The article below was featured in the January 8th Edition of the Drum Magazine. 
Please consider downloading the full PDF version (and admire the beautiful artwork from Paul which accompanied it) .

One of Glasgow’s original ‘digital’ agencies, NSDesign is predicting 300% growth in coming years

Now in its 11th year, NSDesign is one of Glasgow’s longest standing digital design agencies. 

Founded by Gary Ennis in 1999, the company has three distinct, but overlapping service divisions Design & Development, Domain Registration & Web Hosting, and Consultancy & Training – setting it aside from others in the industry.

Managing Director Ennis said:

“Each of the services we provide benefits the others. We know that if we exceed the expectations of a £25 hosting client, then we’ll be their first choice for the redesign of their website, or to provide their business with social media consultancy etc.”

With close to 10,000 web hosting clients – including some well respected industry figureheads like Bruce Lawson from Opera – and over 60 new design clients this year alone the company has proved it can last the distance.

NSDesign also benefit from partnering with many of their so called “competitiors” – providing the likes of web hosting to other web design companies, and bespoke design and development to other design agencies – particularly those without an in-house digital division.

Ennis said:

“We get to work on some really fun and challenging projects – we recently worked with the Guardian Media Group to design and build their dedicated web portal for the Download Music Festival, and for the past two years have built the bespoke booking system for Santa at Braehead!”

While their order book includes some big names such as Highland Spring, GMG, Greenock Morton and the Glasgow Rocks Pro Basketball team, it is with their smaller clients that NSDesign feel they make the biggest difference:

Ennis continued:

“There’s no better feeling than helping a new-start business take an idea and turn it into an online revenue-generating business, helping them grow, and providing the full range of services they need along the way.

“We’re proud to still have our very first ever customer, at the time a small one-man band but who has now grown to be a successful organisation – something we like to think we helped play a part in. He came to us originally based on a recommendation, and we’ve not once let him down 11 years later.”

For many of the websites that NSDesign build, their clients are given full control through their acclaimed “NSBuilder” CMS and Site Builder software which was a finalist in the Scottish Software awards in both 2007 and 2008. The fi rm was also named “Most Outstanding Small Business in Renfrewshire” in 2008.

Ennis said:

“The most important achievement and the one that ensures you continue to win new business is 100% client satisfaction. That is what we strive for, and we’re getting close!! Our last annual customer survey resulted in a confirmed 98% satisfaction rating – levels almost unheard of in this industry. Outstanding personal service and support is the one item above all others that we prioritise. Anybody can deliver a good product or outstanding design – but it’s the people behind it that ensure the long term relationship with the client, and the repeat business that comes as a result”.

NSDesign is showing no sign of a slow-down, and is predicting growth of 300% over the next few years. The company is confident the combination of a strong repeat-revenue customer base and new business development will ensure this continues in the months ahead.

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For the second year running, we were delighted with the results from our “Work for Free” day, which we carried out just before Christmas (December 21st 2009).

Following on from last year, the NSDesign team enjoyed a great day helping just over 20 small businesses, with free consultancy on the likes of SEO, Social Media, and web design.    Like last year, we weren’t without our detractors for the initiative, with the DBA again giving us a little “dig” on twitter… (although thankfully, nothing on the scale of last year!)… and a few industry players that like to moan about “de-valuing” design, without truly understanding what the day is actually about.

However, like last year, all we really care about is the feedback from clients, which has been 100% positive.

We were also lucky enough to get some great publicity on the day, mainly from a BBC Radio Scotland interview which went on to look at the value and benefit of providing free time and consultancy, and the history of working for free!  Listen to the full radio interview here.

Will we repeat the work for free initiative next year?  What do you think…

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We’ve been running some great Social Media Workshops lately, introducing the business benefits of the likes of Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube and Twitter.  Of them all, it’s Twitter that most companies want to discuss, with many businesses unaware of the true power of Twitter, thinking it’s just a hyped-up instant messenger type utility which generates a lot of “noise”.

And to be honest – they’re right – Twitter is full of useless noise – much of it fun and amusing noise, but noise nonetheless, and certainly not the most obvious resource for “proper” business use.  But with a little knowledge on how to get the best from Twitter, it’s possible to filter out that noise, and get easy access to powerful information about what your clients are saying – about you, your brand, your competitors, their wishes, desires, likes, dislikes and more.  With gazillions of people worldwide already on Twitter, and unheard of growth rates, surely even the most skeptical business owner can see the value of tapping into this mind-set.

