Using Search Engine Promotion services - 31st January 2003
The problem with Domain Names - 28th January 2003
Snowgoose launches new web tools for customers - Feb 2003
Snowgoose in the news with Webactive magazine - July and August 2002
Grants for businesses in the Northumberland National Park until end June 2002 This grant no longer available
Snowgoose gets university approval - Aug 2001

We often get asked if it's worth paying for third-party Search Engine Promotion or Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) services.

These companies often send you spam (unsolicited) e-mail suggesting that they've "noticed that you are not listed in some engines" or "we will submit your site to X, 000 engines for just X dollars/pounds".

Our advice is to treat them with a great deal of caution. To read the latest advice from Google about such SEO services, please see http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html

Snowgoose was delighted to be approached by a regular columnist for Webactive magazine and asked to contribute to their monthly article on building websites.

You can read our comments and advice in both the July and August 2002 editions on page 78.

Webactive magazine is aimed mostly at beginners and self-build enthusiasts. With a circulation of 40,000 it is one on the most popular monthly Internet magazines. You'll have to hurry though - copies don't stay on the newsagents shelves for very long!

February 2003 - Developed in-house by Snowgoose staff, our custom-built tools are extremely easy to use and certainly not hard on the budget.

You can now take advantage of the following:-

• Online availability. For self-catering accommodation providers everywhere. What's one of the first questions you get asked? That's right - "Do you have a cottage available on such-and-such a date?". Now you can keep potential customers informed about your self-catering availability right up there on your own website. Helps reduce the number of enquiries you handle from customers chasing the same holiday dates!
  
• Website updating. Are you fed up with contacting your web designer every time you want to make a simple update? Control and update the content of your own website without learning to use complicated "web editing" tools.
  
• E-commerce, from simple one-product businesses up to very complex multi-products/services. Designed to blend perfectly with look and feel of your site. Our custom-built e-commerce is very different to the "clunky" offerings already available in the marketplace. As slick and sophisticated as the blue chip offerings at a fraction of the price.

Grant assistance may be available for businesses in the North East to help you get off to a flying start with the above tools. Contact Snowgoose to discuss your requirements.

August 2001 - Snowgoose recently discovered why one of their web sites (www.graeme-peacock.com) was getting rather a lot of regular visits from Leeds University.

Applications can still be made under the Park's Sustainable Development Fund (2007).