25 Years of Trading

25 Years of being Online

I am celebrating today 25 years of being online.

I spent most of last week answering questions from my followers on LinkedIn and here is the complete set.

What is your favourite success story?

The one I always find myself telling goes back to 2020. We were all in lockdown and Zoom networking meetings had taken off.

I was in a local networking group that met together every other week. The chairman announced that one of our fellow members was going to close her business because of rising costs.

Amanda is normally a very bubbly outgoing person, so this behaviour was out fo character. I spoke to Amanda and found that her pain point was the “web team” who currently were hosting and looking after her website. Basically they were trying to charge her £200 for something she didn’t even use. Also when it came to web changes, they had to be asked at least a few times and even then would be charged a silly amount.

I went through Amanda’s website in full review mode. Give or take a few sections that needed better utilisation of space, the site was alright. Plus my pricing wasn’t cheap but I made it clear what was necessary and how long it would all take.

So Amanda instructed me to take over looking after the website. The fun kind of started then. This other company was not willing to pass on any files of the website, plus no one could access the back end. If you could imagine a 4 year old gripping their favourite toy, turning their back on you and screaming “mine!”. This was what we were dealing with.

So Amanda left it for a few weeks, which was just enough time for me to copy the artwork and files across and in effect rebuild the back and front end of the website.

In the end it was just a case of changing the domain name server and telling this company “thank you but no thank you”

Amanda continued to live her dream of running an online shop from home while her children were growing up. Last year she did cease trading because it was her plan to go back to full time work once the children had grown up.

Not all our my stories have a sugar-coated fairytale ending, but being able to give someone the freedom to run their business for 5 years more than if they threw in the towel, is why I choose this as my best story.

Did you ever think you would be trading as long as you have been?

The honest answer? No not really.

I started off DVH Design in 2000 part-time at home, because being newly married, having children was inevitable. For the first year I purely worked evenings.

Babies happened in the first few years of trading and honestly pre-2004, I thought web designers would disappear as quickly as they were created.

Oh boy, how wrong I was. But in a good way 😎

The way I see it is by about 2004/5 every business had a website, but around this time, some of the businesses who had a website quite early on, took a look at their creation and thought “My God what have I done?”

A lot of these was Frontpage based websites. Which in comparison is like using page builders now.

Twinned with the businesses that got a friend of a friend of their mate to do their website and it was now completely unusable. In fact, one of my earliest projects was a loca charity who did just that. To the extent that every section on the page was exactly placed and had a height and width declared.

Which sounded great at the time, but when they wanted to change content, all the sections collided with each other making it unreadable.

I’m proud to say that I still look after the charity’s website even 20 years and 3 rebuilds later.

Search Engine Optimisation was a natural transition and has certainly helped me grow my business. So has offering regular maintenance services ideal to keeping websites performing at an optimum level while keeping everything secure.

Although my journey so far hasn’t all been plain sailing (I’m no longer married), but even after 25 years, I am still a) learning and b) always striving to improve my services.

What is the best lesson you have learned?

I have learned a heck of a lot in my 25 years of trading, but the thing that saved my business and gave me a better reputation was asking for a deposit upfront prior to commencing any web project. I will explain.

Within about a couple of years of being a web designer and juggling children and work, there was a few companies that either had ridiculous payment terms (that thought payment within 90 days was perfectly acceptable) or ones that did a runner when the project was finished. There was also a few that went full-scale Karen (or Kevin) because they suddenly decided they wanted their website in 2 weeks and couldn’t understand why I couldn’t do this.

This way made me question everything and I did wonder whether I wanted to continue working for myself. Being the go-to person to patronise, certainly wasn’t anywhere on my agenda.

Thankfully, after getting some much needed advice from other web designers and business owners, I opted to ask for a portion of the money upfront. This certainly changed things for the better. A couple of chancers tried their luck early on but I wasn’t budging.

I still get late payers but thats an easier pill to swallow than someone who cheats you out of about £500 (This was going back to the noughties).

What’s the strangest website you’ve ever done?

I’ve had a few: In the past I’ve worked on everything from a greyhound syndicate setup to a tantric massage agency. I even have a website that I currently look after for two rock fans review festivals and albums as a hobby.

The websites I end up rebuilding, I read through their content. In these years I have learned a lot. From conditions that are the opposite of diabetes to how intumescent door seals work. From ISO accreditations to the various car parts on post-war Rolls Royces.

I am very open minded, but I do tend to steer clear of the next Music Magpie, AliBaba, ebay and so on. In my experience they, tend to run away from quotes higher than a few hundred. It’s almost like they read the first page and then the last page of their inspiration’s autobiography.

I’m always up for a good idea and something original but doable. But in my honest opinion, every website is unique. If not it should be.

