Web designers charge very different prices depending on a range of factors such as their experience and the service they provide. But what may be considered cheap for one person may not be considered cheap for you. So it is a good idea to always have this in mind before you begin your search.

One thing that you may want to consider when you start looking for a website design company is what they are able to do to your website so that it increases visitor interaction.

A website which looks great is a good thing, but you may want to keep visitors on the site for longer in order to increase the chances of converting them into customers.

Here are some of the things your web designer may suggest.

Blog

A blog is an excellent way to increase visitor interaction. Through a blog you are able to provide visitors with useful and interesting information about your area of expertise, and they are then able to leave comments to interact with it.

This is one of the simplest and most effective ways to improve the level of engagement with your website, so when you are looking for cheap website designers it may be a good idea to ask them about designing a blog for you.

Surveys

A well-designed survey in a prominent section of your website, or contained in a blog post, is a great way to improve interaction.

Your web designer may be able to design a survey for you that is easy to use so that more people are likely to take part.

Surveys are also effective because you are then able to use the results to improve your service offering based on what your respondents have said.

Social media

Social media can be a great way to improve your interaction levels on your website. You may think that your Facebook and Twitter accounts are separate to your website, but you may want to ask your web designer about integrating your social media accounts into your website so that your visitors can share your content with greater ease.

Explore ways to improve visitor interaction with your website

These are just a few of the ways that you can encourage your visitors to interact more with your website.

When looking for cheap website designers, ask them about how they are able to help you to make use of the above features, and also ask them what else they recommend. This way you are more likely to get a site which provides greater opportunities for your visitors to interact.

By promoting your website you can help to drive targeted traffic directly to your site to increase the chances that you will convert the visitors into customers.

But what are the most effective ways to promote your website? At Speedie Consultants we focus on a number of different techniques, and these can be used individually or in combination.

SEO – search engine optimisation

SEO is one of the most effective forms of promoting your website to drive targeted traffic towards it.

SEO consists of optimising your website both on-page and off-page to help to improve its position in the search engine results pages.

By getting your site to the top of the results pages it will start to appear when people make searches relevant to the insurance products you are offering. This means that your site is appearing to them at the exact moment that they display an interest in what you offer.

PPC

PPC stands for Pay Per Click, and is a form of paid advertising which, when combined with other online marketing activities, may prove to be a very effective promotional technique.

When you make a search and see the sponsored links, these are PPC ads that companies have paid for. The company pays out a sum of money each time that someone clicks on one of their ads and goes to their website, and they do not pay if they receive no clicks.

These can also be used in the same way on other platforms such as Facebook where the same principle is applied and your ads appear in the profiles of your target market.

Although you have to pay for your ads, if enough people who click on your ads become customers, then it can prove to be very successful.

Email

Emails have been around for a long time, and they will continue to be important for many years to come.

By building a list of customers and potential customers, you can get your promotions, content and ideas in front of your target prospects on a consistent basis.

This means email has the potential to be one of the most powerful and cost-effective forms of marketing available.

Find out which methods work for you

These are just some of the possible ways to promote your website, so the best thing to do is experiment and work out which ones are most successful for you. Alternatively, give us a shout and we will be happy to give you a head start.

MP Stella Creasy has been leading a high profile campaign to stop the “legal loan sharks” by pushing for a cap on interest rates charged on products such as payday loans. MEP Alyn Smith from the Scottish National Party (SNP) was reported last week* as saying: “Cameron and his cronies must get their act together and regulate these companies out of existence before more people face financial ruin as a result”.

Mr. Miller-Cheevers comments: “Speedeloans supports the continuing need for a well run and tightly regulated short term finance market and applauds those members of the government looking to protect the public from unscrupulous lenders.”

He suggests that one solution for all short term lending would be the introduction of expressing the cost of loans in £’s terms, rather than APR (or EAR often quoted for bank account overdrafts), so customers can easily compare the actual cost, and quickly work out if it is something they can afford. He also has concerns over the use of the term EAR.

