I like to keep an eye on all things Google when I get a spare minute or two at my Chichester Design desk and I think the value of
Google Verbatim for business websites is well worth highlighting. It allows business website owners to see how well their site is truly ranking.

Google Verbatim is a search mode in Google that allows users to perform searches that are affected only by the keyword entered. You thought that was what happened anyway? The truth is very different – Google corrects any errors you may make, such as spelling and grammar. It also uses factors such as location, plus 1s and your search history when choosing which search results to return.

Google Verbatim strips all this back. The search mode is kind of new and kind of not. Traditionally you could make verbatim searches using + in the search bar. However, this service was quietly withdrawn earlier this year, which I assume was because of the launch of Google+. So, Google Verbatim is the replacement.

Google Verbatim does not tailor search results and, because of the forensic results it provides, business website owners can get an insight into just how good (or bad) their online profile is. At a time when the focus seems to be strongly on the boom in
mobile browsing, mobile website optimisation (MWO) and social media optimisation (SMO), Google Verbatim is a reminder of the importance of search engine optimisation (SEO) in the online business world.

To find out more about Chichester Design’s web design and development services, including SEO, SMO and MWO, contact Michelle on +44 (0) 1243 787542 or info@chichesterdesign.co.uk.

Facebook’s subscribe button is a clever response to Google+ Circle and a shot across the bow of Twitter – it allows a user to follow anybody’s or any company’s public updates regardless of whether they are Facebook friends. I think this opens another social media optimisation opportunity for businesses.

Companies already use Facebook local business pages and targeted advertising to market to the 750 million plus people that use the social network and the subscribe button presents a new avenue of development. Expect subscribe-related marketing
campaigns to spring up soon.

Mentioning Zuckerberg’s latest update also lets me demonstrate the power of social media for businesses. We build and run social media marketing campaigns at Chichester Design and the tweeting by Lily Allen of a recipe by our client The British Larder caused a huge spike in attention for the foodie company and has helped increase the number of visitors that their
website receives.

Getting more visitors to your website is a sure-fire way to generate business, which is what social media optimisation is all about. We’re able to track all this information thanks to a tool called Tynt Insight – I talked about it in a post last year. It’s ingenious and, when attached to a site, helps to increase web traffic, achieve stronger search engine optimisation, measure visitor engagement and improve online brand profile.
To find out more about Chichester Design’s web design and development services, contact Michelle on +44 (0) 1243 787542 or info@chichesterdesign.co.uk.

I haven’t posted much on web videos for a while, but a recently completed project for live website moderation company dis.cuss.it is the perfect opportunity to put this right. We designed and built a web video to demonstrate this client’s core
product.

The animated HD web video on the homepage gives a simple introduction to the company’s live website moderation tool, conveying key information in an engaging way in a short space of time. This web video was created on the Vimeo
channel and the same can be done using YouTube. Which is best? Find out here.

Speed and simplicity are key here. People’s attention spans when browsing the web are notoriously short – a matter of seconds depending on which statistic you believe – so you don’t have long to capture their interest. The point is, as a business, you have to get your message across quickly and clearly, and this is where web videos come into their own, and why they are essential for online businesses.

I said at the beginning of the year that web videos were the must-have online business tool for 2011 and nothing has happened to make me change my mind. Of course, web videos don’t have to be animated – they can be shot using real people or they can demonstrate a manufacturing process central to what a business does. This is a good example: custom embroidery company Snappy Crab use an HD web video filmed and edited by Chichester Design to demonstrate their product.

A professional web video not only helps keep customers on company websites, but also helps businesses gratify Google and climb the search engine rankings. As I’ve said before, search engine optimisation and social media optimisation are hugely important, and web videos play a vital role.

To find out more about Chichester Design’s web design and development services, including web videos, contact Michelle on +44 (0) 1243 787542 or info@chichesterdesign.co.uk.

Online sunglasses retailer EODiwear came to us with a brief to give them a dynamic web presence that would reflect the style and standard of the eyewear they sell. They specialise in heavy-duty, high-standard sunglasses which are designed to see some action, and survive it.

One of the first things we did was to get our photographer to shoot EOD’s extensive product range so that the performance eyewear could really be shown off to site visitors. Another key feature of the website was an online store with e-commerce functionality, allowing shoppers to purchase their sunglasses there and then.

Naturally for a sunglasses company, visibility is very important, so we fully search-engine optimised the new website in order to maximise EODiwear’s online presence. There are also links to the company’s Twitter and Facebook accounts, which comes as part of our social media optimisation package. Gratifying Google has never been so important if you want to appear high up in search engine rankings and grab consumers’ attention, so that’s what we’ve done.

