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February Newsletter
Dear Newsletter Subscriber
Welcome to the UKFast newsletter!
This month at UKFast we've been encouraging graduates to stay in the North West with a huge recruitment drive. Our tech tip focuses on keeping your login accounts up to date and the marketing minute gives you a guide on how to enhance your ranking with directory submissions.
Finally, we’re shining the spotlight on the winners of the Best Functionality Website 2007 - Selesti's Holden Mobility.
As ever, please get in touch with any comments on this newsletter or with suggestions for future editions.
In this month's issue
February@UKFast
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Many of you have been to visit us and take a tour of our data centres. It’s a great way to understand more about the services we offer but sadly it’s not possible for all clients to find the time. To remedy this and give you a further insight into UKFast we have produced a short data centre video tour. You can view it by clicking through to the online version of this newsletter.
As we grow, we’re taking recruitment very seriously and have teamed up with Manchester Digital & Manchester Metropolitan University’s Business School to encourage the region's talented graduates to stay in the North West and develop careers in the city’s fast growing digital sector.
Kick starting our quest, we took part in a professional development day this month and spoke to a vast amount of final year students. We were extremely pleased with the quality of technical students in particular, which suggests good things for the future of the digital sector.
Over the last couple of months we’ve noticed that some people are still using our old address and so we thought we’d take this opportunity to confirm that since last June we have been at City Tower, Piccadilly Plaza, Manchester, M1 4BT.
Dedicated server customers will also have relevant out of hours telephone numbers and we’d like to draw your attention to your client area where there is a comprehensive list of all the appropriate telephone numbers and contact details you could ever need.
Keep your login accounts up to date
As your company grows you may find you have to grant server access to other members of staff or third parties. If this is the case you should always remember to keep your log in accounts up to date with any changes that occur.
If, for instance, a staff member leaves your organisation, remember to at least disable their account or fully remove it if possible. If you change web developers or your current one only needs a small period of time to access the system then make a note to disable the account after this time has lapsed.
Enhance your ranking with directory submissions
If it is done correctly submitting to directories is a great way to increase your link popularity and drive traffic. Hundreds of one-way, non-reciprocal links to your website help you to attain a better ranking in the search engine results pages. This attracts more potential customers to your site.
Tips on successful directory submissions:
- Established means history: Try and submit to established directories. Usually the older the directory the better, directories that are less than a year old will probably not have the same history and therefore strength with the search engines.
- Speculate a little: Choose paid directories rather than free ones. The links on sites that charge tend to last a lot longer. Many of the free directories disappear or delete links after a year or so. However, free directories with a good history (as mentioned above) should also be submitted to.
- Utilise the long tail: Submit your site to a combination of both niche and general directories. Directories that come up in the first few pages of results for your search terms are usually the best ones to use.
- Vary your creative: Always use unique descriptions on each submission. If you have the same description on all of your directory pages these will be seen as duplicate content by the search engines and your links will get devalued.
- Provide a great navigation: Allow users to easily progress from this page to your end goal – such as an online transaction, a product download, a contact form or a telephone call.
Why not put our tips into action. Start finding and submitting to directories today and you will be well on the way to increasing your search engine rankings.
How to build a functional website
Functionality describes what a website can do; its capabilities, features, tools, etc. A functional website is one that meets the user's needs. This can be through intuitive design or the timely and appropriate provision of tools and features that enhance the user's experience of the website.
The winner of the UKFast Internet Award for website functionality Selesti’s www.holdenmobility.co.uk is a prime example of design that considers the different situations of its users.
Holden Mobility showcases mobility products for disabled drivers and passengers. The products include car conversions and adaptations to accommodate wheelchair users as drivers and passengers.
Not only does the site make the most of highlighting the products through engaging design, it also offers a number of options for disabled users to experience the site without problems.
Selesti’s pointers to enhance functionality:
- Give users the ability to change the text size, colours and contrast of the fonts on the site, this feature helps visually impaired users navigate the site.
- Help users who are unable to use a keyboard or mouse with screen readers which attempt to identify and interpret what is being displayed on the screen.
- Have a clearly defined navigation – a structure with an easy to understand navigation allows users to easily reach all the information of the website.
- Provide prominent links to products, brochure requests or video show-reels so customers are able to take their product enquiry further.
- Use pictures and dynamic content, as well as text descriptions or text only versions.
Your website is most likely to be the first contact that your have with potential customers so it’s important to make sure it's easy to read and use.
So start enhancing your website functionality today and let's keep working to make sure the internet is fully inclusive.
Please get in touch with me if you would like more information on any of the articles mentioned above.
Until next time, I hope 2008 continues to be profitable and I look forward to speaking to you at some point soon.
Best wishes,
Jonathan
For more information on the range of UKFast products and services go to http://www.ukfast.net
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