The Pet Portraits …and More Web Site has been given a facelift!

Pet Portraits and More… based in Rothwell / Desborough, Northampton offers pet art / pet portrait paintings which includes dog portraits, cat portraits and horse portraits using using traditional techniques in artist’s watercolours on high quality heavyweight paper or oils on canvas. Pet Portraits and More… also undertake people portraits / paintings and more to clients throughout Northamptonshire (Northampton, Kettering, Corby, Wellingborough), and Leicestershire (Market Harborough, Leicester).

The new Website now features a more modern design, larger portrait gallery, online payments and a blog to keep you up to date with the latest work from talented artist Steve Marsh. It is now even more succesful in the search engines locally and nationally and TJ Design UK will be promoting this site over the next few months for international attention.

Click here to view the new improved Pet Portraits …and More Web Site

A client of mine recently received the following email entitled ‘professional analysis of kandtfootwear.co.uk’ and asked me to comment. I have seen an increase in these types of long SEO spam emails which contains inaccurate and false information misleading clients in to believing their web site is under-performing and need to pay a so called ‘expert’ to increase their visibility in the search engines.  I have commented below on the email received.

Hi,

My name is [Removed name]. I’m a senior search consultant at Top 10 Guaranteed [A bit of research shows that they used to send exactly the same emails as a company called SEO Doctors and they are also known as The Web Clinic]. We are part of an IT Group that has been established for over 10 years as a leading specialist in all aspects of online sales and marketing.

Excuse the unusual approach, however I am writing to inform you that I recently visited your website, kandtfootwear.co.uk, during a routine survey of web sites which would be capable of achieving higher search engine performance. Obviously resulting in an increase in online sales or the generation of high volumes of additional sales leads. [hmmm.. debatable having looked at your own web site(s) top10guaranteed.co.uk has a page ranking of 0/10]

I am confident that this information will be of use to you, but if I have caused offence in any way through my approach I sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused. I’m hoping this will arouse your curiosity, since you are obviously attempting to gain new business through your website.

From my initial observations, your website is underperforming in at least one of the major search engines such as – Google, Yahoo, and Bing. You probably are aware that most people don’t look past the first page of search results. [The web site is actually no. 1 for targeted keywords. Try a search for 'agricultural footwear'] I struggled to find you in the first couple of pages for highly relevant keyphrases, which means that you could be losing out on a significant amount of business. As such I did a bit more digging… [You conveniently haven't listed the highly relevant 'keyphrases' mentioned and you dont know what is being targeted]

I ran a back-link check on kandtfootwear.co.uk first. Back-links are the number of times your site is linked to through another website. Your website has 5 back-links. [This is inaccurate - if you had researched this, you will find that the web site actually has 148 back-links!]

Back-links also contribute towards your Google Pagerank score. Pagerank is Google telling us how trustworthy your site is. A higher score = higher search rankings. Right now your website has a Google Pagerank score of 3/10, [3/10 is pretty reasonable for a small to medium sized business] which, when compared to other high ranking competitor websites, may be restricting your rankings. This can be down to many reasons which we can help resolve. The next check I applied on your website was page indexing. Search engines like Google scan the information on your website and feed it back to their database. The Google formula is then applied to the data to determine where your website should rank. As such the more pages your website has indexed with quality unique content, the higher you can rank with Google. Right now, your site has 14 pages indexed with Google [Google actually has 15 pages indexed - i'm not sure what methods you are using to gain this information or if you are even doing any research?], and Google is regarding some of that content as poor. This can be down to many reasons which we can help resolve. Finally I also identified that there could be a number of structural issues with your website which may be having a negative impact on your search rankings.

So, here’s a recap of my findings of gdock.co.uk [gdock.co.uk?!] :

- Your Google Pagerank is 3/10
- You have 5 back-links [Incorrect]
- Your website has 14 pages indexed [Incorrect]
- There are issues with content and site structure [Incorrect]

I have only scratched the surface of the factors impacting on your rankings [This is very true!!]. Unlike some of our competitors, I wanted to do some initial work to identify that it would be worthwhile for you to talk to us before contacting you with my proposal. The best way to deal with any problem is to first apply a thorough diagnosis. It would, therefore, be a sensible next step for us to apply a more thorough diagnosis of why your website may not be ranking well before discussing with you what could be done about it.

What we have to offer could prove to be the most value for money investment you could make for your business this year. In an economic climate that is difficult, to say the least, all businesses must invest in areas that will deliver maximum returns with minimal investment. [Again true ..but why would i invest in a company that sends spam emails with false information?] Only strong search engine listings offer real growth opportunities as consumer trends change.

