andrew green :: web designer

website design and search engine optimisation (SEO)
for tourism-based businesses in Dorset, Devon & Somerset

Website design & creation > tourism-based businesses in Dorset, Devon & Somerset

Welcome to members of WHCHA!

A website can, and should, be your major marketing tool ... but only if it's well-designed, works well and - crucially - looks professional.

... and that's where I come in - with a degree in Maths & Computer Science, a background in traditional computing and extensive expertise in small business marketing (both on and offline), I am the ideal choice to design - or redesign - your small business website.

In addition, I have extensive knowledge of search engine optimisation (SEO), which means that I can ensure that potential customers can find you on the web. This is a point very often neglected by web designers who, typically, have little or no knowledge of this vital area of expertise ... although, be warned, many of them will say they are skilled in SEO, but have no results to back up these claims!

After all, there's no point in you having a website if the only people who can find you are those who know about you already!

... and, if that wasn't enough, I also designed and developed the Jurassic Experience website, so I have in-depth knowledge of exactly what is required to promote your tourism-based business in the beautiful Jurassic Coast area.

Choosing me as your web designer, you are hiring not just my expertise, professional approach and attention to detail, but my training and experience as a professional business analyst, systems analyst and designer - enabling me to quickly get to grips with the needs of your business.

I look forward to working with you!


My services - website design/redesign and search engine optimisation (SEO)

Design & creation of your new website, including search engine optimisation

Your decision to have a website designed for you is an important step and you need to get it right - whoever you choose as your web designer, you will be working with them for many years and so the relationship needs to be excellent right from the start.

I like to feel that I'm always prepared to 'go the extra mile', since I feel that I'm working with you on your business and helping you to succeed.

For example, one of my clients rang me at 10.30 the other night with a problem on his site (bookings for his campsite were coming through with incorrect prices); my wife wasn't that pleased for me to be working that late, but within half an hour I'd fixed the problem and uploaded the corrected page. (That isn't an invitation to ring me at midnight, by the way!)

John Meaker is an artist, based in my home village of Abbotsbury. John runs painting and drawing classes and courses, throughout the year, from his large studio in the middle of village.

Unusually, it was me who had approached him, feeling that his business would benefit from an online presence. Our discussions led towards a site which he would be able to modify himself (which is the case with the majority of the sites I create, these days)

This was a major investment for John and he deliberated for several weeks over whether to choose me. Finally given the go-ahead, his site was up and running on schedule (see the screenshot to the right) and I ran him through the series of 'Control Panels' which he can use to add and modify virtually all the visible content (text and images) on his site.

I know John won't mind me saying that he was not the most computer-literate person I've ever come across ... but, every time I look at the site, he has made some minor or major changes and feels very comfortable with what I've provided for him.

And, as expected, Abbotsbury Studio is also achieving some nice first page positioning on Google for a variety of relevant search phrases.

As John commented:

"The site is attractive and easy to use for my clients, as well as very easy for me when I update my timetable and prices. I'm pleased to see Abbotsbury Studio coming high up on Google .... and I haven't got stuck once with the Control Panels!"

( to email John)

Just to email me, or ring me on 01305-871561 and we can get the ball rolling .... and, naturally, you are under absolutely no obligation at this stage!

Website redesign, including search engine optimisation

As the web matures, the bar is continually being raised, in terms of the type of design which your potential customers expect to see.

A simple design which looked OK a few years ago now runs the risk of making you look unprofessional. So, if you designed your own site a while ago, you might now be considering a professional redesign.

Brian Jung is a wedding, portrait and landscape photographer, based on Portland (near Weymouth). Brian had designed his site a while ago and I was recommended to him by another client for a complete redesign (see right).

I built search engine optimisation into the design of the site and the results on this front have been spectacular - from languishing on page 3 or 4 of Google with the old site, Brian how has a professionally-designed site with extremely good search engine positioning, as shown in the table below:
keyword phrase Google Yahoo
portrait photographer bridport3&41&5
portrait photographer weymouth2&31&6
portrait photographer dorchester3&44
wedding photographer bridport3&43&8
wedding photographer weymouth23
wedding photographer dorchester7&82
landscape photography dorset78

As Brian commented:

"Having my website optimised for the best ranking possible is by far the most important apect in the competitive market that I work in. I am very grateful to Andrew who with his great knowedge and skill in this area has been able to achieve this for me and maximise the ranking of my website to the top of the listings."

( to email Brian)

Brian and his wife run the Island Gallery on Portland and they were so pleased with my work on his site, that I'll soon be designing and creating a website for the Gallery.

Just to email me, or ring me on 01305-871561 and we can get the ball rolling .... and, naturally, you are under absolutely no obligation at this stage!


Alternatively, you might just want your old site 'cleaned up', or modified to incorporate a few design 'tweaks' from a professional designer.

This is what I did last year for Calum Allison, who runs the Pear Tree Campsite and Caravan Site Touring Park, near Poole. Calum had made a pretty good job of designing his own site, but had got stuck on some design elements and a complex booking form and he also needed some professional SEO work.

I tidied up and rationalised the design and site structure, whilst maintaining Calum's original design ideas. I also incorporated search engine optimisation as a fundamental foundation of the reworked site and wrote a program - using a wide range of different fields entered on the form - to work out prices per night for a customer's proposed stay, which is displayed on the booking page, prior to confirmation.

The result - which you can see to the right - was a satisfying (and continuing) project for both of us and the site now gets some very useful search engine positioning for a wide range of relevant keyword phrases.

