Whatever the project ahead we need clarity and you need to know you’ve got the right team to deliver on what you want to achieve.

Before every new client engagement for a sales and marketing web development, we’d like to actually find out who you are, what makes you tick, and why your customers buy you. This way we can make certain that anything we produce, be it a website, social media program, blog program, or alike meets your expectations and those of your clients.

We’d like to start with your vision and mission statement.

• Your Vision is saying what you want for to the world,
  and
• Your mission statement is how you’re going to present yourself and interact with the world.

Then we know you!

With that understanding we’ll move on to understanding your brand manual. We come across many who have no brand guidance in place which makes it difficult to project the business in a consistent and accurate manner; essential for consistent sustainable growth. Your brand guidance will include amongstother items:

• your visual identity,
• your colour palette,
• the fonts that represent your business,
• your logo
• logo usage guidelines
• your strapline
• the tone of voice and the positioning so copy is consistent
• Positioning – How you are seen as in the world for instance are these part of the company’s mantra:
  • Being charitable
  • Innovative
  • Creative
  • Ecological
  • Sustainability
  • Community focused

If there is no brand manual in place we will need time to understand these item with you before we start the project. Many clients have us complete this formative work with them as a mini project before the main project; thus “putting in firm footings”.

Given all the above items that shout to the world who you are and why the readers need to take notice, we’ll have a good idea of what makes you special so we can make you look the best “you” you can be online

“Customers in the past, have said, ‘you’re a little bit different to the others’.

Alleluia!

Well, this may or may not be the case. But what does resonate with us is that we take the time to understand who you are, and what makes you the best at what you do. Then with that knowledge, we’re armed with all we need to make you look good to everybody else.

Frankly, it’s pointless leaping into a program of building a website, running a marketing campaign for you, writing your social media, engaging with your social media audience on your behalf, writing blogs for you,  or doing creative branding if all of this is on weak ground if we don’t know who you are, and what makes you good.

So the first questions with any new engagement with Toucan Internet is

‘who you are you and why do you do what you do?’

“

Simon Thomas

Senior Partner and Digital Engineer

Yesterday I had an urgent call from a good client who needed advice on a domain name that was being offered to them. This domain name was reportedly ranking highly with Google as it was made up from a combination of generic product and location terms, such as interior-design-london.co.uk.

The first thing to consider is that in a by gone era exact match domain names positively impacted search results, whereas now the Google Algorithm is much more mature, and the impact is negligible if not negative. My message today is if you want quality results then have a quality website from all key aspects; content, user value and technically.

The vendors of these “unmissable” domains will normally say that there is someone else or a client interested but they are offering it to you for some reason – who would ever commission such a company when they’ll offer the domain to your competition; that just does not stack up.

As with any purchase you need a degree of due diligence, the empirical evidence of relevant visitors to a domain name is a must; you are in a similar way when buying a business, buying the customer list. Remember a website that is ranking well one month may not do so well the next as rules change. Furthermore, if the website has been closed for a while and it’s just the domain name that’s available, Google will start to clear it from the results as it has no pages to index and also the third-party backlinks will diminish over time. Effectively there is a half-life of a domain name when it has no associated website as it’s SERPS value diminishes over time.

Basic due diligence. Two things you can easily do independently is check the WHOIS records and look up some performance data on metric sites such as https://seranking.com/competitor-traffic-research.html.

https://www.whois.net/ will give you some basic data, importantly it will give you the date of registration, then if you’re being offered a domain that was registered recently, you know it’s a scam as it would have had little time to gather a presence. The performance data can be hard to interpret but should give you an indication.

My recommendation is to follow your inner compass on such matters and not be brow beaten into taking an unmissable offer because you’re concerned that you’re missing out; trust me most are miss’able.

Additionally, if the domain is offered at say £700, also consider what value you could buy your business with that money such as paid advertising clicks or professional social media content and engagement.

For my clients I’m always available to assist with any such decision making and welcome your calls.

———————-

Simon Thomas has 40 years’ experience in business practices and builds & programs bespoke websites and apps that sell, market and automate processes.

“My kick is seeing the business wheels spin more efficiently once we’ve done the geeky process stuff”.

simon@toucanweb.co.uk

01279 871 694

www.toucanweb.co.uk

When HAL asked “what are you doing Dave” in Stanley Kubrick’s film rendition of Arthur C Clarke’s classic “2001, a Space Odyssey”, it epitomised our distrust of autonomous processes that we allow to impact our lives. Pre-programmed devices and services fed from the data we leave in our wake steer our lives more than ever and none more than Google providing answers to your questions on which we all rely to make “informed” decisions.

We all understand that Google chooses answers according to a set of over 200 rules or The Algorithm, and this is continually updated to improve the search results in a fair manner. This will improve some companies’ search results and penalise others. Google, as this Information Age’s big player, is the one we must influence to improve our outcome, but we must play by the rules. Fortunately the rule writer in the Google inner sanctum manages this with responsibility, humanity and common sense.

Deciding on the facts from the hype in the search arena and then seeing how this will affect your presence on the web is the job of the search marketer.

If your presence doesn’t depend on Google search results then just consider your users’ needs when putting your website together, if they use smartphones to see your site it makes sense to provide them a site they can use with near equal benefit as someone on a wider screen device like a tablet or desktop.

If your commercial performance does however depend on the search engine result position then the latest Google algorithm update means you do need to have a website that is properly optimised and that now includes having a properly responsive site; that is one that automatically adapts to the device screen on which it’s displayed. There is considerably more paranoia in the SEO market than with previous Google updates suggesting that its impact will tear the very fabric of the Internet apart especially as it’s given the Hollywood blockbusteresque name of Mobilegeddon, implying that if your site doesn’t work on a mobile device you’re out of business on line. The reality however, some weeks since the release on 21^st April, is somewhat mixed. Anyone having lived through and planned for digital Armageddon 15 years ago with the Millennium Bug will tend to be a touch more reflective when it comes to such cataclysmic pronouncements.

The real crux of this is how has this update actually affected websites’ search engine result positions (SERPS) since the Mobilegeddon day. The truth appears to be that the sites without responsive pages are suffering significantly poorer search engine traffic for generic search results, however brand specific searches are affected the least as Google will still naturally refer to the best search result to the brand site, be that a responsive webpage or not.

Some facts:

• This update only affects search results from mobile devices. It does not affect results on searches from Tablets or PC’s.
• It is a page level change and not site wide.
• Quality non-responsive pages may still appear high in the mobile search results if there is superior content.
• If your audience is predominantly desktop you still need to consider that your mobile audience is only going to grow.

Ultimately we should always come back to the simple fact that a good website that best meets the intended audience demands is going to be the winner. So write it well, keep up with and even lead in your market with regards layouts and facilities, keep it relevant, interesting and engaging, and take on board the right expert advice from time to time to stay ahead; then your site will remain in the limelight and return commercially.

Further reading:

• https://developers.google.com/webmasters/mobile-sites/get-started/
• Small and Medium Businesses Hit Hardest By Mobilegeddon
• Bing to Follow In Mobilegeddon’s Footsteps
• 6 Content Tips for Adapting to the Post-Mobilegeddon World
• Optimization Not Only Factor in “Mobilegeddon” Search Ranking
• Google “Mobilegeddon” Has Officially Arrived

Article by Simon Thomas of Toucan Internet LLP

Simon has been developing websites since 1995 and has a wealth of experience in commercial website development.

simon@toucanweb.co.uk
www.toucanweb.co.uk