We were looking at a variety of websites recently in the recruitment sector to show a client how we could optmise their web site for search engines.

We explained to our client that, websites that had more content or indexed pages had a better page rank, higher traffic volume, and were more visible on the popular search engines. This only proved our theory of how important it is to continually add fresh original content to your website as critical part in getting your website higher ranked for search engines.

Adding new and relevant content about the website could be in a variety of different places, for examples adding further details on your business products and services, updating industry news on the website and even update your company news with latest clients and testimonials. Displaying information and events about the company keep the website active and fresh and make it more search engine friendly mainly for Google. New content continues to refresh the website and gives the visitors the impression of credibility while keeping them engaged with something new to read when they come back to visit the business website.

Having a blog on the website helps in adding new content on a regular basis. A business website could perhaps add press releases to the website. An online retailer possibly could add a blog to the website and could also add review on one a product per day basis thus maintaining the content availability and continuity. Adding a message board, testimonials section, and latest news could be some of the other options.

Also, while adding content to the website it should be clear that the entire content should not be added to the website all at once but on a regular basis in a continuous fashion.

To learn more about adding content to your website for increase page ranking and search engine visibility, have a look at our website www.jamesblakeinternet.com or speak to one of our account managers on: 44 (0) 845 475 1302

While a large percentage of our clients are based in central London, one of our most important strategic aims is to become the number one choice for people looking for a web agency or any internet services in our local area, Finchley.

Finchley is a thriving community its own right especially when you add the surrounding neighbourhoods of Barnet, Whetstone, Golders Green, Mill Hill, Hampstead and Southgate. From meeting businesses in the area we understand there is a large demand for web services in North London, especially a web design agency that really does offer competitive pricing whilst maintaining that “west-end service”.

James Blake Internet’s (JBi) marketing manager Alison Harper said the following “In the past we have sought to really on focus on central London for our clients, however at the beginning of the year management took the decision to make sure that we are recognised as a key player in our own area”. This means that companie slooking for web design in Finchley or Internet services in Barnet.

“We have produced various marketing material aimed at our local market of web design services in North London and of course on our doorstep in Finchley. Our slogan for the campaign has been West End service, local pricing which is what our team strive for in every project”

“Despite being a digital agency we still value the concept of meeting face to face and have met the majority of clients at some stage!”

Those looking for web designers in Finchley or any kind of Internet service in North London we would relish the opportunity of meeting you to discuss your needs in detail.

Not everyone is aware but the word “blog” is actually a shortened form of “web log” and it stands for a website that keeps a log of people’s thoughts, their actions, and their reactions to other people’s thoughts and actions.

Business blogs enable companies to create powerful personal relationships, with their existing and future customers. Blogs not only add a personal and human face to your business but also serves several purposes like providing required and important information about the company to your clients, highlighting your businesses products, services and activities and also attracts new visitors to the website. Many business blogs also keep their readers up to date on industry news and happenings in their specific business sector.

Not only this, a blog can also enhance the website rankings on search engines since search engines love fresh content and lots of incoming links.This means that blogs and search engines complement each other very nicely!

Setting up the blog and structuring it properly is important too, contact James Blake Internet team to assist you on this.

For professional SEO services, please visit our website www.jamesblakeinternet.com. If you have any questions regarding this blog, feel free to post a comment.

Social media marketing can be a phenomenal marketing channel for small businesses to exploit. It is a great example of how you can effectively communicate your message to a targeted audience.

The benefit of social media for companies is impossible to ignore and in order to help our web design business clients at James Blake Internet (JBI) achieve the best possible results through this channel; we have laid out five key important points that are essential to understand and effectively utilise this marketing angle:

1.Your brand or company should take a holistic, goal-oriented and authentic approach to social media marketing, rather than focusing on any one platform or method.

