Adios Yello Pages?

I recently reviewed my web design company's Yellow Pages advertising. Essentially, I've had the feeling for some time that the Yellow Pages book was anachronistic for certain services like website design. So, I reduced my company's advert to a smaller, simpler format, much to the salesman's dismay. When he left I got the distinct impression that this was was not an uncommon experience for him.

Lo and behold, when the new book recently arrived, nearly all the web design companies had similarly reduced their adverts. Indeed, there are fewer adverts, so many were now either out of business or had stopped using Yellow Pages altogether.

The recent figures released by Yellow Pages show that our decision reflects a near universal trend. Yellow Pages is losing out, with sales down 9.4% and spend is instead going to Yell.com, up by 23%.

Decline almost always develops a momentum of its own, as falls one year feed into and precipitate further falls the next year. So we may well be witnesssing the end of the beginning of the end for Yellow Pages. But then this also raises the question of what next for Yell.com? Despite reporting rising user figures, I suspect that Yell.com is riding on the former ubiquity of Yellow Pages for an older generation. How many people under 30 use Yell.com over, say Google?

It may be that the very forces that are behind the decline of Yellow Pages will also do for Yell.com too. Local information remains important even in a globalised world, and the ability of Google and others to provide targeted localised results erodes the value proposition of Yell.com.

Flash worries

Flash it a little bit like Marmite - you either love it or hate it.

We've always had a tendency to avoid using Flash. Mainly because it is harder to optimise for the search engines and also because of accessibility concerns - but also because we've never taken the time to master it.

A recent victory in the US for three blind plaintiffs (who argued the use of Flash on the retailer's website, Target.com, made it inaccessible to screen readers and thus discriminated against the visually impaired - Target will have to payout some £3.4 million) adds weight to the case against Flash websites.

So, next time your web designer mentions redesigning your website in Flash, ask them to think again.

Woe, woe & thrice woe!

Woe, woe & thrice woe (www). It's on the internet that retailers will need to focus in order to ride out the worst of the downturn.

There's little doubt that we're now in a recession, whatever the official stats tell us.

OK, so what do we do? Well, as consumers reign in their spending, and search ever harder for bargains, the evidence is that it's increasingly online that their money will be spent. Marks & Spencer are just one of many reporting a growth in online sales alongside a decline in sales through traditional retail outlets.

If this recession is longer and deeper than the optimists predict, it will see a shake out of high street retailers, but those with a strong online strategy will be better placed to survive. Indeed, it may be that for some the internet comes to replace the high street as their main outlet.

Not too long ago, a website was seen as a peripheral sales channel - an addon for the switched on retailer. Soon the bricks and mortar shop will double up as a warehouse for the online shop(s) as internet sales see a decisive shift to predominance. The high street is where the window shopping will occur while the transaction is done online.

Some smaller, independent clothing retailers have already reached this position, using ebay to shift the unshiftable and their own websites to retail to increasingly price sensitive customers. Their physical shops are now provisioning hubs for their online outlets, busy with actual shoppers only one or two days a week. Soon shop assistants had better be web aware as they will be spending a fair amount of their time online dealing with online orders and customers.

Where retails leads others will follow. Do you have an online strategy or an online shop? Whatever your answer, contact Fresh Web Services to see if we can help you ride out the recession.

Is your business seasonal?

Sometime ago we developed an online shop for a client selling feminine hygiene products. The shop was oriented towards organic and specialist products - such as the Mooncup - that are not readily available on the high street. The shop also sells eco-friendly sanitary disposal bags too.

What our client has discovered is that small offices, guest houses and the like are grateful for finding a supplier of sanitary disposal bags in affordable quantities. Rather than having to buy such goods by the pallet, our client offers them in the 100s. As a significant number of her customers are guest houses and small hotels, etc, our client has also discovered that part of her business is also seasonal.

So, when researching for your next business plan, ask yourself if your own venture might have a seasonal aspect to it? School holidays, for example, will have a significant effect on demand patterns, Xmas and Easter too. Are there other seasonal peaks and troughs in demand that you need to be aware of?

LiveLink WCM Woes?

