Tell us a bit about your working background and how Mad About Pies came about.

I came to the UK from Dublin in 1989 and purchased my main business, The Farmers Boy Inn in Longhope, Gloucestershire in September 2000.

Due to continuing success, I started MadAboutPies.co.uk in early 2011 and over the past year the success has continued to grow, having gone from selling online to now distributing too many top Football and Rugby teams and many catering distributors. All of our pies are cooked on our own facilities and we take pride in the quality of the pies.

You worked with Clear Web Services to develop your website, what were you looking for in a web designer/developer and how did you decide who to hire?

I have used the guys at Clear Web Services for a few web design and marketing projects previously, so they were my first choice for MadAboutPies.co.uk. They offer everything I want from a company I need to trust to deliver.

You will always speak to one of the MD’s, Ian or Will, rather than just getting through to someone you don’t know, which means they always know me and my business. They deliver fantastic results, are quick to make the changes I need and above all, are just a local company that continue to deliver results that I would expect from a large national agency, so I am delighted to be with them.

What did you set out to achieve with Mad About Pies’ site design?

I wanted a stunning site and I wanted it to be different from anything else online in my industry and I think we achieved it! It had to be sleek, product focused and feature enough information without being overloaded.

How does your website relate to your physical business and how do you advertise it?

For MadAboutPies.co.uk I have used Cost Per Click to really promote the business, but I am discussing some SEO plans with Clear Web Services and will probably go down that route as the year goes on.

MadAboutPies.co.uk is part of my umbrella of businesses, which all relate to each other but are totally separate in many ways. I have vans on the road, promotional material everywhere and I promote my business via social media outlets and the Internet. I think outside the box.

What are the benefits of having a website to help sell your pies?

It makes my business national. When you are online you can sell anywhere, any when and to anyone, which takes my business from a Gloucestershire business to a national business and possibly a global business when we start to sign our European contracts which we should achieve this year.

The Internet allows my business to be accessed by millions of people, rather than just a local or niche group that I would have to target my advertising towards.

What advice would you give to someone looking to sell physical products (particularly food) online?

Front everything yourself. I am the face and image of my business which means people trust my business because they trust me. It also makes things more personal and my customers want to trust me and therefore trust my products.

It is also vital that you make sure your products have amazing images and good descriptions, because online you have only seconds to make a sale and the two biggest factors are images and of course price.

Why did you choose to host Mad About Pies with Heart Internet?

The company I choose to do all of my web design and web marketing, Clear Web Services, have recommended you guys for years on end and I of course wanted to keep my sites with Clear Web Services, which meant hosting with Heart.

They have been hosting all of their sites with you for many years and I have been very impressed with the stability and efficiency of the hosting, especially when I was featured on TV show Four In A Bed and had a spike of traffic which resulted in issues, which Clear Web Services and Heart sorted quickly and very efficiently.

How did you go about asking people to vote for your site in the contest?

Between myself and Clear Web Services, we utilised Twitter and Facebook to tell people that we were up for an award and to ask them to vote for us.We also have thousands of loyal and happy customers, which means that we had a great base of happy people that were willing to help us win this award.

Social media is great for many things and spreading the word about this award was no different to advertising a new pie or special offer. As long as you have a good customer base, these are the people who will help your business become successful in so many ways.

What’s the future for Mad About Pies (both the business in general and the website)?

We are continuing to expand our range and offer new pies and gastro food items all of the time. We have recently signed a few exciting and massive contracts with independent retails and distributors that will see our pies hit the high streets in a big way throughout 2012. We never stand still and are always moving forward, with a large European contract also looking quite good for the year ahead.

Name:Jenni Brown

About:Jenni is Heart Internet's SEO & Social Media Marketing Executive. Responsible for blogging, SEO and Heart Internet's Twitter and Facebook engagement, Jenni is a social network enthusiast and has been blogging for a decade.

Posts by Jennifer (99)

Tell us a bit about yourself and the Kindle Users Forum.

I have been a self-employed web developer for a number of years, but The Kindle Users Forum (or KUF as our members generally call it) is my first venture into actually running my own forum. Running the forum does require a lot of time and effort, but is very rewarding as it is the ideal opportunity for me to indulge both my creative skills and my passion for reading. The Kindle has definitely changed the way I read for the better; it has introduced me to many new authors and reminded me of my love for the classics.

Where did the idea for a Kindle-themed forum come from?

The idea for KUF was conceived whilst I waited, like thousands of other people, for Amazon to start shipping the Kindle in the UK. There was something like a 6 week delay between pre-ordering the Kindle and it actually shipping during which time I and many others were chatting and generally getting excited on Amazon’s own boards. Using the Amazon boards highlighted a few shortcomings like the lack of moderation and any real structure, so I had a thought about creating a dedicated forum more suited for long-term use. In truth, I hadn’t expected a great deal of interest and was very surprised when the members started rolling in.

How did you market KUF and attract members initially?

I had made quite a few acquaintances during the few weeks in which we were waiting for the Kindle to ship, so I mentioned to them that I was starting a new forum and thankfully they were interested enough to come along and register. It’s the getting started that proves most difficult as a forum will have very few posts and generally look a bit bare during its launch period, so I did find myself starting a lot of threads to encourage discussion. I think that KUF has been incredibly lucky to grow so quickly and most of the success can be attributed to the quality and inventiveness of our members’ posts.

Social media also plays an important part in any marketing now, so we also have Twitter and Facebook pages fed by the forum and these are starting to gain in popularity.

Forums are known to require plenty of management. How do you manage the forum effectively, and what tips would you give to someone thinking about building a community?

Thanks to our very dedicated moderators and a very amiable membership, running the forum is more of a pleasure than a chore. Naturally we’ve had a few problems with spam and trolling along the way, but this has been dealt with swiftly and decisively in each instance. We have a strict zero-tolerance policy for certain types of posts, but on the whole our rules are fairly lax as we want to spark discussion and not stifle it.

