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Always proud to be different, our SEO solution offers companies a number of advantages over the traditional package. We've recently signed up two new customers on the strength of these differences.

While we believe strongly in the web or cloud intranet system sometimes you might need instant access to your files or find working locally more convenient. By integrating your Intranet with Dropbox you can get the benefits of both worlds.

We've had a couple of intricate and large web projects come in recently that have some very tight deadlines. Fortunately, the power of Wordpress has come to our rescue.

We've just launched a new website on behalf of Martello Associates.

If you have one of our shared hosting accounts then you'll have the peace of mind of knowing your data and content is backed up.

Nobody likes Spam but using your Emerging Innovations Control Panel you can at least take control of how it is managed. This articles explains how to use the anti-spam features that come with your hosting account.

As the saying goes "If you don't blow your own trumpet, nobody else will". Getting credit for your authoring skills can be good for you in a number of ways and boost your professional standing. Here we see how we can get Google to credit your work directly in the search results.

Emerging Innovations' shared hosting includes access to email auto-responders. What benefits do they bring and how do you use them?

To realise the true power of the web you need to sometimes share data. Using XML might be the solution.

Anyone responsible for the operation of a website needs to sit up and take notice. If your site uses cookies (read the full article on what they are and what might use a cookie) then you need to display a message to your website visitors. It's the law.

The latest product receiving a soft-launch at the moment is TheCoachOnline, a product built on our successful learning framework Online Learning Managers.

A great way to stand out from your competitors to ensure you business website is able to offer a feature or service that users can interact with. Having such dynamic forms add value and can be developed more easily that you might think.

Having an online form that your potential customers can use to write enquiries is great. But the amount of spam email it can generate stinks. Here's a simple solution you may want to consider to eliminate or significantly reduce those unwanted emails.

Emerging Innovations Ltd offer a range of hosting solutions but it can be tricky for the novice to decide which one suits them best. This article may help you decide if you need a VPS solution.

Before you launch your website you need to make sure that you've viewed it in a range of browsers. One of the more frustrating aspects of web design is how each browser has it's own little quirk when it comes to displaying content.

If you are commissioning a website project then getting to know the meaning behind the jargon is often very important. While Emerging Innovations have a jargon-free policy many web designers don't so here's an explanation of one term you're bound to come across, CSS.

If you use a third party solution for your online shop then you may be struggling with your search engine optimisation (SEO). This article explains the way that EI approach the problem.

Rather than simply amending the price of your product or service on your business website provide the customer with a discount. Read on to find the many advantages of such an approach.

We're proud to launch a new photography services website for a local customer.

OK, so you don't tweet. No problem. But do you at least listen to the tweets that are being made? As a business owner you should be treating it as a good source of leads. Read on to find the easiest way to achieve this.

Emerging Innovations create many websites that allow the owner to add and edit text. Images can also be managed using the same tool and this short video demonstrates how this can be done.

When you commission us to build a website you may want to use a domain name that you have purchased yourself. Here's how to modify your purchased domain name setting for it to point to your new website.

As part of our website development process we try to ensure we provide a screenshot of the resulting build or change. Read on to find out why this has shortened development times and has resulted in better project management.

Even the most spectacularly designed site will not look its best unless GIF and JPG file formats are separated out and displayed appropriately. To our surprise even some web designer’s don’t seem to be aware of this so we thought we’d share the knowledge.

As professional web consultants we are often called upon to assist with website design and development projects that have stalled or haven't made the grade. Here we give you our top ten tips should you find your own web project slipping into that problem area.

A number of web design companies - including Emerging Innovations of course - offer search engine optimisation (SEO) packages for which we charge a monthly fee. We're often faced with customers who think the effort involved is simply getting a few sites to link to them. The truth is much, much more complex …

We all have the dream of sitting back and letting someone else take care of the marketing efforts, particularly in competitive markets or where the customer is hard to reach. A web based affiliate scheme may be just what you are after.

If you are a company providing IT services you may like to keep an eye on our newly launched page showing work currently out to tender.

