So, you've had a great website designed, you've even managed to do well on the search engines so your website is receiving lots of visitors. Now you want to convert those visitors into customers.

There are many things you can do in order to encourage them and I will add articles in the coming weeks to cover these. Today, I want to talk about telephone numbers as it's a surprising area that many website owners neglect.

Don't Hide From Your Customers

I was watching a video on YouTube of Rory Sutherland, a fascinating chap who is an expert in marketing. He expressed surprise that many website owners hide their telephone number. The reasons for this are obvious, customers who contact you by email can be dealt with much more efficiently than customers who call you on the telephone. It's often quicker and more importantly, you can queue up any information requests and answer them at your leisure whereas the telephone requires an instant response.

However, this so-called logic fails in two important areas. Statistically, people who contact you by electronic means (email, text message etc) convert at an average rate of between 0.5 to 2 percent. People who contact you by telephone convert at a rate of 20 to 40 percent. This is such a huge difference that it should be a reason to emblazon your phone number all over your website right now. The second area is that it makes your company look dodgy:

Don't Look Like a Fly-By-Night Company

One of the things you have to do with your visitors is to get them to trust you. Hiding your phone number suggests at the very least that customer care is not important to you and at worst that you aren't even a real company. So display it proudly.

You Need Clickability

I don't even know if that is a real word but it should be. Make sure that wherever your number appears on your website, clicking it on a mobile phone opens up your phone's app to allow you to call right away without typing in the number. This is very easy to do so if it doesn't happen on your website, speak to your web designer now.

Landlines vs Mobile Numbers

I no longer have a landline at home. I only have a mobile number. This is becoming increasingly common as the old reasons for having a landline are slowly going. However, for a business, I strongly recommend that you have a landline. This is especially important for local businesses. The fact that my number for Net Quality starts with 0115 tells Nottingham customers that I am based in Nottingham. Another step forward in getting the visitor to trust you.

I hesitated whether to write this article because it involves criticising the ubiquitous use of the word "Cloud". The motto for Net Quality Web Design is "Stand Out From The Cloud", a term I came up with several years ago.

I was reading an article and misread one of the sentences where it talked about standing out from the crowd. A very common term but in skimming past the phrase I misread it as to "Stand Out From The Cloud". I reread the sentence and realised my mistake. I also realised I had inadvertently come up with a great play on words and immediately adopted it as Net Quality's motto.

Nevertheless, I think it would be quite useful to discuss exactly what the cloud is.

There's No Such Thing as The Cloud - It's Somebody Else's Computer

I saw this phrase on somebody's t-shirt some years ago and I thought it was both a witty phrase but also very true. When we talk about the cloud, it sounds like we're talking about a space on the Internet where you can store files and information in some free space that just sits there for our use and does not require the hiring of computer servers. Nothing could be further from the truth.

When the term was first coined, it felt like something new had been created. This is not true. The way information on the Internet is stored remains the same. It is stored on a somebody's computer that is connected to the Internet. The only thing that changed is the way we describe it. So it really is true that there is no such thing as the cloud, it's just somebody else's computer.

But I Still Think it is Useful

Despite this criticism, I still think that the term is useful. There are many ways to store information on a server. It might be a file sitting on the hard drive of one connected server, in the case of many services it can be much more than this.

If you use a web storage service such as Dropbox, your files don't all sit together on the same hard drive. They are spread around a number of servers. They can also be stored in a number of different places to introduce an element of safety so that if one hard drive fails, no information is lost.

In this sense, thinking of it as the cloud rather than a server makes sense. You don't determine exactly where the information is stored, the service provider determines this in the background and makes that information available to you wherever you are and on whichever device(s) you nominate.

Websites Exist on The Cloud

So it can be said, that every website you view is on the cloud. You do not need to know which server(s) hold the data and you do not need to know the location of the server(s). You just need to find the website on a search engine and click onto it, the cloud will do the rest.

If you would like a website that "Stands Out From the Cloud", contact me today.

Some time ago I wrote an article on why we weren't using WEBP images. Since I wrote that article, they are certainly being used much more often but JPEG and PNG still seem to dominate the world of websites.

Since then, AVIF images have become much better supported. According to caniuse.com, AVIF images are supported by 94% of users (as at May 2026). It is mainly people hanging onto browsers developed earlier than 2024 who miss out so this percentage is likely to continue increasing. AVIF images, in the majority of cases, outperform JPEG and WEBP for photographs offering much smaller file sizes with no noticable loss in quality. This is a gift to web designers so surely their use must be becoming ubiquitous?

This is not the case. There are good reasons for this and some not-so-good reasons for this.

AVIF isn't Always Better

In my experience, all photographs, especially large photos, look just as good using AVIF at much smaller file sizes, often reduced by more than 50%. AVIF is supposedly good at replacing PNG lossless images for graphical images but in my experience this is often not the case. A PNG image compressed using an efficient image compressor such as Squoosh often has a much smaller file size than AVIF. So I still use PNG a lot of the time.

Lack of Support

Although 94% is a high percentage, that still leaves us with 6% of users who will not see the images which is still a significant number. However, by using the HTML picture tag, it is easy to provide back-up images in WEBP and/or JPEG format. So this is not a reasonable excuse.

Image Size is not Important

Modern communications have superfast connections to the Internet so image size becomes less important. However, it can still make a difference if you keep image sizes smaller as it all contributes to the user experience by reducing page load times. Google agrees with this as they place a lot of importance on image compression when assessing the quality of a web page.

See For Yourself

Below, there are three images in AVIF, WEBP and JPEG format respectively.

As you can see, there is little or no difference between the three images. The JPEG is 58kb, the WEBP is 51kb and the AVIF is 35kb. If you have an image-heavy web page you could be speeding up the user's experience with no loss in quality.

So Why Don't We Use AVIF Images?

In conclusion, I think AVIF images should be used a lot more than we do. Helping reduce download times, no matter how small, can make a difference to user experience and result positions in the search engines. It isn't always appropriate though. I find my use for JPEG has greatly reduced, but the mighty PNG image is still very useful for clean-edged graphical images.

I pay a lot of attention to image compression as part of the web design service I offer. Contact me today if you think I might be of help to you.

I'm writing this article today because the data centre that houses my web servers went down for two hours. You might be asking yourself why I would publicise this in an article. Surely this is not the way to impress customers!

The reason is that there are times when catastrophic things happen. In my case, some engineers caused problems with fibre connections which caused the data centre to be cut off from the Internet. This was devastating for me and for my customers. However, there are two important points which demonstrate the quality of the service I offer.

Ensure This is a Rare Occurrence and Always Back Up

I have been using the same server suppliers since 2008 and they have rarely let me down. The last time that my servers went down for this long was over ten years ago. There have been a few occasions when services went down for a few minutes and just one or two occasions where it lasted any longer than this.

I make sure that the suppliers I use offer me an excellent service. This means that situations such as the one that occurred today are very rare indeed.

I also have another trick up my sleeve. I back up my websites religously. All websites are backed up every couple of days and larger sites such as database applications and ecommerce sites are backed up every hour or two. These back-ups are stored in secure encrypted servers in an entirely different data centre from the main servers.

Therefore, if the catstrophe had been even worse and the data was somehow unrecovarable, I would have been able to get my customers' websites back online in a speedy manner with negligible loss of data.

So What Should I Do if My Website Goes Down?

Ask your web designer or web host how often they have had service outages such as this. If your website goes down for more than a couple of minutes more than one or two times per month then something is seriously wrong. Nobody can guarantee 100% uptime but regular outages should not be happening.

Also, check with them how often they run back-ups. If you update your website regularly and it is not backed up on a regular basis then one day you might find yourself in trouble.

If you're worried about your current web hosting supplier then contact me today to see how I can help you.

Most computer mice these days are Wireless. Most come with their own dongle that connects just with that mouse. My mouse was starting to fail and I was scouring the Internet to buy a new one. A computer mouse is essential in my work so I had to buy one yesterday and not from the Internet, I needed to buy it locally.

I saw a mouse that was bluetooth. It didn't need a dongle because it connected over normal bluetooth. I thought this was a great idea as it would cut down on the number of dongles I had connected to my PC.

Ironically, I would still need to attach a USB dongle for Bluetooth because my desktop PC did not have Bluetooth built in. This was fine because I could use it for multiple devices and I could also easily use the same mouse for my laptop which did have built in Bluetooth and this seemed the ideal solution.

I went to a local shop and bought the model I was after and got home and tried to connect it. I had bought a Bluetooth dongle some years ago and plugged that into my PC, set the mouse on discovery mode and went into Windows settings to search for devices to pair with.

However, nothing was found. Frustrated, I believed that the mouse I had bought was faulty. So I did some testing.

The Mouse Might be Faulty

I went onto my smart-phone and clicked onto Bluetooth pairing. It immediately found the mouse and paired just as easily. Up to this point I didn't even know that it was possible to use a mouse with your phone but it worked a treat! So, I had established that the mouse was not faulty.

My Bluetooth Dongle Might be Faulty

I then tried using the old Bluetooth dongle to connect to my smart-phone to test if the dongle was faulty. It found it and paired straight away without problem.

So, Why Can't I See My Bluetooth Mouse?

So the mouse is working and the Bluetooth dongle is working. But, no matter how many times I tried, I could not see the mouse on the list of devices to connect to. I then decided to Google my problem to see if I could find someone who had the same problem and thus the solution.

Most of the advice on Google was just the standard list of things I had already tried. Check the mouse's batteries, restart Bluetooth services, restart the PC. Remove the batteries from the mouse and wait 20 seconds and re-insert them.

None of these worked and I was still left with a mouse that could not be connected to my PC. I searched and searched on Google. In fact, I spent more than two hours searching Google and just as I was about to give up, I finally found the solution.

Bluetooth Has Different Versions and Something Called BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy)

It turned out, my problem was caused by the fact that my Bluetooth dongle was a few years old. It was using Bluetooth version 2.0 which, it turns out, came out in 2004. In 2009, Bluetooth version 4.0 was released and included a new feature called BLE - Bluetooth Low Energy. This feature is perfect for devices like computer mice which can keep their batteries longer by using this Bluetooth feature.

So I bought a Bluetooth dongle that had BLE and hey presto: I found the mouse and paired it immediately without problem.

This is Obvious, Why Did It Take You So Long?

Now this solution might be abvious to some of you. You may be surprised that someone who has worked with computers for so many years did not know this already. My research showed me that many people have had the same problem and not found the solution. So I am definitely not the only one. I wrote this article in the hope that others who have this problem in future will stumble upon my article and get to the right answer mush sooner.

So, in answer to the question "Why Can't My Bluetooth Dongle See My Mouse?", make sure your Bluetooth dongle uses version 4.0 of Bluetooth or later and therefore has the BLE - Bluetooth Low Energy feature.

Websites are based on a markup language known as HTML. It is the most basic skill that a web designer must first learn. I learned how to write in this language back in 1998. This was the very early days of the Internet and things were so different then.

If you had a business and you wanted a website, you either needed to learn the necessary skills to create your website but more likely you had to pay someone to create it for you, especially if you wanted something that looked professional.

I started experimenting by creating personal websites and I then created a business website for a friend of mine just so I could practise my skills. It took me many hours to learn and to this day (2021) I am still learning all the time.

When Websites Became Easier to Create

In 2003, an open source project released its first version. It was known as Wordpress. You may have heard of it. The original intention was to facilitate the creation of personal blog pages without the headache of learning HTML. Gradually, the scope of Wordpress expanded substantially to the point we have arrived at today when some 37% of the world's websites are written in Wordpress.

In theory, a Wordpress site allows you to cost-effectively create your own website without having to learn all the skills I have worked hard to master over many years. However, a certain level of competence is required along with feeling comfortable working with computers.

Many web designers also design their websites using Wordpress as they see it as a quick way of creating websites on behalf of their customers. I naturally investigated whether this was the right fit for me and I surprisingly decided against using the most popular CMS in the world.

My Approach to Designing Websites

As I had already learned HTML along with CSS, JavaScript, PHP and MySql, I personally found it easier and quicker to write websites from scratch rather than trying to adapt Wordpress which has become very bloated. Admittedly it is very extensive but this inevitably means that it is also very bloated.

Irrespective of whether or not your web designer uses Wordpress, there are many skills that we can bring to the table that means it makes sense to appoint a professional, should you budget permit:

• Experience with what does and does not work
• Experience in what makes a website compelling
• Skills in optimising images to make your website fast
• Experience in understanding what Google and other search engines are looking for
• Experience in fixing problems as and when they arise
• Experience in integrating traditional marketing with your website
• Ensuring the visitors to your site get an excellent user experience

The technical skills I have learned are important to me. But even more valuable is the business experience I have gained over the years in understanding how customers use websites.

Why Choose a Web Designer?

So whether you choose a web designer to design your site for you or you decide to go it alone will depend on your budget and your own confidence in your own computer skills. It could also depend on how much spare time you have.

If you do decide to choose a web designer, please call me today and I can show you how I can help your business succeed on the web.

In 2005 I was working for a large IT company near London. When I decided to strike out on my own as a web designer I told my colleagues and they were naturally very happy for me. I also told them I would be returning to my home town of Nottingham. Many of them asked me why I was doing so. I responded that as I would not be earning much whilst I built up the business, the far lower cost of living would be beneficial to me and also that I would have a better quality of life. Most of them laughed at this second point. "A better quality of life?" most would scoff. But yes that's right.

You see I think Nottingham has the balance just about right and is one of the best places to live in the UK and also one of the best places to do business.

We're Right in the Middle of Everything

Nottingham is within a region known as the East Midlands. It's right in the heart of the country, London is only an hour and a half away by train and we are also not far from the North's power house of great trading cities from Manchester right across to Leeds.

We're in such a great position. But that's not the only reason.

The cost of living in the East Midlands is far lower than London and the South East. You can buy and rent property for a fraction of the price it would cost you just 100 miles further south. This means that a far greater percentage of your income can be spent on other essentials and pleasures of life. This means our economy has much more freedom and isn't purely based on diverting vast sums to landlords and land-owners.

The money you save by being here allows you to set up a new business with such ease. There are very few businesses that bring income immediately, so paying lower rent or mortgage costs are of great help when trying to get your business off the ground.

It's Not Just Small Business - It's Big Business Too

A local university recently published a list of the 200 largest businesses in the Nottinghamshire area. The business that was number 200 in the list has a turnover of £23 million per annum. So the number of multi-million pound companies in such a relatively small location is enormous. Add to this the thousands of small businesses helping keep our economy buoyant you can see why Nottinghamshire is such a success story.

Great People and Great Opportunities

Nottingham is home to two very large universities meaning there is a great deal of talent to draw upon should you need the right staff to help your business succeed. They are also a great influence on the creative side of business in Nottingham meaning that you will be working in an atmosphere of creativity, talent and success.

This article sounds like shameless promotion of Nottingham and I suppose it is. I have a vested interest in doing so. The more businesses there are the more customers that will require a professional website!

But I really believe I am in the centre of something special here and if you are looking for somewhere to transfer or start your business then Nottingham might just be the city for which what you are looking.

I have to confess that image compression is a mystery to me. I have been in the IT industry for many years and I am able to understand complex concepts that lie behind computer logic. However, although I do have a grasp of the basic principles of image compression, it is probably the most mysterious part of my work.

Image Compression Methods - GIF, JPEG and PNG

There are many other methods in use but GIF, JPEG and PNG are by far the most popular. Not least because they are all extremely well supported in all web browsers.

GIF uses what is known as lossless compression. This means that mathematic calculations are used to compress the information but when the image is viewed, it looks exactly the same as the original. If you have a simple image such as a logo or text, the GIF comes into its own and provides you with a small file size whilst giving you a great looking image. There is one drawback though. It is limited to 256 colours. So whilst it is true to say it uses lossless compression, it is only lossless for images with 256 colours or less. Photos which can contain thousands of different coloured pixels tend to look awful.

That is what we have JPEG for. JPEG images use what is known as lossy compression. So its calculations always give you an approximation of the original image. You can control the amount of compression. The higher the compression, the more approximate the result. Most photos have so much detail that the naked eye can barely detect the lost information in a JPEG. When you have the right balance between compression and approximation, you can end up with a very small file size and it still looks great.

A more recent addition is PNG which provides lossless compression. It has the advantage that it can handle over 16 million colours so is vastly superior to GIF files. As a result, you will rarely see GIF files these days as PNG outpeforms it at all levels.

So What is WEBP?

WEBP is a new format invented by Google. I say new, it has in fact been around since 2010. It can provide both lossless and lossy compression so it has the potential to replace GIF, JPEG and PNG. Its compression is far more efficient than both and can provide great looking images at even smaller file sizes. However, at the time of writing (October 2018), only Google's Chrome browser fully supports WEBP images. There is partial support in some other browsers but only Google offer full support.

Therefore, its use on the web is very limited. That's a shame because it gives web designers an opportunity to show richer images and reduce the amount of data the user has to download. This is great for mobile users who often have limits on their download data.

I wrote an article recently about how the Internet is slower than one might expect to adopt new technologies and this falls well under that category.

It's such a shame but I am confident that one day soon, you will start to see WEBP images all over the web and it can only enhance the experience for everyone.

What Does it Look Like?

The first photo below is a JPEG image and the file size is 68kb in size. The second is a WEBP of the same image and is only 44kb in size. As you can see, they look exactly the same but the second saves a lot of bandwidth.

By the way, if you cannot see the second photo it's because your browser does not yet support it. I hope that one day, everyone will see both images here!

As a web designer, I must keep up with fast moving technology. For example, just 6 years ago, I wasn't thinking much about mobile devices accessing websites as most people were using their desktops or laptops. However, as at today (in 2018), the majority of web browsing takes place on a mobile device. That's how quickly things can change in the world of web design.

I find it one of the exciting aspects of the job. Not only do I love how fast things move, it makes life much less boring, but 99% of the time the changes represent amazing advancements.

It means the job is much more complicated these days but things are more complicated for good reason. You can do so much more. In the past, the job was quite complicated for the wrong reasons. For example:

Who Remembers Netscape Navigator?

When I started designing websites in the late 1990s, the usual method was to design for all browsers and then fiddle evrything so that it worked on Netscape Navigator, This browser was incredibly popular, in fact before Microsoft came on the scene with Internet Explorer it was the go-to browser for nearly everybody. But its implementation of HTML (the language used to add content to web pages) and CSS (the language that looks after the design and layout) started to go against the crowd. Everyone else moved in one direction and Netscape in another,

By the early 2000s, designing websites was a nightmare. You would spend half your time designing the site and half the time fiddling everything so that it worked on all browsers.

This went on for many years as people stuck rigidly to this browser and things were made worse when Microsoft introduced version 6 of Internet Explorer, which implemented everything differently and appallingly.

Thankfully, things started to improve when the Firefox browser was released. It stuck close to standard HTML and CSS specifications and became popular. This improvement accelerated when Google introduced its Chrome browser. This was even more popular and was just as good with its implementation.

This means that nowadays, I stick to the latest HTML and CSS rules and I can be confident that everything will work and look the same in all browsers. There are minor exceptions but it is enough to say that web browsers have finally all caught up with where we should be.

The Death of Flash (Thank Goodness)

Adobe's Flash was extremely popular in the noughties. It was insecure and was harmful to search engine results but it was very popular with businesses as it made their websites look super modern. It was also the go-to system to display video on the web.

Along came HTML5 with brought with it many of the capabilities of Flash and I embraced this new technology as it was fast, secure and let you do many of the things customers wanted for more modern and anmimated websites. However, Flash remained stubbornly popular as many companies and web designers were too lazy to move on.

Thanks go here to Apple and their iPad. The iPad became very popular very quickly and was one of the first environments not to support Flash. Therefore everyone had to start removing it from their websites in order to satisfy the growing army of people surfing the Internet on their iPads and iPhones.

A few sites stubbornly hold onto Flash to display video, despite the excellent HTML5 video specification. But Flash's fate is already sealed. It is dying and the web will be the richer for it.

PNG Pong

Alost all websites of the late 1990s had some sort of animated graphic. These were usually a GIF file. GIF files were excellent because they allowed animation and also allowed you to have transparent areas in your image which is great for design.

However, GIF files had two main flaws. The compression was quite poor so large files or complex animations would end up with large file sizes. It was also limited to 256 colours which is very limiting for intricate designs or photos.

Quite early on, a new format, PNG, was made available and many browsers implemented support quite early on. PNG has great compression, allows transparency and also supports true colour. This was a web designer's dream.

However, because Internet Explorer was slow to adopt all the benefits of PNG files, it took a while for this excellent technology to catch on.

The Future of Web Design

Thankfully, the amateur days are behind us on we are moving faster with improvements as most browsers are quite broadly comparable in their implementation of HTML and CSS. But things still move slower than they need to,

Many people still use Windows XP even though Microsoft stopped supporting it several years ago, These same people are still using Internet Explorer 8 which is very old technology and will increasingly see problems when they view websites that use the latest technology available to them.

But thankfully, as most people are using modern phones and tablets to view the web, almost all of the web browsers available for them use the very latest standards. This allows the most creative Web Designers to unleash the power of the very latest in HTML and CSS offering a great experience for visitors to your website.

Software and online web services can be really expensive. Often the cost can be justified because they deliver in terms of efficiency savings.

There are also some great free software programs and online web services which I use regularly and can thoroughly recommend.

5. GIMP

GIMP is a free alternative to Photoshop, an expensive photo editor. Whilst it may be true that Photoshop is more powerful, most of us would never use those extra capabilities. GIMP now has a much easier interface than it had in the past and is extremely powerful. There are great tools for manipulating images, touching up images and many creative effects and filters can be used. The fact that it has all this and is completely free with no catches is amazing. Why would you pay when you get all this for free?

4. Google Calendar

Google Calendar is a great alternative to the calendar in Outlook which many business people use. You can access it online or using an App on Iphone or Android. It can send you reminders each day via email and also on your phone or tablet a set period in advance of the appointment. It's a breeze to use and is extremely useful in organising a busy schedule. You can access it anywhere and you don't need to worry about backing up your data as it is all done for you.

3. Thunderbird

Thunderbird is a desktop email client available on Windows, Mac and Linux. Many people use popular services such as Gmail and Outlook online. But if you are serious about business email then a professional IMAP account with your business URL in the address is essential. For example, info@yourbusiness.com looks much better than yourbusiness17865@gmail.com. A professional IMAP account such as the one provided by Net Quality Web Design can easily be added to your phone, tablet and PC. Thunderbird takes care of the PC. Better still, all email will be synchronised between the devices. Read an email on one device and it shows as read on all your other devices. A serious piece of software for the serious business owner.

2. Microsoft Office

You might be surprised to see this on the list. Surely you pay for Microsoft Office? Well there is a free online version which you can use on the web. You don't get the software on your desktop and it is missing some more advanced features. However, for what most of us use Office Applications for there is plenty here for the business owner.

1. LibreOffice

For those of you who want a program on your desktop and need more features than the online free version of Microsoft Office, LibreOffice more than adequately fills this need. I have been using it for some years now and I have never had the need for the fully paid-for version of Microsoft Office. You can open office documents of all types with this program and it comes with everything you would find in Microsoft Office. The only major thing missing is an alternative to Outlook but I mentioned Thunderbird and Google Calendar above which covers this nicely.

LibreOffice is extremely powerful and an essential tool for the business owner being careful with their budget.

This is a message I recently saw on my Microsoft Edge Browser. In theory, if you see this message it means your access to the Internet is not working. However, when I recently saw this message I could access the Internet using other browsers such as Google Chrome, Firefox and Vivaldi. Therefore, the problem was with Microsoft Edge.

How to Fix All IT Problems

it did not worry me because as an IT expert of too many years to mention I know there is a two-step process to fixing any IT problem:

1. Turn it off and turn it on again
2. Google it

So rebooting my PC didn't work this time. It was very disappointing because this works for 99% of IT problems. Not to worry, if you have a problem with your PC then chances are that many millions of other people have had the same problem. Therefore typing the nature of the problem into Google always brings up a simple solution you can use straight away. However, this time it was not to be,

I searched site after site and the only common solution I found was to change your PC DNS settings to use Google's DNS servers. I could not believe this was the correct solution. All other browsers were working as was Skype and my email client, Thunderbird. There had to be a simpler solution.

But Microsoft Edge Isn't Worth It

Microsoft Edge is a much better browser than Internet Explorer but is still a poor relation when compared to browsers such as Google Chrome, Opera, Firefox and Vivaldi. So why bother?

I am a web designer and a significant number of people use Microsoft Edge so it is essential for me that I have a working version on which to test the websites that I design.

In reading the solutions people had tried, I found many of them had spent all day on the problem and some had even resorted to reloading Windows! This "Sledgehammer to Crack a Nut" approach was not for me; there had to be something simpler.

So I resolved to continue searching until I found a solution that made sense.

I had started to narrow it down to problems with a service that runs on the PC called "DNS Client". It made sense that this could be the source of the problem as it relates to DNS (the naming service that gives you access to the Internet). Most of the solutions involved people turning on this service. However, it was already running on my PC and this made me despondent thinking I might be barking up the wrong tree.

Turn it Off and Turn it on Again!

Eureka! I had a brainwave. My years of IT training had kicked in again and I went back to the original magic method to fix all IT problems. Instead of turning off the PC and on again, why not switch of the DNS Client and restart it. Hey presto! It worked!

It then occurred to me that the myriads of people who had used the Google DNS server resolution had probably rebooted this service in the background when they changed the DNS settings. So their solution had worked but it truly was a "Sledghehammer to Crack a Nut".

How to Fix the Microsoft Edge "Hmm We Can't Reach This Page" Problem

Here are the steps to solving the problem in Windows 10:

1. In Cortana (Type here to search) type in services.
2. Click on the Services App that pops up above
3. Look down the list for DNS Client
4. Right click the DNS Client line and then click restart

There you are, that is all you have to do. Nothing complicated and nothing that will cause problems on your PC. My faith is restored that the vast majority of problems can be resolved by turning it off and on again!

The short answer is no. But that would make for a boring article wouldn't it? So perhaps I had better explain why.

What is important these days is to have a website that looks good and is ready to use on all sorts of devices. Screen sizes have always been a challenge to web designers. In the early days, lazy designers would tell you that "this site is best viewed at 800 by 600 pixels". What a ridiculous statement. You should change you monitor just to view their website!

Thankfully, we have moved on since then but some designers are still making a hash of it.

How Net Quality handles Mobile Websites

I use something called "Responsive Web Design". What this means that I create one website, but it uses modern technology to reshape itself depending on the size of the screen from which the user is viewing the website. To me this is such an elegant solution. Desktop users do not accidentally end up viewing the mobile version of the website and mobile viewers do not have to pinch and zoom from the desktop website.

I Create Four or Five Websites

There is another reason I do this. The choice is not between a desktop and a mobile phone. It is a choice between desktop monitors of many sizes as well as tablets, TV's and mobile phones. Having two websites is simply not good enough. When I design a website, I will often have three, four or five fluid styles to ensure they always look good and are easy to use no matter what the size of the screen is.

I Wanted the Full Website

My method is not without its knockers. I recently converted a customer's website to be mobile friendly and he immediately noticed that he did not have a separate website for mobile phones. He objected to this and said "what if I want to view the full website on my phone?". He mistakenly believed that because the mobile version of his website appeared slimmed down that it was not the full version. All my sites provide the FULL version of the website whether it be in desktop or mobile mode.

The mobile version does look slimmed down. This is because of the clever use of the latest technology to change the flow of the website and hide menu options until needed. You do not get a cut-down mobile website, you get the full monty!

What Choice You Should Make for a Mobile Website

The answer is not clear-cut and opinions differ. However, I think there is enough evidence in favour of Responsive Web Design that this is the road down which Net Quality have travelled. Much work is put into meticulously planning the website so that all customers, irrespective of their device's screen size, operating system or browser type, all have a stylish and effective experience when navigating a Net Quality Website.

Well actually there is. And it's bad advice!

When you're starting a new business, you will find a queue of people made up of friends colleagues and associates ready to give you advice. What people will say will vary a great deal and will often be largely negative.

So how can you decide which advice is worth it and whether you should listen to the negative advice? Instinct may tell you to ignore negative advice but just maybe you are being sensibly warned that you're going down the wrong path.

Business Advice I Received

When I started out as a web designer back in 2006, I was almost overwhelmed by friends and colleagues telling me not to do it. Here is a list of the common reactions I got when saying I was starting out as a web designer:

• You've got a well paid stable job - don't throw it away
• Yes but everyone is becoming a web designer now
• It's easy to create your own website, the market just isn't there
• My mate got his website designed by his 14 year old nephew for free. Why would people pay you?
• 90% of businesses fail in the first year*

That is just a small sample of the negative reactions I received.

* By the way, I am not sure if that statistic is right but it is what a lot of people said to me at the time.

Business Advice I Took

I actually took none of it. Not even the good advice! This attitude both helped me and hindered me when I set out to create my own business as a web designer.

Although I didn't know why at the time, I was right to ignore all this negative advice and I am sure glad that I did. You see, looking back, all of that negative advice came either from people who had never started their own business or who had done so and failed.

If someone hasn't started their own business, it is often down to their own fears, the most common of which are neatly summed up above.

It's obvious now when I think about it. Why take advice on starting a business from someone who has never done that for themselves? It would be like taking medical advice from someone who is nether a doctor nor a nurse.

Where to Get Good Advice

The answer should be shouting to you from the roof tops now. Take advice from someone who has already gone into business for themselves and made it. Even better if that business is the same or similar to yours.

If that person also has many years of experience then listen to them even harder. Even though you may not want to hear about the hard work it will take, the obstacles and disappointments along the way. You have to face them to succeed in building your own successful business. And boy is it worth it when you do!

Another helpful source of advice is business forums. Don't get me wrong, I know there are a lot of idiots on those forums (as there are on all forums) but you will always get a consensus when people give the right advice. It's very easy to judge and it is a mine of extremely useful information.

My Advice to You

If you are prepared to work hard, keep focused and willing to take the right advice, you will surely succeed. Go for it! Ignore the negative advice from friends and colleagues who have never done what you are about to do. Instead, enjoy the process of proving them wrong. You will never regret it.

Good luck!

Computer jargon is a nightmare for those of us who do not spend our working days dealing with IT issues. That is why I want to help explain some of the more common jargon and abbreviations. Today I want to deal with SMTP email.

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol

It doesn't really help when you know what the abbreviation stands for. So I can put it much simpler. SMTP is the method by which you send email. Yes, that is all it is.

You may have heard of POP3 and IMAP, well these deal with how email is received. For full email facilities you require an SMTP service in order to send your emails.

A web server is required to run these services. In theory you can run the from your own PC but this is rarely practical.

Your Internet Service provider usually provides these services for you which they have running on their own web server. In addition, your web designer who hosts your website will often provide these services for your business email address.

The server that hosts the SMTP server will usually authenticate that the sender has permission to use that server but such authentication rarely goes further than that.

DO NOT TRUST EMAIL ADDRESSES!

I once played an April Fools joke on a colleague. He was away from work for a day and told me he was pleased as I would be unable to play my annual practical joke on him. How wrong he was. I sent an email to all his colleagues to announce his impending wedding and asked for congratulatory texts to be sent. I spoofed his email address and his colleagues all thought that it was he who sent the email.

What they did not realise is that to send an email as if you were someone else is very easy. Most but not all SMTP servers will allow this. If someone else sends email that appears to come from you does not necessarily mean that they have hacked your email account. They have more than likely spoofed your address via an SMTP server and in itself, is harmless.

So if you receive an unsolicited email, do not automatically assume that the sender's email address is genuine. It could be a con-artist trying to get their hands on your dosh or they could simply be a practical joker, like me!

Local councils often get a bad press these days and I thought I would tell you about something positive. Mansfield and Ashfield District Councils joined together to form the Entrepreneurs' Forum. It has been going for a couple of years and I have been going since late 2013.

They find an expert in a given area that is connected with small business and that person gives a talk for about an hour and a half. This is preceded by either breakfast, lunch or dinner depending on the time of day for the talk.

The subjects are wide-ranging and this year's have included, social media, problem solving, debt recovery and marketing. I have to say, that each one has been very interesting Like many small business owners, I work alone and this can mean that you get stuck in your ways and creativity can be stifled.

These talks have been just the tonic for me as I have found them stimulating and they have helped me make positive changes in my own business.

Becoming self-employed often turns you into someone who finds it difficult to take advice. Somehow it can hurt your pride as you become so used to being self-reliant. But keeping an open mind can be a real eye-opener and I was surprised how much I learned at these forums despite being a "seasoned campaigner".

There is such a thing as a free lunch

The Entrepreneur's Forum is free and food is supplied appropriate to the time of day. The meals are generally simple and fresh. Just what you need bearing in mind they take place at breakfast, lunch or dinner. This is ideal as it saves you from taking too much time out during the working day.

