Website Design Cape Town

Launching a new client website: HR Consulting

Mark Wilson — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:36:55 +0000

I’m very pleased to announce that we launched a new client website yesterday. Click the image below to view the full size. Or visit their website HR Consulting.

As we normally do, we now stay involved with our client for another 30 days during which time they can request small changes to their website at no additional cost. We track visitor stats and submit XML sitemaps and register their site with Google Loca/Places, Bing Webmaster Tools, Google Webmaster Tools and more.

In a month or so we will be able to track their rankings and share their success story with you on our blog.

Great quotes from clients…

Mark Wilson — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:21:13 +0000

This is a quote from a client… the message title was “YOUR EXTRA SPECIAL JOB”. I had previously contacted him and offered some more innovations to increase his visitors even more and he declined saying he had all the clients he could handle.

Hi Mark

I must say that I am thrilled with our web site. Thank you for all the time and expertise that you have put into it. I am sure that it will now work even better for us.

Best wishes,
Ron and Shirley
Orchard Corner B&B, Cape Town

Another of our clients is a butchery equipment client.

We built their site late last year and this year I’ve been emailing them to let them know about their visitor stats – see below – and I got no reply. Eventually I got this reply…

Good Morning Mark,

Not ignoring you intentionally, promise. Have been extremely busy. We have had up to yesterday lunch time 18 machines brought in for repairs and everyone is urgent.

Have plenty feedback from the website. Besides the calls in to the office for small spares/machines have had requests for quotes on machines from Ghana, Kenya and Malawi. Only problem is they want the quotes in Us $. Not easy to do with the exchange rate being what it is. Anyway we shall prevail.

Regards,
Sharon

Ha! They were so busy with orders that they could not reply. Bingo… job done!

Butchery Equipment success story

Mark Wilson — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:55:48 +0000

Another of our clients is a butchery equipment client.

We built their site late last year and this year I’ve been emailing them to let them know about their visitor stats – see below – and I got no reply. Eventually I got this reply…

Good Morning Mark,

Not ignoring you intentionally, promise. Have been extremely busy. We have had up to yesterday lunch time 18 machines brought in for repairs and everyone is urgent.

Have plenty feedback from the website. Besides the calls in to the office for small spares/machines have had requests for quotes on machines from Ghana, Kenya and Malawi. Only problem is they want the quotes in Us $. Not easy to do with the exchange rate being what it is. Anyway we shall prevail.

Regards,
Sharon

Ha! They were so busy with orders that they could not reply. Bingo… job done!

How did we do it?

As usual we targeted search engine keywords which match his products. He has over 140 products, so we made 140 pages. You can see a few of them in the image below…

If you aren’t on the front page, you won’t get the business – it’s that simple. So how did we do? Do his products rank well in search engine results for Google, Microsoft Bing and Yahoo?

Summary of the report

Out of 205 product pages in the 3 major search engines

181 product pages are on the front page of the engine – 88% success
56 are 1st in the results for their keyword – 25% success
121 are in the top 3 results for their keyword – 59% success

The full report is available for download

The report is available in two formats: PDF and Microsoft Excel. The date of the report is 29 Jan 2012.

larger in download size

smaller in download size

PLEASE NOTE: Any keyword which is highlighted in red is ranking 1st, 2nd or 3rd. In green is 10 or under… which is still on the front page.

Scroll down the list of keywords and take note of

How many pages are highlighted in red
How very few pages do NOT have a highlight

When you choose someone to build a website to promote your company’s products… make sure they have a track record of getting their past clients onto the front page of Google, Yahoo and Bing. We do.

More SERP results from another client

Mark Wilson — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 16:49:44 +0000

This is a two part post

In this post let’s take a look at the rankings of another real client of ours – selling all kinds of Vacuum Pumps. How did we do? Do his products rank well in search engine results for Google, Microsoft Bing and Yahoo?

Summary of the report

Out of 81 product pages in the 3 major search engines

50 product pages are on the front page of the engine – 61% success
10 are 1st in the results for their keyword – 12% success
27 are in the top 3 results for their keyword – 33% success

The full report is available for download

The report is available in two formats: PDF and Microsoft Excel. The date of the report is 29 Jan 2012.

larger in download size

smaller in download size

PLEASE NOTE: Any keyword which is highlighted in red is ranking 1st, 2nd or 3rd. In green is 10 or under… which is still on the front page.

