10 Simple Ways To Help Convert Your Website Traffic Into Sales

This was originally posted on www.ryanfmc.co.uk by 5or6 Managing Director Ryan McNamara, to read the whole post you can find it here.

SEO is an art, I have said it before and I will say it again. It does take time, effort and sometimes money to truly make it happen. But it can be well worth it, study's have show that being higher in the search engine rankings can greatly increase your website traffic..

But what happens when you have spent huge amounts of money on your websites SEO, and your still not reaping the benefits? SEO is not the only way to increase sales on your website but it most certainly is a very good start. By increasing the traffic to your website you will by default increase the chances of a sale, yet have you actually thought about what will happen when your potential clients arrive at your site?

Remember the sale is not made when you receive a click through but when a potential customer accesses your website and is happy with what they have found.

Below are ways in which you can improve your website and website credibility to increase sales:

1. Does your website look good enough? Really think about how your website will be viewed. If your website doesn't look proffesional and credible you are not going to inspire confidence in the people you are trying to sell to. It is paramount that you get this right.

2. Think about the colours you use on your website, as people react very differently to different colours and to be sure you can maximise you websites appeal you need to use the right colours.

3. Is your website easy to navigate? If your customers can't find your products then you will not make sales, so try to cut down the amount of clicks they have to make.

This was originally posted on www.ryanfmc.co.uk by 5or6 Managing Director Ryan McNamara, to read the whole post you can find it here.

Rising Stars

The all new GSE website was launched this month after developing the website alongside the sports agency, 5or6 completed all of the website design and graphic design work for the site. GSE are a management consultancy in the sports and entertainment industry for personalities, icons and celebrities. Amongst their books feature many 2012 hopefuls such as athlete Andy Turner, gymnast Louis Smith and boxer Bradley Saunders.

Is Your Websites SEO More Important Than Ever?

This was originally posted on www.ryanfmc.co.uk by 5or6 Managing Director Ryan McNamara, to read the whole post you can find it here.

It has long been suggested that ranking highly on search engines can have a massive affect on sales, and if you are to believe the latest statistics that 93% of all buying decisions start with an online search, then your sites SEO can suddenly become very important.

Getting to the top of Google for a keyword of your choice can be a long and arduous task, and now with the introduction of Google Instant this might be slighty harder. But how important is it to be on top of Google? SEO experts would have you believe it's paramount, but there are company's out there who have been very successful with out the aid of SEO. However if there ever was a set of statistics released to wet your appetite or at least encourage you to give SEO a try then a recent study leaked from AOL's search engine logs is the one:

1. 42.25% of all click-through traffic is received by the website ranked first in the search results
2. Second place receives 11.94%
3. Third position obtains 8.47%

This was originally posted on www.ryanfmc.co.uk by 5or6 Managing Director Ryan McNamara, to read the whole post you can find it here.

How To Monitor Your Competitors On Line

This was originally posted on www.ryanfmc.co.uk by 5or6 Managing Director Ryan McNamara, to view the whole post you can find it here.

You may think that you are ahead of the game and know everything about your competitors, but do you really? Do you know when they are linked too or when they are mentioned on Twitter? No, well not to fear there are a few ways to keep up to date.

Below are a few hints to help you sift through all the noise on the net and help you keep tabs on your competitor, your brand and anything related to your business anywhere on the web.

Google Alerts

This is a great service provided by Google right in your Google account, basically you can type in different search terms and Google will email the search quires to you as much as you like. This great little function keeps you up to date with everything on blogs, websites and search engines, so it's a great way to keep tabs on when your competitors (and your own business) are linked to or mentioned on line.

This was originally posted on www.ryanfmc.co.uk by 5or6 Managing Director Ryan McNamara, to view the whole post you can find it here.

