Website Review Questions:

1.    Why does the site exist?

This is a simple, but highly effective question.  Why is the site there?  Who exactly is going to benefit from it?  Why should visitors keep returning to the site?  If you are able to look at the website and come up with a definite answer as to why it is there, then that is a good basis to form an opinion of the rest of the site.

2.    What are the user experience issues?

User experience issues can relate to website design, usability, conversions and content.  Does the website design reflect the content of the website and is it user-friendly?  Are all the links working and pointing where they should be or is the site seemingly unstructured and a bit chaotic?

Is the on-page content useful, reliable and relevant to the search query that led you to the webpage in the first place?  Do you trust the quality and would you consider sharing it on social networking sites?  If the answer to both of those questions is ‘yes’ then that website is generally of a high quality.

3.    Has the website been optimised for indexation by the search engines?

There are a few tell-tale signs that can be spotted to find out if a website has been optimised for the search engines – some aesthetic and some may require a bit of further exploration.  Firstly, look at the Meta Title tags and find out what keywords are being targeted and if they reflect the content on the webpage.  Have the Meta Descriptions been optimised and do they also reflect the content on the webpage?

Other metrics that take a bit more effort to judge include finding out the quality and quantity of inbound links pointing to a site.  Are they coming from reliable sources that other authorities in the industry might use?  Is the content optimized to target the keywords that are being optimised for while remaining useful and informative?  Again, you would ideally be looking to get the answer ‘yes’ for all these questions; if not there is work to be done!

4.    What social channels does the website use and how active is it?

Looking at blog posts, for example, and researching how much activity (shares, likes etc.) they have received on social networks is often an important indicator as to the overall quality of the site.  The more social shares, the better the quality of the content.

The ‘social’ strategy of a website can also be linked to usability; how easy is it for a visitor to share the content on their social profiles?  Why would they want to share the content in the first place?  What is incentivising them to share the content?  Again, finding answers to these various questions all help build a holistic interpretation of a website that is important when a website review is being conducted.

These four categories should form the basis of all website reviews, but the depth with which each is explored should depend on the content of the website and the detail required to complete the website review.

Here at Click Consult we have a team of expert internet strategists and web developers who are equipped with vast experience at improving websites from a range of industries.  If you have any queries about our search engine optimisation services then please feel free to contact us via our website.

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The Cheshire-based digital marketing experts, Click Consult, have not only seen staff numbers more than double, from 40 to 85, but their turnover is up 20% on the previous year to 5.6 million.  While the company has maintained an excellent client retention rate, they have also consistently acquired new clients and are now partnered with some of the biggest brands from a range of industries; these include UK Mail, Engage Mutual, Photoworld.co.uk, Phoenix Health & Safety, JJB, Denby, Liverpool 1, 3663 and Colgate Palmolive amongst many others.

This acquisition of new business has not halted Click Consult’s commitment to developing their range of TRAX technologies with additions such as clickTELLIGENCE®v3.0, their market-leading online reporting suite, clickBASE CMS®, linkTRAX®, competitorTRAX®, rankTRAX™, socialTRAX™, monitorTRAX®, ppcTRAX™ and roiTRAX®.

Click Consult have also responded to the evolution of internet marketing by placing additional focus on several new services.  Their Web Development department have built a bespoke CMS to help clients update their website content quickly and efficiently, while also improving accessibility, visibility and appearance.  Their Social Media Marketing team has also been developed and they now provide precise and detailed analytical data to help their clients optimise their social media campaigns for maximum online visibility.  The brands that Click Consult have also subsequently developed include optimization.co.uk, content.co.uk, searchengineoptimisation.co.uk, searchengineoptimization.co.uk, linkbuilding.co.uk and seoconsult.com.

Aside from their growth and development, Click Consult were also nominated for the Medium Business of the Year Award by the Liverpool Daily Post as well as winning the ‘EA Technology Large Business Year of the Year’ award at the Cheshire Business Awards.  Click Consult’s specialist SEO division, SEO Consult, have also consistently been classed as the number 1 SEO Agency in the UK by topseos.com, while Click Consult themselves were ranked in the top 15 UK search agencies by NMA.  They have also attended numerous industry shows including the Online Marketing Show, the eCommerce Expo, Internet World, mediaPRO and TMFA 2011, with senior staff speaking in seminars at some of these events.

