Posted January 12th, 2009 at 04.45 pm by “Paper Pixels”

A domain name is the web address of your website. All websites must have a domain name before they can go live on the Internet. It is beneficial to choose a domain name that is the same name as your business or gives people an idea of what you sell.com or www.disneycollectables.com. For help on choosing a domain name for your web site see the section ‘An Overview of Domain Names’. Be careful not to break any laws when choosing a domain name. For more information on domain name laws see the section on the next page about domain names.

Posted January 13th, 2009 at 11.00 am by “Paper Pixels”

Internet business & the real world

Getting the right business/company name has never been more important. If you plan to put your business online, with the Internet’s potential for marketing you need to use a name that benefits your longterm business aims.

The name should reflect all that is desired from your customers (within reason, using 200 characters in your name will not work). Remember that your business name will give your customers the first impression of your business - it may draw in potential customers for a closer look or drive them away for good.

Ideally, the name you choose should shout out as much positive information as possible i.e. ‘The Competitive Local Original Groovy 90’s Men’s 24 Hour Continental Clothes Shop’ says it all. Alternatively, such names as ‘Egg’ (bank), and ‘Orange’ (mobile phone) say very little but are backed up with millions of pounds for marketing and are therefore are not recommended!

Let’s start with the basics

Many small businesses choose names that are based on personal preference - this can be mistake number 1. The best option is to choose a name that reflects your long term business strategy. Give a name that immediately indicates what you do or how you do business.

Is The Name Restricted?

‘Groovy 90’s…’ is OK if you only sell clothes from the 1990’s but not if you also sell up to date clothes. It is also advisable to avoid any sign of the times unless you feel that ‘groovy’ will survive without Mike Myers! A name like that above will also restrict you from expanding the business into new
areas (products, etc).

Things to avoid

Initials (i.e. B.A.E.W.R.T.C. Limited) They mean nothing to anyone bar you. Using your own name unless you are a professional (accountant, solicitor) You lose the opportunity to promote your business 24 hours of the day with a good name, and people working for you cringe (sorry to those of you with such names). As to using ‘& Sons’, you will stop the best job seekers from applying if the family appears to be favoured. Clever names such as ‘C U 4 A P @ 1’ (OK not so clever), and ‘4 Business RU’ ask too much of the customer.

Shortlist as many names as possible

Have a pen and paper ready and write down ALL of the names you can think of that might be appropriate for your business. Then start the elimination process
to leave you with, say, 5 names. Before you dismiss names, could they be altered using other ideas you have already come up with to create a worthy name? Once you have a handful of names, present them to friends and family for their opinions - your favourite choice may turn out to be the less favoured and therefore less likely to work.

If you plan to put your business online...

‘Shoes-socks-trousers.com’ will certainly work with search engines for those items, but will not work too well if someone is looking for specific items such as, ‘italian + shoes + london’. Maybe ‘continentalmensware. com’ would work better: this name works well for describing the type of business, it sells a fashionable product and is a pretty good name for printed material, as well as a marketing link on a web site. Visit our article ‘Should I Put My Business
Online?’

Are there any conflicts?

Is the name being used at present anywhere in the world and who has the UK rights to the name: use the Net to search, and in the UK also use Companies House. If the name sounds similar to any other business name change it now before you set out on building your business. What is important is that you do not use an existing or well-known name, whether local or national, in a similar business to your own.

Posted January 14th, 2009 at 10.19 am by “Paper Pixels”

Tags, trademarks and linking, the do’s and don’ts...

What are Meta Tags?

Meta tag information is hidden inside the HTML coding of a web page and is coded specifically to help rank in search engine listings. Meta tag information commonly includes:

• Page title - the title of the page
• Page description - a brief description of the page content
• Keywords - words that are relevant to the page and are key to search engine listings (when searched for)

You can view the meta tags of a web page through your internet browser by clicking ‘View’, then ‘Source’.

