Blogging is a simple and easy way of broadcasting information to the world via your website which people can aldo subscribe to. With the click of a button your content can be sent out to individuals and other websites instantly. This presents a unique opportunity to engage with your clients, keeping them informed and even entertained whilst building your company image at the same time.

Open a dialogue

Your blog also allows you to have a dialogue with your clients by offering the facility for site visitors to leave comments and responses to your articles; offering a more personal interaction with them. Think carefully about whether you want to enable this feature, it can take a lot of time to check all comments or just allowing all comments to get posted could open the door for some unflattering content.

Improve Search Engine Ranking

Blogs are also a great way to improve your search engine rankings due to the fact they constantly add new content to your site and generate inbound links from other websites. By pulling the latest blog post back onto your home page it ensures Google and other search engines see a different home page each time they visit which means it is regularly updated and growing in size which Google loves.

This all sounds great but should every business have a blog?

No. When done well blogging is an excellent marketing tool. When done badly (which it often is) it can be a disaster for your company image. To blog successfully you need the following skills:

1. Great content. Make sure you have enough to say and that it is relevant and of value to your clients.
2. Good writing skills. Although blogs are an informal way of writing you still need to be able to write short engaging content that is easy to read.
3. Time. Time to research and write articles and manage responses.

If you are thinking of setting up a company blog give us a call, we can advise you on the right approach for your needs and get you up and running with a professional, easy to use solution.

This one has a distinctly sydney surf theme so we hope you enjoy. Remember to subscribe to get the latest updates!

Download your size:

	Manly Sunrise 800 x 600 1024 x 768
	Point Break 800 x 600 1024 x 768
	Sydney Skyline 800 x 600 1024 x 768

Enjoy!

80% of companies are now using the site LinkedIn as their main source to find new employees

YouTube is now the second largest search engine in the world

There are more than 200 million blogs in existence

Social media has overtaken porn as the number one activity on the web

If Facebook were a country it would be the fourth largest in the world

There are many more statistics and interesting facts in the video below.

Social media is here to stay, are you getting involved? Contact us to find out how we can help you.

This browser was launched in 2001, that’s 8 years ago. In internet terms that’s the equivalent of 32 years! (given the rate at which the internet evolves).

Most people upgrade or change their computer every 2-3 years so why are so many people still using IE6?

A lot of it has to do with people working in corporate environments, where they have internal systems that ONLY work with IE6. Corporates are reluctant to invest in upgrading their systems to allow an upgrade in the browser. As far as they are concerned it works for business critical systems so who really cares if it does not work with Facebook or Twitter (which they most likely block anyway).

Secondly, fear is an issue. Some people are comfortable with what they already have and as long as developers keep making sites that work with IE6 there is no real need to upgrade. Upgrading can seem scary and confusing and having your comfortable program change can be perceived as a challenge.

As website developers we spend a huge amount of extra time making websites work in IE6. It requires carfeul testing and fixing of the issues ans bugs the program has to make it look and work correctly. It’s hard to explain this to a client and justify the expense as well. In my view achieving pixel perfection is pointless, so long as the user experience is comparable I think this is acceptable.

BUT there is hope on the horizon, for a while now some reasonably large sites have started dropping support for IE6. The reasons stated are the difficulty /cost in supporting the browser and the fact it limits the functionality they can provide. Modern browsers (IE8 included) are far superior in terms of security, capability and performance when compared with IE6.

Add to this the news this week that the popular news site Digg is considering dropping support for IE6 and YouTube showing an “We will be phasing out support for your browser soon’ message. While these sites have relatively small percentages of IE6 users (primarily due to corporates tending to block these types of sites) this is still potentially ignoring 1 in 10 visitors (for Digg).

I think this is a good sign, it may not have much impact on the corporates but it starts to send out a message in general that this browser is becoming no longer viable. Let’s hope that someday we can say goodbye to IE6.

So are you still using IE6? Want to change? OK check out the links below for some other great browsers:

Firefox – My personal favourite, fast, reliable and packed full of features. You can also install a massive range of plugins to provide additional functionality

http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/firefox/

Google Chrome – new kid on the block from the mighty Google. Seriously fast and being developed all the time.

http://www.google.com/chrome

Opera – not many people have heard of this browser but its been around a long time gets regularly updates is super fast and secure

http://www.opera.com/browser/next/

Internet Explorer 8 – Microsoft completely revamped this version to make it faster and more secure. Have to say they did a pretty good job of it.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/default.aspx

To start off with the guys over at Rocketboom have created one of the best overviews of Twitter and what it means in terms of the overall Internet landscape. Check it out and then come back for an explanation of how to use Twitter and then Twitter for business.

