We are a digital agency with offices in Birmingham and Clee Hill, Shropshire.
Our team of experts can provide the technical and marketing knowledge to get you ahead of your competitors.
We have helped hundreds of businesses in and around Birmingham to get the most out of their online presence.
Web design and build to bespoke customer requirements. Or for standard websites, design templates that you can choose from to help reduce development costs.
There are two options; responsive and adaptive web design.
We can advise you on which option is most suitable for your website.
Responsive web design uses the browser to automatically rearrange content on the website. If you were to reduce your browser window making the width smaller, the content will move to fit the new window size.
The design remains the same for all devices.
Adaptive web design uses the server to detect the device being used (eg. Mobile, Tablet, Desktop) and serves the content in a layout specifically designed for that device; for example, you may get a different design for each device.
A large image that is not needed on a small screen may need to be removed when the website is viewed on a mobile phone.
Low overheads and a focus on value for money allows us to provide all the elements of a full-service agency without the full-service agency costs.
"We are often tasked with creating something unique, so we listen carefully to our clients to understand their business needs before offering thoughtful solutions to their problems.
Top of our list of priorities is helping clients to compete in their marketplace by enhancing their visual identity and marketing activity, while closely assessing the return on investment."
Branding plays a strong part in design and marketing. Starting a New Business, a change of business name or an evolution of your existing branding, we can deliver a brand identity that will add value to all of your business communications and enhance your reputation.
We will develop a brand identity that works across a range of marketing collateral and media, is capable of extending to include new products or services and provides long term value to your company.
To attract and keep visitors attention when they arrive on your website, it needs to be well designed, easy to navigate and be built to industry standards.
Search engines crawl your website and rank the site based on content, technical quality and a variety of other factors.
Effective SEO is needed to promote a website, improve its page ranking and start generating sales.
Our experienced web designers, web developers and online marketing experts can add the creative ideas and features you will need to engage visitors and generate leads.
Before we start, we will find out about your business, your competitors and your customers. We will also talk to you about your preferences to ensure we meet your expectations.
Websites for Small Businesses
Based on our experience of working with small businesses, we understand the challenges you can face in promoting your business online.
With this in mind, we have developed a website package to give small business owners a professionally designed presence on the web at an affordable price.
Packed with features your business needs from just £495+vat.
Hosting, SSL security certificate and Daily Backup only £150 per year.
Annual domain name re-registration and management is £25 per year. We manage everything for you so you don't risk losing your domain name.
BESPOKE WEBSITES PACKAGE
If you have your content ready, we can get you up and running in a few weeks and you will have the support of our expert team to guide you through the process.
If you need help with copywriting, let us write it for you. A quick interview over the phone and our copywriter will have enough information to populate your web pages with relevant and lead-converting content. Just £500 will cover most 10-page websites.
What is included?
If you don't want to do editing yourself, don't worry, small amends can be done by us and are included in your annual hosting fees.
If you need us to add new pages or features to your website in the future, you will always have access to our team who can offer advice on the best solutions.
What is the process? (4 simple steps)
1. What makes your business great?
We listen to you to find out what makes your business great for its customers so we can concentrate on making sure we get that message across to potential new ones.
2. Review a selection of your competitors
A fully costed proposal is produced where the work is detailed and a selection of competitors you’ve told us about are reviewed so you can be sure your website will stack up against them. If there are any aspects that are not covered by the £995 package, they will be detailed as optional extras.
3. When you are ready to proceed
Once the proposal is agreed, a design visual of the home page will be created and then sent for your approval. When you are happy to proceed an invoice will be raised for the deposit of £500+vat. After this is paid, work will begin on the website build using your supplied text content and any images you own.
4. Review your website on our private test server
When the fully working website is complete you will be able to review it on our private test server, we will make any minor amends and once you give your final approval the website will go live. Testing of the site will take place across multiple devices (desktop, tablet and mobile phone) and modern browsers. We will also add Google Analytics to your website to monitor visitor activity. A final invoice of £495+vat will then be issued and you will have 30 days to pay.
CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
Extanium CMS
Developed by our own team, which gives us complete control over the system so that we can make improvements and functionality changes to meet your specific requirements.
Fast loading
Your web pages will load quickly because there are no unnecessary Plugins slowing the site down and no bloated code that can make your pages stall before loading.
Secure
Password protected with the ability to allocate different levels of access to users. Unlike some CMS, regular security updates, which can sometimes break websites, are not necessary because our code is not publicly available.
Easy to use
Developed and improved over many years of working with our clients on improvements, our latest version of the software includes the management of reviews, galleries, products, blog articles, documents and any other bespoke management you may need.
Intuitive interface
If you can find your way around a Word document, you will have no trouble with our content editor. Images can be easily uploaded to the system and placed or replaced where you want them in the page layout.
Training
Full training is provided over the phone, usually around 30 minutes to 1 hour and we are a quick phone call away if you need any ongoing support.
Not all content management systems are as intuitive as ours. We make sure that everything that you want to manage is available and made as easy as possible without needing any HTML skills.
Digital Marketing
Digital marketing covers a variety of activities that will improve your online presence.
Every business is different.
Our approach is to work with you and recommend the most suitable strategy for your business that will get you in front of the right target audience. Our free 35 minutes consultation will help us to find out about your business and formulate a unique integrated marketing plan.
DIGITAL MARKETING
Content for your website and marketing collateral that will engage readers, provide information about your services and communicate your brand values.
Improve your web presence and get more traffic to your website. Search engines crawl your website and rank the site based on content, technical quality and a variety of other factors.
Deliver traffic to your website and increase sales. Google Ads gives you an immediate page one position for search terms that are being used to find your services or products.
An email campaign is one of the most cost-effective ways of communicating regularly with your customers and prospects and generating new business.
Your website content will not just influence and inform customers, it will provide search engines with valuable content to help rank your web pages.
Social Media Management
We can manage your account, increase your connections, generate interesting posts, engage your readers and expand your reach.
We can work on a job-by-job basis, as and when you need us, creating campaigns and materials to drive traffic to your website and increase enquiries.
Regular work can be based on a fixed monthly fee agreed in advance. You can stop and start the campaigns when you decide, there are no long-term contracts.
Content Marketing
Successful content marketing relies on developing a strategy that is tailored to your own individual business requirements. Content marketing covers a wide range of media, from writing articles for your blog, email newsletters, posting to social media, case studies, white papers and press articles.
Your content marketing strategy will be planned to achieve specific measurable goals and carried out by our team to give you a return on your investment.
HOW WE WORK
We will discuss what you want to achieve and develop a 6-month plan for writing and distributing the written content to the relevant media we have identified.
Assess your goals and provide a price based on the work carried out. We do not expect you to sign long term contracts so you can stop the work at any time.
We will write unique engaging content, proof checked and approved by you ready to distribute on your website, social media, email newsletters and press releases.
Use Google analytics to identify increases in traffic to your website from these activities.
SEO
Effective Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) improves page ranking and increases your websites visibility on relevant keyword searches.
To attract and keep visitors’ attention when they arrive on your website, it needs to be well designed, easy to navigate and be built to industry standards.
Search engines crawl your website and rank the site based on content, technical quality and a variety of other factors.
HOW WE WORK
First of all we will assess your website, business sector and competitors. SEO is a long-term strategy and may not be your best option.
We will give you an honest opinion if we believe SEO will help your business or let you know if other digital marketing strategies would work better for you and give a more effective ROI.
Request your FREE audit showing your visibility score and page rankings for your chosen keywords.
Our Guarantees:
Transparent pricing so you know exactly how much you will pay.
Only pay your deposit when you are happy with your web design visual.
Only pay the final invoice once you are 100% satisfied.
HELPING BUSINESSES ONLINE SINCE 2003
The team at Crystal Thought are here to help you make the most of your online presence.
If you need a website that will deliver results, digital marketing that will drive traffic to your website and provide a return on your investment or the ability to develop additional functionality through software and app development, Crystal Thought will be your long-term partner to help you to grow your business.