Violating the Use of Meta Tags

When inserting Meta tags, make sure that you are only using information and words that are relevant to the page. If you use key words that are trademarks to other companies - although it is not officially illegal - you can be taken to court. For example, if a local food retailer had a web site and they used key words such as ‘Sainsbury’s’, ‘Tesco’, and ‘Safeway’ to take advantage of people searching for those particular companies, it is a direct violation of their trademarks as they have no relevancy to their business. Basically, they are using the success of other companies to make money.

Using Trademarks in Meta Tags Legally

It should be noted that you can use trademarks of other companies if they accurately describe your product. For example an on-line car sales garage can use the words ‘Volkswagen’ and ‘Ford’ if they stock such cars.

Copyright Protection Online

Copyright principles and law are exactly the same on the Internet as they are “offline”. However, because material published on the Internet can be accessed by millions of people world-wide, it is much more common for copyright infringements to occur on the Internet then any other medium.

A Tip to Reduce Online Copyright Violation

By using specific javascript (inserted into the HTML), you can disable the ‘right click’ function on your page(s) therefore preventing users from accessing the ‘copy’ option from the menu.

Reproducing Material from Another Web Site

If you wish to reproduce material from another web site, read their copyright notice (link usually found on their home page) as this will often detail their policy on reproducing their material.
If they do not have a copyright notice you should ask permission before reproducing any material.

Reproducing Other People’s Logos

In general, it is illegal to reproduce other people’s logos - but is it illegal when you reproduce them to benefit the consumer (and not yourself )? For example, you may want to reproduce somebody’s logo with the intention to link to their web site - the familiarity of the logo to consumers will be beneficial. Again - yes it is illegal. However, companies may be more relaxed to giving you permission to use their logo if it is beneficial to them such as for
linking purposes. Even government web sites do not appreciate the reproduction of their
logos (regardless of Crown Copyright) without prior permission - some will not even give you the permission at any expense. This may come as a shock to most people as Government web sites are the result of tax payers. For example, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) state “As a government department we do not allow the use of our logo (for reproduction)…” They believe that the use of the logo will give consumers the false idea that the OFT have examined and approved aspects of the business, as opposed to showing that a business is licensed under the Consumer Credit Act (for their protection).

Can Linking to Web Sites be Illegal?

The Internet would not be the Internet if millions of web pages were not linked together. However, some web publishers see it as an offence if links from third parties by-pass their home page and link directly to a page within their web site (deep linking). The common reason for this is the fact that deep linking by-passes most of their advertising that is located on their home page. In theory, linking is not illegal. However, there have been cases where people have been sued for deep-linking into a web site as opposed to their home page. Such action commonly comes from the larger companies: smaller businesses (with web sites) usually welcome such linking although it is still worthwhile double-checking before you do so (see the next paragraph). It may be seen as a violation (by the web publisher) if your links suggests that you are related to the linking web site or if you use their trademarks as a text link.

Avoid Linking Disputes

If you want to link to another web site, you should look at their policy for linking to them (usually found in their ‘terms and conditions of use’). Many web publishers are happy for you to freely link to their pages where some may set strict rules for linking to their home page only. If the web site does not publish a policy, you should contact them for permission prior to deep linking into their site. You should only link directly to HTML pages and not images, sounds and video. This will give the impression that the material is yours (copyright violation).

Posted January 05th, 2009 at 03.46 pm by “Paper Pixels”

The Page Layout Manager is the heart of any Jigsaw Web System. This module not only allows you to change the layout of a single web page, you can add new pages for your web site or organise your site by adding new folders within which to place new pages, you can also remove old pages that are not used any more.

The numbers of pages that you can create are limited in the Foundation and Transition packages; the Infinite package has no limits, so you can let your imagination get inspired.

