Don’t bother to optimise your website, optimise your company…

Posted on June 2010 in Articles, News

I’ve just had another email exchange regarding missing meta tags such as keywords, and having to explain that it will help putting these things right, but they’re still not going to get a top 20 listing.

Although you could probably say that the majority of websites don’t contain the right page content keywords, descriptions, header etc. etc. that would still leave a minority which would still leave a few million!

So, with the majority out of the way and you’re only (sarcasm) left with a few million competitors you’ll stand very little chance of hitting that top 20 natural listing (anywhere before page 3), so just forget it and try and concentrate on optimising the company.

Time to tell the world how successfully you were this month, how many exports you generated, maybe there is a new member of staff this month, or it could be you’ve just decorated your hotel room. You need to join the network of news or social media, there are people around the world who want to know about your company, so spread the word by creating interesting articles, create a company Facebook account, get Linkedin and get tweeting.

A cheap budget website is false economy, just don’t bother…

Posted on May 2010 in Articles

I’ve just spent half a day (around 4 hours), making sure a fairly large website has the correct keywords, descriptions and relevant page content so that hopefully our customer will beneifit from search engine optimisation. The new website replaces an old website which is already established in Google and other search engines, so I also recreated a function called a RewriteRule which tells Google for example that the old page is no longer there but to send people to the new page. That way current search results still appear to be valid.

Spending half a day just on the background development of a website areas not seen by the public is just a small part of what some companies don’t bother with, that’s why we are sorry to say that we can’t create budget websites, we like to create websites that will hopefully work for our customers thus giving them a return of investment, rather than just throwing money away find a company that will help you get the most from your site, getting a return on your investment is the key to success and when it pays for itself it doesn’t get much cheaper than that.

Want to spy on your website visitors!

Posted on April 2010 in Articles, News

Web stats are useful, you can see who’s visiting you, what web pages they’ve looked at etc. etc. but now you can actually record them! With Usefly, you can actually capture their screen movement and mouse clicks and play it back at a later date. It’s free to for 10 screen captures, so if you want to know what your visitors are up to now you can watch!

For more information: http://www.userfly.com/

Free Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) test software helps reduce the pain…

Posted on April 2010 in Articles

If like me you want to make sure that the those people who still insist on using Internet Explorer 6 (and there are still lots of them out there) get to view your website as it should be seen then download this fantastic piece of free software that allows you to test your website on all Internet Explorer versions…

http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage

Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) why should I upgrade?

Posted on April 2010 in Articles, News

Leave your house keys in your door and someone will probably do the decent thing and knock on your door and tell you, but there of course annoying worms out there who would probably steal them only to return once you’re out. Yet when it comes to security the Internet police still can’t get through to people about security, one of the most popular stupid things is people not updating their computer.

It’s still popular, the old website browser called Internet Explorer 6 (IE6), I know it’s difficult to keep up to date with software versions but when it comes to security (for one thing) then there isn’t any excuse for being lapse about upgrading. I know it looks like it works, you check your bank account online, order stuff from Amazon yet the fact are that it isn’t very secure, it’s not supported anymore by Microsoft so you will not get essential updates, I could rant on.

Updating your browser is free, new versions are there for a reason, they improve security, stop spyware and adware, new versions are released to help protect your personal information from being stolen! So stop using this browser, be sensible upgrade, it only takes about 5 mins.

Next time you check your bank statement and find someone else is using it to buy stuff ask yourself, I wonder if it’s because I use Internet Explorer 6?

Does a domain name with keywords help SEO?

Posted on January 2010 in Articles

Over the last few months there has been a big increase in the number of customers wanting to register keyword loaded domain names, so rather then the normal www.mybusinessname.co.uk for example they want to register www.hotelinyorkshire.co.uk or www.gardenservicescornwall.co.uk. So if someone searches Google or Yahoo for Garden Services Cornwall then you’d expect a match domain name to appear, well that’s the theory.

I too have read the usual search engine forums on the subject so as usual we’ve tested the theory and the results are surprisingly interesting.

We created a website of Self Catering Holiday Cornwall properties, with a domain to match. After less than a week the website appeared on page 1 position 2 of Yahoo, but as yet we have no show on Google, but then it’s early days, and we know that Google doesn’t do things quickly, it will look at this new website using a team of virtual forensic scientists to figure out whether it should appear and where!

Watch this space for further news.

