Here was are back with another website of the week!
And what a cool one this is: jeremywaite.co.uk by brand consultancy Jeremy Waite. He clearly knows a thing or two about design. What would you expect from someone who can help create brands and identities for some of the biggest companies in the world? Design wise this site is cohesive, stylish, clean and clear. What a brand…
Website Address:
www.jeremywaite.co.uk
When did you build your website?
Last month. May 2010. I spent a day sat in Green Park in London planning it out on my notepad and then a full day in Starbucks by Savile Row on wi-fi designing it. Entire site only took 10 hours from beginning to end. 4 lattes. 2 innocent smoothies. 1 marmite pannini and 3 packets of biscuits.
Why did you build a website?
I lost my job and i couldn’t get a new one that I liked, so I decided to employ myself – but I couldn’t afford an expensive one after I lost a lot of money in an expensive divorce. Sad but true! Really glad now that I did build it as I can update it myself and I don’t need to pay anyone to do it. I now actively encourage the SME’s that I consult for to use web eden – and not just because of the cost savings but because of the functionality. I think you should have a commission structure for referrals!!!
What do you like best about your website?
It looks like it cost a lot to build. I’ve worked with some £100 per hour code writers and I think my site looks as good as many of the £1500 sites they’ve done – yet mine cost me £5.99 + my time (and I love it that much more because I built it myself – without any web design skills).
What is your best website building tip?
Less is more. Lots of blank space. And good images. Not from google! Spend money on istock at the very least! And people’s attention spans for a page are usually less than 5 seconds so make sure the information is laid out very clearly and simply – with a ‘call to action’ encouraging them to ‘do’ something.
———-
Jeremy Waite
Thanks guys – your software has helped me be able to do what I do – when I didn’t think I had to skills or the money to be able to. [Well, you definitely do have the skills - Ken!]
—–
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!
We’ve talked a lot before about the effect that outside events have on what people search for online. From the summer to erupting volcanoes and the world cup, the first reaction to news for many is a search online for more information.
Emergency Budget
Now it’s the turn of George Osborne’s Emergency Budget to drive people onto Google seeking clarification. On 22nd July his announcements including a raft of measures aimed at reducing the deficit. Some taxes – such as VAT and Capital Gains – went up, whilst many benefits – such as child benefit -were frozen or cut.
Research from online monitoring firm Hitwise has revealed that even on the day of Osborne’s speech, 1 in every 179 searches was budget related.
Benefits
There was a twofold increase in the number of searches for ‘government benefits’. Hitwise do note however that compare to last year benefit searches are in fact at a much lower background level.
And Taxes
As for taxes, these were up by nearly 12% for the quarter, ending June 2010, which is in fact a full 28% up over the same period last year. ‘Capital gains tax’ topped the tax related search counter, followed by ‘Council Tax’, ‘VAT, ‘income tax’ and ‘national insurance’.
What does this mean for you?
If you’re a website builder who has content related to the budget, this was a potential opportunity to get more visitors to your website. If you rank highly for ‘tax’ and ‘benefits’ then people may well have arrived on your site looking for information.
Writing about stuff that users are searching for is a strategy used by many website builders – not least the national press – to grab traffic to their site. Are there upcoming events that are already relevant to your website that might help you get more visitors?
It was the original Social Network, one that many believe spawned the genre. A new breed of Internet startup, it was snapped up by Rupert Murdoch for $850m back in 2005. But now it seems that users have had enough of MySpace. Users fell by a whopping 49% in the last year.
Users leaving & so are the staff
Figures released by online traffic monitoring firm ComScore show that the MySpace total audience dropped from 6.5m in May 2009 to 3.3m in May 2010. This period has also seen the departure of high-profile staff including CEO Owen Van Natta.
Good for Musicians
Having launched as a place where anyone could have a free homepage, to which they could add content such as chat, images, text, MySpace was rapidly adopted by young people as a place to showcase their interests. Bands too were quick to set up MySpace pages, and more recently the brand has been trying to position itself as a music specialist: MySpace music launched in December of last year.
Another win for Facebook
So where are the users going? I’ll give you one guess… The UK has around 38m Internet users. 9 out of 10 of those use Social Media. Facebook of course tops the chart, with 30.4m users – 79% of the UK online population. It’s up 28% in the last year along.
And Twitter?
Despite its media coverage, Twitter is used by just 4.3m, but the rate of growth is fast - up 69% in the last year.