Ideal networking event

It is also a great place to meet other like-minded people and share thoughts and ideas and if your business is selling to other businesses like mine, it is a great networking opportunity.

I thoroughly recommend attending this event if you are your own boss and live in the area (the meetings are held in Kirkby-in-Ashfield).

So hopefully see you there!

When I started my web design business in 2005, I imagined the support I offered to my customers would be principally about websites. I was wrong. Most of the support I offer is regarding my customers' email accounts. It seems many people struggle with handling their email. And recently, it has become more complicated. But don't worry, I'm about to reveal how it can be made very easy.

But Surely Nobody Uses Email Now?

All of us but young people in particular are now using so many new ways to communicate. Facebook, Twitter, texting, What's App and many more. The only reason many people have an email account is to register a Facebook account.

But Businesses Still Use Cheques

Hardly anyone uses cheques these days but many businesses still do. I receive a good proportion of my fees as cheques although it is changing, slowly.

However, as far as email is concerned, this is still the primary method of communication for most businesses. That is why I spend so much time supporting them.

So What is the Difference Between POP3 and IMAP?

POP stands for "Post Office Protocol" and POP3 is the third version of this protocol. It is the simplest method of communication that allows simple downloading of emails from the server. There is very little interaction between the client (your PC or phone for example) and the mail server. Synchronising your emails across different devices is so limited that it is, to all intents and purposes, not possible.

IMAP stands for "Internet Message Access Protocol". It differs in that it allows you full access to the server on which you can even create folders and the like. It's most useful feature is that you can synchronise your emails across devices. So for example, if you read one of your emails on your PC, it shows as read on your phone too. And if you delete an email on your phone, it is deleted from your PC too. It is possible to synchronise across more than two devices if required.

Therefore, IMAP is the system I recommend. Here at Net Quality Web Design our email facilities that we provide to customers are fully compatible with either POP3 or IMAP.

And Don't Forget SMTP

One important point to note is that both POP3 and IMAP are for downloading of emails. Sending emails uses something called SMTP. But that's a whole new subject for a new article.

Time for me to make a confession. I love Windows 8. To many of you that is a shocking admission but I really do like it. I see it as building on the things that made Windows 7 so great and a vast improvement over the slow buggy Vista.

So Why Do So Many People Hate It?

Whenever something popular changes, people's first reaction is to hate it. Facebook is a great example. One minor change and your wall seems to fill up with shouty messages from friends saying how much they dislike the new changes.

Change it seems, is something with which many of us cannot cope.

Past Experience

Where Microsoft is concerned, we were right to hate change. Windows XP was stable and fast and when Vista came in, though there were many improvements (not everyone agrees with me here) it was bloated, slow and buggy. Then when Windows 7 came out, it seems Microsoft were listening and even the most cynical techno-geeks were heaping praise on it.

PEBKAC

This is an acronym used by IT support staff to identify a reported problem as "Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair". In other words, the user is the problem. This happens to me a lot. Many of my friends and family ask me to sort out their computer problems for them and quite a few have complained about Windows 8. It turns out that in many cases, the reason they do not like it is that they have downloaded dodgy software which has riddled their system with Adware, Spyware and malicious programs (often known by another underservedly polite acronym - PUP - Potentially Unwanted Program) and it is this that gives them a frustrating experience.

Why Is Windows 8 Unpopular?

The main fault with Windows 8 is that it is not sure whether it is an operating system for desktops or tablets. This makes it confusing for both types of user. Using Apps on a PC is not ideal (especially their new and terrible email client) and so those all important first impressions are very poor.

Why I Like Windows 8

Once you change your perception of Windows 8 as I have, it suddenly becomes this faster version of Windows 7. When I used to boot my old Vista PC I had to wait 3 or 4 minutes before I could do anything. Now, I am checking my emails within 30 seconds of starting Windows 8. For this reason alone, I love Windows 8.

The only perception I changed was to view the start screen as just a larger version of the pop-up menu you got with all previous versions of Windows. All of a sudden, it does not seem very different at all.

There are a few little niggles like the awful email program and it isn't obvious how you install Skype for desktop but for speed alone, I think Windows 8 is great.

I am a big fan of the apprentice. Ever since I started my own business back in 2005 I have been attracted by any TV programme or any article about running a business. And so again in 2014 I started to watch the latest series.

I have already written about the apprentice and given my opinion on the mixed suitability of the winners. And this year I feel compelled to do so again but for very different reasons.

After All, It's Only Entertainment

I read one of Viz Magazine's hilarious letters where the writer said they felt sorry for Lord Sugar because he advertises a business partnership worth £250,000 and the only applicants he gets are a bunch of idiots. Whilst both funny and true I am understanding of the fact that the BBC needs some characters on the show to ensure its entertainment value.

And this year was no disappointment in that category. There was the "wide boy" who did nothing but irritate the other candidates and make diastrous decisions with a completely unmerited amount of self-confidence. There were quite a few who were able to blow their own trumpets to an embarassing extent but whose skills and abilities were lacking in so many ways. And then there were a few credible candidates.

Nobody Could Have Predicted That

From very early on, there was a clear favourite and her name was Roisin. She was rarely drawn into the petty squabbles and childish arguments which seem to adorn this series. She also frequently made sound decisions and displayed a high degree of business acumen.

However, she had a disappontingly poor business plan. The experts who examined it showed so many holes not just in the idea bit also in the disastrous accounting (and she was a trained accountant). So no matter how well she had done earlier on in the series, she was never going to win.

This is the frustration of the BBC's apprentice. After twelve weeks and twelve gruelling tasks, much of what has been achieved is irrelevant.

The Winner - Search Engine Optimisation

Lord Sugar once again had pound signs in his eyes when he read the business plan for a digital marketing agency. And rightly so. Such firms can earn a fortune. But the business they are in is infested with sharks.

I am sure many of you, if you run a small business, have had many phone calls from companies promising to get you to page 1 of Google. Most of my customers have and a few of them have even paid some of these companies. Here is the grand total of my customers who have had success with such companies:

NONE

Yes that is right. Not one of these agencies has ever done anything for anyone I know except take money from them. Their specialised skill is to employ very talented salesmen who will try and seduce you making claims and promises that they cannot nor do they intend to keep.

If one of you out there has had success with such a company I would be very interested to hear your story. All I can say is that I have only come across slick salesmen with nothing to back up their promises.

Search Engine Optimisation is important for modern day businesses but this is done through sheer hard work and determination and above all, integrity. Yes you can trick Google for a short time, but for long term success, the hard way and the right way is the best.

How much does a website cost? This is often one of the considerations of a new business and a question that has so many answers that range from nothing to millions of pounds. Like so many business expenses, it is easy to get caught up in the cost of things rather than trying to assess the value for money and return on investment.

What would you rather do? Spend £50 for a return of £100 or spend £5000 for a return of £20,000? Although the answer is obvious, many of us business owners are careful with our money and are often reluctant to spend more than we have to.

Although the cost of web design varies greaty, for the ease of illustration I will discuss 3 common budgets and what the advantages are for each one.

The Free Website

There's no such thing as a free lunch, the same is true for websites.

There are a number of companies who can offer you a great looking website and not charge you a penny. Why then would you spend your hard-earned money when nice looking websites are available for free?

The first downside is that a free website will not include a domain name. So instead of www.yourbusiness.co.uk your website address is something like www.yourbusiness.freewebsites.co.uk. Such a domain name does not create a great impression I am sure you will agree.

But wait. Domain names cost from just a few pounds per year so why not buy a proper domain name and point it to the free website? Well yes this can work (if the company agress to do it) but a free website will more than likely contain advertising and in some cases that advertising is intrusive.

Your website is often the first impression of your business to new customers so this option although free, is unlikely to help your business.

The Template Website

These can cost from only a few pounds per month. You get a proper domain name and the design looks good and is free from advertising. Also, you can update it yourself, a service that many web designers do not provide!

This seems tempting but there are many reasons why this will devalue your business.

The reason why web designers restrict what you can change on a website is that we take the time to lay out a website and ensure consistency in text, fonts, graphics and photos. Do this all yourself without experience and it can be immediately evident to your customers that the website has an amateur feel about it.

Also, templates are not exclusive and so there will be many more, possibly hundreds of businesses out there with an identical design. As soon as your customers notice, your business is cheapened immediately.

The Web Designer

Costs here can be from a few hundred to many thousands (millions in the case of large corporate websites). At Net Quality we charge between £395 and £795 for a basic website, from £1395 for an ecommerce website and anything upwards for bespoke functions and options.

What you are paying for is our experience in creating websites that are up-to-date and also designed with your business in mind. Before any part of it is designed we discuss your business requirements and what objectives you have for the website.

This means it will be designed to achieve what you want and any cost you pay to us should be more than recouped in benefits to your business.

We can provide statistics and tools that allow you to measure how well your website is doing as well as providing the best advice on how to promote your website through advertising and search engine optimisation.

So although these costs can be many times the costs of the cheaper options, your return should be so much higher that in effect, it works out much cheaper.

That is the value in investing in your website.

Are you serious about your business? Then it is time to get serious about your website.

Being an entrepreneur I love reading books about businesses. How to run them better, benefit from people's experiences and just to see another point of view to reduce the risk of becoming too staid and insular.

One thing that interested me a lot was business systems and procedures. When I started out several years ago, I had been working for large corporations and I was sick to the back teeth of systems, procedures and spreadsheets. I seemed to spend more time doing that than my actual work.

So I rebelled against this sort of thing to begin with and at first this did me know harm. But as my business expanded it became plainly apparent that I needed to vastly improve my systems. For a start, updating my accounts spreadsheet took up a lot of my time.

So I set about looking for helpful software in this regard. There is plenty to choose from but nothing matched the requirements unique to my business. I would have to fiddle the system to work for me. Not an attractive proposition.

Then it occurred to me. I design database applications all the time for ecommerce websites and the like. Surely it would be easy to design my own package. So I set about with this task which took me two working days in all. That is a lot of time to give up for someone who is self employed. However, I calculated that I would save at least five working days' worth of effort per year. So it was a worthwhile investment.

I am so glad I did it. Since I first created my own bespoke accounts package running the accounts side of my business has become a doddle. Well OK then it isn't a doddle but I have cut down the time spent by at least 75%.

The Perfect Product - I Earn a profit by Saving My Cusomers Money!

Since doing this I have created three or four back-office systems for clients and they have been very well received. The amounts saved generally pay for a new system within a few short months.

So now I have to figure out a way of marketing this to my customers. I am known as a web designer in Nottingham but not as a bespoke applications developer. Also, what would businesses search for in Google? I must find out because this could be lucrative both for me and my customers.

So if you are looking to improve the efficiency of your business today then please contact me and I am sure I can come up with something that will save you lots of money over a long period.

On 10 June 2014 a new Top Level Domain is being made available by Nominet, the company who currently look after TLD's such as .co.uk, .org.uk and .me.uk. The new extension is just .uk. So instead of netquality.co.uk we could also register netquality.uk

There have been many new TLD lanches recently but I think this is one of the most significant, for UK businesses of course.

More information can be found on Nominet's .uk launch website.

Such new launches can cause a scramble to register the best domain names for the new extension but fortunately, Nominet have come up with an excellent way to protect current domain owners.

How Can I Register The New Domain Name?

Registering the new domain name is a breeze and can be done with Net Quality for just £1 per month on top of your existing hosting contract.

I Don't Want Anyone Else to Take My Domain Name

No need to panic, your domain name is protected. There are seemingly complex rules on this but it comes down to this: if you own the .co.uk domain name you automatically have the right to own the .uk equivalent. So don't fall for all of these fancy and expensive pre-registration deals that some companies are offering.

It is easiest if you do this with the same registrar who looks after your .co.uk domain name. So if it is registered with me, I can register the new one for you. And even better:

You retain the rights to your domain name for five years!

So you don't need to be in any rush to register your .uk domain name. Your rights are protected until 10 June 2019.

Can I Register a New .uk Doman Name?

As long as nobody has registered one of the existing extensions such as yourdomain.co.uk, yourdomain.org.uk or yourdomain.me.uk then you can register a name with this new extension as easily as you can register a .co.uk name today.

Launch Date is 10 June 2014

You cannot register before this date so please do not fall for any pre-registration deal. Your rights are protected and it is just a money making scam.

So my plan was to create lots of small affordable websites. Just simple brochure websites that looked great. I didn't plan to create ecommerce sites or other complicated dynamic sites. I had my vision, pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap.

Life is What Happens When You're Making Other Plans

John Lennon famously said this and the same could be said for business. Because right from the off, my customers were requesting ecommerce websites and dynamic complex websites and I quickly realised I would have to change my business plans if I were to succeed.

It's About You, Not About Me

This was a pivotal moment in my business career. Determination is an essential asset to succeed in business but there is a big difference between determination and flogging a dead horse. Fortunately, I realised that my business would only succeed if I shaped my services to what my customers wanted rather than what I wanted. So it is all about you and not at all about me.

Business Plans Are Still Important

Saying this makes it look as though I think you should not make a business plan. On the contrary, you have to offer something unique to the customer in order to succeed and without a plan, you will be directionless and your business would be doomed to failure, or at best, reliant entirely upon luck.

So a business plan is still essential but whatever you do, do not write it in stone. You should be constantly looking at what your customers want and need and reshaping your plans as necessary.

It is a changing world in which we live and this is even more true for those of us who work in the IT industry.

Web Design Services I Offer

So I can still offer small brochure websites at an affordable price. I also offer a unique and powerful ecommerce package for those of you who wish to sell online. Not only that, the skills I have learned means I can offer you just about anything you want in terms of web design. From complex booking systems to fully fledged back office systems integrated with accounting systems.

Whatever it is that you want, my focus will always be on you, the customer.

There are a lot of myths building around Twitter and its use on a business website so I just wanted to set the record straight for my customers and anyone else who reads this article.

How to Put Twitter on Your Website

The most obvious way of doing this is to have a link, preferably in the header or footer of every page of your website that leads directly to your Twitter page. The other way is to have what is known as a "feed" which shows the last few tweets made under your Twitter account.

The link is a straightforward link that can be put on any website and the feed is very easy to add to the website as the code to do this is provided by Twitter themselves.

So adding Twitter to you website is very easy to do and once you do so, there are some very important rules to follow:

Rules for Running Your Twitter Account for Your Business

1. Tweet Regularly

The first rule may seem obvious but so many people make this mistake. Make sure you tweet regularly. This should be preferably be at least every week or so but at the absolute minimum it should be monthly. There is nothing worse than seeing a business website nicely designed with an embedded Twitter feed showing the last tweet dated over a year ago. This makes it look like your business website is neither important nor intertesting to you and if that is the impression you give, neither will it be interesting or important to the visitor to your website.

If you cannot spare the time to tweet regularly, remove the links and delete your Twitter account. It is better to have no Twitter account at all than to have one which damages your website and therefore your business.

2. Tweet Something Relevant

I am amazed at some of the things that businesses tweet. Things like "Aah, time for coffee methinks!" or "Today was a great day, we did loads". These sorts of banal phrases show laziness and disdain for the audience. If this is all you are going to Tweet then don't bother.

Tweet about your latest services or special offers with links back to your site. Tweet links to interesting and relevant web pages both on and off your website.

Think before you tweet "would I find this interesting?". If you wouldn't then please do not tweet it because your customers will not find it interesting either.

3. Be Clean

I am not offended by bad language and I am sure many of you are not. But there is a place and a time. The place is definitely not on your business website.

I once saw a tweet by another web designer who was comparing two pop bands and used an offensive word to show that he did not like one of them. First of all, why would his customers be interested in his musical tastes and secondly, why did he feel the need to swear? Two golden rules were broken in one tweet.

Some of you may found what I have said to be completely obvious, but these mistakes are so commonplace that I felt the need to point them out and have hopefully helped to focus you on what it important if you add Twitter to your website.

So Should I Put Twitter On My Website?

The short answer is yes. It not only builds interest in your website and therefore your business. If you follow the guidance given above, then it could be another string to your bow to bring in more business for you.

What is Google Webmaster Tools?

Google holds a lot of information about nearly every website on the Internet (it is impossible to hold information about every website as new websites are appearing every second). Which means that they probably hold a lot of information about your website.

Google Webmaster Tools allows you to see some of this information. The information they let you see is extensive and invaluable.

For example, you can register your XML site map with Google and you will be able to see reports as to how well it is working for you. Registering a site map with Google is the quickest way to get your new website indexed by Google.

It also gives useful information about search queries used to find your website, useful for researching for the purposes of Search Engine Optimisation.

However, if there is only one reason to use Google Webmaster Tools it is this:

It Lists Errors That Google Has Found on Your Website

There is a section where errors or problems have been found with your website generally or on specific pages. Things like titles that are too long or too short, problems accessing your pages and slow download times.

It is like having a free monitoring service for your website so you can fix problems as soon as they arise instead of waiting for them to harm your position in the search engine results pages.

How Much Should it Cost to Implement Google Webmaster Tools on my Website?

Signing up with Google is simple and it is free. Nor should your web designer charge you for it to be added as it is no more difficult than uploading a simple identification file that Google provides.

So why hesitate? Add it to your website today. it will cost you nothing and is essential to your business. You won't regret it.

Only Bad Advice is Free

There are so many people out there offering your free advice, some of it good, some of it irrelevant and some of it just plain wrong. Therefore I intend to write a series of articles to debink some of the myths for businesses wanting to make the most of their websites.

What is Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a script based system that allows Google limited access to your website in order that it can measure what your visitors are doing on your website. It offers graphical statistics so you can see what visitors your website is sgetting and what trends they are following.

Knowing this information about visitors to your website is absolutely essential. If you have a website from Net Quality Web Design in Nottingham and I host your website, you already have this information as my server collates it automatically.

However, Google Analytics is still a good thing to get if you want more detailed analysis of the figures.

How Much Should it Cost to Add Google Analytics to my Website?

Simple answer:- NOTHING! It is a one minute job to paste in the code that is provided by Google. So your web designer should not be charging you to add Google Analytics to your website because there is virtually no work to do!

Will Google Analytics Help Me With SEO?

The information provided by Google Analytics can help you when planning your overall strategy to SEO but it does not in itself help in any way towards improving your website's rankings in search engine results.

So in short, I say install Google Analytics on your website if visitor habits are of interest to you (and they should be). And make sure you don't pay for the privilege!

As I write this article it is the last day of 2013 and the newspapers are full of retrospectives looking at the past year. This also got me looking back over the year and once again thinking about changes in the web design industry.

Web Design is a fast-paced industry, as are all industries connected with the Internet and IT in general. As I look back over the trends of the past year there have been many small changes and there are two major changes which I can identify, one which was predictable and one (for me anyway) which was not.

Websites on Mobile Phones

This has been a long time coming and it really came to the fore this year. It has been a good idea for some time to make your website compatible with mobile devices. In 2013, it became essential.

In spite of this, more than 80% of websites are still not optimised for mobile devices. This isn't entirely surprising as it can be expensive to optimise your website. I believe that it is a worthwhile investment, especially right now.

For example, those businesses that had websites made in the late 1990's got a jump start on other businesses. It gave them a real advantage over their competitors who did not yet have a website. In those days, all you had to do was to have a well designed website and it was a guarantee to bring in more business and to stay ahead of your competitors.

Sadly it is not that easy nowadays. Most businesses do have a website (though a surprising number do not) and it is now essential to have one to keep up with your competitors. But now there is a real opportunity to gain a competitive edge over your competitors by making your website mobile friendly.

I can make your website mobile friendly by using a great technique known as responsive design. This means that your website shapes itself to the device of the user rather than having a separate mobile website. Call today on 0115 963 6589 to find out more.

Flat Design

One of the first tricks to learn as a website designer is how to give flat graphics a textured and/or 3D feel. This has been a trend that started many years ago and has since become refined. It is a technique that can make a good website outstanding.

Then along cam Windows 8. People either love or loathe this version of Windows (personally I love it). But one thing that did catch on was its simple graphical interface. It broke all the rules but in doing so caught the imagination of users.

One rule is rounded corners look better than sharp corners and texture looks better than flat colours. Neither of hese applies to Windows 8 tiles and as a result, many websites are being redesigned in this way.

It is fashion of course and it will change. What it goes to show is that it makes sense to follow the rules most of the time but most of the best innovations happen when someone breaks the rules. The trick is knowing when to do so!

People often ask me why it is that I put the sunrise and sunset times for Hucknall in the footer of my website. The reason is that I am obssessed with day length and I always like to know what to expect.

I find this time of year difficult because of the short days and therefore the long periods of darkness. However, the Saturday just gone (21 December) marked the shortest day of the year. It is one of my favourite days of the year because I know that from now on, the nights will start to be lighter.

Yes it is very gradual at first. I believe Sunday was just 15 seconds longer than Saturday; not exactly noticable. However, it means that we are heading in the right direction and within a few weeks we will really notice a difference. So it is then that at this time of year I find myself in optimistic mood.

Isn't it amazing? Nothing has really changed yet but the mere expectation of better things to come lifts my mood considerably.

2013 is the Recession's 21st of December

I feel just the same about the year 2013. I believe that this year was the recession's 21st of December. There were the smallest signs of recovery. On their own, they are not enough to make any considerable difference to our lives and I am fully aware that some people are still finding things very difficult.

However, the signs for the future are excellent. Businesses are showing the first signs of optimism after years of much darkness in the commerce world.

Being There

This in turn reminds me of the film Being There starring Peter Sellers. In the film, he accidentally makes a profound statement that although things die in Autumn and Winter, we always have the green shoots of Spring to look forward to.

Not Political

By the way, I am not making a political point. I think it is businesses themselves that will bring us out of this recession and has little or nothing to do with which government is in power. I believe economic success happens inspite of and not because of government policies.

Roll on 2014

So I for one am feeling really good about the upcoming year. It is up to us as business owners to give impetus to this new period of optimism. Let's take risks, let's innovate and let us inspire!

I find myself essentially writing the same article again and again, or at least wanting to cover the same subject again and again, as this is something with which I have become obsessed. It is about the simplest way to succeed in business and indeed in many other areas of your life. And that is simply to get out there and do it.

I was reminded of this because a friend sent me a link to a YouTube video recently:

In this video, Amy talks about ways of building up confidence when dealing with stressful situations such as job interviews. I recommend watching the video in full but in summary, it's about deliberately changing your body language to that of a confident extrovert person and this act alone can increase your confidence. So you take a trait of a confident person and you mimic the trait to become that person.

Time to Stop Dreaming and Start Doing

This makes total sense to me and it comes under that category of methods that tell you to stop dreaming, stop talking about it, stop fretting over it and stop thinking about all the reasons it might go wrong, just get out there and do it.

As a web designer in Nottingham I get to meet lots of people in business from the least to the most successful. What the most successful people have in common might come as a surprise to you. It is not the most intelligent. It is not the smartest or best looking. It is not the most dynamic and erudite people who succeed. It is always those people who just decide to go out there and do it. Yes you have to think things through and plan but it is surprising how many people do so without seeing it through and actually doing it.

Have yiou ever thought about writing a book? Many people have.thought about it but most have not bothered  Neither J K Rowling nor E L James came from a background from where you would expect the most successful authors to come. What separates them from the crowd is that they went through with their dreams and aspirations. I am not saying they are not talented authors as they most certainly are. But I am sure there are many other equally talented authors who have never put pen to paper.

Starting Out in Business

Indeed when I first took the courage to give up a well paid and secure job to become a web designer, I found that just the act of doing so attracted business to me. Marketing is important and it was necessary for my business to succeed but in the beginning i found customers coming to me simply due to the fact that I had set myself up and told the world I was now a web designer.

I wasn't faking being a web designer you understand, that was a skill which I had already learned. But without a portfolio i did show a confidence that I could succeed without any evidence for this and people believed me. That confidence was well founded and now I have a long hisory of success stories with websites I have created for people.

We all have to start somewhere

So I beseech all of you out there who have dreams and aspirations. Plan for it, think about it and weigh up the pros and cons. Once you have done this and most importantly of all, get out there and do it!

One of the many advantages of being a web designer in Nottingham is that you gain an insight into many different types of businesses. How they work, how they function and how they are run. It also allows me to see what it is about businesses that are successful as well as seeing what pitfalls to avoid by seeing fromt he inside a business which is failing.

The inspiration for this article came from the fact that I was thinking about how the current recession began. I am going back before the point that the banking industry started to collapse. Somebody had realised that the assets of many of the banks including those we previously thought to be stable had "toxic" investments. The re-packaging of extremely dodgy mortgages as "high risk investment opportunities" had infected the entire world banking sector with a poison. Suddenly, somebody had realised what had happened and the collapse fo the world banking system began to be predicted.

For months, the news was full of doom and gloom, even though nothing had really happened yet. Everybody was talking about what was about to happen and all the talk was extremely pessimistic. The negative reporting was relentless until we reached the point where the unthinkable happened and the "credit crunch" as it would become known finally started to kick in.

Which brings me to the question I wish to raise in this article.

Did we talk ourselves into a recession?

I know the arguments are going to be that businesses could not withstand the collapse of the banking system nor could they survive without the finance from these banks as loans were now hard to come by. However, consider this point:

Despite the size of the banking collapse, the economy as a whole shrank by only a small percentage each year.

Apart from some specific industries like the construction industry, most businesses only saw a small downturn in turnover. Even within the construction industry, the businesses which failed were either those that were dependent upon one or a very small number of very big clients or those that did not have a great reputation. A builder who I know and who has an excellent reputation for high quality work and integrity has remained very busy throughout this recession.

Can we talk ourselves back into growth?

The most exciting thing I am hearing from many businesses at the moment is that after these years of doom and gloom, business leaders are starting to show a little optimism. It is this, I believe, that is going to bring the economy back to where it should be.

The Power of Postive Thinking

I do not believe in magic nor do I believe in miracles but I do believe in the power of positive thinking. I have seen businesses respond to the recession in different ways but there is one type of response that always seems to work. And it is this:

Relentless Positivity

These business owners are never satisfied with where their business is right now. Even during the good times, they never stop, I emphasise, they never ever stop, looking for changes they can make that might improve business. Is there something they can do faster, cleverer or slicker? Is there some new way of marketing? Should they change anything in their company's image? Are there any new products and/or services they can offer? Are there any improvements they can make to the services and products they already offer?

I have several customers who behave like this and without exception, they are all very successful and their success remained unabated througout the "credit crunch".

So I think it is time that we all now started to think positively. If every business tried its best to improve constantly, we could be out of this recession in such a short period of time. The politicians can do what they want to but it is the business leaders who are going to bring our economy to where it should be.

I have written many times before about how the web design world is one which is changing rapidly. Most recently, there has been an enormous change in the types of devices that people use to surf the Internet with the dramatic rise in sales of Internet enabled mobile phones as well as iPads and other tablet devices.

I still remember only a few short years ago when the first Internet enabled mobile phones hit the market. The first type to hit used something called WAP. This was a specific language for writing websites specifically for mobile phones. It never took off. For example, I was a web designer in Nottingham right throughout this period and I never learned to set up pages in WAP. This never harmed my career as in all those years I never received one request to set up a website for mobile phones.

The other type of device accessed a normal web page. This was equally unpopular because all websites were optimised for ever increasing PC monitor sizes making it very difficult to view on a tiny screen. There were several zoom options but this was a time before the touch screen and it was not easy to use. Therefore, there were not any web designers who would optimise their websites for such devices as it would be a whole lot of work for a very small number of website visitors.

The iPhone and iPad changed everything

Then it all changed. All of a sudden, the iPhone came along with its touch-screen and the genius invention of pinch-to-zoom. Now websites were easily accessible on your mobile phone. A couple of years later the iPad came along and people were now viewing websites in Portrait for the first time but initially, not many websites looked good in this format.

The iPhone and iPad proved so popular the other phone manufacturers such as HTC and Samsung soon joined the revolution and all of a sudden, many websites were being viewed in screen sizes and orientations that were so recently viewed as bizarre.

So how do I optimise my website for a mobile phone?

I have decided that this is an important change in the world of the Internet and have therefore devised a way of incorporating something known as Responsive Web Design to any new designs I create. What this involves is creating a traditionally laid our website for large PC monitor sizes as these are still the most popular. But as the size of the screen changes, so does the layout of the website in order that it becomes more suitable for the device that is viewing the web page.

This is now incorporated in all my new designs and I can offer conversion of your existing website for a very modest fee.

Do not wait to change your website to a responsive layout, for the time is now.

Those of you who know a little about search engine optimisation will quickly realise that what I am about to reveal is far from being a secret. However, in my experience there are enough people out there who do not realise this simple truth that I felt it important to broadcast it as loudly as possible.

The Secret is Here:

The secret is simple. If you want your website to appear on the search engines for "nifty widgets Nottingham" then you need to make sure that those words appear regularly in the natural text of your website throughout. So make sure that the phrase "nifty widgets Nottingham" appears in the title bar of your page, in headings and throughout the natural text.

What About Keyword Density?

No complicated mathematical calculations are required here. All you need to do is to ensure that the text you write reads sensibly to a human. Make your text relevant and readable to humans whilst mentioning "nifty widgets Nottingham" as much as you can and there is every chance Google will pick this up.

Stop Worrying About Obscure and Intricate Techniques

Search Engine Optimisation is not rocket science. Google constantly change their algorithms and calculations to try and bring the most relevant search results to their users. So if you try and beat them at heir own game, you will ultimately lose the battle. However, if you play along and try and make your website the most useful resource on information about "nifty widgets in Nottingham", you stand an excellent chance of appearing on page 1.

For the past eight months I have been living and working next to a building site. When I first heard that the old school property behind my premises that lies between Duke Street and Vine Terrace was going to be renovated I was rather worried. Months of noisy dirty building work would be bound to impinge on my daily life in a property where I both work and live.

I am happy to say that my fears were unfounded. There were very few days when the work was so noisy that it was any sort of inconvenience and the builders never arrived earlier than 7:30 in the morning so my sleep was never interrupted.

Do You Build or Just Move Dirt?

Watching the progress has been both interesting and puzzling. On the first day they demolished a small dilapidated building in the corner of the plot and the whole site transformed in appearance very quickly. But after that there seemed to be a daily procession of wagons that either brought in soil and rubble or took it away. Mounds of rubble and dirt were moved from one spot to the other giving the impression that this was the only work going on.

Behind the scenes however there was much happening. This crumbly old bulding was being transformed inside to create some modern clean office units for small businesses in Hucknall.

I think old buildings are great

As I live next door to the property I was privileged to be allowed a sneak preview of the inside now that work is almost finished. In a way, what you see are some rather standard office units but this being an old building they were able to leave some original brickwork inside giving the property some personality.

Amazingly, Ashfield District Council do not yet appear to be marketing the property but I can report that it is almost ready. The inside is finished, the car parking spaces are painted and the external lighting has been installed. The contractors are just tidying up now and I for one am looking forward to seeing some life in this once neglected building. Let us hope that this is a good omen for the end of the recession!

One of the delights of my work as a web designer in Nottingham is that my job is ever changing. When I started some years ago, I had a vision as to what services I would offer including those I would not offer. However, my clients had other ideas and I quickly adapted my plans to what my customers wanted.

So then I settled on the services I provided and quickly found that other web designers were leaving me behind.

I am sure it is true of any job in the IT industry and it is especially true of the web design business, the pace of change is extremely rapid.

What was acceptable in web design 6 months ago might not make the mark now. Development and capabilities of programming languages such as PHP, HTML and .NET are constantly being improved and added to.

Modern web browsers are becoming more and more capable and flexible at their implemention of HTML and JavaScript.

New developments come along such as Moo Tools, JQuery and now we have JQueryui!

Stop Quoting Jargon!

For those of you who do not understand these terms I was not intending to make this article boring for you but merely trying to get out the message that what Net Quality Web Design Nottingham can do for you today is so much more than we could have done for you even a few months ago.

We had two choices in this rapidly changing field. Either keep up or get left behind. Well not only have we kept up, we are thoroughly enjoying learning the new technology and it is my belief that we are leaving many other web designers behind.

Choose Net Quality Web Design For Modernity As Well As Quality

So you can rest assured that by leaving us to develop your website for you, you will be partaking in the latest the Internet has to offer, and it might just surprise you!

In these touch economic times with business pages full of tales of woe, the small business person is working and living in a very negative world at the moment. It is times like these that really successfull business people come to the fore.

Austerity For The Business Too?

As governments worldwide are using austerity measures in an effort to recover from the recession, many businesses are finding that they have to do the same. One of the first expenses to go is advertising. However, I believe this is the exact opposite of what you should be doing.

Now is the time to be selling, now is the time to be marketing. As more people chase fewer clients in most industries, it is the most positive and pro-active businesses who are going to come out of the other side of the recession as a stronger business.

The good news is that besides continuing advertising campaigns, I believe there are other things businesses can be doing to improve their business sales.