Liam Tancock Graces The First Issue Of WOW

The first issue of this year's Loughborough Students Athletic Union Magazine, WOW went out to the new freshers this week at the perfect time as the cover was dedicated to the new Commonwealth 50m backstroke champion Liam Tancock. Liam is a Loughborough athlete and is the current 50m backstroke world record holder.

The first issue is not out on line yet but it will be soon so keep an eye out.

7 Ways To Increase Your Websites Organic SEO

This was originally posted on www.ryanfmc.co.uk by 5or6 Managing Director Ryan McNamara, to view the whole post you can find it here.

There are so many ways to increase your websites search engine optimisation however by implementing a few simple steps you can always look to grow your SEO organically over time.

Organic SEO can be simple to set up and over time you can reap the benefits as you consistently add searchable links to your website from high quality websites, along with building your on line reputation. Organic SEO will not put you to the top of the search engines over night yet it will help you climb the rankings, and the more you implement it the quick it will happen.

#1. Book Mark Your Website And Blog Posts
Look to add your website and blog posts to Delicious, StumbleUpon and Alltop and tag the pages appropriately to associate specific words to your website, and share your links with others. Over time you can build a strong base of associated keyword links from these websites to your site and increase your SEO.

#2. Add Your Blog's RSS Feed To Digg
Digg has a great feature in which you can add your RSS feed to your Digg profile and automatically 'Digg' your blog posts as you create them, this can save you time, increase your readership from the popular social network and add links to your site.

#3. Comment On Blog's
By commenting wisely on well read blogs in your field of expertise you can not only add much needed high quality links to your website/blog but also boost your click thoughts if you showcase your knowledge on the given subject. Remember people will click through if they find your input valuable, and this can be a great way of really boosting your brand.

This was originally posted on www.ryanfmc.co.uk by 5or6 Managing Director Ryan McNamara, to view the whole post you can find it here.

10 Things To Remember When Building Your Brand

This was originally posted on www.ryanfmc.co.uk by 5or6 Managing Director Ryan McNamara, to view the whole post you can find it here.

There are so many ways these days to get your brand out there, but don't forget the fundamentals otherwise all the money in the world and fancy new websites won't make the slightest bit of difference to their overall experience with your brand.

So let's focus on getting the ground work in before you look to start experimenting with what you can do with your brand, because if you don't make a good first impression it is so much harder to win people back around. So if you are looking to build your brand remember these 10 fundamentals before you choose to really experiment with the boundaries of marketing yourself.

#1 - Make A Good First Impression With Your Logo

If you are looking to build your brand, you need get the basics right first. If your logo and identity isn't up to scratch then your get off to a bad first impression. Your logo needs to represent your brand, your clients and what you stand for, make sure you get it right.

#2 - Get Your Logo Everywhere

Everything you send out should have your logo on, make your brand stick in everyone's mind. If you send out mail, make sure your logo is on the envelope, if you send an email have your logo in your email signature. It may sound like common sense but it is an essential practice.

#3 - Choosing The Right Colours

Colours affect the way people interpret your brand, blue's give off a trustworthy vibe, whilst yellow's have a youthful character, think long and hard as to what your company and brand mean and make sure you get the right colours!

This was originally posted on www.ryanfmc.co.uk by 5or6 Managing Director Ryan McNamara, to view the whole post you can find it here.

The World's Longest Charity Football Match!

Every so often at 5or6 we get to be involved in projects we really believe in, and today when we completed the posters for the 'World's Longest Charity Football Match' we felt pretty darn good about ourselves.

The event will take place on Friday 22nd October til Sunday 24th October at Loughborough Univeristy. The students involved are well on their way to smashing their target of £18,000 and the world record for the current longest football match which stands at 50 hours.

To find out more about the event check out their website at www.longestfootballmatch.com.

5 Reasons Why Facebook Has Succeed Where Others Have Failed

This was originally posted on www.ryanfmc.co.uk by 5or6 Managing Director Ryan McNamara, to view the whole post you can find it here.

