Following on from my rant about UKMail, I'd now like to have a word about Quick Mobile Fix, of Ilford in Essex.

I bought a phone from them in 2015 and was very impressed. However, my experience in 2016 has been both disappointing and terminal.

We are admittedly both victims of the truly useless UKMail. However, having been told by UKMail, more than once, that the phone in question is lost, they are at the time of writing refusing to refund me, several weeks later.

The experience proves the value of finding and sticking with trustworthy online retailers. I am quite sure Quick Mobile Fix are acting illegally, but the legal avenues open to me are not promising.

So, I have three pieces of advice: Choose your online retailer carefully, don't rely on PayPal's so-called buyer protection (useless), and don't buy from Quick Mobile Fix in Ilford.

I recently had the misfortune to buy a mobile phone, "delivered" by UKMail. The experience was a salutary reminder of a few home truths.

First, cheapest is not not cheap. The seller had changed couriers since I first used them, no doubt to get a cheaper deal. This incident has cost them a sale, a customer and, if I have anything to do with it, some of their reputation. I am still furious about the way the whole business has been handled, by UKMail and the seller, Quick Mobile Fix. I am still waiting for a refund, and will be pestering them until I get it.

Second, however good your e-commerce operation is, it's only as good as its weakest link - usually the courier. So, before you choose one, look at their online reputation as well as their costs. A bad courier could cost you customers or even your business.

So, I'll be joining the ranks of shoppers saying I'll buy it, but only if it's not delivered by UKMail.

We've been having some problems with the broadband connections both in the office and at home.

Call me slow, but about the last thing that occurred to me was the firmware in the broadband router in each place.

Both are made by Draytek and aimed at business customers. Yesterday I finally plucked up the courage to update the firmware in both devices.

First, I downloaded the correct item from http://www.draytek.co.uk/support/downloads . This did require some thought, checking the router model and sub-model, then the type of broadband connection (ADSL2+ in our case). The updates themselves were however pretty straightforward. It's worth nothing that although both routers are obsolete models, the release date for the firmware was January 2015, so Draytek are continuing to support their devices well after ceasing to produce them.

So far, the results speak for themselves. Both connections seem to be quicker and more stable. So, before you throw your broadband router out of the window, or shout at your ISP again (if you can get through to them), you might want to think "firmware". It might save you some grief!

This is a cracker. This article explores a number of myths surrounding SEO. I am happy to leave you to read the article but I will repeat one of them here:

"The biggest myth I see is that ads impact organic rankings."

This is one I have heard repeated a number of times. Put simply, if you place ads using Google Adwords, this will help your "natural" ranking in the normal search results. It's so easily tested, by turning off your adwords, that I can't believe it has gained so much credence. I don't imagine Google will run round denying it, but that does not make it true.

Google Adwords can form an important part of your online marketing strategy, but educate yourself first, and use them wisely .

We are happy to advise on online marketing. Just get in touch for a chat.

This story makes me really angry. 

One of our customers has been signed up by PaymentSense, a reseller of Payment Service Provider (PSP) facilities.

Like other similar companies they provide a secure payment page to which a website can redirect. This means the website does not see the customer's credit card details - a good thing.

They also provide card payment machines; the sort of thing you see on shop counters everywhere.

Most card payment machines operate in two modes: dial-up or broadband. In broadband mode they use the shop's internet connection and don't tie up the phone line. In dial-up mode they go via the old-fashioned route, and tie up the phone line whilst being used.

So - which mode to use? It's a no-brainer isn't it? Well, not exactly.This is where the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI-DSS) rear their ugly heads.

Under PCI-DSS, dial-up card machines are viewed as very low risk. If you use one, you only need to be aware of the requirements on paper storage of card details (i.e., don't do it), and that's about it. However, the same card machine used in broadband mode is viewed as a risk, potentially accessible and hackable from the internet. You need to complete a different, more onerous version of the PCI-DSS Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ). You must also have your broadband connection scanned for vulnerabilities on a quarterly basis. This may in turn lead to other requirements, such as tinkering with the setup of your broadband router or even replacing it.

What makes me angry is that none of this is explained by companies like PaymentSense during the sales process. After signing up, customer gets emails about PCI-DSS requirements which they do not understand, then £50 per month penalties when they fail to comply. Meanwhile, having made the sale, PaymentSense wash their hands of the matter.

So, not for the first time, the old way is best. Stick with dial-up. and if you can find one, use a Payment Service Provider who talks sense about PCI-DSS.