Here are five top reasons for you to consider engaging or switching to a professional email marketing provider in order to make sure you see a return on your investment.

Offering a regularly paid subscription for your product or service is a great way to benefit cash flow but there are few things you need to keep in mind when selling this to potential customers.

You're no doubt busy making new year resolutions for yourself, but what about your web business? Here are 5 ideas that you can pursue during 2012 to continue to grow your web business.

Our intranet web system allow for input, export and management of large data sets. Using the right format for these data sets is important to ensure data integrity and ease of use.

What could be better than having a team of people promoting your product or service at every possible opportunity. If you create brand advocates you may well achieve just that.

Understanding what nameservers are is useful so that you can make changes to your hosting and email providers and to follow the reasoning behind requests to modify it that may be made by website developers.

By using Logomaker.com you can obtain a free logo for use on your website. Ideal for new businesses that need a web presence or for microsites.

Have a look at the latest website that has just gone live from our production line!

No matter what industry you are in keeping up to date with opinions, events and new products is a must. By reading blogs written by other people - even your competitors - you can help do just that. Here's how to find and stay up to date with the minimum of effort.

There is no need to purchase your domain name from the same company that provides your website hosting (or vice versa). This short article helps you understand how you can use any domain name that you own with any professional hosting account.

As part of the Search Engine Optimisation work that we do we often need to broaden the focus of our clients' campaigns to include the possibility of engaging with the customer earlier in the decision making process. Read on to find out how your business SEO strategy can take advantage of this.

Before embarking on a new or revamped website it is critical that your website fits strategically into your business plan and your marketing mix. Here are some examples of website goals as well as the implications of choosing them.

Being good at putting content on your website that has maximum appeal to visitors will include understanding the concept of Features v Benefits. Target your products and services well and the dividends will be huge, all for just a little effort.

Show that you want to engage with your website visitors and make it easy for them to achieve their visiting-goal by using Calls to Action on your site.

Many small and not-so-small companies come to us having tried to go down the Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) route for their website and have lost their way. The failure to understand one simple concept is often at the root of their problem.

Whether you are tracking your own search engine exposure or seeing what your competitors are up to Google Alerts provides a free and easy way to get changes notified straight to your inbox.

EI Ltd always try to get hold of you when your domain or hosting is due for renewal to check that you need it renewed. Whatever your domain name registrar does, however, it is your responsibility to ensure your domain is renewed.

If your web content carries authority then not only will your customers consider you to be an expert in your field but that high authority can also be reflected in higher search engine rankings.

Your business is new, exciting and radical. Your website should therefore follow suit and be totally unique in its layout, navigation and design. Read on to find why that probably isn't the best idea for your business ...

If you have dynamic, database driven website then you may find that some of the individual product web addresses are less than friendly. Changing these to human readable folder names doesn't only help humans know what the page it about but can aid your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) too.

When trying to appoint a web designer some people put an emphasis on how geographically close the potential supplier is when making their decision. Is this the right approach and should you consider doing the same thing?

Adding award badges to your website can have a positive impact on your image and potentially lead to increased conversions. However, the number and choice of awards can affect how successful they are.

There are various skills and techniques that go into building the average website. Here we take a moment to list and explain the kind of skill sets your chosen website designer should have as well as explaining some of the jargon behind it.

Emerging Innovations Ltd have just completed the roll-out of their integrated sales database to a Wickford based company.

How do you think about your website visitors? Whether you are happy to put "ring for a quote" on your website might not be appropriate for some people. Think, for example, about the Midnight Surfer.

For every significant web development project that we undertake we always commit to a Project Plan. Here we share with you some of the benefits of taking this important first step in getting your website design project right the first time.

Emerging Innovations are often consulted by companies that want to begin integrating their sales or back-room operations with the web. We thought we'd list five of the most common suggestions that we make during these meetings.

You're ready to finalise the content on your new website. Perhaps you have a Content Management System to get you going. There are a few important things to keep in mind when placing content within the site structure.

We have just rolled out a website for a local Essex company that delivers great value entertainment for events, wedding and corporate events. The site for PALS Entertainments was developed in close liaison with Perry and Alfie.