Facebook has been up and running for over 6 years now and so now I'm pretty sure we can't consider it a start up any more (especially as it has over 500 million active users as of July 2010). Yet when it did start back in Mark Zuckerberg's Harvard dorm room I very much doubt even he could of imagined how big it would get. So what makes it so special? And what sets it apart from all the other internet fad's out there?

#1 - If It's Not Broken Don't Fix It

Facebook has never tried to fix a problem that wasn't there. Facebook have always look to improve and add new features with out changing the over all user experience. When they have looked to make majors changes it has only ever added to the user experience, they have never changed it. MySpace have found out the hard way by implementing massive changes which has caused the users to revolt because the user experience has changed.

#2 - Management Of Your On Line Life

Facebook actually provides an essential service. Some may see it as a way to just 'kill time' but Facebook allows user to mange their on line life, connects users all over the world and builds communities. What other service can make a claim like that? None.

Facebooks photos album feature allows users to store all their pictures on line, hassle free, tag friends and start conversations. Facebook messaging has almost replaced emails for the younger generation of Facebook users and the chat client has taken away the hassle of using third party clients...

This was originally posted on www.ryanfmc.co.uk by 5or6 Managing Director Ryan McNamara, to view the whole post you can find it here.

How to Get the Most Out of Your Facebook Business Fan Pages

This was originally posted on www.ryanfmc.co.uk by 5or6 Managing Director Ryan McNamara, to view the whole post you can find it here.

It's now offical people now spend more time on Facebook than they do Google. Which could be a possible explain for Google's new money making scheme with Google Instant, and the very strong possibility of losing advertising revenue to the new web super power, Facebook.

So how do you get a piece of the ever increasing Facebook pie? And how can you make the most out of your Business Fan Page? Because being on Facebook is important.

In the beginning
So how do we start? First of all we need a plan. What do you what to achieve from you page? Increased sales? 5 interactions with customers per week? Increase the overall awareness of your brand? The list could almost be endless that's why it is always important to define your goals.

If you want to get those all important customer interactions, you need to begin posting interesting questions or useful tips and tricks. However if you want to increase sales you are going to have to increase traffic to your page and make your product appealing. You could do this by hosting competitions to entice customers on to your page to win your product, if they don't win at least they know about your product and if they are willing to take the time to enter a competition for it they may well be willing to take the time to purchase it to...

This was originally posted on www.ryanfmc.co.uk by 5or6 Managing Director Ryan McNamara, to view the whole post you can find it here.

The Launch of Lightning TV with Jo Harten

Another day and another interview with a Commonwealth Games bound athlete for 5or6, yet this time we spoke to Jo Harten of England and Loughborough Lightning.

We met up with Jo as Loughborough Lightning in conjunction with Loughborough Sport and ourselves are set to launch the new Loughborough Lightning website and YouTube channel Lightning TV. Lightning TV will be a insight in to the world Loughborough Lightning, with interviews game highlights and match introductions.

5or6 Meet a Record Breaker!

We met backstroke World Record holder Liam Tancock today to talk to him about this year's Charnwood Borough Sports Awards.

Last year 5or6 MD Peter Simmons presented Liam with his award at the 2009 Charnwood Sports Awards, so we caught up today to interview him about what the Charnwood Sports Awards can do for the local community before he heads off to the Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

The interview and footage captured will be used for this year's Charnwood Sport's Awards video. The Awards will takes place on Wednesday 6th December at the town hall in Loughborough, for more information on the awards visit http://www.charnwood.gov.uk/pages/charnwoodsportsawards.

Loughborough Sports Directory

The Loughborough sports directory came back from print yesterday and was sent straight out for the first Loughborough University open day of the new school year.

The directory will be used by the University as a yellow pages of Loughborough sport in a bid to attract new students to study at Loughborough, and to showcase all the fantastic facilities they possess.

Ryan's off on One!

