So, here we are - tomorrow is April 6th 2015, and it will mark 12 months since we launched Light Bulb Web Design as a company!
It feels like time has flown by, and what a year it has been for us - whilst we knew there was a market out there for affordable, sensibly priced website design in the Carlisle and Cumbria area, we were not ready for the most amazing year of ever-growing business and interest.
By the end of this financial year, we will have created over 30 websites for clients across the UK, ranging from London, right through the Cumbria region and into Scotland. We have over 10 websites in progress on top of this, and the next 12 months look to be as amazing as the first 12.
Our focus continues as always - keep our website design prices sensible, whilst always offering great looking and highly functional design at all times. We have always created mobile friendly, responsive websites and it seems we were ahead of the game based on the changes Google is implementing in a few weeks which will have a negative impact on those with non-responsive websites which don't work well on mobiles and tablets. Every single one of our clients has nothing to worry about with these new changes, as their websites are already fully supportive of the new requirements.
As well as keeping up to date with website design technologies and SEO, we have spent significant time ensuring that our hosting is up to scratch - since we include hosting with all our of prices (unless you wish to use your own!), it was very important for us to provide a solution that is not only the fastest in the UK (for quick website loading times) but also one of the most secure available.
We have also found that basing all of our websites on content management systems (CMS) has allowed many of our clients to add a huge range of features to their site even during the first year with us - from highly flexible e-commerce solutions to fully featured and integrated blogs, through to vehicle hire and business directories, we have been able to provide a solution for every requirement that has come our way.
Along with increasing our knowledge of our CMS of choice, Joomla, we have also started to work with WordPress in order to provide an even wider range of website solutions for requirements that may not exist on both platforms. Whilst we do still find Joomla is one of the most flexible website platforms available, sometimes it is not possible to do everything you may need and our decision to support the WordPress CMS was taken to ensure we can support those clients who may prefer to use it over other options and also that we can build in solutions that only WordPress can support.
Social media has been a heavy focus of our marketing and brand advertising but we have made the most of face to face 'social networking' with real people who also run their own businesses. We attend a number of events each year with May Fifteen and are also considering our longer term interest in a local BNI group. Both of these groups are radically different, but both have linked us with many other local businesses and the resulting business has been really beneficial.
Our aim for the next 12 months is to make as much as we can of local business links, and to keep building our amazing client base both within the Cumbria region and farther afield within the UK. Feedback from clients has been amazing - not only any reviews they may have left for us, but also in how much business they are getting through the websites we have designed for them. We always want our clients to be happy with our work, not only with having a great website, but also having a website which increases their business!
Here's to the next 12 months, I look forward to continued relationships with our existing clients and to those new relationships which will be built that none of us yet know about!