The time between Christmas and the New Year are often a time to relax and play around. I found this free service from Google, which is suitable for web pages and Blogs. Expect to see many more used over the coming months.
Posted in: Poll, Polls, questionnaire, Survey on Tuesday, December 27, 2011 at at 12:53 PM 0 comments
Just a quick reminder to update all your copyright years to 2012 on 1st January, are as soon as possible. This is a great time to make other update changes and then create all new website sitemaps for your site.
Happy New Year
Drachsi
Posted in: copyright, website sitemaps on at at 9:51 AM 0 comments
Bit of free time today so I thought I would research SEO companies. Most of them state all the things they can do for you, but why don't they do it for their website? A classic is the html and xml site maps. It seems like a forgotten item for most webmasters, but it is very very important. Don't you forget.
More info at Website Sitemaps and examples.
Drachsi
Posted in: website sitemaps on Thursday, December 22, 2011 at at 7:22 AM 0 comments
I visit a large number of websites every day as part of my research and marketing for companies. You will now often see a link to Disqus. This is a community resource that has significant benefits for marketing. I would suggest you first create your profile, then when you make posts your details are available to all other viewers, which has link direct to your website.
For this and other marketing ideas please see the Business Networking page on my site.
Drachsi
Posted in: business networking, disqus on Sunday, December 18, 2011 at at 7:35 AM 0 comments
Google Uk has created information about how they use your data and what you should know. The link is Google UK
Drachsi
Posted in: on Friday, December 9, 2011 at at 1:05 PM 0 comments
Being featured in an important online newsletter is very satisfying. Naturally there are still many steps to been taken, but it is a vote of confidence that the site meets certain standards.
Posted in: marketing a website. on Monday, December 5, 2011 at at 1:48 PM 0 comments
New exciting additions have been made to the Business Networking page. If you use these resources, why not make a comment.
Drachsi
Posted in: on Thursday, November 17, 2011 at at 7:06 AM 0 comments
The website has been down due to hosting problems, sorry if you had problems. More information on business consultancy services at www.drachsi.com
Posted in: on Sunday, November 13, 2011 at at 10:15 AM 0 comments
You may have heard and used LinkedIn for placing details about yourself on the employment market. Now there is an alternative, based in Europe. Check out www.webberid.com to see if it is for you. I recommend it.
Drachsi
Posted in: webberid linkedin on Wednesday, November 2, 2011 at at 9:54 AM 0 comments
A group Forum now offers the opportunity for companies that provide services and support as a B2B, to join, is now on-line. The address is Small Business Group
Posted in: on Thursday, October 27, 2011 at at 1:24 PM 0 comments
With the minimum of resources it is possible to produce a short video using a few pictures and text. sound is also possible. This 1.15 minute video provides and addition link from YouTube and can also spread throughout the net as other people link to it and pass comments. A viral marketing idea.
Not for every company, but as links are one of the most important things a webmaster has to do, every day, then this is an easy solution.
Posted in: website audits, website videos on Thursday, October 20, 2011 at at 10:22 AM 0 comments
It has taken some time to convert and modify the layout and style of the Drachsi website. Still work to be done adding the missing pages, and creating a new YouTube business video.
Drachsi
Posted in: drachsi, website audit, website mystery shopper, website reviews on Monday, October 10, 2011 at at 4:41 PM 0 comments
Sometimes a book comes into your hands that you wondered how you every lived without it. If you own or maintain a website this book is packed with up to date ideas, solutions and is a great reference source. Hope you enjoy.
Posted in: on Monday, August 15, 2011 at at 8:21 AM 1 comments
If you change address and do not update your address records with either PayPal or Ebay, they conduct a credit card to address detail check, and if after 3 attempts, it does not match. Your credit card is blocked for EVER. There is no way to request the card to be re-activated, you just have use another card, or get a replacement.
Make certain your PayPal and Ebay profiles are up to date.
Posted in: on Thursday, June 30, 2011 at at 4:20 PM 0 comments
A Blog for website mystery shopping has been launched today.
Now you have the opportunity to follow all three blogs.
Drachsi Website Blog
Ideas and Solutions Blog
Mystery Shopper for websites
Drachsi
Posted in: on Tuesday, June 21, 2011 at at 8:11 AM 0 comments
We provide a personal service to business customers requiring maintenance of their company website sitemap. A site map is considered vital for successful indexing. We conducted a small survey and found more than 90% of the sitemap providers did not even use their own product on their website. So why purchase from them?
Posted in: site map, site maps, sitemaps, website sitemaps on Saturday, June 4, 2011 at at 2:16 PM 0 comments
As part of our plan to encourage more companies to use their website sitemaps more effectively, we have submitted a short press release to PressBox. Here is the release 50% don't have a sitemap This is an excellent method to publicise useful information.
Drachsi
Posted in: on Thursday, June 2, 2011 at at 8:48 AM 0 comments
You need a sitemap for your website. There are 12 different types, if you don't have the time, you can purchase all 12 on the current date for £45 UK pounds. This is a major reason why the search engines index some websites better than others, they know what is in the site, what it is about and when it was last updated. A good investment and early benefits. A quick sitemap application form is here
Drachsi
Posted in: on Wednesday, June 1, 2011 at at 8:57 AM 0 comments
Now, more than ever, it is important to know how a visitor sees your business website. This is a very neglected part of most company Internet plans. Sometimes this is called a website review or website audit.
