Archive for December 2010

Yahoo have just published their ‘Year in Review’ showing what we were all searching for on Yahoo.co.uk in 2010. And it’s not the kind of stuff you would necessarily expect. Sure there’s some celebrity focus, but there’s some more serious stuff too.

Here’s the top 10 (#last year’s position)

1. Lottery (new entry)
2. Job Centre (#3)
3. Weather (new entry)
4. Big Brother (#1)
5. Cheryl Cole (#9)
6. TV guide (new entry)
7. World Cup (new entry)
8. Train times ( #10)
9. Katie Price (#8)
10. Horoscopes (new entry)

Richard Evans, Yahoo! News Editor commented: ‘Looking at the billions of searches made on yahoo.co.uk over the last year, two things jump out, One is that we are a worried nation, concerned about our futures as we enter an ‘age of austerity’. The second is that we find our escape from this worry through reality TV, entertainment and celebrity’

No doubt next year is going to feature some attention on the Royal Wedding.

When it comes to the celebrity top 10, here’s the order:

1. Cheryl Cole (#4)
2. Katie Price (#3)
3. Lady Gaga (#6)
4. John Terry (new entry)
5. Angelina Jolie (new entry)
6. Victoria Beckham (new entry)
7. Megan Fox (#10)
8. Justin Bieber (new entry)
9. Peter Andre (new entry)
10. Katy Perry (new entry)

Is there anything that we can learn as website builders? Well the main one is that if you write about the kind of things people talk about, you have a much better chance to appear in the Google search results and get traffic. Of course, it has to be relevant to your website – there’s not much point in attracting traffic from people looking for Cheryl Cole if you sell bathroom cabinets!

For more SEO advice take a look at our SEO Services.

Were these your top searches too, or have none of your common searches made it into the top 10?

It’s time for our final Website of the Week for 2010. And what a website to finish on!

Milaeon.co.uk is the web presence of Actor & Performer agency MILAEON. This is a talented business, providing not just actor representation but also workshops, showreels, headshots, retouching, creative and studio space.

And it’s a great site, creatively and cohesively showcasing the business to best effect. There’s professional video, Twitter profile integration, good use of forms and plenty of images too.

Website Address:

www.milaeon.co.uk

When did you build your website?

2009

Why did you build a website?

It is an essential requirement of my business, so without it, no business!

What do you like best about your website?

The reason I chose webeden for my huge website is because I need to update a large number of pages on a daily basis, and most importantly in real time, because I receive bookings each hour, so the ease of making fast changes with a couple of clicks has proved very profitable for me.

What is your best website building tip?

Simplicity, but with a professional touch. Make sure your visitors know easily and exactly where to find what they require, and keep each page informative but free of clutter.

Addition:

I have rarely had any technical issues with webeden, but when one has popped up, the response from webeden has been fast and helpful, therefore in my years of using various web building companies, this is the only one I have actually recommended to anyone!

[Thanks for that - it's very appreciated - Ken]

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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!

Good news if you sell online: Christmas present shopping over the web has gone up 25% this year.

That means that a whopping 45% of us are shopping online for Xmas.

Revenue is set to hit £12.4bn, according to research carried out by retail body IMRG.

Apparently this year the cold weather is an added factor, forcing people inside and in front of their PCs.

The biggest beneficiary of online shopping is the gravy train that is Amazon.co.uk. UK MD Brian McBride commented that last year at this time they “received orders for 2m items at a rate of around 23 orders a second.”

Nice work if you can get it….

Have you seen a boost in traffic and sales this year? Leave us a comment below.

We get all sorts of people building websites with WebEden.

Some have a hobby or an interest they want to share with the world. We have lots of clubs who want somewhere to show off team photos and results. Others are small businesses using the web to service customers and find new ones.

Last but not least are charities. Because the WebEden website builder is so easy to use (and so low cost), WebEden is a popular way for people in charities to build their own website.

We’re really happy to be able to serve this sector so well – so much so that we’re going to give away 100 Free Websites to charities.

Totally Free

We will pay for a year subscription to either WebEden Lite or Standard for any UK charity. This includes a free website, free website building tools, free hosting, a free domain name and up to 5 free email addresses. Free for a whole year.

How to qualify

All you need to be is a UK Charity registered with the Charity Commission. You need to use your free website for your charity. All we ask is that you add a link to your website indicating that this is a website provided by Website Builder WebEden.

How to Apply

To apply add the following details to the comments box below:

Your Name
Your Charity Name
Your Charity Number
What your Charity Does
Your Email Address
Your Phone  Number

What criteria will we use to select the winners?

