Tag Archives: Website Design Dublin

Using Shopify Themes for Your Website Design

January 31, 2019

In our previous post about Shopify we discussed how it’s popularity was due to the 3 main reasons being the following:

- Shopify gives you the power to create and personally customize your own E-commerce store

- Shopify allows you the ability to sell your product/service online in many different areas whether it’s mobile, social media, web, pop-up shops etc…

Shopify allows you to manage products, payments, shipping etc…

In this post on Shopify we will be placing a special focus in particular on Shopify Design and designing your website with a Shopify theme. Shopify’s theme store contains hundreds of professional website designs to choose from when picking a theme for your new website. Many of Shopify’s themes have actually been previously designed by world renowned professional graphic designers. Choosing a Shopify web design theme means you can get a great visually beautiful web design without paying the higher price that a custom made bespoke web design would cost you. 2Cubed have experts who are experienced with working with Shopify’s web designs and themes and incorporating them into the end product of a great website design. As Shopify is such a designer friendly platform it allows our expert graphic designer the ability to have full uninhibited control over the complete visual look and feel of your website, this means that our graphic designer will be able to perfectly bring your vision to life as they have the freedom to do so thanks to Shopify. To find out more about getting your website designed through using a Shopify theme web design please Contact 2Cubed today! You can also contact us on 01 905 8114 or 051-440425, email hello@2cubed.ie Please feel free to follow and interact with us on the following profiles.

7 Good Reasons Why You Should be Using Google Analytics Right Now!

Using Google Analytics - Digital marketing services wexford

Category: Tips and Tricks

October 11, 2018

Google Analytics is an amazingly powerful tool that everyone has at their disposal. Even more amazing is the fact that this powerful tool comes completely free of charge. When used properly google analytics can be an amazing insight into the heart of your website and of how it’s performing. The metrics that google analytics use when gauged against their compiled data can be great indicators in wish to measure the success or lack thereof of your website in key areas such as number of users, bounce rate, page views, conversion rates etc.. Below are 7 key reasons why you should be using google analytics:

Its Free

As mentioned above google analytics is a completely free tool to use. It costs you nothing to use but if you don’t use it at all then it could cost you in terms of making mistakes that you could have corrected had you the knowledge gleaned from google analytics.

Automatic Collection of Data

Google Analytics automatically collects, compiles and organizes your data for you. You do not have to perform any action in order to get the data. Google Analytics simply does all the work for you. To get this data all that needs to be done on your end is to initially setup your Google Analytics account by copying a simple piece of code on your website. When applied this code enables Google Analytics to start collecting data from your website automatically and then to generate reports accordingly. The data from these reports will aid you when you decide and plan to implement strategies to increase the performance of your website.

Understand Your Bounce Rate

Google Analytics bounce rate is the percentage of traffic that leaves your website quickly after landing on it without looking at any other pages before they leave. Bounce Rate can be a useful barometer in which to gauge how effective or not your SEO is as bounce rate can indicate how accurate the page is targeted towards visitors who are interested in that type of content or indeed in your business and if a page has a high bounce rate it can usually be a signal that something is inherently wrong with that web page whether it’s the content or the design of the page that seems to be frustrating customers so much that they bounce. If your page has a high bounce rate and it’s a key page for you then it’s time for you to reevaluate the SEO on that page and possibly the design also to ensure you are delivering the best user experience possible.

Know Your Demographic

Google Analytics provides you with valuable data about your audience which will help you to understand which channels drive most of the traffic to your website. The Audience section provides a lot of information about the people who visit your website like their age, gender, interests, devices used and location.

To understand which social platforms to target

Social platforms are a great way to drive a lot of traffic to your website and to engage with potential customers. Google Analytics gives you the access to view what exactly catches the attention of the users and this data will inform you on where to place an ad accordingly. Through google analytics you can not only gauge how successful your social platforms that you use are performing but you can also check exactly how much conversions each social platform is giving you. Based on this data you will be able to dedicate the majority of your time and resources to the best performing social platform.

To understand what kind of content you should write

Great written content is a brilliant way to attract new customers to your website and improve the user experience your website provides. This is commonly understood and is the reason why so many businesses have blogs, newsletters etc.. as these pieces of content can drive traffic towards your website and increase conversions. Google Analytics helps you to keep a track of all the content published that receives views and shares. Google Analytics then generates a breakdown of the page views each of your blog posts receive and this data helps you to understand which pieces of content are the best performing for you.

