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SPF Group, 25 Belvoir Road, St Andrews, Bristol BS6 5DQ.
Tel: +44 (0)117 9775776
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Email: alan@spfgroup.comRecent Posts
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Category Archives: Web Services
Website Rebrand for Juliot’s Well Holiday Park
 Juliots Well old brand |
 Juliots Well new brand |
The new Juliot’s Well brand was launched in the autumn of 2011, and for a relatively small budget we refreshed their current website with the new branding. Now it looks like a completely new website with a fresh look. It’s a bit like having a make-over. If your website is built with a good Content Management System (CMS), then one of the benefits is that you can have a make-over without having to go the ‘whole hog’ and rebuild the website completely.
Planning the Launch
Josh Donald became a client when he bought Seaview International Holiday Park in South Cornwall. Since then the website traffic has increased to over 300%. His next acquisition was Juliot’s Well in North Cornwall. At the time it was prudent to keep the Juliot’s Well website looking similar to the past as it was coming up to a busy period for the park. So we added some new pages and our already successful SEO techniques, however we kept the look and feel the same as before, for brand continuity.
A Complete Make-Over for a Small Budget
The plan went well. The repeat business continued over the summer, the SEO has brought the Google Rankings higher ready for next season, and the new brand has been launched ready for the January booking rush. The next step is to refresh their Twitter page, which will also be done before Christmas.
What About You?
Does your website and Social Media need a refresh? You too may not need to rebuild your whole website to rebrand your company. We can look at your website and CMS, and give you advice on how you could achieve a fresh look for 2012. Call us to see if we can help you do this – 0117 9775776.
What is Cloud Computing?
In this post which is trying to explain what is cloud computing, we’ll review its definition, main benefits and some selected free UK services.
Definition of Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is a by-product and consequence of the ease-of-access to remote computing sites, provided by the Internet. This frequently takes the form of web-based tools or applications that users can access and use through a web browser as if it were a program installed locally on their own computer.
Advantages of Cloud Computing
The main advantages of cloud computing are:-
• Reduced costs
• Easy maintenance
• Re-provisioning of resources
These all help to increased profits.
There are many ways to use the cloud; here are a couple:
Free Cloud Computing UK Services: Dropbox
SPF have recently started using an on-line file storage system that clients can access securely and is free and easy to use on their own device. Dropbox is a Web-based file hosting service that uses cloud computing to enable users to store and share files and folders with others across the Internet using file synchronisation. We found this service very useful because it enables us and our clients to upload files anywhere in the world from any computer. It is secure because you only invite people (or a group) to view folders you want them to see, at the same time it’s also very easy to use, so it helps clients and ourselves to get the job done easier. You can also access it from your iPhone. Create your Free Dropbox Account and start to understand what cloud computing is about…
Free Cloud Computing UK Services: Gmail
For more advice on what is cloud computing and free UK services, contact SPF Group, Bristol based
We have also started using Gmail to handle all our email (the system allows the use of multiple email addresses including private and business domain names); we suggest you do the same! Amongst the Top 10 reasons to use Gmail, it is a free, advertising-supported webmail, POP3, and IMAP service provided by Google. Gmail makes email easy, and you don’t have to buy expensive (or dodgy) software. With 2000 megabytes of free storage, you never need to throw messages away. And with a powerful built-in Google search engine, you no longer need to remember where you stored your messages. Just search for what you want. You will not only find the message you have in mind, but all the other messages that are part of the same conversation, arranged in chronological order so you can easily put everything in context.
Gmail can help ensure compliance plus provide you with real business benefits in streamlining your document and email management – and the spam filter is brilliant. Deploying Gmail is just smart business.
Free Cloud Computing UK Services: SPF Group
Why not deal with an online marketing company that gives you this type of cloud computing service for free. If you need advice or help about what is cloud computing or any web services please contact SPF Group, UK Bristol based.
Should you Start an Online Shop?
Some figures clearly showing how the Internet is revolutionising retail and why you should start an online shop now:
- Online shopping is growing 19 times faster than trade at traditional retailers, official figures show – from the BBC website.
