why swordfishsoup?

Good question, and one I'd love to have a sophisticated answer to....I was working as a freelance web designer/multi media creator and needed a name for my site.

Swordfishsoup had a slightly quirky ring to it and when tested out on bemused friends and relatives it seemed that it was just odd enough to remember for more than ten minutes and just quirky enough to fit the genre. So there it is, not very sophisticated and sadly nothing to do with fish...or soup.

My business split into two distinct areas with web design and all things multi media on one hand and a successful CD and DVD duplication company (discburner.co.uk) on the other. Discburner authors and produces CD's and DVD's for clients ranging from local bands and business to larger organisations such as Honda, Royal Mail and Waitrose.

so why am I in the soup

Having served my time in web design I discovered more and more people with wonderful looking websites selling wonderful things but just not getting any traffic. It became a mystery to me. As a rule it's not something web designers tend to focus on generally, it's such a different concept from design and coding. But having a great website that hasn't been setup to get traffic is like building a kit car and not putting a fuel tank in it. You just watch the other cars go by (some of them pretty ugly) and just sit waiting...and waiting.

So to cut a long story short, I got the bug. Why, how, I'm terrible with those two words once they get in my head. I launched myself into a voyage of these two little three worders and found myself getting deeper and deeper into what seemed at first like the 'magic circle' of the internet.

Having got to grips with the fundamentals of 'search engine optimisation' I needed to take it further. Optimisation is great, necessary and vital for the long term success of a website, but I'm impatient. I want traffic today. I want to 'do something' and check the statistics the next day and see the little blue column showing the visitor numbers shooting up.

Adwords was it. It involves all the basics of general SEO (trade speak for search engine optimisation!) but it's instant. Imagine and advert that can be put together and launched and seen instantly, or at least within a few hours, by 'millions' of people worldwide. How cool is that. There's no other form of advertising like it.

I then proceeded to waste a fortune (on your behalf)

Managed badly this was like having a bucket full of money with big, big holes in. On the surface it can seem great as your little blue 'visitors' column shoots up in your stats, but without tracking the results and monitoring the conversion rates of ads and keywords and split testing different combinations, it's a blind gamble that you probably won't win. If you do let me know..."your hired" as Mr Sugar would say.

To cut what was to be a brief 'about' page back down to size. I learned the lessons, got the t shirt and studied for, took and passed the Google Adwords™ Qualified professional exam. They haven't invited me to go and hang out with them at the 'Googleplex' in the States yet, they're probably waiting on that one as a surprise for my birthday or something - aren't you guys?

back to business

So, If your web site is lacking in visitors or sales, Swordfishsoup can help with both - bringing the visitors but more importantly bringing the right visitors that convert into sales or leads.

I offer a range of services from site reviews to discover any errors in the basics of your pages that could be preventing you from showing up in the search engines, to in depth analysis of performance and competition to ensure your site gains the exposure you need.

Call me or mail me, it would be good to hear from you.

Best wishes, and thanks for visiting

Dave