Advice on a new website.

[BrightonRoofer]

Hi,

Have been a lurker for a while reading and trying to gather as much information as possible and have diecided to take the plunge and find someone to build my roofing business a website, but I really am a novice and not 100% certain on what to ask for and what constitutes a "good" website and what makes a website "bad".

I have tried to google some of my questions but im sill none the wiser, so excuse the basic questions.

1) will the name of the website affect google ranking, ie brightonroofing d0t c0m or joeblogsltd dot c0m

2) Does the extension after the website .com .co.uk .biz affect anything ?
is one more professional then another and does it affect the google ranking?

3) Ive seen many different places to register the name of the webiste, does it matter where? and who with ?

Eventually im hoping to build up the website and try to get a reasonable google listing, is there a few golden rules or must do`s when starting one or rather some things I really shouldnt do, I know this is bit of a sweeping request but a couple pointers would be really helpfull and greatly appreciated.

 

[Annoying Donkey]

1) will the name of the website affect google ranking, ie brightonroofing d0t c0m or joeblogsltd dot c0m

Conventional wisdom says yes, I say no. Believe whoever you like, but I wouldn't rely on this for long term SEO strategy.

2) Does the extension after the website .com .co.uk .biz affect anything ?
is one more professional then another and does it affect the google ranking?

.com is supposed to be worldwide, .co.uk for uk only. I tend to get both and redirect one to the other. You can specify in webmaster tools that a .com is UK specific.

3) Ive seen many different places to register the name of the webiste, does it matter where? and who with ?

Not really. 123-reg is one of the cheapest. ~3 quid ish for a .co.uk. If you want a .com they're usually cheaper in US e.g. namecheap $10 vs £10 + VAT at 123-reg.

 

[Faevilangel]

1) The website address can help the seo ranking by getting an 'exact match' domain e.g. 'brightonroofer.co.uk, roofersinbrighton.co.uk etc' but if you went for your company name then you can still rank for the above keywords. I use my name for my website addresss and do very well for my local searches, sometimes better than the exact match domains for my area.

2) Strictly speaking, if you're a UK company offering your services to UK residents then a .co.uk domain is the best choice (but it's not always possible to get it). You can use other domains extensions such as .com, .org, .net etc but always try to get the .co.uk first.

3) It won't matter who you register with, the only difference will be price and reliability. I recommend 123-reg (sig link goes to them) who are one of the cheapest for domains and have been around for years and are one of the most well known domain registrars. They are the better for .co.uk domains but if you wanted a .com then an american registrar would be better. Always look around as some registrars will do special offers like buy a domain for 2 years and get a year free etc. For a .co.uk domain, you would be looking at around £8 inc vat for 2 years.

For the seo, the web designer should be able to give you a good start with rankings by setting up the site to be seo friendly and to target your chosen keywords. Local keywords can be easier to rank for as there generally is less websites targeting the keywords but always do your research and don't expect instant results.

 

[Annoying Donkey]

I recommend 123-reg (sig link goes to them) who are one of the cheapest for domains and have been around for years and are one of the most well known domain registrars. They are the better for .co.uk domains but if you wanted a .com then an american registrar would be better.

Poster should disclose that his sig link is an affiliate link - i.e. he gets paid if you sign up through that link.

 

[SpencyCWS]

Although WebLinkPlus has answered your questions already, I just wanted to add to the domain thing.

If you are local business, then getting - www.buildersgloucester.co.uk (if you were builders in Gloucester) for example in our experience really helps with catching that search term.

WLP is right, do not rely on this as a long term SEO strategy, but I honestly believe that having a decent domain name does affect ranking.

 

[fisicx]

Exact match is great but you may discover a better convering set of keywords in which case the domain name is now irrelevant.

Far better to go get the name of your business, that way you can expand into without being hampered by the geographical area or service in the domain name.

For example roofer-in-sometown is going to hamper your efforts to expand in the the nearby town or start building sheds.

 

[Annoying Donkey]

To add to the above two comments, if you're primarily local and have a good name and people see you in the results, there's a huge advantage as they're likely to click you over an anonymous brighton roofers.

Of course you could always cover both bases and have two sites, one in your company name and one as brighton roofers. Ensuring, of course, they have unique content.

 

[BrightonRoofer]

Hey guys thankyou very much for all your replies, I know some of the questions were easily googleable but it so much clearer when people explain them.

Im going to go for a personal named roofing site instead of generic "brighton roofer" mainly due to all th feasable domains being taken and we have a great family reputation with our name.

I dont want to start another thread so thought I would add a couple extra questions on.

1) I get the message that content is key, so will be tying to fill the site with information and relevant content, but wanted to know if doing stuff to the keywords will help ie underlining, bolding, italic stuff like that ?

2)Im a roofer so want to show lots of examples previous contracts, will having too many pictures slow the site down ?