Does your organisation use the LiveLink WCM from OpenText? If so, you are no doubt aware that OpenText announced the demise of LiveLink WCM - they are no longer selling new licences for the product and are instead selling RedDot as their CMS of choice. The product itself will only be supported for another couple of years and OpenText are suggesting a migration strategy towards RedDot for existing LiveLink WCM users. Whether RedDot is an improvement on LiveLink WCM is a mute point at this stage.

As you are also no doubt aware, finding skilled and experienced LiveLink WCM developers has never been easy and has always been expensive - somewhere between £800-1300 per days is typical. Unfortunately, finding LiveLink resources is only going to get harder as suppliers desert the product in favour of the next big thing (which probably won't be RedDot!).

In order to fill the gap, Fresh Web Services are offering existing LiveLink WCM users a support plan that will enable you to continue to maximise your use and ROI from your LiveLink WCM investment while you consider your long term options. From a little under £500 per day, we are offering a 5 day per month support package* - this includes template development, scripting, etc. From a little under £600 per day you can alternatively purchase a 3 day per month support package*.

So, contact us here at Fresh Web Services and talk to us about our LiveLink WCM support packages. This is a golden opportunity to buy your organisation some breathing space while you consider your CMS options.

* minimum 12 month contract.

School Prints website goes live

Leicestershire web design agency Fresh Web Services have launched another online shop for Goldmark Art Gallery. School Prints offer a fabulous range of original lithographs from the famous postwar school prints project, which aimed to provide original art for school children in an affordable fashion.

Goldmark have also commissioned a series of original short films that explain the project and each individual print. These alone are worth the visit to the School Prints website.

Home Insulation Internet Marketing

Some three months after taking on the internet marketing for Home Energy Savers, their website now scores page one Google rankings for some of their main keywords such as insulation grants. We've also reduced the number of blank forms sent by simply adding some client-side validation.

So, the site is now on page one of Google for core keywords, so can we ditch Google adWords? Not yet we can't! Although the number of leads generated by 'natural' search engine results has improved markedly, PPC still remains the main source of leads.

This is a fair reminder that weaning off adWords is a slow, patient process. that requires more than a single strategy.

Soffrittos

Fresh Web Services launched the The 2 Lucys website today. The 2 Lucys have just launched a new product, 'no sweat soffritto' - onions cooked in olive oil until they’re soft and sweet, combined with fabulous herbs and spices to create the base for truly fabulous food. The 'no sweat soffritto' are available in three flavours - zingy lime and coriander, warm spices and apricot, and a bit of a kick chilli - in Sainsbury, Morrisons and Tesco.

Rainbows Children's Hospice

The new website for Rainbows Children's Hospice is now live. Rainbows is the children's hospice of the East Midlands, UK.

Rainbows approached Fresh Web Services, a Leicestershire Web Design & Development company to build them a new online shop. Half way through that project, Rainbows also asked Fresh Web to also build a new website, with a Content Management System (CMS) which another company had promised but failed to deliver.

So, we used the new design and created their new website using the Joomla! CMS. This enables the staff at Rainbows to keep their website up to date and includes a form creation wizard so they can build custom forms, etc. We believe that we have delivered an internet platform that will enable Rainbows to generate even more revenue online to help sustain the much needed service that they provide.

Rainbows is now launching a new 'Build for the Future' appeal to extend the size and range of services they offer. Their new website and online shop are integral to this new endeavour. Fresh Web Services are pleased and proud to have made a small contribution to this effort.

Cavity Wall and Loft Insulation Grants

Internet marketing: Home Energy Savers commission Fresh Web Services to manage their online lead generation service using Google adWords and organic search results. The campaign is based around keyword phrases such as government grants, insulation grants, cavity wall grants, loft insulation grants and solar heating grants. The goal is to treble the number of leads currently gained while also reducing lead acquisition costs.

At the moment the website is not optimised at all, and has a very low page rank. This means that to date the client has been entirely dependent upon adWords to generate leads - an expensive existence. Therefore we're adopting a twin track strategy - initially we're trying to maximise the efficiency of the adWords campaign, splitting one large campaign into smaller, more focused campaigns. Simultaneously, we're starting to optimise the website itself, and build a linking strategy - this is a longer term strategy, but will eventually result in more and cheaper leads.

Watch this space!

gagaprinthouse is live

Leicester web design agency, Fresh Web Services, have just published a new online shop selling the best in contemporary urban, street and graffiti art from artists such as D*Face, O. Jago, Panic, Priseman and Swoon. Check it out at www.gagaprinthouse.com.

