What is the EU Cookie Law?

In May of last year, a new EU regulation came into force which specified that websites must ask their visitors for permission before storing pieces of information called cookies on their computers.

What are Cookies?

Cookies are small text files that web browsers can save on a user’s computer. They’re typically used to identify a particular visitor in order to provide them with a more-personalised experience, and are a crucial part of many of website functions which we take for granted.

For example, it’s usually cookies which allow an online shop to remember the items that you have in your shopping cart. They’re also used to remember you on a website so that you don’t have to login again every time you visit, or to provide valuable usage statistics and information to website owners.

If you run a website, it almost certainly uses cookies. Most likely, you’re already using them to monitor visitor numbers and behaviours through tools such as Google Analytics. They may also be used to display relevant adverts to visitors, or, if you sell online, to power key parts of your online shopping system.

What the EU Cookie Law Says

In short, the new rules require websites to get permission from visitors before placing any cookies on their computer. It states that permission must be informed and overt, which means you have to ask your visitors outright if you can put cookies on their computer, and explain clearly what the cookies are used for. You can’t just bury the information in your website’s terms and conditions and leave it at that.

The only exceptions to this rule are cookies deemed essential to providing functions visitors have asked for. But you can’t rely on this to cover many of your cookies, and it’s certainly not likely to cover cookies for analytics purposes, which is one of the most common uses of cookies – particularly for smaller websites.

You can download the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) guidance on the rules here.

Implementing the EU Cookie Law

Although the EU cookie law came in last year, the ICO decided to give websites a year to implement the rules. The deadline was 26 May 2012, after which, websites that don’t comply with the law could be fined up to £500,000.

Even with the May deadline fast approaching, hardly any websites have done anything obvious to comply with the cookie law. As you’d expect, the ICO website (http://www.ico.org.uk/) has an opt-in message at the top of every page. And BT (http://www.bt.com) has begun displaying a message to explain a bit more about its cookies, although it’s debatable whether this is a proper opt-in.

Although there’s still a fair amount of uncertainty around the new law, it’s fair to say that doing nothing is not a good option. In the long-term, people’s attitudes and understanding of cookies may change, and web browsers may include settings to help provide a consistent opt-in. But for now the onus of complying with the law falls very much on individual website operators.

It’s looking very unlikely that many websites will have implemented a cookie opt-in by 26 May. But the ICO – which is responsible for enforcing the rules – has suggested that the most important thing is to take steps in the right direction. If you can show you’re moving towards full compliance then you’re unlikely to be targeted.

As a bare minimum, it’s important to have an understanding of what cookies your website uses and plan how you might implement an opt-in.

How We Can Help

We are able to make your existing website compliant with the EU cookie law for a relatively small cost, ensuring that you meet the new regulations and don’t have to worry about the possibility of receiving a hefty fine from the ICO for non-compliance.

We do this using a tried-and-tested system that requests visitor permission in a tidy and unobtrusive way, either site-wide or just on necessary pages. Messages can be styled to integrate cleanly with your site, helping enforce user confidence and maintaining a seamless user experience for your visitors.

If you’d like to speak to one of our experienced web team about how we can help make your site compliant, then please don’t hesitate to give us a call today on 01252 376116, or drop us a mail on info@deucecreative.co.uk.

And if you’re not sure whether your site uses cookies or not, we’re happy to carry out a free-of-charge audit of your site for you, and e-mail you the results.

The process of web design is often discussed and focused on, but without the initial planning, a website’s best intentions can be ruined. The planning stage of a website comes before the design process, and without it the direction of the website can take many unnecessary turns which could increase costs dramatically.

Planning and preparation are key to a successful website, so in this blog post we’ll go through our four key stages of planning.

1. Listen

First and foremost, we listen carefully to your brief, thoughts and ideas, in order to work out exactly what you’re looking to achieve. We prompt the discussion with such questions as ‘what is your website for?’ – an obvious question to ask, but without a good outline from the start, the rest of the planning will be made much harder.

Your site’s purpose could be to inform or to entertain, to be product-based and primarily focused on e-commerce or to raise awareness of an issue or business. It may well be a combination of these, so the aim is to gain a solid understanding of the purposes in order to build a foundation for the website.

2. Identify

Identifying your target audience can involve considerable research, such as assessing target markets or examining competitors websites to see what approach they have taken. Asking yourself relevant questions will help, such as: Who am I aiming at? (will they be contractors or other businesses, customers or perhaps volunteers?). What age are they likely to be? What will they be using my website for?

Time spent researching can help everyone involved gain a better insight into the kind of information that will need to be included, and the order of importance.

3. Evaluate

Once we’ve identified the content that we need to present and who it’s aimed at, we then use wireframes to plan how we’re going to structure that information.

We believe that wireframes are vital to the success of any web project. Wireframes are used as a template to show the basic content layout and priority of information that best supports the website’s business objectives. Wireframes don’t usually contain graphical elements, just placeholders for the final text and images.

4. Research

Finally, we start researching the best ways of achieving your goals.  This could range from which technologies to use, to whether you’ll need a mobile-optimised version of the site. Thorough research at this stage will ensure that your site is future-proof and can grow with the needs of your business.

