Don’t forget, from 99p. Eco Friendly, carbon neutral hosting from Instahost.co.uk

Christmas icons

1. http://www.clevericons.com/icon/christmas06/

2. http://www.webdesignerwall.com/general/free-christmas-icons-for-you/

3. http://www.iconarchive.com/category/christmas/christmas-icons-by-zeusbox.html

4. http://www.standard-icons.com/stock-icons/standard-christmas-icons.htm

5. http://dryicons.com/free-icons/preview/christmas-surprise-four-in-one/

Christmas photographic images (free)

6. http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=christmas&l=4

7. http://freedigitalphotos.net/images/search.php?search=christmas&match_type=any

8. http://morguefile.com/archive/browse/#/?qury=christmas&terms_all=christmas

9. http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=search&txt=christmas&w=1&x=8&y=9

Christmas WordPress themes

10. http://www.devlounge.net/extras/iceburgg

11. http://wpthemes.amazing-christmas-ideas.com/cg/

12. http://www.simplywp.net/2008/11/19/hello-snowman-christmas-theme-for-wordpress/

13. http://www.blogger-template.info/blue-christmas-theme

14. http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/12/24/christmas-wordpress-theme/

Christmas CSS templates

15. http://www.free-css.com/free-css-templates/page76/happy-holidays.php#bookmarks

16. http://www.templatemo.com/preview/templatemo_045_christmas

17. http://www.entheosweb.com/photoshop_templates/christmas.asp

18. http://www.dreamweaverresources.com/holiday-templates/index.htm

Let us know of any other you would like to share!!! by leaving  a comment below

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For small businesses, facing their industry’s big names in the search engines can be a no-win situation.  Think Asda versus a corner shop, Tony and Guy versus a small hairdresser and Stagecoach versus a local drama school.  By focusing on national SEO (thanks to much smaller resources) a local business is unlikely to ever appear alongside these business behemoths at all.  And we all know that it is a rare person who bothers to click onto the second page of Google.  Never mind pages 3, 4 and 5.

In 2006, iProspect, a search engine marketing firm based in Massachusetts, USA, stated in their White Paper Search Engine User Behavior Study, “The importance of appearing high in the search results has increased over time… more search engine users are clicking on the first page now (62% [2006]) than in 2004 (60%) than in 2002 (48%).  Inversely, fewer search engine users are willing to click on results past the third page now (10% [2006]) than in 2004 (13%) than in 2002 (19%).  Fast-forward to 2009 – and assuming  that these trends have continued, a business’ appearance in the first pages front of the search engines results, is more crucial than ever.

More recently, AOL released figures on CTR (click through rates) for the different positions in their index. The data set was sufficiently high enough to be considered accurate and thus can be expected to reflect traffic levels across most search engines – Google included. According to AOL’s results, only 10% of all searches resulted in clicks beyond page 1 of the results.

Yet, many small businesses bring SEO failure upon themselves, by not distinguishing between local SEO and national SEO.  Local SEO is similar to national SEO – but with one notable difference.  The keywords and content (images and information) are geographically specific.  While national SEO focuses on broad keywords, such as “Plumbers”, local SEO uses local modifiers:  “Plumbers, St. Albans, Hertfordshire”. And while the traffic will be lower in local SEO campaigns, they will pull in more qualified prospects.  After all, a plumber in Chester is of no use to an overflowing toilet in St. Albans.  Optimising locally also helps to build local relationships. In his 2008 book “The Complete SEO Copywriting Guide for Search Engine Rankings and Sales Conversion – Content Rich”, Jon Wuebben estimates that every month a billion local searches are made, and that it’s growing at a rate of 20-30% every year.