“The last business year was undoubtedly fantastic for Click Consult.  We have successfully expanded while maintaining our superb quality of service, client retention rate and our commitment to internal development for our staff, our brands and our technologies.  This success was matched at the numerous industry shows we attended and reflected in the awards we have won.” said Matt Bullas, Managing Director of Click Consult.  “Having said that, we believe we are ambitious and committed enough to replicate this growth next year.  Our challenge for the next financial year is to increase our turnover to 7 Million, build our workforce to over 100 and to expand and focus on further developing our services, technologies and branching into other markets.”

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1. Focus on the user.

Those following this thread of articles will notice that this was also the first point on Google’s general philosophies, and this leads me to the obvious conclusion that is of great importance. When creating websites it can be easy to overindulge in technical design features such as JavaScript and HTML5, leaving the resulting site unspiderable for the search engine bots and unusable for website visitors. The best web developers know that a fundamental principle of excellent web design is to promote accessibility. A website with a clear, structured, easily navigable design will naturally be more popular than a website that is over complicated and seemingly unsystematic. The most successful web development services will build their campaigns around the needs of the user.

2. Make every millisecond count.

Another appearance from the previous blog and another reminder from Google that ‘speed is the killer app’. Statistics from a 2009 survey conducted by the University of Nebraska reveal that 47% of people expect a webpage to load in less than two seconds and 40% will leave and won’t return to a webpage if it takes longer than three seconds to load. Now, two or three seconds might seem very quick in offline circumstances, but the advent of high-speed broadband connections has left users craving instant gratification and nothing else will do. Google do offer tools to help webmasters check the speed of their websites, and the free advice that tool provides will help web developers boost the speed of the websites they design.

3. Simplicity is essential.

Google state in their design principles that simplicity drives the other components of good web design such as speed, ease of use, aesthetic appeal and accessibility. Consequently, simple design is often a feature of many successful web development enterprises. The overriding takeaway point for this design philosophy is to not sacrifice simplicity at the behest of additional features. These additional features may only add to the complexity of a website while diminishing accessibility and causing visitors to lose trust in a website.

4. Engage beginners, attract experts.

This is a principle that is an offshoot of simplicity. Google reference their own designs (unsurprisingly) to reinforce this point; claiming that the simplest designs should be merged with powerful features to appeal to both beginners and experts. The simple veneer will engage the beginners to your website while the in-depth features will appeal to the power users whose influence can be used to build brand awareness within the relevant community. For those practicing web design, striking the equilibrium between involving the new visitors and not alienating old users can be the most difficult proposition. However, finding that balance is often integral to a successful web development campaign.

5. Be Innovative.

While consistency in website design builds trust with the core client base, it is innovation that transforms a mediocre website into a work of art. Web developers should always be on the lookout for new ideas that could reinvigorate a stagnant website.

6. Design universally.

This is a philosophy of Google’s that relates to the exponential increase in the number of portable devices (such as smartphones and tablets) that are currently used by hundreds of millions of people around the world. It is important to cater for these users in web design because the underlying rules of web development change significantly when being designed for a portable device with a smaller screen. There is an incredible opportunity for success in mobile search optimisation for businesses looking to invest in internet marketing.

7. Plan for today and tomorrow.

Google’s seventh principle of design relates to them striving to create profitable products that are helpful to users. They also state that they would never attempt to increase the revenue of one of their products if it meant sacrificing the number of users or accessibility. For web developers this serves as yet another reminder that Google wants to look after its users, and so should all other websites. User-friendly, innovative and structured design is more likely to increase profits than adverts that clutter a page – conversion rates are more likely to boost ROI than ads.

