Getting your website listed (indexed) on search engines for relevant keywords won’t happen on its own. Especially with a new website, it is very important to get it right from the start.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is vital in marketing your website online. Searching for services/products/people etc, online via search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN is increasingly becoming the most popular method of finding information. Being at the top of listings for individual keywords is the path to a successful website!

Getting to the top of Google, Yahoo and MSN's search listings isn't as easy as fixing your meta tag keywords! But it is a good start and is the foundation of Search Engine Optimization.
 
The BEST way to improve the rank of your website is to increase the number of high-quality sites that link to your pages. For more information about improving your site's visibility (Google only), we recommend getting a free account with Google and reviewing the webmaster guidelines.

Estate Agent websites are become a thing of the past with many now choosing to just use Right Move.  Estate Agency Websites are very important in order to attract customers from the web.  Using Right Move puts you in the same boat as all the other estate agencies - you should try to stand out.  Listing Properties online is great for search engine optimisation and can double up as an office tool which allows your customers to search just your properties from your website.

Having recently been through the saga of trying to sell my house and buy another, I have, like thousands of others in the UK, been trawling the Right Move website for properties that suit my needs.  I can definitely see the benefits of the Right Move estate agency website – everything in one place, simple searches, and a layout standard which allows your to compare easily.  However, with uniformity comes monotony.  I probably visited this site everyday for 3 months and I was desperate to look somewhere else to hopefully find something new to look at!

Estate Agents seem to be neglecting their own websites and purely listing their properties on Right Move.  I wonder if Estate Agency is now one of the few markets which do not use search engines to advertise and attract business. 

I don’t need to tell you how many people surf the internet on a regular, if not daily basis.  I don’t need to tell you that technology is constantly progressing. And I definitely don’t need to lecture about how important it is to have a website if you’re a business.  But is just having a website enough?  If only things were that simple!

Some websites are about as useful as a chocolate tea pot.  Here are the top 5 traps that people fall into with their new website.

1. Website Never Found
   It’s very sad when your website goes unnoticed. You MUST tell the search engines (google etc) that your site exists; they won’t read your mind.  There are a number of ways of getting your site ‘indexed’.  The fastest is to get another website to link to it, and the quickest way to achieve this is to place an ad on Gumtree.com.  If you don’t mind waiting, you can submit your site to the search engines individually – just do a Google search for ‘search engine subm ...

I'm quite often asked why I use a gif for one thing and a jpeg for another, so I thought I would document it all here to share with everyone.  It is important to get these right when using the content management to add pictures.  There are valid reasons for using different file types and its not just to do with the program you're using.  There are far too many to list in full, so here are a few of the most common ones:

Gif  The gif  (Graphical Interchange Format) file is often used in web design as it offers a good quality image at a small file size.  It can contain up to 256 'indexed' colours.  The colours are called 'indexed' because they are chosen when saving the file.  High detail images are probably better with a Jpg.  GIF images can also be animated and saved as "animated GIFs," which are often used to display basic animations on websites; they may also include transparent pixels, which allow them to blend with different color backgrounds; however, pixels in a GIF image must be either fully transparent or fully opaque.
 
Jpg or Jpeg  The Jpg (Joint Photographic Experts Group) are commonly used for storing digital photos since th ...

Sometimes a bit of simple movement can enhance a website design and offer your visitors a more interesting experience, but people are often put off by the workload.

Getting changing/rotating pictures on your website dosen't necessarily mean spending a couple of hours messing around with Flash.  Gifs are normally thought of as just images, but they can also be animated.  I was recently directed to a fantastic piece of FREE software which takes your images and turns them into a rotating gif. 

Please Note: You only seem to be able to use JPG files.

You can download Animator Nine from here:

http://www.download.com/Animator-9/3000-2186_4-909432.html

Basic instructions:

1. Download, install and open Animator Nine.
2. Select 'Stitch'
3. Click the little file tree icon in the top left and browse to the folder that contains the JPG FILES that you want to rotate.  You don't need to select the individual files, just the folder they are in.
4. Select the images you want to use from the file list window and click 'Add' for each
5. Select the size of the rotating gif (the images should all be the same size or they will look funny!)
6. Select 'Done'
7. Save the file.
8. Select 'Control'
9. Set the frame delay and loop delay (its best to play with this to work it all out!)
10. Split Format - Gif
11. Autoru ...

Good evening...

I often get comments about the 'little details' that make our service special to our web design customers.  Just yesterday, I was asked about a Favicon for a website (or as they put it, "the funny little icon thing in the web browser"), so I thought I would take this opportunity to enlighten you all!

What is it?