Emerging Innovations is all about making your company more efficient and innovative by using technology and the power of the web. When we saw this video of how Tesco in South Korea used those very things to become number one online we had to share it with you.

When commissioning your website you'll have in mind a design that your customers will like. However, keeping a good balance of white space in the design is critical.

Put on hold any plans to use Google+ for your business ... says Google.

We've just rolled out a star rating system on our blog pages to give viewers the opportunity of rating what they see.

Google have rolled out the latest in their search portal upgrades with the release of the +1 button.

Google has rolled out its speech recognition system to its main search portal.

Recently launched by Emerging Innovations on behalf of Wardrobe Dilemma the site is easy to navigate and allows for voucher codes and easy basket management.

Whether you are planning an early break in the next few weeks or one that is timed for the summer it's worth putting your mind to how your business will carry on while you are away. Here are a few thoughts on how we manage.

We have spent the day with an interest new potential web design client. We've seen the excitement that a new project can bring to the people that contact us in order to make their dream a reality. This time, however, it was plain to see that the long term strategy of the project had been considered.

Companies that use our shared website hosting service have access to comprehensive email account management tools including the ability to have unlimited email accounts across multiple domains.

In the seminars that I deliver on social media and website design there are often delegates that don't see the value in the Twitter tool. One thing tends to change their outlook completely …

Showing pricing on your website is often something that is discussed with website clients. Here's some pointers on how you should consider this important aspect.

Working with a north London telecoms company, we have just launched their cloud database system, offering improved support, speed and flexibility.

The new Facebook page for Emerging Innovations is now live.

A documented site map helps your website content to remain focused and is an end product of your website planning phase.

Testing your website is very important but perhaps a little daunting when you see how many different browsers you have to check for.

You need to ensure your images and graphics on your web design are perfectly aligned to your visitors and products. Read on for what that means in practice ...

When managing multiple domain names, use Parking to ensure you gain both search engine and visitor benefits.

Although many website owners think that the home page of their site is the key to sales, this is often not the case. If your website is structured properly and the content is focused it is unlikely that the home page will ever, on its own, create a sale. So what can we say about the home page?

We want you to have as much control over the content of your website as possible - saving time and money. Here's one we made earlier ...

Learn how to search Google if you're not sure of the exact word or for multiple wording at the same time.

What's an easy way of seeing which websites link to you? Find out in this article along with how this information can be useful for Search Engine Optimisation

As a business website owner you'll know that being able to be found on search engines is important to getting traffic to your website. Before embarking on a potentially time consuming or expensive search engine optimisation campaign be sure to check your site's search engine visibility.

Whilst I try to do most of my shopping online for Christmas it was inevitable that I had to go into a high street store at some point. I'll admit that I don't find it very enjoyable and even less so when my good wife takes me with her to buy clothes she needs!

Without a doubt you'll want to make sure that the price you pay for your website design and development is as fair and competitive as possible. This article runs through some of the common mistakes and misunderstandings that people make when taking their first steps in this important area.

It is perhaps one of the most important traits of a project manager that they are able to listen to and discuss criticism and concern of the ongoing work without taking it personally and to then make a clear judgement on how to deal with it.

As a business owner you will no doubt understand that the more you know about your customers the better you can serve them. Being able to provide marketing tailored to their buying habits and following up on purchases they have made all makes good business sense and helps to ensure repeat business.

We're always very keen to make information transfer from one location to another as easy as possible. The idea of writing information down only to type it in somewhere else seems like an unnecessary amount of work.

Do you find yourself logging on to your company website regularly to do the same tasks? Perhaps your customers only receive notification of their orders when you manually send them? Whatever system you have it is well worth you knowing about automated website jobs.

Last week we wrote about APIs, what they are and how powerful they can be.

You may hear web developers and programmers talking about API calls. This wonderful TLA (Three Letter Acronym) is the basis for a whole range of website functionality that you can benefit from and is the basis of the whole Cloud Computing concept.

