Deciding on a new website design..

One of the major cost factors in creating a new website is having one designed. ie. A bespoke design = lots of creativity, technical skill & most of all - time! There are many web design companies setup to deliver this, charging between 750-3000 GB pounds to put a very nice site together.

But. If you want to take a step down from a bespoke design, consider choosing a template which you can add your own words & graphics too. I did, and to help me decide which design suits my business best, I asked my friends & business colleagues to vote on the following 4 designs. by reading the comments, you can see the decision was almost unanimous!

Online directories, translations, newsletters, blogs & surveys

There are a whole bunch of ways to promote your presence on the internet; from producing e-bulletins & newsletters through to signing up to local directory listings & search engine tuning.

Online Directories: As a small business, I’m not that interested in seeing myself at the top of the Google Search rankings – what is the point in receiving an enquiry from Australia anyway! Google Local looks good though: It locates businesses in a specific geographic location so you can find a post office within walking distance. Go visit www.google.co.uk > more > LOCAL for all information.

The more local web based directories & vertical market portals you can free list in the better. www.yell.com is a mandatory start!


Online Translations: Whilst talking about Google, they also offer an interesting online translation service which makes it very easy to produce a multi-lingual website. Other services also worth a mention include www.freetranslation.com and www.worldlingo.com – definitely worth considering if you want quality translations as they do real human edits at reasonable prices.


E-Newsletters & Bulletins: As demonstrated on the MXworks homepage, I invite guests to subscribe to my monthly newsletter. This triggers my pro-active marketing activities by:
Keeping subscribers informed with news & updates.

Scheduling distribution of bulletins & newsletters (built in calendar).

Managing the subscriber email lists (opt in, opt out, de-duplicate, etc).

Analysing interactive graphs / results / reports.


Blog: Also as demonstrated throughout this site, reaching your audience using a blog can be very effective. Not only are they built to encourage interaction with visitors, but they have built in visibility potential. The blogosphere is apparently growing at 1 x blog per second and updates are automatically picked up by search engines using traditional keyword searching!

Two features at the bottom of this topic prove the interaction point:
- ‘Post a Comment’ is the straight forward feedback mechanism.
- Also note the Email icon: This enables visitors to forward articles to friends & colleagues. This may not have an immediate impact on your site, but it enables others to publicise your blog for you: This is good stuff.

E-surveys, E-polls & e-Quizzes also encourage visitors to give their opinions; there are a number of free services which can be easily added into your Blog which are all documented in www.blogger.com > Help > Add-ons. Watch this space as I’ll be experimenting with these later…

Thinking about broadband security

Once you plug your PC into the internet full time - all hell can let loose - unless you put some basic intrusion detection in place. I'm sure I don't have any unique comments on this subject - other than to say that you had better do this...

I am encouraging my Father-in-law to stay on his aging Windows 98 with dial-up modem for the time being!! Bearing in mind all he wants to do is check his email and do some web browsing, I just know that going to Windows XP and broadband will be more pain than gain in the short term - right now I'm thinking he should go Mac.

The moral of this story is simple: Protect & survive. Sorry - you have no choice:

Which Firewall do you use?

Zone AlarmWindows XP broadband router other

Which anti-virus software is installed on your PC?

Norton / Symantec Sophos Trend Micro Avast other

Have you discovered spy-ware yet?

yes no

Content Management meets Blog

I admit it; this site is an experiment as it combines two of my favorite web services:

- Content Management. Which makes web page creation & editing really simple.

- Blogs. Which show the views expressed to be personal, and invite visitors to add comments and therefore contribute to the quality of the views expressed.

Also, blogs are very actively spidered, meaning that there is a fair chance that using a blog will pull in visitors and encourage them to link back to your website.

The one issue I have with a simple blog is that entries are presented in a diary / chronological order… As I want my entries categorised by topic, I have added a menu system enabling readers to also navigate these pages by topic.

