Over the years, I've been intrigued into why I get my best ideas and intuition at about 2am. To put this into context, whilst at University I did a majority of my dissertation in the early hours of the morning and regularly awake to great ideas, targets and aims for my to-do list, forge career targets and come up with my greatest ideas for clients' websites. I realise that this is my superconscious taking over, and something that I can only access ...

I look at a lot of websites. Some very good, some good, some bad and some very bad. In response, I've developed what I think is a web design nutritional information label that could accompany some kind of best practice guidance. This is purely dependant on the type of website being developed, however I think I've created some general rules that could be implemented into most websites.

It's staggering. You look at the website of a company, you look at the marketing material. You look at the letterhead, you look at the values. It's staggering how many times none of them match! Marketing materials must be developed as a suite. A website is a part of the marketing package and is perhaps the first point of call for many potential customers and clients, and must be included in the suite just like everything else. There would be no point ...

The law surrounding the use of email as a marketing tool is not widely understood. Spam and unsolicited email has become a widely regarded problem and clogs many an email box, however there are certain actions that can be taken if the sender has broken the law. There are four classifications of email type: Business to business Business to individual Individual to business Individual to individual At this time we shall remove point 4 from this discussion. What is legal? Business to business (B2B) and Individual to business emails ...

Many of the photos out there on the web and on organisations' marketing materials never fails to make me smile. Today's emphasis for marketing material photos is on racial harmony and diversity, smart professional looking people, age equality with most being absolutely useless in promoting the business. Most are none other than cheap, fake-looking meetings and training sessions that aim to show a business as a professional outfit. Some websites have got some exceptional photos that comprehensively provide a quality appearance to ...

Fed up of receiving emails asking for links to your website? Remember, the main aims of links are: To increase traffic and sales To improve PageRank and thus the importance of the site To show authority and/or provide readers with further knowledge and guidance. What makes a good link? Google, within its algorithm, knows a good link from a bad link. Matt Cutts in a recent interview pointed out that having 10 good links is better than having 100 bad links. Example: If we, as a marketing ...

You're going to build an online shop. You've got in mind what you want to sell and you can get a good price from a wholesaler/distributor. You think you know who your customers will be. You've got money on the hip to invest in the project. You build a website. You get no traffic. You run out of money. You lose interest. You do something else. This is the oh so familiar story behind e-commerce projects where basic marketing knowledge has ...

Who's the best marketing professional body is a question many marketers and potential marketers ask. The list includes these three as the main bodies: Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) Institute of Direct Marketing (IDM) Institute of Sales and Marketing Management (ISMM) With these bodies being also useful: Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) Chartered Management Institute Institute of Directors For marketing practitioners, junior professionals and executives the first list is likely to be more useful, with the second list for decision makers and senior professionals. It is also a ...

There are so many web hosting packages out there that a beginner to the world of web development, or even a novice can find it difficult to find the right one. In response to this ongoing problem here's a checklist of things to look for to get the most out of a package: Monthly or yearly fee? Unlimited bandwidth and unlimited email? - There are plenty of yearly fee suppliers that include up to 5GB bandwidth and unlimited email that charge around ...