When was the last time you walked into a shop in the high street that had its roof missing and had a swarm of builders and electricians still working to complete it? Judging by the use of Under Construction text and images on some websites one might think that this is a normal occurrence.

We have already spoken about the importance of generating long term relationships and how social media such as Twitter can help you do that.

If brand identity means a lot to your company it should be strong in the website too, as part of the marketing mix.

If you've done a Google search in the last few weeks you may have noticed a small blue arrow that has appeared next to the top search result. Depending on which version of the Google results page you're viewing (rollouts can take a few weeks to complete) you may be scratching you head as to what it is.

A number of our website customers often need to send us a picture of what they are seeing on their browser. Perhaps they need to have some additional functionality added to a certain page and need us to know exactly where. Perhaps something isn't displaying quite as it should.

Despite the title this isn't an attack on the new interface that Twitter - at the time of writing - is rolling out. Some people have been dismissive of the change whilst other are saying it is definitely the best thing since ... well, Twitter.

It used to be a policy that any potential customer that made mention of popups during discussions about how their website should work would be politely steered away from and such thoughts. But now, things have changed.

Hopefully as a website owner you have already come to appreciate that the website you build or commission is not for you; it is for your customers. With this understood it is important to be able to think like your website visitors in order to provide them with the information and interface that they are expecting.

If you are like me then visiting a website that plays sound or even a video automatically often causes me to quickly move somewhere else. Not only is it an uninvited intrusion to my office silence (OK, my radio listening) but it often provides little or no information that is relevant to my specific needs.

It is quite surprising how many websites that claim to be "professional" still have website counters visible on their home page. Responding to page views, these numbers proudly presented often give a bad impression of both website success and its popularity.

With one or two exceptions, splash screens will not give your website any kind of boost whatsoever. In fact, it may well harm the site’s conversion and click-through rate.

For many websites the accessibility of content to readers other than English is an important consideration. There are a number of online tools that provide free widgets that website owners can incorporate to make their content accessible.

We all sometimes need a concise definition of a term or acronym for our work.

EI were privileged to be involved in the selection of a web development supplier for a company that we’re providing consultancy work for. Our role was to ensure that the technical prowess of the companies that were bidding was genuine and to make sure that no smoke and mirrors were used to win the contract.

As business people we all know that customers are valuable … but do we know just how valuable they are?

One of the simplest yet most often overlooked aid to navigation is the breadcrumb trail.

As a website visitor it is quite understandable that you try to find exactly what you want when you are browsing. It is a fair assumption that if what you’re looking for isn’t shown on the site then you’ll go elsewhere to try and find it. Occasionally you might use the search facility, even more occasionally you might fire off an email to the website owner to make an enquiry.

Emerging Innovations are pleased to be supporting the latest tranche of 70 users onto its Review 360 Assessment programme. With coaching and support provided by the Training Team Ltd EI ensure that the My Review 360 portal delivers exactly what the customer wants.

So long as you haven't been living under a rock for the last few months you will be aware that the football world cup starts today. It's been very interesting (and sometimes very entertaining) seeing how companies are piggy-backing this to enhance their sales.

A collar for your cat that acts as a life blog by tweeting photos and messages that we mentioned recently seemed to catch your attention. For us, this demonstrates the endless possibilities that connecting IT systems can create and the opportunities that they present.

For those that haven't already worked this out, we're fans of social media … but only when it supports your business and helps you interact with new and existing customers.

Heard of Google SideWiki? If you haven't, and you own a website then you really should find out read on and find out more about it.

If you're running a small to medium sized business then you'll know that management and training of staff is an issue that needs constant attention. One method of ensuring that you have a good understanding of your staff's commitment and dynamism within the company is continue to an assessment of them.

We've just been commissioned to do a simple - but important! - website design for a company that wants a strong and effective web presence on a limited budget. One of things that really makes this project a joy to work with is the fact that the company has a documented marketing strategy along with clear identification of its target audiences.

Not every search engine visitor will act the same way. One important difference that searchers have is their propensity to click on sponsored links. Nearly 2 out of 3 visitors in a recent study preferred the organic listing over the paid listing slot.