5or6 Managing Director Ryan McNamara has just finished work on his own personal design blog, and can be found at www.ryanfmc.co.uk.

Ryan plan's to use this blog to express his passion for design, and to display some of his favourite work out on the net, as well as everything new out there. Also Social Media is a big part of what we do here at 5or6 and he plans to begin to explore and delve deeper in to it.

On the Warr path

Following on from last year's successful design placement from Loughborough University we have snapped up another student from Industrial Design, Will Warr. Will starts today and has already begun to settle into his new role.

Whilst with us Will will be learning new skills to take on to his course next year, and we have already acquired a bursary to aid his learning from Creative Leicestershire.

Will is in the process of setting up his new design placement blog and when it is set up we will let you know.

New Season, New Lightning Website

We have been approached by Loughborough Lightning in regards to designing their new website, internet marketing campaign and the design of their home ground at Loughborough University.

Over the next months we will be working hard to get everything ready in time for the new Super League season and we will post updates on how the work is coming together.

Loughborough's Yellow Pages of Sport

Every year Loughborough University release their 'Sports Directory' to encourage new freshers to join sports teams to to just enjoy the Universities amazing facilities, and this year they have asked us to give the directory a bit of a face lift.

The new directory sets out to showcase the Universities sporting history, the amazing facilities, the fantastic sports clubs and the great events.

The new directory will be ready for the end of September when the new students arrive.

School Sports Partnership

We have been working with the School Sports Partnership in London to help provide them with an effective newsletter and school calender campaign to increase the number of children and schools getting involved with the campaign.

So far we have produced the new newsletters which were sent out last week and the new calender campaign is underway.

Creative Leicestershire Bursary

We are proud to announce that we have been granted a bursary from Creative Leicestershire. The money will go towards supporting next years placement student. For more information on bursary schemes from Creative Leicestershire visit their website http://www.creativeleicestershire.org.uk/.

Ed-ing Home...

Design student Ed Williams is leaving us, after a years' work placement with the company. Thank you for all your efforts this year Ed... good luck in your final year of your degree!

To keep up to date with what Ed's up to follow him on his blog at:
http://www.edwilliamsdesigns.blogspot.com/

Aiming for 2012!

We have teamed up with GSE Sports Agency to develop their new website in the run up to the London 2012 Olympic games. The agency represents some of GB's greatest hopes at the next Olympics including 2008 Olympic bronze medalist Louis Smith (Gymnastics).

Developing People, Developing Sport

We have been contracted to work with the Loughborough Sports Development Center on Loughborough University campus to design and product their new Sports Directory brochure. The booklet is aimed at the new freshers intake in September and returning students who are interested in taking up sport at Loughborough. The aim of the brochure is to encourage students to play sport at Loughborough, and to take advantage of the world class facilities.

IAMLUFBRA #6

So IAMLUFBRA has finished for this year yet the videos have not! The latest IAMLUFBRA video has hit Facebook and YouTube today and is a tad different from the others, as it documents all 3 events and the making of this years IAMLUFBRA. 


This will be the final video of the University year, however this is only the beginning...

Street Athletics gets into top gear!

Today see's Street Athletics get into full swing as the events begin to take off today in Hounslow. Here at 5or6 we feel a special connection to Street Athletics as we have been involved in the event for the last 3 years, and so wish everyone involved the best of luck!

Power Balance competition #2

After the success of the first social media driven competition for Power Balance UK, we decided to run another. In this competition all you have to do is 'Like' Power Balance UK on Facebook, then copy and paste this text into your status bar, making sure to 'tag' PB in the post by adding the '@' symbol:

Entered the @PowerBalanceUK competition and you could win a brand new Power Balance wristband, if you share this post and become a fan of @PowerBalanceUK you could be in with a chance of winning too!

The 3 winners will be announced on the Facebook group next Friday 18th June 2010. Good luck to everyone who enters!

Hitting the Streets of England...

