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July Newsletter
Dear Newsletter Subscriber,
Welcome to the UKFast newsletter!
July is here and the hot summer that we have been waiting for has now finally arrived. The only problem is that the weather forecast suggests it will be over by the weekend! Nether-the-less there has been plenty going on at UKFast to brighten our days.
Our charity work has continued apace, we have welcomed eight new members of staff and launched a brand new website for our partners, and soon-to-be Formula 1 hosts, Donington Park.
In this month's newsletter the Tech Tip promotes the virtues of having a Change Management System in place, while the Marketing Minute examines the benefits to hosting in Britain. And, of course we have the usual round-up of UKFast news.
Finally, a big thank you to everyone who has sent in contributions about our previous newsletters, we eagerly look forward to reading your comments about this edition.
In this month's issue
July@UKFast
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This month UKFast extended its sponsorship of Sale Sharks beyond its usual match day fair to support the players as they supported the Christie's cancer charity. Most of the rugby club's senior players took part in a charity bike ride between Manchester and Blackpool and UKFast sponsored each of them. Alongside the hoards of other fantastic volunteers, the Shark's lads helped to raise hundreds of thousands for the charity.Back at HQ, we welcomed eight new members of staff. The exceptional new employees successfully came through our recent gruelling candidate assessment day and we are delighted that they have joined our high-calibre team.
Five of the new starters have joined our account management team and are already busy contacting clients to review the UKFast experience, discuss how we can improve our service and to introduce you to our hospitality opportunities. At UKFast, we are keen supporters of local sporting and cultural events and we are keen to get all of our clients along to one of our corporate occasions. To get a flavour for the hospitality events we hold check out our latest video taken at the recent British Superbikes round at Oulton Park.
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We would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate our partners at Donington Park for winning the rights to host the Formula 1 British Grand Prix from 2010. With the development Donington is expecting high demand on its website and UKFast is delighted to be supplying the hosting muscle to see the job through.
Finally, a mention for this month's feature video. As you will see, it is an interview with our MD Lawrence Jones from the Internet World Exhibition in May. The interview is the first in a series that we will be showcasing in our newsletter.
Change management and development
One of the main principles of online business is keeping your site's content fresh. To achieve this, in addition to updating content, your developers will want to keep the site's features, design and back end systems fresh.
When you have more than one developer making this happen, tracking and planning changes to your online presence requires organisation. With this in mind, one of the minimum things that an organisation should have in place is a change management system. Such a system details what changes are being made to your solution, what impact this will have on your end users, and also a roll back plan should the worst happen and that 3am upgrade you are performing doesn't quite go to plan.
Essentially, what this all means is that with a change management system in place you will be able to plan upgrades from the ground up.
Furthermore, the process of improving and testing those updates also benefits from having a development and staging environment. This is an important part of any solution which will allow developers an environment away from production to test any updates before applying them to the live environment.
If you would like further information on this subject please feel free to contact the UKFast Communications Team on 0870 421 1585 or stephen.mcnamara@ukfast.net
The best of British hosting
Hundreds of businesses worldwide host their website in Britain. Why? Well we may not be good enough at football to qualify for the Euros or at tennis to produce a Wimbledon winner but we know how to do industry leading internet hosting.
Millions of businesses the world over choose to place hosting in Britain to build their business onto a multinational platform. With one of the fastest networks and a strong consumer tradition, the world is tapping into the best of British hosting. Here are some reasons why British hosting is a key factor in your marketing campaign, whether you're at home or abroad.
- Google will rank a website higher on British-based searches if the hosting is in Britain. For example, a Malaysian trainer company seeking British sales will struggle if it is not hosted in Britain. So if your business is focused on British sales you should not make the mistake of hosting abroad.
- Quick response provides fantastic customer service and keeps visitors coming back, boosting your brand and your profits.
- Website response time also directly affects your place in Google. The faster your site, the higher you rank.
- Britain has an evolved network that is robust and linked by fibre-optic channelling providing a steadfast hosting infrastructure.
Websites - found in translation
We love UK based companies that approach business with a global outlook. As an international marketplace, the internet can be a fantastic leveller and it allows all companies the chance to interact, build relationships and win clients in ways that were never possible before.
One company taking advantage of this is Web247.net. The site which was launched earlier this year has some unique selling points that have helped it to gain popularity very quickly. The company now trades in English and French across Europe, in the US and Australasia.
Targeting clients who have limited resources for self promotion, such as small businesses, sole traders, associations and clubs, Web247.net allows you to get the basics of a personal website built and online within five minutes.
Once you have the rudiments you can then grow your site by adding a further 12 web pages and a 50 page showroom. It's perfect for local societies and other hobbyists looking to get a small resource online with a minimum of fuss. But the clever stuff has not even started yet! Web247.net is the only company in the world to offer an automatic multi-lingual website translation service. This means that you really can reach a global market – almost instantly.
In keeping with their philosophy of convenience, they have made this process incredibly straightforward. You decide which language you want in addition to the original language and the service will show you a list of what needs to be translated. You then use the list to enter translations dynamically. Once you have translated a section, this is removed from the 'to do' list and the process continues until the whole site is covered.
Should you prefer to have this managed by an experienced team, Web247.net has added an extra level to the service and partnered with Europe's leading online translation agency who have access to 14,000 translators. You choose your language, your site is translated and automatically plugged straight back into your website, normally within one day.
There are other great features of the service too, such as reward points that gain you free months in return for successfully recommending the service to others.
To find out more, have a look at their site at www.web247.net.
Please get in touch with us if you would like more information on any of the articles mentioned above.
Until next time, we hope you continue to enjoy the good weather and we look forward to speaking to you at some point soon!
Best wishes,
The UKFast Communications team
For more information on the range of UKFast products and services go to http://www.ukfast.net
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