Housekeeping

I try and make a 'semi' regular habit of update and making minor changes a few times a year to our website. Nothing too drastic or life altering and for the most part no one but me will notice these changes but I think I need to do this to ensure my business and website is running at its best.

Over the weekend I updated all of the descriptions for our wonderful gifts and try to make them all cohesive and looking the same. In general they did but there were always a few differences, whether meant or accidental, that I was not happy with so decided to get stuck in.

This may sound easy and for the most part it was just 'involved' but whenever you are working with the behind the scenes of a website there is always the possibility of messing something up! I had a few, 'oh no what have I done' moments but thankfully nothing too drastic happened and I didn't break it.

Now all of the gifts descriptions look the same with the exact same font and colours and the same flow. I've tried to be a simple as I can in the way it's set out without losing the 'fun' and 'quirkiness' I've always tried to put into the website. I want it to read well and to be easy to understand without it being boring.

Now all gifts have their exact contents listed, then a list of what is also 'always' included but a list of the cool (well I think so) little extras Rainbow Designs provide.

I also updated the Contact Us page. I had been having problems with an excessive amount of spam coming through this form but hope that it is all sorted now. This form is easy to understand and fill out and hopefully will encourage potential customers to contact us if they're unsure of something or just want to ask about delivery or make a request. The easier I can make our website to use the more likely people will stay to browse, bookmark it for latter use and eventually place an order (or two).

The front home page also got a little makeover making it less busy and hopefully easier to see what we offer. The same with the delivery page, just a few small amendments to make sure all the information is easy to understand and up to date.

More behind the scenes work was done in regards to SEO (search engine optimisation) and getting the keywords and product descriptions right and hopefully picked up by Google. It's always been one of the hardest things with our website, getting on the first page of google for our main keywords. It's all well and good having a gorgeous website and fabulous products but if noone knows you exist and you don't show up anywhere online when searches are made you may as well stay in bed! These changes are more a waiting game as updates to search engines can take time, sometimes a lot of time. When I make seo changes I then need to leave them be for a good three months or so to see if they've made a difference. If nothing seems to have changed or worse the listing is going backwards and go and make a few minor changes (and cross my fingers).

We've got some new products in the pipeline and I am so excited. I cannot wait to be able to share them and start sending them around Australia.

The next major occasion is Easter - mid April so I am gearing up for this and will start making a few slight changes to the website as well as do some promotion work and possibly advertising.

Jacqui ~ Rainbow Designs boss(y) lady and seo expert (not really but wishes she was!)