Nexus Websites have quickly progressed from a small web design firm in Wigan, to a buisness that provides website design services for the whole of the UK. We quickly identified a gap in the market for stunning website results at completely affordable prices. We pride ourselves not only in this but also in ensuring an open and honest buisness relationship so that you can trust us to keep your buisness on the right track. Every client is treated as an individual and not just a number.
After our recent success and our customers excellent reviews FreeIndex have entrusted us with the following awards:

• Top 30 Web Design Company within the UK.

• Top 2 Web Design Company within Manchester

• Top Web Design Company within the Wigan area.

They have also ranked us as a Recommended Company.

So dont just take our word for it, view our customer reviews Here.

So the real question is, how do you create a real email signature in outlook 2010. Nexus Websites are here to help explain how!

Step 1: So step one, close down your outlook express and keep this closed until the final step is completed!

Step 2: Open up your start menu.

In the run window as seen above, type this in, without the brackets and press enter (%appdata%\microsoft\signatures)

This will then open the window you see below:

Here you will find (if you have previously created a signature) 3 files, and a folder which will contain any images you use.

Step 3: If you have exisiting files like in the above image, delete everything apart from the rich text document. If you do not these files then you need to go into microsoft outlook, create a new blank signature, and then this will appear in the window like above, then re-complete step 2 & 3.

Then create your signature in word by opening the rich text document using all of the tools you normally would, insert images, insert rich text and then save the document.

Step 4: What you need to do now is save your outlook file as a web page document as seen below. Once you have done this, you can proceed to the final step!

Final Step: Open up outlook and select your new signature! Job Done!

If you have any problems or questions, we will be keen to help, post below!

• They increase traffic because people have a better chance of finding you.
• They increase your traffic rank which boosts your SEO / search engine position as this will contribute towards your inbound links coming from well ranked websites.
• Increased sales/enquiries from increased traffic!

Below is a competent list of business directories that are entirely free to register with, they have proven to still provide useful traffic at a free price so do not wait further, get registering with them now!

1. Yell – Worth a free listing as they are very well known however the sponsored listings leave a lot to be desired in terms of value for money. Yell have been around for many years now and are considered to be one of the bigger business directories running.
2. Thompson Local - Again worth a free listing and in a similar prominent position to Yell but also it remains debatable if the sponsored listings are actually working.
3. Free Index – Very in-depth and if used correctly you can excel. They allow for you to really promote your business, the more effort you put in, the better the result will be as they gift rewards for positive reviews on your listing left by your customers. These rewards can then be used in email signatures and on your websites giving your prospective customers that trust you want.
4. Lacartes -New, but potential to be the next big thing! Similar to freeindex! Sign up now.
5. Locanto – Good traffic yet fairly unknown so easy to get a top listing.
6. Uk Small Business Directory - Very useful free listings.
7. Business Magnet – Very useful free listings
8. Search4me – Useful listings to submit your website to.
9. Free Business Directory – Again, another good free directory.
10. B2B Directory – Business to business directory entirely free.

Other honourable mentions include:

• 118 – It is hard not to have heard of these through television advertising!

Any additions below are welcomed to this list!

To claim this, please take out one of our ecommerce web design / content managed websites or visit our contact us page. You can also ring us on 01865 589 994 or fill out the contact form below.

The gold features are part of a large upgrade that is available as of January 2012. This comes with features that futher improve the quality of our already stunning web stores. If you are interested in these features, please get in touch.

The features are listed below:

Google Base - This module here allows you to submit all of your products into Google Shopping. This is great for promoting your products direct rather than just your business and this will greatly assist your traffic.

Bulk Product Edit - We know when it comes to running a business that time is money. Instead of changing data of 100 products individually, why not edit them all in one go with this module? Save yourself hours! Works with everything including attributes, variants, cross selling & every single tab within products.

Categories Description - This module allows you to add a description & image to each category. This makes the website look a lot nicer as well as contributing towards SEO as the standard category pages do not have as much text as the search engines would desire!

Multiple Product Description Boxes - Provide the maximum information you can with each item. You create the information once and then choose what products to insert the information under. Best example of showing what this module does is to view the screenshot below.

Advanced Flash Banner - By standard with every website we provide you with a simplistic yet effective flash banner that slides left to right. This advanced flash banner offers you 19+ effects including fade in/out, rain in/out and many more. You can also add left & right arrows to this banner so customers can flick through the banners at their own leisure. This is all managed from within your control panel.

Advanced Sales Banners - All of your special offers will be displayed with a sale banner automatically appearing over the image as seen to the left. This is great promotional artwork and should assist in the promotion of your special offers.

Abandoned Cart For Visitors - By standard you can see signed up customers that add items to their shopping cart and then leave the website allowing you to contact. This upgrade allows you to see what guests are doing with the items in their cart.

Unlimited Products Quantity - Tired of adding in a quantity for each individual item? Tick a single box for unlimited quantity on each item or select this all at once using bulk edit! Also works with product variants.

