Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a term that most online businesses are familiar with. It describes the techniques and processes used by experts to improve the search rankings of businesses like yours. Wild claims abound in this lucrative market – promises like “Get to google’s number one spot in just 3 weeks!!!” and frankly who wouldn’t be tempted to blow the marketing budget.

Unfortunately, the reality is that these claims often disappoint, not necessarily through lack of technical skill but through two main failings. Firstly, the failure of search engine optimisation companies to identify the real function of SEO and secondly a failure to take an holistic approach. Lets take these two failings one by one.

Failure Number One – Misunderstanding the real function of SEO

If you ask a search engine optimisation company what the function of SEO is they will, in all likelihood, answer that the goal of SEO is to increase your search engine rankings. In other words, to get your company into the top 10 search listings for a given keyword.

So let’s imagine that you are the Managing Director of a company that sells spanners. You’re likely to think that the word “spanner” is a good keyword for your business and ask your web design or SEO company to optimise your site for that word. So far, so good and a few thousand pounds later your business is appearing in the first three pages of Googles search listings for the keyword “spanner” and your visitor numbers have increased.

It is at this stage that many agencies take a bow, cash the cheque and write you down as yet another satisfied customer. After all – you can see the statistics for yourself, what on earth could you have to complain about. So then why with all this extra traffic has your revenue not similarly increased? The answer is simple, it’s because you chose the wrong metric  to measure the success of your campaign.  Remember that old adage “turnover is vanity, profit is sanity” – well it applies equally to the web.

A successful SEO campaign is not measured through increased visitor numbers, it is measured through increased sales.

So where did it all go wrong? The answer is in described in failing number two – a failure to take an holistic approach.

Failure Number Two – Not taking an holistic approach

The first problem with your SEO campaign was that you chose the wrong keyword. Rather like a receptionist in a bricks and mortar business, your keywords should work hard to filter out the surfers, the students, the job seekers (unless of course, you’re a recruitment company) and the ne’er do wells, and instead give easy passage to those have the potential to do business with you. 10,000 visitors a month may seem great, but if 5,000 of those are really looking for “Spanner Films”, 2,000 of them are researching mountain bikes and 1,500 are looking for a job, then all of a sudden 10,000 potential customers becomes 1,500. Your keywords were poorly targeted.

The second reason is that you forgot what happens AFTER someone clicks through to your site.  The internet can be a risky business for users and a site that does not engender trust is one which will see your customers bouncing away faster than a kid on a trampoline.

For these reasons it is essential that you think before your optimise.  Take time to carry out a proper review, brainstorming what your customers are likely to want from a site like yours.  Make sure your keyword research is thorough and don’t forget all those other marketing factors that can influence the success or otherwise of your business.  Talk to your employees, speak to your clients, get good robust intelligence and build your site around it. Above all, remember to start at the very beginning.

If you’d like some help optimising your website, then please do get in touch

In a previous blog post we talked about the importance of giving good social media.  Not only does it improve your organic search rankings but it can help you build strong relationships with your customers – key for any small business.

But it’s not that straightforward.  In this brave new world it can be easy to fall into the sort of traps that can do real harm to your business.  Over the next few blog posts we’ll be talking about some of the bigger social media fails and how you can avoid them.

Rule 1 : The old rules no longer apply

I hate bad grammar as much as any other soon-to-be middle aged woman.  But remember that old adage – the internet is for the young?  Painful though this may be, it is important to remember that the old rules of grammar and spelling just don’t apply online.  Call it a “yoof” thing.

The image to the right was taken from the Facebook page of Blackpool Pleasure Beach.  The “fan” in question had a complaint which could have easily been addressed in a polite and courteous manner.  Instead Blackpool Pleasure Beach decided to launch an attack on the  language used  “when writing to us please try and use correct english as it can be hard to understand what you are trying to say” – a cutting put down if ever I saw one.

Did Blackpool Pleasure Beach have a point?  Not really.  Irritating though the language may have been it made perfect sense to me.  What they failed to understand is that the customer is always right,  even on Facebook.  And the customer never, ever likes to feel insulted.

So what happened next?  Well, what happened is what always happens – a flaming slanging match between those for and against the Pleasure Beach plus a whole heap more complaints.   The saga was summed up by one users rather sardonic post  “what an interesting read” -  and perhaps a customer lost.

What can we learn from all this?

Lesson 1
Remember to treat your social media fans courteously and with respect, in the same way as you would if they were stood in front of you.

