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Website design, Photography, Logo
Website Marketing
I include basic Search Engine Optimisation and website marketing as part of your website design package, so if you're wondering where those extra few dollars, over and above the quoted page rate, go ... read on.
(If you have an existing website that wasn't developed with the same care and attention, please contact me and we can discuss how we can go about improving your websites performance)
As part of all my website designs, I include a few basics to get you up and running and 'noticed' by the major Search Engines.
Apart from my Keyword Research software, most of the tools are freely available - the main three are provided by Google (see details below). While these are simple to set-up or interpret on a basic level, getting the most out of them takes time, study and patience.
You've got a business to run so concentrate on the other aspects of that and rest assured I'll be taking care of your website.
All the monitoring, reporting and minor SEO improvements are included for the first 12 months. After that, I just charge an hourly rate, and to be honest a few hours a month is enough to keep on top of a smaller site. You have to allow time for any changes to take effect.
Google Maps
Google Maps seems to still be undervalued and under-rated by a great many website designers. For me (but mainly for you) it's the first place I start. Adding your business, logo, maybe a photo or two and some basic details will bring targeted traffic straight to your website.
If you've never used it, head over there and search for a local business offering a service you require. It's a great tool as it shows you places offering those services, contact details, how far away they are and how to get there.
The biggest initial bonus for your website is that Google now knows you exist.
Google Sitemaps
Otherwise known as Google Webmaster Tools allows you to submit a 'map' of your website, detailing all the pages and the links between them, so it instantly (within 48hrs) knows about every page on your site.
It allows you to see how Google views your website, it can warn you of any errors stopping Google from indexing it correctly and allows you to easily find out about other sites that link to yours as well as detailing what your visitors are searching for to get them to arrive at your website.
This gives you some great information about how you can improve your website and achieve more targeted traffic.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a website tracking program. When designing your website, I'll add a small piece of code that allows Google (and me) to track where your visitors come from, how long they spend on your site, which pages they go to and a whole lot more.
This is a fantastic tool which allows me to continue improving your website by offering visitors more of what they want most, identifying pages that aren't working and potentially identifying things which could stop visitors buying your product.
This builds and expands up the Webmaster Tools information to give you near Real Time feedback so you can improve your website.
Is that it?
No, not by a long shot.
There's a lot more to Website Marketing than the simple steps I've covered above - I just didn't want you drifting off to sleep ...
Designing an effective website (coming soon I promise) will cover some of the other areas like Keyword Research, Assessing Competitors, Copy Writing, Branding and off-line marketing.
In the meantime, if you're thinking of hiring me to design your website - feel free to ask me what I do in these areas so you can make a fair comparison with others offering to build your website.
Is it all about Google?
If you've read this page, you could be forgiven for thinking that. I haven't even mentioned Yahoo, MSN / Windows Live Search (or Bing as it's now called), but there are a few good reasons for this:
Firstly, Google is the worlds favourite Search Engine accounting for about 63% (source: Nielson Online, MegaView Search - Dec 2008) of worldwide searches, with Yahoo handling about 17%, MSN/ Live Search about 10% and the rest is shared between a variety of others.
Google is also, in my experience, the hardest to please.
It makes sense to aim to please the best and you will be accepted by the rest.
(that said, your site will still be submitted to Yahoo's version of Sitemaps)