This includes very good positioning on the Google 'Local' results (the map which appears - increasingly often - at the top of the results, with a list of 10 businesses beside it) -

As Calum commented:

"In September 2007 I was looking for someone to design an online booking system for our web site.

As a small business ourselves, we had been let down by the rigid approach of some of the larger SEO companies who were only interested if we undertook a full and costly redesign of our web site. We contacted a number of smaller Dorset-based Companies who could undertake the programming work, as well as review and improve our web site optimisation.

In appointing Andrew, the main factors were his understanding of our business and ability to communicate what appear to be fairly complex programming issues in terms that were easy to understand. It also helped that his own web site is clear, simple and achieves good Google rankings

Before any work was undertaken costs were agreed up front, with follow-up phone calls to aid our understanding.

Since working with Andrew, we have found his approach flexible and pragmatic. Working together on the best combinations of ‘key words’ our web site now achieves first page listings on Google for the majority of relevant searches with several searches achieving top of page 1 listings.

The majority of our bookings now mainly come through the Internet, which significantly reduces the time we have to spend on the phone."

( to email Calum, or you can ring him on 01202-622-434)

Just to email me, or ring me on 01305-871561 and we can get the ball rolling .... and, naturally, you are under absolutely no obligation at this stage!

Search engine optimisation (SEO) of your existing website

There's no point in you having a website if the only people who can find you are those who know about you already!

Search engine companies have developed increasingly complex sets of rules ('algorithms') for their results. These search algorithms now can contain more than 100 different tests on the page content, title, description, keywords, links, etc, etc.

The response from web designers was to adopt 'clever' techniques, the most popular being to avoid altering the visible page text, but including keywords in the same colour as the background colour (eg white text on a white background).

It didn't take long before the search engine designers included tests to check for this. Typically, if your - supposedly 'optimised' - site is found to be using techniques like this, it will be placed far down in the rankings, or even banned from the search index completely.

Beware - some misguided web designers still use these dangerous and outdated techniques - if yours does, you might find your site suddenly disappears one day!

Over the years, SEO has become increasingly difficult, as genuine SEO consultants attempt to 'second guess' what a search engine is looking for. The art of search engine optimisation has become a highly-skilled and extremely complex process, requiring many different skills:

  • knowledge of the latest SEO techniques which work;
  • the - absolutely crucial - ability to create keyword-rich optimised page text which not only works for optimisation purposes, but also works as marketing copy for your business;
  • the ability to stand back and look at the website as a whole and analyse whether, when my SEO work gets you those visitors, your website will achieve the results you want - particularly in terms of the 'conversation' between the site and the visitor.

These points highlight exactly what my strengths are and why I achieve consistently good search engine results.


One of my most successful SEO campaigns has been for Love from Me.

This was a site which I designed some while ago (and which I run myself), selling 'romantic' gifts. Over the past year or so, I've been paying particular attention to optimisation and have achieved outstanding results for a very wide variety of keyword phrases, bringing very high traffic (and excellent sales) over the all-important Christmas and Valentine's day periods.

I concentrated primarily on Google -

keyword phrase Google
romantic gifts for men1&2
romantic gifts for women2
romantic gifts7
romantic presents4
special presents4
special presents for him2
etc ... 

If you have any questions at all, about any of the above, just to email me, or ring me on 01305-871561

Getting you found in the Google 'Local' results

Google is steadily rolling out local results for an increasing variety of searches - check out 'andrew green dorset' on Google, and you'll see what I mean!

Because 'Local' results appear right at the top of the results, your local business needs to be in those results. No other SEO consultants place as much emphasis on these results as I do and I have become particularly skilled in 'manipulating' Google Local.

One of my most successful SEO campaigns has been for Morris Owen, a firm of Chartered Accountants in Swindon. I was recommended to their Marketing Agency for optimisation work and recommended a full-scale optimisation campagn for the company.

My work was received so well that, when James Scanlan - who I had been dealing with - left to set up his own marketing company dealing specifically with the Accountancy sector, he engaged me to undertake SEO work for his new clients.

You can see the - spectacularly successful - results of my work in the Google screenshot shown to the right.

As James said at the time:

"I just wanted to let you know how pleased we've been with the work you've been doing with our site."

( to email James, or you can ring him on 07775-694750)

(Also see the discussion of my work for the Pear Tree Touring Park, above).

If you have any questions at all, about any of the above, just to email me, or ring me on 01305-871561


Comments from other web design professionals

comments about www.vickiclarkart.com

"The paintings at this site are awesome!   Everything is crystal clear, and so sharp even when viewing the enlarged graphics.   I was pleasantly surprised at how fast everything loaded on my dial-up connection too.   Great site"

"Everything loaded fast, pictures were clear, navigation was easy.   This site had everything it needed and nothing it didn't."

"I'm usually not into abstract art, but enjoyed this with the descriptions so I could tell what the paintings were.   I liked all the white space and the clean uncluttered design."

"Very well designed site.   You've definitely made this site user friendly, and kept the eyes focused on the artwork.   Altogether a great example of a focused, niche website."


comments about www.siteright.tk

"One of the best websites I ever looked at.   All because of the pure simplicity of it: it delivers the information you need clearly and accurately in a language anyone can understand.   NO hype! NO fluff! NO outrageous promises!"

"Website was very easy to follow.  Information up front.  Easy to read."

"I found this website simple and easy to read and navigate around.   The use of colour was sparse, and so made you look twice at the places where they occurred (as was its intention).   It downloaded quickly and easily."




That's all for now - but don't hesitate to if you have any questions at all about what I can offer you.  And, don't forget, that if you need a website designed or if you need help and advice with an existing site, you need look no further than me!



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