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So your website is now live, Congratulations! What next?

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You have just paid a web designer for a sparkly new website so now you can take a break and expect the enquiries to come flooding in. Unfortunately unless you are a targeting an incredibly niche market, this is rarely the case.

A new website competes with other sites that have been around for years, potentially decades but there are a few things that you can do to make sure you end up higher in the listings, make sure Google lists you in their index as soon as possible and you end up with a search engine friendly website…

General

Here are some general tips to help track your website and enable your site to be listed quicker in the main search engines.

– Install Google Analytics or AWStats (which comes as standard with all hosting from TJ Design)
– Add your website to Google Webmaster Tools
– Link Google Analytics with Google Webmaster Tools
– Create a robots.txt file and upload it to the root directory of your site (go to www.yourwebsite.co.uk/robots.txt to check if you have one).
– Create a sitemap.xml file submit this to Google Webmaster Tool (go to www.yourwebsite.co.uk/sitemap.xml to check if you have one).

Link building

Many of the leading search engines count the amount and quality of your inbound links as a major factor so here are some tips.

– Create a ‘related links’ page on your website so you can link to reputable sites and even more importantly they link back to you. (think suppliers, local business directories, partners, industry associations not competitors)
– Add a Google My Business page
– Use Moz’s Open Site Explorer, and add your main competitors websites, view their “Inbound Links” from “Only External” sources to see their related links. Contact any reputable companies and request the opportunity to exchange links.
– Over time, the search engines will crawl your site and add you to their listing but you may be able to speed this process up by manually entering the URL for your site at these popular search engines..

Don’t use any automated submission programs to submit your site to multiple search engines at one time. This can be considered as spam and you could be removed completely.

– Spend as much time as possible adding your new website to business directories and use their features like reviews to make your profile really stand out. Here are some that I would recommend…

– Add your website link to your business cards, flyers, stationery, emails, forum signature and any social media platforms.

Summary

The above recommendations will give your new website a real kick-start to being found on the internet. It can be time-consuming trawling the internet looking for appropriate places to link back to your website but I can assure you that it’s well worth the effort. You should invest at least a couple of hours from when your website launches to make it a happy, healthy search engine friendly site ready to take on the competition. Good luck!

Got a project in mind?

01536 391 745 hello@tjdesign.uk

Choosing a website design company

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Introduction

There are thousands of website designers & agencies around the globe, and often it can be an difficult task choosing one that offers value as well as competency. It’s important that you try to gain a basic understanding of the website design process before committing to a company.

Shortlisting

Firstly, speak with friends, business acquaintances and family. Have they had a website built? Do they know a web designer or design firm?

Personal recommendations can be an excellent way of getting to know a web design company, even if it’s only letting you know who to avoid!

Try and find at least 5 web design companies to compare, if you cannot reach this target by referrals, try your local newspaper, design publications or the internet. Local companies can prove advantageous, but don’t fear companies based at the other end of the country, at the end of the day you’ll be looking to choose the website design company best suited to your needs, wherever they may be.

Your own research

In order to narrow your shortlist further, it’s a good idea to visit your potential web designer’s websites to see what they’re capable of. It’s crucial that your website is accurate, and created with attention to detail and care. This is the primary requirement of your shortlisted company’s web sites.

Have a browse around their own website, do you find the navigation easy and structured well? Is the site easy to follow, uncluttered and well designed?

If it’s likely that the company will also provide hosting for your web site, does their own web site load quickly?

Check out the portfolio of the company, do they offer a variety of different looking websites and have they got any reviews you can read?

Approach the company

Hopefully, you’ve now managed to get your shortlist down further, which means now is the time to begin contacting the web design companies, and requesting quotes. You shouldn’t find much resistance or hardship at this point, most companies will jump at the chance of pitching their company, and discussing your needs.

You should already have a good understanding of the types of websites they have designed in the past and whether or not they’ve undertaken work similar to your requirements. Ask them to discuss any similar projects and don’t be afraid to ask for contact details so that you can request a referral.

Conclusion

Following your discussions with your shortlist, and upon receiving their initial quotes, you should have a fair idea as to which web design company you are likely to partner with. If you feel like you need to speak to each company once more, do so, as you’re likely to be making a serious financial investment and it’s crucial that you make the right decision.

Got a project in mind?