To check if you are achieving goals

Google Analytics allows you to set goals which track your website’s success in a certain area such as new users for example. You could set a goal that in the next month you wish to have 1000 new users and by viewing the data you can measure it against your goal to inform you if the current approach you are taking is going to result in you realising this goal or if in fact further strategizing is required. Google analytics is a brilliant tool to use to help you make your website more successful. The data it provides is invaluable and considering it’s free you have no excuse to justify not using it. If you aren’t using it currently you’re missing out! To find out more about google analytics and other strategies to improve your website contact 2Cubed today! You can also contact us on 01 905 8114 or 051-440425, email hello@2cubed.ie Please feel free to follow and interact with us on the following profiles.

2Cubed Special Update

Category: News

October 5, 2018

In this special update from 2Cubed we will be sharing some important news and information with you. In this update we will touch on 3 things in particular that 2Cubed will be placing a special focus on in the coming weeks and these are as follows:

Upgrading all Websites
Updating sites who are compatible to PHP 7.0
Applying Purchased SSL Certs

2Cubed are committed to always ensuring their client’s success and security. To stay true to this commitment 2Cubed will be working on all of their websites and upgrading them to not only further enhance their security but also their overall efficiency and performance. If you notice any issues during this period please let us know and we will check if it’s related to our website maintenance and improvement works. For all sites who are compatible with the newest PHP 7.0 major release we will be updating them to run on this. Up until recently PHP 5.6 was the most modern but with the release of PHP 7.0 this is no longer the case. PHP 7 has many major benefits for websites who have it such as it’s twice the speed of the once most recent version of PHP 5.6 and it was also created with the goal of freeing up space which would lead to improvement on websites. This freeing up of space was done by getting rid of many unneeded functionalities on old and unsupported Server APIs and extensions. If you read our recent newsletter you will know already about the dire importance of having an SSL Cert. In it we mentioned that from August 2018 Google has flagged websites which have not already gotten an SSL Certificate. This was part of the plan first announced at the start of 2018 by Google in its Speed Update which rolled out in July, that it will mark all sites that have not migrated to HTTPS as “not secure.” This change has been brought in by google whose main goal is to ensure their users can safely and securely browse and purchase on the internet. As nowadays people turn to the internet for virtually everything ensuring that users can trust it to be safe is of paramount importance. Online security like having an SSL Certificate is no longer just a good option for a website to have, it’s a necessity. An SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. This link ensures that all data passed between the web server and browsers remain private and integral. If you don’t have the SSL certificate, a secure connection cannot be established, that means, your company information will not be digitally connected to a cryptographic key. The purchase and application of an SSL cert is a simple but vitally important process that cannot be underestimated as it can be pivotal to the success of your website. To inquire about getting an SSL Certificate for your website to stop it being marked as non-secure please contact 2Cubed today. If you have any questions or queries about any topic we have mentioned in this update or any other general query please do not hesitate to get in touch with 2Cubed! Please feel free to follow and interact with us on the following profiles.

Website Performance

Category: Tips and Tricks

October 2, 2018

When it comes to creating websites everyone already knows how important it is for it to have a great design and presentation and that it actually functions correctly on a basic level. One thing that can be overlooked though is Website Performance such as how it performs in the backend. Having a correctly optimised website that performs efficiently has a whole host of benefits, not only for you but also for your visitors to the site. Efficient Website Performance will result in faster load times and reduced hosting costs which in turn can lead to an increase in google search rankings on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Virtually all websites contain images and graphics of many sorts and sizes and they can do a great job of helping to communicate and shape the message your website is trying to present to your visitors. However, it might not be a common known thing but images can usually be one of the leading causes of sites having long load times. Therefore it is vital to make sure your images are optimised correctly before you upload them, if you don’t it can cause your website to have overly long load times which can end up affecting your search engine rankings. Also if you are trying to load from a slow server this may also cause issues. Website performance optimization is always something that should be top priority, especially when there is so much online competition. It’s also very important when optimizing a website that you don’t forget to optimize for mobile and slower devices as well. Choosing the right web host plan is a smart business move to boost website performance. Having a fast web host is equally as important as any website performance optimization you can make, as it truly is the backbone of your site. It’s true that a cheap host plan may offer you savings at the beginning, but you will most likely end up paying more in the long run in order to serve your website needs as it grows. It’s a smart move to make sure to choose a trusted web host with a right variety of hosting plans to handle all your website resources and requirements. 2Cubed’s sister site Website Maintenance has some great offers available for excellent hosting and much more packages that can help your site to be a success in every area. As you can see these are just a number of steps you can take today to optimise your website in order to improve things like your page load times, position in search engine rankings and your sites overall user experience. To find out more and develop a plan to make your website a success, contact us today! Please feel free to follow and interact with us on the following profiles.

