “Add a Product”.
In the popup complete the name of the product and the price. You can select either a One Time price, or one that’s recurring. Within the recurring options you can set the frequency of the recurrence, from daily up to yearly. Set up the pricing carefully as once you’ve created it you will be unable to edit it.
If you wish, upload an optional photo, this will show on the payment page so can be a visual clue to a customer they are purchasing the correct time. Images should be a jpg or PNG file smaller than 2mb.
Select Add Product to create the product.
Once you’ve created your product you’ll see a preview of the payment page on the right hand side.
There are a variety of settings you can customise for your payment link:
Use of promotion codes – Enabling this allows customers to use discount coupons. Coupons can be created as either a percentage discount, or a fixed value amount, and can be limited to a set period of time or total number of times it can be redeemed. These are created on the main Stripe dashboard under Products : Coupons.
Adjust the quantity they can purchase – This allows a user to purchase multiple of the product you are offering.
Collect customer’s addresses – Allows a customer to provide a billing and shipping address. If you select Shipping you can select which countries you wish to ship to.
Collect tax automatically – You’ll have to do a bit more configuration to get this working, detailing your business details and item origins, but once done it’ll auto calculate tax rates.
Confirmation Page – You can either show the default Stripe confirmation page with a custom message, or redirect users to a page on your own website. You can toggle the preview of this at the top right.
Once you’re happy with you page click the Create Link button at the top right. You’ll be presented with an overview of what you’ve just set, and the all important link button at the top, so you can view your new page.
You will likely want your page styled to match your brand, although the default styling is usable out of the box. To style your page go to the Cog icon at the top right, and select Branding. In here you can assign a logo, and brand and accent colours. These will then be applied to your payment page and email receipts.
That’s it! Copy the link you created earlier and share it via email or on social media posts.
It’s great that you’ve been able to take a payment, but most companies will want to do something more with the data once an order has been place. Stripe integrates with Zapier, a hugely flexible system that links different platforms together.
A popular integration is Google Sheets, so any order placed will appear as a new row. This means you can add additional information to them, such as tracking order status or delivery tracking codes.
For further information on linking Zapier to Stripe see their help page.
We have collaborated with Suffolk GP Federation to design and deliver a brand new system, designed exclusively for Podiatrists in order to:
This past week, the team travelled to Liverpool to officially bring the new self referral platform to market at the Royal College of Podiatry conference, held at the legendary ACC Liverpool venue. This gave us an excellent opportunity to engage with potential buyers, and users to further strengthen the system.
The College of Podiatry conference is the largest of its kind in Europe and we showcased our exciting new system, designed to improve outcomes and support the patient pathway as well as deliver practical help for clinicians.
While there, we offered live demonstrations of the platform, both the administrative back end including how clinicians could tailor the system to their specific particular practice and also the pathway through which the patient is guided.
“This system enables those with the greatest medical need to access podiatrists with the right skillset to give the best care for that patient. All the while reducing the number of wasted hours, improving patient outcomes and giving the patient agency over their own care pathway. This makes life easier for GPs, Podiatrists and most importantly patients.
The brilliance is in how adaptable this is. The different elements can be customised to then suit the needs of the service. During the pandemic Suffolk GP Fed had to drastically change how we handled our podiatry caseload. Despite everything we were still in a position to give advice and support to new patients, and focus our resources on saving the limbs of those most in need all thanks to our referral system.”
Philip Holloway – Podiatrist / Suffolk GP Federation
We also ran a prize draw in which entrants had to guess the right answer to a footie question! Overall, it was an excellent show and the podiatry community are a fantastic bunch to be around.
Though created specifically for Suffolk GP Federation and podiatrists, the bones of the system offer a very solid and exceptionally efficient pathway for any customer or patient type via full end to end onboarding, assessment, appointment scheduling and appropriate advice.
It is a clinician lead system design, and can be adjusted exactly as required. All outcomes are based on carefully planned question sets which you can alter to support your clients and practice behaviours.
Please contact the team to book a demo.
It is extraordinary how much human beings like being together. We are social animals and we do well to remember it. As we have all braved our way through the past 18 months of lockdowns and working from home, much has been written and said about the positives and the move towards a new normal.