You see… if your product aren’t listed on the front page for searches then you won’t get the business – it’s that simple.

When you choose someone to build a website to promote your company’s products… make sure they have a track record of getting the products of their clients onto the front page of Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Real SERP rankings for a client on Google, Bing and Yahoo

Mark Wilson — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 15:11:21 +0000

This is a two part post

Every website designer says they do a great job. Each and every one of them.

I go further and make the claim that my clients become busy after I build a website for them. I back up my claim by inviting potential new clients to contact my past clients.

Now let me show you a past client and where his products rank in Google, Microsoft Bing and Yahoo. They make butchery equipment. Most of his products rank in the top 3 results and almost all the rest are on the front page.

The report is available in two formats: PDF and Microsoft Excel. The date of the report is today – 29 Jan 2012.

Summary of the report

Out of 205 product pages in the 3 major search engines

181 product pages are on the front page of the engine – 88% success
56 are 1st in the results for their keyword – 25% success
121 are in the top 3 results for their keyword – 59% success

The full report is available for download

larger in download size

smaller in download size

PLEASE NOTE: Any keyword which is highlighted in red is ranking 1st, 2nd or 3rd. In green is 10 or under… which is still on the front page.

Scroll down the list of keywords and take note of

How many pages are highlighted in red
How very few pages do NOT have a highlight

If you aren’t on the front page, you won’t get the business – it’s that simple.

Rich Snippets – no more boring search results

Mark Wilson — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:20:25 +0000

What are Rich Snippets?

You can mark up your structured HTML content any of three formats: microdata, microformats, or RDFa. You can use whichever standard you prefer.

A schema is basically a shared markup vocabulary (in HTML) which webmasters can use to markup their pages in ways recognized by major search providers.

On-page markup enables search engines to understand the information on web pages and provide richer search results in order to make it easier for users to find relevant information on the web. Markup can also enable new tools and applications that make use of the structure.

What does it look like?

In your web page you will be inserting one of three kinds of markup and the HTML one is the simplest and it looks something like this

After inserting it you test it here using this Google online Rich Snippet testing tool.

Or… you can hire us to do it for you.

How does it help me?

Let’s say you get onto the front page of Google because your site is designed superbly (by us I hope). You’re still competing with 10 other sites for the readers attention. What will make you stand out? Rich Snippets!

Event Rich Snippets

Let’s say your business has an upcoming event… wouldn’t it grab people’s attention if your search engine entry on Google immediately SHOWED the event information!

More details event markup information is available here.

Author Rich Snippets

Music Rich Snippets

You can read the details for music markup here

Applications Rich Snippets

Google recently announced rich snippets for applications. This enables people who are searching for software applications to see details, like cost and user reviews, within their search results. Here are two examples…

Recipes

And more…

And so much more:

I want it!

So you want to make your search engine results RICH, but you don’t have the time to do it? Hire us!

Google Authorship

Mark Wilson — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 13:18:18 +0000

For a while Facebook looked like it was going to win everything. Microsoft even bought a small %. But Google launched Google+ and now the game is completely changing. For a while it looked like the world was defocussing on search and refocussing on social media.

Google+ is about to enable unprecedented personalization of search results and the focus is going to fall back onto searches.

For a while SEO was entirely about ranking, because people only clicked the highest result – assuming that it is the one with the highest credibility. But take a look at this search result in the image below. The 4th item is visually rich and therefore gives an impression of credibility. It is far more likely to be clicked than the items above it.

Which search result creates the impression of credibility and will result in the most click throughs?

The data for this richness comes from Google+ and from the Google +1 button clicks on your content. Now your content on your website feeds directly across into Google+ and then creates the above effect for your search results.

To sign up for this, get a Google+ account, then join the Google Authorship program and modify the code on your website so that your authorship details are placed on your pages. Make sure you have the Google +1 button on all of your content.

Or. Hire us.

Google+ and the authorship project is going to have a phenomenal impact on the content which is created on the internet every 60 seconds.

