I just wanted to let the public know that due a sudden increase in inquiries over the past 2 weeks that our telephone system in the office has been blocked and no new messages have been allowed to be recorded. We have cleared the messages and within a day or two they are full again.

We will endeavour to keep the lines clear as much as possible during this busy time and also don’t forget that you can get us on our Dublin number on Tel: 01 4433074 and preferably by email by emailing

dave [at] cada media.ie

This is great to see. So many enterprise boards around Ireland pushing to get businesses online. It’s astonishing how few businesses still dont have a website or a website presence.

If you are in the market for a website then why not get a FREE one from the website listed or by making an appointment with these guys and take part in their workshop.

Attend a 1/2 day workshop and learn how to create your own website in just 30 minutes

Wednesday 29th June, 2pm to 5pm
Westgate Computer Centre, Wexford
Fee: €25

Getting Irish Business Onlinewww.gettingbusinessonline.ie is a partnership between Google, Blacknight Internet Solutions, An Post and the County & City Enterprise Boards and is targeting the 40% of Irish SMEs including sole traders that do not have a website or an online presence. The campaign is calling on all businesses that do not have a website to log on to www.gettingbusinessonline.ie where they can create their own business website for free.

Click here to register for the workshop or to find out more

This morning at a business networking meeting in Gorey, Co. Wexford I was delighted to receive a testimonial from a long-time customer of ours for work we recently completed on her website and helping to get more out of the Internet by using Cloud Computing.

Spell Check Editorial Services.

Deirdre O’Flynn heads up this content writing business here in the South East and she has many years experience in writing Annual Reports, Brochures and of course in modern times Ezines and website content. Deirdre asked us to revamp her site in terms of looks and give it a fresh feel with her new logo. In looking at the sites new layout and design we also talked about her use of the site and how communication is key these days.

Keeping focused.

The average user reading a website will stay a much shorter time than a reader of a newspaper and Deirdre’s background in Journalism comes into play in getting Your point across that little bit faster in her editing skills. She understands that getting a website is good, getting good copy of great, being able to keep your users on your website is fantastic.

These skills and her need to be able to use this technology at its most efficient lead us to help Spell Check Editorial move into the Clouds. This ability to now store all Emails, Documents, Calendars etc online now puts Deirdre and her team in control over their core product . . . Words. Everything they do can now be accessed online and stored digitally.

No longer the need to drive to an office to edit a file or store your calendar in a printed diary that has fallen between the seats of the car. Its simply stored online and to access your data you just need a laptop or a smart-phone.

We helped Deirdre set these up and make sure they all synchronised on her phone, keeping her in touch and up to date with her clients, allowing her to do what she does best . . .Words.

Thanks for the Testimonial Deirdre, I really appreciate it.

Dave.

PS, Spell Check Editorial Services can be found at www.spellcheckeditorial.com

For those of you worried about today’s date and having issues with your technology please remember that today in not the same as the millenium bug issues we had 11 years ago. There are simple and practical solutions to avoiding major computer problems today.

GraphJam.com

The good people at GraphJam.com have given a nice graph to help with the probability and the solutions for fixing issues that arise with computing technology today. Enjoy Friday the 13th !!!!!

Great to see Fine Gael and media partners putting into effect their promise about getting Ireland to be a digital hub of Europe.  They are working on this campaign to get Irish businesses to register a domain name and set up a small website and get the site live in 24 hours. Fro details see the Google Video below.

http://www.gettingbusinessonline.ie/

Well this isn’t strictly correct as they have been amalgamated with two other bodies for a while now, but as of from today the website is now switched over. That is www.WicklowLeader.ie is now pointing to www.WicklowPartership.ie Ok , not so exciting as you think, but hey this is what we do and its important to get it right !

Anyway, We have been working on the new site for a while now and we recommended to the guys there that when changing names to remember that search engines too like to be notified of changes of address and not just postmen! So we launched the newly created site today with what I will call site pointers from the old pages to the new site. This will stop the 404 error pages and very cleanly allow you to navigate to the new sites.

This is one of the suggested methods when you are working with Google for instance that they request that you do this to help the transition to the new address. Its polite to them and to your users who could get lost easily.

