28 July 2010

Office to Rent @ Spiral

We have an office to rent that includes broadband internet access.

Pass it on to friends and family.

Archive your Newsletter

If you are sending email newsletters, like this one and you are not archiving them onto your website - contact us to learn how to add them to your site or get us to do it for you.

Google Tip #8 - Just ask!

Asking around on how people use Google it seems the two key things are

1. Use Google. Its the best search engine at returning relevant results, for New Zealanders.

2. Phrase your question as a question and let Google do the hard work for you e.g.
What's the time in Toronto? or
Where can I buy cheese?

Spiral Software

 We develop software for the web that is designed for marketing professionals and SME owners to use. Software that can

- update your website

- send email newsletters

- manage your database

- provide secure,  private membership spaces

Our software is designed & built to run in the cloud (on the web) and that means there's no software to install.

Please pass the cloud computing message on to anyone you think could benefit from our services.

Follow us on Twitter

Talk to us on Twitter - tell us stuff and follow what's happening.

Clients following us on Twitter will go into the book draw this month.

My favourite Twitter site this month ...

In Uniform

For people that work in  a uniform - this organisation saves them heaps of money. Membership is growing every week and they do a great job of tweeting news about suppliers.

Shameless plug for one of our clients!

Pass it on

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Hi

This month we have a prize draw of a book to kick-start your online marketing.

The last few days have been busy ones as we all got familiar with our new iPad. We've been checking all your websites on the iPad and they look great.

I've just finished the course outline for a new workshop I will be running in conjunction with the Hutt Chamber of Commerce, in September. This comes hot on the heels of the Web Panel I was part of last month and will address some of the more detailed questions we received on the day but I didn't have to answer fully.

Lastly, we are renting out "The Pod" - this office was to be a break-out or ideas room but we are just not using it enough (we generate our ideas anywhere!). So I thought we might be able to help someone out who is looking for a central office with little or no setup costs. If you, or your family and friends are considering a small office, then call me to come take a look.

Happy reading,

A poor quality website will cost you dearly

The quality of your website, on a whole bunch of levels, effects not only people (your customers) looking at your website but also it has an effect on how Google rates your website.  I discovered this month that Google likes websites hosted on faster servers better than slower servers and I am investigating what this means in terms of your listing on Google. Meanwhile we know that quality makes a difference to people.

Take a peep at what we look for during our QA process.

Future proofing your website

I have put a lot of thought into how we future proof your website so it looks good and works in years to come with browsers that we don't know about and which have not been released yet.

One of the keys to future-proofing is to develop code that meets the W3C standards. We also do extensive testing. Read more about how we test your website  »

Prize Draw - A Crash Course in Online Marketing

This practical book is our prize draw for the month.

We can build you the most technically perfect website and the most practical software possible with today's technology but we don't do the marketing for you. If you have a website and want to promote it but are not sure where to start , this book will show you how to reach customers through other online media.

To enter the draw for the book send me a story about an online success or frustration you have.

Send to audrey@spiral.co.nz

How one of our customers nearly lost their domain!

There are lots of ways to register your domain name. One of our ecommerce clients had registered with one of the more well known domain providers but when it came around to renewal time, the annual reminder got lost, the domain name expired and was returned to the pool. Luckily it was spotted and we were able to do something about it before someone else purchased it. Phew!

You can prevent this happening by having us manage your domains for you. We manage domain names for over 80% of our clients and offer a reliable service for renewals. Read more and check for available domains, on our website,  Read more »

HTML 101 Course - Look out for it!

Some people using content management software (CMS) to update their website graduate past the usual activities on their page and start extending themselves and the software. Our software, Nautilus, allows for this with a "source" button which allows you to tweak the HTML code "under the hood".

Of course tweaking the code without any training can lead to all kinds of issues and frustrations. To help with this I am running a workshop in September, in association with the Hutt Chamber of Commerce. You might want to look out for it if you are getting interested in HTML tweaking!

Nautilus Note

If you want another copy of the Nautilus manual or a refresher training session, contact Maxine on 586 2686 or maxine@spiral.co.nz.

You can also download the Nautilus Manual from our website.

The web is an increasingly complex place, both the manual and the training in our office are free as part of our commitment to make the web a simpler place for you.

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