Name of your website?Curved Vision's presentation skills
Your name?
Simon Raybould
Your Location (city, etc)
Newcastle upon Tyne
When did you start your website and why?
The website itself started as an online brochure but now we use it more to host the blog we run about how to make presentations and speak in public: it's called TellingPeople after one of our public courses.
Please give us a short summary of your website, business model, etc
We work for two groups of clients - corporates and individuals. The former get in-house training whilst the latter can use our public training days.
What has been the most difficult part of creating and running your website?
I wanted to feed the latest blog entry directly onto the front page so that people didn't need to go to the blog if they didn't want to.
What has been the easist part of operating your website?
The basic site was easy! Learning html was a piece of cake, although I've not had time to get up to speed on CSS yet.
What was your biggest mistake?
Biggest mistake? Where to start!!?!?
Probably the SEO stuff we did at the beginning - originally the site had no on page SEO, then we re-designed for the engines only.. finally we designed for the readers again and hoped the SEO would work out okay!
Who maintains your website and why?
We maintain it ourselves 'cos it's fun. (Updating the website is a cool alternative to actually working!)
Tell us how your business has benefitted from your website?
It's been the simple shop-window for us. Almost all our work comes to us from word-of-mouth but people have a "check the website" filter too. They need the say-so from friends first and then look online for our details.
What are your views on Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
It's a pain. I'd like to find a way of a site being ranked by the basis of the quality of the site/product rather than the quality of its SEO but that's just a pipe-dream, I know.
What are your views on Search Engines? Have they helped or hindered your website?
Helped at the moment - we're on page one for google.co.uk for "presentation skills training"
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
I wish I knew! If I did I'd do more of it. :(
What method has been least successful for promoting your website?
It's a waste of time to have the web address on business stationary 'cos no one picks up from there, but it's "expected".
What would you like to see change with respect to the internet?
I'd love it to get less advert covered! It seems everywhere I go I have to mentally filter out half the page 'cos it's covered with ads. Okay, so Google does a good job of making them relevant, but still not relevant enough for me to actually *want* them! :)
What is your website address?
Curved Vision's presentation skills
