Posted by Charlotte Lamb

Alton 4 Business website
The design for this networking group website developed from the vibrant graphics they already had for their paperwork and uses all the same design details they were already using to help create a sense of cohesion between all their publicity and marketing materials. It helps people who might be new to your organisation if all your materials bear a resemblance to each other. This reinforces who you are and helps them to recognise your materials quickly when you produce something new or place an advert where it will be seen against others.

Alton 4 Business website

This site is updated by several members of the group so it has a flexible space on the page for the members to write reports about their meetings.

Visit their site by clicking here.

Simply explained, Meta Tags are part of the HTML code of a web page that imparts information about the siad web page to web browsers such as, Explorer and Firefox, as well as to search engines.

If you are building a website or own a website the three really important Meta Tags that will help get your website found are, the Meta Page Title, Keywords and the Meta Description.

The Meta Page Title appears in the bar at the top of a browser window, in the case of Microsoft Explorer it is the text that appears immediately before the wording in the blue bar which says Microsoft Explorer. Most search engines place a lot of importance on this title when ranking web pages, so you should ensure that you have a unique title for each of your web pages and they that it contains your top search phrase for that page.

The Meta Description, is as it sounds, a description of what that particular web page is about. It is also the text that many search engines use to describe your web page in their search results. Again this is an important Tag that can help get your website found. Like the Title Tag most search engines do read these descriptions and put a lot of importance on them.

Meta Descriptions should also be written with real people in mind, as a well written Meta Description can attract people to click on your site when faced with dozens of listings on a results page, even if you are listed towards the bottom of a page.

The Keyword Tag started life as the place to put all the phrases that you wanted your website to be found by, however many website owners found that they could out smart the search engines using them, most search engines no longer pay much attention to them. However some do use them and most will check to see if they have been included, so it is important to use them.

Most web users type in phrases into search engines rather than single words, so you are best advised to use key phrases rather than single words. If you are in a very competitive area you many also want to consider using common mis-spellings as away of avoiding the competition but still attract a reasonable amount of traffic to your site.

Having said all of the above, unless you write web pages about the things you want to get found for the above advice is of limited help.

One of the processes Google uses to position your website on its results pages is to count the number of incoming links from other websites into yours.

Rightly or wrongly Google assumes that if other website owners have taken the trouble to place a link from their website to yours, your website must be of interest. The more incoming links, the greater the interest, thus the more important your site becomes.

To maximise this effect, it is a good idea if you can encourage linking site owners to use your keywords or search phrases in the anchor text (the words you click on to activate the link) on their sites.

For example rather than using ‘Click Here’ in a link to the I to Eye website, it would be better for us if the anchor text was ‘website design’ or ‘powerpoint presentation designers’ and the links went to a specific page rather than just the home page.

Recipical links, that is when a site owner links to your site for a return link to their’s, don’t help your search engine ranking. Google assumes, that rather than based on the interest of the sites’ content, both site owners have enter an agreement to add the links.

However if they help generate additional traffic then they should be encouraged.

Posted by Charlotte Lamb

Whenever you send your customers an email, a letter or even an invoice there is a chance to tell them more about what your company can do for them. Use all the communications that you send to inform your customers and give them opportunities to come back to you to do business again.

Your business card has two sides so why not use the other side (you know, the one that is usually blank) to tell your customers an interesting fact or give them details about what you actually do. It will help them to remember you better if you only have a few minutes to talk to them at a networking event too.

Stick information about yourself or your services in a panel on your letters and your invoices, you can tell them about a complimentry service to the one they were originally interested in. Always give them a way to contact you direct if they want to know more.

The home page of your website can also act as a virtual ’shop window’ for you to show off your services, provide information and place testimonials from satisfied customers. You can rotate your products and services on this page so that visitors to the site will see something new each time.

Creating opportunities to sell more to your customers only takes a bit of thought and it might win you extra business you might not otherwise get.

If you would like help in designing your stationery and making your communications more effective I to Eye can help, contact us on 01962 737989 and speak to David Woodroofe.