Thanks to recent algorithmic changes by Google over the last 12 months or so,the likelihood of locals finding you when they type in “Your Trade, Your Town” is now much higher.  Nobody really knows precisely what Google has done, or is currently doing for that matter – we only know what works and what does not through our own exhaustive testing.  What we do know, however,, is that Google is increasingly placing much more emphasis on local and geographical searches.  It has even been rumoured that  soon, users will be able to search Google within their own geographic parameters. So by modifying their sites to target local keyword phrases, local businesses will undoubtedly see significant improvement in their search engine placement – especially as local or geographic keyword phrases have much less competition anyway. The modifications required to optimise locally,  include  placing the chosen geographic keyword in the following areas:

• Title Tag <title>
• Meta Description Tag  <Meta description=”…”>
• Heading Tags <H1>, <H2> etc
• In the page content (bolding them for added weight, if possible)
• In an Alt tag or two
• In the footer of the home page

But remember NOT to keyword stuff- once or twice per tag type or content section should be sufficient.

Google’s Keyword Tool is a great tool with which to find effective keyword phrases: https://adwords.google.co.uk/select/KeywordToolExternal.  Here, a business is able to generate keyword ideas in two ways – by getting Google to scan the contents of their own website, or by inserting descriptive keywords (for example, “clothes shop Bath”).  Once one of these methods is selected, they insert either the URL of their website, or a few keyword phrases into the search box. The results page will reveal, not only related search terms, but also the average search volume per month.

A free Google Maps Listing will go nicely with these newly modified search terms.  It’s a highly effective way for local businesses to build up an online presence.  In fact, it’s a must.  To make use of this powerful tool, a local business must first create an account at https://www.google.com/accounts/ With this account, the business will be able to sign into  Google’s Local Business Centre http://www.google.com/local/add?hl=en-gb&gl=gb.  And it is here that they can create their free listing – including their contact details, opening hours and even product images and YouTube video.   Once a business has been verified and included in Google Maps, it can edit the contents at any time.

As well as making it even easier for local customers to find local companies, using this tool gives local businesses a second bite at the cherry to appear on that coveted first page.  This is because, in the majority of cases, Google will stick up to 10 of these listings ABOVE the normal organic results, when a geographic keyword is used. Go try it – search Google for plumbers + your town or city and see what happens!

Yahoo Local is another excellent local SEO resource. It offers a similar service to Google’s Maps Listing.  It’s not free however – the price varies according to the business location and the keyword phrase utilised.  But as all BT Internet users have Yahoo as their default search engine, it comes with a huge advantage.  Think of all those potential customers!

Other tips…

A further advantage of local SEO over national SEO, is that the popularity of famous landmarks or buildings in any given town, can be leveraged.  Let’s say you have a clothes shop in Brighton.  By simply embedding a picture of The Royal Pavilion on your site, for example (assuming it has been tagged appropriately), you’re likely to pull in a heap of local traffic.

Allowing customers to leave reviews on your website is another great promotional tool.  As your customers are likely to know you personally, they’ll be more likely to leave favourable reviews.  And as the readers of these reviews are likely to be other locals, the reviews will hold more credibility than those that appear on more corporate and national websites.  In this way, local trust and credibility is built.

If you are a business that gets most of its custom from the local market, yet are still relying on national SEO techniques to get you high up in the search engines, then you are risking your website disappearing into the depths of the internet altogether.

Social Me!

OK  So, assuming you do not want to commit the same type of error,  here are our  best tips on getting the most out of Twitter.

1. Sign up at Twitter.com

That’s step one, of course!

2. Download a  twitter client such as  Tweetdeck find others through google, we use DABr for our Mobiles.

It does make tweeting much easier!

3. Try to keep negativity  off Twitter

You will lose followers – if you moan too much!

4. Follow people who are in your niche.

Click on “find people.”  Type in names of people who write blogs in your niche, who have similar  products and who are influencers. Remeber, more than anything, this is a social network tool.

Click the “follow” link under their photo.  This will let you see their tweets with other people.

5. Make friends

No hard sell here……Make friends.  Be a sociable person.

6. Learn the art of the RT

RT stands for “retweet”.  There’s a little icon that says RT.
When you retweet someone’s messsage, you’re passing it on so the people on your list can see it.

This is the ultimate form of sharing. You give before you get.

Even if you only have 5  people on your list, use the RT.
But watch how others do it first. be careful!