In Infotex, everyone has certainly embraced the opportunities presented when working from home, to be able to do our jobs whilst also enjoying less time travelling and more flexibility in our working days. We have been focussing on these positives, and in doing so I wonder if we have almost been experiencing a mild form of “Stockholm Syndrome”, whereby we were deluding ourselves that we are better off held in captivity.
With the knowledge that we were going to be allowed to emerge in the Autumn, as the Covid restrictions finally abated over the summer, and having entered a team to take part in a running event for charity, we took the opportunity to block out the diary across 7-10th October, and I was pleased that we were able to bring the whole company together for two days in our Riverside House Suffolk HQ. And I was amazed at how enjoyable it was to simply be together again. Perhaps after 18 months of daily video communication, I shouldn’t have been amazed. It was almost like meeting a whole bunch of people I am used to seeing on TV, the excitement of meeting the cast.
We spent the two days holding overdue discussions about our business – technical and commercial strategies were explored, productivity workshops held, along with team discussions about how we can work more effectively together as an integrated unit.
We continue to discuss across the business the pros and cons of working-from-home. As we approach 2022 we are carrying out a thorough review of our working patterns to make these as effective as possible for the future. We all agreed on the importance of meeting up in person, and we are now committed to regular sessions like this at least 4 times a year, whilst we also remain committed to supporting the work-from-home infrastructure which has also proved to be so durable and effective.
So will we keep Riverside House? This is currently not certain, but we can be sure that we do continue to see value in having our own “HQ” in Suffolk and a physical presence around which we can all congregate. Meanwhile, we have had a reassuring reminder that we still have our “home from home” in Suffolk, and another happy memory of time spent there….
On Sunday 10th October the Infotex Home-Start team completed The Suffolk Whole Hog, a gruelling 5 miles (8km) run, complete with 30 mud-based obstacles. Or, an enjoyable romp through beautiful countryside in fine weather – depending on your view.
There is still time to support our fantastic cause, Home-Start’s work is never-ending, to donate click here.
The Home-Start UK team was mostly people from Suffolk-based Internet experts Infotex, which has become an enthusiastic supporter of the charity. Matt Adlem, Alice ‘ALICE’ Mottram, Chloe Agar, Katie Robinson, Ant Agar and James Fulford. The last 3 being veterans of the 2013 Whole Hog 8 years prior. They were joined by friends and partners Alex Jenkinson and Shaun Bailey to boost the competitive spirit.
As the team started to arrive at the venue, pre-race nerves were quickly overtaken by blind optimism and enthusiasm to crack on with the race. Although not all the team had clicked that they were in a race. It was quickly agreed “not to stick together”, so it was every man or woman for themselves – the race was on!
Then there was the obligatory, over-energetic race warm-up, which got everyone suitably hyped, if exhausted! Then they were off….
It did not take long before the whole team was soaked and covered in mud. Less than 5 minutes. This was because the race organisers, used to herding cattle, channelled the runners directly into a sort of giant sheep dip that you might expect to find on Clarkson’s Farm, and proceeded to pump pond water over them from a great height. After the dip, young-blooded Matt sprinted ahead, with James and Shaun frantically chasing his tail, while the rest of squad squelched after them.
Matt, James and Shaun formed a pack, ducking and weaving their way through to the front of the crowd. Alice and her partner Alex led a second group, scooping up father-daughter duo Ant and Chloe Agar who had been enjoying the beautiful Wantisden Valley at their own pace, allowing themselves enough time at each obstacle to ponder the questionable smell and the proximity of the mud to the pigs they had been admiring, so they needed to be kicked into action! Almost exactly midway between these two groupings ran Katie, Infotex’s ever-reliable Production Manager moving with consistency and speed, keeping the two groups connected so that it was still one team.
All of the team did fantastically, significantly thrashing the 2+ hours time set 8 years prior (with much fresher younger legs). James (53.33), Matthew (54.35) and Shaun (54.45) came in an impressive 3rd, 4th and 5th from their group of around 300 competitors.
Katie even more impressively (1:07:20) finished shortly after and took gold as first woman to finish.
The rest of the team were not too far behind these fine athletes and crossed the finish as one less than 15 minutes after Katie, placing Home-Start Infotex in the top 30.
