New website heads up the rankings
Fiona Davies from Woodlands Self Store has kindly shared her experience of making sure her site is well positioned in Google, an important objective when this newly set up business approached Orphans to develop the website. Here she explains what worked for them.
“We returned from 9 years in Canada in 2007 and rented a house which meant that we needed to store our much-travelled items. We were fortunate enough to locate a self storage business who were very accommodating. We found a house and moved our stuff out. In 2013 we moved within Herefordshire to a house that had large warehouses that had been insulated for potato storage. We immediately felt that a Canadian/US style of self storage business would be ideal as we had a biomass boiler installed that would keep all the buildings at a constant room temperature throughout the year. The new business was called Woodlands Self Store Ltd and the units were all installed in the Summer of 2014. We then had to make sure that everyone knew about us. We had a unique service to offer. Safe, secure, heated storage units just south of Hereford. We realised very early that our website had to be of really good quality. We had used Orphans Press in the past and had been very happy with the work. They created a fantastic website for us that shows exactly what we do and the type of people and business we are. Simon and Ruth produced a website that attracts hugely positive responses from our customers. It is clear and concise whilst being informative and pleasant to browse. I have to say that being a novice to the web and all that it entails, I had no idea what SEO involved. I managed to create a Facebook page, and Twitter and set about working on these to put our name out there. I followed the advice given by Orphans and their friendly, approachable team and in no time we were heading up the rankings. I could hardly believe it. They guided me as to what areas I needed to concentrate on, leaving Orphans to manage other more technical areas.
After 5 or 6 months we were able to reduce most other forms of advertising as our units were in such demand.
When I look at someone’s website or their business Facebook page and there has been no recent activity I tend to click off it straight away - it suggests they are less than serious about their business. It is probably better not to have a website than one out of date or poorly maintained. The website is probably the first thing that a customer will look at. Keeping content current and fresh and involving yourself with improving your own SEO is vital to a business where the internet is a key channel to attracting new customers. My advice is to invest time at the start and commit to producing a really high quality website. Then regularly work on social media to maintain your profile. This will make a huge difference to the success of your business. I have spent hours refining our website and generating positive comments on Facebook and Twitter. I believe this has made all the difference to our success. We used Orphans Press to produce something of high standard upon which we have been able to build upon and extend our online presence. As an internet “rookie”, I am proud of this achievement but recognise it has been very much a team effort. The results have been tangible. For other novices in the dark art of SEO my message is that if I can do this, anyone can!"
