'Website vs Blog' expert required.

[Carl]

I've been overwhelmed with information and paid tons for SEO, ASDL, UFO's and many other IT acronyms. Is there a 'strategic techie soloist' out there who could advise as to what's best for my business in terms of online effectiveness? I'm thinking maybe a simple wordpress blog, but what do I know? Maybe we can contra a brand identity, or a business presentation? Here's me, Cheers! http://www.sherriffdesign.com/

[Jason de King]

Hi Carl

loved your show reel! very cool...

We do alot of seo and get great results. What are the searches you want to be famous for?

Jas.
www.dreeme.com

[BeniCreative]

Hi Carl,

I love your website! You've got some great work in there too! I have a couple of contacts that may be useful for you. Jonathan of S3 Group I'm sure could help you (www.s3group.com.au). Or you could also get in touch with Zoe of zfweb at www.zfweb.com.au.

Hope this will be helpful.

Cheers
Bronwyn

[tier1onlinestrategies]

Hi Carl,

Flash sites look great, but unfortunately do little to help out when it comes to SEO. The only words on your site a search engine can spider are those contained in the title, description and keywords.

Our approach is create an action response based on your website.

How many phone calls are you getting right now?

I'm sure you would agree how important it is to get the most from your marketing dollar and to get a really good conversion rate from visitors.

If we can show you how to improve your search engine optimization to get you more visitors and just as importantly, convert those visitors into a phone call, would you be interested?

If so, we are available Monday afternoon and Tuesday lunch time, which would suit you better?

Regards,
Matt

[Adam Randall]

Ive got a few articles of substance on search engine optimisation, how to go about hiring a web design company and mistakes to avoid in web site design

Apologies if the font looks bad, I am experimenting this weekend.

Your site looks very good, and is excellent to navigate, whoever did it, did a pretty nice job of the design, are you being found though?

Id prefer a pig ugly site with 100 visitors a day than something that belongs in an art gallery that gets 2.

Ultimately you need to read up on what you should do and then hire a professional to execute it.

If you put your hands in the air and declare technology is the work of the devil, what happens is you have no control.

As a small business operator today it is essential you have a basic understanding of the business technology out there so that you can make informed decisions.

Instead of hiring a consultant and then saying "Im not sure what I need to do, can you just make it all happen"

You need to research what you need to do (Unfortunately that includes the acronyms) and then seek out a consultant with a list of objectives that you can control.

One thing is for sure if you do not do this the following will happen:
a) Your expectations will be unrealistic
b) You will oversimplify what needs to be done
c) Once the work is complete, you will not know what has been done.
d) You will be completely unsatisfied even with a highly professional organisation.
c) lots of other things I cant really think of at the moment.

PS: Quite often I also see clients who reverse points A and B so their expectations are much less than the minimum results they should be expecting. Without knowing what the realistic expectations are of the project you want complete, you will either over shoot or under shoot but rarely hit the mark.

A fantastic article on the pros and cons of using flash

Excerpt about flash from another site:

If I use Flash on my site, will it cause people to write me checks with lots of zeroes in front of the decimal point?

Can the same effect be achieved with HTML and graphics?

Does Flash get in the way of the user such as increased wait time or visitors who don't have the plugin?

Has any important customer called up and asked, "Why aren't you using Flash on your site?"

Do the people suggesting Flash have any vested interest? (Flash designers)

Do the people suggesting Flash work in the marketing department? (Marketing people, like myself, are mesmerized by shiny things.)

[Carl]

Originally Posted by BeniCreative

Hi Carl,

I love your website! You've got some great work in there too! I have a couple of contacts that may be useful for you. Jonathan of S3 Group I'm sure could help you (www.s3group.com.au). Or you could also get in touch with Zoe of zfweb at www.zfweb.com.au.

Hope this will be helpful.

Cheers
Bronwyn

Thanks Bronwyn, I'll look up your contacts Cheers, Carl.

[Carl]

Thanks Adam, good to hear from an 'advanced member'! That's almost rude.
Does a client not need flash to view my animations? I was thinking maybe a 'wordpress blog' with links to Youtube might suffice. Could the future be DIY (there you go, another acronym) wordpress style blogs, could mean the extinction of well meaning 'web design experts'?

[Adam Randall]

[QUOTE=Carl;3087]Thanks Adam, good to hear from an 'advanced member'! That's almost rude.QUOTE]

Hey, thanks for pointing that out, I am too I did not notice that.

As far as the flash goes, like the articles say, its a tool, no more no less.

I think that your media definitely requires the flash however, you will require a level of expertise in search engine optimisation that is hard to find.

I would not pretend to have it, however if you head over to the high rankings forum and ask there.

If nobody there can help you, then I dont know where to look. I have seen flash sites rank pretty well and Google have come out with some technology that does help with searching on them.

Expect to pay a premium for this sort of expertise though.

The original question on website v Blog, I dont think it is one or the other, they probably compliment each other.

Its the whole internet presence that is important.

As far as the web pages that suck site, that was not in any way directed at your site. It is just I have learned more off that site about web design than any other place on the net, they dont hold back thats for sure.

[RichardHoare]

G'day Carl

Your site puts on a good show but there's no content there to keep the search engines happy.

But you can go crazy chasing SEO and top rankings. Not every site can be in the top 10. Personally, I think there are better ways to get interested people to your site.

As for website versus blog, it's all up to you. Blogs are great if you work on them. You must add useful content very regularly. At least weekly. And if your content is interesting and you ask the right questions you may even get some comments and feedback from readers.

But if you can't keep up the supply of content for a blog, you're better off with a website. Just my opinion.

And if I were you, I wouldn't go looking for "experts". In my experience so-called experts often use jargon to cover up the BS.

As I said, just my 2 cents worth.

Richard

[Adam Randall]

Originally Posted by Richoare

I wouldn't go looking for "experts". In my experience so-called experts often use jargon to cover up the BS.

If thats the case, then there is no need for small business, no need for any business at all, we could all do everything ourselves.

Part of accepting that there are people out there that know more than you about a given subject is an important part of running a small business.

I can add and subtract, maybe I should do my own accounting. I know how to drive a car, maybe I should do my own courier work.

I know how to use a toilet brush, maybe we dont need cleaners anymore!

Ive watched a couple of law and order episodes, maybe this legal stuff is easier than it seems, after all Jack always seems to win pretty easily usually within one hour too.

"Experts" are required in all areas including computing, SEO, web design otherwise the average state of small business web presence would not be such an abomination. In actual fact thats half the problem, people thinking its easy and that they can do it themselves.

I can often fix problems on computers in a few minutes that other people will take days to figure out, is that sort of expertise "BS"?