In almost all consumer business areas the online competition for high ranking organic and paid search  non-geographic keyword phrases is extremely high. Of course, you can achieve high rankings for generic keywords but if you are pursuing organic Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) as a strategy then you need to be patient for the results and put in a lot of work or pay someone else to do it for you and if you are utlising Paid Search then although the results are almost instantaneous you need to be prepared to pay a high Cost per Click (CPC) which depending on your conversion rate could end up being very expensive.

Therefore, if you want to compete for the generic non-geographic keywords whether you’re opting for a strategy of SEO or Paid Search or indeed both, you’ll need to be prepared to invest both time (either yours or someone elses) and money - you’re objectives, resources and budget will define exactly how much of both. That’s exactly what successful worldwide, nationwide or wholly online businesses targeting the most competitive non-geographic keywords have to do.

If however, you’re primarily an offline ‘bricks and mortar’ business that relies on footfall from your surrounding area and are by your very essence targeting a specific village, town, city or county then Local Search is defnitely the route you should be considering as your starting point. Afterall, if let’s say you’re a restaurant in Notting Hill, do you really need to be promoting yourself to people outside of London? Probably not, if potential customers were coming from outside London on business or for a holiday and they wanted to find a restaurant online then they’d most likely search for something like a ‘restaurant in notting hill’. So on that basis you’d definitely want to promote yourself geographically for the search term Notting Hill but then you may also want to expand your Search Engine Marketing (SEM) whether SEO or Paid Seartch to include nearby villages like Kensington and Westborune Grove, maybe West London or perhaps even London as a whole. Either way, if you’re limited on budget and resource you stand a much greater chance of success by localising your SEM.

I’ll use a client case study and SEO to demonstrate this further.  The client is called Beautcamp Pilates and they’re credited with bringing reformer pilates over to London from LA. Their business is extremely successful due to their professionalism and quality of service and they have large studios in both East and West London. As with many ‘first movers’ that are successful you get a lot of competition surfacing after the event all playing catch-up, all searching for a piece of that success and competition is good thing so long as it is ethical…

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Increasingly now your online reptutation can be the making or breaking of you and your business.

In this day and age whether a potential customer is looking for a service or a business is looking for a new supplier more often than not the person or business looking will look to verify the company, its product or service online by doing a simple search via one of the leading search engines.

This is fine but what happens if a disgruntled employee or a disatisifed customer or indeed more sinisterly a competitor decides to voice their negative opinions of you and your company online. For example, you’ve just left a potential client after giving a pretty impressive presentation and you feel that the closing of the deal is imminent. However, when you call back to speak with the potential client the tone has changed and gone from hot to decidely cold overnight. Did you ever consider that the potential client may have done a search for you online and received negative if not damming information about you or your company?

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Hatch are pleased to announce the launch of www.patricklewisarchitects.com. This is a website focusing on revolutionary architecture. The architect has a clear simplistic style using modest materials.

The website, developed by Hatch reflects this by combining many different components in a discrete way. The moving images containing structural elements and buildings are featured in grey scale this filtered effect illustrates the principle and character of the architects.

The website gives off a feeling of calmness and professionalism. All the elements are beautifully combined to give the two components (website and architects) quality and integrity.

Hatch are please to announce to all car enthusiasts, that the Smith and Hunter website is now live.

One of the features of the new website is the ability for users to book their car in for servicing online, choosing a date and time that suits them.

Looking for your dream car?

Well now you don’t have to! By filling in a quick and easy form online, Smith and Hunter will do all the legwork for you; helping you find the car of your dreams at the best possible price. Oh and did we mention that they can sell your car for you as well?

After registering online, users will have the option to sign up for a loyalty card. This card will enable users to receive discounts on parts and labour, early notification on special offers and first refusal on service slots.

With all these features coupled together with its superb functionality, some car enthusiasts would suggest that this was another ‘top gear’ performance by Hatch…we would like to think so too.