Cirencester Website Design

Google China threatened to pull out of the region earlier this week.  The reason was hacking into human rights activists Google  e-mail accounts.

It now appears that a security weakness in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was at the root of the problem.  Apparently a fix is now planned but until then you can overcome the weakness by setting your “security zone” to high.

The computer attacks exploiting this weakness was targeted at Google and 20 other companies.  For Google it sparked off threats of pulling out of China all together who are already compromised by being forced to censor search results.

Website maintenance and update services from Winning Inch.

Winning Inch is pleased to announce new Website maintenance and update services.  From January 2010 you can use Winning Inch as your virtual website team.

The service will provide for ad hoc updates to text / images to existing website pages for just £50.00 per hour.   For contract client’s (40 hours or more per month) this rate reduces to £12.00.

Updates can be sent via e-mail, cd-rom or usb sticks or transferred directly via our own “instant chat” facility.  This dedicated service means that you are directly linked to your virtual team at  Winning Inch anywhere you have an Internet connection.  Just connect, tell us what you want and will make it happen in under 24 hours.

Read more for full pricing…

Google page rank demise

many people have witnessed the shake up over page positions in search results. Top search result positions used to belong to the website who had the highest page rank. It is this reason that link strategies played such an important role in SEO. Well looks like those days are gone and good riddens to it.

Apart from building shady business finding clever ways to buy and sell links, relentless “link to me” requests and of course blog / forum and other social networking spamming. The page rank system prevented new businesses and entrepreneurs from gaining any value from the Internet. It can take years to build a solid page rank naturally which does not really support the needs of new and small businesses.

The “welcomed” shift to content relevancy to search keywords is like a breath of fresh air. Relevancy is focused on your website’s content and meeting the needs of people searching for the content you offer.

It is too early to tell of this is a permanent change in direction or part of the Google caffeine roll out short term. But it does support trends in social networking. Most sites like Twitter, facebook etc use either “nofollow” or redirect links to avoid passing on “link juice” that would build page rank. The reason they do this is stop link spamming diluting true content with rubbish.

Social networks are vitally important. But rather than simply being a popularity contest the emphasis should be on driving traffic to your website.

So have we seen the demise of Google page rank. I hope so as it levels the playing for those just starting out as well as established website’s. Isn’t that the reason the Internet became so popular?

Twitter seems to be struggling under the weight of it’s own success. Leaving millions of Twitterers frustrated.

Twitter’s over capacity not only prevents access to the site directly but the Twitter feeds as well. Leaving blank spaces in website’s that should contain recent tweets and links to relevant information.

We do not have any answers so this post is just sharing the frustration that everyone else is feeling! So a plea to Twitter “scale up to meet demand”… Thank you

Winning Inch provide professional SEO services to Cirencester based companies.

Large and small companies need to expand into new markets in order to support a growth plan.  This poses a problem for most organisations who want to maintain a local presence as well achieve growth further afield.

Using the Internet is probably the simplest, most effective and affordable, way of segmenting your market with messaging that target both local and new markets.

SEO / Internet marketing is a really effective tool with a good return on investment.  Call Winning Inch your local SEO Cirencester company on 01285 711699.

Free website builder from Winning Inch

Not a special offer our unlimited website hosting just got better!  Free website builder for our inclusive price of £47.88.  That is just £3.99 per month.  Comparable packages would cost anywhere between £10 and £24.99 per month.  It is the next best hosting package to running your own server without the headaches.

More info…

Mobile ready website.  Is yours?

The mobile device is poised to overtake the web browsing market.  The reason is simple and comes down to pure convenience i.e. when travelling it is far easier to use a mobile device rather than a lap top.  Every person , over the age of 10, has a mobile whereas only a small percentage have a dedicated PC or laptop available to them.

So what does this mean for business who rely on the Internet for business growth and revenues?  The answer is clear if your website does not render well (look good) on a mobile device then your website / business is going to suffer.

Most websites that conform to World wide We Consortium (W3C) standards are already “mobile ready”.  The W3c lays out the standards for web browsers and web designers.  If your website validates then it will look the same regardless of the technology or browser version.  This is true of older windows based machines use Internet 6 or earlier through to state the Apple I-Phone.

The current standards are based on a 2 tier architecture og HTML for structure and CSS for visual rendering.  HTML creates the architecture creating areas for pictures, text and everything else you see on screen.  CSS defines those areas for size and styling.  For example he HTML will define an area known as a division and CSS defines the size, colour, styling etc of that division.

Typically this means that a browser can interpret both the HTML and the CSS to make the website look the same regardless of say “screen size” as screen size is defined by the hardware and the browser will propotion the web page according to the available space.

Unfortunately for website’s built 3 or more years ago, and is still the case for some web designers, website were built using tables.  This means that the website dimensions are fixed by the table sizes.  For eaxmple the overall table would have been set to accommodate the smallest possible screen, typically 800 pixels wide, hence a table size of circa 780 pixels would be the standard website size.

The consequence of fixing the size of a table is that it remains fixed so on a mobile device it is not possible to be proportionally adjusted.  To the mobile user it will be like seeing a picture of an elephant 4 inches at a time.  The result of course is obvious the user will simply move to the next website that renders well on the device being used.

How do you know if your website if your website validates to W3C standards?  It is simple visit the W3C HTML validator and enter your website address.  You will get an immediate result.

What do you do if your website does not validate.  Call us and we will advise you further.  Telephone 01285 711699

Winning Inch launched a new free SEO advice group on Facebook.

The new service will offer free SEO advice to website owners.  To use the service visit free seo advice and ask a question.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Winning Inch is moving its web design and SEO staff to Gloucester.

The decision to move from Fairford was based on a significant increase in the  level of business coming from Gloucester.  Although we are sad to leave it makes sense to move our staff nearer to the front-line of Gloucester and Cheltenham.

The physical move is planned to happen at the end of May 2010.

Our Cirencester sales office is unaffected by the move.

Cirencester Website Design

Cirencester website design delivers website and Internet services to the local business community.  We are opening a new office in Cripps Road, Cirencester which has great parking facilities “Brewery Car park”.  Locals will know this as the Tesco Metro car park.  We will be retaining our design and development office in Fairford.  We will be opening the new office in January and this move demonstrates our commitment to local businesses both large and small.

The new office will offer access to a broad range of services ranging from Website design / redesign, search engine optimisation, Internet marketing as well as print design and traditional marketing.

Competing in today’s market requires an integrated approach to marketing your business.  The benefits of working with Winning Inch is to reduce overall cost whist increasing effectiveness and of course to have a single point of responsibility.

We look forward to working with you and until then have a great Christmas.