What is it? How do you do it? Does anyone on here do it?

Need to make this http://www.burnthecurtain.co.uk more visable/ user friendly before an up coming event, so any thoughts and observations much appreciated.

And most importantly…

How much does it cost?

Cheers All…..

I think that you really will need to start from the bottom and get the most basic things right first.

firstly, drop the landing page clickthrough thingy and just get the sitre hosted where it says it is…

http://www.wix.com/eviljoe/burnthecurtain

this url won’t get you much on google.

site seems a bit odd – the whole thing’s in a frame?

It’s one big flash movie, hosted as a sub directory, on a 3rd party’s domain. Worst case scenario possible for ‘optimisation’ ??

If you want it ‘optimised’ – i.e. rank high in the search engines – it will be most effective for a complete re-design…

(I’m serious…)

before an up coming event

whens the event? as this is the bit your going to strugle with if it’s soon.

How much does it cost?

as much as you have got to spend.
and depends on what keywords/phrases you want to be in the listings for.

Does anyone on here do it?

Part of my job is this.

xiphon is right about the redesign.

woah! The whole thing is written in flash and buried in two levels of iframe, I’d be surprised if google could find the content at all. If it’s important to you I’d rewrite the whole site in decent, standard and valid html and css. There’s nothing on that site I can see that couldn’t be done fairly easily with that and maybe a little bit of javascript for the image carousels. Google can read some flash content but possibly not any on your site, having a play with googles webmaster tools may let you see if it can find any. oh and what wwaswas said 🙂

Yeah, I thought that using wix might be an issue- it was the quickest way I could find to make a site, not being an expert. If the front page is standard html, can’t that be optimised, to then lead on to the site itself?

firstly, drop the landing page clickthrough thingy and just get the sitre hosted where it says it is…

http://www.wix.com/eviljoe/burnthecurtain

this url won’t get you much on google.Yeah it’s a pain, but couldn’t find a way to make the site use the http://www.burnthecurtain.co.uk address.

If anyone wants to drop me a quote go right ahead, email in my profile 🙂

Event is end of May, and in June.

Cheers for your advice!

As a user I hate all flash websites and soon switch off.

The tone of the text on there also turned me off a little bit. Seems a little.. I dunno.. over-selling itself? Should probably just specifically say what you do imo. Slogans etc can go elsewhere on the page if they must.

If anyone wants to drop me a quote

be warned (from personal experience), it is very easy to get hugely ripped off by cowboys promising the world.

there are also some large web design companies who leave out some very basic elements to9 get the whole sem ball rolling.

imho though its relatively easy to make inroads yourself, but the more competitive the market the harder it is.

i cannot afford to pay an expert (even if i could find one) so am self taught. i use wysiwyg website design software that cost 40quid, read sem books and read sem blogs. i do not profess to be an expert, indeed i’m not, but i’m happy with the results i get for my sites and a few other people i’ve helped along the way.

if you want the specifics of the stuff i use/read feel free to email me.

I’ve used these people;

http://www.blueicewebdesign.co.uk/index.html

in the past – did exactly what they said, allowed loads of changes and was only hundreds, not thousands of pounds.

What every else said.

The only thing I’d add is why do you need SEO? If you type “Burn the Curtain” into google you are top of the list. Yes, you could improve your home page so there was a bit of useful content listed by google, but if most people are searching for you by your name you may end up spending a fair bit of money on something that doesn’t really benefit you.

If you do rebuild it. Try to use someone who can demonstrate with other sites they can design and build. And have a clear plan of the site content and how it will all work. Web design is one of those things that can very quickly get out of control.

Are you talking accessibility rather than optimisation?

i.e. ability to ensure the site works across more platforms, or getting it higher up in search engine rankings?

2 different processes really.

Building a website is easy.

Building a good website is hard.

If you type “Burn the Curtain” into google you are top of the list

But if you type in ‘alternative theatre’ or some similar..?