I've been attending a really excellent business development course this year, run by Lancaster University Management School (LUMS). Amongst all the other really useful and inspiring things I learned was another new acronym, MVP. This stands for Minimum Viable Product.

The course talked about how entrepreneurs behave and their attitude to risk. Interestingly, most entrepreneurs try to minimise risk, and one of the ways they do this is by developing a new product just enough to try it in the marketplace, to see how it successful it might be. This is the definition of an MVP.

We are in the process of developing an idea to this point at the moment. We think it's brilliant, but we need to find out if the market agrees, without betting our house on it.

If you have an idea for a website or a business, why not come and talk to us about it? We understand business as well as IT and websites, and we know what MVP stands for!

Sometimes it's worse than that.

Our very own Andrew has completed the gruelling Fred Whitton Challenge. This is a cycle ride of 110 miles and over 11,000 feet of ascent, around the Lake District. It takes in the major Lake District passes. including some 1 in 3 (30%) gradients.

It was wet, and Andrew had a puncture, but he completed the course.

Congratulations to Andrew and his friend Ryan on a fantastic achievement. 

Andrew is raising funds for Macmillan via his page at https://www.justgiving.com/AndrewTannerUK .

I came across a new Three Letter Acronym (TLA) the other day. It's Phone Friendly View, or PFV.

A PFV is another term for a responsive, or mobile-friendly, website. A related term is "mobile-first" development, in which a website is designed for mobile devices first and then scaled up for larger machines. However, what we are talking about here is "mobile-last".

Pretty well every business needs a mobile-friendly website, but not everyone has one, or can afford to redevelop their website just now.

All is not lost. for most websites, it is possible to add a PFV without major change to the website itself. This need not cost a fortune and can be done quickly.

We have added a PFV to several websites recently, including:

http://www.kingsarmshawkshead.co.uk/
http://www.herontravel.co.uk/
http://www.smartcleaningservices.co.uk/

We think this is a quick and inexpensive way to reach more customers whilst extending the life of your website. If you'd like a PFV, please get in touch for a quote.

I recently spoke to a local business about their website. The domain name is a word in pretty wide use, and part of the branding of the business. I'd guess it's worth between £2,000  and £3,000 on the open market and many times that to the business itself.

As usual I used whois.domaintools.com to check the registration and server details for the site, to discover that it was registered in the name of the original web developer. 

This is a depressingly common occurrence. Through ignorance or malice, many web designers and developers seem to register their customers' domain names to themselves.

This is potentially a recipe for disaster. If you fall out with your web designer, lose contact with them, or decide to take your business elsewhere, you could find yourself without your prized domain name. If you put your business up for sale, you could find that the domain can not be counted among its assets.

So, go to whois.domaintools.com and enter the domain name of your website. Check the registrant name. It it's not you or your business, get in touch with us and we'll try to help you take control of this important asset.

I am happy to say that the business in question has heeded my advice and had the registration details amended. They now own their domain name.

I had a call from a worried customer the other day. It's a familiar, sorry tale. They were moving offices and relying on BT to move their broadband account at the same time. Despite being booked three months in advance the move had not happened and they were told it could take up to five days to sort out.

This is by no means the first time I have heard this story. Before settling into our present offices, we moved three times in as many years. Here is our recipe for avoiding this disaster.

1. Don't use BT.
We use Utility Warehouse for our phone lines. Their customer service is pretty good. Although we know perfectly well that they have to deal with BT when it comes to line installations, they have to do this and not us. Similarly, we use Entanet for our business broadband. We have support from a local reseller and generally things work pretty well.

2. Have a second phone line.
In advance of the office move, transfer one of your phone lines to the new office, or have a new one installed.

3. Install your broadband in advance.
Order a second broadband account and have it installed in the new office. After it's installed, TEST IT. When you know it is working, move offices and cancel your old broadband account.

That's all folks. This method may involve you in some extra expense, such as an extra phone line or an extra broadband account for a month or two, but believe me it's worth it.

UPDATE: The customer was without broadband for 9 days.

We had a really nice phone call today. We do development work for Mickledore Travel in Keswick, looking after some of their internal IT systems.

When Mickledore Travel created a leaflet advertising their walking holidays, we offered to send out a copy with each order from our sock websites.

Today, the owner of Mickledore Travel phoned to say they had taken a booking as a result of someone seeing their leaflet - the first from this source. The customer had received the leaflet with a pair of socks sent by us.

So, marketing isn't always just about the web. Sometimes good old-fashioned paper has its place too.