3) I dont want the site to look corporate, we are a small family business and want to portray that image but still come across as completly professional, I had the idea of making a introduction video, now this would be made on a budget and basicly jus me talking to the camera on site, would this look tacky, or would it be ok considering its a smal family business ?

Thanks in advance the advice has really helped so far, just have to small task of finding someone to build the site now lol

 

[toastking]

1) From my experience this doesn't do anything and will just look tacky on the actual page.

2) Lots of pictures will slow down the page but remember most people have broadband these days. I would ensure that a good balance between images and text is reached as this will look better and reduce loading times.

3) This will be a common request for a lot of small web designers I should imagine. In terms of the video you could approach small video production companies (I know a few guys who work at one and have created some fantastic results for the tiny company they work for working on a website e-zine type thing, not sure what to class it as). Alternatively you could speak to a university with a good record and possibly run a competition there.

There are two universities in Brighton that I know of, I don't think Sussex does anything along those lines but you may be luckier with the University of Brighton.

 

[Faevilangel]

Hey guys thankyou very much for all your replies, I know some of the questions were easily googleable but it so much clearer when people explain them.

Im going to go for a personal named roofing site instead of generic "brighton roofer" mainly due to all th feasable domains being taken and we have a great family reputation with our name.

I dont want to start another thread so thought I would add a couple extra questions on.

1) I get the message that content is key, so will be tying to fill the site with information and relevant content, but wanted to know if doing stuff to the keywords will help ie underlining, bolding, italic stuff like that ?

2)Im a roofer so want to show lots of examples previous contracts, will having too many pictures slow the site down ?

3) I dont want the site to look corporate, we are a small family business and want to portray that image but still come across as completly professional, I had the idea of making a introduction video, now this would be made on a budget and basicly jus me talking to the camera on site, would this look tacky, or would it be ok considering its a smal family business ?

Thanks in advance the advice has really helped so far, just have to small task of finding someone to build the site now lol

1) As Toastking said, it just makes the site looks tacky and I haven't found any noticeable differance in using the techniques. I came to the conclusion that it's one of the seo myths.

2) As long as the images are optimised for the web and aren't too large by file size then it would be ok. There are so many variables to slowing a website down so having a few images won't make a difference unless your hosting is slow as well. A good web designer should be able to optimise the site for speed so you shouldn't have any issues with the site.

3) Video can help, and people do like the home made style rather than a corporate photo but get it done professionally so there is no camera movement, loss of sound and your voice is clear enough to hear.

Video is great for websites as it can increase conversions if the video is well structured but don't have it auto playing as you will put people right off.

<cough>I offer website design, so if location isn't important for you, I would be interested in talking to you about your ideas</cough>

 

[Annoying Donkey]

1) I get the message that content is key, so will be tying to fill the site with information and relevant content, but wanted to know if doing stuff to the keywords will help ie underlining, bolding, italic stuff like that ?

Most onpage doesn't have much effect and this stuff is likely to put people off. I'd write it for your visitors and only use such decoration minimally and only where it enhances your visitor experience.

2)Im a roofer so want to show lots of examples previous contracts, will having too many pictures slow the site down ?

Pictures can be web optimised. You could show thumbnails which when clicked show the full picture. These's also gallery software which can handle this for you.

3) I dont want the site to look corporate, we are a small family business and want to portray that image but still come across as completly professional, I had the idea of making a introduction video, now this would be made on a budget and basicly jus me talking to the camera on site, would this look tacky, or would it be ok considering its a smal family business ?

Home video is pretty easy. Ensure background is clutter free. Consider using teleprompter software so you can read naturally. Here's a free one http://www.movieclip.biz/prompt.html

Also consider getting a pretty girl to present your script - better to look at than the average builder and can help conversions

Thanks in advance the advice has really helped so far, just have to small task of finding someone to build the site now lol

Take a look at http://wordpress.org. Easy to set up and you can add content yourself. Plenty of free templates or you can get a custom one made cheaply. Also look at wamp http://www.wampserver.com/en/ which will allow you to set it up on your windows machine so you can play and get used to it before putting it live.

There are other alternatives, joomla, drupal etc, but wordpress is probably the easiest to learn.

 

[DotNetWebs]

Poster should disclose that his sig link is an affiliate link - i.e. he gets paid if you sign up through that link.

Worth repeating. One of my pet hates on this forum is undisclosed affiliate links - especially when they are being pushed at newbies.

Regards

Dotty

 

[bdw]

1. IMO the name of the website will have a major affect on its ranking. There is no shortage of evidence to prove this. all you have to do is try a Google search and look at the results. The domain name brightonroofers.co.uk is available. If I were you I would snapping this up as quickly as you can.

2. You should go for the .co.uk version.

3. I use a company called UKWSD (Google it) who offer great service for a reasonable price (and I am not an affiliate).

Getting a small, online brochure website built and optimised should not cost you the earth. I would say look for a price of around £500. Also ensure that your chosen designers have a good portfolio of satisfied clients who can be contacted for references and that they have a record of success in building in SEO to their designs.

.

