Archive for May, 2009

How much should your website cost?

And the answer is… “about the same as a car”

It’s true to say that you can spend almost as little or as much as you want on your car. 

The old banger + DIY. If you go for an old banger then you risk the car breaking down or not functioning at all. The old banger might even cost you more in the long run to get working correctly, might be uneconomical and the chances are you will end up scrapping it and swapping for another quite quickly. Your Dad, Brother or Neighbour might say that they can do it up for you – but you will never be proud of this car. It will get your from A to B (just) but you have to wonder what other peoples’ perceptions are of you driving it around.

Good Reliable Car. Once you have reached a certain price bracket you can be pretty confident that your car will work and that its going to last for a while.  You will have spent enough money and selected a trusted brand for this car, and without even checking under the hood you will be sure that it is safe and is going to last the distance. 

Flashy Sports Car. Finally at the highest price bracket this car is the envy of everybody that you know.  People might even say that you have a bit more money than sense when they see you driving this baby!  At this price oddly enough, functionality comes at a lower priority and the car serves just one purpose – to show off. These cars are super expensive and actually less practical than the reliable cars, perhaps with less seats and not quite enough boot space for all that shopping!

I don’t think anybody really wants an old banger of a website – these will ultimately cost more in the long run.  Any saving here is a false economy.

B Websites are very much focused on the reliable website. Just like a car there are certain things under “the hood” that you might not understand but you can take as standard (like compliant XHTML/CSS, well written code, accessibility, cross-browser testing etc).  Our websites will perform for you and will make you more money in the long run.

Finally – the flashy website. This is akin to some of the websites of major companies like Mercedes Benz or Disney.  These websites might be flashy but in many respects are less reliable and functional. These companies don’t mind, since for them the website is a statement of status and works at a level of showcasing how expensive their brand is.

So how much should your website cost? What do you think – I would love to hear from you.

Website Design | 19.05.2009 10:00 | No Comments

New website for Q5 Partners

Lovely bright new website launched for www.q5partners.co.uk – Change Consultants .  We revised the website a number of times before the websites was the right side of energetic and corporate.  We all loved the bright colours, yet carefull use of white space.

The best news is that the clients can update the text and images on their website anytime they like using our SMART content management system.

Website Examples | 17.05.2009 21:43 | No Comments

What is wrong with yell.com?

Yell used to be the directory.  They used to have adverts on the telly and everybody knew that they were the place to find a local service.  Where do you look now?  Well, I find it very hard to find a local business. I might look on Google, Yell, Scoot, Thomson Local, Gumtree but generally I find it very hard to reliably find a local service. 

As a business it is harder again.  I would like for people to be able to find our business on the web for local searches.  We are based in Woking and I can use “Woking” as a keyword for search engines.  But what about if I wanted to appear on Google for all the towns and areas in Surrey?  All the postcodes in surrey?  Not so easy.  Google is not an online directory and although they have implemented features like Google maps, Google does not know about locations and postcodes and it does not allow users to search for a business by area.  Local searches are the tools for online directories.  Google is a search engine.

There is currently massive gap in the market for a really good local directory, proof of this is in the lots of smaller directories popping up all over trying to get in on this action.  Most of our clients need to promote their business to the local people.  They are tradesmen or small businesses with small websites and want to be found easily on the internet. Currently they are relying on the smaller or free directories and SEO, neither of which are ideal or reliable.  SEO can also be very expensive.  Ideally they would like people to be able to search for a town or postcode in Surrey and have their advert or web link turn up online.

If Yell.com established themselves as the place to go for local searches and provided a really good local search facility then people would use it and more businesses would register.  More businesses would mean that prices could become more competitive.  At the moment their adverts are very expensive and I have seen a big shift in companies moving away from Yell.com and trying to spend money on SEO instead.

1. They could become a community website, with forums, ratings, interactions between businesses and their clients.
2. They could be cheaper and therefore increase the number of businesses registering.
3. They could spend money on adverts on the telly (like they used to) instead of wasting it on SEO. 
4. They should concentrate on being the best online directory because of the quality of their data. 
5. They could have a slogan like “Don’t Google it, Yell for it!”

