Posted in WEB DESIGN, tagged 2011, BUSINESS, NEWS, WEB DESIGN, WEB DEVELOPMENT on Friday 15th April 2011 | Leave a Comment »
MintTwist are excited to announce the launch of the revamped Serious Stuff website. Serious Stuff specialise in providing high quality sports apparel to schools and local sports club. Serious Stuff approach sporting gear with an emphasis on quality and style.
MintTwist’s redesign of Serious Stuff and the implementation of an online shop was complex but we think the website and shop look great and works even better!
Visit www.serious-stuff.com.
Posted in BLOG, BUSINESS, WEB DESIGN, tagged 2011, BUSINESS, NEWS, SEO, WEB DESIGN, WEB DEVELOPMENT, WEB MARKETING on Wednesday 6th April 2011 | Leave a Comment »
MintTwist are proud to announce the re-launch of SmoothRed – an epic site that organises wine tours in France. SmoothRed offer bespoke, tailor-made wine holidays and trips. Whether you’re interested in a short break or a luxurious, 10 day tour – SmoothRed cover it all!
MintTwist were tasked with redesigning the website and bringing a fresh feel to the website. It is now also integrated with a CMS to make it easy to edit for the client. MintTwist are also excited to work with SmoothRed on a web marketing campaign to promote them through SEO and online marketing.
Visit www.smoothred.co.uk.
Posted in BLOG, BUSINESS, SEO, WEB DESIGN, Web Marketing, tagged BUSINESS, NEWS, SEO, SOCIAL MEDIA, Web Design Agency, Web Design North London, WEB DEVELOPMENT, WEB MARKETING, Website Design, website design London on Tuesday 29th March 2011 | 6 Comments »
For those working in the web design industry, browser choice is often a topic filled with debate. For anyone who surfs the net browser choicer can also be a very personal matter and recent data suggests that browser choice is increasingly diversified.
In the beginning there was Netscape Navigator. However by 2002 the browser had all but disappeared. This was primarily down to the growth in Internet Explorer, and the dwindling development efforts by the Netscape Corporation.
Internet explorer is a bit like Ghenkis Khan and the Mongol Empire. Perhaps not the most obvious comparison, but give me a chance. So, Internet Explorer was launched in 1995 and by 2003 had a market share of close to 95%. Between the year 1206 and 1280 the Mongol Empire grew to stretch from Korea to Moscow.
The rapid expansion of the Mongol Empire is much like Internet Explorers rapid growth in popularity. The development of Internet Explorer was also fairly rapid and progressive. The Mongols were also progressive and introduced new technology and new thinking into a medieval Eurasia.
However like all Empires, over time cracks begin to appear. For the Mongols, their days of power were numbered and to make matters worse the epic trade routes that were built up now helped spread the Black Death which decimated both Mongol and other populations.
In 2010 Internet Explorer had a market share of 60% which is a long way of its 2003 peak of 95%. This begs the question, what happened? The answer is quite straightforward. Mozilla happened.
Mozilla created the web browser Firefox and it really came into its own with its 3.5 and 3.6 versions and now their latest version, Firefox 4 is available to download. The browser is currently competing with Internet Explorer for top spot, but right now it has a market share of about 30%.
Internet explorer was never going to maintain a market share of 95%. Competition from Mozilla, Google’s Chrome and Safari ensured this. In my own experience having started with Internet Explorer, then on to Google Chrome, I am now using Firefox 4 and have found it to be an excellent web browser.
In my field of SEO and web marketing I believe Firefox offers me the best web browsing experience. It is well designed, easy to use and highly customable. The amount and variety Firefox Add-ons available is exceptional and definitely provides me with very important data and information.
Greg Jacobs
Content Manager
http://www.minttwist.com
Posted in BLOG, WEB DESIGN, tagged 2011, BLOG, BUSINESS, Marketing, WEB DESIGN, WEB DEVELOPMENT on Monday 14th March 2011 | Leave a Comment »
On 1st March, the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) extended its CAP Code to regulate non-paid for online marketing communications. This covers a company’s websites and other websites, such as Facebook and Twitter, where a company’s marketing messages are being communicated. The ASA already has the power to regulate paid-for online advertising such as banner ads, pop-ups and pay-per-click.
Why is this happening?
Over the last three years, the ASA has received over 4,500 complaints about non-paid for advertising. They were unable to act in these cases. A government review last year on the sexualisation of young people highlighted how more and more messages to this group are communicated online but the existing Code could not protect them. The ASA have said that it has the “protection of children and consumers at [its] heart”.
What do the extended regulations now cover?
Any non-paid for marketing communications where a product or service is being promoted, such as the company’s site, are now included. Crucially the marketing messages you send through social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter are part of these regulations.
Are any websites exempt?
This applies to all UK websites, even if the domain is not .co.uk.
What should I do?
You may want to review your company’s website and non-paid for advertising. The CAP code has been developed “to ensure marketing communications remain legal, decent, honest and truthful.” Ifyour marketing communications reflect this (online and offline) then you have nothing to worry about.
What happens if someone blogs or Twitters about my company and what they say violates the regulations?
The CAP Code calls this “user generated content”. The ASA cannot regulate what people say about your product or service. However, it would be subject to the regulations if you were to use what they have said in your marketing communications.
What will the ASA do if it finds a company in breach of the code?
The ASA will do one or more of the following:
• “Name and shame” the company on the ASA website
• With the co-operation of search engines, remove paid-for advertising links to the page that has the offending marketing message
• Place ads online that brings attention to the company’s non-compliance
Where can I find out more?
Check out the ASA’s Digital remit advice. They are also running seminars and offer a website audit service.
The future…
It will be interesting to see in the coming months how the ASA discovers non-compliant sites and messages, and how realistically it can deal with marketing messages going out via social media. Given the thousands of websites in the country and marketing messages thrown at us every day, it is impossible for them to police each one. They will need to rely heavily on the public to complain about adverts and messages they think are misleading.
-
This post was written by Victoria (Operations Manager at MintTwist). MintTwist are a leading web design London agency offering a full web service that also includes web marketing and SEO London.
Posted in BLOG, Web Marketing, tagged BLOG, BUSINESS, NEWS, SEO, WEB DESIGN, Web Design North London, WEB DEVELOPMENT, WEB MARKETING, Website Design on Tuesday 1st March 2011 | 5 Comments »
The name Tommy Flowers probably means very little to just about everyone which is a shame because without Tommy Flowers it is more than likely I would not be here writing this blog.
The genius of Tommy Flowers was obvious from a young age and he eventually earned a degree in electrical engineering from the University of London. The very concept of electrical engineering was relatively novel in the 1920’s but Tommy Flowers knew it was the future.
Tommy later gained experience working on telephone exchanges and by 1939 became convinced that a completely electronic system was possible. At the very same time, Europe was descending into the chaos of war which would soon drag the rest of the world and Tommy Flowers into it.
Alan Turing, another technological hero, was working for the British government breaking German codes. He developed the world’s first algorithms and was literally years ahead of the competition. Eventually Turing heard about Tommy Flowers and asked him for help.
The reason he asked him for help was because the latest code breaking methods being used at the time required large amounts of data input which by hand would be completely impractical. However if an electronic machine could be made which could break codes by inputting large quantities of data then any German code could be broken.
The key for Flowers was valves, lots of them. To put things into context, at the time the most complicated electronic device used about 150 valves. Flowers proposed that his machine which he names ‘Colossus’ would use 1800 valves. Sadly the British government and the Ministry of Defence were yet to be convinced and rather than offering their help told him to make do on his own.
Undeterred Tommy poured every ounce of energy, every second of concentration and every penny he had into his ‘Colossus’. After eleven months, Flowers and his devoted team built ‘Colossus’. The world’s first computer was born and immediately set about breaking German codes. Later the ‘Colossus Mark 2’ was built which used 2400 valves.
German intelligence became British intelligence immediately. The Allies now had a massive advantage over the Germans and with their new intelligence were able to dominate the war at sea, the war at air and the war on ground. The D-day landings, which marked the beginning of the end for Hitler, used vital information gathered by ‘Colossus’.
The Supreme Commander of the Allied forces, Dwight D Eisenhower went for a meeting at Bletchley Park, the home of ‘Colossus’ and the code breakers, on the 1st of June 1944. There he was handed a decryption made by ‘Colossus’ which showed that Hitler did not want additional troops to be sent to Normandy. Eisenhower turned to his staff and said “We go tomorrow.”
Without the work carried out by Tommy Smith and the code breakers at Bletchley Park it is quite possible that the outcome of World War 2 would have been different. Tommy Flowers is my technological hero because he built the first computer which broke the German codes which won us the war and brought freedom to Europe and the world.
Posted in BUSINESS, WEB DESIGN, tagged BLOG, BUSINESS, LANGUAGE TRANSLATION, Web Design North London on Wednesday 31st March 2010 | 2 Comments »
Over the last decade the internet has experienced a dramatic rollercoaster of a ride. Looking back at when the .com bubble burst seems like an age ago, and ever since people, businesses, investors, all of them had their doubts about the internet. Business models and strategies were rewritten overnight, not to mention the value of the companies which were wildly over exaggerated.
Today the internet is a somewhat different story. Compare the internet now to ten years ago. The first thing that might come to mind is having to dial up using your 56k modem and wait an eternity for any kind of progress. Nowadays you are either jumping on a wireless network or perhaps in an office they may be using Ethernet connections. With both, getting online takes a second.
