Archive for June, 2012

Here is our example SEO Checklist that we go through by default for all our SEO projects

Pre Sales
Pre-Sales Keyword Strategy Creation    Home + 10 pages (up to 50 key search terms)
Devise Content Strategy    Yes
Sign Contract with Delicious Webdesign    Yes

Initial Setup
Internal Handover Meeting    Yes
Kick Off Meeting    Tele Conference
Google Places Listing Setup (If not already setup, dependant on client sending authorisation card from Google)

Meta Strategy
Meta Title & Description Creation Home + 10 pages (up to 50 key search terms)

Content Strategy
Pages of Content Written and Added to Site (If purchased)    Yes
500 Word Blogs Written and Added to Site Monthly    2

Monthly Domain & Homepage QA
Index Check    Yes
Content Existence check    Yes
Duplicate Content Checks    Yes
Google Analytics Setup/Check (including tracking codes)    Yes
Google Webmaster Tools. Setup and Check    Yes
Bing Webmaster Tools Setup and Check    Yes
Sitemap Creation/Re-generation (XML/HTML/Video)    Yes
Internal broken links check/fix    Yes
Internal link setup/checks    Yes
URL rewriting (where possible)    Yes
Meta Tag Additions + Robots.txt Setup    Yes
Rich Snippets Opportunities Check    Yes
Add social share buttons    Yes
Update Relevant Alt Tags / Images    Yes
Canonicalisation Checks    Yes
Site Structure Checks (JavaScript/Navigation etc.)    Yes
Other QA Checks    Yes

Quarterly Sub Page QA (Meta Only)
Index Check    Yes
Check Internal Linking to Page    Yes
Meta Check for all targeted pages    Yes

Quarterly Sub Page QA (Content/Meta)
Index Check    Yes
Check Internal Linking to Page    Yes
Meta Check for all targeted pages    Yes
Content Existence Check    Yes
Duplicate Content Checks    Yes

Monthly Off Page
Generic Directory Submissions    Up to 25
Industry Vertical Directory Submissions    Up to 10
Article Submissions    1×10
Social Bookmarking of blogs written for site    Up to 20
Guest Blog Submissions    2×10
Website Data/Forum Profile Creations    Up to 2
Bespoke Linking

Monthly Press Release Strategy
Standard PR Submissions    1

Social Media Setup
Basic Facebook Setup    Yes
Basic Twitter Setup    Yes
Basic Google Plus Account Setup    Yes

Monthly Social Media
Auto feed of blogs to social sites    2

Reporting/Reporting Suite/Technologies
SEO Overview    Yes
Off-Page Reports    Yes
On-Page Reports    Yes
IBP Report    Yes
Competitor Report    Yes x 2
Ranking Report    Yes
Link Report    Yes

Content
Pages of web copy (up to 250 words)    10 + Homepage

Some of our clients are always being offered website names that are variations of the ones they already have by sales companies that buy the domain for £5 and want to sell it for £100 – £300, the ‘hook’ they use in the sales call or email is that the new website name is ‘needed’ and beneficial to the business and that it will bring in new visitors and traffic. In our experience the cost / effort / hassle of buying a new variation of an existing website name if you have an established company / brand outweighs any advantages unless you want to invest a lot of time / money / effort in building valuable and unique content on the new website name and promoting it. If that is the case then we recommend buying a ‘related domain name’ that would benefit from related searches for your business. For example if you own an Essex Builders website you may want to buy a website name that features you main service / most searched for product like ‘essex conservatories’.

There maybe a slight advantage to having hyphenated and non hyphenated versions of your website name and having that website name with variations of its Top Level Domain (TLD) like .com and .co.uk but this will only attract traffic if someone types in the address bar an exact URL. If your website name is known and searched for in Google you will naturally (or at least you should do) appear for that search. Therefore the cost / effort / hassle of having multiple domains that are simply variations of your current domain are in our opinion not worth it.

The following sales email was sent to a client of ours that demonstrate the sales pitch in attempting to sell them something they dont want or need that will give them no benefit.

I’ve noticed that you haven’t yet taken advantage of my offer for [a variation of your company name.com]

I can only assume that you’re still not sure it’s right for you and still have some questions. So, I’ve taken the liberty of answering the most common questions I receive about my domain names.

