As the last of those Christmas sweets are eaten and the shops begin to fill with their Spring/Summer ranges, the online Christmas sales figures are beginning to trickle through and just like our waistlines after one too many mince pies they’re on the increase!

The latest figures for ecommerce sales during the month of December show an increase of 30% year on year, with sales for Christmas week being almost double compared to the previous year.

There were record levels of internet traffic with 2.18billion visits to online retailers in December, but, according to Experian Hitwise, this reached its peak with Boxing day achieving the biggest day ever for online retail in the UK with 96 million internet visits to retail sites, an increase of 19.5% on the previous year.

Much of the traffic to ecommerce websites came from search engines. A massive 43% of all visits came from search engine click throughs with Google providing 9 out of 10 of those visits.

While many big name high street stores have announced they are going into administration over the festive period, it seems that ecommerce is continuing to grow year on year. Even supermarkets are announcing their best online figures for grocery shopping during December, some reporting as much as 34% increase.

Companies with successful online stores are continuing to report growth, making an ecommerce website a fundamental part of any retail business. An ecommerce website offers many advantages including 24/7 access, the ability to compare products like for like to find the best buy and of course the convenience of having your items delivered to your door. For the ecommerce store owner there is also the added advantage of lower running costs, a very big advantage in the current economic climate!

Impact Web Solutions specialise in the design and development of Magento Commence stores which offer many great benefits to both the store owner and customer. Last month Magento reported in their blog that many Magento store owners were smashing their sales records in the run up to Christmas and that they were citing Magento as the reason for this success. The many extensions available allow store owners to add features that assist customers in making their purchases and increasing conversion rates.

As Magento specialists we also provide Magento search engine optimisation services to increase your visibility in search engines making your website easier to find. As I already mentioned, almost half of the visits to retails sites in December came from search engines so if your website isn’t on the first page of results, your customers will be going to your competitors who are.

If you want to find out more about how Magento can boost your online sales, visit our website at http://www.studio2online.co.uk/e-commerce.php or call us on 0116 2758456.

Dani
Impact Web Solutions
Magento Commerce Web Design

So, what does the acronym stand for and how can it help a Magento website?

A is for Attention or Awareness: The first part of the sales process is to attract the customer and to make them aware of your products or services. By optimising your Magento websites pages individually with product specific keywords, your products and services will appear in a wider range of search engine results ensuring that relevant prospects can find your website. When the prospect clicks through to your website, it is vital that your website makes a good first impression. Make sure that your Magento website loads quickly, presents a professional image and is easy to use. Most visitors to a website have a question in mind or a product that they are looking for, make it clear what you’re offering and tell them how they can get it quickly and easily!

I is for Interest: Once you’ve got their attention, you want to make sure that you gain their interest by demonstrating and focusing on the advantages & benefits of choosing your products or services over those of your competitors. Ways that you can gain interest are by highlighting special pricing, showing linked products and recommending relevant products. Anything you can do to make the process easier and to assist the customer will allow you to keep their interest for longer.

D is for Desire or Decision: By providing as much information as possible about the products and services you provide, showing reviews from other customers that have purchased the product and found it useful, or by creating a sense of urgency by showing an offer valid until date, you can help to convince customers that they want and desire the product or service and that it will satisfy their needs.

A is for Action: The most important part of the whole process is getting your customers to take action and to purchase your products or services. Having a well laid out Magento website with lots of product information and cross selling are great for getting customers to this point, now you need to make sure they can easily locate the shopping cart (add a link to every page!) and once they have, give them the choice between registering and guest checkout and make the payment process as simple as possible (why not even cut the whole thing down to a single page?!).

For more information about Magento web design by Impact Web Solutions visit http://www.studio2online.co.uk/e-commerce.php or call 0116 2758456.

Dani
Impact Web Solutions
Magento Web Design

The first and perhaps the most important thing you need to do before you choose a web design company is to think about what you want and need from your website. Make a list if the features and functionality you require (you can find tips about things to consider in our blog ecommerce & seo: the important part you play).

Different web designers specialise in different types of websites on many different platforms. If you decide your business needs an ecommerce website, choosing a specialist ecommerce web designer will mean that you get the best possible solution. Impact Web Solutions specialise in building Magento ecommerce websites. The Magento platform is a robust system offering a wide range of add-ons to cover pretty much any function you can imagine.

As specialist Magento Web Designers, we have an expert understanding of the platform, its capabilities and how it can increase sales for your business.

Visit our demo Magento Commerce store.