Every company, brand or product could be and should be “social”. Conversations about almost every brand and related products are happening everywhere, you just need to be a part of that conversation to gain the maximum benefit out of it. Explain your brand and approach without preaching or sounding like an instruction manual.

2.Use the tools available to reach to your target audience. One of the best ways for small businesses to leverage social media marketing is to use various social networks in combination with each other. The examples below helps us in understanding the marketing mix for a effective and efficient social marketing:

• Connect your Twitter account to Facebook ( or the other way round).This will let you leverage your time on Twitter and will also update your Facebook fans.

• Connect your LinkedIn profile to your Word Press blog. This will automatically update your LinkedIn profile with your most recent blog posts and hence reach to the desired audience.

• Integrate Twitter or Facebook tools onto your website. The use of ‘ShareThis’ tool enables readers to quickly share content on multiple social networks.

We need to keep in mind that not all social networks will make sense for every business. Learn which networks are best for your on-line business strategy and find ways to leverage combinations of those networks to make your marketing more effective.

3.Posting relevant content is important. Remaining true to your brand promise is the best way to approach social media. Utilise your brand promise as guiding principles across all your social media efforts. It should be reflected in the content created, the tone used, and the promotional programs being launched.

Though more attention is focused on social networks than on company blogs these days, however, blogs still continue to offer great value for small businesses as they help in listening, learning and engaging in conversations with your customers and as we know understanding your customers requirements is half the battle!

4.Make promotions fun. Marketing is not a campaign but a commitment. In order to build long-term relationships with your clients you need to invest in them genuinely..

A social media programme is a commitment to engage and communicate with clients when and where they want to communicate.

5.Attention to details matters since much of social media marketing is human capital it involves more thinking and execution.

The best way to start a social media campaign is by listening.Set up Google Alerts to look for conversations about your brand or product.Then participate in the conversation and just remember to be authentic, honest and transparent.

A brand which is active on social media and interacts with its clients will carry more credibility and rally more supporters in the future.

One of the key aspects of having an efficient, fast loading and search engine friendly website, is the page load speed. This should not be looked at as simply part of your website performance analysis , but part of your overall search engine optimisation plan.

One of the first things to consider when looking at both your website performance and your optimising plan is the images you use. There is always a temptation to take pictures from a state of the art digital camera, download the images and post straight onto your website.

We at James Blake Internet believe that any images should be reduced in size before you upload it. One of the questions we often get asked is “everyone going on my site has broadband, so the speed will not be an issue”.

Unfortunately that although this might be true if you have a gallery of 20 images, each of 3mb, that page has to load and it will take time and bandwidth.

Most people are very protective of their images and so are reluctant to reduce the size as feel that it will affect the quality of the image. This is especially true if the image is personal to them on highlighting their key business service.

The ideal way to reduce the image size is with a professional image editor such as Photoshop which will help prevent the reduction in quality. There is also free software on the web to help help your image sizes down and worth a search on Google to find them.

There is no easy way to achieving an efficient search engine friendly website, but taking little steps like this will definitely help your website.

For more information please speak to one of our James Blake consultants on 08004751302

One of the most annoying things when you have a website is that you think you have just received a new lead and a chance to sell and it turns out to be spam! Someone asking you to buy some search engine optimisation (SEO) service in Bulgaria or something (you would of course only use James Blake Internet!!!)

One of the easiest way to stop this is to use a CAPTCHA on your website. This is where you go to register on someone’s website and they ask you to copy the letters and numbers before you press submit. Can be annoying for the user but very important as it shows the company that a human and not a computer actually entered the details and the lead is likely (hopefully) to be genuine.

CAPTCHA is a program that protects websites against bots by generating and grading tests that humans can pass but current computer programs cannot. For example, humans can read distorted text but most computer programs can’t:

The term CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart) was coined in 2000 by Luis von Ahn, Manuel Blum, Nicholas Hopper and John Langford of Carnegie Mellon University.

