Author Archives: Mick Kenyon

The B4ARN Internet Planning and SetUp

The B4rn FAQs & Set Up Guide. The Broadband 4 the Rural North (B4rn) pronounced Barn is broadband provider using fibre to deliver internet speeds up to 1 gigabyte, this includes both download and upload speeds. The B4arn is now getting installed in properties in Ingleton and surrounding areas. This quick guide will help anyone wanting or considering B4arn, it will help you plan and get up and running with B4rn as well as understanding what to expect from your hyperfast internet connection.

Running the B4rn Fibre to your home

You will need to know where your fibre is feeding into your residential area e.g from the road or adjoining field. One of the differences with B4rn is that it does not follow the usual routes of other services e.g BT, Gas, Electric. The fibre is mostly dug in by volunteers and the route is often decided by agreement with land owners. This often results in the fibre running through fields and gardens as these are easier to dig than running it under pavements and roads. This is also true when planning the access to your property, paving slabs can be lifted easier than digging up the tarmac. Lawns,turfed areas and flower beds are great routes, turf can easily be lifted and relaid and will look as good as new in a few weeks. Talk to the B4arn champion to find out where the main feed is coming from and you can then plan where the fibre would best be laid across your property to the entry point of your premises.
B4rn should be contacted to find out who your champion is.
The fibre is laid or blown more accurately blown through Orange cables that are connected to black cables once at your property wall. The black cable shown in the picture below is connected to a much narrower white cable in the grey box, this can then be routed to connect to the WiFi/fibre router.

The router does not have to be directly behind where the fibre goes into your home, this is only the entry point. My router is 3 meters away from the entry point into the house. It is connected from the entry point on the wall to the router using thin white cabling supplied by B4rn.

Where to enter the house for B4rn

The access point into the house needs some thought. As well as the previous points about easiest route, you will need to think about where to locate your router and how you will run the internal cable to the router. Some points to think about:-

The router will need an electrical power supply, it is plugged in using a three point plug. If using a VOIP phone you will need an extension lead or a further two powerpoints.
The router is wall mounted, it stands out from the wall for approximately 2 inches (5cms).
Routers don’t like to be close to some appliances such as fridges (in general anything with a lot of metal)
The router has constant flashing green lights! The green lights are quite bright and are on the front and beneath the router. This may be annoying and may cause problems with sleeping if is mounted on the bedroom wall!
The router isn’t pretty! It’s a box measuring 8 inches by 7 inches and lights up like a spaceship!
For fastest connection you will want to plug in an ethernet (also known as network cable) this will run from the router to your computer so close proximity or an easy route for the cable is a good idea.
The router has limited reach for wifi, so if the router is at the front of the house you may not get wifi at the back or upstairs (mine reaches approx 15 meters through thin plaster board walls).
If you are going to use a VOIP (internet telephone) you will need a three point plug for the router and and your phone. The VOIP box will be plugged into the router (see more on VOIP below).

The Router lit up like a spaceship, rather distracting if it is not hidden away

Connecting Your Router to B4rn

B4rn will blow the fibre and make all the connections up to the router on an agreed date.

Once you have had the router installed you will want to connect your media devices to the router. If you have a Genexis DRG7820 will know when the router is live by the flashing light on the front of the router. When it’s live you will have three lights on the front of the router one of which flashes.

There are two options for connecting to your media devices;
1. You can plug a ethernet cable into the router and into your device (this will get you the fastest download and upload speeds).
Ideally you should have an ethernet cable of cat 5e or above. The cat of the ethernet cable can usually be seen on the sheaf of the cable near to the connectors.

2. Use the WiFi to connect. If you have mobiles, tablets and WiFi printers then you will want to connect using WiFi.
Connect using the usual way for your device, the wifi password on the Genexis router is actually called the WPA key, this can cause confusion as the label also has a ‘password’ field which is only used for configuration purposes. So when connecting your device it will ask for password but you actually enter the WPA key. The router has a label on it showing the WPA key.

All being well you will now have connection.

