My name is James Watson. Firstly, let me tell you a little about my background and why I decided to create james-watson.com

Firstly let me tell you the most important thing you need to know. I am not a ‘tech-geek’. I can barely work out how to program my dvd recorder at home, let alone anything in html or any other techno-speak language.

Let me explain why this is important.

If you feel any of the following emotions when thinking about trying to use technology – frustration, bewilderment, anxiety, hopelessness, inadequacy etc etc – then know this – my journey using technology started just where you are now.

Plus, I’m not going to bamboozle anyone with tech-terms, as I just don’t know how – nor want to!

In 2005 my wife and I decided to open a small Italian cafe/deli in our hometown of Bath in the UK. Naturally, we were extremely proud of our fledgling enterprise and we wanted to create a website that reflected the high-quality environment we had created for our customers.

So we arranged for a local web designer to build a web site made of very pretty, beautifully-styled, ’static’ html pages. Our initial euphoria however soon turned to frustration as whenever we needed to make changes e.g. to our product range, we were stuck.

Here was the problem. Unless I was willing to learn html, css and other tech-geek web-programming languages, as well as expensive, complicated software like Dreamweaver, I would have to pay the web designer every single time I wanted to make even the smallest of updates. Subsequently I’ve learnt that this practice is actually rife, and that web designers are often only too happy to take this easy, ongoing work and rack up their profits.

To be fair, however, not all web designers are blatant ‘rip off’ merchants. In fact the majority (certainly the ones I know) are mainly honest, hard-working individuals just trying to make a living doing what they know. However, what they almost always are not, however, are marketers, and they don’t know understand what your real needs are in order to market your business online successfully.

So one day I decided enough was enough and set about discovering just how easy it is to set up and update your own website, without learning html or any other technical jargon. Most website designers will tell you this is impossible! Not only possible, it is easy to do and will save you the thousands of pounds that I and other people have been foolish enough to pay.

In 2008 our ‘little’ website won an industry award – and my wife and I were thrilled. I set up our website using a simple Wordpress blog that is easy to update with text, images and even audio or video files. In simple terms, a ‘blog’ is the name given to a particular style of website, one that is friendlier and more personal than most other websites – especially those for businesses.

Moreover, search engines like Google normally give preference to content written in blogs, so you will get at least some visitors naturally without having to do anything other than write some content. For example, our cafe/deli naturally attracts visitors who have typed search for terms like ‘rice salad’ or ‘italian deli bath’ into a search engine.

Because of the local celebrity of our website, in early 2009 I started to mentor other business people about how to develop their own websites and web marketing in general. These clients ranged from people who either don’t have a website currently and would like to start one, or else they already have one but it is impossible for them to edit and update easily without incurring significant expense.

So, if you’re a small business who could benefit from the experience of someone with real experience of marketing businesses online and offline, why not give me a call and let’s talk!

Regards

James Watson

www.YellowPoppyMarketing.com
www.YourInternetBuddies.com
www.BlueprintCoachingProgram.com

T: +44 (0)8714-218-1275
E: support@yourinternetbuddies.com