To someone who is thinking about running a forum, my advice would be to think carefully about what you will or won’t allow on the forum early on and stick to it. Deal with spammers as quickly as you can and don’t let their posts linger – show them that they are wasting their time. Value your members and try to accommodate their needs because they are the most important asset your forum has. Finally, and most importantly, make sure you have enough good moderators and listen to what they have to say when discussing the running of the forum.

What are the biggest challenges you face running the Kindle Users Forum?

For me personally the biggest challenge is structuring all of the information and features available from the site as there is a huge amount of content in addition to the forum front-end. There is so much to tell everyone and so many things that they can do as a member of the forum that it’s proving a very difficult job navigationally. I guess there are a lot of our members who have only used a fraction of what’s on offer purely because they don’t know about it. I aim to address this more in coming months, but it’s not proving easy.

Aside from this, it’s also a personal challenge to keep away from the forum because I enjoy it so much that I spend many, many hours on there. Sometimes this is behind the scenes adding new features, promoting or just answering emails and private messages, but often it is chatting and engaging with our members.

Why did you choose to host your forum with Heart Internet?

When the forum was first launched it was on a regular shared hosting package with Heart, but within a few months I realised that to take the forum where I wanted, I was going to require a powerful dedicated server so I opted for a quad core solution from Heart. To tell the truth, I didn’t even shop around because I knew that with Heart the pricing was going to be very competitive and the technical support excellent. The server is running like a dream at the moment with 230 days uptime (which would be much more if I hadn’t rebooted a while back in order to install some new software), and thanks to a serious amount of RAM I can run some very hefty caching to keep not only the forum, but all the other services running behind it as fluid as possible.

How did you go about asking people to vote for your site in the Website of the Month contest?

Well, we were quite fortunate in that respect because of our membership, so it wasn’t much more than telling people that if they liked the forum the could vote for us and a bit of a push through Twitter. I was very surprised to find out that we won though, because there were some great looking sites nominated.

E-readers are still an emerging market. Do you think that they will eventually succumb to tablets or will they hold their own?

I do believe that eventually there will be a convergence between tablets and e-readers and the first step toward this has been the Kindle Fire in the US, but it will never truly happen until either a much more responsive, colour e-ink screen or a dual LCD/e-ink screen becomes available as this is so critical for many users. LCD screen tablets like the iPad work fine for occasional reading but when you are talking about reading sessions lasting several hours, nothing currently can compare to a dedicated e-reader.

What are your top three Kindle books?

That’s quite tricky, but at a push I would say:

• Remix by Lexi Revellian because it introduced me to indie authors and was our first ever book club choice.
• A Dance with Dragons by George RR Martin as this is a great series and is now available on the Kindle.
• The Wayfarer King by K C May because not only is it the second part to an excellent fantasy series, but it is also a fine example of how just how good a properly formatted Kindle book can look.

How do you intend to develop the Kindle Users forum further in the future?

The forum is growing quite rapidly since its launch just over a year ago and we already have a ton of features – the forum itself is in some ways just the surface because in addition we have web services for Kindle like an RSS news reading system, a Kindle TV guide which is updated every day and even a full shopping guide for Kindle accessories and covers.

Aside from Kindle specific features, the forum is very much about books, authors and publishers so we have a very unique Kindle book recommendations system, many ways for authors to connect with their readers and together we have also published a few Kindle books which are anthologies of stories written by our professional authors.

The way the site evolves in the future depends to some extent on the way Amazon directs its product line. The Kindle Fire is very exciting and we already have a dedicated Kindle Fire forum section, so if/when it comes to the UK I think this will have a major influence over this part of the forum. Ultimately though, the future will be determined by the needs of our members.

Name:Craig Cotter

About:As Product Manager, Craig's role is to put our customers at the heart of all our decision making and ensure that our products continue to lead the market, through product development and testing, along with consulting with our focus groups.

Posts by Craig (22)

We asked designer and developer Trent Walton to tell us about his current projects and his involvement with NANCONF. There are still some spaces left for his workshop if you can make it to Nottingham in January!

Hi Trent, tell us a bit about yourself.

I’d been designing and building for the web in a side-project / freelance setting since 2001. Then, in 2005, I went to work for an industrial contractor, building websites for each of the affiliate companies. I learned a lot there and returned to 100% HTML and CSS layouts after a few years of working with Flash. When that job wrapped, I conspired with two of my friends, Dave Rupert and Reagan Ray, to form Paravel as a full-time web shop in 2007. We’d been collaborating on jobs for years and ultimately wanted to be in control of our own destinies & work environments.

You’re a designer, blogger, app creator and you’re running a workshop at NACONF – what are the benefits of being involved with so many things and how do you plan your time?

I’ve used things like side projects, writing for my blog, and presenting to help keep my skills sharp. Not all client gigs allow us to work with all the latest techniques, so blocking out time and prioritizing to-do lists so that I have the opportunity to experiment and learn is crucial. I believe that if I’m going to be of any value to clients tomorrow, I’ve got to always be looking beyond what is conventional today.

You founded and contribute to themanyfacesof.com. What inspired you to come up with the idea and how do you see it developing further in the future?

At Paravel, the most heated debates don’t always center around our work on the web, but around movies. The Many Faces Of started when I wanted to write an article about the great Alan Rickman, and commonalities I’d spotted in the way he plays villains. We were really amused by this and thought that an in-depth, infographic styled HTML & CSS blog post would be fun to create. We quickly realized we were going to want to do this again and again, so we pulled everything into WordPress and launched the site.

Our production pace has slowed lately, but we’ve got plans to build an addition to the site. I can’t say much about it just yet, but Reagan just finished the design, and we’re thrilled to get it into development very soon.

Paravel is a team effort. What are the pros and cons of running a design studio with other people?

I’ve been working with Dave Rupert and Reagan Ray for the past 10 years. Over time, we’ve grown to trust and respect each other a great deal. For me, this has created an ideal working environment where roles aren’t always clearly defined as founder, designer, and developer. Instead of passing off phases of a project to one another in a compartmentalized fashion, we throw everything out the table and slug it out. This ensures that our work isn’t the best any one of us can do, but that every project benefits from the sum of our own unique skill sets and perceptions.