Personalization of search results

Mark Wilson — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:05:58 +0000

It’s absolutely important that you rank highly on Google… like on the first page, right?

but with social + personalized search that is becoming harder and harder.

The end result is this… results filtered for just you… and that means it’s getting very hard for SEO professionals like us to earn our money! Which I why Im so proud that our SEO client is 2nd for their primary search phrase!

Here is what is happening more and more these days

If you are someone else searches for…

Personalized Results

What’s happening?

Google is linking search results to your Google+ profile and friends list so that you can find the information you are looking for.

Here is a simple overview.
First they announced social search: Introducing Google Social Search: I finally found my friend’s New York blog!
Now they have gone further, much further: Search, plus Your World
If this topic interests you, Google wrote more on their philosophy: Some thoughts on personalization

Our SEO client is 2nd for their primary search phrase

Mark Wilson — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:02:08 +0000

I just notified our client whom we launched late last year… they are coming 2nd… what a great success story for our SEO!

Their primary search phrase is “vacuum pump“. That is what they sell… in all shapes and sizes. It was our goal to come on the front page of Google for that search engine term… and we have come second!

We also target about 50 product names for them, but this is the biggie “vacuum pumps” because that it primarily what they sell.

Our SEO client ranks 2nd for their primary keyword "vacuum pumps"

Enlarge your online business

Mark Wilson — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:34:27 +0000

Maybe you have a website already but you want more sales from it. This is what you need to know… this how you get more customers through your website.

If Google loves your website, then it proudly displays your website on it’s front page results. If Google doesn’t love you, no one will know you exist. I they can’t see you, then they can’t visit you and buy from you.

You need Google to love your website – and that’s what we do for you.

Please read our 6 page PDF document (500kb in download size) which explains in down to earth language what it is that we do and why we are so very successful. Simply click the PDF link below…

Our Approach (Version 2)

After reading this document please view our client list, visit their sites and contact one or two of them, asking them if they

Graphics design by Kim

Mark Wilson — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 08:03:54 +0000

When you sign up to let us build your cutting edge website design, we arrange to have superb graphics created for your website. One of our designers name is Kim and this is her portfolio – click the PDF link below to see it (4.7MB download).

For an example of her work for a client see the image below. The client gave us a photo of an eagle and Kim provided 6 alternatives.

Graphics design of Eagles

NOTE: Download Kim’s CV and contact her if you need custom graphics designs for your business.

We also offer superb graphics design

Mark Wilson — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:36:39 +0000

When we build a new website, sometimes a client may not have logo, or they may give us poor quality images. For a fee we can improve the images or even have a selection of logos created for you.

Below is an example of a selection of logos. In the bottom left hand corner is the initial sample that the client gave us. We then generated 6 alternatives for them to choose from…

Bottom left is the initial image + 6 alternatives we generated

Orchard Corner Success Story

Mark Wilson — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:27:46 +0000

As before I explained to the client that his first customer is Google. If Google “buys” then the world will know he exists and they will get a chance to see his page and buy from him. If Google and other search engines don’t “buy” then he is lost on the second and third pages of the search engine results.

So we made a list of his products and figured out his target market. We create a page for each opportunity. You can see the list of links below…

So how did we do?

For the phrases that we targeted we are coming second (today: 27 October 2011), see the image below…

We rank 2nd on our keyword phrase that we targetted

They also have a very rich listing… take note that we have registered in Google Maps, made a Facebook page, a YouTube video, submitted that video to Facebook… all of this results in a rich listing. The result is that the listing takes up the whole visible area of the page, visibly removing the distraction of other competing websites.

Orchard Corner rich listing takes up the whole page!

Pinelands Accommodation success story

Mark Wilson — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 13:54:08 +0000

Here is an example of a rich listing for a client of ours: Pinelands Accommodation.

In the image below take note of the following… if someone searches for “pinelands tourism” this is what they would have seen on April 2011. The 1st result is our client and their listing is so “rich” that it takes up the whole first page. This is useful because searches almost never view below the page fold… or to put it another way, they don’t scroll down if they don’t have to.

Pinelands Accommodation SERP April 2011

Cape Town Cleaning success story

Mark Wilson — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 13:44:39 +0000

Here is another search engine result success story. This client (Cape Town Cleaning Services) did not have a website before we started. Their new website would be completing against many many mature websites in the same field.

