Time to Spring Clean your Website!

As a busy mum juggling work and childcare, there never seems to be enough time to make sure everything about the business is continually up to date. I'm sure you can identify with that too!

Sometimes it can be a challenge just doing the basics, not to mention the added marketing you know you need to keep on top of. But I do try to keep on top of making sure my website is working at its best, and I'm always tweaking things on a weekly basis.

One thing to do is to make sure your website is optimised so that it ranks highly on search engines. Ranking in the organic results on search engines isn’t easy, however there are many things that you can do to help. Here are my tips...

1. Organise your Website - Making your site easy to navigate and well organised makes it easy for visitors - and search engines - to find relevant content.

• Plan your site with a simple sitemap, and include the sitemap online so that every page is easy to fine.
  
• Give each page a unique title that accurately defines what it's about, and a brief description that summarises the content - eg, an 'About Me' page will explain more about the business and the person behind it.
  
• Use headings and subheadings to break content down into readable chunks. For example, a page headed 'Gifts' could include sub categories with sections on 'Gifts for Him', or 'Wedding Gift's, etc.
  
• Make the page's URL easy to understand - for example, www.mysite.co.uk/babygifts is better than www.mysite.co.uk/page_234689. The title, description and URL tend to appear in search results, so the clearer they are the easier it is to see what your website has to offer.

2: Creating the best content - Creating useful (and preferable unique) content helps improve your website's SEO.

• Think about the kinds of things your target customers are likely to search for, and develop content that will attract and satisfy those searchers.
• Write focused text - ideally, each web page should deal with a single topic rather than mixing lots of ideas together.

• Regularly update your website with fresh new content. Make sure the copy still reads well and isn't repetitive or artificially stuffed with keywords.
  
  
• Writing a blog is a good way to include fresh content. This can be updated as often as you wish with relevant stories, offers and news.

3: Relevant Links

Try and acquire more high quality, relevant links to your website from other related sites. To find out how many external websites link to your website go to Bing search and then type link:www.mywebsite.co.uk - the results will show you the number of incoming links to your website. These are the links on other websites that point to your website.

4: Engage on social media sites

The more you engage on social media sites (like Google Plus, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest) and promote your website’s content, the more SEO value you potentially generate for your site.

5: Claim your business’ Google Places listing

If you rely on local custom, claim your business' Google Places listing as this helps you get more presence on Google’s search results. Google shows Places listings for search queries with local intent, so having a listing will ensure your business has a better chance of being visible to people near you.

6: Black Hat SEO

Whatever you do, don’t be tempted to use illicit ‘black-hat’ techniques to improve search engine rankings. These could include using hidden text on your website filled with keywords, or ‘link spam’ (posting irrelevant links to your website on forums and comments boards, to make it appear popular) or even paying for links. These techniques are frowned on by search engines and if your site is found to be doing this, you could be penalised and actively downgraded in the rankings. Also be careful when you link out to other websites – if you link to sites that use dubious SEO techniques, it could damage your websites reputation.

You can find further useful technical advice on improving your website, SEO or web design at www.marketing.yell.com

I hope you find these tips useful for your website too. Happy spring cleaning!

Sarah x

WOW Wednesday!

My latest new discovery this month is a fabulous site: wowthankyou.co.uk - a great place to find unique gifts for the family and home, the site represents around 750 independent UK makers and designers. I've just signed up too, and you can now buy many of my own creations on there - and some exclusive, not available anywhere else, lines too!

If you haven't seen wowthankyou yet, I thought I'd do a little round up of some of the great gift ideas you can find on there - and with today being such a lovely sunny day for us here in Norfolk, I thought I'd have a garden/outdoors theme. Here are some of my favourites:

1. Gothic Shed - what every discerning gardener will require for their patch this year!

From The Posh Shed Company

2. Handmade Gardeners Soap - a super scrubby soap, fragranced with rosemary, cypress and sweet orange essential oil.

From The Somerset Garden

3. Tree Design House Sign - custom made from powder coated steel and personalised with your house name and number.

From Iron Profiles

4. Union Jack Bunting - perfect for that garden party or street party to celebrate the Jubilee!

From Sew Recycled

5. Good Morning Campers Dog Collar - the ideal collar for holidaying pooches this summer!

From Woof and Meow

You can find the PhotoFairytales shop at Wow Thank You here - keep checking back as I'll be adding to it regularly.