However this is not what the internet is about. The connections speeds were inevitably going to improve, and will continue to do so. Now internet providers in the UK are offering fibre optic internet connection which will give users lightning fast speeds. In addition to this more people are using the internet as their primary medium for entertainment and broadcasters are making more content available online, such as the BBC’s iPlayer or 4OD.
Since the bubble burst a lot has been learnt. The capability and dynamism of websites has improved dramatically and has lead to certain websites becoming synonymous with the generation of today. Sites like FaceBook, MySpace, YouTube, to name a few, are more than websites now, they are part of many people’s lives, daily routine, and consciousness which has altered the way we interact with each other.
To imply this is how everyone feels about FaceBook wouldn’t be accurate but ‘generation Z’ is growing up with the internet and their experience and expectations are very different to those of a decade ago. Kids and teenagers around the world are accessing the web and sites like FaceBook are in high demand from people around the world which includes many languages.
It was just over a year ago that FaceBook started localizing itself for the world. The company utilized outsourcing to spur its translation efforts. And though volunteers aren’t the only people translating content, a year later, FaceBook has done an impressive job of going global.
Some recently reported key stats from FaceBook’s global expansion efforts include:
In conclusion, we have seen FaceBook recently overtake Google in the USA as the most popular website. Does this mean sites in other countries will be knocked of the pedestal? At this stage it is hard to say. In the UK the most popular website is Google, but not too far behind is FaceBook, which will continue to grow and chase. But this is not the optimum acid test for FaceBook; instead it will be to see how successful FaceBook are in non-English speaking countries by the year 2012.
At Today Translations, the licensed tranlsation agency, our linguists know there’s more to professional translation services than mere words. We are a specialist translation company, capable of providing anything from English to Arabic translation, to Russian to English, to French, to any language translation you could want – and much more!
Posted in WEB DESIGN, tagged BLOG, BUSINESS, KEYWORDS, NEWS, WEB DESIGN, WEB DEVELOPMENT, WEB MARKETING, website, Website Design on Thursday 25th March 2010 | 3 Comments »
The BBC’s website is today well established as arguably the most cutting edge, the most current and the friendliest to users. The website is much more than just a page rank of 9 and pages of english language! It is a website which not only hold top quality content, but carries with it the impeccable reputation the BBC has built up over decades of impartiality.
The BBC is a publicly owned organisation, which means that the BBC website belongs to the people. As a result there is tremendous affinity and popularity for the site.
Although if you were to look at the site in 1997 you might be a little disappointed as you can see below.
BBC homepage 1997
This was a basic offering with two sections to the site. Over time it has grown to encompass a great deal more. However due to the organic way in which the website evolved and the old structure of the business, with dozens of small design teams working independently of each other, the site had a fairly schizophrenic nature once you delved into its depths.
About 2 years ago, after printing out the site onto what has now become jokingly known as the ‘Wall of Shame’ the BBC decided to embark on an ambitious project, called Global Visual Language 2.0, with the aim of unifying the visual and interaction design of bbc.co.uk and the mobile website.
The BBC created a new wider, centred page template to take advantage of wider screen resolutions and for the first time created an underlying grid. They rationalised the hundreds of different banner styles into a new global and local branding and navigation system.
The scores of different audio and video players were discontinued and they created a universal embedded media player. They also redesigned the homepage creating a visual style that began to ripple through the site and onto the mobile platform.
The BBC showed excellent mastery of ‘web 2.0’ which is an approach that has been adopted by many other businesses and organisations. However the BBC now believes it has served its purpose and it is time to move on.
They have set out to broaden their ambitions to create a design philosophy and world-class design standards that all designers across the business could adhere to. They want something distinctive and recognisable and they knew whatever was created needed to be truly cross-platform and that with simplified user journeys.
The BBC didn’t do it on all by themselves. Together with representatives from across the business, led by the project’s Creative Director, Ben Gammon, they formed a Global Design Working Group, and created a GVL Steering Group to help manage and direct the course of the project. The BBC also approached the industry to find a partner to co-create the styleguide: Neville Brody and his agency, Research Studios.
Over the last four months, they have spent countless hours and created countless iteration designs, components, mastheads, footers, polar maps, word documents, pdfs and grids… and this is all still a work in progress.
They are creating a design philosophy, or a set of values, to unite the user experience practitioners across the business and have settled on nine keywords which sum up what they’re about and what they’re trying to achieve:
Modern British
The BBC want to create a modern British design aesthetic, something vibrant and quirky that translates outside our national boundaries.
Current
It needs to feel current and reflect what’s happening in the UK right now, in real-time with links to the past – to a rich archive.
Authentic
Need to sound authentic and relevant, warm and human.
Compelling
The BBC engages the audiences with compelling storytelling with voice ranges from serious and authoritative through to witty and entertaining.
Distinctive
Standing out from the crowd, the BBC is bold and dramatic.
Pioneering
They pioneer design innovations that surprise and delight.
Joined-up
All services and platforms as one connected but deliver experiences that are sensitive to their context of use.
Universal
The services are open and accessible with simple, useful and intuitive interfaces.
Best
The BBC’s ambition is to be the best digital media brand in the world.
In doing this work they have begun to distil the essence of a new visual style. Taking inspiration from many sources to try and achieve “an underlying grid system that was flexible enough to enable many unique design variations whilst still feeling coherent and considered.”
The new grid is based on 31 sixteen pixel columns with two left hand columns that can be split into four, and one wider right hand column.
A key feature of the new GVL is a much more dramatic use of typography. As well as Gill Sans they have introduced big bold type in Helvetica or Arial and restricted variations in size so that we have much greater consistency across the site.
Below and on the left is an example of it all pulled together on a new story page, and examples of typography styling in promo drawers. It is focused on signposting and articulation; you can see the time stamping treatment and signposting for live content.
The BBC wanted to create something that is flexible enough to allow all the brands their full expression whilst uniting them into a coherent user experience.They also wanted to strip out any superfluous decoration and allow the content and imagery to shine through which we find exciting and refreshing
The final push is to finalise the masthead and footer. They are also looking at mobile, IPTV and social elements on the page (social bookmarking, share functionality, comments, ratings, reviews etc).
As to when exactly this will go live, it is hard to say. There will need to be a significant test phase because maintaining their status as a very reliable site is very important. But considering they are in the latter stages of the build it could be as soon as this summer, but we may have to wait until the winter. Whatever the case maybe we are looking forward to its arrival.
MintTwist – Web Design London – refreshing the web
Posted in BUSINESS, WEB DESIGN, tagged 2009, BLOG, BUSINESS, WEB MARKETING on Wednesday 16th December 2009 | Leave a Comment »
How does Santa know what everyone wants for the holidays? Simple, the children tell Santa very specifically. Whether they are sitting on his lap, or writing letters in crayon, Santa’s “customers” make it very clear to him what they are looking for this holiday season.
You have the same advantage. Grownups use search engines to tell you exactly what they want. You simply need to show up, no matter what or how they are asking.
If Santa were dishing out corporate blogging advice for marketers this holiday season, I’m sure it would sound something like this:
Blog for search
Recognize that blogging is a terrific search marketing tool and embrace it early. Blogs give you an easy way to quickly tell lots of stories frequently. The reality is that most blog traffic is coming from first-time visitors. They don’t know you yet. What searchers do know is what they want or the problems they are trying to solve. Developing specific blogs targeting specific products or services is a terrific way to target these self-qualifying prospects.
Do your keyword research and take advantage of the space that your blogs give you to talk about your products and services using the words your customers use.
Example: GoalGroup
GoalGroup is an industry leader in protecting investors and funds against losses and retrieves them money after class action lawsuits. It sells its services through a worldwide network and is monitoring and reporting on class actions to its global network of clients and partners. It targets hundreds of specific terms through blogging, using keywords such as “class actions” and “class action lawsuits“.
For GoalGroup, targeting search through class action focused blog articles not only helps dramatically increase organic traffic, but such traffic also converts at a very high level — which is a clear indication that the search audience is happy to have landed on one of the company’s blog articles.
Example: Today Translations
Language Translation agency Today Translations has embraced targeted blogging to drive searches. By empowering its language translators in the markets (in London and financial centres worldwide) it serves to tell stories about their business, the company is able to target people in those markets the very moment when they need the services of a language translator the most. Targeting terms like “language translator“, “English to Chinese translation” or “English to Russian translation” shows up well because of the local stories the language translators tell.
The biggest miss in multi-channel merchant blogging is the conversion. Just like any other web page in your inventory, your blogs need to have clear, relevant, and effective calls-to-action. If a searcher lands on a web page about a Property in Wimbledon or a Private Detective Agency, they sure better have a way to buy that service.
Many companies do a wonderful job on PPC landing pages and totally fail on their blogs. You have to think of your blogs as organic landing pages. The goal is conversion — get your searchers to take the next step in the relationship.
Every kind of business can benefit from search-optimised blogging. By following the advice above, you are putting your organization in front of people who have expressed their intent to find a solution to their needs, whether it’s for information, services, or products.
MintTwist help businesses to improve their reputations and increase sales every day. With a Managed Web Marketing service, MintTwist make sure their clients have all the right things in place before commencing an all-encompassing web marketing stratgey that dramatically increases sales leads, visibility and improves the reputation of our client’s businesss. Contact Elliott King for more information.
