Freelancer Web Designer in Bristol

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Craig Brothers offers a range of freelance services including website design and builds. We can offer a range of websites from small start up businesses to larger corporate re-brands, content managed websites and e-commerce online shopping. If you would like some free advice on what you should consider when you build your website you can read any of these articles:

Or if you just want to talk your idea through with someone call Craig Brothers on 07500 333 205

E-commerce Websites

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Bristol based website designer and Creative Director Craig Brothers can design and build an e-commerce site for your business. Whether you want to sell clothes pegs or cars, we can produce a fully content managed site to sell your products or services online.
You can choose if you want to use PayPay, which contrary to popular belief can process credit card transactions or you can set a merchant account with your bank to process your payments.
Generally merchant account are more expensive to build as you have to adhere to stringent security checks and work closely with you payment gateway to ensure you meet all their requirements. However if you intend to process over £70,000 pounds worth of online transactions a year this is an option you need to consider.
If alternatively you are a start up business PayPal may well yield a bigger bang for your buck. They provide a well established and trusted service and as the transactions are processed away from your website they take all the responsibility of dealing with the transaction securely. The down side if there is one, is once you are over the financial threshold, commission rates are a little higher.

What else does an E-commerce site do?

Well they don’t just take the money, you can:

  • Put products on offer
  • Manage Products
  • Have variables (sizes, colours etc)
  • Automatically charge shipping cost
  • Gets reports back based on purchasing trends

Email Marketing Tips and Tricks

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1. Target your Email Marketing Campaign
Ensure you have a good quality database and send your targeted audience a relevant proposition. If you build a database by asking people who are interested in photographic products to enroll, then when they receive your email marketing they will expect it to be relating to photography.

2. Personalise you email marketing campaign
Rather than sending a generic email. If you can personalise the message to the individual in the title and the content of the email it is proven to yield greater results than the generic alternative.

3. Engage your audience with a good subject line
Use a subject line that is engaging and cannot be misconstrued as spam. You don’t want your email to end up in the junk box, so put yourself in their shoes and think of the type of subject lines you would open.

4. Make it clear who is the email has come from
Much as personalising the emails improves open rates, you must also make it clear who the message is from. If they have signed up to your business for further information they will be receptive to receiving mail from your business name.

5. Plain text as well as HTML
HTML email is more popular and produces better results, but some people and company’s block HTML email. Plain text may not be as appealing but it is accessible to a wider audience. Another added benefit is that blind people can use auto readers on plain text versions of your email offer. So send your email in both Plain text and HTML formats.

6. Promote your website and social media
As well as putting your contact details promote your website and social media with hyperlinks so your audience can find out more about you as a business if they want to.

7. Unsubscribe link
To protect people against spam email you are obliged to provide the recipient to opt out of your mailing list with an unsubscribe link within the email (usually at the bottom of the email). You have a legal obligation to honor unsubscribe requests.

8. Get to the point
Don’t drone on to much and don’t sell to many offers withing one campaign. Keep your offer punchy and concise so they understand the offer with ease.

9. Don’t Bombard Your Audience
Depending on your offering or product, you may contact your audience daily, weekly or monthly. If the information has changed and they are receiving data they have signed up no problem. But don’t bombard them with repeat information or more than is necessary. In addition it is a good idea to send your emails on the same day of the week or month so your audience develop a relationship with your brand.

10. Be creative
Try to entertain and excite your audience with good graphics and engaging copy, so you don’t end up in their deleted items box! The competition is great so follow all these tips and you will have a good chance of beating your rivals.

Make the first Move on Linked In

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Linked In is a seriously powerful business tool, but may people make all the effort on their profiles and then take a back seat. Waiting for businesses to approach you is all well and good, but why don’t you make the first move? Linked in is just another networking event and you can’t afford to be shy. Your existing contacts are already working for you, to spread your net further ask people to introduce you to contacts of theirs that you can really help.
If you have a detailed profile and recommendations from your existing customers, people can see the obvious benefit to their clients of introducing you. So good luck and don’t be shy!