Not only are more of us using social media, we’re spending more time on it too. In May 2009 we spent 4.6 hours per month, and that’s now up to 7.1 hours.
What about you?
Are you, or were you ever a MySpace fan? Have you moved on? As a website builder are you managing to get more users to your site by engaging people on Social Media? Leave us a comment below.
Do you want to get your website to the top of Google? We can help you with that! Our newly launched Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Pay per Click (PPC) services can help get your website to number 1. It all starts from £50 per month.
The New WebEden control panel is live! There are a whole load of new features, including a great colour picker that makes matching colours simplicity itself. Here are our favourite bits.
Control your heartbeat. Calm yourself. Retain some self awareness: there’s a new Twitter!
It’s got a brand new User Interface (UI) which allows you to embed photos and videos a bit like… well a bit like Facebook really.
The new UI is gradually rolling out today one account at the time. For a time you’ll be able to switch between the old and new versions.
Twitter describes the new layout as being “an easier, faster and richer experience”.
“You will now find @mentions, retweets, searches, and lists just above your timeline – creating a single, streamlined view on the left of the screen. On the right, you can see the features you’re familiar with, including whom you recently followed and who recently followed you, favorites, and Trending Topics,” they went on.
Here’s some marketing hot air from Twitter:
Have you got it yet? Are you liking what you find? Leave us a comment below
This time we’ve got the interestingly nameed Tonbridge631.co.uk, the website of the Tonbridge Round Table. I like this site. It’s very simple. It’s very focused. There is a clear flow and consistency to every page. The colour scheme is professional but interesting. And it’s all very easy to navigate.
Website Address:
www.tonbridge631.co.uk
When did you build your website?
Apr 19 2010 12:21AM
Why did you build a website?
I built and donated this website to Tonbridge Round Table as a thanks for all their efforts they put into the local community. The Webeden on-line software enabled me to create an easy to use basic website that has had a massive impact with nearly 400 hits within 7 weeks.
What do you like best about your website?
I like the ability to make the site ergonomic for the user and the ability to lay out pictures and text to keep the site uniform.
What is your best website building tip?
The best tip would be space. When building a site it is very easy to cram a lot of images and text on to one page witch can look very messy but keeping everything to a minimum and using space to keep the site clean and crisp. So my tip is keep it simple.
Thanks Webeden hope you like my handy work… [Ken: we do!]
—–
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 Internet has been abuzz; the twitterati are foaming at the mouth; they even featured it on News at Ten: Apple has launch a brand new Social Network called Ping.
Automatically built into Apple’s latest version of its ubiquitous desktop music client ‘iTunes’, Ping is described by Steve Jobs as “Facebook meets Twitter meets music”.
Using iTunes, Ping share your music tastes with friends, and lets you know what your favourite artists are doing. It revolves around a status update or timeline in a similar way to Facebook and Twitter.
The great advantage that Apple has is that if you’re into music then you probably are already using iTunes – no need to sign up to something new. The functions and process are very similar to other networks, so there’s nothing new to learn.
But a social network based solely around music? Is that too niche, bearing in mind the recent fortunes of Myspace (which is going South rapidly by the way).
Have you had a look at Ping? Any impact on us Website builders? Any thoughts or feedback? Leave us a comment below.
Google Instant went live on Wednesday evening. The search engine fraternity are buzzing – and for the rest of us its still quite a big change. Google’s Marissa Mayer says its a “fundamental shift in search.”
Wow, that’s exciting. So what is it?
Google Instant uses auto-complete technology to predict what you’re searching for. The results show up as you type, and change as your query gets longer. Here’s a screen grab:
So why have Google done this?
They reckon it makes search up to 5 seconds faster. And they also say that it makes the users’ experience a bit easier, and a bit less hassle (you don’t have to use up energy pressing ‘search’)!
Local & Personal
The other interesting feature is that the Google instant results are personalised to you, and tailored to your location.
It’s not available to everyone
1. It only works if you’re logged into a Google account
2. Not Safe For Work content is filtered – queries considered lewd don’t work.
3. It doesn’t work if you search:
*from your browser’s search box
*from the Google Toolbar
*from iGoogle
*from other places that access a Google search
*if you’ve previously disabled Google’s autocomplete feature
*if you’re using Google SSL search
If you don’t yet see it, you can try enabling it via this URL:
http://www.google.com/webhp?sclient=psy
Google also say Instant is disabled if they can detect that a searcher has a slow internet connection.
Have you tried Google Instant? What do you think? Leave us a comment below.