Too many children miss out on the most important years of their life because of family crises. Home-Start is always there for families who are reaching breaking point because of isolation, bereavement, illness, poverty, and more.
The winter of 2021 is going to be another particularly tough one for countless families across the country who are lacking the support they need post-pandemic, against a background of rising costs when the £20 Universal Credit top-up has been withdrawn.
The difficulties of isolation, the effects of postnatal illness, disability or mental health issues, bereavement, multiple births, and poverty or financial difficulties are just some of the challenges faced by families in the UK. No matter who you are, a difficult life-changing event can happen to anyone.
Home-Start supports creating more stable, loving, and fun childhoods, working with parents and children together, spending time at home with families, giving children what they need for their first day at school, helping families access the services they need, supporting young mothers, and creating groups for parents to get together and talk, and much more. Their approach is individual, expert, confidential, and compassionate, powered by an amazing 58,000 volunteers across the country, each of whom is giving more generously than we can all know.
At the time of writing, we are inching closer to our target to raise £2,500, which we are determined to exceed by as much as possible.
To donate to this fantastic charity go to justgiving.com/fundraising/infotex
For more about Home-Start see their website home-start.org.uk
A special thanks also goes to Airborne Fit for helping us with our training, and sponsoring the event.
After careful consideration, we have decided that the Infotex look needed a bit of a make-over to pave the way into the next chapter of its service to website production. We didn’t want a total re-brand – our core values and missions remain the same – but we wanted to look carefully at where we are now as a business, and whether our brand-look really looked like us anymore…
The process we went through to create a design and feel that felt suited to us required the same kind of introspection we ask of our clients when we are designing a website. We reassessed our purpose, captured into values, brand pillars, audience understanding, and business purpose to connect each brand expression decision to a reason. We could never manage this alone, and I am deeply grateful to my good friend and expert brand consultant Kevin Bolton (see www.ybrand.co.uk) for his patience and persistence throughout this process, together with the creative team he leads.
Essentially, we felt it was time to assess our own true colours, and discovered there was no longer a reason for our red-and-white colour scheme, which has served its purpose. Though in the past the bold, brave red suited us well, we felt it was time to acknowledge who we are today and our renewed focus on making websites work for our clients.
So, welcome to our new Infotex livery, which retains our trusted logo but sets it in the context of a new and sophisticated green-based colour scheme, which is now reflected on our website.
We hope that our existing clients and friends, many of whom we have known for more than a decade, feel reassured we are the same Infotex as always, but one which they and our new clients can also recognise is committed to making progress and continuous improvements to the way we deliver services.
Home-Start is a local community network of trained volunteers and expert support helping families with young children through their challenging times. If you’d like to donate in support of the charity Home-Start, visit our Just Giving page.
Our MD, Ant, is the reason we all heard about Home-Start in the first place, so really we have him to blame for our aching legs… or to thank for the money that has been raised so far. Either way, here’s how he’s feeling about the upcoming race:
“Infotex took part in the Whole Hog once before, 7 years ago now when I was 50… now I’m closer to 60, and I’m feeling it! This summer I started training by introducing a 5k run into my routine, from my home to Sizewell beach, knowing I could get to the end with the promise of a swim at the end. Then I attended Luke’s Airborne Fit classes in Woodbridge, which were amazing. At first I didn’t even know what a squat was, but now I’m a lot better… I think.
I am so impressed by the work Home-Start does so I really want to encourage everyone to support us if they can – even the smallest donation is appreciated. In the final days before the event, I still need to keep at it, so I am going to focus now on why I am doing this…for Home-Start, who do so much, with so little. They make such effective use of Every £1 they get.”
“As a mother myself, Home-Start really connected with me on an emotional level. The team are so passionate about helping families and I felt compelled to support them in any way that I could – a muddy 5 miles was the answer! To get ready for this challenge I have participated in the circuit training sessions hosted by Airborne Fit, which have certainly been the toughest part of my training. My upper body strength is my weakest area so I think some of the strength-based obstacles will be my biggest challenge. I am already a regular runner but I’ve increased my mileage to help build my stamina and I was even able to persuade my family to join me in a colour run event during the summer!”