Posted January 05th, 2009 at 03.52 pm by “Paper Pixels”

The Jigsaw Web System uses panels of information, either text that place in it, or dynamically generated content, i.e. Photo's entered into the Gallery Module or news posted in the 'Post Centre' as building blocks to construct the page. You can create as many panel as you need, we have removed the limit of 40 panels in this modules. So, the skys the limit.

Once your system is running, you can order more dynamic panels *Free of Charge, as most basic, intermediate and advanced Modules come with a small section of useful panel's already made.

Posted January 05th, 2009 at 04.02 pm by “Paper Pixels”

If you need a little extra communication with your online customers, or runner a small sampler of market research, the contact creator is just the ticket. With up to six enquiries plus 'Name' and 'Email’ fields, you can gather information safely by means of a humanity checker that you can turn off, this is not recommended though, due to the issue of spamming.

With the Contact Creator can direct information to almost any email address, helping you to spread the workload, and manager the contacts with a professional approach.

Posted January 05th, 2009 at 04.04 pm by “Paper Pixels”

Most effective web sites use images (Photos, Graphic) to 'Speak a Thousand Words', so Organizing them is almost as important as the text on the page, as they're normally the first thing visitors see. Experience tells us that when people upload images to web systems, the image is too large for the page or place, with the organizer you can rename, re size, copy & delete your images. As large images take longer to appear when the page loads, correctly sizing them will help visitors find the way around your web site.

Posted January 05th, 2009 at 04.07 pm by “Paper Pixels”

The Gallery Module is just that. If you need to place photo's or photo diaries, case studies or product development on you web site, the Gallery Module is just the tool for the job. No matter what the size of image, from small camera photos, to professional digital SLR cameras, you can upload your image to the gallery, give it a name or title, and that's it. Also, you get 4 different panels included with this module, expanding your systems capabilities, and feeding the needs of your audience, and the image search engines.

Posted January 05th, 2009 at 04.09 pm by “Paper Pixels”

Creating sharable content so that customers and visitors to your web site can interact with you and your businessis one of the best ways of encouraging people to return, time and time again. You could, with permission, upload suppliers catalogues to show visitors products you work with. With the Download Managery ou can upload files like PDF, office and compressed (ZIP) files to your site, using the Panel Manager to generate links to the files, and start the sharing.

Posted January 05th, 2009 at 04.16 pm by “Paper Pixels”

If you haven't enough time to manage your web site, the 'User Module' can help you by letting others in your business manage and update the web site for you. You can allow access to specific areas in the web system,and give them particular tasks, whether that by creating new pages & panel, just updating them or even page management. With these three 'Permissions', Create, Update or Delete, you can ease the pressure of managing the information on your site, keeping people up to date with the latest from your business.

Posted January 05th, 2009 at 04.17 pm by “Paper Pixels”

In most businesses, information is the key to success, and your customers need to be kept informed. The 'Post Centre' maybe the key to help you beat the competition. This is the largest module we currently create. It comes with 8 to 12 dynamic panels, and its own internal search engine. Managing information, creating a production blog, manufacturing case studies and just the basic day-today news can all help you with that all important search placement that every business needs to survive. Getting the message out!

Posted January 12th, 2009 at 04.21 pm by “Paper Pixels”

This entry-level package is ideal for start-up businesses with a low budget or any business that needs a low cost brochure web site to enhance the profile of new products and services on the web.

What you get:

Posted January 12th, 2009 at 04.25 pm by “Paper Pixels”

The Transition is basically our mid-range Jigsaw ws™ package aimed at businesses that have either out grown their existing web site, or, those who just want a little bit more room to stretch their web legs. As with all the Jigsaw ws™ Packages you get 12months access to the new client area within the Paper Pixels web site.

Posted January 14th, 2009 at 04.27 pm by “Paper Pixels”

Infinite is just that, no limits on the amount of pages and folders on your site, the only limits you have to deal with is imagination. Because of this, we've doubled the amount of webspace, and increased the amount of email accounts as well. A Free 'Contact Creator' Module comes with this package, saving you up to £100.