Speedtest for B4arn

So how fast is your connection? There are a number of speedtest tools available on the internet, many can be used using the browser however the b4rn is so fast I would recommend that using the app on speedtest.net will give the more accurate results, there are apps for desktop as well as mobile devices.

The desktop speedtest app can be found here >>
http://beta.speedtest.net/apps/desktop

The mobile speedtest app can be found here>>
http://beta.speedtest.net/mobile

The result I get using an ethernet connection with a cat 6 cable is shown below.

speedtest showing upload and download speed using B4rn

When using the in browser speed test apps (including speedtest.net) the results are very inconsistent and the download and upload speeds vary drastically, hence best use the apps.

Why B4arn speed isn’t as good as advertised?

As you can see from the above speedtest the B4arn is hyperfast and nearly gets the 1gb advertised rate. The above test was carried out on an Apple Imac with a cat6 ethernet cable.
However a lot of media devices will not be capable of keeping up with the speed particularly when trying to connect via the WiFi. This is due to the device rather than the B4rn connection. My personal opinion, the routers are not that great for WiFI, they seem to have a lot less reach and certainly not as good as the BT hub, however for ethernet connection it really does perform. That being said, when you do connect via wifi it far outperforms any other provider.

So what are the benefits? You will get more stable connections when viewing streamed services such as BBC iplayer and the ITV hub (no more buffering). The real benefit is when uploading files. Part of my work is taking sports event photography. I can take 1000 or more photos at some events and these are then uploaded to my racingsnakes.com website for the competitors to buy and download. Each file can be 10-15 mb in size. The process was taking hours with BT infinity, it now takes minutes – thank you B4arn!

Some websites will not load quicker than with your old Internet provider, this again is due to the servers the website is using to host the website not the connection speed of the B4rn. A good site to test for excellent connection speed is the BBC.co.uk. you should get more or less instant browsing on their website when connected via the B4arn.

VOIP

VOIP means you can ditch your BT landline. Instead of using the BT line you simply use the B4arn fibre for making and receiving calls and much more.

IMPORTANT
You can transfer your existing BT number to the VOIP service but before you do so you need to make and receive a call using the VOIP line before cancelling with BT.

I went with Vonage, they have a few options starting from just £8.50 month and this also allows you to divert calls and make calls from your mobile as well.

Order Vonage using this link and get a £50 Amazon gift voucher when you sign up.

To set up VOIP you need a VOIP phone, these are very affordable and some packages from Vonage include them when you sign up. Once you have the VOIP phone you simply plug in the VOIP box into the router and the phone into the VOIP box. You will to also plug the VOIP box into a power socket and also the VOIP phone base station. This means you will need the following plugged into power supply in close proximity to your router.
The Router
The VOIP box
The VOIP phone base station.
If like me you have put the router in a cupboard the base station will only serve as a slave for the other phone (you get two phones with the Vonage package). This isn’t a great problem as it’s really easy to set the calls on Vonage to also be received on your mobile (even when you are not at home) so I just answer call on my mobile.

The B4rn is only available to areas with the B4arn fibre laid. To enquire if you can get B4arn visit the B4arn website

The above was put together from my experience. Please let me know of any tips that you think should be added to make life easier for those about to join.

Muse vs WordPress – Which is Best?

Leave a reply

Muse verses WordPress which is best? Well before I get down to answering this, it really will depend on what you want your website to do, do you need a content management system, a highly customised website or an e-commerce store. As a web-designer that uses both tools I will give an impartial personal view on what I have found. If you are looking for a quick answer I would say: Muse for custom designs and WordPress as a Content Management tool. The ideal solution maybe a combination of both so please read on and I will explain.

Adobe Muse customise website the choice for website designers

Adobe Muse allows to design a website as you wish it to look without needing to code.

