Pippas Web story – it was just the beginning
This is my story.
When I was growing up my parents splashed out and we had our own computer (just like the ones we had at school the BBC “model B” that loaded games via a tape recorder, and you could programme with simple little codes to do draw on the screen. I loved playing with it, and tried the coding several times from codes in the odd book or magazine my Mum had found. I used the computer on and off through my school and college life, but not to any big extreme, just the basics.
Then in 1997 I moved in with my then fiancé and other than the flat one of our first big buys was a home computer. I couldn’t see the point of having a computer at home. He was the one pushing for it, he’s heard about the Internet and couldn’t wait. Me I wasn’t fussed and was just looking forward to re-learning the wordprocessor and spreadsheets. However after we got it, I spent more and more time on the Internet finding more and more things of interest to learn.
Then I found a site that let you create your own website, “ wow how exciting”, but what could I possibly do it on. Other than being on the computer and working I didn’t do much but my Hubby played cricket for his local friendly side. So I thought I’d do a site for them to share team news etc. so I created my first site. Over the next few years I found out that you could learn a code to create sites not just use the online software, but didn’t have the time or now where to start learning it. However having slipped down some steps at work and one swollen ankle later meant that I had some time one my hand so I spent the week with an online course teaching myself HTML on the computer, my foot up resting. So having worked through the course I wanted a challenge. So I decided to re-design that cricket club web site and coded every page by hand. Well that site did the trick the club loved it, and I was really proud of my achievement.
From there I created several different sites over the years for different reasons but all for either me or my family. I created a site for my Mum who had re-trained as a hypnotherapist and a year or so later for a theatre group. I got enough feedback from people that they loved the sites that I decided to do more reading to see how i could develop my own html coding. So through online courses again I learnt about CSS and JavaScript, and then turned my attention to SEO (search engine optimisation) to help my Mum’s site out.
I was working as an analyst for a utilities company when I went on maternity leave with my second child, my department was relocated 45mins down the road. So I took the opportunity to leave and decided to give Pippas Web – web design a try to see if there was a need for my work. So here I am, this is me and my story.
So what can you take from this to start out on your own.
Enjoy what you do – find something of interest , a hobby, a craft, computer coding. If you’re going to go into business for yourself, then you want to enjoy what you do.
Continue to learn – read around your chosen business, expand your knowledge, the theory and then learn new related skills things that will give you an edge.
- what do they want from you, do you need to change anything, do you need to be able to do anything different?
Make the most of your opportunities – I had a week off work, where all I could was sit there. I made good use of that time by teaching myself a new skill. You never know where that new skill might just take you.
This is my story why not share yours with me below.
From Blank Page to Content – Where to Start?
Whether you are planning on creating your own website or hiring someone else to design your site at some point you’re going to have to start adding some content to your website, but where to start?
I find it very difficult to write about someone else’s business without quizzing them thoroughly, at the end of the day, you know your business best so either writing your own content or providing lots of information on what you do can only help.
I was talking to a client yesterday who was going to go away and start working on his content, but didn’t know where to start, I said I’d try and send some suggestions through this is what I came up with, bare in mind it’s not exhaustive but just designed to get you to think about your business and your site and give you a place to start.
• Who are you aiming your service at businesses, individuals?
• Are you going to serve a specific area or a larger more general area UK / world wide?
• What is your unique selling point (what makes your service different to the competition)
• If you were looking for your business in Google what would you type in to find it? (These are called keywords)
• Do you know the address of any of your competitors, have you checked out their sites? What do you / don’t you like about them?
• What services do you provide?
• What contact details are you going to use.
• How do you want to be paid?
• Do you have any ideas of the kind of colour scheme you’d be looking for?
• Do you have any images that can be used or do you want to find some on one of the many image sites.
Here are some ideas for basic pages you might want to include.
Home – This page should give over view of what you do, direct people to other area of the site to find more detail
About us, – explain who is involved in the company, how you got started what skills you bring to it etc.
Services – what do you offer, do you want to add prices?,
Contact – includes your contact details, giving a physical address and phone number gives customers more confidence in you than leaving them out. Contact form do you need any specific information to be able to help them best? Or will standard name, email address and message do for initial contact.
I hope this gets you started.
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” Walt Disney
Pippas Web design websites for start up companies and small business, check us out.