So what do we have to offer? Many factors now impact on how and where you will appear on the search engines. Unfortunately, most business people overlook the things that prevent them from performing well in the search engines and throw good money behind advertising without understanding what their web site really needs.

Good SEO firms assess the needs of sites individually and address these by working on sites month on month. A one off fix just doesn’t work. As such we offer two approaches for you to consider.

We can produce a detailed 30-40 page Diagnostic Report for your site together with a personal telephone consultation with one of our SEO experts. Consultations explain the technicalities in our report in an easy to understand manner. Our normal price for this service is £499.00. If you are prepared to act this week we are prepared to offer this at a reduced one-off fee of £299.00. Following this consultation we can discuss how best to rectify the situation.

Alternatively we could provide this detailed Diagnostic Report for your site completely free [With accurate results?]. For this you would need to commit to take up our 12 month optimisation and consultancy service prior to our work commencing. The service is based around promotion of specific agreed keyphrases after discussing how to put right all issues highlighted in our report. We can deliver first page search results in the major search engines. For this we charge as little as £35 per keyphrase, per month, dependent upon the competitiveness of that keyphrase. Furthermore, we guarantee to refund your money should we fail to put you in the first page for the keyphrases once all changes have been implemented.

The reason why I’m so confident about our capabilities is because we have done it so many times before. To name a few examples: Maternity Clothes, Dubai Properties, Gravel, Health Store, Van Hire, Fire Extinguishers, Financial Advisers UK, Coffee Machines, Swimwear, Limo Hire, Mortgage Advisers UK, and more – all are on the first page of Google and all highly competitive keyphrases. We put them there. [There is no mention in your email about keyword analysis, this is extremely important as you may get the web site to no.1 but if nobody is searching for that keyword, there is absolutely no point in wasting your efforts]

Our own group website is in the first page of Google for Website Marketing Company and Internet marketing companies [You are currently on pg 3 for 'Internet marketing companies']. You will see our site listed as The Web Clinic [So are you The Web Clinic or Top 10 Guaranteed? - Confusing]. To satisfy you even further we can also provide you with comparative existing client’s contact details to serve as references for the quality of our work.

If you are genuinely serious about improving your online revenues and want professional website marketing for a low flat monthly fee or a one-off detailed report, please visit our service website at www.top10guaranteed.co.uk which provides more details about our excellent service and a call back form. See a selection of our excellent testimonials and example results achieved recently on behalf of our clients. Alternatively, if you prefer to discuss your requirements over the phone, then please don’t hesitate to contact me on 0844 7404951 and press Option 1 or simply reply to this mail with a convenient time to call you. [No, Thanks]

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

[Name & phone no removed]
Senior Search Consultant
Top 10 Guaranteed

Eclipse Marquee Hire have just launched their new website re-designed by TJ Design UK

Eclipse Marquee Hire based in Rushden, Northampton provides wedding marquee hire, private marquee hire, marquee hire for corporate events, marquee furniture hire & marquee hire for summer balls and private functions.

Eclipse Marquee Hire approached TJ Design UK for a Logo design, web site re-design to their existing site with a simple photo gallery and Internet marketing services for chosen keywords.

Pet Portraits & More based in Northampton approached TJ Design UK for Search Engine Optimisation services to their existing web site.  This resulted in being listed on page one in Google for their chosen keywords.

A site map was added, amendments were carried out to the navigational menu and alt tags added to all images. Other changes included updating the meta information and content for each page, re-wording the  footer and submitting the site to appropriate online directories.

Visit Pet Portraits & More

TJ Design UK were commissioned to create the branding for Eclipse Marquee Hire.

The brief was to update their existing logo design for this expanding local company, update their stationery design and strengthen their online presence.

This resulted in a simple modern concept which went through a variety of design changes including font and colour changes.

Whether your business involves selling homemade baked goods, pest management services or cleaning services, you must have a web presence. Therefore, you understand why it is important to have a website. Now you need to know how to create one.

In addition to this, you need to do more than simply put up a page that merely describes the services that you will be providing. It is essential to attract your audience’s interest and persuade them to log onto your website. Beyond this, you need to ensure that the user doesn’t just fly right past your website. It is essential that they are persuaded into clicking on the ‘accept’ button too.

First of all, your web site should have an FAQ page and simple and exact answers for each question. This needs to be integrated and clearly visible to your audience. If they can get answers to all their questions from your website without having to contact you, they are likely to trust you to provide service to them.

Once this has been completed, you must make sure that all your Internet pages and links are accessible and operate correctly. If users encounter links on your site that result in server errors or other types of errors, they may give up on your site and do their shopping elsewhere. This can cause you to lose potential customers, and if your existing customers come across these kinds of errors, they may take their business elsewhere too.

