Meon Creative Website Design Blog

The great Google waiting game - post domain change

info@in8website.co.uk — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 09:26:48 GMT

On August the 1^st Meon Creative changed their domain name to coincide with out re-brand from In8 Design. We knew that Google wouldn’t take it well and that we would probably see a drop in our rankings – although we never really appreciated how much!

By August 6^th we had dropped from 2^nd listing on our main key term ‘website design Hampshire’ to 6^th page. Ouch! For ‘Marketing Hampshire’ we had disappeared off the listings entirely (why even count past page 10!).

As you can imagine, this is not the ideas situation for a web business that has just stepped up its impetus on growth and invested time and money into marketing. We had read that we could expect to drop by a page, maybe two and that the effects could last for anything up to 6 months while Google assessed you in its proverbial ‘Sand box’. 6 months on page two is an inconvenience, but 6 months on page six is a potential show stopper!

We continued our optimization efforts and began amending as many incoming links to reflect the new domain name as possible. We were using a 301 permanent redirect to take our visitors to the new domain, despite reading that a 302 temporary redirect would buy us more time to regain links – we were determined to follow the rules to hopefully appeal to Google’s better nature.

It is also worth mentioning that we remained on the first page on other search engines (Yahoo, MSN Live) after only experiencing a couple of listings drop.

So, a month and a half later, we are finally making some progress – thankfully! We can now be found on the first or second page of most of our keywords/phrases but we are hoping to push ourselves back up shortly… watch this space.

Anna

Meon Creative

Website Design Hampshire | Marketing Hampshire | Web Design Hampshire | Website design Portsmouth

Web Site navigation - simple and predictable is better!

info@in8website.co.uk — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 09:03:50 GMT

As much as we all love a beautifully designed website, some designers can get carried away with the look and forget what the site is there for. I am a strong believer that users (that's you and me) shouldn't have to work too hard to find what we're looking for. More to the point, most users have a less that 2 minute attention span when looking for something specific - they like to be spoon-fed. A good designer should know their audience well enough to anticipate what they might be looking for and where they might be looking for it.

As a rule, western users look for a horizontal menu structure at the top of the page, or a vertical menu on the left. They also expect to find links such as 'about us', 'site map' and 'contact us' in links at the bottom of the page, if not in the main menu.

One thing that really rattles me as a web design is not being able to find a telephone number. As a regular web user, you might think that I would be content with using a web form or email address - but I like to talk to people too! A certain telecommunications company's telephone number was so elusive that I had to cancel our direct debit just to get them to contact me. I subsequently moved my account. Remember that you want your potential customers to contact you, so make sure they can do so easily.

Another frequently overlooked element is the home page. If you don’t have a main menu structure, make sure that your logo links back to your home page – people don’t like to get stuck in your website! Giving them a way back makes them feel more at home.

A great way to improve your navigation is to include breadcrumb links. These are discrete links that tell you where in the site structure you currently are, for example, if you are reading this on my website your breadcrumb reads: Home > Blog. This give people an alternative to the back button and is also great for users who link into the middle of your site from a search engine.

A site map can be a tedious subject if your site isn’t database fed – as you will probably need to create and update it yourself. However, it is well worth it. The site map is often a users last-ditch attempt to find what they are looking for – and so this is your last chance to keep their interest.

We hope this helps, please feel free to contact us if you feel your site could be better!

Anna

Meon Creative | Website Design Hampshire | Marketing Hampshire

Meon Creative - New Look

info@in8website.co.uk — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 09:02:02 GMT

You’ve probably noticed that we finally have a new look to following our re-brand in August! We hope you like it!

We've taken a web 2.0 approach and reduced the amount of content on each page to force ourselves to focus and cut to the chase.

We would love to know what you think, please let us know via our contact page.

Thanks,

Anna

Meon Creative | Marketing Hampshire | Website Design Hampshire

Our rebrand - Introducing Meon Creative...

info@in8website.co.uk — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 11:11:23 GMT

Dear All,

I hope that you are all enjoying the summer so far and that business is blooming for you. Here at In8, we have been undergoing some major changes!