I Just Want A Basic Website
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| What does a basic website involve? |
So you’ve decided you want a website, a “basic Website” but what does that mean?
To me a basic web design includes the following
Home page – This sets the scene for the whole website, it should explain what the site is about, briefly the services you provide. The home page is likely to be the first page a potential customer says, they need to see personality, link it to different areas of website but make sure it’s clear for people new to your site to find what they are looking for, your services, your prices if appropriate etc.
About Us page – This is where you add information about when the company was formed , who is involved. if there’s just you then tell your customer about you and how come you do what you do. If qualifications are required for what you do, you could list them here.
Services or Products Page - Why does you potential client need your service? what do you offer? Do you offer anything different to anyone else? If you offer more than one service consider adding each service to a different page. This will make it easier for SEO purposes later if you only have to focus on one topic per page.
A big question is “should I advertise my prices?” There are several ways to consider this question.
- Show Prices - it could deter time wasters, if they know how much they don’t need to contact you, this leaves you time to deal with those that really want to use your services and are happy to pay what you’re asking.
- Don’t show – You are giving your competitors information that they can use to under cut your prices, Your prices may initially appear too high to the untrained customer, which make them turn away from you. Or appear too cheap to be real.
Contact page – This is an important page as it is the basis of communication between you and your customers. If you’re selling things from your website you need to add a physical address to your website. Adding addresses and phone numbers will help build trust between your potential customer and yourself, showing that you’re real, and that you can be contactable if they want to.
Give people an option of how they contact you. Some people prefer to speak in person in the phone as first contact, other would prefer to write an email or fill in a contact form.
So with all this to consider what makes it Basic?
To me a basic website, consists of:
- mainly text and images.
- no added extras, like shopping basket, booking diaries,
- anything that needs adding and extra coding,
But then if you know nothing about how to create a websites and where to start, nothing is really “basic” is it?
To see how Pippasweb could help your business, check us out.
Happy Customer – OvenMagic
Having relocated in the summer I needed to change my sites SEO to Stafford
as part of this on going project in betwen client work I have also been asking for some reviews from some of my clients on Google places to let others know what my clients think of me. I am pleased to say that several responded so I would like to share them on my blog over the next few posts.
Let me introduce you to OvenMagic run by Kevin Kemp.
Oven Magic is an oven cleaning company based Droitwich, Worcestershire.
Cleaning residential and commercial oven, hobs and ranges in Worcestershire and south Birmingham. Making greasy, dirty ovens, sparkle again like new.
Kevin had a site that he’d launched early last year and wanted some SEO work carrying out. Having re-coded his site into CSS rather than it’s original table format making it easier to make future changes.
This is what Kevin had to say about my work.
“Oven Magic would like to thank Pippasweb for the continued support with the www.ovenmagic.me web site on keeping it at page One on google in the worcestershire area for all of 2010. Pippa has given me a better understanding of how seo works and i would without hesitation recommend pippas web service to any start up company looking for affordable seo. pippa has also up dated my web site with a super fast turn round time thank you pippa”
As Kevin said for most locations in his target area for the term “Oven Cleaning” he is on the 1st page of results and for “oven cleaning Worcester” as of Nov 2010 he actually occupied the No1# slot from over 53,000 results.
Customer: Kevin Kemp – OvenMagic.
Service: SEO and site Maintenance.
Site: http://www.ovenmagic.me
To see how Pippasweb could help your business, check us out.
Who is your site for?
When designing your website (whether you are doing it yourself or getting someone else to do it for you), it is important to consider who your site is for and what is it’s purpose.
I’m guessing the answer will be your site is to attract customers, but who are your customers, and what do they want.
For example are you selling to business to business, providing information that organisations, councils etc might want to read, or directly to the client. The style of the site could possibly reflect the content, for example if you’re providing something to help people relax, for example hypnotherapy etc then a calming style to your site. Sites do look good when kept simple and spacious, however you still need to ensure that all the relevant content is present. Google relies on content to help it decide your keywords and when to return your site in the results. Therefore the more information you put onto your site, will only help.
The balance you need to find is keeping the content user-friendly for the people reading your site and using the relevant keywords in the relevant places for search engines to find you too. Remember your site may look aesthetically pleasing but unless you have the information your users are looking for, or using keywords for search engines then it’s unlikely to be found by your potential buyers, site users.