01536 391 745 hello@tjdesign.uk

Beware of spam SEO emails

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A client of mine recently received the following email entitled ‘professional analysis of kandtfootwear.co.uk’ and asked me to comment. I have seen an increase in these types of long SEO spam emails which contains inaccurate and false information misleading clients in to believing their web site is under-performing and need to pay a so called ‘expert’ to increase their visibility in the search engines. I have commented below on the email received.

Hi,

My name is [Removed name]. I’m a senior search consultant at Top 10 Guaranteed [A bit of research shows that they used to send exactly the same emails as a company called SEO Doctors and they are also known as The Web Clinic]. We are part of an IT Group that has been established for over 10 years as a leading specialist in all aspects of online sales and marketing.

Excuse the unusual approach, however I am writing to inform you that I recently visited your website, kandtfootwear.co.uk, during a routine survey of web sites which would be capable of achieving higher search engine performance. Obviously resulting in an increase in online sales or the generation of high volumes of additional sales leads. [hmmm.. debatable having looked at your own web site(s) top10guaranteed.co.uk has a page ranking of 0/10]

I am confident that this information will be of use to you, but if I have caused offence in any way through my approach I sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused. I’m hoping this will arouse your curiosity, since you are obviously attempting to gain new business through your website.

From my initial observations, your website is underperforming in at least one of the major search engines such as – Google, Yahoo, and Bing. You probably are aware that most people don’t look past the first page of search results. [The web site is actually no. 1 for targeted keywords. Try a search for ‘agricultural footwear‘] I struggled to find you in the first couple of pages for highly relevant keyphrases, which means that you could be losing out on a significant amount of business. As such I did a bit more digging… [You conveniently haven’t listed the highly relevant ‘keyphrases’ mentioned and you don’t know what is being targeted]

I ran a back-link check on kandtfootwear.co.uk first. Back-links are the number of times your site is linked to through another website. Your website has 5 back-links. [This is inaccurate – if you had researched this, you will find that the web site actually has 148 back-links!]

Back-links also contribute towards your Google Pagerank score. Pagerank is Google telling us how trustworthy your site is. A higher score = higher search rankings. Right now your website has a Google Pagerank score of 3/10, [3/10 is pretty reasonable for a small to medium sized business] which, when compared to other high ranking competitor websites, may be restricting your rankings. This can be down to many reasons which we can help resolve. The next check I applied on your website was page indexing. Search engines like Google scan the information on your website and feed it back to their database. The Google formula is then applied to the data to determine where your website should rank. As such the more pages your website has indexed with quality unique content, the higher you can rank with Google. Right now, your site has 14 pages indexed with Google [Google actually has 15 pages indexed – i’m not sure what methods you are using to gain this information or if you are even doing any research?], and Google is regarding some of that content as poor. This can be down to many reasons which we can help resolve. Finally I also identified that there could be a number of structural issues with your website which may be having a negative impact on your search rankings.

So, here’s a recap of my findings of gdock.co.uk [gdock.co.uk?!] :

– Your Google Pagerank is 3/10
– You have 5 back-links [Incorrect]
– Your website has 14 pages indexed [Incorrect]
– There are issues with content and site structure [Incorrect]

I have only scratched the surface of the factors impacting on your rankings [This is very true!!]. Unlike some of our competitors, I wanted to do some initial work to identify that it would be worthwhile for you to talk to us before contacting you with my proposal. The best way to deal with any problem is to first apply a thorough diagnosis. It would, therefore, be a sensible next step for us to apply a more thorough diagnosis of why your website may not be ranking well before discussing with you what could be done about it.

What we have to offer could prove to be the most value for money investment you could make for your business this year. In an economic climate that is difficult, to say the least, all businesses must invest in areas that will deliver maximum returns with minimal investment. [Again true ..but why would i invest in a company that sends spam emails with false information?] Only strong search engine listings offer real growth opportunities as consumer trends change.

So what do we have to offer? Many factors now impact on how and where you will appear on the search engines. Unfortunately, most business people overlook the things that prevent them from performing well in the search engines and throw good money behind advertising without understanding what their web site really needs.

Good SEO firms assess the needs of sites individually and address these by working on sites month on month. A one off fix just doesn’t work. As such we offer two approaches for you to consider.

We can produce a detailed 30-40 page Diagnostic Report for your site together with a personal telephone consultation with one of our SEO experts. Consultations explain the technicalities in our report in an easy to understand manner. Our normal price for this service is £499.00. If you are prepared to act this week we are prepared to offer this at a reduced one-off fee of £299.00. Following this consultation we can discuss how best to rectify the situation.

