Many people build their own websites and many do it well. But having just got back from a holiday, and having tried to find websites for local businesses before we went away, it was spelt out to me just how important it is to do the job properly.
And I'm not talking just about the look. A friendly site that doesn't look like it's cost a fortune is fine, but make sure that people can find it. We saw loads of places to rent whilst we were away and many advertised their website addresses. This is excellent marketing. Even better still would have been us being able to find their websites before we went, so that we could have booked with them.
It doesn't take much effort, but if you don't know what you are doing, get someone to do it for you. It can be well worth the investment.
Saturday, 16 February 2008
Monday, 11 February 2008
What Business Can Be Without A Website???
What business can afford to be without a website? My family were trying to find somewhere to learn horse ridding when on holiday. We searched the internet and nowhere was to be found. Only by a chance word of mouth did we find a really nice school.
No if anywhere had had a half decent website, we'd have booked them. The cost of the lessons so far would easily have paid for a 1 page website, even a full 5 page website would have been covered by the amount we've spent with them.
And we are only 1 customer!
Imagine that 52 weeks of the year.
Now go and get a decent website!
No if anywhere had had a half decent website, we'd have booked them. The cost of the lessons so far would easily have paid for a 1 page website, even a full 5 page website would have been covered by the amount we've spent with them.
And we are only 1 customer!
Imagine that 52 weeks of the year.
Now go and get a decent website!
Saturday, 9 February 2008
Trust No-One???
One of my new customers, who's next site is almost ready to go live, obviously trusts no-one. And in my experience, he's right.
Maybe that's a bit of an exageration. But every image we create for the site has his logo somewhere on it. I'm not talking graphics that create the layout, I mean the pictures of products; pictures that form part of instructions; pictures to expand on the text. Every one of them has the logo - and a reminder when (as I often do) I forget.
But he's right. We're putting in time & effort taking pictures, cleaning them up and presenting them - and they look great. There are plenty of people out there who think that it's fine to trawl Google Images and copy every image they come across for their own sites.
What these people forget is that copyright does exist. You can't just copy images off someone's site - you need to ask permission. But the number of customers who pass images over and it turns out that's where they are from is amazing.
I suppose Google should create a new metatag that can be placed either in images or on the page that tells it not to index these images in Google images. Professional photographers and artists creating work to sell do find their work used on other sites, without thanks or payment.
I'm not blaming Google, but they have created a tool that makes people think that any image is fair game to copy. Maybe an option in return to opt out would be advisable.
Maybe that's a bit of an exageration. But every image we create for the site has his logo somewhere on it. I'm not talking graphics that create the layout, I mean the pictures of products; pictures that form part of instructions; pictures to expand on the text. Every one of them has the logo - and a reminder when (as I often do) I forget.
But he's right. We're putting in time & effort taking pictures, cleaning them up and presenting them - and they look great. There are plenty of people out there who think that it's fine to trawl Google Images and copy every image they come across for their own sites.
What these people forget is that copyright does exist. You can't just copy images off someone's site - you need to ask permission. But the number of customers who pass images over and it turns out that's where they are from is amazing.
I suppose Google should create a new metatag that can be placed either in images or on the page that tells it not to index these images in Google images. Professional photographers and artists creating work to sell do find their work used on other sites, without thanks or payment.
I'm not blaming Google, but they have created a tool that makes people think that any image is fair game to copy. Maybe an option in return to opt out would be advisable.
Friday, 8 February 2008
Trying The Duplicate Content Filter
I worry a lot that somewhere along the line someone has pinched my text on the Mortgage Rates Site and that's why it's suddenly dropped. So I'm adding a little something to my SEO Experiment.
Teo days ago I posted the same article to all three experimental blogs. I've posted a further article to each since then. I'm wondering which, if any of the three, will appear in the Google cache when I search on parts of the text.
I've just tried "What a lovely laid back tourist spot, fishing boats" and that returned the second site. The one with a PR3 home page. Now that could be the only one Google has so far cached, so I'll need to leave it a few days to make sure both of the other sites have been cached. But it's something else to watch.
Teo days ago I posted the same article to all three experimental blogs. I've posted a further article to each since then. I'm wondering which, if any of the three, will appear in the Google cache when I search on parts of the text.
I've just tried "What a lovely laid back tourist spot, fishing boats" and that returned the second site. The one with a PR3 home page. Now that could be the only one Google has so far cached, so I'll need to leave it a few days to make sure both of the other sites have been cached. But it's something else to watch.
Thursday, 7 February 2008
Google Duplicate Content Filter
I made an interesting observation yesterday about the Google Duplicate Content Filter with a set of new sites. It's a long story - hold in there!