Does the company focus on how your online store will increase your sales?

The main purpose of an online store is to make money for your business. Is the Magento Web Designer talking about your sales and return on investment; or are they just focusing on pretty designs and the latest technology?

Impact Web Solutions have over 10 years’ experience of building ecommerce websites that focus on increasing your conversion rate and making you sales while you sleep.

Do they have a portfolio/examples of previous work?

Any established Magento Web Design Agency should be able to provide examples of work they have completed for other clients.

Although you may require something completely different, viewing their portfolio will give you an idea of the standard of work, the type of clients they’re already working with and their ability to complete a project.

Remember, a poorly designed or developed website can be detrimental to your business and actually reduce your conversion rate, by checking out their previous work you can become more familiar with how their designers and developers work and decide whether they are right for your business needs.

Can they provide details of clients you can contact for a reference?

The best advert for any company is a happy customer and if they are doing a good job they should be able to provide details of a few clients that you can contact for a reference.

Speaking to their existing clients gives you the opportunity to find out whether they are reliable, proactive, responsive and stick to agreed budgets.

Have they worked with similar sized companies to yours?

It is important to discuss with your Magento ecommerce web design company the size of their existing client companies to determine whether they have the experience and resources to handle your project effectively.

If you’re a small business, are they able to provide examples of other small businesses they have worked with and demonstrate how their business has grown as a result of their ecommerce website? If they are used to working with large businesses, will the services they provide be suitable for your small business needs?

If you’re a large business, do they have sufficient resources available for your project?

Do they have a separate web designer and web developer to work on the project?

There are many amazing web designers out there and lots of very skilled web developers but they don’t always cross over all that well. Make sure that the agency you choose has a separate designer and developer to work on your project.

Check that the developer has all of the skills necessary to create everything that you want to include in your website. The Magento Commerce platform has a vast range of extensions available to provide all kinds of functionality but if there isn’t an extension available are they able to build one for you?

Check whether the designer will create designs specific to your companies’ requirements or will they be working with premade templates that restrict how the design can be changed? How many concept designs will the designer provide?

Are they local?

Choosing an agency that is local to your business will make it much easier for you to contact them and to keep up to date with the progress of your project.

If the company is local, you will be able to meet with them face to face giving you access to various members of the team ensuring the project keeps flowing. Visiting their offices will also give you a chance to see where and how they work and to get a feel for the company as a whole.

If they will be providing support for your company, being local also ensures they are available during your working hours which is essential for fixing any bugs with the least amount of inconvenience to your customers.

Is the work completed inhouse or outsourced to a third party?

This is an important one. If you choose a company because they are local and they outsource the work to a company in India it kind of defeats the object.

Ask your ecommerce web designer if any aspects of your websites development are outsourced and if so, what kind of affects this will have on your project. Does the company they are working with complete the work quickly, do they provide regular updates to your Magento web designers and what happens if they can’t complete the project i.e. do they have a backup?

How will you be kept up to date with the progress of your project?

Regular updates will allow you to keep up to date with the progress of your Magento website project. Will you have a project manager or an account manager that you can contact to discuss your project with?

What is the payment schedule?

This is an important question for two reasons.

1. We have spoken with many companies who have paid a web designer the full amount up front to create a website never to hear from them again. Not only does this leave the company without a website, it also leaves them out of pocket – often affecting the budget they have to pay another company to create what they thought they were going to receive originally.
   Paying for the website in more than one instalment, e.g. a deposit and a payment on completion of the website means that if the worst should happen, you still have something in reserve to complete your project with another company.
2. We all know that the current economic situation is a little dire and that many companies are being forced to close for whatever reason. Again, paying by instalments will give you that extra peace of mind.

Honest, well established companies that have no doubts about their ability to deliver should be willing to accept payment by instalments. If the company demands full payment up front, you should consider carefully whether they are the right company for your project.

For more information about creating a Magento Commerce website with Impact Web Solutions, visit http://www.studio2online.co.uk/e-commerce.php or call us on 0116 2758456.

Dani
Impact Web Solutions
Magento Web Design

Speaking in a language that is relevant to your visitors is also important. Don’t complicate things by being overly technical unless your target customers are going to understand. Keeping things short and to the point while providing the information your visitors require is the most effective way to keep their attention. The tone of the website should be friendly and conversational.

Design – The design of your website can play a key part in the success of your online store.

Having a well designed website provides a professional image to your visitors. Keeping the website uncluttered and having ‘white space’ allows your visitors to easily find what they are looking for and to focus on your products and information. Keeping backgrounds plain and light make it easier for your customers to read the content of your pages.