If you have a project in mind but you’re not quite sure where to start, we’ve produced a project planner document which can be downloaded here. This will help you to start thinking about what you’re looking to achieve, and we’re always happy to meet with you and offer our expertise to help you get where you need to be.

Got a project in mind? Talk to us.

With new ways of communicating virtually emerging all the time, face-to-face meetings could one day become a thing of the past. Here at Deuce we firmly believe that meeting the traditional way is still the best way to communicate.

Being there in person lets you know we take your business needs with the utmost importance. It allows you as the client to better communicate your goals, and us to listen and interpret your needs correctly.

We think that our surroundings will also help you get a real sense of who we are and how we tick. All of which will help us deliver a better end result and build a strong long-term partnership.

We look forward to meeting you!

We’re proud to introduce our newest member of the team, Claudia Forsbrey.

Claudia joined the Deuce team in February and has been working hard as our Studio Assistant ever since. Claudia graduated from the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham with a degree in Fine Art. Since then, she’s gained experience in a variety of industry sectors, from fashion to interior design, prop and display studios, and photography. She is also a visual artist and a member of the London arts collective Lazy Gramophone. Claudia has freelance illustrated for magazines, jewellery designers, bands, and displayed work at the Latitude Festival.

In her spare time she loves to cook, practice yoga and browse vintage shops.

If you call the studio it’s highly likely that you’ll be greeted by her on the phone, so be sure to say hello!

Here at Deuce, we like to get things right first time.

When we start any large web project, we provide our clients with a Project Initiation Document (PID). The PID begins life as a working document, and in it’s final form will provide a client-approved outline of the project plan, technical specification, feature requirements and creative brief. Once the client is happy, and we’re happy, then the wireframing process begins.

We believe that wireframes are vital to the success of any web project. Wireframes are created before any design work begins, and are used as a template to show the client the basic content layout and priority of information that best supports the website’s business objectives. Wireframes don’t usually contain graphical elements, just placeholders for the final text and images.

It is much easier to make changes to wireframes before starting the actual user interface design, thus they provide an effective way to communicate the different user flows and page layouts before concentrating on the actual appearance of the site. Wireframe planning is integral to any successful web project, and guarantees that we have the right foundation on which to build your design.

As well as being great for the client, wireframes are also a major source of input for the creative team. They provide the designers with the basic content layout requirements, and provide specific detailed functional requirements to the developers.

We believe that the progression of the wireframing process is an invaluable way of getting things right first time, helping to produce a user-friendly, captivating and effective website for the client.

We’ve had several clients ask us if we know of a free alternative software package to Photoshop that would give them the ability to resize and edit photos for use on the websites that we’ve built for them. With this in mind, we thought it may be helpful if we compiled a shortlist of the some of the best free online and downloadable applications that we could find.

1. Gimphoto and GIMP are both downloadable image manipulation programs which allow you to edit composition, re-size or re-touch any photos. The interface is much like Photoshop and very user-friendly.

2. Photoshop Express is a free online basic version of Photoshop offered by Adobe. This version lets you edit your photos, re-size, crop and rotate, reduce red-eye and saturation, adjust white balance, fill light and much more. A great choice for basic photo editing and quick touch-ups.

3. Splashup is a free online photo editing tool that supports layers, filters, brushes, text editing, blend modes and much more. Import multiple photos straight from your desktop, and also from services such as Facebook, Flickr and Picasa.

4. Pixlr is a free web application photo editing tool, no sign-up required. You can start editing images in seconds.

5. Photo Plus (starter edition) is a downloadable photo editing software package that allows you to fix and enhance digital photos. Although not as powerful as Photoshop, if you only have basic needs, it’s perfect.

However, we understand that you’re probably busy running your business and don’t have the time to learn yet another software package – hence we’re always on hand to help. Please feel free to contact us with your image editing requirements and we’ll be happy to offer our services.

The aim of Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO for short, is to drive more visitors to a website by increasing it’s page ranking within the search engines. Simply put, the ultimate goal of SEO is to get, and to keep, a website at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs), as that is where it will receive the most amount of clicks.

SEO is a part of a broader term called SEM, Search Engine Marketing, which encompasses the practices of link building, social media, Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, usability analysis and of course SEO.  There are two key ways of encouraging search engines to prioritise the importance of your website. The first is through Pay Per Click advertising, which involves bidding on keyword phrases relevant to your target market. An example of this would be Google’s AdWords system. PPC experts place bids to be shown when a specific keyword is searched for, and the highest bidders get their sites shown first within the highlighted sponsored ads sections, when the keyword is searched.

However, it is usually more favoured to receive high rankings within the search engines’ organic listings, without having to rely on PPC. Search engines use automated programs, or ‘bots’, to scan websites and collect vital information as to what they think the site is about. This information is then used to enable the search engines to decide which websites should be displayed for the term the user has searched for. Optimising your site for these bots is the primary purpose of search engine optimisation, although there are many more methods that the search engines use to measure a website’s relevance and authority, and a correctly-executed SEO strategy should cover as many of these as possible.