Sarah x

Work at Home Mum: what I think I do

I've seen a few of these on Facebook recently for various jobs, thought I'd add my own for all those fellow working mums out there - enjoy!

Sarah x

Votes for Women! (Well, the woman who runs PhotoFairytales...)

Next time you're sat at your computer or laptop, it would be great if you could spare 2 minutes for me. Oh, look at that: you're online right now what a coincidence!

I'm going to tell you how to lose weight instantly, make your hair so shiny you'll blind everyone, win the lottery this weekend, and make everyone think you're 10 years younger than you actually are. Honest!

Here's how:

I've applied for business funding with Enterprise Nation and I need 350 votes to secure the funding. So this is where you, lovely reader, come in: could you please vote for me at http://www.enterprisenation.com/funding-applications/photofairytales/

If you're not a member of Enterprise Nation you will be asked to register with the site, but it will only take a moment (and if you want to de-register afterwards that's easy enough to do). Every vote counts, so I will be sooooooooo grateful if you can help.

And once you've voted all those things I mentioned will come true!

Sarah x

PS: there may be some slight exaggerations (fibs) in this post, but I'm not going to tell you where... ;)

Me & My Dad: The Penny Pinchers!

When I was growing up, one of the phrases I remember quite clearly was: “hmmm, petrol situation’s getting a bit dodgy…”, always said by my Dad, usually on a long journey, and often said whilst travelling down a motorway. On the upside, it at least gave the journey a bit of thrill factor - let’s spurn those overpriced motorway service stations, let’s see if we can squeeze out a few more drops and make it to a nice, off the beaten track (AKA “cheaper”) petrol station. More entertaining than playing I Spy, real edge-of-the-seat stuff!

You see, my Dad is ‘careful’ with money and I think - no, I know - it’s a trait I’ve picked up and run with the older I get. When I was still living at home, I would sometimes request that the heating be turned up a bit - “it’s up at 64 degrees already!”, my Dad would exclaim. “If it was a summer’s day and 64 degrees outside, you’d be walking around in a t-shirt!”. It’s a bit tricky to argue your way out of that one - especially when you’re 9.

I remember when, as a family, we would go to get our collective hair cut (by a nice lady called Jane who ‘did you’ in her kitchen - much cheaper than going to the hairdressers, plus if we all went together it saved on the aforementioned petrol). Whilst Jane was sorting out my Dad’s mop of hair he asked her to clear up an argument that he and my Mum had recently had: namely, is washing up liquid basically the same as shampoo? I think you see where this was going… (Just for the record, Jane confirmed that it wouldn’t do his hair any harm if he wanted to wash it in the cheapest brand of bright green washing up liquid available. Apparently, it’s the conditioner that counts…)

Our house was regularly “lit up like bloody Blackpool”, and paying for a car park space was something only idiots did. Even if it did mean a bit of a walk… Creosote for your fence was a waste of money when you had a bucket of old engine oil to hand (result: lovely smart black fence, but no naked flames to be used within a 500 yard radius please). Dad’s taste in wine is legendary in our family - his philosophy is if he can get it for under £2.50 and it doesn’t make him sick, it’s a winner. When we moved house once he had the phone installed in the kitchen, on the wall - to prevent people from getting too comfortable and thereby talking longer. Phone calls, of course, must always be made after 6pm. Oh, and a sachet of any kind (sugar, ketchup, vinegar, salad cream) made available for customers in that coffee shop? Well, that was just begging to be snaffled...

Of course, these days it’s easy to wrap up all this scrimping as being “eco friendly”. Don’t use the tumble drier, turn the heating down (or preferably off all together), reduce, re-use, recycle, etc. My Mum had the lid of a Nescafe coffee jar as the handle for her oven for quite some time - see, maybe my Dad was actually just ahead of his time!

The thing is though, I appear to be exactly the same. Let’s not put the heating on, let’s just buy a hot water bottle instead. (Preferably in Poundland). See a penny, pick it up, and all day long - you’ll be a penny richer than you were yesterday, result! And if you’re ever out and about, and find yourself in need of a sachet of pepper or a nice lemony-fresh wipe (from KFC, c1998, probably a bit dried out now), then just let me know. I’ve got a handbag full of them.

Sarah x