To see how Pippasweb could help your business, check us out.
Happy Customer – Lucy Owen Catering Company
I know it’s been a while since I posted anything, but I’m still busy working on sites, SEO for others and of course my own site, as well as preparing to move house in the next two weeks, looking after the children…… Therefore the blog I’m afraid does tend to suffer. I do try and keep my fan page updated every couple of days so if you need a short fix come check us out.
However I got a wonderful email last night, that helped me to see it is all worth it. What I do, the site I create help other people and their businesses.
Let me introduce you to Lucy Owen Catering Company run by Debbie Saunders.
Lucy Owen Catering Company is a family run, home-based catering company in Hampshire. Creating wonderful food using locally sourced produce where possible. So whatever your event; business, party, engagement, christening, baptism, wedding, civil ceremony or funeral they have a buffet menu for you.
We designed the website at the end of last year and due the company doing well Debbie needed to add additional menus onto to the site a few months later.
This is what Debbie has to say.
“Thank you so much for all the help and guidance you have given me. I have been singing your praises to anyone who has commented on the website. I’ve had nothing but complimentary things said about it.”
Customer: Debbie Saunders- Lucy Owen Catering Company.
Service: Original site design and additional pages.
Site: http://www.lucyowencatering.co.uk/
To see how Pippasweb could help your business, check us out.
The Advantages of Professional Web Design vs Doing it Yourself
You’ve probably got ideas running through your head about what you want to go on YOUR site, but the next choice is, who will create your site?
The two options
1) Hire someone to create your site.
2) Do it yourself.
OK firstly lets look at the idea of you creating your site.
There are many sites out there, that can help you to build without the need for learning any code, for example, http://www.doyourownsite.co.uk/ or http://www.webs.com/ or http://www.moonfruit.com/ .
Building your own site will Save you Money, and it will give you a great sense of achievement watching your site appear before you. However, depending on how you decide to create your site, you will need to learn about how to design a site, and then how to promote it afterwards, in order to make it work for you. A big positive is You can use your own ideas. You don’t have to try and explain to a web designer, how you want your site to look like.
Choosing a designer has its advantages.
You may have your ideas about what you want on the site and how you want it to look, but the designer has more experience about what does and doesn’t work. It sounds strange but just choosing a different site colour and logo could stop someone from leaving your site immediately, a designer can help with this.
Getting professional help may include SEO (search engine optimisation) preparing your site ready for Google and the other search engines to help get a better ranking. You can do this yourself, and my facebook page and this blog will offer ideas of you can, however it can be very time consuming so do you have the time?
OK so a designer will cost you money, and that amount may vary depending on who you get to do it. As with anything else I suggest you get some quotes. If you’re a new start up company or a sole trader then you budget is likely to be tight, (This is where Pippas Web comes in). So the cheaper option of doing it yourself may appeal, but weigh this up against the time it will take you, to learn to do and to promote your site. This is all time that may we be better spent doing what you know best, running your business, and let the designers do what they do.
Happy Customer – Freelance Proofreader Claire Arnold BA (Hons)
I’ve not really added my own testimonials yet, tending to rely more on visual examples of my work than peoples’ responses. But this week I received a wonderful testimonial that I thought I should share with you.
In a world where my computer guesses what word I want to use and then tells me how to spell it, a whole host of arguments between me and my spell checker about the differences between spellings in the USA and the UK just add to my confusion.
Now let me introduce you to Claire Arnold BA (Hons), who is a Freelance Proofreader.
A proofreader is someone who will read your documents, your website; indeed, anything you write, including checking it for errors and, most importantly, give you the corrections. (Personally, I usually get my poor hubby to read my posts or pages before they go live to get him to pick up the worst, but he doesn’t have that much interest in what I’m writing.)
The documents can be essays or dissertation for students, company documents or advertising. Documents can be paper (hard copy), digital or even online. Even websites and blogs can corrected before going live.
I’ve been helping Claire make some small changes to her website to get it ready for customers and hopefully optimising it ready for Google to find and list it.
This is what Claire has to say.
“I recently employed Pippa’s services for help with my website. I was extremely happy with the professional, friendly service I received. She was always there with brilliant advice and suggestions, as well as making amendments to my site that greatly improved all aspects of my site. I would not hesitate to recommend her for her skills in web design, as well as fantastic customer service.”