Muse is HTML and CSS based

Muse is a website design tool from Adobe. It has been developed for designers rather than developers as it offers great flexibility in changing the design to just how you want it. This means that it is great for design but does not directly support ‘php’ or database designed websites. It does however offer an ever growing suite of ‘widgets’ from both Adobe and third party providers such as MuseThemes These widgets allow for lots of fancy features such as adding slider galleries, linking to social media or even updating content from Google Docs.
As it’s primarily been made to support designers it is really great if a client knows what they want, they may have a PSD (Photoshop) document that they want to exactly replicate to their website. They may want specific fonts, colours, images and laid out specific. This is where Adobe Muse really comes into it’s own. As a designer tool it really is great as you don’t need to know coding. Some experience of CSS may be advantageous but not essential.

WordPress a Database driven website design tool

WordPress is PHP and Database based

WordPress is website design tool that is based on php files and linked to databases. Wordpress works by choosing a theme (unless you have lot’s of ££’s and can afford a developer to design a totally customised theme). In essence you choose a theme that reflects what you want your website to reflect or do. Your Theme will usually come with plugins, these allow you to extend what your website is capable of, there are literally millions of plugins out there, some are free and some are paid (the best being paid). WordPress is also a CMS (content management System) which allows clients to add and update content reasonably easily.

Which is Best, Muse or WordPress for Website Design?

I would say if you want a specific design, Adobe Muse is the one. It is highly flexible for the designer. It allows for images and text to be placed exactly where you want. It also allows two options when designing. Fluid Width /Fixed Breakpoint design or ‘alternate’ layouts for Desktop, Tablet and Mobile (here is an overview of breakpoints from W3schools). My personal preference for this is to use a combination of fluid and fixed width breakpoints. What really is cool is that you can totally change the entire content / layout depending on the browser width, this allows for widgets etc to be hidden or shown depending on how the page is being viewed. i.e desktop, tablet or mobile.
Wordpress is really good if you want an out of the box solution which will not need a lot of changes. Careful thought needs to be made here, a template may look great but will it fit everything you want? Themes can be changed and customised but it does become more tricky and you will be best to make a ‘child theme’ or you may loose your changes if a template update is made. Most wordpress themes are built using either fluid width or fixed breakpoints but unlike Muse you dont have the flexibility to hide and change the layout as easily on the Breakpoints.

Which is Best, Muse or WordPress for Updating Content?

I would say WordPress for this one, particularly if a blog is being used. However again as time goes on you may want to add and change content to the main pages. Muse is best for this as the original design may no longer work, perhaps you are adding a new image or adding more text, the layout may no longer look good.

Abode Muse allows the flexibility to change the design on the page relatively easy. The failing with Muse is that it is not a CMS (content management system). It does have”In Browser Editing” built in, but currently it does not work well and I personally would only ever use for basic updates. Muse does have lots of third party widgets that allow for content updates including page updates from tumblr, Google Docs and Spreadsheets and many more, the failing here is that although your website is showing fresh content SEO may not pick this up.

Which is Best, Muse or WordPress for SEO?

This is a close call as both Muse and WordPress perform reasonably well for SEO. I would say that WordPress just scrapes by on this one as it has some great plugins to help you focus on SEO including the ever popular Yoast.
Muse has all the tools there for adding H tags and changing to friendly URLs. The video below gives an overview of SEO on Muse.

There also some widgets that will help Muse SEO widgets here from J-26

Which is Best, Muse or WordPress for e-commerce?

This one is just edged by WordPress as it has a third party plugin only available on wordpress called woocommerce. Woocommerce is a free plugin that has paid for optional extras. It works well and lots of the Themes available on wordpress for e-commerce have this as the prefered way of setting up a store.
Adobe Muse offers a number of third party ‘store’ widgets including Ecwid and Shopify both are paid for widgets and also available on wordpress. The Ecwid works particularly well for Muse as it is very customisable to fit in with the website design but is expensive for sites with lots of low value products.

Which is Best, Muse and WordPress Combined?

A solution that may work best for you is a combination of both as in Mick Kenyon Website. The main pages that need to look just as you want are designed in Muse and the CMS pages (e.g blog) added in WordPress (and possibly your e-commerce). This can be done by adding wordpress in C-Panel into a sub directory (have a think what you would like to call the directory as this will be shown in the URL). Video explains a little more.