 

[bdw]

Worth repeating. One of my pet hates on this forum is undisclosed affiliate links - especially when they are being pushed at newbies.

I have not noticed this before and I am very surprised that Sift media allow this?

.

 

[anthonylane13]

SEO is important, if you want customers to find your business using a search engine.

But what's not been said that I think is very important here is that your website is much more than just SEO. There's no point having the top listing on google for your desired search term if your website is awful and makes people click away.

Would you rather have 50% of 500 visitors to your website enquire about your services because your site effectively communicates your business message, or would you rather have 0.01 of 50,000 visitors make enquiries?

Yes, you should have an SEO strategy, it's a good idea. But SEO (in my opinion) comes after making sure your website does its job. Find a designer who can communicate your message effectively, or the whole exercise could be a big disappointment for you.

 

[bdw]

But SEO (in my opinion) comes after making sure your website does its job.

I disagree. It would be a major omission not to consider SEO while a website is being designed.

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[BrightonRoofer]

So much great advice it has all really helped, ok another question

I hav heard of buying a .com and .co.uk site and redirecting one to the other, but is there any merit in directing a few variations of site names to my main site ? say brightonroofing, brightonroofer,roofingbrighton, registering them all and pointing them all at the main site or is this a waste and pointless ?

 

[Prestige-SEO]

I couldnt be bother to read all the other replies,

But this is what I would do..

Buy the "brightonroofer.co.uk" and your brand name .co.uk, then I would redirect the brighton roofer domain to your brand name and build backlinks to both. And then with your on-page SEO I would target the keywords.

 

[Annoying Donkey]

So much great advice it has all really helped, ok another question

I hav heard of buying a .com and .co.uk site and redirecting one to the other, but is there any merit in directing a few variations of site names to my main site ? say brightonroofing, brightonroofer,roofingbrighton, registering them all and pointing them all at the main site or is this a waste and pointless ?

Won't have any effect. An aged domain with existing links might pass on some link juice when redirected but a new domain won't. G might not like multiple domains redirected in the manner you describe.

 

[bdw]

I agree. This is a popular misconception.

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[Faevilangel]

Poster should disclose that his sig link is an affiliate link - i.e. he gets paid if you sign up through that link.

I never intend to deceive that I get paid for clicks but I will make it more clearer.

 

[anthonylane13]

I disagree. It would be a major omission not to consider SEO while a website is being designed.

.

I think you misunderstood what I was getting at. Maybe I didn't say it very well. Of course any web designer worth their salt should make all their clients' websites as SEO friendly as possible. But I stand by the idea that a website is primarily for humans - after all, robots have no money to spend.

Make your site work for your customers, sell your product or service to them effectively. Part of that means making sure they can find you easily: SEO.

SEO without a good site is a waste of time in my opinion.

 

[the king]

good SEO may get the traffic;

but only good web copy (and of course product / service) gets the sale
​

no matter how good the SEO - it's only half the job!

 

[bdw]

good SEO may get the traffic;

I agree but, being pedantic, it's not just that. There is another important factor that is often overlooked.

Good SEO actually gets the rankings. Many people forget that a compelling meta description (generally the snippet displayed in the list of results) can be the difference between someone clicking on your website and clicking the one above or below.

Once they are in your site then good products, copy and design keeps them there.


.

 

[hockleyweb]

I would strongly recommend reading this,

Get-into-Bed-Google-, you can get it cheap on amazon

It's a very simple quick and easy to read book on search engine optimisation. It will also help you when you are talking to the people you get to build the site. Most important things to remember in my experience are:

Accessibility and good mark up of the site code - googlespiders dont look at the pretty pictures etc they look at clean accessible mark up. Ensure that the code validates at : w3schools.com/site/site_validate.asp (check your designers site as well, all to many 'SEO experts' are not what they seem). Ensure that the website is built using CSS for layouts - rather than tables.

Ensure that the copy text on the page and headings contain searchable key words, these should still make sense and not be frustrating to read, as whats the point of getting a page hit if you annoy people with bad copy.

Make sure the site is easily navigated (even with Javascript off)

Advertise your site links as many places as possible (sigs on forums etc) these will be picked up on separate searches

Ensure that, while SEO is a major part of the site design, the site looks and works correctly

There's no magic formula for this, google don't advertise their algorithms and ranking takes time, however a well built accessible site with clean markup will do far better than a template or badly coded site .

I hope this helps

 

[DesignerNick]

I think the use of video would give you a bit of an edge as it would be a bit more personalised and people would see you and know you know what you are talking about.

Regarding the domain, it would be great to have a keyword domain for SEO but then in the future if you wanted to expand your area it might be a pain so that is something to consider.

As mentioned you need to have good calls to action, what do you want people to do once they are on the site? Do you want them to call you, email you, get an online quote?

One thing you could do is buy brightonroofer.co.uk if it is free and use it as a blog (use different hosting) and then just post up articles about roofing / guides and then link that back to your business site