Some term it web 3.0 but whatever you call it Facebook's latest API update provides developers - and, through them, your business - with a great way to contribute to and to draw data from Facebook.

We were writing a few posts ago about ways to ensure that you get a long term relationship with your clients. Achieving this can have a dramatic effect on visitor conversion rates.

Getting potential customers to find you so that they can buy your products is a standard business priority. For companies trading online then presenting your products to users of search engines is a must.

Emerging Innovations have just finished delivering a piece of consultation work for a large national charity. The work itself was to produce an invitation to tender document that will be circulated in the next few months.

While a lot of time goes into telling website owners how to lever that extra pound from their website visitors the fact is often missed that it's difficult enough to get any money from people that come to your website!

Microsoft has now set the unstoppable train that is called "Internet Explorer 9" (IE9) in motion. While it is still many months from launch stage the company has already set its direction and strategy with the new browser.

As a web consultant it is often advisable to take a broader view of your customer's operations. This allows you to understand the workflow, staff structure, website needs and a whole host of other stuff that impacts hugely on the nature of the website that they need.

You may have heard of URL shortening services. These are web pages that allow you type in a long website link (eg http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8537616.stm) and to receive in return a short link (such as, in this case bit.ly/99EmKX).

When you start off in business you might feel as though you are up against some pretty big players. Depending upon which industry you are in there may already be blue chip companies and others that have been in the field for far longer than you and that you consider to be a threat to your business. However, as this article from the BBC makes clear small businesses - if they target their market correctly - have nothing to fear.

Telling a customer that email sent from their website is delivered in multipart MIME format doesn't really help us with our zero-jargon approach to consultancy. However, it's an important point that website owners need to understand to make sure their email is getting through to their customers.

Emerging Innovations are pleased to be working with a national charity in the UK to help them upgrade their web presence. As part of the project a comprehensive review of the existing site will be made and a study of what members and website users like and dislike will be made. The consultancy goes all the way to the formulation of an Invitation to Tender document for the website and will be completed by April 2010.

There is a short video from Google that is definitely worth a few minutes of your time. While you might think it a little over the top it is a very good demonstration from Google on how we use search engines to help us make decisions.

EI visited London yesterday for a meeting with a new client for web development work. Although we won the business, it was interesting to take note of what they were looking for in their chosen web supplier; it wasn't someone to only produce a nice looking website and make it functional.

Having just finished implementing a simple email reminder system on a client's website we thought it worthwhile sharing this with our other customers as an idea that may lead to an increase in customer return visits and ultimately sales.

Nobody likes to think of what might go wrong but disaster recovery is an important part of business planning and review. Fortunately, proper preparation can minimise the disruption caused by events that are out of your control. Contingency planning in the form of a disaster recovery plan gives you the potential to cope in a crisis. If you combine this with the automation that IT systems can provide you should never be without an adequate recovery plan in times of failure.

What intrigued us about this short video was that it is so easy to forget how other people outside your industry think and what they know and don't know. The video demonstrates how little technical knowledge the person on the street has, in this case, about something close to our heart which is website browsers.

With the start of a New Year everyone looks forward and not many look back. Perhaps that's how it should be but it's certainly worth considering how 2009 can be built upon. As news of the recession starts to become less prevalent and even an economic upturn is considered possible it is worth taking time now to make sure you can cope with increased demand in the year to come.

What seems like mayhem at the St Pancras Eurostar terminal boils down to passengers not being given the information that they crave. We all know that decision making is based on the quality of the information that we received. So why are the people that know what is happening not communicating this down to the people that count - the customers?

The run of new tools and features launched by Google continues apace. One that is of particular interest to website owners is the Browser Size tool. This simple screen display shows your chosen website (enter the URL) overlaid with the number of viewers (expressed in percentage terms) that can see different parts of the site.

The first port of call for any web developer once their site is labelled as Beta is to head for the website validator http://validator.w3.org/. Or at least it should be!