A new customer came to me to develop his suite of sites. He already had the URLs and had published the corporate site (GFS) and all of the other sites had holding pages. He wanted some layout and text changes to GFS so we got them in first and published them. But he wasn't happy with the suite of holding pages. These showed the sites would be ready months ago and were linked to from the GFS site and mentioned in literature. Rather than give a poor impression, the corporate site was copied to all of the other URLs.
So we've got several versions of the same site on different URLs. All of the URLs had already been cached and had Google Page Rank 0. So what would happen?
Step forward a few weeks to Monday and I published the first of the ecommerce sites (MPL Direct). Fine, that's now not duplicated.
For some strange reason, one that I can't remember, I was looking at the search results of the sites late yesterday. And I noticed that only 1 version of the corporate site is now published, even though there are loads about. Quite interestingly, it's the copy on the MPL Direct site. So even though a lot of the text didn't change or changed only a little on the GFS site, that site has been removed as duplicated in favour of the site that's only just had the content published. None of the other sites are cached.
The other twist in the tail is that by luck, it's the first site that we've gone live with. So as soon as Google visits that site, it will now no longer count that sie as duplicate to the rest of the suite. Will that mean that one of the others suddenly takes the role of lead site according to Google?
No idea why this one was chosen as the favourite. GFS had the text, or nearly the same text, for months before. GFS was registered long before MPL, which was registered in a batch of sites. Both have PR0, but GFS has 6 pages PR0, MPL Direct just the 1 page.
The strange think is, another URL is appearing as favourite today - one that I haven't yet been given control of, but one with a copy of the original GFS site.
Something to watch for anyway.But the moral of the story is that if you think buying multiple URLs to increase your traffic, make sure they do all have unique content.
A new customer came to me to develop his suite of sites. He already had the URLs and had published the corporate site (GFS) and all of the other sites had holding pages. He wanted some layout and text changes to GFS so we got them in first and published them. But he wasn't happy with the suite of holding pages. These showed the sites would be ready months ago and were linked to from the GFS site and mentioned in literature. Rather than give a poor impression, the corporate site was copied to all of the other URLs.
So we've got several versions of the same site on different URLs. All of the URLs had already been cached and had Google Page Rank 0. So what would happen?
Step forward a few weeks to Monday and I published the first of the ecommerce sites (MPL Direct). Fine, that's now not duplicated.
For some strange reason, one that I can't remember, I was looking at the search results of the sites late yesterday. And I noticed that only 1 version of the corporate site is now published, even though there are loads about. Quite interestingly, it's the copy on the MPL Direct site. So even though a lot of the text didn't change or changed only a little on the GFS site, that site has been removed as duplicated in favour of the site that's only just had the content published. None of the other sites are cached.
The other twist in the tail is that by luck, it's the first site that we've gone live with. So as soon as Google visits that site, it will now no longer count that sie as duplicate to the rest of the suite. Will that mean that one of the others suddenly takes the role of lead site according to Google?
No idea why this one was chosen as the favourite. GFS had the text, or nearly the same text, for months before. GFS was registered long before MPL, which was registered in a batch of sites. Both have PR0, but GFS has 6 pages PR0, MPL Direct just the 1 page.
The strange think is, another URL is appearing as favourite today - one that I haven't yet been given control of, but one with a copy of the original GFS site.
Something to watch for anyway.But the moral of the story is that if you think buying multiple URLs to increase your traffic, make sure they do all have unique content.
Wednesday, 6 February 2008
Give A Freebie or Two...
We all like receiving free gifts, services and the likes, but do we like giving them? I've talked no end about promotional gifts over on that blog, but do such gifts always have to be tangible items?
Recently a customer has been struggling with his shopping site. Most items have a standard postage rate and PayPal was able to handle these perfectly. But some are heavy and bulky and cost almost 10 times the price to post. He couldn't code this into PayPal so asked for help.
The only solution was to write a customised shopping basket, in which he could also tie in the associated costs for particular items. Now this involved a few hours' work to get it going then odd hours to test and implement it. Maybe a day's work in total?
But he'd made it clear that his business couldn't afford a huge payout for any changes. That didn't matter. I could see that the custom basket could be used for other customers as well. With only slight modifications each time, everyone can have their own basket which links into whatever payment provider (or providers) they want.
I saw this as a potential opportunity. So I told him there would be no charge for the days' work - totally free.
Now he's delighted with me - first orders came through almost straight after the basket went live and it all runs smoothly. His business is running better and if he needs a new site or anyone asks him for a recommendation, hopefully I've just made sure I'm his first port of call!
But I've also taken something away with me with the shopping basket. I've developed a useful tool that I can quickly put into other sites (and in fact have done so). It wouldn't have been fiar therefore to charge him the development costs.
So we're both pleased. Hopefully it will help his business strengthen, and in a year or so he'll be back for a bigger & better site!