Posted in BUSINESS, tagged BUSINESS on Tuesday 1st December 2009 | 1 Comment »
AN EAST London resident who was defrauded after making an online purchase may have stumbled onto an international racket after hiring a private detective to help him.
François Eales, a natural medicine practitioner who lives and works in Gonubie, said that last Thursday he bid to buy an Apple iPhone cellphone and a Sony Vaio laptop on a an Internet auction website.
“I’ve made over 300 purchases in the past through the site and have never had a problem before.”
Eales’ bid on the iPhone was not accepted, but his bid for the laptop was successful.
“I contacted the seller and got his details,” said Eales. “He told me he was moving to Australia.”
Eales deposited the money that afternoon into his account and arranged with his parents, who lived nearby, to collect the laptop the following day.
However, they could not get hold of the seller on the cellphone number provided.
Eales said he then turned to the internet again to find a reliable private investigator to help him trace the individual.
“I discovered the account was held in Namibia, in the name of someone else and that it had quite a substantial amount of money in it.”
Eales said police were looking into the matter.
The private detective agency, said that from preliminary investigations he suspected a larger syndicate could be at work.
“It’s possible the bank account in Namibia could be a money-laundering scheme where fraudsters deposit money and give a commission to the account owner,” he said.
Operations manager for the website, said it was unfortunate that people used the site to commit acts of fraud. He said 99 percent of the transactions on the website were legitimate
Conflict International is a Private Investigator firm that provides invetigative services for corporate and private clients. Its global operation covers London, Europe and the rest of the World.
Posted in BUSINESS, WEB DESIGN, tagged 2009, BLOG, BUSINESS, WEB DESIGN, WEB MARKETING on Friday 27th November 2009 | Leave a Comment »
It is the 21st Century equivalent of word of mouth.
From estate agencies to eco-friendly fashion designers , small business owners across the UK have been thrown an unexpected lifeline in the midst of the recession by social networking sites.
Companies that have jumped on the Twitter and Facebook bandwagon are reporting a surge in customers while others struggle.
With minimal marketing budgets available to many small businesses, social networking sites offer a quick and, more importantly, free means of promoting their wares to a global audience.
In the face of stiff competition and a global economic downturn, it is a route more and more companies are going down.
Wimbledon based entrepreneeur Tara Rez, has been using Twitter and Facebook as a marketing for her successful rental properties and property sales estate agency based in south london.
They are usng the media to post latest details of the latest new and available properties. “The best properties always go in matter of hours or days – and are not normally advertised on the traditional sites”, says Tara. “By providing a South West London Rentals and Sales facebook and twitter service we can provide prospective tennats, buyers and investors with an importnat head start”.
French eco friendly menswear designer Aude Lesur said, “our facebook fan page allowed us to push out our 10% discount codes to our target customer groups – they have been buying in droves.”, she continued… “my only problem now, is working out when to stop the discount code – 5x more people have made use of it than we budgeted for!.”
“Every day we are helping businesses to use Twitter in combination with the hundreds of other web marketing channels in more effective ways ,” says Elliott King, Director at the Web Marketing agency MintTwist Ltd.
“We’ve have lots of small and medium sized businesses, up and down the UK that are drastically increasing their sales leads using our combined web marketing service.”
Wimbledon Property Rentals and Sales
Wimbledon Property Rentals
Posted in BUSINESS, WEB DESIGN, tagged 2009, BLOG, BUSINESS, WEB DESIGN, WEB MARKETING on Friday 25th September 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Are you concerned that competitors can steal your website?
What are the pitfalls for an offender, what are the legal comebacks and can you turn the situation to your favour?
Maybe, take the real world example below…
A case of website and web copyright theft
MintTwist and N.I.D-lab both create websites. N.I.D-lab stole MintTwist’s website with a cut-and-paste job.
The Original MintTwist Website
Stolen MintTwist Website with MintTwist clients still listed
This provides MintTwist with an opportunity to demonstrate an important selling point
Indulge us…
Ok, Clients of MintTwist, the multi-national web design and web marketing company are a smart bunch. They know that for a business website to be successful at winning more new sales leads it must get the right messages across to the right audience groups in a fast and effective manner. In a nutshell this is the secret of website success and the true value of a web design service.
It follows then, that one design does not fit all…
For example, target customers of MintTwist are medium sized businesses that target customers in the UK, Europe, USA and across the Middle East. MintTwist returns value to its clients by helping them to increase their revenue by significantly growing the number of sales leads they achieve from their web strategy through improved web design and web marketing services. The design that MintTwist created for their website gets this message across.
Conversely, N.I.D-lab, is a cheap web design company that offers cheap website services to anyone. The design that they have chosen for their website is a cut-and-paste copy of the MintTwist site. This was an error of judgement for several reasons ….
Pitfalls for the offender and their clients
As well as risking a lawsuit for themselves and any of their clients, who will be liable if they have performed the same ‘service’ for them, they have also failed at the first fundamental step of web design. The MintTwist website design is aimed at well-informed professionals with a vision of how to extract a significant return from their website purchase. These are not the kind of customers who will buy from N.I.D-lab and therefore should not be N.I.D-labs targets.
The next time N.I.D-lab decide to ‘re-design’ their site, to make it more effective they would be well advised to focus and optimise for their own (somewhat unique) selling point and target customer group – “cheap copies for people who like getting sued”.
What to do if your website is stolen?
If you are a website owner who have had your website stolen you should consider legal action. Google can also help to prevent damage by black-listing offenders using the power of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The Google page dealing with offenders of website theft will provide more information on this.
More Opportunities
After a successful launch into the Abu Dhabi Web Design and Dubai Web Design Markets MintTwist is seeking to further diversify its markets in order to increase the level of service it can provide to its clients. For more information on attractive partnership opportunities with MintTwist, contact Elliott King. N.I.D-lab management need not apply.
Posted in BUSINESS, WEB DESIGN, tagged 2009, BLOG, BUSINESS on Tuesday 15th September 2009 | 4 Comments »
… Maybe. Although this time it will be more complex.
IE and FireFox are the dominant incumbents and Google’s Chrome is the rising super-power. However, dig a little deeper and you’ll see there are more potential players in the battle for world domination.
Are we heading for a second wave of browser wars?
“The issue that lies ahead is whether browsers will remain a relatively simple window on to the internet or become intelligent agents that shape online experiences. If they go down the latter route this would have potentially disruptive effects for others who do business on the internet”, said Elliott King of MintTwist web design.
For the internet’s booming social networking industry in particular, the prospect that some of the capabilities associated with social networking will be embedded into browsers, making them more aware of users’ interests and social relationships, could force difficult strategic decisions.
Google’s main contribution to the browser skirmishes we’ve seen thus far has been an obsession with speed. With a new, faster engine for executing Javascript – the code that makes it possible for a browser to imitate applications that run on a PC – Google galvanised the rest of the industry and forced rivals to focus harder on their own core technology.
Google’s goal, as it takes on Microsoft, is clear – to accelerate the advances in the internet platform in ways that eventually make it unnecessary to run “native” software applications that rely on a PC’s underlying operating system. That, ultimately, should benefit the web-based services on which its success depends.
Others, however, see deeper potential in the browser and are out to push its capabilities further. As a piece of software that all users have to use – it clearly has a strong strategic position.
For instance, Mozilla, the maker of the Firefox browser, says it is looking into arming its browser with a number of extra munitions – such as ‘knowing who you are and handling authentication on the websites you visit, keeping a record of your social network so that you can interact with friends; and, making it easier for you to share content with your network.
Given that these are all territories that social networks like Facebook currently view as their own, that could create new fronts opening up between browser makers and the internet services that rely on them.
If it makes life easier for internet users, bringing more capabilities into the browser will be hard to resist and populations of internet users may start to migrate away from using artificial silos [like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn].
This has attracted a flurry of interest and investment in browsers from the social networking big guns. The potential for “social browsers” is a currently a hot topic in Silicon Valley.
The internet industry has long nurtuerd a feeling of mutual growth and co-operation; but there’s a growing evidence that the time may be coming for players to choose sides, ready themselves and prepare for war!
MintTwist help medium sized product and service based businesses to increase revenue and sales leads by defeating their enemies on the battlefields of the internet with better web design and web marketing services. Contact Elliott King for more information.
Posted in BUSINESS, WEB DESIGN, tagged 2009, BLOG, BUSINESS, WEB MARKETING on Tuesday 15th September 2009 | Leave a Comment »
London is becoming the Twitter capital of the world, in terms of number of users and number of businesses developing add-on tools for the communications network.
While Twitter is the toast of its native Silicon Valley in California, London boasts more users than any other city in the world.
Even though Twitter itself is yet to generate any revenue, early-stage investors are pouring millions of pounds into small companies in the Twitter “ecosystem” in the London area.
London web designers have produced many of the most popular of the many third-party tools used to post to Twitter, called Tweetdeck. Reading’s Tweetmeme, which tracks the most popular news stories discussed on Twitter, is attracting millions of visitors a month while Twitterfeed, based in Tooting, is used by thousands of publishers to post their latest headlines on to the site.
Twitter was launched in 2006 but really took off in the UK at the beginning of this year, thanks to support from celebrities such as Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross. But many see Twitter’s potential as far greater than documenting the lunching habits of the stars.
“Twitter has huge potential as a marketing and communications platform”, says Elliott King, Director at MintTwist Ltd.