If Google is a search engine to people’s websites – then think of Twitter as a search engine to their thoughts.  And knowing what people are thinking is one serious business advantage. 

So give it a try – Follow the 7 steps below and get tweeting (sorry – but I didn’t make up the stupid terminology).

1 – Signup

Ok – fairly obvious really, but head over to www.twitter.comand signup – it takes seconds.  Choose a suitable username related to your business name, but don’t stress to much over this – it can be changed later.

2 – Customise

Before you do anything – add a little customisation to your Profile page.  Why?  Because if you don’t, you’re just another faceless twitter account – similar to the countless spammers, con-men, phishers and idiots (sorry – but they do exist) that sign up to Twitter just to cause problems for the rest of us. 

Be proud of who you are – add your name, your biography, your logo (avatar) and customise the background.  Stand out from the crowd, and have a profile that gives people reason to trust you – understand who you are, and maybe they’ll find value in following you.

3 – Post a few Tweets

Next you’ll want to post a few tweets, to let the world know you’re alive…  again, do this before announcing your twitter page to the masses, and before you start following anyone…  it’ll help establish you as a credible (albeit new) twitter user, and with a few posts to read, then any potential follower will know what to expect should they choose to follow you.

4 – Follow Others

Start by Following other people you know that use Twitter..  search for them via Twitter’s  ”Find People” function,  and click the Follow Button.  Easy as that…  now browse to the people they follow, or browse their other followers.  Recognise any of them?  Worth following them too?  You can also use Twitter search to discover other users of similar interests etc, or people talking about certain subjects.

Don’t follow everyone for the sake of it – there’s no value in this whatsoever, and you’ll appear like a twitter spammer simply building up a target list!  Choose suitable people that are related to your business… your clients, your suppliers, your competitors (yes – they WILL know you are following them) etc. 

5 – Attract Followers!

Ultimately, you want people following you, otherwise you’re marketing to nobody!  Some methods to gain followers (other than many of the people you follow, following you back) include:

• Announce it to your clients via your online newsletter, your email footers and your website.  Take any opportunity to tell people your Twitter URL.
• Encourage people to “retweet” your tweets
• Flag up important keywords with the hashtag – makes it easier for people to find it – see here for help understanding what a twitter hashtag is
• Use it, but don’t overuse it – don’t be one of those Twitter users that floods my tweet-stream with 100’s of pointless tweets. 
• Consider using an image in your tweet – statistically, tweets containing a link to an image are re-tweeted more than most other tweets.

6 – Get Serious

 After you’ve used Twitter for a while, and are following a few people, the limitations of the Twitter.com website become clear – which is why anyone who’s serious about twitter ignores the twitter website, and actually uses one of the many 3rd party Twitter tools.  And the one I’d recommend is Tweet Deck.

WIthout giving a full tutorial on the many excellent features of TweetDeck, suffice to say that it makes it possible to filter out all the noise in Twitter, and allows you to easily and quickly find all the important tweets posted by your followers, as well as datamine the thoughts of the twitter masses, search for relevant business information, exploit potential sales leads, and much more…  Need more help? – Give us a shout, or come to one of the workshops and we’ll spend time showing you really how powerful a tool this is…

7 – Monitor and Evaluate

Like any form of Marketing, knowing your return on investment is vital to help understand the impact it’s making.  I’m confident that after a short time, Twitter will certainly be a “fun” elemnt in your marketing strategy – but is it actually delivering for you?

Monitorring your activity and success on Twitter isn’t difficult, but depends on “what” you want to measure.  For example :

• How many “Followers” (and the growth of new followers).  – http://twittercounter.com
• How many clicks back to your website – you can use your own web hosting statistics (assuming they provide you stats), or, even easier, you can use a service like www.bit.lywhich is built into tweetdeck
• How many of your Tweets are being “re-tweeted”
• Are your images engaging your followers?
• Understand why people “stop” following you – “was it something I said” ?