8. Delight the eye, don’t distract the mind.

Google products can often be described as having a ‘simple elegance’, although the audience and the context in which that product is released often have an effect on the design. An instantly pleasing aesthetic that appeases first-time visitors to a site is a fantastic asset. While this can’t be achieved in every web design, it is something that web developers should strive for as it can hugely increase the chances of improving visitor experience on the site.

9. Be Trustworthy.

Google conducted a survey in the early preparatory stages of the Panda algorithm update in which they aimed to establish how human users determine the ‘quality’ of a website. One of the questions they asked was ‘would you trust this website with your credit card details?’ This notion of trustworthiness is increasingly important in web design, as evidenced by the Panda update where webpage design was an influential factor in determining the quality of a website. This could relate to the amount of adverts on the page, or the amount of original content above the fold – either way, the takeaway point of this philosophy is that websites that build trust within the user base will be much more successful.

10. Show your human side.

Again, in relation to the Google Panda update, the sites that received the most penalisation were those that appeared to be built by bots, for bots. That means that in the construction of a website little or no effort was made to satisfy the human users but rather to farm content and attempt to appease the search engines. Fortunately, this tactic no longer works and it is much more beneficial to web developers to have their human nature reflected in the websites they design. Vibrancy and personality are big plus points in web design as long as they serve to improve the experience of the users. Exhibiting passion in the sites you build is good, overindulgence is not.

It is fitting that the final point and the first point are very similar. It reflects the emphasis that Google places on accessibility and improving user experience, and this is something every web development expert knows. If you have any other queries about web design or web development, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.

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1.    Focus on the user

This is a philosophy that is rightly forged upon the mind of any person beginning a career in digital marketing.  Google is a company that prides itself on offering a level of user experience that is unparalleled by the other search engines and therefore, Google wants the websites it lists be built to offer an equally positive user experience.  This serves as a reminder to people working in search engine optimisation or web development that their strategies should be customer-orientated if success is to be attained.

2.    It’s best to do one thing really well

This principle focuses on Google’s commitment to solving complex problems that might affect its main objective as a search engine and using that information to help improve the peripheral services it offers such as Gmail.  This theory should be adopted by those who practice search marketing professionally – the core objective being to improve user experience before focusing on other aspects of a campaign such as increasing conversion rates.

3.    Speed is crucial

An axiom that can often be located within the various departmental Google blogs relates to speed – the theory being that ‘speed is the killer app’.  Just as Chrome claims to be the fastest browser, Google claims to be the fastest search engine and this needs to be reflected in the search results it produces.  Google even provides a free ‘Page Speed’ testing tool where it will provide webmasters or SEO programmers with advice on improving the speed of their websites.  Web users now are used to living in a culture of instant gratification, and every tenth of a second that can be shaved of a page’s load time could potentially win more customers and improve conversion rate.  This philosophy may be more applicable to SEOs, but it is a valuable point for the industry in general.

4.    The internet is democratic

The theory that the Google search engine is a democratic ecosystem might have its beginnings in their PageRank algorithm because it, amongst other things, treated links as ‘votes’ for a website to help determine which were the most authoritative.  As the search engines and the internet have evolved, the algorithm processes have become a lot more complex.  However, the underlying principle still applies, and content that is engaging enough to receive lots of high quality inbound links will generally rank higher in the search engines than content that doesn’t.  This illustrates to web masters and internet marketers that the production of high-quality content is crucial in getting others to vouch for your website through the creation of links.

5.    Cater for visitors using portable devices

An incredible amount of people around the world now own smartphones and one of Google’s philosophies is to remind us to cater for those devices.  By optimising for smartphones and tablets, websites will be made accessible to a whole range of potential new customers.  If you have a high street business as well as an online presence, there may well be an increase in physical traffic as these portable devices make search inherently local.  Optimising for mobile devices shows innovativeness and dedication, and can help increase levels of traffic, potentially increasing conversion rates.  Internet marketers should always attempt to cater for smartphone users in the strategies they devise.

6.    Don’t be afraid to monetize

Working for a search marketing agency, many of our clients approach us with the long term goal of making their business more profitable through the wide range of internet marketing services we offer.  This is largely done through conversion rate optimisation; the process by which we fine tune a client’s website to maximise the number of visitors that perform some kind of desired interaction with the business directly, or the business website.  There are other ways to monetise, for example through Google AdWords, but for marketers and potential investors, there is no need to shy away from services such as conversion rate optimisation which can greatly improve the profitability of a website.