Navigation – Navigation is a very important part of your websites design. Clear navigation lets your customers easily find the product or information they are looking for and lets them navigate back to that page from other parts of your website. Navigation should be present on all pages, pages without navigation are called orphaned pages, the only way back from these pages is to click the back button on the browser, this looks unprofessional and may cause visitors to leave your site.

Functionality – The Magento Commerce platform allows store owners to add a lot of functionality that will assist customers in purchasing items from the website, and store information for future visits.

Some great features to include in Magento websites are wish lists, send to a friend, product comparisons, reviews, recently viewed items and recommended products – these features allow customers to purchase items quickly and easily, and also gives you the opportunity to cross sell.

Search – Search boxes allow you to quickly check whether the item you’re looking for is actually on the website saving your visitors time. Magento websites also feature a predictive search box that finds items matching words as you type, often giving similar item suggestions.

Product narrowing and sorting – Sometimes you just don’t have the time to sit and look through lots of products to see if they have the right size, colour, etc. Product narrowing lets your visitors select certain options to locate the products available saving them time.

Product sorting also allows the customers to view the products by price, name or other variables.

Images – When customers visit your website, they aren’t physically able to see the items like they could in a bricks and mortar shop, so having plenty of good quality, clear photos will help them to decide whether the item is what they are looking for. Magento includes a zoom feature on images so your customers can really check out every little deatil of the product!

Product Information – As with images, a good product description is vital for helping your customers to make a decision on whether to purchase the product or not. Including as much information as possible such as measurements, colours, material, etc will also keep your customers happy by providing them with the correct item for their needs.

Product information is also helpful for search engine rankings as the product specific keywords will allow your website to appear in a wider range of search results.

Clear pricing and availability – Hidden charges can be the difference between a purchase and an abandoned basket. For example, I visited a website earlier today to purchase some tickets, the price was great. Then I went to pay and there was an additional £1 booking fee… oh well, not going to break the bank I thought and continued. Your postage will cost £7.50, and how about some insurance for an extra £2? Finally, the payment screen.. but wait, what’s this, a £3.50 charge to pay by credit card?! So my tickets are now £14 more than the original cost! Not such a great price after all!

Make sure that your charges are clearly displayed including any delivery costs, insurance and admin costs.

Another sure fire way to annoy your customers is to send them through the checkout procedure only to have to contact them later to tell them the item is out of stock. Make sure it’s clear whether items are available. Magento lets you to set stock levels so your customers will be unable to place orders for items that are out of stock.

Checkout – Another thing that causes shopping cart abandonment is not offering your customers the choice of checking out as a guest. Making it compulsory for customers to sign up for an account can put a lot of people off of purchasing from an online store as it increases the time it takes to place an order, and also means they have to store their personal details on the website.

Long drawn out checkouts also lose customers, make sure that there are as few stages to your checkout as possible to keep things quick and easy.

Email confirmations – So the customer has made a purchase, don’t forget to send a confirmation email to say the order has been received and that someone is dealing with it. Magento allows you to set up auto responders, it also lets you send out notifications to inform your customers that certain parts of their order have been completed, e.g. the order has been dispatched.

Dani
Impact Web Solutions
Magento Web Design

Magento Search Engine Optimisation is quite different from the seo performed on general brochure and catalogue websites. As a specialist Magento Web Design agency, our team of internet marketing professionals are experienced in optimising Magento websites to ensure that your site appears on the 1^st page of Google, exposing your business to a wider audience.

There are many ways that our Magento search engine optimisation team work to increase your website rankings, here are 6 basic tips for optimising a Magento website:

