Archive for the 'Web' Category

SEO – no silver bullets

We’re often asked about SEO – search engine optimisation – for the websites we design, build and maintain. It has the reputation of being a very special black art, almost a branch of magic, something only a very few sorcerers actually understand.

The facts of course, are different. Search engines like sites that don’t try to cheat them, sites that are built to standards, have good and consistent content (and so get visited) and have links in and out which people use.

Adding a good and content-rich blog can help, especially if you are prepared to comment on industry issues (and do a little more than to plug your own products and services).

Using social media and connectivity tools like Twitter and Linked In can help too, but are best utilised when you talk about industry topics.

Finally, improvements come by finding out what works and what doesn’t and that means using measurement tools (probably more than one!) like Google Analytics and Webalizer. Our tip would be to look at trends, not just numbers.

Getting the best out of the web means putting the best you can into it. Keep your website updated, keep the content fresh, and keep tracking what’s going on. Those are the essential components of any SEO plan.

JShop = easy and instant international trading!

Zelens sells very up-market anti-ageing preparations Zelens are one of those companies who know their target market.

If you find yourself sitting in a Ferrari today, and you’re female and concerned about the look of your skin, you probably won’t want us to tell you that Zelens products occupy the higher reaches of the scientifically-based (and expensive!) end of the market for skin care products.

The Zelens website (which WildWest designed and implemented for them) uses JShop technology to make it a true eCommerce site with all the facilities a company selling to an international market would need.

Security, shipping, credit card administration, tracking orders are all handled from within the JShop system, providing a full retail system at a very affordable price.

If you would like to know more about eCommerce possibilities for your company and its products, please do get in touch.

CCDC appoint WildWest for design project

CCDC is the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre, the world-leading source of expertise on crystal structures for education and commerce. We’re very proud to be working with this influential and important scientific body, which is vital to life sciences, materials science and other development bodies around the world. Our work includes developing a short-hand ‘icon set’ for CCDC products and services, and designing a new web site.

Hatton Grange – Identity, Personality, and Capability Too

The home page from the new Hatton Grange website

The home page from the new Hatton Grange website

If you are involved with or interested in the private equity or venture capital markets, (as an investor, manager or participant) then you’ll need to take a look at WildWest Design’s latest client, Hatton Grange.


Hatton Grange is the creation of Hector Macandrew and his partner Simon Mellor. The company – a very specialist provider of services to investors and entrepreneurs in the media and technology sectors – launched last week with its bright, confident new logo, and a new website too, which you can reach at www.hattongrange.co.uk. Both were designed by WildWest.
Hatton Grange partners with entrepreneurs and investors by building networks in their chosen sectors, advising on transactions, providing executive search and consultancy services to their portfolio companies, and originating deals.

The company also supports senior managers (executive and non-executive) in their search for venture capital and private equity backed opportunities.

In a market where specific expertise, experience or knowledge can sometimes be the key to unlocking multi-million pound opportunities, we’re sure that Hatton Grange has a big future in front of it, and we look forward to supporting the company’s aspirations and growth over the coming years.

Stock Spirits – Award-winner expands

Stock Spirits, the internationally-focused manufacturer of branded drinks, now has a set of 10 websites, including national sites covering all their existing and new sales territories.

Orzel vodka. Stock's flagship brand in the USA

Orzel vodka. Stock's flagship brand in the USA

Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, USA, are all national areas covered by the set of Wild West-designed and implemented web sites. And then there are sites dedicated to the work of Stock Spirits Group, and International Sales.

For a company that has only existed for a few years, they have come a long way in a very short time.

What is possibly more remarkable is that Stock are able to maintain and update all their sites through an implementation of ModX open-source software. The software allows Stock staff in the UK and in the international territories to amend their sites as they need, adding press releases, posting new packaging or bottle shots, and of course, adding to the range of Stock cocktail recipes which are suggested throughout the Stock Spirits group site. Since all of the national sites are provided in two, and sometimes three, languages maintenance would otherwise have been a big task.

Wild West undertakes periodic ‘refresher’ training to help get new staff up to speed and to ensure that all staff who need to have up to date skills.

Find Stock Spirits at www.stockspiritsgroup.com. For international sites, follow the links.

Carrington – now blogging to contractors

Carrington Accountancy, the tax specialists who do a lot of their work with contractors of various kinds (and new start-up companies) are now blogging at www.carringtonaccountancy/blog and keeping everyone up to date with timely devlelopments in terms of UK legislation and dates.

Revamped web site for Carrington Accountancy

We’re quite often called upon to revitalise web sites after a while. After all, things change, successful companies want to add new facilities, and adding social networking links is getting more and more common. It’s not so often though, that within a year, we’re asked for a completely revised site, with a whole new look.

Such has been the development of the Carrington Accountancy business, that we’ve had to do just that.
Carrington offer accounting services, with particular emphasis on working with new companies, with individual contractors and the self-employed.

So if you are in one of those groups, or you just need accounting (or investment) advice, start by going to www.carringtonaccountancy.com

Becoming experts in MS Sharepoint!

Well, anyone who knows us will know that we like open source software, but now we have a very big job ahead, made even bigger by the fact that they need to use MS Sharepoint 2010 for the web design and the application development behind it. Made even bigger by the fact that the software hasn’t all been released yet!

The Stock Sea Breeze – Perfect

The Stock Sea Breeze. Just one of the great cocktail recipes on the Stock Spirits site, designed by Wild West

The Stock Sea Breeze. Just one of the great cocktail recipes on the Stock Spirits site, designed by Wild West

The sun’s coming out again after what seems like an interminable winter. So maybe this weekend might be the ideal time to dust off a cocktail recipe or two?

This ‘Sea Breeze’ could be perfect, and you can find the recipe on the website of  the Stock Spirits group at www.stockspirits.com

Stock Spirits are the leading manufacturers of branded spirits in central and eastern Europe, though with their headquarters in the UK.

The group’s excellent products sell throughout central and eastern Europe and are becoming prominent in the US too. (Wild West built all their corporate sites – including dual- and tri-language sites for some countries).

The only problem is that the Group’s products are hard to find in the UK. So a proper cocktail like this one – with Stock’s premium Czysta de Luxe vodka as its base – could be a difficult proposition.

Best to make a note, and the next time you are travelling in Poland or Slovenia, pick up a bottle of this crystal-pure spirit. And then all of your sea breezes will be as crisp and refreshing as they can be.

More cocktail recipes on the Stock Spirits site at www.stockspirits.com