In reality what is important, is how a potential customer locates the information they are seeking, and proceeds to the point of sale if applicable.
Mystery Shopping of departmental stores, restaurants, hotels, etc. is common, but most company websites nearly always gets forgotten. There is more than just reporting broken links, it is the whole customer experience, and then there are practical ideas, solutions, not forgeting the very important sitemaps.
If you need a resource to review your website, here is the link to addition information on Website Mystery Shopping.
Posted in: mystery shoppers, website audit, website mystery shopper, website reviews on Saturday, April 23, 2011 at at 9:35 AM 0 comments
Senior management including Sales and Marketing, depend on the full operation of the company website, but there is a problem.
Maybe Management is not interested in the Internet, and leaves it to the web design department or outsourced to a web design company. The design company is too busy to check if there are visitor problems, anyway they don't get paid for it. A small survey of 60 websites I visited, every one from small to global had a problem. Problems mean potentially lost business.
You may have seen the earlier posts about Mystery Shoppers. If the same care was taken by companies of their website, both the company and customer would benefit. Need an independent reviewer of your website, often takes about an hour, and you as get suggestions and recommendations included. The contact form is here.
Drachsi
Posted in: on Friday, April 15, 2011 at at 11:30 AM 0 comments
Additional information has been added to the Mystery Shopper page. See the ethics guide and the general guide for all Mystery Shoppers.
Drachsi
Posted in: mystery shoppers, UK mystery shopper on Sunday, April 10, 2011 at at 10:09 AM 0 comments
There are many great websites which work perfectly, but some fail the mystery shopper test. What is a mystery shopper? In the normal sense, it means a person checks out a store or shop, and reports back to the shop how the customer services works, sales staff actions etc. The shopper is not visually known to the store.
The same thing happens to websites. See Mystery Shopper. I visited a very well known company website which is for channel crossings between France and the UK. The menu only allows you to book from the UK, not from Europe. So I guess customers go to another website. Could be 30-50% lost sales.
Maybe you have designed your website and are really pleased with the results, but what are the experiences of your visitors?
Posted in: on Monday, March 28, 2011 at at 9:00 AM 0 comments
You can increase the chances of your pages being listed higher in search results by moving your optimised pages into the main root directory of your website. Both Google and Bing favour these pages more than pages deeper down in your website. Between 40%-50% of results are pages listed in the root directory, down to 6% for pages 3 levels deep.
Drachsi
Posted in: on Tuesday, March 22, 2011 at at 9:14 AM 0 comments
The UK Government is planning to add one hour to the traditional "Summer Time" as reported in the Guardian newspaper. I am a member of a business Forum and have set up a poll, if you have time, worth visiting.
http://forums.internetbusiness.co.uk/18714-summer-time-changes-planned.html
Drachsi
Posted in: on Wednesday, March 2, 2011 at at 8:23 AM 0 comments
Posted in: on Saturday, February 19, 2011 at at 11:01 AM 1 comments
With 500 plus million users, there has to be the opportunity to sell. Now you can have a shopping cart built into your Facebook page. For small businessess and large companies, the extra opportunity to push your products and services should not be missed. www.drachsi.com can help, or you can do it yourself by visiting the Facebook shopping services provider at http://www.payvment.com/facebook/ There are examples of companies using the cart in multiple currencies.
Enjoy
Drachsi
Posted in: on Wednesday, February 16, 2011 at at 7:42 AM 0 comments
Posted in: on Saturday, February 5, 2011 at at 2:14 PM 0 comments
Have you heard of the free Microsoft Office Live small business website creation tool? Worth all the effort to get an excellent web design tool for the smaller company. The site I have just registered is at http://business.services.officelive.com Still early days, but I am very impressed with the standard of modules and the flexibility offered. More later.
Drachsi
Posted in: on Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at at 3:56 PM 0 comments
You might be interested in setting a free UK business website. The information for webmaster and web promotion companies is at Free Business Website. Enjoy
Drachsi
Posted in: on Monday, January 24, 2011 at at 4:37 PM 0 comments
I've just created a 60 second video and saved as a Flash file. The normal embed code did not work, so I found this one on the Internet. You need to change the file name, and Directory to suit your file. Having a Flash file is great for a business video, if you need to have a link. I have embedded the file in this blog. You can see how this loads in a normal website at www.drachsi.com/business-video.htm
The code is here Enjoy
Posted in: on Monday, January 17, 2011 at at 3:08 PM 0 comments
Most web designers know that adding an "alt" tag to images on web pages is very important, did you know you can increase your page ranking by add a "title" tag as well?
I use Microsoft Expression for page designing, and it does not have this opportunity to add, so it is a hard code job. Here is the code you need
title="Title text will show up when mouse is over the image" Add this after the "alt" code. This provides more information about your page, and information for the visitor to your website.
Here is a working example.
Hope it helps.
Regards
Drachsi
Posted in: on Friday, January 14, 2011 at at 7:39 AM 1 comments
