The menu bar is one of the most important elements of any website. For most pages, its important to keep it in a fixed position. This makes for easy and familiar navigation from one page to another.
But there are times when you build a website that you might want to hide the menu bar altogether. Watch this tutorial to find out how:
How did you get on? Share your experience below.
Here’s another Website of the Week!
This time its nickelbooks.co.uk, which is the website for a real-life bookshop in Sittingbourne, Kent. There’s a lot of work gone into this website – it has a huge number of pages featuring lots of books, along with summaries and links to paypal. Someone has been busy!
Every since Amazon rocked up, Books and Websites have been closely entwined. But NickelBooks.co.uk shows you don’t have to be an international brand to have an effective web presence.
Website Address:
www.nickelbooks.co.uk
When did you build your website?
Started in november 2008
Why did you build a website?
So that my business would have an internet presence: it’s an independent children’s bookshop
What do you like best about your website?
I like how easy it is to update, add pages, add images, and being able to use an online shopping facility is very important to me.
What is your best website building tip?
Don’t be afraid to try new things! I started with one of the Webeden templates, but i have changed it all so much as i’ve gone along. It’s so easy to change everything on the site that it’s mad not to!
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Thanks for that. If you want to be featured as our Website of the week, and get exposure to thousands of readers of the WebEden blog, visit the forum now!
The WebEden April 2010 Newsletter has just been sent out. In case you didn’t receive, here it all is!
WebEden now has a Facebook page! Join WebEden on Facebook and get the latest news and from the team.
You can use the WebEden Forum to get help, ask and answer questions, and find out what other WebEden Website Builders are talking about. We’ve had over 700 posts since going live!
Do you want cool, professional icons for your website? Here’s some great advice on good icons.
Have you heard of ‘Canonical Issues’? It’s one of the biggest challenges to get your website higher up the results pages on Google. Here’s some advice on how to solve canonical issues.
Do you want to change your menu bar? Here’s a video tutorial to show you how.
Have you ever tried Googling yourself? Even if you haven’t some others probably have!
If you’ve got any feedback, please leave a comment on the blog!
The WebEden.co.uk team
Follow WebEden Twitter!
In case you didn’t receive the March 2010 Newsletter in your inbox, here it all is!
Getting feedback from others is a great way to improve your web design. There’s a special place for you to do that on the WebEden forum!
This month we’ve had some great websites that submitted to our ‘website of the week’. Take a look and be inspired!
Ever wanted to add a search box onto your website? Thanks to Atomz you now can.
In Video Tutorials this month we’ve got lots of ways in which you can modify and enhance the images on your website.
Do you like Internet Facts and Stats? Take a look at this great video, and be amazed at the figures.
The World’s most expensive domain name went to auction a few days ago. Read more about the saga.
If you’ve got any feedback, please leave a comment on the blog!
The WebEden.co.uk team
Follow WebEden on Twitter!
For the first time in the best part of a decade, Google has lost its crown as the world’s most visited website. And its been lost to a relative newcomer, Facebook, rather than any other long running Internet company.
Facebook nabbed the number 1 spot for the first time on Christmas Eve, a feat it then repeated on Christmas Day and New Years’s day. It wasn’t back on top again until March 6th.
All in all the trendline for Facebook is massively upwards. Compared to the same dates in 2009 Facebook is up around 185%. This is in contrast to Google which is up a much more modest 9%.
Taken together, Facebook and Google represent close to 20% of all Internet visits.
Here’s a graphic taken from Internet monitoring firm Hitwise:
Since its most recent updates, Facebook has already become the world’s fastest growing search engine.
Where next for Facebook? CEO Mark Zuckerberg has famously said that he wants Facebook to become the ‘operating system of the Internet’, and by looking at these figures it looks like they’re well on the way to achieving that kind of universality. But before they grow too much more, they’re going to have to throw better parties.
To make the most of this growth you can of course Integrate your WebEden website with Facebook.
Any feedback please leave it below.
