The website has been a DIY project from the start and we have always been 'live' with every little change and addition we make. This was probably a mistake, maybe we should have beavered away and delivered our baby fully-formed to a waiting world. Oh well.
Anyway, thanks to Mike Leigh taking over the shop it's given us a few days to try and put some bloody content on the website. If you fancy taking a look, head to the homepage and you'll see a drop-down box on the left. Every page now has something to look at and read. About time too. And it's all been set up nicely so that we should be able to keep adding titles with no bother at all. Phew.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Content is only king when the search engine robots can visit the pages ; I would also advise you to edit the meta-tags - store name, description and keywords. The latter might be 'old hat' to some folk, but it still helps obtain search engine ranking.
ReplyDeleteSorry to be a spoilsport, but having only got as far as your review page I'm already discouraged:
ReplyDelete1.'critiques' in your top line has a greengrocer's apostrophe, which wouldn't incline me to think you were literate enough to sell books I'd be interested in
2. I'm quite old (62, to be precise). I find the red background so unpleasant, indeed verging on painful, to my eyes, that I didn't want to bother reading it.
I'm trying to be helpful, really. I ran a bookshop for a while years ago and am really impressed by what you're doing.
Phhlrrrphhhllrrrrhhhhtttt.
ReplyDeleteIs that the sound of someone deflating?
Jaf: The errant apostrophe has been banished.
I liked the red but was a bit worried about it being slightly difficult. It's been changed but I'm not going to get rid of the other white text on dark backgrounds - you can't please all the people...
But thanks for the support.
Clive: The code is meta-tagged up to it's armpits with every conceivable permutation of who, what and where we are.
But as we're not actually going to be selling from the website for much longer the focus has shifted a bit. I can't help but think that trying to get to the top of the search engines, for us anyway, is a bit of a red herring. I'm not sure the site is about spreading the net as far and as quickly as possible. I quite like the way that dribbles of people come to us slowly, more organically almost, and usually through coming into contact with the shop first then telling their mates. It's small scale but it feels like a proper community not a virtual one. (How un-web 2.0 is that?)
Adam ,
ReplyDeleteIf you look at the source code for most websites (via 'View' from top toolbar line of IE, and then click down onto 'Source') you will see there is a meta store name, description and keywords (these have not been added for C&P.com)
Speaking personally I don't mind admitting that I gain many "in-shop" visitors who have previously visited my website.
Just say that you do a deal with a small press in the US and are going to stock an author's titles in this country ; you would want interested parties to find C&P quickly and not to go to the likes of the Basin for stock...the more static page content with search engine compliant source-code, the greater will be your "in shop" visitors.
I am merely making a suggestion ; I've had a low key internet presence for longer than many small businesses - a web presence which is very cost effective.
Hey Adam
ReplyDeleteThanks for doing my page so beautifully - have linked from my blog rashly promising signed copies for all comers!
Marie x