How to Buy a Website

 

What You Need to Know About Website Design

…and Why Your Site Isn’t at the Top of Google

 

So, you are finally interested in a new website design. Great! But before we offer up a few facts on what to look out for, we would like to begin with every website owner’s goal; being on the front page of Google.

The main reason why 99.9999% (recurring) websites don’t get to the top of Google in Knutsford is because the most dominating search engine does NOT like WordPress; or at least, overly designed WordPress themes. Google even offers website developers the ability to find out which parts of a webpage are not loading fast enough to meet its criteria and, based upon the results, then ranks the page accordingly (and more often than not, it’s nowhere near page one). Dropping in keywords and phrases, such as, website design Knutsford is still a smart way to help a page rank well on Google, but that’s only part of the search engine optimisation puzzle.

A website designer’s and / or SEO (search engine optimisation) manager’s worst nightmare is seeing countless errors relating to the slowing down of a webpage’s speed when loading, such as, a request to consolidate CSS or more focus on above-the-fold code. All fairly simple at our end, we may add, but it’s really to illustrate the pettiness of Google’s stringent demands and, ultimately, why website design services are increasing in price. Please allow us to briefly explain…

Google is absolutely OBSESSED WITH SPEED. To optimise a webpage and get it to rank well, though, it takes not only skill but a great amount time, and who wants to pay for that? It is the one main reason why the website design industry has always attracted a poor reputation. People think a web designer overcharges for something they can do at the flick of a switch. We think this is unfair but it will never change until we all live in a world where people don’t mind paying for expertise in another’s field.

There are some who obviously do, however, and we are all thankful to have them make a valuable contribution to the industry, and in return they’re the ones whose websites are at the top of Google. They are also the companies who end up being the high-achievers with the big sales figures. Funny that, isn’t it?!

Getting a Website Ranked

And that’s what CreativeOpolis is all about. We are fast, fair, reliable, honest and secure. One of our top priorities is performance in speed because we know that is the key to getting a website ranked on the first page of Google. It’s rarely that we work on our own website’s performance, though, but that’s a conscious decision we made to enable us to concentrate on client productivity.

Website Design Knutsford will show you how it’s done by using brilliant How To methods. If you want your website to sweep away the competition on the front page of Google, then you should really only be using these tried and tested optimisation techniques. Sure, you must still write appealing content for your website visitors, and that means for Google crawlers in some aspects, too, but to get to the top of Google there is only really one way to do it, and that is to hire the CreativeOpolis Website Design Team (Knutsford). 

My Website Doesn’t Work For Me

We know, but we CAN fix that for you. Did you know that CreativeOpolis ranks in the top SEVEN out of the first ten positions in a Google search result? (sometimes it fluctuates). Incredible isn’t it?! For others, we rank in the first TOP SIX positions. Some, the TOP FIVE, others the TOP FOUR, and so on. ALL IN SUCCESSION. But we are there, and that’s what counts! High rankings in the name of SEO Knutsford.

We also rank number one in areas where our competition has no idea about. They use special tools to seek out the keywords and phrases that we are using but we use special techniques to hide those pages from them. It’s not that they’re ‘sharp’ in finding out solutions, it’s just that they cheat by copying what others are already doing and then implement the same ideas on their own website. They are certainly NOT original, and so do you really want them as your website designer?

Help, Nobody is Visiting My Website!

Okay, so how about this; CreativeOpolis will get your website onto the front page of search engine results pages (SERPs), and we will bring you new business. Not only that, our excellent SEO team will continually be looking for ways to keep your website visible in search engine results. Additionally, we can increase traffic to your website by utilising social networking techniques to compliment your sales and marketing efforts, and we do this by working closely with your social media accounts and also designing carefully crafted posts and tweets. Whether or not you are based in Cheshire, our Knutsford social media team can help your website become more visible (see further down the page for Social Media).

If the tweets and posts receive enough interest (Likes, Comments and Retweets), search engines will know this and start to show them in Google search results. Brilliant!

Help, a Bad Hosting Service is Affecting Profits

We understand your pain; there’s nothing worse when a website is down and your emails aren’t working. But how about this; we can fix it for you and have your website up and running again in no time.

Why Does My Website Hosting Always Fail?

There are a few issues that you need to be aware of and, if you are able, try to monitor the company you are using. In defence of all web hosting companies, though, we must point out that even the best service provider will bow down to failure at some point, but what you should be concerned with is how fast the issue is remedied so that your website isn’t down for too long. Expect it, but have a good backup whilst the issue is being dealt with, and if your website is the lifeblood of the business, definitely have a fast recovery plan. Also, and while you are waiting for the issue to be fixed, ask yourself what internal methods your company has that can ease a missing website in the meantime.

