News today that Facebook have overtaken Google as the number 1 website in terms of visits according to “Hitwise”.

This is something I was only giving a talk about today to a group of business people here in the south east. I was explaining that social media needs to be managed correctly by staff of businesses if they are going to use this tool to attract traffic to their business using Facebook.

I had mentioned that facebook had over taken Yahoo and Microsoft already and this news today that this has happened this week has huge implications for the search world in general.

Companies will now be wondering if they should get a website and Facebook should now be exploiting this fact with their advertising costs and web designers/ programmers guru’s should be writting Apps for facebook.

The Whole World’s In A State O Chassis !

If you remember the quote from,  Juno And The Paycock then you will know what I mean. If we look at this in other terms, lets say 10 years ago we needed to find a telephone number where did we look ? Yes in a big yellow book in the office, now that big yellow book has been demoted to “Computer stand for your Monitor”

The whole world is changing, now we look for information online usually Goolge. But if Google have been toppled off the number 1 position in just 3 short years, what is next?

Food for thougt, chewing gum for the brain.

Enjoy the St Patrick’s Day where ever you are

Had an interesting conversation with a client last week about how the effect of having no email for a 24 hour period effected this business. I should add that this was just 1 email address, the info@ address the business uses.

I should paint a picture a little clearer, this is a small rural business in the west of Ireland, 3 people, 1 in the office and 2 out on site working with clients in a service industry.

Whilst some work was been carried out on their website/hosting by ourselves we had some downtime. (I have to put my hand up and say that it was from our part that they emails were being queued on the server, meaning they were not being pushed through to their office pc, but waiting to be pushed towards them)

So we started work on this hosting/email facility for this one email address at about 3 in the afternoon and we had hoped it was sorted by about 6pm that evening but alas now we know that it was still not functioning the next morning and that afternoon too. Once we twigged what it was we were able to rectify it and they got the emails, minus the spam etc etc.

What did we learn?

1, that we now have a new procedure in place to make sure the email set up is signed off

2, that a business not having email, even for 1 day, with 1 email address, can be considered closed down!

Yes, we got a call from the client stating that people will think they are closed down and that in a recession not to have your emails responded to is very serious to a business. I agreed and we have resolved the matter now and all is well, but I really was able to see if from a customers point of view too.

Are you answering your emails?

Do you only answer your email at 9am, 13:00 and then again at 17:00?

The recession has meant that we all assume that if we dont hear back from a business that they have gone out of business.

Conclusion: Answer your emails and do it sooner than your competitor will.

(I’m learning too here folks, I’m not the fastest when relying to people either!)

We are working on a new exciting directory for a existing client who wanted a directory for Ireland, but specifically a Health Directory. The website is still in Beta testing but they have asked us to go ahead and put the site live to start getting the name out there.

Get Listed.

The idea is not new, but the way we have structured the site should help get the site listed in search engines, I know they have a big hill to climb going up against the major players in the Irish health market, but this dedicated team has promise.

We have made the site to allow a user to get listed in a category of their choice or even two or three, then the user can enter a payment to get listed straight away.

Would would like to wish John & Clare and the team the very best with the new site and we will be keeping an eye on you guys to see how the stats and listings go.

Services provided:

• Domain name registration
• Web Hosting
• Web Development
• Website Design
• Training
• Ecommerce

www.irishhealthdirectory.com

We are getting  a lot of calls to the office this week asking about the following email that many people are getting. It is s scam, delete it, these people know that many people in Ireland are claiming more tax back etc

Scam Email = Delete.

If you do get an email like this just look at the location of the link that the image will bring you too. It will be a strange website address that hopefully google will have blocked by now.

My advice is to delete then call us to set up a spam filter for your email so these type of emails are not slowing down your business day. You are busy enough without having to deal with this type of confusing email.

Call Cada Media Ltd on 053 9430748 and talk to Dave Jordan about setting up a spam filters for your staff email today.

Our great friends Michelle & Audrey from our online wedding shop called All About Weddings have finally taken the plunge and upgraded their website to now be fully accepting Irish Debit Cards called Laser Cards. The site also accepts the usual Visa, Master Cards.