As Twitter has broken out of the early-adopter niche, it has attracted more mainstream users and uses… Jobseekers are using Twitter to find new employment. Many businesses push marketing messages and even run customer support services through their Twitter profiles. Millions of users flock to the site for the biggest news stories of the hour, as defined by the Twitter community rather than newspaper editors.
MintTwist help medium sized product and service based businesses to increase revenue and sales leads with the smart application of web design and web marketing services. Contact Elliott King for more information.
Posted in BUSINESS, WEB DESIGN, tagged 2009, BLOG, BUSINESS on Friday 4th September 2009 | 1 Comment »
Has the recession changed the way you approach business?
Many of the business people in my network have answered an emphatic YES to this question…
Jurga Zilinskiene who runs established language translation services company Today Translations said, “During the recession we realised the value of our local suppliers. Trust and pulling together has been the key to the success that we’ve enjoyed through these lean times. By working in close proximity with our partners we have been able to focus on delivering a high quality service and a fast turnaround for our clients which has really made a difference to our bottom line.”
Jurga Zilinskiene who runs established language translation services company Today Translations.
Doing business with people trust and meeting people face-to-face are coming back into fashion. The perception amongst my ad-hoc sample appeared to be that by working with people (suppliers) that you’ve met and with whom you have developed some level of trust – and by trust I mean an intuitive feel for the person, as well as an understanding of the services their business can offer – you will achieve a greater level of customer service and ultimately an increased ROI.
Aude Lesur of Credau an Eco Menswear label specialising in eco clothing for men all made in Britain said “From conception to packaging, Credau has always believed in using local industry. All of our clothes are made in Britain, East London. Our care labels are woven in Pembrokeshire, and environmentally sustainable. We keep our carbon footprint to the minimum. We do not use plastic and we send out goods using a biodegradable polybag. We started out doing this because we care about the environment and it’s a core business value of Credau – however, we have been amazed at the resilience this policy has given our business during this downturn. We have experienced increased levels of service from our suppliers – all of them know the value of raising quality and because we are in it together they are also personally motivated to deliver even more value.”
Another client of ours who is reaping the rewards of the increased value that is being placed on “trust in business” is Mike Lacorte, Director of the Private Investigator agency Conflict International. Mike said, “We are seeing an increasing number of corporate businesses come to us, who want to find out more about potential employees they are thinking of taking on for key positions. They want to know if the person is drinking too much or doing drugs before they take them onto a very lucrative package. For them it’s a smart business decision and everything we do is within the law and entirely confidential.”
My conclusion; meeting with and trusting in your suppliers, partners and employees is crucial if you are to create sustainable business relationships. The benefits are a strong ROI, increased profit and (dare I say it) ‘friends’ who will be amongst the first to provide real help in challenging times.
Posted in BUSINESS, WEB DESIGN, tagged 2009, BLOG, BUSINESS, WEB MARKETING on Friday 4th September 2009 | 1 Comment »
The world economy is improving, but that has not translated into increased demand for expensive, elaborate advertising campaigns, according to WPP Group chief Martin Sorrell. However, the industry has the potential to rebound, and when it does, it will focus on digital, Sorrell said.
Sorrell told reporters Wednesday that the ad industry will look very different when it fully recovers from the effects of the recession, with the focus moving away from traditional, The Wall Street Journal reports.
“It’s not going to be in 30-second TV ads; it’s not going to be in newspaper or magazine ads; it’s going to be digital, it’s going to be viral and organic” Sorrell said.
One particular reason the industry won’t rebound as quickly as the economy is that marketers have grown accustomed to paying less for campaigns as agencies have been forced to slash rates in an effort to retain clients. Even Dublin-based WPP, the world’s largest agency by revenue, reported a 48 percent drop in net profit (to $177.3 million) for the first half of the year.
MintTwist help businesses increase sales in the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Worldwide markets. With a Managed Web Marketing service, MintTwist make sure their clients have the right setup before commencing an all-encompassing web marketing stratgey that dramatically increases sales leads, visibility and improves the reputation of our client’s businesss in target markets.
For more information contact Elliott King on +44 20 8349 8213 or elliott@minttwist.com.
Posted in BUSINESS, WEB DESIGN, tagged 2009, BLOG, BUSINESS, WEB MARKETING on Thursday 3rd September 2009 | 7 Comments »
Remember all that time and effort you spent coming up with the right name for your business? You wanted the right name because your name is a large part of your brand. You want to create a brand that will conjur positive images about your business and stick in people’s minds; you wanted something that will last, something you could build around, and grow.
Brand building is just the start of bigger things to come. How people perceive your business matters – it can increase sales and reinforce your reputation. Negative perceptions, on the other hand, can do great harm to your business.
These days the extension of your online brand and reputation management is as crucial as it is in the real world.
Whether we like it or not, with the advent of social media people will be talking about us online. And two, the possibilities this word of mouth online presents – are endless.
Online PR is therefore about building and managing your brand and reputation online by creating relationships with the right people and linking up to them. Where possible, engaging in convesrations that are taking place about your business (because they will take place whether you like it or not) can potentially provide huge benefit to your brand, and increase your sales.
So just why is online PR so important?
It’s quite simple really. If you care about your business – then you should care about creating and maintaining a good reputation online. The web has changed the way we live, the way we communicate and the way we do business.
Once driven by the offline world, now we need to go where our customers are and the fact is, most of them are online. However with trust being as important an issue as its ever been, a good reputation plays a big part in closing the deal. And social media gives you the ability to create a seal of approval and build a reputation that can last forever to counteract this issue. A blinkered view of the online world could have the opposite effect.
An even bigger advantage in building that reputation because by getting other reputable people to talk about and link back to you, you increase your visibility. Think of it as networking with your niche.
Getting relevant links back from websites and other internet channels also increases your search engine ranking!
Tradespacer, Antonia Chitty (AC PR) who has used online PR extensively for her business recommends it, “I use online promotion for my business and it gets great results. The wonderful thing is that you can post a call to action with a link that takes people straight to your site: this can lead to much better response rates than in print media. I’m writing this while in the middle of an online campaign to promote http://www.themumpreneurguide.co.uk and it is really gratifying to see how many people are responding by visiting the site within minutes of receiving an email, and going on to make a purchase too.”
Spelling out some of the benefits of online PR. Here’s what’s in it for you ….
• You become aware of what’s being said about you and by whom.
• Millions of consumers are turning to the web first for news – if you have news, it should be online as well as offline.
• When news sites and bloggers talk about or reference you, it not only increases credibility, it gives you a link back to your website which helps your search engine optimisation and ultimately your ranking.
• By being part of the conversations taking place online, you lead the conversation rather than being the butt of it.
• By building relationships with online bloggers and influencers, you are helping build your own reputation.
• A reputation built online has a longer lifespan. An offline press release for example, has a limit to its lifespan it only lasts as long as that issue of the newspaper lasts (if you get featured). This is not so online, once you get a link from a valuable source, it’s there till someone manually takes it down.
I’m convinced! How do I build my reputation and traffic? Online PR takes a bit of skill to get it right, so here are a few things to consider when drawing up an action plan.
• Do an audit of how you are currently perceived. Google yourself, and take note of what Google suggests people are searching for with your brand.
• Research your audience online and how you can reach them. Spend some time researching where your online audience hangs out – forums, blogs they read, communities they participate in.
• Find out who the stakeholders/influencers are within your space.// Identify who sets and challenges the trends within the scope of your own business and then prepare to build relationships with those people. Tip: bloggers and influencers need to be approached on a one to one level – not with a press release.
• Setting yourself up as an expert is key – so brush up and make sure you blog often and that your blog works (so people will want to reference it or link to it)
• The search optimisation bit works when you get a link from a reputable site back to your own – so aim to build these up.
• Learn how to write an effective online press release that you can distribute online to PR websites.
• Add a place for press releases, coverage etc…. have a look at ours for ideas.
• Finally don’t forget to use those all important and relevant keywords when submitting an online press release to get the maximum benefit of tying in your reputation and your search engine ranking!
MintTwist help businesses to improve their reputations and increase sales every day. With a Managed Web Marketing service, MintTwist make sure their clients have all the right things in place before commencing an all-encompassing web marketing stratgey that dramatically increases sales leads, visibility and improves the reputation of our client’s businesss. Contact Elliott King for more information.
Posted in BUSINESS, WEB DESIGN, tagged 2009, BLOG, BUSINESS, WEB MARKETING on Wednesday 2nd September 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Copywriting and SEO are getting closer and closer. Here are some key points to note when writing copy (that is SEO friendly) for a website …
1. Keywords are cool when it comes to writing copy for search
Many websites that guess their keywords and are spreading themselves too thinly (this included us at one stage). So getting your keyword strategy right is crucial . Also, we talk about keywords but phrases or key phrases is more accurate. How many of us have typed in just one word into Google? SEO experts should be able to provide a list of target key phrases based on SEO analaysis.
2. Highlight your keywords on the page
Keywords essentially tell search engines like Google what your website or that page is about. So for your page to increase its search engine ranking, your keywords need to be reflected in your copy as well as within the code (this bit is for the SEO people).
Within the actual copy itself, it is important to ‘highlight’ your keywords in prominent areas of the page, so insert your target keyword naturally into the main heading and body copy. Also, if your paragraph headings and subheadings contain your keywords (or related terms), it all helps summarise what this page is about so work them in!
