Metafocus – Online Marketing

One website we’ve recently started visiting regularly in the office is vouchermania.com. We all like a bargain every now and again! The site is “designed specifically to help you make savings, whilst at the same time promoting the products and services of local and national businesses.” The site originally started off in Nottingham and Derby but has now branched out across other cities in the UK.

In the past websites like this have always tended not to live up to expectations, but the interface and content of Vouchermania is really impressive. The site allows businesses to advertise and promote any special offers. From a bargain hunter’s point of view, you select the area you live in and then you can search through a range of money off and discount vouchers.

The site caters for a wide selection of different business sectors and offers an extensive range of vouchers for any perspective bargain hunter. You can find money off anything from alternative therapies, estate agents, florists, restaurants, tattoos or taxis!

Some of our clients who are already using the site include:

Cascades Gardens – A luxury bed and breakfast near Chatsworth in Bonsall, Derbyshire

Southwell Racecourse – The Nottingham Racecourse who also have wedding and conference facilities

The Adrenaline Jungle – An Outdoor activities centre in Nottingham

The Olde Barn – A luxury hotel retreat set in the beautiful countryside of Grantham

The website is really easy to use. Once you’ve found a voucher that you’d like to use you simply fill in all the contact details on the form and print it out. Simple eh? If you need it, you can even click on the map to find out exactly where you need to take your voucher!

So, what are you waiting for? Get on the site and saving money!

We are seeking an experienced web production person. You will be fluent in X/HTML and structural CSS and able to build sites conforming to W3C and WAI Level 2 standards. Experience with Javascript and working with content management and e-commerce systems is also required. Experience of working within ASP and PHP development environments would be a distinct advantage.

The role will initially be to take Photoshop layouts from the design team and convert them to HTML/CSS templates suitable for standalone site or use in e-commerce or content management systems, and then build the site around the existing software framework. The right candidate will be encouraged to progress into a full programming development role should they wish.

Please include with your application a list of URLs you’ve worked on detailing your level of involvement.

Closing date for applications: 5 October 2007

Send your CV including URLs and cover letter to pete@metafocus.co.uk

One of our client’s websites that has recently undergone a bit of a transformation and update is Liberty Industrial. Liberty Industrial is a Mansfield recruitment agency who also have an offices in Redditch. In the past the company have mainly focussed on helping organisations recruit for jobs in Nottingham and jobs in Redditch.

Due to the recent changes in European legislation many Polish and Eastern European workers have been moving to the UK to find better paid work. The influx of Polish worker to the UK is high and is highlighted by this recent article in the Irish paper, the Mayo News. The Polish Government is having to issue special work permits to workers from other eastern European countries to help fill labour shortages within the country.

Liberty have decided to specialise in the supply of Eastern Europe workers to UK companies. In particular the Mansfield employment agency is to focus on providing polish workers, polish construction workers, eastern European workers and migrant workers to companies in the East Midlands and Redditch areas. Using overseas partners the agency has access to thousands of workers in the UK and across Europe who are available for work with just a few days notice.

The Liberty Industrial website is now much more focussed to reflect the services that the company offers. Liberty are enrolled on our monthly search engine optimisation program. We have optimised their website for a range of key phrases including polish workers, polish construction workers and migrant workers. The site is already beginning to rank highly in the search engine results pages after only a few weeks.

The improvements to the Liberty site have affected both sides of their business: people seeking employment and employers seeking people. It is much easier for people, especially polish people, who are seeking work to find the site through the search engines.

One thing we noticed online recently has been the launch of mahalo.com. What’s that then? Well, it’s a new “human powered” search engine. Launched in May 2007, the idea behind it is that by using human editors it will make search results that are more relevant to the end user. Mahalo describe themselves as “a human-powered search engine that creates organized, comprehensive, and spam free search results for the most popular search terms”.

The Mahalo site has certainly been generating lots of interest in the media over the last few weeks. It would seem that the jury isn’t quite out yet on how useful or successful people think the site will prove to be.

Reading through the FAQ’s on the Mahalo site it would seem that it’s everything I could possibly want! I’d like to discover new content. I want to spend more time enjoying new content rather than waste time looking for it! I’d love to wave goodbye to spam, mediocre content and deceptive sites! However, in practice I don’t think Mahalo can live up to this just yet.

I thought that I would try the site out with a few random searches using some of our clients key phrases. I tried the following terms: SEO Nottingham, Blog Nottingham, Luxury b&b, and Avoid repossession. Unfortunately none of these terms had any results written for them. The site is aiming to write results pages for the 20,000 most popular search terms on the net, and are focusing on the most popular first.

Next I decided to check out the list for search terms they want people to write search terms for. The most wanted list for hobbies has some interesting ones! For any of you who would like to write content for the site, some current unclaimed topics include Charades, Laser Tag, Morse Code and Tanuki! I felt slightly disappointed that somebody had already done Jousting and Whale Watching!

So, overall what do I think? Mahalo might mean “Thank you” in Hawaiian, but for now at least I think I’ll give it an unconvinced “err, you what?”