Recently a customer has been struggling with his shopping site. Most items have a standard postage rate and PayPal was able to handle these perfectly. But some are heavy and bulky and cost almost 10 times the price to post. He couldn't code this into PayPal so asked for help.
The only solution was to write a customised shopping basket, in which he could also tie in the associated costs for particular items. Now this involved a few hours' work to get it going then odd hours to test and implement it. Maybe a day's work in total?
But he'd made it clear that his business couldn't afford a huge payout for any changes. That didn't matter. I could see that the custom basket could be used for other customers as well. With only slight modifications each time, everyone can have their own basket which links into whatever payment provider (or providers) they want.
I saw this as a potential opportunity. So I told him there would be no charge for the days' work - totally free.
Now he's delighted with me - first orders came through almost straight after the basket went live and it all runs smoothly. His business is running better and if he needs a new site or anyone asks him for a recommendation, hopefully I've just made sure I'm his first port of call!
But I've also taken something away with me with the shopping basket. I've developed a useful tool that I can quickly put into other sites (and in fact have done so). It wouldn't have been fiar therefore to charge him the development costs.
So we're both pleased. Hopefully it will help his business strengthen, and in a year or so he'll be back for a bigger & better site!
Tuesday, 5 February 2008
Editing Videos
I'm currently struggling with a few short video clips. Whatever I try, they go wrong. The customer is getting really annoyed having 'paid a small fortune' for the website and with advertising going live in a couple of days. Actually, £275 for a website, with bought in photography and 3 video clips to edit, is a really good price!
The problem is that the videos are 1 hour long DVDs and I'm having to extract a 60 second clip from each, then convert them to wmv from mpeg so that they are downloaded in a reasonable time (the £70 per year for media streaming being too much).
Each mpeg is about 12 - 14 mb - imaging trying to download that over a slow connection! So I'm converting the mpegs to wmv files using a tool I've used a few times before, but for some unexplained reason, the conversion process keeps dropping the sound.
So I separated the sound track from the video track and dropped that in on it's own. Tested first video - wonderful. Did the other 2, quick listen to make sure sound is there and loaded them to the website.
But on the second to conversions the original sound track had carried over! So because I was a fraction of a second out from where I had dropped in the sound track, the entire track echoed!
This time (and each attempt is taking a while) I've removed the sound from the original whilst dropping the separated track into the audio stream.
The things I do to make customers happy - and earn a little bit of cash! He's definitely had good value for money out of my time on this project.
The problem is that the videos are 1 hour long DVDs and I'm having to extract a 60 second clip from each, then convert them to wmv from mpeg so that they are downloaded in a reasonable time (the £70 per year for media streaming being too much).
Each mpeg is about 12 - 14 mb - imaging trying to download that over a slow connection! So I'm converting the mpegs to wmv files using a tool I've used a few times before, but for some unexplained reason, the conversion process keeps dropping the sound.
So I separated the sound track from the video track and dropped that in on it's own. Tested first video - wonderful. Did the other 2, quick listen to make sure sound is there and loaded them to the website.
But on the second to conversions the original sound track had carried over! So because I was a fraction of a second out from where I had dropped in the sound track, the entire track echoed!
This time (and each attempt is taking a while) I've removed the sound from the original whilst dropping the separated track into the audio stream.
The things I do to make customers happy - and earn a little bit of cash! He's definitely had good value for money out of my time on this project.
Monday, 4 February 2008
Earning Online
I'm sometimes approached by people wanting to earn extra cash online. Some arrive with the view that if they pay me £300 for a single website, then they will be able to retire and just watch it's earnings arriving every month. Maybe, if they have a really special idea and are willing to put work into it, but I've had people approach me like this with 'I want a mobile phone site' or 'I want a travel site' as their idea and no intention of putting any work into it.
Yes, both of these ideas work - with suitable input. I was able to give them ideas for how to make the sites work, but these fell on deaf ideas. A site won't just make you a constant line of income, no matter how well search engine optimised it is.
Any idea takes some input from the owner to allow it to sit there, tick over and earn an income. Whether it's blogging, article writing or just links building, some effort is always required.
If that wasn't the case - would I be building the sites and selling them for £300? No, I'd build half a dozen and sit back myself and watch the cash roll in! I do have a couple of sites that work for me like that and need time and effort - the Compare Mortgage Rates and Holiday Cottages sites being the main two.
But to earn online doesn't just involve websites. Some use affiliate selling, other people use surveys (I've done this one, but just don't have the time at the moment). There are so many of these ideas that I've decided to document them separately - so keep an eye on my Earn Cash Online Blog to see what's going on there.
Yes, both of these ideas work - with suitable input. I was able to give them ideas for how to make the sites work, but these fell on deaf ideas. A site won't just make you a constant line of income, no matter how well search engine optimised it is.
Any idea takes some input from the owner to allow it to sit there, tick over and earn an income. Whether it's blogging, article writing or just links building, some effort is always required.