3. Write good copy that’s keyword rich (note: it’s not the same as spamming)
Imagine you arrive on a website that’s a Fairtrade business and here’s what you see.
“Welcome our website, we’re an ethical & green business. Buy our ethical & green baby wear, plus we also specialise in ethical & green girls tops ….”
Two words: Not nice.
There’s always the temptation to just splatter your keywords or phrases all over your Tradespace or website to get to that all important page one of search results but a word of advice – this is not a good strategy.
Spamming your content will only drive your customers away. In fact, it will turn the search engines away because the focus now is on having authoritative content, well placed keywords and forward planning. In short, your content needs to work for your customers. If it works for your customers and gives them what they are searching for, it will increase your ranking naturally.
4. Build your content up
One of the best ways you can help your search engine ranking is to update your website regularly. The most successful blogs in terms of search are ones that constantly updated with good highly relevant content.
Updating regularly not only gives your customers and the search engines something to come back for it presents more opportunities to use your keywords and set yourself up as an authority in what you do!
5. Links work when writing copy for search
It’s no secret that getting links from authority sources and linking out to them is a great way to increase your rank. But equally important is how these links are named and how you’re naming/using other links on your page.
If you’re still using the old ‘click here’ to describe your links, ditch it now. One good reason to do so is the fact that that link makes no sense to a screen reader or a search engine. To give search engines a flavour of your content, insert links that are contextual, and reflect your keywords and try to get your network that links back to you to do the same.
Contextual linking is one way of improving your search engine ranking but to increase your links, you’ve got to consider every element of your page as an opportunity. So using keyword or key phrase rich titles and descriptions when linking your video files, your images and yes, even your navigation can all give your search ranking a boost!
MintTwist help businesses to improve their reputations and increase sales every day. With a Managed Web Marketing service, MintTwist make sure their clients have all the right things in place before commencing an all-encompassing web marketing stratgey that dramatically increases sales leads, visibility and improves the reputation of our client’s businesss. Contact Elliott King for more information.
Posted in WEB DESIGN, tagged 2009, ADWORDS, BLOG, BUSINESS, Clients, RESEARCH, SEO, WEB DEVELOPMENT, WEB MARKETING on Wednesday 26th August 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Just because “old media” strategies aren’t on the Internet doesn’t mean they aren’t effective. A mixed media approach can be very effective.
Include Your URL on Stationery, Cards, and Literature. Make sure that all business cards, stationery, brochures, and literature contain your company’s URL and see that your printer gets the URL syntax correct! In print, I recommend leaving off the http:// part and including only the http://www.yourwebsite.com portion.
Promote using traditional media. Don’t discontinue print advertising that you’ve found effective but always be sure to include your URL in any display or classified ads you purchase in trade journals, newspapers, yellow pages etc. Use a two-step approach: (1) capture readers’ attention with the ad, (2) then refer them to a URL where they can obtain more information and perhaps place an order. Look carefully at small display or classified ads in the back of narrowly-targeted magazines or trade periodicals. Sometimes these ads are more targeted, more effective, and less expensive than online advertising. Consider other traditional media to drive people to your site, such as direct mail, classifieds, post cards, etc. TV can be used to promote websites, especially in a local market.
Develop a Free Service. It’s boring to invite people, “Come to our site and learn about our business.” It’s quite another to say “Use the free kitchen remodeling calculator available exclusively on our site.” Make no mistake, it’s expensive in time and energy to develop free resources but it is very rewarding in increased traffic to your site — and a motivation to link to the site! Make sure that your free service is closely related to what you are selling so the visitors you attract will be good prospects for your business. Give visitors multiple opportunities and links to cross over to the sales portion of your site.
Posted in WEB DESIGN, tagged 2009, BLOG, BUSINESS, GOOGLE, KEYWORDS, RESEARCH, WEB DESIGN, WEB MARKETING on Saturday 15th August 2009 | 1 Comment »
Don’t neglect e-mail as an important way to bring people to your website. Just don’t spam, that is, don’t send bulk unsolicited e-mails without permission to people with whom you have no relationship. Many countries have anti-spam laws.
Install a “Signature” in your E-Mail Program to help potential customers get in touch with you. Most e-mail programs allow you to designate a “signature” to appear at the end of each message you send. Limit it to 6 to 8 lines: Company name, address, phone number, URL, e-mail address, and a one-phrase description of your unique business offering. Look for examples on e-mail messages sent to you.
Publish an E-Mail Newsletter. While it requires a commitment of time, creating a monthly e-mail publication is one of the most important promotion techniques. It could be a newsletter (“ezine”), list of tips, industry updates, or new product information — whatever you believe your customers will appreciate. This is a great way to keep in touch with your prospects, generate trust, develop brand awareness, and build future business. It also helps you collect e-mail addresses from those who visit your site, but aren’t yet ready to make a purchase. You distribute your newsletter inexpensively using e-mail marketing services such as Campaign Monitor . If you have a very small list, some of these services let you use their services free until you grow larger. Blogs are very popular, but don’t really replace e-mail newsletters. You have to go to a blog to read it, while an e-mail newsletter appears in your inbox asking to be read.
Posted in WEB DESIGN, tagged 2009, BLOG, BUSINESS, GOOGLE, KEYWORDS, RESEARCH, SEO, WEB DESIGN, WEB DEVELOPMENT, WEB MARKETING on Friday 31st July 2009 | 7 Comments »
Perhaps the most important — and inexpensive — strategy is to rank high for your preferred keywords on the main search engines in “organic” or “natural” searches (as opposed to paid ads). Search engines send robot “spiders” to index the content of your webpage, so let’s begin with steps to prepare your web pages for optimal indexing. The idea here is not to trick the search engines, but to leave them abundant clues as to what your webpage is about. This approach is called “Search Engine Pptimisation,” abbreviated as SEO.
Write a Keyword-Rich Page Title.
Write a descriptive title for each page — rich in keywords you want people to find you with — using 5 to 8 words. Remove as many “filler” words from the title (such as “the,” “and,” etc.) as possible, while still making it readable. This page title will appear hyperlinked on the search engines when your page is found. Entice searchers to click on the title by making it a bit provocative. Place this at the top of the webpage between the <HEAD></HEAD> tags, in this format: <TITLE>MintTwist Web Marketing Checklist -- Top Tips to Promote Your Website</TITLE>. (It also shows on the blue bar at the top of your web browser.)
Write a Keyword-Rich Page Title.
Plan to use some descriptive keywords along with your business name on your home page. If you specialize in silver bullets and that’s what people will be searching for, don’t just use your company name “Acme Services Ltd” use “Shipping Overseas with Acme Services Ltd”. The words people are most likely to search on should appear first in the title (called “keyword prominence”). Remember, this title is your identity on the search engines. The more people see that interests them in the blue hyper linked words on the search engine, the more likely they are to click on the link.
Write a Description META Tag.
Some search engines include this description below your hyperlinked title in the search results. The description should be a sentence or two describing the content of the webpage, using the main keywords and key phrases on this page. Don’t include keywords that don’t appear on the webpage. Place the Description META Tag at the top of the webpage, between the <HEAD></HEAD> tags, in this format:
<META CONTENT="Increase visitor hits, attract traffic through submitting URLs, META tags, news releases, banner ads, and reciprocal links.">
The maximum number of characters should be about 255; just be aware that only the first 60 or so are visible on Google, though more may be indexed.
When I prepare a webpage, I write the article first, then develop a keyword-rich title (#1 above). Then I write a description of the content in that article in a sentence or two, using each of the important keywords and keyphrases included in the article. This goes into the description META tag.
Next, strip out the common words, leaving just the meaty keywords and phrases and insert those into the keywords META tag. It’s no longer used much for ranking, but I’m leaving it in anyway. I think it may have some minor value. So to summarise so far, every webpage in your site should have a distinct title and META description tag. If you implement these two points, you’re well on your way to better search engine ranking. But there’s more that will help your ranking….
Include Your Keywords in Headers (H1, H2, H3).
Search engines consider keywords that appear in the page headline and sub heads to be important to the page, so make sure your desired keywords and phrases appear in one or two header tags. Don’t expect the search engine to parse your Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) to figure out which are the headlines — it won’t. Instead, use keywords in the H1, H2, and H3 tags to provide clues to the search engine. N.B. Some designers no longer use the H1, H2 tags. That’s a big mistake. Make sure your designer defines these tags in the CSS rather than creating headline tags with other names.
Position Your Keywords in the First Paragraph of Your Body Text.
Search engines expect that your first paragraph will contain the important keywords for the document — where most people write an introduction to the content of the page. You don’t want to just artificially stuff keywords here, however. More is not better. Google might expect a keyword density in the entire body text area of maybe 1.5% to 2% for a word that should rank high, so don’t overdo it.
Include Descriptive Keywords in the ALT Attribute of Image Tags.
This helps your site be more accessible to site-impaired visitors (see here) and gives additional clues to the search engines. The ALT attributes do help get your images ranked higher for image search.
Use Keywords in Hyperlinks.
Search engines are looking for clues to the focus of your webpage. When they see words hyperlinked in your body text, they consider these potentially important, so hyperlink your important keywords and key phrases. To emphasise it even more, the webpage you are linking to could have a page name with the keyword or key phrase, such as blue-widget.htm — another clue for the search engine.
Make Your Navigation System Search Engine Friendly.
