I’ve always enjoyed dabbling with computers. I remember buying my first, an Oric, on my eleventh birthday for £99.95. I bucked the trend somewhat seeming everyone had a Spectrum or some kind of Commodore. I happily wiled away the hours typing Donkey Kong from the page of some magazine or other – quite a task considering the overtly ‘sticky’ nature of the Oric’s keyboard.

From those heady days to now I’ve always enjoyed getting stuck in as far as computers go. I enjoy embracing the new and teaching myself the various in and outs. Yes, I’ve made more than the odd mistake on the way, but it’s far more rewarding to achieve something from scratch and see the fruits of your own spoils.

Once the internet came along I became an instant convert. It really is a magnificent beast. It even contributed to me finding my good American lady who I married in September 2003. Since then I’ve been waiting for my visa to get into America which really put a spanner in the works in terms of employment. It was impossible for me to get a permanent position as an ESOL tutor and even temporary positions couldn’t be assured as I really had no idea when I might be leaving.

So when my brother-in-law, John, asked me about doing a website for Butler Sheetmetal I decided to give it a whirl and offer my services. They knew that they needed a web presence but they also knew it could cost a pretty penny. I must have been tipsy or something but I said I’d do it for commission on work through the site. No wonder they said yes! It was also something that could be continued once I’d made the move to America.

I’m not a web designer by any stretch of the imagination but there are plenty of tools and services out there to help the beginner and novice. I plumped for Homestead which offered hosting and a full website building package. The clincher though was a particular template they offered. So style over content won the day!

Websites are relatively useless unless people can actually find them. It might sound like common sense but I can assure you that there are plenty of web designers out there who aren’t too bothered about ensuring that the content of your website is relevant to your business in terms of keywords – words that basically describe your business. I used a combination of of Wordtracker and Web Position Gold to ensure I got the right keywords and the right density in my web pages. Search engines take many things into account when ranking your site once they find it and it’s maybe a post for another day. However you can read a bit more about SEO here if you need to.

That was basically six months ago and since then the site has managed to rank relatively well in the various search engines and had an appreciable number of enquiries and new customers through the site aswell as consolidating Butler Sheetmetal’s existing customer base. I’ve even managed to get other work from other companies relating to their SEO needs. But just working for Butler Sheetmetal and running Planters Direct has become a full time operation and one that I’m enjoying thoroughly.

The whole shabang has cost no more than £100.00 and you can see whether it’s been money well spent by visiting the site here.