I sold my old board to a keen young Grom who was made up to get a good beginners board for a reasonable price and its nice to know that the board I learnt on went to a good loving home. That was just after christmas and I haven’t got to surf since.

Upgrading your board is a much harder task than I thought as there are so many things to think about to make sure you don’t make the wrong choice. You would think that coming down in size from a 7’2″ NSP board is the first consideration. It would be a frustrating experience adjusting to something around 6’0″ in anyones world but I knew I wanted to go shorter, but how much?

Considerations

I knew that I wanted to go for a Webber board but which would be best for me … Firstly, I eliminated the ‘Compact disc‘ because it wasn’t as sexy as any of the others. Next were their traditional shortboards. I believed going for a traditional shortboard would be a bad choice as this is the board of a pro. I needed something a little bit more forgiving. After this came the ‘Mini fish‘, I moved this aside because of the ‘mini’ aspect, too short for me.

I basically narrowed it down to two options, the Fatburner and the Afterburner. Very similar in style and beauty but slightly different as far as ride. The Afterburner is a fish, this means that it has a swallow shaped rear end which gives the surfer more stability when gliding through the water because it effectively cuts a path as it moves forward, holding the sides of the board more stable. Right up to the point of purchase, I was gunning for this one until I got some advice.

It always pays to get advice because when I approached the shop I was going to get it from, they told me the Afterburner would not be the best option. Enter the Fatburner.

Recent changes to the range

2010 saw the rebirth of both of the Afterburner and the Fatburner. The one I went for in the end was neither of them!

Webber decided to rename the Fatburner the ‘Pulse’, which on reflection is much nicer, it doesn’t make you sound like an unfit heffer. The ‘Pulse‘ has a few differences to the Afterburner in that it has more volume and subtle concaves on the underside which all add to its stability and glide in the water.

Once I reached this point I sought more advice about size. I was tempted by a Clayton 6’8″ intermediate fish which the shop advised would be much more suitable. It was cheaper but nowhere near as sexy so I stuck to my guns and was advised that a Pulse 6’6″ would be slightly more of a challenge but within my capabilities.

… and to summarise then

So with the Webber Pulse you get:

1. A fully formed swallow tail
2. A deep double concave
3. Fuller volume which is well hidden along the middle section
4. Smooth rocker from nose to tail
   oh and did I mention…
5. A gorgeous FIVE fin setup

In the Flesh

Swallow tail

Deep double concave

Volume hidden

Five fin setup

I’m well pleased, time to hit the waves.

Gene and Gio were very complimentary overall in their video review of the site. I’m glad they used chrome to review it because there is a lot of jquery and javascript going on on the site which javascript optimised browsers like this will benefit from.

There are a few details which they picked up on where the site could do with a few detail improvements, guys I totally agree. There are quite a few modifications I want to make here and there, as well as some improvements to things like the portfolio as I learn more about the wonderful world of jQuery.

Among other things discussed in the review were the overall feel of the site, comparing it to a ‘piece of art’ and the fact that they were ‘sufficiently spooked’ – job done on that one

I will be taking the feedback from this review to improve the design and usability further in the future but in the mean time, thanks to unmatched style, feedback is always appreciated, especially when they talk about how cool it is, makes all the work worthwhile.

I wasn’t sure, as any SEO expert will tell you, whether I would be able to do this but with some thoughtful addition of content in the right places, somewhere along the line it worked.

We were having a discussion in the pub after work about what it is that boosts your site up the rankings for particular audiences and unfortunately there is no formula for getting your site exactly where you want it.

SEO Technique

I never pretend to be an SEO expert and am quite surprised to be honest. Saying this, I do know that a lot of work went into this site (even though it may not look like it) and techniques that I’ve learnt over the years to try and make useful content appear in the most optimal places have all been tried on my site.

I do build web sites every day, it is my job, and I can hear people in my head as I am writing this saying “OK, so why can’t you make my site appear in the top of google?”. The only way I can see to boost your ranking, and keep it there is that if you love your web site and the content there in, keeping the key information and terms you want people to search your site on in the correct places like titles, headings, near the tops of paragraphs etc, then you can only help your sites chances of rising through the rankings.

You should know your business better than anyone else and know the niches that you can chase. Make sure these niche markets appear prominently on your site. You have to make you Web agency aware of the areas you are chasing. The more information you can provide your Web agency, the better your site will be. The more the better!

One of my intentions is to further optimise the site for “usability bournemouth”, hopefully giving me more hits. With the ever closer changes happening on mattbudd.co.uk we should be a lot more open and you can have your say on usability on the site as it grows further.