What a year it’s been!
2020 and 2021 have presented some unique challenges to the team here at Knight’s Digital. Of course, we’re not the only ones to have been affected. Businesses large and small across the UK have had to make changes to the way they work and the way they engage with customers as a result of the ongoing pandemic. For some, it may have been a fairly smooth transition while, for others, it involved completely changing their business model, virtually overnight.
At Knight’s Digital, we’ve been helping our clients – old and new – make the most of their online presence during these challenging times. While we’ve been doing that, we’ve also been growing our own company, developing new and exciting ways to give our clients the tools they need to succeed. With our new Alchemy package (which we’ll talk about later) joining forces with our existing services – including web design and development, content and social media marketing, app development, PPC solutions, and more – we’ve been busy, busy, busy…
So, with a few minutes to spare to look back on the last twelve months or so, what have we been up to?
Well…
Website Design and Development
Web design and web development has always been the core of our business and, this past year, we have been pleased to work alongside plenty of new customers.
Plans 2 Extend
Our friends at Plans 2 Extend provide great, service-based planning and building solutions. They already had an existing website, but they felt that it should be doing more for them. After taking a quick look at it, we agreed! We rebuilt their entire site on WordPress, adding some new landing pages and making it easier for them to handle their in-house blogging and modifications.
Atherton Cricket Club
Athy Cricket Club is another of customers in need of a fresh look and a more efficient website. We built them a brand-new site with an integrated ticketing system, making sure it was simple-to-use and easy-to-access. Their new ticketing system makes it cheaper for them to run community events, which is a big thing for them and us. Athy Cricket Club does a lot for our home town of Atherton, so we were pleased to sponsor their field covers and boards.
Aspire Accounts
Aspire is a firm of local accountants right here in Atherton and are good friends of ours, having built a symbiotic relationship with our business. We helped them rebrand their image, creating a fresh, clean website that perfectly encapsulates their personality, being both contemporary and fun. As well as the site design, we provided them with their on-site photography and liaise with Jayne at Pink Spaghetti to deliver an effective content strategy.
Bardsleys
We provide simple, straightforward website and marketing packages for trades through our Tradely programme, and this site is one of those. Produced for a local truck and car repair company, it’s a sleek, modern site, with all their services neatly curated and easy to find, with room for them to list cars and vans for sale, without further involvement from us.
NJ Cleaning
NJ Cleaning are based in Wigan and they needed a new website that would rank well in the search engines. We gave them a fresh, modern design, had our copywriter rewrite their existing service pages with a focus on SEO, and produced additional content, creating new landing pages for the sectors they work in. We’re currently working with them on their back-office systems to give them even more opportunity to grow.
Luke Joyce Football Academy
Having left Port Vale to play for AFC Fylde, local legend Luke Joyce is setting up his own academy to help develop grassroots football in the Atherton area. As the academy is growing, we helped him put together a clean, clear website where he can curate his extensive experience and services, including details of his classes.
Balmer & Co.
Our friends at Balmer & Co are a local estate and lettings agent. We created a new website for them based on a simple, minimalist design that really catches the eye. More than that, we programmed the site to pull in third party listings, using a clever API connecting to Vebra to make managing the listing automated and effortless.
Make Me A DJ
This Manchester-based DJ school teaches students of all ages essential DJing and music production skills. We put together a nice, user-friendly e-commerce site that makes it easy for prospective and existing students to buy courses, book tuition time, and purchase products. The site is regularly update throughout the year to showcase new artist bios and products.
Best Financial Services
Best Financial Services is a Manchester-based firm that started out with the Knights Digital team and have evolved alongside us. We designed a clean and attractive website for them, as well as providing a whole new graphics suite, including email signatures and other useful elements.
Jack Jordan Jewellers
Based in Leigh, these lovely local jewellers were one of many local businesses affected by the lockdown. We helped them move their shop online, getting them away from their existing Shopify model so that they have complete control. As well as a new website design, our copywriter created some new landing pages to draw web traffic to their key product groups.
Billy The Blackbird
Jennifer Doyle is a local school teacher who, during lockdown, wrote her first children’s book, Billy the Blackbird as her kids became obsessed with bird watching. We put together a nice, simple ecommerce site for her to sell her books, merchandise, and workshop bookings for school kids. The site used artwork from the book and other elements to feel like an extension of Jennifer’s work.
