At the B2B Centre we’ve just released new self help website assessment tools to help small businesses understand their website better and how they can improve their website. The tools cover domain names, website technology and page titles and descriptions with navigation to follow.
Try the tools out at http://www.nb2bc.co.uk/website_assessment/ and don’t forget out SEO tool at http://www.nb2bc.co.uk/seo (You need to become a member to use any of the tools, but membership is free!)
I’ve done a new article for the B2B Centre with Steph Williams around using Google Base and the benfits for small businesses. Thanks to DW Supplies (Cleaning & Janitorial Suppliers) for the mini case study of how they’re using Google Base to increase the visibility of their products on the web.
A few weeks back I didn’t know what huna was, not sure I fully understand now, but new client Urban Huna are running two Huna workshops in the Autumn in Birmingham with Dr Serge Kahili King. The first huna workshop is on October 2009. We’re working with Urban Huna to help them optimise their website and kick off their Adwords campaign.
If you’re interested in the Huna way of life you can book on one of the workshops here.
We’ve got over 100 members now in our B2B Centre LinkedIn Group, with lots of of activity on the discussion threads and regular news items posted there’s plenty of reason to join.
We’ve also extended our Workshop programme through to November 2009 including semiars and our e-business conference. Check out our events page for more information and to book on the course.
My new article for the B2B Centre has been published and was featured in their newsletter. Read my article – Blogging – Free and Easy. Thanks to Coventry based Pickle Jar Communications for their contribution to the article.
Myself and Gareth Edwards completed our first Web Workshop at the B2B Centre today. 3 companies attended the Workshop and were a good chatty group despite being first victims to got through the workshop and suffering bad traffic on the A46. We had NewMacho, Solreka and Live and Learn Homestay attend, all were at different levels of emarketing with their business.
Things I’d think about changing next time -
- more real life examples
- a more hands on approach with Analytics and other web tools
- more social media coverage.
Last weekend I put the beer into the keg after the hydrometer sat at the correct level for the Yorkshire bitter. Here are some photos from the fermentation bucket to the keg.
Busy day today, we’ve put the first of our new workshops in the events diary, it’s scheduled for the 11th February with only 10 places up for grabs for small and medium sized companies based in the West Midlands region. The workshop will take place in the B2B Centre offices at the University of Warwick. The day will roughly follow the agenda below. The plan is to let the attendees needs guide us on how much detail we need to cover.
It’s first come first served so register now!
09.30-10.00 Registration and Coffee
10.00-10.15 Introduction
10:15-11.00 What’s your problem
11.00-12.00 Website/eMarketing assessments (selected)
12.00-12.30 What’s new in the market
12.30-13.15 Lunch
13.15-13.30 Website planning
13.30-14.00 Search Engine Optimisation
14.00-14.15 Website content
14.15-14.30 Break
14.30-15.00 Analytics
15.00-15.45 Pay Per Click
15.45-16.00 Blogging/Social media
16.00-16.30 Q&A
16.30 Close
We’re running another Members Networking event on the 25th March at the National Metal Forming Centre, West Bromwich from 17.00 to 20.00. The agenda will include:
- Registration and Networking
- Welcome Speech
- Guest Speaker
- Members Business Pitches
- Networking and Buffet
The event is free to all small and medium businesses based in the West Midlands region.
I attended the Search Engine Strategies Conference in Chicago last December, although cold it was a very enjoyable event. One of the highlights for me was the blackhat and whitehat debate with the very funny Dave Naylor. Whilst at the conference I collected a lot of websites that were recommended by the various speakers at SES and here they are (in no order). They range from articles on SEO to SEO tools you can run your website through. I haven’t tried them all yet, so if some are better than others let me know…
www.seedkeywords.com – Find keywords using your friends and colleagues.
www.uie.com/articles/trigger_words/ – Article by Jared M. Spool on trigger words
www.usertesting.com – Very cheap usability testing, the site claims from $19. I haven’t tried this yet but could be fun and at that price there’s no excuse not to do usability testing!
www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/ – A website speed test.
www.futurenowinc.com/wewe.htm – How customer focused is your site?
tools.davidnaylor.co.uk – Very very useful SEO tools.
www.compete.com – Keyword research.
http://co.mments.com/login – Track comments – bookmark, track and follow apparently!
twitter.grader.com – Into Twittering? Grade your twitter account, I score 72 out of 100!! @mark_bonnett
twitter.grader.com/topusers – Find out who the top twitterers are.
website.grader.com – Useful SEO tool that measures your website and grades your site, like being back at university.
www.prwebdirect.com – Submit your press releases to this website.
addthis.com – Add Digg, Facebook, Myspace buttons to your site like the one below.
www.tubemogul.com – Submit videos to Youtube and more all at once.
http://www.grokdotcom.com/2008/11/13/33-free-tools-to-make-your-website-better/ – does what it says on the tin.
readability.info – how easy is it to read your website content?
semdevel.com – Develop your own SEO tools.
pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/ – Develop your own SEO tool with Yahoo!
www.blogpulse.com – Keep uptodate with the latest blog buzz.
crazyegg.com – A useful web stats tool where you can visualise your visitors using heatmaps.