- More than a quarter of all UK purchases are conducted via the Internet, it is becoming ever more important for you as a professional retailer to become an e-retailer, to have an effective presence online.
The exceptional e-Commerce growth came alongside a surge in consumer confidence in online shopping, and reflects the fact that buying online is up to six times faster than visiting bricks and mortar stores. Increasingly, cash-rich yet time-poor individuals are realising that online shopping offers them the opportunity to purchase at anytime, from the comfort of their home and without the drama of full car parks, bustling crowds, British weather and heavy bags.
Contact SPF now to start your online shop or read on…
Starting your Online Shop: Broadband, a Major Facilitator
A major facilitator of the e-Retailing boom has been the growth of UK broadband, which has changed the way we buy online. Both business and consumer uptake is at record levels, with demand outstripping supply in many areas.
See here some of our client online stores:-
 KCM See KCM website and e-Commerce online business |  APC WorkWear See APC WorkWear website and e-Retailing set-up |  RSVP Design See RSVP Design website and online shop facility |  BannerStands See BannerStands website and e-Business design |
Starting your Online Shop: the Opportunity
By offering a level playing field, the Internet provides a tremendous opportunity for smaller retailers to compete with larger organisations, and to increase their sales. What’s more, with the substantial increase in Internet usage and a fall in the cost of selling online, over 70% of e-Business sites are now profitable. Despite this only 3% of firms are selling their products and services online, meaning a huge missed opportunity for retailers to increase their sales, customer base and profits.
Starting your Online Shop: an Essential Ingredient
At the very basic level the Internet has become the first port of call for customers looking to find information, and to purchase both goods and services. In today’s ‘on-demand’ society customers are demanding more choice and opportunity… it’s no longer about what retailers think they need, but about what potential customers want. As a result, a professionally designed web solution coupled with an effective online marketing strategy has become essential for any business to cope with these demands.
There has never been a better or more opportune moment for retailers to start an e-Retailing business and to take their first steps online, or to upgrade their existing e-Commerce capability to ensure that it generates as many sales as possible.
It is never too late to get a fully enabled online shop up and running in time for your next promotion. For more information on the opportunities available to you through e-Commerce, for the free suitability assessment, or for anything for you to start an online shop, please contact us now.
Advantages of Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing is a great way to communicate with potential customers and current clients. Amongst social media marketing advantages, you can expect a traffic increase for your company as you can communicate with your website visitors in many different ways. Another benefit is that your clients remain constantly updated; they are immediately informed about your latest business activities and development via their favourite communication tool(s). One more important social media marketing advantage is to help you stay ahead of your competitors because you are interacting more often with your business’ customers.
Social Media Marketing Tactics for 2011
There are many social networks but the top 3 “not to be missed” are:
- FaceBook - The most popular social network with more than 400 million active users. With your personal account, you can create a business page for people to ‘like’. Via status updates you then communicate directly to all your “facebook friends”. Option to add pictures, videos and links.
- RSS Feeds – Keep your business customers informed as soon as new content is published on your (or your partners’) website(s). RSS Feeds send a small text (to your subscribed visitors) with links to your site (or blog) updates.
- Twitter – A powerful “micro-blog” network sending 140 characters to your “twitter followers”. Important way for your business to keep your customers immediately updated about your latest activities.
More Social Media Marketing Tips for 2011
There are other social medias for you to share information:
- Blogs – An online journal is a great way to express your thoughts, opinions, know-how, advice and experience on your desired field of interest, in great detail, always linking back to relevant pages of your website. You can easily add images, videos, links, posts and pages as it is very much like your own site, in a less formal style.
- Ecademy and LinkedIn – Both send email notifications and could be compared to “something like exchanging business cards online”. Create accounts with these social networking systems in order to increase your business connections worldwide.
- FriendFeed – A lifestreaming application. Users can add various web applications they use like blogs, Twitter, Last.fm, Digg, Amazon Wishlist… then it will show those entries on a timetable.