I think what what I value most is the friendship that comes from running the business with these two. We get in tight spots and have to make tough decisions all the time, and I’m always more confident when we’ve talked things out and act on a consensus. For Paravel, 3 will never be a crowd.

What advice would you give to a web designer planning their design studio website?

Treat your portfolio as a set of case studies, not a gallery of screenshots. If you want to be hired to work with clients to think, solve problems, and innovate, make sure what you’re showing online reflects that. We started writing brief project summaries at http://paravelinc.com and at our own blogs when we finished jobs, and I believe it has helped us get involved in more and more interesting projects.

How did you get involved with NACONF and why did it appeal to you?

Last year Simon Collison asked me to design a page in the NACONF Paper. It was an honor to contribute, but I was sad when I had to miss out on attending the actual conference. I’ve followed and admired Simon’s work for years and after hearing about the topics he seeks to address each year at NACONF, I was both excited and humbled to be asked to speak this year. As our industry matures, we must be asking the right questions so that our way forward is intentional.

You’re running one of the workshops at NACONF, a new element for 2012. How hands-on will it be and what do you hope people will get from it?

Oh, it’ll definitely be hands on, but I like to over-prepare so that there can be a bit of improv. Sometimes there’s a lot of talent in the room and the most valuable thing you can have is a block of group discussion. I hope that attendees will be able take full advantage of web fonts on projects they’re working on now as well as be inspired to push the limits and innovate.

What are the benefits of incorporating a workshop element into a conference like NACONF?

The conversational and collaborative atmosphere that workshops lend themselves to is perfect for learning about practical application. Having that valuable time getting our hands dirty allows for more theoretical thinking on the following day when the speakers present.

Your workshop is based on typography, why did you choose this particular area of design?

When web fonts really caught on, I became inspired because many of the limitations we’d all become accustomed to were gone. If the quality in rendering is there, we can use any font on any site we want. When challenged with the front-end duties for Lost World’s Fairs with Dave Rupert, I was able to not only beef up my web type skills, but establish a philosophy for how best to push typography to the limits online.

What are your favourite online resources for designers?

99% of the time, my front-end woes have been solved over at http://css-tricks.com. I check http://dribbble.com daily and frequent the Typekit blog.

Name:Jenni Brown

About:Jenni is Heart Internet's SEO & Social Media Marketing Executive. Responsible for blogging, SEO and Heart Internet's Twitter and Facebook engagement, Jenni is a social network enthusiast and has been blogging for a decade.

Posts by Jennifer (99)

Tell us a bit about iBodz.com and where the idea for the site came from.

Being a web designer and a qualified Personal Trainer I decided to combine my skillsets and give people an online personal trainer. One-on-one personal training is always going to be the best option for achieving your goals but in the real world not everybody can afford the expense of a personal trainer, so my aim was to give as many of the benefits of a personal trainer to our visitors for free via the web.

What makes iBodz different to other exercise and fitness websites out there?

The exercise library we have is very user friendly, we have spent a lot of time and effort on making sure it shows the exercise correctly (with professional photography) as well as providing the necessary techniques and tips to ensure its performed safely. We also have a vast library of articles and exercise programs that are searchable to members. Best of all, our site is FREE…

At this time of year it’s hard to get motivated to exercise – what are your top tips for exercising when it’s cold and dark?

A lot of exercises can be done indoors, you don’t need a load of equipment, with a set of dumbbells and a fitball you can do a full workout. If it is an activity that cant be done indoors like running you want to do then how about these:
• Running with a friend or family member is always a good way to help motivate each other
• Get a new album on your ipod that you are excited about, this can take your mind off the actual run. I personally enjoy listening to a comedy podcast on my iPod to take me away
• It’s no surprise that you need to wrap up warm when training outside in the winter, but lots of people fail to wear gloves or hats – this is where you will lose most of your body heat.

How have you promoted iBodz.com so far and how successful has it been?

We use Facebook quite a bit to interact with our members. A lot of our traffic comes from organic search as well. There has been some press coverage as well as other sites linking to our content which all helps increase our traffic.

iBodz is very user-friendly and all the information is easily accessible. What tips would you give someone looking to organise their website content more effectively?

Think about the site layout and navigation right at the beginning of the process of setting up a new site or a redesign of an existing site. A good tip is to ask someone who has no idea about your product/service and see where they would expect to find certain content within your site hierarchy. As an example, if you are a financial advisor and have a website where you want to advertise 10 different services you offer, the way you categorise each of these services would not necessarily be the way the average user would expect to see these services appear in your navigation. Customers wont always understand the industry terminology. ALWAYS try to put yourself in the mind of the uninformed user or even better, find yourself one and ask their thoughts.

Why did you choose Heart Internet to host iBodz?

Features and price, but most importantly the excellent customer service you guys provide Price and features are nothing without reactive support.

How did you go about asking people to vote for you in the Website of the Month contest?

Facebook, blog post and friends

How do you plan to develop iBodz further in the future?

We are constantly adding new features to iBodz.com. At the moment we are planning an iPhone app that will allow you to search and save programs to your account and then access these anywhere, regardless of whether you have a net connection or not. We are also in the process of developing a new feature that will allow members to track their progress within their account and see these in charts and graphs.

Name:Jenni Brown

About:Jenni is Heart Internet's SEO & Social Media Marketing Executive. Responsible for blogging, SEO and Heart Internet's Twitter and Facebook engagement, Jenni is a social network enthusiast and has been blogging for a decade.

Posts by Jennifer (99)

Tell us a bit about Kingairloch (both website and business) and its history.

Kingairloch is a 14,000 acre estate located on the Morvern peninsula on the West Coast of Scotland. The estate is home to a range of self catering properties, a lochside restaurant as well as offering a range of traditional sporting activities. The estate has been in the current ownership for the past 20 years, previously it was owned by the Strutt family, the cotton magnates of Belper. Within the Larson ownership the estate has been developed into a remote yet accessible haven for guests to come and relax and enjoy the Scottish Highlands, with great emphasis on sustainability for future generations.