The blog service is provided courtesy of www.blogger.com which is the only service I’ve used to date. It’s free, easy to use and I like it – so why look further!

Email Defence Service

All the main service & email providers such as Hotmail & Yahoo do a good job filtering out SPAM & viruses from your emails long before they reach your Inbox.

MXworks is no different; you need this Email Defence service when stepping up to having your own domain name email. But don’t worry; I use one which is great value for money which:

- Blocks over 98% of spam while also eliminating viruses, worms and other unwanted threats.

- Ensures up to date email protection by constantly checking for, and updating the anti-virus pattern files.

- Filters all emails prior to reaching your inbox: Any suspect SPAM messages are moved to a junk mail folder where you can safely read the message and decide whether to accept it or blacklist it forever!

- Blocks fraudulent, yet official-looking, emails designed to deceive you into disclosing your credit card numbers, passwords and other personal and sensitive information.

- Gives you full administrative control to manage filtering policies, access message quarantines, view message traffic and user reports, and manage all other aspects of the service through a web based control panel.


Like any security system you need to secure the perimeter as well as the doors & windows, which means there is no getting away from having your PC’s secured also. (See PC Stuff)

From domain names to e-commerce

Registering domain names is easy - anyone can do it. But finding a domain name which is catchy, appropriate & marketable is also important. I sort out registrations, disputes, redirection and anything else you need, without you having to worry about it.

Many folk aren’t aware just how many domain extensions there are available from which to build your internet identity.

If you are in the hotel, travel or hospitality industry, you may want to consider using the new .travel domain extension. As it is industry specific there are some rules & a procedure to get one which are all explained at www.tralliance.info

Hosting has also become a commodity epidemic with gzillions of providers providing websites free of charge. But when I lost my site for 10 days, and with it a shed load of prospects, I had a serious re-think about what I needed from a reliable hosting provider.

I've chosen a provider that uses webservers located in multiple co-lo providers across multiple cities! These servers back each other up every night ensuring real tangible website security. Big bucks are usually charged for providing this level of high availability & disaster recovery, but I do it at commodity prices.

Websites can be as simple or expensive as you like; bespoke graphics design is the big item that drives up the cost.

I've invested in Dreamweaver & Paintshop Pro so can put a basic web site together. I’m no expert, but I get by, and am learning new techniques every week; examples of work I have designed or participated in include:




the day job...

An e-learning portal.

a previous php bespoke design.

One common complaint is that customers have been stung by the cost of 'updates', the service web design companies charge for editing & updating web pages.

To overcome this, I'm increasingly using & recommending the use of a Content Management System as it puts you, the author and editor, in charge of all content:

- You choose a design template from over 100 professional designs.

- Using the online editor (you don't even need to know HTML), you get to add all the content ie. your words, pictures, multimedia and make some layout decisions.

- Using the customisable forms & tables enables you to produce a unique look.

The results are surprisingly good: you get to produce, maintain and update your own website with its own unique look. All at a fraction of the price (hundreds, not thousands of pounds) of using a bespoke design agency...

I also use NetBanx or WorldPay to integrate e-commerce & online shopping into my Content Management System.

This is an example of what can easily be produced.

I’m no techy - but I’m no novice either

A long time ago, and I do mean a-long-time-ago, I came out of university with a Computer Science degree, and immediately shunned a sensible career in programming, systems analysis, project management or consultancy.

I went to work for a hardware vendor, Olivetti in fact, and subsequently spent 20+ years gainfully employed within the IT industry following the money into sales, marketing & business development. I know computer architectures, internet appliances & network infrastructure really well, but until recently, had never earned a penny by being in front of a keyboard (so be warned!)...

After taking a sailing sabbatical in 2000-1, I decided to leave the world of quotas, targets & sales management behind and head towards the ‘be your own boss’ world of self employment.

As it's my own money I am spending on improving my home & home office PC security & online presence, I have sought out a select few low cost, high quality service providers which I am happy to share with you upon request.