At a recent networking event, I met a really interesting couple who have a virtual office services company based in Croydon.  They have been in operation for a year and most of their business consists of bookkeeping for small businesses and accountants.  They have  a lot of interesting ideas for taking their business forward but have neglected one important part of their marketing repertoire - their website!  During the course of our

conversation where we were talking about how important it is to keep your website current (hmm, notice the laziness on my part with the Springmedia blog recently :-S) they shamefacedly told me that even though their business cards proudly advertise a website address, they don’t actually have a website.   Not only that, they don’t even have a holding page, so anyone that types in their URL, which they are proudly publicising on their business cards, is going to find a page cannot be displayed page. 

 There can be no positive message that this sends to potential clients and customers.  People that type in their URL are either going to think:

1.  that they are not aware that their website is down
2.  that they have gone out of business
3.  that they don’t take their business seriously

They will almost certainly have lost potential business through this oversight and while I can understand that a website can be a big expense for a small business, in todays competitive marketplace, it is crazy to not put some form of presence on the internet.  

 For a business like this I would recommend a phased approach. 

Branded holding page

First thing they need to do is put a branded holding page up.  This page should follow their existing colour scheme and branding and list the basic services that they have on offer along with an email address and phone number.  And in my opinion they should do this immediately, they urgently need to get something up there to avoid the above consequences.  We have created a similar page for Mira Britton, a reflexologist and beauty therapist based in Ashtead, Surrey. 

Simple website

Secondly they should think about their objectives for their website, both short and long term.  They can then discuss these with their web designer and put up a simple brochure site with navigation to their services, price list, contact details and client testimonials.  These pages should be optimised to be competitive for a search in their local marketplace such as book keeping in Croydon.

Dynamic content

Thirdly they can think about dynamic areas that they can include on their website including articles, news and events.  They can also use the website to accept payment and have a newsletter section to keep in touch with changes in their industry which will help their positioning as experts in their field.

Project management

Fourthly they can now develop their ideas about how they can use the internet to develop their business by having client and associate areas on the website.  These would help them manage their projects by offering up to the minute information on progress, documentation, and a section where clients could download their accounts information.

I would suggest a one year plan for this type of development.  The benefit of this will mean that they can see what is working for them and improve the site accordingly.  They can also budget for the development over a year which will help spread the cost and make it much more manageable.  By taking a phased approach and also knowing where it is that they want the business to be, they will be able to avoid re-working the design and the navigation too much as the site can be built with that growth in mind. 

 If this type of web project is of interest to you, please call Springmedia on 0800 035 2650.

How fast is 50 milliseconds? The blink of an eye? A flash of lightening?  That is how long you have to make an impression on your customers that visit your website.  A Canadian study given in 2005 asked some volunteers to rate a website after only seeing them for 50 milliseconds.  The researchers then discovered that the conclusions that were formed in that quick initial assessment were validated in a longer review of the site.  So, almost as quickly as the eye can see it, a judgement is made on how good your website is. 

In April 2007, Nominet conducted a survey where they discovered that in the UK people believe that a UK domain name such as .co.uk or .uk.com is more relevant to them than a .com domain. 

In an online survey of 2,324 Internet users, which was carried out for us by YouGov, we also learned that 62% believe a .uk address suggests a company is local or more relevant than a .com, and a third (32%) believe that it is important for international companies to have local domain names in order to attract local customers.

When asked about searching for a particular company on the Internet, 72% said they would visit a .uk web address above any other and only 5% of respondents would try the .com option first.

These findings are significant for anyone that is thinking about buying a domain name and I must admit that my own surfing behaviour backs this up.  The .com domain is relevant to large and international brands and those companies that sell or are marketing information to the US, but if you want people from the UK to visit your site then you are much better off getting a UK domain. 

UK domains are also more likely to rank higher for searches in google.co.uk and yahoo.co.uk for as they are recognised as being from the UK.  The other factor to consider to improve search engine ranking in the UK is ensuring that your website is hosted on servers that are based in the UK.  If you do both these things you are likely to increase your chances of attracting UK searchers. 

Fisher price is recalling almost a million products due to potential lead contamination. The products were produced between April 19, 2007 and July 6, 2007. A whole range of popular toys were affected and it is recommended that they be removed from children as soon as possible. More information on the affected products can be found on Fisher Price recall list.

Unbelievably though there is no information listed on the Fisher Price website. This is not the way to manage their customers. I would have thought that they would realise that this would be the first place that customers would go! In todays digital age, this is just sloppy. There is no word at this time whether this has affected toys that were sold in the UK.

Here is an interesting short video that helps to explain SEO (search engine optimisation) for people that aren’t familiar with it.  It’s quite a basic overview but the key messages are content, content, content and getting the right backlinks.

Well, I have just been pottering with my own website and was frustrated because my wordpress google sitemap file wasn’t working properly with my blog, as were are a few other things, but that’s another story… Anyway I discovered this fantastic video from Andre Chaperon from Super Affiliate Marketing without the blah blah that shows people how to get Google to notice you straight away using google’s sitemap generator for Wordpress.   You don’t have to have wordpress to create a sitemap.  You can find a free google sitemap generator , create the sitemap and then upload it to your main directory using ftp (if you don’t have an ftp programme, I usually recommend Core ftp for a good solid free ftp software).  Then following the very clear instructions set out by Andre you can let Google know that you have done it and then just wait for the bots to visit.