It's Not Just About Web Design Anymore

When I started designing websites in 1998, the only requirements for this type of job were technical. It was often enough for a business just to have a website to have a really positive effect on their business. It was a product in great demand and due to the lack of competition, a mere web presence was almost a guarantee of success.

However, times have moved on and what we provide today are Internet Packages that include much more than just a website.

Just a Website?

Hold on for one moment, the first thing we do is to design a website. A great looking website. AN effective website. A website that brings results. But that is not all.

We can give yu the benefit of our many years of experience, to show you how to integrate your great website with lots of other forms of electronic marketing. These often involve nominal one-off costs and in some cases are completely free.

The Deadly Web Marketing Package

When we bring all these things together for you we are producing a deadly business marketing package that can really help propel your business to meet its true sales potential.

Call us today for a no-obligation chat and we will show you what we can offer your business.

When I speak to people and they find out that my job is a web designer in Nottingham, one of the things I am frequently asked is how my business copes against the competition.

You could say this about any business but I do understand their curiosity. We charge from £195 to build a bespoke website for a customer but there are many websites that do this for free and many business owners with 15 year old nephews with a modicum of computer knowledge who can build one for them, also for free.

It seems crazy to be in a business with competitors such as these. So how is it that we continue to thrive in these tough economic times. The answer to this is very simple:

Stress Free Web Design

The fact is that most of our customers come to us having tried one or both of the above methods of web design. In the case of online free websites, they have taken up much valuable time from the small business owner and despite several frustrating hours sat in front of their computer screens, still can't get their website to do something simple.

Or they may have had the website designed by their teenage nephew or niece, the end result is something that looks sort of OK but takes an age to load and does nothing for the business in terms of marketing or brand building. It is as if they have ticked a box that says they have a website but it does absolutely nothing for them or their business.

Professional Web Design

If you come to Net Quality Web Design Nottingham you will be putting your business's website in the hands of professionals with many years experience in the web design business. We will have a strategy for you and help you build a website that actually does what you want it to and markets your business in the way that you want it to.

We can do this by taking some information form you and then structuring it in the right way based on our many years of experience.

In other words, we take away the headaches, the frustration and the time-wasting that are involved in getting web design done on the cheap. We provide you with a clear, structured and simple experience to ensure you can get your business online without any of these negative elements.

So call us today for a chat and we will let you know what we can do for your business.

I built my first website in 1998. In terms of the Internet, that was the dark ages. So much has changed since then.

In 1998, I was learning a skill that relatively few people knew. It required the monotonous writing of code as there was very little software to automate the task and it was therefore a skill that was in much demand. I took advantage of this skill by making full use of it with my then employer and then several years later when I struck out to start my own business as a website designer in Nottingham.

It was clear from the start that one important key element of being a web designer was to keep up with the latest trends. Even back in those days things were changing very fast and it made one breathless just to keep up with the pace of change.

I always did keep pace though and here I sit 14 years later and the pace continues unabated and I find myself learning new things every day.

There have been many changes over that time too numerous to mention but the aspect I wish to talk about today is the ease with which so many more people can design a website.

Back in 1998 there was just a small percentage of the population who had the skill to do so but nowadays with the advent of software both online and offline, anyone with a modicum of computer ability can set up their own website in minutes. And depending on which service you choose, the results can be surprisingly stylish.

So how does a web designer continue to succeed?

In my text above I make it sound like the job I do has become superfluous. This is almost true. To be accurate, the job I used to do has become superfluous. The very fact that I understand how to write HTML is no longer a selling point because almost anyone can use an automated service that does this for them. What I can do is to bring my many years of experience in building websites and finding out what works and what does not work for all kinds of websites to the table.

That means, when I create a website for businesses in Nottingham I am not just writing code for my customers, I am building a whole strategy to help them grow their business and their brand by creating an online presence that works for their individual needs. Much thought needs to go into the layout and design, the technology on which to run the website and also how best to lay out all the information to ensure your message is put across to the customer in a way that encourages them to interact with your business.

So the work of a web designer now incorporates their artistic skills, marketing skills, psychology skills and yes even their IT skills to ensure that your business has not only a website but a website that achieves something for your business and helps your business to grow.

We live in a marvellous world full of magic and surprises, and it is even more so when viewed through the eyes of my 8 year old son, however it is not an ideal world, and there are negative aspects and unprofessional people as well. One such negative aspect manifested itself earlier this week in a scam which I would like to share.

I am a professional web designer in Nottingham. I work for a firm that provides high quality business websites for small and medium sized businesses. We know how to get on the first page of Google, and our own business website is constantly high up in the search engine results pages.

This is great as it brings in many new customers who have discovered our web design services from searching on the Internet. These are real people wanting to know how to get a great business website design. The other side of the coin is not so great as it means that scrupulous, unprofessional, scammers can also find us.

Earlier this week, I received an email requesting a quote for an e-commerce online shop. The email seemed a little “impersonal” but this happens fairly often as people like to shop around and send the same email to a variety of web site designers.

The brief corresponded exactly to our fantastic online shop starter offer, and so I replied outlining the unique selling points of this e-commerce web design (a bespoke, hand-crafted, design so that his online shop would be optimised for Google and the look and feel would truly represent his business; free FaceBook and Twitter integration so his customers could easily create a “buzz” around his e-commerce business; a personalised back office Content Management System offering the easiest interface to manage his online shop website articles...) and all this for only £1,195.

It was a professional reply explaining our professional e-commerce web design offering.

A few days later, a cheque arrived in the post for £2,000. This was accompanied with a letter explaining that he wanted us to go ahead with the development of his e-commerce web design and that we should cash the cheque as payment. If there was any remainder, he requested the balance to be sent to his bank account.

I checked and I had included our standard price of £1,195 when I had replied to him, so obviously there was a balance to return of £805. However something did not feel right about all this.

I did some investigation on the Internet, and found the details of this scam. The cheque for £2,000 would bounce when paid into our company bank account. We would never get that money. Even worse, we would be charged penalty fees for this bounced cheque. And even worse, if we had sent the balance of £805 to his bank account, that money would be lost as well. All this for a scam to try and obtain money from us illegally.

Luckily the feeling that something was not right had appeared. Our Nottingham Web Design agency did not lose any money over this, but we might have done. Fortunately not everyone out there is dishonest and trying to scam people - the majority of the people I have met are genuine, entrepreneurs, from all sizes of businesses, both big and small. It is really magical to work with them and to see how our web design skills can help grow their business. However my word of warning is to keep your eyes open for anything that doesn’t quite feel right - if your gut feeling tells you there is something wrong, there probably is... 

Anybody's website can be hacked. Everyone from small personal website owners to the US government have suffered from this crime. So nobody is immune. However, there are some basics which you can do to ensure that if it does happen, not much damage can be done.

Recently, it was discovered that somebody had managed to get hold of about 6.5 million passwords from Linkedin. That isn't quite as bad as it sounds as it was only a list of encrypted passwords. So that's OK isn't it?

Well no it most certainly is not alright. What was most astonishing to me was that the passwords were single pass encrypted without a salt.

What is single pass encryption and what is a salt?

Sorry about that. It is hard to write such an article as this without being too technical. For some time now it has been considered common sense that when storing passwords in a database, they should be encrypted. That way, if a hacker does get hold of a database, they will not be able to read the passwords stored in it. Encryption works by applying mathematic formulae to the password in such a way as to produce a string of characters that can only be reached by applying the same formulae to the same password. It is not possible to apply the same formulae to the encrypted password to go into reverse and find out what the password is. This is known as one-way encryption.

Not only that, but the formulae work in such a way that if you were to just change one character of the password, the resulting encrypted password would look completely different.

That sounds enough doesn't it? Well no it is by no means enough. Hackers keep what are known as Rainbow tables. That is a list of common passwords along with the encrypted version of that password. Therefore, if your password is on this common list, a version of your password probably exists on one of these tables.

In the case of Linkedin, this is all that they did. They encrypted passwords just once with a common method of encryption for which many rainbow tables exist. This is astonishing for a company of this size.

Multi-pass encryption and salting

So the next stage of security with passwords is multi-pass encryption. For example, imagine if you encrypted the already encrypted password. Not only does this mean that you would have a version that is not on a rainbow table, you will have doubled the time it takes to check an encrypted password. This is a great idea and with the advent of fast computer processing power it makes sense to encrypt a password 100 or even 1000 times to increase security.

But security doesn't stop there. If you do this then you may have two users on the system with the same password. You cannot tell what that password is but you can tell that it is the same. To avoid this security hole you use something known as a salt. That is a set of random characters that you concatenate onto the password before you encrypt it. You store the salt with the password. This ensures that the encrypted passwords for users are always unique and this would be the case even if everyone had precisely the same password.

At Net Quality we use 512 bit multi-pass encryption of passwords along with 512 bit salts to ensure that all stored passwords are completely protected. In other words, our stored passwords are several million times more secure than Linkedin's password database.

You are the ultimate guardian of security

No matter how well companies like us encrypt stored passwords, any system is only as safe as the passwords entered by the users. So passwords such as pass, 123456, letmein and mypass are so popular as to be almost pointless. So make sure that your password is as long as possible with as many combinations of letters, numbers and symbols as possible whilst remaining memorable. That way, you greatly reduce the chances of having your accounts hacked.

On 26 May 2012 a new law was passed governing use of cookies on websites.

In summary, the website owner must gain permission from the visitor to their website if their website uses cookies. In order to help explain the new law, we have created this video which explains the new law in just 60 seconds:

Here is a transcript of the audio breaken down into bullet points to direct you to the salient points of the law:

• On 26 May 2012 a new cookie law came into force in the UK.
• Over 90% of websites in the UK use cookies
• A large proportion of those websites are now breaking the law.
• Cookies are small text files stored on your computer which allow websites to retrieve information about your previous visits.
• The law states that the website owner must have the user's permission to store cookies.
• Permission can be implied, but this is not a reason to do nothing.
• Only "Strictly necessary" cookies are exempt. For example, cookies must be used when adding items to a shopping cart.
• So what must you do?
• If your website uses cookies you must explain what cookies you use and what information they store.
• You must also allow the user to opt out of any cookes that are not "strictly necessary".
• It is therefore wise to display a prominent message the first time somebody visits your website to gain their consent.
• Doing nothing is not an option unless your site does not use cookies.

If you would like to know about how your website uses cookies and what can be done, then please contact us today to see how we can help you.

If you would like to know more about the specifics of the law then please visit the ICO website here.

As a self-employed web designer in Nottingham I always find business programmes on the TV interesting. It is natural that when one is in business, one finds the subject of other people in business interesting.

As such, I have always been a fan of the BBC programme, The Apprentice where Alan Sugar selects a winner from a group of people who undertake all sorts of  business related tasks. The most interesting for me are those where they create profit from very little start-up costs such as the exercise where they went to a warehouse and sold what they could find on the market.

Many business lessons are there not just for the candidates but also for us the viewers. It shows that you can succeed even when you make mistakes. In fact, I would go further and say that in order to succeed, you must be prepared to make mistakes.

The only person who makes no mistakes is the person who does nothing.

Last year's bad choice

I was bitterly disappointed with the result of last year's Apprentice programme (2011). After weeks and weeks of tasks, the weakest candidate won. He lost more tasks than anyone else, he was taken into the board room more than anyone else, his business plan was by far the worst and yet he still won.

Why?

The reason he won was that he had already developed a successful product (a hairdressing tool as I recall) and Lord Sugar seemed most interested in this than anything else. He suggested the planned new product was put on the "back-burner" and instead they developed his already successful invention.

The truth is, that is all that Lord Sugar was interested in. I don't blame him. It is much easier to earn money with something that is both unique and has a proven track record. My objection was to the fact that all the previous episodes in the Apprentice amounted to nothing. The most cynical of you might suggest that Lord Sugar had his eye on this all along.

This year's good choice

This year, the candidate who won had a business plan that impressed some very impressive people. He wanted to set up a specialised recruitment agency for the scientific business community. He was a credible business-man with a very credible idea and when put against the other business plans, his made the most sense.

So all the tasks in the previous episodes led up to this result which is far more satisfying than what happened last year.

Time and again this question comes up. We all want a bargain and certainly none of us wants to pay over the odds for anything, whether it is for a cup of tea, a barbecue or a small business website. However there are two things that need to be born in mind:

• There will ALWAYS be someone who will provide the service for a cheaper price.
• There will ALWAYS be someone who will provide the service for a more expensive price.

The answer, as expressed in the article How Much Should I Pay For My Website, is likened to the question “How long is a piece of string?” It then narrows down the question and suggests some ways of how to fix a budget for a website and how to chose a web designer for a business website design.

As a Nottingham Web Designer, I am proud of my work - I design great quality websites at great value prices. In addition, I love the varied aspects of my role, which frequently includes providing a quote for a new business website. This is where I get to talk to potential additional clients, and try and understand their individual business needs, before moving on to determining the cost of their Business Website. In this article, I would like to share some of the scenarios that I experience repeatedly during the estimation of how much a Business Website design will cost.

1) I have lots of friends in the business and I will bring in additional clients for you

It still surprises me how often I hear this phrase, or variations on it. I started designing business websites for small and medium companies over 10 years ago, and I have never had a client introduce more than one additional customer.

At first, I used to consider this offer very carefully, and in some early cases even reduced my prices to offer a low price web design. However over the years my experience has shown this to be non-profitable for both me and for the customer.

It is non-profitable for me as none of those who made this claim ever brought in additional clients. It is true that existing customers have talked about their satisfied experience and acted as ambassadors for our web design agency, however none of them ever promised they would or tried to use this as leverage to get discounted prices. They did this purely because they were impressed with the fantastic service we offered.

It is non-profitable for the customer as on every occasion when I did accept to offer discounted web design prices, I was annoyed with myself. Of course I always completed the websites professionally and gave the customer what we had agreed however I found myself less implicated in the project and less likely to go the extra mile.

To sum up, I find the ones who claim the most, do the least. Any reduction in price is therefore an automatic loss to my business, and I have stopped being influenced by this phrase as a factor in determining how much a business website costs.

2) My business venture will succeed massively and I want you to share a percentage

On the surface, this sounds great. In some cases, it may even be a smart move to accept. You will become a full business partner and share in the wealth generated by the business venture. In my experience however, very few start-up business ventures can provide the necessary income to satisfy both the original entrepreneur and yourself.

The majority of the clients we have helped through our Nottingham Web Design agency, whether by providing a full e-commerce website solution or by creating a simple, fast-track, on-line presence website, are still in business. However they have not made enough wealth to justify any claims of “succeeding massively”.

Again, in the early days of my web design career, I considered such offers and wandered if I had made the right choice in turning them down. However I no longer consider such offers as an opportunity, and these proposals have stopped having an impact on how much a business website should cost.

3) I’m just starting out and I don’t have a budget for my business website

A business website is essential for any modern business. It adds presence to any business organization and reassures potential customers that the business is serious. As such, it is essential there is a budget for it in any serious business plan.

Over the years I have come to realise that the people who claim they do not have a budget are those who tend to be not completely committed to their project. When Net Quality Web Design started to design business websites in Nottingham, we did not have a big budget. I therefore sympathise completely and totally understand that money can be tight at the start of any business venture.

Once again I would be moved by such pleas in the early days, and consider whether I could offer a cheap website design, however I soon came to realise that what I was offering was a great value website design, and that those who could not afford it were probably not going to be in their business for long. Like the other 2 points above, this request soon lost its appeal when I determine how much a business website should cost.

Concluding thoughts on how much does a business website cost

Everyone’s opinion is different. As stated at the top of this article, there will always be someone willing to provide a cheaper alternative, and there will always be someone hoping to provide a more expensive version.

The three above scenarios above have stopped having an impact for me as factors on how much a business website costs. There must therefore be other factors. For me, the most important one is the time required to create the website. As a reality check, if a website takes 2 days to create, then at £10 per hour, this equates to £160. However, as a professional web designer in Nottingham, I cannot afford to continue business on £10 per hour. Any potential businessman or client who expects a quality website for this price is one who is not serious.

Every potential small business website is therefore studied independently. As a guideline, we at Net Quality Web Design proudly display our small business website prices however we are always available to discuss any specific or bespoke requirements as we know that each business is unique, and that your business venture is specific to you.

Why not look through our small business website portfolio page and see what we have already accomplished - we then look forward to hearing from you to discuss exactly how much your unique business website will cost...

We are based in Hucknall Nottingham just a few short miles from the town of Kimberley. We have served Kimberley businesses since our inception because of our proximity with the town.

We once hosted the website for Kimberley Town Council offering them their first opportunity for a content managed website. We currently build and maintain several websites for businesses in Kimberley and the surrounding areas.

Kimberley is based in the Broxtowe ward of Nottingham and has a population of approximately 7000 people. Small businesses have always flourished in this area for many reasons, one of which is its proximity to junction 26 of the M1. This makes the area of Kimberley and Watnall very accessible giving local businesses a distinct advantage.

As we are so close by we can call and see you to talk through how we could help your business and its web design needs. Call us today for a free no obligation consultation from your local web designers.

There are so many ways these days in which you can design your website. I want to talk today about two fundamental approaches to web design. That is bespoke web design and the use of website templates.

What is a Website Template?

In order to speed up the web design process, many companies use what is known as a template. This means that the layout, structure, colours and overall design are already created in a format where you can simply drop in your company information. The advantages of this method is that it usually works out (and should work out) as a much cheaper way of having a website designed for your business.

It also means that the quality of design can be much higher than one would expect for the price that you pay as the original designer is being rewarded by many people buying their design instead of just one.

The disadvantages are that there is a possibility that the structure is too rigid and could mean that you have to compromise in some of your requirements for the website. The other potential problem is that there could be hundreds of websites that now look very similar or absolutely identical to your website.

This is unlikely to affect you unless a local competitor decides to buy the same website template as you, purely by conicidence.

What is bespoke web design?

This is the way in which we at Net Quality Web Design Nottingham create websites for our customers. We start off with a blank screen and work with you to decide how the website will look and function. The choices are unlimited because we are starting from scratch and it means that you will never have to compromise on your requirements.

Fortunately, we can do this in a way that keeps web design as affordable. At the time of writing a bespoke website can be designed from us for as low as £395.00.

That is the principle on which Net Quality Web Design Nottingham was created. We create flexible, effective and unique websites for all of our customers at an affordable price.

So which is best?

We believe that the prices for which we offer web design, we have taken out the need to go to off-the-shelf website templates because we have made individual bespoke web design something which is affordable.

Net Quality Web Design is based in Hucknall, Nottingham in the East Midlands. The business was started by two business colleagues, James Davies and Ian Rankin who both come from the IT industry and have been designing websites since the 1990s.

They worked together in Paris for some years before coming back home to the East Midlands. It was then that we decided to work for ourselves rather than for someone else. We had a vision to help East Midlands Business get online with a stylish website that would not cost the earth.

Web Design is Important

Every business needs to market itself. No matter how successful you are, your business is always at risk of losing income rapidly. Therefore we all need to keep pushing in order to succeed.

Your website is an important and vital part of this. It is often the place where first impressions are formed, and we all know how important they are.

Come to Us For Your East Midlands Website

We are based in Nottinghamshire and also travel to Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Lincolnshire to serve all businesses in the East Midlands. So contact us today to see how we can help your business and its website.

We are based in Hucknall, just 20 minutes from the city of Derby. Since we started designing websites in 2005, we have created many websites for businesses in Derby itself as well as surrounding towns in Derbyshire.

As Hucknall is situated close to Nottinghamshire's border with Derbyshire, we are well placed to serve businesses in that community.

We are here to help the owners and managers of small to medium businesses in the Derby area. As it is a short journey away we are more than happy to call and see you to go through your website requirements in a no-obligation meeting. We can offer advice and help in the planning of your website and can show you what we can offer in terms of designing the overall look of the site as well as demonstrate our extensive capabilities in the functions.

Database Driven Websites Derby

Our specialisation is database driven websites. That means we can create e-commerce websites that are easy to update yourself and even more, we can design bespoke websites to your exact requirements. Perhaps you need an online booking system or appointment system or you want to send invoices from your website.

Whatever the requirement, we are sure that Net Quality Web Design can help you. Please contact us today for a free no obligation meeting at your business premises in Derby.

Those of us who run our own businesses are constantly thinking of ways of improving business. This generally means getting more customers and getting more custom from existing customers. Nowadays, one key way of doing this is by making full use of your business's website but so few businesses put much thought into it.

It looks good and you have put down the things you want your customers to know and then you leave it for maybe a few weeks but in many cases for several years.

So the time to update your business website is right now. In order to help you, here are three ideas (actually, it is one great idea with three applications) that will help you get started today.

1. Decide Your Target Audience

When I ask customers this question the most common answer I hear is "everybody".  If you design your website and its content in this way then it is doomed to failure.

To illustrate this, think about the business you are running now. What is your business? Chances are, you sell a range of products or services that are somehow connected. Starting a business that will do anything or sell anything for anybody would be plain silly. In order to distinguish yourself from the competition you need a unique selling point and the only way to have this is for your product(s) and/or service(s) to be specialised.

So if you do this for your business in general, why would you want your website to be all things to all men?

So go back to the original idea and decide exactly who you have in mind. Split pages to suit different categories of people within that definition. For example, have pages that cater for existing customers and other web pages that cater for new customers.

Once you know who your target audience is, your content will flow from this idea in a way that is useful for your intended audience.

2. Optimise keywords for the search engines

So you want your website to appear on page one of Google. For what keywords (or key phrases) do you want to appear on page 1? Your may easily come up with 20 or 30 phrases which you feel are all important. But to do so would be unwise. In order to optimise your website for so many different phrases, you would be watering down the strength of the phrases for which you optimise.

Think of one overall important phrase followed by one or two others and optimise for them. Ask your customers what they would search for on Google to find our which are the most important.

Remember, it is better to be on page one for one phrase than be on page 33 for 20 phrases!

3. Prioritise Your Information

Priorities are difficult things to set, especially when you are in business for yourself. I used to have a customer who would give me several jobs to do for him. I would then ask which was the most important. "They all are" he would reply. I would then say "fine, I understand but as I can only do one job at a time, which one should I start first?". Unsurprisingly he would reply "I want them all done now".

His reaction although understandable was not pragmatic. And so it is for your website. You may want to show twenty banners on your website's home page proclaiming all the marvelous things your business has to offer. However, shouting out twenty things at the same time means that your customers will hear none of your messages.

So prioritise your messages. That way, the most important messages will be heard. Remember, it is better that they hear one important message than to turn away from you because you are bombarding them with 20 messages.

Net Quality was established in Hucknall in 2006 to offer the creation of excellent websites for businesses in Hucknall, in Nottingham and beyond. Since that time, we have overseen the creation of many websites, the upgrading of many more websites as well as the creation and growth of many small to medium  size businesses.

What excites us is that when you create a website for a company, you become a tangible part of that company's success. You make a real contribution to that company's marketing, branding and how they are perceived by their customers.

Mining for Customers in Hucknall

Hucknall was historically a mining town. Its coal pit was very close to the town centre and provided direct employment for many of its residents with indirect employment for local businesses as a result. So Hucknall has a long tradition of hard work and commerce.

That is why I think Hucknall continues to be a success to this day. Losing the mine in the 1980s could have completely destroyed the local economy of Hucknall but to this day it continues to be a success.

Sure, some of the retail units on the High Street are now empty. But compare that to many other British Towns and you will soon realise that the ratio of closed premises is actually quite low.

I think it is this combination of hard work and enterprise that has always been so much a part of the people of Hucknall that it continues to be successful against enormous odds.

For this reason, Net Quality Web Design are proud to be based in Hucknall which has such a vibrant commercial community.

Hucknall Business - A Confident Future

We also believe that we are well placed to benefit from the continued success and expansion in Hucknall. We are situated next door to the new Byron Business Centre which will soon house several local businesses. Another sign that enterprise and commerce are not only alive and well but positively thriving in this town.

We all have them every now and then - bad days!

These can be caused by many different reasons, nearly all of which are outside our control. However there is almost always something that can be done to temper these days, and to give any negative feelings a more positive shine.

One example is what I am going through at the moment in writing this article. For the first time in many years I have a headache and I also have a deadline to meet - that of finishing this article. 10 minutes ago I was sorely tempted to turn off my PC and explain that I was feeling too groggy to work, or to lie and say I had forgotten about writing the article, or even worse, to make up a story about how I have to rush off home now and therefore put off the task until tomorrow.

However, I also know the joy I get when completing a task (whether it is writing an article like this; visiting a client for our Nottingham based web design agency to discuss his organisation’s needs; or completing a Web Design for a small business and hearing that he is overjoyed with the website)

I therefore decided to slog on and fight to produce something. It is true that the subject of this article is not as in-depth as a technical review of the Search Engine Optimisation of a Business Website or an analysis of what constitutes An Ideal Landing Page from Google Ad-Words, but it is something that I believe in and that I can relate to.

Already I am feeling better just by working away on these words and not sitting feeling sorry for myself. Also, as I get closer to the finish line, I can almost feel the excitement swell inside.

So, whenever you are faced with a bad day full of tasks that you really cannot cope with, just try and do a little and see how it goes. Usually you will be amazed by how much less the actual work involved is compared to the amount imagined before starting. The added bonus is the feeling of achievement will be even greater when the task is complete...

A few years ago I was watching a documentary about business. Ever since I struck out on my own several years ago, I have become addicted to programmes on the TV such as Dragons' Den, The Apprentice and Undercover Boss. I cannot remember the name of this documentary but I can remember it was about Brits who try and succeed in business abroad.

This particular episode concerned itself with a family man who wanted to set up a large Indian restaurant in a Spanish holiday resort popular with British people. He had borrowed huge sums of money from the bank and also from family friends. He had not planned his costs very well and the money quickly started to run out.

At one point, the builders downed tools on the job because he had not been able to pay the bills. Undeterred, the intrepid entrepreneur set about tapping more family friends for money and then committed what I consider to be the greatest sin of all, he started to borrow cash using his credit cards.

All in all, he owed some £60,000 to banks, friends and the credit card companies.

Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged

All along I criticised almost every decision this guy made. The business he was setting up was hardly unique and he had risked everything in order to achieve his goals. He was also a family man with a wife and children to support which made his risk-taking seem all the more foolhardy.

I should not have judged him but judge him I did. How could he be so stupid? Can he not see that his lack of planning, poor choice of business and reckless borrowing were just going to cause heartache for him and his family?

The documentary then skipped the next six months and revisited him to see how things were going. I was fully expecting of course that he would be back in dear old Blighty working as an employee somewhere trying hard to pay back his debts. I could not have been more wrong!

Not only was his business an astonishing success, he had also paid back his debts. Let me just clarify that last point. He had paid back every single penny he had borrowed and accrued in interest to the banks, friends and credit card companies and was now able to enjoy the profits of the business with his family.

Don't Listen to Knockers

Now now, no sniggering at the back! What I am referring to here is that when you start in business, there will always be people who try and knock back your dreams and ideas. They will always look at the down side to everything you do, just like I did when I saw this guy starting his business. You see, I had missed three important points:

1. Yes, it wasn't a unique business idea but it was one he clearly knew well. He obviously knew how to run a successful Indian restaurant so his idea was always going to work as long as he completed it.
2. I know nothing about restaurants so how could I judge whether or not this would work?
3. He kept going when most of us would have given up.

The lesson I take from this is to be more reluctant to knock other people's ideas when my knowledge is lacking in their domain. As the documentary ended I was greatly impressed by this person's dogged determination to succeed and this is what separates successful business-people from the rest of the world.

So if you are following your dream then as long as you know your business niche well, just keep trying and working hard until your dreams come true and ignore the knockers who try to stumble you on your way. Good luck!

I started designing websites for Nottingham businesses as early as 2000. As web design was a brand new business, the cost of a website varied wildly. My dream was to start a web design company that could offer the creation of a website for small to medium enterprises at an affordable price whilst still offering unique and stylish designs.

As there were few web designers at the time, our prices were clearly amongst the lowest you could possibly find in Nottingham (some web design agencies were charging outrageous prices).

However, now the market has matured and the choice for web design for small businesses is simply staggering. There are still the large companies with swanky offices in trendy spots in the city who will charge several thousand pounds for even the most basic of websites right down to open source solutions such as Wordpress that make it easy to design your own website for free.

So let us say you want a website with about 30 basic pages of information and a blog allowing you to keep content fresh and up-to-date. You should set a budget of anywhere between zero and £15,000. We're not exactly narrowing this down are we?

So how much should I pay for a website?

Well we can narrow this down a bit further. Let us first of all deal with the free and low-cost options. The truth is that they are never free or low-cost. Even though the tools created for them make web design much easier for the lay-person, you are still going to have to spend a lot if time creating your website and getting the look and the content right.

I would estimate that you need to set aside several days at least. If you haven't got much work on at the moment then that might be OK. But calculate how much you could have earned doing what you do best when spending time creating the website.

Now you know the true cost of a DIY website, you will have a clear idea what your budget might be if you choose a professional web designer. Now the task becomes more difficult because some will promise you the earth for £99 and others will send round a slick sales-person who tries and persuades you to part with several thousand pounds (someone has to pay for those swanky offices). This is where your own intuition comes in:

Check out their portfolio

Any web designer worth their salt will have a portfolio of real websites they have created for other customers. This is where the proof is as to how good they really are. Choose the web designer who is designing the type of websites closest to what you want for your business and if their price is within the budget you have calculated then you have chosen well.

If you choose us to be your web designer, the chances are that our prices will be a fraction of your maximum budget!

Earlier this week I was visiting a client for a new Nottingham website design and the meeting went on much longer than I had planned - the Small Business Website design that he requires is more complex and more interesting than I had at first imagined from his original briefing. I was happy to put in the extra time as through experience time spent at this stage of the website design project will save time later during the creation tasks. However, when I left his premises, I was famished.

I spotted a fish and chip shop nearby and decided to treat myself to a portion of chips. When I asked how much they were, I was shown a plastic container and was told this would be £1.50. Immediately after, and with the grace and agility of a master magician, a second plastic container appeared in his hand and I was told this would be £2.00.

Let's look at the mastery of this marketing approach:

Seeing the two sized portions next to each other made comparison a doddle. There was no contest, nothing hidden, and no lengthy decision time needed to reach the conclusion - the second container was twice as big as the first one.

Having compared the size, the prices had to be compared to ensure the best value for money. Again the task was made fantastically easy by the carefully chosen figures. I made two calculations - the first was to work out the difference in price (i.e. £2.00 - £1.50) and the second was to check it really was a good deal, by calculating the cost of two smaller containers (i.e. 2 * £1.50) Both calculations served to reach the conclusion - the £2.00 container was definitely the best value for money.

Not all businesses will allow for this kind of marketing, where competing products in your small business can be compared. However if they can, then make the comparisons easy in order to offer the best experience to your clients - if they are put at their ease and find the process simple, they will be much more likely to become a customer.

P.S. In the end I chose the £2.00 container which was of course the goal of the fish and chip shop owner, however from the manner which the two containers were presented, I felt I did not really have a choice - it was the only choice!

We have already published some articles regarding browser behavior and browser choice: Which is the best browser to use on my PC? and Website Browser Compatibility. In this article I would like to share another browser story, make a confession as to how I was less than 100% professional today, and explain how we approach this situation here at Nottingham Web Design.

This morning I was putting the finishing touches to a proposition for a new Internet site. This was a little more complicated than some as it is completely managed by the client via a Content Management System design (CMS) however this additional complexity makes the website creation more interesting.

Using a CMS means that the number and length of the menu items is not known, and the number and length of the sub-menus is not known - the beauty of a CMS is that they can be amended from wherever you want, whenever you want, and as often as you want. The menu must therefore be completely flexible, and the website design must be created to cope with this. See just two examples of a menu structure that the web design is required to cater for:

First Example has 7 menu options with the second containing a drop down menu:

Second Example has only 4 menu options with the fourth containing a drop down menu:

I had finalised the web design and I was excitedly about to call the Nottingham small business that had instructed us to produce their business website, when I asked a colleague to see what it looked like on his screen. He did so, and it looked great. He then stated that I had of course checked the appearance in the other browsers (I develop my business websites in Chrome whereas his browser of choice is Opera). To my shame I had to reply that I had not yet performed this vital step.

Of course I knew that just prior to releasing work for client inspection, our procedures state to check in all the major browsers and screen sizes, however I was so excited at completing the web design I overlooked this step. Caught out (luckily) by my colleague, we inspected the website in the major browsers and to my horror the drop down menus did not appear for one of the browsers.

This is however the fantastic thing of working within a team and with well defined procedures - each member complements the other and each member knows every step our business follows. I had been less than 100% professional, but was compensated by my colleague being more than 100% professional and inquiring if I had followed the procedures.

Our procedures are there for a reason - I have no idea which browser the business who had come to use for his website design uses, and I have no idea which combinations of browsers the visitors to his finished site will be using. Therefore all business website designs from Net Quality Nottingham are created to work in all browsers, and checked that they do so.