Re-brand to ‘Meon Creative’…

As of July 1^st 2008, In8 Design will be know as ‘Meon Creative’. After many years as In8, we feel it is time to make a change to coincide with other changes within the business. We hope you like it!

Increased Availability

Due to the closure of some recent commitments, we are now able to offer increased availability during office hours. As a result we are also investigating into restructuring our support processes.

New Support Structure

Feedback from some of our clients has indicated that you would like a more rigid support structure. Our initial thoughts are to introduce an SLA system where the client will be entitled to a number of monthly updates and SEO maintenance for a fixed monthly fee. We will of course, continue to offer 3 months free support after your website go-live date and technical problems are also covered throughout.

We would like your feedback on our ideas for a new support structure - if you would like to take part in our survey, please let us know and we will contact you when it takes place.

What does the re-brand mean?

As of July 1^st 2008, all invoices, literature and stationery will be branded Meon Creative. All cheques and direct debits should be made payable to Meon Creative. Our telephone numbers will remain the same, but our web address will change to www.meoncreative.com as well as our email addresses, although our old addresses will work for the next few months.

We hope these changes will enable us to provide a better service to both our new and current customers.

Thank you for your time.

Anna Tarrant

Meon Creative

DotNetNuke in the UK

info@in8website.co.uk — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 10:59:24 GMT

More and more sites are being developed in the UK using the DotNetNuke Open source platform. When Meon Creative began, we were one of only very few who were building and designing on the platform and we have watched it grow from an unstable toddler to a much more reliable and sturdy maturity.

Once understood, DotNetNuke (DNN) is a powerful tool that allows web designers to easily and cheaply offer content managed websites. However, if you cannot master skinning and adapting tokens to suite your style, your web projects can quite easily turn into a DNN-typical site. These sites are often characterized by the DNN standard ‘blue skin’ or its container package. The [SOLPARTMENU] is a dead giveaway on most DNN site, but it offers an easy and manageable solution to your menu structure.

One item that web designers cannot seem to avoid is the typical DNN login box. Not so easy to customize, this is the first thing I look for when identifying the website platform.

The availability of DNN modules makes it an incredibly versatile platform. Sites such as SnowCovered list modules from hundred of differed developers across the World and allows you to read reviews, rate products and see just how effective their support system is.

So where is DNN going? I personally predict that more and more people will realise the potential of DNN and systems such as Microsoft’s SharePoint will start to lose out to the open source-ness (?!?) of the platform. The collaboration element of DNN is its real selling point and it masters User Management and Logins as a matter of course.

As a result, we will soon be publishing a separate DNN blog to help those of us in the UK to share ideas and knowledge within our time zone. To follow this will be an IMeon Creative DNN site to allow the collaboration that DNN promotes.

Watch this space…

Anna

Website Design Hampshire | Website Design Wiltshire | DNN in the UK

New ECommerce / Shopping Cart website launched

info@in8website.co.uk — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 10:57:49 GMT

Meon Creative are proud to present our latest launch, an ecommerce website for Handprinted.co.uk. Shirley, owner of Handprinted.co.uk, contacted us to discuss a fully content managed shopping cart that allowed her to totally control the products, sales and content of her website. The new site would also need to help to improve the site’s search engine listings and general visibility on the internet.

Handprinted was already well listed on very niche keywords for their market place, but were not listing on some of the more general search terms. Their new shopping cart allowed Handprinted to optimize a page for both general keywords and product specific keywords, depending on where the visitor was in the navigation.

Meon Creative also implemented a simple navigation structure to allow visitors to quickly and simply find what they are looking for. Also added was a resource area allowing download of help-sheets and guidelines which are also heavily optimized to improve the site’s ranking with search engines.

Features included in the shopping cart are:

Most Popular Products
Featured Products
‘Customers who purchased this also purchased…’
Customer accounts
Sales pricing and sale dates
Product categories
Product configuration (colours, styles etc)
Stock control
Delivery fees based on price

For more information on shopping carts, ecommerce website and online stores, please contact Meon Creative on 0845 639 80 79 or use our contact page.

