Every now and then we get a distress call from a potential client, who has been let down by an existing agency, and are not happy with the progress of a project they have commissioned.
The special red Bat phone started ringing one morning, and we took a call from a local business who were near suicidal, after they had been repeatedly let down by a company redesigning their website, and they were really at the end of their tether. We sat down with the potential client, did a detailed spec of what they were looking for, created a detailed brief for the project and passed it to the client. They were initially sceptical that we could turn the project around in the timeframe we had detailed, but they decided to give oomagoo a go.
It’s not that often, from our experience, that you get clients in the design game who are actually up for a project which they have got you in to do, and actually know what they want and are prepared to allow your team to actually do what you do best, without sticking their oars in every 5 minutes. Enter the team at HSH (www.hsh.co.uk). From initial site wireframes, we got straight into the designs, and then within a heartbeat the guys were coding the site.
Initial Wireframe Design for www.hsh.co.uk
We decided to build the whole site on a Word Press framework, as we know that this would make the backend easy for HSH to use, and as such, it would mean they would use it. There is no point having an amazing looking web site, but them making it so complicated to use, that the client pulls their hair out every time they need to add something to the site. Also, with Word Press, it means that the client isn’t beholden to us, but can pretty much take the site to any half decent Word Press developer to continue work on, if we ever fell out. Thankfully we haven’t, and thankfully we hardly ever do.
So we now have a very happy client in Altrincham, who has a smart looking, very easy to use site, which will actually become a hard working business toll for them, and not a source of embarrassment for being so out of date.
And to make a great relationship even better, HSH are now referring oomagoo to all of their clients, who may need a new web presence for a new business they may have bought from them.
Great client, great to work with and a great business. A real pleasure.
Every year we are caught out by the arrival of BETT, which is the UK’s largest technology educational trade show.
One of our favourite clients (just in case they are reading this) are one of the main exhibitors at the show; so every November / December before we start the scribbles, brain storming we are filled with the sheer panic of getting something ready for them by the January show deadline.
You can forget turkey at Christmas; it’s scaled down Adobe Illustrator files, being rendered on an imaginary stand the size of a small country. We have to consider so many of the following points:
It needs to look better than the year before.
It needs to show the brand off in its best light.
Needs to allow them to hide their coats.
They all need somewhere to sit when their feet are hurting.
Need somewhere for clients to sit down and be shown the products.
Easy access to the nearest coffee shop / bar
When we do have a look and feel that works, its firing over the designs to the client to “tweak” and then for us to basically rejig all of the work we have done. We rejig, resend and then rejig. Then comes the dealings with the stand printers, who this year were brilliant. Toby (from Expositionists), if you are reading this, you were a star
But we’re here to do a job, so we must get it bang on, and this year we’re please to announce (this photo is from the client) that we have done it again for another year.
So we’re about to get the turkey out of the fridge, and a few bottles of red. If anyone hasn’t had enough of Christmas and fancies popping round, please feel free…..
Over the years we’ve had many many Search Marketing clients, all with different ideas, different businesses, some are new to marketing their website, others have come from other companies, disgruntled at how they have been treated. Usually they tell us that they were promised a number 1 ranking in Google for the term they asked for, we never do this. Its not that we are not confident in what we can do with marketing your website. It’s just that there is a 3rd party involved here, not us, not you. It’s Google.
Yesterday Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team. Posted this video.
Entitled
How can I explain to clients that rankings can’t be guaranteed?
We have been banging this drum for years, and are happy that someone from Google has come out with this video.
We like to do a good turn every now and then at oomagoo, so when I was approached by my sons schol to help them with their web presence, I was only too happy to help.
Stamford Park is one of those gems hidden in the streets of Hale, over 100 years old, and packed full of great teachers and lovely kids. What they had to represent their school could actually make your eyes bleed. It was in desperate need of some love and attention to breathe some life back into its online presence, and provide the parents with a website which was up to date, actually full of relevant information, and wouldn’t need a visit to A & E Optical department.
So with a million notes for Alex (one of the Parent Governors), we started scribbling away to try and get the structure of the site sorted, so we could make sure the userbility was spot on, before we even looked at any of the designs.
From there we looked at the actual logo being used by the school, and came up with something we feel captured the warm feeling that the school resonates, and also which would be usable as a letterhead, fax header etc. We cam up with the following:
From this as a starting point, we managed to map out the site, and get all of the inner pages designed.
We decided to build the site on WordPress, so the school would be able to manage the site themselves, and use the site as a useful communications tool. The finished site can be found at www.stamfordparkinfantschool.co.uk
The school loves it. The parents love it. And we love it.
Facebook’s Foursquare competitor , called Facebook Places, has launched here inthe UK today, about one month after it went live over in America
Foursquare has been slowly gathering users over in the UK in 2010, and Facebook Places has the opportunity to be a viable competitor in the geo-location space.
If you haven’t used Places yet, it’s a simple feature that lets you check into real-world locations through your Facebook profile, What it means in the real world, is that you will be informed via your facebook feed that all your friends are sat in the pub watching football, whilst you are enduring an afternoon in a retail park.