Since I had spent so much time on the website, my colleague offered to find the source of the missing drop down menus and I enthusiastically agreed (I was actually still berating myself for not having followed the standards I had helped put in place). After a short time, he found the problem, fixed it, and we both sat down and checked the design again in all the major browsers…this time it looked great in every combination.

I contacted the client and he was over the moon - the website looked and worked just like he had imagined. It has now joined the many small and medium business websites from our Nottingham Web Design Net Quality that just work! And that just work in all browsers…

I was reading on the BBC website today that the UK has officially entered into a "double-dip" recession. It seems that ever since 2008 all we read is doom and gloom about the economy. It is easy to become disheartened whether you are an employee or a small business owner when being completely bombarded by such depressing news.

I also watched a programme on TV the other evening about the 1970s. It was fascinating for me to watch as this was the decade in which I grew up. The years on which it focussed were 1973 and 1974 which was also a time of economic gloom. Petrol prices were rising to previously unimaginable levels. Every time you went to the supermarket, prices seemed to have gone up yet again.

The similarities with the situation in which we find ourselves today were remarkable. People's worries and concerns were exactly the same. Not only that, there was a general election that ended up with a coalition government (albeit for a much shorter period).

What this teaches us is that the economic gloom and doom we are experiencing right now is nothing new. Sure, there are some differences but when it comes down to it, a capitalist economy has always gone through and probably always will go through boom and bust. It is the nature of the beast.

Big business got us into this but small business will get us out

The latest crisis was caused by many factors but one of the main undeniable causes was big business, especially the banks. One of the reasons I decided to set up my own small business in Nottingham was that I was tired of working for a large corporation where decisions that were taken were inexplicable at best and downright stupid at worst. At least with my own small business I could make all the decisions, most of which I hope have been very sensible.

Large corporations will always be run by people whose speciality is building a career and protecting their own interests rather than someone who is genuinely interested in making the business succeed. Yes there will be exceptions but in the main, this is true.

However, small businesses must make smart decisions or they will fail and fail quickly. It is for this reason that I believe that small businesses will be the ones who lead us out of this recession. They are the largest employers in the UK and they are small enough to innovate thus providing more and better employment which generates capital which flows through the larger economy.

The banks and the large corporations will naturally benefit from this. So if you are a small business owner in Nottingham or anywhere else in the UK, stand tall and remember that it is people like you, who will make the economic news look much brighter in the very near future.

Facebook is used by many businesses in order to promote their brands and as an online marketing tool. A recent overhaul by Facebook is the adoption of a Timeline look and feel. Mark Zuckerberg described Timeline as letting you 'tell the whole story of your life on a single page'.

If your business is using Facebook, you will need to adapt your pages to the new format. Here are 5 great tips and ideas in order to capitalise on your Facebook presence and to maximise the probability that your clients and visitors will stay interested.

1. Cover image

There is a new and very wide space at the top of the home page. It stretches across the full Facebook timeline page width and this will be one of the first things that people see when they arrive on your Facebook page. It is a great opportunity to find and proudly display a unique image to your business organisation and your brand.

Your photo which will be displayed follows a banner format and is roughly 1:2.7 (it is 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels high). This leaves lots of room for creativity and do not be afraid to experiment and try different photos. Two words of caution though:

• Even though only the banner format 1:2.7 is shown on the Facebook page, the whole image is available for viewing by clicking on it. Therefore, ensure there is nothing unprofessional which is out of sight on the “banner” page which can be accessed from viewing the “complete” image.

• Every cover photo is saved and placed in a special Facebook photo folder called “covers”. These are then available for viewing by your visitors so once you have decided on the ideal image for your business, delete any of the images which show your brand in a less than optimum light.

You still have a profile picture which is displayed as a square overlapping the bottom left area of your cover image. This is what will be displayed all over Facebook when you comment or post on other people’s accounts.

There are some basic rules which your image must follow – Facebook insist your cover image does not contain:

• Price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it at our website”

• Contact information, such as web address, email, mailing address or other information intended for your Page’s About section

• References to user interface elements, such as Like or Share, or any other Facebook site features

• Calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends”

2. Customise your tabs

Immediately after the cover image and profile picture are 4 tabs. In fact, there are more, but only the first 4 are shown with the rest being accessed by the drop down arrow. These tabs replace the menu options on the left hand side of the old Facebook interface however they are much more prominent in the new Timeline look and feel.

You can rearrange and choose the order of these tabs in order to highlight the ones showing your business and brand in the best light. In addition, you can change the default image shown for most of them (the exceptions are ‘Photos’ and ‘Likes’ which cannot be customised).

3. Control your past

Even though all posts have always been available for viewing on the previous layout of Facebook, previous posts of six months or more were unlikely to be viewed by visitors to your page. The new Timeline look and feel makes past posts much more accessible.

Inspect and delete all posts which do not add value to your business or which are not portraying your brand in the most advantageous light.

4. Take advantage of the new Timeline functionality

If you only use 3 of the new Timeline functions, use the following:

Add your business milestones – for most business the oldest entry on the Timeline will be when they joined Facebook, however you should extend this to include any of your business milestones prior to this date. If you started your business prior to joining Facebook, add a new post at this date and set the post as an announcement with the status of ‘started’. Add more milestone entry posts to include any important dates in your business or to highlight any developments which can add value to your brand.

Make your best posts really stand out – when adding or editing any of your posts, you can opt to specify the full width of the Facebook page thus enabling the most important items to span both columns. If editing the post, hover over the item and click the star at the top right – this will toggle the “highlight” option. Highlighted posts offer a fantastic way to attract the attention of the visitors to the most important activities of your business and brand.

Keep the important news pinned to the top – to make sure your visitors see what the most important items relating to your business and brand, pin the post to the top of your page. If editing the post, hover over the item and click the pen to the right of the star described in how to make your best posts really stand out. A drop down list will be displayed and select “Pin to Top”. When you pin a post, it will stay at the top of your page for seven days and an orange flag will appear at the top right of the corner – this is a great way to highlight an important piece of content.

5. Get on-board and embrace the Facebook Timeline presence

In my opinion the introduction of the new Timeline look and feel is a continuing step in the Facebook strategy of getting the users more involved. They want Facebook to become more and more appealing in an effort to attract visitors and they expect the business owners to do the same with their individual brand pages.

The Timeline feature offers a chance to become more interactive and to paint your business in the colours of your choice. It does mean that if you want your business to stand out, you will have to become more actively implicated in the updates of your posts, but by using the Facebook Timeline more frequently and in an intelligent manner, a small increase in the effort can reap large rewards.  

I surf the Internet regularly to pick up the latest trends in web design, pick up tips and generally look for ideas to improve the websites of our customers. Today I came across this site. The 100 Best Websites.

My idea was that this has to be a source of great inspiration to me in temrs of the web design itself as well as great ideas on navigation, style and content. If you take a quick through the first few websites, there is a common factor which becomes immediately and obviously apparent. Content matters much more than style. In the case of sites like Cragslist, the content matters completely and the style, not at all.

It's All About the Content NOT The Style

Sites like Yahoo, Google and Amazon are either very simple in style or, in the case of Amazon at least, devoid of style. In the case of Yahoo, it is cluttered and messy. But their popularity is undeniable. Further down the list you have other sites such as CNN and London Books whose sites are quite stylish, but nothing to write home about.

The look of the sites although smart is very familiar and contains no surprises. If you did not know their brand names your first impression of these websites would be that they are unremarkable.

It is interesting to note that while a significant number of smaller businesses are competing with Flash and animated content and trying to stand out from the crowd, they are following a strategy that is employed by none or very few of the 100 most successful websites.

So am I trying to say that all that matters is content and we should all stop being worried about the look and colours on our website? Well no I am not and I will explain why.

It's All About the Content AND The Style

The big advantage these websites have is that they are created by brands which are already known and trusted (in the main). Small to Medium Enterprises need their websites to make them stand out from the crowd, especially in attracting new business. This reminds us that the websites we create are about content and style, neither of these elements should be ignored.

Getting the Style Right

I have said numerous times on here that people judge the overall look of a website within a split second of seeing it. And what you have to achieve with the style of your website is that when you glance at it there is an immediate and positive impression made by the viewer.

Getting the Content Right

But it does not matter how good your website looks if you have nothing to say once the person starts to read it. Make sure every page on your website loudly and clearly gets over the intended message. You also need to make sure that the navigation is easy to follow so people can find what it is that they are looking for. This is where following layout conventions becomes an essential part of your website. No matter how unique you want it to look, certain conventions must be followed so that it is easy to use.

Net Quality Web Design already have many customers in Mansfield Nottinghamshire and the surrounding area. We are local to Mansfield so can easily come over and see you to discuss your requirements for your business website.

Small to Medium Enterprise Web Design Mansfield

We specialise in offering great value for money web design for enterprises in the Mansfield area. Businesses of all sizes are welcome as we can be flexible enough to meet the requirements for everyone.

You Get the Website You Want With the Name You Want

Our philosophy is very simple. Give the customer what they want. No jargon, no fuss. The website is designed exactly as you want it. We don't use templates, we design your website from scratch. Imagine having a website with the name of yourbusiness.co.uk and full email facilities like info@yourbusiness.co.uk. You put forward a very professional image.

Net Quality Web Design - Very Good at Web Design

Net Quality has been around since 2005 and the desginers have been creating websites since the late 1990s. So you can rest assured that your Mansfield business is in good hands with us. We are a small business also so we know what you want.

Call us today on 0115 963 6589 or 0115 727 0345 today to see how we can help you.

I have now been self-employed and working as a Web Site Designer creating websites in Nottingham for over six years. There are advantages and there are disadvantages, but I have no regrets in taking my decision to strike out alone. One of the things I remember from my days as an employee, and which I found to be the most unfair, is the office work ethics.

I worked for a modern company, which prided itself on responding to their employees needs. This was shown by having a core set of working hours where all employees had to be present in the office, and then individuals could decide which hours to work to make up their full working day. The core set of hours were 10:00 to 16:00.

Everyone was on an 8 hour working day, so you could arrive at 7:00 and leave at 16:00 or arrive at 10:00 and leave at 19:00 (each example includes a 1 hour lunch break).

In theory this provided an equitable and flexible working system for all.

However, in practice the truth was completely different.

The only people who left at 16:00 tended to be mothers who left for the school run to pick up their children. When they started to pack up and leave, you could feel the glances and almost read the thoughts of “part-time worker”. Experienced high-up executives were seen as lowly part-time employees due to their abandoning the office mid-way through the afternoon!

People who left at 17:00 or 17:30 were seen as slacking off and as not pulling their weight. The fact that they may have been in the office from 7:00 and so had just finished a 9 hour day was rarely imagined.

 People who left at 18:30 or later were seen as dedicated and hard-workers. These were the people who the managers could rely on to get the job done and as such were those who received promotions. However the majority were arriving at the later end of the core working hours and so actually spent fewer hours in the office than their counter-parts who were being branded as less hard-working. Others had been less efficient during the day and so only started working when the office became quieter towards the end of the day, and were therefore forced to stay to finish their allotted tasks.

Unfortunately however, it was this perception that was king when I was working as an employee. I knew this and hence was one of those who left the office around 18:00 – the middle ground. On the rare occasions when I would leave earlier, I would not only work through my lunch hour in an effort to show how hard-working I was, I would also look for any excuse to send an email that night to ensure the time-stamp proved I was still working and pulling my weight.

Ridiculous behaviour, but this was how it was in my office…and this was one of the things I disliked the most from being an employee. It is obvious that the above approach to evaluating people is as nonsensical as evaluating a book based on the number of pages and not content, or as absurd as evaluating a song by the length of the recording and not the sound, however it went on year after year. It is a sad organisation where presence in the office is used as an indicator of an individual’s efficiency rather than the value offered by the individual’s work.

I cannot completely blame the organisation though. Even now as a delighted self-employed person building Websites for Small Businesses and designing Internet Sites in Nottingham, I fall into the same trap that I found so dissatisfying at my last job. Instead of stopping at 17:30 with the knowledge that I have performed 9 hours of first class work, I instinctively feel I am slacking off early and should continue until at least 18:00.

The conclusion...I would like to change...

(Note to self – continue to work efficiently on website design between 8:30 and 17:30 and then live! Evaluate the song based on the quality of sound and not the number of minutes playing time!)

Knowing all about web browsers, how they work and how people use them is an essential skill for a Nottingham web designer. Designers for other types of media only need to worry about how their design will look on the intended output such as a brochure or leaflet. The layout and look that a web designer comes up with must be tested against many different types of media. All the browsers used by the PC and Mac and these days all the additional browsers used by handheld devices. It is something which your web designer must get right and although it seems difficult, it is much easier these days than in the past.

I Hate Netscape Navigator!

In the early days of the Internet, two web browsers dominated the market. At first it was Netscape Navigator which was very quickly overtaken by Internet Explorer. I remember in those days I would design a website using Internet Explorer and then try it is Netscape Navigator and everything would look completely different. I had to design a website at least three times. Once for Internet Explorer, again for Netscape Navigator and thirdly I had to employ all sorts of hacks and tricks to get it to work equally well in both browsers.

Fortunately, with the advent of most browser creators wanting to follow the W3C's guidelines for HTML, their interpretation of design has converged in the main and as long as a web designer sticks to the main rules, compatibility across all modern web browsers is relatively straightforward.

But what it the right choice for you? Everyone has their own opinions on this so a straight answer is difficult to give. Here are my opinions on the most popular browsers based on my many years of experience as a Web Designer.

Internet Explorer

The popularity of Internet Explorer has, in my opinion, less to do with its merits as a web browser and more to do with the fact the most PCs come with it pre-installed. At the time of writing the latest version is 9 and I must say that this is far and away the best incarnation of this browser. If you have this version then I would say what you have is fine and there is not much to gain using other browsers. However, not everyone likes Microsoft so I will talk about the other browsers as well.

The only other thing I would say is that if you are still using WIndows XP (and many of you are) then you will get a much better experience in using another browser as you are limited to version 8 which misses out on many of the capabilities afforded by the the latest design standards.

Firefox

This browser was like a breath of fresh air when it came out. It used the latest standards and worked very well. It also was one of the first to use tabbed browsing which is much easier to manage than multiple windows.

If you have Windows XP it is much better than Internet Explorer version 8. However, in my opinion, the latest versions have become slow and bloated. So unless you make good use of one of the many available plug-ins, then I would not recommend this browser.

Chrome

Google introduced this as a direct competitor to Firefox and I must say it is one of my favourites. It is efficient, uses all the latest standards and it is also very fast. It takes full advantage of all modern design standards and can be used on your PC or your Mac. Highly recommended.

Safari

I do not have much experience of Macs so I do not want to offer strong opinions of this browser. Except to say it does follow modern web standards meaning you can take advantage of the best the Internet has to offer these days.

Opera

This was the first browser to use tabbed browsing and remains to this day the only true tabbed browser (it is possible to open new windows with all the other browsers). It has always been standards compliant so has always offered the user the chance to take advantage of all the latest features offered in modern web design.

It is also my browser of choice. It is fast efficient and I will say again, the only true tabbed browser.

The only downside is that not all web designers create sites that work in Opera. I use Google Chrome as a back-up when this is the case. But if your web designer creates a site for you that does not work in Opera it means he has done something wrong and it should be fixed.

Today is Tuesday 4^th April and the first day back after a long Easter weekend with many of us suffering from excessive chocolate consummation.

In keeping with the Easter theme, this article offers 5 Virtual Easter eggs to you…

What is a Virtual Easter Egg? And where do they originate from?

A virtual Easter egg is a hidden message, joke or feature, contained within a computer program, internet Website or video game. The phrase Easter egg is thought to have been invented by the home video game console manufacture Atari, after they were shown a secret message on their game Adventure. At that time, Atari did not credit any of its authors for their work. The creator of Adventure, Warren Robinett, included a hidden message in the game, which was pointed out to Atari. It displayed the words “Created by Warren Robinett” and it took up a full 5% of the storage space on the game cartridge. Upon seeing the message, Atari drew a parallel to the Easter egg hunt performed by children, where decorated eggs are hidden in various places for them to find, and to the Russian imperial family’s tradition of offering elaborate, egg-shaped, jeweled creations containing hidden surprises and the phrase “Virtual Easter Egg” was born.

My Top 5 Google Virtual Easter Eggs:

1. Google Gravity

On a Google homepage, enter “Google Gravity” as the search phrase and click “I’m feeling lucky”. The resulting page will redisplay the standard Google homepage, before the various elements collapse under the apparent strain of gravity. Not only can these individual elements be played with and thrown into the air by clicking and dragging, the search box is still operational. Type in any search term and hit the search button – the results will then appear and also fall down under the influence of gravity.

2. Barrel Roll

On a Google search page, enter “do a barrel roll” and click search. Watch and admire before the list of results is shown as usual.

3. Tilt

Search for “tilt” in a Google homepage. The results are shown as usual, but in a different manner. This is especially impressive on a high screen where the maximum number of results is displayed on one page.

4. Chuck Norris

On a Google homepage, enter “find chuck Norris” and click “I’m feeling lucky”.

5. Answer to Life

To end with, a nod to the late, great Douglas Adams – type “answer to life the universe and everything” and click the search button. 

So many of us have been talking about the credit crunch since it changed the economic landscape several years ago. But one thing which bothers me does not seem to have entered much in the discussions. My train of thought on this subject started many years before when I read the biography of Nick Leeson. Whatever you think of him, what happened at that bank was not entirely his fault. Sure, he got all the blame and it was certainly his own failings as an investor that caused the collapse of the bank in the first place. But I put more blame onto the bosses of that bank for being totally clueless about what was going on.

Nick Leeson got into difficulty with some of his investments and made it worse by hiding losses in the hope that by investing greater and greater sums, he could eventually cover all his losses. In order to do this he had to ask the head office of his bank to fund these larger investments. Hundreds of millions of pounds were involved. The bank sent this money to him unquestioningly believing him to be making profits.

If the bosses had even a slight clue about what the true state of their financial affairs was, they would not have allowed this to happen. But the truth is that they were completely and utterly ignorant of what was going on.

In steadier days when the bank made a profit, they were perceived as experts. But the ultimate demise of the bank teaches us that they were anything but experts.

And so it is the same with the credit crunch. One of the major sources of the problems were these so called "sub-prime" mortgages. The clue should have been in the name but what happened was that these lenders found many thousands of new customers by lending money to people with poor credit histories. In other words, they lent money to people who had a track record of not being able to pay money back.

This alone should be blindingly obvious as a bad move. But in the early days when some payments come back in, the true risk was never perceived and the profits, on paper at least, looked excellent. So the banks enthusiastically moved into this market on a big scale.

When You Invest Your Money Do You Know Where it Is?

But the situation was far worse than this. A market opened up whereby these companies would sell on these liabilities on the open market. These liabilities were often bought by companies who then used accounting to tie them up with other types of investments and then sold these on to large investors. These large investors should have known what they were buying but they clearly did not.

The chairman of Royal Bank of Scotland was blissfully ignorant of the fact that his bank was severely exposed to these poor mortgages because he had a team of investment bankers who were buying these complex investment packages without having a clue what they were letting themselves in for.

Whilst profits tumbled in (frequently only on paper), they all looked like successful people who had a gift for making money. The truth about their ignorance only became exposed one the liabilities finally realised their full toxicity. But ignorance such as this does not end there.

20% of Something is Better Than 100% of Nothing

Another popular news item in these tough economic times is the demise of the high street. Most towns and cities in the UK have an ever increasing number of empty shops. The reasons for this are many but I would like to focus on one reason that perplexes me. Despite the dearth of tenants, property owners continue to demand high rents for their properties. But why is this the case?

Surely it is better to receive a lower rent than none at all. Surely this is inescapable logic. But somehow, this situation has persisted for several years but I do not know how this is possible. How can one afford to own a property that has to be maintained and receive no rent for it? Perhaps the next economic dip is about to happen as all these landlords suddenly realise they must slash their rents or sell up.

I do not know but I am sure we will see more changes to our high streets over the next few years.

Recently I talked about 5 tips on improving your communication. In this article I would like to share an incident where the lack of effective communication caused a major problem.

A couple of months ago I booked myself and my son on the Air France flight AF1180, which leaves at 19:05.On the day of the trip we passed through the security checks and saw it was leaving from Gate 42. We also saw that there was a 15 minute delay - the time was 18:25.

We walked slowly towards Gate 42 to be in place for the boarding. My son saw the children play area was showing a film he wanted to watch, and as I could see Gate 42 I agreed to sit down and watch the television with him.

While sitting here, I could hear announcements for all sorts of different gates including the last call for the flight departing from Gate 41, and another for some passengers leaving for Singapore from Gate 23.

Just before 19:00 I thought it was strange that there had been no announcement and decided to walk to Gate 42 to ask the attendants what was happening.

We arrived at Gate 42 at 19:03 to be told the flight was closed and we could not board the plane.

I explained that there had not been any announcements. The attendants answered that they had announced the flight but that it is very hard to hear the announcements unless you are immediately in front of the Gate. They said this is due to the poor acoustics and that the situation was not ideal.

While talking, we heard calls for Gate 32 and even Gate 21. When I asked how come we could hear these calls, I was told they use a different system.

Because I had been hearing calls continuously, the communication seemed clear, and I assumed that we would be able to hear our plane being announced. The opposite however was true - it was impossible to hear our calls. I could actually see the Gate from where the plane was leaving all the time I was waiting for the communication to tell us to board, but not one announcement was audible even though announcements for other gates were clear.

Even though the communication was inaudible, the idea of this story is clear. Make your message be heard.

In almost all businesses and in almost everything we do there is a need to communicate. If we cannot get the message across, not only is it a wasted effort, there is no point in performing the communication at all.

As a Nottingham Web Designer, the message I want to get across is clear. We design modern, polished web sites for small businesses which offer great value and which look stylish and meet all the latest Internet standards.

This message is communicated by our own website, by the examples on our portfolio page, and by our expertise on the phone when responding to inquiries. If this message is not communicated, we do not get the business. It is as simple as that.

All of us as Net Quality Nottingham Web Design are constantly reviewing all of our communications to ensure that our message is heard loud and clear. Is your business doing the same? Poor or a lack of communications can at best result in no new customers or at worst alienate existing customers and cause them to become dissatisfied. The lack of clarity in the communications from Air France has resulted in me not wanting to be a customer of theirs in the future. Do not fall into the same trap...

When I left employment to break out on my own in business, the first thing I enjoyed was the lack of routine. My last employer seemed to be more interested in filling out spreadsheets to record what I was doing rather than in what I was actually doing. This is a benefit I still feel today but with an important difference.

In those early days, i forgot to send out invoices. I failed to check if invoices had been paid and as a result, probably lost money. I cannot be sure whether or not I lost any money because I had no systems in place but I more than likely did.

I was reluctant to set up systems and procedures as this reminded me of the dark spreadsheet days which I hated so much. But as my business expanded, the inevitability became more and more obvious and I started to develop some systems. And now, I am so glad that I did.

Spend One Hour Today to Save Many Hours in the Future

I procrastinated so much in those early days because I knew that developing processes and systems was going to take time. I knew I could do it. My previous employment involved designing complex systems and processes for large corporations so doing this for my small business was going to be easy. But it still meant taking time out from designing websites.

However, I did start to do this and I am so happy that I did. Some of these old mundane tasks which used to take me hours every month are now so quick and easy. As a web designer I was able to put these systems online so I can access them from anywhere with an Internet connection. Now I have invested the time, i can spend more time now doing the job I love the most, designing websites for Nottingham businesses.

We Can Help Your Nottingham Business Save Money

This exercise has been so helpful in my own business that I now wish to offer these services to other Nottingham businesses. Imagine running your business on a system that was designed for you and your small business. A system that is easy to use because it was developed alongside you and your requirements. A system you can access from anywhere when you have an Internet connected PC or mobile device.

Imagine a system that makes your employees more efficient and effective. Streamlining your processes also reduces the rate at which you need to recruit new staff so the cost savings can be enormous.

All you have to do is invest some time and money now to go on saving time and money for the rest of the life of your business. It is work that shows a real return on investment within a very short period of time.

So call us on 0115 963 6589 for a chat and we can show you what we can do for your business and start saving you money.

I am learning French at the moment and recently I sneezed during my lesson. I wanted to ask the teacher for a tissue and I did not know the French word for tissue so I asked her. She responded that the most common work used in France for a tissue is Kleenex. I was surprised by this but then I thought well this is just the same as Americans. They call tissues Kleenex just as they they call photocopiers Xerox Machines.

This got me thinking of how wonderful it must be for your company's brand to become so well known that it starts to replace the noun for an item and in many cases becomes a verb. Here are just a few more examples of what I mean:

• A Hoover or To Hoover
• To Google
• To Photoshop
• Cellophane
• Sellotape
• Biro

And the list goes on. It would be great to think that one could have a company whose name eventually becomes a verb. It is so attractive that the firm Argos use the phrase "don't buy it, Argos it". Presumably this is in the vane hope that their brand becomes a verb in everyday use but I haven't noticed that happening yet.

Some of the brands are so embedded in our daily lives it is not so surprising that they cease to become brands and start to become the words for the very things they represent. However, there is a more sinister side to this:

Don't Use Photoshop

Photoshop to me is an extreme example as to how well this works. To photoshop something is a verb that has really taken off in recent years and I am sure it has seriously increased the sales of that software. However, I am convinced that for the majority of purchasers it is simply not the correct software to use.

For a start, it is very expensive. That's fine because it is an extremely capable and versatile piece of software. However, unless you are a professional photographer or a magazine editor, you would probably only use 1% of photoshop's capabilities and so would probably have wasted your money. The much cheaper Paint Shop Pro or the free GIMP software packages offer far more than most of us would need but for a much lower (or no) cost.

Hollywood Movie Influence

Have you noticed that most people in Hollywood movies use Mac computers? Macs look great but cost a lot. Sure, they are vastly superior that PCs when it comes to graphic design and video editing but for most of us, the extra cost is simply not justified.

I have also noticed that they like to drop in brand names at every chance in modern films and I am sure that some of these will result in those names being used more often by us and there is a chance they could also become new nouns and verbs. This is a very subtle but sinister type of marketing I think we should all be on our guard against.

So next time you buy something, just stop and check you are not being overly-influenced by common word usage.

In almost every business and in almost everything we do there is a need to communicate. This is performed on many levels including:

• Non-verbal communication such as our body language, how we dress, or how we choose and treat our possessions
• Verbal communication such as telephone calls, addressing meetings, or performing presentations
• Written communication such as emails and blog articles, notes and post-its, or quotes, reports and invoices

I will leave the first point for another topic and this article will outline 5 tips which can improve your verbal and written communication abilities.

There is some overlap between verbal and written communications. Both are used to convey an idea or a message with the goal that the target audience will receive and understand the intended meaning of the communication. This is true if the target audience is one person, a few people, or several thousand people.

Unfortunately the target audience may understand the message, but receive an unintended and completely different meaning from the wished for sense. Or alternatively, the target audience may understand the sense, but misunderstand the message. An example of each would be:

"As managing director or the Acme Company, I am delighted to announce a merger with the Beta Company and that although we will treat this in the most delicate way there will be some redundancies."

• Message correctly understood: Our employer the Acme Company is merging with the Beta Company.
• Unintended sense: The Beta Company will be making some redundancies.

"As managing director of the Acme Company, I am delighted to announce a merger with the Beta Company and that there will be some redundancies. Please be assured that we will treat this matter as quickly as possible."

• Misunderstood message: Our employer the Acme Company is delighted to be making redundancies and can’t wait to do so.
• Understood correct sense: The Acme Company will be making some redundancies.

There are 5 areas which will improve the probability of both the message and the meaning being correctly communicated, received and understood. 

1. Be precise.
   Read and re-read your message. Ensure that there is no room for misunderstanding the sense being conveyed. If necessary, get a peer to proof-read your message before sending it out, and ask him for a summary to ensure the salient parts are understood.
2. Be concise.
   Short sentences are often better. There is less chance of the meaning being mis-construed by being hidden amongst redundant phrases.
3. Be factual.
   Stick to the bare facts and do not include vague sentences which can be interpreted in various means.
4. Do not be emotive.
   Over-use of adjectives can not only mask the intended meaning, but can also convey an unwanted judgment or sentiment.
5. It’s good to talk.
   Many times I have started to reply to an email, only to reach for the phone and call the other party. Use your judgment as a 5 minute conversation can often arrive at a shared and agreed conclusive which 20 emails over periods of hours can still not arrive at.

Communication is a skill which can be learned and improved on. Before sending any written communications, read it through again, bearing in mind the 5 above pointers. You may be surprised at how much of your message you will change…

Small businesses are always looking for ways to keep their business fresh and interesting for old and new customers alike. Nowadays, your business's website is a vital part of all your business marketing and keeping it working for you is really important.

You may have a website that is working for you and you may be satisfied with the results you are getting. However, no matter how good something is, there is always room for improvement. But that improvement need not involve lots of work nor lots of expense. Sometimes it is worth making a few tweaks that can give you marked results in a short space of time.

Maybe you are not ready for rebranding or a complete overhaul of your website, but here are five quick things you could do today that could really make a difference:

1. Check your website for dead links

Dead links are a killer for websites. They do not create a good impression when your visitor clicks it and perhaps more importantly, they do not create a good impression with Google. If Google finds dead links on your website it will certainly push you further down the search results pages because they think you are not taking care of your website.

Search Google for something called "Xenu Link Sleuth". It is a great piece of free software that will check your whole website for broken and dead links. It takes less than a minute to run for all but the biggest of websites and quickly identifies any areas where changes are required.

2. Update some of your images

Photos are really important for all websites. They can transform a dull, flat website and make it look colourful and alive, even with the addition of one photo. Regular visitors to your website will be used to seeing the same old photos.

Go to a stock website and invest a few pounds in some replacement photos. It can really spruce up your site and give it an instantly refreshed look.

3. Put a special offer or competition on your home page

Something simple like this can give a boost to your business. Put a popular service or product in a special promotional offer and advertise it prominently on your home page. This can really excite visitors and can do wonders for generating your business.

4. Make sure your telephone number is prominent

If there is one thing that makes a company look trustworthy on the Internet, it is that they make their phone number prominently available on every web page. People trust companies who allow you to speak to a human within that company and a prominent telephone number will help engender this trust.

It is also useful because a significant number of your visitors will be existing customers simply looking for your telephone number. So make sure they see it straight away.

5. Add some new content

If you can't think of anything then just add a paragraph of text to one of the pages. Both visitors and Google love new content. Better still, add a whole new page to cover a service or product that is not shown elsewhere or only mentioned briefly.

And best of all, if you have time, add new content every day. Within a few months your small website becomes a large website and is therefore viewed as more important by your customers and also by Google.

Should I Buy All Domain Names Associated With My Business?

The short answer to this is "no". The reason is that you could end up spending a fortune. You might start off with buying a .com and a .co.uk and then start worrying about .net, .org, .org.uk, .biz and the list goes on and on. You might then be tempted to buy different versions of your domain name, for example the same name but with dashes in the title. After this, you might think about keyword rich domain names related to your business. And before you know it, you find out you are paying out hundreds of pounds a year on domain names despite the fact that they are cheap to buy individually.

So Which Domain Names Should I Buy?

Unless you have a specific strategy that dictates otherwise then I would only buy the .co.uk version of your domain name (do not use dashes) and, if it is free, the .com version of your domain name. Choose one of them as your actual website address and forward the other one to it. Addresses such as .org, .org.uk, .net are for other types of organisations and are not really suitable for a business's main commercial domain name. Other addresses such as .com.uk are not real domain names at all and can be quite expensive.

There is no real benefit to your business to buy any more than this. The .co.uk and .com names carry the most authority for commercial sites and should be enough for any business.

Should I Buy Keyword Rich Domain Names Associated With My Business?

Many people will buy domains that have they important keywords associated with their business but then do nothing other than forward them to their main commercial domain. In terms of search engine optimisation, this practice is of no value whatsoever. So do not waste your money if that is your intent. There are, however, two circumstances when it is worthwhile.

Firstly, as you are the owner of the domain name and retain the rights to it for as long as you renew, you are preventing someone else from buying the domain name and using it. This might be important to you if you think competitors could gain an advantage by owning it.

Secondly, you could create another website and fill it full of useful and relevant information, pointing people back to your website at every available opportunity. Make sure the content is useful and relevant or you could be penalised by the search engines. Making full use of a domain name in this way does make it very useful.

Conclusion

Save your money and only spend it on domain names that have a strategic importance and that you are going to use for a known and useful purpose. Otherwise, let others waste their money in this way.

Remember: owning a domain name and simply forwarding it to your website is of ZERO value in terms of search engine optimisation.

I have been in the web design industry since 1999. In terms of the Internet that makes me very experienced. Having been involved in the IT industry since before that time, my expectation was for things to evolve in web design at a rapid rate.

