2020 – A year like no other!

We always take time at the end of each year to reflect on what has happened and plan for the year ahead but where do we start with this year?! It is hard to write anything about 2020 without using words like “unprecedented” and “the new normal”. Every business has had to adapt in 2020 to deal with COVID 19 and we are no exception. We are happy to have got through this year staying healthy and sane! Having to run a business and home school for a large part of the year has meant we have had to be more flexible and determined than ever. We have survived this very strange year and look forward to some normality returning soon. This year, more than any other it is important to celebrate our achievements.

Hours home schooling

Websites launched

Lunchtime walks

Cups of coffee

We adapted to home schooling and lockdown!

We started The Digital Grapevine to provide us with a flexible work life to fit around our families. It has always been important to us to provide a great service to our clients whilst balancing our family lives. This way of working was severely challenged by lockdown!

However, our way of working actually helped us when lockdown began. We have always worked remotely but helping our kids with their school work at the same time was the tricky bit! It wasn’t easy juggling the demands of school work with running a business but we are proud to say that this year we still managed to get 14 websites live! You can see a showcase of our latest work on our Portfolio. We also carried on supporting our existing clients.

It just goes to show what you can achieve, even when you have a lot of demands on your time.

We embraced lunchtime walks and outdoor meetings!

A big change for us during this year is the fact we haven’t been able to work with each in person. Like everyone else we have had many a Zoom chat! We have also met for lunchtime walks to catch up. This actually works really well as you get some fresh air and discuss work stuff at the same time. We have met clients outside on park benches with a coffee in hand and, although it is not ideal it has meant we have been able to keep up the communication with each other and our clients.

 

We saw the success of our content writing service

For some of our clients we write regular blog posts to help increase awareness of their businesses. This year we have seen great success with this content, in terms of search engine ranking and increased enquiries. It was really exciting to see users increasing for these clients and the blog posts acting as a gateway for potential customers to discover them.

We also saw the enduring value of this content. as blog posts from last year are still generating interest and rising in the search engine rankings. The process of writing content and then monitoring closely how users interact with the website has been really interesting.

By analysing user data, we can see the effect of new content and can also identify the areas that are popular with users. We then create content that taps into that interest. This ongoing relationship with our clients has been really rewarding.

We produced more of our own content

As well as producing content for others we have created many useful blog posts to help people. This bank of information is great for clients who want to amend their own websites but also gives useful tips on other ways to increase a businesses online presence. It is great to have these resources to hand to help others. We hope to do more posts like these next year.

So, what next?

Like every business we are looking forward to getting back to normal. Many of our clients have struggled this year so we hope to help them rebuild when they can. We are sure there will be new businesses emerging as people decide to try something new and we hope to help these new businesses become a success.

We also look forward to being part of the WordPress community again. We have missed the Word Camp’s and Meetups this year.

So as this year ends, we are thankful we have been able to carry on and grow our business in what has been a difficult time for so many.

Who knows what 2021 will bring but surely things can only get better?!