Facebook, Twitter & Linked-In - End it all and get real!

(This was posted 6 months, 3 weeks, 1 day, 17 hours, 17 minutes's ago.)

Is your virtual life taking over your real life? Do you tweet friends instead of enjoying their company? Do you spend hours and hours ‘on the blog’ for business instead of doing business?

If this is you and it’s too much then end it all, quickly and easily with the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine!

I first saw this website on the Guardian’s website, I was amused by it and then further still when a business coach (Gill Tiney) from Steps to Success said on her inaugural tweet that if she gets addicted she’ll blame me!

So here you are, if you answer yes to the following perhaps you should consider the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine:

• Do you Tweet rather than speaking to friends and contacts?
• If you stub your toe do you update your Facebook status?
• Do you envy peoples contacts on Linked-In?

My thoughts on Social Networking websites...

I think they are great, but need to be respected:

Facebook can be like being at the pub or round a friends place enjoying a curry: the only problem is that your boss is there and so are prospective employers.

Twitter is a great way of getting your message out to many people – far more than most of us could ever speak to but why does ‘Ting Tong’ from Tooting want to follow me and how does it help either of us?

Linked-In helps you to see your connections in the business world but surly it also lets predators see who you are connected to?

Social networking works well for speaking to many friends and contacts at once and viral marketing can spread your offer, service or product far and wide and will probably put you in front of somebody in need very cost effectively.

I think that web 2.0 sites like Twitter, Facebook and Linked-In will start to settle down over a period of time. Social networking sites will always be popular and will continue to be used by the general public.

For me the most interesting thing is how businesses will use them. I believe passionately that if use responsibly social networking and viral marketing can be a great tool for all sorts of organisations. Personally I’d like to see charities use sites such as Facebook and Twitter more that and small businesses that thrive in referrals.

So there you are, commit ‘Web 2.0 Suicide’ if you feel you need to connect more with the chap next to you on the train in the morning or think about how you could use it better in your life!

We Love Planet Leasing

(This was posted 7 months, 5 hours, 38 minutes's ago.)

Planet Leasing are vehicle brokers, based in Southend, Essex. Basically if you are looking for car leasing, van leasing or 4x4 leasing they are the people to talk to.

Planet Leasing are our longest standing customer. This was the first site we built back in January 2007. It was rebuilt mid 2008 using ExpressionEngine so that they could update the leasing offers but otherwise is pretty much the same design as it has always been.

In addition to vehicle leasing and contract hire Planet leasing can offer great insurance deals and gap insurance. Their insurance deals work in much the same way as the lease, that is to say that providing you don’t change your circumstances the quote you get on day 1 can last for the full period of the contract hire or lease – think of that, fixed prices for the life of your car, van or 4x4 lease!

Darren and Gary setup the business and are now complicated by a number of team members, if you are looking to change your vehicle in the next few months, are looking for one now or are coming to the end of your contract hire/lease agreement give them a call to find out how they can help you.

Click here to see BMW Lease offers, Audi Lease offer or offers by price range (Lease Offers Under £150, Lease office £150 to £200, Lease Offers £200 to £250, Lease Offers £250 to £300, Lease Offers £300 to £350, Lease Offers £350 to £400 and Lease Offers over £400).

Domains Names - Hyphenated or Not?

(This was posted 7 months, 1 week, 4 days, 23 hours, 49 minutes's ago.)

As web developers we get asked many questions and one of them is whether to hyphenate a domain name.

If you Google the question you will find a number of different opinions, ours is relatively simple, the domain name is one of the most important parts of a website for small businesses when you look at optimisation.

We suggest you keep it as simple as you can for the search engines to understand, hyphens are treated as a break in the word so if you are an accountant in Southend the ideal domain would be www.southend-accountants.co.uk as that is a logical search term.

If you use www.southendaccountants.co.uk search engines sill look at the word ‘southendaccountants’ and try to make sense of it – it does not know where one word ends and the other starts.

If you are ‘Alexanders Accounts’ you can have for marketing purposes www.alexandersaccountants.co.uk as your domain name, simply buy that domain and forward it to www.southend-accounts.co.uk, the browser will not know the difference, but the latter will work much better than the former.

There is a cautionary note though, if we wanted to have www.knowitallwebguys.co.uk we would not register www.know-it-all-web-guys.co.uk as this is frowned upon. Our experience is that you can have two hyphens but no more.

So there you are, just a little food for thought, have a great online time!

New Website, Public Sewer Services.

(This was posted 7 months, 1 week, 5 days, 20 hours, 31 minutes's ago.)

I have to say that Public Sewer Services may not sound like a favourable topic but what they do, how they do it and the customer service they provide is second to none.

Sewer Installation, Renovation, Repair and Maintenance – possibly not topics that will float around every dinner table but without PSS the underground waterworks would soon fail...

There site is built using our favoured CMS ‘ExpressionEngine’. It is XHTML Transitional and should be compliant with the DDA/WCAG and W3C.

Public Sewer Services can;

• Add/Change Remove Text
• Add/Change Remove Strap line
• Add/Change Remove Banner Image
• Add/Change Remove Banner Image for a flash file (.swf file)
• Add/Change Remove in-page links to other pages
• Add/Change Remove thumbs on right-hand side
• Administer Meta Data
• Add/Change or Remove News Articles
• Assign Articles to Categories
• Add/Change or Replace Services
• Assign Services to ‘Service Groups’

In fact in terms of what they can administer there is very little they can’t do. Add to this that by using different ExpressionEngine modules the administration of the site could not be much easier.

The site was designed by Baseline Creative in 2007, this latest update has not seen any design input, it’s really a function update.

So here you are, Public Sewer Services – go and have a look at them.

Take a look at ALM Training Services.

(This was posted 7 months, 1 week, 6 days, 19 hours, 46 minutes's ago.)

ALM Training Services are an independently owned training company that offers a multitude of industrial and commercial training services.

They are conveniently based at the Riverside Business Centre in Tilbury Essex. Courses range from forklift truck training to skills training such as plumbing and plastering.

We developed in conjunction with Baseline Creative a great brand for them and then designed their website.

The site is designed to give them visibility for the services they offer, allowing them to promote each and every course.

Take a look at ALM Training today.