While we were at it we created a brand new fully content managed website that will give the girls the ability to upload and amend all the sites content. The last time we gave them this type of functionality was for the shop part of the website just before St Pactricks Day a few years ago.

When we came back into the office following the bank holidays we saw thousands of products. They had stayed up all night for the long weekend and packed their on-line shelves !

The new redesigned site will now give the girls the ability to upload to a Gallery Section they requested to show off their bridal Bouquets and also to give them an area to have an online wedding fair. This business is no stranger to the lime light and they have been featured on TV & print media in Ireland.

To be honest. . . We love’m, they are interested in their products and this is evident in their passion for their industry. I wish all people in business could be like this.

I would like to wish them the very best in their new redesigned website and I hope they don’t stay up too late packing the order boxes as I hear there has been some late ones recently.

Services Provided

• Website Redesign
• Content Management
• Ecommerce Integration
• Hard Work !

www.allaboutweddings.ie

We would like to welcome Sara Cullen to the team at Cada Media Ltd. Sara is joining us in an ainistrative role, with great experience working in the Gorey Chamber of commerce office we hope the her talents will suit our small and dynamic team. Welcome on board Sara.

I’m sorry I wasn’t able to attend tonight’s talk given by local lad, Grant Masterson from Wreckless Skate Board Shop here in Gorey Co. Wexford. I first met Grant when he was working for Webdream Solutions next door door to our own office on John Street in Gorey too. Webdream are a website design and programming company who at the time were specialising in online shops and estate agent websites. Grant progressed on from webdream and set up his own skate shop in the same office once webdream went virtual and moved their offices “online”.

We were delighted to help out Grant in the early days of setting up his business. Having a shop is great, having a shop that is open 24/7 is better. Knowing how to communicate your message through the social media websites and attract buyers to your online shop is all part of what we do every week at Cada Media Ltd.

A small helping hand by giving him access to broadband meant that instead of standing idle waiting for customers to come in, it meant that Grant could do his online marketing and promoting whilst he wasn’t dealing with customers in the shop.

One small piece of advice we give many other people looking to sell on the Internet is to look at Open Source software to help cut down on the initial set up costs. Although they can need some customisation and tweaking as many are originally very basic and have to be configured. I think the programmers do this to give jobs to the ones installing them and setting them us.! Us mainly!

Anyway, you can purchase this type of software, but you should also look at ZenCart or OSCommerce too as they are used by thousands of online shops around the world. We too use and set this us for businesses too.

Wreckless is currently OSCommerce and since its original install it has had many upgrades, many plugin’s installed and configured, many designs. In fact I think its also been totally revamped and the database backed up and the entire site overhauled by Webdream. A fantastic job if I do say and well done to Joel Driver for his work.

Tonight’s presentation will be great for people in Gorey to see how a local lad can come good and really use the Internet and it’s strengths. Remember the snow in January and all the shops closed. . . . Guess who’s online shop was still taking orders?

Well done to grant and all at Wreckless on demonstrating that the web and shopping are ideal partners.

There is also a presentation from someone about a business directory for Gorey, but since we also have one called Gorey Links, I won’t reinvent the wheel there!

We were happy to be asked by a local business to help promote themselves online and we got the opportunity to create a website for this Physiotherapy Practice in Gorey.

Physio Solutions is run by sportsman Adrian Copeland a seasoned rugby player in the southeast and by the looks of his shinnner when he came into the office, he’s used to seeing the tough side of sports!

It’s not sports injuries that Adrian is capable of helping but many injuries including backpain, neck pain and many more.

Adrians treatments include:

• Massage Therapy
• Manual Therapy
• Mobilisation
• Manipulation
• Excercise Therapy
• Electro Therapy
• Medical Acupucture / Dry Needling
• Othotics

We have created an easy to navigate, fast downloading website that will give Adrian the ability to easily update and keep news information about his skills and expertise.  We learned during the creation of the website that his industry is always evolving and new techniques are always being learned and practiced. An interesting world, similar to our own I guess.