Bonus Question:  So What’s next?

Ooo.  That is a tough one.  I would love to say I will trade 25 years more, but I will be 76 by then!  As far as long-term goes, even I don’t know the answer to that one.

All I can promise is that I will continue to strive  to improve the services I offer and make websites, quicker, alluring and more secure.  I would like to push the Build Your own website course a lot more (the programme for startup businesses).  

All I can really say is watch this space.  

 

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Stop Press: We Have Moved Premises

As of 10 January 2025, DVH Design hace relocated to a new premises.  Our new postal address is:

22 Ignite House
Braintree Enterprise Centre
46 Springwood Drive
Braintree
Essex
CM7 2YN

However, if you would like to book a consultation or a meeting, we accept advanced bookings via our website. 

Onsite bookings are available.  Alternatively we accept advance bookings at the Following locations:

• The Plaza, Rutherford Park, Great Notley, Braintree
• The Chelmsford Club, Old London Road, Chelmsford
• The Innovation Center, Boundary Road, Colchester
• Space 282, Claydons Lane Rayleigh

This is mainly because the coffee at these locations are top standard and they are nice quiet spaces where I work regularly and have lunch whenever the mood takes me.

Happy 2024 from DVH Design

Stop Press: I am not DVH Design Limited

Official Award for DVH Design

Going bacGoing back to the lockdown earlier this year, DVH Design was awarded Web Design Service of the year 2021 by the Corporate LiveWire Innovation & Excellence Awards. This was a welcome award and once again, felt unreal.

I shall explain my cynicism: but last year we also won the Boutique Web Agency of the year and sadly this did not feel real. There was no official ceremony and all we had to show for it was a digital certificate.

Last week, I made the journey to Guildford, where I was able to pick up my award. The journey getting there was absolute hell, but worth every agonising traffic jam just to both feel the physical award and get some visual evidence to prove this was all genuine (to me anyway!).

And yes, I do wear a dress sometimes. 😉

Award Winning Web Design

DVH Design has won the CorporateLiveWireAward for Boutique Design Company of the Year 2020.

Assessed by a panel of judges that took into consideration the following for our award:

• Customer satisfaction
• Google, Facebook and Yell.com reviews
• Working with companies on an ongoing basis for 10+ years
• Assisting people with relatively little knowledge of the digital design area

Heartfelt thanks to all my customers for your ongoing support over the years.  We could not have done this without you.

19 Years and Still Going Strong!

Today is the 19th anniversary of DVH Design. We started in a tiny box room in Black Notley as a part-time business. Initially as a sideline to my administration job and then evolved to keep me sane when I had little children.

During that time we have evolved from a Microsoft FrontPage whizz(?) to learning the web code and scripting. We have also taught ourselves various Ecommerce and CMS packages, particularly Joomla, ZenCart and more recently WordPress.

In addition, DVH Design have also added Search Engine Optimisation (the story of how that came to be can be read here). We have also included Responsive website design, AdWords advertising. More recently, we specialise in helping website owners regain control of their own website. For example when their spouse or former web designer break communication. Sadly this has become commonplace over the last few years.

For that reason alone, we have changed our slogan depending on what fitted the company ethos at the time: We have gone from “Web Design Across Essex”, briefly experimented with “Sites not Sights”. Our now more fitting slogan, “Your Online Superheroes” (which is honestly nothing to do with my love of Marvel/DC films!)

But we could not have done any of this without our customers: These have varied from all works of life and backgrounds and from the novice website owner to serial business owners. Some I’ve worked with for a few months and a good few I have worked with for 15 years. I like to hope I have helped them achieve what they set out to achieve to begin with.

Here’s to the future

The last 19 years has been a big learning curve, and I know that learning curve will continue for years to come. DVH Design now have an AdWords expert on Board and will shortly include logo design to our services. There are other services that we are looking to include, so watch this space.

Here’s the Reality: People are Looking for you Online

This week has been my favourite time of the year. It’s nothing to do with Christmas: It was the interview episode of The Apprentice where the 5 remaining candidates get the pleasure of having every aspect of their progress businesses past and present, business plan and general characteristics by 4 of Lord Sugar’s key aides.

I watch this every year, not because I’m mean, but because nothing gets past these 4 musketeers. They analyse everything from how accurate the candidate’s market research is to how realistic their figures are. And they always look at the candidate’s current business website and for about 80% of the time, there are flaws.

Last year, out of the 2 finalists that went on to become Lord Sugar’s business partners, one hadn’t updated her website for about 5 years and the other one had an accreditation displayed on his website which shouldn’t have been there. ironically both of these budding business owners, went on to become Lord Sugar’s business partners.