“In amongst the busy-ness of work, summer holiday, and the rest, sticking to a training plan has been tricky! I found that the things that worked to keep my fitness up best for me have been walking and football sessions, plus lots of running in the recent weeks. The greatest sense of accomplishment I got was from doing Luke’s Airborne Fit class, because he pushed us in the most encouraging way.”
“When I signed up to do the Whole Hog I was feeling pretty fit and healthy and confident I’d be able to at least make it round. All it took was a couple of weekends away to throw me off my exercise regime and I quickly fell off the wagon. Fast forward several months and I’m finally getting my fitness back. I’ve been back doing a 5k run on weekdays plus a 30min full body workout. Whilst at the weekends I’ve been trying to fit in some more leisurely (fun) exercise like this bike ride with friends (to the Maybush pub and back…does it still count if you drink a couple of pints?). And I climbed 3 mountains whilst away in Wales last week – so hopefully my fitness level is up!”
“It has been very moving working with Home-Start and all the great work their very passionate team do. They really do make every donation no matter what size go a long way.
As far as the Whole Hog is concerned… I approached it with a level of arrogance and optimism that I now regret! At the time of signing up, we were all in lockdown and I had turned into a very boring fitness geek, turning my living room into an ’80s like’ home gym… I didn’t have ankle warmers and a leotard, but I wasn’t far off! Since then, I have been lucky enough to have a summer consumed by my own wedding, honeymoon and a successful sailing season, but my fitness is all but gone! Nonetheless, I really look forward to doing my bit for Home Start and their great work… even if I do end up crawling the course or requiring a lift from one of my teammates!
For those of you that need more incentive to donate to Home Start, I promise photos of my initial arrogance reduced to humility as I struggle around the obstacles and mud of the whole hog!”
“It sounds obvious, but I’m really realising what a difference every donation makes to my motivation to get fit for the Whole Hog. I really don’t like running, and I definitely don’t like press ups and sit ups and all those things… so it means a lot when someone donates and I think, OK, now I better do more training because this might actually be worth it! I lose motivation quickly, but every donation helps, and I am definitely much fitter now. I have run to places in London I wouldn’t usually visit otherwise (the river is my favourite). But I’m still pretty nervous about doing the race
We know we can’t make a huge difference, because we’re not a huge business, but even £5 can go toward helping a family. If you can donate even the smallest amount, please go to our Just Giving page!
To everyone who has realised how important Home-Start is and already donated, we are so grateful for your support. You’re the ones getting us over the finish line, thank you!
This autumn sees the release of Apple’s latest software updates across all of their hardware, in the form of iOS 15, ipadOS 15 and macOS Monterey. The updates bring a range of new (and not so new) features to Apple devices, some of which will change the way online users engage with you and your website.
Before I get bombarded with feedback, I must state that many features released by Apple over the past few years were by no means pioneering… they had previously been successfully implemented on Android, Google or other manufacturer’s operating systems for some time. And this year is no different.
So you might be wondering what it is about Apple’s updates in particular that inspires me to take the time to write about them now, and why it is that is Apple is still the market leader. While Apple don’t tend to be the first company to come up with the ideas that impact the online world of websites and marketing, there are a few unavoidable facts that make them noteworthy:
Market share
Their updates, on the whole, are more fleshed out
In short, if Apple are releasing it, there is a higher chance that it could impact the wider world of online.
Starting off with the smaller, ‘fun’ update: Apple is updating their browser (Safari) for a more immersive experience for users across all their devices. This will involve allowing the website to dictate the colour of the search bar and control panel. A feature that is already available on android, it is a small but elegant upgrade that will help make websites more impactful and give them a ‘wow’ factor if implemented correctly.
To ensure that your website is compatible with the new change, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Moving on to the bigger, slightly more serious part of the OS updates. Privacy. Unsurprisingly, privacy is becoming a bigger and bigger issue online. Apple will be introducing new features this year to their iCloud subscribers that will help protect their customer’s privacy and will have a huge impact on online advertising and email marketing.
Both of these features, despite my introduction, are only available from Apple… But they are likely a sign of things to come. While they are no doubt beneficial features for helping users protect their data online, both changes will make gaining valuable information on online campaigns and user habits much harder, and will likely have a financial impact on any company actively marketing online.