Social Media Tips and Tricks to Generate Business

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Social Media has been around for along time. But as the main players streamline there services and the cream rises to the top, ask yourself are you making the most of your Social Media to generate new business? I asked myself the same question and the answer was a resounding no. So in a bid to amend the error of my ways I have investigated some of the avenues and implemented my findings. Obviously being in the trade so to speak, I should be seen to practice what I preach and having grasped the nettle firmly with both hands, I thought I should document my journey.
After setting up all of my main accounts for FaceBook, Twitter and Linked In and populating the profiles to the best of my ability the next step was to start my very own group called Social Media Tips and Tricks. I am well aware of what I should be doing, but as with many businesses it is easier to do the right thing on behalf of others rather than doing it for yourself.
The Social Media Tips and Tricks group is for beginners and experts alike. Beginners offer a fresh insight to the problems we all face and do not assume knowledge, whilst the experts can answer those question and show their expertise by innovation and challenging tried and tested theories. Follow this link if you would like to join Social Media Tips and Tricks giving you advice on generating business on FaceBook, Linked In and Twitter or letting you display your expertise to the world.

Unique Profile Pictures for Your Social Media Accounts

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I have recently set up my social media accounts. I choose to open or update Facebook, Linked In and Twitter. I liked the fact that Twitter and Linked In work well together and Facebook cant be ignored, but I have to say it is my least favorite! Anyway one of the common elements which you need is a ‘Profile Picture’! Now I am sure I am not alone in the fact I am never happy with my photograph. It may be I am particularly un-photogenic or it could be I am simply as not that attractive. After all they do say the camera never lies. I tried taking a few photos on my iPhone which were terrible and then I thought why don’t I draw my own profile.

Here is how its done:

  1. Take your picture with iPhone or camera
  2. Save the image to your desktop via cable connection, wifi or bluetooth
  3. Import your photo into Photoshop and click save for web and devices
  4. Save the photo back to your desktop as a gif and reduce the colour range from 256 down to somewhere between 8 and 16 levels
  5. Open a vector based drawing program such as Adobe Illustrator or Coral Draw
  6. Import the newly saved image into your vector based program and then simply trace each colour level as its own vector layer

I was much happier with the end result that the original photo and actually I think there are some real advantages. Firstly I look much younger and better looking, but on a more serious note the graphic works far better than a photo when it is viewed small. If you do enlarge it, it hold its quality very well and you can definitely see the likeness. Lastly and more importantly I think there are real benefits from a security perspective. The majority of people are good law abiding citizens but there are a few cranks out there. For an employer point of view in particular, it is a way to still be personable and approachable but also protect your employees.

I hope you enjoy creating you very own profile picture. If you dont have the time and would like me to create one for you or your employee, they start at £30 each.

Logo designer in Bristol

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Logo design is a major contributing factor to the first impression of your business. If your planning to design your own logo there are a few thing you should consider for financial and practical reasons.

  • A logo should be unique and easily identifiable
  • Logo’s using special colours or lots of colours cost more to reproduce on printed material
  • Look at your competitors logos and the clients you want to approach
  • Your logo should evoke an emotion that reflects your product or service
  • Will you logo work at all the sizes it needs to be used
  • Typical logo designs include, Typography, Crests, Shapes or  Symbols

We can manage corporate identities for large company’s but many new businesses just want a professional looking image to get them up and running. We all have to start somewhere and we cant always spend a fortune on a simple logo design. Here is a solution, think of a good name for your business and get us to do a starter logo for you. We can give your business a clean and professional look in next to no time. Craig Brothers have produced logos for business of all sizes and to every budget. So let’s discuss you new logo, you may be pleasantly surprised at just how much you can get for your hard earned cash!

Email Marketing Company Bristol

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Email Marketing is a tricky business and there is a lot more to it than blanket emailing an entire database. But, do not let that put you off, Email Marketing can yield astounding results. Craig Brothers are based in Bristol and already look after a number of businesses who really make the most of their Email Marketing. Even more interestingly, many of those businesses had previously attempted to capatilise on existing databases, but found their effort went unrewarded. There are a number of Key factors you should consider when building your Email Marketing Campaign.

Email your database wisely

Do not bombard your potential customers with repetitive emails selling the same thing over and over. When you genuiely have something new to say and you think it is of interest to your customers you can email them confidently. If it is a repeat at least leave an acceptable time period between emails.

Relevant content

It sounds obvious, but the content of your Email needs to be relevant to your customers, not to your business. The most common reason that this might not be the case is when you email your entire database. Most businesses have more than one service or product, but your database is a complete overview of your customer base. For example a web designer promoting a upgrade to an existing shopping cart might choose to exclude any clients that do not already have an on line shop, for obvious reason, they could not upgrade what they don’t have. It is easier to blanket all your clients but this can cause high levels of people opting out.

