Twitter widget is it damaging your website?

Compliance to standards is a basic requirement for website / search engine optimisation.  In a recent exercise around this issue we discovered that the Twitter website widget is not actually compliant.  As such this means that your entire web page/e, where you have the widget, may be forcing non compliance and therefore damaging your website's performance.

To check your website for compliance http://validator.w3.org%20target=/and enter your website address in the box

It is however really easy to fix.  Within the code of your page where the Twitter widget is you will find this line of code:

<ul id="twitter_update_list">ul> This the culprit. So just add
<li></li> so that is looks like this:
<ul id="twitter_update_list"><li></li></ul>

That is it. You are done.

If the W3C is still showing problems after fixing this one or if you want help to fix it give us a call or send us an e-mail.

Website optimisation and url canonicalization

Canonicalization is a term that relates to the domain name (URL) of your website.  It is important as most people do not realise that search engines view the domain name (URL) http://www.yoursite.co.uk and http://yoursite.co.uk as being totally independent of each other.

To see if your website  may be at risk try this in another browser window.  Enter the url of your website using both http://www. and just http://.  If they both work your website may be being penalised by search engines for one of the biggest sins of all - "duplicate content".

Fortunately the answer to the problem is really simple.  Add a .htaccess file to your server in the same directory as your home page.

The content of the .htaccess file should be:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourwebsite\.co.uk
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.yourwebsite.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L]

Just replace "yourwebsite" with your actual url.  That is it!  The .htaccess file  basically redirects all calls to http://yoursite.co.uk to http://www.yoursite.co.uk.  This consolidates all your existing links and prevents search engines from downgrading your website due to duplicate content issues.


You will be amazed what the effect can be..   in just three lines of code.  If you think there may a problem with your website but not sure how to go about things.  Give us a call or drop us an e-mail and we will see what we can do.

Good luck.
PS the code cannot be written in a word processor as they add hidden characters to format text.  Use notepad or something similar.  You will need an ftp programme to upload the file to your server.

Unemployed what next?

The economic crisis has caused a lot of heart ache for those who no longer have jobs. But what are you waiting for? You have skills that people want right now but not necessarily afford on a full time basis.

The world has changed, does it stop?  But the job market is not likely to improve. So instead of joining the treadmill with everyone else.  Maybe it is time to offer your services on a freelance basis. Let's face it people still need people with skills and are willing to pay a service provider. So why not start your own business.

These days what do you need? A telephone, computer, determination and a sense of worth. Armed with these you should be working toward something for yourself and family. Something worth working for; your own business. Even if it is short term at least you can show future employers that you have belief in yourself and the skills you have obtained.

We can all play the "what if game" and do nothing. Or even worse the "if only game" and do even less. But what you have is a track record in a skill that your last company paid you for. So embrace it and get out there to provide your skills to those who need it right now.  These are probably like minded people who have made the same decision.

It may seems like a big leap, but you have read the papers and seen the news, things will get worse before they get better. The government is relying on "green shoot" companies to drive the country forward. So in reality denying your community your skill set is actually delaying the recovery process.

The things to do is to network. Join your local chamber of commerce or business club.  You will quickly find people, who have dome the same as you, who need your skills.  In our experience you will often meet people who are happy to exchange skills instead of wanting cash all the time.  This is how the world of commerce started.

The business essentials are a website, business cards and letter headed paper. This is a really small investment to make.

So don't let this situation get you down. Look at it as an opportunity. After all what is the alternative? We are here to help you and our sister company Services Web Design can help to get your Internet presence going from just £199.

So don't wait get started.  If you need help or guidance we are here to provide it.  We have been there and done it.  Now it is time for you to begin.

Is your website really working for you?

In reality almost 99% of websites fail to provide a return on investment. The reason behind this, commonly, is that insufficient planning was done before the website was designed.