What is it? How do you do it? Does anyone on here do it?

eviljoe – I will drop you an email later. I work in the SEO field.

The only thing I’d add is why do you need SEO? If you type “Burn the Curtain” into google you are top of the list. Yes, you could improve your home page so there was a bit of useful content listed by google, but if most people are searching for you by your name you may end up spending a fair bit of money on something that doesn’t really benefit you.

I would have thought the idea is to get people who have not heard of Burn the Curtain but after after what the site has to offer. If the site didn’t come up 1st for a search on ‘Burn the Curtain’ you and google would have a big problem. 😆

What I would suggest is creating a Blog based on the content and linking to the site. That site is never going to get close to SEO rankings and money thrown at it would be money wasted – whereas a blog will be SEO friendly – just get lots of keyword rich content in there.

You could also do a Facebook page and get all your friends to spread the word – good for generating interest and Facebook is now SEO friendly too so set up an open group and let people come find it and contribute.

And of course Twitter – set up a Twitter account and spread the word.

2011 is the year when Social Media SEO really takes off.

Flash No Goody.

All good advice- thanks STW collective.

Yup, getting ‘burn the curtain’ to come up is no problem, but we would need ‘children’s theatre’ and ‘outdoor events’ ‘theatre in the south west’ etc etc to also bring us up, as what we do is fairly new in most people’s minds, and slips between ‘events’ and ‘theatre’ and ‘family entertainment’ – hence the need for this ere new fangled SEO stuff.

Blog site does sound like a good idea :-)Not like I particularly needed/wanted any sleep in the next 2 months!

Also find local listings sites and family day out sites to list it for you.

Such as…

http://www.dayoutwiththekids.co.uk/

IMO the fewer people exposed to alternative theatre the better

What mastiles_fanylion said. Also…

As part of the blog, write about children’s theatre generally. Something in the news about children’s theatre, write about it. Another show nearby, write about it. Use the key search terms that you want in the blog post titles.

Link to these posts from your Twitter account. Make sure the Twitter account is following relevant people and engage with people on Twitter. Search Twitter for people tweeting about theatre and follow them.

miketually actually talks sense.

At the end of the day you have to put yourself in the customers’ heads – as you said yourself as what we do is fairly new in most people’s minds, and slips between ‘events’ and ‘theatre’ and ‘family entertainment’ so people won’t be searching for it, won’t even be thinking about it. What they WILL be doing is stumbling across things and thinking to themselves ‘hey – that sounds fun, I’ll look that one up’.

And the way they do that is by finding out about it on Twitter, seeing their friends ‘like’ it on Facebook…

SEO isn’t what you want – SMO is what you need.

iDave – Member
IMO the fewer people exposed to alternative theatre the better

+1 😀

miketually actually talks sense.

It happens something.

I can’t see the site at all, by the way; I get a page telling me I need the newer Flash player. I can’t do that, because I don’t have admin rights on this machine.

Flash is the work of the devil and is utterly redundant for 99% of applications now.

Flash is the work of the devil and is utterly redundant for 99% of applications now.

+1

It happens something.

It happens sometimes.

Ironic that I’d make a mistake typing that.

So why would the website design I used (wix) use it? Should it only be embedded in sites?

It happens sometimes.

Just not that time.

So why would the website design I used (wix) use it?

Some developers can only use Flash and they aren’t going to turn work down. Some clients still think Flash is clever n stuff and want to use it cos it makes things move and that.

We try to never use it at all evererer if we can help it (just have some older sites with bits on).

So why would the website design I used (wix) use it?

It will look the same in every browser, so for build-it-yourself sites it’s easier to use Flash.

It will look the same in every browser

Unless you are on an iPhone/iPad etc…. 😉

But who cares about them? 🙂

Managed to look at the site now that I’m at home. Looks like the text content could be moved wholescale to a WordPress-based site, fairly quickly and easily.

The videos are already on YouTube, so leave them there.

The image slideshows could be move to sets in Flickr and then the sets embedded in the blog.