Lesson 2
Always bear in mind that your comments are there for the world to see and will speak volumes about the type of company you are.

Lesson 3
The customer is always right – even if they can’t spell

Fab Web Design can advise you on all aspects of setting up a social media presence.  Contact us for more details.

“Can you design, develop and publish our new website in three days?”.

That was the challenge laid down to us when Top Image Systems (TIS) wanted  a microsite to showcase their new and innovative product. The short timelines were necessary to integrate with a social media and email marketing campaign that was due to go live by the end of the week.

We don’t often work to these sort of deadlines – most sites take as a minimum 3-4 weeks to complete dependent upon their size and functionality.  We decided to take up the challenge though and are delighted to announce the launch of www.pdfr.co.uk – a site designed and developed in just 3 short days.

Tim Woodhouse, Sales Manager for TIS said:

“when we asked Fab Web Design if they could design our new site in just three days we were not even sure if such a thing could be achieved.  Fab Web Design surpassed our expectations, producing a website that followed our company style yet looked modern and fresh.  I have no hesitation in recommending Fab Web Design to any small business client”.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with geeks.  I am still trying to track down the adult version of a t-shirt my 9 year old owns which reads “Geeks need love too”.  Nonetheless, it can be helpful in business to understand the type of web designer you’re dealing with, so here follows our Geek 101.

Does your website designer only answer the telephone after 11.30am?
Web design geeks are nocturnal creatures. The majority of their work gets done between the hours of 11pm and 4am when other members of their species are on-line for chats about the latest Google algorithm (aka playing Tomb Raider). All this means that early morning telephone conferences are out – at least if you want a better response to your timeline requests than “nneeeugh!”

Is your website designer evangelical in his love of Firefox and irrational in his hatred of Internet Explorer?
Web design geeks believe firmly that Microsoft is the spawn of the devil. Alleged crimes include developing a browser with the sort of security holes that Arnold Schwarzenneger could get through, usurping poor old Apple and, in all likelihood, being responsible for climate change too. Be gentle with them, web design geeks have an innate sense of injustice and would almost certainly place money on the Monster Raving Loony Party winning a general election.

Does your website designer love acronyms?
PHP, AJAX, SQL, CGI, HTML, XML, CSS – the list goes on and on and to be honest they all have their place in the web designer’s arsenal. Really though, are you that interested? As long as your site works, attracts business and presents you in the best possible light, what goes on under the engine is not something you should have to worry about. It’s rather like an airline pilot describing Bernoulli’s Principle of Pressure, as long as your flight gets you where you want to be with all your body parts in place, you don’t need to know how it happens.

Does your website designer somehow survive on a diet of coke and chocolate?
Vegetables and fruit simply don’t exist in the diet of geek web designers. All geeks long to return to their halcyon days spent getting to grips with C+ in their teenage bedroom, existing only on a packet of Hob Nobs. Unfortunately, real life insists that these same geeks must earn a living so they assert their individuality by stubbornly refusing to eat healthily. Oh, and they haven’t worked out how to turn the oven on yet.

Fab Web Design are different
We talk business, not geek. Our years of marketing experience mean that won’t be dazzled by the latest technical gizmo if we don’t think it will add real value to your bottom line. We promise not to bore you with the nuts and bolts of our business, but want to listen to the nuts and bolts of yours. Put simply, you can trust us to get the job done. Oh, and we promise not to be grumpy in the mornings.

I recently had some conversations with a prospective client who was looking for a new website.  I’d given him a ballpark idea of cost and we’d arranged to meet to discuss the project further.  Shortly before our meeting I received a call.  The prospective client had been offered what he considered to be a great deal with one of the directory websites.  They had offered him a web design package which included some free  advertising and the deal appeared to stack up.

What could I say?  I pointed out the obvious; all of our websites are bespoke – directory sites use templates, our sites are personally optimised – their search engine optimisation only ensures that websites can be read by search engines, etc. etc. The thing I never thought to question was whether he would actually own his domain name, and that was a mistake.

Feeling frustrated by our discussion I went on to the directory website in question and had a poke around their terms and conditions.  I was amazed to find that one of the “product rules” stated:

“By purchasing a website, you acknowledge that we will own the Domain Name”

They will own your domain name?  I could barely believe it.  If you don’t own your own domain name then you have no ability to move your website to another provider -  or indeed get it redesigned when you realise that your site looks just like 1,000 others.  Worse,  should your website become incredibly popular and turn into a brand, then you’ll have no ability to sell your domain name on and cash in on your hard work – because the domain isn’t yours.