7.  Observe

Spend a week or so just watching others and learning what happens on Twitter before you jump in.

8.  Anything and I do mean anything you say,  can and may be  retweeted.
So be aware that anything you say can be spread.  So be very cautious about saying anything negative about anyone.  Once you have said it – its out there!!  Be aware that tweets are sometime picked up by Search Engines too!

9.  Be positive

Remember  Positive energy attracts other positive people.

10. If someone really annoys you, you can go to twitter.com, find their name and on the right side is link where you can block them. Remeber, they can do the same!

11. When you run across a cool web site or resource tweet it to your list.

12 . Remeber the @ symbol.
You want to send most of your messages to individuals using the @ symbol.

13. When you find a good blog post on someone’s blog, pass it along to your Twitter list.

This endears you to the blog owner.  Even if they aren’t on your Twitter list, there’s a decent chance word will spread back to ‘em.

This IS the age of instant communication.

14. Learn to Twitter on your iPhone or Mobile.

15. Understand that in the big picture your goal is to find people who have lists and can promote your products then make friends with ‘em.

It helps if you pass along cool resources and on occasion say things that are profound or retweetable.

Do NOT end up twittering away time you really should be using to create products or do other promotions.

Use Twitter.  Don’t let it use you.

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DownThemAll!
http://www.downthemall.net/
If you’re downloading a large file (for example a website backup) it can be very irritating if you get disconnected or your computer crashes.  Typically this always seems to happen within the last 10%!
DownThemAll! is a download manager integrated into Firefox which is able to pause and resume downloads.  The neat thing about it is that its completely integrated – when you start a download you get an option to download with DownThemAll!.

Xmarks (previously Foxmarks)
http://download.xmarks.com/download/all
Thanks to the recent fashion of “small cheap computers”, it seems everybody has at least 2 computers nowadays.  With my home PC, laptop and work computer I can’t live without Xmarks – it’s a bookmark synchroniser which keeps your bookmarks identical across computers.  It has some nifty features such as bookmark profiles (so you can vary your bookmark toolbar at work for example), and if you’re on a computer where you can’t install the add-on, you can still see your bookmarks from a web page.
It’s compatible with Firefox on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux – as well as Internet Explorer and Safari.

TwitterFox
http://twitterfox.net/
If you’re a Twitter fanatic like some of my colleagues, you’ll find this simple add-on a blessing.  It adds an icon on the status bar which will notify you when someone you’re following tweets on Twitter.  You can also quickly tweet or reply to a tweet directly from your browser without loading up Twitter.

Firebug
http://getfirebug.com/
This is one for the web developers out there.  Firebug lets you inspect and alter the current webpage – allowing you to explore the document tree and CSS styles of a specific element and tweak them instantly in-place.  It’s also got a powerful JavaScript debugger/profiler that helps you track down those annoying errors.

VertTabbar
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8045
When one of my colleagues mentioned this add-on to me, I was sceptical.  But I find myself becoming more and more attached to it.  The add-on simply moves the tab bar to a vertical position on the left-right of your browser.  This means you can have more tabs open and still see their titles.  It works perfectly on a widescreen monitor where horizontal space isn’t at a premium.

Speed Dial
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4810
Speed Dial adds a “quick launch” page to Firefox, where you can put your most used websites with thumbnails for each of them.  This feature will be familiar to Opera and Chrome users.  It can be configured to appear every time a new tab is opened, making it a good “jumping page”.  It’s just a shame it can’t be synchronised with Xmarks!

What are your favourite add-ons?  Let us know here and we can all share!!!

Or have you jumped ship to Chrome or IE8?  Let us know!

Social Me!

Changes promise to give edge to businesses sharp enough to embrace them

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the international body that oversees the structure of the internet, will liberalise the market for domain name extensions – the .com or .uk part of a web address.

This means that anyone, in theory, can apply to operate an extension.

Historically, companies have considered their domain to be a critical part of their brand identity.

Some domains have been sold for millions of dollars, such as sex.com which was reportedly sold for $14m.

Multinational companies often register up to 20,000 different variations of their brand in order to try and stop opportunists exploiting it.