We also recommended to them to keep the old domain name for a while to aid this transition. Simply dropping a domain name and grabbing a new one is ok for some, but if you are interested in your viewers and the people looking for you on-line then redirecting an old name to the new name is they way to go.

The new site is all content managed allowing the members of staff there to update the site easily with news/ events and edit every aspect of the site. I would like to thank Brian Kehoe and his dedicated team for their help on the sites content and its structure.

Services Provided:

Domain name Registration

Web Hosting

Website Design

Content Management

Web Stategy

www.wicklowpartnership.ie

In a meeting today I was demonstrating an online shop to a business and showing them how the administration panel would look like and then potential customer noticed that there were 318 customers on the site at the one time as the system shows us the number of users online.

How many people fit into your shop?

Then the potential customer realised that with an online shop you are not restricted to the amount of people you can have in your shop. Where as a traditional retail unit is restricted by the physical size of a premises. “This is amazing and we are definately going to set up the shop” was the result of the meeting.

So the next time you are talking to a shop owner, mention to them the benefits of “Clicks and Mortar” and then instead of building an extension that they could actually fit more customers in if they went online!

Ecommerce works, Be Part of it. Call Dave Jordan on 053 9430748 for details.

Only two minutes after writing the last blog post the phone rings and its a client who set up a website with us last year and we registered a domain name for them. The reminder renewal was sent out on the first of March 2011. It has since expired and their domain name was bought by another company.

What about our Stationary?

I know, they now have to reprint all their stationary as otherwise they will be advertising a competitor on their headed paper, invoices, business cars, flyers and compliment slips. So today we secured another domain name for them and are in the middle of setting up their emails and changing their website. I could tell you another story of the haulage company who lost their .com and had to reprint all their truck signage. (both sides too!)

Anyway, if you are looking at reducing your annual printing costs I would suggest making sure your domain name gets renewed.

Call Dave on 053 9430748 to secure your domain name now.

I would just like to reminder our own customers, that when you receive a renewal invoice for our services including:

• Spam Filtering
• Domain Names
• Web Hosting
• Web Marketing
• Maintenance
• Support
• Priority Support

Please remember that as this is the Notice of Reminder for the services we provide you. The invoice would be an annual fee that you have accounted for as a recurring costs to running the business. I would suggest making it a priority on your accounting system or a large post it in front of you for future reference.

Unless you have a signed agreement with ourselves to be on a direct debit system, we simply issue the renewal invoice and wait for payment, if payment is not received then the services are not renewed.

38% Costs Reduction

This year we have continued to reduce recurring costs for our clients and at the same time investing in better and faster hosting services. The knock on effect is that we can no longer have a fleet of staff telephoning you to remind you about YOUR domain name and other services we provide you. Remember it’s YOUR domain, take pride in it, use it, be proud of your business name. Even though its only usually a small recurring costs, its has great value to you and your customers.

So if you are a domain owner or a business owner and you want to stay on top of your industry, remember the little things all add up to better business. Start with small recurring costs that are important.

Call dave on 053 9430748 for more details

One of the questions we get asked about this time of year is to give websites a spring clean and to freshen them up. Yes, it can be done, but usually a question I have to ask is what would they like. Websites are not just brochures for the business, they are a piece working marketing software crawling the Internet promoting your business, or at least they can be if you make them that way. Otherwise they are just a poster on the Internet, 1 of trillions waiting to see if you can find them.

Is your website working?

Changing the colours will make it look different, but it will not change its purpose of the website. Very often we are asked to help poorly designed websites or poorly managed sites that have no purpose to give them a fresh look. It is at this stage that I bring the conversation around to asking about the company, their stats, their goals, their achievements to date and without these details giving the website a new paint job will not take away from the underlying dry-rot or mould problem.

But Google will see its changed?

Google will see its changed, but remember Google is cleverer than people give them credit for. Changing the colour of a pub exterior wont make the pints taste any better, Changing the tables and chairs of a restaurant won’t make the food taste any better so why do people think that changing the colour of a website will make the user happier if the content itself is not what they are looking for.

This process is vital in changing the look and feel to a website and the overall goals must be focused upon again. If you are talking to people in business about the web and how its used, tell them you read this and how we work with companies looking to revamp their websites for spring !

Dave Jordan

053 9430748