Web Design Bournemouth

(See our other tips here.)

Back To Basics
Okay, so first up is a little gem.

What is your average customer WORTH?
You don’t know?  That’s not surprising, a lot of business owners don’t.
It’s easy to work out -
o   Total the number of Clients you have in a given perid
o   Minus your expenses from your total invoiced
o   Divide the result by your Clients
o   Now you know what you can spend on marketing for your customers

Driving Traffic to your site SEO
o   Backlinks – why are they still great?  Because it’s evidence that someone else thinks your site is worthy of linking to, end of story.
o   Directories – if you thought Directories were old-hat, think again.  There are some quality Directories out there specific to most business niches.  Yes, there are a lot of low-quality directories also, but the same can be said for any type of website online.
o   Social Media – the entire planet has gone Social Crazy, but for some businesses, it really works.  If your clients hang out there, target it.  If they don’t there are still plenty of options.

The right page
o   Make sure your visitors are landing on the right page!  Don’t have links for a ‘red widget’ pointing to your contact page…I know that one’s a no-brainer, but it still happens.

Call to Action
o   Don’t expect them to pick up the phone
o   Unless you actually tell them the number
o   And make it easy for them

Track your new enquiries
o   Where do they come from?
o   How did they find you?

Knowing where your customers came from, and how much they are worth is invaluable in many ways.  If you’re shelling out for advertising, but not getting any return on that investment, you need to know.

Filed under: web design bournemouth by Darren

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If you care about the success of your business and web presence, then you’re going to want to read what I have to say about the ongoing impact of the Google Panda update.

Don’t worry, this is not going to be over-the-top technical, or just for the eyes of geeks.

(See our other tips here.)

Overview – Why is The Google ‘Panda’ Update Still Affecting Our Websites?

The long and short of the ‘Google Panda’ update and how it affects you is this – it is no longer just enough to have ‘useful’, or ‘relevant’, or ‘unique’ content for your website.

The Panda update goes a lot further than Google have gone before when it comes to how they rate your website (and ultimately your business) within the online search space.

You or your web/seo guys may have noticed your ranking stats jumping about a bit since around March – that’s when Google started rolling out Panda. And it ties in to what I’ve been telling our clients about recently.

Now – this is the crucial bit to keep in mind – Panda is not going to go away, or fade out. It’s an on-going, evolving change to the way Google rates your website.

Google cares a lot about the quality of search results presented to guys like you and me when we search for stuff on the web.

Why? Because Google’s income / revenue stream – totalling hundreds of millions of dollars – depends on Advertising. If the search results pages start looking spammy, or full of junk – searchers go and use an alternative like Bing or Yahoo. And Google loses money. Simple.

So How Does Google Panda Impact You?

The key here is now based around usability for your website visitors. Ask yourself these questions:

- Does my site look like it was built in 1980?

- Would I want my mother/brother/father/sister/friends to visit my site?

- Is my website chock-full of Ads?

- Is there unique content on the site that engages people searching for my product/service?

- Am I re-using the same content on different pages?

- If I visited my site, looking for my service, would I buy?

- Do my website stats tell me people are leaving my website as soon as they find it?

- How many pages does the average visitor view before leaving my site?

- How long does the average visitor stay on my site for?

If the answers to the above aren’t good – then you may have some work to do if you want to maintain or improve your position on the web.  And you’ll notice that all of these factors are ‘visitor-focussed’.

How Does Google Know?

Google already have several ways to monitor the above metrics automagically. But the key thing is how they designed Panda in the first place.

This is all based on Human review – yep, real live ones. Hundreds of guys, visiting thousands of websites, and rating them by actually visiting you. You or I may have been visited by a Google employee in the process – but that’s irrelevant – because they’ve now trained their computers to behave in the same way as the Human Reviewers. That’s what enabled Google to roll the Panda update out to every site on the web. Clever stuff.

What Do I Need To Do?

Forget SEO as it used to be. Panda changes all that substantially. Going forward, Google is all about usability for your visitors – and yes, one way of measuring that is ‘Social Proof’ – see my previous post where I mention Google+1 for an example of this.  If you’re not doing it already – start looking at your site as your visitors would, not as you ‘think’ the search engines would.

Filed under: web design bournemouth by Darren

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So, let’s get cracking 

In last month’s Tips, we showed you Google +1, Dropbox and 1Password.  Some amazing benefits to small business owners in that lot. I might even get the T-shirts.

This month we give you some super-simple, quick & easy tips that are often overlooked on the keyboard that could easily save you hours of aggravation every single month!  When I say super-simple – that’s exactly what I mean.

(See our other tips here.)

