Visual PA Website Comments

[Rob]

Here's the original post from another thread:

"My wife and I have started a small web design business after being asked by a family friend to help build them a web site. We offer a service now to small business who want a web site but not lots of money. We both enjoy making the sites and not having the money to advertise all our work comes from word of mouth. Does our own web site inspire you to use us? We changed it so many times. Its nice to have a forum like this to be able to get feedback as asking family and friends i think does not give you an unbias answer..thanks to Rob now i can get feedback i hope

our site is at www.visualpa.co.uk'

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For the market you are aiming at the sites look good - not over designed, simple and functional, just what small businesses would want I guess. When I started the SBS site in 2001 I did it myself and honestly it was terrible so a service such as yours would have been great.
Your navigation is clear, you have testimonials quoted.
Two things to look at:

1) Your title and description title - 'Visual PA Home Page' - no good. Needs to be much more descriptive; also the keywords you have listed are too generic - need to at least quote 'UK' or even narrowed down to your local area; this way any searches coming via search engines will be be more targeted

2) To drive organic traffic why not have an article database focusing on web related issues - I have a section at www.smallbusinesssuccess.biz/small_business_articles_ideas_tips.htm
You will see three website/internet marketing sections with articles picked from various article directories.
Inclusion of this sort of resource will provide additional content for the search engines to be attracted to your site and reasons for visitors to come back regularly to see what new articles have been included.

Those are my initial thoughts.

[visualpa]

It is great to have such a place to recieve an honest opinion and assistance . You don't get much these days for nothing and trying to start a buisness like ours is not easy. But coming here and having a place to recieve help from like minded people is fantastic. I cannot thank Rob enough for the articles and help that he offers.
Gary

[CIDCouriers-dot-com]

Hi, I have to agree - pretty well laid out, I'm the type of person that likes things simple to navigate and follow, but there again, I learnt to program many years ago and I guess my neat logical method is kind of hard to get away from.

Of all your pages, I personally prefer the portfolio page as all the boxes are similarly sized and laid out neater, and just to keep the site consistant, you could draw boxes around your contact details - just me being extremely picky.

Just sneaking a peek at your source code, have you thought of using CSS coding for your menu buttons instead of preloading and swapping images, saves a lot of messing around if you want to change the menu in some way - have a look at my site (and also view the source) as I use a similar style menu but it's all done with code in a separate file so I only have to make one change for the whole site.

[visualpa]

Thank you for the advice C.I.D we take onboard what you say we do use our own templates which also work similar to CSS. (one change effects all) We do check our download time to keep it to a minimum. We also try keep our pages to a minimum without loosing important information.
thanks
gary

[PaulSimister]

I agree with Rob that you need to be making much better use of title tags aimed at your keywords both for your own site and for your clients.

Clients need a nice website but they also need the site to be found so aim local first and then expand. That may be difficult in such a competitive market as website design but it is an essential first step.

I can recommend 299 Steps to Website Heaven (http://businesscoaching.typepad.com/business_books/2008/04/299-steps-to-we.html) by Nikki Pilkington as an excellent starter book on search engine optimisation and I am featuring her some of her tips on my Online Profits (http://businesscoaching.typepad.com/online_profits/nikki_pilkington/index.html) blog

Nikki gave me permission to feature the tips and I was adding them at two or three per week and I will start again.

I also recommend that you sharpen up your website copy so that it has more impact.

eg a slogan/USP across the top

A better headline that Welcome eg Quality websites at an affordable price - not great but the best I can come up with on the spur of the moment - take a look at a few of your competitors and whilst you shouldn't copy you can be inspired by.

You could even turn "Many people would like a professional web site but do not know where to start." into a question to use as a headline

Do you want a professional website but you don't know where to start?

It talks more directly to the reader and that has to be good.

Your website should be selling people on the desire to have a website and to buy from you.

As a website designer you will be judged on the impact your website makes.

I see that on the websites you are designing that you have a link back to you which is very sensible but you may want to link it to a keyword phrase to help your SEO, especially for local websites eg website design leicestershire

(http://www.visualpa.co.uk/index.htm)

I have a general criticism of website designers in that they don't buy into the client's objectives of having a website that helps the client to make money but basic search engine optimisation skills will certainly help.

You may also want to offer a website directory submitting service to help build incoming links and I suggest that you join Ecademy (http://www.ecademy.com/) and participate using at least one keyword link on your signature. It is very good for building links that could towards Google and because it is spidered so frequently, it can help your clients be indexed and noticed quickly.

[visualpa]

thanks Paul
Once again some helpful and impressive ideas. thanks for taking the time to help me. I will have to do some reading on how to improve my and my clients keywords. We do list our sites on a local search engine or directory which lists all local business. However we do our best to ensure that our clients get the best we have to offer and once i am up to speed with keywords (thanks for that) be sure that it will implemented

[PaulSimister]

I am pleased to help and I did worry that I had gone too far.

The cheapest way to do keyword research is the Wordtracker free tool (http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/keyword-suggestion-tool.html).

The clever bit is to find the right compromise between the number of searches and the probability of getting onto the first page of the search engine which is why I recommend that you focus on local searches initially in such a competitive area.

Then you work on optimising around those keywords in your title, your copy and the incoming links but it all has to look natural to Google.

Good luck. There are plenty of resources out there for learning about the basics of search engine optimisation but Nikki Pilkington's book I recommended above is nice and clear and because there are 299 steps, they are in nice bite-sized chunks.

[boybawan]

If you design a lot of websites, it can be easy to get stuck in a rut. Remember to treat each project individually; that way you'll end with a site you need, rather than a site just like all your others..