Alternatively we could provide this detailed Diagnostic Report for your site completely free [With accurate results?]. For this you would need to commit to take up our 12 month optimisation and consultancy service prior to our work commencing. The service is based around promotion of specific agreed keyphrases after discussing how to put right all issues highlighted in our report. We can deliver first page search results in the major search engines. For this we charge as little as £35 per keyphrase, per month, dependent upon the competitiveness of that keyphrase. Furthermore, we guarantee to refund your money should we fail to put you in the first page for the keyphrases once all changes have been implemented.

The reason why I’m so confident about our capabilities is because we have done it so many times before. To name a few examples: Maternity Clothes, Dubai Properties, Gravel, Health Store, Van Hire, Fire Extinguishers, Financial Advisers UK, Coffee Machines, Swimwear, Limo Hire, Mortgage Advisers UK, and more – all are on the first page of Google and all highly competitive keyphrases. We put them there. [There is no mention in your email about keyword analysis, this is extremely important as you may get the web site to no.1 but if nobody is searching for that keyword, there is absolutely no point in wasting your efforts]

Our own group website is in the first page of Google for Website Marketing Company and Internet marketing companies [You are currently on pg 3 for ‘Internet marketing companies’]. You will see our site listed as The Web Clinic [So are you The Web Clinic or Top 10 Guaranteed? – Confusing]. To satisfy you even further we can also provide you with comparative existing client’s contact details to serve as references for the quality of our work.

If you are genuinely serious about improving your online revenues and want professional website marketing for a low flat monthly fee or a one-off detailed report, please visit our service website at www.top10guaranteed.co.uk which provides more details about our excellent service and a call back form. See a selection of our excellent testimonials and example results achieved recently on behalf of our clients. Alternatively, if you prefer to discuss your requirements over the phone, then please don’t hesitate to contact me on 0844 7404951 and press Option 1 or simply reply to this mail with a convenient time to call you. [No, Thanks]

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

[Name & phone no removed]
Senior Search Consultant
Top 10 Guaranteed

Got a project in mind?

01536 391 745 hello@tjdesign.uk

How do I get started with Google Analytics?

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What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics (GA) is a small piece of JavaScript code. This is added to your website in the background and can track every interaction the user makes.

It’s really important to use this or a similar statistics package so you can learn the behaviour of a typical user.

This is my preferred choice of analytics package. Although it can seem a little daunting and complex to a beginner. If you would like a lot of data and have the time to analyse and act upon it, you can make informed decisions with your website changes. It really maximise your websites performance.

To get started, request that your website designer follows the steps below..

  • Create or sign in to your Analytics account:
  • Set up a property in your Analytics account. A property represents your website or app, and is the collection point in Analytics for the data from your site or app.
  • Set up a reporting view in your property. Views let you create filtered perspectives of your data. For example, all data except from your company’s internal IP addresses, or all data associated with a specific sales region.
  • Follow the instructions to add the tracking code to your website template so you can collect data in your Analytics property.
  • Now grab yourself a cup of tea and be patient as it can take 24 – 48 hours for the metrics to start showing within your account.

How do I navigate the Google Analytics dashboard?

Now you have GA installed on your website the next step is to sign in to your account. An overview of your websites performance will be shown as the dashboard.

The ‘reports’ section is very useful and displays data for the following categories…

  • Real-Time (what is happening on your site right now such as the number of visitors, locations and pages they have visited)
  • Audience (displays demographics including age and gender)
  • Acquisition (the source of your website traffic i.e. organic search engine results or social media campaigns)
  • Behaviour (the behaviour of your visitors which includes how long they stick around and the bounce rate)
  • Conversions (when a goal is set up i.e. an enquiry form or download, the metrics will appear here)

The above information from the reports is really valuable.

You may find out that 75% of your visitors are normally male millennials which mostly use mobile phone devices.  Then you can really optimise your website content to suit your audience. You will also know which channel needs more focus to gain more traffic.

Which metrics should I focus on?