SEO Performance – How to tell if your SEO is working for you or against you

Category: Tips and Tricks

September 25, 2018

In the aggressive and competitive online market of today, Effective SEO has often proven to be the deciding factor for whether a website becomes successful or not. With so much knowledge nowadays about SEO virtually all websites are employing it in one shape or another as gaining high ranking positions on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) has become more competitive than ever before. However this being said not all SEO was created equal as many are not utilising it to its full potential either through laziness or simple ignorance of what is required from them to employ effective SEO optimisation throughout their respective websites. So how can someone who is doing SEO for their website know if they are doing it correctly or not you may ask? As for so many cases the proof is in the pudding! A great way to figure out if your SEO work has been effective or ineffective is to gauge it off metrics which can often be found through channels and tools such as google analytics, Moz etc. Below are four great metrics to measure your SEO success or lack thereof against: Keyword Ranking Keyword Ranking is something you should always be tracking regularly. Keyword rankings let you know how your website is performing on the SERP on google and if its appearing high for key search phrases related to your business. By improving these rankings you will have an increased flow of traffic to your website which will increase your chances of getting more conversions on your website. There is no particular trick to ranking high for keywords as google’s algorithm is ever-evolving and as such this means that there is no exact way to predict how well your website will perform in the rankings. It is a case of constantly checking and amending your strategy as needed. Organic Search Traffic Organic Search Traffic is the amount of natural traffic you get to the website. Effective use of SEO can improve your SEO performance in many ways. Three particular ways to improve your organic traffic are as follows:

By improving your ranking position on the SERP, as such you will be viewed more and have more traffic to your website.
By improving meta titles and meta descriptions users will now be more likely to click and interact with your content thus increasing your organic traffic.
Creating more content means that not only will your website have fresh content being applied to it which shows it’s an active and very alive website but also having new content gives you the opportunity to target new keywords and opportunities to earn visibility.

Online Conversion Rate What’s considered a “healthy” Online Conversion Rate tends to vary wildly depending on the industry. Conversions should always be a measurable event that can be tied to revenue. The actual conversion rate itself is comprised of the percentage of website visitors that complete a conversion. Generally speaking a conversion rate of 1.5%-3% is considered quite good. Effective SEO will help to drive traffic to your website and from there your website should be optimized to be able to convert these visitors into leads and conversions. Effective SEO is half the battle, having an optimized responsive website is the second part. If you can do both of these things effectively you should be able to see the results in your improved conversion rate. Bounce Rate Bounce Rate is the percentage of traffic that leaves your website quickly after landing on it without looking at any other pages before they leave. Bounce Rate can be a useful barometer in which to gauge how effective or not your SEO is as bounce rate can indicate how accurate the page is targeted towards visitors who are interested in that type of content or indeed in your business and if a page has a high bounce rate it can usually be a signal that something is inherently wrong with that web page whether it’s the content or the design of the page that seems to be frustrating customers so much that they bounce. Some pages can actually be expected to have high bounce rates such as pages which act more as a general reference for information such as a calendar or blog post for example. Of course bounce rates for key pages such as a homepage or services page should be lower. A bounce rate of 35%-60% is considered the industry standard average. If your page has a high bounce rate and it’s a key page for you then it’s time for you to reevaluate the SEO on that page and possibly the design also to ensure you are delivering the best user experience possible. By using these four metrics to measure your SEO success you will have a good idea of just how effective your SEO efforts have been and whether they have borne fruit or not. The information gleaned from these metrics will help you to alter your SEO strategy accordingly to meet your goals. SEO is a constant battle, by doing well in these four metrics you will definitely be in a position to win the fight! 2Cubed work with clients on a monthly basis, content writing/management and marketing are two of the many services we offer. To improve SEO ranking through effective marketing and have produced excellent results for many businesses, we help clients to get them to number one for their specific keywords. To help provide the best SEO service, 2Cubed also has an in-house web content writer who will work with you to customize and optimize your content, making it fit your brand identity and corporate voice, as well as maximizing impact on search engines. We will ensure that your content is unique and tailored for search engines so that your website has the best possible chance of reaching and expanding your audience. We provide reports and strategic plans assessing search result performance, working diligently to improve your company’s search engine optimization so that it continues to climb Google rankings on a regular basis. To find out the right move and strategy to take when it comes to effective SEO please contact 2Cubed today! Please feel free to contact us also on 01 905 8114 or 051-440425, email hello@2cubed.ie Please feel free to follow and interact with us on the following profiles.

