April 24, 2019

3 minutes

We at Isola are back at Radio Lombardia and this year, in February 2019, we are talking about websites. It’s been almost a year since our last interview dedicated to web marketing and comparing new and old media (find out more by reading our article: Isola di Comunicazione at Radio Lombardia)

In this new interview here is in detail what topics we cover.

  1. With Andrea Mineo we find out how to make a website.
  2. Then with Lorenzo Zesi we understand the importance of the preliminary analysis phase in creating a winning business strategy.
  3. Finally, MariaSole Doria tells us about social networking, content optimization and the difference between Facebook and Instagram.
  4. Conclusions and the future of websites.

Following is a small excerpt from the video.

1. Websites: the basis of digital communication

The creation of a website is the foundation of digital communication. It is the first contact between company and users. That is why it is essential to create it in order to start developing your online presence.

With this in mind, Andrea Mineo, our website expert, explains the main alternatives available for developing one.

Simplified drag and drop site construction

First of all, what is drag and drop? It is a succession of three actions. But which ones? Click, drag and drop. In fact you first click an element, drag it to another location, and then release it. In this case the elements are the content that will then be visible on the site.

For example, with free platforms such as Wix and Weebly, users can make web pages simply. In other words, all website content can be entered with a single gesture. On the other hand, despite the ease of use, there is little potential in customizing the web interface and functions of the site itself.

There is also to be said that these same systems become pay-as-you-go if more potential is desired or a website address without the platform name is desired, which obviously seeks to incentivize subscribing to a pay-as-you-go plan.

Websites with content management system (CMS) platforms

To build websites, there are alternatively CMS or Content Management System, which are more complex and comprehensive than drag and drop. CMSs are content entry platforms that, as we are explained, once the structure of the website is created, have an interface not entirely dissimilar to Word for entering content.

They are open source software i.e., open source. This means that the basic functionality is free, as are a variety of applications. However, in order to have sites with professional, up-to-date graphics and with assistance from programmers when needed, it is often necessary to make purchases. Equally it is necessary to switch to paid programs if you want certain graphic effects or need the same website you are developing to be able to perform specific tasks. In this case you purchase so-called plugins or extensions. To explain, these are actual tools that interact with the CMS to expand its original functionality. The best known and most widely used CMSs are WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. But there are also many others and new ones continue to emerge.

Most clients have needs that can best be met with CMSs. With these platforms, one can develop showcase sites that illustrate, like an online brochure, the details of the business. But you can also create excellent e-commerce sites that allow businesses to open their market to the world of online sales easily and securely.

Custom Websites

Code is the third mode for making websites. Here the entire site is designed ad hoc. In fact, thanks to lines of code in php, html5, css3, java script etc the most capable developers give life to unique websites, which accommodate specific functions or particular graphic effects. In fact, it is a potentially limitless mode through which any request can be fulfilled. The natural consequence of such comprehensive customization is that the time to create websites increases and the costs are obviously higher than those made through CMS or free drag-and-drop platforms.

Finally agencies, with website development specialists on their staff, can also generate just individual custom sections that integrate into websites developed with CMSs. In other words, there is a way to take advantage of CMSs by integrating custom functionality through code. Obviously, this hybrid choice can be optimal, when possible, because it allows the advantages of both solutions to be exploited: saving time and money of CMSs with unique customizations.

2. Before the site: the strategic analysis

Analysis is the first step to take before developing a website. In fact, it is important, after choosing the tools, to decline them from astrategic perspective.

So, first we need to clarify the goals we want to achieve. As a result, we will have a clear path to follow. It is desirable to identify the strengths of thecompany so as to understand what sets it apart from others, and to do this you will have to analyze companies similar to your own in terms of products or services offered.

Subsequently, you can also outline your own company positioning. In fact, understanding where thecompany standsin the market and in relation to competitors is very important. To users, the mission and the essence of the company we are going to present through a website must appear blatant. Good positioning also allows us to set up a marketing campaign as correctly as possible. This will lead to better results that suit the business objectives.

The competition to appear in Serp

It will also prove essential to structure web pages so that they are found by search engines. Speaking of websites and search engines, Lorenzo Zesi tells us about numbers. In 2018, 1,000,300,000 sites were active worldwide. Incredible figures, even hard to read: we are talking about 1.3 billion websites.

But of these websites, only some can appear in the Google Serp (search network results page) in the face of certain user searches. To be precise, today it is considered that already being visible after the second page of results is like not being there. Indeed, very few people continue browsing Google beyond the first page if they do not find the answer they are looking for in the first search results. Rather they tend to run a new search and consult new web pages proposed by Google for their search query.

Easy to infer that in such fierce competition, being found well and immediately in the search engines is crucial. That’s whypreliminary strategic analysis is so important: to identify the correct site ranking and implement subsequent proper SEO, which we will discuss later.

Finally, it is essential to monitor the site. We at Isola are concerned with understanding whether and how users are enjoying the content. Therefore, we provide and analyze numbers and statistics of viewing, visitor behavior, and website performance, thanks to which we will know which way to point for future optimizations.

3. During and after the site: SEO and social media promotion.

SEO is already developed during the development of a website. While social media promotion, which is another key point for a company’s success, takes shape after the website is published.

First of all, MariaSole Doria tells us about SEO.
What is its goal and more importantly what is SEO? The goal of SEO is to have one’s site appear among the top places on search engine pages for certain keywords. Literally, it means search engine optimization. But what is optimized on websites? Optimizing a website involves many dimensions: web page titles, images, text, and everything within the site. But not only that, SEO optimization also involves checking and improving the site‘s speed, refining navigability, and refining the user experience.

In addition to this MariaSole also covered the topic of social networks. In fact, social networks are an important part of the business promotion process. These channels are useful tools for business because they are part of an overall strategy. Through social networks, companies can share content, speak directly to their target audience, build trust and reach more and more users.

Each Social Network offers the opportunity to communicate in a different way. There are videos, posts, stories, photo sharing. In Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn the ways in which users interact and the services offered change. Precisely because of this, the advertising placements to be exploited and the targeting methods that can be selected are different.

Again, the choice of one platform over another comes through strategic and performance measurement assessments.

4. The future of websites and mobile apps.

The market for mobile apps has been gaining momentum for years. Apps can be a very interesting tool for businesses. In fact, the irrepressible spread of mobile devices has profoundly changed the world in which content is enjoyed from smartphones and has prompted companies to think about the possible development of apps. Thus it often happens that client companies ask our web agency for an opinion on whether to develop one.

But is anapp always necessary? Actually, even app implementation must be considered from the perspective of its actual usefulness for business strategy and the achievement of business goals. It must be understood whether at the strategic level the website alone, fine-tuned for mobile, is sufficient or whether it is better to integrate it with an app. In fact, very often optimizing the website for mobile may already be the answer. Simply put, you don’t always need to create an app to reach and retain your users.

Instead, it can be a valuable choice to create and develop anapplication if it can truly offer different and unique functionality to the end user .

In conclusion, we feel that we assess the strategic nature of apps for clients on a case-by-case basis, with professionalanalysis of communication needs. In fact, we want each of our projects to be effective and valuable primarily for our clients. But we certainly believe that the area of mobile app development can often be crucial, and we want to have our say in this area as well. So we at Isola developed the first app in native Android language. So from 2019 we also enter the big world of apps, and among the services offered by the web agency Isola di Comunicazione, there will also be app development.

On this page you can see an excerpt of the interview with Radio Lombardia. Click here to see the video of thefull interview: full YouTube interview.

Would you like to explore some of the issues addressed in our interview? Contact us now to discuss them together: contacts.

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