Look at the competition

Look at your competitors email marketing solutions. Cherry pick the good ideas and bin the rubbish. Most of us check 10′s if not 100′s of email’s a day so be direct and most of all, ensure your content is correct, short and sweet.

Make sure you Email gets there

You can devise the best campaign in the world, if it does not get delivered it will not win you business. There are measures you need to take, check your email provider is not black listed and improve the number of emails that get through by running a spam checker on your email campaign. If you pass with flying colour you can send your email with confidence.

Quality not quantity

The value of building a high quality database of subscribers to your newsletter or email campaign cannot be under estimated! Those that have genuinely opted to receive you information are far more likely to respond to your sales pitch. They are also far more likely to refer you to like minded colleagues and could actually build your contact list for you.

Are you emails looking good

Check your campaigns thoroughly before sending them. They need to look good and be easily legible. If you are designing your email marketing campaign in HTML, you should also give the recipient a text only version in the event they cannot view HTML emails in their browser.

Have obvious visual triggers and calls to action.

Don’t sell to much. Focus on your sales pitch and give them a clear message or offer.

Use the top of the message wisely. People decide within the first few lines if they are interested or not.

Of course you could just call 07500333205 and let us do it fo you.

Hosting a WordPress Website?

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Wordpress LogoWordPress is the leader of the pack when it comes to user friendly CMS enabled blogs/websites. It can no longer be considered merely a blogging platform, you only have to look in any web magazine and the WordPress logo dominates the pages. So let’s assume you are reading this article because you want to host your own WordPress Blog/Website. It really is not that difficult, but there are a few pitfalls you may want to avoid. Why go through the rigmarole of researching the “Top Ten WordPress Host Providers”, when you can get all the information you need right here. Get the best deal by copying this voucher code: cbhostgatordiscount.

Top Tips for Hosting your WordPress Site

  1. Use a host that provides a WordPress auto installer

    Apart from the convenience of using auto installers the main advantage is that the hard work is done for you. Things like, ‘permissions’ and ‘htaccess’ files are managed for you, which makes auto updates of plugin’s and themes a cinch!

  2. Speed Test WordPress Websites

    If you are exploring alternatives, go online and see what people and users say about the speed their WordPress sites are delivered and if they are any records of excessive down times!

  3. WordPress Back Up Systems

    A good provider will usually have automatic back ups on a daily or weekly basis. Many have facilities for you to do master back ups of your own, perhaps after you have just updated a large section of your site. Use a provider that in the event of a critical loss can restore your WordPress Site from there master back up within 24hrs or quicker.

  4. The cost of Hosting your WordPress Site

    Whilst I would definitely not say price is the deciding factor it is a important aspect to most of us. If you have a number of suppliers offering exactly the same product, then in the end it comes down to price. There are some amazing value deals out there, so shop around.

  5. Hosting Support

    If you do have a problem or you just want to push the envelope and really make your site sing, you are going to need support.  Many providers only give support via a ticket system, but this can be very laborious. Others have dedicated telephone lines but this can be very expensive and they are not usually available 24hrs a day. The solution is to find a provider with a team of dedicated support engineers in online chat rooms 24hrs a day, every day of the year. You can simply type in your problem and they with talk you through the problem. At the end of it all you hopefully have the answer you were looking for and then they can even send you the transcript. So you can implement the solution step by step.

So does any one Web Hosting company tick all these boxes?

Yes, I have personally suffered with all of these problem at one time or another. Not only that but I build a large number of my websites in WordPress now, as it is one of the fastest growing platforms in the world. Over the years I have tried numerous Web Host’s and the one for me that answers all of these problems is Host Gator. They now host well over 2,500,000 and I can honestly say I have found there service exceptional. If you want cheap reliable hosting use Host Gator, especially if you are a fan of WordPress.

Bookmark this page, if you do decide to take my advice and use Host Gator, then enter the following Host Gator Coupon Code to get an exclusive discount. Copy or write down “cbhostgatordiscount” then follow the link below:

cbhostgatordiscount

When you sign up to purchase what ever hosting package you decide upon, you will be asked if you have a discount code, paste in “cbhostgatordiscount” and you will get a great discount.