In my current phase of marketing activity, I have decided to join BNI Lakeside (the Wimbledon Chapter).  For those that aren’t in the know BNI (Business Networking International) is a really interesting networking organisation that helps small businesses build their business through referrals.  The process is more structured than other networking organisations I have used in the past and much better for it.  One of the founding principles of BNI is ‘givers gain’, meaning the more referrals I bring to the organisation, the more referrals will come back to me.  They have set up the meetings in such a way that within each chapter there is only one of each business type (in my case web design) and through our personal and business networks we share contacts and opportunities with each other.  Each business has an opportunity to stand up and share what they do and make a request for the types of referrals that they are looking for.  Following on from that we then have to stand up and tell the group what referrals we have brought that week.  It is very effective and interestingly some of the most successful for receiving referrals in our group are the trade practices such as plumbing and electrical services.

Some of the interesting organisations that I have met there include Frank Layton Displays, a Wimbledon printing company that specialises in printing on bespoke items including fabric printing and vehicle printing, Advintage wines, an online wine company that makes buying wine not just fun but affordable, Julia Boggio Photography a very talented Wimbledon photographer and Calm Time a mobile beauty therapy company that was set up by Fiona Gordon.

Please get in touch if you are interested in finding out more about either BNI or the networking in Wimbledon

I had a call today from a woman that has been very successful selling second hand clothes on ebay, making up to £500 per week which is fantastic.  She’s now thinking that she would like to translate her ebay business into an online store that is seperate and bespoke from ebay.  While I think this a great idea, she really needs to consider the costs and effort that will be involved in making this transfer from ebay to real world.

 The benefits of staying with ebay

• The first issue that she will need to take into account is that ebay already has an enormous customer base that she is benefiting from, it will be hard work to generate the same type of traffic to her own site
• The storefront is familiar and ready made, she doesn’t need to worry about merchant services or storefront design
• The review functionality makes her a trusted source to her customers, so she doesn’t need to persuade them that she is a legitimate business

Disadvantages of staying with ebay

• Ebay have the relationship with the customer, though it is possible for her to start building this on her own
• Cost, it costs her the listing fees each time she puts an item on the shelf, this is a real issue if an item doesn’t sell

The benefits of setting up her own store

• She will be able to develop her own brand and customer loyalty, building her own relationship with her customers
• She won’t be competing directly and immediately with every other seller in her niche area
• It will be her own business, with assets and value attached to it

The disadvantages of setting up her own store

• Cost, cost, cost - everything costs when setting up an online business.  The domain, the logo / branding, the online store, the hosting, the advertising.  Even the free stuff costs in time, even if not in money
• Finding and pulling customers to a website is hard work - she really needs to understand how to get her business listed organically for her niche products and build the site accordingly (luckily for her she is a journalist so at least has the writing skills to submit articles)

Her biggest problem at the moment though is that she doesn’t know what she doesn’t know.  She needs to pull together a business plan, marketing plan (both real world and internet), set a budget and targets so that she can figure out where to go from here.

Ok, just a quick rant.  I am trying to get rid of a wardrobe that we have had hanging around for a while and I’m discovering that it is very difficult to give something away for free!!  Freecycle is a great tool for recycling unwanted things and my local freecycle site is one of the most used in the London area, but I have had my description rejected twice now, firstly for not putting the word OFFERED in the headline (fair enough) and then secondly for not putting my postcode area (just plain irritating now).   It wouldn’t be so bad if the moderator who keeps rejecting my description didn’t take 24 hours to respond each time!

It can be difficult to know where to begin when you want to update your website.  You know that the animated logo in bright pink isn’t doing you any favours but don’t really know where to start when thinking about how you can improve.  Before you write a word of copy or think about the graphics and images you need to do some research. 

Identify the purpose of your site:  Who is your target market and why do they come to your site.  Are they coming to to find out more about what you do?  Are they coming to buy products?  Will most of your traffic be directed by you or do you want to be found using keywords and phrases through the search engines.  Do you want to build a community, earn money through advertising, build a blog, use it as a portfolio of your products /services.  There are many ways you can use your site effectively for your business, what do you want it to do for you?  And more importantly what can you put on the site that is going to convert a visitor to a customer.

Identify the purpose of the update: Do you want to drive more traffic? do you want a better design? do you want to add more content? do you want to change the focus of your content?

Use what you’ve already got:  Go through your website statistics and identify where your existing visitors are going and how they got there ie did they type in your URL, come via search engine (if so which ones ), what search terms did they use to get to you.  Which pages are the most popular, how long are your visitors spending on  your site.

What is your competition doing?  Visit your competition and see what is working for them.  Use different business related search terms and see who is landing at the top, think about why that might be as you visit their site.  Identify what you like and what you don’t and think about what you can put on your site that is as good or better than theirs.

What are people doing in other industries that you can use on your site:  We are all using the internet so much these days, odds are you are visiting sites that you think are really useful and effective, what can you take from other industries / sector websites that might work on your site.

These are only a few of the things you should do before you start planning or building a website.  I will be covering more of the process in later posts.