Let me know your thoughts and experiences of using WordPress or Muse

Moving a WordPress Website from Multisite to Single Install Site

Leave a reply

Moving a WordPress website from multisite to single install site is a tricky process. You need change both the config file and the database settings. That is unless you use a third party plugin then the process is much simpler but still a nervous proposition.

Backup befor moving from WordPress ‘multisite’ to ‘single install’

Using Duplicator to Move From Multisite To Single Install of WordPress

Luckily the talented guys over on ‘Snapcreek’ have made a great plugin called duplicator pro The premium ‘Business’ version allows you to not only backup your entire wordpress website but also install it on the Single Install. The process you should take is;

Install the single version WordPress install (my prefered option here is to install it in Cpanel and use Softaculous for the install ). The install of WordPress should be done in the root.
Install the Business version of Duplicator Pro on your multisite version of wordpress.
Create ‘new package’ using Duplicator Pro.
Archive the ‘package’ to your pc/mac
Add the installer and archive file (zip file) to the root so you can find it using a browser.
Navigate to the the duplicator installer in the browser
Follow the instructions in the installer (if anything is shown as red, do not proceed until you are happy that you know why it is red and have introduced a fix)
Once you have completed the install into the ‘Single Install’ version of WordPress, go into the admin panel and check all looks well (pages, posts, products etc. are all there).
Install the Duplicator Pro into the ‘Single Install Version’ of wordpress
Create a ‘new package’ in the ‘Single Install Version’.
Activate all plugins in the Single Install Version that were active in the multisite version
Check to see if your new site is showing in the browser when you add the URL
If it is not showing you may need to now delete the multisite version of the website using either cpanel or an ftp service. (Double check everything is backed up (Databases and files) before you do this.
Check all is okay after the delete

Moving Multisite to Single Site Service

If you are still struggling or don’t want to buy the duplicator pro business app there is an alternative. Professional moving from multisite to single install site can be done on your behalf. These often work out cheaper than buying the Business version of the app. Please contact hello@mickkenyon.com for a free quote to have your multisite transferred to a single install.

Moving from Multisite to Single Install to Make URL better

There are a number of reason you may want to change from multisite to single installs, but for me the reason was to clean up the URL’s. I had just taken over the management of a client WordPress website. It was a locked down Control panel with very limited options, the main problem was no way to update plugins or versions of the WordPress install. My client wanted to have a look at a couple of new Themes and obviously wanted control back of the Admin Panel. I installed a second version of wordpress on the client’s site and opted for the multisite option. The install was made with the extension of /wp/ but it is also quite common practice to install on /wordpress/ or /blog/. The new version was then designed and the client was happy (delighted) with the new design. The problem was the URL address of the new website was websitename.com/wp/pagename This maybe okay for some but I like a clean URL and wanted it to look like websitename.com/pagename. With single website installs the fix is quite easy. For a Multisite it is much more complicated.

How to Add a Blog to a Adobe Muse Website

Leave a reply

How to Add a Blog to a Adobe Muse. Adobe Muse is really great for the creative web designer but it does have one major flaw, it is not very good for clients adding content. Adobe Muse does have in-browser editing but currently it does not work well. When editing in the in-browser often the changes can result in undesired effect to the styling. A few third party developers have offered solutions, some better than others, but there is a simpler solution, and that is to add a blog using c-panel, the choice of blogging is vast including WordPress, Ghost, Serendipity etc.

Why add a Blog to your Muse Site?

Clients should be encouraged to add new content to their website, it helps with SEO, websites that have regular new content will out perform SEO of those websites that are static and have no changes made. By adding the blog into the background of your website it will be seen as new content for the website. A blog is easy to add content, both images and text, and most blogs are responsive.