  • Acquisition overview
    This report provides insight in to the source of where your traffic is coming from, each source will have a different level of conversion. If your number is low for a particular source, i.e. direct visitors, is your website URL easy to spell and simple to remember?
  • Social overview
    Measures the impact of social media, do you need to create more website content with a social media campaign?
  • Bounce rate
    How quickly a visitor leaves your website without performing any actions. If you have a high bounce rate, do you have poor quality traffic or poor usability?
  • Traffic sources
    Focus on your top sources, this is also beneficial to determine if it’s worth continuing to pay for that annual subscription to that online directory.
  • Page views
    When used with other traffic sources, you can determine why a page has had a large number of views. Are you offering high quality content or is it because your visitor can’t find what they are looking for?
  • Exit pages
    This is very beneficial in determining at what stage your visitors are leaving your website so you can investigate further and take action.

Summary

Analytics can be a difficult subject to get your head around with it’s own technical jargon and complexity, however it is so valuable to get the most out of your website and to be able to grow online.

The above doesn’t even scratch the surface when it comes to GA but the above will get you started on installation and delve in to the first steps of measuring your websites performance.

Got a project in mind?

01536 391 745 hello@tjdesign.uk

Should I advertise on my website?

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I get a lot of enquiries from my clients who receive a high volume of traffic, who would like to use their website for advertising space. I have always been slightly cautious of this approach as I feel if you don’t get it correct, the website you have worked so hard on will actually put visitors off and make them click elsewhere.

I decided to do some research so it wasn’t such a grey area and here are my findings…

Deciding whether or not to advertise space on your website depends on a couple of things:

  • Who your target audience are?
  • How would they react and would they benefit from advertising?

Once you have the above information, this will help you choose relevant adverts for your visitors. They are more likely to bring you revenue if the ads are something they are interested in.

How do I work out what to charge?

Pricing based on actions

Working out the cost to advertise on your site depends on how many unique visitors you receive per month. Obviously the more visitors, the more you can charge.

The amount varies but one way you can work this out is by working out the number of impressions the advertisement would get (i.e. the number of visits) and then give it a CPM (cost per thousand).

Smaller websites have a CPM of about £1 – £3 so for every thousand impressions the user would pay this amount. If your site had 10,000 unique visits, you could charge £10 – £30 per month for the advert.

There are other models available including cost per click (CPC) based on every click on the advert and cost per action (CPA) which is based on a click which then results in an action (i.e. a purchase).

Using advertising networks

Another way to advertise is to use a third party network such as Google AdSense which provides code to display on your website. You receive a small commission for each click.

Getting the most from your ads

A successful ad campaign is based around many factors but here is are some guidelines to generate the most revenue:

  • Testing
    Test different artwork (call to actions, size, shape, colour), banner placement and different offers including pricing so you have a better understanding of what works and what doesn’t.
  • Tracking
    Know your goals and set up tracking that you know who’s clicking on what and where your advertising traffic is coming from.

In summary, advertising on your website can be a little daunting but if you know your audience well, what they would like to see, charge the correct amount, test, test, test and track, you shouldn’t go too far wrong!

Got a project in mind?

01536 391 745 hello@tjdesign.uk

Will the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) legislation impact me?

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Unless you have been hiding under a rock for the last few months, you may have heard of the new GDPR legislation coming in to force from the 25th May. The new regulation aims to protect your data privacy for all individuals within the EU and most businesses will need to take some form of action in order to avoid significant (legal) financial penalties.

Action required for your website

  • Websites will need to contain a privacy policy which is visible from every page (normally the footer). Here is a template which can be amended for your business. Any third parties used to collect data will need to be disclosed within the section on ‘controlling your personal information’ (ie MailChimp).
  • Ensure any existing terms of conditions policies mentioning usage of data is aligned with the updated privacy policy.
  • Any website forms consenting to mailing lists must have a clear positive opt-in option (ie no pre-ticked boxes!).
  • Existing mailing databases can be used, you may have seen many companies already sending out communications to stay opted in. The advice is to include a message similar to the following to existing subscribers.

In May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will come into effect. Respecting your data is important to us.

You are currently part of our database because you have signed up, enquired with, expressed an interest in, stayed with or visited us in the past. On that basis, we are assuming that there is legitimate interest for contacting you.

If you are happy with this and wish to continue receiving great offers direct to your inbox, you do not need to do anything. If you prefer to be removed from our list, please click the unsubscribe link below and if you change your mind, don’t worry, you can subscribe again on our website at any time.

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Note: This is intended to provide an overview of GDPR and is not a definitive statement of the law.

For a definitive guide, check out the Information Commissioner’s Office website.

Got a project in mind?

01536 391 745 hello@tjdesign.uk