But instead Yell.com are trying very hard to appear high up in search engines for relevant searches.  They have recently spent millions of pounds in re-launching their website so that it shows up in Google.  I can see why they might try and want to do this but its not going to work.  Primarily (and most scarily) I think its really dangerous for a company as large as yell.com to invest so much time and money in piggy backing upon the success of another company (Google.com).  As we all know Google is always changing its algorithms and methods for doing things and yell.com can only ever be playing a game of catch up.

At the moment Yell.com, are not much of anything.  The new re-launch is not particularly good for the customers searching or for the business spending money on ads

1. Yell.com still do not appear on Google.com for any of the relevant searches for my business.   And to be fair I dont really want them too, if I wanted to be up on Google then I would invest in SEO.  In fact Yell.com appearing on Google for my searches would be a bit annoying as it could appear as a direct competition for my number one position.
2. They have implemented an automated tool that creates keywords for your business and automatically creates some text for the “about us” section.  Well this automatic crawler does not work and our advert has all sorts or random and irrelevant keywords.  Yell.com don’t care too much about this, it’s just important that they have some keywords, it does not matter that my website design agency includes the keywords “complimentary drinks”.  This crawler can be turned off but from looking though local companies I am not sure that many people know as I can spot lots of very broken adverts.  I wonder why it was not off by default, with an opt in?  Surely this would be better for the businesses paying £100s for adverts than create random and inaccurate information?
3. The actual yell.com usability is poor.
4. Why for example on the home page do I care about things that have been recently searched for by other people?  Yell.com care because they want to cram as many keywords and links on their page as possible, but it does not help me find my service and nor will it help people find my paid for advert. 
5. Why do I want a Wikipedia definition of “website” when I perform a search for a local website company?  Again yell.com are trying to increase the number of keywords per page.  I trust if someone is searching for a “plumber in woking” that they do not need to know what the word plumber actually means?
6. Why is the right hand side filled with sponsored web search links?  These are links to businesses that have not paid £1000′s for an advert on yell and they directly compete with my advert.  As a user of the directory they are both distracting and not helpful, whilst as a business paying for an advert they are simply taking up space that my advert could use.  Again, another example of yell.com trying to fill the page with keywords.
7. The result displays on yell.com are confusing. The results are now split into: Sponsored Listings (there use to be just one but now three display), Businesses in the area (just 16!) and Business also Servicing the area.  As a client searching I just want all the results listed in a sensible order.  Yell.com want to sell as many spaces as possible so including three sponsored listings instead of one increases their money; allowing people to pay for a listing in the “Businesses also Servicing” section will also increase money.

I know for sure that 100s of our customers would be interested in increasing the number of hits online for local searches.  And the bottom line is that yell.com are missing a trick by trying to be something they are not. They should concentrate on being the UK’s number one online directory independent of Google.

To be a great directory you need to have good quality data, to get the data you need to have the traffic.  There is always a chicken and egg situation for any directory, but for a company as large as yell.com, with a huge marketing budget I would have expected that this hurdle would have been easy to overcome had they not become slightly obsessed with Google and search engines!  They currently risk failure by refusing to acknowledge the needs of both the end user and the paying businesses.

What do you think?  Leave a comment or email me – I would love to hear from you!

Digital Marketing | 15.05.2009 10:29 | 2 Comments

FREE telephone consultation

Following on from yesterdays Grow Your Business Exhibition in Guildford I have completely cleared my diary for today and Friday.  I would be really happy to speak with you about anything to do with websites – no obligation and no hard sale, just good free advice.

Call the office on: 0845 625 5075 and ask for me, Zoe.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Everything else | 14.05.2009 12:58 | No Comments

All ready for Grow Your Business – Guildford!

Please come and see us!

We have just put the finishing touches to B Websites stand 157 together.

And we are all set for tomorrow 9:30 am.  There are over 700 of you already registered and possibly more will turn up on the day.

The stands are all looking fantastic, there are a few other exhibitors selling websites as well – but if you want to know what makes us different then pop along and see us on stand 157. 

Oh – yes and that is me in the picture – with a giant tummy.  Lets hope that baby just waits another 24 hours…

Everything else | 12.05.2009 20:29 | No Comments