CAPTCHAs have several applications such as
• Blogs - Most bloggers are familiar with blogs that have bogus comments, mainly to help them get search engine ranking. With CAPTCHA spammers are prevented and you can even avoid registration before use.
• Website Registration. All forms and sign-ups that are free should have CATCHA to keep only genuine users signing up !.
• Online Polls. Without CAPTCHA these polls can be easily manipulated. For example in this election if a poll without CAPTCHA asked the question “Who is going to win this election?” Each party could in theory build programmes to keep voting..

There are many other CAPTCHA implementations, some better than others. Please speak to us at James Blake Internet (JBI) and let us guide you

So what are Meta titles, descriptions, keywords etc?

It really is not as complicated as you might think. Let’s start by asking a very simple question will adding Meta titles, keywords, tags, descriptions make your site shoot up the serach engines to the top?

Easy to answer this, no! However don’t give up on them as they do hold importance to search engine rankings and SEO optimisation. The correct Meta titles and keywords will help the major search engines such as Google and Yahoo index your site and understand what your site is offering.

Let’s look at the different functions

1) Meta Title:
This is what it says on the tin, the title! Have a look at the website in the very top left hand corner of the browser window and you will see the Meta title.
What is best to put here? Our advice is simple, put exactly what the content on the page is about.
It should contain keywords, but don’t over complicate this as the title tag will be the first thing on your page.

If we look at the James Blake Internet site (www.jamesblakeinternet.com) at the top of the page you will see
Web Design UK / Website Development / SEO Company UK / Professional website design company

2) Meta description:
This is the part that tells us about the company.
Firstly and most importantly this is a real chance for you to engage and interest the consumer as it might be the first thing they read about your company. Don’t bore them with a load of keywords, the idea is that they will click and visit your site.

Each page should have a description and the key is to tell the audience exactly what’s on the page, ie a summary. This will increase the likelihood of people clicking through.

The description you provide for your page has to convince the person that you are providing exactly what they are looking for. If a user comes to your site and the Title and Description Tags don’t accurately match the content they actually find, you are less likely to be considered a reputable source of information.

The description for a website should be no more than 250 characters
Again let’s look at www.Jamesblakeinternet.com

James Blake Internet Services is a professional web design & development and SEO Company in London UK, We provide Services including shopping carts website …

3) Meta keywords:
Finally the content itself on your pages ! To increase the ranking and occurrence probability on a search engine, words relating to the website /company or business are added to the website.
For example lets look at James Blake site again on the home page content and highlight some of the keywords that relate to our business.

James Blake Internet Services is a leading provider of internet solutions for business of all sizes, offering professional online services from web design and development to complete interactive e-marketing.

Finally
Please remember that whilst useful, Meta tags are not a magic formula and in need to be used in part of a whole SEO strategy not in isolation.

Please feel free to call us on 0845 475 1302 for more information

As part of our monthly features, we caught up with Peter Sumner owner of SP education Educational services Ltd (www.speducationalservices.com)to discuss his business and web experience.

SP Educational Services work in the education sector and James Blake Internet developed them a new on-line ecommerce site to help sell their products to a wide community.

Hi Peter

1) Can you tell us a little about your business?
The business was started in the year 2000 by myself and my sister, Laura Pooles. Laura and I are both practising headteachers of primary schools. All our materials are written by teachers who are still working as teachers (many companies use ex-teachers who very quickly lose touch with current educational practice).

SP of SP Educational Services stands for Sumner/ Pooles.

We started the business because Laura noticed a gap in the education market - the need for assessments to accompany the original Maths Numeracy Framework. The assessments were updated in 2008 because the Numeracy Framework was redesigned into what is called the Renewed Framework for mathematics. We also now have mental maths tests on CD and in book format to accompany the delivery of the renewed framework for maths.

2) Who should buy your products?
Our biggest market is primary school teachers and teaching assistants. We do however sell to an increasing number of parents who use our materials to help their children with maths. The materials are simple to use and really help diagnose children’s maths strengths and weaknesses. Parents our real future target market as this market is obviously much greater than our teacher market.