Follow these 7-steps, and let us know how Twitter works for your business..  It’s not a silver bullet – it won’t magically turn your product or service into this year’s must have (especially if it was poor to begin with!), but used properly – Twitter can improve your customer service, your PR, your repeat business and your word of mouth, not forgetting the business benefit that comes from reading the minds of millions!  Have fun!

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Published in .net magazine, issue 187, April 2009

Deciding to work for free for one day only in December 2008 proved to be one of the most controversial decisions we had taken at NSDesign for a long time!

In one fell swoop we managed to upset the Design Business Association (DBA), were the subject of a two week forum thread in Design Week, and gained several column inches in the process.

We were accused by the DBA of de-valuing the work we do on a daily basis in the e-commerce, digital and design field. Was it genuine concern for our industry or complete over-reaction? I know which side of the fence I am standing on, and from the majority of online comments from others in this game, it appears I’m not alone.

I think that rather than taking away from the work we do, we actually opened up our service to a much wider audience who now realise a lot more the true value of our work and what it can add to businesses.

We did not intentionally set out to upset anyone or diminish the service that our industry provides. Nor did we intend it to be seen as a sinister or cynical stunt or ploy. It was simply a light-hearted idea, aimed at helping other SME’s and raising our own profile.

The idea (first suggested by our Head Developer Martin Sarsini) was to spread a little festive cheer helping out companies who were maybe struggling with the credit crunch or who were just looking for some advice on how to improve their web offerings.

The debate which raged in the weeks after the announcement initially took us by surprise, however I stand by the decision and am happy to announce that in just one day we helped out over 30 individuals and organisations (a few of which were existing clients) and had a seriously good time doing so.  

In this industry a lot of the work we get depends on pitching to potential new clients and showing them what can be achieved. If you look at what we did on the 19th December you could say it was simply a day of showcasing our work to prospective customers – no different to what we do an a regular basis, albeit highly focused into one day of this and nothing else!

The actual range of work carried out was pretty varied, with us doing everything from adding some festive sparkle (custom graphics and backgrounds of a Christmas nature) to a handful of websites, to general “spam advice” and consultancy on bulk-emailing and ensuring legal compliance with regard email communications.

In addition we conducted a number of site reviews, providing recommendations on improving design, usability and SEO, designed new logo concepts for a mobile-disco operator and online video production company, and setup a blog for a Cricket Club!
 
We also helped out several more companies with their various queries and not once did any of our team feel we were selling ourselves, the company, or the industry short. What we did feel was that we were opening up many new potential business opportunities for ourselves.

We may not benefit from any immediate “paid work” as a result of the efforts we went to, but those companies we helped out will certainly have us at the forefront of their minds when they do need the services we provide.

In this current economic climate small companies like ourselves need to be more flexible and creative and stand out from the crowd more than ever before, and I for one will do everything within my power to ensure that NSDesign continues to be the success it has been in the last few years.

2009 sees a decade in business for us and we are aiming to build on the strong foundations we have developed over the last ten years which culminated in us winning the “Outstanding Performing Business with less than 25 Full time Employees” – ROCCO Business Award.

There are many challenges for us (and indeed all design companies) in the year to come but no matter how tough a year it is, when Christmas is approaching next year, I would not hesitate to offer another “work for free” day – and unlike the DBA, do not expect our industry will crumble as a result!!
 

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Our recent “work for free initiative” has certainly sparked a lively debate among the design community, with the Design Business Association (the DBA) condemning it as ‘damaging to the industry as a whole’.  A little harsh perhaps, but they are of course entitled to their opinion.

As are you…  and whatever that opinion may be, I’d welcome your thoughts added to the “Design Week” website where they first reported the DBA’s response to our bit of Christmas fun!!

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I’d like to apologise to anyone upset by our current Radio Advert which features sleigh bells and festive overtones.  The fact that we started running it on September 1st (some 116 days before Christmas) has prompted a few people to question what we’re playing at…  “It can’t be Christmas already??”….

Listen to the advert

There is however a serious business message behind the advert -it’s not just a case of us wanting to be the first house in the street with fairy lights round the windows.

