Firstly a massive Merry Christmas to all who read this blog post! We still can not believe it is this time of year again, it seems like only yesterday Tidy Design was mapping out its 2010 targets, budgets and predictions for the year!

So here we are again, that time of year when businesses wind down, reflect and plan… And based on the current economic climate / spending cuts we are all entering uncertain times. Over the Christmas period Tidy Design will be working / discussing our targets for 2011 and putting ideas / procedures in place to ensure we continue to expand our client base, offer affordable services and develop more sellable products.

If you have any updates that need looking at before the 23rd December then please email these across ASAP and we will do our best to get these completed before we start our hunt for mince pies, presents and Turkey!

Although we are closed from the 23rd December to the 3rd January you will occasionally find Tidy Design behind our desks working away! For those of you with commissioned web design projects, please note we will be working on these over the festive period. If you are an existing client who comes across a web emergency and need to contact Tidy Design, then please email support@tidydesign.com

So to conclude on what may be our last blog post of the year! What ever you do over the festive period, Tidy Design wishes you a lovely, relaxing and beautiful break, and we look forward to working with you again in 2011.

On so many occasions I have emailed or spoken to clients referring to a sitemap.xml, today I thought it was about time I wrote a tidy blog post about them!… So, what is a sitemap.xml and why do we mention them to all our clients?

Well, if you have a website you will (nine times out of ten) want it to appear on the first page of Google for relevant keywords or key phrases.

To help speed things along with Google (and the other search engines) a sitemap.xml allows us to inform them about all URLs (web pages). By creating and submitting a sitemap.xml search engines will be able to crawl more thoroughly through your site extracting page information. It is this page information and how the search engines digest the data that will help determine your SERP (Search Engine Results Page).

The Sitemap Protocol was established back in 2005 by Google to help web developers create more search engine friendly websites. The format consists of XML tags, so these look something like:

Today Tidy Design manages multiple Sitemaps using Google Webmaster Tools, here we can login, check the indexing status, crawl rate, see when a sitemap.xml was last crawled and if any errors got detected. At Tidy Design we believe updating a sitemap.xml is very important for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), especially when new pages are added or removed.

I hope the above has helped explain why we create and submit Sitemaps, if you have any questions then please feel free to email or comment below:

Earlier today Tidy Design updated its Pricing page, this update will affect all web design quotes / work carried out from today onwards however this will not be the case for existing clients until January 2011.

To keep everyone in the loop we have today tweeted, blogged and sent out a newsletter to all clients making them aware of these changes.

In today’s world communication is made so much easier than say 50 years ago! News, updates and offers can be broadcasted using a variety of media allowing us to keep information current!

To view our Tidy Design newsletter please click here.

Having a wife who graduated with a ‘Law and Criminology’ degree at Portsmouth University makes me so very proud! In fact, most of the monster sized books that still sit on our bookshelf are her legal cases, references and information that goes way over my head!

Reading a BBC article on the web this morning, Prime Minister David Cameron has announced “Britain’s intellectual property laws are to be reviewed to make them fit for the internet age” An announcement welcomed by internet and copyright campaigners who believe it will help smaller businesses. A report due out in April 2011 will look at how best to support businesses and protect their intellectual property on the web.

I totally agree that intellectual property laws need to keep up to date with rapidly changing technologies, and removing barriers that stand in the way of UK web-based business models, offering more support and protection etc can only be a good thing!

Being a web based company it is amazing how fast technologies actually change, that said, at Tidy Design we believe in keeping our fingers on the pulse, learning new things and monitoring new / existing trends or laws. In our line of work, if you blink, you may miss out!

Earlier this week Rosie and I had a long chat about the importance of blogging, the various sites we have setup, internet marketing and the future of our business… If you visit mjward.co.uk you will see we already have several sites / blogs in place to help promote the different products and services we offer.

Earlier today we launched rosiesblog.co.uk, the purpose of this site to share my wife’s experiences and thoughts with others; it is also a tool we aim to use to help promote future interests and ideas.

If you are serious about marketing a business on the web then a blog is one of several amazing tools you should be utilizing! Daily post are not always possible, however you should try blogging at least once a week! Search engines love original content posted on a regular basis, your reward being better search results, traffic and business!

I really have so much faith in my wife’s ability to write amazing blog posts and I am looking forward to seeing how rosiesblog.co.uk is ranking in 6 months from now!

Tidy Design is an expanding business primarily based in Southsea, Portsmouth looking to recruit a part time (with the intention to make full time) coder guru to join our web development team!

Unlike your conventional web design companies we are involved with several other businesses and ventures that you may like you to help us with! These vary from Hotel Booking Reservation Software, Climate Change, Business Networking, Land Investment and more! So if you are looking for excitement, a diverse and rewarding career that offers variety and not the same routine day in, day out, then please get in touch!

So to conclude, we are looking for a PHP Developer to join our team… Skills must include an understanding of PHP, JavaScript, CSS, MySQL and databases, JQuery and some Photoshop would be nice! If you have any questions about Tidy Design or this web developer’s job vacancy then please email or post your questions below:

Over the last few weeks Tidy Design has seen a massive increase in new enquiries from both the web and word of mouth. Ok, not all enquiries result in new business; some people want it yesterday, others will want a price without giving us a detailed job spec, and well, some projects simply require a lot of time! Something we don’t always have at the drop of a hat due to our existing clients and already commissioned projects.

That said our conversion rate is not bad! And as much as we love our existing customers we also enjoy making those all important new contacts (I guess it’s the balance between new and repeat that generates growth). One enquiry we received about two weeks ago was from ‘Adam the Magic Music Man’, a children’s entertainer in Portsmouth who had been let down by his current web marketing company… A story we hear more and more these days! Anyway, after several website updates, a couple of calls and emails, Adam sent this email today:

The above feedback is amazing to read, hence us sharing it with you the reader! Thank you Adam for choosing Tidy Design and we hope to work with you for many years to come!