How to add a Blog to Muse

Please view the video I have produced that will show you the full process of installing a blogging platform on your Adobe Muse Website. In summary the steps are;
To add a blog using the c-panel which lots of website hosting companies offer.
Once in cpanel you can use Softaculous to install your prefered blogging platform including WordPress.
When installing make sure the installation is in it’s own Directory and not the root directory.
Add a manual menu in Adobe Muse and a link to the blog directory
Add a Manual menu in the blog to link to the Main Adobe Muse website.

Once the blog is added it can be customised to match your Adobe Muse website styled differently to give the blog its own unique style. Dont forget you will also need to add a Google tracking code to the blog site if you want to track in Google analytics.

The video on How to Add a Blog to Adobe Muse can be seen here on my You Tube Channel >>
https://youtu.be/g-4jdjtiUak

Planning Your Wedding Photography

2 Replies

Wedding photo taken on lake windermere in the Lake District

Pre-planning your wedding photography benefits both the Bridal Couple and the photographer

The importance of planning your wedding photography should not be overlooked, perfect planning will help ensure the perfect photos. As a wedding photographer it is really important for me to meet the bride and groom before the wedding. I like to meet at the venue(s) in advance so we can discuss the finer details so I can find out a bit more about the couple as well as getting a feeling for the venue. This also helps settle the nerves of both the bride/groom and the photographer alike.

Planning The Day

Plan your day to make the most of your photographer but don’t forget that your main priority is to enjoy your day! As a photographer I prefer documentary style wedding photography. This style allows the full day to be captured from the Bride and Groom getting ready (drinks, makeup, bridesmaids, bestman, pre-nerves!), the ceremony (walking down the isle, marrage vows, signing the register, sneaky shots of a tearful mum) A few formal photos (make sure you have a couple with your most loved) Romantic Spot (A few pics of Bride and Groom on their own – keep this time as brief as possible) then back to the party with speeches and the fun of the day (these are often the best pics of the day as people are relaxed and I can take photos without being too obvious, these are less forced and you get the natural smiles and laughter shots). This informal documentary style wedding photography will give you the most photos whilst also taking the least time distracting you from enjoying your day.

Bride getting ready

Photographing the Bride and Groom

The style of photography will be different dependant on whether the couple are outgoing or a little shyer and meeting the couple beforehand helps to build up a relationship. Extravert couples will usually feel much happier being photographed than shyer introverts that may prefer more subtle wedding photography. As a photographer I am full of energy (without being too over the top) and will adapt the style to make the couple most comfortable.

Newly weds hand in hand walking through cherry trees

The perfect wedding photo is often pre-planned.

The Wedding Venue

Its a good idea to run through the photos the bride and groom definitely want. It maybe the couple would like photos taken in the church or chapel. To plan in advance it is a good idea to identify a suitable spot that you will get the desired spot. Check for things like seating plans, angles (can you see the couple for the photo. Is it okay to take photos in the church, perhaps the person doing the blessing will not want the sound of a camera shutter.

Meet at the Wedding Venue to get a feel of what will work for your wedding photography

Rain on a Wedding Day

We all hate to think of the dreaded scenario of torrential rain on your wedding day! Pre-planning for the ‘just in case’ is well worth the effort. Identify a nice indoor area preferably well lit with greenery. Often hotels will have a little spot perhaps in a conservatory or orangery that will help rescue the day. Get a a few nice brollies that can be used for outside shots, investigate any local spots (quirky buildings, follies, homes) that can used as a fall back. My experience says the rain will soon pass so with a little flexibility you will get both stunning indoor and outdoor photos no matter what the weather.

Blog by Mick Kenyon Wedding Photographer, wedding photography in The Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District.

Great News My Website Traffic is Dropping

Leave a reply

Great news at last that my website traffic is dropping! What I hear you cry! You see the problem I and many webmasters have encountered recently (and not so recently) is inaccurate analytics information. Spammers had cleverly added links to website analytics in the hope that webmaster and website owners would click on the links to see who was adding links to their websites. This is termed as ‘Referral SPAM’ and it was a real pain in the proverbial. Yes it made it look like websites were performing well but in fact it was not real traffic. Google have finally managed to sort the ongoing SPAM referral problem.