In our site design we made a page for each of the main products that they sell.

How did we do? See below…

Cape Town Cleaning Services SERP 21 April 2011

Vacuum Pumps success story

Mark Wilson — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 13:13:54 +0000

For any small business to grow you need to come top or near the top of the Google rankings. I explain it to clients this way… Google is your first client, if they don’t buy from you then no one else will even know you exist.

Here is a client: Vacuum Pumps which we launched last week.

We built one page per product… I have highlighted the links to the pages in the image below…

If you aren’t on the front page, you won’t get the business – it’s that simple.

How did we do? Do his products rank well in search engine results for Google, Microsoft Bing and Yahoo?

Summary of the report

Out of 81 product pages in the 3 major search engines

50 product pages are on the front page of the engine – 61% success
10 are 1st in the results for their keyword – 12% success
27 are in the top 3 results for their keyword – 33% success

The full report is available for download

The report is available in two formats: PDF and Microsoft Excel. The date of the report is 29 Jan 2012.

larger in download size

smaller in download size

PLEASE NOTE: Any keyword which is highlighted in red is ranking 1st, 2nd or 3rd. In green is 10 or under… which is still on the front page.

Right away, just one week later, we are ranking 1st on all the keywords that we have targeted… and what is amazing is that our pages rank ABOVE the original manufacturers pages. That is probably because of localization. If the search was done in Germany the manufacturer’s site would come higher than ours. (NOTE: Ignore the first three lines, they are Google Ads)

1st... even above the manufacturer!

View our client’s websites + success stories

Mark Wilson — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 11:19:38 +0000

Thank you for your interest in our website design service.

In a nutshell we specialise in…

Building high ranking (SEO) websites… our websites come on the front page for their keywords
which are fabulously good looking and designed to be productive for visitors
and are highly social if the client requires it (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Tumblr etc.)
well indexed by search engines (Google + Bing Webmaster Tools, XML Sitemaps, visitors stats)
all using WordPress (and JQuery if necessary) so that the client can maintain the site after we leave!

A selection of our clients – you are welcome to call them

http://www.butchery-equipment.co.za (Read their success story)
http://www.vacuum-pumps.co.za (Read their success story)

Client website designs

Food and drink websites

http://www.bananajamcafe.co.za

Engineering, manufacturing or industrial websites

B&B websites

Car rental websites

http://www.carsforhire.co.za

Health websites

http://www.rainbowhealth.co.za

Pre-existing client sites I improved on

NOTE: These are not my designs, I modified what was already there…

http://www.pinelandstourism.co.za (Read their success story)

http://www.alexscatering.co.za

http://www.illdoit.co.za

http://www.abbey.co.za

Engineering website design

Mark Wilson — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 10:32:50 +0000

This is an exciting design which we just finished. It has to be seen for you to truly appreciate it’s appeal.

We have used a jQuery Carousel in the feature area. The client sells pumps, so we loaded several images of pumps into a carousel which rotates the images. The carousel is interactive and clicking any of the images will bring it to the front.

The client is an engineering firm, so we chose a rugged steel color for his design.

View the site here:
http://www.vacuum-pumps.co.za/

View the top most part of the website here…

Engineering Company Website Design

Or view the whole thumbnail here…

Design

View this for a description of the SEO and design features…

Engineering Website Design

Using the Facebook Like Box iFrame code

Mark Wilson — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 16:24:54 +0000

This is a description of implementing the Facebook Like Box on a client site…

Here is an example of a client website which uses the Facebook Like Box social plugin. I have pointed out the Like Box plugin with a red arrow…

Facebook "Facepile" social plugin

Visually, it fits in very neatly and I think it adds to the page.

