Why not visit Jubilee Wharf? Some great little shops and of-course the excellent Miss Peapods Cafe. We came up with this fun design for their new website inspired by the award-winning development in Penryn, Cornwall earlier this year.
July 1st, 2010
July already…
FROM OUR 2010 HA CALENDAR – JULY
Richard Trevithick
Born 1771 in Camborne. He was an inventor and mining engineer, his most significant success was the high pressure steam engine which he then used to build a full-scale working steam locomotive – the first car! ‘Puffing Devil’ carried several men through Camborne to Beacon, inspiring the traditional Cornish song ‘Camborne Hill’.
His inventions and business ventures took him all over the world, but he eventually died penniless aged 62 and was buried in an unmarked grave in Kent. A statue depicting Trevithick holding one of his small-scale models now stands beside the public library at Camborne.
June 30th, 2010
It’s all about colour today
I’m really enjoying the great colour combinations and patterns that Andy Gilmore creates. Good inspiration for Summer 2010!
June 23rd, 2010
Cornish Cottages Rebrand
Hudson Armstrong Design continue to work closely with Cornish Cottages having created their original brand.
We are delighted to have created and launched a new brand for this forward thinking letting agency and will be rolling out new marketing material through the course of 2010. New vehicle livery along with an exhibition trailer (see left) was recently launched at the Royal Cornwall Show.
On location photography has been undertaken and will be used in the production of their 2011 brochure along with associated marketing material.
June 14th, 2010
Get another top spot on Google
So many companies register multiple domain names but do very little with them. Domains are only really effective if they have their own website files rather than being forwarded to your main website domain. So how can you make better use of those extra domains and help squeeze out the competition from the top spot? Create a series of mini sites targeted to specific search terms, all with relevant and fresh SEO content and links that feed visitors into your main website. We have adopted this approach for Portscatho Holidays as part of their long term SEO strategy. Targeting St Mawes holiday cottages search terms we have launched a mini site www.stmawescottages.co.uk which is a domain this client has owned for years. Ensuring the same feel as the their main site, visitors have a very smooth transition from one site to the other keeping the visitor experience positive and helping with conversations. This approach is good for long term organic growth but seeing the results of this will be a slower process than doing other SEO activities such as a pay per click campaign. When looking at an online marketing strategy as a whole, mini sites offer value for money and a great way to secure another top spot on organic Google listings. If you could wouldn’t you rather have 2 out of the top 3 results?
May 28th, 2010
Avoid a Friday launch
It’s always very exciting to get a new website live after months of hard work. You want the world to see it and start feeling the benefits of having a shining new website – BUT – no matter how tempting it may be, never launch a new website on a Friday! If you launch on a Friday chances are you will do a few more quick tests then go home for the weekend. When you return to work on Monday you will no doubt find error messages for things that didn’t quite work as they should have over the weekend – not really the best of starts for a new site.
The key to a successful launch is to agree a day early on in the week, make sure everyone involved is notified of the date, then test, test, test! If more development has to be done as a result of the testing then don’t be afraid to move your launch date – often last minute changes can sometimes undo other functionality. Your website developer should take care of all cross browser and accessibility issues and add your google analytic codes but you need to go through the site and check all links, forms, content, images and spellings. Sometimes it helps to get a fresh pair of eyes to go through the website content so ask a few friends or work colleagues to have a look at it before you go live. Of course if you are launching an e-commerce website or a database driven CMS there will more in-depth checking and testing to be done.
Once your website is live it’s advisable to let it “bed in” for a few days before you send out a press releases or tell everyone on your facebook or twitter account. No website is ever perfect when it goes live – it’s a good approach to have some budget in place to refine and improve your website once you have a few months of statistics to see what is really happening on your website and how your customers are using the site. It may also take a few months for your website to show on organic search engine results if it’s a new domain name so be prepared to push traffic to your site via other means in the first few months, this could be the press, targeted mail outs, social media, google AdWords or paid directory listings – it really depends on your budget and marketing plan.
April 30th, 2010
Happy May Day
MAY
William Murdoch, (1754 –1839), a Scotsman working in the mining industry in Cornwall in the late 1700s was an extremely talented engineer and innovator. His most famous invention was the application of gas lighting for domestic houses to replace tallow and oil lamps. With the first domestic residence in Britain to be lit by gas being Murdoch’s own house in Redruth in 1792. The town has an Annual Murdoch Day in June celebrating his significant contributions.
April 23rd, 2010
Invest in great photography
Hot off the press – here are the first of the new photos of Leycroft Valleys new bar and bistro due to open in 2 weeks time. It was a fun day working with Bob Berry in perfect weather conditions, in just a few hours we managed to dress and style the bar/bistro and capture some fantastic new shots for the clients website and marketing material. Photo shoots can often be very long days – but I am happy to say we nailed it and enjoyed some cappuccino’s in the sun by lunch time!