Although this blog is mostly about how to make a website, we’ve occasionally published interesting Internet facts and statistics in our web stats channel here on the WebEden blog.
This is for no other reason than we love to be wowed by ‘how big’, ‘how much, ‘how high’ numbers when it comes to the Internet. And of course we all like to fact-boast and appear knowledgeable at dinner parties, right? OK, maybe I should get out more.
Here’s some more stats, this time describing who uses the Internet, and how. Here we go:
*Unsurprisingly, Internet use is on the rise, accessed ‘several times a day’ by 27% of people in 2005 and 38% in 2010.
*Excatly the same percentage of men use it as women – 74%.
*Older people use the Internet less: 93% of 18-29 year olds use it; just 38% of 65 and up do so. 65 is where the drop off comes – 70% of 50 – 64 year olds are online.
*Income level of broadband users are much higher than non-broadband users.
*Internet users are more likely to be graduates (94% of them are online) rather than a high school leaver (39% of whom are online.
*58% of Internet users make use of a desktop rather than a laptop.
*Bloggers tend to be 25 – 44 – just 7% of those less than 25 do it.
*54% of bloggers think they are ‘experts’. Ahem.
*Norway is the highest percetage of its population online.
*Japan has the fastest Internet connections
It’s all summed up in this great info graphic from focus.com
Never again will you be stuck for something to say as the soup is being served. Anyone want to sit by me?
Earlier this year we looked at which election candidate was winning online. We found that leads of all three main parties had weaknesses in their campaigns, whether that was their websites, their position in the Google search results, or their presence on social media platforms such as Twitter.
Taking a more indepth look at the use of Twitter and electioneering we have guest blogger Alison Cross from AlisonCross4Webs.co.uk.
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From Babies to Twitter
Candidates may still need to pound the pavements shaking hands and kissing babies to ingratiate themselves with their voters, but there is a new dimension to this UK Election: Twitter.
And I don’t just mean the Big Gun party leaders themselves hopping on the American President’s bandwagon (follow him @barackobama), but there is a whole new raft of information that we can get, via Twitter, that we have not experienced before.
From TV to Twitter
The party leaders jump through the flaming hoops of a TV dabate…and on Twitter, your followers who are watching the debate along with you, all start to chatter about the points being made.
A really bright spark points out that one candidate says ‘If I were your PM’ six times – and you wonder whether he is sending some kind of subliminal message to voters.
From Newspapers to Twitter
The newspapers lumber into attack mode: a huge smear campaign against one of the candidates – the reward for doing well in the TV debate. He is transformed from Churchill to Hitler in the space of 7 days!
Suddenly Twitter swings into action with people alerting followers to blogs, giving links to the old misquoted articles in full – showing the British media moguls for the biased decaying dinosaurs that they really are. The internet, via Twitter, allows us a portal to political platforms in a way that we have NEVER had before
From Twitter to… Twitter
People tweet questions about policy to their followers and are tweeted back immediately with links to various policy documents on websites, crits on blogs, lampooning websites, spoof twitter accounts. All of it prodding and nipping us into Thinking For Ourselves!
Political wives are in on the act in an entirely new way – reporting their progress on the campaign trail from a fascinating insider’s viewpoint.
Helping us work out what we think of these women as real people, bunions and all .
The politicians know that THIS time, we are chatting and discussing their performances and policies in a way that has never been seen before.
Newspaper reports can be almost instantaneously panned or lauded, zapped around the world in the length of time it takes to type 140 characters and a shortened url link.
Twitter is helping politicians AND their critics reach new audiences and heralds a new dawn in the way politics can be experienced in the UK.
Polling, Sampling, Testing & Feedback
With the huge variety of APIs available for Twitter, it should be possible for instantaneous sampling of the electorate using polls, inviting feedback and who knows what else as Twitter further develops and hones its abilities.
It’s not impossible to imagine in the near future that MPs will be able to create lists of all tweeters registered in their constituency – regardless of whether they are of the same political ‘faith’ to encourage a wide and open debate.
The wisdom of Crowds?
