Dalton's Dance School website now online

The website for Alex Dalton's School of Classical Dance is now online. It's still the first live draft, but it has the details of the Cecchetti method taught by Alex, as well as the timetable for dance classes and a helpful map of where the dance studio is located.
The pages, robots.txt file and sitemap are current, and the site has been submitted to Search Engines.

What should I ask a webdesigner before I hire him/her?

Picking a webdesigner can be a tricky business. There are lots of people looking for that businesses, some are good, some are not, some are downright cowboys. How do you tell the competent ones from the chancers? Here are a few brief pointers.

1. Show me some of your previous work (and some proof that he/she actually did the sites)
2. How much will the website cost, how long will it take?
3. Is this site from a template, or are you making it from scratch?
   
4. How much will the annual hosting and domain cost (some of these chancers ask for over 150 per year, which is about twice what it should cost just to keep the site up)

What Pages should I have on my website?

The first thing is to remember, the number of pages your website has is not as important as making sure you have included all the information you need to give your customers, and that this information is easy for them to find. Also bear in mind, that a website is not a book. You can add more pages later if you need to.

Most people will wait until they have about 3-5 pages ready before they put anything up on their website, others might launch their website with only have one page, containing a summary of what you do, where you can be found, and how to contact you.
And later, as they expand on that, those things can get separate pages to include more detail.

Generally speaking, you should at least have HOME, SERVICES/ PRODUCTS and CONTACT pages, and depending on your business, an ABOUT page and an FAQ page.

We have moved!

I know nothing really looks any different, but if you look at the address bar you'll see that you haven't been visiting www.thourigan.com but now the website is located at www.houriganwebworks.com, which matches the business name.

Just a small admin detail. I was never really comfortable with the domain thourigan.com so when it came time to renew, I went for something that matched the business name.
The site is now houriganwebworks.com, but people trying to open thourigan.com will be automatically redirected to the new site.

Instead of e-mailing webworks@thourigan.com, e-mails should now go to tim@houriganwebworks.com

If you've ever thought of changing your website name, here's a short article on it recently posted.

What if I want to change the name of my website?

Well first off, it can be done, and there's plenty of reasons for it.
Take the example of a site set up without thinking much about the name, to list the therapists in part of the US, www.findtherapist.com . Some might read as Find The Rapist, rather than Find Therapist.

Other businesses have had website names that are far too long to remember, too long to type without making a mistake, and maybe a bit long to fit on leaflets, side of the van etc.

www.johnmurphysroofcleaningandwindowwashingservice.ie is a bit of a monster (but not too far off of some site names I've seen!).
Say later, Mr Murphy wishes he had picked www.roofandwindows.ie. Well it's not too late to change! There is a bit of work involved in it, but it can be done fairly quickly if you have a small website and not a lot of links to worry about.

What should I put on my website?

Getting a website for your business can be daunting. What do I put on it? What do I leave out?

Here are the top DO's and DON'Ts for your business website content.

DO

• Think about what your customers want, and the quickest way to match that with what you have to offer. Remember, they're on the internet, not on your premises, catch their attention quickly.
  
• Talk to your website designer about what you want from the site.
• Expect to put in some time at the start of the process.
• Pick a domain name that is fairly short, easy to remember and spell, and also has some sort of relevance to the product.
• Put your contact details on there. I have seen sites that forgot to do it!

DON'T.

• Don't try to save time by just sticking of a photo of your business card of leaflet. It may look okay when you look at the site, but how do you expect Google to find it? Google's programs don't 'read' photographs of text.
  
• Don't put long paragraphs of text welcoming people to the site. That may be fine for written reports, or corporate speeches, but on the internet, people are less patient, and want you to get to the point quickly. After all, they can just click 'back' and leave your site very quickly.
• Don't give too much info on your business. After all, your competition is sure to check your website too!
• Don't fill your front page with too many fancy graphics and Flash movies. If it takes too long to load, the customers will move to the next site.
• Don't use too much jargon. The easier it is for customers to understand, the better.
  
• Don't use copyrighted music, images or other content without permission. You can be sued.
  

Aren't websites too expensive?

There are still people out there who will ask you for €1,500 to €2,000 to design a simple website, and up to €400 a year to host it.
A basic website shouldn't be anywhere near that expensive.
The cowboys probably won't mention that there is a GRANT available for business websites. Your city or country enterprise board could pay up to 50% up the cost of setting up the site.
If you're paying €2,000 for a site, you'd better be getting interactive features, custom edited video, and other stuff that is useful for your customers, not just because your webdesigner wants to show off (and charge you for it).
If you're just looking to let the world know you exist, what you're offering, and how to contact you, then a website should be cheaper than placing a medium size colour ad in your local newspaper.
Once your site is set up, the costs of maintaining it are very low compared to advertising on paper, radio or billboards.

Beware those who promise Google gold!

I get e-mails from them, and some of my customers get them too.
We promise to put you on the top 10 results for Google! Yeah? for how much?

The quickest way into the Google top 10 is to fork out a small fortune for paid ads. That phrase or word that people use to search for your business is auctioned to the highest bidder. Depending on how much competition there is for a search term, you could be talking about paying thousands per year.
If you have that type of budget, and enough turnover, then that may not be a problem, but for most of us, it's not the way to go.

How can I tell a good website from a bad one?

It's not always obvious from quickly looking at a website whether it's worth the money you've paid for it. Here's a quick guide.

All good websites follow the same rules, but there are many types of bad website

Good Websites

• The customer is able to find the site
• The site opens quickly without any fuss
• The customer can read what's on the site
• The content of the site quickly tells the customer what they want to know
• The customer can find their way around the site easily

Bad Websites

• Site might look well, but won't show up in Google or Yahoo search.
• Webdesigner set up big flashy intro that takes 10 seconds to load even with broadband.
• Only customers with large screens or perfect eyesight can read what's on your site
• The site is full of marketing jargon like 'integrated customer solutions' and 'client service interfacing'
• The site layout is more like a maze than a straightforward tour of your business

GOOD WEBSITES DON'T HAPPEN BY ACCIDENT

The webdesigner acts like a business parter, getting to know about the business and the customers.
Then the website has to be coded correctly for search engines like Google, and built to suit your customers, so that they find it useful and interesting, instead of clicking out of your site and going to your competitor's website.

Motorschool.ie now online

The website for the Mid-West school of Motoring, www.motorschool.ie, is now online. The page content is almost finalised, and client seems happy with the colour scheme.
Meeting with client will finalise content and image selections, and hopefully, a good many learner drivers will find their way to the site, and to safe and succesful driving with Barry Gallagher's tuition.

Have also helped with a blog for Motorschool.ie and if client updates it regularly, this should help drive hits to the site.

30% increase in Broadband connections.

Latest Quarterly report from the Communications Regulator, ComReg, shows that the number of broadband connections has increased almost 30% in the last year.

As at the end of March. there were 1,272,166 broadband subscriptions, which is 28.2% higher than the same time in 2008.

The total number of internet connections had increased to 1,472,599.
200,433 customers still have slower 'narrowband' or dial-up connections but the number of slower connections is decreasing as more people switch to broadband.

The full report is available at the ComReg website.

New Projects

This week, I've picked up two more clients for full website design - a garden centre, and a driving school.

Gladly for me, both of them have thought about what they want on their site and one even had content on disc when I met him at the first meeting.

The list of projects in development is growing.
The recession doesn't help much. Some clients are nervous about getting a website, while for others, the worries it brings doesn't give them much time to plan.