This years Street Athletics has begun, with the first event taking place in Kings Lynn at the beginning of March, with the rest being contested from the end of June, and once again we have been commissioned to design and develop the Street Athletics website and today it went live!

The new site is build on a blog format with build it social networking integration to Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. The new site went live at www.streetathletics.co.uk

WOW goes online for the last time this term!

The last issue of WOW this University year has gone online on myebook. The cover feature's World Athletics superstar Jessica Ennis on the front cover after her very successful day at the Loughborough International Athletics event.

To view the magazine visit myebook here.

IAMSUCCESS!

The three IAMLUFBRA events have gone really well with both Rugby games and Loughborough International Athletics all drawing a big crowd and a number of IAMLUFBRA tshirts!

Loughborough came from behind to beat Bath in the Real Varsity match in a sterling performance from the Loughborough side. Dante Mama came off the bench for the Leicestershire side to turn the match in their favour with a powerful display.

The second rugby event, the Dan James Memorial match, against England U20s drew another large crowd on the first team pitch. England came determined to make amends for their defeat last year and looked in impressive form with some fantastic handling.

Loughborough International Athletics was also a success in a sun-drenched athletics stadium on Sunday. With stars Jess Ennis, Marlon Devonish, Martyn Rooney, Lisa Dobrisky and Mark Lewis-Francis amongst the competitors it was always going to be a fantastic event.

MUL goes social...

With the Midlands Universities League (MUL) grand final drawing ever closer the league have taken the next step to further their reach the players and supporters in the league by setting up a Facebook and Twitter account. This is so that information on fixtures, results and league standings can reach the players and supporters quicker.


The MUL final is being held on Monday 10th May at Stadium:MK, home of the MK Dons, and here at 5or6 we wish both Loughborough and Nottingham the best of luck!

5or6 meet the Prime Minister!

During his election campaign Prime Minister Gordon Brown took some time to speak with 5or6 design consultancy Managing Director Peter Simmons whilst visiting Loughborough.

'Gordon was visiting to launch the Labour party's Sport Manifesto and it was great that he had time to speak.' Simmons added.

Voters go to the ballot boxes on Thursday to decide the new governing party, although a hung parliament looks the most likely outcome considering recent polls.

5or6 feel the Power!

5or6 have teamed up with Power Balance UK to implement a new social media campaign for the company. Power Balance products work in harmony with the human body to improve athletic performance and health, for more information check out their website.

Or check out Power Balance user Shaq O'Neal's video below praising Power Balance products.

#SA10

Street Athletics 2010 is coming! This years Street Athletics will be kicking off in the next few months, with bigger events and an even bigger social marketing campaign. Watch out for a new Street Athletics Facebook page, Twitter accounts and YouTube page. This year is going to be exciting with more athletes competing on the track and on the net. So keep an eye out for the latest SA news.

Big Wheel Promotions

We have just completed work on a set of fliers and posters for Big Wheel Promotions, a London based events promotions company. The fliers and posters are set to be used to promote 3 events Seth Lakeman, Monty Don and Martha Wainwight at London's Regents park open air theater.

For more information check out http://www.bigwheeltickets.com/.

IAMLUFBRA gathers pace

With the first of the IAMLUFBRA events fast approaching, the hype behind the event has begun to snowball, with nearly 4000 members on the Facebook group and the new posters and fliers beginning to circulate, the message has defiantly hit home with the students. "It has gone better than we could of expected, the response from the Loughborough Students has been amazing," said 5or6 MD Peter Simmons, "the hype surrounding the events has been phenomenal and they are sure to live up to expectations" he finished.