Planning is the most important aspect to success. In its simplest from you need to determine:

• What do I offer?
• Who will want what I offer?
• Why would someone choose my offering?
• When do people need what I offer?
• Where can I offer my goods / services

If you can answer these basic questions your website design and content will be targeted to the right target audience.

For example let’s apply this simple planning exercise for a fictional local builder called “Blogg & Son”.

Blog & Son operate a small building firm in Cirencester. They hoped having a website would attract more business. Johnny, the son has a friend that knows a thing or two about websites as he did one for his uncle’s bridge club. They acquire the domain name www.bloggandson.com and Johnny’s friend puts together a 4-page website.

The website has been live for 2 years and it has never generated a lead and has been pretty much forgotten about.

This is very common, with three web pages for every single person on the planet, website competition is fierce and that is why planning is very important. We meet clients in this position daily especially now that times are harder when it is essential to win new business.

Staying with the scenario we will now do some basic planning for Blogg & Son using the above simple questions.

What do I offer?

• Professional building service
• Home extensions
• Home conversions
• Conservatories

Who will want what I offer

• Adults 25+

Why would someone choose my offering?

• Local
• Quality
• Service
• Experience - 25 years in business
• Many references

When do people need what I offer?

• Aspirational - need more space or adapt space to suit our lives
  

Where can I offer my goods / services

• 25 miles of Cirencester

Armed with these few simple facts we can now plan to redesign the website more effectively.

Domain name we will retain the domain name but we will acquire a new one focused on what they do and where they do it – www.cirencester_builders.co.uk

Why? When someone is searching for a local service they are most likely to search for “town” and “Service”. Therefore, “Cirencester Builders” matches this pattern and is more likely to be used in a search than a trade name such as “Blogg & Son”. A .co.uk is use as this will give the website a higher ranking for searches in the UK.

We are going to use “cirenester builders” in a few strategic places on the website. This will search engines to identify with the content and position the website for relevant searches. The first place is in the page title together with “what do I offer” and “Where can I offer my goods / services”


Page title – “Cirencester builders, local professional building services, Home extensions, Home conversions and Conservatories”.

This title will be read by search engines and is usually what it returns as the headline in search results. Saying what you do and where you do it helps considerably to position your business for the right searches.

Now we can focus on the content to bring everything together. Taking “who will what I offer” question we determined that we are targeting adults of any age above 25. As such our content needs to be universally appealing with a clean design that is easy to read. We will also consolidate our research to incorporate the key messages:

Cirencester Builders are professional builders delivering a high quality services for home extensions, Home conversions and Conservatories within Cirencester and the local area.

Our total commitment to service and quality ensures that your aspirations for your home are met or exceeded. With over 25 years of experience our family business has grown and we have many examples and references pertaining to our building services.

Finally we will create a standards compliant website so that search engines will not penalise our website for poor quality.

Of course the given scenario is simple. But poorly planned websites form the majority of the trillions of pages on the Internet that will never be found in context to your business.

For more complex markets professional marketing will help considerably to position your business correctly to attract the right (qualified) visitors to your website.

Talk to us about marketing planning we have both Internet and traditional marketing expertise to get the right message to the right person at the right time. You can view a sample mini-marketing plan here.

Flash Website design and development

Everyone that visits a Flash website cannot help but be impressed by lustre and quality these websites exude.

But why are there not more? The main problem with Flash is that it has, traditionally, required a plug in from Adobe to display the content. That was until Internet Explorer 6. Now most, if not all, web browsers support the loadmovie command meaning that the Flash content will now play automatically.

We have seen a surge of Flash website design demand in the last 6 months and we believe that Flash has come of age. Even mobile devices now support flash player enriching the user experience all the more.

However, we still suggest caution, as search engines can still find indexing Flash websites tricky. To a large extent we have overcome this problem by separating the content from the movie. This is done by using external Extensible Markup Language (XML) to feed the movie with the data.

