Simon_G - Profile

The best social media platform will be the one where your potential customers are.

I assume you know this already?  If not then go and do some research first, before spending time and money on something that may not work.

If the King / Queen were to go to battle, like in days of yore, I'd have a bit more time for it all.

As it stands, I couldn't give too hoots LOL

Been vaping for 2 years now, was a "50gm Tobacco Pouch in 4 days" kinda guy.

Saw instant health benefits across the board, have not had even a puff of o cigarette since, and have never had a craving.

Guess I am one of the lucky ones. 

Am I the only person in the country who has absolutely no interest in the wedding?  

Hi Grieg,

Some good suggestions above, however, I would like to advise you to get your website in order before you start looking at trying to get better exposure.  To be blatantly honest, even with the best of SEO, your website is just not attractive enough to make me want to buy from it.  I'd like to see your bounce rates as I bet that they are pretty high.  Do you have analytics you can look at?

Never fear though as these things are easy to resolve.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you made that site yourself, and if so, unfortunately, it shows (If not then I'd seriously ask for a refund from whomever you paid!).  

There are fundamental problems all over the site, and it just doesn't follow basic standards when it comes to business websites (something that the majority of small business owners fall foul of).  There are too many issues I feel you need to address before you even look at SEO.  Right now you are throwing money into the wind.

Put simply, if your website is not making customers buy from you in its current form, it's pointless sending more people to it as they won't buy either.  A complete waste of money (which I assume is what you have found with the guys you have hired before).

Additionally, what are you trying to accomplish?  Better exposure of your site, or better exposure of your products?  I ask as site SEO and e-commerce SEO are two very separate beasts and need to be dealt with differently.

Then there is GDPR which comes into effect on 25th May.  You have quite a lot to do with just that as you dont even seem to have a privacy policy, not to mention the 9 cookies currently running on my first visit.

Just to satisfy my own curiosity and to answer your original question, I ran an audit on your site.

There are loads of redirected pages (which I would assume that the SEO guys sorted out?) however among other things, there are also hundreds of images that have no ALT text, which seems odd seeing as this is a fundamental on the SEO checklist.

I wonder exactly what the SEO guys did for their money, and more importantly how much you paid them!

Anyway, hope this has been helpful and I wish you luck in getting it up to scratch.

I am guessing that viewable.com was taken and the business owners thought they would try and be clever omitting the a.

I get it, I really do.  Premium domains are hard to come by now, although the intentional misspelling of a word doesnt sit right with me either Rebecca.

 Hi Ave,

Can I ask if you are Digital Wulf and if you yourself created the website, or whether you paid someone to do it for you?

Just a few points on your website if I may?

Home Page:

Your logo needs to be bigger.

The space between the hero slider at the top of the main page and the next section is not big enough to have a parallax background in it.  The parallax doesn't do anything for your site.  You would be better off ditching it entirely.

Your text headers, specifically font weights are all over the place.  Bring them in line and make them the same for better reading.

Your body font size is too small and needs to be increased to aid in reading too.

Other things...

You have lower case and capitalised menu items - not a good idea

Your About Me page has capatalised paragraphs!  Not seen that in a long time - also not a good idea I am afraid.

The copy (text) needs editing for grammar and spelling as well as composition.  You have a lot of text, which is not a bad thing in itself, you just need to work on how to present it better.

There are lots of issues with regards to layout and overall user experience which I feel really need looking at, not to mention the tweaks needed for mobile responsiveness.

I think you really could have a great site there, it just needs a bit more work doing to it.

If you want to have a chat about it, feel free to drop me a private message.

Business websites are more of a necessity today than they have ever been.  With more and more people purchasing goods and services online it makes crucial business sense to make sure that a website for your business is a major part of your overall marketing plan.

When looking at options however, there are only two real solutions to choose from.  You can either hire a "professional" to create your website for you, or you can go down the DIY route and create it yourself.  

There are pro's and cons of both solutions of course, the decision on which route to take usually coming down to the budget at your disposal.

So, with this in mind...

What has been your experience with creating a website for your business and what problems have you faced?

If you have already have a business website, what would you do differently if you could start over?

And finally, what have you learned through either process? 

Hi James,

Our ideal client? Local businesses who needs repeat work. Estate agents, restaurants/pubs, travel agents… Its quite broad

This could be part of the problem.  You need a niche.   Jack of all trades doesn't cut it any more.  Concentrate on one business in particular.  Identify services you could provide better than they are getting.  Nail those services making sure that those businesses come to you first.  Once you have done that, branch out to other business types.  Word of mouth will come and you won't have to advertise or market at all Where are these people getting their

As it stands, where are these businesses getting their services from currently (as in your competitors - which ones)?  Why are they going to those providers?  What are you doing differently to them?  Where are they looking for these services?

We aren’t the kind of agency looking to spend months on one campaign to win awards, we’re here to help businesses look their best and produce materials of they’re proud of, for a price they’re happy to pay. 

As is every other business.  What makes you different?

we’d rather spend time developing relationships then churning work out.  So as a business using Creative Corner, you get Agency level experience for a minimum of half the cost, with the relationship and flexibility of using a freelancer.  

So this seems to be your USP, although to be perfectly fair, it's not original.  Anyone trying to break into that market would probably say the same thing.  What sets you apart from the competition.  If there were two services, one yours, one a competitors, both offering the same service for the same price, why should I spend my money with you?  What value are you offering over and above the services you are offering?  What would make me come back to you?   

Local businesses, as you claim are your ideal client, are money driven on the whole.  1/2 the costs usually equates to 1/2 the quality.  How are you advertising currently that this is not the case?

Your home page says nothing about any of the above.  Why not?  If you were looking at your site as a customer, what impression would you get on the services and value you offer?

The site itself is a bit "meh", but that's another conversation.  I am sure that if you concentrated on projecting your differences and the value you could provide, then your site would look so much different (read "better")

Just my opinion of course, but hopefully you are looking at things in a different way.

Hi Rebecca,

There is a time and place for these "user friendly" services, without a doubt.  However, using them comes at a cost both in financial terms and in functionality both now and in the future.

For example, the things that Alan alluded to above, and my responses regarding SquareSpace SEO shows that there are issues with the way SquareSpace manages SEO.  This could be the difference between ranking 3rd and ranking 4th for a particular keyword, which could be the difference between 20% and 30% clickthroughs to your site due to the ranking, which in turn relates to the enquiries you may get on your site and fundamentally the possible conversions.

It may seem minor, but if you are not maximising your opportunities, you are not doing your business or yourself justice, IMHO.