12th May 2010 - THE REAL Varsity RUGBY Match - Loughborough v Bath

19th May 2010 - Dan James Memorial RUGBY Match - Loughborough v England U20s

23rd may 2010 - Loughborough International Athletics - Loughborough v England v Scotland v Wales v GB u20 v BUCS Select

For more information visit: www.iamlufbra.com or www.facebook.com/iamlufbra

MUL Final to be held at Stadium:MK

After a long hard season the 5or6 sponsored Midlands Universities League (MUL) is finally coming to a climatic close at Stadium:MK, home of the MK Dons, with the two top sides from the East Premier getting to the final, Loughborough U19's and Nottingham 1st. These two sides met earlier in the season in the league where Nottingham got the better of Loughborough of both occasions, however Loughborough finished out on top of the league. 

For more information visit the league website.

Summary of the Digital Economy Bill

The Bill implements aspects of Government policy on digital media set out in the ‘Digital Britain’ White Paper published in June 2009.

Key areas:

- extends the role of Ofcom to include reporting on communications infrastructure and media content;
- imposes obligations on internet service providers to reduce online copyright infringement;
- allows the Secretary of State to intervene in internet domain name registration;
- requires Channel Four to provide public service content on a range of media;
- provides more flexibility over the licensing of Channel 3 and Channel 5 services and allows Ofcom to appoint providers of regional and local news;
- modifies the licensing regime to facilitate switchover to digital radio;
- allows variation of the public service provision in Channel 3 and 5 licences;
- provides Ofcom with additional powers in relation to electromagnetic spectrum access;
- extends the range of video games that are subject to age-related classification;
- makes provision for the regulation of copyright licensing;
- includes non-print formats in the public lending right payment scheme.

Taken from - http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2009-10/digitaleconomy.html

WOW on myebook

The latest issue of Loughborough Students Athletic Union's sports magazine WOW has been loaded on to myebook. To check out our publication design skills click the link here.

IAMLUFBRA Goes Live!

The much anticipated launch of IAMLUFBRA happen last night in front of a pack Loughborough Union crowd at Hey Ewe, with the unveiling of the second video announcing the dates for the 'Real' Varsity Rugby Match (Loughborough v Bath), the Dan James Memorial Rugby Match (Loughborough v England U20's) and the Loughborough International Athletics (LIA). IAMLUFBRA has been built on a strong social marketing campaign with over 3000 people joining the Facebook page in 2 weeks!

The hope is that IAMLUFBRA can create a stronger feeling of community between Loughborough students, as well as providing some great merchandise.

Charnwood Sports Awards 2010 Nomination Forms

The new Charnwood Sports Awards 2010 Nomination forms have begun to filter out in to the borough. This years sports awards a set to be bigger than last years which was a huge success. For more information on the event click here.

IAMLUFBRA Video goes viral

This afternoon see's the launch of the IAMLUFBRA social marketing campaign with the new Facebook campaign in full swing and the uploading of a new video depicting the brand message.

The Facebook fan page has been a great success with over 1000 people joining to find out what IAMLUFBRA is, and with the launch of the new video we hope to give them a teaser of things to come!

If you want to get involved head over to www.facebook.com/iamlufbra for more details and a peek at the new video.

Street Athletics 2010

This years Street Athletics will be kicking off at the end of June, with this year's set to be bigger and better than ever! This year SA are launching a social marketing strategy as well as a new website and blog. Here at 5or6 we are very excited to be working with Linford Christie and Street Athletics for the third year in a row. Over the next few months there will be a new Street Athletics Facebook page, Twitter account, blog and website to try and reach as many 12 to 18 year olds who want to compete in this years competition.

IAMLUFBRA

We have been co-opted in on a top secret project based at Loughborough University, at present we can not reveal anymore information but keep your eyes peeled… It’s going to be massive!

Web Design: Dance:Street

Today see's the launch of the new Dance:Street website, and here at 5or6 we provided the web design and development for the project. Dance:Street is a dance teacher network that provide street dance teachers in schools and community clubs.


To learn more about Dance:Street, how to get involved or how to book lessons in your school visit their site.

