A new web domain is on it’s way. The brand new .co domain name extension offers a new and varied range of possibilities. Whether you’re a company, committee of community, the .co will offer an alternative to .co.uk. But will it replace it? Probably not, .co.uk domains are the domain extension of choice for UK businesses. It may work well for individuals own name domains, or perhaps a brand name in a competitive space. They are also more expensive than .co.uk domains!

Either way, if you want to book yours then let us know and we can reserve it for you.

Masters Allen have been working with midlands based telecommunications company Daly Telecom on their rebrand.

Daly Telecom recognised the need to future-proof their business, viewing the situation as an opportunity to expand their client base and move into new markets.

It was clear that the name needed addressing first and foremost, whilst it may be familiar to the current client base, it restricted their product offering and development into new markets. We had to establish a name that not only retained the 25 year heritage within the industry, but also provide a solution to take the business forward in an ever-changing and fast-moving industry. The solution, as it turned out, was simple – a removal of the reference to telecommunications, combined with the retention of the Daly name and reference to communications, joined together, created the individual name – Dalycom.

The new brand and design style has been applied to a variety of visual assets to create a consistent and coherent business message.

If you’re looking to promote your website in any way, and are looking to take on board the learning process yourself rather than handing it over to a consultant or web design / SEO company, then there is some funding available for you right now.

The Leader First grant from Train to Gain, offers £500 initial funding, plus a further £1 for £1 funding up to £500 of additional funding on a £1500 project. To take advantage of this funding then you must not have undertaken any similar Leaders First funded training in the last 2 years and will need to apply through Train to Gain.

If you are interested in promoting your website and would like to investigate a funded training programme, then contact us for more details.

On the back of a previous MA news posting, ‘Web browser viewing trends’ we have discovered, whilst looking through our analytics report, that Firefox has overtaken Internet Explorer in terms of browser popularity when visiting our site. The significance is not a big deal, but it does point out once again the importance of testing sites on a variety of browsers.

The discovery also highlights the usefulness of the Google analytics tool in discovering the viewing habits of your website visitors. For more info on analytics visit: www.google.com/analytics/

For those of you that like your stats, below is some interesting info on the popularity of Firefox.

Source: StatCounter (web web analytics firm). Firefox 3.0 has become the most popular web browser in Europe, taking the crown away from Internet Explorer 7.0. Firefox 3.0 took 35.05% of the European web browser market followed by 34.54% for IE 7.0. It would appear that the shift is partly explained by a small switch from IE 7.0 to IE 8.0 but also by growing market share overall by Firefox 3.0.

Ask yourself the question, which is the most popular web browser? A few years ago it was Microsoft Internet Explorer version 6 (IE6). From January 2009 Fire Fox by a slim margin is the most popular web browser. Latest figures suggest Fire Fox has 45.5% of the share of overall usage and IE6 and IE7 together total 44.3%. 

These statistics tell us Fire Fox and other non IE browsers should not be ignored by web designers when creating websites. Subtle differences between makes and versions of browsers have always been a problem for web designers. Some of these differences include the way objects on a web page are aligned (horizontal and vertical alignment) and margin and padding properties around objects. Typically the more complicated the graphical design, the more difficult it is to code the web page to display correctly across common browsers. The browser statistics (below) are sourced from a really useful website W3schools.com

Thankfully the situation is getting better as time goes on as all web browsers adhere more closely to the W3C Standards (WWW Consortium). Also the web browser statistics tell us that older versions of web browsers do not need to be catered for as very few people are using them e.g. IE5. What this means for web designers is they have to test new websites not just in IE7 or Fire Fox but several other versions and makes of browsers. For example Safari for Mac users.

Computer screen sizes need to be considered too by web designers. With the availability of wide screens for PCs and laptops the standard web page viewing size is changing too. Eighteen months ago the recommended viewing width for a web page would have been 800 pixels or less. Now web designers can afford to design wider web pages because statistics are telling us users have 1024 pixels wide by 786 pixels high screens or wider. Some websites are even using fluid web page designs with means the web page grows to the width of the display.

Click on the images to see the full statistics from W3schools browser statistics.

Web 2.0 content is really starting to become useful in making purchasing decisions. User feedback and customers reviews on websites can aid the website visitor in making a decision and website owners shouldn’t be afraid to allow users and visitors to add comments or post reviews on websites.

Just recently, whilst searching for a hotel in the Lake District, new Lake Windermere, I was taken on a journey across a number of websites reviewing content and ended up on www.activehotels.com. The web 2.0 content there was extremely helpful in understanding a lot more about the resort, the facilities and the hotels available there, right down to reading reviews from people of a similar demographic and their thoughts about not only the hotel itself but about the specific rooms that they stayed in.

This was followed up by a quick call to the hotel to check availability of the exact room that we were interested in. Not only did we manage to book that room but we got a significant discount off the prices on the internet!

Without doubt we will be leaving our review on the very same website in the hope that other visitors will benefit from our comments. Hotels are just one example, but web 2.0 content could be used in any industry from automotive to telecoms, any website should consider the opportunities offered by this new wave of interactive web content.

There are many Search Engine Optimisation experts offering various opinions on how to optimise a website. But there are several things you can check and change yourself, with a little bit of knowledge that may prove to be a golden nugget in the mystical world of SEO.

All search engines, especially Google, read the window title when trying to translate the meaning of a web page. Out of all the components that make up a web page (page titles, meta information, page text etc.) the window title is the most important element that will determine the relevance of a web page matching a search term when searched for on the internet.

So what do we mean when we talk about the “window title”? Web developers and SEO experts will know this as the title tag in the html code, “<title>Graphic Design | Web design | Leicester</title>”. When seen in a web browser it displays text at the top of the browser window in a blue bar (IE only). See below:

Combine this with some basic research to identify how many people are searching for specific keyword phrases, and an understanding of the competition on those phrases and you can achieve some remarkable results, quickly and at little cost.

Don’t forget to focus on traffic. It’s all very well being number 1 on Google, but if that isn’t bringing you traffic then it’s a waste of time. Following on from that, the focus has to be on conversions and return on investment (ROI). Are these the terms that your potential paying customers are entering into the search engines to find your website?

If you want a free report on your website then go to www.mastersallen.co.uk/online_marketing_leicester.htm and fill out the form at the bottom of the page and we will run a report for your website, absolutely free.

Note: The reports are not automated and will be run by real people, so please bear that in mind, it may take a few days to get the report over to you at busy times.