Phil Thompson provides web design and development services. This can include basic search engine optimisation (SEO) and very basic copy-writing if required. However, it is strongly suggested that the client provides their own copy (or hires a specialist copywriter – preferably one with a grounding in SEO) as this will get the best results.
Search engine optimisation
Everyone wants their website at the top of Google. This a time consuming, and consequently, expensive task. Generally speaking, a client should hire a specialist in this area for a specific campaign.
Phil provides basic on-site optimisation for your website; this includes making sure:
- Page titles are unique
- The website is coded (in HTML) in a semantic way so Google/Bing can interpret it easily
- The website is registered with Google/Bing Webmaster central so they can index every page on the website (this is done via an XML sitemap)
It is up to the client to decide what keyword or key-phrases they would like to rank highly for Google and Phil will do his best to ensure the websites and/or specific pages are geared up for that but off-site SEO is a separate task and a specialist is often required to get the best results.
Off-site SEO, to put it as simply as possible, is the process of getting other websites to link to you. This article, Link Building 101 explains it better.
Copywriting
Nobody knows your business better than you, therefore it is best that you write the copy for the website in-house. Phil will be happy to make suggestions and help you to make sure that copy works well for the reading on the web (where people (usually) want to skim read) and balance that with what Google wants e.g. lots of keywords so it knows what your website is about.
Marketing
Once your website goes live, if you don’t market it then, chances are, few people will see it. Having a website is not a magic bullet – you have to promote it to gain results.
Once again, Phil is happy to make suggestions here but this is something that requires a specialist or for you to do the marketing yourself.
Design
Some clients may already have a design either fully finished or part-completed. In these cases they may only require web development services and this is fine.
A website design should consist of a homepage, and designs for each section of the website. Sometimes – depending upon budget- each page of a website will need to be considered carefully and clients who approach with just a homepage designed may need to have some design services to ensure their design extends to the whole website.
Also some website designs, typically created by someone with more experience with print-based design, may not be wholly suitable for the web and as such design services may be required to ensure the design works well for the web.