Web Hosting from Bristol Based Company

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Web Hosting from Bristol based company Craig Brothers. We offer hosting solutions for Web developers, Companies and individuals. We have a host of choices, so to help us point you in the right direction, take a look and choose the one that best describes your web hosting needs:

Web Hosting for Beginners

This is probably for individual who have little or no experience setting a website. We can discuss your individual needs and get you up and running in no time. For more details and a useful check list on how to host your own website.

Intermediate Web Hosting

If you have a reasonable knowledge and already have a domain name you probably want a basic hosting package with flexibility and a proven track record.

Advanced Web Hosting Packages

For website designers or people who want to host multiple website, you probably want a reseller account. You can easily keep track of the individual sites and hosting packages are fully customisable.

Need a Website in 24hrs?

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24hr Websites. Urgently in need of a website? You may be tendering for a new contract and have no web presence, starting a new business or simply feel you should have one. What ever the reason if you need a website in a hurry, we have some innovative designs and professional looking websites that we can brand and launch within 24hrs. This is obviously not the solution for everyone and we design and build highly technical, bespoke web solutions as well. But in this instance, if you just want your business or project to be online in an instant we can help.

SEO company in Bristol

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Looking for a search engine optimisation company in Bristol? Well if you are reading this article it might just stand to reason that you have found one. There are many factors that contribute towards good search engine optimisation otherwise referred to as SEO.
If you are looking to optimise your own website then we have listed a few bullet point to help you get higher up the listing. Of course if you don’t have time to do it yourself, then I will glady do it for you.

Top Tips For Search Engine Optimising your Website

  • Title Tags
  • H1 Tags
  • Meta Tags
  • Avoid Duplicate Content
  • Build Quality Links
  • Write Good Articles
  • Keep Your Website up to date
  • Key words and Key Phrases

Cheap website to get your buisness online

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199Have you been trying to get your business online with your own dedicated website and you don’t know where to begin? FREE websites can look great and for non commercial user they are a fairly obvious choice. So what about for people launching a new or even an established business, well in most cases the drawbacks out weigh the benefits. Not only are there flaws from a technical point of view but actually it just is not that easy to put all the elements together in a clean and concise way for your visitors if you are not used to creating websites. A site from Craig Brothers could be just the solution your looking for, its quick, easy and offer immediate and long term benefits. It’s the base model and essentially gets the ball rolling with a basic 3 page website. The website includes:

  • Choice of 3 website designs
  • FREE hosting for 1 year
  • Home Page, About Page and Contact Page
  • Registered on all major search engines
  • Stress Free we do all the hard work
  • NO ADVERTS like other starter packages
  • FREE advice
  • Help promoting your business

We know how hard it can be. If you already have purchased your domain name (eg. www.yourdomain.co.uk) then great. If you have not for an extra £25 we will advise you on the best domain for your business and we will secure it for you.

Whether you decide to use Craig Brothers or not here are 5 top tips for your website

  1. Make sure you are the registered owner
  2. Have a back up system
  3. Don’t pay link farms
  4. Get a site that is upgradable
  5. A good website wins business, get advice

Bespoke Christmas Cards Bristol

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Corporate Christmas Cards designed for your business. Unique and bespoke designs for your company Christmas Card. There is still time for your business to design and print your very own corporate Christmas Cards. Call Craig Brothers NOW on 07500 333 205 and tell us what you would like. Funny, Corporate, Professional, you can write your own festive message and even personalise every card to the individual.

Web Designers in Bristol

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Bristol Web Designer Craig Brothers offers a choice of web solutions to suit everyone, from a small start-up business to a large corporate. Specialising in content managed websites that are easy for you to manage, perform well on the search engines and look great. As an experienced graphic designer and creative director, you can be confident your website is in safe hands.

Urgent Printing Bristol – 24hrs or quicker!

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web-vouchersNeed printing in a hurry. We can turnaround urgent print job and include professional bespoke graphic design. When instant print shops just cant give you the design or quality you need to represent your busines try Craig Brothers. We can produce quality printed products in a hurry. Designed, artworked, printed and delivered to your door in as little as 24hrs*. If you have a flyers, brochures, posters or any print in a hurry and have exhausted your options call Craig Brothers NOW on 07500 333 205 and we will try our best to help you out of a tight spot. We recently created a new gift voucher for the Serenity Beauty and Hair in 3 days from start to finish with a gold special and full colour litho print on both sides and it is going down a storm.