7.    There’s always more to be done

For Google, this philosophy applies to their approach to indexing content, and how they are always looking for new forms of content that haven’t been as readily available in the past.  For example we can now use Google to search for patents, academic journals and news archives.  This philosophy also applies to internet marketers because there is always more that can be done to improve a campaign.  A search engine optimisation or internet marketing strategy does not have a finite stop and start date, and while goals and KPIs should be set, the process should be allowed to progress both organically and through direct human interaction to promote the chances for success.

8.    Don’t limit the reach of your content

Google speaks in this philosophy about their company being based in California, but wanting to facilitate and provide access to information for people around the world.  For internet marketers, this principle can be translated to mean that the business represented should always be looking to transcend the community traditionally associated with it.  This doesn’t mean ignoring that specific online community, but realising that with the creation of engaging and unique content, there is a potentially untapped market of internet users that can be reached.  While the core client or user base should never be overlooked, the creation of compelling content and the practice of active reputation management can broaden the boundaries of all brands.

9.    Be creative

One of Google’s founding principles was ‘work should be challenging, and the challenge should be fun.’  Internet marketing campaigns should be approached with the same attitude because while they are challenging, the best results can often come from creative thinking.  This shows that search marketers need to be innovative and forward thinking to create new strategies that keep pace with the evolution of the internet.  While rigidity and structure should not be shunned in the working culture, expansive thinking should be encouraged if the greatest results are to be realised.

10.    Being great isn’t good enough

While this does sounds like a corporate, faux-aspirational mantra that might be better suited to a self-improvement seminar (“don’t tell me the sky’s the limit when there’s footprints on the moon” et al.), the thinking behind it has a significant resonance for internet marketers.   When goals are set for a campaign, they should be ambitious and should challenge the agency and the business to push themselves to the limit of their capabilities.  This will encourage the creative thinking mentioned in the previous point, and it will build a hunger for success that is necessary to succeed in internet marketing.  While being ‘great’ might be good enough, don’t impose limits that might marginalise the opportunity to be successful.

If you’ve made it all the way through this post, I applaud you and hope there have been some useful takeaway tips that might benefit your internet marketing campaigns.  Google’s full list of philosophies can be found here on their website – and if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

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Why, oh why then, is the internet still plagued with clumsily built websites that are about as functional as a leaky bucket and as aesthetically pleasing as road-kill?  I wish I could tell you – but as someone who knows that a well-developed site contribute greatly to a successful internet marketing campaign, I can tell you it’s very frustrating.

When users go to a website, they expect to be treated to a user-friendly service and the clients commissioning the websites expect a profitable service that will best showcase their brand or product.  The best web development teams can facilitate both the needs of the user and the client, to deliver a product that is functional, easy to use as well as ranking well in organic search listings.

Think of your webpage as having the same role as a high-street shop window.  People might just glance in for a matter of seconds, but if what they see is eye-catching enough, they may very well go in for a closer look.  In terms of your website, this could be replicated by something as simple as well placed picture, logo or relevant headline.

Your website can also act be of great benefit to your business on the whole.  Well manufactured content management systems can hugely reduce the amount of time required to maintain a website and allowing you to focus more of your time on running the business.  An expertly crafted site will also contain a simple, but effective internal navigation system – a very attractive prospect for the search engines that will see a website optimised for the user as well as themselves.

Just be smart in the design and development when your website and remember how important a site is for search marketing – it’s a device that has the power to optimise the potential of your business.

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The key issues that should have the most influence on the decision making process are the level of expertise that the agency is able to offer, the degree of transparency you will receive with the service and how accurate and reliable the agency can be in measuring the progress and success of campaigns.  Because PPC is such a complex form of advertising, obviously you will want to ensure that the agency you approach has a high level of expertise as well as a proven track record.  The level of visibility the agency will allow you is probably just as important.  The willingness to work closely with clients shows a willingness to fully understand the market; this is essential in developing the most effective strategy.  Finally, being able to accurately track the progress of a PPC campaign can help build trust between the client and the agency.  With these factors in mind, Click Consult have devised and answered a 10 Question package designed to help you select the best PPC agency.