“APR’s and EAR’s can be confusing for many customers – and also misleading. For example, speedeloans has to quote an APR of 2243% for a payday loan and yet HBoS are able to quote 0% EAR as an overdraft amount.

“The EAR is the actual annual interest rate for an overdraft and doesn’t take into account fees and charges, while an APR does. How can customers compare borrowing money on a like-for-like basis when the APR means something different to an EAR? Maybe this is also something that should be investigated – transparency for all types of borrowing.

“Speedeloans is already committed to offering a fair and transparent service and welcomes changes that would put a stop to disreputable lenders and their profiteering. We ensure that each potential customer knows what the cost of a payday loan will be before they proceed and have recently strengthened our systems to reject applicants who already have high levels of debt or who have taken on multiple payday loans through less scrupulous operators”.

Mr. Miller-Cheevers added: “Used responsibly, payday loans can offer a cost-effective way to satisfy emergency short-term loan needs. With an average loan application at £250 for a term of 19 days until next payday, the cost for this would be just over £50 including all costs. Compare this to an unauthorised overdraft at Bank of Scotland’s Halifax of £5 per day, which comes to £95 plus the £10 per bounced item they charge, means that their charges are over double that of speedeloans”.

Speedeloans was named the second cheapest payday loan provider out of ten UK companies in recent research**.

Ends

*Press Association 05.01.12

** Daily Mail 29.10.11

Richard Burgess, Director at Cover4Caravans, commented: “We have spent the last few months working very closely with our expert design team to update our website to make it friendlier and even easier to use – as well as make it stand out from the rest!

“We are really excited about the results – a caravan insurance website that really epitomises what caravanning is all about – fun, nature, and the great outdoors!”

The new design – which offers all the great quote and buy online benefits of the previous site but is even easier to navigate around – features colourful wild animals and a fresher look and feel.

The revamped site also includes direct feeds from the Cover4caravans insurance blog and its Twitter page, as well as linking to its Facebook presence. This means that current, up to date caravan insurance news and information can be accessed all from one place.

Visit www.cover4caravans.co.uk to see the new design as well as get an online caravan insurance quote. Alternatively, please call the extremely experienced Cover4Caravans team free on 0800 970 7172 for more information on caravan insurance.

According to research* by the R3 insolvency group, millions of Britons will turn to a payday loan in the next six months in order to tide them over until their next payday, with just over 16.5% becoming “zombie debtors” – a phrase coined to describe people who can only pay the interest on their debt and not the debt itself.

Commenting on the R3 report, Mr. Miller-Cheevers says: “We understand that only 2000 people were surveyed. As only half of all adults ever use credit, the results are a little skewed.
The figures do not agree with our data that shows that only 5% of our customers (one in 20) experience real debt problems.

“This substantiates our position of being a responsible lender. And for those 5% of customers who do get in to financial difficulties, we have arranged ‘short term assistance’ plans as well as working with reputable agencies such as the Consumer Credit Counselling Service”.

Mr. Miller-Cheevers also highlights statistics from the Debt Support Trust** which say that the average payday loan borrower will have not one but four different payday loans on average, borrowing money from one payday loan company to pay back another payday loan company: “Sadly, there are some unscrupulous lenders who will saddle already debt-ridden individuals with more debt misery. Speedeloans, however, takes its responsibilities seriously. We have many internal measures to restrict lending to selected applicants and we further ensure that those who are we prepared to lend to, we only allow them to borrow a sensible amount in relation to their finances.”

He adds that unlike some other payday lenders, they have recently strengthened their systems so that they can see if the applicant has multiple payday loans: “We vet our customers responsibly, rejecting 92% of applications. Our enhanced credit checking system is designed to weed out those people who already have multiple payday loans in place.

“Speedeloans is a responsible lender, offering an affordable cash advance until payday which is often cheaper than an unauthorised overdraft***. While there are some unprincipled lenders out there, consumers should be aware that we are not all the same and some, like ourselves, do provider a useful, affordable service for one-off cash needs”.