Photoshop Timeline

Photoshop is an essential for every graphic designer and web designer, and with the release of the new Photoshop CS4 there has been an awful lot of blog posts and reviews on the new software, but the guys over at Gizmodo have done something a little different and put together a great timeline to show the evolution of Photoshop and how far it has come. Check it out here.

Graphic Design: Not just an after thought - Lecture

Following on from our Human Science's graphic design lecture today we have uploaded the notes to our site so everyone can have a look and download them if they wish.

Loughborough Lightning programmes now online!

Loughborough Lightning matchday programmes are now all available on myebook.com.

As well as the launch event, the programmes for the games against Team Bath, Hertfordshire Mavericks, Leeds Carnegie, Glasgow Wildcats and the Celtic Dragons are all available for you to read.

Look forward to more editions of Courtside when Lightning return to home action against Northern Thunder on 20th March.

5or6 Goes Live!

This morning we have officially launched our new website! Please have a little look, as it has taken us a bit of time to get it up and running. Our new website enables uses to see our most recent pieces of work on the home page as well as our Twitter posts, and most recent blog posts. You can also have a read up on the company and view our portfolio easier, so all in all its a lot easier to use, and we are very happy with it.

All Systems Go

We have been pretty lack luster with our blog posts over the last few weeks but we have good reason, its currently all systems go here. We will be posting up our new website at the beginning of next week, coupled with a few very exciting projects on the go at the moment we are very busy. Keep an eye out for all our latest news here and on our Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Design Handbook Photo's up on Facebook

Our shiny new 5or6 Design Handbook #1 arrived at the office yesterday and today we have posted up some photos on our Facebook fan page for your viewing pleasure. Please take the time to have a look we worked our little socks off to get it right!

5or6 lecturing

Building on from last year, some of our top design team are guest lecturing at Loughborough University for the Human Sciences department.

'It's a great opportunity for us to pass on our graphic design knowledge to the students' said company director Ryan McNamara.

The module starts in February and will run for the rest of the semester.

5or6 Design Handbook #1

The first 5or6 Design Handbook is here! It is a portfolio of some of our work from last year to give readers a flavor of what we do, with examples of our web, print and publication design work.

Newshouse Fliers

The new Newshouse fliers arrived in today and will be distributed around Loughborough from tomorrow onwards to promote their new events.

Easy, Free Wire Frame Tools

All web designers and developers know that the initial stages of building a website are the most enjoyable, mocking up the wire frames and designs, and letting your imagination run wild! And what could make this even more enjoyable? That's right, free stuff! So after years of mocking these wire frames up with a pencil and paper, there are some new and exciting on line tools beginning to emerge that can do all that for you for free. There's the 'Pencil Project', which is a free and open source Firefox add on tool and is a good bit of kit yet my personal favourite is 'Cacoo'.

Cacoo is an extremely user friendly online drawing tool which allows you to create a variety of diagrams, not just wire frames, yet site maps, UML and network charts. However probably the best feature is the online collaboration feature which allows multiple users to edit the page at the same time (much like Google Wave) which is a real time saver, as you won’t have to email the image between everyone in the design group anymore!

So if you’re looking to add a little bit extra fun to the design aspect of web design have a little surf and see if you can find, there’s a lot out there.

Need Exposure?

Over the course of the next few months we will be releasing new fliers for local business based around Loughborough, with the first being our 'Need Exposure' fliers.

Keep an eye out for them if your based in Loughborough!

Ideal Sealants goes live!

After months of designing, piecing it together and working closely with the developers (which were our good friends at Cox Web Design) the new ICP website went live just after the New Year. Idealselants.com sells all the products that the parent company Ideal Chemical Products sells, yet with the ease of purchasing them on line. The website is extremely easy to use and products can be searched for based on there uses and the clients needs directly from the home page, with the website working like this it cuts down the users time to search for the products they need dramatically. Check the website out here and we would love to have some feedback on the usability and design.