Back in the good old days when optimising websites for search engines it was a simple case of making sure your META tags had the correct keywords and - in most cases - repeating the page keywords hundreds of times on a matching foreground and background colour. Thankfully, times have changed.

Of course you don't have to be a web guru to come up with new website ideas and ways of working. While many are trying to emulate the success of Facebook and Twitter it is perhaps easiest to ask yourself what your key skills or core competences are and then how they can be brought together to improve an existing web service or to create a new one.

With coming up to a quarter of a million views when we last looked at it, nothing demonstrates better than this short video how you can get great exposure by cutting the sales patter and telling it like it is.

The office will be closed from Wednesday 23rd December and re-open on Monday 4th January. If there are any critical or urgent issues during the closure support will be available and these should be notified by email.

Read our latest article on understanding the value that professional web developers add to your business. Importantly, how you should take cost into account when deciding whether to appoint a professional or take the offer from a high school graduate for a low cost site.

Do you follow up failed orders? This simple approach may well be worth adopting as it can significantly increase the conversion rate of your online shop.

The new website for our partner company The Training Team has now been put live. Designed and developed by Emerging Innovations the site provides both a corporate front for the company as well as providing detailed information about the products and training events that it offers.

Emerging Innovations, working with The Training Team, have just launched their flagship online learning product called Online Learning Managers. The product delivers interactive, tailored training via the browser and is also available to other training providers on a license basis. Visit the website for a free demonstration or contact us for more details.

With the threat of a postal strike on the way now is an excellent time to review the processes that you have in place for communicating with your customers. Savings both in terms of avoiding any postal delays and in increased efficiency will pay dividends.

Ever wondered whether you are leveraging the most from your business website? Read our guide to planning your website to ensure it maximised its marketing potential on visitors.

EI will soon be rolling out its popular MS Project course online which means you can get to grips with this powerful piece of software in your own office. We'll post more information here as things move forward but don't forget you can also follow our announcements on Twitter or sign up for our monthly newsletter.

It is fair to say that communication is seamless and constant which is a great boon for business. However, from an employee point of view the availability of distractions has been increasing exponentially for the past few years. This tongue in cheek chart demonstrates the variety and type of distraction that now faces the average worker, whether clerical or managerial. Ensuring that your communications are managed effectively is becoming a task in its own right.

As part of running an e-commerce system, particularly ones which allow control of product details and images, many of our customers are often stuck for a suitable graphics editor. An easy to use and inexpensive editor is ideal for converting images to different formats, cropping or in other ways making the image more suitable for your site.

Emerging Innovations also offer a range of IT Training throughout the Southeast, East Anglia and East Midlands area. While we've written often about MS Project tips and tricks, don't forget that MS Excel and other MS office suite applications are also available at competitive day rates whether on 1:1 or group basis. Have a chat with us if you would like to know more about how to increase your staff's efficiency through training.

Remote working or working at a distance from your colleague or customer can be a reality if you want it to be. Take this very simple to use website called Twiddla as an example. It lets you and anyone else in the world contribute on a whiteboard screen with or without a website template beneath. You can text or voice chat in realtime. Oh, and although premium pricing is available for corporate users it is free to use; you don't even have to register.

And now - as they say - for something a little different. Javascript is a programming language that runs on your website browser and makes events happen while you are viewing a web page. For example, the Bookmark Page link at the top of this screen allows you to add this page to your favourites list. For a bit of fun, try pasting the following link into the address bar of a new browser window:

HEMA is a Dutch company that supplies domestic household items. Have a look at their website and see what you think. It makes for interesting viewing but from a customer point of view has serious flaws ... like how do I buy something! To be fair, it is not their main website but it does demonstrate a very important point about website expectations. If the customer's needs are not met quickly and with the minimum of diversion they will leave and go elsewhere.

Our latest project has just gone live. The e-commerce website for Ace Envelopes includes a customer registration facility as well as a very easy to use envelope search system to let you find the envelopes that you need.

