A few months ago my friend Frank Wotherspoon setup his own designer fitted kitchen company in Irvine, Ayrshire after becoming unemployed when MFI closed there doors. I’ve know Frank for many years know and he’s always worked with well known ktichen supply companies and know he’s decided to give it ago himself.

Warwick John, Desirable Designer Kitchen: http://www.warwickjohn.com

They provide a complete kitchen installation service, from consultancy right through to installation.

I’ve used Frank and his team several times before when getting some work done on my house, they cover the whole west of Scotland and there always avalible any time to chatetc.

Give Frank a call on 01294 222502

Tell him you read about his company here and he might give you a discount

Take Care

Colin

But it seems to me that they’ve all forgot to do one thing, which is to tell people about it.

A few days ago I received an email to my browseayrshire.com from an OAP in Springside looking for a menu. I responded to the email mentioning that this site was only a review site and had no connection to any restaurants, but I thought I would get the details and try to help her out. Now she wants to book the Gables Restaurant for 18 people. Not a small request by any means, this would nearly fill the place and I’m sure the owners of the Gables would be grateful for the business.
So off I pop back onto Google to search for “Gables Restaurant Irvine” first up is my browsayrshire.com site which I expect to see as I’ve been doing SEO and online marketing for a while. After searching around I couldn’t find any website directly related to the Gables Restaurant. Having lived in Irvine I know that the Gables Restaurant is at the back of the Kings Arms Hotel, so I do a search for “Kings Arms Irvine” great I’ve found a website, but wait a second, it has message “no longer being hosted, If you are the owner, please contact us.” Great they don’t have a website.

So now I’m left with phoning them and trying to pass a fairly obsure email address over the phone so they can send the OAP from Springside the menu.

I then decide to have another look about for the other pubs and clubs in Irvine to see what the other websites look like.

Firstly the newly opened Pitchers Nightclub

So I search “Pitchers Nightclub Irvine” again no website

Then “The Clubhouse Irvine“, again no website

Same for:
“Viva Nightclub Irvine”
“The Harbour Lights Irvine”
“The Porthead Tavern Irvine”

No wonder tourist numbers are down if nobody can find any information about the place, I wonder how many of the above bars and restaurants think to themselves why is the Ship Inn and the Gailes doing so well, do you think it’s due to them having a website maybe.

Last week I went to the Solway coast for the weekend, after a quick search we had a list of pubs and restaurants for the weekend, we even found a mountain bike rental company and horse riding and our entertainment was sorted.

This summer there is going to be thousands of people visiting Irvine for the homecoming festival and yet still there’s no Irvine based website to tell people where to stay, how to get there, where to eat and drink, all it would take is for all the bars and restaurant owners to get together and put something together for this, I could do it in my sleep and it wouldn’t even cost each bar owner the price of a beer each day to get it up and running.

The Irvine bay regeneration company are working hard to get things started but it seems local businesses aren’t moving with the times and creating simple website to promote there business.

Think how many other bookings must be missed.

On another note the homecoming festival website doesn’t appear on Google when you search for “homecoming festival” maybe it’s the Irvine internet curse. Maybe next year the local councils and Visit Scotland should spent every penny they have in online marketing, after all that’s where the people are.

But for those of us that spend our lives in front of a laptop and sometimes working from home Arches offer free WiFi when you buy a coffee or a beer. Last night I had a document to finish and Kim was wanting to go shopping, two in one, parked the car at the shopping center, Kim went off to spend and I went round to Arches to type. I also got talking to the barman Michael and the owner Graeme, nice guys.

It offers the ideal place for Ayrshire internet home workers to go and offers another option to sitting in the spare  bedroom or into front of the TV. Before Arches had opened I used to go to Beanscene, the coffee and the nachos are good but they charge for WiFi. I’ll need to convince the guys at Arches to include nachos to the menu, serve coffee in mugs and it’ll be the better than an office.

Try it out!

On Saturday 4th August I had the unpleasent experiance of my car breaking down 20 miles from home on a motorway. As I sat in the broken down vehicle I didn’t looked stressed or nervous, why, because I’ve been paying for a rescue service that I got included in my latest car insurance deal from Churchill.

The super deal I got on rescue cover was provided by Greenflag and I recieved 10% off at the time of taking this rescue cover package which costs only £109 a year.

As I travel from Ayrshire to Glasgow everyday it was important for me to be covered. The last thing I want to happen is my car breaking down on the M74.

So, I phoned the “Breakdown in the UK” number provided to me and with my policy number in hand I wait on the automated messages to finish so I tell the nice person on the other end of the phone my problem and they’d have a tow truck sent out in a flash to rescue me.

Finally,

Greenflag “Hi, Have you broken down” echoed through the phone to my delight.

