Of course you’ll Google again.  We’re all still doing it.

What it means is that we now need to be a little smarter when we refer to Google rankings and where our website might rank in the search results.

Two points:

1. You can “de-personalise” your Google results to see where you REALLY rank – this article from SEOMoz explains several ways to turn off personalised results.
2. Why fight it?  Even if you can find out where you REALLY rank, everyone else on the planet will still vary from this because THEIR results are constantly being personalised.

The reality is that you can no longer claim to have a ranking of “#xx in Google”, nor can anyone claim or guarantee to push your website to a certain point in Google results.  Both of these things are no longer possible.

For someone that works in the web every day, my mind was suitably blown for a time when I first read about this.  Some hefty parts of my job that we had come to rely on and take as standard – well, they no  longer existed.  But now the dust has settled somewhat, I’ve come to the realisation that we now need to think about search results in a different way:

• High quality websites with solid SEO thrive in this environment, which is a very good thing for us.
• Paid Google advertising will also thrive in this environment (good thing? bad thing?)
• Engagement with customers is highly incentivised – having them as regular visitors to your website will ensure that they come back (partly because Google gives them less choice in going elsewhere).
• Building a brand and an interested audience (not just pushing sales) is more important than ever.
• Well rounded SEO – including blogging, social media and cultivating a more integrated web presence are the new keys to success.

Feeling a little mind-blown too?  Share your troubles with us, we completely understand!

Major changes? smartinsights.com rated the impact as “10 out of 5″ for business pages that use Facebook for marketing.

We’re going to miss:

• Default landing tabs (mass outpouring of grief from web marketers)
• Fan gates for sign ups and promotions (ditto)
• Clear positioning messages on the home page
• Flexibility around links and information on the home page

What’s kinda cool:

• Cover images for businesses (although no promotional info or contact details are allowed here – see Facebook’s FAQ)
• More “About” info displayed in the summary
• Pinned posts (stuck at the top) and starred posts (full page width)
• The actual timeline to track your business’  history

Waiting to see about:

• How apps will be affected – the new design seems to drive functions through apps, but it seems hard for a page owner to promote their use… the jury is still out!
• How Facebook will police the new rules for cover images – no pricing, no contact details, no “Like this” or calls to action.

Did your to-do list just get longer?  Don’t worry, you’ve still got a month (almost) to get everything sorted!  Remember we’re always free to lend a hand!

Blogging and Social Media are standard features of SiteSmart websites.

More and more of us are relying on Blogs and Social Media to help our businesses run and grow. These are the places we talk to our audience, win new fans and delight our existing customers.

Many old-school website platforms provide clunky, limited blogging features and expensive social media integration. That’s why we love WordPress websites – because all of these essential features are built right in.

Blogging and Social Media bring huge benefits to any website:

• Stay in the loop – everyone’s doing it, including your competitors and your customers.
• Join the conversation – if you’re not there, how can you find out what’s going on, and how can you respond?  Don’t sit on the sidelines and miss your chance to engage and grow your audience.
• New fans and customers are waiting right around the corner – they want to hear from you and they want to Like you!
• Rapidly increased SEO benefits – Google loves fresh, social content.
• Grow your backlinks – the more people that link to your website, the bigger vote of confidence you get from Google!
• If any of your target market is under 35, you need to seriously consider using social media for business.

Website design

We’ll focus on designing a simple, functional and usable website that suits your business – logos, colours and print marketing materials. Whether you’re after a small business website design, or a full scale Ecommerce solution for selling online, we’ll make it happen. Read more about SiteSmart, New Zealand Website Designers.

Building your website

(HTML, code, images, etc)
We use valid, standards based code that plays nicely on all the popular browsers. And yes, it’s all done with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)! SiteSmart Web Design and Development

Content Management

We recommend that all websites we build are powered by content management systems (CMS), of which WordPress is our favourite. This means the owner/manager of the website can make most of the day to day changes that might be required, without having to hire a web designer every time. Some changes will still require the skills of a designer or developer, but we like to put as much of your website’s management in your hands as possible. Benefits of Website Content Management.

WordPress

The SiteSmart web design and development team specialise in all things WordPress. With around 50 million WordPress based websites online worldwide, it is the go-to platform for ease of use, search engine friendliness, range of features, and flexibility of design. We are proud to be New Zealand WordPress Developers, WordPress Designers, and to provide WordPress Training.

Integration with other web apps and services

There are many brilliant web apps and services out there that can add functionality to your website. We’re happy to recommend the best ones and work on integrating them within your website. The good news is that most of them have no license fees, so all you pay for is the time involved in setting them up and making them work with your website. Examples: Google Maps, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, sign up forms.

Testing

SiteSmart websites are all built on a demo server so they can be viewed and tested live, while still under password protection. Our websites are tested in all the popular browsers before deployment.

Going Live

This is the final stage of getting your website online – you’ve signed off on the demo website and are ready to hit “Go”. At this stage we set up any email accounts that are required and install Google Analytics to track your website traffic statistics.

Other related web services:

Domain names and hosting

Along with someone to build the website, every website needs a domain name and a hosting service. Read more about how we can help with domain names and hosting here »

Email signups and newsletters

Also known as email marketing, many website owners ask for a sign up form on their website where they can collect interested people’s details in order to keep in touch with them via an email newsletter. Read more about how we can help with email marketing here »

We’re also huge fans of:

• Website makeovers (upgrading old or broken websites)
• Flickr for managing photos and photo galleries
• YouTube for embedding videos into websites
• RSS feeds and subscriptions
• Blogs and blogging tools

We believe every website could benefit from a little WordPress magic. WordPress is an industry leading website platform, also known as a Content Management System (or CMS).

