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Welcome to the August Newsletter
It's been a few months since our last newsletter, so lots of news and updates to tell you about, as well as the 2nd in our "How To" series of tutorials - this time looking at a subject we're often asked about - SEO.
2007 Customer Survey
As part of our continued effort to ensure we deliver not only exceptional customer support and service, but also expand our products and services to meet your needs, we need your help! Our 2007 Customer survey is now online, and we invite you to complete the survey (shouldn't take longer than 5 minutes) at the following address:
http://surveys.nsdesign.net
New Team Members
We've recently added 2 new faces to the team, so some quick introductions to Martin Sarsini, and Gail McLauchlan. Martin joined NSDesign in March, and brings with him a speciality in accessible web development conforming to high usability and accessibility standards. Gail started in June, and is working on a number of Marketing initiatives including our latest customer survey. I hope you'll make them both feel welcome.
NSBuilder Training
Following a very successful pilot course, we're delighted to confirm that Glasgow City Council has agreed to continue it's funding for companies looking to design and build or improve their website using our NSBuilder site builder/cms system. Eligible companies can now get 50% of the course fee funded, resulting in a saving of £150.
The dates for the next training course (run over 2 mornings) have been confirmed as the 5th and 12th September 2007, with further dates to be released later in the year. More details (including eligibility criteria) can be found at:
http://www.nsdesign.co.uk/nsbuilder/training
Value Added Services
As many of you will already have seen, we've recently partnered with some of the best online retailers and service providers, to offer all NSDesign customers a range of value added products and services. These include a free "Merchandise Shop" allowing you to increase revenue by creating and selling a range of branded gifts from your website (see http://www.nsdesign.spreadshirt.co.uk/ for details) and a free 10% discount at online retailer "I Want One of Those" - just enter NSDESIGN into the offer code on the Shopping cart before you checkout at http://www.iwantoneofthose.com
How To - SEO Basics
The second of our "How To" series, aims to provide you with some of the basics to improve your website's SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Without an optimised website, the chances of you being found in Google are greatly reduced, meaning less visitors, and less online sales. Get the basics of SEO right, and you'll notice a marked improvement of how (and where) Google ranks your website, resulting in more (and better qualified) traffic to your site.
Choose your keywords
Get started by working out what people actually search for, and prepare a list of keywords and phrases that you will use later on. Try and think as a "customer", and get friends and family to suggest what they might type into Google. If you were selling online Golf Equipment, then as as well as obvious phrases like "Golf" and "Golf equipment", you may also want to consider "Recommend a Putter" and "Buy a new Driver" as part of your keyword list. Your keywords should reflect what your potential buyers actually type - not what you'd like them to type!!
OnSite Optimisation
Onsite optimisation means the work you can physically do to your own website to improve it for Google. In a nutshell, this means updating your webpage "Title", "Meta Data", and "content" with well written text that includes one (or more) of your chosen keywords. SEO copywriting is an art in itself, but simply making sure it reads well, while also containing a good "weighting" of keywords and phrases will help improve things.
OffSite Optimisation
The biggest thing you can do regarding offsite optimisation, is to get people to link to your website. However - don't ever make the mistake of faking inbound links by paying for them. Using things like "Link Farms" and "Link Trade" sites is not advised, and you risk having Google actually remove any listing as a result. Instead focus on getting good, quality websites to link to you, and if possible, get them to use your keywords and phrases in the actual link text. So instead of "Click here to visit ABC Golf", a better link would be "Buy a new Driver at ABC Golf". Google sees external links to your site as a vote, and therefore increases your "Page Rank" as a result, and with good use of optimised Link Text (reinforcing to Google what the site is about), you'll soon see your site move to page 1 on Google!
Get the basics right, and you're off to a good start - but if you want to do even more, need help finding the right keywords or writing optimised copy, or even want to consider a "pay per click" Google Adword campaign, then get in touch and we can help you improve your Search Engine Rankings.
If you have any suggestions or ideas for future "How To" features, then please let us know.
If you have any questions on any of the above items, please don't hesitate to get in touch, and as always we appreciate your feedback.
Until the next time.....