This is why it’s important to heed the old saying, “first impressions are lasting.” After you have gotten your website set up, you can add some unique content that is interesting to your visitors. For companies with goods or services that may be displayed on the web, be sure to post pertinent footage too. This could assist them in choosing appropriately.

Remember that making your website user-friendly and easy to navigate with headers and footers can help you obtain customers and may make it possible for your business to expand before you know it.

Finally, your users will be able to see that your services are used by other people and that you are doing a good job. That is why you should ask a customer to provide a testimonial if they enjoyed your work. You should position testimonials so they get the audience’s attention, which will encourage them to make a purchase.

About the Author:
Stephen Grisham, Sr. is a Staff Writer for InfoServe Media, a web design company that provides custom website design. Visit today, or call 1 (800) 838-2203 for a free quote.

1. Less is more.

Every element added to a design increases cognitive dissonance, meaning that it makes the site’s message more difficult for the customer to find. It will take some constraint, but I promise that less is more when communicating a brand message.

2. Color Palette

Consistency of message is important and that includes colors. If you have a set of official colors, those should be the colors used in your website. Ideally those same colors will be used on every page. A constantly changing color selection implies haphazard organization, while a consistent color scheme looks professional.

3. Typography

With the huge selection of fonts freely available online, it’s tempting to use a different font for every element of your design. Like your color palette, it’s important to choose two or three fonts at most and stick with them throughout your marketing materials.

4. Photos

Photos are fantastic to connect with your customers, but they’re also the most obvious indicator of your professionalism. A stock photo from the Web or your Uncle’s point and shoot camera will immediately cheapen your brand’s integrity. With photos, more than anything else, it’s important to use exclusively professional photos to flatter your brand and products.

5. Social Media Circus

While social media is important, its significance is often overstated. What is important is to be accessible to your customers. Before signing up for that shiny new web2.0 service, ask yourself how it will help your business. Does it make me more accessible to my customers? Do I have to manage it daily? If you can’t check a service daily, people who use it to contact you will be frustrated. Choose your social media wisely or hire a social media manager.

A good logo design is highly instrumental in establishing a business brand and creating a long lasting impression among its customers. It should be able to create a powerful impact on the viewers and successfully exude the nature and attitude of a business. Ideally, a company logo design should be able to communicate your company ethos, principles, mission and the nature of product/service offered, to the viewers.

A professional logo design would establish a professional image of your company and strengthen your brand. Actually, in most cases the consumer gets the first impression about the company through your logo. Your business logo should build a brand that is strong enough to give your consumer a visual imagery of your company. People should be able to identify your company on sight of your logo.

Trend shows, most of the good logos are simple and often text based. Think of the IBM, SONY or Microsoft logo, even if you view a part of it you will be able to recognize the company. It is extremely essential for a logo to be easy for people to remember.

This principle of simplicity applies in most cases, however, we often see exceptions in Government Organizations, Hotels and Luxury resorts etc because they want to put up a classical exclusive image. This again brings us to a very important point that should be considered for a good logo design – the nature of business.

While simplicity can be the basic principle for any logo design, the designs might vary widely depending on the nature of business. For example, a financial institution might like to use a bold face font to express solidarity and stableness where as a courier service or transport company might prefer italicized fonts to express the speed and movement involved in their business.

In addition, while specifying the design requirements for your logo you should consider the fact that you will probably have to use your logo on your fax cover and other places where it will be in black and white. You should ensure that your logo looks equally good and attractive in black and white.

I would also suggest avoiding a very trendy look for your logo if you are planning for a long-term business because what we concern “modern” today might be backdated tomorrow. It is very important that your logo designer knows how to maintain this balance.

While any professional logo designer should be able to create a custom logo design once you have provided them with your specifications, you should be careful to select an experienced designing company and not land up with some single designer start up venture.

Last but not the least important factor is price. You are paying for your logo – something that is going to be used to establish your brand and represent your business for years, so you should be ready to pay a decent amount while it is also not necessary to pay some big amount like $350 for a logo. With the online logo design firms coming into business, now you have a wide choice of price for your logos and it should not be difficult to find a logo designer that fits your budget. Some logo design sites would even allow you to quote your own price for your logo.

If you have still not got a logo for your business or are not happy with your existing logo, it’s time you get your new logo. Wish you lucked with your logo hunt.

Author Bio
Ray Smith is a marketing Expert with years of experience in different industries and specialized knowledge on branding and Internet marketing.
Custom Logo Design

After more that 2 years of development the latest version of Actinic has hit the shelves in time for retailers to gear up their websites and take them into the summer selling season with many new, rich ecommerce features.