#1 – Make the Most of Your Monitor

You are probably like me.  I’ll bet that sometimes you wish you had another monitor, or a bigger monitor, so you can have as many of your programs as possible visible at the same time.  Well, there’s a killer keyboard shortcut to maximise the ‘real estate’ on your screen.  Try it in your favourite web browser (this works in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome)

Keyboard Shortcut: press ‘F11′ on your keyboard

This removes all the junk you don’t use when reading a web page – the address bar at the top of the screen etc.

Simply press ‘F11′ on your keboard again to get all the usual screen-hogging menus, navigation buttons etc back again.

#2 – Too Many Programs Running?

Fed up with clicking through the different windows on your desktop, trying to find the program you’re looking for?  This one is a breeze, and anyone with 2 or more fingers at their disposal can do it:

Keyboard Shortcut: Hold the ‘Alt’ key (left of your spacebar) with your thumb.  Use your middle or index finger to click the ‘Tab’ key.  This works in Windows, Mac (‘Option’ + ‘Tab’) or Ubuntu Linux.

You’ll be able to cycle through your open programs with ease

(Bonus Tip: if you have windows 7 with Aero enabled – try your Windows key + Tab together….ooohhhh!  Tell me what you see!)

#3 – Eyes Tired?  Text Too Small?

Again, this works in most modern web browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome.

Dead simple – hold the ‘Ctrl’ key on your keboard.  Hit the ‘+’ or ‘-’ keys on your keypad to increase or decrease the size of Text in the browser.

(Bonus Tip: to ‘reset’ to the original size – hit ‘Ctrl’ and ’0′ (that’s zero, not the letter)

#4 – Need to Find Something FAST?

Whether it’s a program, or a file, this works in Windows:

Hit your Windows Key (left of keyboard)

Type the name, or part of the name of the program or file you need, you’ll see a quick list of matching programs / files.

Click the one you need  (or if you’re a keyboard junkie like me, and hate having to use the mouse – use the up & down arrows and hit Enter)

Hey Presto.  Boom, you’re in.

(This works best if you have ‘Indexing’ turned on)

#5 – Some Well-Known Keyboard Shortcuts

This is a quick list of some of the more common shortcuts that will save you hours of your life in boring, mundane ‘office productivity’ over a year:-

These work in most programs:

• Ctrl + S = Save
• Ctrl + Shift + S = Save As
• Ctrl + P = Print
• Ctrl + O = Open (file or folder)

From Outlook Email Client:

• Ctrl + N = New Email
• Alt + S = Send Email
• Ctrl + Q = Mark as Read
• Ctrl + U = Mark as Unread

Have your own quick tips that save time on the boring stuff at work and allow you to get on with the stuff you enjoy?  Share them with us in the comments.

Well, that about wraps it up for this installment, see you in the next episode!

Filed under: bournemouth web design, monthly tips, web design bournemouth by Darren
Tags: business owners, tips
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So, let’s get cracking 

Here are 3 tips that any business owner can benefit from without throwing their PC (or Mac) through the window:

(See our other tips here.)

#1 – Google +1 is here!

If you haven’t heard of it already, then you have now.  If you’re not sure what it is, then a simple explanation is to think of the ‘Facebook Like’ buttons you see on many sites at the moment.

Now the importance of this is – it’s Google.  We all know how important those chaps are when it comes to the web, search, and running your business.

When Google does something, it usually has a massive global and local impact, so if you only have 1 ‘share this’ or ‘like’ button on your website, make sure it’s Google + 1.

Simple enough for your web guys to setup, so won’t break your website budget.

#2 – Dropbox

This is amazing.  Free storage up to 2Gb.

Want all your important documents or images to be available to you on whatever machine you work from?  Dropbox it.

Need to share important documents with your clients and don’t want to constantly email changes back and forth?  Dropbox it.

You save something to your Dropbox folder, which then almost instantly becomes available in the same folder on your other machines (or also available to anyone else you share it with).

Simple to set up.  Free.  Download, install, away you go – all your Word, Excel, image files, whatever you want available to you wherever you are.

You can even login to the website from anywhere in the world to access your files should you need.

Link to Dropbox site.

#3 – 1Password Vs Firefox 4 Password Manager.

Got multiple passwords you can never remember?

1Password wins hands down.  Many more options and the ability to integrate also with Internet Explorer (boo, hiss!).  1Password pops a handy little icon in both FF & IE, but most of the time you don’t need the icon – it just recognises the login pages that you have saved – and can even auto-fill for you.

Forgotten a login, or can’t quite remember the web address you need to login to?  Just hit the icon, and search for part of the name of the website, or the address.  It’s truly a great bit of kit.

Also features a great ‘Password Generator’ which generates really strong passwords – and obviously you don’t ever need to remember them, and so don’t have to use the same ‘easy to remember’ password you’ve always used before.