Getting the code

In the example above the Facepile code comes in three versions: iframe, html5 and javascript which you can get here:

Facebook Like Box in 3 formats: iFrame, HTML5, Javascript

Facebook social plugins

At this time there are 10 different social plugins for you to consider using…

Activity Feed - The Activity Feed plugin shows users what their friends are doing on your site through likes and comments.
Comments - The Comments plugin lets users comment on any piece of content on your site.
Facepile - The Facepile plugin displays the Facebook profile pictures of users who have liked your page or have signed up for your site.
Like Box - The Like button lets users share pages from your site back to their Facebook profile with one click.
Like Button - The Like button lets a user share your content with friends on Facebook. When the user clicks the Like button on your site, a story appears in the user’s friends’ News Feed with a link back to your website.
Live Stream - The Live Stream plugin lets your users share activity and comments in real-time as they interact during a live event.
Login Button - The Login Button shows profile pictures of the user’s friends who have already signed up for your site in addition to a login button.
Recommendations - The Recommendations plugin gives users personalized suggestions for pages on your site they might like.
Registration - The registration plugin allows users to easily sign up for your website with their Facebook account.
Send Button - The Send Button allows your users to easily send your content to their friends.

Target the right phrases using the Google AdWords Keyword Tool

Mark Wilson — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 12:18:28 +0000

Some time ago I helped a customer who had an existing tourism site. We naturally assumed that targetting the geo-location and the word “tourism” would be suffient. So for example “tourism in cape town”.

Later I went to the Google AdWords Keyword External Tool and found out exactly how many people do local and international searches for the two phrases

“tourism” in cape town
“accommodation” in cape town

The first one focusses on tourism and seems to be a close match to their actual business… which falls under the category of tourism.

But in fact the second phrase using the word “accommodation” is by far the more popular search term – as you will see below in the screenshots.

Tips for using the tool

The key thing is to do research NOT on what YOU think people are searching for, but to use the Google AdWords Keyword External Tool to find out what they actually ARE searching for.

Here are 3 tips for using the Google AdWords Keyword Tool…

Tip #1: Make sure you set the filters correctly to get the data for the right country

Google AdSense Keyword Tool External

Tip #2: Order the results by the number of searches so that you can view the most searched for phrase

Order Adsense keywords by searches

Tip #3: You can download the data for use in OpenOffice or MS Office

Download the AdSense keywords

Geo-targeting can be very important

I add in the geo-location in order to cut down on visitors that are unrelated.

Let me illustrate: I once had a client who told me he was getting 15,000 daily visitors but no one was buying his health products. He was getting tons of visitors for the wrong reasons, because he had a reseller program on his site. Anyone could “make money from home” selling his health products. So people were visiting because of his work from home business, not because they wanted to buy his health products.

Using these tips above, you have enough information to be able to target visitors who you were not reaching before. If you have the time to do all of this, that’s great! If you don’t have the time but you are looking to work with a partner to do this kind of work for you, please contact me.

You have to be social (WP, AddThis, Dlvr.it)

Mark Wilson — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 10:14:35 +0000

If you have the time, take a look at this very detailed research report: Leetaru Culturomics 2.0 (If you don’t have the time, hire me to do these things for you.)

Based on that report I make three suggestions in this post which relate to SEO and website design:

The world is finding their data online
You have to be connected
How to get connected – if you use WordPress or even if you build your own website

The image below shows the trend of where researchers find their data. As you can see, the growing trend is for them to find their data online.

The point is clear… you have to be online.

Percent of Summary of World Broadcasts content sourced from the Internet January 1994–July 2010.

This second graph shows the interconnectedness of global civilzation. It’s all increasingly connected.

The point is clear: you have to be connected to other people online.

World “civilizations” according to SWB, 1979–2009

So now we come to the nitty gritty… how do you get social? How do you get connected? If you do it yourself you will be working hard and you may have to employ someone full time. How do I do it? I let YOU (the reader) do it for me!

WordPress sharing (push)

Below all of my online content are a set of buttons where you and other readers have an opportunity to share my content with your social networks. With just a click of a button you and others can share my content onto Facebook, Twitter, via email, Digg, Reddit, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon and more.

Social media sharing buttons

Because I use wordpress as my engine for publishing (as do 14.7% of the top million websites in the world), enabling these sharing options is very easy, you simply go to the “sharing” page under the “settings” menu in your WP Admin panel.

The limitation of this approach is that WordPress does not push to all the social networks, it only works with a small number of the main ones. Only AddThis provides a complete list.

WordPress sharing (pull)

“Push” means you push the content into Facebook. “Pull” means that Facebook pulls the content into itself. You can subscribe to any RSS feed from within Facebook. From the FB Notes help page:

Facebook allows you to quickly and easily import an external blog from another website.