Well I was right but even so, I underestimated the rate of change.

My Predictions are Often Correct but Often Under-stated

Just as a small aside, this reminds me of something I said to a friend once in the early 1990s. I had bought my first CD player and my friend and I were discussing how amazing it was that they could fit a whole album onto such a small disc. I then said something to my friend which he viewed with much skepticism. I said:

"Mark my words, within the next 20 years you will be able to fit a whole album onto something the size of a credit card!"

Well my prediction was correct in a way. What I did not envisage is that you would be able to fit your entire album collection onto something the size of a credit card.

The Advance of Web Design

And so it was in the world of web design. I predicted rapid change but failed to anticipate the speed of that change. The past 5 years have been the most rapidly developing of all. There are many aspects to this but one aspect I want to deal with today is the advent of Open Source website creation platforms. So let us start from the basics:

What is Magento, Joomla or Wordpress?

All three of these are systems you can use to create your own website. Each has its own interface that you must learn so are certainly for for the faint-hearted but they each share one important quality. You can develop a complex website without programming knowledge. Also, being open source they are all free.

So this sounds like you don't need a web designer. In fact, this is true, strictly speaking. That surprised you didn't it? I bet you didn't expect me to say there is no need for a web designer.

Well although it is true, it does demand a lot of work from you. You have to learn how to use the interface and the more complex the website, the more frustrating and fiddly it becomes. However, if you are good with a PC, have a limited or no budget and have plenty of time on your hands, then it is possible and could even be a rewarding experience.

However, most small business owners do not have the time required to do this. So this lends itself to the next question:

Should I Choose a Web Designer Who Uses Magento, Joomla or Wordpress?

The answer to this is that it does not matter. Some web designers prefer to work with these packages and others do not. Here at Net Quality Web Design, we do not develop websites using these packages because we feel that with all of our experience we can design exactly what the customer wants by starting from scratch.

However, it should not matter to you on which platform your website is designed, but rather it should matter how professional your website looks and functions and whether it meets the needs of your business. That is the true measure of whether a web designer has designed the right type of website for you.

I regularly read articles all over the Internet about small businesses. It is a subject which fascinates me. It is not surprising that this is the case as I am a small business owner. Not only that, as my business is that of a web designer most of my customers are small business owners. So I regularly seek out new reading material to learn about the experiences and opinions of others who have also ventured out on their own to free of an employer.

One of the sources of interesting articles and discussions is the UK Business Forum. This is one of the most active websites out there for discussions between small business owners in the UK.  Today I read an article from a 15 year old who was asking if he was too young to start in business.

This is quite a common question from school pupils and students who are thinking about starting up their own business. Surprisingly, few people write on there and ask if they are too old to start up a business.

So this got me thinking. What is the right age range to start a business? If you are too young you are too inexperienced. If you are too old it might be too risky and your health might let you down. So I started an analysis in my own mind to try and decide where my opinion lay on the subject.

The more I thought about it and the more I thought about the pros and cons, I consistently arrived at one inescapable conclusion...

You're never too young and you're never too old to start in business!

Now I know that some of you or maybe even many of you will disagree with this. So let me explain my reasoning behind arriving at this conclusion.

First of all, I will deal with why you are never too young. I started my own business when I was 40. This might seem a bit old to some of you to start your own business but start one I did and I think I made a pretty good job of it even though I say it myself! At the time I started I was very experienced in the worlds of insurance and IT. I also thought I was experienced in the world of web design and whilst I was to an extent, I was very innocent when it came to the world of running your own business.

I learned many lessons very early on. If you don't learn quickly then you are doomed to failure. So despite my experience of the world in general, I still learned most of what I know about running a business just by getting on and doing it.

Whilst it might be more difficult for a very young person, there can be no greater training than by having a go. Sure, there will be some barriers such as being taken seriously for example. Also if they are under 18 they might need to put some things in the name of their parents because of contract law. But this does not mean they cannot have a go. If they have an idea in which they believe, I say "go for it". If they fail (and many older experienced people fail), they have learned a lesson which can be useful for the next venture. But if they succeed, they might have many happy years of entrepreneurship ahead.

Even if they are still at school, there might be a small business they can run, especially in these days of the Internet.

You're never too old either

I cannot conceive of retiring for any reason other than ill health. I might increase the amount of holidays I take each year but the idea of stopping working bothers me. More time on your hands and less money with which to enjoy it. The pensions time bomb means that many of us will struggle to live on our pensions anyway so we may as well get used to the idea of working.

Ill health might strike me when I am 55 and I can no longer work. But I might be able to go on until I am 90. The truth is, I don't yet know. What I do know is that as long as I have my health, I want to work in the world of commerce. I enjoy it so much and gives much purpose to life.

And if I hit on a great business idea when I am 85, you can be sure that I will give it a go. I might not live to see it until the end, but on the other hand, I just might!

Just do it

So don't let anybody tell you that you are too old or too young. It's all about getting up and having a go. Whether you succeed or fail, you will probably enjoy the journey and the learning experience.

I knew when I started in web design all those years ago that I would be in an ever changing world. Little did I realise just how much that world would change. Back in the days of those slow connections through dialling up your Internet Service Provider that within a few short years most of our music would be online and many of us would start watching TV and films online. The pace is breathtaking.

Despite the scale of change, much of it was predictable. What I think was less predictable was the advent of mobile Internet access and smartphones. I remember when WAP first come out (a language to develop websites for mobile phones). It was simply unimpressive and although some businesses gavie it a go, the results were so disappointing that very few customers actually used it. It seemed at the time, even with the advent of the 3G network, that Internet access would remain the domain of the PC or laptop.

However, since the Blackberry and the iPhone came along, Internet access through mobile devices has rocketed. So many small business owners now regularly use their mobiles to get their emails and many more use them to book tables in restaurants and seats in cinemas and theatres. So as a small business owner in Nottingham, you might be wondering what you need to do for your business.

Mobile App or Mobile Website?

The first question you need to consider is whether you need a mobil app or a mobile website. An app is a computer program designed to run on a handheld device and is something which the user must download and install. Unless your business has very special requirements it is unlikely that you will need an app creating. Not only can it be quite expensive but you will need one app creating for each different type of phone (iPhone, Android etc).

Mobile Website Design Nottingham

Most websites work well on handheld devices as they have easy methods for zooming in on specific areas. However, a website that is designed specifically with handheld devices in mind will be much easier for mobile users to use, saving them for searching round the page for something.

Such websites have to be thoughtfully planned out to make the pages as economic as possible in terms of use of space whilst ensuring that everything is still easy to find.

Call us today for advice as to how we can develop something for your business to have a great looking mobile website.

I have always wanted to be in business for myself. Although I only took the leap in 2006 I had been trying to find a suitable business for many years before that. This search led me into the world of Multi-Level Marketing. I had forgotten about it until recently when I was researching Search Engine Optimisation techniques.

What is Wrong With Multi-Level Marketing?

First off, I do not want to criticise multi-level marketing per se as I am sure that there are many people to whom it is a valid and important way to make a living. The trouble with the scheme in which I was involved was that the product did not sell.

The scheme worked so that if you bought £3000 worth of the product, you could become a distributor. This would allow you to recruit other people and you would earn a commission on all their sales. You would also earn smaller commissions on your recruits' recruits and so on all the way down to five levels (making you a 5th Dimension Distributor!). The idea of recruiting other people who then recruited others and earning commission off them sounded much more attractive than going out and selling these products door to door. Therefore my partners and I resolved to concentrate on recruitment rather than sales.

There was one tiny flaw in our plan though. Just about eveyone else in the business had resolved to do exactly the same! So here we had a business where most of the people involved were buying in stock so that they could go on and recruit others. This in turn resulted in hundreds if not thousands of people with this product in their garden sheds. Nobody was buying it for its intended use!

Search Engine Optimisation and Words in Garden Sheds

There are many techniques to search engine optimisation and many of them are to do with writing text. Google love good natural text content. The more of it the better and the more interlinked it is the better.

This target has a great benefit to users because it is forcing companies to add as much text ast they can about the products and services that they sell. There is a downside, however.

Many people are writing text just to attract the attention of the search engines. They stuff it with key phrases and try to make it natural but they simply don't care if it is useful or even if it makes sense! Larger scale search optimisers are creating whole websites full of useless content just to attract the attention of Google. They are all linking to each other just to increase page rank and therefore to get you, the searcher, onto their commercial page that sells something to you.

So just like the useless product above, they are creating content not for its own sake and benefit but simply as an avenue to get you to be the buyer.

It is similar with Twitter. Once you set up an account with Twitter you end up with many followers even if your Tweets are personal and/or a little dull. And sometimes you follow them back. In truth, neither of you is following the other, you just want your Twitter ID to appear on as many pages as possible.

In both cases above, the purpose is forgotten because of the profitable results of the side-effect.

I only hope that you found this article interesting and did not think I was just stuffing my site with keywords. I leave it with you as you are the judge!

For many years, many people have considered the craft of computer programming as being in decline. They believe we have been heading towards “Game Over” for the art of coding. Although pupils are taught applications such as Excel, Word or PowerPoint in schools and universities, the skills necessary to create these products are becoming increasingly rare.

Enter the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a charitable organisation registered in 2009. They are championing the launch of the Raspberry Pi, a single-board computer, stripped to the bare minimum, and roughly the size of a credit card.

The goal is to offer a low-cost computer to encourage children in the United Kingdom to develop programming skills. It comes with the Linux operating system and some educational software pre-installed and is instantly ready for children to experiment and play with to produce results.

The launch of the first 10,000 boards commenced 29 February 2012. The two licensed United Kingdom distributors both suffered website downtime due to heavy web traffic, and both reported that they were sold out within a few minutes.

It is reminiscent of the launch of the BBC Micro back in the early 80’s, which placed an emphasis on education, and was an integral part of the BBC Computer Literacy Project. I remember the amazement and wonder I experienced when I first saw the Micro computer on the screen. I begged my parents to buy one and they agreed and sent off an order. Unfortunately for us, the demand vastly outstripped supply (the manufacturers, Acorn, had anticipated sales of 12,000 units but eventually over 1.5 million were sold) and I was never the owner of a BBC Micro Computer, although a couple of months later I was overjoyed to receive a Commodore 64.

The advantage of these early computers was you were encouraged to learn to program them. I am sure everyone shared the same sense of delight and achievement from typing the classic:

10           PRINT “HELLO WORLD”
20           GOTO 10

The exposure to the BBC Micro, the Commodore 64, the ZX Spectrum, and other rival home computers in the early 80’s, honed coding skills and led to the United Kingdom becoming a major force in the coding arena. David Braben (co-creator of the seminal Elite game in 1984) sees the Raspberry Pi as an opportunity to bring back the advantages of the heyday of the 80’s. He fears there is a lack of university graduates skilled in computer science and that this shortage of programming skills will have an impact in the future.

Modern computers are much less robust then their early counter-parts. It is all too easy to introduce a malicious piece of software or to delete a vital configuration file which leads to the breaking of the computer. The Raspberry Pi is a throw-back to the more rugged days, where you are actively encouraged to experiment and push back the boundaries.

Ian Livingstone, the Life President Eidos which manufactured the globally recognised game Tomb Raider, is lobbying the British government to change how computers are being taught and used in schools. He sees the use as being restricted to learning how to use an application and not to write them, which is like learning to read but not to write. The introduction of the Raspberry Pi is an attempt to right this situation and to re-introduce the delights of programming to a new generation.

However, there are always two sides to every story, and the reception to the Raspberry Pi is not always positive. Some industry leaders are saying that the emphasis should be placed on improving educational software for the existing hardware such as developing new applications. They see this approach as the solution to increase programming within schools rather than adding new hardware choices.

I believe another potential problem may be getting the teachers on board. The Raspberry Pi offers a great opportunity to invigorate the classroom and bring new skills to the students, but if the teachers are not enthusiastic and behind the move, the full benefitsmayl never be reaped. It is even possible that some of the teachers will be faced with a steeper learning curve than the students they are teaching!

Overall I am very excited about the launch of the Raspberry Pi. My work as a web designer, creating web designs in Nottingham, is based on the foundations I learnt from programming my Commodore 64 over 25 years ago. The times have changed... the languages have changed... but the underlying skills instilled from discovering how to program and create are still the same. I cannot wait to see the impact of this on the next generation...

A vital part of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is to identify which keywords your business will target. They are the building blocks of searching and all web based search engines such as Google are based on them. However once these have been identified, the job is far from complete. There remains a task which is perhaps even more important, and that is what you do with your keywords.

Imagine your keywords are the ingredients to a recipe which when followed produces a page on your website. With any recipe it is of course possible to mix the ingredients in any order and in fact in any quantity, however the result will probably not be the expected one. Like all recipes there is a definite order and a distinct way of using the ingredients to get the desired outcome.

 Your keywords are the same – they must be included within your business website in the correct order and quantities to have the greatest positive impact on your SEO and to drive visitors to your website.

Title Tag

This is intended as a concise, precise, definition of your webpage. It is usually shown within the tab of your browser software, but more importantly it is also usually shown on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). This allows a potential visitor to make a snap decision as to whether it corresponds to his search. However the use of the Title tag is also one of the most important things within SEO. Use your main keyword in this tag at least once, and if possible include a variation of it as well. It is important that the title still scans well, is readable and makes sense. It also should not exceed 70 characters which is the maximum that is shown on the SERPs (for all Net Quality sites, we check it does not exceed 64 characters which follows the W3C recommendations and is less than the maximum length displayed by Google on its SERPs of 66 characters)

An example for our Web Design agency is a Title tag of Web Design Nottingham, a Nottingham Website Designer: NetQuality

This is exactly 64 characters (including spaces) and repeats what is for us the most important keyphrase – Web Design Nottingham. These keywords are placed at the beginning of the Title tag as the Search Engines place more importance on this portion of the tag. The tag also includes the name of our company which boosts brand recognition and loyalty.

H1 Tag

This has always been a well known and highly recommended location for your keywords. The H1 tag should appear at the top of your page and is considered as an overall heading to describe the page content. As such, the search engines place high importance on the words found within this tag.

Since the launch of HTML5, there are new recommendations for the use of the H1 tag. Previously, websites were greatly discouraged from using multiple H1 tags, and for a site to pass the W3C Markup Validator, only one tag was allowed. However this has since been relaxed and so multiple H1 tags means multiple locations for your keywords.

Body Text

It should be easy to include your keywords onto your page within the main body text. The keywords you have identified should always refer to the subject being discussed in the body text.

There is some confusion over the number of times your keywords should appear, and in the past, Keyword Density Analysis was considered a valid tool to help determine the optimum number. This has since been superseded and as a general rule of thumb, simply include your keywords 3 times each on the page (maybe more for long pages)

In addition, your keywords should appear once as bold text (within <strong> tags) as Search Engines will attribute slightly more importance to these phrases.

Image Name and Alt Text

This is an often overlooked prime location for your keywords. Not only do Search Engines place an emphasis on the text associated with the images, it will help with image searches. This is a rapidly growing source of traffic, especially championed by Google.

When searching, many people specifically are looking for an image. If your images are clearly labelled (both in the image name and the Alt text) then there is a greatly increased chance of your images appearing at the top of the Search Engines. Studies have shown that once visitors have found the image they are looking for, are inclined to click and so end up on your website, providing an additional source of traffic for your business web pages.

The URL

You should try and include one of your keywords in the URL. A word of warning however - do not try and overstuff the URL with your keywords. It is best to include only the most important and keep it short. Separate any words by hyphens and not underscores, as the SEO community is generally in agreement that these perform better in SEO.

Four days ago, I was targeted by a telephone scam. Out of the blue, I received a call from a person, confirming my name and address, and claiming I had a virus on my PC which he could fix. I had never heard of this particular scam and so went along with him for a while to see where it would lead to. I knew it must have been a scam, as how could a complete stranger know what I had on my computer?

I was asked to go to my PC (well, as a web designer I was in the middle of a new internet site for a customer in Nottingham and so my computer was already on) and directed to the Windows Event Viewer. Now I have never really completely understood this application, and even to me it looks like a long list of worrying errors, warnings and system crashes. I know this is “normal” and nothing to worry about, but to other users, it could look horrific.

The voice on the telephone confirmed that I was in the right place and that the overview displayed on my screen within the Windows Event Viewer indicated the presence of a virus. I feigned dismay but was quickly reassured that there was a simple fix, and that they are trained by Microsoft to remove the virus and restore my PC to a clean bill of health.

I was asked to open my browser and navigate to a certain Internet Website and there to click and accept the download and installation of a program. At this point, I refused, and starting asking how he knew originally that I had a virus on my PC.

To begin with, he avoided answering my question by using the Windows Event Viewer on my screen as definitive proof of the virus. When I replied, ok, but how did he know it was going to show this given that he could not access this from his office, he started saying my PC had come up on a report. I continued with ok, but how did my PC come up on a report given that he could not access my PC from his office, and he replied with my Internet Service Provider monitors my activity and it was they who had sent my details. When I continued with ok, but how did my Internet Service Provider monitor my PC given that they could not access my PC, he hung up.

It was a rehearsed script. He had some replies to my direct question of how did he know I had a virus, but after a certain time, he had obviously been trained to accept it as a bad job and hang-up (presumably before ringing the next name and number on his list)

This left me with a bad taste in my mouth, and a deep anger towards the people who could think of and perform this type of scam. However it got worse. This morning, one of Net Quality’s clients received exactly the same phone call. It was the same virus telephone scam. The particular client is in the same area as Net Quality and obviously these people are working through a list of names and numbers based on geographic boundaries. Luckily he did not respond to the scam, although he rang me in a panic asking me to fix his PC.

Luckily he did not fall for the scam. He followed all the instructions and had got to the program download and installation phase when he asked what would this software do, and how much would it cost. The answers were amazing – the program was a sort of “remote accesses” file which would hand complete control over to the company, who could then access and perform any operation on the remote PC. And for this they were asking for a fee of £185 for a subscription to their preventative service.

I have therefore decided to write up an account of this virus telephone scam in order to warn everyone to not fall for it. Never allow anyone access to your PC...and never pay for any service which comes out of the blue as a cold call. You can always contact us with any questions or concerns (and this applies to customers and non-customers alike) and we will always reply and share our experience and expertise.

Your website is one of the most important tools for marketing your business. It is important that it is designed well, easy to navigate and includes all relevant content for your customers.

All this good work can be spoilt however, by making some astonishingly common errors. Here are seven of the most common:

1. No contact details

Did you know that most visitors to your website are looking for your telephone number? Yes it is true. That is why the Yellow Pages has shrunk from an enormous book to a small paperback. People look for telephone numbers using Google. If they can't find your number straight away, they might just go to a competitor's site who has their phone number in big red letters at the top of the page.

2. No news is better than old news

A news page on your website is a great idea. You can keep customers informed of the latest happenings in your business and keep them interested in visiting your site again and again. So if you have a news website, make sure that you have regular news to report on it. The clue is in the word. It is a news page not an olds page.

A news page where the last piece of news was in July 2007 tells customers that you have nothing to say and that you ignore your website.

3. Use social media effectively

We are expected these days always to have something interesting to say. What with Blogs, Facebook, Twitter and the like, we are constantly looking for new things to say and tell to our customers. Put some imagination into your posts and your tweets. Tell them something relevant to your business, something that might interest them. In other words, something that might prompt them to buy something from you. Tweets and posts such as "busy day today" are dull and unimaginative and that is exactly the impression they will give.

I even saw a tweet on a web designer's site that criticised a song in the charts using bad language. A bit of common sense would have stopped him from doing this.

4. Don't think that customers behave differently to you

I am often asked to do things on websites that my experience tells me is a mistake. I have lots of experience of the way in which people behave on websites. They are impatient, fickle and demanding or should I say that we are impatient, fickle and demanding.

If you would click off a website that insisted on you entering your email address before you continued, then why would your customers not feel the same way? Think carefully before you do anything and say to yourself "would I do this if I were the customer visiting this website?"

5. Tell them what it does on the tin

I think this is one of the greatest tag lines for any company, "it does exactly what it says on the tin". The message on your homepage should be simple and to the point. Visitors should be in no doubt whatsoever what your business does. That is why our home page says "Web Designer Nottingham" in bold letters. It is what we do and where we are based. Nothing is left to doubt.

6. Follow the three click rule

Making your services and/or products easy to find is absolutely essential. If it takes more than three clicks for someone to find what it is they are looking for, you have probably lost them. Easy navigation is key to a great website. Clear simple signposts should be everywhere in your website and if they are not, you should be speaking to your web designer.

7. Dead links will kill your business

Links are the backbone of the Internet. They are the key to what made it great. Linking to useful content on other websites is always a good ides but over time, the page you linked to or even the site itself could disappear. Or it could be a simple mistake when entering the link address. It is a good idea to regularly check your website for badly formed or dead links. Links that do not work put off customers and also make Google think that the quality of your website is low.

Type "link sleuth" into Google and you will find a great piece of freeware that does this automatically for you.

In this world of intelligent media and psychologically informed advertising, we frequently buy things that do not do what we expect them to but despite this, we continue to fall for the same techniques. Sometimes it is with the things we buy or it could be the ideas we buy into. Here are some examples of things which are not what they seem:

The famous daily alcohol units limit

It is recommended that men drink no more than 21 units of alcohol per week and that women drink no more than 14 units per week. This limit is quoted constantly by journalists whenever the subject of alcohol is discussed. I am sure that many people assume that this figure was arrived at by detailed scientific study. I certainly used to think this. However, this figure was arrived at by plucking a figure out of mid-air. The remit was to come up with a modest limit that appeared to be correct and use that to influence the public and their drinking habits.

Whilst their motivation was positive, the fact remains that this daily recommended limit is based on a lie. I do not advocate that we all start drinking as much as we like and their is of course much merit in moderating your drink. My point is that manipulating the public based on a lie is a dangerous practice and could have negative results despite the positive intentions.

Sun Protection Factors are Meaningless

With all the publicity about skin cancer, we are all encouraged to buy sun creams with high Sun Protection Factors. The higher the factor, the more you are protected from the sun, right? In truth, this is not necessarily the case. Recent scientific studies have shown that quantities of specific ingredients has much more to do with protecting you from the sun's rays than an arbitrary figure such as SPF.

Immune system boosters and vitamin pills improve your health

Again, recent scientific studies have shown that these types of product are virtually useless in improving your overall health and when compared to eating healthy fresh food, the difference in health benefits is absolute. You get much more out of eating lots of fruit and vegetables than you do from taking factory-produced supplements.

So why do we buy/buy into these things?

If you do the research, there are so many commonly held beliefs (mainly propagated by large commercial concerns and/or the government) that are almost entirely and in many cases absolutely entirely false. But despite this, these legends propagate from generation to generation. Perhaps the truth is that we want to believe them, I am not sure. But my belief is that even if the intention is positive, these falsehoods are a modern menace and I would much prefer to make my decisions based on the truth, no matter how hard that is to accept.

So what has all this got to do with web design?

This article is really spending a long time telling you something about the ethics of Net Quality Web Design. Whilst we are in business to make profits (and I am sure you are too), we are not prepared to do this based on masking the truth our out and out lying. We will help you design a website tailored to your needs and we will not use commonly held myths and beliefs to earn extra money out of you, even if this means we won't promise you as much as the next web designer.

For instance, we will never guarantee to get you to page one of Google. Neither will we tell you such things such as "we are approved by Google" or that we are in "partnership with Microsoft". Nine times out of ten that you hear such phrases, they are a lie.

What we will do is promise always to give the best possible service and provide you with the website most suitable to your needs and we will be absolutely honest if there are areas where no work is required.

In some ways starting your own business is easier than you could imagine, in some ways it is much harder.
We have shared some great articles here such as:

• starting a business in Nottingham
• staying motivated as small business owner
• do your worst tasks first.

Each offers insights into a variety of topics, based on our experience and solutions to various business factors.
We have always encouraged entrepreneurs or start-up business owners to follow their dreams and give it a go.
Today however I will suggest that it may be better for some to hang back a couple of years before taking the plunge and freelancing or forming a start-up business.

Web Design Freelance - the Golden Years

During my college course, I made several business contacts and even performed some commercial work alongside my coursework. I loved the feeling of providing a service and receiving what was for a student an amazing amount of money. It seemed natural to jump straight in and become a freelance contractor to continue this life-style.

At first, all was well – I was doing what I enjoyed, was being my own boss and I was receiving more money than my peers who had gone into full-time employment. However, after the first eight or nine months, the “golden period” started to slide.

I found I was concentrating on what I enjoyed the most – the solving of clients problems in the most sophisticated and efficient way. As a result, I let the more mundane aspects such as chasing my unpaid invoices and looking for contracts to ensure a continuity of work slide. There was always “I’ll do those tasks tomorrow” attitude. I then went back to my keyboard and redesigned the project I was currently working on.

This made me happy as I was finding increasing clever technical solutions to the problems, although in reality it was actually reducing the time I had available to spend on ensuring the work was continuing to flow in. Worse, the client was unaware of the extra work and effort I was performing as he was more interested in the final feel and result rather than if it utilised some obscure technology.

A couple of months later and I found I was even less interested in many key business areas such as the marketing, looking for new contracts and the administration of my business. I had convinced myself I was not any good at these aspects, that I did not enjoy them, and that I was a failure.

Learning the Business Basics

The inevitable happened, and I went full-time (or “permie” in the freelance slang). I found I was still enjoying what I was doing - in fact in some ways even more so as I had the “bench-marks” of my colleagues to see how I was performing. But in addition, I also started to learn about everything else that went with a business such as the administrative tasks, the importance of trying to achieve as close to 100% billable hours as possible, how to define and refine a marketing strategy... and all the while someone else was paying for this, my business education!

After a couple of years, and several promotions later, I started thinking about working for myself again. I eased myself into this by taking on contracts which I knew I could perform after-hours or over the weekend and gradually rediscovered the joy of being my own boss. To my surprise however, I also found myself enjoying performing the tasks which I had previously found to be mundane, and I have not looked back since.

Business is Booming as a Web Designer

I am now part of a web design company based in Nottingham, where I have a large say over the make-up of my working day. The majority of my time is still spent designing; however I now look forward to the other tasks associated with the running of any small business.

To conclude, I would encourage all those who are thinking of freelancing to go for it – the rewards are immense and I am convinced that if you continue to work at it, success is possible for almost everyone. However, I would temper this with recommending you get a good grounding in a business environment to ensure you have a varied skill set and the necessary exposure to all business processes – this can only help when you finally take the plunge and follow your dreams.

Web design in Nottingham and Salsa – what is happening?

My 8 year old son has some of his friends coming round tonight and over breakfast this morning he asked for a Mexican style evening. I have just finished preparing what I consider the ultimate salsa for eating with tortilla crisps (many, many thanks to Michelle Lee for the recipe) and whilst prepping and producing the salsa, my mind started to make comparisons with my job as a web designer based here in Nottingham, and the many similarities:

1)      I love cooking and I love to create websites for any size of business

When you do something you enjoy, you naturally want to do your best.
As for me, when I am involved in a task that I do not like, I drag it out, spend the time thinking about how I wish it was over, I do not concentrate as much as I should on the actual job, and I do not perform to the best of my ability.

Designing websites is something I love.
I enjoy it and as so I am focused during the whole process.
This leads to a higher chance that the task will be completed to at least the required standard and if not... than to an even higher standard.

2)      The secret is in the choosing

Choosing the right tomatoes is especially important to this dish. In the same way, choosing the right web designer is the key to obtaining the website of your dreams.
My advice (and following on from point 1) is to always try and choose someone who loves their job.
Past successes can influence the selection process and I ensure I have a portfolio of clients who are happy to explain how I have exceeded their expectations, and how I have delivered a website that rocks. They will explain what made them chose me, and why they are happy they did so.

I take time selecting the tomatos knowing that any extra time at this stage is not wasted time, but instead time spent to give the greatest chance of success and of tasting the ultimate salsa. Do the same with your web designer – we at Net Quality will spend as much time as is necessary to explain how we work and how we plan to approach your independent business project.

 3)      Preparation is vital

Once the selection process has been completed, take time to prepare for the task ahead. With the ultimate salsa this includes having sharp knives to perform the task, and the washing and complete emptying of all pips from the tomatoes. If this stage is rushed, the resulting salsa will be too liquid and not as clean and crisp as is needed for an ultimate result.

In a similar way, take time to ensure all preparatory steps are performed to build your dream business website. Spend as much time as possible explaining what the website is for, who are your targets, what you would like to see as design fundamentals, the type of navigation structure you want, the sort of images you require and all the many other questions which must be answered to ensure the work produces the required outcome.

4)      Efficient production is the key to success

Now the ingredients are prepared, they must be processed and combined to produce the ultimate salsa. The more efficient this is, the higher the chance of an ultimate result.

Check that you website designer is focused and will work efficiently.
Any distractions will only result in delays and possibly a lower quality website.
Ensure his production will cater for the unforeseen and that he has an efficient process in place to communicate between you and him.
Any questions, comments, delays and scope-creep will therefore be managed and resolved in as timely a fashion as possible resulting in the greatest chance of success and a business Internet site that meets your business needs.

5)      Always look for improvements

Maybe it’s a genetic thing which I have inherited from my mother, but I believe all recipes exist to be improved on. Looking for that extra ingredient to improve the taste is the same as looking for that extra detail which will improve the overall site.

I love the feeling of bringing something “extra” to all my Internet sites. This is what makes a Net Quality website stand out from the others. When you are choosing and evaluating your website design agency, always look for the one who will give that little bit more and while will result in an ultimate website.

Concluding thoughts on Web Design and Salsa

Some of the points overlap - it is because I love cooking that I am confident to experiment and improve on all recipes. This also explains why I enjoy focusing on the choosing, preparation and actual production of the dish.

Similarly, my greatest thrill is to produce websites that not only meets our client's needs but exceeds them. Praise such as “its perfect” or “its better than I imagined” is what pushes me onwards to ensure the preparation and execution of the task is as efficient and complete as can possibly be.

At last – the Ultimate Salsa (from Michelle Lee)

Shopping list:

• 4 firm tomatoes of equal size
• 1 onion (the size of one of the tomatoes)
• 1 large lemon
• 1 bouquet of coriander (about 10 or 11 grams)

Recipe:

Roll the lemon firmly several times back and forth on the work surface to ensure the most juice will be obtained (this does not increase the amount of juice, but breaks down the membranes and facilitates the juice). Cut in half and squeeze into a bowl. There will be pips, and these can now be removed very easily with a fork – the lemon is prepared first as it is difficult to spot the pips amongst tomatos and onions if these were in the bowl too

Slice the 4 tomatoes into quarters

Empty the pips and any soft membrane from the quarters

Dice the 16 tomato quarters into cubes about the size of the smallest lego piece and place into the bowl

Dice the onion the smallest possible (probably about half the size of the tomato cubes) and place into the bowl

Place the coriander into a tea cup and use scissors to chop it into small pieces (thanks to Catherine Cohen for this fantastic tip of preparing any herbs). Once finished, add to the bowl.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Mix with a fork (sort of fold the ingredients together)

Place in a fridge for at least 1 hour (it's even better if you can wait until the next day)

Serve with tortilla chips and try not to finish the whole bowl in one sitting!

Photos:

I really wanted to show you the finished product...but unfortunately between my son, his friends and me, there is none left.
I will take a photo the next time I prepare this ultimate salsa (it will not be long...)

Running any business involves lots and lots of tasks. Some are enjoyable, some are less so, and some are downright  unpleasant. I have noticed that I have a tendency to fool myself that I am working, when in fact I am performing a task that has no immediate benefit. And all this is to avoid the unpleasant tasks.

In my experience successful businesses are those where the owners just "get on with it". From the outside it may look easy and all fun and games, but they perform all tasks in order of priority and not in order of enjoyment. This ensures that their effort is optimised and their business will have the greatest chance of success.

A concrete example of this, is the design of our own Net Quality website. We have shared many articles ranging from what colours say about your business to why you should care about the quality of your website and including tips on web design so your website will work.

However I am now going to share something with you that may shock. All the above articles and information are correct, but the design of our website may not be the most important thing for our business. The actual look and feel of our website may not be the current priority for our business. There are other tasks which may be more critical.

Of course the design and look of our website is important. It showcases our skills and plays an important part in getting our business. The look and feel, the colours, the ease of use, the style...all these go towards convincing potential clients that we are the best website designers in Nottingham. I believe our website is very important...but I was acting as if it were the only thing to worry about.

Earlier this week, I spent an hour and a half experimenting with the colours on our website. I then suddenly woke-up and remembered that the most important thing about our business is not our websites, but our clients websites. Without clients, we do not get any fees. Without fees, we do not have a business.

I therefore decided that our website was perfect as it stands. It meets the goals we have set for it:

• Showcases our work
• Directs visitors to contact us
• Offers extra information for those who wish to dig deeper

The fact that the colour scheme could be slightly modified to something that I believe may appeal more to visitors is not the most important thing on my to-do list. The most important thing is to grow the business.