Q #1: ”Why do I need this website

A: You’re currently diluting your brand and losing valuable traffic. When many individuals think of the Internet they automatically think of short and attractive .com domains.
How many potential visitors are looking for your site but instead go to the memorable and prestigious webdesigninessex.com?

Q #2: ”But I already have a website…”

Virtually all of my clients already have a .net, .ca, .co.uk, .com.au or even a less attractive .com domain. They acquire my domain not to set up a new site or change the address of their site, but simply to redirect the .com domain to their site.

This ensures that when potential clients visit the .com domain, instead of being shown ads by some domain parking company, they are instantly redirected to the site they are looking for.

This is of course only one option. You can rebrand your entire business to webdesigninessex.com if you want to… it’s not necessary to immediately start benefiting from owning webdesigninessex.com.

Q #3: ”My web designer told me I don’t need another domain.”

Most web designers are great at what they do – designing web pages. They’re not so good at marketing and sales. From a strictly technical point it might be correct that you need only one domain name. But I’d strongly suggest that you get a second opinion from an online marketer or branding consultant. Chances are they will tell you that you absolutely need the variation of your website name  if you are serious about growing your business.

Q #4: ”Is the website for sale and what is the cost?”

A: Yes, it is currently for sale. Please check out the sales link on the website for pricing.

Q #5: ”How will I pay you and how am I protected?”

A: You can pay by PayPal, credit card or bank wire transfer.
For your full protection your payment is held in trust by a reputable third party, the world’s largest domain name marketplace.

Q #6: ”How will I receive my new website?”

A: You can either open an account at my domain name registrar, or you can transfer the domain to any registrar of your choice. It’s all very easy and I’ll help you with the details.

Q #7: ”Will you configure my domain?”

A: Yes. Most of my clients simply want to redirect the domain to their existing website and I’ll be glad to do that for you at no charge. I can also advise you about more complex configurations, such as transitioning your site to the new domain, or having both domains display the same website.

Q #8: ”Is there a guarantee?”

A: Absolutely! If you’re not 100% happy with your new website for any reason whatsoever, simply give it back within 60 days and I’ll refund your payment in full.

Q #9: ”Sounds great, so how do I get started?”

Go to the website and visit the sales link. Click on the green “Buy Now” button to buy the domain.

I look forward to welcoming you to the exclusive group of business professionals who have greatly improved their online presence by obtaining an attractive .com domain for their website.

Apprenticeships are a cost effective recruitment solution for our website design business and we are currently considering taking on an Apprentice. With youth unemployment rising, this is our chance to make a difference by utilising the Apprenticeship programme.

As another Essex based small / medium sized business its possible that you are aware that the Government is heavily investing in this programme along with public backing from Sir Alan Sugar and television advertising to increase the awareness of these opportunities.

What it all means
Modern Apprenticeships are a WIN – WIN situation for both the apprentice and employers; both parties hugely benefit from this opportunity. The concept of this is that if you have an opportunity for an Apprentice, they would work with you for approximately 4 days per week within your organisation and attend one of our training centres for around a day a week or whenever a learner needs to attend a particular training session.

Apprenticeships last, on average, up to one year and on completion you would have the opportunity to take on the apprentice as an employee, free of charge. This will enable you to have a thorough understanding of the apprentice rather than employing someone fresh without knowing their character and strengths. The only cost to your organisation is a minimum £2.60 per hour (approx. £100 per week depending on hours worked), paid directly to the individual, for the duration of their apprenticeship programme.

Once we make the Apprentice placement agency aware of any vacancy that we have,  they will actively source the relevant candidates, interview them and screen them on their skills, experience then forward their CV’s to us for  consideration, thus keeping us in control of the complete process. The next stage involves booking interviews for us to meet the candidate.

If they are successful, they will be placed with us on a wage of £2.60 per hour for the length of their apprenticeship. With regard to interviewing and thoroughly screening candidates, there are a number of staff with extensive recruitment industry experience. By utilising the Apprentice placement company’s skills, it will enable them to screen the candidates correctly and ensure they find the right person for the role.

We are using an award winning training provider, they offer an innovative approach to both apprentices and employers where they will have completed their level two Apprenticeship programme in-house, attending on a daily basis with themselves having a greater understanding of their skills and experience that will be relevant for the client’s individual requirements.