If you’re interested in using Claire’s proofreading services, she has kindly made the following discounted offer:
*If you mention “pippasweb” when you contact Claire, you will receive 25% off.
Customer: Claire Arnold – Proofreader.
Service: Current Site – Update.
Site: http://www.proofreaderpro.moonfruit.com/
To see how Pippasweb could help your business, check us out.
What are Keywords?
Everyone is going on about keywords?
You can’t carry out any kinds of SEO (Search engine optimisation) on your site without looking at keywords. But what are keywords?
Essentially keywords are the words that people will enter into search engines to find your website.
For example if your site sells double glazing, then the kinds on words you use would be double glazing, windows, replacement windows, conservatories.
Your job is to tell the search engine what words you want to be found under. The search engine will then decide how relevant the site is to those keywords you’ve selected and then how popular your site and page is (the number of links to the site) and then it applies it algorithms to determine where to position your age in the results.
How do I choose my keyword?
Ok as it’s your site, and to set up your business and site I’m sure you looked at the competition, so I’m sure you’ve got some ideas about the words you want to use, but for interest, or to give you some new ideas why not try one of the many tools available on the Internet. One free tool is Googles Adwords tool (it’s meant to help people pick their keywords for their adwords campaigns but will at least give you some clue as to how popular certain terms are. Just enter your website and it’ll suggest some keywords (don’t list them all, they won’t all be useful). Think about the words you chose. If you clean carpets, you don’t necessarily want people looking for new carpet. You may also want to consider using long tail keywords rather than just short tail ones. A short tail keyword is the widest and most commonly used term for example carpet, a long tail keyword would be something like commercial carpet cleaning, residential carpet cleaning, pet friendly carpet cleaning etc.
So how can we tell the search engines where we want to be found?
A good place to start on your site, on each page is to use Meta tags. Each web page is normally constructed using html or another code. HTML has two sections (The head and the body of a document) in the head section of the code, goes the information that is not designed to be seen, information like the page title, description, the keywords, links to CSS documents etc. The body is the coding that tells browsers what to put on the web page and how it should look. So as long as you have access to change information in the head of your page you can set your own keywords.
The Title of the page I would normally add you company or site name as part of the title, for example “Pippas Web: basic SEO services for small businesses”. The title should be unique and relevant to what is on the page. Guess what everyone calls their first page, home! Try to think of something different.
The keywords are added using a Meta tag. They are added separated by a comma, and a space. For example web design, SEO, HTML, etc…. words can be listed individually or in groups for example Horror, cheap books, true stories, books Although be choosey, you should ideally have 4-5 main keywords per page (the rest can be variations of the wording in order to get the widest coverage) and no more that 20 in total per page. But remember you can and should have different words for each page so you can spread your keywords around.
The page description should also appear in Meta tag, it should give an explanation about what is on the page, ideally using some of the keywords already listed.
The contents of the body section or the writing on the site itself should include your chosen keywords; remember them in headings, when using Alt tags for images and in the text itself. However, don’t just cram them in for the sake of it, at the end of the day you can have the number one slot on Google, but if no-body can or wants to read your site what’s the point???
On their own these things will only help guide Google to when to list your site, the other aspects of SEO like link building help to determine where in the results your site should go.
Links building, bonus points.
Ok so your site is now focused on your keywords, you’re next job is to get links to it. Where possible use your chosen keywords as the anchor link, the text that the link is hidden behind like this SEO, it’s not always possible but if you are requesting links, or if you can choose, choose your wording wisely.
Your choice of keywords should not be set stone, you might want to tweak them, change them to reflect the current content of your page.
Small Changes.
Well over the last few weeks I’ve been taking an online course in CSS. It has helped to clarify what I had tried to work out for myself before hand. Since then I have been working on a couple of sites including the Pippas Web site and the cricket club site which I maintain.
Pippas Web was made true CSS coding not part CSS and part tables, with just a little tidy up while I was there. I do plan to re-write some sections soon.
The other site I have updated with new colours and finally caught up with some of the missing results and entrants for the competitions.
Neither site has been changed radically, but for me it was more about trying to tidy up behind the scene’s, practising some new skills and making some good looking sites.
If anyone has any comments about them, please do let me know.