Shipping Per Product - Add in a separate shipping cost per every single item! This gives you the ultimate flexibility when adding in items to the shopping cart. This can work so that it adds the separate shipping costs together or you can have the highest of the shipping costs of all the items in the cart being the cost.

From this screen you can then type in the URL of an existing image online or click the browse icon to upload an image from your PC.

You can then also add a description or title to the image. If you want to adjust the size of this image then simply select the appearance tab.

We have already added a selection of images for you that you can use and we will continue to add to this gallery automatically over time!

All images are licenced as free usage so you can download them and use them wherever you should wish.

However should you want to upload your own images from your computer, then simply select the upload button.

Once you have done this, select browse and then a window will popup displaying your folders and files.

USEFUL TIP

You can select multiple images by holding down the control button on your keyboard and then clicking on the images you want, or you can always drag the mouse and select images this way.

Once you have either added in an image URL or uploaded an image of your choice, you can then go to appearance tab where you can arrange how you want the image to be viewed upon the web page.

Finally you can then go one further by creating a mouse over effect, or provide certain additional features.

The Search Engines all have their own ranking algorithms, which are sets of rules that determine how to rank websites for search queries. We don’t know these algorithms exactly as they are not released publicly, but we have a good idea of what they generally are through testing and analysis. The aim of a search engine is to provide the searcher with the most relevant website for their query.

SEO Keywords

Choosing the right keywords or keyword phrases for SEO is very important in determining how well you will succeed in the Search Engine Results. The problem you face is that there are already a lot of websites out there ranking for popular keywords. It would almost be impossible to create a website and get it to rank well for “Apple iPod” as it is such a popular keyword phrase that will have a lot of established websites ranking for it already.

You want to describe your website but not too generically. If you run a bed and breakfast in the town of Exeter, don’t try and target the keywords “bed and breakfast”, try and target “bed and breakfast in Exeter”. When describing SEO for smaller websites and business I like to use the analogy of would you rather be a small fish in a big pond (trying to rank for bed and breakfast) or a large fish in a small pond (trying to rank for bed and breakfast in Exeter). You may think that more people will be searching for “bed and breakfast”, but then you need to consider that you might not even appear in the top 100 results or on page 8 or 9. Targeting “bed and breakfast in Exeter” will not only give you a better chance of appearing on the first page of Google, but will also send more targeted users to your website.

Onsite SEO

There are two main elements to SEO and improving your website and its rankings, Onsite and Offsite optimisation. Onsite quite literally deals with the on page elements of your website. If we want to appear in the search results for a selection of keywords, then we need to let Google and the other Search Engines know that your site is relevant to that search term.

There are various ways we can make our site more relevant to selected Search Phrases. See a break down below:

Meta Titles and Descriptions: Meta titles serve two purposes, they form the text that appears at the top of your browser when you visit a site or page and the piece of text that appears in Google when you make a search. For example this page has the meta title “Nexus Websites | Web Design Wigan | nexuswebsites.co.uk” which will appear in your browser and alse will be the title if you found this page in search engine results. The meta description is small description of each page that sits within the html code. The main use for this is to be the source of the description Google uses for its results. If you do not provide a meta description, Google may use some text from your page or just not give you one at all. Try and keep your titles to 65 characters in length and your descriptions to 150. These figures will stop any of your information being cut off in your Google result. Obviously the aim is to get your targetted keywords into your titles and description where they naturally fit and for pages they belong on. All pages should have unique titles and descriptions to make sure Google knows what each one is about and hopefully list them for your desired terms.

Domain Name: A lot of people underestimate the importance of including what they want to come under in the domain name. For example if my company name is Sharp Shovel yet I work in the scrap metal industry, a domain name like www.sharpshovel.co.uk would be great for people finding you under the business name, however search engines love when you include your keywords within the domain name (it has a large impact in ranking). www.scrapmetaluk.co.uk would be the ideal domain name to display the website under and then setup the business domain name as a redirect.

Sub URL’s: This also another important factor. And example would be www.nexuswebsites.co.uk/suburl.html <— the suburl.html is the sub url. Do you often see example such as this? www.nexuswebsites.co.uk/ihnioedir898923nfsfi21.php. This is in no way going to help your search engine listing. You want to include your keywords in the sub-url.

Image Alt text: Google cannot tell what is in a photo or image so we need to tell it via the image alt text. Ideally your pictures will relate to your keywords so you can use them in your description. If you had a website selling pet food and one of your keywords was “cat food” you could add alt text to a picture of a cat eating “cat eating some teasty cat food”. This describe what the picture is while including your keyword. For further clarification you can name your image files to include the keyword eg cat-food.jpeg.