I therefore stopped experimenting and looked at my to-do list - there were at least 3 other tasks which were more important but considerably less fun than working on the design of our site. I took a deep breath and knocked over all 3 in just under two and a half hours, which was less time then I had feared.

The feeling of accomplishment was overwhelming - not only had I almost completed my to-do list for the day, I had knocked over the worst tasks quickly and efficiently. My new resolution is to continue like this, and to start with the worst tasks first to ensure I am concentrating on the business and not my enjoyment.

An after-thought: that same day I managed to completely clear my to-do list and in addition I found time to experiment with the colours on our website. If I had continued how I had started that day, my whole time would have been wasted with my experiments which I was using as an excuse to avoid my more unpleasant, but infinitely more important, tasks. Stop often, and look at what you are doing. Then ask yourself if you are working on the right tasks!

I've seen spectacular successes and conspicuous failures. So you can learn the lessons from mistakes made by some as well as share in the secrets of the successes of others. My years of experience in helping customers succeed with their e-commerce websites has taught me much and I would like to pass this on to you.

The first thing I would like to discuss is, in my opinion, the most important fact about e-commerce websites:

All successful e-commerce websites were in a sector already well known by the owner

There are two kinds of people who want an e-commerce website (there are of course many more but these are the two main categories of people). There are those whose sole interest is in having an e-commerce website. They decide they want the website first and think of what they will sell second. The other type is someone who already has a successful business in a particular sector and wish to extend their sales capabilities to the Internet.

The e-commerce business-person

There are always exceptions to every rule but in my experience, the type of person who is more interested in the fact that it is e-commerce than in the product they are selling is doomed to failure. This is because there is more to running an e-commerce website than first meets the eye. There is some kind of romantic notion out there that if you build a great looking website with great functions, it can run itself and all you have to do is pop stuff in envelopes and parcels and go to the Post Office once a day.

This sounds like a great life-style but has no basis in reality. Goods go missing, credit card companies charge back payments at the drop of a hat. Also, the website itself must be kept up-to-date to ensure sales are as strong as possible.

This can come as a shock and if you are unprepared for this, you might be tempted to drop you idea of the dream life-style as en e-commerce magnate!

The established business-person

Contrast this with a person who already has a successful retail and/or wholesale business. They know their sector, they know what their customers want, they know what prices their customers want to pay. Most importantly of all, they know which products sell the most and/or make the most profit so they know what to always push to the forefront.

In my experience, provided the e-commerce site is well designed and promoted, these types of business people always succeed in e-commerce. In the worst cases they increase their turnover by a significant percentage and in many cases, selling online completely transforms their business.

The best tip for selling online

So my best tip to anyone thinking of starting an e-commerce business is simply to treat it like any other. Expect to learn the ropes and learn how to sell and promote just as you would if you were setting up a high street shop or a wholesale operation. Selling online is no different. And if you already have a successful business but have not yet thought about e-commerce, my advice is to start today. You never know to what dizzy heights this might lead!

1. Server Side Cookies

Server side cookies are snippets of information about you which are stored on the web server that hosts the website. Each time you view a web page you are sending information about which operating system you use, which web browser you are surfing with, even what your screen size is among many other things. They can also hold personal information about you if you fill out a form. You don't have to worry about companies getting your name and address as long as you don't fill them in on forms. If you don't do this then they can't know the information.

In summary, it is an easy way to temporarily store information (which can then be used to be stored long-term) about your visit to a website. They can save nothing that you don't want to give them with the exception of things like your screen size and browser etc.

2. Client Side Cookies

These are the cookies that are often talked about in public circles and can be the source of much paranoia. Client side cookies are snippets of information about you that are stored on your own PC. Depending upon which browser you use, they will be stored in a folder somewhere in your computer. They can be there for one minute, one hour, one month or anywhere up to 25 years!

What happens is that the website you are viewing can decide to save these bits of information about you so that they can be re-used when you go back to the website. Fror example, you may have bought something in the past and when you sign back in there is a part of the website which says "Welcome John...". They are able to do this because they kept a copy of your name on your computer.

OK that's fine, but should I be worred about cookies on my computer?

In my opinion no you shouldn't. The first reason is that one website cannot access a cookie created by another website (there is an exception to this explained below). In other words, they can only access information that you gave to them in the first place.

The second reason is that it is very easy for you to delete cookies on a regular basis. This may inconvenience you in part because they can do some very useful and helpful things. But if you are worried about cookies this should alleviate your fears. I do not recommend blocking cookies as this can cause many useful modern websites not to work.

The exception to the rule

I said earlier that no website can access cookie information saved by another website. Whilst this is strictly true, there is a sneaky way that some companies get round this. Let us say that abc.com and 123.com both use the services of def.com. abc.com can ask def.com to store the cookie on your computer and give back all information held for themselves as well as for 123.com. This could work for any company using the services of def.com. This might be illegal and may not happen that much, but it is a potentially small risk.

In my view, as long as you deal only with reputable companies you have nothing to fear and if you are still worried, then set your browser to delete all cookies on exit.

When you market and advertise your Nottingham business, you want everyone who sees that publicity to believe that they must go to you for your product or service and all your competitors think in the same way. The result of this is advertising produces another world where we accept unrealistic claims because no matter how exaggerated they are, we understand why companies use them.

We are the number one web design company in Nottingham

I want to tell you that Net Quality Web Design is the best web designer in Nottingham. In fact, I want to tell you that we are the best in the UK! And I am sure that all the other web designers in Nottingham want to say the same thing.

The truth is that not only is it the case that not everyone can be the best, there is no true way of measuring who is the best. So the situation in which we find ourselves is that we and all our competitors are all making claims that we are the best, we are the only ones who care about our customers and that we differentiate ourselves from our competitors because we believe in customer service.

With a few exceptions, we all care about our customers

Whilst there are poor performers in any industry, it is rare that there is one company who stands out in their field. Most competitors are doing their best to provide the best possible service at the best possible price in order to ensure that profit is made. So when I see claims about differentiating from the competition I take it with a pinch of salt. Most companies say things like this but it means nothing.

Saying you are number one in your profession might affect customers subconsciously but again it means nothing because there is never a way of measuring which company is number one.

So what messages mean something?

I believe that you can differentiate yourself from your competitors not by what you do but by what you say. Instead of giving out empty statements it is better to say something that is not only subconsciously positive but also actually means something. Phrases like these:

• Once you use us you won't look for anyone else
• We guarantee results (backed up with a real measurable guarantee)
• We use the best materials (maybe the others do too but it's worth saying)

This way you are getting two bites at the cherry. The messages are still subliminally positive but they are also meaningful. You stand out from the crowd becuase you are not using the same old hum-drum phrases used by everyone else.

Net Quality Web Design Nottingham's Messages

So to illustrate this, let me tell you what we believe we can offer you:

• We use the latest web technologies to ensure a future-proof website that is compatible with all modern computers and hand-held devices
• We design sites from scratch and consult you at every step to make sure your website looks exactly like you want it to.
• We think about ease of use so that your customers find it easy to navigate your site and do not get lost in a quagmire of options.
• We have built many websites that have helped Nottingham businesses increase their profits substantially and we can help you do the same.

One of the best things about designing websites in Nottingham, is meeting the wide range of businesses that establish themsleves in our fair city. It still amazes me the diversity of businesses I see. Many of them are standard businesses I know well and some are very unusual.

No matter how different each business is, there are some common aspects of business life which are common to almost, if not all businesses. One of these aspects is motivation.

If, like me, you decided to break out of the rat-race and start your own business, you will soon have discovered that as we are human, we go through natural highs and lows. At the beginning, everything is exciting and new and we seem to have limitless energy to accomplish any task. Then, with the possible exception of the super-humans amongst us, we will hit a low patch when it all seems so difficult and overwhelming.

This is natural and whiilst you cannot fight human nature, there are somethings you can do that help overcome the natural human cycle of business.

1. Set up some routines

There are some jobs you must do every day, every week or every month. Write down all these tasks and keep to your schedule. You might be tempted to go with the flow now that you do not have a boss and enjoy your new found freedom, but discipline with mundane regular tasks will help focus you and leave you to get on with the other more creative aspects of your Nottingham business.

2. Avoid routines

Well this just looks like I am contradicting myself. However, this is a nice benefit of following routines and being organised. It frees you up for the rest of the day to do other things and changing the order in which you do them can help. It helps even more if you can do something new and/or learn something new every day. You do not need to spend long in doing this as all it does is break up your day nicely and every once in a while gives you some new inspiration for a new idea or a new way of doing things. Try and remember always to do something new every day as this is such a help.

3. Take breaks

It is quite easy to slip into the habit of working from early in the morning to late at night without taking breaks. However, taking a regular 5 minute break every 30 minutes and at least one hour's break at lunchtime will mean that you achieve much more by the end of the day than if you had not taken a break at all. It is counter-intuitive to do this, especially when overloaded with work. However, forcing yourself to do some work can work wonders.

Lastly, remind yourself why you are working for yourself

Once being self-employed ot a business owner becomes routine, it can be easy to forget the excitement you felt on the day that you started. It helps to remind yourself of your life before, when you had a boss, and to bask in the glorious excitement that you are the master/mistress of your own destiny!

5 or 6 years ago I purchased my current house which has a small garden that I do not really use as it is in a pitiful state. Every time I step out into it, I see only mess. Recently I decided to do something about this and I am looking to hire a landscape artiste to plant grass, shrubs and trees; to replace the fences; and to transform an unsightly jungle into what should be an asset and a haven from daily stress.

The decision of which green-fingered expert to use in order to provide me with the garden of my dreams is exactly the same as choosing a Web Designer capable of providing the website of your dreams.

1) Location is important:

The Internet has helped reduced the importance on geographical limitations, but there will always be advantages to using someone local. Net Quality Web Design is a Nottingham Website Agency. Although we have successfully designed sites for people we have never met – all briefs, questions and answers, agreements and details were approved and shared by email, video conferencing or telephone - I always prefer face-to-face meetings. We are Nottingham web designers who will use our local knowledge to provide a first-class local service. In the same way, I can always hire someone for my garden from far away, but his daily commute may make him less motivated and less energized to meet the challenges of the daily tasks.
 

2) Agree the scope:

A redesign of a garden is like a website redesign - the sky is the limit. What I am looking for is someone who can work with me and who recognizes what must be done as a priority but who produces a result which can be built on as a solid foundation for future tasks. Currently I am agreeing on a new lawn and fence, and leaving the addition of a decking and brick barbecue to the future. It is imperative that this scope is understood both by me and by the person I am trusting to perform the work. In the same way, our Web Design agency ensures that the scope boundaries are understood by all stakeholders. All our website designs are coded using the latest standards and are optimized for efficiency and search engine optimization. This enables them to meet the expected, and agreed, scope but more importantly they can all be easily developed in the future to include new functionality, new menu options, new animations …

3) References count:

This is where past triumphs are showcased. Of the landscape artistes I received, I asked all to provide photos of past work – I was instantly suspicious of those who could not. Look at the portfolio or clients page of your potential web designer. You could (should?) contact some of them to see what they liked about the web agency and why they choose who they did. We at Net Quality pride ourselves that all our clients are also our ambassadors. We are not scared of what they have to say – in fact we actively encourage all potential clients to contact them as they will often offer better reasons why we should be chosen as your quality web design agency then we could ourselves!

4) You must have belief in him:

This is perhaps the most intangible, but in some way the most important, criteria. We are up against other web design agencies in Nottingham (i.e. the same location) that can agree and stick to the same scope and also who can show a comparable amount of references to prove they are up to the task. So how do you choose? Our main difference is that we care.

This difference is best summed up by our openness:

• our prices are proudly displayed and all is transparent
• if we are do not have the necessary expertise, we will tell you rather then pretending to know everything in a desperate attempt to secure business
• we are accurate in our estimates (both financial and timely) and stick to them – on the few occasions where we have missed deadlines, we have communicated the news prior to the fact, and have proposed new targets…we have never gone over our financial estimates believing that if we made a mistake in the agreement of the amount of money, it is our fault and should not be attributed to our clients

This is what I find myself looking for in the choice of my garden expert – he must be able to explain and justify his quote in detail, and not to be afraid of saying he is not up to certain tasks. I must believe he will do the job and do it for the price and deadline we agree.

Concluding thoughts on Web Design Nottingham and Kimberley Gardens:

The actual process I am using to determine who to transform my garden is identical to the one potential clients use to measure me as one of the founders of Net Quality Web Design and to measure my Nottingham Website Design Agency as a whole. By taking a step back and analyzing how I approach the selection, I have identified areas that could be improved in my professional offerings process. I have already set in motion changes based on what I have found positive about my selection experience. Never stop improving what you do, and look for unexpected, and what are at first sight unrelated, ways to see your business process in a new light – you may be surprised at the results.

When most people start with their own website for their business, they imagine their customers will spend a lot of time browsing every page and hanging on every word they have so very carefully written for their site. But this could not be farther from the truth.

Web browsing shows up some interesting human habits and quirks most of which could fall under one heading - impatience.

Human behaviour when surfing a website is like no other activity that we do day to day. For example, most people when they go shopping will spend quite along time in each shop they visit and take their time browsing. However, repeat the same exercise on the Internet and all of a sudden, they need to do eveything so quickly. If they have not found what they are looking for within seconds, they simply give up and move onto the next website.

It's all perfectly natural

Whilst this impatience might seem unusual, there are two properties of the Internet that make this a natural thing to do.

1. There are so may websites out there
2. Most things can be found so quickly

Therefore, it is a bad idea to put long introductions that take time to download because before it is finished, you have probably lost 50% of your visitors. But there is a rule that is even more important.

Never put anything more than 3 clicks away

Each time a person clicks on a website whilst searching for something, they are already starting to lose patience. After one click, you have probably lost a few customers, after two clicks you will probably lose a large proportion of your customers and after three clicks, you have probably lost more than half.

So you need to work with your web designer and make sure that as much information as possible is on your home page to take people directly where they want to go without crowding out the page and making it too difficult to follow. If your site is large then you will probably have to make people click at least twice for some information but whatever you do, try and avoid making them click three times and never ever make them click more than 3 times. You can be sure to lose more than 90% of your customers if you do this.

First of all, let us get some jargon out of the way to make this article easier to read. TLD (or Top Level Domain) is the group of letters that appear after the final dot in a web address. The most commonly used of these is .com. Here in the UK the TLD .uk is probably best known in its most popular derivation which is .co.uk.

Each TLD has its own registrar that looks after all domains. So ICANN looks after .com, .net, .org and others. Nominet looks after all .uk domains which includes .co.uk, .org.uk and .gov.uk.

Anyone starting a business in Nottingham, or anywhere in the UK for that matter, will, as one of their first tasks, look for a domain name that they can register for their business. Usually they will search for .co.uk, .com or both. Other domains are occasionally bought but these two are by far the most popular.

However, anyone who has carried out this exercise will know that it is a frustrating experience. Usually the first half dozen names that you think of have already been registered by someone else. This fact alone is frustrating enough but often when you check out the website, they are not even in use! You see, many individuals and companies register thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands of domain names in the hope that they can sell enough of them for a premium to make money. This practice is known as squatting.

It is not illegal to squat in a domain name (although it could be legally challenged in a very expensive court case) and so this situation is likely to continue forever. Therefore, ICANN has come up with an idea that might resolve this problem.

Now websites can be .anything

They have now opened up completely what TLDs are available. So for example, we could change our domain name to net.quality. If you have a pub you might have a website called red.lion. No longer will you be constrained to look for a domain name that ends in .com or .co.uk, you could choose a TLD much more appropriate to your business.

That sounds great, where do I sign up?

Sadly, the reality is slightly different. If you want to register a TLD, you must first of all be approved by ICANN and you must then pay a fee of between $100,000 and $500,000. Companies that choose to do this can then charge anything they want for domain names to be registered using that TLD.

So what does the future hold?

I believe that the reliance on search engines means that the TLD will become less important. As long as companies who register these new TLDs, I think we will gradually see lots of new combinations of domain names.

This might take a long time though. I think many people still believe that for credibility, they must own the .com domain name for their business. It is a belief that might take some time to disappear. But I do believe that it will, allbeit slowly.

or how to fix just about any IT problem

As a web designer, I work with two monitors. My graphics card has two video output sockets. One is the modern DVI output and the other is the old fashioned VGA output. This allows me to connect two screens to my PC and by adding some settings to Personlisation in Windows, I am able to stretch my Desktop across two monitors.

My left-hand monitor is the better monitor and is connected by DVI and I use this to hold my web browser when I am creating websites as this gives me the best resolution and colour rendition. I use the second monitor on the right to place my text editor where I can see the code behind the web page. This way, I can find problems on web pages by being able to view both the web page and the code at the same time. This works very well for me.

Resolution detected incorrectly

The other day, however, a problem suddenly reared its head. My monitor on the right looked a little blurry and the objects on it seemed to be distorted and misshapen. So I went into the menu settings of my second monitor and found that the resolution being sent by the computer was being wrong. I was surprised by this since I hadn't changed it recently but nevertheless I went into Windows Personalisation to rectify the problem.

However, the second monitor's resolution was not available in the list of resolutions. This was mystifying. So I went into the NVIDIA control panel to check my graphic card's settings and upon inspection it reported that the second monitor's native resolution was 1024 pixels by 768 pixels. Since I knew the correct resolution was 1440 pixels by 900 pixels I knew now that the root of my problem was that the graphics card was detecting the resolution incorrectly.

Perhaps something had gone wrong in my monitor or with the cable. I decided to use trusty old Google to find the cause. Normally, when you have a problem with your computer, someone has talked about the same problem on the Internet and you can find the solution.

I found many ideas on there and they either did not make sense or if I tried them, simply did not work.

Switch it off then switch it back on

I then remembered an old IT custom. If it isn't working, then switch it off and switch it on again. This is the secret to curing so many computer problems I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it before. Sadly, it did not work for me though. So once again I was stuck and I had to return to Google.

In all the hundreds of pages, forum entries and blog entries I read, I suddenly discovered the solution to my problem.

What to do when switching off and switching back on doesn't work:

There is a second IT secret fix that I hadn't thought of. Switch everything off and unplug it for 10 minutes and then switch it all back on again. You see, lots of IT equipment remembers some settings when left plugged in as it keeps capacitors in the system running which allow small amounts of data to be retained. Switching off for at least 30 seconds lets these run out and therefore reset themselves.

I took no chances and waited 10 minutes and then Hey Presto! Everything worked!

So if you have a strange problem with your computer, before you try anything, switch it off and switch it back on. If that fails, then switch it off, unplug it, leave it for 10 minutes and then switch it back on.

And if that fails, it's time to call in the experts!

I sincerely hope this helps many of you out there ready to throw your computers out of the window.

I was astonished to read today that Google have been found out for carrying out a search engine optimisation trick in order to promote their web browser, Chrome. Aaron Wall, the creator of the SEO book blogged to the world that he had found this out by using his specialised searches.

What they had done was to pay bloggers to promote a video about the Chrome Web Browser. This created hundreds of inbound links meaning that Google's well established search algorithms pushed the linked page further up the results pages.

Google is fighting a constant battle against "paid for" links and thin content on web pages that promote websites. For Google to join in with this dubious (but commonly used) method of marketing is incredible for two reasons:

1. Surely They Could Just Fix It

It is ironic that this action shows a certain amount of honesty and a certain amount of dishonesty at the same time. It is dishonest because they have employed a marketing method against which they have fought for so long. But it is honest because it shows they were not prepared to "fix" the results.

It would be difficult to catch them out if they did this. They control a complex set of algorithms and it would be difficult if not impossible to prove they had done anything dodgy. The fact that they felt the need to employ some search engine optimisation shows that they are not willing to fix their own search engine results.

2. If Google Found It Necessary to Do This, How Can We Be Expected Not To Do It?

Search Engine Optimisation is at best time consuming and at worst, horrendously expensive. It is also very risky if you employ a search engine marketeer because there are so many sharks in the business.

All of us are trying to learn the latest tricks and techniques to get our websites to page 1 for that all important set of search keywords and for so much time now, Google has been emphasising great content above all else. Many of us strive and struggle to create this great content but we all know it sometimes isn't enough and given the opportunity for a link on a highly ranked website for which we must pay is a great temptation.

In truth, this is probably just a small blip in Google's history which has been marked along the way with much more success than failure. But it is interesting that their search engine has become so powerful that they, just like us, have to find ways to impress it.

Something which we are keen to promote more to our customers is those special customisations and integrations many modern businesses need. Most businesses are still happy with a brochure type website that encourages visitors to call them or visit them and even many e-commerce customers are happy with a website that gives them orders that can be printed off and then dealt with the old-fashioned way.

However, it could be that your business now has greater requirements and this is where we can step in.

First, the technical bits

PHP and MySql

We specialise in websites that run on Linux Servers running PHP and MySql. This might be important to you but even if it is not, the simple description of this is that we can build powerful database applications that mean the website can be dynamic (interacting with the user) and can easily pass data between your office software and back. We are specialists in this area and can pretty much design what your budget will allow.

ASP and .NET

You may have a system that runs on ASP (very old) or the much more modern .NET on a Windows server. Whilst we have skills in this area we no longer offer development for these types of websites because we feel the future lies in the much more robust and speedy Linux envronment. However, we are skilled at transferring sites that currently run on Windows platforms to a Linux platform. This means that your website can be configured to work on the much simpler and flexible system (and a system for which there are many more developers) without interruption to your website's services and search engine rankings.

Now the interesting bits

Examples of applications

It may be that your business uses an invoicing package such as Sage or Kashflow and you need the orders on your website importing into the package. Each software package has its own requirements for data layout. We can format the data in any required layout and work with you to develop the slickest systems for transfer of data.

Maybe your business requires a booking facility. We could develop the whole thing to work with your eisting booking facility, again developing the most efficient way to handle the exchange of data.

Your own web based software

We have gone even further than that for some customers. Instead of buying software and running it on PCs, we can develop systems for you to handle ordering, booking, stock control, invoicing, accounting and much more. All your employees would need is access to an Internet enabled PC or smart-phone and access becomes global. We would couple such an installation with all our extensive knowledge in Internet security ensuring that your business data is safe at all times.

So call us today on 0115 963 6589 to see how we can help you with any specialised requests for your business.

I was helping a business associate today with some calculations regarding their VAT. In doing so, I discovered something surprising about the Government's flat rate VAT scheme that many people had not realised. I am glad I realised it now as my business could soon be registering for VAT and understanding the flat rate scheme is important in coming to a decision.

What is the flat rate VAT scheme?

For businesses with a relatively small turnover (less than 150000 net), they can opt to simplify their VAT returns by just paying a predetermined percentage of sales to HMRC without having to calculate the difference between their sales input and purchases output.

All you do, is report your gross turnover for the period concerned and pay them the predetermined percentage of that amount. So then can be no doubt that the scheme offers savings in terms of administration.

The motivation for most businesses is this savings in terms of administration coupled with potential savings in the amount of VAT you actually have to pay.

However, does it offer savings in terms of the amount of VAT you pay?

How the percentage is calculated

To illustrate this, let us take the case of a Hairdresser's business. At the time of writing this article, the standard rate of VAT is 20% and the flat rate for Hairdressers is 13%. On the face of it, this sounds like you keep 7% of the 20% VAT rate and pay the remaining 13% to the government.

But that is now how it works at all.

In my view, this is a bit sneaky on the government's part. But the proportion of the collected VAT that you pay to the government is considerably higher than first appears to be the case.

To illustrate this, let us assume the gross turnover of our example Hairdresser's business is £100,000. Paying VAT on the flat rate scheme is a very simple calculation of £13,000 (13% of £100,000).

However, the amount of VAT you would have paid under a normal VAT scheme is not £20,000, which is a figure you might assume instinctively. Rather, it is quite a bit less than this.

The figure of £100,000 is a gross figure. So to calculate the amount of VAT within this turnover we need to calculate it like this:

£100,000/120*20 = £16,666.67

And it gets worse. If you were paying VAT at the full rate, you would be entitled to claim back the VAT on all business purchases. So let us say for the sake of argument that you made purchases totalling £12,000 (gross) for the year. You can deduct the amount of VAT paid which is:

£12,000/120*20 - £2,000.00

So in this case, the amount you would have to pay is £14,666.67. This still means that you are better off on the flat rate scheme. However, if your purchases rise much above £10,000, it might be worth registering for the normal VAT rate.

So how does this difference arise?

The reason this is the case is very simple. VAT at 20% is applied to your net sales. The flat rate scheme which in this example if 13% is applied to your gross sales. Your gross sales are, of course, 20% higher than your net sales. That subtle difference in semantics makes quite a big difference to your bottom line.

So should I register for the flat rate VAT scheme for my business?

There is a good chance that this scheme could be good for you. As long as you understand the differences illustared above and can follow where to apply percentages to net and where to apply them to gross, you should be able to calculate whether it could be if financial benefit to your business.

Here is a simple calculation to calculate the trigger point above which it is better to opt for a normal VAT registration:

1. Deduct the flat rate percentage from 16.67
2. Multiply this fiugure by 6
3. Apply the result as a percentage of your gross turnover
4. This is the threshold above which, the flat rate scheme is no longer of any use to you

For example:

1. 16.67 - 13.00 = 3.67
2. x 6 = 22.02
3. £100,000 x 22.02% = £22,020

So a hairdresser with a turnover of more than £100,000 should go for the flat rate scheme if total gross VAT purchases are less than £22,020 per year.

I hope I have explained that well!

 NB - These calculations assume a VAT rate of 20%

So many of my customers come to me as the result of wasted time and expense in wetting up their own website. Whilst any source of business is welcome, it is such a shame that people go through the experience of wasting their time and money when this could have been avoided if good advice had been available in the first place.

Why Should I Design My Own Website?

Net Quality Web Design Nottingham prides itself on being able to provide a stylish and effective website at a very low cost. Even so, there are start-up businesses where cash is very tight and even at our very reasonable rates, a bespoke website could stretch resources beyond what they can withstand. So if you are good with a PC and have the time but not the money, then designing your own website is a reasonable course of action to take.

What Software Should I Use to Design My Own Website?

My first piece of advice is to avoid two of the most popular programs available to do this for you. Microsoft Front Page has not been available for some time but is still very popular with many amateur designers. The websites it makes are at best very inefficient and at worst a security risk from hacking. I advise you avoid this software like the plague.

The most popular software is Adobe Dreamweaver. This software is quite efficient in the right hands but it is also very expensive. It takes a long time to learn so you spend all the time and effort without any of the cost savings. It is possible to have a website professionally designed by us for a roughly similar cost to buying this software.

So if you are to go ahead, I would recommend any one of these three routes:

1. Use notepad and learn HTML and CSS from scratch using the W3 Schools website. This is an excellent resource and teaches everything you need to know from the simplest HTML website right up to a database driven website written in PHP and MySql. You will need to be a quick learner but this is an excellent way to design your website as well as increase your skills.
2. Install Wordpress. Many web hosts allow you to install Wordpress without too much effort. Although originally designed as an easy way to create a blog, it is perfectly possible to design your own website using this software. Another possibility is Joomla although this is slightly more difficult to set up.
3. Use our sister company, AB Publish to create your own website. It is low cost and everything is done online. This is the least technically challenging way to set up your own website and the results can look great.

And What if I Cannot Do Any of These Things?

Then come to Net Quality Web Design Nottingham. From only £395 you can have a great looking website set up for you because if you are setting up in business, a website is an absolutely essential part of any business.

I received an official looking document today, designed to look like an invoice and it was from Domain Renewal Group. It invited me to take advantage of their "best savings" . These "savings" amount to a charge that is five times what I am currently paying for these domain names.

In the middle of all the blurb on this document they do admit that "this notice is not a bill" but this dishonest bunch of crooks have designed the remainder of the document to look very much like a bill.

Scammers like this make me angry

With all the effort this company has put into setting themselves up in business, why is it that they have chosen this crooked route? Many large companies have set up in business as genuine domain name registration services and they are rightly making a lot of money by providing a service.

What this company is doing is to stay just a hair's breadth within the law and provides absolutely zero service to businesses. All they are doing is taking advantage of technically naive individuals and charging them far more than the going rate for such a service.

How can I spot the scammers?

If a company you have never heard of sends you a bill, then they are most likely scammers. I can say without hesitation that if you get a letter from Domain Renewal Group then it should go straight through your shredder.

When your domain name is due for renewal, the company with whom you registered the name will contact you and this will usually be by email. The costs should also be roughly similar to what you oaid to register the domain name. As a guide you should expect to pay:

• Between £6 and £10 (inc. VAT) for two years for .uk names
• Between £6 and £12 (inc. VAT) for one year for .com names

If you host your website with Net Quality Web Design Nottingham then we will take control of this (and fend off Domain Name Renewal Group's letters) on your behalf. The costs are covered in the monthly hosting fees because just like them, we want to earn money. However unlike them, we want to do it by providing a value for money service to Nottingham businesses.

We all read about hacking, we all read about the importance of keeping back-ups and I am sure we all agree how important both of these things are when you are in business. But how many of us fail to apply this in our own business lives?

I suppose it is a bit like many things in life. "It won't happen to me". And it isn't until it happens to you that you realise its importance.

All websites are at risk of being hacked

You may think that your website is just a small local website and nobody will bother to hack you. This is a mistake. Hackers love vulnerabilities and it doesn't matter whether it is a US Government Defence website or the site of Joe Bloggs's business down the road, they just love to hack.

Why do people hack websites?

I am asked this question quite often and my answer is a simple one. This is exactly the same question as "why do people vandalise property?". They do it just because they can and they enjoy damaging other people's property.

Why would they choose my website to hack?

These people run searches on search engines and run programs that look for vulnerabilities in websites. I can see this happening all the time by examining the statistics for Net Quality Web Design's own website.

How much damage can they do?

The potential is for them to completely remove all content on your website. This makes your website irretrievable if you have no back-up of your data. And beware, it really could happen to you?

So how do I protect my website?

There are several ways in which you can do this. The first and most important way is to ensure that passwords used to access your website are secure. If your password is something simple like forest for example (a very common password for people in Nottingham) you are making it so easy for hackers to gain access. If you change it to forest22 it is surprisingly a lot more difficult for them but still quite easy. However, if you mix upper case and lower case letters and add in other symbols, you are increasing the difficulty of hacking by a factor of millions. So for example ForEsT192(*!a would be practically impossible to hack.

Also, if your user name is something like admin, webmaster, root or a common name like john or jane then this also increases your vulnerability. However, the strength of your password is much more important.

Another important thing is something about which you will need to ask your web designer. An old method of creating websites was to use database programs like Access. These tend to be very vulnerable, especially if the stored passwords are not encrypted.

So make sure you have a strong password and check with your web designer that your passwords are stored in the database in an encrypted format. If you also keep regular back-ups of your website you should be able to sleep easily at night.

A question I am asked more frequently of late is "how is business going?", more commonly from other Nottingham business owners. Ever since the credit crunch struck, it is as if we all want to gauge how other companies are doing and how good their confidence is in the market place.

It is something that is uppermost in existing business owners' minds, but it must be even more so for those budding Nottingham entrepreneurs who are looking to dip their toes into business waters.

Now is the right time

I believe that not is the perfect time to start a business. I think this because I think that the market place is more fluid than normal, giving new business owners a better chance. During boom times, people and businesses alike stick to their favourite suppliers of products and services. They stay with those businesses with whom they feel comfortable. There is also an element of laziness in that it takes a lot of effort to switch supplier.

However, now that people are carefully watching their spending, they are much more likely to be looking for a new supplier. They do not necessarily want cheaper, but they do want better value for money.

What can you do better?

So look at ways you can better the general services offered by other companies in the field in which you want to become involved. What can you offer your potential customers that is better than the well established competitors. Your customers are likely to welcome your fresh views on the services and/or products as well-established businesses are often set in their ways.

So now is just the right time to start business in Nottingham. As a web designer, I am in the privileged position of witnessing the birth and rapid growth of these new businesses and also to be a participant in that success. I can tell you that it is happening and those who do it right, are enjoying a level of success that may surprise you.

The hardest part of my job is not all the technical stuff. Yes it was difficult to learn and took me a long time but I have learned it now and that side of the job is relatively easy. No, the really hard part is when I have been commissioned to create a new website and I am sitting in front of a blank screen trying to decide how this website is going to look.