*** Use 1Password with Dropbox (see above) and you can have your passwords available to you on every machine you work on – home, office, anywhere.

Well, that about wraps it up for this installment, see you in the next episode!

Filed under: bournemouth web design, monthly tips, web design bournemouth by Darren

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If you’re concerned about the speed that your web page loads at then this is a great tool:

Sprite Me makes it super simple to sprite up images with a little Bookmark tool.

Excellent for sites that don’t already have their images sprited.

Filed under: graphic design, graphics, web design bournemouth by Darren
Tags: image, page, speed, sprites
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Are you an aspiring businessman trying to climb your way up to the top of the market mountain? If you are, then you better keep reading because what follows may change the way you see things regarding your business. You might have set up your marketing strategies by now. You probably even have a website to promote your products and services to your customers. But are you sure that your website is doing its work for you? If you have doubts about that, then 123 Webdesign is here to help you. With their service oriented approach to giving you the best websites, web design, e-commerce, and content management solutions at affordable prices, you‘re sure to be reaping in profits and customers in no time at all. 123 Webdesign aims their services towards small to medium businesses in the Bournemouth area. They also aim to help business owners realize the potential of their online business.

There are various services they offer to their clients. One is web design. This service aims to provide you with websites that will suit your needs—to develop a website that will boost your brand and will help you achieve your business objectives. 123 Webdesign will help you get the best results through their packages consisting of starter websites and e-commerce websites. Another service they provide is Search Engine Optimization or SEO. Through this service, your website, particularly your business, will be put at the top of search results so that your customers will see your brand right away. With this service, ROI is guaranteed and all you have to do is to avail of the opportunity!

A third service they can provide for your business is Content Management Systems. Content management is crucial for your business website and 123 Webdesign will make sure that your website is updated with content that will bring in customers. 123 Webdesign also provides e-commerce services. They can give you three easy options so that your products can reach all the corners of Bournemouth and the rest of the world any time of the day whenever customers demand it. Their e-commerce services will definitely make a statement for your brand.

123 Webdesign has worked with Eboss recruitment Software, Intabase Solutions, The Bournemouth Plumber, Graham Davies Management Project, The Park Partnership, Edeli Shop, Shawn Randall Art, Total Glaze, RT Knight Opticians, Halcyon Holiday Cottages, Halcyon Property Development and Just Add Gifts among others who are now more than satisfied with 123 Webdesign’s services. Their businesses have now grown bigger and they have high praises for the company that made things possible for them.

If you are looking for a new website for your business or if you simply want to upgrade you existing website, contact 123 Webdesign now and let them transform your business into a better income generating giant. 123 Webdesign sees the potential in you and your business and its presence on the web. They understand you and your business objectives so give them a try!

Filed under: bournemouth web design, web design, website design by Darren

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A flash web design features animation, video and interactivity in its web pages. It is a recipe for entertainment because it provides attractive visual effects to a website’s visitors. It is an ideal design for websites on the arts, architecture, designing and games. (more…)

Filed under: graphic design, website design by Darren
Tags: animation, flash
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In a web culture where everything and anything is available at the Internet, often cheap and sometimes free, minimalistic web design is seemingly taking a back seat. In my recent searches, I stumbled upon several examples of this design, and honestly, I got stuck in most of them.

There were comments on the design’s aesthetic value, with many lauding it and (more…)

Filed under: graphic design, website design by Darren
Tags: minimalist
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Just checked my stats and noticed that the popularity of Browsers is as follows:

#1 Firefox

#2 Chrome

#3 Internet Explorer

Chrome has about a 13% lead on IE according to these stats.  Heh-heh!

Anyone else seeing a similar pattern recently?  Would love to hear from you if you are showing something different, whatever market you’re in!

Filed under: web design bournemouth by Darren
Tags: browser, popularity, statistics
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So, let’s get cracking 

Here are 3 tips that any business owner can achieve without throwing their PC (or Mac) through the window:  they run from super-easy at #1, to more advanced by #3.

(See our other tips here.)

#1 – Go-Go Google Local!
Often overlooked, Google Local is a great place to get your business listed, with many search results now showing local results at the very top.

To get your site on Google Local, and Google Maps – go to http://local.google.co.uk/.  Click on ‘Put your business on Google Maps‘

(more…)

Filed under: monthly tips, seo, tips, web design bournemouth by Darren

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Web users go to the Internet to learn, communicate or be entertained in the most efficient way possible. Most Internet surfers are familiar only with clicking buttons, arrows, mouses, search boxes or links. Unlike their techie counterparts who know their way around computers, lazy surfers who don’t immediately get what they want on the first click would just have to click another button to switch to another website.