The first 100 genuine applicants will receive a free website for their charity.

When will you find out if you have a free website?

Depending on how fast we receive applications, we hope to start notifying lucky recipients at the end of January.

That’s it!

We look forward to receiving your applications!

Our website WebEden.co.uk has been around for 5 years now, and we’re constantly working on it. We add new content, create new services, add videos and update pages.

But WebEden.co.uk is by no means perfect. It feels a bit ‘old school’. The text is tiny. The website is built with the small screen size and browser in mind. In short, we think it needs an update.

The first step on updating our website is testing out some new design ideas. We’ve created a new version of our homepage. And we’re using a cool bit of technology from Google called Website Optimiser to test whether this new version of our homepage coverts better than the old one.

Here’s our current homepage:

And here’s our new alternative:

Half people trying to get our homepage are shown the original and half are shown the alternative. We get a report in Website Optimiser showing us which version works best. This is what it looks liike:

At the moment the alternative new version is beating the old one but it’s early days.

Once we’ve found out the best design we’re going to launch with a whole new site based on that design – that’ll be in the middle of January.

But as a customer of WebEden, and a seasoned website builder, which do you reckon is best? Leave us your design comments below!

6 weeks ago we let you know about our new release, which will be the biggest for a whole year. At that point we fully expected and planned to have the new version out this year.

However, we’ve had to take the decision to delay release until early January. It makes sense to avoid getting new stuff out there just at the point that everyone – support team, developers, the lot – are reduced to a skeleton holiday crew.

The most important thing for us to avoid is giving you something shiny and new and it breaking, without anyone being there to fix it.

To remind you, the January release includes a new mobile optimised HTML version of your website; some great enhancements to the current HTML version of your site; and some bits and bobs that need to come before the full blog update.

We’re also giving you some new shape components (with cool stuff like drop shadows, gradients and images fills).

There is a big change in the way that store all the data associated with your website. The full blog release should follow at the end of Jan / start of Feb.

So: sorry for the delay. We promise it will be worth the wait.

And Happy Christmas!

Google have now published their Google Zeitgeist 2010 – a summary of what we’ve all been searching for in 2010 on Google.

They’ve also created a cool interactive tool to allow you to find out a bit more about the individual events.

See the tool here.

There’s a great video too:

We don’t often comment on celebrity comings and goings, except when it crosses over into online. So here’s one that fits the bill: Cheryl Cole is now the most searched for celebrity on the Internet.

According to online measurement firm Hitwise, the X Factor judge saw off competition from both Justin Bieber and Katy Perry to claim number 1 spot.

Cheryl topples Martin Lewis from the top. Others in the top 10 include Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, Cher Lloyd, Lady Gaga, Robert Pattinson, John Lennon, Katie Price and Megan Fox.

Cheryl didn’t have it all her own way – during his recent contract negotiations Wayne Rooney briefly claimed the prize.

The most popular category was singers, followed by actors and sports stars.

Cheryl also experienced a search surge during her recent bout of malaria.

So have you been searching for Cheryl online? Who has been your most searched for individual? Leave us a comment below.

According to United Nations statistics, almost a third of the world’s population will be online by the end of 2010. The number connected to the Internet has doubled in the last 5 years alone.

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) said that 226m new users have come online this year alone, bringing the total number up to 2 billion. Of those new connections, as much as 70% are from developing countries.

(Here’s a picture of the Internet, by the way)

Lots in the Developed World

Of course there are more people connected to the web in the developed countries. Latest figures indicate that 71% of westerners are connected to the Internet, compared to just 21% in developing ones.

It’s about Broadband

Hamadoun Toure, Secretary-General of the ITU said that broadband was a  ”transformational technology” to be used to catalyse development.

“It can generate jobs, drive growth and productivity and underpin long-term economic competitiveness”.

Broadband prices in developing countries remain high compared to low average incomes there. In the Central African Republic for example, it costs 40 times the average monthly income.

The cheapest place for broadband is Macao in China where it costs just 0.3% of average monthly income.

And it’s about Mobile

Broadband use is of course outstripped by mobile connections. 90% of the world’s population has access to a mobile network.

By the end of 2010 the ITU estimate that there will be 5.3 billion mobile subscriptions of which 3.8 billion will be in the developing world.

What does this mean for you?

So as a website builder do you feel like you have an audience big enough for your website?! Where does your traffic come from – is it mostly UK or do you get visitors from other countries too? You can find out that kind of information from Google analytics – let us know if you need a hand setting up Google Analytics.