• Optimise the default page title – When you set up a new website using the Magento Commerce system, the page title tags are set to ‘Magento Commerce’ by default. The default page title is highly unlikely to reflect the nature of your business so it is recommended that the default page title is changed as soon as possible to something more relevant to your company. By changing the default page title you will maximise the optimisation of your online store.
  You can change the default page title by going to Systems > Configuration > Design via the Magento dashboard, this will access the html head section where you can input your desired page title.
• Optimise CMS pages – In the screen where you create your cms pages and add content, there are also options to set a custom page design and to add meta data. By accessing the meta data screen, you can add a page description and keywords to your page. The page description you type here, is the description that will be visible in search engine results – so this is really your opportunity to draw the customers in. Most search engines set a 160 character limit so keep your description relevant and to the point while trying to include your main keywords for that product or service.
• Optimise categories – In Magento, you can also optimise your categories through the Catalog > Manage categories menu. For each category you can add a page title, page description and a keyword rich url through the ‘url key’ field.
• Optimise Products – Optimising your products is a very important part of Magento search engine optimisation as it will help your products to appear in a wider range of search results. You can optimise your products through the Catalog > Manage products menu. While creating your product, you can add a meta title, keywords and a description through the ‘Meta information’ tab. Any title added here will overwrite the default website page title.
• Optimise Images – Making sure that your website images are optimised is another important part of Magento search engine optimisation. Optimised images will appear in search engine image results creating an additional source of traffic for your website. Optimised images also add additional keywords to the copy of your website, again assisting with website ranking.
  While creating your product in Magento, you can add alt tags through the ‘Images’ tab, once your product image has been uploaded there will be a field to enter a ‘label’, this is the same as the alt tag.
• Duplicate content issues – A common reason for duplicated content on websites is that there can often be several paths leading to the same page. Search engines class these different paths as individual pages meaning that your website will be penalised for duplicate content and that you will lose link juice. Magento offers the option to use categories in your product urls creating at least 4 different variations of the url per product.
  To disable this feature go to System> Configuration > Catalog and under Search engine optimisation set the ‘Use categories path for product urls’ to no.

For information about how Magento Search Engine Optimisation by Impact Web Solutions can help your business visit  http://www.studio2online.co.uk/search-engine-promotion.php.

Dani
Impact Web Solutions
Magento Search Engine Optimisation

Magento websites are great because you don’t need a vast amount of technical knowledge to use them, something most store owners will be pleased to hear!

When you sign in to your Magento Commerce backend, you will see this page:

This page is the Magento dashboard and it contains lots of helpful information about how your ecommerce store is performing. The dashboard includes the following information:

• Lifetime sales: This lets you see the total of all your orders, great for checking your websites ROI!
• Average orders: This shows you the average order value, great for working out whether you need to include cross-selling to increase your order value.
• Last 5 orders: This shows you the last 5 orders including the customers name, amount of items and order value.
• Last 5 search terms: This is helpful as it lets you see what people are searching for, perhaps even highlighting a gap in your product range!
• Top 5 search terms: This shows you the most popular search terms, highlighting your customers’ must have products.
• Orders graph: This section allows you to view a graph of your sales based on amount or value of order for various periods of time. There is also a summary below the graph showing you values by revenue, tax, shipping and quantity, perfect for collating your business figures and projections.
• Order summary (see blow): This gives you a summary by Best sellers, Most viewed products and customer, perfect for keeping up to date with your most popular products.

One of the great things about the Magento Commerce backend is that everything is linked to via the easy to navigate menu. I’m sure all online store owners will agree, the most important thing they need to find is the orders screen! This can be found on the 1st menu under ‘sales’:

Clicking on the ‘orders’ option will take you to an overview of your orders which looks like this:

This screen allows you to view the details of the order along with the order status. You will see at the end of the rows there is an ‘edit’ link, clicking on this opens up the full order. The orders (see example below) contain all of the customer, payment and product purchased details, as well as one click options to send an invoice, mark the item as shipped, to cancel, place on hold or reorder.

Yesterday I heard a client asking a very good question about the Magento system, “does it automatically create an invoice for the order?”, well the short answer is yes and the default looks like this:

While this invoice provides all of the information the customer requires, it may not look exactly how you would want it to – this isn’t a problem though as your Magento Web Designer will be able to change the layout, colours and logos to get it just right for your business.

Another helpful menu on the Magento backend is the reports menu. This menu contains the following sub-menu’s:

The ‘sales’ sub-menu lets you create custom reports showing you information about sales, tax, shipping, total invoiced, total refunded and coupons. You are able to create reports for certain time periods, great for checking the success of a special offer campaign or completing sales reports. Once your reports have been generated you can even export them to Excel and csv.

The ‘shopping cart’ sub-menu provides information about abandoned carts and products in carts. These are helpful, especially for email marketing purposes and are perfect for targeted marketing.

You can also compare added to basket v purchased on the items in cart screen, highlighting areas where there may be a conversion to sale issue.

The ‘products’ sub-menu provides information about bestsellers, most viewed, downloads and that all important low stock report – again all of these can be exported to Excel or csv.

The ‘new accounts’ sub-menu contains information about new customers, customers by order total and customers by number of orders. These reports are great for offering special welcome promotions or customer specific pricing for your best customers.

