Barry Russell

Came across this recently and thought I'd share it with you  - "50 ways to get your website noticed" is an excellent article with loads of tips like getting on Twitter, giving out vouchers and special offers, using email signatures plus lots more ideas!

Check it out here:
"50 Ways to get your site noticed"

You may ask yourself, why do I need a website … I already have a good customer brochure or a good book of photos. With an internet site, your product or service is accessible globally, to prospective customers 24 hours, 365 days a year.

More and more people these days are using the internet as a first port of call because of its convenience and to save time. Customers and the general public almost expect that a company has a web site. If people want information on a product or service, they are now saying, “I think they have a website, I’ll check that out first.”

Websites are quicker, easier and more cost-effective to update than print based media; therefore, you can have pictures, details and prices of your products, the very latest company information, or maps indicating the location of your company’s outlets on your web-site. A website can play an integral part of your promotional and marketing strategy. It also makes a powerful statement about your business, showing that you have planned for the future by securing your on-line presence today.

Imagine the scenario whereby customers ring you requesting information on a product or service - there’s only so much you can do via telephone and delivering brochures via postal services takes time. It would be great to say, “If you take a look at our web-site, I’m sure you’ll find what you need there.” You would be surprised how many extra sales you could have by developing an on-line brochure or virtual store. Having an internet site also speeds up the time taken to react to customer queries, which can be done via e-mail.

Unless you know a bit about web development its not that easy to tell the difference between a static website and a dynamic one. So what is a static website? Static websites tend to be the smaller 'brochure type' website and are usually made with an HTML editor or using special web-development software like Dreamweaver.

Static Websites

The advantage of a static website is they are quicker and cheaper to develop as well as being easier to host. However the main disadvantage with a static website is once its online you will require a web designer to update the content of the pages. Here is a summary of the Pros and cons....

Dynamic websites

A dynamic website (like this one!) is a website where the content is stored in a database. The content is usually entered via an admin interface and can be managed by many users at different locations and PCs. The main advantage of a dynamic or content managed system (cms) is that once its online you can make as many updates as you want without the need of a web designer. A dynamic website is the best solution for websites that require frequent updates and/or interaction with the visitors.

Target your advertising specifically to people who are looking for your products or services.

BR Webdesign can setup a Google AdWords campaign for you skillfully selecting keywords and phrases to trigger your adverts and reach the audience you want.

Simply login and activate your account with your credit card or direct debit information and the ads will start running almost immediately.

About Google AdWords
Google AdWords is Google's advertising program. AdWords lets you create simple, effective ads and display them to people already searching online for information related to your business.

Cost-per-click (CPC): Under its cost-per-click (CPC) pricing model, AdWords charges you for each click your ads receive. You won't incur any costs if your ad is displayed for a search query and users don't click it.

AdWords advertising lets you:

• Target your ads specifically to people who are looking for your products or services.
  
• Avoid showing your ads to users who aren't likely to purchase from you.
• Obtain the maximum return on your advertising investment.
  

• You can choose to pay for ad clicks (CPC) or for impressions (CPM).
• Because you can choose your own CPC or CPM amounts, you decide how much you'll pay each time someone clicks or views your ad.
• There's no minimum spending limit. In addition, you can set a maximum daily spend (daily budget) that the AdWords system won't exceed.
• You can edit your budget settings at any time.

• You can edit an existing ad, then see your updates within 15 minutes.
• You can edit your account at any time, as often as you like. AdWords is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
• Ads start running for the first time almost immediately after you activate your account with your credit card or direct debit information.

Its always nice to get on the first page in Google and the top position is even better!

My visitor stats were already showing how popular this search was.

Google top spot

It seems a lot of you out there are still using an old version of Internet Explorer so when I'm developing a new website I like to know it works and looks the same in IE6 as it does in IE7.

However its not possible to have multiple versions of Internet Explorer installed on the same PC and running at the same time so the way round this on a Windows Vista machine is to install Microsoft Virtual PC.

This enables you to run different operating systems and IE versions via a virtual hard disk image - ideal for testing purposes!

There are a number of separate VPC images available for testing IE versions.