RESOURCES:
*BBC online 07.12.11
**Debt Support Trust
*** Cost of an £150 unauthorised overdraft for 20 days*

The website mess

If you have encountered a badly designed website, you will know how frustrating and irritating it can be to try and use it.

It’s worth noting that this is nothing to do with a concept of whether it works in a technical sense. If you click on a button and an error screen is returned, you may say that the website is not working or contains bugs.

Yet in ordinary market experience, such problems are now relatively unusual.

Unfortunately, what is far more commonplace are poorly designed websites that may appear to be visually attractive and which may contain many clever technical features but which are, nevertheless, difficult and sometimes bordering impossible, to use.

One classic example of this are web sites which proudly proclaim that they offer a certain service or product and which invite you to click on the appropriate button to find out more.

The frustration begins when you are unable to see any such button and can find no further mention in the website, as to how you may access the product or service concerned.

Going downhill

At that stage, a fairly significant number of potential customers will simply give up and go elsewhere to a competitor website which does not appear to suffer from such problems.

This is only one trivial example and in poorly designed websites, there may be many, many more, including such traditional gems as asking customers to key the same information several times in different places.

In the 21st century, such web sites will typically not help the owning company to survive, let alone succeed.

The solution

Using professional website designers or a website design company, may help you ensure that howling errors, such as those above, do not become part of the experience of your customers.

Yet professional website designers are about more than simply avoiding elementary mistakes and overall bad design. They should be able to make their expertise available to you and help you to think about how you may better engage with your customers visiting the website, with the objective of converting a higher percentage of them to actual sales activity.

Cutting corners and taking chances on your website build may prove to be, at best, highly risky. It may be more sensible to use professional website designers and avoid the risk of your website being held up as an example of a badly designed and implemented net-based solution.

Current benefits with this new loans service include:

• up to 85% Loan To Value
• up to £500k considered (some lenders have a maximum of £100,000).
• a lowered minimum valuation figure to £70,000
• higher Loan to Values are generally on offer now for customers with current or historical adverse credit.

For more information or to get a loan quotation, please visit Badgerloans at: www.badgerloans.co.uk

About Badger Loans

Badgerloans equals finance in black and white. Through our relationship with Willows Finance, we can help you access loans for most purposes. So whether you are looking for long term borrowing or need a cash advance until payday, why not get a no obligation quote today?

The new Code – which is in addition to all legal, OFT and any trade association requirements – has been drawn up by the Consumer Finance Association (CFA) which is the trade body representing major businesses offering short term, unsecured personal loans in the UK. The launch event was hosted by Stephen Lloyd, MP.

Payday lenders and their practices are regularly under fire from the media who often portray such companies as preying on the unemployed; lending money to people who cannot afford to pay it back; and charging ‘outrageous’ interest amounts.

Commenting on the launch, Mr. Miller-Cheevers said: “Speedeloans fully supports the new Code – not only will it give consumer confidence, but it also means that the less-than ethical small loan providers will have to be accountable for their actions. Responsible lenders such as ourselves often get tarred with the same brush as these companies, when what we are actually doing is providing a useful and fair service to working people who have a temporary cash flow problem – as both our own data and independent research from the CFA confirms*”.

Key highlights of the Code include:

• where a customer encounters significant repayment difficulties, they will be offered a modified repayment schedule to pay down the outstanding debt in a manageable manner and will be given details of free advice services that can help customers who have financial difficulties;
• if customers request a further loan, they will need to be reassessed. A successful application for one loan is not an indication that a further loan will be agreed;
• total transparency – always showing applicants the total cost of repayment clearly and prominently before they apply for a loan. There will be no hidden fees or charges.

Mr. Miller-Cheevers adds: “This Code will make it harder for people to get caught out by unscrupulous lenders, as well give support to those who may find themselves in difficulty, which is fantastic news all round. After all, why would a responsible business want to lend money to people who demonstrably cannot pay it back? We vet our customers very carefully, using both technology and underwriters to assess each applicant, with around 90% of them being rejected.

