One of the most annoying things when you have a website is that you think you have just received a new lead and a chance to sell and it turns out to be spam! Someone asking you to buy some search engine optimisation (SEO) service in Bulgaria or something (you would of course only use James Blake Internet!!!)

One of the easiest way to stop this is to use a CAPTCHA on your website. This is where you go to register on someone’s website and they ask you to copy the letters and numbers before you press submit. Can be annoying for the user but very important as it shows the company that a human and not a computer actually entered the details and the lead is likely (hopefully) to be genuine.

CAPTCHA is a program that protects websites against bots by generating and grading tests that humans can pass but current computer programs cannot. For example, humans can read distorted text but most computer programs can’t:

The term CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart) was coined in 2000 by Luis von Ahn, Manuel Blum, Nicholas Hopper and John Langford of Carnegie Mellon University.

CAPTCHAs have several applications such as
• Blogs - Most bloggers are familiar with blogs that have bogus comments, mainly to help them get search engine ranking. With CAPTCHA spammers are prevented and you can even avoid registration before use.
• Website Registration. All forms and sign-ups that are free should have CATCHA to keep only genuine users signing up !.
• Online Polls. Without CAPTCHA these polls can be easily manipulated. For example in this election if a poll without CAPTCHA asked the question “Who is going to win this election?” Each party could in theory build programmes to keep voting..

There are many other CAPTCHA implementations, some better than others. Please speak to us at James Blake Internet (JBI) and let us guide you

Important Tips for a fast loading web site

1. Optimise your HTML code
Make sure that your site doesn’t have any unwanted tags or broken links and that the code allows for quick load times. Errors on your web pages can slow down your website and so its essential that your website is error free!

2. Keep the use of graphics, images and Flash to a minimum.
These are the major contributors to the size of your web page so any reduction can only help, for example try using background colors and fills instead of heavy images. In editors like fireworks and flash you can see the various options in the preview panel to reduce the sizes. See how popular web sites like google and yahoo have pages that are very small in size and thus load in seconds.

3. Stick to simple designs
Most fast loading sites have very simple designs. Take the hint! Complicated designs will slow down your pages.

4. Spread out your content neatly
In case you find yourself having very long pages of content, break them down into separate logical sections and thus bring down the sizes of the individual pages.

5. Use Text Links instead of graphic buttons
Basically try to make use of text links as much as possible as they are easier to maintain. Use CSS Styles for text links to make them as attractive as buttons.

6. Use Server Side Include (SSI) files
SSI files once called from the web server reside in its cache so on subsequent requests they load faster. Use them whereever possible.

7. Use Div tags instead of Tables
Using Div tags instead of tables for your design is what you need to do for better load time and total control over your layout. It also ensures that it is scalable to allow for future design changes.

Effective Table Design: In case you must use tables use them wisely and sparingly. Design using nested tables instead of using cell merges and splits. Use separate tables where ever possible.

8. Check your W3C standard validity and Load time regularly
To maintain an excellent website you must give thought to how to improve your website on an almost daily basis! Maintain an error free website and tweek it regularly. Do remember to check your Load time and W3C code and CSS validity regularly.

As part of our monthly features, we caught up with Peter Sumner owner of SP education Educational services Ltd (www.speducationalservices.com)to discuss his business and web experience.

SP Educational Services work in the education sector and James Blake Internet developed them a new on-line ecommerce site to help sell their products to a wide community.

Hi Peter

1) Can you tell us a little about your business?
The business was started in the year 2000 by myself and my sister, Laura Pooles. Laura and I are both practising headteachers of primary schools. All our materials are written by teachers who are still working as teachers (many companies use ex-teachers who very quickly lose touch with current educational practice).

SP of SP Educational Services stands for Sumner/ Pooles.

We started the business because Laura noticed a gap in the education market - the need for assessments to accompany the original Maths Numeracy Framework. The assessments were updated in 2008 because the Numeracy Framework was redesigned into what is called the Renewed Framework for mathematics. We also now have mental maths tests on CD and in book format to accompany the delivery of the renewed framework for maths.

2) Who should buy your products?
Our biggest market is primary school teachers and teaching assistants. We do however sell to an increasing number of parents who use our materials to help their children with maths. The materials are simple to use and really help diagnose children’s maths strengths and weaknesses. Parents our real future target market as this market is obviously much greater than our teacher market.

3) What are your objectives and plans for your new website?
The objectives for the new website are to present a much more attractive and professional ‘front’ to our business. We also want the site to act as an online shop. So far the feedback has been excellent and several customers have commented on the quality of the website.
Several have also given us feedback on some ways to improve the site and we will be working with James Blake on making these improvements.
We plan to incorporate all our new products into the website. Our next products are a set of Word Problem maths books for Years 1 - 6 in the primary school.

4) How do you use the internet to help your business
The internet has become a great source of advertising for us. We send email mailshots to schools in England and we include a link to our web site. Traffic has increased greatly since we have had the new site.

5) Have you got any tips for people who are considering setting up their own business on-line?
My tip would be to invest in a reputable company to design the website. It is very important that the web designer is patient and will work with the customer until the customer is happy with the site. James Blake were excellent in this respect.

6) Finally for our own records, how was working with the James Blake Team
I was extremely impressed with the James Blake team. I had a very clear idea of what I wanted the site to look like but because of my lack of IT knowledge, I found it difficult to verbalise. David Gelb of James Blake was very helpful and patient and we were both delighted with the end result. The site has really helped our business grow. I would recommend James Blake in terms of the professionalism of the team and in terms of value for money.

Interview with gdtalent director Gordon Milne

Recently James Blake Internet completed a new website for gdtalent and we thought it would be interesting to hear his thoughts about his business, building a new website and of course online marketing.

1) Can you tell us a little about your business?
gdtalent is a consultancy specialising in recruitment solutions for international businesses and candidates. More specifically, our expertise is in assisting companies recruit the very best, internationally experienced, Chinese speaking managers and professionals. As well as recruitment/search type services we also run career briefing seminars for candidates who want to know more about the job market in China.

2) How did you get into the Chinese market?
gdtalent is owned and managed by Gordon Milne who recently worked in Shanghai for 4.5 years as an expat for major recruitment businesses. During that time clients frequently commented on the following:
a) how difficult it is/was to hire good people given the finite talent pool;
b) how difficult it is to access Chinese experienced hires whilst they are studying or working overseas and
c) how poor sister companies are at supporting China recruitment. E.g. Company X in US, UK etc rarely properly support Company X’s hiring activities in China.

Some of gdtalent’s services are designed to specifically address the above.

3) What are your objectives and plans for your new website?
The web site was designed to be a reference point where clients and candidates alike can establish what we do and evaluate/verify our service offering. We decided to try to make the web site crisp, clean, professional, un-cluttered, easy to navigate and not too “hip” so it would not date so easily.

4) Will you be doing any on-line campaigns to help your business
Probably. So far we’ve only used Google’s AdWords with very limited success. Still early days though.

5) If our customers want to enter into the Chinese market can you help recruit the right people?
Certainly hope so! We have a good understanding of the Chinese recruitment/labour market as well as a database and network of candidates. Finally, our ability to conduct a direct or “headhunt” search means that our fulfilment ratios will always be high.

6) Have you got any tips for people who are considering setting up their own business on-line?
Planning and Patience come to mind. Quite a bit of work has to go in before you engage any service providers to design your web site. If you don’t know what you want, they certainly won’t know what you mean. And no matter how fast you want things done, allow for an overrun.

7) Finally for our own records, how was working with the James Blake Team
Good. I always felt confident that I would get what I wanted and I did. I have no hesitation in recommending the James Blake Team.