Onpage Copy: If you have chosen your keywords sensibley and they reflect your website, then your keywords should fit naturally within the text on your site. When writing your text, try to include your keywords as much as you can but only where they fit and not in a spammy way. If any of your keywords relate to other pages on your site, feel free to add a link to that page using the keyword. If your pet food site had text on the home page describing the type of products you offer and you mention cat food, then why not add a link to your cat food page. It is also worth noting that your website content should be 100% original and should not be copied from other sites, if you copy your text, Google may mark it as duplicated content and this will affect your chances of ranking.

Headings: Whether they are H1 headings or just bolded text at the top of your page, try to include your keywords into your headings where they naturally fit. Being clear about what your page is about will not only help it rank in Google but will help the user understand your site.

Page Names: To help your pages rank for appropriate keywords, you can include your keywords in the page names. Hopefully you will have done this naturally, but it is suprising the ammount of sites that do not. If your website is selling pet food and you have a cat food page, it would be much better to have your site set up as http://www.daves-pet-food.co.uk/pet-food-products/cat-food.html rather than something like http://www.daves-pet-food.co.uk/product/product1.html

404 Error page: Many sites are set up that if you click on a broken link within a site or mistype a page name you will recieve an error message or a 404 error page. These pages usually are not SEO friendly, so if you set one up you should include some links to your main pages while including your keywords.

Html Sitemap: Create a html sitemap page that links to all the pages on your website, this will allow visitors to see all the pages on your site and help them get indexed in the Google Index.

XML Sitemap: Using free tools, you can create an xml sitemap that will list all the pages on your site in a format that can be read by the search engine spiders. This file should be placed in your site’s root folder so that appears like http://www.seofordummies.co.uk/sitemap.xml

Back Links: Backlinks are incoming links to a website or web page. Inbound links were originally important (prior to the emergence of search engines) as a primary means of web navigation; today their significance lies in search engine optimization (SEO). The number of backlinks is one indication of the popularity or importance of that website or page (for example, this is used by Google to determine the PageRank of a webpage).

Traffic Rank: Web traffic is the amount of data sent and received by visitors to a web site. It is a large portion of Internet traffic. This is determined by the number of visitors and the number of pages they visit. Sites monitor the incoming and outgoing traffic to see which parts or pages of their site are popular and if there are any apparent trends. Traffic ranking is known to have an impact on the PageRank of a webpage.

Google Webmaster Tools: To help you discover problems about your site and help understand how Google sees your site you should register for a Webmaster tools account. By adding a piece of verification code to your html you can access detailed information about your site.If you have a .com tld, you can tell Google you want to target searchers in the Uk. You can discover pages that have duplicate meta titles and descriptions.

Fresh Content: Google apprently likes fresh content on your websites and older websites that used to dominate the rankings with out dated content are finding their rankings slipping. One of the best ways to add new relevant content to your website is through a blog or news section.

The main key to selling any product online is to Keep It Simple For The Customer and yes, that sounds obvious, but I am continuously amazed at how hard some companies make it to buy their purchase online. It’s not just about the products you sell, it’s about how you layout your products and how you convey the information that the customer needs to feel comfortable buying from you. It’s not just about the product anymore. It needs to be simple.

Be Competitive - If you are being out priced you will not sell and it is as simple as that. People will inevitably look at more than just one website and in order to stand out from the crowd you need to present the customer with many forms of trust and a decent offer! Browse around yourself to see what sort of deals your competitors are offering.

Special Offers - People love a bargain! Do you ever go into your local convenience store and see that multi-pack of crisps usually costing £3 costing just £1? You’ll be grabbing it off the shelf in quantities and people will have the same mentality with your online store. Throw at them offers they cannot refuse, up the price of a particular price then offer a reduced price, it won’t make a difference to you however the customer’s mentality will change increasing the likelihood they will buy.

Trust – People will need to trust you in order to buy as everyone knows scamming is at large in today’s world. Give them the reassurance they need, introduce household names like PayPal as your merchant. People know PayPal is safe, do you have any accreditations you can offer such as Trustwave, Internet Shopping Is Sage or FSB? Do you have a company registration number? Are you a member of any well-known groups such as Check-a-trade? Give the customer whatever you can to increase your chances of a sale.

Promotion – Offer people something they cannot refuse and for a limited time only. Give them a reason to buy off of you there and then. Perhaps you can offer free shipping over a spending £300. Maybe you can offer a coupon code to offer them 5% off any order online. Give people a reason to buy but also give them a reason to buy now. Offer them a discounted price for a limited time only.

Return Policy – Huge confidence builder! I want to know what to do with it and how I can return it if I don’t like it or it’s broken. You will go a long way by allowing your customer to return the product without any hassles and more often than not you will find people are happy with their product.

Contact Us – Just do it! Let your customer have the ability to easily find your e-mail addresses (yes, spammers WILL find you – setting up forms works better if you can), mailing address, fax, and phone number. The biggest confidence builder here is the phone number. If possible, make sure that if possible, it is a toll free number and post it in the header of your site.

Hopefully you will find these tips very useful to building a successful online store. Good luck!