You may or may not know that Google uses XML generated site maps to help indexing websites. Which is a pretty strong endorsement.

As a separate file, the XML, is easily readable by search engines and importantly easy to update, no Flash needed, meaning that just about anyone can change the content.

Our XML Flash websites are driven by Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), which comply with accessibility standards. As an extra step and for added assurance we wrap it all up in a standard HTML / CSS wrapper.

We are developing a range of e-commerce solutions based on Flash and XML using MySql and PHP to automatically generate the XML in real time. This provides a rich environment to display your products and, at last, getting away from messy and clunky table driven systems.

Our custom Flash / XML websites start from as little as £1,200 and e-commerce solutions from £2,500. So make your website stand out from the crowd. Flash has come of age.

The new range will be available from August 2009. But if you want a sneaky preview call us on 01285 711699 and we will take you through a couple of previews.

Table-based website design and search engine optimisation

We have many enquiries to optimise table-based websites, which is rather like asking to put a Ferrari engine into a tractor. Yes, it may be possible but the result would be a compromised, as it is then neither a Ferrari nor useful tractor.

Websites "should" be optimised to achieve your goals from the bottom up. Hence, we thought it would be a good idea to provide some free guidance on the subject.

The purpose of tables is to contain tabular data. A common use would be to collect information to add to a database i.e. a contact form or order form.

All too many website designers have exploited tables to create websites. These, commonly, are DIY website packages or website templates purchased "off the shelf". However, there are still those who will charge for new custom websites and use tables to create them.

A compliant website will always out perform a table-based website because:

• Table-based website design generates a lot of extraneous code
• Websites are slower to load, as a browser needs to pre-load everything locally before displaying it on-screen. As a result slower load time generates ranking penalties.
• Search engines need to work harder to establish the content away from the structure. This is never a good idea!
• Table-based websites are fixed in size so compromise either modern display technology or older legacy systems. Hence, no one wins.
• Table-based websites cannot conform to accessibility requirements so the visitor cannot change the font or font size via their browser. This gains additional penalty points.
• Modifying table-based websites cost more as each table needs to be changed to accommodate any new additions or deletions to the structure
• Table-based websites do not comply with current standards so in reality they are “outmoded”.

For these reasons, it would not be advisable to try to optimise a table-based website. No matter what is done it will always be penalised versus an equally matched compliant website.

To optimise the website it will need to rewritten using HTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). However, this may not be as expensive as you think. Using compliant standards is actually quicker and far easier, once you have the expertise, to create websites. All non compliant penalties removed the website can be optimised further to obtain your goals.

How do I know if you have a table-based website? Simple on any web page you can view the code. To do this load your website into a browser, select ”VIEW” from the main menu and then select either “CODE” or “SOURCE CODE”.

If the code is full of the following: <TABLE> <TR> and <TD> then you have a table-based website. However, if you have any doubts you can just ask us to look, no obligation, and we will let you know.

We have a lot of experience in converting table-based websites into optimised compliant websites. The results are always pleasing and the return on investment is usually within 90 days.

So call us on 01285 711699 or email us and we will be happy to provide a “no obligation” quote.

Fairford Festival Sponsorship

Winning Inch web design and marketing was delighted to develop the race entry system for the Fairford Festival. With the race over the system registered over 450 entries using a custom solution consisting of MySql database, PHP, JavaScript and Ajax to provide a simple interface with a robust architecture.

The solution proved invaluable when the race lost its major sponsor within weeks of the race. Fortunately all entrants were informed to collect their running numbers on the day averting a major disaster.

New sponsors were found and the race was able to be run.

If a manual system was used, as in previous years, the race would have been cancelled as it would have been impossible to communicate with everyone to keep them up to date with what was going on.

A great day was had by all and the race registration system delivered to an overall charity contribution of circa £4,000.

Registration for the 2010 race is now open and Winning Inch web Design and Marketing look forward to supporting the race event for another year.