What does your website say about you?

What is the first encounter most of us have with a new business? Chances are the website will be your first impression of any firm you buy products or services from. A website gives your business a public image and substance to what you offer, arguably becoming one of the most important tools for publicising yourself in the busy marketplace (alongside an on-going PR campaign of course!). This is something that is freshly in our minds at MCC International this week as we have launched our brand new website.

Presenting the right brand image, telling potential customers what you can offer and keeping existing customers well informed, is the key to a good website. But the competition wasn’t always so tough, as our Agency Director, Graham Thatcher, reminisced this week. Fondly recalling his university days in the 1990s, Graham pondered on the delights of gaining access to the World Wide Web for the first time and looking to see which companies had managed to buy their domain name and actually put a web page online (and in those days it often was one page with basic details!) Whilst the novelty value of actually having a website is hardly the same in 2012, making sure it is well written, easy to navigate and relevant to your audience are all key considerations – and are as important to your Marketing and PR campaign as any other material that you present to the public.

In the wider world of technology, there continues to be further evidence that mobile apps are becoming one of the most important ways we access the online world. The BBC News website reported on a new app that allows the transfer of money which promises to revolutionise the ways in which we pay for everyday things. Whilst it promises greater freedom for personal banking, it also raises the inevitable question of mobile security – a symbiotic sector which is rapidly growing thanks to pioneering companies such as our client Aptica. Whilst looking towards future trends we were also interested to see that mobile apps sometimes play on our sense of nostalgia, such as the story on the Independent website about a new Hipstamatic iPhone app which recreates the sense of anticipation that used to come from using an old film camera and not really knowing what you had taken until the whole roll had been developed. In a world of photo manipulation and vanity censorship it might be interesting to see some of the dodgy old shots we wished hadn’t been taken!