Video and conference calls have dominated the past 18 months and become a key part of how we work and play. While Apple have held back a number of the key updates to their Facetime from the September IOS 15 update, such as Share Play, which will allow users to watch and listen to media together at the same time, they have upgraded their video calling software to be in in line with the market leaders. It might seem that Apple’s release is tailored more to ‘play’ than ‘work’…
However they will also be enabling screenshare, grid view, spatial audio and the ability to invite non-apple users into a call via guest link. All these features will put Facetime much more in line with their commercial competitors such as Microsoft Teams, Google Meet and Zoom. While I don’t expect there to be a major overnight shift away from the dominant platforms in the commercial world, it will interesting to see if the introduction of a video solution tailored to iPhone and Mac hardware will further impact how we work remotely.
Behind all the glamour of new and redesigned websites, a large part of Infotex’s time and energy is spent “keeping the lights on”, i.e. managing all the little bits that ensure your website remains fit-for-purpose.
Much of this work is never directly seen by clients or website visitors, so in this article we wanted to let you know of a few bits that we’ve been working on recently.
WordPress is a platform that never sleeps; powering around 1/3rd of all websites, it is constantly under scrutiny, having features added and bugs fixed. As a result, the WordPress team publishes major updates around 3-4 times per year and some plugin authors push out updates very frequently.
Infotex’s policy from hard-earned experience is that, with the exception of security releases, it is best to apply updates in a timely manner but not immediately after release. This is because it is often the case that new updates to the WordPress core cause compatibility issues with plugins and/or themes, which can be annoying to our customers and time consuming to work around, yet are often patched by the plugin authors within a few weeks.
We have just finished deploying WordPress 5.8.1 to our fleet of sites under maintenance contract.
In the last month, we have also separately installed security updates to plugins which were evaluated by our team and felt to be of an urgent nature – such updates are often installed within hours of their release to keep our clients safe.
We are in the process of changing the architecture for some legacy sites to allow us to perform updates more efficiently (especially updates of commercial plugins). And automated testing will come online soon, to further improve the customer experience – more on this in due course.
Just as WordPress itself is constantly evolving, so are the servers which we host it on.
All of these servers are checked for security updates at least once per week to keep them secure.
We have now started to deploy the latest evolution of our preferred server operating system, called CentOS Linux Stream 8. Stream is the future of CentOS Linux and will allow us to offer newer technology earlier in the lifecycle than was previously possible. We will be migrating sites to this platform over the coming months. In addition, we are working through the process of testing and migrating our fleet of servers to PHP 7.4, which gives the latest features and performance benefits. In some cases this upgrade is requiring changes to our client websites to provide compatibility, but we aim for the change to be seamless.
With SSL/TLS now being a defacto standard on websites and email solutions, we continue to create internal automation to both monitor and renew these sooner (we now typically renew website certificates every 60 days, as short certificates provide additional “defence in depth” security benefits) and have recently renewed and upgraded the strength of the certificate that protects our Flexidial client email system.
Infotex are proud of the technical standards we work to and have recently decided that the time is right to demonstrate this. We are therefore currently working with external advisors to obtain the Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus certifications.
For those who are not familiar, Cyber Essentials is a program backed by the UK Government’s National Cyber Security Centre (https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/cyberessentials/overview) to verify that we are providing controls to mitigate the majority of cyber attacks and demonstrate that we can, and do, handle your sensitive data correctly.
To be clear, this is not related to DDoS type attacks but instead demonstrates controls (including timely installation of security updates and use of multi-factor login to our core systems) that will deter the much more common hacker attacks in addition to demonstrating security awareness and controls to reduce the likelihood of Infotex suffering from the ransomware attacks which are sadly so prevalent today.
Related to the above two items, over the last year we have invested heavily in new computer hardware for our team members to ensure that everyone has an environment which allows them to make the most of their skills in turn delivering the best technical solutions and advice for our clients.
SEO is the process that ensures your website ranks as highly as possible in organic search engine results. This improves traffic to your website and attracts relevant consumers to increase conversion rates.
Most people involved with SEO are predominantly concerned by Google’s ranking algorithms, as Google is by far the most popular search engine.
Search engine rankings are based on a series of algorithms that take into account numerous factors to deliver the most relevant, safe and accurate results to a search engine user. Google Search algorithms determine the results of a search query by looking at the relevance, quality, usability, and context of a site, and each factor is weighted differently depending on the user query.