Go to the main Notes application page by typing “Notes” into the search box at the top of the screen.

Click the Import a blog link on the right side of the page.

Enter the URL (web address) of your blog into the text box, and check the box underneath that states that you agree to our Terms of Use.

To complete the process, click on “Save Settings.” Once you do this, your previous posts will appear as notes and any new posts you make will automatically display.

One of the benefits of doing it this way is that WordPress only shares to some of the major sharing services, but Facebook Pages/Notes can pull from absolutely any RSS feed.

AddThis sharing

For those who do not have wordpress as their engine, you can get this same effect with javascript and by using the AddThis sharing service.

When the user click the small red +plus button, this small window displays with tons of sharing options:

When your readers click any of these icons your content is pushed to that sharing service.

One of the benefits of doing it this way is that Worpdress only pushed to a small number of social services. It doesn’t (yet) cover Delicious and Google Plus for example. Only AddThis provides a complete list of social services.

Dlvr.it sharing

Another way of doing this is to use Dlvr.it

In fact I recommend you use dvlr.it in addition to these other sharing options. The way dvlr.it works is that you already have your own facebook account, perhaps you also have a facebook group and a facebook page, you might have twitter, Google Plus, Google Buzz, LinkedIn and Tumblr as well.

Every time you write content, you need to push your content out to all of your networks, right? That takes time out of your day.

Automatic delivery

What Dlvr.it does is it checks for new posts that you create and it automatically submits your content to all of your networks! Here are my dlvr.it routes for this Website Design Cape Town tutorial. You can see that my content gets pushed out to all my social networks.

Dlvr.it routes

One downside of this excellent approach is that Dlvr.it cannot pull from Facebook and push to WordPress (for example) and Dlvr.it can only deliver to a relatively small number of social networks. Only AddThis provides a complete list of social services.

Combine all strategies together

Now combine all of that together.

Push your own content out using dlvr.it,
Let some sites pull your content into itself,
Let your visitors also push your content onto their own social networks using AddThis
Make sure you are registered in the major search engines so that your content is searchable

Now you are online and you are connected!

Jewellery website designs

Mark Wilson — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 10:55:01 +0000

Just in case you get the impression that I only do B&B designs, here is a more recent client who sells custom made and perosnalized jewellery online.

Forget Me Not Jewellery
http://www.forgetmenots.co.za

Forget Me Not Jewellery

This is a fantastic jewellery idea and the feedback from the client and from the visitors to the site is that the design is superb.

Design and SEO considerations:

In the feature area (the green band across the top) is a lovely image of a “forget me not” flower. That sets the tone for the emotional mood of the site.
As they say: a picture is worth a thousand words… therefore I show three picture examples of the actual jewellery prominently so that potential custmers can see immediately what kind of jewellery is being described.
This site has been registered with Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics, Bing Webmaster, Yahoo SiteExplorer and other related services.

B&B website designs

Mark Wilson — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 10:41:24 +0000

In my last post I share two success stories. Today I will share another design which had a very good reception by the customer.

This is Pine Cottage B&B:
http://www.pinecottage.co.za

Pine Cottage B&B

I love the “friendly” nature of this page.

Design and SEO considerations:

In the feature area (the green band across the top) has three images which show the accommodation clearly. This means customers don’t have to hunt around the site but immediately get to see what they searched for. These images are neatly feathered alongside each other and the blue band draws the visitors eyes to this feature area. The image at the bottom of the page also gives the site an “African” feel.
On the left in the menu bar area we provide instant and basic information about the B&B. More detailed information is provided on other pages. This overview is provided so that visitors can begin to make a snap decision.
When the visitor is ready to make an enquiry the email and telephone number is always available in the top-right hand corner of all of the pages.
The use of three flowers creates a “friendly” atmosphere for the visitor with one of the flowers “peeking out” from behind the feature area.
This site has been registered with Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics, Bing Webmaster, Yahoo SiteExplorer and other related services.

Inbound links are vitally important

Mark Wilson — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 19:54:44 +0000

Inbound links are links that come from other websites.

Add snippets of your content to Facebook pages, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube content and make sure they have links that point back to your website.

