This is a brief look at some of the web sites which we have assisted to improve their customer reach and content design.  It also highlights the importance of third party testing of your site from an independent viewpoint.

VistaBalconies

Although no longer running a website VistaBalconies, had an error in the code for their web pages, which meant that it would not display on all internet browsers.  This bug was easily tracked down by ourselves, notified and corrected by the Company within a couple of hours.

It also suffered from the problem of using a previous template to build the website - the description and keyword tags did not relate to the actual business of the Company.  This was reported by ourselves and updated by the Company.  We also provided them with a full marketing report on how to provide their company with a bigger profile on the internet and how to ensure that they build up a greater customer confidence, by alterations to their terms and conditions and adding further information to their website.

Holidaynet

Holidaynet - This website is well laid out and appears to meet most of the rules of internet programming practice.  However, our testing of the website, showed a major flaw, in that the default content-type on their web server was set to text/plain instead of text/html.  This may not mean much to your average Internet user, however, new security measures in Service Pack 2 for Microsoft's Windows XP operating system, meant that Internet Explorer would no longer display this website and in fact, displayed only the source code for the web page.  After we identified this problem, again it was corrected quickly by the website owners.

RWAP Software

RWAP Software - This website is about supporting the needs of retro computer users.  However, the business needed to identify its market and help to build its customer base in order to launch new products for computers which have been around since 1980!  We identified various ways of assessing market need and generating discussion about products pre-launch in order to generate a buzz within the user base.  The methods used to help generate the market at a time when other traders were falling by the wayside have included:

• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) (for example, try searching for "purchase sinclair ql computer" on Google)
• Creation of visitor guestbooks where people are invited to leave details of their interest in products.  The guestbook also creates a mailing list of email addresses for people who leave their details, so that as soon as more details are released about up and coming projects (or the product is ready for sale), they can be contacted immediately and turned into customers.
• Creation of user forums using phpBB (such as the innovative Sinclair ZX80 / ZX81 Discussion Forum) which can be used to talk about ideas with actual users and potential customers alike, in order to generate discussion and interest in future projects, as well as test the market
• Creation of other marketing tools to ensure that any special offers are picked up by search engines and displayed in search results within 24 hours of the offer going live.  This has been used, for example, to promote special offers on second hand printers (for example, try searching for "second hand OKI c9500 printer" on Google).

Over a period of 3 years, the turnover has expanded from £5,000 to £22,000 and is continuing to grow.

Proof Reading

A university recently called on our expertise to help proof read their Health & Safety policy documentation, to take account of changes in recent legislation and best practice.  Although initially only engaged to proof read the actual documentation, we offered advice on where clarification was required and where improvements to the text could be made to help promote Health & Safety - the University stated on receipt of the first document: "The majority of the changes are clear improvements so in general this is very useful to us.... We will be back in touch in a few days - once we have had a change to think though exactly how we operate the proofing (as it is more extensive in nature than we had initially expected) and sorted out a way of making best use of what looks to be a very useful service."

Following this initial document, we were then contracted to proof-read a further set of documents linked to the original Health & Safety policy.

Other Work

Other tasks which have passed over our books, range from development of internet spiders to verify a database of corporate information and also to search the internet for Annual Reports and accounts for listed companies; and creation of customer enquiry forms.