Services Provided:

• Domain Name Registration
• Website Hosting
• Website Design
• Consultancy
• Local Web Advertising
• Web Marketing
• Consultancy
• Training

Web: www.physiosolutions.ie

I know it’s only been a short while since we welcomed Sinead into the Cada Media fold to look after our accounts, but we are now looking for an admin person to assist Sinead and help with basic administration procedures.

We put the word out on facebook and FAS a number of weeks ago and we have received many CV’s since then. So tomorrow See’s the start of the first round of interviews. It’s amazing to see the selection of programmers and designers who have applied already, but alas it’s admin we need.

So if you haven’t sent in your cv already, please send it in this week.

info [at] cadamedia.ie

Hearing interesting things about the new social media offering from Google called Google Buzz, it looks like their privacy policy and the fact that you can edit a on going conversation to alter the meaning means that this would be used by someone from the Dark side!!!

Gonna play around with it over the weekend and see what my friends in the Sunday papers make of it as I see they have been busy little beavers all week playing around and trying to see what friends are out there and I watch and didn’t reply!

Oh the fun, if you have any news on google buzz then let me know.

Have a nice Valentines Weekend everyone.

So there I was today having lunch with a Internet Marketing guy I know in the Amber Springs hotel in Gorey and the two of us going on about how to manage adword campaings successfully and then we discussed the different methods of managing them, different keywords to use, different settings. . . localisation and so on and then we talked about pricing for such a service . . . We both agreed and found the most business didnt the the “best bang for their buck”.

Why pay an Internet “expert”?

Exactly, why would you pay someone to manage a google adwords advertising campaign that you can manage yourself? just log into google yourself and set up an account and put the price you are happy to pay for someone to pay to get yo your website and then input your vredit cards details.

Easy? Yes it is, and it’s even easier to get it wrong and not understand the different settings and variations that will display your adword on search results and in-line content. The words you choose could be expensive to bid on and there could be other words that you should be using.  Is your advert being clicked on by a night security guard on a laptop at 3am in Manchester, when you are advertising your painting and decorating service in Wexford!

Wasting money?

Yes, very often we come across people throwing away their money in Google adwords campaigns.

If you are trying to manage a pay per click yourself and running your business and want to spend your money correctly there are a number of things you need to have in place. At Cada Media Ltd we can help you spend your money better. Yes, we will charge you but yes you will gain the right traffic from the right people in the right location. We can either manage a campaign for you on a monthly basis or configure and fine tune it for you.

Then you manage it.

Cada Media, helping companies use the internet better since 1999 in Wexford.

This is a great question and often when I’m sitting in a meeting with potential clients there is an open discussion about colours and graphics to be used on a website and maybe a brochure is put on the table asking can we replicate it on a website.

2 Different mediums.

After working in the print industry and migrating into the online publishing and website design industry it is interesting to see that many people are looking at a website like is was a printed brochure and often will have a totally different idea of what people want than ourselves.  Maybe its being responsible for running hundreds of websites and seeing how they do in search engines that gives us a unique point of view.

Website Stats

A website tells you everyday how it’s doing, it communicates to you and tells you who, where, when, what type of screen it was viewed on etc etc. A website doesnt cost extra for extra colours of the fonts that you use because we are limted to the number of fonts a user has installed on their PC. If we use a fancy font, it will only display correctly on computers that has it installed. The alternative is to create a graphic in photoshop that has the word or phrase written on it. We have to remember that a search engine can not read that text, only humans can, and if they can not read it they can not index what is says, so you can have a graphic designer create a lovely looking website that may be slow to download and hard to find in a search.

Don’t get me wrong, I like graphics, I love designing website, but I must always keep my target market in mind and if I was to design a website for the visual pleasure of the audience and neglect the websites main function.   To get found and give the person the content they are asking for.

Content is king.

A graphic design has a responsibility, a web designer does too, they must both create and make an impressions, the difference is the first is a matter of opinion by a user and the latter is a mixture of what the user likes and what a search engine will read. Indexing a website is a complex matter and depending on how you layout a website will depend on how the website is read. We have guidelines on the layout, font usage, font colour, so its not a case of beauty in the eye of the beholder.