Starter Website for Bristol based Massage at Work

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Massage at WorkStarting a business in Bristol and need a starter website to get you business online? David Yates decided to launch his new business and website for the start of 2010 and rather predictably yes we did it for him. David has just come back from touring as a mobile masseur for none other than Eddie Izzard, how random is that? or he for that matter. But lets face it Eddie is not exactly short of a few bob a schedule to keep and well lets just say, he can be quite hyper! So if he uses Massage at Work to wind down they have to be pretty good. David has big plans for the business and he is no slacker so watch this space.

Visit: www.massageatwork.me

Clifton Sausage Bristol – Success with Email Marketing

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Email Marketing and Email Marketing Strategies are no flash in the pan. Many businesses are seeing huge growth in bad times at the modern marketing strategies yield greater results for far less outlay. Clifton Sausage is a prime example. If you really have got mail, it might just be one of the latest email marketing campaigns from Craig Brothers, produced to promotion events at The Clifton Sausage or Clifton’s wine and cellar bar the Quadrant. Their newsletter which we also designed adheres to all the latest recommendations for anti spam. If you customer does not want to recieve your newsletter, we have a simple way for you or your customers to unsubscribe too. It may sound like bad practice to give customers the chance to opt out of your email marketing campaigns, but actually it is a legal requirement. That means if you do not stick to the rules your mails could actually be blacklisted, which in turn means you technically lose your entire database. Apart from that giving customers choice, evokes loyalty and trust. If you visit or live in Clifton, enjoy good food or good wine you can sign up to the newsletter here.

Car Graphics and Vinyl Lettering – Bristol

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1Viynl lettering and graphic design for your vehicles. If your company are looking to redesign your livery then we can help. Check this out! We took a funky small car and made it a little funkier. If you are walking around Clifton you might just catch a glimpse of Serenity Beauty and Hair’s brand new Toyota IQ. They chose the car because it was very small and compact but they wanted to use the head turning little motor to their advantage and asked Craig Brothers if they could sexy it up a bit. We showed them a selection of alternatives, from the outrageous to the ultra minimalist and quite sensibly, they went for one in the middle.

Upgrade your existing website

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chefThe Clifton Sausage asked us if we could rustle up a little something to improve their website! So we got cracking and sticking to the client brief we conjured up a couple of winning recipes. The new content managed site has been up for a few months now and they have seen some outstanding results. They can now easily update menus, which are also downloadable as pdf’s for their customers. They can promote up and coming events at the click of a mouse, edit any existing pages, create new ones, market their other ventures and exploit cross selling avenues. Topped with the fact its a piece of cake, its no wonder we are onto the next project already. Watch this space…

Website design and build for Bristol Charity

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There are good causes and then there is St Christopher’s School in Bristol. We were fortunate enough to be given the opportunity of helping the school develop and modernise their web presence. The new site has been live for only one month and already the charity have had an increase in their google page rank and their pageviews are up 23 percent. That is partly down to a joint effort in targeting how and where we wanted to promote this worthy cause. But in addition to that, it is also down to the fact we were so impressed with St Christopher’s School that Craig Brothers pledged to help them on a number of marketing campaigns for the coming year, absolutely FREE of charge.

Bristol Hair Salon Beat the Recession

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SerenitySerenity Hair and Beauty decided it was no good sitting back while the recession took hold of their business. On the contrary they have fought back with outstanding results. Nigit Knight who runs and owns the business said “The recession had a visible effect on business in the first quarter of this year, so I decided I had to act. We have actually increased our marketing budget and we stuck with Craig Brothers who had done a great job for us in the past with little or no budget! This time we gave a good brief, a reasonable budget and we asked him to focus on revamping our website and organic promotion which would be sustainable in the main by us”

So off we went with a trumpety trump and with the combination of strengthening Serenity’s Brand and some clever SEO strategies, we have achieved some very impressive results. Add to that the fact that because we focused on the organic promotion and NO paid advertising. The traffic to the site and the salon is still rising with no additional costs being incurred. So does that mean we have seen the last of  Serenity Hair and Beauty? Not on your nelly duff, we have a few more tricks up our sleeve, so watch this space…