Just wanted to say thanks for your presentation yesterday.
Really structured and with useful content.
Blog Archives
TST Cars
I would like to say a big thank you to Point and Stare for our new website.
I’ve known them for a little over 7 years and would happily recommend them.
Interior Design WordPress Website – Excite Interiors
Client: Excite Interiors
Brief: Working with Breeze Design to develop bespoke WordPress based CMS.
Excite Interiors were looking to redesign and redevelop their overall branding and marketing.
We set to work on their online publicity delivering a custom CMS that included lots of dynamic content, custom development and bespoke photography.
The Alternative A to Z of Social Media (2019 Update)
Compiled below is an alternative A to Z of social media companies.
These lesser known companies provide a product or service that can be used in your social media campaign alongside, or instead of, the big boys.
A – Active Rain: ActiveRain is the largest and most active professional social network and marketing platform in the real estate industry.
B – Bambuser: Shoot video & chat with your viewers while broadcasting.
C – CafeMom: A community where mothers get advice, support, connect with other moms, and express themselves in groups, journals, polls, and blogs.
D – Deviant Art: If it feels like art, looks and smells like art you’ll find it on DeviantArt.
E – Expono: A global photo sharing community that allows users to upload their own photography, build photo galleries and albums and share them with all of their friends.
F – Fun Advice: Free to join, fun to participate. Fun Advice makes it easy to feel comfortable asking questions and finding answer.
G – Goodreads: The perfect place to discover new books and authors, then share your thoughts with the community.
H – Hi5: Meet up, hang out, play games and have fun on hi5.
I – Instructables: How To/ DIY community. Make and share inspiring, entertaining and useful projects, recipes, and hacks.
J – Jambase: The premiere social network for live music & concert information.
K – Kartme: The personal content organizer offering free tools for saving links, recipes, photos and notes that you can then have other share and comment on.
L – Lafango: Community showcasing talents. Host your video, audio, photos, and media.
M – Mygente: The largest Latino-American community online with forums, groups, chat & blogs.
N – Ning: An online platform co-founded by Marc Andreessen and Gina Bianchini in October 2005 allowing anyone to create custom social networks.
O – OpenZine: A social publishing platform with browser based tools to create and socially share ideas.
P – Pure Volume: PureVolume is a website for the discovery of new music and fresh emerging artists.
Q – QBN: Design industry news & discussion for the masses.
R – Reality Sandwich: Magazine of ideas for the transformational community whose topics are at the heart of a vibrant new transformational culture addressing social, spiritual, and ecological issues.
S – Steemit: Steemit is a blockchain-based blogging and social media website which rewards its users with cryptocurrency.
T – TakingITGlobal: Online youth community interested in global issues and creating positive change.
U – UnitedCats: Cat-lovers community site. Cats, kittens, puppies, websites, photos, rating, forum and tips.
V – Vero: Vero is a social media platform that markets itself as a social network free from advertisements, data mining and algorithms.
W – Wire Fan: Wirefan users can submit their own news and stories to the community and network.
X – Xerpi: Store and share your favourite links with all of the web.
Y – YouLicense: YouLicense is an online network for music artists, publishers, labels to conduct business directly with potential content buyers.
Z – Zerply: Share your artistic, engineering & management experience with the film, games and VR industry’s highest quality community.
Structured Cabling
Client: Structured Cabling
Brief: Develop a modern, fresh website integrating bespoke development with a dynamic CMS.
The Structured Cabling website hadn’t been updated for some time (flat, un-editable structure).
We were brought on board to update, freshen and generally improve the client’s online presence.
Using WordPress as a CMS we successfully integrated original elements including custom built, dynamic sliders, bespoke photography, copy writing and a unique client file retrieval system.
10 free ways to drive traffic to your site
The holy grail, presently, of being online is to drive more traffic to your website. You can spend £50 or £50,000 but if no-one visits it’s a bit pointless.
When putting your online strategy together remember that building your website is one thing, making it pay for itself is another. Any old traffic is good but you really need to narrow it down to required, relevant traffic, those visitors that require your services or products.
If content is King then traffic is Queen?
“How do I drive free traffic to my website?” Here’s the Point and Stare top 10 tips.
1, Blog up yourself
Set up a free blog at WordPress.com or Blogger or both. Write a small piece about you/ your company and link keywords back to your main site. But remember no duplicate content.