These algorithms never sit still. Search engines are always looking for the next best way to serve you the highest quality results for your search. So, SEO that worked for you in 2014 would fail in 2021. No one can know Google’s exact algorithms, but you need a team with their ears to the ground at all times, looking for these changes, to ensure search performance security.
On-site SEO refers to the optimisation of the elements of your website controlled by you, including the code and website content.
Your page content should always be specific and target the right audience. It should be high quality and offer accurate information in good detail, as algorithms often favour more content than less. As well as high-quality writing and images, your content can be easily optimised by keywords and video to attract relevant queries.
Each keyword on a website grasps a business opportunity at the exact point the user shows intent. Making sure these keywords represent your business goals is the key to a successful SEO strategy.
Like text and keywords, video is rankable on search engines. Videos are also a good option because they are easily shared on social media, which in turn helps your page ranking in search engine results. Read our blog to find out more about how video can help your ecommerce website.
Google monitors user-experience metrics in order to get a picture of how well users are responding to a particular website. This is measured mainly through click-through rate, bounce rate, and time spent on site. If a site has a high bounce rate, for instance, it indicates that the site might be drawing in the wrong audience. This means that your site design needs to be appealing and easy to navigate.
Core web vitals were recently added to Google’s ranking algorithm and indicate the functionality of your website loading speed, responsiveness and stability for its visitors. The metrics are designed to improve the quality of the internet by measuring numerous areas of a website.
Having a site that is user-friendly across multiple platforms is an important ranking factor, especially mobile. This means that you need to ensure your mobile website has a mobile friendly design and fast mobile loading time to keep your visitors happy and your rankings up.
More often than not, Google ranks HTTPS websites more highly than HTTP ones, as they are more secure.
If a user searches your business you need them to find out all of the correct, updated contact information. So, remember to always update your name, address, and contact number both on your website and on the relevant business listings online (such as Google My Business) and online directories.
It’s also common for users to search queries including “near me” in the search bar, so it’s vital that you have your location up to date, especially if you deal in local business.
Off-site SEO refers to when Google or other search engines use information from places on the web other than your website to affect its ranking. In other words, Google looks to the rest of the internet to assess the importance of your website.
The most important of these is backlinks, that is, other website links that mention you. This has been a crucial ranking factor since Google’s inception – and things don’t look like changing. The quality of your website has to resonate across the entire web.
In this Google Search Central Podcast, a member of the Google Search Quality team specialising in spam explains how algorithms fight spam websites and websites that are at risk of being targeted by spam. Google demotes sites specifically built for spam so that they don’t show up in search results. Less than 1 percent of users land on spam pages on Google despite 40 billion spam pages showing up on Google every day.
If just one good thing has come out of Covid-19, it’s the blanket national appreciation of the National Health Service and those that work within it. Never before have so many interacted with the NHS, utilising the latest in digital technology from Track-and-Trace to the booking system behind millions of vaccinations.
Even prior to the pandemic taking hold, users of the NHS had started interacting digitally with the service with far greater frequency – and we at Infotex are extremely proud to announce that we’ve partnered with three of the exceptional software engineers who, for the past 20 years, have led the charge in such developments.
The team of Jonathan Smith, Gareth Barnes and Mark Boreham join us from NEL: the London-based commissioning support unit that covers nearly 25% of the UK population and manages over £10billion of NHS contracts.
Projects the trio have developed and implemented include, amongst others, the Allied Health Professionals (AHP) physiotherapy self-referral platform, which processes over 80,000 cases per year; the Call Information Management Application System (CIMAS), which enables police custody officers to book clinicians for those in their care requiring medical assistance; and the Lawmunion Library System, which connects over 150 hospitals and healthcare providers to share essential journals and books, both physically and digitally.
As part of their work with Infotex, Jonathan and the team have integrated several of their existing clients into the Infotex roster, most notably AHP for whom they will continue to offer technical support while developing new solutions. This influx of new clients has prompted Infotex to open an entire new healthcare division.
“After 25 years in the public sector with the NHS, it’s really exciting for myself, Gareth and Mark to join Infotex,” claims Jonathan.