1.    Experience: How long has your agency offered a PPC service?

Established in 2003, Click Consult have quickly built a reputation as one of Europe’s leading PPC Management agencies.

2.    Focus: How focused is your agency on PPC?

Click Consult have a team of dedicated pay-per click advertising experts, as well as having teams of professionals in other digital marketing disciplines such as search engine optimisation, web development and copywriting.  Each client is also assigned a designated account manager.  This system promotes effective communication between client and agency as well as endorsing transparency.

3.    Transparency: What level of transparency does your agency offer?

Click Consult offer complete transparency; the clients have access to all data.  By giving all clients access to our clickTELLIGENCE® software package – a unique online reporting suite – we are able to live up to the claim of offering an entirely transparent service.

4.    Specialisation: Does you PPC team specialise in anything else?

Click Consult’s team of PPC experts are dedicated to this particular element of internet marketing.  We also have teams of SEO programmers and web developers, ensuring that any clients who undertake out PPC service receive an approach that holistically encapsulates all aspects of digital marketing.  Click Consult’s PPC team also work closely with the clients to draw on industry knowledge in order to fine-tune and perfect their advertising strategies.  We are not dedicated to one particular niche, minimising the chances of managing campaigns for competitors.

5.    Capability: Does your agency offer a service capable of achieving results across multiple PPC platforms?

Click Consult do offer a service that incorporates all the major PPC Platforms, not just AdWords.  We can implement a PPC advertising campaign across Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, MSN AdCenter, Criteo and Facebook.

6.    Certification: Are your PPC team certified in Google AdWords?

Click Consult are one of the only agencies in the UK where all the PPC campaign managers are fully certified.  Each campaign manager has passed all four of the Google AdWords exams and also the rigorous Google Analytics exam.

7.    Reporting: How will I be able to track the progress of my PPC campaign?

Using our trademarked clickTELLIGENCE® reporting suite, all clients have access to reports that track every keyword and every penny spent.  As well as these standard reports, clients can specifically request a bespoke report to address any concerns they may have.  The Account Manager assigned to the client will also produce a monthly report on the progress of the client’s entire website, not just their PPC campaign.  Again, these reports are conducted in order to offer the clients complete transparency.

8.    Portability: What would happen if I decided to move PPC Management in-house?

Click Consult have a client retention rate of 90%, so portability issues are rarely an issue for us.  Our clickTELLIGENCE® reporting software was developed in-house, so leaving the company would mean losing the analytics data that Click Consult will have built up.

9.    Flexibility: How flexible is your agency for meeting specific requests of the clients?

Click Consult can adapt their approach to PPC campaigns in order to cater for the specific needs of the clients.  In the past we have managed non-brand campaigns while brand specific work is managed in-house and we have also managed the Yahoo! Search Marketing and MSN AdCenter platforms when Google AdWords has stayed in-house.  We understand that clients face a difficult decision when choosing a PPC agency to manage their campaigns, and we realise that there may be scenarios where it is necessary to win the trust of clients.  Click Consult will therefore do their utmost to support the needs of the clients while allowing the expertise of the PPC team to still get results.

10.    Measurable: How does your agency measure success?

One of the first procedures that Click Consult carry out with a client who pays for our PPC service is to agree a set of key performance indicators.  It is routine for us to ask the clients to help us establish these KPI’s, not the other way round.  Using these mutually established KPI’s, the clients has a clear standard by which they can measure the success of their PPC campaign accurately.

The PPC campaigns that we manage are conducted with the goal of combining profitability with a transparent and progressive approach to digital marketing.  We build profitable marketing campaigns, not just a few ads on Google.  Hopefully some of these questions will allay concerns about the authority of PPC agencies, and if you have an follow up queries don’t be afraid to get in touch with us.