If that wasn't the case - would I be building the sites and selling them for £300? No, I'd build half a dozen and sit back myself and watch the cash roll in! I do have a couple of sites that work for me like that and need time and effort - the Compare Mortgage Rates and Holiday Cottages sites being the main two.
But to earn online doesn't just involve websites. Some use affiliate selling, other people use surveys (I've done this one, but just don't have the time at the moment). There are so many of these ideas that I've decided to document them separately - so keep an eye on my Earn Cash Online Blog to see what's going on there.
Sunday, 3 February 2008
Take Every Opportunity
18 months ago I was contacted by a potential client asking if I could do a simple, 1 page site for her. I gave her my standard quote and she was a little disappointed - I'm not exactly expensive, but it was still double her budget.
My workload wasn't prohibitive, but wasn't quiet and she sounded easy to please, and I guessed that I could get the majority of the site done that day, using a template. So we struck a deal for my lowest priced site (ever).
She was easy to please and the site does look good. After registering a URL there wasn't a great deal of money in the build, not even enough to buy a case of cheap wine. But do I regret it?
Well the day in question I was waiting on other customers getting back to me, so I had the time to work on her site. I was able to fit her site in without affecting other work, so a few quid profit was just that - a small profit.
But since then, she's been back for another small site (at a similar price) and then a bigger site (at more realistic price) and she's preparing the text for a 4th site. A good customer! What's more, she referred another customer to me, who I would never have been introduced to without her, who had a site at full price. And then she came back with a second site.
The original customer has now referred a second friend to me, for another small site. Not sure how big yet, but if it comes off that's another success.
So was it worth doing a very knocked down price in the first place? Well with this network of friends passing me further work then definitely. Maybe if I'd been very busy or she'd been a fussy customer then I might have felt different, but my always accepting every offer of work has paid off here.
My workload wasn't prohibitive, but wasn't quiet and she sounded easy to please, and I guessed that I could get the majority of the site done that day, using a template. So we struck a deal for my lowest priced site (ever).
She was easy to please and the site does look good. After registering a URL there wasn't a great deal of money in the build, not even enough to buy a case of cheap wine. But do I regret it?
Well the day in question I was waiting on other customers getting back to me, so I had the time to work on her site. I was able to fit her site in without affecting other work, so a few quid profit was just that - a small profit.
But since then, she's been back for another small site (at a similar price) and then a bigger site (at more realistic price) and she's preparing the text for a 4th site. A good customer! What's more, she referred another customer to me, who I would never have been introduced to without her, who had a site at full price. And then she came back with a second site.
The original customer has now referred a second friend to me, for another small site. Not sure how big yet, but if it comes off that's another success.
So was it worth doing a very knocked down price in the first place? Well with this network of friends passing me further work then definitely. Maybe if I'd been very busy or she'd been a fussy customer then I might have felt different, but my always accepting every offer of work has paid off here.
Saturday, 2 February 2008
Monthly Submitting To Search Engines
I was with a new customer yesterday, who's site is about to go live. He's had bad experiences with 3 web designers before me, who have basically taken him for a ride whilst costing a lot of money and leaving him nothing. He'd all but given up on web designers when he contacted me, that bad was his experience. In fact, had I asked for a deposit he would have walked away, but I've never done that!
But he was asking me questions based on what the other guys have talked to him about and he asked me how did I submit sites to search engines each month. Each month??? I never submit a site to a search engine even once. My record from registering a URL to it being found by genuine new customers is about 4 days - it was registered & published Monday afternoon and when I checked the server logs the next day, Google had visited. I checked Google on Thursday and it was listed and over the weekend the customer emailed me to say how many people had contacted her after finding the site.
Yet I have never once submitted that site to any search engine. The new customer also said yesterday that he'd been told it would be at least 6 months before the site was listed on Google. I wondered what sort of people he had been dealing with - they have charged him more than I am going to, and I've produced the sites for him...
If your web designer can't get sites listed in Google in a couple of weeks and says it will take 6 months to get a site listed, then they don't know their business.
But he was asking me questions based on what the other guys have talked to him about and he asked me how did I submit sites to search engines each month. Each month??? I never submit a site to a search engine even once. My record from registering a URL to it being found by genuine new customers is about 4 days - it was registered & published Monday afternoon and when I checked the server logs the next day, Google had visited. I checked Google on Thursday and it was listed and over the weekend the customer emailed me to say how many people had contacted her after finding the site.
Yet I have never once submitted that site to any search engine. The new customer also said yesterday that he'd been told it would be at least 6 months before the site was listed on Google. I wondered what sort of people he had been dealing with - they have charged him more than I am going to, and I've produced the sites for him...
If your web designer can't get sites listed in Google in a couple of weeks and says it will take 6 months to get a site listed, then they don't know their business.
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