When our client approached us, they knew exactly what they wanted but weren’t sure on the best way to achieve it. They needed a modern, slick, well-built website that matched their existing company branding and supported their tender process.
Put simply, they weren’t after an extensive digital marketing strategy to drive traffic and attract engagement; but rather a high-quality website that supports their current operations.
To achieve great website design, we worked closely with JB Decorating to understand their vision and what their website needed to do for them. Their site is a ‘touch point’ and used as a reference during the tender process for potential companies they’d be working with. With this in mind, their website needed to convince visitors that they were a reputable company that they could trust to complete their painting and decorating work.
The majority of users visiting JB Decorating’s website were commercial companies scoping out potential contractors to work with. When they land on their website, it’s essential that the information is digestible, well-structured and accompanied by high-quality imagery. This information could be the make or break of a contract for JB Decorating, so it was imperative to get this right. This is how we ensured information was displayed clearly:
There’s no value in having a clear website design if the content doesn’t fit the audience. We worked with JB Decorating to understand what information is most valuable for them, and what they’d be happy to share with website visitors.
We linked to accredited training bodies and offered additional resources for the most important sections. Not only does it provide users with relevant information, but it shows authenticity and a high level of professionalism. The overall goal was to show website visitors that JB Decorating knew what they were doing, and are very good at what they do.
JB Decorating’s work is highly visual, and displaying past projects was an essential feature of their website. We implemented a lightbox gallery as it gives the most immersive user experience. This allows users to either view all images as thumbnails or click and scroll through full-screen images easily, much like they would on social media.
JB Decorating has completed some amazing projects, such as the Lush headquarters, and showing this to website visitors instils trust. By utilising image alt text, we’re also increasing the chance of their images appearing in Google search results and improving their digital exposure.
In the modern day where handheld phones can take photographs in ultra-HD, every image upload has the potential to slow down the site. Image optimisation was crucial for this build, both for the website’s health now, and in the future as more images are uploaded. By optimising each image and keeping to a maximum file size, we achieved a healthy page load speed without impacting the image quality.
So, a visitor goes to JB Decorating’s website to make a decision, really likes what he/she sees and is pretty convinced they’re a great fit for the job. But, if there’s no CTA, what’s stopping them from ringing after checking out another competitor? It’s crucial that CTA’s exist to capture the user's interest at the specific moment it arises.
We utilised a combination of contact forms, instant contact buttons and ensured that all contact information was readily available sitewide.
Including testimonials of past work is a must for all of our website builds; they help website visitors to trust the business they’re viewing. We utilised snippets of JB Decorating’s testimonials to grab the attention of visitors and highlight important comments.
CSS animations are subtle, but make a big difference to the website design. Loading a page and being instantly met with all of the text can be hard to digest. However, using animations to load the text as users browse the website prevent this, and creates a good impression about the quality of the website.
While this wasn’t an SEO focused project, optimising for SEO during website build is still an essential step. Our focus was to get JB Decorating ranking for their brand name, as this is how most of their customers would be searching for them. We utilised headings, on page content and services such as Google My Business to rank for organic search results.
“I contacted Digital Mast because I felt it was time to have a website built for my business. They worked with me to decide on the direction of design and were incredibly personable, friendly and fun to work with, while still maintaining a high level of professionalism. The website has exceeded all expectations, and I cannot recommend Digital Mast enough”.