FAQ
Optimised for Local Search
What is Local Search?
Local search simply refers to searches online for goods or services that are confined to a local area. That is people searching online to buy offline at your shop or business.
In the good old days the Yellow pages was the only way to advertise to people in your area looking for your goods or services. With the increase in online searches conducted in search engines like Google and Yahoo, your locally optimised website can serve the same function.
Various statistics say that fully 74% of all online searches are local in nature and that between 40-50% of those searchers are looking for a local merchant to buy from.
Why is having a website optimised for Local Search important?
If you own a local small business then a locally optimised website is a real opportunity for you to dominate and own the online searches for your goods or services in your area.
Imagine every potential customer in your area finding your website every time they looked for your services in your town.
Who owns your market now? Quick, go to google now and do a search for “your product or service + your town” and see which businesses are on the Page 1 results. Is yours there?
How do you do it?
The key is good keyword research and working with you to understand the keywords people use when looking for your goods or services online. Then we “optimise” your website to be found for these keywords. We also do a number of local directory submissions which are great ways to be found by potential customers.
Where will my website rank in the search engine results?
We guarantee that we will get your website into the Google index so that it will display in the search results when someone conducts a local search for your goods or services.
Whilst it is likely that your website will rank highly simply because many local business websites are not optimised for local search, we cannot guarantee Page 1 google rankings simply because each local market is different and some are more competitive than others.
During our keyword research stage though we can give you an indication of how competitive the Page 1 ranking spots are.
One your website is ranked you can increase your ranking by conducting further link building to increase your websites authority in the search results.
Link Building is simply the process of getting links from other websites to yours. Search engines like Google use the number and quality of these links as a measure of how relevant and authoritative your website is.
Simple to Use Websites
Why are your websites simple to use?
We build your website using Wordpress, one of the worlds leading and most simple to use website software systems.
Many millions of websites and blogs are built using this software which has the following features:
- No tricky software to install. You simply go to a simple website address and enter your username and password to get access
- You can update it yourself without paying anyone else to do it. It’s “Just like a word processor”. You can create and edit pages with a screen that looks just like your word processor. You can change the content and the look and feel of the content whenever you want.
- Your software will never get left behind. Why? Because Wordpress is always being updated and can be upgraded with a click of a button. In addition there are thousands of software developers writing FREE Software to expand the functionality of Wordpress.
They come with a Built in Blog
Because your website is built using Wordpress it comes with built in blog functionality. Think of it simply as the News section of your website. It’s where you post articles or news about your company, your products or your industry.
These articles or “posts” are great for the search engines as they contain your keywords and help search engines connect you to customers looking for your goods and services.
Cost Effective
Choose from predesigned websites
By choosing from a range of beautiful predesigned websites which we then customise, you can have a website up and running faster and more cost effectively than a custom built website.
In our experience the key reason for delays in getting websites completed are complex designs which require time consuming reviews and revisions.
By starting with predesigned websites, we fast track the design process, which gets you a website faster and more cost effectively.
Your Website is designed to get you found by customers
Because we optimise your website to get found by customers looking for your goods and service in your area, you can be sure your website will bring you business which will pay for your website.
That is what we do that many others simply don’t do. Why?? Because many designers are simply that; designers. They are more concerned with how pretty the website is rather than getting it found and getting customers.
Other Information
Where do I start?
To make sure the process of creating you a website runs as quickly and as easily as possible we ask you to collect some information prior to commencing your website. This is to ensure that there are minimal delays in the process.
Some of the the key information you should try to pull together includes:
- Give us some information about your business, your market, where you do business and the types of keywords people use to search for your products or services online. That way we know what to optimize the website for.
- If you have a domain name or a hosting account already then we ask that you get the user names and passwords of your domain and hosting account together.? This information allows us to quickly install your website at the web host. If you don’t have a domain name or hosting then we can help you pull those things together.
- Get together your existing logos, colours designs and pictures you may wish to have included on the website.
- Start writing your web copy. Copy is simply the text on your website.? You know the pages, about us, products and services, why we are so great, that sort of stuff. If you have trouble writing we have a Copywriting service we can offer you.
If you have this information before we start the design process will progress with minimal delay.
When you have all of of this information together and you wish to start you simply go to our contact page, and make contact with us.
How long does it take to get a website completed?
Assuming you have all of the required information at hand you can expect to have a website between 14 working days to 30 working days barring major holidays or natural disasters. The difficulty in estimating time exactly is that delays always seem to arise when getting the content together which is why if you have this information ready in advance we can proceed much more quickly.
Do you provide hosting and domain registration?
We don’t provide domain registration or web hosting ourselves but highly recommend the following providers, all of which we have used ourselves.
- Domain Registration - USA: Godaddy
- Domain Registration - Australia: NetRegistry
- Domain Hosting - Bluehost