A crucial part of this process is to think about the colours I am going to use. I have done some research on this and here is what i have found that colours tend to suggest from a psychological point of view:

• Blue: Business-like, trustworthy, serious, reliable, powerful
• Red: Passionate, dangerous, exciting
• Green: Natural, healthy, harmonious, environmental
• Orange (an important colour for Net Quality): Comforting, creative, fun, youthful
• Purple : Luxurious, sumptuous, feminine
• White: Clear, pure, clean, crisp, simple
• Yellow: Playful, cheerful
• Pink: Feminine, sweet, youthful
• Brown: Natural, primitive, earthy, environmental
• Grey: Neutral, reserved, business-like, reliable
• Black: Creative, sophisticated, different

Don't forget that contrast is also important

This list should hopefully give you some ideas for when you are thinking about how your new website should look. Decide where in these categories your business falls and this should help psychologically describe your business before your customers have even read the content.

However, please also remember that contrast is also important wherever text resides on your page so that your visitors can read the content. So dark writing on a light background or light writing on a dark background is a must.

This is something with which we are all familiar. Most website addresses (URIs) are quoted as beginning with www. Many years ago, before the Internet became popular, this was quite important. Nowadays, it is completely unimportant. So why do we continue to use it?

My theory is that we like to see patterns in things like addresses so that we can quickly identify to what it relates. For example, when we see the @ symbol in the middle of an address, we know it refers to the email address. It it starts with www we know it is a website. It is so unfortunate that www was chosen.  If there is one letter in the alphabet that is really difficult to say three times, it is the letter w!

What does the www do for my website?

I could answer this by just saying "nothing" but I will give you a bit more detail. Let us say you have bought the domain name widgets.com. This means that you now own any website name that ends in widgets.com. So for example, you could have these sites:

• shop.widgets.com
• blog.widgets.com
• members.widgets.com

The combinations are limitless as you own the domain widgets.com. The words shop, blog and members shown above are known as sub-domains. Depending on your web host, you are entitled to an unlimited number of sub-domains.

This is a long way of telling you that www is simply a sub-domain of a website. So www.netquality.uk is a sub-domain of netquality.uk. If you choose the former, it automatically forwards you to the latter. They could just as easily point to two different websites.

So should I use www on my website? 

It is up to you. I took the decision to use netquality.uk without the www in front of it as it serves no purpose. But, should you prefer to use it, there is no harm that can come to your website.

Now I have armed you with the facts, you can decide what to do with your website too.

I was reading a local newspaper's report on the future opening of the Byron Business centre in Hucknall. It was of interest to me because it is right behind the premises where I live and work. My property overlooks an old and dilapidated school which has been left to rack and ruin for the past 15 years or so. This is such a shame as it is an impressive old Victorian building. Now Ashfield District Council have bought the property which is situated on Vine Street and also has an entrance on Duke Street.

I hope the council make a good job of this building as it could provide much needed commercial employment in a very needy town centre. Office space is rare in Hucknall and should this scheme succeed it could make an enormous difference.

So many changes and challenges for this small town

Hucknall is a town in transformation. Only 25 years ago, the whole economy of the area relied on mining. Since the mine shut down, you could have forgiven the town for shutting down too but far from it. The enterprising people of Hucknall have made sure it is a community which continues to thrive today.

I am not trying to gloss over some very real problems. A significant number of the High Street retail units lie unoccupied and those that remain are struggling in the face of competition from big business. However, many high streets are suffering in this way. When you consider that the main source of income was taken away from Hucknall all those years ago, it is impressive that any of the retail units is occupied,

This is an enterprising town. With so many small business owners (a great place for a web designer to place themselves) around, it is an exciting time to be doing business in Hucknall. So I hope that this new office development succeeds and is only part of what is a great recovery from a great economic blow that still feels very recent to the residents and business owners of Hucknall.

Many aspects of web design are merely opinion. A colour to one person may look stylish and to another, may look garish. Like any kind of design, beauty is always in the eye of the beholder. However, despite this, there are still certain rules that must be followed and not to do so, could spell disaster for your website and the purpose for which it was created.

1. An example of the best in web design - crisp clean and clear

It is tempting to cram everything important to you on the home page of your website. There may be 100 things you want to tell your customers about your business. Whilst such pride in one's business is admirable, you must choose the top one or two messages from this large list. It must be clear immediately what your business is at a glance of your home page. A nice crisp clean and clear design is what always works best with a clear message to the visitor what it is that you do.

2. An example of the worst in web design - music and sounds

This is one of the most popular features requested and my first question is why? Do Amazon use sound, does Google use sound? No they do not and the reason they do not is that it is extremely irritating for the visitor, especially if there is no obvious way to switch off the tune or sound effect that is playing.

There is a place, of course, for sound to exist on the website for a purpose. The perfect example of this is a website for a singer or a music group. But even for these guys the best way to implement the sound is in a way that the visitor chooses where or not to play the music and to give them full control over playing, pausing and changing the volume.

3. An example of the best in web design - a nicely illustrated website

Ever since it has been possible to put photos on web pages, it has always been true that a website with photos and graphics looks infinitely more attractive than one without. Better still, if those photos tell your visitor something about your business then so much the better.

Your web designer should be able to design some nice graphics on your site for illustration purposes as well as practical purposes such as menu buttons and background.

4. An example of the worst in web design - hiding behind style

This practice still exists although it is thankfully less common than a few years ago. Artistic businesses were usually the main sinners here in that they wanted their website to look completely different to any other website. Menu options were hidden behind stylish but obscure graphics which would instigate time consuming animations. Never forget how impatient visitors to your website are. Tell them where things are on your website by clear navigation and when they make that selection, take them there immediately!

Good Web Design Advice

We have many years experience at Net Quality Web Design on which we can draw to ensure your website is effective and follows the best in web design. Let us guide you through the process so that you can enhance your business today with a successful website.

With so many aspects of business, our standards are very high. This is natural because we want the outside world to view our businesses as an honest, reliable and professional outfit and everything that is put out into the world represents your business whether it be the sign above your shop, your business card or your website.

In my experience, many business owners either place little importance on their website and often look for the cheapest way of creating it or they brush it aside as it is something they do not understand. In my view, to do so is a mistake.

Your website is often the first new customers see of you. When you have been thinking about buying a product or service, have you not looked them up on Google first? Even if you haven't, you can bet many of your customers will be doing exactly this. If the first thing they say is a poorly designed website and gives the impression it was designed by the business owner's 15 year old nephew, it can put people off straight away. Most customers are far more perceptive than you think and in an instant can decide whether they think you are a professional company or not just by the appearance of your web pages.

Seek professional help

Most business owners employ an accountant. It is something they can do themselves but it usually pays to have an expert submit your returns. Most business owners go to specialist agencies to help in the design of leaflets and catalogues. Again, this is something they can do themselves but know that the results will be far better if a professional does it for them.

So it should also be with your website. Look for a professional web designer to take control of the important aspects of your website and benefit from their experience as to what does and does not work in the design of that site.

The major difference between a web designer and an accountant is that anyone can set themselves up as a web designer, no qualifications are required. Happily, there is a way you can check on a web designer's credentials and that is to visit their portfolio page. It should contain links to real life websites to give you an idea of their skills. So why not pop over to our portfolio page today and see what you think of our skills?

I think that blogging falls into that category of things about which we hear a lot but of which we know next to nothing. Chats with friends and colleagues can often elicit pressure on the small business owner with phrases such as "you have to get your business on Facebook", "you have to be on Twitter", "you must have a blog for your business". This pressure may be frustrating because you do not understand why you have to have these things but the truth is that more than likely the person telling you this doesn't either!

I will talk about Facebook and Twitter in later articles as today, I wish just to talk about blogs.

What is a blog?

The word blog is a shortening of the phrase "Web Log" and refers to a kind of online diary. It is a public diary where one writes down one's thoughts on any subject. Your blog might just be about your daily life or it might be a series of articles detailing a stage in your career or business. Whatever the subject, it is a collection of articles to which you regularly add over a period of time.

Why should my business have a blog?

There are two main reasons why businesses have a blog. Let's be honest about this, the primary reason is for search engine optimisation. It has been well known for some time now that search engines and Google in particular love lots of text heavy relevant content on your website. A blog is a method whereby you can regularly add new content about subjects concerning your business and after some time, it can augment the size and quality of your website in the eyes of the search engines, if you do it properly!

In order to achieve this your blog must be relevant to your business, it must be written in a style that is readable to a human (not just a repetition of key words and key phrases), it must contain useful information and most importantly of all, it must be unique. Plagiarism in a blog will get you nowhere and will probably have very harmful results.

The other reason is that it is a means of keeping your customers up to date with the latest developments in your industry and in your business specifically. Therefore a lot of thought should be put into your blog. It should not be created just for its own sake. It must be relevant and useful to the readers of your website.

Why should my business not have a blog?

If you have nothing or very little to say, it is far better not to have a blog. There is nothing worse than seeing a part of a website like a news page or a blog where the last entry was over two years ago. That creates a very bad impression and will do more harm then good. If you cannot update your blog regularly then it is better not to have it at all.

What can Net Quality Web Design Nottingham do for me?

Not only can we add a blog to your existing website, we can design this blog to specifically meet the needs of your business. A professional looking blog that fits into your website and has the features that you require is much better than an off-the-shelf generic blog and gives the right professional impression of your business.

So if you have something to say and could keep it updates, call us today to see how we can help add a blog to your business website.

In technical fields, jargon has two potential objectives, one is positive and the other negative. The positive objective is to allow one to refer to a complex system or group of things with one simple word, acronym or phrase. The negative objective is to exclude outsiders from understanding what it is that you are talking about. For example, the financial industry started using the word leverage as a verb to describe financed buy-outs and is now widely used by so-called financial experts when trying to describe something which they do not understand.

However, sometimes the second objective is unintentional and therefore I think it useful to let the reader know about some of the more common terms used in web design.

1. Dynamic web pages

There are two types of web pages that would will read, static and dynamic. It simply refers to the way in which the page was created. A static page is a simple web page that has been written out in full and when you visit the page, you see nothing more than the content that was written for that page. A dynamic web page is a page that is created by the web server in the background and this can be done a number of ways. The most common would be a database of products. From this database it is possible to create search pages, categorisation pages and also the pages that describe the products. None of these pages exists on the server but rather they are created "on the fly" when you visit the page according to the criteria in the database.

2. Web 2.0

This is an oft-misused term which refers to websites that not only interact with the user but also work from user provided content. Facebook, Twitter and Gmail are the most common example of this type of website.

3. Affiliate Marketing

This refers to a system of marketing whereby users create websites, blogs and other Internet content to sell the products of another. The system allows the seller to earn commission when people who they refer to the producer of the product make a purchase. This is often used for simple products like e-books and services with repeat billing like web hosting.

4. JavaScript

This is a programming language which allows web pages to do things instead of just sitting there. It allows the interaction between the user and the web page. Its main uses are discussed in the next section.

5. DHTML and AJAX

I put these together as I see one as an evolution from the other. DHTML is a combination of styling technologies (CSS) and JavaScript and allows a web page to become animated in some form. Nice effects such as changing colours on pages based on mouse moves and fading image galleries are good examples of this technology.

AJAX takes this one step further and allows JavaScript to interact with the web server as well as the user's browser. This allows a web page's content to change immediately without moving to another web page and bring in new content immediately based on user input. If you have ever used Google mail, this is something which relied heavily on AJAX.

These are some of the most common phrases. I will write about more in future as I think of them.

Few small businesses have the funds to pay a professional photographer to create the type of images that look impressive on a website. Beyond a picture of your premises and, if applicable, your showroom is usually about all that you will have. To fill this gap, websites that sell images created by other photographers have been springing up all over the Internet. In terms of web design, these can be really useful. You can buy a photo that would cost hundreds of pounds if you had commissioned it yourself and often for only a few pounds. As websites do not require high resolution images in the way that printing requires, they can cost less than one pound on some websites.

We at Net Quality have used such stock images for many years now and the main source we used to use was the iStock site, owned by Getty images. They have an impressive choice of photographs, graphics and videos and until recently, their prices were reasonable. However, we have decided to stop using them because they are currently employing a unwarranted method to earn more revenue.

A note to all of you who have had a letter from Getty images demanding damages

Getty images have been writing letters to thousands of businesses around the world demanding large sums of money because they claim that the website owner does not have a valid licence to use the photo. In many cases this is not true but this does not seem to stop Getty images issuing this highly threatening letters which scare many small business owners into parting with their hard-earned money.

Therefore I wish all customers of Net Quality Web Design to know this now:

All images supplied by Net Quality Web Design have legitimate licences allowing the photograph to be used on your website

I want you to know this because I know of at least one case where one of our customers has paid Getty images without consulting us first. So if you are a customer of Net Quality Web Design and your eceive one of these letters please let us know and we can give you the relevant licence information that will satisfy Getty images.

Because of this controversial action taken by Getty images, we know longer use iStock images. We have found other suppliers who charge less than iStock and do not treat their customers in this way.

But no matter who we use, you can be sure that we supply your website with fully legal images and we keep a full record of all purchase details.

The first thing to consider when deciding whether or not you should include a site map on your website is to talk about the two types of site maps that there are:

1. An XML Site Map

The purpose of this type of site map is to structure the data containing information about all the pages on your website in a format that is easily readable by computer programs. Its format has to be precise to be of any value. There are plenty of websites that will create these free for you as long as your website is not too large. If you are a customer of Net Quality we can add an XML site map to your website free of charge. This is useful for the search engines but would not be used by your website's visitors.

2. An HTML Site Map

This is an page that is useful to both your visitors and the search engines. It is simply an ordinary web page that lists all of the pages of your website. If it is a large website then it structures those pages in an easily readable format so that it is quite easy to find the page that you are looking for.

So should I have an XML site map, an HTML site map or both?

In my opinion, an XML site map is something that all websites should have. For smaller websites that have been designed well it will probably make no difference. But it is a belt and braces approach that ensures the search engines know of all the pages that exist on your website. It is so easy to add that it may as well be included and just might help you.

I do not think an HTML site map is essential unless you have a large website of say, more than 10 pages. If some of your menu options have drop-down menus behind them then I would say it is absolutely essential.

So the short answer is that you should always have an XML site map and in many instances you should also have an HTML site map on your website.

What do site maps do for my website?

XML site maps are useful in ensuring that the search engines know about all the pages on your website. They should already know this by following your link structure throughout the site, but this will back up this link structure by telling the search engines about all pages. It also means that new pages on your website that are buried deep in your content will likely be picked up earlier.

An HTML site map can have a very similar effect with the search engines. It is a page with links to all pages all summarised in one place and it increases the likelihood that all pages on your website will be indexed.

I was reading an article today on the website of a well respected Nottingham publication. It was revealing that whilst 95% of Nottingham businesses have a website, only 26 percent of businesses were taking advantage of affiliate marketing opportunities. But the article was about using social media like Twitter and Facebook. This is not affiliate marketing.

I do not know whose mistake it was. It was either the business journalist or it was the spokesman for the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Chamber of Commerce. What is clear, is that if people in positions such as these do not know the difference, how can small business owners be expected to know the difference?

Maybe your friends and business colleagues have been telling you that you need to be on Twitter and Facebook. It is the fashion of the day it seems. And maybe you are worried that you are not using them. Well it is time to stop worrying because I doubt that any of these people encouraging you really know why you should or indeed whether you should.

So here is a list of these marketing methods and my opinion on whether or not they should be used.

1. Twitter

I have a perfect example of how Twitter can be useful. A customer of Net Quality regularly introduces new products on a regular basis and until recently, their customers had to visit the website of my customer to discover which products they were. They asked Net Quality to provide an mass emailing system to which their customers could subscribe and allow them to keep their customers informed. This is something well within our capabilities but instead of just charging our customer for this service I suggested they try Twitter first. It is free and is so simple to integrate into your website. Customers are free to subscribe and can receive updates from you on their PC's, netbooks and mobile phones. This service is perfect for them.

However, unless you do have regular messages you want to send to a customer it is best not to have a Twitter page for your business. No Twitter page is far better than a Twitter page whose last entry was in July 2010.

2. Facebook

This site can be useful if you want to build a community feel around your business. You can make announcements on here and integrate it with Twitter very easily. Your Twitter updates can be incorporated on your Facebook page and given more detail as well as photos. However, the same rule applies. Only do this if you have frequent and useful information to give to your customers, otherwise there is no purpose behind it.

3. Affiliate Marketing

Here is the nub of the article. Affiliate Marketing has nothing whatsoever to do with Twitter or Facebook. It is a marketing method whereby other people promote your services and/or products on the Internet for which they receive a commission from you when sales are made. Trust is required, especially on the side of the affiliate marketer. It can be a useful method of marketing your business because you only pay on results. The downside is that good results take time to achieve so should be part of your long term strategy in marketing your business.

Affiliate Marketing only tends to work with ecommerce type websites. If you feel this would be of use to you and your business then please call us and we can se this up for you.

In conclusion...

I hope this article has cleared up for most of you what these differences are. And if you are ever speaking to the Chamber of Commerce, can you put them right for me please?

John Lennon once said that life is what happens when you're making other plans. I must confess that when I started Net Quality Web Design I had no plans to create an ecommerce website. It seemed to be an area of web design beset by complexity and pitfalls.

Cottage industries are popping up everywhere thanks to the Internet and ecommerce

However, it became very clear very quickly that there was a great demand for this type of website and here we are more than 5 years later with an immpressive portfolio of online shops and more. I have learned much over these years not only about how I should design an ecommerce website and what features are available but I have also been on a journey with the customers as they enter unknown territory and learn on the hoof how to make a success of an ecommerce website.

Our expertise is the result of the experience of others who have tried and succeeded

So in the beginning we claimed to be experts in the creation of ecommerce websites, this was true but only from a technical point of view as we have many years experience in creating database driven applications. And now, five years on we can make this claim from a very real point of view because we have learned what works and what does not work in terms of selling products online. If done correctly it can be the start of a very exciting business and if not done correctly it can be an investment that does not pay.

Therefore if you come to Net Quality Web Design Nottingham to design your ecommerce website, you can be confident that not only will the technical side of things will be fully sorted you can also be assured that there is a wealth of experience upon which you can draw to help you get started on a proper footing with your online shop.

The Net Quality Web Design Guide to Ecommerce

So that is why I have written a guide to starting an ecommerce website. What I have tried to cover in this guide is the areas that you might not yet have thought about. For instance, have you thought about what you do for products that are lost or returned? Have you factored in these costs to your prices?

I cover this and many other subjects in the guide which I hope not only helps you in creating your website but also helps you avoid some of the potential pitfalls.

Learn how to succeed where others fail

I have seen ecommerce businesses succeed and others fail. There are many factors as to why this is the case but I thought I would share with you what I consider to be the two most important factors:

1. Those who approach it as a real business (often as an adjunct to an existing business) generally succeed. Those who back it up with lots of publicity tend to have the most success.
2. Those who approach it as a short-cut to becoming a millionaire and do not much care what it is they sell tend to have the least amount of success and generally fail.

So why not download our guide to ecommerce today and read about something that could be the start of something very exciting for your business.

When I decided I was going to leave a well-paid secure job to start my own Web Design business, I was living down south, near London. I knew that I was not going to earn a living straight away so I also decided that I was going to return to Nottingham where I already had family and friends. Part of the reason was to be near those family and friends but another part was that I felt that strategically, it was going to help me in my business. Here are a list of the main reasons that I saw Nottingham as an advantage over other parts of the country for starting your own business:

1. It's cheaper

Well let's face it, when starting your own business, costs are a very important factor. The more you can keep down those costs without interfering with the promotion and development of your business the better. I was planning to work from home and moving to Nottingham meant I was living in a larger home for half the rent I was paying down south.

2. It's in the perfect location

The decision to move to Nottingham was not immediate. There are benefits to starting a business near London. Although there are far higher costs there are also many more opportunities. The population concentration around London is far higher than the East Midlands and the economy is much richer. However, part of my job is to go out and see customers and traffic down there is approaching gridlock. Nottingham, whilst having traffic hotspots of its own, allows one much more freedom for travelling so I can spend less of the day in the car and more of the day doing work that brings in earnings.

Another benefit to the situation of Nottingham is it is about as far south as you can go before property prices start to get out of hand. So the heavily populated and richer South-East of the country is withing reach.

Starting a New Business is exciting so start it in an exciting city!

3. It is a hotbed of creativity and new businesses

Nottingham has two great Universities with an enormous student population studying an enormous array of subjects. Not only do many students want to start a small business after they graduate, the businesses they start are often in scientific areas and new business arenas. This means there is a collection of new young and exciting businesses in the area.

4. Don't believe everything you read

In writing about Nottingham I must deal with some of the negative press it has been getting recently. I have known Nottingham since the early seventies and the city has never been safer nor friendlier. Sure, it has some neighbourhoods that are poorer and more crime-affected than others but this is true of any large city. In my view you should forget all the tittle tattle and try for yourself. 300,000 people can't be wrong!

5. It is the shopping centre of the East Midlands

Despite heavy competition from some large shopping malls such as Meadowhall in Sheffield and Westgate in Derby, the centre of Nottingham still attracts shoppers from far and wide. This has to be great for starting any new business. If it is a retail business then you are in the right place. If you offer products or services to retail businesses then you are in the right place. Even if you don't such a vibrant commercial centre is bound to benefit all types of business and is the perfect environment for you to start your own new business.

P.S. If you need a website, then give us a call!

One of the first things I learned as a web designer is that I should design a website as if the visitor is the most impatient person in the world. Why should I do this? Because the vast majority of visitors to websites are very impatient.

You would think that in these days of broadband that all web pages would load fast. However, this is not true. Websites are becoming ever more sophisticated, especially in terms on interaction with users and the result of this is that many websites are loaded up with all sorts of codes, gadgets and plug ins that seem to make them slower than websites were more than 10 years ago when we were struggling with those slow telephone modems.

Thankfully, there are many things that can be done to speed up a website and you will be pleased to learn that Net Quality Web Design Nottingham already uses these techniques for its clients (more on that later).

For every second a web page takes to load, you are losing vast numbers of visitors

GZ Compression of Web Pages

The first method used is compression of web pages. GZ is an Internet site's version of the more familiar zip file. The server where the website resides compresses the file that produces the web page so that the time spent downloading the page itself is reduced by more than 50%. ALL modern web browsers are capable of automatically uncompressing web pages that are served in this form. It is a very easy thing to achieve but surprisingly, very few web designers are using it.

Optimisation of Images

Have you ever wondered what is happening when you see a picture appearing on a website that appears to be being drawn one line at a time? This is the result of a poorly optimised (or not optimised at all) image file. This is also something simple to do and thankfully most web designers do this as a matter of course. However, if you see something like this on your website you should be having a word with your web designer.

Hand Coding of Websites

Net Quality's websites are hand coded. We do this because websites coded by software tend to be bloated with unnecessary code which we can studiously avoid. It makes a small difference on most websites but every little helps. This is something quite rare you will find with few web designers.

Fast UK Servers

A surprising number of UK websites are hosted on servers in the US and Germany. This extra geographic distance does make quite a difference and if this is coupled with a poor server, a website's speed can take a big hit. We hire fast reliable servers based in the UK so we are not subject to such delays.

Website Sprites

Earlier on in this artice I mentioned that Net Quality uses almost all these methods. That is because we have not yet implemented this nifty little idea but we will be including it on new websites from today. You may have noticed when waiting for a website to load that the pictures are the last thing to appear and they seem to arrive one by one. Each image is a hit on the website's server and each hit causes a small delay in the donwload of your web page. If similar images are grouped into one image and only a part of that large image is displayed on different parts of the website, it vastly reduces the number of hits and in turn, the speed of your website.

In conclusion

So as you can see, speed is important and if you come to Net Quality to have your website designed you can be sure that we will have done everything to make your website as speedy as possible.

I remember reading an article which I came across simply by chance a few years ago about a little publicised but very important change in the law concerning your website. The government had decided that fly-by-night companies who set up websites and hid their contact details should no longer be allowed. So they introduced new legislation to deal with this menace on the Internet. However, the lack of publicity surrounding this change in the law has caused many business owners to find themselves unwittingly operating outside of the law.

To me, it is common sense to let people know exactly who you are. I am sure that many of you like me, will check out the contact details of a company before deciding whether or not to deal with them. If there is no address or worse still, no telephone number then the chances of me wanting to become their customer have plummeted.

The law now has strict rules for limited companies' websites

Not only is it common sense from a business point of view, did you know that if you are a limited company, it is now necessary by law? In fact, if you are a limited company you are obliged to provide the following information somewhere on your website:

• The full name of your company
• The registered company address
• The company number
• The company VAT number (if registered)

It is interesting to note that you must provide your VAT number if your business is registered for VAT even if you are not directly selling goods on your website.

If you look at many companies' websites you will see that a vast number are currently breaking the law. I suppose the government have better things to do than to go round checking this. However, it is advisable to do this simple action not only because you never know when they are going to start but also because it makes sound business sense to let your customers know exactly who you are and how they can contact you.

Add your contact details to your website today

Hiding your contact details can give a very negative impression of your business and with an ever increasing number of Internet savvy visitors, you could be losing customers by the hundreds without realising it. Surely what any business owner wants is for as many visitors to their website as possible to make contact with them.

When I started Net Quality back in 2005, demand for websites in Nottingham was quite straightforward. Most small businesses either had a brochure type website or a database drive ecommerce website that allowed them to control products which were sold online.

The Internet is Evolving

However, times are changing and Internet use is becoming ever more sophisticated and many businesses could make much better use of their website than at present.

The earliest and simplest form of integration, is a contact form. The visitor to your website fills in the form with their name, email address and other details and you receive an email back at your business and can reply to or call that customer. It is a useful method as it means you do not have to publich your email address which could be harvested for spam. This is the most basic way in which your website can communicate with the systems in your office.

A website is a modern thing but our use of it can be surprisingly antiquated

Another way, is for sales data from an ecommerce site to be imported into your accounting and/or stock control systems. This automates many tasks involved in selling online and can save your business a lot in the long term. Such communications between different applications are becoming much easier now thanks to standardised data formats such as XML.

Many Nottingham businesses still process orders from the Internet either manually or they transfer the data using manual methods. The increasing sophistication of back-office software and the capabilities of websites means this can now become a thing of the past.

Net Quality Can Help Nottingham Businesses Integrate Their Websites With Their Systems

We specialise in database driven websites. Our background is also in running back office systems that have to communicate with other types of systems. So if you call us, I am sure we can hel you and your business by helping you automate the tasks carried out between your business and your website. The efficiency savings this can bring to your business are very big.

A few weeks ago I added a live chat facility to Net Quality's website. The thinking behind it is that I want to encourage visitors to my site to contact me. That is why I publicise my telephone and fax numbers on every page, I offer a call back service, a contact form, an email address and even a link to chat on Skype. All these are good but I think it is a great addition to give them the chance also to click on Live Chat software. it is something which I believe can help Nottingham businesses in making really good use of their website.

What is Live Chat Software?

There are two parts to the software, firstly there is the chat server which you can really consider as the communications hub that is accessible by you and visitors to your website at the same time. The second part is a program that runs on your PC and connects with this hub so that when someone initiates a chat from your website, you receive an instant audible warning that a chat has started which you can accept and then join them to answer any questions.

Who should use Live Chat Software?

Any Nottingham business wishing to engage with visitors on their website. You will get to see visitors in real time and can even follow which pages they are viewing on your website. When the visitor contacts you, you will already know how many times they have visited your website before giving you a clear indication of how new you are to them.

Who should NOT use Live Chat Software?

It should never be used by anyone who is not able to attend a PC during all or most of business hours. It is better to have no Live Chat facility on your website than it is to show the option but that nobody is online.

How much does Live Chat Software cost?

We recommend using Livezilla chat software which is entirely free. However, it does take some knowledge to set it up and also takes resources on which to run the communications hub. Net Quality Web Design Nottingham can set up the software on a hub for you and all it costs is £12 per month to keep it going. It will cost more than this if your website gets more than 500 visitors per day on average but if this is the case, paying slightly more than £12 per month is not going to be too difficult.

Setting it up is very easy and very quick and implementing it on your website is also easy. If your website was not designed by Net Quality there may be a charge to add the code to the pages on your website if they were designed in such a way that it is difficult to do a mass update. For all websites designed by us, the code is added to pages for free.

So at such a small cost, your Nottingham Business website could be offering your customers a live chat option in no time at all and at such a low cost, it is worth contacting us today to get it installed for your business.

I have been designing websites since 1999 but it was in 2005 that I broke free from the corporate world and set myself up as a web designer in Nottingham. One of the most amazing and unexpected benefits of my work in website design was the sheer diversity there is of business types in Nottingham that I come across.

Not all business ideas have already been thought of

I was reminded of this today while reading an article online about a new Nottingham business that has taken on the popular world of false nails by providing a service that allows you to put pictures on the extensions. There are ready made designs or you can upload your own photo. It just goes to show, that although many business ideas have already been thought of, there is plenty of room for plenty more ideas.

When I started in self-employment I was exposed to many different business owners in the Nottingham area. Many of these people were running traditional businesses such as sign manufacturing, car hire and hairdressing. Although these are traditional businesses, they are each very different from the other. This is even more apparent when you realise that I once created a website for a church and at the same time had created an ecommerce site for lingerie sales. I even once created a website for a company who manufactured PA and alarm systems that were explosion-proof as they were intended for use on oil rigs!

Established or out of this world, it doesn't matter

So if you are thinking of starting your own business in Nottingham, please remember that the only limitation is your imagination. You might be suited to a traditional business such as a pub or a newsagents. They are both essential parts of the local community. However, if you want to look for something that bit different, no matter how many ideas you think have been created already, you too can come up with a new idea. The range of choice is enormous and that makes creating a new business exciting.

So I will always be glad that I went into the web design business. I have met many customers with an unbelievable array of different businesses. And as long as I continue in this trade, I cannot wait to find out which unusual business is the next one which I come across. You never know, it might be yours!

There is something you used to see a lot on websites back in the 1990s. It was that awful phrase "this site is best viewed in this resolution with that browser". Can you believe it? Website designers were actually telling you what your screen resolution should be and not only that they wanted to dictate which web browser you should use.

Thankfully it is very rare to see it these days but to a certain extent, it is still happening.

For example, I use Internet banking and with that I am not able to use my favourite web browser Opera. They insist that I use either Internet Explorer or Firefox. Inevitably, I do not wish to use Internet Explorer for my Internet banking because of all of the security issues. Therefore I only have one choice.

Why do others not support all browsers? Because they are lazy!

So why do they not develop a web service that can be used in all browsers? In my view, it is sheer laziness on behalf of the developer. Each web browser is slightly different than the others and will have its own quirks. However, they are much closer now than they have ever been.

If you have an ecommerce website from Net Quality, we provide you with a control panel that allows you to update your products and prices. We never will, and never should, dictate to you which web browser you should use. In fact, that goes for all of the websites and web services developed by Net Quality. All our websites work equally well in all modern web browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari and more. This is the minimum that you should expect from your web developer because, to be frank, it is very easy to accomplish.

The exception to the rule

Despite everything I have said, I feel it important to point out in the interests of honesty that there is one web browser for which we do not provide support. That is Internet Explorer, version 6. This browser was introduced in 2001 and in terms of the Internet, that makes it positively ancient. It is widely acknowledged to be a very poor version of the web browser and is now supported by very few major websites. Most notably, Google no longer support it.

We took this decision because we believe the effort required to support this archaic web browser in full, would push web design costs too high and for very little return (less than 1% of users still use version 6).

Looking for a suitable web host is one of the most important decisions taken by a business but often one to which little time is given. With so many options for hosting your website from companies that charge a small amount to bills that run into thousands of pounds a year, it is not an easy decision if you lack information.

It is also difficult to check up on the reputation of a web host in the Internet, because many of the larger and best web hosting providers have a lot of negative feedback. However, any company that deals with hundreds of thousands of customers will inevitably have a certain amount of negative feedback.

So here is a small check list of what I consider to be the most important considerations when looking for a web hosting company.

1. Linux or Windows?

Web hosting is generally provided on a Windows or Linux platform. Windows can host the most common types of websites whereas Linux hosts a more limited range. However, I would recommend that you go for Linux if at all possible.

If your website is written in ASP or .NET then you have no choice. You must use a Windows hosting platform that supports the appropriate technology.

If your website is written in plain HTML or dynamically written in PHP then I would strongly recommend you use Linux. Whilst Windows can support these types of websites, Linux hosting is much more reliable and happily, much cheaper.

2. What support do they provide?

It is easy to find a web host who apparently provides unlimited hosting capabilities for just a few pounds per year. However, what is their support like if things go wrong. If your website is down for more than a few hours then the consequences to your business can be catastrophic.

3. Where are the servers based?

If you are a UK business, it is important that your website is hosted from within the UK. If not, it could harm your results in the search engines.

4. Keep your domain name registration separate

Once you have established these matters, if you have registered your domain name with a company other than the web host, it means you can quickly move your website to another web host if you find you have made a bad choice.

5. Choose Net Quality of course!

Well I am inevitably biased. But if you choose to host your business website with us, we provide you with a local service with telephone support. But more importantly, we hire out servers from a range of reputable companies. If any of those companies starts to offer a below average service, then we can quickly move your website to a new company's server with minimal or no downtime. So we can take out all of the hard work in finding a web hosting service for you.