3) What are your objectives and plans for your new website?
The objectives for the new website are to present a much more attractive and professional ‘front’ to our business. We also want the site to act as an online shop. So far the feedback has been excellent and several customers have commented on the quality of the website.
Several have also given us feedback on some ways to improve the site and we will be working with James Blake on making these improvements.
We plan to incorporate all our new products into the website. Our next products are a set of Word Problem maths books for Years 1 - 6 in the primary school.

4) How do you use the internet to help your business
The internet has become a great source of advertising for us. We send email mailshots to schools in England and we include a link to our web site. Traffic has increased greatly since we have had the new site.

5) Have you got any tips for people who are considering setting up their own business on-line?
My tip would be to invest in a reputable company to design the website. It is very important that the web designer is patient and will work with the customer until the customer is happy with the site. James Blake were excellent in this respect.

6) Finally for our own records, how was working with the James Blake Team
I was extremely impressed with the James Blake team. I had a very clear idea of what I wanted the site to look like but because of my lack of IT knowledge, I found it difficult to verbalise. David Gelb of James Blake was very helpful and patient and we were both delighted with the end result. The site has really helped our business grow. I would recommend James Blake in terms of the professionalism of the team and in terms of value for money.

We are all very excited here at James Blake Internet as we are launching a fantastic new website this weekend that will really hit the spot for anyone who likes Curries!

The website will allow you to go to your favourite curry house and get fantastic discounts.

We are currently finalising the design and development of the website and we hope for a weekend release.

The website will be advertised in the Daily Mirror newspaper (www.themirror.co.uk)so you wont miss out

We will update you !

Interview with gdtalent director Gordon Milne

Recently James Blake Internet completed a new website for gdtalent and we thought it would be interesting to hear his thoughts about his business, building a new website and of course online marketing.

1) Can you tell us a little about your business?
gdtalent is a consultancy specialising in recruitment solutions for international businesses and candidates. More specifically, our expertise is in assisting companies recruit the very best, internationally experienced, Chinese speaking managers and professionals. As well as recruitment/search type services we also run career briefing seminars for candidates who want to know more about the job market in China.

2) How did you get into the Chinese market?
gdtalent is owned and managed by Gordon Milne who recently worked in Shanghai for 4.5 years as an expat for major recruitment businesses. During that time clients frequently commented on the following:
a) how difficult it is/was to hire good people given the finite talent pool;
b) how difficult it is to access Chinese experienced hires whilst they are studying or working overseas and
c) how poor sister companies are at supporting China recruitment. E.g. Company X in US, UK etc rarely properly support Company X’s hiring activities in China.

Some of gdtalent’s services are designed to specifically address the above.

3) What are your objectives and plans for your new website?
The web site was designed to be a reference point where clients and candidates alike can establish what we do and evaluate/verify our service offering. We decided to try to make the web site crisp, clean, professional, un-cluttered, easy to navigate and not too “hip” so it would not date so easily.

4) Will you be doing any on-line campaigns to help your business
Probably. So far we’ve only used Google’s AdWords with very limited success. Still early days though.

5) If our customers want to enter into the Chinese market can you help recruit the right people?
Certainly hope so! We have a good understanding of the Chinese recruitment/labour market as well as a database and network of candidates. Finally, our ability to conduct a direct or “headhunt” search means that our fulfilment ratios will always be high.

6) Have you got any tips for people who are considering setting up their own business on-line?
Planning and Patience come to mind. Quite a bit of work has to go in before you engage any service providers to design your web site. If you don’t know what you want, they certainly won’t know what you mean. And no matter how fast you want things done, allow for an overrun.

7) Finally for our own records, how was working with the James Blake Team
Good. I always felt confident that I would get what I wanted and I did. I have no hesitation in recommending the James Blake Team.