For the Employer
You gain enthusiastic candidates, who are fully aware of the job role and have the right qualities that you are looking for
Apprentices work between 30 and 40 hours per week, depending on their working hours
There is no charge from us for the recruitment process as we are Government funded
The cost to you is only £2.60 per hour which goes directly to the apprentice
Plus you have the option to keep the apprentice on after they have completed their nationally recognised qualifications.

For the Apprentice
Apprentice gains essential work based experience and skills
Nationally recognised qualifications
A salary of approximately £100 per week, depending on working hours.

Disciplines that we would like you to be familiar with:

Business Administration – General business based, administrative skills
IT Application Specialist – Roles where IT is a fundamental part of role, Microsoft Office, design packages.
IT Professional – IT System Repairs, Maintenance, Networking, Cabling, Helpdesk support
Supporting Teaching & Learning in Schools – Teaching/Learning Assistants in educational environments

Within our programmes, we have the unique ability to tailor-make packages around our client’s requirements thus enabling us to provide a personalised experience

Just for interest here is an initial draft proposal for a website design project for an e-commerce website.

We propose to take your existing website, transfer it and redesign it (using the current ‘look’ ) to be a standard website (non-flash) with a customised blog, it will have a master gallery and 2-3 photos galleries including contact form and customised blog, the website will be optimised for the search engines.

Your project cost  includes hosting / transfer / design / website setup / ecommerce / support / seo.

Will give you the site access / and confirmation of deposit / project commencement shortly

We are assuming you are an Essex based business and you have a website and are obviously keen to move your site rankings up in the search engines as you appreciate that increased rankings mean increased visitor numbers that should convert to increased enquires and sales, and so here is an indication of what SEO involves, and the kind of costs you would be looking at.

There are two sides to SEO
The first is the initial build, architecture and content writing of the website, and ensuring this is all optimised. The second is the ongoing phase – link-building. Search engines rank sites higher when other sites link to them, because it shows that your site must be a valuable source of information. So if you were to enlist a SEO agency to do this, in layman’s terms they are making a continual effort to get your website link mentioned on other websites, and there are a number of ways in which to do this.

Depending on the site / your requirements the competitiveness of the business sector you are in a low-end sum to invest on this would be around £1,000 over an initial 3 month period. Depending on the campaign that ourselves as your SEO company would put together for you, this could include digital advertising, content writing for other websites etc. Obviously the more investment you put in, the more time would be spent on it and in theory the quicker your site would move up the rankings.

However, we don’t recommend that you spend your money on this, certainly not yet
It’s quite likely that your current website is not built or written in a very search engine friendly way. Simply making these changes to your website may well make your website move up the page rankings naturally, particularly bearing in mind that your particular industry may not be hugely competitive online.

Whether or not that is the case, there are quite a lot of things that you can do yourselves that will help your site to move up the ranks as well. Primarily this is to do with the social media side – blogging, twitter, Facebook etc. The most important aspect about page rankings to appreciate is that it is not an instant thing, and takes time for your site to move up the rankings. (We’re talking at least several months).

Normally its sensible for us to discuss putting together a digital strategy document specifically for your requirements. This would be a one off fee and would contain advice on best practice and how to get your site out there, to enable you to promote it yourselves.

Our goal as Essex’s Premier Website Design and SEO company is to create and maintain well-designed websites for indiviuals, companies and organisations. Working with the client we will create an attractive, informative website that is search engine friendly and  exceeds their expectations and meets their business objectives. We will also offer a full range of support services, including website hosting, SEO, graphic design, maintenance and technical support in order to provide the best possible Internet experience for our clients and their customers.

We will always operate in a professional, prompt manner with a focus on customer satisfaction.

The final structure is still to be defined. The planning stage will determine the actual pages that are required and how the user will navigate between them. At this time we know the following:

Homepage

The Homepage is obviously an important page. It must reassure the user that you are professional and credible.  At the same time it needs to ‘set out your stall’ and communicate at a glance the range of your service offering.  This is achieved through a careful balance of graphics, text and navigation – all of which should convey information or support your brand values.

About Us / Company Profile / History

This section contains all relevant information about the quality of your service, history, accreditations, awards, standards, etc.