You want search engine robots to find all the pages in your site. JavaScript and Flash navigation menus that appear when you hover are great for humans, but search engines don’t read JavaScript and Flash very well. Therefore, supplement JavaScript and Flash menus with regular HTML links at the bottom of the page, ensuring that a chain of hyperlinks exists that take a search engine spider from your home page to every page in your site. Don’t set up your navigation system using HTML frames (an old, out-dated approach); they can cause severe indexing problems.
Some content management systems and e-commerce catalogues produce dynamic, made-on-the-fly web pages, often recognisable by question marks in the URLs followed by long strings of numbers or letters. Overworked search engines sometimes have trouble parsing long URLs and may stop at the question mark, refusing to go farther. If you find the search engines aren’t indexing your interior pages, you might consider URL rewriting, a site map, or commercial solutions.
Create a Site Map.
A site map page with links to all your pages can help search engines (and visitors) find all your pages, particularly if you have a larger site. You can use a free tools, XML-Sitemaps.com to create XML sitemaps that are used by the major search engines to index your web pages accurately. Upload your sitemap to your website. Then submit your XML sitemap to Google, Yahoo!, and Bing (formerly MSN), following instructions on their sites. By the way, Google Webmaster Central has lots of tools to help you get ranked higher. Be sure to set up a free account and explore what they have to offer.
Develop Web pages Focused on Each Your Target Keywords.
SEO specialists no longer recommend using external doorway or gateway pages, since nearly duplicate web pages might get you penalized. Rather, develop several web pages on your site, each of which is focused on a target keyword or key phrase for which you would like a high ranking. Let’s say you sell teddy bears. Use Google Insights for Search or the free keyword suggestion tool on Wordtracker to find the related keywords people search on. In this case: write a separate webpage featuring the keyword “teddy bear,” “teddy bears,” “london teddy bears,” ” london bears,” “the teddy bears,” teddy bears picnic,” “teddy bears pictures,” etc. You’ll write a completely different article on each topic. You can’t fully optimize all the web pages in your site, but for each of these focused-content web pages, spend lots of time tweaking to improve its ranking, as described in point #10.
Fine-tune with Careful Search Engine Optimisation.
Now fine-tune your focused-content pages and perhaps your home page, by making a series of minor adjustments to help them rank higher. Software such as Rank Tracker or Advanced Web Rankings allows you to check your current ranking and compare your webpages against your top keyword competitors. I use them both regularly. Advanced Web Rankings also has a Keyword Analyser tool that gives you pointers on increasing the ranking of your page.
Frankly, this kind of SEO fine-tuning is time-consuming, painstaking work that takes a lot of specialized knowledge. For this reason, many small and large businesses outsource search engine optimisation. Please contact Elliott King at elliott@minttwist.com if you would like to discuss outsourcing your SEO to us.
Promote Your Local Business on the Internet.
These days many people search for local businesses on the Internet. To make sure they find you, include on every page of your website your postal address, phone number and the five or 10 other local community place names your business serves. If you can, include place names in the title tag, too. When you seek links to your site, you should request links from local businesses with place names in the communities you serve and complementary businesses in your industry nationwide.
Also create a free listing for your local business on Google Maps Local Business Centre and Yahoo! Local. That way your business can show up on a map when people do a local search.
Promote Your Video, Images, and Audio Content.
Google’s “universal search” displays not only webpage content, but also often displays near the top of the page relevant listings for images, videos, local businesses, and audio clips. Therefore, consider creating such content appropriate to your business and then optimizing it so it can be ranked high enough to help you. For example, if you were to get a top-ranking, informative video on YouTube that mentions your site, it could drive a lot of traffic to your site. For more information, search on “optimising images” or “optimising videos.”
Posted in BUSINESS, WEB DESIGN, tagged 2009, BLOG, BUSINESS, GOOGLE, KEYWORDS, SEO, Small Business, WEB DESIGN, WEB DEVELOPMENT, WEB MARKETING, website, Website Design on Friday 31st July 2009 | 2 Comments »
Times have changed. The information age is fully upon us. Customers now have the ability to instantly compare prices, services, and products, and shop 24 hours a day, 7 days a week 365 days a year. Not to mention the ability carry around a high-speed wireless connection to the entire world in their pocket or purse!
Although the computer revolution that started thirty years ago is still not mature, the novelty has worn off. The Internet is a part of everyday life for nearly everyone, from tiny children to grey-haired grannies. The dust from the upheaval of the last thirty years is settling and everyone can see the competitive landscape more clearly.
Regardless of what the techies or web gurus say, as a small business your website probably isn’t going to bring you vast hoards of customers from around the world, let you compete with the “big boys” in your industry, or make you rich.
It’s just not true.
What your website can and should do, however, is be a powerful tool to attract your hottest local prospects and activate your existing customers.
More and more customers are going to go on-line to get your telephone number, see if you’re open on Sunday, find out if you carry a brand of products they are looking for, see what’s new at the store this month, or get directions to your store.
Many of your hottest prospects are comparison shopping on-line before they decide which store to visit in person. They are “checking you out” and if what they find on-line doesn’t match up to your competitor’s you could be out of the running.
For example, let’s say I wanted to buy a new mountain bike. One of the things I’d probably do is search on-line for local for bike shops. I’d browse around on their sites (just like I might if I was actually in their stores) to see what bikes they had to offer, check out how knowledgeable they were, how professional they seemed, what kind of post-sale service they provided.
Just based on that web experience alone I might make a decision about where I was going to buy my bike. At the minimum, I would rule out any places that looked like they couldn’t give me a good buying experience.
This scenario takes place thousands, maybe millions, of times a day in your selling area for a huge variety of goods and services. That’s why every single store should have website with a minimum of 3-7 pages about their business and possibly many more.
This type of website is basically an e-brochure. It’s the high-tech version of the print brochure you give to promote your business to customers. It’s also becoming the high-tech version of your yellow pages ad.
So is it worth the cost of a website just to have an electronic brochure? Absolutely. How much would you pay for a magical print brochure that just showed up whenever your customer was wondering about your store or thinking about buying what you sell? Remember, websites don’t have to be expensive to be good.
Posted in WEB DESIGN, tagged 2009, BLOG, BUSINESS, Marketing, WEB DESIGN, website on Friday 31st July 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Web designers always have to strike a balance between usability and visual appeal when designing a website. Without this balance, a website might be nice to look at or difficult to navigate. Or, it might be easy to navigate, but not easy on the eyes. With this in mind, balancing attractive navigation with usability does not need to be overly difficult. To help you generate new ideas and inspiration for user navigation, here are 30 great examples of attractive and usable navigation.
See the full article from www.webdesignerwall.com here:
May 25
Guest Post by Joel Reyes
Web designers always have to strike a balance between usability and visual appeal when designing a website. Without this balance, a website might be nice to look at or difficult to navigate. Or, it might be easy to navigate, but not easy on the eyes. With this in mind, balancing attractive navigation with usability does not need to be overly difficult. To help you generate new ideas and inspiration for user navigation, here are 30 great examples of attractive and usable navigation.
This site features the simplicity of an attrractive menu that empowers users with undeniably easy to follow navigation. If you hover over the headline under the logo you will see that the word “Type” remains highlighted, and as you begin to hover over the rest of the words you’ll be able to clearly select the corresponding area you’d like to visit.
Links are in the form of icons that feature a neat effect that allows the icons to light up as you hover over them. It’s simple, subtle, attractive, yet effective.
The navigation on Contrast.ie displays a unique approach to creative styled menus. All of the buttons are placed in a comment shaped figure and pop out as you hover over them.
The navigation on this site clearly directs you in the form of an arrow as you hover over them with your mouse. Effective navigation leaves behind complex design. Seems as though this site made use of this suggestion.
This site takes creative navigation to the sky. If you look to the left and mouseover the guy you will see a smile appear, if you mouseover the icons and images you’ll instantly see a description next to the mouse’s pointer as well.
Forty uses a creative, image-based user navigation. The arrows “guide” the users attention to the buttons and invites the user to click on them.
Healogix asks the four most important questions of itself with large text that draws the users attention. When, what, why and who? Can all be answered one click away from the homepage.
There is only one main link to the home page, but the idea is both creative and usable. The link is prominent and it “speaks” to the user. Users, in general, enjoy web pages that they can interact with.
The navigation of this website is simple and easy to use. The banners behind the selected page make the navigation easily identifiable from the rest of the page.
Made by Elephant features large and easy to use navigation. The blue text also adds a nice contrast to the heavier red and black.
As you begin to click through the menu of this site, you’ll be able to notice that the position of the background and color of the entire site quickly change.
The menu on this site resembles that of a post it note as you mouseover the links. Then entire layout of the site is based on this concept.
As soon as you enter the site you’re greeted by a green arrow that feeds you information about every section as you scroll through the site. This makes it easer for users to interact with the site.
The navigation is as bold as the name of this website. Furthermore, it also enhances the design tremendously.
The main navigation links fit in well with the playful theme of the website, while maintaining usability and prominence.
This text-based navigation features a colorful and playful look while maintaining usability without the use of Javascript, but Flash instead.
A unique and interesting take on navigation. The links to the home page and blog are featured in a sentence across the header of the page. It does not violate usability principles, it is easy to read and highly effective.
The main navigation is easy to find, and the green underline creates uniformity between the navigation and the rest of the page.
Owltastic is a perfect example of good user experience. Every element of the main navigation animates when the user hovers the mouse over it. Like other examples on this list, the navigation is also prominent and easy to locate.
