Frequently Asked Questions

Perhaps the best way to answer this question is by example:

I am Joel Hughes and I am the founder and owner of Glass Mountains. Glass Mountains is run by a team of people and so it makes sense that our domain name is www.glassmountains.co.uk (note: had I known 5 years ago that we would do so much work in the US, I might have opted for a .COM domain name instead. However, the .co.uk does not seem to put off US clients and I could always change it later).

Whilst I own the joelhughes.com domain name, there is nothing on that website. If I wished to present myself as an independent person outside of Glass Mountains, then this could be a vehicle to do that. A personal website would then ‘allow’ me to blog on content which is perhaps outside of the general scope of what generally goes on at Glass Mountains (i.e. mainly WordPress & website related topics).

If I was presenting myself as a speaker or an author, then a personal website may well help because, if you think about it, if someone who is looking for a speaker on topic X, lands on joelhughes.com which has a big picture of me, details of how to book me as a speaker etc – then they’ll immediately feel at home and more amenable to taking the next step (book me). But that is not me at the moment, so I’m happy for my details to be tied into the Glass Mountains websites. A personal website may also make sense if I were thinking of selling my company in x years time as this would then mean I already would have my own separate, personal internet presence established (rather than everything being tied up in the GlassMountains.co.uk website). A bit of future planning pays off here.

If you are starting out and have the choice between the two routes (personal website name or generic business name) then perhaps you want to ask yourself these questions:

• Are you the focal point of the business? (and will you continue to be?)
• Will your enterprise consist of a team? Or are you the sole component?
• How do you envisage your business changing?
• Does your name easily translate into an internet domain name?
• Is your name likely to change? (think marriage/think divorce)

None of those questions provides the whole answer but they should help guide you as to the choice here.

Bear in mind one thing: you don’t have to get it 100% right now: we can unpick this later on. We can change your domain name down the line; we can split websites into multiple websites with differing offerings etc. Yes in the ideal world we would create the perfect foundations for your internet presence and then 5 years down the road those foundations are still perfectly aligned with your current business vision – but that is not always possible.

As a final tip: internet domain names are fairly cheap, if in doubt, buy the domain name and put it on your back pocket. As a general rule, I’d typically only go for a .COM or .CO.UK domain name but there are other useful versions as well.

 

Yes. WordPress is a solid web development platform which runs countless business websites.

Many businesses choose WordPress for reasons such as:

• Their staff may already have some familiarity with the platform
• WordPress offers themes/plugins which can reduce the need for costly bespoke development
• WordPress support is abundant, so ‘vendor lock-in’ is less of a risk.

See some of our business WordPress work?

We can certainly try! Feel free to contact us with any details about your site, and we’ll come back to you with our best estimate on how long it will take to fix. After that, you’ll simply need to buy a package of pay-as-you-go hours from us, and then we can work on your WordPress problem.

Yes. 90% of our WordPress work is for custom theme development (as opposed to using off-the-shelf WordPress themes). For more information, please look at our page on Custom WordPress Theme Development.

We look into this in detail on our popular blog post on whether you need to have ‘home’ on your website main menu.

Glass Mountains have been running a remote, digitally agile design, support, and development team for years. And we have been helping clients in the US for years as well (including Jay Baer, Mark Schaefer, Jason, Dorsey, Southwestern Consulting, Steve Spangler).

Remote work is not an issue for us – it is how we operate.

It’s very important that you know the level of investment it will take in order for us to work together. This is why we’ve created a summary page of how much we charge and a detailed page on the factors affecting the cost of your website design project.

 

If it is appropriate for your business, we can help with keyword research which can help you plan the content of your website. There are also other techniques we can use to help tune into lucrative (especially less searched on) phrases.

We typically use Google Analytics to help provide the basic reporting on the activity of your website. These systems are not simple though so you may prefer to have some hands-on training with its use, or you may prefer to have us prepare a monthly report which pulls together all the key facts for your business.

We can also use other systems and methods when it comes to tracking the performance of your website. Indeed, if pay-per-click advertising is thrown into the mix, we will typically take extra steps to ensure that we have richer reporting of that, paid for traffic.

Please note: Google Analytics (and similar services) do have privacy implications and therefore that needs to be reflected in your website privacy policy.

The design of your website will be the result of a lot of studied research into what your customers want, what your business does, what makes up your brand etc. Therefore, when we start your website project, we won’t be reaching for the crayons in the first session; yes it is lovely to talk about how something should look but until we’ve got to the heart of what it needs to do, then any design work will be a distraction.

That aside, here at Glass Mountains we’re great fans of clear, focused, & uncluttered websites. People online have short attention spans and they are getting shorter. People also like to receive information in different ways; some skim-read the text, some use the menus, some are attracted by pictures; a successful website is built with these varying patterns in mind.

You might be interested to read more about our process or take a look at our portfolio.

This depends on what you want. If you prefer a content management system so that you can maintain the bulk of website content yourself; then fine. If you would prefer to work with us on a monthly support or retainer basis, then that’s fine as well.

As a very first step, you need to ensure that your site is in tip-top condition for attracting traffic in the first place – after all, if you had a high street shop and the lights didn’t work, the shelves we only half full, and the till was temperamental, you wouldn’t want to drive more customers to the shop – you’d want to fix those issues first.

After we have established your site is in a promotable condition, then we can help advise you on a variety of traffic boosting methods; note we do not offer PPC and off-site SEO in-house, instead we will have specialist partners we can refer you to.

 

Please refer to this page regarding our WordPress hosting & support packages. We also offer a pay-as-you-go service for smaller changes.

If there is a beating heart at the centre of your WordPress site; then it is your content. Your content contains the essential messaging that will need to resonate with your target audience, to prove to them that your business can help solve their problem.

With our projects we offer clients a variety of services depending on their needs and skills:

• Content Audit
  We perform an exhaustive audit of the content on your current website looking for content which needs to be improved and areas where we are missing items. 
• Content Planning Workshop
  A hands-on session helping you understand what content works well online and how you can write compelling content. 
• Copywriting / Photography / Video
  Whilst we don’t offer these services in-house, we have trusted partners we can recommend you to, if you need such services.

This really depends on the nature of your business but the angle we normally approach this from is as follows:

• What are your products & services?
• Who is your target audience?
• How do they like to buy from you? etc.

This research then allows us to develop a website structure which then fits your audience’s needs like a hand in a glove.

Your website may offer eCommerce facilities, newsletter signup, video, download of digital products, the list goes on. Ultimately it depends on what is the best way to convert anonymous website traffic into leads for your business.

Short answer is ‘yes’. When you are thinking of doing business with someone, what is one of the first things you do? You Google them. And what comes up has two opportunities: i) to look dreadful and put doubt in the prospect’s mind or ii) to look stunning and to exude all the personality and qualities which your company has. Which would you prefer?