If you own a local business with a physical presence, there is an obvious benefit to having your location associated with Facebook Place check-ins. Here’s how to do it:
Check whether your place exists. Attempt a check in via the updated Facebook for iPhone app (or through touch.facebook.com in your smart phone’s browser). If you don’t see your business, search for it, and you can add it.
Log in to Facebook and find your Place. If you see your check in on your wall, just click the place name. Otherwise, use Facebook search.
Once on the newly-created Place page for your business, click the “Is this your business?” link at the bottom of the page. If Facebook found a phone number for your business, click “Call me now” and follow up from there with the verification process. If no phone number is found, Facebook will require you to upload an e-version of one of several different documents verifying your ownership.
I have been itching to get my hands on one of the new iPads, and have tried to get through all kinds of excessive spending committees at work and home. I just can’t seem to get the nod on putting my hand in my pocket and parting with my hard earned cash and buying one.
Giz a Pad
I’ve now taken a new tack, and am trying to persuade the wife we need one as an educational tool for my 8 year old – who is an internet junkie. He spends more time on the Penguin Club web site than is probably healthy, and I am positive that an iPad will help with his reading.
I’m still not sure how I would be able to stop him playing online with his web friends whilst he is supposed to be reading the virtues of some of Roald Dahls finest characters. And just as I start hankering for the iPad, the new iPhone comes out and I need to persuade the wife how I need one of them….
This morning I was researching some pretty standard terms and conditions for a website we are shortly launching, and I came across this website sat at the top of google.
And at first glance, it seemed exactly what I was looking for, but on further inspection I noticed this little gem in there:
You may not create a link to this website from another website or document without [business name]‘s prior written consent.
Excuse me?
You are telling website owners to dissallow people being able to link to you, this would disrupt the entire fabric of the internet.
And people wonder why we are in a recession!
Something amazing happened last week in the internet world. The unstoppable force, met the immovable object. And finally, somebody has toppled the giant that is Google, In America anyway.
Facebook reached an important milestone for the week ending March 13, 2010 and surpassed Google in the US to become the most visited website for the week. Facebook.com recently reached the #1 ranking on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day as well as the weekend of March 6th and 7th. The market share of visits to Facebook.com increased 185% last week as compared to the same week in 2009, while visits to Google.com increased 9% during the same time frame. Together Facebook.com and Google.com accounted for 14% of all US Internet visits last week.
Even though Google has a higher percentage share of the market in the UK than it does in the US. It’s only a matter of time in my opinion before Facebook becomes more visited than Google in the UK. All the teenagers in our family seem to live on the website, checking it 20, 30 times a day. And as smartphones become more affordable and the kids all start using iphones, the usage is going to skyrocket as they will be quite literally plugged into facebook all day long, and annoying this bitter old mid 30′s bloke with the constant updates, application invites, event attending and general nonsense.
For this years Christmas party, we made our annual hommage to our local for some amazing food. If you are ever in Altrincham, make sure you grab yourself something to eat at The Victoria, considering its a pub the food is amazing.
We then trawled the bars of Altrincham, before ending up in Hale, where we had our offices for a bit and ending up in the club that was called 161 and is now called something that i can’t remmeber.
Anyway as Christmas Parties go it was quite low on the incident count, with no fights, arguing, nakedness or any of that.
Charlie Stole the show with his shirt that you can see in the photo to the right.
I’ve been having problems generally surfing the web through all web browsers with bethere internet.
This is how you fix it, in case you have the problem as well:
Please reset the DNS servers on the BeBox the following way and this should resolve the issue that you report:
1) go to Start Menu/All Programs/Accessories and open a Command Prompt
2) in Command Prompt type: telnet 192.168.1.254
3) for username use: Administrator and for password use the current password (there is no password by default).
4) after logging in, enter the following command:
dns server route list
dns server route flush
dns server route add dns=87.194.0.51 metric=1 intf=RoutedEthoA
dns server route add dns=87.194.0.52 metric=2 intf=RoutedEthoA
saveall
exit
Every now and then we get a distress call from a potential client, who has been let down by an existing agency, and are not happy with the progress of a project they have commissioned. The special red Bat phone started ringing one morning, and we took a call from a local business who were [...]
Every year we are caught out by the arrival of BETT, which is the UK’s largest technology educational trade show. One of our favourite clients (just in case they are reading this) are one of the main exhibitors at the show; so every November / December before we start the scribbles, brain storming we are [...]
Over the years we’ve had many many Search Marketing clients, all with different ideas, different businesses, some are new to marketing their website, others have come from other companies, disgruntled at how they have been treated. Usually they tell us that they were promised a number 1 ranking in Google for the term they asked [...]
We like to do a good turn every now and then at oomagoo, so when I was approached by my sons schol to help them with their web presence, I was only too happy to help. Stamford Park is one of those gems hidden in the streets of Hale, over 100 years old, and packed [...]
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Something amazing happened last week in the internet world. The unstoppable force, met the immovable object. And finally, somebody has toppled the giant that is Google, In America anyway.