Inbound links are absolutely crucial, but even more valuable are links from existing websites in your own industry. Contact all your partners and customers and encourage all of them to link to your website.

All your customers will come through search engines, so make sure you let the engines know you are there. Submit your site to all major search engines. And then sign up and submit your site to Google Places, Google Webmaster Tools, Yahoo Site Explorer and Microsoft Bing Webmaster Tools. Each of these tools offer different services to help you get the best out of those search engines.

Here is another suggestion: Google will notice if you use Google StreetView, Google Maps and Adsense on your pages because your server will request that content from their servers whenever you have a visitor.

Set up a stats tracking service to email weekly visitors stats. I often use Google Analytics because it very nicely laid out graph each week showing our progress.

Use a domain name for a broad match

Mark Wilson — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 19:44:16 +0000

Buying the right domain name is absolutely crucial.

Domain names should include the right “broad match” keyword for your business, otherwise your website may never rank well for that search result.

This is how it works:

Let’s pretend you are a catering company and you are designing your website. The broad match is “catering” and the phrase matches then corresponds to areas in the company where they desire growth: corporate, contract catering, wedding and on-set/movie/tv adverts catering, private functions, kiddies parties, packed lunches.

So specifically the broad match and phrase matches are these:

If the company is a cleaning company, then broad match is: “cleaning”
The phrase matches might be: Carpet Cleaning, Upholstery Cleaning, Rug Cleaning, Flood Damage Cleaning, Pre-Occupation Cleaning and Contract Cleaning.

For each phrase build an optimized page for that phrase containing information which corresponds to that phrase. By doing this you are structuring your content in a way that makes it very easy for a computer to understand what it is that your business does.

How do you find the right broad match term which matches the most searched for queries? And how do you find which phrase matches correspond to the most frequent searches? Use the Google keyword tool to do research on the top search for each of those areas so that the phrase matches the MOST searched for query.

It doesn’t make sense to target less popular searches, do it? If customers do 14,800 search per month for “caterer cape town” then the targeted phrase must be exactly that, not something else.

If you already have a website, then redesign all your pages to focus on the broad search phrase and after that build more pages to highlight your company and your products by using phrase matches.

Web design with CSS-based grid systems

Mark Wilson — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 19:20:49 +0000

If you are a whiz with CSS and CSS-based grid systems then go ahead and make your own design. But for the rest of us, it’s far easier to take an existing free design and modify it.

What is a CSS-based grid system?

When you look at a website you might see this:

But in the CSS all that positioning is done using columns of cells. So in the CSS it looks more like this:

If we remove the website completely and just look at the 12 column grid, it looks like this:

For mere mortals this is way too complicated. So for us, we simply take an existing design that the customer likes and which is suitable to the type of company and the amount of content – and we customize it.

What’s the catch to using a free template design? You have to link back to the company which provides the template.

This is an example of a free template design…

which I then modified to suit the client’s needs.

Take note of some key web design tips:

Keep the contact details always visible
Use the feature area to create a mood, in this case a relaxing mood.
Put the extra information down the side
Use a grid approach to display the most important product visually

6 tips for great website design

Mark Wilson — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 18:37:07 +0000

In the customer website – below – take note of 6 things:

1) The logo and the contact details are at the top of the page. It is very important that the contact details can be seen immediately. Research shows that a very small percentage of visitors ever view below the “fold” of the page, so the most important information must be placed at the top of the page.

2) Immediately beneath that is the menu. The menu must stand out. Your navigation must be clearly visible and consistent across all of your pages. Don’t move the navigation from the top and down to the sides on different pages. Consistency is the key. If your menu has many items, or if it will grow over time, then this is NOT the right design for you. When a menu has many items, place it on the left hand side of the page. Remember to always place it in exactly the same location on all pages.

3) Below that is a feature area. In most of my website designs I have a visual feature, but in this instance I used the feature area to provide short summaries which highlight the 4 main areas of the business. This feature are is NOT displayed on the child pages, it is ONLY used on the front page of the website.

4) Below that is a graphic to break up the intensity of having still more information.

5) Below that is the main body of information. In this case, because this is the front page and customers are likely to be from other countries, we inserted a javascript component showing the local temperature and a currency conversion utility.

6) Along the side are friendly images which will help visitors feel at ease.