What is SPAM Referral traffic?

Spam Referral traffic are links in analytics that gains traffic by hoping that the website owners and webmasters will click on those referral sites in order to see what it was that brought visitors to their website. These are often from worldwide sites such as Russia and Brazil. While no links – or ‘real traffic’ – came from these sites. Up to now Google Analytics wasn’t able to tell what was referral spam and what was legitimate links but it now appears Google have cracked the problem.

Google Has Started To Sanitize The Links

Website owners will be able to analyze their dashboard without all the ‘referral spam’ skewing the figures. This may result in your website looking like traffic is dropping but seeing as it isn’t real traffic it is great news as you can now concentrate on the real factors and see genuine traffic.

The changes have are now being seen on many websites, I am sure there will be many people panicking at seeing a downward trendline, particularly as it doesn’t seem the changes Google have put in place are historically being removed. Going forward the Google analytics will be much more accurate.

You can check to see your traffic sources by going into google analytics >>Acquisition >>All Traffic >> Channels then compare January to March .. you will probably see some dodgy looking sites showing in January which hopefully have dissapeared in the more recent weeks

Responsive vs Reactive Websites

Leave a reply

Responsive websites are websites that automatically resize to the screen size the website is being viewed on.
Reactive websites (adaptive) displays a website especially designed for the device type the website is being viewed on.

Responsive websites are not always the best solution for web design. Firstly an explanation of what a responsive website means and what it isn’t. There is much misunderstanding that the only way a website can be a mobile friendly website is to design it to be responsive, as in a wordpress website. This is wrong, you can design a website that adapts or provides an alternate display on mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets. The difference is responsive websites automatically display correctly on mobile devices as they resize to the display screen size. Reactive – Adaptive websites gives a totally different website version for the screen size allowing specific design for desktop, tablet or mobile. Both the responsive and adaptive approaches are endorsed by the Google Mobile Friendly test.

Some reasons why adaptive might be best

With adaptive websites you can choose what to display on your desktop version and what you want to display on mobile versions. For instance you may have strong ‘call to action’ for mobile users such as “download our mobile app here” or even giving your mobile version a more app feel and look.

Adding a download App to only mobile devices

Being both a website designer and a photographer I realise that sometimes a photo looks fantastic when seen on desktop but not so good on mobile. With an adaptive you can choose which photos you show dependant on the device.

SEO Responsive vs Reactive (Adaptive) Websites

More SEO options available with reactive design

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) can also be advantageous having two or three versions (you can have separate versions for desktop, tablet and mobile). This allows you to keyword and change the SEO for each of the pages depending on the device version, this is particularly advantageous if you ‘Local SEO’ for mobile searches, such as directions, local business etc.

If you would like more information on reactive vs responsive websites call Mick Kenyon on 07738 255499

Google+ the best marketeer?

1 Reply

Google+ The Marketeer

Is Google+ the best marketeer? It certainly can feel like it is your businesses best friend if you get it well optimised, it can increase visibility, give driving directions and help customers contact you ultimately increasing more sales.

Case Study

I recently optimised a clients Google+ page to make it visible on local business. This increased the visibility of the business in search queries and helped customers find the business via a number of tools increasing the customers user experience.

Measurable

With Google insights any changes made to your visibility and customer interaction on the Google platforms can be measured.

The overview gives a quick view of your visibility performance over the last 30 days

You can see much more detail by clicking on the ‘view insights’.

Search Views

The date range can be changed as required from 7 days, 30 days, 90 days or all time. This shows the number of impressions returned on the Google searches, Maps and mobile.

Clicks

This is broken down into some really useful sub categories including;

Driving directions – This is the number of clicks in Google Searches and Google maps for driving directions to your business, in the above infographic you can see 259 people have clicked for directions to the business.
Clicks on Website – This is actual clicks on to the website from Google platforms of Searches and Maps (excludes things like direct clicks, searches on Bing, Yahoo etc.), 1360 direct clicks from Google are shown in the infographics.
Phone calls – This is the number of clicks on the phone number from Google Searches, Maps and Mobile – you can see that 83 phone calls were made from Google search. These can also be shown by the day of the week etc within the insights.