“Typically, of the 8% of applicants that are accepted, 75% pay back on time, while the remaining 25% take advantage of a strict extension (or ‘roll-over’) policy, which limits the amount of times they can extend their borrowing, so that their debt doesn’t accumulate beyond their control.

“Like other reputable payday lenders, speedeloans is not here to pile misery on heavily indebted individuals. Our aim is to provide a fast cash injection to people who can easily afford to repay the loan back”.

“The launch of this new Code is great news for consumers and the industry as by having guidelines, consumers will be able to feel more comfortable dealing with payday providers that subscribe to the code while the industry will be able to show that it is taking media and public concerns seriously and it is actively taking steps to address them.”

Ends

* Independent research from the CFA shows:

• 50% of payday loan borrowers earn in excess of £19,200, and 75% earn more than £15,000;
• 94% of payday loan customers come from a household with at least one full time worker.

This is supported by actual data from speedeloans where:

• over 50% of their customers are professionals, (broken down further, over 25% of borrowers are employed as either a nurse, doctor, teacher; are in the armed forces; or in the police or emergency services, while 7% of all borrowers are solicitors, accountants, or financial advisers – professions that tend to be associated with a higher wage);
• 100% of speedeloans customers are in full time employment.

The Money Awards were set up to recognise and celebrate businesses and individuals within the Finance industries, and Protect your bubble (who offer lifestyle insurance products such as gadget, life, travel and pet insurance etc) stood out from their competitors in these two categories.

The Judging Panel said: “What really separates Protect your bubble from their competition is how they aren’t afraid to try anything in order to promote name and brand awareness, while providing exceptional customer services and good value products.

“Within just three years they have grown exponentially, from being a start up to becoming a recognised brand name that has a year on year growth of 100%.”

Commenting on their use of social media, the Judges added: “Protect your bubble go above and beyond what most insurance companies do, providing personal, 24/7 support via their social media channels and they seize opportunities, with research and development being pivotal to their success. They really stood out, which makes them natural winners of this award”.

Protect your bubble has enjoyed major coverage in National newspapers such as The Independent, The Sun, The Guardian, BBC, The Daily Mail, The Mirror and The Express and their value for money products have continuously been featured in the highly prestigious Which? Best Buy Tables for both Pet Insurance and Travel Insurance.

Stephen Ebbett, Global Head of Direct Distribution at the company said: “Winning not one but two awards is real endorsement of what we have achieved in such a short time and we feel that it will show our clients just how committed we are to them. Our aim is to offer only the very best of service and great value products and to be rewarded in this way validates our ethos.

“A special mention should be made to the Protect your bubble team whose hard work and dedication to providing a truly personal service made this happen!”
Companies wishing to enter the next round of The Money Awards (closing date 1st September 2011) should visit www.themoneyawards.co.uk for more information.

The Money Awards recognise and celebrate businesses and individuals within the Finance industries, and speedeloans stood out from their competitors as being a responsible and reputable lender.

The Judging Panel commented: “Speedeloans have invested a lot of effort and money in to ensuring that they lend in a responsible and ethical manner, both in terms of their technology and their team of underwriters. Payday loans are only advanced after an applicant has passed both a technical and a human sanity check by an underwriter, with 92% of applications being declined. They also are transparent with their fees and charges, meaning the customer knows exactly where they stand.”

Speedeloans has enjoyed major coverage in National newspapers such as The Independent, The Daily Mail, The Express as well as on BBC Radio.

Gary Miller-Cheevers, CEO at the company said: “Us standing out as an ethical business in a marketplace that has been tarnished with a very bad press has allowed us to win an award like this. We welcome this as proof that we are doing the right thing both for our own business but also more importantly our customers. We hope this will also give potential new customers a degree of confidence in coming to speedeloans when they need short term finance help.”

Companies wishing to enter the next round of The Money Awards (should visit www.themoneyawards.co.uk for more information.