Coast Radar was faced with a problem that many other websites are also struggling with. The whole idea that visitors are using different sized devices and expect a tailored experience. At first we worked on a main website, mobile website and iphone application but this just became too expensive and complicated to keep in sync.

After listening to what the users were saying we decided on a completely new version of the website.

The beta is a mechanism where we can share our new vision and still have time to take on-board people’s comments.

At a high level the changes of the new website are:

• Clearer navigation outside of maps.
      We have provided a new text link navigation system where you start at a continent, then look at countries, then states, then actual listings.
• People who enter at a beach listing from the search engine said it is long winded to see other elements close by.
      We have added a breadcrumb at the top of a page labelled “You are at :: ” where the green parts are links to allow you to easily move backwards and forwards. This means you can easily move up from an entry to the region, from a region to the country, etc.
• People only want to be told about the area they are looking at rather than maps of the world with 1000′s of markers.
      We have changed the whole site to show information based on the context. For example, if you are looking at The United Kingdom you will see the regions/states, where as if you are looking at a state you will see the listings within it.
• People want a mechanism whereas they can ask businesses and other people for advice on a coastal area.
      We have expanded the community to provide a full social environment where people can freely ask questions and share experiences.
• People wanted a mechanism to plan plan and record a trip.
  We have allowed FREE travel Blogs within the community to plan, record and share a trip.
• People want a single website to map to the device they are using, a laptop, tablet or mobile phone and don’t want to have to swap between mobile, desktop and mobile application versions.
      This was a complete re-design to provide a responsive website that adapts to the screen size being used. We will discontinue our iphone and mobile website versions.
• Businesses wanted a mechanism to communicate with other businesses and people interested in the coast.
  The new community website allows people to discuss topics within what we calls groups. Groups can be PUBLIC – open to everyone, PRIVATE – people have to request membership of the group Admin or HIDDEN where people have top be invited. Anyone can start a group.
  
• People wanted a faster site.
  Although the beta does not use it, when the new website goes live it will use an international Content Delivery Network (CDN) to provide faster access to content.

Why not go and have a play at beta.coastradar.com

Technology wise, the main website is a custom HTML 5 fluid design and the community makes use of WordPress and Buddypress.

Any questions then just drop us an email or give us a call at +44 (0)20 8123 8159

The Coast Radar mobile website version 1 has been launched today and can be seen at www.coastradar.mobi

The site works by discovering the current position and then displaying listings based on this location, listings currently cover the Beach Guide, Things to Do Guide, Shopping Guide and Places to Eat Guide from the main website. The site tries to adapt the various screen sizes from the 10 inch iPad to the much smaller mobile phones. With iPad/iPhones it supports the save to home page with icon and splash page.

If you want to search for locations rather than look from your current position you will have to use the main desktop website at www.coastradar.com, although we are looking to add this to version 2 later in the summer.

Give it a try, comments and improvement suggestions to the Coast Radar face book page (facebook/coastradar) or twitter (@coastradar).

In the last 12 months mobile devices have become the norm and now more people spend time researching using mobile devices. They now expect websites to be optimized for such devices.

This means if you designed your website 12-18 months ago you need to be thinking if it fits this model.

At Praeparo we point a lot of our customers towards WordPress nowadays for a number of reasons:

1) It is easy to keep up with trends. WordPress has lots of plugins to do all the latest things and provides upgrades that mean you don’t loose anything previously done.
2) You have full control and not your web design agency or web development team. For example, I am typing this on my FREE iPhone WordPress application whilst on the train. This used to be wasted time.
3) WordPress has mobile plugins that just detect a mobile device and then change automatically.
4) Want a new design just change the theme and don’t worry about the content.
5) Want a social media site, membership site, online shop; WordPress plugins exist for all.

These are just some reasons that enables organizations big or small to get a website to meet needs at a cost suitable to business size. The website then keeps with all the latest trends at a very cheap cost.

Speak to Praeparo today for ideas on how WordPress can eliminate the expensive task of a website rewrite every few years.

Get your website in front of all your customers.

We will sit down with you in front of your website and generally walk through it and answer any of your concerns.

So if your business is local in towns like Hemel Hempstead, Berkhamsted, Tring, Aylesbury, Chesham, Amersham, St. Albans, Watford, Wendover or even as far as Milton Keynes just send a message on our contact us form or give us a call.

If you are further afield or you represent a trading body or business group then by all means contact us and we will see what we can do.

Some of the questions already asked include:
- my website looks dated, any ideas?
- how can I get more control over my website content and not always have to pay for changes?
- what does SEO mean to me?
- website review please?
- keyword selection tips?
- am I spending enough or too much on pay per click advertising?
- should I concentrate on local search?

As you can see we have covered and helped a lot of businesses. Again, no obligation to purchase anything.

If you’d like to know more, call us today on 020 8123 8159.

Praeparo thinks this is a good idea as we all should be creating a good user experience. Page load time is critical in a user experience as if we can’t convince the user the site is good in a few seconds they will just bounce.

The only area of concern is that some sites to create a good user experience are rich in content that slows the page down. This is acknowledged and accepted by the users BUT how will Google handle this? In this case we should just accept that these pages will not rank so high and thus create other more focused landing pages that then direct to the slower pages for more information.

Very important for all website owners to evaluate page speed and create an action plan to rectify any pain points. This does not have to be expensive, we suggest find the quick wins and make any changes as part of your usual maintenance or content refresh processes.

But remember DON’T PANIC as content is still the leading factor. Page speed is only a very small element of the overall ranking algorithms.

If you have concerns please get in touch with Praeparo and we can quickly help you find out if you have a problem or not.