The fact is, billions are made by online retailers over the festive period, so anyone wishing to take a slice of that pie needs to plan well in advance….  Experienced online shoppers are already browsing their favourite ecommerce sites, and bookmarking (if not buying) their shopping list of gifts…  Leave it until the last minute before launching your new Christmas shop, and it’s unlikely your virtual tills will be ringing…  Get online now, and there’s still time to do some marketing, grab a few Google adwords, and actually generate some decent turnover… 

So what are you waiting for…  only 83 days left……..

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Many thanks to Rock Radio for inviting NSDesign to the Annual POP A DOM Golf Day, a superb fundraising event for the Nordoff Robbins Music Therapy in Scotland organisation.

It’s been a busy week for charity Golf events (honest – we do actually do work), and there was a few big names playing yesterday at the Mearns Castle Golf Academy, including our 2 playing partners from Rock Radio – Ciaran O’Toole (Father Ted) and the legend that is Tom (The Beard of Doom) Russell.  

The Golf was a little better than last week (I didn’t even lose 1 ball!), and Kenny walked off with the “closest to the pin” prize…  and the after-game entertainment was first class – helped by the fact that we were a close runner up in Billy Sloan’s music quiz (mainly thanks to the vast musical knowledge of Tom!).

Well done to everyone concerned with the event – it rasied a good deal of money for a very worthy charity.

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Both myself, Kenny and David were fortunate to join Clyde1, and some famous faces from the world of TV and sport last friday, when we represented NSDesign in the Cash for Kids Celebrity Golf day.

Hosted at the impressive Bishopbriggs Golf Club, the event is one of many by the Cash for Kids team, with the purpose of raising money for local disadvantaged kids.  It was a superb day, aided by the “4th man” we were given for our team – Celtic Legend (and all round nice guy) Joe McBride

All the photos here…

As for the golf….  well – everyone played well – except for me.  Probably the worst game I’ve had in years, but to be fair - I had a bit of a bad neck (my story, and I’m sticking to it).  We didn’t win any prizes, unless of course you count my lucky win in the raffle!!   We’re already looking forward to next year’s event!

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3 of the NSDesign team were interviewed earlier for a special radio Clyde 1 feature to be aired on Saturday at 1pm.

Now, you might think that (given our expertise) we’d be interviewed about web standards, design, domains or something remotely connected to the internet or of a technical nature.  No.  We were interviewed about Madonna !!

Don’t ask..  and if you want a laugh – tune in to listen.  Remind me why we do these things again?….

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A major factor in achieving high search rankings is of course relevant inbound linking. Google analyses not only the quantity but the quality and relevance of the inbound links to your site to determine how important a result it is. This method, alongside keyword optimisation techniques has improved the relevance of search results greatly. Though as is the case with many aspects of the web, this system has in recent times been abused.

There are many websites which buy and sell inbound links to sites which disregard link quality and pass page rank, which has allowed the search results to be manipulated. However in 2007 Google made significant efforts to stamp down on this paid linking practice, enforcing penalties in terms of search ranking and page rank passing ability to the sites carrying it out. The result of this ongoing campaign by Google will be felt in 2008 as the websites who have worked to optimise their sites and legitimately gain quality, relevant links will begin to rise in the ranking and the sites which relied on paid links will begin to slip.

Quick Linking Tips

1. A good way to gain relevant links to your site is to get registered in appropriate online directories which are related to your business. Many of these directories request much the same information although have different limits on the number of characters available etc and registering can be a tedious process. An idea is to create a basic “submission kit” text file with brief promotional copy for your site in a few different formats including a one sentence description and 25, 30 and 70 word descriptions containing your keywords aswell as contact details and prewritten hyper links which can be pasted in quickly. A good directory to be on is Google’s Business Listings: http://www.google.com/local/add
2. Try writing informative and interesting articles which relate to your field of expertise and submit them regularly online. There are several quality article and blog sites where you can submit free articles. Be sure to include your necessary keywords in the article and make use of the hyperlinks the sites allow you to put in at the bottom. Use your keywords here aswell to link back to your site. Articles are especially useful for new sites looking to get spidered quickly. A good article submission site is : http://www.ezinearticles.com
3. Yahoo offers a reliable service which analyses which sites are providing inbound links to other sites. To look at this type “link:domain” into Yahoo’s search engine to get an idea who your competitors are being linked to by. This should provide ideas on where to look for acquiring quality inbound links which are relevant to your business. Yahoo’s version of this tool is more accurate than Google’s.

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