About USdigital

USdigital has launched a website for North West housebuilder, Chelford Homes . Chelford Homes are currently building new homes in Bispham, St Helens, Blackpool, Bury and Preston.The new website showcases all of these developments along with available properties, housetypes, prices, and opening times.The website features a content management system enabling Chelford Homes to update all website pages and manage all property listings in house.If you are looking for a new property or housebuilder website please contact Ryder Sugden at USdigital.

Unsworth Sugden’s advertising division and digital marketing division, US Digital, have combined their specialities to great effect for the Woodland Trust. Their knowledge of advertising and the importance of utilising a strong online presence has allowed the Woodland Trust to find the right candidates for numerous positions.

Thanks to an effective combination of print, website design and website development, the Woodland Trust was inundated with strong, high quality applicants. This proves the internet has not yet completely outdated print and that the qualities of both can be used to great affect.

The importance of effective marketing and PR has never been so apparent. Take the recent election for example. Much has been made of forgotten microphones, misplaced statements, media appearances and if the formation of a coalition government will be accepted.

What is clear is the power of our, the public’s, perceptions. Reputation management, whether it be how you market services or products, present your current affairs and the way in which you recruit and expand is crucial for success especially in such a tough economic environment.

One slip, even of the tongue, could be very costly!

Designers have known about it for some time now. Developer’s have known about it for years.

Internet Explorer 6 - still one of the world’s most popular browsers - continues to cause web design headaches nearly a decade after it was released, and remains the bane of a developer’s bug-fixing workload, and hindrance to a designer’s creativity.

Sluggish, with broken implementation of standards, lacking advanced CSS support, no PNG alpha-transparencies… the list is long, and the list is painful. Over the years as a developer I have learnt the hard way the tricks and hacks required to get Microsoft’s ageing browser to play nicely, to the point where (in the most part) IE6 bug-fixing is no longer as confusing and daunting as it once was.

But in 2009, with a wealth of better, alternative browsers available (not to mention Microsoft’s own IE7 and now the new IE8), an almost vigilante attitude has appeared, as a whole new anti-IE6 movement is steadily gaining steam.

These designers and developers are essentially saying “That’s it. Enough is enough“. To them, there is no excuse for this lame browser to have such prevail, and to continue to hold power such that it does, slowing and hindering web design and development. Their reasoning, of course, has several points that are hard to disagree with.

My own point of view on this isn’t quite so straight forward, though. Yes, it would be lovely if tomorrow everyone stopped using IE6, and the benefits for developers and clients would be seen almost instantly (you’d be surprised how much influence Microsoft products have on the limits of how certain aspects of a website have to be designed). But it’s nieve to assume people willingly choose this browser over others - they often don’t, or simply don’t have access to anything else.

As someone who believes passionately in accessibility and a positive online experience for all who use it, I feel it a priority to serve content to as many people as possible, and that means I will continue to optimise websites for IE6 as best as I can, for the foreseeable future, however frustrating that is. At the end of the day, the bottom line should not be the browser: but the user.

What the down-with-IE groups are doing that is positive is raising awareness. It’s already getting exposure, in magazines and other mainstream outlets. And that’s a really good thing. IE6’s days are numbered, that seems for certain, and that’s something I think we can all look forward to, as clients, designers, developers and forward-thinking web people.

What’s your browser of choice, and how did you come to choose it?

USdigital has launched a new website for the UK’s leading hardwood bus shelter manufacturer, Littlethorpe.  The stylish and individual looking site targets district, county, and parish councils throughout the UK.

As well as showcasing Littlethorpe’s impressive products.  The website explains some of today’s important environmental issues surrounding the world’s forests, and the importance of the preservation to the world’s climate!

The new website can be found at www.bus-shelters.co.uk - why not take a peak?

Apparently, today is set to be the busiest day of the entire year for shopping online!

An estimated £320million is going to pour out of the nation’s pockets today alone, typically people hoping to receive Aunt Hilda’s crochet patterns book before the big day.

Online retailer play.com is predicting a 25% rise in sales compared to the same time last year. Good news for e-commerce retailers in these uncertain times!

Reports also suggest that more people will be doing their Christmas shopping at their desks whilst still at work; now that’s what i call multitasking. Just be careful not to add that to your work timesheet.

Web design is crucial; no one wants a 2nd rate, pedestrian looking website.  However, there is little point in having an all singing, all dancing website if no one is accessing it.

Without a method of directing traffic to your site, it will achieve nothing.  No matter how informative the website is, or how great the design looks, your website will be unlikely to generate new business or sales enquiries.
Website Traffic can be generated in 6 main ways:

1.  Search Engine Optimisation
2.  Online advertising
3.  Press Advertising and PR stories
4.  Pay per Click Advertising
5.  Email Marketing
6.  Internet Users directly accessing your website

Search Engine Optimisation is considered by many as the most important method in getting traffic to your website.  To maintain an effective SEO strategy, it must be performed on an ongoing basis.
While press advertising is seeing a decline, online advertising is proving more popular.  Web banners and skyscrapers are important digital marketing tools in getting the internet user to jump onto your website.
If you are looking to get your website onto the first page of Google and generate instant traffic to your site then Pay Per Click Advertising is often a good answer- however this can prove expensive in the long run!
Email marketing is good at getting repeat visitors to your website. 

Emailing your database and directing people onto your website from their inbox, often through special promotions is an excellent way of generating site traffic.

Remember people won’t just stumble across your website.  You must actively market it.

Web Design is important.  But so is website traffic!!!