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A lot of the time, older design techniques are abandoned because they no longer contribute to site usability. Frames are one of those rare things which still contribute to usability, but have drawbacks that outweigh any usability issues.

There are two main reasons to avoid frames, and the first one is distantly connected to usability. Although internet users consistently report that websites with frames are easier to use, frames cause trouble with bookmarks. The address for the page doesn’t change from frame to frame, so your site users can’t send specific page addresses to friends. This is annoying for users, but can be hugely detrimental to your site. One of your main assets should be users actively promoting your site. You can talk to us about this at Click Consult.

The second reason is also connected with internet marketing. Frames can cause problems with the search engines, preventing pages from being indexed and users from connecting with the right pages.

The problems frames present aren’t the only reason to avoid them. As the average web development company shuns them, frames are going out of fashion. With the risk of looking out-of-date, losing search positioning and preventing users from sharing pages, frames just aren’t worth it.

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Journalism is still struggling after the recession, with advertising revenue nothing like it used to be and publishing houses struggling to make the transition to the web. Many journalists are struggling to get their content noticed, with many using search marketing tactics and SEO to get their stories higher than their rival’s on search engines.

The Huffington Post though is exclusively about creating exclusive, original content. The Huffington standpoint is all about good journalism combined with fantastic design and web development to break exclusives and get people to return time and time again. Is The Huffington Post currently the best available medium and advertisement for how journalism should be done online?

Chief executive of AOL, Tim Armstrong, says of the deal: “Look at Apple’s advertising: they’re not showing the back [of the device], where the USB portal is. They’re showing the content on screen. I don’t think user-generated content is the way people live their lives.”

With that, AOL has recognised the hunger for quality content and is throwing all its weight behind providing it to searchers. Not just The Huffington Post – AOL has also invested in other content portals such as TechCrunch and Patch Media. How AOL make use of these sites is entirely up to them, but for journalists worried about a digital future, things are suddenly looking an awful lot brighter…

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This time next year, 4G licences will be auctioned sometime during the first quarter of 2012. 4G is already available overseas in Japan and the US, and offers incredible broadband speeds for current mobile platforms. The 3G auction in 2000 managed to raise an incredible £22.5billion for the government, and that figure looks likely to be broken during next year’s auction.

Ed Richards, Ofcom chief executive said: “It is the latest generation of mobile technology. It will offer services which offer more capacity and better coverage of mobile broadband services. That is what we expect this spectrum to be used for, but we are preparing an auction that will offer it on a neutral basis.

“It offers much better data services and therefore all the kind of things you can get on your broadband at home or in your office and that you aspire to do through your smartphone or tablet computer and so forth, that is exactly what 4G services will enable.

“This is fantastically important spectrum for the future of our economy. It is 80 per cent more spectrum than was offered in 3G in 2000 and it will be a crucial raw material for the future of the modern economy.”

With 4G offering such an incredible service when on the move, companies need to take advantage as soon as possible and make sure they have a viable mobile presence that’s easy to access and attracts organic users with good web development. With unprecedented speeds available on 4G, more and more people will be turning to mobile when on the move. Get in on the action as early as possible!

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But no matter how large or secure you think your site is when internet marketing, there’s likely to always be someone around who’ll take a chance to the chagrin of everybody else. Play.com has found that out to their peril today, when they confirmed that customer details in the form of names and email addresses may have been stolen.

But it shows that, although your on-site security may be as tight as it can possibly be, you still need to compensate for external problems depending on your size. Play.com uses an external company for their marketing, which is where the breach took place. Did that external company have tight security, and did Play.com investigate to find out the strength of its security?

Luckily, it could have been much worse. Apparently no credit card details have been farmed, only names and email addresses. But still, we can’t imagine that many of their 7 million registered customers will be too happy at all…

“Our database is maintained on a secure internal server that is not connected to the internet,” says a statement from Play.com. But you can understand customers’ concerns, and they have every right to ask questions if they feel their private data has been compromised in any way shape or form.

As happened with Lush previously, the way Play.com handles the episode will be crucial to their reputation and generating customer confidence.

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