1Networking
1Networking is a UK-wide networking firm, revolutionising the business with their branded RIO referral scheme. Formed at the end of last year as a sister company to 4Networking, who changed the whole referrals games during lockdown, they needed an immediate online presence and website to assist in lead generation. Of course, we were only too pleased to provide them with exactly that.
Vorganised
Vikki from Vorganised is a home organisation consultant – think of her as Manchester’s answer to Marie Kondo. She wanted a modern, contemporary design to act as an online brochure for the services she provides. She asked… we delivered… she was delighted with the final result.
Brow Power
Brow Power is a popular place for the local ladies of Leigh to get quality brow treatments, including high-definition shaping. As well as treatments, Brow Power provides training courses that teach their students the essential skills required for competent brow-shaping. We put together an effective new site that allows Brow Power to take payments online for their courses, as well as deliver the e-learning content automatically. This proved an effective way to grow the business.
James Burke Action Coach
James Burke is an award-winning and world-ranked business coach. He’s the coach for Knights Digital and many companies run by our closest friends. An incredible coach, he didn’t need much in way of a website – just a landing microsite that makes it easier to run Facebook advertising campaigns. However large or small the job, we are happy to help.
Nick Moss Architects
This was something different for our design team – turning a design from a graphic artist called Ritesh into a fully-functioning dynamic website. The end result is truly modern-looking, as well as being easy to manage from the office side, allowing their team to post their own content and case studies
Application Development
While website design and web builds have formed the lion’s share of our work over the last twelve months, we’ve also developed several incredible apps to help our customers with automate parts of their business, or simplify other aspects. These are just a few of the applications that we have created for our new and existing clients…
Plans2Extend Planning Portal
Our friends at Plans 2 Extend loved the work we did on their website, especially since it brought them tons of traffic and new clients. Of course, this means they needed administrative assistance to help run their projects.
We designed and built a customer planning portal, allowing them to manage their customers’ journey from the initial enquiry through to handing over the work to the builders. The app was a huge success, being simple to operate and easy to keep track of every client journey. They can take on more work without worrying about hiring more admin staff, keeping their own costs and those of their customers, down.
Baker Bennett Web App
Baker Bennett develop, market, and distribute high-quality baked goods for some of the biggest brands in the UK. We developed a suite of applications to assist them with their Europe-wide business model, based on their existing retail analytics platform.
This included a new reporting module that automates the technical reporting on products shipped overseas to bring them in line with new EU requirements. It also assists with documentation for some of the country’s major retailers, such as Tesco, Asda, Waitrose, B&M, as well as hundreds of other, smaller shops nationwide.
The Agent Site Web Platform
The Agent Site is looking to revolutionise the conveyancing game buy offering a central portal that connects estate agents, solicitors, vendors, and buyers alike. The intention is to massively speed up and streamline the conveyancing process for all those involved.
We have been providing the essential application infrastructure for them to do so, with cutting edge app development to handle this exciting innovation in conveyancing.
Our Business
Alchemy
We said we’d get back to this one!
Alchemy is our new content marketing package, carefully designed offer your business the best chance of reaching new customers. Blending original web content, social media posts, and paid advertising, every Alchemy package is hand-tailored to suit you and your business, extending your reach to the next level.
Let’s face it – whatever business you run in 2021, you need an online presence, but setting up a website just doesn’t cut it any more. Internet users are a savvy bunch and if they see that you haven’t added new content to your site in months, gone weeks without posting on social media, or that your paid adverts are linking to outdated offers, they’re going to think the worst.
Keeping your online presence active takes time – time that you would probably rather be spending on the nuts and bolts of your day-to-day business.
That’s where Knights Digital comes in. We provide you with all you need to populate a successful and effective blog on your site, create an engaging social media presence, and keep your paid ads relevant. Check out our Alchemy page for more details, or give the team a call today to get the ball rolling.
Looking Forward
That’s what we’ve been up to over the last twelve months or so. It’s been a non-stop rollercoaster as we’ve built up our customer base and added new services, all the while making sure our existing clients receive the high standard of service they have come to expect from us.
So, what’s next for Knights Digital?
More of the same. As the leading web and app development team in the North West, we’re looking to grow alongside our customers, giving them all they need to prosper in the years to come.
Become part of the experience yourself by calling Knights Digital today. Drop us a line on 0161 533 0565 or email us at hello@knightsdigital.org to arrange a free consultation with a member of our friendly and helpful team.