Websites and Blogs was formed in 2005 as a research company focussing on analysing the different ways in which websites could be used to enhance sales of various products.
As the name implies it also investigated the ways in which blogs could work, how they could get large audiences, and how income could then be generated from these audiences.
In February 2010 Websites and Blogs was incorporated into a limited company, and the company’s research programme expanded to include investigations into the ways in which the email addresses of visitors to web sites could be gathered.
Four areas of activity
Since its foundation Websites and Blogs has conducted its research in four very diverse areas of activity:
1. Popular music
2. Football
3. Schools and schooling
4. Dyslexia and dyscalculia
The diverse nature of these areas has allowed the company to explore and analyse the ways in which websites and blogs can be used in various ways. Our aim has been to research both those functions which apply across all four of these very diverse areas of human interest, and those which are specific to individual areas of activity.
The fundamentals that underlie all websites
Our research has led us to the view that websites have four separate uses:
From this we concluded that not only do many websites fail to cater for all four groups of people and/or fail to differentiate between the needs of specific customers, but also that this failure to recognise the four separate uses of websites has affected both the audience attracted to the websites and the effectiveness of the website as selling mechanisms.
Who has visited the website?
It has also become clear that many website owners not only do not recognise the four uses to which websites are put, but also many do not have in place any mechanism for gathering the email addresses of visitors to the website.
Our research has evolved two ways of doing this and has developed an approach which can be highly beneficial to companies.
Developing a prime position in the market place
While the notions of search engine optimisation have existed since the early days of web sites, far less attention has been given to engaging with the visitor, as opposed to getting the visitor onto the site in the first place.
And yet engagement is the key to selling, for although being top of the Google search list for a specific subject can indeed be helpful, having a site which then holds the attention of the reader and gets the reader back again is the only route to getting a sale.
Market research
In addition we have undertaken considerable analysis and research in relation to schools and schooling for our clients who work with schools, either selling products and services to schools, or providing free materials as part of their PR effort, or using schools as a gateway to reaching parents.
The websites we have produced
We have a site through which we offer services to companies that are interested in selling to schools via email and websites: Schools.co.uk
Among the sites we have produced as part of our experimental programme are the following, all of which are active in different ways. In the past year these sites have had an accumulated visitor total of over 6 million page views.
Untold Arsenal (football)
The Arsenal History Society (football history)
Untold Dylan (popular music)
The Dyslexia Centre (education; special needs)
The Dyscalculia Centre (education; special needs)