A potential 30% tax deduction is available on the cost of a new website paid for before June 30th 2009!

We have it on advice from the Australian Taxation Office, that if you purchase a new website before 30th June 2009, you may be eligible for a 30% tax deduction on its cost in addition to any other tax deductions available.

What does this mean to me?

If you purchased a new website from Flow today which included:

* Unique custom design based on your business goals
* Carefully crafted content
* Search engine optimisation
* Content Management System
* Guaranteed listing in Google
* For the investment of just $4000

You could save $1200!

That’s right a $1200 saving that helps your business grow, helps you earn more money and all for the average cost of just $2800!

But hurry this incentive is only available to those who pay for their website before June 30th 2009, there can be up to a 6 week lead time to design and develop a website so time is running out.

Also be aware that this incentive applies to capital investment for business. So you could buy a new computer or other asset and potentially receive the same tax relief!

Please note: This article is not intended as financial advice and you should always check with your accountant or financial advisor to ensure this applies to you before investing any money.

A very nicely designed presentation. Check it out below:

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It is the practice of making your website position well in search results.

Current statistics suggest that over 70% of people use a search engine to find what they are looking, so it is important your site is well positioned for your chosen search terms.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the practice of “optimising” your website for maximum search engine “visibility”. The more visible your site is to a search engine the better it can understand the subject of the site and find all the other pages on your site.

Search is fast becoming one of the most important factors in terms of people finding your website. If you do not perform even basic search engine optimisation you are missing out on potential business. ANY decent web company that builds a site for you should incorporate this into your new site.

So how does it all work then?

Search engines like Google use a “spider” program which is a small program that visits your site and scans the page for all the text and links on that page. It then uses this information to form a picture of what this page is about and then follows links to other pages on your site.

By having well written code and well structured pages it makes it easy for the spider to understand the page. Have a badly coded page and no structure the spider will struggle to understand what the page is about and how all the content relates to itself.

The practice of search engine optimisation looks at what “keywords” or “phrases” you want the site to position well in a search engine for. These words and phrases are then carefully integrated into your site code and content ensuring that when the “spider” comes to your page it finds lots of relevant content and information relating to these words and phrases. That way when someone types in a search term it should match your site content very well.

There is also a lot of work that needs to be done outside of your website to ensure you it positions well in terms of links from other websites pointing to yours.

There are a few simple things you can check to help your search position:

Page Title

Your page title (the words that appear at the top of the browser window) probably has the biggest impact. Your key search term should be included near the front of your title. Keep it short and relevant.

Page Structure

Ensure your pages use a logical heading structure. Try to include a heading 1 (H1) tag at the top of the page and ensure this is descriptive and contains relevant keywords.

Content

As they say content is king. Your page content must be relevant to the search term and contain the search term in the right “density” in relation to the rest of the text.

Links

Links from other websites are very important. Try to obtain one way links from other websites with relevant content. Try to ensure the link text includes your key search terms.

These are simple things you can check to perform some basic SEO. To position well for very generic or competitive phrases you will need to enlist the help of a professional. Be wary of anyone offering guaranteed first place positions, choose with care and ask to see specific examples of other work before handing over your hard earned cash.

Hopefully this will be the first of many sets so subscribe to the blog to be notified of new sets.

This is Volume 1 of many sets of desktop wallpapers coming your way over the next few months. Here at Flow we love taking photos of awesome things and having this as inspirational desktop wallpapers really helps to get those creative juices flowing.

Why not subscribe to this blog to be automatically notified when new wallpapers are added?

Download your size:

	Golden Surfer 800 x 600 1024 x 768
	Beach Shore 800 x 600 1024 x 768
	Bluebell Wood 800 x 600 1024 x 768
	Hawkesbury Sunset 800 x 600 1024 x 768

Enjoy!

It’s long overdue for us to launch our own blog and use it as a space to provide you with lots of interesting and unusual things.

We are looking at providing you with:

• Articles
• Tips and tricks
• Free stuff
• Geeky Stuff
• Things we find funny
• Things we find interesting
• Photography
• and general musings about the world of technology and the internet

We hope you find it interesting, leave us a comment and let us know what you think. Don’t forget to subscribe to receive updates of new goodness as we add it.