There are many morals to this story, amongst them the old favourite that if a deal looks to good to be true then it probably is.   But the obvious still requires stating, ALWAYS read thoroughly through any terms and conditions – and if your domain name is owned by anyone but you, run a mile…..

Fab Web Design always ensures that domain names are correctly assigned to the client and don’t believe in sharp practice.  Contact us for if you’d like a Fab Small Business Website.

In a recent youtube video Matt Cutts, Head of Google’s Webspam team, outlined what he considered the key issues to consider when devising a 2011 web strategy. Among the basics Cutts argued that Social Media should be considered as part of an holistic SEO strategy.

“A lot of times people think SEO versus social media marketing, and a lot of the times it makes sense to keep a holistic view. First you have to have great content … then you need to tell people about it, and social media marketing can be a great way to do that.”

The video adds weight to growing whispers suggesting that Social Media likes and tweets are taken into account by Google when delivering search results. And of course this would make sense; if plenty of people “like” or “share” your site then it’s more likely that your site contains good content and is less likely to contain spam.

An experiment carried out by Marcus Taylor (SEO Optimise) supports the theory. Taylor sought to establish whether a site with no backlinks could climb the search rankings simply by virtue of social media likes and links. The answer was a resounding yes, although how long the effect lasts has yet to be seen.

So is Social Media really the new King Maker? Will websites live or die by their social activity? Traditional thinking has always placed great significance on the influence of backlinks on a site’s search rankings. The more inbound links to your site, the more authority it is seen to have and the higher up the search rankings it climbs. The problem with this is the ease with which SEOs can manipulate such links, skewing search results in favour of those with big pockets, regardless of quality of content. This vulnerability to spam makes it likely that Google will look for a more reliable indication of a site’s quality. Social media “likes” and “shares” may just be the way it does it.

This is not to say that social media links can’t be manipulated – Taylor’s experiement has already demonstrated this. However, by their nature social media links are harder to develop and even harder to maintain. Social Media as King Maker? Maybe not yet, but soon.

Please retweet!

“…in the future all companies will be internet companies”, so claimed Andrew Grove, CEO of Intel. And he was right. Today, the idea that a business can become successful without being online is at best short-sighted and at worst downright foolhardy. Love it or loathe it, the global super-highway is here to stay and its influence gets bigger with every passing moment.

Take your own experience. How many times in the last month have you searched online for information on a product you were interested in buying. How many purchases have you made in the last year? How many old friends have you looked up? How many times have you reserved library books, booked cinema tickets, ordered flowers or sent someone a funny video? And so on and so on. It is a truth that the internet satisfies the needs that no other medium does.

So what, you might argue. The internet may be useful but it has no relevance to my small business. Being online is a luxury for big businesses with big pockets and is there really any point if you don’t want to sell online? Frankly, does your small business really need a website?

The answer is an emphatic yes, and here’s why. The internet is so much more than an online shop. It’s an advertising hoarding, a recruitment company, a PR agency, and the best friend of small businesses. The internet can turn a one man band into a small business, a small business into a large one and, if handled badly, a large business back into a small one. The internet is the last remaining true democracy; it doesn’t care what premises you operate from as long as you get the job done. It doesn’t care where you went to school – as long as your business is sound. And it has absolutely no interest in your accent, your car or what your parents did for a living. The internet enables small businesses to stand shoulder to shoulder with their larger competition and survive or fail on their own merits.

Given all this, why is the internet so under-exploited by small business? If I search for a local window cleaner in my area, Google gives me pages and pages of directory listings – I would be better off dusting down my old Thomson Directory. But if I did that I would have no idea what sort of company I was dealing with, their prices, their company style and whether we could work together harmoniously. A telephone number tells me nothing. Whilst I  may be unlikely to buy a window cleaner online, having a website can make the difference between making a sale or being invisible to your customers.

So why is this?  Is there a shortage of window cleaners in my area?  Well possibly, but I think that the lack of small business on the web has nothing to do with a trade shortage and everything to do with a fear of the unknown, and in our experience the biggest unknown is cost.

Fab Web Design are completely open with all our prices and will give you a tailored and fixed price quote – (see our typical website costs for more information). We won’t blind you with techno-speak but instead will listen to what you want from your site. We won’t try and sell you a 50 page site if all you need is a simple 3-4 page site. And we won’t add any little extras without specific and explicit permission from you.

It’s time to start punching above your weight. Fill out our contact form or give us a ring – you’ll be pleasantly surprised.