With all this talk about search engine optimisation, marketing and seminars, it’s easy to forget one of the core aspects of our business - creating great websites.

We’re the first to admit that our portfolio pages are sorely lacking in the latest sites we’ve been working on, heck, we haven’t even got some of last years’ sites on there. That needs to change, but in the meantime here are a couple of sites that will be going live very soon.

(more…)

There’s only one thing worse than doing no search engine optimisation and that’s doing too much. When setting up a website or wanting to promote an existing one, many people go absolutely overboard and begin slamming in the keywords and building up the back links.

Trouble is, if you suddently appear on the scene with a website that’s quite obviously trying too hard, Google may penalise you more than if you’d done nothing at all.

(more…)

One of the most infuriating things a web designer has to deal with is the constant questions about how much money a website will make and how long it will take for it to be number one on Google. It’s become so bad now that every question like this just phases me out and all I hear is a slight buzzing noise at the back of my head.

Seriously, please shut up.

(more…)

I love the Internet to bits. Just when you think you’ve pretty much got every avenue covered, someone drops in a little gem of information that makes you sit up and think “D’oh, why didn’t I think about that?!”

Gregor Spowart has just blogged about something that you should be aware of that had completely slipped my mind, simply because I hadn’t realised it still went on. Namely, the “we’ll submit your website to hundreds of search engines” nonsense being spouted by lots of web firms.

(more…)

Google are at it again!

They’re not content with just offering up search results that they think you’ll be interested in, they are now giving you the choice of altering the results, saving them and remembering your favourites so they can serve you better in the future.

For example, if you searched for ‘Sandwich Shop’ and you weren’t happy with the results, you could promote the results you preferred above the ones you didn’t. Sounds odd, here’s it in action:

(more…)

If you’re a web developer then you’ve probably spoken to many companies who say they don’t need a website. To them, it’s a complete waste of time because all of their business is through word of mouth, traditional contacts or simply hitting the road with a boot full of samples. These companies don’t need to market themselves via the internet.

We meet this all the time, you see it’s absolutely true that some companies really don’t need a website or any online marketing and they’re fairly easy to spot so you shouldn’t even try to sell them any. These are companies who’s very presence on the web would be a complete waste of time because their product would not benefit from the increased exposure that a presence on the Internet would bring.

(more…)

Recently, we’ve been approached my many companies who are just fed up with their current or recently sacked web developers or SEO team. Sometimes they’ve had their website development handled by someone in house (usually the IT team - a big mistake) or sometimes they’ve just had a pretty poor relationship with a freelancer or designer.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s impossible to be on the same page with all your customers and it’s the mark of a good company when they can stand proud and move away from a relationship when it’s not working.

However some, especially in the search engine world, will try anything to keep hold of a company. They will even resort to giving promises and guarantees that are just impossible to keep. Have you ever been told by a company that they can get you to number one on Google guaranteed? I’m sure you have, it’s almost an addiction within the industry to blurt out the word whenever they’re talking to potential companies.

Well, it appears a company in the US has been taken to task over it.

http://www.atg.wa.gov/pressrelease.aspx?&id=21378

This is important. It states that companies making promises that they can’t keep will be chased down and taken to task. Will this ever happen in the UK? I doubt it, but the fact that it’s happened and is quite high profile means that it will help to inform business that this company that phones up and says “We will make you number one on Google” are obviously stretching the truth.

But why can’t they guarantee it?

Well, Google (and other search engines) really don’t have any obligation to index your website. They’re a company just offering a service to users and if they don’t want to index a site then they are quite within their rights to happily ignore it.

And that’s it. There are no guarantees with search engine optimisation. At all.

Your website is your ambassador on the net. It’s what Internet users see when they’re looking for your product or service, if that visitor doesn’t like what he or she sees, they’ll go away.

So why do you simply put your site up and forget it? Why are so many websites under-valued, abandoned and left to rot while your competitors’ sites are happily sweeping up all your potential customers. There are millions of people using the Internet every day, and a lot of them are looking for your products - you need to be attracting them to your site.

(more…)

In our last newsletter I explained how using our DIY SEO book principles I’d managed to get a completely new website on to the first page of Google within a couple of weeks. Well, it seems that if you type ‘Birmingham Laundry’ into Google, the website I created is actually at number one!

Want to do this for your site?

(more…)

In a shock move, the Bank of England has reduced interest rates massively in an attempt, no doubt, to stimulate the economy and bring a bit of confidence back to business. This is a good news as whatever can be done to make it easier for the banks to lend and hence business to borrow will mean the cash may get flowing around the economy a bit more.

I’m sure that like us you’ve seen a difference in the way people do business lately. We’ve certainly seen some changes, however we’ve actually seen an increase in enquiries and orders. We’re busier than ever at the moment and we can certainly pinpoint why.

(more…)