Archive for the ‘SEO’ Category

0510.11

How Optix Solutions are more ‘A La Carte’ than ‘Ready Meal’

Posted by Amanda in Design, Development, Online Marketing, SEO

Ever wondered what to expect when you task us with creating and building a website?

We strongly believe that any project is a partnership with a Client. We regularly consult and communicate with our Clients, creating an open channel for feedback and discussion. We strive to ensure the end result exceeds our Client’s expectations and more than fulfils their brief. We don’t pick a template off the shelf, tweak a few graphics and themes – much like you running into the Supermarket and selecting a quick and easy ready meal. Every site we create is bespoke and designed specifically for you, just as if you’d had your own chef and skilled team at home to create a meal from scratch using the finest ingredients.

So you’ve given us the go ahead, what happens next?

After we have assigned a Project Manager to you, we will take you through the following stages;

  • Online Marketing Consultation. Our OLM team would consult with you on your options for optimising your site and continuing support within this field. Should you choose to add this invaluable service to your site, they will continue to consult with both yourself and the design and development teams throughout the following stages.
  • Wireframe. A wireframe is a working model of a site, without any design. It allows us to test the functionality of a site before we start the design and build process, ensuring all requirements have been thoroughly considered. At this stage, we will heavily consult with you and the brief you have put together for us.
  • Design concept. Once the wireframe has been signed off by you, the next stage is design. Our award-winning design team will meet with you to understand what key messages you want the site to convey from a brand point of view, so that they can be taken into consideration when designing the initial concept for your review.
  • Development. Once the design is signed off by you, we proceed to the development stage. This is the process by which we take a static design and start to build the working site, building and connecting elements and creating functionality. These can include links to emails, contact forms or development such as a content management system that allows you to control the content on your site with the design – this would give you the ability to regularly update text and images on the site yourself going forward.
  • Functionality testing. Once the development stage has been completed, the project will be delivered to your Account Manager to check that all required functionality is in place. An element of user testing will be carried out to identify and correct as many “bugs” as humanly possible before delivering the project to you for acceptance testing.
  • Project Delivery/CMS Training. At this stage, we deliver the project to you for acceptance testing. We’ll provide you with training on how to use the bespoke content management system we have developed for you, and give you time to test the site and functionality to ensure that you are happy with how it works. We will then meet with you to discuss any changes you would like to have made. It may be that some of these changes are additional development, if that is the case we will provide you with an estimate for their integration into the site and a project timeline for their completion. This will give you the opportunity to decide if you want to include these features in the site before going live, or they can be added after the site has been made live.
  • Cross Browser Testing. Any changes you require that are within the specification of the project will be carried out at this stage. It is at this stage that we will also complete a process known as cross-browser testing, which helps us ensure that your site works sufficiently in Internet Explorer +, Firefox, Safari and Opera on both Macintosh computers and PCs.
  • Site goes live. When you are ready, we will make the site live.

We pride ourselves in our work, and believe in taking the time and making the effort to ensure everything we produce is to a very high standard.

If you’d like to know more, we’d love to hear from you.

 

 

 

2309.11

The Eden Project chooses Optix Solutions to optimise its shop’s online presence

Posted by Amanda in Company News, Online Marketing, SEO

Optix Solutions has been providing online marketing services in the South West for over 12 years and has built a reputation as one of the region’s major players. The move by the Eden Project to contract the company for the provision of search engine marketing and social media services is another great addition to the portfolio of the Exeter-based firm.

This month Optix Solutions will begin working with the Eden Project’s internal marketing and communications team to increase visibility of the web shop online, reach customers in new ways and increase sales to this already popular and successful website.

The Eden Project has already invested in services such as search engine optimisation, pay-per-click (PPC) marketing and social media communications, and now wants to fine-tune its approach and try out some new tactics.

‘In recent months, we’ve been looking at our approach to online sales and how we can reach our customers in different ways. We already have a strong PPC and email marketing strategy, and wanted to support this with some fresh new ideas. After meeting Optix Solutions at LikeMinds Social Media conference, we felt we’d met a team to help us deliver some creative new approaches that complement our existing work. With their strong interest in social media, as well as more traditional digital marketing, we believe we can develop some exciting new ideas that will change the way we drive our online sales,” said Nina Whitby, Editor of the Digital Team at The Eden Project. 

The work will start with a consultancy piece being carried out on the current online shop to look at how well that is performing. The teams at Optix and the Eden Project will then work together to improve the overall visibility of the site in the search engines with the overall goal of increasing online sales. 

‘Working with such a well-recognised name in the country will be fantastic. Coming just months after we started working with Exeter University, it’s an awesome achievement to be recognised by another major organisation and able to share our knowledge, to help them reach their goals,’ said Daniel Cave, Head of Online Marketing at Optix Solutions.

The Eden Project sells many of its retail products online at http://www.edenproject.com/shop. Any successful site can always be improved by clever use of the latest technologies. The teams at Optix and the Eden Project are looking forward to working together on this project over the months and years to come.

Optix Solutions, one of the region’s leading web and online marketing companies, provides a consultative service for forward thinking and ambitious companies and organisations looking to improve and build on their presence online. You can contact them us on info@optixsolutions.co.uk or 01392 667766

1808.11

Will your site get attacked by a Panda?

Posted by Dan Cave in E-Commerce, Online Marketing, SEO

We have written a little bit of a comedy headline for what can be a VERY serious issue for some business owners and any managers responsible for profit and loss.

Google’s search ranking algorithm update code named ‘Panda‘, dubbed the ‘Farmer update‘ by the search industry, was released earlier this year. This is one animal you do not want to mess with!

Aggressively removing low quality web pages from search

Google’s Panda is designed to aggressively remove low quality web pages from search results by applying a site wide penalty to websites with high ratios of:

  • Low quality content
  • Thin and shallow content
  • Duplicate or copied content
  • High advert to copy ratio

The update takes into account a lot of quality factors from bounce rates to the number of returning visitors and adjusts your rankings accordingly. Many people have said this is less of an algorithm tweak and more of a new way to measure and punish low quality sites.

Anger Google’s Panda and you can lose high percentages of traffic and, by extension, profit.

How to avoid being bitten by Google’s Panda

A large variety of sites can be affected, but if you follow some simple rules you can avoid being bitten by this not so cute, furry animal:

  1. Always write your own content for ALL pages (yes that means you too e-commerce sites, even product pages)
  2. Write your content in a manner that is deep and meaningful, making it as interesting as possible
  3. Try to keep your banner advertising minimal (especially if its irrelevant adverts to the content)
  4. Put your strongest content up-front on a page

You really shouldn’t be using duplicate content or cramming ads into your website. This is a no-brainer to Optix, you should have a description which contains a clear reason to buy, a call to action and a hook to grab your reader’s attention.

Put yourself in your client’s shoes, why should they buy from you rather than another re-seller with the same description and pictures? Can you add value? Can you convince them to buy?

Your page is your sales person, some sales people are good, some people are bad, make yours a good sales person solving the user’s problems by selling them a product.

Good luck, and as always, feel free to comment, contact us or share this page, you never know you might save someone’s business.