Ecommerce stupidities

I have an account with one of the larger football club's online shop. I've just ordered a gift for my son's birthday & thought it a good idea to update my profile before checking out, after all, I've recently moved and changed my email provider.

A simple, straightforward scenario you would think. Not a bit of it. I wasn't allowed to change either because I have an 'order history'! That's right, because I've ordered before, I can't now change my home or email address.

What a crazy situation. Now my order confirmation is going to a dead email address - probably not too much of a problem? However, the home/billing address no longer match - so that might mean my payment will be refused! On some ecommerce sites, card validation includes address verification. Hmmm!

I've now had to email the shop to ask how to change my email address, etc! How's that for enhancing the customer experience!

UPDATE
The only response that I've had from this site was a reply to my moan email telling me that my order had dispatched. Not impressed.

UK Software Copyright Police

4,500 new trading standards officers are to be given powers in the UK to check businesses' compliance with software licencing laws from April 2007. The new powers come under the Designs & Patents Act, 1988 and are likely to result in court appearances for those not in compliance.

Businesses are therefore advised to check that not only are their software licences in order but also to make sure that they only buy new software from reputable suppliers. Alternatively, they could try open source alternatives - Open Office is the open source alternative to Microsoft Office for example.

Read more about the 'software copyright police'.

Want a website, not sure what's involved?

My Leicester web design agency has just published a simple 'what's involved' guide to companies who are about to embark upon commissioning their first website. You can read the web design checklist here.

From getting an ISP (internet service proider) through to marketing your finished website, this is a very brief checklist or starter's guide.

Search Engine Optimisation - it's the customer, stupid

The classic story is that when Bill Clinton was running for President, he had a reminder on his desk saying, "It's the economy, stupid", just to remind him of the core issue at stake.

Yesterday, at the East Midlands EBusiness Expo at Nottingham, Hugh Jackson of MediaCo could well have used a similar analogy, "It's the customer, stupid", when outlining the key issues to remember when considering search engine optimisation. At the end of the day, you should always remember to write copy for the potential customer, since its the customer who will buy (or not), not the search engine.

Jackson outlined the importance of keyword analysis, of avoiding flash-intensive web design, of using CSS & good coding standards, good use of keyword phrases in page titles and headers, etc. These can be called the classic 'on-page' optimisation techniques. However, he also stressed the importance of good copy, web copy that engages the end user - "It's the customer, stupid"! There's no point in spending time & money gettting the search engines to deliver clients that you then alienate by poorly written copy.

From our perspective, as a web design agency, Jackson's overview was reassuring, since it seems to imply that we are following best practice when designing and optimising our client's websites. We tend to start the design process by understanding our client's objectives, the market they are operating in, and the customers they are attempting to reach. We then undertake keyword research and analysis, using tools such as WordTracker. We then try to ensure that we know the themes, the target audience & how to reach them, and that we have the client on board, before we start to actually design and build the website. Finally, we increasingly use services of the Leicester copywriter Gist Consulting when budget allows - in order to make sure that we're remembering that it is actually all about the end user or potential customer.

However, there was a sting in the tail of Jackson's talk. On page optimisation is only part of the story. 'Off-page' optimisation - essentially strategic link building - is of almost equal importance but is also getting harder! Google now smells a link farm as if it were down wind from a real pigsty. As the net becomes more cluttered, the worth of good quality links will grow and they will become harder to find. So, expect to pay more to appear in relevant directories, for example, in the near future.

As web designers and search engine optimisers, we will need to ensure that clients begin to get a real appreciation of the difficulties and costs involved in off-page optimisation. This may not be an easy story to sell to our customers, but if we don't then we will ultimately fail them. We too have to remember, "It's the customer, stupid"!

Yahoo PPC changes

At the East Midlands EBusiness Expo in Nottingham yesterday, Richard Firminger, regional sales director at Yahoo!, gave us a brief overview of where Yahoo! (or is it Overture?) are in terms of new channels, etc.

Of most immediate interest to me, at least, was the overview he gave of the 'Panama' changes to the Yahoo search marketing platform currently being rolled out in the USA. Essentially, ads will be turned around almost instantly, rather than within 3 days as currently, new ad testing tools will be included (much like Gooogle Adwords already offers), more advanced analytics, & the minimum bid is being reduced to 5p - effectively allowing advertisers to target the 'long tail' more economically.