We are happy to help our customers in any way we can, so if you want our help to grow your sales, please get in touch.

A couple of weeks ago I proudly mentioned the conversion rate of 13% we achieved within our own group of e-commerce websites.

At the time I wrote that item, I was debating the use of PayPal as a shopping basket and checkout.

I have to admit to some personal prejudice here. In the USA I believe PayPal is regarded as a trusted brand. In the UK I am not convinced it is held in the same high regard.

On our sites we offer PayPal as an option alongside a conventional SagePay payment page. Taking January 2014 as an example, 58% of our customers chose to pay using PayPal.

I would expect this proportion to rise in the future, however for the forseeable future we will be offering PayPal as an option alongside a conventional credit card payment page.

We would be happy to talk to you about cost-effective ways to accept card payments. For a friendly and free initial discussion please get in touch.

This is a knotty problem for website owners and hosting providers alike. If my sales or enquiries have stopped, is it because my site is broken, or is there another cause?

I came across a really nice monitoring tool last week, at https://www.pingdom.com/ .

Their service is free for a single website. Once set up, it will text or email you if your site does not respond to a "ping". If you want it to, it will check your website every minute. I would recommend this to any website owner.

I found this via the Pingdom Speed Checker page at http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/ .

This tool will test any web page and give a comprehensive report on loading speed, errors and a number of other metrics. Well worth a look.

This week I was asked to look at an E-Commerce website for a potential customer. They were not happy with the very low number of sales being made.

While looking at the site and compiling a report, I did some research into what is currently seen as a decent conversion rate, i.e. the percentage of sales based on the number of visitors to a site. We would expect a site owner to know how many sales thay have made in a given month. We would measure the number of visitors using Google analytics or a similar tool.

As always, the devil is in the detail. Conversion rates vary across different market sectors. They also vary by device. Visitors using desktop devices generally produce the highest rate, followed by tablets and mobile devices.

Apparently, the overall average is 4%, i.e. 1 in 25 visitors will make a purchase.

I looked at our own group of sock websites: socksock.co.uk smartwool-socks.co.uk and wigwam-socks.com, to find that our conversion rate is a whopping 13%. There are some good reasons for this, I think, based on the search terms for which we rank well. The visitors who find our sites are searching for fairly specific brands or items and are therefore minded to buy when they find them. Of course, they also find sites which are nicely-designed and easy to use.

I have to admit I was both delighted and surprised by this finding. Not every website will achieve it, but if your e-commerce site is not producing sales, we would be delighted to help you. Just contact us for a free initial discussion.

We had an urgent call from a valued client this week. A few of their customers had reported problems with the checkout on their e-commerce website.

Fortunately, one of them passed on the valuable information that they were using Internet Explorer version 11 (IE11).

IE11 did not simply give an error message, it froze completely and prevented the customer from completing their purchase.

Version 11 was officially released on 17 October 2013 for Windows 8.1 and on 7 November 2013 for Windows 7. It includes some far-reaching changes which are likely to cause problems with a number of websites, until the sites themselves are updated. Based on our experience, we would recommend leaving it alone for a few months.

Last week I mentioned the term "on-page SEO", I thought I'd explain the term further. This does not claim to be a detailed guide, of which there are many,but here are a few highlights.

This week, page content.

Firstly, as its name suggests, "on-page Search Engine Optimisation" is concerned with optimising the website itself, to help it rank higher in search engines.

It's a long time since "hidden" factors were the focus of on-page SEO. These days most of the evidence is clearly visible.

Within each page the most important factors are:

• Visible text on the page
• The main page title (often referred to as the H1 title).
• The page's Meta Title (Browser title)

In principle this is pretty straightforward. If your company is WidgetCo and the page is about red widgets, the text on the page should tell the customer about your red widgets. The H1 title should be "Red Widgets" and the Meta Title should be "Red Widgets from WidgetCo", or something like that.

This week we are taking over control of a bespoke e-commerce website, developed by another web design company.

The site is very pretty and for the most part gives customers a good experience. However, on looking at the administration system it's clear that the designer has never operated an e-commerce website.

On logging in to the administration area, the customer is congratulated on logging in and presented with a blank page. The "Orders" section is buried part-way down the menu, and the data is presented oldest first. 

We know that almost every time we log into our e-commerce website, we want to process orders. So we make sure that's the first thing we see. 

Needless to say we are changing the administration system so the Orders page is at the top of the menu. On logging in the user will be shown their latest payments first, not the oldest. Next, we will be doing some basic on-page SEO, to ensure the Orders page is lovely and full!