The ‘tags’ sub-menu contains information about customer tags, product tags and most popular tags. Tags are a great way of matching your products to what your customers are searching for. The search report (see below) shows a list of the terms your customers are searching for as well as the number of results returned for that phrase. You can use the information in the search report to create better product tags increasing the chances of your customers finding the products they are searching for.

Below is an example of the search report, this can be exported to Excel or csv.

• Top tip: Why not email a copy across to your Magento Search Engine Optimisation Engineer so they can come up with some new and relevant keywords for your campaign?

Finally, just to show you how easy it is to create and update your products, under the ‘catalog’ menu there is an option ‘manage products’, this takes you to the product management screen which looks like this:

On the product management screen, an overview of the product details is displayed. As with the orders page, you will see there is an ‘edit’ link at the end of the row – clicking this takes you to the ‘product information’ page where you can amend any of the product details.

In the top right hand corner of this screen you will also see a button to add a product.

To begin creating your product you must first choose the attribute set (i.e. the type of product such as clothing, furniture, etc) and the product type (i.e. simple product, bundled product, etc).

Then you will be taken to the screen below where you can enter all of the product details. The additional tabs to the left allow you to add further information such as setting related products and upsells/cross-sells, create meta information for search engine promotion and setting custom designs (each product can potentially have a different design).

To view a live demonstration of the Magento system visit http://ecommercedemo.studio2online.co.uk/ or for more information about how a Magento Commerce Website built by Impact Web Solutions can help your business call us on 0116 2758456.

Dani
Impact Web Solutions
Magento Web Design

As Magento Website Developers, Impact Web Solutions are active promoters of social networking and social commerce. A couple of weeks ago on a social networking site, I saw this question being asked, “What is social commerce?”

It appears from the responses to this question that there are varying opinions about the meaning of this term, and also that many people still aren’t all that sure what it is.

Wikipedia explains it like this “Social commerce is a subset of electronic commerce that involves using social media, online media that supports social interaction and user contributions, to assist in the online buying and selling of products and services. More succinctly, social commerce is the use of social network(s) in the context of e-commerce transactions”.

My response to the question “What is social commerce?” is “My definition of social commerce is really user led marketing. Not only is social commerce about being able to share experiences and preferences on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, but it’s also about onsite features such as buyer reviews and recommend a friend. People are more likely to buy a product if someone they know has recommended it, or if it has good reviews, this gives them an idea of what to expect rather than buying blind. Happy customers become the best promoters for a business and that’s what social commerce is all about”.

Magento commerce websites include many features that make them perfect for social commerce, these features include customer ratings/reviews and user referrals via the email to a friend form.

Magento commerce websites also allow you to integrate your wordpress blog, this is great because you can add your blogs RSS feed to social networking websites such as Twitter and Facebook so that new blogs automatically post to those sites, keeping your fans and followers up to date with all of your latest news and offers.

There are also Magento commerce extensions that allow you to connect your Magento store to Facebook. These include an extension that allows you to display your products on your fanpage, and allows your fans to buy your products DIRECTLY from Facebook!

I have seen it said a few times that ecommerce is dead and social commerce is the future, so can your business really afford not to evolve to include social commerce? Magento websites are the most robust ecommerce websites available, and as specialist Magento website developers we know exactly how to build a website that will grow your business. If you would like further information about Magento web design by Impact Web Solutions you can either visit http://www.studio2online.co.uk/e-commerce.php or call us on 0116 2758456.

Finally, I saw this great quote used to explain Social Commerce, “Helping people buy where they connect and connect where they buy!”, a motto that all Magento web developers should adopt!

Dani
Impact Web Solutions
Magento Development UK

Image copyright (c) 123RF Stock Photos

Established in 1971 as a specialist mail order cricket equipment supplier, 3d sports have now grown to incorporate a full Magento ecommerce store with over 1000 products. 3d sports believe in providing high quality equipment at great prices while providing the best customer service around!

3d sports offer a wide range of cricket supplies, so whether you are looking for a new cricket bat, cricket clothing or even cricket stumps, this is the place to go! With 11 different manufacturers to choose from, you can be guaranteed the best selection of cricket equipment, perfect for personal use or clubs.

If you are looking for cricket supplies for your club, 3d sports even offer an embroidery service allowing you to add logos, badges or names to any clothing items purchased through there website including hats and sun hats. Their professional screen printing service also allows you to add sponsors, names and numbers to certain items.

3d sports also offer a wide variety of junior cricket equipment, including training nets, cricket bats and junior cricket clothing. And if you’re looking for something to keep the kids amused during the summer holidays, 3d sports supply everything you need for that family game of cricket!