In summary, SEO is a vital marketing tool for your website, and should never be overlooked. It can build brand awareness and place your website above those of your competitors. It can generate traffic from targeted audiences in a cost-effective way, which in-turn helps optimise the website further in the eyes of the search engines – giving you a great return on your investment.

In our experience, a great-looking and user friendly website is nothing if nobody can find it. If you need any advice or further information on how we can help your website gain the exposure it deserves, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Inspired Magazine recently published an interesting article on how having a Google+ page for your business can help you reach more clients.  In summary:

1. It allows to engage with your target audience
2. You can share more in-depth content – posts can be of any length, and include videos, audio etc.
3. Google+ ‘circles’ allow you to share specific information with relevant people
4. It provides a professional and business-like environment
5. Your work and business can be showcased to a greater extent
6. It helps you to be found more easily in the search engines – SEO is greatly enhanced by your Google+ page

You can follow us on Google+ here.

For more more information on how we can help market your business online, please contact us.

In our last blog post we introduced you to the latest social phenomenon, Pinterest.

Now, here’s our top-10 tips for becoming a Pinterest expert…

The Fundamentals

Always have your business name shown on your profile – not only to maximise exposure, but also to secure your identity. Next, add a paragraph in the “About” section about who you are and what you’re interested in – this is displayed under your photo and will let users find out more about you. Last but not least, don’t forget to add your website URL in your profile!

1. Pin lots, but pin steady. Don’t suddenly pin in bulk – pinning steadily will maximise your exposure and engagement, without looking spammy.
2. Use creative and interesting names for your pin boards. Keep them short and enticing, as they’ll get shared all over Pinterest.
3. Pin from lots of different sources, not just from one or two sites. The more the merrier!
4. Tag other Pinterest users in your pins by using “@username” in your descriptions. This lets you network with other professionals and traders in your field, and it’s a great way to build your following and stand out.
5. “Like” other people’s pins. Liking is comparable to giving a thumbs-up to great content.
6. Comment on other people’s pins. Do this regularly to really engage with other users.
7. Share your pins on social media sites, using the Pinterest browser bookmarklet with its built-in social media tools. You can also publish pins as content in your blog posts and website pages, by using Pinterest’s embed option.
8. Utilise imagery in your website content as much as possible, as doing so will optimise your web content for Pinterest sharing. To help your image stand out, try watermarking the image with your business name or logo. Also add a clear description of the image itself.
9. Create seasonal and holiday-related boards, as this is a great way to connect with your audience and potential customers.
10. Add a ‘Follow Me on Pinterest’ button on your website to promote and drive traffic to your pins!

If you’d like to find out how you can add Pinterest to your marketing efforts, get in touch today.

Avid interest in Pinterest is growing by the day, but why?

This blog post aims to cover what Pinterest is and how it can be beneficial to businesses, and which kinds of businesses can benefit the most.

So, what’s Pinterest all about?

Well, Pinterest is an online pinboard or mood board, which allows users to categorise photos or images into collections. The images or photos can be ‘pinned’ from a website or uploaded, and the latest uploads are displayed on the site’s homepage in chronological order. Pinterest is similar to Tumblr or Twitter in that users can ‘follow’ other users. The pins can be commented on and are always linked back to the sites from which they originated.

The difference is that Pinterest, unlike Twitter, is purely photo-based. Every pin is a photo or image, and instead of Tumblr, where you can only post one photo at a time, Pinterest ‘pins’ are selected and sorted by their pinners into categorised boards filled with related items or concepts.

How can Pinterest benefit your business?

A recent report has shown that Pinterest is growing fast, with traffic increasing by 40 times in the past six months (as of December 22, 2011). It drives more referral traffic than Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube combined, and is growing as quickly as Facebook did back in 2005.

Traffic referral is great for businesses as it helps gain exposure to potential new customers and audiences, and because of its high traffic referral percentage this is also great for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).

It has also been cited that 58% of it’s regular users are female and 59% are between the ages of 25 and 44. This makes Pinterest the ideal digital platform for businesses that tailor to this market. Moreover, users outside of these demographics can still be seen as active users on the site.

Companies have recognised the potential Pinterest has to gain exposure to customers and target audiences. Although Pinterest is currently an invite-only website, this has not deterred companies from signing up and contributing their product ideas and inspiration boards for their followers.

Before any business can capitalise from Pinterest, it is essential to identify the customer base from which their revenue is being generated.

What kind of companies can benefit from Pinterest?

Any visual-based company can benefit from Pinterest, in particular art galleries, photographers, graphic designers, web designers and product designers.

Pinterest can also be beneficial for e-commerce websites offering visually-appealing products online, such as fashion, accessories, food, home décor etc.

Alongside pinning their own products and services, companies can also pin relevant links and images that correspond with the business’ brand or products. In doing so, this helps the company to be seen to be engaging with their customers interests and likes.

In fact, almost any business can find a way to use Pinterest to connect with their current and potential consumer base, by using visual content to link to their services, products and industry-related content.

In summary, Pinterest can be a highly-effective marketing tool for reaching both existing and new audiences, and is rapidly becoming the next big thing in social media.

For other ways and ideas to gain exposure for your business, please get in touch.