This year was no exception: There was the hangover cure guy who boldly claimed on his Amazon page that he’d sold over 1 million sachets, when realistically he’d only sold 47,000 and the Tennis events organiser that had listed half her events on her website as cancelled. And my personal favourite:  Camilla, the nut milk entrepreneur whose original online branding was so provocative that it bordered on soft-core porn.

My son, who was also watching this with me, was looking up their websites on his iPad and we both had a good look. And indeed there are flaws. There were superficial flaws such as a logo that had been cropped to the extent that you couldn’t read the company name, a website that was clearly designed just for desktop users and my critical eye found that one of the slogans was “Just another WordPress site.”

I’m not saying Claude Littner, Linda Plant, et al are looking at your website right now, but like it or not, humans are naturally curious species beings. I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that after meeting someone either in person or interacting with them online, I’m straight onto Google or Linkedin to find out more about that person and their business.  Making it all the more important to keep your website and social media profiles updated.

Even after 18 years of working in the web industry, it kills me when someone dismisses updating their site saying “no one is looking me up online” Wrong. So wrong. People are looking you up whether you want them to or not. If your website or online profile aren’t up to scratch, it is going to reflect badly on you, whether you are #1 in Google #1000.

So take half an hour on a regular basis and look objectively at your website and social media profiles: Are they up to date? Is there anything new you can add? Are you emphasising your achievements? And more importantly, is it truthful? Can you back up your achievements (with accreditations, testimonials and media coverage)?  Even better ask a friend or colleague to take a look. What do they think? Sometimes a fresh set of eyes makes all the difference.

it is the final tonight and I wish the final 2 candidates the best of luck. It is hard to tell who is going to win this year.  I have looked at both of their websites this morning (Sunday) they have both been updated since Wednesday night, so its anyone’s guess.

Bye 2017. Here’s to the Future (Poll)

My blog has remained abused this year. My last entry was announcing my interview with Switch radio, which has been and gone. Sadly it wasn’t recorded by the station so I have no evidence. On the bright side I have been invited back so watch this space.

I haven’t used my blog to my advantage this year for two reasons: The first reason is just pure workload, which is a good thing. Secondly(and not so great) has been for personal reasons. In a nutshell I am in the middle of a divorce, so most of this year has been spent either in mediation or between solicitors. The hardest part is over but this does mean that we will have to relocate premises next year but hopefully still in either Braintree or Notley.

So for sure this has drained me and I have felt down. But I am not out.

I have plans for 2018 and this is where I need your participation in a little product research: I am asked so many times by people I meet at networking and exhibitions to look at websites that are under-performing and offer my advice and recommendations. I am just throwing out ideas but if you could get a detailed analysis report about your web’s responsiveness, performance and ranking (to name a few), would you be prepared to pay for that privilege?

[poll id=”3″]

For an extra measure of cheekiness, could you leave a comment with how much you would be prepared to pay for such a detailed analysis.

I greatly appreciate any feedback.

DVH Design is going to be on the Radio

It’s true! Deb Harrison from DVH Design will be speaking on the Zel-AfriQ show on Switch Radio on Wednesday 18 January 2016.

Along with 3 tracks of my choice, Deb will be talking to Zelma Holt about DVH Design: how we got here, and where we’re going.

The podcast will be published on our blog after the event but do feel free to have a listen live at Switch Dunmow Online  at 7.30pm on Wednesday.

Merry Christmas from DVH Design

So we are at the end of 2016 and a lot has been going on behind the scenes at DVH Design.  This year has seen us contribute to our Social Media Channels.  Now during the week you can see our regular updates on:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Linkedin
• Instagram
• Google +

But this week, we have also set up a YouTube channel.  From the new year, we will be posting interactive how to’s on subjects from setting up Email to simple ways to make your website work for you. Please do subscribe to our channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7GIwu_euemSTHYmcC3GDbw

We are also studying to become a certified Google Partner.  We have completed one exam, we just have one more to go.  But although our main focus is Search, we would also like to become certified in Display Network, Video and Shopping.  These are the best Channels for our current client base.

There are more exciting things planned for DVH Design:  on Wednesday 17th January, Deb Harrison will be interviewed on Switch Radio in Dunmow on Zelma Holt’s Zel-AfriQ show.

Also DVH Design will be exhibiting at the Business Expo Essex at Chelmsford City Racecourse on Wednesday 22nd February.  Please do come and meet us for a chat and a coffee and see how we can help you with your website woes.

We haven’t featured much on our blog this year, but we ae also in the process of revamping our website.  This will reflect our current services, portfolio and our new slogan.  So please do stay tuned.

So 2017 is going to be an exciting year and we hope you can join us.  In the meantime, have a very Merry Christmas and prosperity for 2017.