Keep your contact details easy to find on all pages

Mark Wilson — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 18:25:40 +0000

Let’s say you have a great website design. You’ve done all the basics well and now the customer has the impulse to place an order with you. Are your contact details right there and unmissable?

In your website design make sure you have a highly visible location for your contact details. I usually reserve the top right hand corner for this purpose. You can see a good example of this below…

Use Google Business Photos to show the inside of your store

Mark Wilson — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 18:18:35 +0000

This is a brand new product from Google which is not yet available in all countries. It is tremendously exciting in terms of good website design. It’s called Google Business Photos and it’s also linked to Google Maps.

Just as Google Street View shows the outside of your store, Google Business Photos shows the INSIDE of your store in 360 degree imagery.

When this service launches in your city it is a MUST HAVE for any website which promotes a store or product which is linked to a physical location.

Here we can see inside a guitar shop…

In terms of good webdesign, this is a must have combination:

Google Maps showing how to get from a highway to your store location
Google Street View showing the street and environment – creating a sense familiarity
Google Business Photos showing the inside of your store and the variety of products you have – creating an allure to encourage customers to get in their car and make the trip to you

These three products are a must have in good web design.

Use Google Streetview to show your environment

Mark Wilson — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 18:09:35 +0000

I covered using Google Maps to show your location, but now I’m suggesting something related to that. If you are about to go somewhere that you have never seen before, it would be great to be able to have a peek at the environment before you actually spend the money to go there.

And that’s what is fantastic about Google Street View. I can’t tell you in one thousand words what you can see for yourself in the image below.

Google Street View is enormously useful for SHOWING people what they can only imagine otherwise.

It is invaluable for creating a sense of security and familiarity long before the potential client has arrived at the store – or even before they are in the same country!

Use Google Maps to show your location

Mark Wilson — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 18:00:05 +0000

Put yourself in the shoes of a tourist. You are planning to visit a country you have never visited before. Let’s randomly pick Spain. Then you choose a city to visit, such as Barcelona. Now you need to figure out where to stay, based on the nearness to the tourist hot spots you want to visit.

Of course every website tells you they are near the tourist hotspots, but past experience tells you that some of them are lying! How do I describe convincingly that the client really is near the beach, or really is close to all the tourist attractions.

Well… a picture says more than a thousand words can. Using Google Maps you can show your location and also show the route from the airport to your location.

Use free graphic design templates to get you started

Mark Wilson — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 17:39:41 +0000

I enjoy hearing my client’s oohs and aaah’s when they see their finished site for the first time.

How do I make such lovely designs? I use free templates as a basic starter design. After finding a template that suits the needs of the client, I then edit the graphics and the CSS to match the corporate color scheme. Usually almost every aspect of the template gets changed (rollover images, icons, background colors and shading), but it helps having something well designed to start from.

The only condition of using their free template is that you provide a link back to them.

So – after much editing – this “blue mesa” free template…

became my client’s website…

Facebook and YouTube videos help to get you indexed

Mark Wilson — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 17:25:49 +0000

Getting your domain indexed by Google so that you simply show up when someone searches for your exact URL/domain is easy, thhat happens almost immediately. But to get your content indexed so that you show up in search results on the keywords and phrases that you have used… that can take months.

The reason for this is that Google places more value on websites that have other existing/mature websites linking to them.

This was one of my first clients. It is also a bed and breakfast business. I created a YouTube video for them and I created a Facebook page and linked it back to them. Immediately this brand new website had two inbound links and that helped them get indexed in Google.

Use graphics design to convey visual messages

Mark Wilson — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 17:13:23 +0000

This client runs a bed and breakfast. They have several rooms and they are near to desirable tourism areas.

All of these things must be communicated rapidly to the visitors, because (on average) research shows you have only 15 seconds to get the visitors attention. A picture is worth a thousand words… therefore good graphic design is the key to communicating to visitors.

To do this we used a feature above and a grid layout below which highlights the main features about this client.

Contact Website Design Cape Town by email

Mark Wilson — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 15:12:36 +0000

[contact-form]

Website Design Cape Town

Mark Wilson — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 15:09:01 +0000

This blog is provided as a free service to encourage readers and visitors to create better and more useful websites.