- MySpace – One of the largest sites of its kind on the net. In the search engine it is described as “a virtual community site allowing members the chance to network and meet new people from all over the world.” Nowadays it’s main purpose is for music media.
Your Social Media Marketing Company Solution
Take advantage of SPF Bristol social media marketing company solution to keep your customers constantly updated and to stay ahead of your competitors
SPF Group, social media marketing company from Bristol, UK, has arranged a system, which allows you to stay up-to-date with all your social media tools from one single place.
The social media services listed above are some of the biggest, but if you have any smaller social networks that you are part of, SPF social marketing solution can integrate these as well.
So you could tell hundreds of people about your latest deal or promotion in just a couple of seconds… even on the move from your smart phone.
So what are you waiting for? There are hundreds of clients waiting for you on social networks… Take advantage of our 2011 social media marketing tactics to go get them!
Contact SPF Group about a Social Networking campaign.
Getting your Website to the Top of Google Search
 SeaView website getting to the Top of Google Search UK for 15 Keywords in January 2011. Click to enlarge and see exact Google rankings |
SeaView International is a well known business in South Cornwall who trusted SPF Web Services with their marketing budget. The Search Engine Optimisation added to Social Media optimisation, Newsletters and full website redesign we have done with them recently will give them more business than they had before meeting us and a much better return on the investment.
SPF Group, SEO company from Bristol, UK, would like to do the same for you; reasonably quickly getting your Website to the Top of Google Search.
Please read this statement from Josh Donald, the new owner of Seaview International Holiday Park.
Testimonial “Getting my website to the top of Google”
We all know how difficult business has been recently, in the UK as a whole, but especially in Cornwall. Getting new business is costly, so when you get great results without spending too much it is worth spreading the word…
When I took over Seaview we already had a good site and I didn’t see the need to change. However, a meeting with Alan convinced me that a better website that was Google friendly would get more visitors and ultimately more business – he was right and I’m very glad I made the change.
Not only does it work with my website getting to the top of Google, but dealing with SPF Group has been easy, friendly and efficient. They developed a great site for us, but they also have many other online solutions like newsletters and Social Media, to bring more business through to us. I recommend that you at least give them a hearing; I’m glad I did!
 See SeaView International site which now has Top Google Rankings after a full website redesign |
Our clients have also benefited from our expertise in online purchasing, Search Engine Optimisation, email communications and Social Media, which could help you to get even more profitable business.
If you too wish to get your website to to the top of Google for your keywords and for your local market, why don’t you contact me by email or phone to arrange a free website evaluation?
Email Marketing Tips and best Practices 2011
 Email marketing tips 2011 |
As you may know, most people now spend more time reading their emails than they do surfing the web. Email is one of the most powerful mediums that you can use to talk to visitors, customers and prospects.
Here are 15 best practices for 2011 that you can use every day in your automated email marketing activities. Used wisely and consistently, there’s no doubt you’ll see an increased response from your subscribers — whether it be for more feedback, more product/seminar registrations, or even more orders.
Email Marketing Tips about privacy and spam filters
The rules are in place to help ‘best practice’ operators like us, and to get rid of the Email spammers who don’t know what they are doing. Spam is something not to be taken lightly, what’s the point in making a beautiful newsletter, if it ends up in 10,000 people’s junk boxes and nobody reads it?
Email marketing is not spam or unsolicited junk mail, but automated regular email sent to people who want to receive it. Asking people to ‘opt-in’ (permission marketing) is amongst the best practices.
Email Marketing Tips about your customers expectations
If you are an expert in your field (which of course you are), your Newsletters topics and content will be easy to edit. SPF, a UK Bristol based Email Marketing Company can help you in quickly setting up Monthly Newsletters looking very appealing to your customers.
Email marketing can give added value to other marketing campaigns and can give huge value on its own when used for the right industry and when targeted to a specific audience.
Email Marketing Tips about using the correct Software
You can tell when you receive a small business email marketing from a company who has ‘done it themselves’. What happens when the next one comes to your inbox? This does them more harm than good. Using the right software is the key to email marketing success.