Over the past 10 years the estate has had a representative web presence (just a shop window feel) but this year it was felt the estate needed to have a stronger presence in terms of really promoting what is available and also allowing customers to book their holidays online on our website. With the economic climate still not showing much signs of a recovery, it is hoped that people who wish to holiday will consider staying in the UK and that is one of the reasons why we wanted to have a high quality website that really illustrated the merits of not having to go zillions of miles for rest and relaxation.

What attracts people to Kingairloch, and what are the advantages of staying in the area?

It is mostly our rugged landscapes, wonderful wildlife and our delightful properties that are a real home from home for guests plus the fact we are under a three hours’ drive from Glasgow. The Boathouse restaurant is also drawing in visitors from far and wide, due to the merits of our fantastic larder. With so much press about localism, the restaurant is leagues ahead of other establishments, for example there’s home grown vegetables, salads, fruit and herbs from the estate’s walled garden, venison from the surrounding hills own reared pork and lamb plus seafood from local waters.

Kingairloch.co.uk is a beautiful website. How did you come up with the idea for the design, and what did you want to achieve with it?

I’ve asked Edward Lopez, senior designer at Hotscot who designed the site to answer this one…..

“To get a better feel for Kingairloch we decided to pay them a visit. We were amazed at the size of the place and the lasting impression it gave us. Everything on the estate integrates so well yet manages to retain its own individual feel. We felt it was important to reflect this in the website.

Rob and Katrina (our clients) had done a great job with their own research and they were able to give us a strong steer on the kind of site that they wanted us to create for the estate.

To do the estate justice we wanted to create a unique user experience that would be easy to navigate without compromising on style or interactivity. With this in mind, the whole thing came together in a very organic way. The client was very open-minded and allowed us space to play with ideas as well as giving constructive feedback at every mile stone.

There were two areas in the site where no photo alone could give an accurate reflection so we decided to create a couple of bespoke elements to demonstrate this. The first was the ‘digital painting’ created for the dining page which helps illustrate how the majority of the ingredients in the restaurant are sourced locally. The second item was the interactive map on the Activities section. It worked really well and helped us package the whole Kingairloch experience in the way we had hoped.

Our aim from the beginning was to provide a classy looking site that took full advantage of up to the minute design techniques but would still pay homage to the past. We wanted each section to have its own character that kept true to the estate and it’s fair to say that we are very proud of how the site turned out!

How did you go about marketing Kingairloch.co.uk?

We use a broad range of marketing techniques. First and foremost using WordPress as the CMS means that the site is built in an SEO friendly manner as well as giving us complete control over the content. Our social media channels are also an important way for driving traffic into the site with a growing number of followers on Twitter and Facebook. In addition to tie in with the launch of the new site we commissioned a promotional film which has been uploaded to YouTube and Vimeo and gets great feedback from our guests. Last but not least our website address is promoted heavily in all our offline marketing materials.

The website has a very atmospheric blog. Why did you decide to incorporate a blog and what advantages does it bring?

As mentioned the estate has several representations on social networks, but it was felt that a blog entry could be used to focus on the important things happening on the estate. Kingairloch continues to evolve and there is always a range of projects that I feel our customers like to see how they are progressing. Also living in such wonderful surroundings, you can forget that holiday makers are here for only a week or two at a time so it is very important to not let them forget we are here!

Why did you choose Heart Internet as your host?

We read reviews of many hosting companies, with so many out there it was difficult to know which one to choose. Heart Internet were consistently recommend for their high level of service and quality customer support, coupled with attractive pricing they seemed like a good choice. I’m pleased to say this was a great decision and we are very happy with the results!

How did you go about asking people to vote for you in the Website of the Month contest?

We used a variety of techniques including making use of Facebook and Twitter, blogging, adding news items and your own badge graphics to our website, adding links to email signatures, word of mouth – you name it we did it!

What are your future plans for Kingairloch (both website and business)?

In business terms the estate is looking into more renewable energy projects, such as micro-hydroelectric schemes, after all we have a lot of rain! The self catering properties continue to be well maintained, with a few being aimed at higher Scottish Tourist Board grading because of improvements being made. We hope to attract the wedding market and family celebrations through our new website, it is now a lot clearer on how our functions can work providing potential guests with a lot clearer information. We also hope that our booking procedures for the holiday cottages makes it a lot easier for customers to decide what property suits them and also that the process of booking is as stress free as possible. In terms of plans for the website, it’s only just been launched so nothing mega just yet!

Name:Jenni Brown

About:Jenni is Heart Internet's SEO & Social Media Marketing Executive. Responsible for blogging, SEO and Heart Internet's Twitter and Facebook engagement, Jenni is a social network enthusiast and has been blogging for a decade.

Posts by Jennifer (99)

Hi Spencer! Tell us a bit about yourself.

My background in the “internet” industry, didn’t even begin until 2005. My schooling is in finance and I worked in the banking industry primarily until I quit my job in March 2011. However, I got started building websites purely out of interest. I wanted to teach myself how to build a site from scratch and just get something online.

From that initial curiosity grew a desire to learn about how sites were making money and how the search engines worked. From 2005 until about 2009 I built several sites; most of which made me very little money. However, it was through these “failed” experiences that I learned the importance of keyword research and search engine optimization.

I have always been fascinated by the fact that through my own planning and effort I can rank #1 on Google and get free traffic to a website. Perhaps it’s the competitive nature in me; I want to rank #1! But overall I enjoy finding hidden opportunities (i.e. keywords I can rank for) and then planning out how I can beat the competition and then obviously reaping the benefits that can bring.

Now that I am full-time online, I enjoy being able to pursue the opportunities which I choose to pursue. Having the freedom to try out different ideas keeps things new and exciting. I also like the fact that I can work from home and do so on my own schedule; choosing to spend more time with my family if I want or need to.

How did you decide when to quit your day job? Did you have a specific target in mind?