Hardware Failure

Hardware failure accounts for more than 50% of all downtime for SME’s websites (SME: small to mid-sized businesses with less than 250 employees). It could also include such things as power failure, and even bug or rat infestation (chewing cables etc.). There can be a whole host of reasons why your website hosting company will fail to serve your site visitors with your carefully crafted webpages.

Poor Quality Hosting Facility

Whatever the reason for poor hosting, a service provider will only reimburse the hosting fees and not the loss of sales. They may promise the world and offer 99.9% uptime, but that doesn’t amount to a hill of beans, in reality. What’s worse is that a hosting company may have unusually long periods of downtime, unscheduled or not, but this may also cause huge frustration if your visitors aren’t able to gain access to your valuable website pages…. or send you emails.

DNS Issues

This could involve a whole host of problems, from wrongly configured information during setup, such as, misspelled nameservers, to simply playing the initial waiting game of waiting for the updates to propagate. But whatever it is, you need to fix it ASAP. Contact your hosting company to see if they can help, otherwise, go straight to the source; where is your domain name registered? Login and check the settings. If you use CreativeOpolis for hosting, we can and WILL sort that it out for you.

Hackers

If your site has any weaknesses in security or has any penetrable breaches, a clever hacker may find them and bring your website down just because they can. Unlike DDoS attacks (see below), where some websites are just collateral damage because they happen to be on a shared server that hosts the site that was the target of the attack, these hackers employ ‘bots’ that search for websites that have vulnerabilities and, again, bring them down just because they have the ability to do so.

A bot is a specially written piece of software code that is taught to find specific things across the Internet (email addresses to be used for SPAM or fraud, weak entry points into the Admin area of a website or holes within weak hosting facilities etc.). This means that if your site isn’t built like a top military base, it’s vulnerable to the attacks of such hackers whereby these attacks can cause serious frenzied spells of website downtime for your precious online business.

Search engines also use bots, such as Google, but they’re a completely different kettle of fish and are sent out to look for your carefully chosen keywords and phrases!

DDoS Attacks

A Denial of Service Attack is when the server is flooded with too many requests, usually by a massive bombardment, and thus it forces the server to literally crash. If your website is sharing a server with several other websites, it may be that your website was not the intended target but it will still bring it to its knees anyway. DDoS can be forced by one sick individual or a group of people. One solution is to pay for a dedicated server but, even then, you still won’t be immune and may face downtime; it’s also costly to run your own private server. To fend off the occasional hacker, we recommend using an SSL certificate (your web address would then not be http but https ..the S stands for secure… and your website will also include that very familiar padlock that we have all become used to relying upon). Having a padlock on a website brings forth trust with visitors. You can purchase an SSL certificate on our website by clicking here.

Lack of Maintenance

Regular updates and the maintenance of your website is crucial if you want to avoid loading issues. It is advised that you stay on top of your website and not to let it lapse. For instance, WordPress may be updated automatically to the latest version but the plugins that you’ve installed may also need updating (because you’ve set updates to ‘manual’). Conversely, it could be that you need to pay attention to when a plugin requires updating regardless of what version of WP you are using. Be careful to avoid a mismatch, and to have both set to update automatically or not at all, but definitely not one without the other. Whenever you update either WordPress or a plugin, always always backup your website first. You may only need to make a copy of the database so you can quickly override any issues that may be created after a failed update. Either way, stay on top of maintaining your website.

Content Management System Issues

There is a very long list that could be related to a CMS failure. Look out for database issues or plugins that you’ve installed which could very easily cause a page to partially load, bring you a blank page or not at all (with an error message). This warrants an entirely new page that we cannot discuss at length here due to the various Content Management Systems available to help build a website. Have a look around on Google and see what you can learn about the CMS fails that you are specifically using; it’s not just WordPress that exists, but many many others.

Take Home Message

Ensure you are on top of your website hosting by keeping an eye on the above shortlist (there will be many other issues not mentioned above, though). If you are unsure about what to do, you can always rely on the CreativeOpolis Knutsford Hosting Services to help you out and to ease the pain.

Buying a Domain Name

To be fair, domain name registration is a fairly basic process. You simply have to go to the CreativeOpolis domain name page and search for what you need. However, it has been advised that you try to include an important keyword or phrase pertaining to your chosen industry for it apparently helps with your Google rankings. We, though, think that doesn’t really matter just as long as the content on your website pages are relevant to your site visitors. It’s not as if Google, eBay, Amazon or Wikipedia says what their websites do within their domain names..!

Purchase ID Protection to Hide Your Private Details

If you are not a fan of SPAM emails, and who is?, we advise that you purchase ID Protection when buying a domain name. Doing so stops SPAM emails in their tracks relating to the street address and email address you supplied during the sign-up process. For a few extra quid, your private details are kept well and truly private from spammers. This is important because it stops people sending letters through your actual front door’s letterbox or emails in your inbox.

