If you want to see how quickly it all works take a peek at  http://www.safariquip.co.uk/

Included in the full list of exciting features are a totally flexible system that allows the website owner to mimic the most sophisticated of online stores.

Countryside television presenter Julia Bradbury launched the all new Friends of the Peak District website today.

She is currently and will be staying on as the Friends of the Peak District's president for another year. "Friends of the Peak District does brilliant work protecting the beautiful Peak District countryside, and I'm delighted to support them for another year," she said.

http://www.friendsofthepeak.org.uk

The website features a simple PayPal donation and Subscription payment system as well as extensive use of Hammer Design's own content management system - Chameleon CMS.

Buying keyword-rich domains and just redirecting them is so last decade...

Traditionally, boosting search engine rankings for a particular keyword or keyphrase could be done by buying one or more keyword-rich domain names and setting them up as Permanent Redirects (also known as 301 redirects) to the main website. Google and the rest of the search engines have seen through this one and as a technique on its own this method doesn't hold water any more.

If you're a holder of many such domains you'll probably find they're not in Google's main index and thus not doing you a lot of good from a search engine rankings point of view. Google has done this because there's very little real-life benefit to an internet user in clicking through a redirected domain name - the target site is where they end up so as far as the search engines are concerned the keyword-rich domain they went to in the first place is basically useless.

...but dedicated micro-sites can make them useful again

Lets say you have a company with a small number of 'primary areas' for which you are the leader in your market sector. You could place all your information on one website and this is recommended if you're a new company as it'll make website maintenance simpler. If, however, you've been in business a while and can buy some new (or already have some) domain names containing the keywords you'd like to be found for, you can use these to better reflect your primary areas of business on the internet.

Create a micro-site on each domain name, with a small number of pages, entirely dedicated to a given primary area of your company. Link back to your main website for anything unrelated to the primary area you're catering for (general company information; other services; etc.) and keep the user on the micro-site for everything to do with this primary area. Make sure, of course, that anything related to this primary area is moved from the main website to the micro-site and appropriate links are created so users who reach your main site first get to the micro-site easily too.

This is, of course, a bigger maintenance job but the results can be worth it.

If your keyword-rich domain name did end up out of the Google index, file a reconsideration request explaining you've now created an appropriate dedicated micro-site and you'll get back in. As always with optimising search engine rankings, slow but sure is the way and don't expect results overnight!

Ben.

This article is an abridged version of It's a feeding frenzy for keyword-rich domains, from the SEOmoz blog which provides SEO advice for those in the field but can be terse reading for a non-specialist. Hopefully the above overview provides a suitable plain English summary of the key concepts.

Si went into some detail on how they are enticing the more pioneering and adventurous businesses to get into the new technologies and how they shouldn't be afraid of asking for what they want. Just about anything is possible nowadays and to a certain extent is affordable. The people are key - but so is a really good idea.

Long time web authors will no doubt be aware that when search engines first started becoming prevalent on the internet, the main 'Search Engine Optimisation' technique was to populate the HTML meta 'keywords' tag with a large list of everything you wanted to be found for. This practice of 'keyword stuffing' was frowned upon and Google's answer was to ignore the keywords tag and develop a better search robot and algorithm that didn't need it.

If you write content for the web, or are about to do so, the exercise of coming up with the keywords list is arguably more valuable than the actual keywords tag itself. In any case, be sure to include your keywords for a given page in a meta tag because although Google doesn't pay attention, other search engines do.

Beginning next month - the Hammer Design 6x6 offer for well-optimised search engine friendly websites.

Original Source: Google Webmaster Central blog

Throughout 2009 we have been continuously honing and toning the latest techniques in web usage, improving navigation around websites, launched new promotion and marketing support packages and increased our commitment to the Hammer mission to build the greatest websites ever.

Promotional Offers: Hammer has launched some exciting 6x6 challenges for 2009 running into 2010 including our most exciting offer to date - the Hammer Design e-Awards.

The future: looks good for Hammer… new faces at work, new clients, new exciting projects that push the boundaries of what has been done before and drive us healthily and happily onwards.
Si Homfray.

Go to the full e-News Sept 2009 >

We thought the number 6 was devilishly appropriate and the fact that this work can take you anywhere made it all seem quite sensible to call it the 6x6 challenges - 6 great website offers.

Basically there are the six challenge offers to offer to anyone looking for web design, development and promotion. The object of the exercise is to work with those companies and organisations who are looking to refresh, rebuild or completely transform their web presence.
So to cover all the bases we are answering those frequently asked questions that customers keep asking for.

Questions, or problems if you like, such as...
'...we need to create a fresh new look for our website'. Which shows off our design and build services.
'...we need to take our website to the next level'.  Which is all about our capacity to develop great website function and systems.
'...we need to increase our online sales'. That shows off our brand new e-commerce systems and development.
'...we need to regularly update our website'. An offer that challenges you to the simplicity of our powerful CMS (content management systems).
'...we need to get found in Google'. A simple facility we can give new customers that shows them step by step the great new search engine optimisation tools and guides we have written and developed.
'...we need to reach more customers'. An offer to take us up on our marketing services, a straight forward methodology, step by step analysis and action stepped approach to generating more customers.

Whether you have any of these 'problems' or not, we hope you get the message that Hammer Design can really 'nail them'.

Si Homfray
Creative Director.