I decided to quit my job when my income from my online business had exceeded my day job income. I also wanted to have about 6 months’ worth of living expenses saved up before I quit my job.

Many successful affiliates and passive income earners prefer to keep their advice and experiences a secret (or charge for advice), why did you decide to be so open on NichePursuits.com and what effect has it had on the website?

I debated whether or not to share the information I had learned or not for a long time. In fact, when I first created NichePursuits.com, I was only going to share a very little about “niche websites”; rather, I was going to share my experiences as I tried various small business ventures or “niche pursuits”. However, I always received the most positive feedback when I shared my experiences building niche websites.

So, in the end my readers really encouraged me to share my advice and experiences about how I make a living online. I see NichePursuits.com as a sounding board for my online businesses. So, if I ever change what I am doing in the future, this will still be where I share that information. It feels good to meet a need and desire of other people through sharing information with them. By sharing what people want to hear, I am obviously able to attract more readers as well. For that reason, I try to be as open as feasible about how I make a living online.

There are a lot of misleading ‘make money online’ websites, how can you tell which have genuine advice?

It can really be difficult to ascertain who is telling the truth, and who is not. One sign that they may be trying to mislead is if the site is overly pushy in their sales tactics. If all they are trying to do is sell you a product, this is perhaps a red flag.

You can also look at the experience that the blogger or site creator has. If they have been around for a while and can clearly show that they have in-depth experience in the topic they are covering then you can feel better about following their advice. However, if their experience is limited but they simply “talk” like an expert, this should raise some question marks.

How do you see NichePursuits.com developing in the future?

For the present, I will continue to share in-depth guidance on how to build niche websites – which is my primary business. However, in the future I may begin discussing other small business ventures that I pursue. Either way, I expect it will continue to be a place where I discuss my entrepreneurial pursuits whether that be online or otherwise.

What advice would you give to someone looking to make enough passive income online to support a family?

My advice would be to be realistic. Unfortunately, it’s a difficult business and most people will not be able to ever work full-time from home. I feel fortunate every day that I have been able to achieve what I have.

So, if you decide that you want to create a business for yourself online, you need to work very very hard. My advice would be to find a business that makes sense to you and do NOT just try to follow what others are doing online. That includes me too.

Just because something is a good fit for one person does not mean that it is a good fit for you. Develop a business strategy in your own mind and then pursue that strategy. I always had to remember that my family comes first. I wanted to quit my job for years, but had to stick with it because my business income just wasn’t there. So, I would also advise to keep your job and feed your family first before you even try to start building a business online.

When it comes to choosing specific niches and keywords to target, is skill or luck more important?

Skill is certainly more important. Being able to analyse the competitors in Google is an acquired skill that can take years to develop. However, the reality is that there is SOME level of luck involved in how successful a particular keyword may be.

So, picking a winning keyword takes skill, but you might luck out and find a keyword that earns you 3 or 4 times what you were expecting it to make.

You have a lot of websites, how much work do you put into maintaining a site after it’s gone live?

Well, to be honest I used to do a lot more direct work on my sites than I do now. I now have a full-time virtual assistant and I hire writers to produce content for my sites rather than doing it myself. However, in general once I have had the initial content produced and the site is live, there is very little maintenance after that. Some sites might get an article or 2 added throughout the month, but most do not.

I do very little layout changes and only do so if I feel like I can optimize the earnings of the sites based on changes to the layout. There is some on-going link building, but I also have my virtual assistant help me with this. Usually after the first 90 days of a site going live, most of link building and other maintenance is complete. Only for my larger sites, or smaller sites that I see have big potential will I add additional content or put additional time into.

What are your top three Adsense tips?
1. To increase your earnings with Adsense, you really need to pick great keywords. Fortunately, the Google Adwords Keyword Tool shows estimated Cost Per Click for each keyword, so you can get a general idea of how much a keyword might earn you. I only like to look at keywords that have a CPC of $1 or more.
2. In-content ads will get a much higher Adsense Click through rate. If you want to make money with adsense you need to think about where the eyeballs of the visitors to your sites go. If you can place ads within the content of your pages, such as an ad just below the title and right justified, you are much more likely to have someone actually see your ads and eventually click on them.
3. Don’t click your ads, don’t tell anyone to click your ads, and ALWAYS do exactly what Google has set forth in their Google Adsense Terms of Service. I have never been banned by Google Adsense, but I have heard of too many other people that try some really dumb things to try and “game” the system. My advice would be to play by the rules and you are much more likely to succeed.

Which online resources would you recommend to people interested in monetising their website?

Obviously, I share a lot about how to monetize sites through Google Adsense via my blog found at http://www.nichepursuits.com.

However, there are lots of other great resources out there including some affiliate networks at:
CJ.com
Kontera.com
Infolinks.com
NeverBlueAds.com
Clickbank.com
And many others.

For general guidance and building a blog or site, search engine optimization, and other tips – here are few good resources:
Aaron Wall @ Seobook.com
Darron Rowse @ Problogger.net
Pat Flynn @ SmartPassiveIncome.com
SEOmoz.org

Thanks so much for the interview!

Thanks Spencer!

Name:Jenni Brown

About:Jenni is Heart Internet's SEO & Social Media Marketing Executive. Responsible for blogging, SEO and Heart Internet's Twitter and Facebook engagement, Jenni is a social network enthusiast and has been blogging for a decade.

Posts by Jennifer (99)

Tell us a bit about Recognition Design and its history.

After spending more than 10 years working for different design agencies both on the South Coast of England and around the world, I realised that I had everything I needed to set up my own company: the experience, expertise and private clients that I had been building up steadily for some time. I had thought of the company name ‘Recognition’ when I was eighteen, so it had always been my dream and ultimate ambition to run my own company.

Recognition Design was born in my study at home, where I worked for a number of years building up the company’s profile, services and client base.

I was then offered the opportunity to develop the derelict buildings on my parent’s farm in Lymington, Hampshire and it’s here that Recognition established our professional design studio. For our first few years, we rented out desk space to other sole traders in the area to fill the space and help with rent as we grew.

