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Here at WebCatch, one of the hottest topics for our customers these days is search engine optimisation and how you can improve the amount of traffic or visitors to your site helping you to climb up the search engine rankings and ultimately, increase your online revenue.

To the uninitiated, SEO seems a mysterious and complex process and find it easier to outsource to specialist optimisation companies to get the best results fast. In reality, this can be very expensive(literally thousands of pounds) so we’ve come up with a list of helpful tips for improving your sites visibility without the hefty pricetag:

1. Get Your Site Indexed – once your site’s up and running, you can submit your domain details to Google who will then index your site based on it’s content. This can reap almost immediate rewards but beware, Google will not always index your site if they feel that your content is not relevant enough compared to the keywords and phrases contained in your site. Which leads us on to point two…

2. Make Sure Your Content is Relevant – Search engines are constantly evolving and if you cram your site with popular keywords that are not relevant to your products and services, services like Google can now recognise this and it can actually have an adverse impact on your site.

3. Build links – Link building is one of the key ways to increase traffic on your site. Lots of SEO companies will charge good money for this but with a little effort, it is something you can do yourself for free. Do a little research on similar sites within your industry and contact their administrators to see about building reciprocal links ie: you’ll link to them if they’ll link to you and contact organisations which might want to link their users to your services.

4. Keyword Research – Finding out which keywords generate the most traffic, yet have the least competitivity can dramatically increase your sites popularity. Type your keyword into google Adwords keyword tool and it will give you all the information you need to make an accurate assessment of whether it is the right one for you.

5. Write a blog – Writing a blog allows you to use keywords more frequently on your site and also to link into particular pages you might want to promote. It can also increase traffic in itself if you have something interesting to say.

6. Build a great looking site – This is where we come in offering low cost but amazing quality web design

These are just a few of the main points to look out for when it comes to SEO. Remember though that it is ever a quick fix but is more of a gradual process that you will need to keep working on to increase the popularity of your site.

When Google Wave was released on May 19th 2010, it was heralded as the next generation for online communication. The Wave described by Google as “Equal parts conversation & document” allows users to work collaboratively over the internet on projects and communicate in real time taking away the need for physical long distance travel to achieve the same objectives.

In theory, it’s an excellent idea but the current popularity of the social networking giants such as Facebook and Twitter has overshadowed the concept resulting in Google pulling the plug just 3 months after the service was put out on general release. Google have announced that the service will remain live for the rest of the year and it looks like the functionality of Wave will be reintegrated into future developments from the online giant.

From Googles perspective, waves are definitely the future and may take over from traditional e-mails. The company is also planning to relase most of the source code as open source software to allow the devlopment community to work on the project as well for both personal and commercial applications in order to build up the popularity of this burgeoning technology.

For more info on Google Wave, check out the official site

A recent article by web strategist Paul Boag suggests that long term relationships with web design firms can be a great thing for your business. Instead of having a site designed and built for you and then going your seperate ways, it may be more sensible and in the long run, more cost effective to keep in touch with your developers so that they can help your site evolve over time instead of letting it slowly become out  of touch with the  zeitgeist of the day.

What are the advantages?

• Break the progress of your website up into bitesize development cycles allowing it to stay fresh and relevant at all times.
• Avoid large redesign costs which may be difficult to get financial approval for.
• Take the pressure off your in-house web staff by letting them get on with the day to day changes, while you and your design firm can take a more objective view on things.
• Build a positive relationship with your design house. The small design cycles also give you the opportunity to move to a different company if you are not happy with the results.
• Work on immediate fixes as well as long term strategy.

If you’d like to discuss working with WebCatch, contact us on 0115 9738074. We’ll be happy to make your acquaintance!

A recent report by the BBC revealed that one government website, businesslink.gov.uk cost a whopping £35 Million per year over a three year period(totalling £105m).  The article claims the site lacks value and provides poor service and well as not being very visually appealing. This could potentially be the most expensive website ever made and is one in a number of similar sites produced by the british government.

Want the cutting edge, bespoke design without the resultant economic meltdown? Contact us at WebCatch for a low cost, no hassle quote on 0115 9738074.

Internet Explorer still remains the nets dominant browser to the despair of developers everywhere.

With amazing CSS3 features like gradients and rounded corners easily acheived on other browsers such as Firefox and Google Chrome, IE still causes much frustration by simply not supporting them. Thus begins the workaround nightmare just to get your site to look the same across all browsers.

At the end of 2009, Microsoft gave some previews of the new features of the yet to be released IE9 including increased CSS support as well as hardware accelerated text and graphics which they have heralded as being more advanced than all of the other browsers currently on the market.

Bold statements then from a company that has now seriously lagged behind for years. Let’s just hope that they live up to their word and more importantly, announce the release of IE9 sooner rather than later!

Flash has long been the king of interactive multimedia and animation on the web. This was mainly due to the lack of cross browser compatibility of many Javascript applications meaning developers needed indepth Java knowledge to work around all the potential pitfalls when working in this area.

With the advent of J-Query and Mootools, designers now have a library of routines which are compatible across all platforms without the use of Flash. These tools offer functions to handle many routine tasks making programming with Javascript faster and easier to pick up. But does this signal the end for Flash?

Flash Pros & Cons:

Flash provides a consistent appearance accross supported browsers as well as providing tools for advanced animation, slideshows, game development and supporting both vector and bitmap file types. On the other hand, a lot of new technology such as mobile phones and i-Pads don’t support flash content and file sizes compared to Javascript can often be a little on the bulky side.

Javascript pros and cons:

Compatible with a wider range of browsers than Flash, quick and easy to implement on a site and small file sizes although the features aren’t always as powerful or extensive as Flash and source code can’t be protected.

If you are considering implementing either Flash or Javascript into your site, why not check out our prices at Webcatch?

Up until now, we’ve had two sides to Webcatch:

• WebCatch low cost for small businesses and startups
• WebCatch Digital for larger projects

Whilst this model works well for us, we recognise the need to cater for those companies in the middle ground. This is why we’ve developed two new bespoke packages aimed at providing quality design at the right price specifically for Estate Agencies and Car Dealerships The kind of sites that work for these businesses need additional features which don’t quite fit in with what we’ve provided up until now. If you’re interested in a quote, visit the site or call us on 0115 973 8074.

If you’re interested in our business package or adding a to your site check out our fantastic easy to use Instant Quote facility for full details on price.

Mark Seaton BA (Hons) Graphic Design

Taking place at the Nottingham Trent University, the shows were a culmination of much hard work from the final year undergraduate students from courses across the School of Art and Design and the School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment.

The exhibits  represented a range of disciplines including fine and decorative arts, fashion, knitwear and textiles, photography, graphics and multimedia, design for theatre, film and television, and product, furniture, and architectural design..

We found it pretty interesting to see some of the current work coming out of the university and particularly some of the quality graphic design that has been produced by some exceptionally talented students.