You can see the Handprinted site in action, here: www.handprinted.co.uk

Website Design Hampshire | Website Design Wiltshire

Ecommerce Website Solutions

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) from Meon Creative

info@in8website.co.uk — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 10:56:53 GMT

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is vital to making your business website a success. Search engines are the number one way of finding what you’re looking for online, and if you not listed for your product or service keywords, you simply will not get noticed.

Meon Creative offer comprehensive SEO services for your individual situation. You may already have a website and want an analysis of its current success and hints and tips as to how you could improve. You may just want to monitor your SEO rankings using a tool like Google Analytics – we can set this up for you and teach you how to read the results.

Alternatively, you may be looking for a new website or a complete SEO overhaul. We can offer a comprehensive SEO service, from keyword planning and research and SEO analysis to SEO Training, SEO Consultancy and Search Engine Submission and monitoring.

We only offer organic search engine optimization training as we believe this is a viable, long-term approach that will reap a good return on your investment. If you are looking at taking the reigns yourself, we can offer SEO Training fully customized to your website, which mean you can make changes while you are learning.

For more information or for a quotation, please contact us.

Meon Creative

Web Design Hamshire | SEO Hampshire | Search Engine Optimization Hampshire

Questions to ask your web designer BEFORE hiring!

info@in8website.co.uk — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:36:08 GMT

If your looking to hire a web designer to build your website, chances are that is because you cannot do that yourself and lack the required knowledge. So how are you supposed to make a decision on whether your web designer is any good? We give you the key questions to ask before hiring...

Interactive Websites - Involving the user in your website

info@in8website.co.uk — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 11:26:09 GMT

We all know that something that is interactive is more effective at engaging interest than something that is static and flat. The same is true for websites - if the visitor is invited to interact with the website - or indeed the company, they are more likely to take a better recognition of the website and its content.

Great interactive features which you may wish to include on your website:

Forums
As well a providing lots of great content, forums allow the user to ask questions and participate in online exchanges.
Tests and Quizes
Humans like to test themselves and measure their ability - make the most of this interest by providing a quiz or test.
Calendars
If you have an event, why not allow your visitors to book online?
Listing Websites and Searches
If you have lists of product and services, why not allow the visitor to search through them on their own criteria? This will help to create a more memorable experience.
Comment and Rating Websites
Allow your visitor to have an opinion on your product/service/listing - if they add content, they are more likely to value the content of others.

For more information on creating interactive websites, please visit www.in8website.co.uk

Website Design Hampshire | Website Design Wiltshire | Website Design Swindon

What is Web 2.0 and what does Web 2.0 design look like?

info@in8website.co.uk — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 10:07:41 GMT

A few years ago now, people started talking about this concept; Web 2.0. No-one seemed to be able to define what exactly it was, and lets be honest, unless you were involved in web design, why would you want to know? Also, no-one ever really talked about Web 1.0 before Web 2.0...so where does the '2' come from?

When web designers and web developers realised that there was a change in how people were using the web, they coined the term Web 2.0, meaning that anything before was Web 1.0.

So what is it? Here is my humble attempt at a definition:

Web 2.0 is essentially a web platform that grows and develops organically through the input of others - 'an architecture of participation'. To put this into context, here are some example of web 1.0 and web 2.0

Web 1.0	Web 2.0
Britannica Online	Wikipedia
Personal Websites	Blogging
Directories	'Tagging'
MP3.com	Napster

So, Web 2.0 is Wikis, Forums, Tagging, Social Networking, Social Bookmarks, Tag Clouds and Resource Sharing.

Web 2.0 Design

Web 2.0 design can be characterised by:

Bold Logos
Bold Colours
Gradiants
Rounded edges and corners
Simplicity
Larger text
Reflections
Few Collumns
Simple Navigation

We love web 2.0 at In8 Website Design Hampshire. If you're looking for a web 2.0 design, please feel free to get in touch for a quote!

Anna