Of course, the project also included a fresh look for the site and the new website design went down well (as did everything else) – read the testimonial here. All in all, it was a great project to work on with a really enthusiastic client.

To find out more about Chichester Design’s web design and development services, contact Amy on +44 (0) 1243 787542 or info@chichesterdesign.co.uk.

Search engine optimisation and social media marketing, which I talked about in relation to Facebook company pages, are elements of digital marketing, which is essentially marketing carried out on the web. As you can imagine, this type of marketing is becoming increasingly important as more and more business is carried out online.

You can read more about search engine optimisation and social media marketing in my previous blogs. However, there are other key elements of digital marketing, such as online newsletters, video marketing and pay per click (PPC) advertising.

I don’t think online newsletters, or e-newsletters as they are often called, need much explanation, other than to say they are a cost-effective way of marketing your company (much cheaper than sending out physical newsletters). Properly set up and managed, they are a great way to advertise products and services, maintain brand awareness and build a position of authority.

Video marketing is a fast-growing digital marketing tool. Having a video on your business website allows you to demonstrate a product, introduce a service or tell people what it is you do. This type of video delivers key messages, consumer engagement and consumer action, and helps make your business more visible online.

PPC advertising is a popular internet advertising format that allows business to conduct targeted online advertising campaigns. Advertisers place their adverts online, targeting specific consumer groups, and only incur a fee when the advert is clicked on.

Despite the different elements and the techie jargon that surrounds them, digital marketing isn’t as daunting as it seems. But, it is important that you use someone who has the specialist knowledge – such as us! – because such marketing should have as much impact and deliver as much return on investment as possible.

To find out more about Chichester Design’s web design and development services, including digital marketing, contact Michael on +44 (0)1243 787542 or info@chichesterdesign.co.uk.

In my experience, Twitter and LinkedIn have been the first points of contact for businesses in the world of social media. They’ve led the march so to speak. Facebook has been able to accommodate it for quite some time, but all the same it has remained in the shadow of Twitter and LinkedIn.

Well, until now that is. Thanks to a discussion thread on one of my groups on LinkedIn, I’ve been able to read about a strong growth trend in businesses setting up their own pages on Facebook.

I watched a presentation the other day which stated that more than 700,000 businesses have active pages on Facebook. That’s just active ones – there are undoubtedly a good number of inactive ones, i.e. those that don’t update their pages with new content, whether it’s images, offers or links to blogs.  In fact, I’d like to bet that the number is nearer one million now.

The Chichester Design team has just set up a Facebook page for Yellowstone Ski Lodge, which is just one example of the huge number of B2C companies that use the network. However, while B2C companies are the largest user group of company pages on Facebook, there are an increasing number of B2B companies using it as well.

A quick read through the discussion board lets me see that a marketing agency, a graphic design company, an IT trainer and a corporate events organiser to name but a few have their own pages. And, of course, we have our own Facebook page here at Chichester Design.

Another client that we’ve recently been doing some social media optimisation work for is Jacaranda Catering. One of the great things about a business using Facebook is the targeted marketing it allows you to do.

Because of the nature of Facebook and the information it has at its disposal, online marketing campaigns can be tailored to target very specific groups of people. For instance, campaigns can be aimed at specific age ranges, interests groups and locations. They can even be targeted at people who only use the social network at certain times of day.

Going back to Jacaranda, a catering company for whom wedding catering is a major focus, we’ve been able to create a campaign on Facebook that specifically targets engaged women.

And, of course, having an active Facebook page and linking it with your main website is a great search engine optimisation tool. This kind of activity is what helps makes businesses more visible online.

To find out more about Chichester Design’s web design and development services, including social media marketing, contact Michael on +44 (0)1243 787542 or info@chichesterdesign.co.uk.

As the marketplace has grown increasingly competitive, it is no longer good enough to just have a static website. A website has to interact with visitors; content matters and it has to earn its place in search engine rankings.

Hence, search engine optimisation (SEO) has become an essential business tool for companies that want their products and services to stand out above a very busy crowd. The correct SEO techniques can mean the difference between top billing on a search engine and being lost among the masses.

So, how does SEO work? Well, the technology behind it can be a little dense and dry. So, I thought a few Chichester Design top tips would be more useful for businesses wanting to benefit from SEO. I’ve kept the details to a minimum, so if you want to know more, just get in touch.

