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.