July 30, 2015

Graduate developer opportunity

The Island are looking for graduate developer to work with us on our exciting projects and websites. Get in touch if you are interested...
July 21, 2015

SEO – How it can help your business grow

As a small business or start-up the first step is to get on-line exposure. Your main goal will be to get more individuals talking and purchasing your products. It doesn’t matter how big your business is. Here is a list of reasons why you should focus your efforts on building your business through SEO. 1. More than 100 billion searches are made every month. This means that every day an average of 3.3 billion searches are performed every day. This is a huge amount of activity. Indeed, even the most modest percent would mean a huge amount of new guests to your little business’ site.With this number of people on-line, why would you not want to be a part of it? 2. SEO Traffic and Sign-ups are free. When you undergo an ad campaign on social media you are linked to your budget. When that runs out so does your exposure. Luckily, organic traffic driven by search results is completely free. Sure, you need to pay an SEO agency or professional to work on the optimization of your website and someone to take care of your content, but these are considerably less costly than a continuous ad campaign. All the content can stay on your website for a long time, but always remember Google loves fresh content, so keep updating to stay relevant. 3. You can become an authority via Hyper-targeted content. One of the most ideal approaches to demonstrate your skills is to be perceived as a power in your field. If everybody on the web knows you have the best content in your industry, then they’ll send individuals to you. 4. You can increase customer engagement and relationship building. Are you of the opinion that content is only for web search tools? You should reconsider. The reason that organizations put […]
July 13, 2015

Responsive design – what is it? Part 1

There is a lot of buzz around about websites needing to be responsive. But what does that mean? Responsive web design is a collection of techniques that allow a website to adapt to different device specifications, such as screen size when being viewed. What it means in a more ‘practical’ way, is that, the website is able to recognize the features of the desktop, smartphone or tablet, and easily adapt to it to give an optimal user experience without limiting the functionality. The reasons for this adaptability are very clear. In the second half of 2015, and the beginning of 2016, the usage of smartphones to browse the web is estimated to increase by about 20% compared to the last two years. Therefore, it is increasingly important to keep these users in mind and understand how to properly engage with them to offer the best user experience on all devices. How can we make a better online user experience? Before responsive design, the mobile experience usually translated poorly. The first step towards a better user experience was to create mobile versions of the traditional websites. This is one type of solution but still their capabilities were limited. This is where responsive design comes into play. Thanks to responsive design your users won’t be worried about having to be careful of where they click if using a touch screen or zooming in and out, they simply will enjoy the site as if it were tailored to that device. The image provided above is a perfect example of what we have done with one of the best bars in London, Nordic. Now their website is perfect for big screens and even better on your smartphone. Our next posts will cover further benefits of responsive design plus a checklist of what you should […]
July 9, 2015

8 Reasons you need a digital marketing strategy

A digital marketing strategy is essential for any business that is looking to use on-line tools and platforms to grow their business. But how do you start creating a digital marketing strategy? Here is a list of 8 reasons why you should have a digital marketing strategy and some tips on how you can create your own, or refine the strategy you currently have. 8 reasons to create a Digital Marketing Strategy 1. A strategy can help you identify goals and objectives. A company with a digital marketing strategy is one with clear cut objectives when it comes to increasing their client base or to build on existing relationships. A digital marketing strategy will give you direction to reach these goals. 2. Empower your on-line value proposition with a digital marketing strategy. A well-defined on-line customer value proposition will help you separate your on-line service and encourage existing and new clients to engage and stay faithful. A digital marketing strategy will also help you differentiate yourself in an on-line crowded market place. 3. A strategy will help you better understand who your on-line customers are.  Your on-line market in most cases will be different from your traditional one. Therefore with the help of a digital marketing strategy you will be able to tailor your offer to those people. Digital is often referred to as the “most quantifiable medium ever”. Yet, Google Analytics and similar will just give you information such as how much traffic you can expect which is not based on sentiment or perceptions. There are a wealth of client feedback tools to identify your potential weak points and to find ways to solve these issues. We suggest starting with Kampyle, PollDaddy or UserSnap. The first two are survey creators great for feedback on blogs, and the latter is a simple visual feedback tool. 4. A […]
June 24, 2015

Can technology be used to create regeneration in our communities?

The Urban Innovation Centre was created to help businesses, academics and city leaders to discuss the regeneration of cities to make them future ready. We have just returned from a presentation there hosted by Nicole Crockett, CEO of The Building Exploratory, and Karen Elmes, Lifelong Learning Manager, who actively encourage people to participate in change at both local and regional levels.
June 10, 2015

Why the rugby world cup is good for the team game

Club level rugby in England has strong support but the national team still dominates when it comes to drawing in the masses. Average attendances for Premiership games are around the 13,000 mark (that’s a total average audience of 156,000 on any given match day.) The rugby world cup is now just 100 days away and  is expected to attract a worldwide audience of over 4 billion and visitors are expected to spend up to £869m during the course of the tournament. How premiership rugby teams can increase their audiences The premiership teams should be gearing up, during this unique time period, to ensure they pull in new fans for the future, and also take advantage of the short term income increase the tournament could supply. Rugby is now played in 190 countries around the world so premiership rugby teams, who play in the most professional and oldest league in the world, should be using the world cup as an opportunity to draw in new audiences. The advantages are fairly obvious with increased merchandising sales and the opportunity to become more attractive to sponsors who see the opportunities behind the database of the club. The 11 host cities have the biggest potential in being able to attract new worldwide fans and engage with them, for the long term. Hopefully the clubs will use their own community structures to spread the word and engage with fans one-on-one. Using social media to increase attendances Social media is going to play an enormous part for the rest of the clubs where they should be utilising the ‘hero worship’ of their own world cup stars to draw attention to the club. Not just tweeting about their players but truly engaging with the new fans that avoids sales but which has warmth and a genuine feel […]
April 14, 2015

Digital designer and developer intern opportunities

The Island are looking for digital design and developer interns to work with us to continue building the better web for our clients and users. We are offering extremely beneficial work experience across some great projects so please get in touch if this sounds interesting to you.
January 16, 2015

Looking to grow business with social media this year?

At The Island we work with our clients to setup and implement strategies, designs and processes that make the most of vital digital channels to increase awareness, leads and sales opportunities. Click to find out more
December 8, 2014

Full service brand and digital agency for leisure – restaurant, bar, hotel, cinema – brand, website, marketing, social

The Island are an established and highly experienced hands-on creative, digital design and brand leisure agency, focused in quality creative delivery and organised implementation. We’ve helped develop brands, websites and marketing campaigns for many leisure businesses over the past 20 years.