The Brief

Shob Plastering & Tiling is a family run business headed by Shaun Heyward and caters for all types of domestic plastering and tiling in the Wrexham, Oswestry and Chester area. They are a start-up business and needed to develop a brand and website which reflected their high standard of work and outstanding service. As with all new ventures, they had no previous search engine ranking so it was important to target their chosen keywords successfully.

Our Solution

We developed a clean and modern brand identity via a series of development meetings which included various options and ideas. Once the brand was finalised we started on their website.  Keywords were chosen and an initial wire-frame was designed and then once Shaun approved, the site was built and optimised for SEO. As with all new brands, stationary was needed so we designed and printed business cards and letterheads.

Testimonial

“I was extremely pleased with Ben and Frozen Grape’s design for our new website and couldn’t wait for it to come to life. The logo they came up with was spot on and our new business cards and letterheads look fantastic.”

Visit: www.shob.co.uk

The Brief

Wrexham Arts is an online hub for the arts and culture sector in Wrexham and the surrounding areas. The idea for the website was raised in response to the demand from local venues, organisations and the public for an online presence to publicise events and news. It was highlighted by 2009′s ‘Taking The Arts Forward’ held by the Wrexham County Borough Council. The central aim is to unify the incredible variety of organisations and activities under one banner so that residents of, and visitors to, the area can find out what’s going on at the click of a mouse.

We teamed up with Rampant Dragon Ltd which runs The Foundry, Wrexham’s Creative Industries Business Centre and with the help of the Wrexham County Borough Council, the site was launched at the 2010 Wrexham Arts Festival.

Our Solution

To enable members of the arts community to add their own content to the website, we developed a Content Management System in order for them to login, add their events and also talk to other members via a private message board. An e-newseltter function was added to collect email from visitors to the site to enable a monthly newsletter to be sent out to the subscribers. A new brand was created to relate to the arts community and also several print materials were developed.

Visit: www.wrexhamarts.com

A question that is raised by some of our clients is ‘Why am I not getting any traffic to my site?’. This question is usually raised within the first couple of weeks since the launch and this is the exact reason why.

It takes time for a website to be efficiently ‘crawled’ by search engines and once this happens your site will start to appear in search results.

Patience is a virtue here! In our experience we’ve had a website picked up in a couple of days and other times a few weeks. Once the search ‘crawler’ has picked up your site it will then take a few days for your website to settle within the search result rankings.

What effects my search ranking?

There are a number of issues, but these are the main ones:

• How competitive your chosen keywords are
• Your websites structure and ease of navigation
• If your website code is clean, tidy and validates
• How many ‘backlinks’ you have (relevant and genuine links to your website from other sites)

Tired of waiting?

There are a number of ways to drive traffic to your site before it becomes settled in with the search engine rankings.

• Pay Per Click Advertising – this enables you to appear in the ’sponsored’ Google links in search results using the Google AdWords program.
• Social Media Marketing – setup a Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn account to produce some direct traffic to your site.
• Good old fashioned marketing – business cards, brochures, leaflets and networking are classic ways of getting people interested in your services and in turn your website.

So the question is, why would you need to use a different browser?

The main reason is security – as identified in the recent Google China hacks. Many of the viruses, spyware and adware across the internet are made possible because of the flaws in Internet Explorer, sometimes requiring nothing more than the user visiting an infected website or tricking them into installing software.

What can be done to stop this?

The simple answer is to user a different and more secure browser.

• Firefox is the most popular alternative, which is publicly proud of its security and also its flexibility in terms of the thousands of ‘add-ons‘ you can install to help you become more productive.
• In 2008 Google launched its own browser ‘Chrome‘ which is renowned for its speed and ease of use.

Most organisations send out their marketing messages directly to other Twitterers’ inboxes, whilst others choose to send out links within their tweets.

What they don’t seem to understand is that most of the ‘twitter verse see these as nothing more but annoying spam.