If you’re searching for a bargain, why not check out there cricket sale section full of special offers on brands like Kookaburra, Gunn & Moore and Puma. The cricket sale section knocks large discounts off of the already great prices, making your budget stretch further and letting you buy all of the cricket accessories you require!

Dani
Impact Web Solutions
Search Engine Optimisation Leicester

* Image by Simon Howden at freedigitalphotos.net

I was watching an interesting documentary last night called Planet of the Ape man: Battle for Earth.

The short version of the documentary is that many thousands of years ago, the Earth was inhabited by various species of humans, and, as we know, the other species’ became extinct. At one point during the documentary, they mentioned that social networking was an important factor in the survival of Homo-sapiens. This made me smile.

Immediately my mind went to Twitter and Facebook, and how ‘social networking’ has changed.

The focus of this episode was Homo-erectus. During the documentary, it was explained that their brains hadn’t evolved in a way to allow them to develop language and speech, meaning that they were unable to communicate effectively. The Homo-sapien brain however, had evolved to allow complex planning, and with language, the ability to spread new ideas from one individual to another.

And this, I thought, linked nicely to our use of social networking 30,000 years on.

Modern social networking allows companies to connect with people they may never have known about, and who may never have known about them. Social networking allows us to communicate our ideas to a large audience and for that audience to potentially share those ideas with further audiences.

Social networking is fast becoming an essential part of many businesses, either by their realisation that it is an important marketing tool with an increasing influence on search engine rankings or just because they feel they should have a social networking presence.

For those who wonder how social networking can possibly help a business, think about the old saying ‘people buy from people’.

An article I read compared social networking to a virtual networking event, pointing out that not everything needs to be about business, and that conversations about everyday topics such as children, sport and music had all helped him to build up mutually beneficial relationships with other business owners. To some, these online conversations may be seen as inane chat, but to others these conversations allow you to remove the ‘faceless corporate’ image given by many online traders and allow you to become a valued and trusted friend.

And it’s relationships like these that can allow your business to grow in these difficult economic times.

‘In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment.’ – Charles Darwin.

Dani
Impact Web Solutions
Search Engine Optimisation Leicester

Apply with Linkedin – Linkedin are due to launch a new recruitment tool later this month which allows applicants to apply for jobs by submitting their Linkedin profile as a cv. The ‘Apply with Linkedin’ plugin will appear as a button next to the job vacancy, when the button is clicked the applicant will be prompted to sign into Linkedin and will be given the option to edit parts of their profile, add additional contact details and to answer questions set by the employer, submitting the application then either displays a list of other vacancies being advertised by the company or a list of relevant people linked to the company.

+1 Button launch – Google introduced the +1 button on its search results back in March, now it has introduced the +1 button that can be added directly to your website. Similar to the Facebook like button, the +1 button will allow you to click to endorse the website while you’re on it. Your +1’s will appear in the search results when you and your connections search, helping them and you to find the best websites straight away. To get your +1 button visit http://www.google.com/webmasters/+1/button/index.html

Twitter follow button launch – Following on from the Google +1 button launch, Twitter have also launched a ‘follow’ button which you can add directly to your website, again allowing visitors to link to your updates while they are on your website. Twitter have rolled out the ‘follow’ button on more than 50 partner sites including large companies such as aol and yahoo, as well as celebrity accounts such as Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber. To get your follow button visit http://twitter.com/about/resources/followbutton

And finally….

Joshua Kaufman’s MacBook was stolen from his apartment in Oakland, CA. Unfortunately due to lack of resources, the police department filed the crime as low priority, so Joshua decided to gather information about the thief to aid the return of his MacBook. Unbeknown to the sticky fingered felon, Joshua has installed an application called ‘Hidden’ which allows owners to track the location of their missing laptop, take photographs of the thief using the inbuilt camera and record data entered. Still unassisted by the law, Joshua created a Tumblr page called ‘This guy has my MacBook’, showing pictures of the thief sleeping on his sofa and out driving in his car as well as screen captures showing him deleting Joshua’s account from the MacBook! Joshua shared his Tumblr account via Twitter which in turn was shared by tens of thousands of Twitter and Facebook users, sparking the interest of the media and pushing the police to increase the priority of the case! The thief was subsequently arrested and the MacBook returned to its rightful owner. Proof that crime doesn’t pay!

Enjoy your weekend!

Dani
Impact Web Solutions
Search Engine Optimisation Leicester