The favicon is an icon file ( extension .ico) that your web browser looks for to replace the internet explorer (or firefox etc) logo in the web browser address bar.  If you looks at ours, we have a little green leaf .  It also appears if your site is saved into somebody's 'Favorites' and it makes your site easier to find.

How do I get one?

Well there are two ways to go about this really:

1. Create your own icon in Photoshop (or something similar).  Create yourself a square image that is 16 pixels x 16 pixels.  Create your design and save it as a .gif .  Then, rename the file to 'favicon.ico'  (the .ico bit is the file extension).  You then need to save it to your web hosting root directory - or get your friendly website designer to do it for you.
    
2. The easy way!!  Visit my favourite Favico website: http://www.htmlkit.com/services/favicon/  You will need to upload your logo (ideally this would be a square sh ...

Just a quote entry to say that we are now in talk with am international client - how exciting!  In8 Website Design Hampshire are quoting to create a multi-lingual solution for a large international company.  The site will cater for partners accross the globe, who will be able to select the language in which they would like the content.

Watch this space...

I don't like to consider myself a work-aholic, but I must admit that I do feel the need to check my Google Analytics quite frequently!  My better half and I have an unspoken rule that on weekends I shouldnt need to be on my laptop all day, and I do agree.  However, I can't seem to avoid quickly checking my emails or logging-on to Google Analytics to see how many visits I had the day before and where they came from...

I think it has started to become a bit of an obsession.  How sad does that sound?  But when you think about it, it is my livelyhood and I do spend a hell of a lot of time trying to better optimize my site and get more inbound links.

I am offen asked by my customers how much time you need to spend on SEO in order to achieve good rankings.  How long is a piece of string!  What you need to do really depends on your individual website.  The trouble I find with Search Engine Optimizing my website design site is that every bugger in the industry SHOULD be quite good at optimizing their site and links should be plentiful from client websites.  This means that trying to pull your way to top rankings on a keyword like 'website design' is near on impossible without large budgets and an extra 300 days in the year.

Some of my clients have been lucky enough to be targetting relatively untapped keywords (or at least keywords where the top listings are at the top more through luck than judgement!).  In fact, I recently managed to get my client straight to the top of the google listings just because their site was the best optimized.

So, I would definitely recommend looking for the less common relevant keywords when optimizing your

Hi everyone - as you may be aware I was away last weekend relaxing in the west country!  Lucky for some ay! ;o)

I've had some advice that I should use my blog in a more personal way, rather than just sharing news about clients and web launches - so here goes!

You may have noticed that we have added a couple of new tabs to our site recently...these are links to our sister sites which have been around for a while, but I felt it would be better make a connection between the websites.  In8 Design and Print offers design and print service including brochure design, leaflet design, logo design, etc....as affordable prices - just like In8 Website Design.  In8 Photography offers affordable photographic services including studio photography, commercial photography, product photography and also 360 virtual tours.

Speaking of which...we have also added a fairly new tab for 360 virtual tours, which you can see on the In8 website (http://www.meoncreative.com/360VirtualTours.aspx ).  We at In8 really like these and have added this to our list of services - and of course these are very affordable, starting from just £50 to take the images and setup the tou ...

In8 is currently working with Women 1st, a Dorset based Womens Networking Group to build a community forum that involves its users and members.  Women 1st is a new and exciting ‘networking’ event for all women – a meeting point for friends, with a tailored programme of talks, and a small supporting exhibition for you to browse whilst enjoying a warm welcome and relaxing atmosphere.

Women 1st started out with a HTML based website that was proving costly to update and did not nurture the community aspect of the business.  Kathryn, the founder of Women 1st, was referred to In8 by another customer.  In8 created a community website for Women 1st based around their current website, while extending it with community features.

The Women 1st website now consists of:

• Community Forum - fully managed by Kathryn,

In8 Website Design is currently working with helping Hampshire based company, Tomahawk Films, to streamline their shopping cart and payment gateway facilities.  Tomahawk films originally used a 1990's 'unpack and go' shopping cart, which collected order details and emailed them to Tomahawk Films.  Although secure, the system was needlessly complicated and Brian, the CEO of Tomahawk Films, was single handedly trying to run the website and the archaic back-end was holding him back.

Tomahawk Films did not want to chang the lok and feel of the site in any way and was keen to retain the web processes, so as to not alienate their loyal customers.  With this in mind, In8 created a simple back-end solution that fitted in with the current look and feel, as well as the structure that was familar to Tomahawk users.

Brian can now collect payment, manage and track orders and market to his customers all from his website.  The simple ecommerce package allows Brian to totally manage his web shop and indeed his business.

For more information of Ecommerce Packages, please visit our ecommerce web page.  To find out how In8 can help you to effectively sell online, please contact us via our web form, or call us on 07809 709 308.