I was wondering today how to make a small symbol representing my website appear in the tab.  Apparently it is called a 'favicon' - a conglomerate of the words 'favourite' and 'icon' - you will notice that small symbols for well known websites such as Facebook appears against their name in your favourites list.

So I checked the Help and Support section of create.net and helpfully and supportively they explained that I could make one using a website such as www.favicon.co.uk and load it as a favicon.ico file for my website.   So I used favicon.co.uk to upload my logo and make a little 'F' symbol as a favicon.ico file, uploaded this to my create.net account and republished my website.  They say it will take a while to appear, but when it is I will publish this blog.

Another tip to get your brand noticed.

What a day! A new client called at 9am needing to update her website urgently but was no longer in touch with her website designer, what could I suggest? Also her current hosting package was expensive could I recommend a different approach?  She had 5 pages of text and pictures and could quickly tell me what changes were needed.  I recommended I rebuild her website and reckoned I could do it in a day.

Create.net will host brand new websites but existing ones need to be managed elsewhere and pointed to Create's files. Not a problem, I recommend 123-reg.co.uk because they are reasonable in cost, their control panel is user-friendly and their explanation documents not too technical, so I set up a 123-reg account for her and put in train a transfer from her hosting provider to them.  This is when I found out that the registration details for the existing website were out of date and logged into the current hosting provider to get them updated - it wasn't obvious where to do this (their control panel was not user-friendly at all) but their support actioned it straightaway.

Next I took screenshots of the existing website - it's always good to have a record before making changes.

Then I set up a new Create.net account and got to work copying the style, colours and layout of the existing website as closely as possible.  We had email and phone conversations about what changes to the text were required and I added in 'Calls to action' on every page and links to other relevant websites to improve her visibility on the internet.

The replacement website is ready to publish once the domain transfer is completed and the next step will be to train her how to use Create's comprehensive facilities to update and republish the pages as and when she wants.  Or I offer affordable pay-as-you go options for my fast-turnaround assistance.

Do you have a new website? A good way to let everyone know about it (and drive traffic to it) is to link to it in every email that you send.  You don't have to remember to do this every time you send an email, you can set up a signature which displays in every new email you create.

In Google Mail the signature box is in Settings (top left of the screen) and half way down the General tab.

In Outlook create a new email message, press 'Insert' then 'Signature', then 'Signatures'

We suggest you write your name, business name, telephone numbers, website name and any strapline. Remember to highlight and link your website name to its website address so that people can click straight through and have a look.

It may take a few minutes to set up but it's easy from them on!

A few years ago that might have been a rude-sounding question, but now many people are on-line sharing their views on all sorts of topics. A potential customer rang the other day and he said he contacted me because, as he said 'you blog'.

Blogging is a way of spreading your on-line presence into subjects that people are interested in, it's a way of showing where your expertise lies and it shows that you are still active in your field. No-one wants to waste time looking at a website only to find out that it is out of date, or worse, that the business doesn't exist any more.  It encourages potential clients to value your offering and get in touch.

If you have a blog integral to your website, the content of your articles will attract the attention of search engines and significantly increase the amount of traffic your website receives.  The content should be written in such a way to include as many keywords as possible that someone might use to find your business, but still be interesting and comprehensible.

Why not just use additional webpages, you might ask? You can, but if you use a blog, the keywords and categories you can set up (see the list at the side) provide even more fuel for search engines.

Create.net run a simple but effective blog facility as part of their business website packages (an example being this blog).  The traffic to this website increased by 60% when I started this blog.  And this particular blog about blogging receives hundreds of hits per day.

If you want to find out if a blog would help you market your business and need help setting one up, or if you need someone to write interesting and relevant content for your articles, contact me.