“We bring a wealth of experience and skills from both the NHS and the private sector, utilising Microsoft technologies to complement those already in Infotex. We look forward to continuing to work with our existing customers, as well as developing new products in the healthcare sector.”
Anthony Agar, Infotex managing director, said of this new chapter in the company’s 20-year history, “It’s an exciting development for Infotex to bring on board three great developers who bring with them substantial new skills and experience.
“With a Microsoft.net development team focussed on building systems for healthcare providers – and combining this capability with Infotex’s core purpose of delivering websites that really do improve things for people – we’re going to do a great deal to help patients access services all over the UK.”
For more information, please contact Infotex on 01394 615 615.
Whether you offer discounts and sales or not, the huge increase in online traffic over the Black Friday weekend means there is a heightened opportunity for you to pick up those much-needed target customers. With almost a third of retail sales now occurring online in the UK, the biggest retail event of the year is not an e-commerce opportunity you want to miss…
Black Friday is a US-inspired commercial holiday that falls on the day after Thanksgiving to signify the start of the Christmas shopping period. Coined in Philadelphia in the 1950s, Black Friday made its way to our shores in 2010 when American giant Amazon offered Black Friday deals here in the UK. Cyber Monday lands on the Monday after Black Friday, 29th November. An online-only event limited strictly to 24 hours, Cyber Monday is seen as the 21st-century response to Black Friday due to the rising use of e-commerce by consumers. After the online spending boom during the 2020 lockdowns, this year’s Black Friday-Cyber Monday weekend is going to be unavoidable for online retailers looking to embrace changing consumer habits.
The sale has long been a way for retailers to drive up revenue, so you may be asking yourselves why is this anything different from the norm? Though Black Friday’s popularity initially stemmed from its (perceived) sizable savings and huge discounts, the mainstream media have since been responsible for its growing prominence in the UK retail market. It became infamous for the much-publicized hysteria and frenzies that grip a bargain-hungry public. The media circus surrounding the event was the perfect marketing tool to advertise the huge discounts on offer, triggering its exponential growth.
Mobile and tablet sales already dominate the e-commerce market and are set to increase year on year. You can optimise your site with a user-friendly cross-device design, and even consider creating a mobile app for your business, to encourage mobile users to purchase your products.
Different demographics search and shop differently online, so it is important to cover all the channels that might be reaching your target audience. This means developing great marketing campaigns for email and social media, and Pay Per Click advertising.
Customers are used to being given a range of convenient delivery options, something you must provide if you are to stay ahead of your competitors. Click and Collect services, fast and secure delivery, and ensuring a clear return policy can be game-changing for customers at checkout.
At checkout, customers on any device need to be able to quickly and securely pay for their purchases. Check out our guide to the best payment gateways to make sure you’re offering optimum payment services to keep those conversions coming.
Shoppers using search engines need to be able to find your business if you offer relevant services and products. This can’t happen unless your site is optimised for search engines, meaning your site infrastructure, content, keywords, speed, and user experience, among others, have to be thoroughly thought-through to increase your site’s rankings. Click here for more information on ranking factors for SEO.
If your site is slow you risk losing customers to an increased bounce rate and decreased SEO rankings. You can optimise your site speed by caching your web pages and making sure images are properly optimised.
In the online world, reviews are highly valued by customers as verification of your site and services, creating traffic, leads, and making conversions. Make sure you feature on multiple review platforms so that your business can maintain its reputation, exposure, and bring in trusting customers.
Just as in store, your customer experience needs to be the best that it can. As well as providing clear contact information, you might consider implementing customer service chatbots on your website in order to maintain good communication with site visitors. Alternatively, having a live chat service so visitors can directly talk to someone. Live chat is often much more convenient for a user than making a telephone call or a protracted email correspondence.
Particularly if you are putting on big sales and offers, your website traffic over the Black Friday weekend could be greater than usual. To ensure your site has the infrastructure to handle surges in traffic, speak to us today for advice.
It’s vital for you and your customers that you keep your website safe, and that you communicate your site’s security to visitors. Aside from having technically robust site infrastructure, you can also enable SSL so your customer feels secure at checkout, and display safe checkout and trust badges on your site.
For help and advice on how to optimise your website, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
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