Emerging Innovations are pleased to be providing a range of Business Link workshops on website planning and optimisation from October to March next year. Delivering on behalf of The Training Team the events are not only a good opportunity for you to meet other people who are at the same stage of website development as you but also to learn some tips and tricks of the trade. The events are free and you can search for events near you (EI are doing the Essex based ones only).

You can now following Emerging Innovations on Twitter.

We've just put out latest project live; a training website for first aid, health and safety and food hygiene. It's a straight forward design and site but care has been taken to ensure that the site has lots of potential for optimisation over the coming months.

At a website optimisation seminar last week, Peter Slegg came up with an excellent example to demonstrate the importance of inbound links to any website.

Making a living out of website design and development means you have to charge customers for website updates, even the most simple wording changes. Yet customers are always being told that having fresh content on their websites is very important for getting a good listing in the search engines.

At the website training seminars that EI deliver we are often telling delegates that pay-per-click advertising for Google and Yahoo! etc works but that they should be aware that some of the audience will never ever ever click on them.

We've had a number of customers contact us over the past month concerned about the security of their domain name. The content of the email is similar and many come from HongKong Net Center; all warn that the property of the domain name is to be transferred to a client of theirs unless you respond.

Feedback from our customers has led us to understand that sometimes - as part of the mystery surrounding website design and development - that it's difficult to know what information we might need to provide a quote or that might be asked for when contacting us.

After we detailed a few days ago how we're not getting any more than 57% of our broadband speed on average, it seems that providers are still very much committed to putting more services down it. Of note is the desire from the BBC Trust to take control of web TV ... that's the bit that's going to deliver broadband TV to your home in the not too distant future.

A recent study found that on average broadband download speeds were only 57% of the advertised rate. So, if you're on an 8Mbit/s download you may only be getting 4.7Mbit/s. Different providers seem to be able to offer different speeds and you can check yours here for free.

After we commented on Bing last month it seems that the advice is not to get too friendly with it. The reason for the caution comes from the news that Yahoo! and Microsoft may well be joining forces to provide a combined effort search engine that will rival Google. Apparently, the deal is in the final stages of negotiation.

It's difficult to know how well your website is optimised for ranking in search engines and whether it's worth taking the time or commissioning someone to improve it for you. For those of you in that situation it's worth checking out WebsiteGrader from HubSpot.

On Friday EI were called in to provide some help to a company that was using an off the shelf package for some very important project management that they were doing. With £3m plus worth of contracts riding on the successful use of the software it was important to get it right!

Portable Document Format (PDF) has long been established as an excellent medium for the web - particularly when layout, security or size are factors. Indeed, many of the applications that EI write generate custom PDFs which give the end user the ability download and keep the document in a much nicer way than simply saving the web page.

What great news about one of Britain's best loved high street names. In case you haven't heard, Woolworths is back but this time trading as an online entity. It's good to see this valued name finally appreciating the importance of online trading which was an areas sorely neglected in its previous business model. No matter what business you're in it is important to consider the online presence that customers now expect and to ensure you keep up to date with their needs.

We've finally gone live with our new website design. We feel that the new design reflects the professional design skills we have in-house and is more contemporary. We had ease of navigation for our potential customers at the forefront of our mind so have used a nice categorised search menu on the left hand side. We all worked hard to get the site up as soon as possible and managed it in less than three weeks which we're all very proud of. We hope you like it and would welcome your comments and feedback.

After a number of months of development and testing the website for Studio School in Cambridge has gone live. The site contains the latest incarnation of our page content management system which incorporates improved image management and browser compliance. It also includes an innovative enrolment form that takes the complexity of the enrolment process and converts it into a number of simple but appropriate questions.

All of the reports that I have researched have identified Digital Exclusion is an important factor in ensuring that communities and individuals are able to partake of services and opportunities. It's good to see that the sentiment is underlined by the UK Government's report on its digital strategy which was published yesterday.

The new search engine from Microsoft that has replaced its Live! search was launched this month with only a tiny fraction of the £100 million budget spent. Despite that, Bing has swiftly come the second most popular search engine behind Google. Whether this trend continues or can just be put down to people being curious about how it works only time will tell.