Our 2011 email marketing software creates a report with detailed statistics about your business email marketing campaigns.
 SPF, email marketing company in Bristol UK, offers free email marketing consultation |
We can tell you:
- How many opens the newsletter had.
- Which links the customer clicked.
- When the customer is on the website – which pages they visited.
- How long the customer used your website.
- How successful the email campaign was.
These newsletter statistics, alongside website analytics are incredibly useful for the development of your online business.
Following these free email marketing tips, why not contact us for a free email marketing consultation?
Website Redesign Company SEO Services
 Get SEO and SMO tips from SPF, a website redesign company in Bristol UK |
Over time, most websites owners feel that their website has lost some of its freshness. If you think your website is lacking that cutting edge when you had it designed, get ready for a website redesign project plan. You’ll probably have many questions about the website redesign services and cost. SPF is a website redesign company based in Bristol, UK which can help you through this process.
Website Redesign Process
Here are a few issues to consider:
Website looking old-fashioned?
Sometimes you don’t always need a full re-design, you can always make subtle additions to the website like adding social network buttons, changing colours, updating imagery, jazzing up menus, increasing the websites width, adding additional pages or just updating text. Social Media and Blogging are not just nice-to-have gimmicks, they add on to your communication tools and are a very important addition to the marketing mix.
Do you Search Engine Optimise your new web site?
Of course, after all what’s the point in a beautiful website, if nobody can see it! After our graphic design team build a beautiful website visual, we can guide you through the SEO process. Our Search Engine Optimisation team have more than 10 years experience in getting to the top of search engines, so were confident we’ll be able help, whatever business your in.
What about online trading?
Yes, we have vast experience with online trading. Our e-commerce system allows even the most inexperienced computer user to update and manage there own online shop, but were always here to lend a helping hand if needs be! If you can sell online, you should do it now.
If you aren’t pushing your online marketing forward, your competitors are! Call us now for a website redesign proposal.
The Importance of Blogs for Businesses
 SPF, web design company in Bristol UK, can quickly set up blogs for your business |
The main purpose of your business blog may be to express your thoughts, talk back to your customers or as a vehicle to promote your products or services. If you are an expert in your field (which of course you are), blogging will be very easy.
For businesses and companies, marketing and SEO are other elements showing how much important blogging has become.
Business Blogging Importance with Search Engines
Because search engines love fresh and constantly updated content, they will improve your keywords rankings if you your blog content is new and up-to-date. You can add links from your blog to your website, inbound links are great for search engine ranking.
If you are in a particular industry or sector and cannot find a product, service or topic on a search engine, this should help you get inspiration for blog writing and for getting to the top of Google organically with your unique blog topic using long tail keywords.
“In general, any time you look for an answer or some information and can’t find it, that should strike you as an opportunity.” Matt Cutts, Google software engineer on Blogging.
Business Blogging Importance with Social Media
You can also add social networking buttons into your company’s blog custom design, which can help you reach a much larger audience; ‘likes’ are quickly becoming the new links.
When you post a blog, SPF can feed your businesses blogs directly into any social network you require. This is very important because micro blogging can become very boring for the people who ‘like’ or ‘follow’ your organization, they need relevant articles to read, not just small statements.
SPF, a UK Bristol based Web Services company can help you with your online presence: social networking, email marketing, website design and development, website redesign and blogs for your business.
Apple has stopped using Adobe Flash, so did SPF Bristol!
Apple has been the leader of new technology in recent years, and although their decision not to use Flash has prompted lots of criticism from Adobe, SPF Bristol website design company actively embrace this decision.
Steve Jobs, Apple CEO said “Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript – all open standards. Apple’s mobile devices all ship with high performance, low power implementations of these open standards. HTML5, the new web standard that has been adopted by Apple, Google and many others, lets web developers create advanced graphics, typography, animations and transitions without relying on third party browser plug-ins (like Flash).”
