Moving

Chances are, I'll be moving to London in a few months. I'm thoroughly looking forward to leaving Las Vegas, but there's only one problem. My website. It's completely SEO'd out for Henderson/Las Vegas web design. Does anyone have any experience making a big move with a well established website? At least I get to keep the inbound links! I just don't think Google will appreciate me going from one extreme to the other as far as location.

Also bear in mind that London is supposed to be one of the design capitals of the world. London web design comes up with quite a few hits, understandably.

Good luck,


Pete.

Oh and by the way, London is an amazing city. You'll love it I'm sure.

Pete.

Yeah, London being a huge city is a big problem for me. I need to work and I'd prefer not getting a day job. It might come down to that if I don't get enough job. Going to a uni will probably give me opportunities with staff and students at least! If I don't go to London, I'll be moving to Oxford. It'll be a little easier to hop into the market there.

Oh Oxford would be much easier but still not easy. There seems to be web design companies popping up all over the place. Oxford is a beautiful place though. You've got the skills though, so i wouldn't be too worried and you have a portfolio so it's just a case of waiting for work really.

But as goes your question, I haven't got a clue what you would do from a seo point of view.

Pete.

Does geography matter that much in web design? How many of your clients do you actually meet in person? Or is it just that from an SEO point of view people searching tend to search for a designer based near them even if they don't actually meet them? I'm just curious, I had kind of thought that for web design it doesn't matter where in the world you are geographically.

I would never work for a client I couldn't physically meet. Also, clients feel safer working with someone they have met in person. But yeah they tend to search for someone nearby.

Pete.

I have customers from all over the world...email, video conference, snail mail...all sorts of ways to communicate...teehee thats what I deal in so I know...oh, can't forget Instant Message...That's about it. It doesn't matter where you are if you have a reputation to back up your work.

I would never ever ever work for someone I had not physically met. There is just no way I would do it. Each to their own, I guess.

Pete.

Why Pete?
I have only met a small number of my clients and I have had them for days to 9 years. I speak to them on the phone but haven't met many. Most have been referrals from other clients.

Take an airplane, car, train or boat. If they pay me enough, I will go to my client. You do what you need to, Pete. If you don't you limit your number of clients. You only start local, but if you build a good reputation, it doesn't always stay local. You need to be adaptable.

Hmmm, thinking about it as a customer (of anything), I tend to prefer to deal with someone local, even if I don't actually meet them, because there is some reassurance in knowing that if it all goes wrong you can quite easily turn up on their doorstep and confront them.

But hey, Ryan, be prepared to miss Vegas more than you imagine - I left there almost 6 years ago and I still miss it. Mind you, when I was there I missed England so I guess there's just no pleasing me! (I know, typical female, hehe!).

I just don't like doing work for someone I haven't met. My reasons are very whimsical, because of the nature of the work. I like to capture a bit of personality, I also like to know who I'm working for/with. I have to meet them. It's the same for a lot of stuff I do. I have to meet people before I do work. I do some session singing (backing vocals, recording demos for writers etc.) but I refuse to sing without meeting the artist. I lose work because of this all the time but it's one of my work principles.

Pete.

LOL..Ahhhh... I see..I was just curious.
Since I live in a very rural area with a small population, I'd be hanging myself to work that way. Fortunately for me, other's don't mind or I'd be working with Lobsterman all the time!

Ha, it's not like something I think everyone should do. Just one of my little foibles. I like people too, if there were no contact I wouldn't do it at all. I like meeting them and giving them what they want and then when I've finished I like going to see them and talking them through the features. The look on their faces is just the best reward.

Love it,

Pete.

Yeah, I have only met a small portion of my clients, granted if I could meet the client I would, as things just work better when you can show them stuff rather then try and explain stuff.

I haven't met all my clients, but I get quite a few calls from locals that want work. I'm in Google Maps and this awesome Google result. It's a way for me to reach out to 500,000 (2M for Google Maps) potential clients that weren't referred to me by previous clients or word of mouth. Most of my business lately has come from Google, so I'm a bit stressed about losing 90% of leads!

1. The great thing about being a webdesigner is the fact our work is non-geographical. There no reason why, living in London, you can't serve clients in the US.

2. London web design is a hell of a market to break into. The competition is very tough (119 Million). I wouldn't risk loosing your SEO goodies for 'Henderson/Las Vegas'.

3. There's also a matter of hosting. Most people in the UK use google.co.uk on their searches and search UK pages only. 'UK pages only' will filter out websites hosted outside the UK - I'm guessing this is the case. I'd recommend you host your US/UK sites separetelly.

4. Google maps: if you've registered and vefiried, I think your listing will stay for a long time (ie.: you won't have to re-verify for a while). Otherwise, you could always ask the new residents to forward your mail to keep your Google local listing vefiried.

What I'd do...
I'd start a fresh new site and link out of your current one. a) Your current site has enough influence to get a new site up to speed in a few weeks. b) you can still get jobs from across the Atlantic.

On a lighter note...
Glad to hear you're coming to London mate... it's a great city.

Okay, I just bought ryanfait.co.uk and I'll design a site that'll be hosted on a UK server for it. So long as the content isn't duplicate to my .com, do you think it'll harm my SEO? I plan on making the content quite different (with the exception of the portfolio). Should be fun having two sites to tinker with!

Different domain name + Different content = Different website and a whole new set of problems
Since you're about to become a UK web designer, I strongly recommend you get yourself on these:

http://www.freeindex.co.uk/
top quality UK business directory

http://www.linkedin.com/
quality business networking, one of the top websites in the UK

Have fun with the new site nd good luck with the move