2, Twitter ye lots
If you haven’t already, you need to grab yourself a Twitter account. in fact, set up a few with relevant keywords to your industry.
3, Foursquare or be square
Have you loaded your location in foursquare? Locals will find you easier if they check in nearby, also load up your profile with keywords.
4, Google localisation
Do you have local clients? Then advertise the fact on Google My Business. Lots of searches these days are for phrases like ‘industry and town’. Make sure you’re included in the results.
5, Email signature
How many emails do you send out each day? Make sure each and every, relevant, one is sent from your company account and includes your URL in the signature.
6, Write articles
If you haven’t already, set up a blog within your site and regularly write industry relevant articles. Become an authority on the subject and tweet about it.
7, Forum signatures
Check the signature rules on forums and use them to your advantage. Include keywords and link to specific pages within your website.
8, Free stuff
You’ve written a shed load of articles so why not offer them as a free PDF download. Build the PDF, write an article and tell everyone about it.
9, Network like crazy
Check your local FSB, 4Networking, BNI etc for local networking events and go along with a handful of business cards and a smile.
10, Write top 10 lists
People love lists, however irrelevant. After all, this list brought you here!
Want to know how you can attract event more traffic to your website? – contact Point and Stare today.
Top 10 web development no-nos
Recently we published 2 articles, Top 10 Business website no-nos and Top 10 social profile locations for businesses so we thought we’d show, this time, that us developers are just as human as the rest of the world.
Below are the top 10 mistakes we find on a regular basis. It’s something that frustrates and annoys and sometimes sends shivers down our spines!
We encourage you to contact us if you find any of the following on your website where we can explain why these mistakes are just plain wrong.
1, Name files, untiled1.html, untitled1.gif
Schoolboy error. Learn SEO, learn usability and learn to spell.
2, Research meta tag relevance
Using the meta tags name=”alexa” content=”10″ and name=”pagerank” content=”10″? Seriously, they are a joke put about sometime ago.
Kind of like a development April Fools.
3, Build layout using tables
1999 called and want their structure back. Tables are for tabular data not layout.
4, Leave code untested and unvalidated
Cringe worthy, easy to fix validation errors can render a site ugly and unreliable across browsers and platforms. Test it and fix it!
5, Use inline styles
Put all your CSS in an external style sheet. That’s where the ‘sheet’ bit in ‘Cascading Style Sheet’ comes from.
6, Forget to remove development comments
Leaving in comments like ‘remove this crap before release’ are best adhered to. It’s sloppy and unprofessional.
7, Use flash where it’s not needed
Just because the client say they want Flash, doesn’t mean you need to use it.
It’s your job to direct and guide the client to best use practices.
8, Under construction
1999 called, again, and would also like this page back, please. If it’s not ready, then put it to draft.
9, Claim a template
There are some beautifully designed and built templates floating around, free and paid. Use them if you have to but please, don’t claim it’s your own work.
10, Ignore the client’s long term needs
Don’t just whack out a website and then ask for the cheque. Look at a website as an element of the overall marketing strategy.
Top 10 social profile locations for businesses
If you have an online presence, the chances are you are now looking to use social media to spread your messages.
Being online, being visible and participating must be a number 1 priority for modern businesses.
The ‘social media’ term is banded about but what are the main locations and the reasons to join?
Below is what we consider to be the top 10 locations, (in no particular order):
1, Twitter
Twitter is a free social messaging utility for staying connected in real-time.
2, Facebook
Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them.
3, 4Networking
The only truly joined-up national business network.
4, Xing
Business networking for professionals on XING.
5, Foursquare
Foursquare on your phone gives you and your friends new ways of exploring your city.
6, Linkedin
LinkedIn is a networking tool that helps you discover inside connections.
7, Google+
Control how you appear in Google by creating a personal profile.
8, sunzu
“Trade, Share knowledge and cash together so the economy in the local eco system thrives” SunZu.
9, BizSugar
bizSugar is a small business community and social media site where small businesses, entrepreneurs and startups can discover, share and vote for business tips and news on the web.
10, Trepup
TrepUp allows its members to create business profiles to display latest company and business information.
Grove Catering Supplies
Client: Grove Catering Supplies
Brief: Full design and build for Grove Catering Suppliers brochure website providing general information of their quality products and outstanding service. Hand built in HTML.