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10 things the homepage of your website must succeed at

By Tim Lees 21st March 2018


The front page of a website is more often than not the single most important page when it comes to your website.  The homepage has a difficult job as it needs to do many different jobs; it often draws the most traffic of any single page on your website and to a first time visitor it is usually the first page that is seen so the homepage has to act as a shop window to your service or products, inviting users to convert in the guise of either sign...

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6 signs that your website needs updating

By Ollie Reardon 23rd February 2018


The web moves rapidly. What might have been the hottest trend in web design last year, might be considered out of date by the following year. Therefore, you need to ensure that you are updating your website's look and content regularly. You will never be able to launch a website and then never do any updating again. These are some of the most common signs of an old website. 1. Non-mobile friendly web design One of the most important factors of ...

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What are website wireframes?

By Kirsty Gasston 24th April 2017


The important first step in the design and development of any website is the production of a set of website wireframes. This is even more important since the introduction of responsive website design and mobile-first web design. But what exactly are website wireframes and why are they so important? What is a website wireframe? A website wireframe is a layout for a page of the site, demonstrating the structure of the page and the elements to be ...

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New features added in Bootstrap 4

By Ollie Reardon 28th October 2016


While Bootstrap 4 has polished up on the features of the previous major release, Bootstrap 3, several new features have been introduced to keep Bootstrap a solid, modern front-end web framework. XL Columns There is a new column breakpoint introduced in Bootstrap 4, Extra Large! Currently the Bootstrap 4 columns are as follows: Size Pixels Extra Small (col-xs) <576px Small (col-sm) >576px Medium (col-md) >768px Large (col-lg) >9...

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New website go live for Littywood Farm

By Tim Lees 20th April 2016


Local award winning, soft fruit growers, Littywood Farm approached Rapid Web Services to re-design their website to bring it up to date.  Using their existing logo the brief was to give the website a more modern look, easy to navigate and to serve as a reference point for prospective employees and buyers alike.  The client requested the website to be responsive across all devices and specified that they wanted to update the content on the websi...

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My Change of Approach for Mobile First Design

By Matt Fennell 26th February 2015


All throughout University, and in my career as a web designer, the desktop design has come first. I’ve learned how to design for desktops, creating pixel-perfect Photoshop PSDs which look perfect for clients, but this is changing. Since 2014 there are now more mobile users than desktop users, with roughly 2 billion of us reaching for our smartphones or tablets when wanting to access the internet. These statistics have caused web designer...

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5 Web Trend Predictions for 2015

By Matt Fennell 2nd January 2015


Each year new web trends come along, some last the course and stay, whereas some only have a moment in the spotlight. I’ve now been engaged in the web world for 5 years, and have seen plenty of trends come and go. The list below is based on my opinion of what will become popular in 2015, and what previous trends will continue to reign supreme. Webgraphics Infographics have exploded onto the web, largely thanks to social media websites such ...

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Responsive Design and the Mobile First Approach

By Peter Chiu 23rd October 2014


Responsive design is a widely accepted strategy for those looking to maximise their website’s exposure to users across multiple browsers and devices. On the surface of things this sounds great but as a technical exercise this can be challenging, especially if the design and navigation of the website was not initially designed to be viewed on mobiles. Adapting a desktop driven design to fit on mobiles can be, at times, an extremely challenging ...

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The Importance of Responsive Web Design

By Ollie Reardon 6th February 2014


What is Responsive Web Design? Responsive Web Design is the modern approach to designing websites for multiple device screen sizes such as Desktop, Laptop, Tablet and Mobile displays. With the increase of new devices as methods of surfing the internet in recent years, website owners have to be prepared to serve for the end user’s device requirements, for example a smartphone’s display is a lot smaller than a laptop or desktop monitor, ther...

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By-Auction

By Kirsty Gasston 28th March 2013


Rapid Web Services has recently completed a new website for By-Auction, a collection of member estate agents providing property services and offering properties for sale by auction. They approached us to develop a site for them that they could use to provide members of the public with tips and advice on selling property at auction, as well links to the member sites, dates of upcoming auctions and auction catalogues. By-Auction asked us to deve...

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Responsive Web Design & Development

By Kirsty Gasston 25th March 2013


There are so many ways to access the internet and view websites now – computers, laptops, tablets, smartphones – and figures show that over 10% of internet browsing worldwide is now done via a mobile browser. Of course users expect websites to display and function correctly across all of their devices. So what do we do as web designers to make sure that this is the case? We design sites to be responsive. Media queries are used to recognise th...

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New website launched for BTT Communications

By Kirsty Gasston 27th February 2013


BTT Communications had not updated their website for a considerable amount of time and required the build of a new website with a content management system. The site needed to reflect the new branding that the company had adopted since the first site had been built. Our design team worked closely with the client to draft and finalise a structure and style for the website that reflected the company’s branding and personality. We also worked c...

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