Among the many services we offer at Net Quality Web Design Nottingham is email which is of course one of the basic offerings expected from any website designer. Most businesses require fixed access to email at their place of business and this involves setting up the email account in software such as Outlook, Windows Mail or Thunderbird.

Accessing email on the move

Hoever, there are many Nottingham business owners who have to be mobile and it is much more convenient to access email using a web browser. The obvious advantage of this method is that it allows you to access your email on any Internet connected PC. This allows you a great freedom if you need access to your business emails in different locations.

The email service that we offer does include a Webmail facility called Horde. It is an industry standard web based email that will offer you all of the basic functions that you need. What we cannot compete with, is a great interface created by one of the boggest companies in the world, Google.

We offer full business email integration into Google Mail

The good news is that we not not have to compete with them. It is easy to integrate your Net Quality email address fully into Google Mail. And there is no downside to this. Google Mail is free and offers a superb interface which can also be used on many smart-phones. Also, the way we can help you integrate it at Net Quality means that the people with whom you exchange your emails see the full business email address and there is no sign that it has come from Google.

So if your are a customer of Net Quality feel free to contact us today if you feel that this facility could be useful for you. And if you are not yet a customer, feel free to contact us and we can talk with you about the facilities that our business can offer you.

The age of the Internet is maturing and the standard of websites is so much higher than it was just a few short years ago. However, many business owners are still making some basic errors with their web design and if corrected, could lead to more visitors and more customers.

1. Keep the Design Simple

Whilst it may be tempting to dazzle your customers with an array of colourful animated menus, fancy sounds and impressive but slow loading graphics, it can only do harm to your business. Websites that are designed in this way are designed so as to satisfy the business owner and not the customer. This is a fundamental error that will lose you business. Keep everything simple and logical, the visitor should know within a split second of viewing your site, who you are, what you do and what image you are trying to convey.

2. Create logical navigation

Ask yourself what you would do if you hit upon a website and could not find what you were looking for in a short space of time. You would hit the back button wouldn't you? Well your customers might be doing the very same thing. When you design structure of your navigation, do it as if you were designing it for the world's most impatient person. When it comes to the Internet, almost all website visitors do fall into this category!

3. Make all text stand out

The text should be very dark on a very light background or vice versa. There are so many different types of screen that you do not know how your website will look to your visitors. By following this simple principle, you can ensure that your visitors can at least read the content.

4. Write in headers

Some of your visitors will read all of the text on your website. However, many will only skim the page. Therefore, all your text should be liberally sprinkled with relevant headlines so that it is apparent at a glance, what the main subject of the page is.

5. Design it for people, not the search engines

There are so many rumours floating around about techniques you can use to trick the search engines into placing your site on page one. In the unlikely event that such a trick would work, it is only a matter if time that the trick works, it can only be a matter of time before the search engines become wise to it and either stop the benefit or drop you altogether. So write the site for your customers and stay on topic and the search engines will follow you and for the long term.

I have covered this subject in a previous article but I felt it worth covering in more detail. Many of my customers receive regular sales calls from Search Engine Optimisation companies trying to sell their services. Whilst I am sure there are genuine companies around, I have yet to encounter one.

There are two things in particular that strike me as a bit strange. If they are really that good at search engine optimisation, why do they feel the need to find customers by calling them on the telephone? Secondly, the way they generally find my customers is via a search engine, a sign that they are already doing well.

So how can you tell whether or not a Search Engine Optimisation specialist is any good? Whilst you can never be 100% sure, there are three surefire ways of weeding out the dodgy companies. The first is one of the biggest lies on the Internet

1. We can get you to page one of Google

The simple truth is that they can't. You can read in Google's webmaster guidelines that this simply is not true. What they do, is create a complex contract that will either be so complex, that gettinig a refund is next to impossible or the phrase for which they have guaranteed to get you onto page one is an uncompetitive phrase that nobody ever searches for. However, if they make this promise, my advice is to steer clear of them.

2. We are in partnership with Google

Again, Google state in their webmaster guidelines that they are in partnership with no search engine optimisation specialists. If they tell you this, they are lying.

3. Look! We have created thousands of inbound links for you

If you do take out a contract with them, there is a very sneaky method that is often used to try and convince you that they are creating thousands of valuable inbound links for you. If they obtain thousands of inbound links in a short space of time, you can be sure that these are almost certainly worthless. This is a good time to introduce our new YouTube channel. We have recently uploaded a video about this very subject.

Ever since we at Net Quality started to design websites, we decided from the very start that we would follow the very strict guidelines for XHTML. This would have two benefits for our customers, it helps consistency of layout between different types of browsers and different operating systems and by separating content from layout, it also ensures that a website is accessible to those with disabilities.

It is something to which we have stuck rigidly ensuring that the quality of the websites we design is of the highest standard both in terms of look, feel and functions as well as how they work in the background.

A new standard is in the process of being adopted and it is called HTML5. We believe this is a very exciting time in the development on the Internet and this standard has already been grasped by Google Chrome and to a lesser extent by Opera and Firefox. As usual, Microsoft are trailing behind with Internet Explorer although the new version 9 of this browser has taken great strides forward in this regard.

What can HTML5 do for me?

The potential of HTML5 is enormous and is designed to make websites more interactive than ever before. Standardising video and audio presentations (without the need to resort to expensive proprietary software such as Adobe Flash) and will make the web a more interesting place both in terms of aesthetic values as well as great leaps forward in terms of functions.

What can HTML5 do for existing customers of Net Quality Web Design?

Existing clients of Net Quality Web Design Nottingham need not worry. Right from the off we have designed websites to the exacting standard of XHTML which means your website functions in a fast efficient and consistent way.

What can HTML5 do for new customers of Net Quality Web Design?

New clients can rest assured that we at Net Quality continue this hight standard in the design of websites by adopting HTML5 very early in its development. We will constantly keep up to date both with its capabilities and more importantly with the capabilities we can exploit due to widespread adoption in the web browser market.

Don't expect too many changes to begin with. Apart from Google Chrome, HTML5 adoption by browsers is quite slow. However, it is happening and we will be seizing the opportunity to make good use fof the many advantages HTML5 has to offer.

We will keep you updated as progress continues.

An increasing problem we have noticed at Net Quality Web Design Nottingham is that an increasing number of our customers are receiving unsolicited telephone calls and emails from companies who promise to get you onto page one of Google. There is a simple truth to this, it is not true. They are lying. Let me emphasise this even more, do not under any circumstances believe them. I think i should start by pointing you to an article on Google's own website that tells you form the horse's mouth that such promises are completely false.

So why do they make these claims?

They say this to get your money. It is as simple as that. Against my advice, I have had a few clients who sign up to these services. The results were, without exception, both poor and expensive. There are many tricks that they use to convince you that what they are doing is worthwhile. The first is to convince you that they are creating many inbound links to your website and they might tell you to enter this into Google:

Link: www.yourwebsite.com

And this may show hundreds and possibly thousands of links into your website. However, if you remove the space between the colon and the www you will find the results are entirely different. Try it for yourself on your website. As of today (28 April 2011) I tried this with www.nquk.com and the first search revealed 46,200 results and when I removed the space between the colon and the www it revealed just 24 results. This is just one of the many ways in which they will lie to you.

It can be som tempting to believe someone who guarantees to get you onto page one of Google but as soon as you hear somebody say this then you can be sure that anything else they may say will be just plain lies to try and get your business.

So how do I get to page one on Google?

Whilst nobody can guarantee you will get onto page one, it should still be a goal for you and your web designer to work towards. We can give you much advice to help you improve your search results position for important key phrases. We also design websites with the search engines in mind to ensure that your website has he best chance possible of getting to the top.

However, what I will never do is make any promises in this regard. In fact, I always make it a point to emphasise that we can make no such promises. And I hope that after reading this article, you will no longer believe anyone who promises to get you onto page one of Google.

Oh, and by the way...

The reason that my customers are receiving these unsolicited calls and emails is because these companies found them on the search engines! Think about it...

Once a website has been designed and is ready to be published, it is necessary to find web hosting for that site. This is a service, in common with all web designers, which is provided by Net Quality. Choosing the right web host is just as important as choosing the right web designer.

So what features should you look for in a web host? Here are what we consider to be the most important elements:

1. The web server must be in the UK

Although having a web host based in another country will not completely ruin your chances of doing well on the search engines, it can have a marked effect. Google and other search engines will naturally show a slight bias towards websites that are hosted in the country from where the search query came. Do not worry about the choice between .co.uk and .com domain names, it is the location of the web server that is important.

2. Download capacity is important

This is a difficult measure if your business has not had a website before. If this is the case, then 1 GIG per month is usually sufficient for most businesses with a new website so that is the minimum capacity you should seek.

3. The web host's technology should match the website's technology

If your website has been designed by a professional web designer, they will be able to tell you exactly what technology your web server should support. If it is just simple HTML pages then this is easy. However, any interactive functions, even a simple contact form will dictate what technology should be supported by the web host.

4. Do not go for the cheapest web host

Going for cheap web hosting can turn out to be a false economy. If your website goes down and the support of the web hosting company is lacking, this could seriously damage your business. Look for web hosts with a reputation for reliability and excellent support

Net Quality Can Host All Types of Website

We can host websites that support all current web technologies. We also provide excellent local support in the Nottingham area by telephone and by email. As an independent web designer, we can also choose from whom we hire the web servers and change supplier if we feel that service is lacking. This means we can ensure great reliability for your business website.

Not all inbound links are equal

If you have one inbound link from a major website such as the BBC, this one link can have a profound effect on SERPs. If the link is form one person's blog then it will have little or no effect. However, if there are links to your site from many small blogs they can all add up to great effect. So the answer is to get a few links from some very important and respected sites or as many links as possible from many small websites.

Text within inbound links is important 

Aso, the text that is placed with the link can have an effect. If the websites links to yours by just the web URL (for example www.nquk.com)  then an opportunity is missed. However, if the link contains a key phrase that you are targeting (for example web design nottingham) then that phrase is read by Google and can help you rise theough the SERPs not just in general but also specifically for that phrase. So try and get your all important key phrases into the text of the links.

Never under-estimate semantics

Semantics are becoming increasingly important in terms of search engine optimisation. It has been popular for some time now to obtain inbound links from directories and link farms. However, as each day passes, this is becoming less effective. A website that covers many subjects is worth far less to you than a website whose prinicipal subject is related your your important key phrase. So for example, if Net Quality's website is in a directory about Internet services or web design, then any inbound link from there is more valuable as the search engines know, by the analysis of semantics that the two are related and therefore lend more importance to the link. If the inbound link relates to web design in Nottingham, it becomes even more useful as the location makes it very specific.

Keep working harder and smarter at building inbound links

There is no simple way for Nottingham businesses to get lots of quality inbound links to their websites and nor should there be. It is something that you should always be building upon in a natural way. Building website content that is so useful it naturally attracts inbound links is one of the best ways to achieve this. It can be the start of something that will naturally build up and you will find your website gaining new inbound links naturally and without your knowledge. This is work that never stops and as search engines become cleverer at analysing the true quality of links between websites, it is work that will become increasingly difficult but never impossible.

The businesses in Nottingham that have mainly been affected by the credit crunch are those businesses that have relied on the same sources of business for a long time, often for many years. When these traditional sources dry up, the business owner finds themselves in unchartered territory.

They have to learn anew how to sell their business. it is a shock to the system for many businesses who have been reliant upon steady repeat custom from the same people for a long period of time.

There are many ways in which one can sell their products and/or service and in my view there is one common element that must always be present as part of any marketing strategy, your website.

Your Website is Your Slavish Salesman

Your website sits there 24 hours a day, 365 days a year waiting to sell your business. It does not demand large commission rates nor does it require holidays and sick days. It will sit waiting for your customers to come and visit.

This is an important point. A website must be a part of your marketing strategy but not the whole strategy itself. But what your website can do for you back up any marketing you are doing. People who visit your website are already interested in your business and your website can be the salesman who closes the deal for you.

So if you have your website, perhaps it is time to re-visit it to make sure it is doing a good sales job for you and if you don't have one, then why not give us a call today?

My previous article was discussing what elements are essential to add to any website. I broke it down into severl areas and I suggest that you read that article before this one. So now you know which elements you need with your website, what are the specific elements you might need to sell products online?

I have been designing e-commerce websites for Nottingham businesses for several years now and this has given me a great insight into what is required to make an e-commerce website successful.

1. The Product Database

Unless you are only selling a handful of products, you need a database of products over which you have control. There should be a control panel for you to sign into where you can add, delete and change products, images and prices. This is at the very heart of what is required in an e-commerce website and is the very minimum requirement.

2. Good Product Navigation

You should be able to organise your products into categories and sub-categories to make it easy for your customer to find what they are looking for. This is also something over which you have control so that you can keep updating and improving the organisation of your products.

There is a rule that nothing on your website must be more than three clicks away. If you have to click more than three times to find something, you will have lost the majority of your customers.

3. A Search Facility

Many people browse for products but equally as many people prefer to use a search facility to go directly to what they are looking for. A good, fast and effective search facility will enhance your website's effectiveness to a great degree.

4. A Shopping Cart

A good shopping cart allows your customers to preview what they have bought, to change quantities and to preview the total cost including shipping. This cart must also be capable of linking in with major payment processors such as SagePay and WorldPay.

5. Multiple Product Options

Many products are available in different sizes and colours. There should be an intuitive way of your customer selecting these and this must also be capable of affecting the price of the product.

Advertise, advertise, advertise

Whatever budget you have for your web designer to create your e-commerce site for you, it is absolutely essential that you have a budget to advertise your new website. In the long term, your website should appear in the free listings at Google. However, this is a long term objective. In the meantime, you should have a large budget to promote your website using mediums such as Google AdWords.

All the facilities mentioned above are provided by us. So call us for a quotation today.

The world of the Web Design is so complicated these days and with so many web designers offering so many options, it is increasingly difficult to truly understand what services and facilities you need for your business's website. In this article I will break down the most common elements for you to help you understand the options available and make it easier to make a decision as to what facilities and services your website requires.

The Logo Comes First

How your website looks is always the first consideration before any website is designed. And before the look and colours are considered, your business requires a logo because everything should be designed around the look, feel and colours of your logo. If you already have one then that will be used by us to determine how your website will look. If you do not have one then do not worry as one can be designed for you. This will be the first design element created as everything else will revolve around the look and feel of the logo.

The Static Website is Next

The static website is all those pages that tend to be fixed for long periods of time. The "about us" page for instance as well as contact details and summaries of services and products offered. These pages are what traditional websites have always had ever since businesses started getting websites of their own. A logo and a static website is often more than enough for many small businesses and this may be all that you require.

Beyond the static website you may also need:

A Content Management System (CMS)

This is for those pages that are updated regularly by you. For example, you may want your home page ot be kept fresh with special offers and the like. Also, you might want a news page to keep people updated with the latest events affecting your business.

A word of warning though. A news page on your website must be updated on a regular basis. It is always best to have no news page on your website than a page where the last news item is two years old.

A Blog or Articles Section

Blogs and articles are so useful in engaging with your customers and also for the optimisation of your site for the search engines. Google loves lots of content and this is your opportunity to regularly add lots of relevant content which helps your business and your customers alike. This section will likely use a content management system also to allow you to keep it up to date.

E-commerce Product Catalogue

If you wish to sell a number of products online, you will need an e-commerce product catalogue. This is a form of content management system that allows you to upload products, photos and update prices of all that you have for sale. It should also allow you to add and update categories and sub-categories of your products so that they can be laid out in an easy-to-find fashion for your customers. This should also come with a search facility so that your customers can look for a product by typing in certain key words.

There should also be a shopping cart associated with the product catalogue that connects directly to the major Internet payment gateways such as World Pay and Sage Pay.

That's all folks!

These are the only aspects that your business website will require. Any other items you find when looking for a web designer are just fancy terms for the same things. Don't let the web design world try and overwhelm or confuse you. All you need to consider is:

• Do I have content that I need to regularly update myself?
• Do I want a blog and articles section to continually add content to my website?
• Do I need an e-commerce catalogue to sell products online?

When I started designing websites for Nottingham businesses in 2006, there were a small handful of web designers and web design agencies in the area. It was quite easy to find customers as there was such a small amount of competition.

Move on five years to 2011 in the market place for web design in Nottingham has completely changed. The number of designers and agencies has rocketed. This is perfectly natural as so many more small businesses have realised since then that it is essential to have an effective website for your business.

It also means there is so much more choice when looking for a web designer with the added benefit that we must work much harder to win your business. This is all good for business and most helpful for anyone searching for a web designer in the Nottingham area.

There is one small drawback however. How do you choose the right web designer for your business? Unlike accountants and solicitors, there is no governing professional body and anyone can set themselves up as a web designer. Therefore, amongst the choice of designers that you have, there are those that provide excellent services with knowledgeable and skilled staff right down to people with little or no skill who just think it is an easy way to earning a living.

Look for the Web Designer's Portfolio

I believe there is one fundamental way you can decide which web designer is best for you. View their portfolio. Most web designers have a portfolio and in the rare instances where they do not, then you must ask yourself, what are they trying to hide? They may simply be starting up and not yet have a portfolio or they might just be ashamed of their portfolio!

But how can you tell what they will be able to do for your business if you cannot see the work that they have done in the past?

Take a good look through the examples of previous work and see if there are any websites that look as good as you want them to look and if any of them have functions the same or similar to those for which you are looking. Do not worry if some of the designs do not look great. Sometimes web designers are forced to include design elements with which they do not agree but upon which, their customers insist. As long as there are examples of excellent work, you can rest assured that you have found a good web designer.

Net Quality has en extensive portfolio page showing you a wide range of websites that we have built for Nottingham businesses in the past.

Today we have added some new features to the Net Quality website to further enhance our service providing of Web Design in Nottingham.

Live Chat

We have for a long time, offered live chat facilities on our contact page to allow people to contact us using Skype. Whilst it is a great facility, we have been aware for some time that small business owners in Nottingham do not necessarily have Skype installed on their computers.

Therefore, we have installed a live chat system that allows customers to chat with us in real time without installing any software as this all works from any Internet connected web browser.

It also helps us in demonstrating how useful this facility could be to you and your business website in Nottingham. Please contact us (maybe on live chat!) to ask more about this new service offering.

News, Articles and RSS Feed

There have been a handful of articles on Net Quality Web Design Nottingham's website for some time now and we have decided to expand this. Starting from today (14 April 2011) there will be new articles, news items and useful information posted to the site on a refular basis. We have also added an RSS feed to allow people to subscribe to these updates.

This also has the added benefits of showing what services we can offer businesses in Nottingham. Perhaps an article submission facility and RSS feed would be useful for your website? Please contact us for further information if this is of interest to you.

An Article by Net Quality Web Design Nottingham

The perfect way to introduce this subject is to talk a little bit about how we came to be named Net Quality

When we were thinking up new names for our venture, we were playing with the phrase "Information Super-highway"; a phrase that was coined much during the early days of the Internet.  We decided that we would choose a name that represented a British slant on this phrase and came up with the name "Net Motorway".

As we were familiar with the reason behind our name we were very happy with it.  However, we made one fundamental mistake; we did not ask anyone else what they thought of the name.

Before you commit your New Business to its new name
make sure you try it out on a few people first!

It only slowly dawned on us after a few weeks of using the name that we were constantly explaining its meaning whenever we introduced ourselves.  People often asked if we specialised in sites for Motorway Services!  Thus the brave decision was taken to find a new name even though we had already been using the old one for some time.

When we arrived at the moment to think of the new name we found it was a very difficult task.  Even though we had some very good ideas, the Internet domain name had invariably been taken.  Even more infuriating is the fact that these names were not being used for a legitimate business but rather by someone hoping to make a quick killing by selling the domain name.

The other consideration is whether you go for a straightforward name that says exactly what you do or a beautiful phrase perhaps that could be used for any type of business.

Here are a few of the names we thought of along the way:

Liatu Web Design

I liked this name because a 5-character domain name was free (maybe it still is!) and the initials stood for "Leave It All To Us".  However, we decided against it as it was too vague.

Integro Web Design

The Latin word integro means "to make whole".  A fine sentiment but rather obscure.

Opulent Eye Web Design

This is a good example of a name that we liked a lot but when we asked friends and aquaintances what they thought, we received a negative reaction.

Net Quality

The name we settled on was a nice simple phrase that said exactly what we want to represent.  We offer a quality Internet Web Design service and the new name has been very well received.

Conclusion

The most important piece of advice we can offer to people who are choosing a new name for their business is don't become too attached to any of your ideas.  Ask as many people as you can what they think of the name and if the response is not good, be prepared to drop it!

An Article by Net Quality Web Design Nottingham

Web Design is a strange old business!  If you are a driving instructor you have a simple objective that you and your customer both understand.  To get them to pass their driving test.

If you are a Dentist the same rule applies.  Both you and your client want their pain taken away and their teeth looking good.

If we as consumers use either of these or one of many other professions, we can easily measure how well they have done.

However, how can you measure how good a Web Designer is?  Certainly if a site downloads quickly and is easy to use that is a good start.  You may also think that the site looks great only to have a friend say to you "I saw your website the other day.  Don't you think your designer could have made it look a bit better?"

Before you give your Web Designer the go ahead,
ask friends and relatives what they think

The truth is that people's tastes vary.  We all have our favourite colours, our favourite fonts and we have our own ideas about how a good layout should look.

Therefore, before you authorise any work, make sure that not just you and your designer like the site, ask friends relatives and customers their opinion too.  It is surprising the ideas that come out of such an exercise.  It also boosts your confidence when you get positive feedback.  When someone tells you they think your website looks great it gives you a surprisingly wonderful feeling!

At Net Quality we are very proud of our designs.
We wish you could see "under the bonnet" too!

An Article by Net Quality Web Design Nottingham

One of the toughest balances that today's Small Businesses and their Web Designers have to strike is that between style and accessibility.

Everybody in business today wants their website to stand out from the crowd.  This means that Web Designers like Net Quality must ensure that every site they design is truly stylish.

Balanced against this is the legal requirement to ensure that the site is accessible by all users including those who cannot see very well, those who are colour blind and those who are totally blind.  In order to allow such users to read a web page there are many software applications that out there to help them as well as settings within the browsers themselves.

For instance, they may simply wish to increase the size of the font or they may use a fully fledged conversion program that will read the web page to them.

The secret of good Web Design is to strike a balance between style and accessibility

There are many examples of Web Design at the extremes of this balance.  Some of today's modern sites present the user with an elaborate display of animation, sounds and colours.  They can create an exciting experience for the majority of able surfers and allow the business-owner to show off their stylish website.

However, unless such a site offers a clean HTML alternative, they are preventing many users whose sight is not perfect access to the site.

At the other end of the scale, a site could be designed with an extremely simple design with very little dictated regarding font types sizes and colours.  However, if a web designer was to design such a site, they would be unlikely to be very successful.

Net Quality always strive to maintain a fair balance between a Stylish Web Site and Accessibility for all

So how do Net Quality Web Design deal with this dilemma?  Our sites are hand-coded by experts ensuring that the content is laid out in a logical fashion ensuring that users who use specialist software to read web pages for them will be able to navigate the web site with ease.

Also, by following the World Wide Web Consortium's standards we separate content from presentation.  This means that those users with special needs can switch off all of the presentation features and read the site in the colours and size of their choice.

It doesn't get better than this!

Anyone who has started there own business will tell you that the biggest obstacle to overcome was not the idea, and it certainly wasn't the hard work.  It's how to get customers to take an interest in your product.

You can have the greatest product in the world or offer the greatest service in the world.  However, if nobody knows about you then nobody is going to buy from you.  Having your own stylish website is the ultimate marketing tool and provides excellent value for money.  Also, the return on investment has to be among the highest of any marketing method.

Net Quality Web Design offers superb websites at such excellent prices, your decision as to whether your business should have a website has already been made for you.

No other marketing opportunity offers such phenomenal exposure for such a low price!

Having a stylish and well designed website offers you two great marketing opportunities.  Firstly, by opening your small business to search engines, customers who might not have found you by any other method can find you on the Internet.

Secondly, you can also use your Internet address to supplement any other marketing methods you employ.  Your website address can adorn all promotional material and company stationery, providing a powerful boost to the effectiveness of your small business promotion.

Value Web Design
Not Cheap Web Design

Cheap Web Sites are very easy for businesses to obtain.  There is plenty of free Web Hosting out there from your Internet Service Provider (ISP).  They often include technology to help you design a site without having to understand HTML, Cascading Style Sheets or JavaScript.

You'll probably even be able to get a half-decent looking Web Site by doing this.  So why go to Net Quality?

Your business cannot afford to be without a Web Site.
Now it can easily afford to have one with our rates!

Net Quality offers value for money with its Stylish Web Design service.  From just £595 you can benefit from our expertise in ensuring your Web Site meets the highest of expectations.

You can leave all of the design decisions to us including a suitable logo if your business does not have one.  Alternatively you may have a very clear idea of how your Website should look.  Either way we can help you.  At all times you are in control.

How to Build on Success!
Small Businesses in Nottingham

Many small businesses in the UK still do not have a website.  So if you are already running a successful business without a website, why have one?

Through the use of careful Web Design, Net Quality have been particularly successful in optimising Websites for search engines.  In order to achieve this we have carried out much research.  One fact we discovered was quite surprising:

One of the most common search terms surfers use is the name of the business itself!

For example, Arena Hair are one of our customers and they are doing very well on the search engines with terms such as "leading hairdresser" and "hairdresser nottingham".  However, many of their visitors have used the term "arena hair nottingham" to find the site!

Yes that's right!  There could be customers out there who already know your business and are interested in your products and/or services and will use the name of your business to find a website.  Put simply, people expect any modern business to have their own website.

So no matter how successful your business is, you could still benefit from having a presence on the Internet.  Even if you simply consider it as a courtesy to your existing customers.

Not Cheap Web Sites but
Design with Value and Style

To design a stylish Web Site is not easy.  People's tastes often differ and it can be very difficult to come up with a design that looks good to everyone.

At Net Quality we take a lot of care to ensure the look of your site has universal appeal.  It is often the small subtle changes that can make all the difference.

Remember that sometimes less is more.
Don't be afraid to ask for a subtle change.
It can be the little things that make ALL the difference.

We take the time to consider these things when designing your Web Site.  We are also very open to changes during the design process to ensure your site is perfect whether they be big or small.

Many other low cost Web Design options involve the use boring standard templates.  We take the time to design your Web Site form scratch.  We ensure a unique and stylish Web Site every time!

Telephone - Fax - Website

First there was the telephone.  Next was the fax machine.  Now we have the Internet.

It is inconceivable to imagine a business without a telephone.  For a few years it was inconceivable to imagine a business without a fax machine.  So why is it that so many small businesses do not have a Web Site?

Since the Internet exploded in the mid 1990s, many businesses both small and large have benefited immensely from this opportunity to provide detailed information to the world 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Potential Customers could be admiring your competitor's Web Site
RIGHT NOW!

We have been regaled with stories of stupendous business success brought about simply by building a Web Site for the business.  So why is it that so many businesses are ignoring this very real opportunity?

At Net Quality we believe this situation cannot continue much longer.  In fact marketing your business on the Web is fast becoming essential.  Just as essential as having a phone still is and having a fax machine used to be.  The costs involved in this is much less than a small advert in the Yellow Pages.

You could be missing out on new customers right now because they are admiring your competitor's Web Site.

Contact us today to see how our Nottingham Web Design Service can help your business.

They Don't Just Look Good
They are Good!

The world is full of extremely helpful software and web-based programs that enable almost anyone to prepare a half-decent Website.  The costs involved in doing this can also be extremely cheap.

So why choose a Web Design Service such as the one we offer at Net Quality?

All Websites designed by Net Quality are hand coded by experts.  This may not sound too important.  But the difference between a human carefully coding each aspect of a Web Site and automatically generated HTML by programs is immense.  At the very least, our skills ensure that the size of the files that make up your site are kept to the absolute minimum without affecting the appearance.

No Bugs.  No Glitches.  Superfast Downloading.
It all means you are not ignoring the countless millions of
potential customers with slow modems.

This means you get a Web Site that loads faster than most Sites on the Internet.  Even in this age of broadband there are countless millions of potential customers who still wait ages for sites to download on their old modems!

All the Web Sites designed by Net Quality are coded in full compliance with the World Wide Web Consortium's recommendations for XHTML 1.0.  This may just sound like some jargon to make things look impressive.  However, it ensures that your Site is available to the maximum number of browsers without any bugs or annoying glitches.

All this counts towards the fact that your business is in safe hands with Net Quality.

Contact us today to see how our Nottingham Web Design Service with Technical Excellence can help your business.

Search Engine Optimisation for Small Business in Nottingham by Net Quality

Understanding how to get your business to the top of the search results is important to all businesses.  We have written this article to help dispel some of the myths about Search Engine Optimisation, allowing you to concentrate on the effective methods of promoting your business on the Internet.

Truth Number 1 - Content is king

The reasons a site appears at the top of the search engine listings vary according to the latest complex algorithms applied by the big search engine companies.  They constantly update and refine these methods to try and ensure that the surfer finds the most relevant websites and not just the websites using the cleverest tricks.

This is great news!  No matter what changes the search engines make, they have one constant goal which is to find the most relevant website to match a particular search phrase. Therefore do not use tricks or cheats that might bring spectacular results today and disastrous results tomorrow.  Instead, work with your Web Designer to develop a rich and varied site with plenty of text on the relevant subject matter.  This is the type of site that always will be the favourite with the search engines.

Each website we create is carefully hand-coded by experts. This gives us complete control not only over the rendered site which your visitor sees, it also means that in the background we present your site in a well structured and easy-to-ready format for the search engines.

Furthermore, we place your strategic key phrases in exactly the right parts of your site ensuring the search engines know which search phrases are important to you whilst keeping the flow of the text in a readable format for the human user.

Truth Number 2 - Not all links are equal

It is widely known that most search engines, and especially Google, count each inbound link to your site as a vote for your site. The more votes, the more highly they think of your site.  So much so that after content, inbound links are the most effective way of boosting your site to page 1 for a given search term.

There are many unscrupulous SEO firms who will dazzle you with promises of many thousands of inbound links in a short period of time.  But the truth is that one relevant link from a quality website is worth 10,000 links from dodgy link farms.

If you want to be sure about the quality of sites, linking to you, enter this phrase into Google:

link: www.yoursite.com

Now type in almost the same but without a space between the colon and www:

link:www.yoursite.com

You will find that there are far fewer links with the second term.  It is this second search method that tells you about the good quality links to your site.  Use this same technique with your competitors' websites to find out which sites linking into them would help you.  The chances are that you can obtain links from the same people.

Truth Number 3 - Forget about meta tags! (well almost)

A Meta Tag is a small piece of code that sits behind your website to offer up information not available elsewhere within the page content.  Two of the most commonly known tags are the "Keywords" Meta Tag and the "Description" Meta Tag.

The "Keywords" mata tag was once absolutely vital to ensure you got your site to the first page of results.  However, since the early 2000's, it has become virtually redundant.  First of all, Google, the most popular search engine in the world, completely ignores this tag!  Some Search Engines such as Yahoo do take it into account but it only has a minor influence.  So by all means, ask your Web Designer to add a keywords meta tag but do not spend too much time worrying about it.  There are many more important things you can do to enhance your website's visibility in the search engines.

The "Description" meta tag is important but it has no influence on your position in the search engine results.  Take a look at the example below:

Google shows a description of our home page from the "Description" meta tag, not from the page itseelf.  Therefore, this tag should contain a useful phrase to tell the surfer what this page is about.

Truth Number 4 - Nobody can guarantee results!

We have noticed that many of our customers are receiving telemarketing phone calls from slick salesmen telling them that they can guarantee they will get you to the top of the search engine pages.  In truth, nobody can guarantee this.

What these companies do is work one the principle that thye can probably succeed in a certain percentage of cases.  Let us say for argument's sake that this is 50%.  All they have to do, is charge twice the amount that they want to earn.  That way, they can afford to refund the 50% of customers where they had no success.  Even more, they can make it awkward for those customers to get their refund so they can play this percentage game to their advantage.

Our advice is to steer clear of search engine optimisation companies.  Everything that needs to be done can be done by you and your web designer.  The only skill required is a reasonable command of the English language as you can see in the "Content is king" section.

Truth Number 5 - It pays to be patient!

This is perhaps the most difficult truth to accept.  The search engines trust sites that have been live for a long time much more than they trust brand new websites.  Therefore, whilst you might enjoy some limited success within a few days or weeks of your site going live for the first time, excellent consistent results are usually achieved no earlier than six months after a site has appeared and more often after one year or eighteen months.  All your time and energy during this period must be spent promoting your website in other ways and slowly and consistently building those good quality links.