November 12, 2008
The following article was written by our senior partner before we heard of "the credit crunch" and "economic downturns" in the UK and even before the Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, started hinting at or admitting that we might be in a recession and we knew that the British Banks were in problems. Perhaps at Canterhill we don't earn the same level of income as Mr. King (but we wonder why when the writing was on the wall and being ignored!) but we do know business and can forecast for our customers and provide sound advice. This kind of "backup" is not available from Web Design companies without our extensive business background. At Canterhill Consulting the future of our customers is important to us.

May 18, 2008
Are we going to enter a recession in 2008, are house prices going to drop substantially and are food, oil and gas prices going to continue to increase? Certainly some industries are already beginning to see sales slow and none more than those trying to promote what might be termed as luxury items. What can happen during these periods is that while many businesses can struggle or fail because they just do not know how to adjust, others can prosper because they benefit from an adjustment in thinking by the average man in the street. For example, during times like this, "do-it-yourself" businesses can actually flourish because rather than call in outside contractors to do small jobs around the house, people will visit the local hardware store and "have a go" themselves.
What is important to the majority of businesses is to keep assessing their sales and returns on sales to continually compare with previous results. Certainly, although there may be a lot of "lookers" on the Internet, it is probable that converting visits to sales is going to become increasingly difficult and percentage returns are likely to drop. Therefore, it is even more important to monitor and attempt to increase the visits to your site. Probably one of the worst things at the moment is that because this follow up was not previously required as the economy managed to produce profits for bad managers in spite of themselves, matters could soon be finding these people out - and sooner rather than later.
At present, do you know how many hits you have on your site on a regular basis? Do you actually know what a "hit" is? A "hit" is a vague term and can cover up a wealth of poor reporting by some Internet "designers". Most of all, how much does your web designer actually know about business. It's all very well having a pretty site with lots of bells and whistles but if it has unnecessary pages and confusing information then it will be you that eventually suffers as a consequence. You do need to know how many people visit your site and how many pages are looked at.
Without confusing the issue too much, here is a quick list of things to look for:
- Has your Web Designer got a business background and how much can you really trust his advice. (In general, be careful of part-time web designers. They're only looking for a bit of extra cash and they don't have to rely on you to pay the bills.)
- Have you looked at the other sites produced by your web designer? Is the layout on the other sites the same as yours? If so, this designer is just churning out sites and yours means nothing to him. Some hosting sites provide a background program to achieve this and in fact, your designer knows very little about design and even less about your business.
- Don't allow your site to become stale. A static site shows how interested you are in your own business - you have nothing new to offer. Most of all, if you are going to use pictures, make sure they are relevant and of good quality.

Obviously, books have been written on the subject and usually by "computer geeks" trying to sell the fact that anyone can build a web site rather than by business people who know how to build up the returns from your investment in the site. If we enter a period of recession then it won't be a computer expert that will help you out of the possible consequences. If you need advice or assistance then please feel free to contact us at sales@canterhill.co.uk

This short article was written by Peter Blanche, one of our senior partners, who is an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers and a Fellow of the Institute of Canadian Bankers. During his banking career, Peter spent approximately 10 years dealing with bad debts, bankruptcies and administrations - so he does know a little about what goes wrong with businesses and why!!