This means that WordPress website are:

• Easy for the website owner/manager to update by themselves, at any time
• Manageable from any computer, any where with internet – there’s no software to buy
• Quick, flexible and leading edge

WordPress Keen to manage your own website? Having a website with a built in content management system (CMS) means that the owner/manager of the website can make most of the day to day changes that might be required, without having to hire/pay a web designer every time.

We recommend that all the websites we build are powered by content management systems, of which WordPress is our favourite. Of course, some changes will still require the skills of a designer or developer (eg layout, functional or design changes), but we like to put as much of your website’s management in your hands as possible.

More about WordPress

WordPress is an internationally acclaimed software application that is flexible enough to cover most business website requirements. It is particularly effective when used as a CMS for information-based websites that are updated frequently, as it’s handling of pages, text, and images is quick and easy. WordPress websites can be easily integrated with blogging and ‘Latest News’ type functions, photo galleries, and social media.

WordPress is open-source software and free of any license fees (meaning you don’t pay for the software, just for the design work and website set up), incredibly well supported and used to power over 50 million websites worldwide.

We provide WordPress Development, WordPress Design and WordPress Training.

Need help to fix, alter or manage your WordPress website?

We’re only a phone call away and will take you through any aspect of WordPress that you need to learn about – in an easy to follow, stress-free manner. Confidently ask us all of your queries – don’t be afraid of silly questions – they are usually the best!

Log in to your website, jump on the phone to us and we’ll walk you through whatever steps you need. Whether you need a general run through of the WordPress dashboard, or have a specific task to complete – we can help.

And if we can’t help, there’s no charge.

Got a minute to chat? 0800 906 616

Find out about our other WordPress services.

The SiteSmart web design and development team specialise in all things WordPress. With around 50 million WordPress based websites online worldwide, it is the go-to platform for ease of use, search engine friendliness, range of features, and flexibility of design.

We currently work with clients across a range of WordPress development services:

• WordPress design
• WordPress development
• WordPress plugins and widgets
• WordPress customisation
• WordPress training, maintenance, and fixes
• WordPress consulting
• WordPress SEO
• WordPress theme installation
• WordPress theme design
• WordPress website maintenance – backups and upgrades
• WordPress PHP development

We recommend that all websites are powered by content management systems (CMS), of which WordPress is our favourite.

This means the owner/manager of the website can make most of the day to day website changes that might be required, without having to hire a web designer every time.

Layout and design changes will still require the skills of a designer or developer, but we like to put as much of your website’s management in your hands as possible.

Use a content management system to:

• Save time
• Save money
• Keep your website up to date

Once your website design is sorted – we turn our focus to building your website.

Don’t need to know about the technical nitty gritty?  Read about us and our Web Design Guarantee.

Our Wellington Web Developers focus primarily on WordPress development, whilst our Christchurch Web Developers focus on email coding, HTML and CSS, plus managing our OpenCart and Shopify Ecommerce sites.

The whole team are based in New Zealand: web developers, web designers, marketing, and project management. So we’re never far away if you have a technical query or need to add new features or apps to your website.

We use valid, standards-based code that plays nicely on all the popular browsers. And yes, it’s all done with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)!

Our Web Development covers:

• WordPress
• SilverStripe
• Shopify
• WordPress Ecommerce
• OpenCart
• Shopping Cart Websites
• Payment gateway integration
• Payment processing online
• HTML Emails
• Campaign Monitor
• MailChimp
• Facebook apps
• HTML
• CSS
• PHP

Hi – we’re SiteSmart Web + Ecommerce, a web agency based New Zealand wide. We’re always hungry for new people and projects to work with, to add to our growing team of happy clients who experience success on the web every day. We’d love to work with you, too. Here’s a bit more about how we operate:

Nothing will be perfect first time round.

We’ll work with you to plan your project down to the finer details. We’ll show you drafts and wireframes and mockups. You will like some things and you will want to change other things. We need to know your thoughts as we go along, so please let us know as soon as possible if there is something that needs to be altered.

We’ll work at it until we get it right.

You won’t be left with a half finished project, or a website that doesn’t work. Provided the features are covered in the quote that we both agreed on, we’ll keep working at it until everyone is happy.
You won’t be charged extra – it is part of the project to have a polished, workable solution that everyone is proud of. If you need to add extra features in, we’ll agree on a price and plan with you before we start.

Both parties have important roles to fill.

Our role is to produce web assets – doing the design, build, coding, and marketing side. Your role is to get us words, images, stories, feedback and suggestions. Without enough input from either side, the project will fail. If we’re both proud of the project and what we can achieve, we’re guaranteed success.

Web is an ever changing medium.

The world of the internet is changing every minute. Your business will change. Your customers will change. Your competitors will change. So your website and web marketing are sitting on a path of continuous improvement. Your web goals from 6 months ago will not be your web goals of today. We’ll keep in touch to check what is and isn’t working for you, and discuss tweaks and changes that will help meet your upcoming goals.

Let’s chat: 0800 906 616

email: corinne@sitesmart.co.nz