Choosing the right Web Design Agency for Responsive Design

Category: Projects

July 27, 2018

Whether your business is big or small, the chances are that it has a website. In today’s market the importance of websites is only becoming more and more important especially those with an E-Commerce element where in most cases the website is the actual lifeblood of the business.Your online presence will be of utmost importance for the development of your business. Now that we have made it clear that having an efficiently developed website is of utmost importance, how do you go about getting one? Unless you’re a coding expert or wish to create a generic ready built site then you are going to have to reach out for some professional help in web development to build a website which has responsive design and mobile responsive design. Now with this there is good and bad news, good news is that there are many web development agencies throughout the country especially in Dublin which is full of Dublin Web Agencies so this means you have a vast amount of options to choose from. The bad news however is that all these web agencies were made not made equal whether it’s a Dublin web agency or any other Irish Web agency. Therefore it is imperative that you choose the right one as this choice will be the difference between having a great website or business crippling bad one. But you have probably figured that one out by now and are asking yourself: What next? That is why you are on this page – to find the answer to the question of how to find the right web design agency. You’ve already found them… 2Cubed Web Design Wexford & Dublin pride ourselves on being a leading example of what a web development agency should be. 2Cubed specialise in delivering functional websites that exceed clients’ expectations and performance. Our web development offices are based in Wexford and Dublin. We strive to use the very best industry practices provided by our in house web designers. We believe that it’s ‘Your Web Strategy’ and we are here to deliver and guide you to achieving the very best website possible. All our web designs are created specifically for each customer, ensuring you get a beautiful user-friendly tailor-made website that fits your brand and identity. 2Cubed design and develop websites across all industries and sectors, including eCommerce websites, multilingual websites, as well as projects which include custom functionality and specific database and software integration. 2Cubed specialises in Website Development, Web Design, App Development, eCommerce Website Design, Website Marketing and Content Management (CMS). We can work with a variety of Content Management Systems (CMS) such as WordPress and Magento, and can give your existing website a re-design making it responsive and moving it into the 21st century. Our web content writing expert, provides unique website content. We build beautiful bespoke customer-friendly websites. We provide web development and web design to the highest standard, as well as native iPhone and Android Applications. We build digital solutions for web and apps. We are the problem solvers in the digital world. Our websites are measured on performance and built for scale and longevity. As well as web design and app development, 2Cubed offers a range of other services including digital marketing, content writing, SEO, Graphic Design, Brand Identity, Google Apps set-up, and Google Adwords management. Our creative web designers are ready to design, code & market your project and also award winning IIA Net Visionary Web Developer Excellence. In 2016 we were finalists as IIA Net Visionary Web Design Company of the Year. We provide websites nationally designed by our highly skilled web design team. We are a team of ten web design professionals that are dedicated to giving the best web design service in Ireland. Planning and knowledge is key when it comes to web design and web development. By consulting a professional Web Designer like 2Cubed you can be assured that your website will be a success. To take the first step of having that website of your dreams please get in touch with 2Cubed today. To view our full portfolio of work please click here. Please feel free to contact us on 01 905 8114 or 051-440425, email hello@2cubed.ie Please feel free to follow and interact with us on the following profiles.

Why your website urgently needs an SSL Certificate now!