This technically works but loses you points in the search engine optimisation game. Thus, it is much better to have a human understandable URL, for example www.mydomain.com/menswear/jumpers

However, this can create problems where the same end page can be reached through multiple navigation paths. This can result in what the search engine sees as duplicate content. A search engine flags duplicate content when it sees the same content at more than one URL.

You need to have a careful naming strategy to ensure this does not happen. For example in an ecommerce web site:

Categories: www.mydomain.com/category

Subcategories: www.mydomain.com/category/subcategory

Products: www.mydomain.com/products

The key element of the above strategy is that the products are not listed under categories. This means that if multiple categories have the same product they will point at the ONE product page, helping with much valued internal links.

The example above refers to an ecommerce site like oscommerce or OSCMax but the problem can also occur in blogging software like WordPress or web site builder packages.

Praeparo can work with you and help you understand the correct strategies for your web site and also help with an implementation plan that will have limited risk on your current search engine rankings.

Praeparo are offering a 50% reduction on our strategy workshop was £995 now £495.

For this you get an expert on site for a day to discuss your website and internet marketing strategy and help you validate the current plan and discuss improvements and way forwards.

This is not a formal report generation meeting but a real person sitting down with yourselves and talking through ideas. We admit that we may not have all the answers but will either point you at a relevant resource to get an answer or we will take away the question and get back to you.

The agenda can be anything you want but we typically think a discussion around:

• Where you currently think you are?
• Where you think you are going?
• Gap analysis between you current and future state.
• Start to discuss how the gaps can be addresses.

Use our contact form or give us a call on 020 8123 8159 to start the ball rolling.

Remember, visitors hitting your website and thus purchasing don’t come by accident, as the internet gets more competitive you need to be on top of what your competitors are doing.

Note: onsite visit for UK customer within 150 miles of postcode HP22. Other will be considered but travel may incur a small charge.

Often this is because any new visitor will want to gain confidence that the organisation behind the website is real and not too risky to do business with. In the offline world you automatically evaluate a company based on physical details like premises, staff politeness, packaging etc. Website visitors need to do the same but they don’t have the physical aspects at hand. Some of the items they look for and thus you need to plan into your website design are:

• High quality website design.
• Website always available (good hosting).
• Postal address clearly displayed (not a PO Box).
• Real phone number (not just a mobile).
• Secure website (SSL – https) when entering any personal details.
• Privacy policy.
• Terms and conditions.
• Guarantees/refund policies.
• Customer list or portfolio.
• Trade body memberships.
• Fresh content.
• External recommendations or reviews.

If a website is not managed correctly with respect to the above list it can damage a brand that has been heavily invested in offline or traditional marketing. In all cases a brand must be protected at all costs.

Take a step back and have a look at your website and measure against your competitors. Ask the question – would I do business with these people?

Praeparo have long been designing and marketing websites and can provide a free evaluation of your current website – click here!

Too often we see organsiations just try and pick up existing business values and place them on the internet. This results in a lack of focus as to what the internet actually means to the business. The internet offers most businesses extra oportunities but at the same face stiffer competition challenges as information is all too readily available.

If you imagine opening a shop on a high street where all shops are the same size and offer exactly the same products or services. You can see this is a bigger challenge than being the lone provider on a high street. Well the internet is like this, you need to be able to convince your target audience to enter your shop and not the others, but the challenge is you only have a few seconds to convince them.

So what do we need to consider whilst formulating our OVP?

• target audience
• uniqueness of product and services
• challenges that the internet brings to your products and services
• differentiation over similar offerings by online competitors
• how does this differ from the offline value proposition
• how will we demonstrate this proposition
• how does it tie into the company brand

It maybe the case where diverse or larger organistions have multiple OVPs to support product ranges or different target audiences.

In everycase the OVP becomes a central pin to all online planning and strategy and needs to be reflected along with the brand in all comunications. Each OVP needs to be defined and expanded on, at Praeparo we like to think of 30-3-30 – can you explain the OVP to a new person in 30 seconds (the elevator pitch), 3 minutes (the coffee machine pitch) and 30 minutes (the formal pitch).

Once you have scripted these pitches you need to test them out on individuals from your target markets. Often we become too close to the business and take certain concepts for granted that need to be explained to our target audience. Once we are satisfied then these pitches get translated to:

• 30 seconds – tag line summary and images
• 3 minutes – main content of relevant pages
• 30 minutes – about us pages

Everyone in the organisation needs to understand these 3 pitches so that like the brand the OVP is consistently communicated.

Click here to read full press release!

The new website allows travelers to quickly and easily “Discover the Shoreline” with a very focused and relevant search based on visitor reviews. Coast Radar provides a full Beach Guide, a complete Weather Station, an Activity Guide, Kit Bag and full list of Services and Accommodations.

The Beach Guide features an online search locating beaches by region or by map. It also offers the top 10 beaches and allows users to suggest a beach. The Weather Station offers current weather conditions, the previous day’s highs and lows and the precipitation forecast. The Activity Guide helps travelers find things to do on the coast ranging from leisurely walks and hikes to surfing and sailing. The Kit Bag helps visitors locate shops for all their travel accessory needs. The Services Guide provides a list of schools, instructors and guides and the Accommodation Guide provides a list of friendly places to stay near the beach of choice.

There are several ways to search using the website. The “Quick Jump” takes users straight to a Google Map of a specific location. Users can also browse through maps based on categories of Beach, Activities, Kit Bag, Services and Accommodations; or users can browse through a region and narrow the search by selecting text links.

Coast Radar gathers its information based on visitor submissions. The site also offers business listings for local area businesses to advertise a service, shop or accommodation. While the site is currently focused on the UK, other coastal regions will soon be added to the site.

For further information, or to “Discover the Shoreline,” please visit www.coastradar.com