Now, as a flourishing Limited company, we feel that our website is a true representation of the work that we do. The content, news stories, images and graphics and supporting social media hopefully show the depth of services that we can offer and the high level of personal service that our existing and prospective clients can expect.

If you were starting Recognition Design again from scratch, what (if anything) would you do differently?

There’s nothing I would do differently, I would just have done it sooner.

Recognition Design covers branding, design, print, events, copywriting and more. What benefits are there in working across a wide range of areas and what challenges do you face at the same time?

Recognition’s wide range of services means that we offer a ‘one stop shop’ for clients – there are many benefits to this – as well as the obvious time and costs savings, there’s also the peace of mind that comes with working with a company that understands all parts of their business.

The challenges are always keeping our skills and knowledge up-to-date across a wide range of disciplines in order to stay at the top of our game.

Your website has a vibrant, eye-catching design. Where did you get the inspiration for it and how long did it take to create?

Because of the nature of our business, we of course wanted our website to be image and graphic led. It’s an ongoing project, I’d never say it’s totally finished. When we get a rare free moment, we’ll spend it updating the news stories, the content and navigation. There’s so much more we want to do with it, for example introducing new features that make the most of new technologies such as HTML5 along with style updates to the portfolio and news sections.

How do you go about promoting and marketing your business?

Most of our business is repeat from clients that just keep coming back to us, we also get a lot of business through word of mouth. Other than that we invest in Search Engine Optimisation which is really starting to pay off as the amount of new business leads has tripled in the last three months. It’s not a short term quick fix, but a long term investment in making your website work for you.

What advice would you give to a designer or developer looking to create a full-time business like Recognition Design?

Be prepared to work harder then you ever have before.

Being your own boss definitely gives you more flexibility than being a 9 to 5 employee but when you’re the one in sole charge of a project, you have to deliver no matter what and that can involve some long hours.

There’s no greater buzz though when you win a new client or project, so the sacrifices are worth it.

If you had to choose just one, which do you think is the most important aspect of a website: concept, content, design or promotion?

It’s hard to pinpoint just one aspect. A successful website has to have all of these elements working together. As I say to all of my clients, there’s no point having an all singing, all dancing website if no one knows it exists. Promotion is just as important as content, design and structure but it’s the element that is most commonly forgotten. People have a tendency to think that the whole world will flock to their website just because it exists or that they will automatically be at the top of their Google search but it’s competitive out there and you have to invest in SEO and PPC and offline promotion to drive traffic to your site.

The old 3 clicks rule is also really important. In this digital age, we all expect to have the information we need at our fingertips, if takes too long to find (more then 3 clicks away) or a website is hard to navigate people give up very quickly! So an accessible website is absolutely essential.

Website content needs to be engaging, accurate, persuasive, to the point but long enough to be optimised for search engines (at least 250 words per page).

Eye catching, slick design can make your website and brand stand out above your competitors and it can also keep people coming back time and time again.

Why do you host your website with Heart Internet?

The support ticket system is great, really responsive and usually solves the problem within a couple of updates. Uptime is okay and the service is really good plus the reseller control panel is really easy to use.

How did you go about asking people to vote for you in the Website of the Month contest?

We sent an e-newsletter out to our clients, suppliers and friends and were so chuffed that they all got voting.

How do you see Recognition Design developing further in the future?

We never want to be a huge organisation, we’re a friendly, down to earth company that values each of our employees highly. Being based on the South Coast, if the weather or the surf’s good, then you might just find that some of us are down at the beach but equally we’ll work into the wee hours to get projects finished, if that’s what it takes. We also work with a wide range of talented freelancers that can help us out when there’s a lot on or we just don’t have the in house expertise.

That said, we’d like to bring more web expertise onboard in the next year as well as developing the marketing and event management side of the business.

Name:Jenni Brown

About:Jenni is Heart Internet's SEO & Social Media Marketing Executive. Responsible for blogging, SEO and Heart Internet's Twitter and Facebook engagement, Jenni is a social network enthusiast and has been blogging for a decade.

Posts by Jennifer (99)

First up is popular designer and writer Frank Chimero.

Tell us a bit about yourself.
My name’s Frank, and I’m a designer, author and illustrator living in Brooklyn, NY. I’ve been designing for 10 years now, and for the past 6 I’ve been running my own shop. I’ve been fortunate enough to tackle projects that are all over the place: book design, illustration, user experience/interface, strategy, and branding.

What’s your first design memory?
I spent the better part of my youth listening to music and obsessing over album art. The first CD I owned was the Beatles’ White Album, and I think that sort of conceptual approach has stuck with me and my work.

Which aspects of design do you find the most challenging, and which the most rewarding?
The work is the most difficult and rewarding when it achieves a high-quality fit for the audience.

What inspired you to get involved with NACONF?
Simon’s a friend. The conference has such a good reputation that when he asked me to speak, I had to say yes. I’m really excited to not only talk, but to sit, listen, and discuss ideas with everyone else. What a great way to start a new year, huh?

What was your first experience of talking at a conference, and what did you learn from it?
I spoke at a regional AIGA event a few years ago, and modified one of my class lectures for the talk. I had been teaching for about a year at that point, and I realised that 40 minutes isn’t as long as it sounds, scripting a talk is self-defeating, and everyone in the audience wants you to do well. I love conferences, and the good ones, like NACONF, have such a wonderful atmosphere of camaraderie and learning.

What have you chosen to talk about and what will the attendees take away from your session?
I’ll be talking about the opportunities of making things for other people.

You’re currently writing a book, The Shape of Design. Why did you decide to write it and what is it about?
The book is about the arrangement of the client, the designer, and the audience in the design process. It doesn’t really focus on client relations, but more the process of making and the opportunities of catering to an audience. It’s a celebration of the chance to make things for others and enjoy the process of doing so. The book is a distillation of the ideas I’ve spoken about at previous conferences, and is a bit of an attempt to document the Whys of design, or at least as a way to push that conversation forward a little bit.