Like Owltastic, this website interacts with the user as they mouse over different elements of the page. The site is well laid out and easy to navigate.
Full Cream Milk uses a distinct text-based navigation, as you roll over the links, a portion of the top of the page is highlighted. This is a great example of navigation that is pleasing to both users and search engines.
This site features user navigation that is both beautiful and easy to use. It is very stylish and adds to the overall design of the page.
Sushi and Robots uses elegant Typography to create a beautiful and attractive navigation that stands out.
Sharify features a monochromatic user navigation that is pleasing to the eye, and usable because of the contrast between the white text and the sky blue background.
Here, the navigation is essentially the first content you see on the home page. It is “clean” and easy to use. Moreover, the use of whitespace in the navigation is excellent.
This site takes a minimalist approach to navigation, and it simply works. It does not take anything away from the page or distract the user.
Again, the high contrast black and white adds to the usability of the site. The javascript rollovers are light blue tabs that add interactivity and aesthetic value.
The navigation makes use of bright colors, easy accessibility and unity with the blue background of the main content of the page.
The Adaptd site features creative, easy to follow, and beautiful navigation. The aspect of this navigation that stands out the most is located in the section where the portfolio resides. When you place the mouseover these buttons the words become transparent blend in with the sites background.
This site has navigation that the user does not even have to search for. In addition, the vibrant color of the navigation adds even more color to the page. The elements of this design blend together seamlessly.
30 Untypical WordPress Sites Microsoft Event & Free Giveaways
Pages: 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 » Show All
There are 79 comments (+Add)
Pages: 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 » Show All
Name (required)
Mail (required)
Website
Comment Guidelines
Live Comment Preview
CSS design design process Design Trends event Flash freebies Illustrator inspiration Javascript jobs Photoshop tutorials review SEO software talented people updates WordPress writing
See all Design Jobs
What do you think of the new IconDock?
Loading …
// //
Posted in WEB DESIGN, tagged 2009, BLOG, BUSINESS on Friday 19th June 2009 | Leave a Comment »
By Peter Whitehead , Extract from the Financial Times
I don’t read many books, but one I did get through last year was about how a manufacturer was transforming itself into a provider of expertise and services.
The book* used a fictional company that made power generators to illustrate how high-speed connectivity and collaboration enabled it to overcome a challenge from low-cost rival manufacturers by creating a network, or mesh, of its entire “eco-system” – suppliers, customers, experts, critics and others.
The authors’ conclusions were far-reaching, claiming businesses would shift from the vertical model of “make, sell and maintain” to a horizontal business model based, in this case, on advising clients about reducing energy costs, maintaining reliable supplies, and more.
Some people ‘get’ IT – such as US President Barack Obama, who used it during his election campaign
But I was sceptical. The theory might hold for a fictional company – but in the real world?Then, at the turn of the year, I asked a relative how his engineering business was faring. Things were tough, he said, but one sideline was doing well.
His description of how he had created interactive websites in order to engage with customers and use their experiences, along with the wider knowledge of the market and his own expertise, could have come straight from the pages of the book.
He was not concerned with making these particular machines – they were made by someone else – but instead, he was servicing them, making them more efficient, building accessories, advising on best practice, helping customers choose the right machinery and generally adding value to the process.
Others struggle, such as UK prime minister Gordon Brown, much derided for his attempts to reach people using YouTube
With fiction seemingly confirmed as fact, I next spoke to Steve Prentice of Gartner, an IT consultancy, in search of the bigger picture. In his view, the picture is big indeed – and very worrying: he believes most businesses no longer understand IT at all.“Company boards don’t recognise what IT is or does any more,” he says. “It used to be a thing that you used to increase productivity or automate processes, but that’s been done. Even chief information officers, who thoroughly understand enterprise IT, have been left behind by social IT – which they can’t control.”
Today’s technology is all about communities, he maintains. IT and the internet are now affordable to all, providing universal and easy-to-use communications. Most is trivial and may appear to be of no interest to business. But it is increasingly crucial, as peer respect now comes from online social networking communities, such as Facebook, in which people swap feedback and recommendations.
With every business now being a digital business – even a side-street hairdresser will have its customers comparing notes about it online – they have to engage. Yet many banks, for example, still refuse to let customers post comments online because they fear what will be said.
I began to see that a successful organisation today needs to operate in a much more refined and subtle way, which for some could mean fundamental changes to business models. It involves more listening, watching, being in tune and in touch, engaging with every interested party, being responsive to communities.
This gathering storm is changing the environment in which businesses operate. It will affect them in different ways: the US car industry, for example, might have suffered less if it had tapped into online social networks discussing motoring trends; perhaps the banking sector could regain some public trust by engaging with interested digital communities.
Other industries have fought to hold back the tide: music companies, for example, are only now coming to terms with a market that pioneered ideas of connectivity and community.
“Information is everywhere and readily accessible, yet business seems to think this has nothing to do with them,” Mr Prentice continued. “The boardroom doesn’t get it. They see IT as a tool. But IT has escaped the toolbox and is affecting their business, in terms of work expectations, channel to market, feedback, and others.
“The secret is communities – work out how they work and tap into them. But CIOs are focusing on outsourcing, virtualisation, the cloud, which are all aimed at keeping the organisation the same and avoiding transformation.”
Does this equate to companies not understanding IT? They clearly understand IT infrastructure – or digital efficiency – and have created organisations to maximise it. Most clearly understand the competitive edge that creative use of technology can bring through digital innovation.
But this third strand of corporate IT – social technology – does seem to fall outside established structures, practices and thinking. This places the emphasis for understanding these changes on enlightened individuals within organisations.
I asked Anne Berkowitch, chief executive of Selectminds, a provider of corporate social network software, whether there was a big variation in the way companies were responding to social IT: “Absolutely. There are individuals who get it and if it’s someone senior, they will launch a social networking initiative and show success and then it tends to grow organically.” (Hear her views in our latest podcast at http://www.ft.com/dbpodcast.)
Ian Campbell, chief information officer at Cambridge Assessment (an arm of Cambridge University) and chairman of the UK’s Corporate IT Forum, agreed that understanding is patchy: “You could have two organisations in the same sector, one fully embracing this phenomenon and one saying ‘I don’t get that – what’s the point of it?’
“It’s down to attitude – and it goes all the way to the board. They either see it and get it and embrace it or they will resist it – and then they will have difficulties.”
Ms Berkowitch is not surprised at this mixed response: “It’s still pretty early in the adoption of these technologies. It’s a convergence of new technology with fundamental behavioural shifts in the business world around openness and collaboration – moving away from command and control into almost serendipitous encounters, with the power base shifting from senior management to individuals.
“Technology can make this happen more quickly than managements are comfortable with. They want to be current but their behavioural and cultural evolution is much slower.”
Rudy Puryear, a partner with Bain & Company, the consultancy, agrees that change is more likely to spread virally through an organisation rather than from the top down because this is the steep part of the learning curve: awareness is low, business risk can be high, and some of the technology is unproven: “It might be fine for a text message on a Saturday afternoon but not something we want to build a mission-critical business application around.”
He says he recently made a presentation to a company’s executive committee. When he mentioned social networking at least three people asked what it was. “As I began to describe it they said: ‘Yes that’s something my grandchildren use – why are we talking about that in an executive meeting?’.
“In another 15 minutes it was obvious there were some emerging business applications. A lot of these connection and collaboration techniques are going to be useful to business in a variety of settings.”
He says 90 per cent of the conversation in the average boardroom was about getting more bang for the bucks from IT spending.
“Most executive committees have an over-simplistic view of IT – they just think it costs too much and takes too long.”
But while the board is taking a simplistic view, the technology itself is becoming more complex. As David Elton, an IT specialist with PA Consulting, points out: “The scope of IT now is enormous – from solid processing to deep cultural initiatives at the edge of both technology and organisational thinking. No wonder businesses don’t understand IT any more.
“The traditional idea of IT as a box with an application running on it does not reflect the reality of IT today – yet most boards still think about it like that. In fact, you’re talking about a much bigger phenomenon – about how the market now looks and how open the boundaries are between your organisation and the market.
“Most organisations still think of their boundaries as very fixed – they don’t see the outside world as part of their organisation. They think it’s far too risky to break down their borders – but there is opportunity in blurring the boundary.”
He says research with the London School of Economics had uncovered two banks now using blogs to communicate in a much “softer” way than traditional marketing. “That is blurring the boundary a bit – saying ‘here’s what we’re really like inside’.
“Does that help sell the product? It’s hard to say. But does it build a relationship of trust? It probably does.”
Could this change the nature of a business?
Mr Elton says it could: some quite large companies were already using a “leaky interface” between their organisation and the market to inject innovation into product and service design – engaging people that they did not necessarily know but who were potentially part of their market.
Matt Glotzbach, product management director for Google Enterprise, says it is vital for companies to recognise that they can no longer control everything: “You can’t control the message any more.
“The ones that get it ask: ‘How can I facilitate the dialogue with my customers’ – not to control it but to be responsive and be viewed as listening and as working with customers.”
He believes new applications and collaborative ways of working will have a profound long-term impact on the structure of businesses and the way they think about a product’s lifecycle, supply chain, etc.
“You’ve already seen a number of companies challenged: they’ve had to say ‘hmmm – what’s our value-add now in this new information economy?’.”