But it’s not all a Brave New World. There are, sadly, some very…unenlightened….people on Twitter whose tirades of barely literate ranting reminds us that there can be a mob mentality springs up in the Twitterverse.
You only have to look at the abuse that astrologer Robert Currey experienced on his Face Book account after he responded to @profbriancox about the validity of astrology: http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=267856933681. Vile – whether you believe in astrology or not.
Not everyone has a Twitter account, so the old tried and tested avenues cannot be abandoned – but the new political opportunities that Twitter offers are phenomenal.
Welcome to the new chattering class.
About Alison
Alison Cross is a self-confessed Twitter addict who occasionally tears herself away from the world of social-networking to build or revamp websites, to design logos and website banners, to blog shamelessly about the joys of the intertubes and who sometimes even manages to factor in some light housework. She also runs alisoncross4webs.co.uk
If you’re not already aware, Twitter have created an option that lets you add your location to each Tweet you send.
The option is turned off by default, but you can go into ‘settings’ and activate it.
From that point each Tweet includes your location, with a link to a Google map of the area. You can switch location on/off before each tweet and always have the option to delete your location history.
According to co-founder Biz Stone, it’s all about making the service more useful to people looking for relevant, real-time information.
“People who choose to add this additional layer of context help make Twitter a richer information network for all of us − location data can make tweets more useful,” he said.
Twitter might just be jumping on the location bandwagon. There has recently been an explosion in the popularity of other social services offering geographical pointers. Now in a dominant market position, Twitter has eyed these services enviously. The most popular is Foursqure. Facebook are also considering the addition of location based services.
Have a look at the settings in your Twitter account in order to switch it on, and then let us know what you think.
A day late – I know – but its time for another ‘Website of the Week’.
We’ve got a bit of theme going here. Last week it was David Mitchell. This week its reece-shearsmith.co.uk. Reece Shearsmith is the star of (amongst other things) the League of Gentlemen and Psychoville. And this an unofficial site.
A couple of things I really like about this website. To start with it makes use of an intro page. I’m not a fan of these normally, but the image here is very effective – it entices the visitor to explore. The other thing this site does well is the forum. An active forum is a great addition to any website, but you have to make it a busy place.
Website Address:
http://www.reece-shearsmith.co.uk
When did you build your website?
April 2009
Why did you build a website?
I’m a big fan of actor Reece Shearsmith, and after searching the web for a site for him it became clear there wasn’t one dedicated to him – I took it upon myself! 
What do you like best about your website?
How professional it looks, with HTML hurting my brain. I know basic HTML but not enough to build an entire site. I get so many great compliments on it. 
What is your best website building tip?
Experiment! You can do near on anything, and if you aren’t happy you can change it!
When buying online, most shoppers don’t know that they have the right to return the goods.
According to a survey conducted by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), around 65% of consumers are less like to return the goods they bought online.
A boost to those selling online
Whilst that’s not good news for consumers, it’s an important factor for website owners who sell online. The simple fact is that the less stuff gets sent back, the less admin and repacking you need to do. It’s a further way in which your operation can cut costs over traditional bricks and mortar retailers.
The study showed that consumers were unaware of their rights to return goods bought on online.
UK Shoppers love buying online
UK shoppers buy more online than any other country in Europe, racking up £38bn in 2009, which accounts for 30% of the entire European online market. Yet most are unaware that any product can be returned even if you don’t have the receipt.
Kevin Brennan the Consumer Minister said “It’s important we all know that most online goods can be returned with no questions asked within seven days. We want confident consumers who can assert their rights and get a good deal”.
Consumer Rights
In actual fact, as a consumer you get extra rights when selling online. There’s the same no-quibble return guarantee, and you also get a bonus seven-day ‘cooling off period’ from the date the goods were received.
As long as the goods weren’t pesonalised, damaged or perishable, you can get a full refund. You don’t even need a receipt to be refunded for goods that are faulty.
Have you had an experience of returning good bought online? Do you sell online through your WebEden website? What is your returns policy? Do you get much stuff sent back? Leave us a comment below.