Me “Yes,Sir” I anwsered back. Great we’ll be on our way soon.

Then things started to turn a little pear shaped.

Greenflag “Sir, Can I have your postcode?” Postcode provided.

Greenflag “Sir, There’s no policy at that postcode” Eh!

Greenflag “Sir, What’s your vehicle registration?” Registration provided

Greenflag “Sir, There’s no policy for that vehicle” Eh!

Greenflag”Sir, What’s your full name, address and postcode?” Provided,

Ok now I’m panicking, it’s really raining as it does in Scotland and I don’t know the telephone number of any garages. That’s because I have piece of mind with my Greenflag rescue cover.

Greenflag “Sir, We have no details for your name, address, postcode or vehicle, did you get your cover from Churchill?” Yes, I did, why, wait, I have the policy number of the insurance and the rescue cover package. Provided,

Greenflag “Sir, We have no policy for that, Can I transfer you to Churchill they can sort this out for you?” Ok, After listening to about 10 minutes of automated messages about car insurance fraud I was then notified and mortified that,

Churchill “The chuchill offices are now closed please call back………” Now panick has set in.

A quick call to one of those 118 numbers and I was transfered to a local breakdown company, the phone the rung once, explained my problem, breakdown truck arrived prompty and £180 was withdrawn from my wallet to pay the nice man.

The Fraud

So now it’s Monday morning and time to call Churchill to find out why they’ve been withdrawning money from my bank account every month and not providing the service that I’m paying for. In most cases this would be a form of fraud, wouldn’t it?

Green Flag “What’s your postcode”

Green Flag “I’m sorry Sir but nothing is coming up” I’ve heard this before.

Has anyone else had similiar problems?

Blogged with Flock

Tags: Churchill, Greenflag

1. Get listed in local online directories.

Examples for Ayrshire: http://www.browseayrshire.com, http://www.ayr-web.co.uk
How to find more: Search Google for Region or City plus directory

2. Join your local Chamber of Commerce.

Most UK Chamber of Commerce websites have an online directory of members and there websites.
Example For Ayrshire: http://www.ayrshire-chamber.org/directorylisting.asp

3. Get your service or product listed in local online classified ads

Example for Ayrshire: http:/./glasgow.gumtree.com, http://ayr.iclads.com/

4. Include your domain name on your business cards, flyers, ad’s etc

5. Write good content for your website.

This will help to retain visitors to your website and help to convert to sales over time. Remember to include the region and city that you operate in.

6. Start a blog.

Wordpress.com, Blogger.com and many more offer free hosted blogging services, use this blog platform to communicate with previous customers, leave testimonials and also describe products and services in greater detail. These blogging platforms are always very search engine friendly and would help to promote your business with really doing not much more than talking about what you do.
Example for Ayrshire: http://ayrshirescotlandbusinessnews.blogspot.com/

7. Check out your local council.

Some local councils have directories of all the companies within the local area.
Example for Ayrshire: http://www.south-ayrshire.gov.uk/Business/business_directory.asp

8. Good old Word of Mouth.

Tell everyone you know about what you do, get them to tell there friends and if they have a website, myspace or bebo account get them to link to your site or add you as a friend. If your friends do have myspace and bebo accounts get them to give you a free lesson on what it does.

9. Good old Shop Windows

If your along at your local shop and they have ad’s on the window then get your business listed in there, remember to include your website. People might see the ad and remember the domain name rather than the phone number.
Examples for Ayrshire: Most Spars, Tesco, Asda and Homebase

10. Get listed on Google Maps

Google maps in a great way to get listed at the top of google for your service or product. Simply set an account at google and follow the instructions to get listed. Google Local Business Centre http://tinyurl.com/3a8sh4

Blogged with Flock

Tags: SEO, Local, Google, Business, Marketing

This weekend we were determined to get out in the garden and have some fun.

BBQ it is!

Firstly the BBQ went well, food was great as always, no alcohol in site as we all had hangovers from the Saturday parties, Note to self: if a Lithuanian ever tells you that you don’t get a hang over from drinking straight vodka don’t believe him .

Everytime we BBQ we always build a nice big fire to sit around in the evening and cook potatos. The fire started of roaringly and then someone mentioned the cooking of the Ayrshire Tatties. At that very point the clouds closed over and the heaviest rain I’ve seen since returning from Thailand dropped from the sky above. We’re a determined bunch us cowboys and girls from the deep south of Ayrshire, the rain wasn’t going to put us off having a good time and some fire cooked spuds.

As we sat under the trees trying to avoid the rain we thought that no one would believe what we’re doing so a brave dash back to the house to fetch the camera for proof that we’re all off our heeds.

But it don’t work, back inside for some heat and a quick look over the pics and we notice that we can’t see the rain.

1234►