Many people are good at design or writing, but not both. What tips would you offer to someone looking to complement their design work with text?
One gets better at writing by writing and reading good writing. It also improves with thoughtfulness, which requires time. It also needs, as I’m currently learning, the courage to be brief and to shut up when there’s nothing left to say.

What advice would you give to someone just starting out in commercial design?
Try to make things that help people to live well. Start with a desire to fill needs rather than to generate wants.

What are your favourite sources of design and/or writing inspiration?
I’ve recently returned to reading fiction. I’ve been enjoying Italo Calvino and Umberto Eco lately, and am rereading a lot of the classics I read in school. (Moby-Dick is currently at the bedside.)

For design inspiration, I try to look elsewhere. Design is a vessel: it’s utility is defined by what it’s able to hold, so I think outside influence is profoundly important. It lets us be a part of the world instead of navel-gazing. I enjoy talking to people, walking around the city, and travel. Food is incredibly inspiring to me as well, because while being a requirement to living, there’s boundless opportunities for care, thoughtfulness, craft, and sharing in its preparation.

If I’m looking for an aesthetic jolt to get me going, I’ll visit:
http://www.septemberindustry.co.uk
http://www.itsnicethat.com
http://www.manystuff.org

Name:Jenni Brown

About:Jenni is Heart Internet's SEO & Social Media Marketing Executive. Responsible for blogging, SEO and Heart Internet's Twitter and Facebook engagement, Jenni is a social network enthusiast and has been blogging for a decade.

Posts by Jennifer (99)

Tell us a bit about yourself and the history of Flying Cow Labs.
I started Flying Cow Labs about 2 years ago after a number of years working for a design company in Spain. I wanted to make the move back to the UK and it seemed natural for me to take the leap and set up my own design studio. Since the early days I’ve always worked alone in my office but now employ a number of talented people from around the globe, each of us working remotely.

The obvious advances in technology have made it easy for us to stay in touch, we use Skype daily to plan and discuss projects and use other forms of social media to keep up to date with the daily running of the business and general chit-chat. We find it works really well for us and it shows that even in today’s climate, as long as you’ve got a good team, no matter where in the world they are, you can make a business work with good communication.

Lately we’ve been focusing more of our time on the template side of our business. We develop Premium Templates that are for use with Serif WebPlus Software. Heart Internet give away a copy of WebPlus X5 free with their hosting, so it’s likely most people reading this have, or can get a copy.

We found WebPlus to be far easier to use and much more flexible than other website building software, but felt they were lacking high quality templates that are more like the offerings available for WordPress, so earlier this year started up Serif Templates, http://seriftemplates.com. We now have a growing collection of easy to use and customise templates; even novice web designers are able to create professional websites for themselves or for their clients. I’ve had many reports of people starting up web design businesses off the back of our templates. I feel really proud to know that we have helped people make a living from what we enjoy doing!

Flying Cow Labs is an unusual name, where did the inspiration come from?
There’s no bizarre story relating to the name, I was after something that was unlike any other web design studio and one that was less forgettable than the norm. As I originally come from Somerset, and always loved cows, that was the starting point and the rest was conjured up over a brainstorming session late one night.

Your website has a very distinct design, what did you want to achieve with the look and how did you go about it?
Again I wanted to achieve memorability factor – it was important that the site poked its head above the huge crowd of mundane sites, and for that to happen it needed to strike an emotion. If a design doesn’t evoke an emotion, it’s more likely to be forgotten…that’s something I strive to achieve in all my designs.

I love to illustrate, so it was fun creating the pieces that make up the site. I especially like the blinking eyes from the lab technician sheltered in the bunker on the ‘About’ page – blink and you’ll miss it.

You offer various different design services including illustration and logos, which is your favourite type of design and why?
I’m loving all aspects of design at the moment. In my free time I’m always trying out different techniques and styles, I’m a massive fan of Dieter Rams and the work he did as chief designer for Braun. The simplistic style of his work is something that still influences a lot designs today and I’m finding myself creating things while trying to maintain his ethos and attempting to keep things clean and simple. I feel as a designer it’s important to constantly experiment with new techniques to help you grow your own unique and individual style: as designers, I don’t think we ever stop learning.

Why did you choose to host Flying Cow Labs with us?
Simply because of the positive reactions and reviews I had heard from the design community and people that were using you to host their sites. There are masses of hosting companies out there and the bad ones certainly outweigh the good, selecting Heart Internet was an easy choice. I’ve been stung in the past with poor support and bad customer service, I’ve experienced quite the opposite from your team, so for that, I thank you!

How did you go about asking people to vote for your site in our Website of the Month contest?
We actively use Twitter and have a fan page on Facebook for the Serif related resources we offer. I simply mentioned that we had had been shortlisted, and people who know us kindly voted – that’s one of the great things about social media! Everyone with a business should at the very least have a fan page, you never know when you’re going to need it!

The web design industry is getting increasingly competitive, what are your tips for standing out from the crowd?
Definitely find a niche, there are new web design businesses starting up every day. To get that competitive edge I think you need to offer services to a select industry or sector; you could, for example, provide web design and marketing for hairdressers. Do your research into the industry, find out what makes for a successful hairstylists’ website, and find out what their customers expect to find on their websites. This way you will gain clients from your selected industry because they’ll trust you for the knowledge you have of their business. And if you can gain trust you can gain business.

What are the biggest challenges facing small design studios today?
The main challenge has to be the competition, not only from larger companies but from young designers just starting out and charging next to nothing for a website. I’m all for new designers coming on to the scene and strutting their stuff, but they can seriously undervalue the service we all provide and make a profitable business all the more difficult.

What would you like to see for Flying Cow Labs in the future?
We have lots of plans for the future! But for now we’re happy creating great things for clients and using our reputation to help us grow organically. It’s exciting times for us and it’s great to know we’ve got some excellent clients coming along for the ride.

Thanks very much for the interview!

