After a peculiar almost back to normal post covid year, we’ve noticed that it has been a while since we last posted an update on Chalfont Web Design, a clear case of do as we say not as we do! We are still very much alive and busy helping clients and working on in house projects.

We very much realise that the market for web design services has changed substantially since we first became a web design entity in 2001 and various incarnations before that with many great self service tools out there such as Wix, Squarespace, Shopify and many more.

Whilst a basic presence on the web site is absolutely fine for a lot of small businesses, for those who require another level of service and a long term partner, we can be the perfect fit with our blend of long term experience, solid business understanding and availability.

We still concentrate on implementing WordPress for our clients with its great range of self service tools, plug ins, SEO friendliness and large support eco system.

Local Marketing

One of the biggest trends we have seen over the last 18 months is Local Marketing and more specifically using Google My Business (GMB – recently re-named to Google Business Profile). Microsoft Bing does have something similar, but Google obviously dominates the search engine results (SERPS). Within GMB there are a number of tools for the small business and multi retail branch outlet to increase the performance of their rankings for ‘near me’ searches. These searches have become more featured by Google as an auto suggested search term. Once you have verified your branch / shop / company, you can add a number of features:

• Accurate Opening Hours including Bank Holidays
• News posts
• Customer Reviews (important for Google’s trust ranking factor as well as customers)
• Photos of your building, team, products, customers can also upload (restaurants)
• Automatically feed your products and stock levels

We have worked with several customers to improve their GMB presence including our in-house project HKUK.co.uk (see below).

Google Shopping

If you run an ecommerce shop, you’ll need to be running a Google Shopping campaign to boost your overall returns. Organic results are drowned out by Google Ad furniture on screen and shopping is a huge part of this. The results are still ‘cost per click’ so you only pay when people click through to you, but staying on top of the budget and not wasting any of it on non-relevant clicks is essential. Most of the main shopping platforms will automatically generate a ‘feed’ to provide to Google Shopping.

SEO

SEO has become huge business over the last 10 years, growing from an after thought to having dedicated multi million pound agencies within a huge industry segment. Basic SEO is always something we’ve implemented as out of the box for our clients with more long term advanced SEO as an ongoing option.

We have invested in a number of tools including Screaming Frog and SEMRush to provide new and existing clients a snapshot of where their site is in their business landscape and some simple things to move the business forward easily.

Saying all that, whilst the SEO industry has become more sophisticated, the basic principles of SEO are similar to those of 20 years ago, namely:

• Good quality web site content – unique words and photos
• Building and organising the web site in an SEO friendly manner
• Trusted backlinks, social media signals from outside sources
• Keeping the web site up to date

Angel Investing / Joint Projects – Sharing the Risk

We’ve been looking at this new business model for prospective clients that will work for both ourselves and the client. In essence, Chalfont Web Design will take a share of a new on-line business that is held at arm’s length from a main business. We put in ongoing effort and web design work to promote a new site and the client takes on the customer service role and usually the product range. The latest of these projects has been a joint collaboration with The Hamilton Kitchen Company in Chenies, forming HKUK as a sister business and initially selling replacement kitchen doors and Clicbox kitchen cabinets. We have the capacity to take one project on every 18-24 months or so and we are currently looking for a new project to launch.

Other projects run in house includes Cater For You and Seaside and Nautical. We recently left as a Director of Trading Depot following a private equity buyout, a company we helped launch in 2006.

New Web Sites

In addition to the ongoing work of HKUK, Cater For You and other existing clients, we launched a few new web sites including:

• Alius Law
• Amersham and Chalfont Hockey Club
• Chalfont St Peter Garden Club

Contact Us

If you’d like to discuss your digital presence, please give us a call and we’d be delighted to help where we can. Drop us an email or call / WhatsApp us on 07889 113635.