Search Results

When you type the name of a business into search engines (without the .co.uk or .com) it returns a snippet of information on the right hand side of the page about your business this is fed from Google+.

One final word, don’t panic if you don’t have too many followers on Google+, the UK have been pretty slow to embrace Google+, this will come in slower time. The main importance is getting the Google My Business pages optimised, this will feed the search results with your business. To get your pages optimised call Mick Kenyon on 07738 255499

More information on Google insights.

Is Your Website Really On Page One?

Leave a reply

Is Your Website Really on Page One? Why is that when you Google your business it appears on page 1 of Google but when someone else searches they get different results? Quite often when speaking with businesses they think all is good with their Business rankings on search results, because when they Google their business it is showing up on page 1 or page 2 of the results. What looks to be a great result isn’t always what it seems.

Is Your website really number 1

Why’s My Website on Page 1 Only Sometimes?

Google manipulates results on your browsing history returning what it thinks you are mostly interested in. It doesn’t matter if you are signed in to Google or not these results are manipulated for you. Sounds a bit ‘big brother’, well maybe yes but it’s only trying to help. By learning what you search for it will tailor the results to what Google thinks is most relevant to you. So naturally you are interested in your own business, we have all done it, and should do it, we try to Google our business to see where we are in Google land. We might try a number of permutations to see how we are fairing and when it pops up we can’t resist clicking on our weblink just to make sure it all works fine. But the more we do this the more Google thinks this is what you want to see and so adds it to your Google Web History and places it on page 1 for next time you search for your Business or keywords to do with your business.

Is Your Website Really On Page One?

To see the true ranking of your webpage you need to do one of two things;
You can clear your browsing history (this will depend on the browser you are using) but for Google see this article on clearing web browsing history.
The easiest way and the way I would recommend is to go incognito or open private viewing tab and search the term again. You will probably be surprised or even horrified at the results, you might be a lot lower ranking than you thought.

So Why Am I Not Ranking Higher?

Your true web rankings are down to good SEO (search Engine Optimisation), there are over 100 things to get right to impress Google and get high rankings and these are constantly changing. For a health check on your websites SEO and to receive an in depth report contact Mick Kenyon tel:07738 255499

Micro Moments for Your Accommodation Business

Leave a reply

Micro Moments for Your Accommodation Business

What are micro moments and how does it affect marketing particularly within the accommodation business?
Welcome to the new buzz term ‘micro moments’, this is when you are waiting for something like queuing up for a bus or train or waiting in a clothes shop for your loved one to finish trying on all the dresses in a store (okay that’s probably a bit longer than a micro moment!) and you get out your mobile phone and browse.

Great potential for accommodation providers to tap into micro-moments

Google have announced that 69% of these micro moments are spent looking at travel ideas, that’s a massive potential for travel industry to tap into a market, particularly when you consider over 30% then go on to book.

How to make the most out of Micro Moments for Your Accommodation Business.

Make sure your website is mobile friendly, all these micro moments are performed using a mobile device (people are unlikely to carry around the PC for micro moments).
Make sure your website also has a secure online booking facility, there are free ones out there that can pretty easily be added to your website.
Great photos help sell the product, make them unique and great quality so they make you stand out from the crowd. Also make sure they look good on a mobile, not all photos do, you usually find those images that fill the screen look best.
SEO (search engine optimisation), the accommodation business is very competative and non more so than on search engines, keywords are often around £5.00 each on add words so getting your SEO is key.
Use Social media to also increase your visibility, not forgetting making sure your Google+ business page is fully set up and optimised.

For further information on Website Design and SEO for your accommodation in the Yorkshire Dales, Lake District and Lancashire call Mick 07738 255499

The article on micro moments from Google can be read here