• Real Time Stock
  Actinic version 10 introduces Real Time stock control online. Merchants can choose to enable online stock control, enable stock monitoring as it was in previous versions, or disable stock control completely. If online stock control is enabled, a customer adds a product to cart online , then completes the checkout, the item(s) will be decremented from stock. Any orders taken offline through Actinic and indeed EPOS are reflected online.
• Simplified Checkout Flow
  Actinic version 10 introduces a new simplified checkout flow. Customers now no longer have to select their country on a separate page to their invoice / delivery address details. Also if a customer specifies a separate delivery and invoice address, they can enter their details on one page, rather than two, provided they have JavaScript enabled. Version 10 also limits the amount of scrolling which is required in the checkout, bringing it into line with some of the major online retailers. The PSP bounce page has also been replaced with a more logical ‘Confirm Order’ page. There is also a new ‘Confirm Email’ function to help prevent customers entering an incorrect address.
• Recently Viewed Products
  The Recently viewed products feature shows your customer what products they have been viewing in a thumbnail format whilst they have been browsing your site. The customer can then click on these thumbnails and be taken directly to the product they have just clicked.
• Product Reviews / Feefo
  Feefo, or Feedback Forum, enables your customers to solicit feedback, both on your products, and your business as a whole. Feefo is independent from your site, and surveys have shown that customers tend to have a greater trust in feedback from 3rd parties, rather than feedback that has just been copied and pasted into your own site. A list of the further benefits of Feefo are provided at http://www.feefo.com/feefo/page.jsp?page=a7
• Google Checkout
  Google checkout is different to the majority of Payment Service Providers (PSPs) that ship with Actinic. It is actually a ‘checkout replacement’, if a customer chooses to pay via Google Checkout, the Actinic Checkout is bypassed. It is not too dissimilar to PayPal Express Checkout.
• Automatic Card Number Removal
  If you use the payment method ‘Credit Card Details Captured for Later Processing’, you can have Actinic automatically obfuscate part of the card number and delete the CVV2 (the last 3 digits on the back of the card) after the order has been processed.
• Quick Order Find Tab
  If the site contains a large number of orders, it may take some time for Actinic to load in all of the orders. Also it can be hard to find a particular order from a list of 1,000s. In version 10, we have introduced a ‘Quick Find’ tab within the ‘Orders’ tab.
• Start Up Site Selection Dialogue
  If you are using Actinic Business Plus or above with multiple sites, you can decide which site opens on startup.
• Send Emails Immediately on One Click Order Processing
  In previous versions, the ‘One Click Complete’ function for completing orders did not automatically send mails, it queued them, and the merchant had to click the ‘Send Mails’ button in the toolbar to complete the process. Version 10 can be configured to work as in previous versions, or to automatically send mails upon completion
• Handling Components Independently
  With version 10, it is possible to ship components separately of their main product. For example, you may have a computer that is made up of a base unit, and a monitor. You may have the base unit in stock, but not the monitor. With version 10, you can choose to ship the base unit now, and the monitor later
• New Themes
  Three new themes have been included with Actinic version 10. These are: • Bobcat • Minimal • Silver

Some ranking factors cannot be measured because the search engines do not reveal the necessary data, or it would be
extremely time-consuming to measure the data. Make sure you pay attention to the following factors because they could prevent a top ranking.

Inbound links to your web page

• Are the web pages linking to your web page relevant to the search term “trombone cds”?
• How fast does your web page get new links pointing to it?
• Do the web sites which link to your page belong to the same content category?
• Since when do the links to your page exist?
• Is the text surrounding the link to your page relevant to the search term “trombone cds”?

Your web page

• How many important links from your other pages point to your web page?
• Do the links on your web page point to high quality, topically-related pages?
• How often and how many changes do you make to your web page over time? Is your content up-to-date?
• How often and how many web pages do you add to your web site?
• How long do your visitors spend time on your web page?

Search engine result page

• Do your competitors on the search engine result page get a manual ranking boost by Google.co.uk (pages from the UK), for example Amazon or Wikipedia?
• How many visitors of the search engine result pages click through to your page?
• How often do search engine visitors search for your company name or web page URL on Google.co.uk (pages from the UK)?

Negative ranking factors (you should be able to say “no” to all the following questions)

• Is your content very similar or a duplicate of existing content?
• Is your server often down when search engine crawlers try to access it?
• Do you link to web sites that do not deserve a link?
• Do you use the same title or meta tags for many web pages?
• Do you overuse the same keyword or key phrase?
• Do you participate in link schemes?
• Do you actively sell links on your web page?
• Do a majority of your inbound links come from low quality or spam sites?
• Does your web page have any spelling or grammar mistakes?

Click here to to receive your free consultation for your existing web site