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What the internet can do for your business

Where are Maddison Creative Web Design Newcastle located?

We are based on Tyneside - more specifically in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Tyne and Wear in the North East of England, United Kingdom.

What is Wordpress?

Wordpress is an open-source Content Management System built using php. It is probably the simplest to use, most widely-used and powerful CMS/blogging system there is available today, perfectly suited to developing websites.

There are many many websites on the web that make use of Wordpress; big corporates sites, news sites, music sites and famous people use it to manage their website (or have their 'people' manage their website). TechCrunch, The New York Times and CNN all use Wordpress.

Because of its open source nature, there are literally thousands of 'themes' (pre-built designs/layouts for websites) - some paid for and some free, and 'plug-ins' (which give your website added functionality once installed, or 'plugged-in'), again, some free and some paid for.

Web development and web design - what's the difference?

To build a fully functional, beautifully designed website traditionally requires a web developer and a web designed working together, to cover off all aspects of the design and build. While it is true that a lot of developers are comfortable designing and a lot of designers are comfortable developing the two disciplines are distinctly different:

A web developer is primarily responsible for coding, server-side, in order to allow the website to function. This can include managing the server and the transfer of files and additionally some client-side scripting such as Javascript, but it is predominantly programming.

A web designed on the other hand is responsible for the aesthetics of the site, along with the user-journey and experience. This may also include client-side scripting such as Javascript and HTML, but it is traditionally about the design and layout of the page, imagery, colours, branding and user behaviour.

What about good web design and Search Engine Optimization?

Search engine optimization, or SEO is the process whereby you make your site as finely tuned as possible in order to ensure that Search Engines such as Google and Bing consider your website worthy enough to show ahead of all the competition.

This involves writing the content in such a way that it relates to the words (keywords) your potential customers will be searching to find whatever it is you're doing/selling/saying. It also entails making sure that all the key elements of what makes up a good website are there and put together properly. Titles, images, framework of your site, links - they all have to be right.

This also includes things you can't see - the invisible tags that sit behind your webpage, but that do an important job nonetheless. A good web designer will do all of this as a matter of course, but there's always room for improvement, especially as time marches on, and best-practice and guidelines change and what used to be the done thing is now frowned upon.

What's the market like for eCommerce and good web design?

The eCommerce sector in the UK is huge and steadily growing. UK online sales increased by an estimated 15% last year. 77% of people who went online made a purchase, with an average order value of around £78.

Around a third of e-commerce traffic in the UK is on a handheld device. In terms of mobile traffic distribution, a third is on tablets while the remaining two thirds is on a smartphone, which is a result of the increase in size of the screens on mobile phones.

Investments in digital advertising are also on the rise. Last year they represented almost exactly half of the total advertising spend in the UK, and this is expected to climb another 10% by 2020. Given the growth of e-commerce in the UK, it is normal that more and more advertisers are choosing to dedicate a more significant part of their advertising spend to online channels.

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