An important point to remember is that the website is genuine, it contains relevant pages and information, therefore doesn’t break any rules specified by Google or Yahoo. Registering mulitple keyword loaded domain names and merely pointing them to your main website does not work. Keep it ethical and you’ll beneifit long-term from good organic search engine positioning.

Yahoooo! We’re number 2 already!

Posted on January 2010 in Articles, News

Having just released another website to promote self catering cottage website that we have designed the site has appeared as number two in Yahoo for the search term self catering holiday Cornwall. The site was released just last week and is already proving successful.

The site is an example of our continued commitment to help promote websites that we create, we believe no other website agency tries to do the same thing.

If you would like to appear on self catering holiday Cornwall website please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Goodbye coffee machine, goodbye Gaggia rotten customer service

Posted on December 2009 in Articles

I know this isn’t any technical or a fab new website, but since a wonderful machine has now given up I feel it’s only fair to document it for all to read (although you may not want to).

Imagine starting the day with a coffee made from Italian beans simply by pressing a button. The sounds starts with gentle click to let you know it’ll be delivered to the cup shortly, the beans are ground and a two clicks are heard as the fresh powder is dispensed, than water heated to the exact temperature is poored through and into the cup, coffee perfection every morning…

… imagine if one morning you press the button and nothing, not a click, before you totally freak out thinking that instant coffee could be the only answer, you run through the usual routine of checking the ‘bits’, pulling drawers etc. but nothing seems wrong, a sad morning…

Whilst the pleasure of creating coffee from a bean right through to a cup is an expensive one it did come with a 2 year warranty, and yes it still within warranty just! With 6 weeks left the machine had failed within the time allowed!

“Gaggia customer service, how may I help you”

“I’ve got a very expensive, though fantasic coffee machine that’s broken down, and we’re very”

“Oh, never mind if it’s within warranty, we’ll send you the labels, pay the postage and fix it for you”

“That’s wonderful news, thank you”

The whole office sang and danced with joy!

Many weeks had passed and morale was getting low, the problem was obviously serious, time to find out… (the following has of course been edited, there where several phone calls inbetween)

“hello Gaggia customer services”

“hello there, we just wondered how you are getting on with our coffee machine”

“what coffee machine?”

“the one we sent you”

“oh, did you, what’s your name”

“Mr Carne”

“well Mr Carne, did you know that the machine is nearly out of warranty, so I’m not sure we can fix it”

“but the machine broke down within the warranty”

“yes but there is only one week left”

“there was more than one week left when we sent it to you, it’s because you haven’t done anything, and besides where are we going with this conversation, don’t you know the law”

“ok, well want’s wrong with it”

“you’re suppose to find that out and then fix it”

“ok, leave it with me and we’ll get back to you”

A week had passed, time to call…

“… customer services”

“how’s are coffee machine…”

“well it needed a new motor, you’re very lucky that we were able to order one, the machine will be back with in next week”

And sure enough, the machine was returned time to test it.

The days of listening to the nice gentle sound of coffee being prepared were at an end, the motor was obviously replaced with a lawn mower engine and probably from a 1970’s diesel engined lawn mower, once the noise stopped coffee spat into the cup, which I think was now mixed with diesel oil.

When you get such bad customer service, and waste so much time, no one wants to call up and start the process again. The machine was well over £300, but the customer service was worthless, useless and rude.

Goodbye Gaggia machine, goodbye Gaggia.

Dynamic Pages to Static URL ‘Search Engine Friendly’

Posted on December 2009 in Articles

Hi

Here’s something I just sent a friend who had rewritten a simple CMS system, with dynamic pages (index.php?Pageid=nn), in this case directory

es were also used, so all you need to do is create a .htaccess file and place it in to the relevant web directory, here’s an example of the contains of an .htaccess files…

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule about_us.htm$ index.php?Pageid=7
RewriteRule index.htm$ index.php?Pageid=7

Hope that helps, if not ask and I maybe able to help you further.

“Should I try Adwords?”

Posted on December 2009 in Articles

A question I’m often asked is “should I try Adwords?”, well the answers is always yes. It’s worth a try, as far as advertising goes it’s cheap and easy to control your spend, you can specify anything you want per day and adverts can cost as little as 0.4p per click (depends on competition), if you spend £30 a week and get one ’sale’ worth £500 it’s easy to work out your Return On Investment (ROI), you can normally work this out within a couple of weeks, so there isn’t any long-term costs, you can stop advertising (spending) instantly.