However, the vast majority of businesses are unprepared for imminent changes to the internet.

This was surprising given that there are significant possibilities which were instantly recognised by companies once we explained what market liberalisation will mean.

A massive 81% said liberalisation will be innovative, three-quarters stated it will be advantageous, and two-thirds said it will be exciting when launching a campaign online.

Toyota, for example, could register europe.toyota and usa.toyota as well as set up sites for individual brands (highlander.toyota) and use targeted domains for different markets such as customers and suppliers (suppliers.toyota, dealers.toyota, buying.toyota).

Indicators suggest that consumers will embrace this change.

As part of the same research, we interviewed 1,000 consumers and one in five (19%) said an extension such as .nike or .microsoft would be memorable.

Considering only 24% think .com is memorable, this shows the future potential for branded top-level domains.

But before businesses can reap any rewards, the internet industry must address many concerns.

There is real fear that cybersquatters will cash in on liberalisation by registering all the best domain names to drive visitors to advertising sites.

Criminals could also use domain names that resemble trademarks in order to launch phishing attacks or to lure users to illicit sites.

For us, this is an exciting change. But if liberalisation is to bring the benefits it promises, it needs to be handled carefully.

As soon as the billboards, squatters and criminals move in, all the prime properties and interested web visitors will move out.

All stakeholders need to embrace a mature and multi-stakeholder approach to governance of new domain extensions.

This includes registrars and registries whose commercial interests sometimes conflict with the goal of keeping the domain space from being polluted.

ICANN is expected to start taking applications for new top-level domains between January and March 2010 and anticipates between 300-500.

A number of groups have already announced interest for city top-level domains such as .berlin, .paris, .london and .nyc.

Industry or activity-specific names are also expected to get attention, for example for .music, .sport or .movie.

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Marcus Frind Cheque

Have you ever wondered how you can work just a few hours a day but earn millions of pounds a year? Well Markus Frind owner of plentyoffish.com seems to have come up with the right strategy.

The 30 year old entrepreneur based in Vancouver, British Columbia spends just a few minutes each day maintaining his website, yet serves millions of page views a day as well as creating 800,000 successful relationships per year.

Marcus makes a great deal of his money by running Google AdSense on his website, a free program that enables website owners to display relevant ads on their website. You get paid per click and if you can generate enough clicks you can bank a lot of money!

It’s worth reading the full story over at Inc Magazine’s site.

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How often do you back up your website?

We have updated our back up facility within your control panel so that larger sites can now backup their sites quickly and with the minimum of fuss. We would strongly recommend backing up your site at least once a week to ensure you are not susceptible to any data loss.

Using our CP to back up your site is so easy there really is no excuse not do it. All you have to do is log in to your INSTA Host Customer Center and access your  control panel. Once you are in your CP  click on “Backup/ restore” found in the “File” section. From here you can choose to create a full back up of your site of pick and choose from your list of directories with just a click of the mouse. This will download your website as a zip file to your computer. Job done!

Social Me!

Social networking is all the rage nowadays and Facebook has recently become the most searched for brand and 2nd most visited site in the UK (Source: Hitwise).

According to Hitwise, “Social networks now account for 1 in every 10 UK Internet visits and 1 in every 5 page views. Only search engines receive more UK Internet visits than social networks.”

This is only set to continue as the social networks targeting specific niches explode on to the scene catering for the personal tastes and interests of users in a way the large generic social networks can’t. The niches within the niches of Music, cooking, travel, web design, sport, fashion, geographic locations, science… etc are all up for grabs.

Start your own social network
Always ones to make sure our customers  are able to take advantage of the latest web developments you can now create your own social network, quickly and easily with only a few clicks.

Our recent addition to our already massive library of one click install programs is “Elgg”.  Elgg allows you to take full advantage of the power of social technology with elegant, flexible solutions for organisations, groups and individuals.