When can we expect to see these changes in the UK? Q2 it seems. Now, is that Q2 of this year or of the next financial year?

Optimisation takes time

We recently launched a website for a new client - on the Tuesday it went live, on the Wednesday I got a call asking why he couldn't find it on Google!

Now, we have had client sites indexed within 2 days, but that's not the usual experience. Getting into the search engines is also only the starting point. It takes time & patience to search engine optimise a website correctly.

So, please, a little patience!

New UK Website Regulations

Since Jan 1st, 2007, all UK company websites must have the following information:

• company number
• registered company address
  
• VAT number if VAT registered
• in the case of an investment company, the fact that it is such a company

For more details go.

The Holy Grail - Google #1

The most common question that a web design client asks me is, "How do we get on the first page of Google?"

Well, here's a few tips. They're not exhaustive nor are they guaranteed to get you to the top, but they are some of the things that we do during a web design project and we've had some excellent search engine optimisation results. Before we dive in though, a little explanation first; when we talk of keywords we're really talking of singular words or phrases. So your keyword maybe websites or website design, its just that we make no distinction between singular words or phrases when talking about keywords.

• Know your audience, know their keywords. Before your designer starts with layout, colour schemes, etc, you should do your homework on what your customers are looking for, what terms they use when searching for your service and then tailor your content accordingly. We use WordTracker to analyse what terms people are using & find niche keywords. So, while in your trade you use the term 'site services' to describe your industrial cleaning service, you might find out the following:

• Optimising for 'site services' means you'll be competing overwhelmingly with people selling website or computer maintenance services. Its also a very popular term, so very competitive.
  
• That using 'industrial cleaning' is both a less competitive and a more accurate descriptive term for what you are offering - and its what people are more likely to use when searching for your type of service.
• Local vs national terms. Is your service a local one? If so, its often far easier to get top billing for a term like 'leicester copy writing' than it is for 'vibratory bowl feeders' or 'organic tampons'. Don't forget to target your local market if its at all possible.
  
• One page, one target. Try not to target too many keywords on one page. For example, suppose your company provides web design and ecommerce solutions. Split these into two separate pages. Target and optimise each page accordingly. So one page is devoted to marketing your 'web design leicester' service, while the other one focuses on 'ecommerce' and 'shopping carts in leicestershire'.
• Avoid keyword stuffing. Related to the above point, avoid putting too many keywords in the title of your page. Too many dilutes your scoring, so less is more.
• Links. Try to get good quality links to your site from other 'quality' sites, and try to ensure that they use one of your keywords in their link text. Perhaps this needs a little more explanation:
• Quality site is a website that is popular and well respected. So, if you are a member of a respected trade association (say the Federation of Small Businesses in the UK), make sure that your website is included in your company details in their online directory.The same goes for your Yellow Pages advert on Yell.com.
• Link text: Imagine you sell estate agent property listing software. If possible, rather than using your company name in a link from another site, get them to use that keyword text instead.
• Quality website build. If your website is well constructed underneath the hood, then a search engine will have an easier time indexing your content. Too many graphics or too much Flash is wasted on the search engines - they can't read images.
  
• Dont forget the aesthetics. A cheap and nasty website will always be a cheap and nasty website, even if it is well ranked.

Well, that's not everything but its a few useful pointers to begin with. Perhaps I'll add more tips later.

Google Mail & Your Google Account

I've had a Google account for some time. With it I manage my company Adwords account, check up on client sites using Analytics, publish my calendar, etc, etc. Running an web design business, its an invaluable tool.

Recently a friend sent me an invitation to open a gmail account, which I duly did. Everything went tickety boo. Then I was locked out of my Google account - Analytics, Aswords, Blogger, etc, were all inaccessible using my normal login. So, I whizzed off an email to Analytics support. Back came the response that I'd changed my account email address - which is also my login.

No I hadn't, not least to my knowledge. No, I had - least my gmail login is now my Google account login! This is done automatically for you it seems. That was the first I'd heard of it & I can't remember reading in the Gmail info anything that said this would happen. Perhaps I'd ticked some box without realising the 'global' implications of so doing.

Whatever, just be careful. Signing up for Gmail may have ramifications for your existing Google account!