Seth Godin is a popular marketing guru and he writes some really interesting articles on his blog. I spotted his new article – ‘Things to ask before you redo your website’. The article is spot on and a must read. The web design business has been around for a decent while and only now are businesses finally grasping the true value of a well planned web strategy. I would like to highlight a few important facts before you head on to Seth Godin’s blog.

Public relations face of your business – Visitors, potentials, and customers would want to find information about your company, products, and services. Your website creates the perception of your brand in the minds of the visitors. What they see on the website is what they perceive.

Hits / Visitors / Conversions – Thanks to all those SEO (search engine optimisation) conmen, the entire purpose of websites have been misunderstood to be a war of competitors that take place on Google. Websites require a lot of hits (number of page views). Some of those hits will qualify as a quality visitor (someone who is interested in your products). The visitor will convert to a customer if you can convince them that you can provide the products they are looking for; at the right price; and to the expected quality of service. Conversions have nothing to do with search engines, even though SEO helps you get noticed. If your website’s strategy is not precise, you can get a million hits but end up with no conversions!

Time is money. Act fast – The web is a fast changing medium. For every minute you waste, you are allowing thousands of other businesses / web entrepreneurs to win over you. Set aside some time for your website and PR. What might be surprising is that businesses spend thousands on print and TV advertising and fail to invest similar time and money into their websites. After seeing your print advertisement your potential customers will want to head to your website. You don’t really want to waste the effort and investment that you put into your print campaign to be ruined by a website that couldn’t live up to the expectations of the customer.

Rather than me trying to regurgitate the checklist all over again, I thought it would be a good idea to post a link to his article. Click here to read it.

The cool and suave web guys mess it up

David had been approached by two website designers. One of them sold the idea of a website but never got on with delivering it and the second one kept emailing web jargons and didn’t go beyond corresponding. Once again, a bunch of wannabe web designers have ruined the reputation of serious website solution providers such as ours. When David came to meet us, he seemed too doubtful and wasn’t ready to trust us. I had a look through the files and images that he brought along and thought the entire project would be a fresh and fun experience to work on. David couldn’t understand why those two designers failed to put together a decent website when all the images and content were ready and available on disc.

Web design is like the self help industry. You can live 60 years and teach out of experience or alternatively take the easy route by brushing through the bestselling books under the self help category. Our confidence that we could deliver David’s website in a week put him at ease and he signed up with us.

A SEO friendly website with a smart image gallery

We at Optimise Web know the web trends up to the latest minute. The code for the new website was written from scratch, based on a content management system. This would enable the website to have high-end search engine optimisation features and provide greater flexibility to control the content. Three different image effects were used to compile the entire gallery. We even resized and optimised all the images for faster downloading.

In four days the website for Braidwood Building Contractors was sparkling new and ready to go live. David showed his website to the architects that he works with and they loved the look and feel of his new website.

We now have a happy customer and have once again proved that building websites need not be a complex task. Optimise Web believes in providing honest web solutions that deliver results. If you are not happy with your current website/provider or think that you are paying way too much, give us a call (0131 448 0483) and we can help you with the right solution that your business needs.

Searching Google with the keyword ‘Optimise Edinburgh’ returned the following results (on the 23rd of June 2009).

Supplying the word Edinburgh in the search field triggers Google to list some top results from Google Local just above its organic search results. You will notice that Optimise Solutions appears on the Google Maps listing even before the free listing of Optimise (Web) Solutions. Google assumes that I am searching for local businesses and presents the top listings from its Local Business Centre results. Try this with a keyword that relates to your business and specify your town or area. Are you there?

Some businesses might be surprised that they are already listed with Google Business Center. Google collects data from other directories and populates its own. Your listing on Google Local might have come from Yell.com or similar web directories. In such a case where you are already listed, you might want to claim your business listing by providing a valid phone number and verifying it. In order to claim your listing, you will be asked to register a free account with Google. Follow the steps provided by Google to verify your phone number. Once you have reclaimed your listing, you can customise the details and content of your listing. Google allows you to add a wide range of information to your business listing.

Getting your business listed on Google Local is just the beginning. You need to make sure that your listing appears on the top of the searches. This is where custom writing your listing comes to play. Unless you have a well written listing that is rightly targeted to your customer segment, your listing is as good as not being there. There are numerous ways that you can tweak your Google listing for better performance and higher placements. These techniques are learnt through practice and experience, and most SEO experts will be able to help you with it.

Optimise Web offers Google Local Business Center listing writing services from £50 onwards, depending on your requirements. We can spice up your listing with images, videos and reviews too! Call 0131 448 0483 or email info@optimiseweb.co.uk to get your listing noticed. So, are you ready to get new customers?