The Village Websmith - Web Design & Development in Your Area

Welcome to Winning Wednesday

Wednesday is derived from the Norse god, Odin who was their supreme god and god of victory.

Read me my story! That is not such a trivial request in any business. Getting a beta reader for your web content and brochure information can help to make your message much more effective.

Having been privileged to beta read a novel and a non-fiction book for Sarah Banham recently, the principal is one that can be applied to business copy to make sure it is working as hard as it can work.

What's the difference between a beta reader and a proof reader? This lies in the scope of tha activity. Proof reading is a vital stage before publishing anything about your business to make sure that the grammar, spelling and language are correct and overall, the document makes sense. Beta reading goes one step further in regarding the quality of the message as well.

Particularly with copy writing for your business, everything has to be perfect. The information content must be accurate, but at the same time, attractive and stimulating. The narrative must lead the reader to the only logical conclusion; that they need you to supply the products and services in question.

With a trusted beta reader or two, you can ask them to judge whether your story works or not. If they don't confirm that they would respond favourably, rewrite until it has the desired effect.

Over the years, hundreds of small businesses have trusted the Village Websmith to get their message across clearly and powerfully, so if you don't have the time or the tools to write your web copy and get it beta read, talk to us about how cost-effective a Webinthebox® site can be. For more information, just call us on 0203 239 0350 or click in the header of any page to send an email.

Abenhall is a tiny, ancient village in a secluded quiet valley near Mitcheldean. The parish includes the settlement of Plump Hill, on the Mitcheldean to Cinderford Road as it climbs into the high Forest.

Once part of the Westbury Hundred (which was known as Dene at the time of the 1086 Doomsday book) Abenhall is on the Flaxley to Mitcheldean Road. Originally a mining and iron making centre, it is notable for its 14th century Church of St Michael, which is built of local red sandstone and has excellent contemporary carvings relating to the Forest of Dean's industries. These include a shield bearing the arms of the Freeminers on the west wall and the fabulous mid -15th century octagonal font, that has tools of miners and metalworkers incised on its St Michaels at Abenhall sides.

St. Michael's Church - originally built as a chapel of ease, the church was expanded in the 14th century to include nave, south aisle and tower. The arms of the Freeminers can be seen on the south side of the tower and on the 18th century font. St. Michael's Church - Abenhall is 1.5 km south of Mitcheldean and is set in beautiful surroundings on the edge of the Forest. Old Parish baptism, marriage and burial registers, from 1596, are stored at the Gloucestershire Record Office. For more information, please call us on the number shown, or click in the header of any page to email Abenhall-forest-of-dean@villagewebsmith.co.uk.

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Home page for Abenhall,, Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire

Who's Lookin' at You Kid?

In our current financial climate, it is important to know where every penny goes and what it buys you. This is just as true of your webvertising budget as anything else. While it may not cost a fortune to get search engine attention using Webinthebox? because the architecture is designed to promote good natural listings in search engines, it does involve a deal of admin and your time to keep things up to date. This naturally has a cost to your business for which you want to receive value.

To help all our customers know how well their search engine strategy is working, we have now built into the simple stats page an analysis of who is referring how many visitors to your website. There has always been a detailed analysis of how many pages are being viewed, but now you can see how that came to be.

If you are going for one of our search engine tune-up kits, this new feature will definitely be of interest to you in tracking the performance of all the various search engines on your behalf.

Abercraf is well known for these attractions: Waterfalls caves and close by the National Red Kite Centre.

Abercraf is also close to our headquarters in Shirenewton, Monmouthshire, which helps us to maintain our policy of only working face to face with customers to make sure they get the best results quickly when writing the content for their web sites. This is a much quicker method of establishing what aspects of a business are the most promotable and getting the order of things. So, if you have a small business in Abercraf, just get in touch with the Village Websmith and experience the difference of truly personal web design for yourself. For more information, please call us on the number shown, or click in the header of any page to email Abercraf-s-wales@villagewebsmith.co.uk.

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Home page for Abercraf, Brecknockshire, South Wales

Welcome to Fabtastic Friday - "Tap and Filter Questions"

If you want to get the right answer, first you must ask the right question.

I see open questions as filters and closed questions as taps to take a plumbing analogy. Working out which question to ask to which potential customer is the real art of getting to the order as efficiently as possible.

Anyone who has been exposed to any amount of sales training has probably heard coaches banging on endlessly about the value of open questions versus closed questions. The Rudyard Kipling rhyme "I have six honest serving men, they taught me all I know, their names are What and Why and When and Where and How and Who" will be indelibly impressed through over-use.

That has a value, open questions are great for eliciting information. However, at some point in the sales process, a decision must be made, which by its nature demands a closed question. It is never too early to ask for the order, then based on the answer, you can either get the signature, or open another line of open questions to get at the reasons behind a negative response.

How does this relate to the web? In the information content of your site, a series of closed questions can guide visitors to choose the most appropriate links to the sections of the content that are most relevant to them. Questions like "Have you ever wanted to writs a book?", "Are your energy bills too high?" or "Do you have relatives abroad?", linked to pages within the site can steer people quickly to the right place.

It is when designing the response form for the site that open questions come into their own. Questions like "What is your budget?", "When is your wedding?" or "How many rooms in your house?" all help to provide you with the information you need to prepare an accurate proposal. All Webinthebox® sites from the Village Websmith come with copy writing support to help you get the message across and a fully customisable enquiry form to make sure you get the right answers by asking the right questions. To find out more, call us on 0203 239 0350 or click in the header of any page to send us an email.

Aberdare is well known for these attractions: Country park fabulous indoor market and Aberdare Park home of historic motorcycle road races.

Aberdare is also close to our headquarters in Shirenewton, Monmouthshire, which helps us to maintain our policy of only working face to face with customers to make sure they get the best results quickly when writing the content for their web sites. This is a much quicker method of establishing what aspects of a business are the most promotable and getting the order of things. So, if you have a small business in Aberdare, just get in touch with the Village Websmith and experience the difference of truly personal web design for yourself. For more information, please call us on the number shown, or click in the header of any page to email Aberdare-s-wales@villagewebsmith.co.uk.

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Home page for Aberdare, Rhondda Cynon Taff, South Wales