Below is a list of 5 hints that, if followed correctly, will hopefully see your followers increase, clickthroughs soar and customer loyalty strengthen:

1. A personal approach
Try and be as personal as possible, not like a corporate robot repeating the same marketing messages.

2. Respond
Always be sure to respond to any form of contact, be it a @ reply or a direct mail. This will add to 1.

3. Don’t use hash-tags!
You’ll notice that some people add the most popular hash-tags on to their tweets to attract more responses. This doesn’t work – its just as bad as spamming!

4. Re-tweet useful links
If you find a tweet that is likely to be of interest to your followers/customers, then re-tweet it – they may just thank you.

5. A support desk
You could use your Twitter account as a live support desk for your goods or services. Many businesses are doing this – just make sure you have the time and resources to use it efficiently.

The Brief

Tycon Automation Ltd, Wrexham is a provider of industrial automation services covering the whole spectrum of system life cycle. They are a new start-up and needed to develop a brand which conveyed their status as a fresh, modern and sector leading business. As with all new ventures, they had no previous search engine ranking so it was important target their chosen keywords successfully.

Our Solution

We developed a fresh and clean brand identity which reflected the nature of this company. The web presence we developed for them was tailored to produce great search engine ranking whilst still being attractive in appearance.

Testimonial

“Frozen Grape were extremely efficient and had our new website up and running in a matter of days. We are very pleased with the result of our new brand and will have no hesitation in commending their work to others.”

Visit: www.tyconautomation.co.uk

The Brief

Central Station is a live music venue based in the heart of Wrexham. They came to use wanting to convert their current site across to a more user-friendly Content Management System enabling both their staff and also external promoters to be able to login and add to/edit the site. They also wanted a new email capturing system, better search engine ranking and the integration of social media to create more of a community website.

Our Solution

We stripped out their previous CMS system and installed WordPress – renowned for its user-friendliness and accessibility. A new email capturing system was put in place in order to sign up visitors to their regular email newsletters. A Twitter account and Facebook page was setup and integrated throughout the site. We undertook a full review of their search engine positioning and implemented changes to their content. This produced fantastic results and they are now ranking #1 for their chosen keywords.

Visit: www.centralstationvenue.com

The Brief

Delta Academy of Dance & Performing Arts came to Frozen Grape wanting a full redesign of their website. We visited their studios in Tan-y-F near Wrexham to soak in the vibrant, young and energetic atmosphere of their classes in order to get a feel for the design of their new site.

Our Solution

We chose a ‘theatre’ theme for their website to reflect the aspiring attitudes of their current and prospective students. We integrated videos, an event calendar and a Flickr photo-stream to make it as eye catching as possible. Search engine optimisation was essential for their chosen keywords to attract new students.

Testimonial

“Everyone thinks the website is absolutely fantastic!”

Visit: www.deltaacademy.co.uk

The Brief

Being the only place online to find out about the local music scene in Wrexham, the brief from wrexhammusic.co.uk was to be ‘untouchable’!

Our Solution

Following several brainstorming sessions with the people who run wrexhammusic.co.uk we decided to use a Content Management System in order to handle the different authors who write for the site, to enable the expandability of the website as the content grows each day and to implement some community features. The site is optimised for specific keywords which return #1 results for all of them. We implemented a Social Media Strategy which involved setting up a branded Twitter page and Facebook group in order to encourage repeat traffic. The color scheme and branding was created to be instantly eye-catching and to reflect their youthful target audience.

Visit: www.wrexhammusic.co.uk

The Brief

Riva Eco Interiors is a Bath and London based interior design studio which endeavours to use environmentally safe materials in all of their projects. Alison Riva, the owner of the company, got in touch with Frozen Grape to produce a web presence which she could edit and add to herself and some print material for use at exhibitions.

Our Solution

Working closely with Alison we developed a website which reflected her strong environmental principles and exhibited her impressive project list. A Content Management System was used to enable her to easily edit and add to the website and we optimised the site for her specific keywords in order to gain great search engine results. We designed and printed promotional postcards for Alison to use at the various exhibitions she attends across the UK.

Visit: www.riva-interiors.com