Web design flaws that impair usability do exist in many websites even with the tons of web design tools available. If users get stuck or are lost in a website, they abandon the website. If the homepage does not clearly express what the website is all about, they jump to other websites. If a website is difficult to navigate, they leave the website. (more…)

Filed under: web design bournemouth by Darren

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From the overwhelming initial information on what a geek is, I still am struggling to get the true picture of one. The only thing I am sure of at this point is that it is a slang or informal term. The American Heritage Dictionary defines it as an odd or ridiculous person and The Oxford Dictionary defines it as an unfashionable or socially inept person, both meanings quite related. In both definitions, note that nowhere do we find any word that has something to do with the brain, the intellect or knowledge. (more…)

Filed under: bournemouth, bournemouth web design, other interests by Darren
Tags: geek
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Good grief.  I dip into some code for 5 minutes one day….then a few weeks later when I see the light of day again, not only is IE9 out, but there’s a Firefox 4?

Filed under: web design bournemouth by Darren
Tags: internet explorer 9
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Touted as being faster, more streamlined and simplified, is Internet Explorer 9 gonna make me spurn Firefox?

Ah.  Not so quick.  Just went to download for Windows 7 x64.  Downloaded.  Ran the install.

“Internet Explorer 9 – Downloading required updates…”

“Internet Explorer needs an update before installing……go online and install the required update, then return to the Internet Explorer installation page and run setup again.”

Hmm.

I click the ‘Get Update’ button.  The usual, helpful (?) Microsoft page full of stuff I don’t want to know, with the Windows 7 update buried somewhere down the page.

I click the ‘Download the x64 package now’ link.

“We can’t find that page

Make sure the web address is correct, or try using a different link to get to the page you want.”

Thank you so much Microsoft.

Seamless, end to end, joined up thinking….

Back to FF.

Filed under: bournemouth, web development, website design by Darren
Tags: internet explorer 9
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Trying to find the right file to add / edit your latest Magento e-commerce website?

Login as Admin, go System > Configuration

Top left you see ‘Current Configuration Scope’ – choose ‘Main Website’ assuming you have a default installation.

Then scroll down on the left till you see ‘Developer’ – hit that.

Then open the panel in the content area that says ‘Debug’ and set Template Path Hints to ‘yes’ (Block Names also if you want them)

Save and done.

Credit to Magento Community guy stevewar for the video here

Filed under: bournemouth, e-commerce, magento, web development by Darren

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If like me you use Netbeans 6.9.1 as your IDE, you probably already installed Scan on Demand to stop Netbeans choking up while scanning projects…

That (unfortunately) stopped working today.  So I downloaded the 7 beta – this is reported to have much more ‘unobtrusive’ scanning of projects.

Still, my advice, is to install it after work, then let it run overnight….took hours to finish scanning upon first boot – froze up many times, and required Netbeans and javaw.exe to be killed off with Task Manager.

She’s also a bit of a memory-hogger – currently reporting 17% on my CPU’s (AMD Phenom II X6 1055T) and 777Mb Ram.  Maybe that’s just Symfony projects in Netbeans for you.

Makes Windows 7 look like Mother Theresa, and even Vista like a woman-of-not-so-much-ill-repute…

Filed under: bournemouth, netbeans, web development by Darren

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Handy little plugin for Firefox that allows you to drag on the browser window to check the width and height of your layout.

Measure It – useful if you want to quickly check widths to tweak your css without retyping / guess-timating 3 times……

FoxGuide – handy rulers ala Photoshop.

Filed under: css, graphic design, web design bournemouth, web development by Darren

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Here’s one that was a ‘doh’ moment for me – wish I’d found it sooner.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dom-inspector-6622/

If you’re messing around with web apps / php / apache / mysql / ajax (frameworks like Symfony / CodeIgniter / Kohana – you get the picture), this is sweet.  The DOM tree seems to be a bit easier to use / cleaner than Firebug’s Dom tab (counter-opinions on a postcard to BBC, Pebble Mill, W1 please).

And I like it.

Filed under: web design bournemouth by Darren
Tags: color, colour, cygwin, symfony, testing, windows
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Nice and easy step to help with those of us on Windows / Wamp / similar setups.
Works nicely for me with Wampserver 2.0, Win 7 x64.
See the post here

Filed under: bournemouth, web development by Darren

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If you’re after a lightweight, highly configurable clipboard manager for Windows 7 (x64 in my case) then Ditto could be for you.

xNeat seems to not be compatible with Windows 7 x64 at the time of writing, and after trying to run xNeat in compatibility mode for Vista SP2 / as administrator, we gave Ditto a run.

Works nicely with text in Notepad, copying db / mysql info in and out of IDE’s such as Netbeans.

Easy keyboard shortcut to pop open your clipboard menu – Ctrl ‘

Filed under: web design bournemouth by Darren

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