One Page per Service

One Page per Clinic

FAQ

Contact us

This page shows all relevant contact details including:

• Postal address, email address
• Contact numbers
• A simple contact us form
• Google maps

Gallery

For uploading photographs of completed work (before and after).

Blog

Blog / news headlines to appear on the Homepage. Click each headline to read full article. Click Blog tab in main navigation to see all news items (posts) listed by date and title in the archive. This News facility is updated through the CMS.

Supporting pages

These pages offer information that a site visitor might find useful, such as:

• Site map
• Copyright statement
• Privacy policy
• Accessibility

Hosting requirements

You require Delicious Webdesign to host the website and manage our email services.

1.   Unless otherwise stated, databases required will be developed and launched with a subset of your data sufficient only for the development of the application.  It will be your responsibility to populate the database fully.

2.   Any work required in altering or upgrading your technical infrastructure is not covered within the scope of this document.  We would be happy to recommend a supplier or quote for such work if required.

3.   Unless otherwise stated, the above costings do not include the provision of photography or textual content which will need to be provided by you.  If you do require content to be provided, please ask as we would be happy to provide a quote.

4.   Unless otherwise stated, Internet browsers older than 5 years (including IE version 6) will not be supported.

5.   Unless otherwise stated, the above costings do not include the development and provision of any transactional or search capabilities.

6.   Unless otherwise stated, the above costings do not include the development of animation such as animated GIFs or Flash.

Website Project Estimate agreement

By signing this estimate, you are agreeing on behalf of your company to the contents of the estimate and the costs associated with the work specified.  As this estimate forms the scope of work to be undertaken, please ensure you understand the contents fully as future changes may incur additional costs. Separate Terms and Conditions are also required to be signed and which form the contractual basis for the relationship between your company and Delicious Webdesign.

Client agreement

I agree to the requirements, proposed solution and estimated costs contained within this document.

Signed on behalf of the client organisation:

Name of signatory (printed in capitals):

Date signed:

Confidentiality

All material contained within this estimate shall remain the property of Delicious Webdesign and cannot be reproduced without prior consent. All materials and Intellectual Property supplied by the client in the course of the project remain the property of the client.

Copyright

The customer shall provide all content for the website and shall guarantee that they own or that they have full permission to use any text, photos / images, videos, designs, graphics or logos that they supply. The customer will fully indemnify Delicious Webdesign against any copyright or intellectual property right claim arising from material supplied by the customer.

Website Ongoing costs

Company domain name registration and hosting (Annual charge)

• Transfer, purchase or renewal of domain name
• Email services
• DNS Services
• Website hosting
• The actual details are within “Our Proposed Solution” section of this document

Website support - website monthly maintenance

(Optional Monthly charge)

Fee structure notes

1.   This quotation provides for an inception meeting, an initial approval meeting and a final approval at ours or your premises. Additional meetings will be eligible to additional time and travel charges.

2.   Due to the time constraints involved we advice, a client representative with the authority to provide a single point of contact and decision making for each functional area is required (including general areas). The client’s representative must be readily available during the life of the project.

3.   Where you are providing content, failure to provide content in a timely manner in an appropriate format will delay the development and delivery of your website. In cases where we believe the website to be complete (possibly not even live on the Internet) but waiting for any remaining content to be provided from you we will raise our final invoice. When the content is supplied we will update the site and “put live” on your instruction.

4.   The content provided in the project development is deemed to have been checked for errors and fit for purpose. Once a page has been populated any changes to that content will be recorded in hours and billed along with the final invoice. It is your responsibility to ensure that you own the copyright for all content provided to Delicious Webdesign.

5.   The project outlined above includes a number of client sign-off milestones. Delays in sign-off will delay the development and delivery of your website.

6.   Any changes requested by the client that affects the functionality or timing of the end product once this estimate has been agreed may incur additional costs.  Under such circumstances, a revised estimate or an Additional Charges Form will be provided to you for agreement.

7.   Although we keep abreast of best-practice in search engine optimisation and build all our websites accordingly, we cannot guarantee search engine position which is subject to a number of external variables.

8.   If the website is to be hosted with a supplier chosen by the client then work will be required by Delicious Webdesign to configure the server and software environment. This cost will be in addition to the project and charged at our normal hourly rate.