Most of the websites that are in the top 3 searches in google will have little use of graphics and I would estimate are used very sparenly. We get asked every week to “fix” a website and in nearly every case it is due to a graphic heavy website that is not being indexed to its pull capabilities.

This doesnt mean that you have to remove the nice graphics on a website to get in indexed better, but just to note that it’s not the most important part of the site’s purpose. If you talk to a programmer they will be looking in a completely different direction too as they are looking at the database structure and how many sql queries each click makes and the impact on search engines and believe me they will take more of the graphic design away than I would.

My 3 rules for website design

Content

Content

Content

If you are interested in graphic design and website design and have any comments we would be pleased to hear them.

We noticed today that we recieved an email for the the ICS monitoring Team threatening to cut of internet access.

This is spam email delete it.

The email looks like this:

Warning: This message has had one or more attachments removed
Warning: (report.exe, report.zip).
Warning: Please read the “cadamedia-Attachment-Warning.txt” attachment(s) for more information.

Your internet access is going to get suspended

The Internet Service Provider Consorcium was made to protect the rights of software authors, artists.
We conduct regular wiretapping on our networks, to monitor criminal acts.

We are aware of your illegal activities on the internet wich were originating from

You can check the report of your activities in the past 6 month that we have attached. We strongly advise you to stop your activities regarding the illegal downloading of copyrighted material of your internet access will be suspended.

Sincerely
ICS Monitoring Team

When Neil of Safety Skills Training Ltd called into our office to inquiry about setting up a new business for Safety Training Courses in Ireland we originally told him it usually takes about 6 weeks to set up a website. Taken into consideration getting a logo designed, stationary printed, brochures created and web content created.

I would like to apologise to Neil as the website was 1 day late!

Not too bad when we have gone through the full process of registering the domain name, setting up his hosting package on our servers in Dublin to helping Neil set up his email on his BlackBerry. The courses provided by Safety Skills are located in various training centres around Ireland. The courses cover many aspects of safety from learning to lift boxes correctly to Forklift Driving.

The full list of courses we learnt he provides are :

• Reach Forklift Truck- beginners Course
• Reach Forklift Truck- Expperienced level
• Reach Forklift Truck – Refresher Course
• Pedriatric Occupational First Aid
• Patient Handling
• Food Safeety
• Water Safety
• SafePass
• MEWP Mobile Elevated Working Platform Training
• Defibrillator Training
• Health and Safety Training
• Manual handling
• Basic Fire Safety
• Fire Marshal Training
• Fire Warden Training
• Emergency First Aid
• Occupational Refresher First Aid
• Occupational First Aid

This company is new, but Neil is not new to the industry and after many years working in Dublin he has gone out on his own and set up this new company based in Dublin but working nationwide.

Our services included:

• Domain Name Registration
• Website Hosting
• Website Design
• Content Management
• Web Marketing
• Training

Best of Luck to Neil and his team with the business and we hope the website helps your business.

www.safetytraining.ie

We were recently approached by a Bed and Breakfast in Wicklow called Glendale BnB who also have selfcatering accommodation in the famous Glendalough in the garden of Ireland in Co. Wicklow.

This family run accommodation business is run by Christy and Valerie Merrigan, who take pride in their location and being in the middle of everything that is beautiful in Wicklow. Their setting is an ideal location for touring the east coast of Ireland and when we were going through the things to do and see we understood just how perfectly situated the Bed and Breakfast and 4 self catering cottages are.

It’s nice to meet a couple who enjoy their business and I guess we felt that they put their into their accommodation, Christie and Valerie know their area very well and thats how they were able to give us all the details they needed on the website. Their original site was over 7 years old and had searved them well. Their new site is fully content managed allowing them the ability to edit and update the website with images of wicklow, special offers and news and events in their locality.

Services provided:

• Domain name management
• Website hosting
• Website Design
• Web marketing

We would like to wish Christy and Valerie the best of look with the revamped website and hope 2010 is good to them.

Website: www.glendale-glendalough.com