Category: News

July 16, 2018

Does your website have an SSL Certificate? If the answer to this question is no then the success of your website is at serious risk! Google will flag your website from next month (August 2018) if you have not gotten an SSL Certificate. At the start of 2018 Google announced in its Speed Update set to roll out in July, that it will mark all sites that have not migrated to HTTPS as “not secure.” This change has been brought in by google whose main goal is to ensure their users can safely and securely browse and purchase on the internet. As nowadays people turn to the internet for virtually everything ensuring that users can trust it to be safe is of paramount importance. Online security like having an SSL Certificate is no longer just a good option for a website to have, it’s a necessity. An SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. This link ensures that all data passed between the web server and browsers remain private and integral. If you don’t have the SSL certificate, a secure connection cannot be established, that means, your company information will not be digitally connected to a cryptographic key. When google made this announcement they made it clear and sent a stark warning that if your website does not have an SSL Certificate your website will be marked as not secure in the url bar when people access it. This will of course have a detrimental effect on any website who is branded as such as virtually no user will proceed onto the site as they have lost all trust and they certainly will not buy anything in fear of their card details being used and abused. Websites that have any kind of text input will need an SSL Certificate, If you are unsure whether your website needs an SSL Certificate (Chances are it does) just ask yourself the following two questions: Does your website have forms or functions that require text to be inputted such as: Contact forms, Search Bars, Logins etc..? Is your website on HTTP://? If your answer to these questions is a resounding yes then you need to install an SSL Certificate. If you don’t implement SSL soon, your visitors will see a “Not Secure” warning on visiting your site which will damage your sites reputation irrevocably and will also cause your business to suffer. To inquire about getting an SSL Certificate for your website to stop it being marked as non-secure please get in touch today! Please feel free to follow and interact with us on the following profiles.

Content may be King, but Marketing is the Queen

Category: Tips and Tricks

July 3, 2018

A common saying in SEO circles is “Content is king, but marketing is queen, and runs the household.” Just like any good couple one can’t survive without the other and both help each other to succeed. Without marketing your content no matter how good it may be will never be noticed. Likewise if you don’t have enough good quality content then what are you going to advertise and promote in your marketing? Content and Marketing are both equally as important as each other. It’s vital that anyone wishing to be successful makes sure that great content is paired with a great marketing strategy, never sacrifice or prioritize one over the other, both are equally important and should always be treated with this respect. Great content is king as people want to see something new that catches their attention when browsing the internet, Writing content in your own words with your own ideas ensures that your content is different and unique to you and this will be appreciated by users and the search engine itself when it comes to ranking. Also with great content you are more likely to get new and returning visitors to your site. While you’re producing great content be sure to optimize it efficiently so that it will see a jump in the rankings on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page), when optimizing it make sure that your priority is that it reads well for users and gives them a great user experience, this is key. I can’t stress enough to not make the mistake of trying to over optimize your page just for search engines and not have the user experience in mind, this can be called trying to use blackhat methods and it will not work, in fact it will have an adverse effect on your ranking and your content will suffer, do not abuse the system with things such as keyword stuffing etc… Marketing is queen because in today’s market you need both marketing and content working efficiently to be successful. While it’s of course great to have dozens of great quality well written articles, it isn’t enough in itself to rank highly, there is still another step required, which is of course the queen: Marketing. Some great marketing techniques that can be used are as follows:

Writing articles on blogs and making sure to link to your other content
Be active on social media because you can funnel a huge amount of traffic from social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google+ and Google My Business.
Have back-links and anchor text throughout your site to encourage further navigation and increase average session duration

In this article we established the power couple that is the king of content and queen of marketing and how both are as equally important and provide the most success when both are utilized successfully. Just like a game of chess, the king and queen are the most important parts, while you won’t win the game in your first, second or third move, if you use both effectively and make the right strategic moves and be patient your chance will come and you will see positive results, every game starts with the first move, make sure yours is the right one! To find out the right move and strategy to take when it comes to content and/or marketing please contact 2Cubed today! 2Cubed work with clients on a monthly basis, content writing/management and marketing are two of the many services we offer. To improve SEO ranking through effective marketing and have produced excellent results for many businesses, we help clients to get them to number one for their specific keywords. To help provide the best SEO service, 2Cubed also has an in-house web content writer who will work with you to customize and optimize your content, making it fit your brand identity and corporate voice, as well as maximizing impact on search engines. We will ensure that your content is unique and tailored for search engines so that your website has the best possible chance of reaching and expanding your audience. We provide reports and strategic plans assessing search result performance, working diligently to improve your company’s search engine optimization so that it continues to climb Google rankings on a regular basis. Please feel free to follow and interact with us on the following profiles.