Many unscrupulous people pretend that your domain name is up for renewal sooner than it really is and to pay very quickly to stop someone else buying and using it. However, it doesn’t work like that, and anyway, if you fail to renew your domain name it goes into limbo for a certain length time, thus providing you with a cushion in which to act within.

The SPAM letters and emails are simply just fake invoices which include extremely inflated prices; the main point in the scam is to scare you into you paying extortionate fees.

If you receive correspondence from someone other than where you registered your domain name, simply block and ignore them, but definitely don’t pay them any money, and instead sign up for ID Protection the next time you renew. You can purchase ID Protection when buying or renewing a domain name by clicking here.

Ringfence Your Business Name

If you wish to ringfence your business name and idea, you may have the option to buy more than one domain name and then either ‘point’ them all to the one which you are going to permanently use, or park and not activate them. Why do this? Well, again, there are some very unscrupulous individuals out there who try to live off the backs of others’ hard work… they buy a similar domain name and then pretend to be you, in a roundabout sort of way. We don’t know what’s worse, the fact that they pretend to be someone else or that they prey upon unsuspecting website visitors who will obviously visit the wrong site; theirs not yours!

We did say that buying a domain name was a fairly basic process; it is, but you just have to be aware of a few simple reasons why you should protect yourself.

Social Media Knutsford is the Way Forward

Social Media may not be something that personally interests you, but it will affect how your customers find and buy products or, if your company is not utilising this phenomenon, then they aren’t your customers at all, they end up being your competitors! To save you the worry, though, the CreativeOpolis Social Media Team can look after all of that on your behalf.

What is Social Media and Should I Use it in Business?

Social Media is the modern way in how people and companies connect with one another. Some use it for their own personal use whilst others use it for business purposes to attract attention to their products and services. It’s a brilliant way for sales and marketing departments to seek out new business. You may have already heard of Twitter, Instagram and the dominant Facebook, and it is companies such as these who are creating a platform for companies and individuals to connect.

Companies ‘post’ or ‘tweet’ information about their products so to create an online presence with the goal of being seen; it’s the new form of advertising which helps create both new and repeat sales. If you are not involved in Social Media, you really ought to be. It is THE way to find new customers.

Positive Customer Feedback

Social Media also offers a brilliant opportunity to learn what people are saying about your company. If someone says something positive about your product, great, you should try to build on it by interacting with that particular individual (and by also adding their positive comment/s onto your company website so that other people can see them; they may persuade them to buy from you).

Damage Limitations

Conversely, if you happen across an unhappy individual writing extremely negative comments about your company, it will give you the tremendous opportunity of interacting with the unhappy person and learning of what went wrong but, more importantly, how a solution can be offered to them. If you don’t use Social Media, just think of the many negative comments that you will never see and of the countless other people who may see that particular comment (not correctly dealt with) who might very well be persuaded NOT to buy from you.

It’s best not to bury your head in the sand and pretend that all is rosy out there, but to instead take the bull by the horns and stay abreast of every situation that you can. Damage Limitation is one of the most precious things about Social Media. When someone is angry, they blast it out across the Internet wishing to be heard, and when a company fails to interact with them, it’s almost guaranteed that they will never buy from that company ever again (hello, competitors!). But if the company were to act quickly and save the situation, they may just create the best customer service experience that person may ever become involved in.

We Can Manage Social Media Accounts For You

CreativeOpolis can offer a way to look after this for you by creating and managing your Social Media accounts. Our very brilliant Social Media Team attempts to attract attention to our clients’ brands on their behalf by creating information that stands out head and shoulders above the competition; they then interact with potential customers, ultimately attempting to send them their way so to close the deal. Simple. You go about your daily business and CreativeOpolis will create new online sales for you.

Conclusion – What’s the First Step to Buying a Website?

Now that you have been armed with a few bits, bobs and basics in how to buy a website design Knutsford, we suggest that you make a list of what your website needs to do for you. Is it going to be a simple online brochure which will provide information about your products and services? Or will it be an online shop offering products so that people get out their debit or credit cards and pay you directly at the website? Either way, we presume that you are in business to make money and only you know your industry, but whatever it is, be rest assured that the CreativeOpolis web design team based in Knutsford can most definitely help.

Have a look around the below website and see the kinds of things that CreativeOpolis is capable of creating. If you have an idea of what you like, you can always send us a link or two of other websites so we can discuss how we can move forward and help you achieve those new sales targets!

 Rooooar Your Way into Business…!

Send our team an email today so that we can get the ball rolling for you.