Many flash based websites displayed on iPhones simply won’t work! With over 13 million people now owning an iPhone, can you afford to have a website with flash elements?
For your website to display on Apple devices and to update flash technology, contact SPF Group web design company in Bristol, UK.
“Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers. For example, many Flash websites rely on “rollovers”, which pop-up menus or other elements when the mouse arrow hovers over a specific spot. Apple’s revolutionary multi-touch interface doesn’t use a mouse, and there is no concept of a rollover. Most Flash websites will need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices. If developers need to rewrite their Flash websites, why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?
“Even if iPhones, iPods and iPads ran Flash, it would not solve the problem that most Flash websites need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices.” Jobs also added.
If you’re worried about how your website will display on smart phones, touch screen devices, or you just fancy updating some flash technology on your website, get in touch with SPF Group website design company in Bristol, UK.
What is Organic SEO?
SEO – Advertise free and still beat the ‘big boys’ … a hot topic for any online business right now. We all know that Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), and especially ‘Organic Ranking’ is important, but are you sure of what organic SEO is and means to your own business? This will give you the basics, and we will go into more depth in future postings…
Contact us now or read on…
What is Organic/Natural Listing and is it important?
Getting your website to the top of Google Search for a specific phrase is considered by many to be the Holy Grail as far as SEO goes. An Organic (or Natural) listing is a term used to refer to the links that are “not paid” for.
See the Google screenshot below. The ‘paid’ ads are found on the right hand side and sometimes at the very top. The main area (shown in green below) is the area you can occupy without paying for the privilege. This is the area you aim for with top organic SEO.
Search engine optimisation affects only organic search results, not paid or “sponsored” listings, such as Google AdWords
You can show at ‘the top’ of Google for your search phrases by adopting a PayPerClick (PPC) campaign using Google AdWords, or you can get there in the ‘organic’ section without paying anyone for the click to your website. In some circumstances PPC can form an entirely appropriate piece of your marketing strategy, and we manage PPC campaigns for many clients. Here however we will discuss how to get to the top ‘organically’.
Here is a quote from Tina, who is at the heart of our business:-
“PayPerClick is like building your house on stilts – it gets you up there quickly, but the stilts erode and you have to keep replacing them; as soon as you stop, your house falls down. SEO is like building sound foundations – they take a long time to establish, but once they are there, with a small amount of maintenance, you have a strong building that will last.”
Organic SEO and Search Engine friendly websites
SEO is a series of techniques used on your website to make it search engine ‘friendly’. A search engine ‘friendly’ website is more likely to achieve a high ranking in the ‘organic’ search, without having to pay to get there. To increase ‘traffic’ to your website your link needs to show up in a high position on a Google search for the keywords that suit you. These are words that your potential clients might use to search for a company that provides the service or products that you do.
What are the best keywords for my business, and how do I use them?
Like every other marketing technique, it is down to research. You probably have a ‘pretty good idea’ what keywords your clients and prospects use to find you, but do you ‘actually know’? Also, what do your competitors use, and how many competitors are there for specific keywords?
Doing this research correctly at the outset allows you to have the right information, without this you don’t have an informed view of the planning process.
How long will it take search engines to index my new website?
In our experience it can take anything from 1-6 months for Google to fully index a new site. By “new” we mean a site that has not been “live” on the Internet before with more than just a holding page. However, most of our sites are indexed on the first day of the launch.
If you have an existing site that is redesigned, then Google will be used to coming to your site and “spidering” it and the comments above do not necessarily apply.
When should I start SEO
Right away, even if you don’t have a website yet. SEO is something that is not going away, and if you are not optimising your website well enough, your competition will get your business. And I’ll tell you something else too, there are still many opportunities to beat the ‘big boys’; the days of being complacent because of size are over.
Google looks at your website, not the size of your business.
SPF Group, organic SEO company from Bristol, UK helps you find internet solutions to grow your business. I hope that knowing better what organic SEO is, you’ll contact us now and I will give you analysis on your website and your SEO search engine marketing with no obligation.