But making changes is difficult, especially for large organisations. Mr Puryear of Bain argues that the complexity of IT in large corporations acts like reinforced concrete, solidifying old ways of doing business: “The average business looks at blogs, wikis, Twitters etc and isn’t quite sure what to make of it. They are intrigued, fascinated and a bit excited – but they’re a long way from sorting out which have true business value.”
Should businesses therefore allow staff the latitude to try out new things and experiment?
“Yes, as long as it does not involve excessive cost or business risk – so look for a safe way of doing it. Some are using laboratories to test things.”
So how does the board get to understand social IT?
In his blog, George Colony, chief executive of Forrester, the research company, says the only way is to use it: “Social technology is like sex. It’s fun to talk about and read about, but you can’t truly comprehend it unless you do it.”
But this is not easy when the scene is changing so rapidly. As Peter Matthews, a partner at Ernst & Young, points out: “Many executives have chosen to demonstrate their awareness of the new world by joining Facebook, but are then bewildered when their clients, people or teams start talking about new, different communities.”
He says the solution is to include a member of the business’s target group (clients, for example) as a board advisor to report on what people are thinking and doing – and be prepared to follow their advice.
Or they could follow the example of the many speakers at IT conferences who learn from their teenage children. This generation, dubbed “digital natives” are now entering the workplace, and could force businesses to operate differently and more openly.
Gary Curtis, of Accenture, warns business against moving too slowly to accommodate the digital natives. He says: “They have little interest and time for things that aren’t working for them and will quickly leave for jobs elsewhere.”
For help in managing corporate reputation and promoting corporate brands, products and services with a managed web marketing strategy that incorporates all of the essential social networking sites, blogs and forums, call Elliott King on +44 20 8349 8213 or email elliott@minttwist.com.
Elliott King is a Director of MintTwist Limited. MintTwist help businesses to manage reputations and increase sales leads at
http://www.minttwist.com
Posted in WEB DESIGN, tagged BLOG, BUSINESS on Tuesday 24th March 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I’ve been hearing alot about businesses using an improved Web Marketing Startegy to increase Sales Leads and drive business through a recession. I came accross this article in the UK’s Daily Telegraph which contains some hard data collected directly from businesses out their battling away for new sales leads. Interesting stuff …
It had barely been invented when the UK was last in recession, but less than 20 years later, the Internet is providing a life line to businesses fighting the recession; 45pc of small and medium businesses surveyed by Easynet Connect believe the Internet will be an important tool in helping them survive and prosper during the recession with one in five believing it will be the most important tool in helping their businesses beat the recession.
Part of an upcoming report into SME survival, the survey of 255 Managers from companies with 10-1000 employees, shows how small and medium sized businesses see the Internet as key to boosting their profiles and unlocking new revenue opportunities. For example, 91pc of businesses will use the web to increase their sales leads, 74pc of small businesses will use the web to grow their company profile with 52pc claiming that the web would put them on a level playing field with bigger companies. When it comes to creating new opportunities, 46pc are looking to create new products and services on the web and over 58pc are looking to use the web to expand into new markets at home and overseas.
Chris Stening, Managing Director of Easynet Connect said of the research “The critical difference between now and the recession of the early 90s is the Internet, which could easily be the most important tool in helping businesses to continue to drive new sales leads through the current down turn. The Internet has meant that businesses are much better equipped this time around. In the early 90s we were a world away from online marketing, or e-commerce.”
Posted in BUSINESS, WEB DESIGN, tagged 2009, Anxiety, BLOG, BUSINESS, Clients, Meetings, Professionalism, WEB DESIGN on Monday 16th February 2009 | 2 Comments »
It was almost a year ago that I started working for MintTwist, a web design company in London. My role when I started was to code up websites that were designed by the lead designer and lend a hand to any design odd-jobs that needed doing.
As the year has progressed I have been entrusted with more and more responsibilities and have since been given my own projects to manage. A part of that is meeting and speaking on the phone with clients. For anybody who isn’t used to dealing with people in a business environment this can be a very unnerving situation.
There are two distinct environments in which I must speak to a client: over the phone and in a meeting. Some meetings are more formal than others but the environment is more or less the same. Personally, I find speaking on the phone a lot more difficult than speaking in person. For a start, you cannot gauge a client’s thoughts nearly as effectively over the phone as you can face-to-face.
Speaking over the phone initiates in me the fight-or-flight mechanism, I think. That is, I panic, sweat profusely and stutter and trip over my words. The most annoying part of all of that is that I know I have the ability to speak with professionalism and panache; I just can’t seem to bring myself to let it through.
You see, I have an innate fear that I am not adequate [cue the violins]. I don’t mean I have a personal flaw of feeling inferior. I just mean that, I’m forever worried that I simply am not as professional and knowledgeable as the person on the other end of the line expects me to be. They may criticise the new website I have just sent them but the fact is that a lot of the time they are simply looking for direction. They are eager to hear what I think about what they think!
But the panic and fear that I don’t know what I’m talking about grips my throat and getting the professional opinion past my lips is a nightmare. As a result, the client is left with the view that the company I work for don’t know what they are talking about and that they will take their business elsewhere next time. And that’s where the vicious circle begins because with that in mind when I’m on the phone I panic more and more! Nightmare!
The other environment, the meeting, is a different ball game altogether. I find this a lot easier than speaking on the phone, mostly because it is so easy to take a client at face value in relation to what they say. They make it easier for you because what they say is backed up (or flat-out denied) by their facial expressions, their physical actions and their up-front appearance.
Not only that, but meeting somebody in person who is generally cool, easy-going and happy can make you feel at ease. I understand that this is my role, too. I need to convey a façade that is cool and professional; that is made a lot easier when it is reciprocated at the client’s side. This is a good circle. It’s not so vicious.
The trouble starts when the client is too friendly; they speak about things that are not related to the matter at hand. This makes me feel too comfortable and I start to panic that if I relax too much I’ll lose my cool and make some error or faux pas that sticks with the client and causes a tension from that moment onwards. Cue the sweating, panic and need for large amounts of re-hydration!
Over the course of the past twelve months, I haven’t totally got a hold over my anxieties when it comes to speaking with clients, especially over the phone. However, I think that structure is important when it comes to a business conversion. For example, making a few notes before making a phone call can help greatly when it comes to clients’ questions. It helps if you are mentally akin to the clients because you will have an idea of the sort of questions they might ask. Therefore, you are less likely to be taken off guard by a question you might need to think about.
And in essence, that’s all the panic stems from. The fact that you need to think on the spot puts pressure on your nerves and that’s the precise moment you lose your grip on the conversation. If you don’t know the answer to a question the client asks, the key, I believe, is to just be honest. Tell the client you will get back to them because you need to discuss the matter with your colleagues. Bluffing your way through the conversation not only leaves the client unconvinced, but it also means that you, as a designer looking for some kind of critique from the client, get very little out of the conversation. The result: the client doesn’t get what they want and either asks the question again later or simply takes their business elsewhere in the future.
Keeping your cool is important. It makes the client feel at ease and conveys the image, well, the fact that you know what you are talking about. Once you’ve had a few conversations like that, where you can answer each question concisely and effectively, your confidence in yourself and your professionalism will increase and you will be entrusted with more and more responsibilities within your company.
79 Jessie Matanky
http://jessiematanky.com
July 28th, 2009 at 11:09 am
I really liked these- these sites seem to be up on all the blogs & web design sites for all sorts of different stuff. They should be proud.
78 chris
July 20th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
Be sure and check out the page source for the Slightly More site, includes some ascii art and text! Very shocking and funny.
77 Nashville Web Design Guy
http://www.nashvilleinteractive.com
July 15th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Very diverse range of styles and functionality on the list. Very nice compilation. I tend to lean toward linear navigation if it can fit at all into a project. I like to lead people through the experience. It’s not always feasible of course but a nice change for users and it allows you to gauge interest pretty easily via analytics.
76 London web design
http://www.totallydesignlondon.co.uk
July 11th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Yeah this is well nice!
75 egypt web design
http://www.egyptwebdesign.com
July 7th, 2009 at 6:43 am
great article thanks for share with us, really great list.
74 yapidekor
http://yapidekor.blogspot.com/
July 6th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Thank you my friend …
73 matrax
http://multimanyak.com/matrax
July 3rd, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Your site and your content to a really great hand healthy;)
72 Bernard Teske
http://www.bernardteske.de
July 1st, 2009 at 7:46 am
In this webside,
http://www.druckundrepro.de
you can use the navigation in the left side or use the cursor like a “hand-tool”. Think this is also an interesting way
71 Rob
http://robstathem.com
June 25th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
@ Joe…I don’t think your rude behavior is appreciated by anyone in this forum. I would automatically delete your outcast behavior, and so should the designer of this website.
There’s no need for your attitude. Take it somewhere else!!!
70 Rob
http://robstathem.com
June 25th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Fantastic!! Thanks for posting these examples of awesome navigation! I’ll admit, it can be real exciting adding different design touches to the navigation!
I tend to design the navigation based on the style of my website. For elegant designs, I tend to use subdued text for links or maybe a subtle roll-over. The hotel website listed above is definitely an elegant type of roll-over!
I think it’s probably important to note that when doing roll-overs, image based roll-overs should be done with CSS instead of JavaScript. The JavaScript is a bit clunky and CSS just makes it a little cleaner. Just my personal opinion!