Update your Website Content Regularly!

The major search engines’ goal is to get searchers the best, most relevant information they can, based on the search terms people put in. These days information gets out of date pretty much as soon as it’s down on paper (so to speak) so search engines reward websites that regularly update their content, in the belief that the more often it’s updated, the more likely it is to be relevant and up-to-date.

So it’s no good writing the perfect bit of copy with all the information your customers need to know, putting it up and then leaning back feeling chuffed with yourself for the next twelve months. Sure, the quality original content will get you up there at first (providing your website is optimized) but as it starts to look middle aged it will slowly drop back down again.

Conversely, if the Googlebot returns to your website and finds something has changed since the last time it was here, it makes a note to come back sooner next time.

So keep writing, keep coming up with useful information for your customers and keep updating your website regularly. Adding even just a short paragraph (of at least 200 to 300 words) once a month will keep your website fresh in the eyes of the all important Google and Yahoo, and keep them coming back to check for more.

Getting Seen on Google or Rising the Rankings Right

A lot of people come to us asking if we can get them seen on Google. There is a great deal of false information circulating about search engine rankings, so we'd like to contribute a bit to clearing this up.

The idea of a search engine is to fish the most relevent useful details out of a massive and ever expanding ocean of information, some of it good, some not. Good websites get to the top by being the most relevent useful information - i.e. providing exactly what the surfer is looking for.

However, because of the huge profits to be made in clicks, unscrupulous people either make impossible claims, or bully and cheat their way to the top with tricks and underhand methods aimed at search engines, not humans ... this results in surfers wasting their time on sites which contain nothing of value (usually just lots more links, which send you round in circles), but once the unsuspecting visitor has been tricked into clicking, the webmaster has made his money, whether or not you got what you wanted. These activities degrade the quality of the Internet and frustrate users and genuine website owners and designers.

Like Google (who remove and bar such players from their listings) we think very little of these people, who contribute nothing and are concerned only with making a quick buck, not providing a useful service.

So all our methods are white hat, Google approved and recommended, and genuine. It means you may not be found internationally on major keywords which have multi-national corporations paying dedicated teams millions of pounds to get them there. But it does mean you are almost certain to come up on your business name and industry in your local area, and be found by people who are actually looking for you.

Some of our methods:

• Search engine submission with data brief
• Accurate, relevant keywords, titles and descriptions (embedded data the search engines analyse)
• Using specific keyword rich page titles, headers, subheaders, internal linking, and page copy
• Using text links that both humans and search engines can follow
• Making accessible sites (to people with disabilities and low speed connections)
• Google sitemaps
• Giving clients advice on further methods

How to Write Copy for your Website Homepage

Homepage Heaven

Your homepage is arguably the most important page on your site. It’s the place most people will land and the impression it gives in a few seconds will determine whether people continue to a contact or sale, or just keep surfing. There are a number of things you can and must do to ensure your homepage is working effectively for you, from having an attention grabbing title, to aiming right with your product, establishing trust and hitting them with the unmissable specials.

Catchy Titles

A few carefully chosen words can catch someone’s attention, intrigue and have them eager for more. If you have a great unique selling point, use that, or here are some more ways to make an impression with a headline:

• Use ‘how to’ phrases – people are often looking for information quickly.
• Promise a major benefit – save £100 a year
• Target specific customer types – e.g. websites for plumbers, the potential clients you cut out will be balanced by the increased interest of the targeted group
• Ask a question that makes them say ‘yes!’ – Are you baffled by the Internet?

One Product or Many?

If you only have one product or service, it’s important to get to the point quickly. Hit them with your Unique Selling Point straight away, and the benefits they will gain from purchasing what you offer.

If you offer a range of products it is more important to emphasise why you are the company to go for. You could sell yourself as the best value in the market place, on location, variety or quality customer service.

If you have any unmissable specials, make sure they're clearly explained and immediately spotted.

Establish Trust

Everyone says they offer great customer service, but can you prove it? Use customer testimonials to show you’re not just blowing your own trumpet.

Also, stating what qualifications you have and even providing scans on the certificates will prove that you’re serious about what you do. If you have any awards, don’t be shy! Tell your customers what they are for and include logos of awarding bodies.

Now it’s possible for anyone to make a website, many people are worried that a company they contact online might take their money and run. If you can include an address and photographs of your premises or branded vehicles, you prove you are not a fly-by-night rogue trader.

Especially if you are going to be collecting customer information, include a brief statement about your privacy policy and link to any relevant legal documents.

Finally, using the logos of relevant associations and official bodies, or even just other known companies can give you ‘borrowed credibility’.

Reading Post Business Profile

Simple Website Designs has been chosen for a Business Profile in the Reading Evening Post! They're keen to get us to elaborate on how the Credit Crunch has made us busier than ever, and how we make sure we're offering the best websites at the best prices. We are answering questions and a photographer will be visiting to snap us in our natural environment... We'll post as soon as we know when the profile will be published.

BNI Membership

We are proud to report that we are now members of Reading Abbey BNI group, and are looking forward to many lucrative partnerships.

Charity Website makes the Reading Chronicle

On March 12th The Chronicle reported on the free website we built for a local charity Gloucester Road Playgroup. You can see the website at www.gloucesterroadplaygroup.co.uk

What can a website do for my business?

Getting a website is a bit like choosing a form of transport. You have to decide where it is you want to get, and how much you want to spend. Below is a very broad outline of the sorts of options available to small business that are looking for websites with roughly translatable modes of transport for price guides as a useful (but not to be too heavily relied on) analogy...

Website as barefoot - free and dirty
These days, more often than not you'll have been chatting to a great potential client, they'll be keen on using your services, and then they'll say: 'Have you got a website I can check out?'

Now you have three choices:

You can say no, you don't have a website, they'll have to take your word for it that you do what you do.

You can look shifty, nod reluctantly, making excuses about it 'just being something my brother-in-law knocked up' and how it 'doesn't have the latest work you've done.'

Or, you can...

Website as Bike - cheap and light
...beam broadly and say yes, proudly giving them your business card and declaring the domain like you can't wait for them to check it out. So if a potential client meets all three of these people, who is he going to pick?

At minimum, for about the price of a half decent bike, the website can be an online brochure for your business. It can contain images of your products, services and work you've done and testimonials from previous clients. It shows that you're serious about what you do and solid enough to have invested in a professional website.

Website as Car - affordable and versatile
A step up from that you can start having your website work a bit harder for as little as a cheap second hand car. It can find you new clients all on its own with great search engine optimization and a little promotion. If the site is well written, well presented with clear Unique Selling Points and an easy route to contact, leads can start rolling in. Increasingly people are using the Internet as their first screening for new services, and if you don't have a site there, you never leave the starting blocks. With a good site, easily found, you race past the rest.

Website as Limo - expensive but impressive
Go a bit further and you could make it more of an interactive experience, offering online services to visitors and clients alike. With e-commerce, enquiry forms, online quote requests, members' only areas, surveys, instant calculators and comparisons, your visitors could start off using the free services provided on your site and -impressed by what you can afford to give away - convert into paying customers. Clients may then find your private services invaluable and remain loyal.

Website as Air Force One
Finally you could go for a complete online business, offering secure banking services, or a web based application. Not for the layman.

If you have any comments about this article or would like any further advice, you can email us at services@simplewebsitedesigns.co.uk.