Name:Jenni Brown

About:Jenni is Heart Internet's SEO & Social Media Marketing Executive. Responsible for blogging, SEO and Heart Internet's Twitter and Facebook engagement, Jenni is a social network enthusiast and has been blogging for a decade.

Posts by Jennifer (99)

We recently caught up with co-founder and owner Collis Ta’eed, to talk about how Envato has developed over the years, how the team maintain productivity across multiple global office locations, how they developed passionate brand fans and their plans for the future.

Envato has grown a tremendous amount over the past 5 years, how did it all get started and what were your aims for the business in the beginning?

One of the early motivations for starting Envato was actually wanting to get away from freelancing work. My cofounders Cyan, Jun and I had been freelancing for a few years prior and while it had its moments, it was also hard work. Cyan wanted to go travelling and the idea of trying to run a freelance business while trekking about different countries seemed daunting. So we deliberated and decided to start a business with no clients that we could work on from anywhere at all!

It was a good year and a half before we finally were able to close up shop on the freelancing thanks to a small but liveable income from Envato. And by the time we actually managed to sell everything to begin our travels things were moving so quickly with Envato that we ended up working atrociously hard during that year abroad. It was very fun seeing the world and running an awesome internet business, though probably just as exhausting as if we’d kept freelancing instead!

Since we returned from overseas, work has continued at breakneck speed and today Envato looks very different to our early ideas and plans which now seem very small! But sometimes it’s good to start small and then roll with the punches and see where things take you.

At what stage did you realise the company was becoming more than a small team could handle, and did you have any doubts about taking that giant leap to take on staff?

We were lucky that from day one there was one job that none of the founders could do, so we were forced to hire the first member of the team right from the beginning. That was our first developer, Ryan. He worked initially as a freelancer with us, but later become an employee after the planned short freelancing gig just hadn’t stopped for a year!

Having four cofounders and an extra developer meant that the leap to hiring a sixth person wasn’t as daunting as it might otherwise have been. I think having a few people on the team naturally forces you out of the mindset that you have to do everything yourself.

Additionally the financial scariness of hiring someone is much reduced if you have managed to build a business that can support a few people already. This is the great benefit of cofounders! To a certain extent you get staff who can be paid a pittance at first because, like you, they are invested in the business itself rather than just a pay check.

Of course there are a variety of drawbacks to cofounders, but to my mind having four of us was the best decision we ever made.

You have developed a collection of brands with some extremely positive branding and passionate fans, what advice would you give to other website owners trying to achieve this?

I think people connect with brands when they provide value and feel authentic. I think it’s really important to have both sides of the coin. So a brand that delivers products that make your life better in some way, and that you feel is genuine, is something you are going to identify and connect with.

I think most businesses understand that they need to provide value. I think the way to get people to be passionate about the brands is to marry this with a real genuine communication style and desire to help your users and customers succeed.

What is your approach to launching new websites, does the idea come first or do you spot a gap and then look to fill it?

It’s a real mix. Sometimes our community suggests ideas. Sometimes one of us will have a neat idea that we’d like to try out. And oftentimes there is a clear niche that needs filling, so we jump in!

Your teams are spread out around the world, what are your tips for maintaining productivity and efficiency when working like this.

It can be quite challenging working remotely from one another. I think the main drawback is really around the level of communication. When you are in the same office there is a lot of quick discussion and communication that happens that is difficult to replicate with remote staff. In my experience though there are a few things that can make it work.

One of the big ones is making sure that remote workers are relatively independent. So for instance we have many of our blog editors working remotely and this works great as they run the blogs fairly independently. So they are responsible for their own content roster and dealing with writers and they have all the tools they need to publish and run the blogs themselves. This means that communication is there to support their work, rather than to enable it.

Another one is having regular meeting schedules over Skype and sending a lot of email. This basically replaces the sort of in-office discussions and makes sure that everyone is aligned and understands what others are working on.

Finally I think it’s important with remote staff to have complete focus on results. Ultimately who knows how or when the other person is working. It’s much more important to know whether they are having the desired result and getting the job done. How exactly that happens isn’t that important at the end of the day, just the end result!

What is your average day like and how has this developed since you launched in 2006?

My average day is mostly made up of meetings these days with Mondays being mostly meeting free so I can try to make progress with my ever increasing email inbox. It’s really changed a lot since 2006! Back then I used to design a lot, write for our blogs, chat on the forums and do a lot of odd jobs like support, reviewing, web development and whatever else needed to be done.

I sometimes miss being able to focus on things like design, but ultimately I have to do what the company needs, and these days it needs me to focus on communication and strategy, so that’s what I do!

You recently sold a couple of your websites on flippa.com. Why did you choose to sell them this way, and what were your experiences of the process?

Oh yes we sold off two sites: WorkAwesome.com and Snipplr.com. We decided to sell the pair as we’ve been working on streamlining down our list of products to be more manageable and focused. Flippa seemed like the right path as both sites were relatively small and the audience on Flippa is a good match. Sure enough, both sites went off without a hitch and provided a small return and a good home.

How do you see your business developing in the next 5 years?

Over the last five years we’ve gone from DIY startup to small company. In the next five I’d like to see us keep that small company feel but continue evolving our operations to be able to do much more. I’d like to see us helping people sell more types of things more effectively, to help people learn more types of things and teach more types of things. And ultimately I’d like more people to get value from Envato products and services. At the end of the day Envato exists to provide and deliver value to our community, so our aim is always to do that on a bigger, better and more awesome scale than before!

Other than your own, do you have any web design related websites you read regularly you would like to share?

I have to admit I’m completely addicted to TechCrunch as my go-to place for online reading. I love hearing about what is happening in the tech world. I also stop in at SmashingMagazine when I’m after a long web design read as they have some really great in-depth articles there! Thanks so much for the interview!

Name:Matthew Telfer

About:Matthew is Heart Internet's Marketing Manager, and has held senior marketing positions in the web hosting industry for 5 years. With a passion for online marketing, Matthew is responsible for shaping strategy and developing the Heart Internet brand.

Posts by Matthew (242)