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The Internet and Your Business2009-11-22 08:23:46

As you know, Ireland, as with the rest of the world is currently in recession. Recession is not something new but one big difference with this recession is that we now have the Internet. How will the Internet effect the recession and your business?

Fact – Over 69% of Irish people are regular Internet users.

Fact – Ireland is ranked 10th in the world for online buyers.

Fact – 25% of Irish people expect to spend more online during 2009.

Fact – 54% of Irish people will at least research their intended purchases online before making a purchase in traditional shops.

Having an online presence or a website is no longer a luxury but a necessity.

Everybody agrees that the Internet has changed the way we do business – our professional believe is that companies who invest wisely in technology will come out in good shape. For a business to sustain its size and also grow, it must look at new ways of bringing in business. A recession pushes businesses back to basics and focus on sales and marketing to keep their businesses alive, survive and even grow. This is where the Internet comes in to play. Developing a business website to help market your business and generate sales leads or indeed direct sales is an extremely cost effective approach compared to traditional sales and marketing methods. If you haven’t embraced a website for your business or your current site is looking a bit dated, now is definitely the time to look at how a strong web presence can benefit your business in these difficult times.

But I Have a Website

Even if you have a website are you getting a return on your investment? Has your website been created correctly and professionally?

It never ceases to amaze us at Web Things as to the amount of websites created and published using invalid code or illegal construct. Regardless of what you might be told by your website developer, invalid HTML on your site is simply not acceptable and quite frankly, in our opinion unprofessional. Clean and valid code is essential to search engine success. Invalid code can be bad for the user experience and bad for search engine placement. Invalid markup or code affects document portability, interoperability, the future value of your website content and risks making your website obsolete. Why chance it and risk throwing your money down the drain.

To find out if your website is constructed correctly using valid code visit http://validator.w3.org/ and type in your website address in the address box and click check.

Is Your Website Working For You and Doing What It Was Intended To Do?

Another issue which never ceases to amaze and annoy us, is the amount of websites that have been created and published with either a total absence of search engine optimisation (SEO), incorrect or incomplete SEO or even more alarming the presence of SEO techniques of which search engines do not approve. We have even witnessed other website “designers” using these unapproved techniques on their own sites.

On page SEO is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a website from search engines using natural/organic or un-paid search results or techniques, as opposed to search engine (SEM) which deals with paid inclusion. It mainly involves the research, analysis and strategic placement of keywords within your site. This is and should be a continuous campaign due to the ever changing criteria that search engines use, especially Google, and active campaigns by competitors.

To check how your site ranks with the search engines simply go to Google and type in the keywords your site has been or supposed to have been optimised for and check the results – if your website is not present on the first page i.e. the first ten results, it may as well not exist.

In today's economic climate, if you want the business, you have to be to the forefront, be proactive, no exceptions. This concept applies to your website as well.

We at Web Things are unique in our field and have our own special way of serving our clients. We pride ourselves on the quality of our work, our professionalism, expertise, artistic flair and our ability to recognise our clients needs and requirements, catering for every stage of the web development process. Clients purchase our experience and expertise along with our services. As a client of Web Things you will deal with real people, not software.

Our Guarantee is one of Professionalism, Quality and Satisfaction - creating an exciting, new market place for your business.

Satisfaction, Professionalism, Quality

Professionalism

We ensure that all websites that we create are developed using valid HTML, therefore adhering to the set of rules as defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The W3C is the maintainer of HTML standards. HTML is the encoding scheme or language used to create and format a web document(s) or page(s), that in turn make up a website.

It never ceases to amaze us at Web Things as to the amount of websites created and published using invalid code or illegal construct. Regardless of what you might be told by your website developer, invalid HTML on your site is simply not acceptable and quite frankly, in our opinion unprofessional. Clean and valid code is essential to search engine success. Invalid code can be bad for the user experience and bad for search engine placement. Invalid markup or code affects document portability, interoperability, the future value of your website content and risks making your website obsolete.

Another issue which never ceases to amaze, alarm and annoy us, is the amount of websites that have been created and published with either a total absence of search engine optimisation (SEO), incorrect or incomplete SEO or even more alarming the presence of SEO techniques of which search engines do not approve. We have even witnessed other website “designers” using these unapproved techniques on their own sites.

SEO is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines using natural/organic or un-paid search results or techniques as opposed to search engine marketing (SEM) which deals with paid inclusion.

Using SEO as an Internet marketing strategy, we continually research and consider how search engines work and what people search for. We ensure your website is optimised so as to increase its relevance to specific keywords ensuring that your website works for you, fulfills its requirements and provides you with a return on your investment.

SEO techniques can be classified into two broad categories, techniques that search engines recommend as part of good design, known as white hat SEO, and those techniques of which search engines do not approve, known as black hat SEO. Search engines may penalise sites that they discover using black hat methods, either by reducing their rankings or eliminating their listings from their databases altogether.

It goes without saying, that at Web Things we use only white hat method SEO, ensuring optimum results for your website.

Quality

All our website design projects are bespoke and designed specifically to our clients requirements and reflect their business specifications. We do not use free website templates available for download from open source websites. When we charge a client for web design, we do exactly that, design a website, from scratch, ensuring it meets with our clients requirements and approval and that your site design is not “borrowed” from another site.

Quality design ensures that your site reflects your business or organisation as credible and professional. We ensure that basic design recommendations are adhered to such as, informing your visitors quickly about what you do and what your website is about, making sure your site looks the same on all major browsers, your landing pages have a call to action,your pages do not have too much/too little white space, your site does not mix colours on its pages, your site does not use “loud” colours on its pages, your site is designed to meet your intended visitors needs and not your business’ or organizations needs etc. etc.

Remember, your website maybe the first and in some cases, the only impression a potential client may get of your business – make sure you do not let yourself down and/or loose a potential client.

Satisfaction

Once your website has been published to the world wide web or gone live, the project has not ended but simply has moved onto a new level. Maintaining your website regularly, is the key to its continuing success. This involves such things as site content updates, search engine marketing/optimisation tweaking, interactivity maintenance, technology updates, etc.

Created for the committed, resolute and busy business owner, our maintenance agreements allow you care about your business, while we take care of your website, maintaining your strong online presence, increasing visitors, activity, sales and ensuring that your site continues to fulfill its intended objectives and goals, reaching its target audience and your continued satisfaction.

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