• Submit your business website to the DMOZ directory.
• Verify the ownership of your business website with the search engine operators.
• Create meta description tags and unique page titles for your website.
• Place your business on Google Earth using a geo-sitemap.
• Use Google Places to create a business listing with text and images.

To find out more about Chichester Design’s social engine optimisation and related services, contact Michael on +44 (0)1243 787542 or info@chichesterdesign.co.uk.

Most of the websites I’ve looked at have put me off right away: poor information, hard to navigate, low-quality pictures and a generally uninspiring feel. All of which says to me: don’t stay here!

What makes this particularly surprising (and irritating) is that these are the type of business for whom a good website is essential. Potential customers, especially those who are visiting the area for the first time, can be put off in an instant by a bad website. Equally, they can be enticed to make a booking by a good one.

Talking of guesthouses and B&Bs with good websites, we have just finished a new website for Landseer House in Sidlesham, near Chichester (www.landseerhouse.co.uk). We overhauled their website, adding up-to-date information on what they offer and a selection of brand new images, taken by the Chichester Design photographer.

As part of the redesign, the website was fully search-engine optimised by our specialist team, giving Landseer House a higher Google ranking, which makes it more visible to potential guests. We also set up a Google AdWords online marketing campaign to help boost its online profile further.

If only more guest houses, B&Bs and hotels would follow suit, my trip planning would be a lot easier!

To find out more about Chichester Design’s web design and development services, contact Michael on +44 (0)1243 787542 or info@chichesterdesign.co.uk.

Chichester Design recommends using landing pages to tie in with digital marketing campaigns from email newsletters to PPC. Having a specific and carefully designed landing page linking from an email newsletter or a Google AdWords ad is more likely to maximise your return on investment. Just think about it, if you’re directed to a homepage it can be confusing for you to work out where you should navigate to next, if directed to a specific landing page you will do less of the thinking and more of the doing. Therefore, landing pages help with navigation, internal linking and aid search engine optimisation in that they help both visitors and search engines find their way around your website.

Another advantage of using landing pages linked to digital marketing campaigns is that you can gain more customer insight using analytics tools.  You can use analytics data to find out where your visitors come from, what links they clicked on and how long they spend on your website. This kind of information can help maximise the effectiveness of future landing pages.

It would be great if it was possible that every webpage on every website was optimised for search engines; Chichester Design’s SEO expert would be in the money and we would all be able to find what we are looking for very easily. However, this is not always possible, particularly with large ecommerce websites that sell many products and have many pages. Creating dedicated landing pages per product range, rather than per product, gives you that opportunity to optimise them better with keywords, headlines and other SEO techniques but does not mean quite so much work- not necessarily good news  for us but most definitely good news for you J

So basically, hell yeah, landing pages are great for SEO! If you have an ecommerce business landing pages are a must to make your website more accessible to customers, more user-friendly for customers and maximise the chance of a conversion. To find out more about Chichester Design’s Search Engine Optimisation and web copywriting services contact: kate@chichesterdesign.co.uk.

Digital marketing can be defined as any number of mediums such as social media, Pay Per Click, Search Engine Optimisation, articles, blogs and forums.

Utilising digital marketing is clearly becoming more popular when we consider that there has been a 70% increase in budget spends for 2010 on off-site social media investment and a 64% increase in on-site social media investment as well as a 64% increase in budget allocation to Search Engine Optimisation (Econsultancy, Marketing Budgets, Feb 2010).

It also seems that Google AdWords is still the digital marketing medium where people spend the biggest chunk of their budget but Twitter is the most popular social media marketing tactic used.

According to Dave Chaffey of Smart Insights, when it comes to creating the very best digital marketing mix, you should make sure that you:

• Start with your website goals and how to create value for your customers
• Research your online marketplace to define your most appropriate marketing mix for your digital strategy
• Integrate web analytics, on and offline conversion tracking and optimisation so that campaign performance can be tracked and optimised
• Implement the tactics that fit your goals best and remain flexible and agile

 And when considering the recipe for campaign success, Dave suggests that you:

• Develop a campaign that creates a buzz that people can engage in and participate with
• Develop a campaign with momentum
• Use a steady drip effect to connect with your audience e.g. repeat email  campaigns when possible
• Reach prospects and customers through your networks
• Integrate cross channel messages e.g. sending a teaser email prior to a direct mail increases success rates
• Integrate email newsletters with social media

 If you would like to know more about what makes a successful marketing mix or you would like Kate our Digital Marketing Consultant to start work on your campaign strategy today, drop us an email.

You like that? Bet you did! Stay tuned to read more from Chichester Design on this year’s TFM&A including YouTube Vs Facebook and Is the Future mobile?