This new addition joins an already impressive list (small selection below)…

• WordPress
• Joomla
• phpBB3 forums
• Sugar CRM
• Drupal CMS
• PHPcoin
• MediaWiki
• Openads
• Mambo CMS
• Coppermine Photo Gallery
• Form to Email
• osTicket
• dotProject

We also offer our INSTA Community – fully installed social community, ready to go!  over at our Turnkey Installation Site INSTAsite.biz

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Please take a look at our community software….http://www.instacommunity.co.uk which can be purchased at our INSTA turnkey store HERE

Following on from our recent post about Hitwise’s research in to social networking in the UK yet more research is pointing to social networks as being THE growth area online.

Nielson Online has released findings in to the use of social networking around the globe and from a virtual standing start a few years ago their category has exploded in to 4th place.

Grouped with blogs to create a category named “Member communities” they have now over taken email and are only behind search engines, portals and PC software (I’d argue ‘adult sites’ would be in there somewhere if they were not consciously excluded in this type of research).

Other stats that jump out are:

- 67% of their research panel use member community sites

- 1 in every 11 minutes online are spent on these sites

- The 35 – 49 age category saw the biggest increase in uptake

- UK mobile web users are the most likely to access these sites through a hand set than any other country

- 69% of the UK online audience visit a member community site

Social networking doesn’t really offer anything new in terms of what you can do (posting on a board, send a message, chat online, share images…) but what is different bringing  all of these in to one handy place where our ‘friends’ can access them.

I wonder how it will be before we can search the internet from Facebook?

This looks like a great time to jump on to the social networking band wagon and our addition of social networking software Elgg to our CGI one-click  Internet  library of one click install programs lets you to take full advantage.

You can read Nielson’s press release summary here: http://www.nielsen-online.com/pr/pr_090309.pdf (PDF)

PS, dont forget that we offer a fully installed INSTA community over at http://www.instasite.biz

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Below is some advice and a few tips on writing a survey for your website.

Keep it short
No one wants to be faced with dozens of questions especially online where attention spans continue to fall. To ensure as many questions are answered as possible and reduce the drop out rate aim for 10 questions or less. If you decide to split the questions in to multiple pages don’t create so many stages it feels like they are climbing a mountain and always let them know where they are in the process e.g. step 2 of 5.

Give them a reason to take part
Provide a strong incentive for the participant to complete the survey and give you their contact details. For example, if you are running a survey to benchmark your industry you could give them access to the results or if it is a survey about your service a competition is always popular e.g. Win a laptop.

Structuring the questions
How you structure your questions will make the difference between having data you can apply and having a large spreadsheet sitting untouched on your computer. Some tips include…

1. Don’t weigh the answers in favour of a certain answer e.g. Excellent, Very good, Good, Poor (3 positive and only 1 negative)

2. Don’t put “don’t know” or “NA” as an option in middle (e.g. 3 of 6), it will make statistical analysis a nightmare. Put it as a separate option at the end

3. Avoid leading questions e.g. “Do you agree that…?”

4. Keep the question specific e.g. don’t use words such as “Occasionally”, “Often”, “Regularly” etc. What they mean differs from person to person

5. What does average mean? Don’t use it for the sake of it

6. Don’t fall in to trap of asking two questions in one sentence. “Did you buy our red balloon and what did you think of it?”

Open and closed questions
Open questions allow the respondent to answer a question with no limitations on what they can say e.g. “What do you like about your current supplier?” A closed question has a limited number of responses to choose from e.g. “How would you rate our customer service?” Very Good, Good etc.

In theory open questions provide you with more qualitative data but they can be difficult to analyse. If you have thousands of responses you will have to go through each one grouping the answers to be able to spot any common themes. Closed questions make it very easy to analyse the data but you could miss out on some valuable feedback.

Piloting the survey
Good practise dictates you should run a pilot survey to test the questions amongst a limited sample before launching it to the general population. Doing this will highlight any problems with the questions and any in data collection and analysis.

Choosing the software
There are literally hundreds of software suppliers to choose from covering all the stages of planning, implementing, distributing and analysing your survey.

Suppliers include:
•    http://www.zoomerang.com/
•    http://www.keysurvey.co.uk/

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