Brookfield - The Internet Marketing Agency Blog

Slideshare Turns One

The presentation sharing site slideshare celebrates its first birthday. If you haven’t already  discovered the “world's largest community for sharing presentations on the web”. I strongly recommend you pay it a visit. As with all community sharing sites there is some absolute dross on there but you can uncover real gems such as this presentation on the Brand Gap – all I can say is absolutely brilliant!

Building a Website – Select The Right Web Development Company

Believe it or not a business website is not about design, technology or marketing. In actual fact it is about blending all three in the right proportion. Add a touch of careful planning and you will have a recipe for a successful website and by success I mean a website that generates business providing you with a clear return on investment.

A simple search on Google (UK) will display all the incumbent organisations (at least on page 1) you would not want to build your website, not even if they were the last companies on earth and your businesses depended on it. The truth of the matter is that in the UK there are some sterling web development agencies. But with success comes the normal fee increase. So much so these agencies are way beyond the budget of the small to medium enterprise. At the next level we have those aspiration development companies, again some good, some bad. The point here is how do you ensure that you select a web partner that’s right for your business. There are four simple stages:

Requirements Stage - The first part of the website build strategy is requirements analysis and customer research. This should be used to determine the target market, business objectives, creative and technical constraints and just as important the way in which you architect your information – look at your competitors websites (at home and abroad) and select the good points from each. This is then followed by research, particularly focusing on the customer. As with all business activities you need to place yourself in the customer shoes, they’re not all wearing the same shoes by the way! So make sure you segment that list and target the segment that can generate your business the most profit. Start to gain an understanding of the language customers use about your product/service and what aspects you could provide online they would find useful.     

Documentation Stage - After the requirements and customer research phase the process should then move on to the documentation stage. There are two critical documents within this process; a creative and technical brief and a Request For Proposal (RFP). The creative and technical brief should contain all the aspects of how you want your site constructed, perhaps even a wireframe and sitemap along with your existing brand guidelines. The RFP document should contain the requirements, timescales and an indication of the budget you are working to for the overall project. You can stipulate how the developers should set out the proposal but again from experience, web developers tend to ignore this and do it their own way.

Supplier Selection Stage - Identifying the right company to develop your company website amongst a list of the good and not so good web development agencies can be a challenging undertaking. The process is made much easier targeting those web development companies who can deliver according to your build requirements. (Experience has shown that you should select at least 10 companies to send out the RFP document to and whittle it down to three for interview) The final selection should be based on the ability to build to specification, price constraints and references from existing customers. (Don’t always select the customer references provided by the development company – go outside that list). A further vital consideration will be what online marketing support the web development company can provide – I’ll come onto that in a few moments.

Project Management Stage - Once the web development company has been selected the build process is underway. At this stage the process is more focussed on obtaining the right content, imagery and liaising between you and the web development agency. Good development agencies will have a structured approach and even in some cases a project manager. How long the development takes will depend on your particular requirements. At the end of this stage and prior to the launch of your website there should be a testing phase.

Now you may think all you have to do is sit back a wait for those enquiries/orders to flood in, not so. It is at this point the real work starts. You web development agency may be capable in the general internet marketing area but you may want to engage a specialist agency. The reason for this is quite simple most web development companies, and I emphasise the word most, will claim that they undertake some form of online marketing, usually SEO. But just submitting your site to a few search engines and optimising a few keywords is only one aspect of a comprehensive internet marketing strategy. The final word here is always select a company with a proven track record.  In the US the design to service to traffic building ratio tends to be 1:2:5 whereas in the UK this is reversed. When it comes to Internet marketing – budget accordingly.

Internet Marketing Resource – SEOBook

Another free resource for those of you interested in gaining knowledge on general SEO topics. You can if you’re feeling flush purchase the SEOBook. The Glossary section is really helpful if you’re confused with all the jargon associated with Internet Marketing.

Digital Group Sign Brookfield

The Digital Group which comprises Digital Properties and Digital Visitor sign Brookfield  as their Internet marketing partner. The company based in Bristol provide cost-effective digital technologies that allow businesses to market their products through high quality video production. As I have previously mentioned there is a vast opportunity for companies who wish to embrace the Web 2.0 revolution and provide a more engaging content to their potential customers. The opportunity to work alongside the Digital Group offers a compelling proposition.

The Lodge Hotel Putney

It has been nearly a month since I last updated this blog but there is a very good reason. We have been swamped with enquiries and signing up new clients who see the real value of engaging Brookfield as their internet marketing partner. The first client to mention is The Lodge Hotel based in Putney, London. The hotel has recently undergone a refurbishment and offers both its business and leisure guests a stylish bar and three modern conference suites.