https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog Bluelinemedia Blog en-gb https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/geo-aio-making-your-website-more-ai-friendly https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/geo-aio-making-your-website-more-ai-friendly Tue, 10 Mar 2026 09:07:22 +0000 Whatever you call it, making your website more AI friendly will help you attract more new visitors, and potentially visitors with a higher intent to buy your products or services. Here's a quick guide to how to approach it. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/link-your-crm-to-your-website-or-other-software-with-api https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/link-your-crm-to-your-website-or-other-software-with-api Tue, 10 Feb 2026 11:41:06 +0000 Take your CRM tool from good to great with our bespoke development services to link with your website, other software tools, or your internal database. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/google-recaptcha-integration-process https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/google-recaptcha-integration-process Fri, 30 May 2025 11:02:17 +0100 How to generate API keys and integrate Google reCAPTCHA on your website as an anti-spam measure to protect your forms from spam. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Justin Munro) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/sage-accounting-cloud-software-integration https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/sage-accounting-cloud-software-integration Tue, 14 Mar 2023 14:14:43 +0000 Integrate seamlessly with Sage accounting packages on the cloud, linking your website or other online systems to automatically update customers, products and invoices among other features available via API simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Simon Jackson) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/simpro-api-integration https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/simpro-api-integration Tue, 28 Feb 2023 14:52:43 +0000 SimPro API integration from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire bespoke software developers simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/online-membership-management-systems https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/online-membership-management-systems Tue, 07 Feb 2023 12:15:41 +0000 How online management of membership data can improve your service to members, save your time, and put you in control with our bespoke web development services simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Simon Jackson) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/api-website-developers https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/api-website-developers Tue, 07 Jun 2022 11:41:14 +0100 API website integration allows your website or online software to link to countless third party suppliers to share your data, including payment providers, CRM systems, bespoke software and jobs simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Justin Munro) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/five-reasons-to-go-local-with-web-developers https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/five-reasons-to-go-local-with-web-developers Wed, 11 May 2022 08:31:53 +0100 Five reasons to choose a local agency for your web development to improve communication, achieve better results for your project, and get peace of mind. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/send-automatic-sms-to-customers https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/send-automatic-sms-to-customers Tue, 08 Feb 2022 11:02:49 +0000 How we used Text Magic to provide text message alerts automatically from our bespoke customer system simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Simon Jackson) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/how-to-make-sure-software-helps-your-business https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/how-to-make-sure-software-helps-your-business Wed, 02 Feb 2022 15:47:31 +0000 If you're looking to save time and money in your office, software provides an obvious opportunity. But it's not just about cold numbers, it's about making life better for everyone involved. Get your software right and you'll make customers happier, staff more relaxed, and give managers more information. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/save-time-with-bespoke-software-development https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/save-time-with-bespoke-software-development Wed, 15 Dec 2021 08:50:13 +0000 Save time with your office admin by letting us create a web-based process to replace your spreadsheet or manual work simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/how-a-website-content-management-system-helps-your-business https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/how-a-website-content-management-system-helps-your-business Wed, 24 Nov 2021 09:21:03 +0000 Websites with bespoke content management work better for your business because your website will always be up to date, but it needs to be really easy to use and flexible simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/sales-software https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/sales-software Fri, 03 Dec 2010 16:35:59 +0000 Some of our web design projects have been delayed at the last hurdle by content, which is usually provided by our clients. It's important not to let the idea of content intimidate you to the point where your website isn't updated at all. Much better to aim to be 80% happy with what you write than wait days, weeks or months to get to 100% perfection. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Sirbastian Manning) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/still-havent-checked-your-website-for-gdpr https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/still-havent-checked-your-website-for-gdpr Thu, 06 Sep 2018 12:06:59 +0100 Yes GDPR is still a thing, and you need to make sure your website is compliant. The regulation is now in force for all UK businesses, and requires you to take steps to review and manage how you store personal data. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Justin Munro) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/online-clothing-shop-for-raw-sports https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/online-clothing-shop-for-raw-sports Thu, 23 Aug 2018 09:47:56 +0100 We've recently launched a new website for biking clothing brand Raw Sports simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/why-hasnt-your-website-got-a-secure-certificate-yet https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/why-hasnt-your-website-got-a-secure-certificate-yet Tue, 07 Aug 2018 15:16:56 +0100 Secure (SSL) certificates help your Google rankings, reassure customers and protect your data. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (James Brown) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/new-website-and-job-database-for-travail https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/new-website-and-job-database-for-travail Tue, 07 Aug 2018 15:47:22 +0100 We're developing a new bespoke website for Travail including design, content management, jobs administration and Broadbean integration simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/why-you-need-to-be-on-google-maps-and-how-to-do-it https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/why-you-need-to-be-on-google-maps-and-how-to-do-it Tue, 01 Nov 2016 11:41:59 +0000 Google's new search layout puts paid adverts and Google Map listings above the full website list, so if you're not listed here you are missing out on business. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Simon Jackson) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/vebra-api https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/vebra-api Thu, 04 Jun 2015 14:55:40 +0100 The best way to list Vebra properties on your website is using their API service so that buyers stay on your website. If your property links start with www.vebra.com then you're not getting the most from the service. And if you're entering your properties twice - once in Vebra and then again on your website - you're wasting time. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/one-step-content-management https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/one-step-content-management Fri, 31 Oct 2014 16:55:49 +0000 There's one step you can take today that will make your website look better, represent your business more effectively, and get results. Content management puts you in charge of your website, and removes two fundamental barriers: money and time. If you can update your website for free, you never have to worry about the financial implications of making changes, so you'll do it more often. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/about-us/new-bespoke-cms https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/about-us/new-bespoke-cms Fri, 09 May 2014 15:01:48 +0100 New and improved bespoke content management simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Simon Jackson) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/search-filters-ecommerce https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/search-filters-ecommerce Tue, 28 Jan 2014 15:36:38 +0000 Here's a quick spotlight on a feature we've added to a few e-commerce sites recently. The filtered search lets users select product values with tick boxes to narrow down the results until they find what they need. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (James Brown) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/responsive-design https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/responsive-design Wed, 22 Jan 2014 16:04:47 +0000 You may have heard the term 'responsive design' in relation to websites. This is the increasingly common solution to the problem of how to make your website look good on different devices. The 'responsive' part of the term refers to the fact that the website dimensions are automatically altered depending on the dimensions of your screen. It's all one website but 'responds' differently depending on the user's device, so they get the best experience possible. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/how-to-auto-fill-addresses-online-from-a-postcode https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/how-to-auto-fill-addresses-online-from-a-postcode Tue, 17 Dec 2013 16:15:45 +0000 When you've bought products and entered your address online, you've probably typed a postcode and selected your address from a list. It's a familiar feature with online shops, but you may not know how to add it to your own website. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/responsive-design-and-how-to-size-your-website-images https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/responsive-design-and-how-to-size-your-website-images Wed, 20 Nov 2013 15:17:55 +0000 We are currently re-designing the Bluelinemedia website (watch this space!). One of the new changes we are making is to code the site to the HTML 5 standard and with this we want to make the site responsive, so it re-sizes for smartphones and tablets. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Justin Munro) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/the-hidden-epidemic https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/the-hidden-epidemic Fri, 01 Nov 2013 10:59:57 +0000 There's a new epidemic sweeping the planet, and it's not what you think. Sure, there are diseases, wars and food shortages across the globe. But what about web developers? Coding all day without sunlight, eating nothing but takeaways, and of course spending all their time at the desk. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/simple-parallax-background https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/simple-parallax-background Mon, 30 Sep 2013 15:12:38 +0100 The parallax background scroller popularised by Nike's Better World and other similar sites has recently been implemented by Google on their Nexus 7 microsite in a nice subtle way. So, we thought we'd have a go at replicating the functionality using MooTools and CSS ourselves. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Simon Jackson) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/11-ways-to-make-your-site-easy-to-use https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/11-ways-to-make-your-site-easy-to-use Thu, 15 Aug 2013 14:44:41 +0100 Our eleven recommendations to improve your site usability, make life easier for customers, and improve the chance of people coming to your business simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/mobile-page-templates-for-sagepay https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/mobile-page-templates-for-sagepay Mon, 29 Jul 2013 10:39:59 +0100 If you're building a responsive or mobile-friendly e-commerce site with SagePay, you may be surprised to find that they don't provide standard template files for mobiles. Their default files have fixed width fields that can't be scaled to a small display, so customers get a page that's too wide for their screen. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/6-ways-every-new-website-should-be-promoted https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/6-ways-every-new-website-should-be-promoted Thu, 11 Jul 2013 15:51:10 +0100 So you've developed your beautiful, wonderfully written, engaging new website. Now what? You probably want people to find it, so follow these simple but essential steps. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Simon Jackson) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/about-us/blog/our-team-day https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/about-us/blog/our-team-day Fri, 28 Jun 2013 08:39:32 +0100 We must admit that our 'team days' are more for pure enjoyment than team building, as we already have a great atmosphere in the office. Still, it's great to have an excuse to mess about outside the office! simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/top-10-web-developer-tools https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/top-10-web-developer-tools Thu, 06 Jun 2013 15:35:50 +0100 We have compiled a list of our top 10 online web developer tools. These all come in very handy throughout the development of a web system. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Justin Munro) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/about-our-hosting https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/about-our-hosting Mon, 15 Apr 2013 11:04:49 +0100 As part of our dedicated web services we provide hosting directly to our clients, so you know you've got a 'one stop shop' for all your website needs. We can offer hosting by using the reseller service of Clook, who have been providing our hosting for nine years. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/blog/better-conversion-3-steps https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/blog/better-conversion-3-steps Thu, 24 Jan 2013 16:34:05 +0000 If you're going to improve your website, start by deciding exactly what you want to improve, so you'll know when things are getting better. Be specific about what you want visitors to do on your website. For example, do you want them to spend longer on the whole website, or just on certain pages? Do you want more contact form submissions, or only those from certain prospects? simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/html5-semantics https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/html5-semantics Thu, 08 Nov 2012 16:45:21 +0000 Having recently undertaken a major overhaul to our own website, a large part of which was aligning the code to HTML5 standards, we stumbled into a minefield of semantics. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Simon Jackson) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/html-iframe-joke https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/html-iframe-joke Mon, 05 Nov 2012 15:14:37 +0000 There have been mentions recently in the press about websites using the browser full screen mode for spoofing websites. This can help those Phishing attacks trap even more users. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Justin Munro) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/blog/6-essential-seo-tools https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/blog/6-essential-seo-tools Tue, 30 Oct 2012 11:40:30 +0000 We've used a lot of different tools to improve search engine ranking for our clients, but there are some that we rely on time and time again. In this quick list, we'll explain which services you should be using, what they do, and how to get the most out of them. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/why-sagepay-is-better-than-paypal-for-your-card-payments https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/why-sagepay-is-better-than-paypal-for-your-card-payments Fri, 26 Oct 2012 10:50:56 +0100 While every project is different, we recommend a number of suppliers for specialisms like dedicated hosting, search engine tools, email marketing and online payments. Since 2001 we've worked with PayPal, WorldPay, eHSBC and others but we always recommend SagePay for e-commerce sites. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/does-your-online-shop-comply-with-regulations https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/does-your-online-shop-comply-with-regulations Tue, 16 Oct 2012 14:19:32 +0100 If you're an online retailer selling goods or services, there are a number of things you should be doing on your website. A recent report from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) found that 62 of 156 popular shopping websites were not fully complying with the appropriate regulations. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/lessons-for-your-website-from-gb-cycling-success https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/lessons-for-your-website-from-gb-cycling-success Fri, 10 Aug 2012 11:27:48 +0100 12 of the 52 medals won (so far) by the British Olympics team have been taken for cycling. To use the current Olympics cliche, if the GB cycling team were a nation they'd be joint 7th with France in the gold medal tally (as of today). Add Bradley Wiggins's historic victory as the first Briton to win the Tour de France and you've got a huge success. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/eu-cookie-law--how-does-it-affect-my-website https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/eu-cookie-law--how-does-it-affect-my-website Wed, 27 Jun 2012 15:29:59 +0100 From 26th May 2012 the EU 'cookie law' came into effect in the UK. This means the website of every UK (and EU) business that uses cookies must: simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/php-database-class-and-code-improvement https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/php-database-class-and-code-improvement Fri, 27 Apr 2012 15:49:27 +0100 Security is of huge importance to us, which is one of the reasons we recently undertook a large upgrade of our framework to incorporate several extra security enhancements. This involved a wholesale review of the code and a lot of meetings to come up with the best way forward. We decided to move entirely to a class-based framework which has led to many varied improvements, some of which are explained below. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Justin Munro) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/5-steps-pay-per-click https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/5-steps-pay-per-click Wed, 21 Mar 2012 11:54:10 +0000 So you've tried Google Adwords, written a few keywords and an advert, spent £50 or £100 or even £1000 and got nothing for it. Sound familiar? People often tell us Adwords doesn't work, but the harsh reality is you're probably doing it wrong. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/php-cookie-issues https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/php-cookie-issues Fri, 09 Mar 2012 14:24:35 +0000 We have recently updated our security and user log in code which meant updating a few pieces of cookie related PHP. In doing so, we came across a couple of minor anomalies that would have saved us a lot of time and frustration if we had been aware of them. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Simon Jackson) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/how-to-detect-user-scrolling https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/how-to-detect-user-scrolling Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:37:54 +0000 Tracking user behaviour can help you tailor your website to users' needs and keep them on your site. We've developed a script to track how far down a page a user scrolls before navigating away from that page, which should be especially useful for websites with longer pages. If for example you found that hardly any users actually scrolled to the very bottom of your web page you may then decide to either condense your content or adjust it so more users are likely to view it. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Justin Munro) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/blog/diy-seo-review https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/blog/diy-seo-review Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:18:14 +0000 If you want to get more visitors from search engines but don't know where to start, we can help you find the opportunities for improvement. We also provide a free website review if you want us to do the work. This article will help you to make your website more relevant for search terms, increase links to your website, and improve the conversion of visitors to customers. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/scrolling-html-table https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/scrolling-html-table Tue, 06 Dec 2011 15:35:26 +0000 When developing a site, there are some rare occasions when a plain HTML table just isn't enough. Clients often ask "Can we have it scroll?", "Can we keep the row and column headings in sight?" and "Can we have a minimap with a scrollable window and a perfectly to scale tiny view of the main table that scrolls in sync with it, that the client can click or drag to view different sections?". Ok, that last one might be a bit of an exaggeration, but then that is the point of a client isn't it? To stretch your capabilities, ask for the impossible and then expect nothing less. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Simon Jackson) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/about-us/blog/client-survey https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/about-us/blog/client-survey Thu, 03 Nov 2011 11:17:36 +0000 We carried out a survey with our clients to find out what you think of our service. Responses were provided anonymously to make sure everyone was happy to be honest and point out issues if there were any. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/blog/10-steps-linkbuilding https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/blog/10-steps-linkbuilding Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:20:11 +0100 If you want to appear higher on Google, Bing and Yahoo! for your search terms, you need to do more than just have relevant content. Search engines also take into account the number and quality of websites linking to yours as an indication of how useful your website is going to be to its users. Thankfully, link-building is fairly simple if you're willing to commit the time. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/new-rules-cookies https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/new-rules-cookies Tue, 23 Aug 2011 15:47:54 +0100 Updated: Read our 2012 article New rules for cookies suggest that all websites will need to get permission from users when using cookies. Cookies are small files used to store key information about a visitor and remember preferences. This could include personal information, such as the visitor's location or interests, which presents a privacy issue. However, most cookies are used to store anonymous information and preferences, either to remember key selections made by the visitor or to track navigation for marketing purposes, and are generally there to make life easier for users. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/which-social-media-buttons https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/which-social-media-buttons Tue, 09 Aug 2011 11:01:24 +0100 You can hardly miss social media buttons. They are sprawled across the internet and appear in ever greater numbers on various blogs and websites. There are a huge number of websites that now use these buttons to allow users to post links to content or like a web page. The list of services that the AddThis widget contains gives an idea of just how many there are! simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Justin Munro) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/speed-up-third-party-scripts https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/speed-up-third-party-scripts Thu, 16 Jun 2011 16:45:59 +0100 Integration with third party sites using their APIs is all the rage. Sites like Twitter, Google, Facebook and Flickr all provide the ability to integrate their content into your website. Using these services for site development provides more interesting and useful content to your visitors, for example an up to date Google calendar or an active Twitter feed. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Simon Jackson) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/automatic-link-shortening https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/automatic-link-shortening Wed, 18 May 2011 16:35:48 +0100 We recently had a requirement to extend our content management system to allow posting to Twitter. Each post needed to have a link back to the site and to save space we decided to use the bitly (http://bit.ly) shortening link service to create shortened links to enable extra characters to be entered into the Tweet. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Justin Munro) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/pci-dss-compliance-websites https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/pci-dss-compliance-websites Thu, 21 Apr 2011 16:14:46 +0100 If you're taking credit or debit card payments for your e-commerce site you need to be compliant with the new "PCI DSS" requirements. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/better-web-projects https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/better-web-projects Mon, 18 Apr 2011 12:45:06 +0100 When you hire Bluelinemedia, you're not just getting a developer who will run through your work list. We add value to your project with ideas, feedback and improvements. Every stage of our process helps both you and us to think more about what you need. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/why-web-database https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/why-web-database Wed, 06 Apr 2011 17:41:29 +0100 A great deal of websites use databases but what is the reason for this and why should your website use one? simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Justin Munro) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/replacing-desktop-software-with-online-alternatives https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/replacing-desktop-software-with-online-alternatives Fri, 04 Mar 2011 11:26:56 +0000 Using the Internet as a place to develop and use online software is becoming increasingly common, and with advancements in both server hardware and online languages such as HTML, CSS, Javascript and PHP it's now possible to completely replace a range of traditional desktop applications with online alternatives. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Sirbastian Manning) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/ftp-two-websites https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/ftp-two-websites Mon, 28 Feb 2011 16:28:49 +0000 Recently we built 2 separate websites that used the same CMS (content management system). The problem we had with this is when files were uploaded using the CMS, take images for example, they would upload to the website under which the CMS resided. Therefore the images could not be accessed by the second website. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Sirbastian Manning) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/sagepay-iframe https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/sagepay-iframe Fri, 25 Feb 2011 10:49:37 +0000 We have set up a number of websites over the years that take payments through the site using a third party to process the credit card information. A common third party supplier is Opayo (formerly SagePay), who process the shopping basket or other payment items the website passes through. This involved send through the information from the website to secure pages on the SagePay website. The down side to this is although you could apply basic styling to these pages, they would always look very different to your website. What you are able to do now is embed an iFrame into your website to load up the SagePay credit card forms, passing in the same information and process the details in the same way. The advantage to this is the customer remains on your site and as you are able to style the SagePay forms so they can blend seamlessly into your site. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (James Brown) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/mootools-ajax https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/mootools-ajax Thu, 24 Feb 2011 16:50:47 +0000 Ajax is a method used in web applications to enable the retrieval of data from a server asynchronously in the background without interfering with the display and behavior of the existing page. This can be extremely useful in web software as it allows the user to interact with a web page without the page having to reload. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Justin Munro) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/online-shop-feedback https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/online-shop-feedback Fri, 18 Feb 2011 13:23:36 +0000 We're asking some of our clients and other businesses how they feel about the web. This time it's our client Mark Davies, owner of Enekes. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/web-hosting-basics https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/web-hosting-basics Thu, 17 Feb 2011 17:13:11 +0000 What is a domain? Put simply a web domain forms the main part of your websites address or URL. For example Bluelinemedia's domain name is bluelinemedia.co.uk. You can register many different types of domain names such as .com, .co.uk, .org, .net etc but the structure always remains the same, an alphanumeric string that can also be separated with a hyphen, if the registrant so wishes. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Justin Munro) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/member-event-bookings https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/member-event-bookings Fri, 11 Feb 2011 17:01:48 +0000 We build many bespoke systems and features for our clients. A recent addition to one of our clients websites is member event bookings and online payments. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (James Brown) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/bespoke-content-management https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/bespoke-content-management Wed, 19 Jan 2011 16:47:00 +0000 All of our clients will have used BlueEdit our content management system (CMS) but it's now starting to feel a little out dated. This is why we have started the ball rolling on the next version of BlueEdit 3.0. As well as new elegant look and feel we plan to integrate many new and improved features. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (James Brown) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/salesforce-web-integration https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/salesforce-web-integration Wed, 12 Jan 2011 11:46:32 +0000 SalesForce is an online Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) and business application tool. I will not go into more detail about SalesForce as there website explains what they do. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Justin Munro) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/css3-support-tools https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/css3-support-tools Tue, 11 Jan 2011 16:20:42 +0000 One of the major stumbling blocks when considering whether to implement a CSS3 feature is the plethora of vendor specific syntaxes. Implementing even a relatively simple feature such as border-radius can lead to lots and lots of CSS: simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Simon Jackson) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/blog/track-traffic-heatmap https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/blog/track-traffic-heatmap Wed, 08 Dec 2010 10:41:47 +0000 In the constant strive to obtain as much data about the users who visit your site you may consider using a Heatmap on your website/app. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Justin Munro) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/select-date-calendar https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/select-date-calendar Tue, 07 Dec 2010 15:09:43 +0000 As part of the development for one our projects we needed a way of entering a date with having to manually type in the details or solely using pick lists to choose day, month & year. Both of these methods are prone to dates being entered incorrectly. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (James Brown) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/2-way-sms https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/2-way-sms Fri, 03 Dec 2010 11:18:57 +0000 Recently we have started integrating SMS (Short Message Service) into some of our online recruitment websites. This allows automated or manual SMS (text messages) to be sent to a mobile phone. This is obviously a very effective and personal way of contacting your users. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Simon Jackson) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/website-snow-effect https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/website-snow-effect Thu, 25 Nov 2010 14:32:10 +0000 As it's almost the festive season and already getting colder, it can only be time to roll out a simple snow effect. The effect you see in the banner above this blog is a MooTools script which can use text or images to model the snowflakes you see drifting across the banner. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Simon Jackson) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/creating-pdf-documents https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/creating-pdf-documents Wed, 24 Nov 2010 13:13:38 +0000 At Bluelinemedia one service quite a few of our clients ask for is the dynamic creation of PDF documents using data from their website. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Justin Munro) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/understandable-code https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/understandable-code Tue, 16 Nov 2010 09:46:17 +0000 Ok, so it's a bit boring, but writing understandable code is actually quite important. Whether it#s HTML, CSS, JavaScript or PHP, the key to good programming is being able to achieve complicated results with the simplest of mechanisms. Anyone can write code that is difficult to read and maybe looks clever, but distilling complex functionality into simple steps is almost an art form. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Simon Jackson) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/6-best-css3-features https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/6-best-css3-features Fri, 12 Nov 2010 16:37:47 +0000 We've been playing around with some cool CSS3 features here in the office today and thought it would be quite interesting to throw together a single page showing off some of our favorite features. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Sirbastian Manning) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/blog/3-steps-website-leads https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/blog/3-steps-website-leads Wed, 10 Nov 2010 12:14:39 +0000 There are three stages to turning website visitors into enquiries or sales: first impression, qualification, and action. To get more from your website, think of your visitor's experience as a process, and look at how you're helping them along. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/designer-brief https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/designer-brief Mon, 08 Nov 2010 17:23:03 +0000 We work with many designers and design companies building the websites or systems they have created a design for. Many designers prefer leaving the technical side of building their clients websites to Bluelinemedia leaving them time to concentrate on the deigns. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Justin Munro) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/web-software-notifications https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/web-software-notifications Fri, 29 Oct 2010 10:37:40 +0100 When developing an online system the choice of communication mechanism isn't usually something that is given too much thought. It is common for users of online systems to receive "virtual pokes" by email when others interact in a way that directly affects them. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Simon Jackson) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/why-use-our-hosting https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/why-use-our-hosting Thu, 28 Oct 2010 16:13:44 +0100 At Bluelinemedia one of the services we offer is website hosting. There are so many different hosting companies all charging very different prices it can be difficult to choose one. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Justin Munro) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/blog/writing-search-engines https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/blog/writing-search-engines Mon, 25 Oct 2010 12:21:56 +0100 In a bid to make their results more useful, search engines are placing an increasing value on the actual content of your web pages, as opposed to the "meta" keywords that can be nonsensical. This is a simple guide to writing content that works for your visitors and your search engine ranking. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/sales-project-software https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/sales-project-software Thu, 21 Oct 2010 12:46:33 +0100 Here at Bluelinemedia we've started development on an exciting new internal project that's been in planning for a while now. It's designed to bridge the gaps between not only our internal processes but also between our clients and the progression of the websites we develop and maintain for them. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Sirbastian Manning) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/track-your-web-enquiries https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/track-your-web-enquiries Thu, 21 Oct 2010 16:53:01 +0100 When someone makes an enquiry to your business do you track the source of the lead? If not, then you could be missing out on crucial information and you won't know if any marketing activities are working. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (James Brown) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/html-5 https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/html-5 Sun, 17 Oct 2010 21:49:28 +0100 HTML5 is the latest standard for defining website content. HTML is the coding language that web developers use to define the files web browsers present as web pages. Originally HTML was used primarily to define scientific documents, but has long since been adapted to present a wide variety of content. The latest standard has extended the original specifications in an attempt to encapsulate the type of media and functionality that is expected of today's websites and applications. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Simon Jackson) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/about-us/blog/ecommerce-testimonial https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/about-us/blog/ecommerce-testimonial Wed, 13 Oct 2010 11:14:11 +0100 We're very pleased that our website www.poppysofexeter.co.uk (developed with Air Creative) has been extremely successful for our florist clients. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/blog/guide-feedburner https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/blog/guide-feedburner Tue, 12 Oct 2010 11:48:16 +0100 Feedburner is a very useful service provided by Google to allow your feeds to be monitored and then analysed. The Feedburner interface has 5 tabs, Analyze, Optimize, Pulicize, Monetize and Troubleshootize. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Justin Munro) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/white-label-web-build https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/white-label-web-build Fri, 08 Oct 2010 15:40:36 +0100 Like with many web design companies, when we develop a website or online software we credit ourselves with a link back to our website as well adding the project to our portfolio. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (James Brown) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/how-to-web-design-brief https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/how-to-web-design-brief Thu, 07 Oct 2010 12:22:20 +0100 A good brief will help you compare alternative web developers on an equal basis, and give your chosen supplier more opportunity to get involved. Here's a few ideas on what to include in your web design brief: simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/how-to-use-google-fonts https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/how-to-use-google-fonts Wed, 06 Oct 2010 16:02:08 +0100 Google is currently working on a font directory API (Application Programming Interface) that allows anyone to use high-quality web fonts on their website. Adding these fonts to your web pages is very simple. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Justin Munro) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/website-javascript https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/website-javascript Fri, 01 Oct 2010 10:19:51 +0100 As Javascript becomes an ever more popular way of adding extra functionality to websites, it's growing increasingly common to find websites that are either bloated and slow due to their overuse of Javascript or entirely dependent on Javascript and unable to work without it. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Sirbastian Manning) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/web-design-print-design https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/web-design-print-design Fri, 01 Oct 2010 13:03:31 +0100 Here at Bluelinemedia, we work closely with a lot of designers who arrive from a print background. As a result we have a fairly good idea of the challenges designers face when translating their print experience to an online project. What follows is intended as a primer to help avoid the usual pitfalls. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Simon Jackson) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/intellectual-property-website-code https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/intellectual-property-website-code Thu, 23 Sep 2010 14:57:25 +0100 If you decide to use our web design services, we'll ask you to sign our terms and conditions. This often leads to questions about intellectual property, who owns what, and how this affects you. Other suppliers may handle this in different ways, but I just wanted to explain how our agreement works. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/why-php https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/why-php Fri, 10 Sep 2010 15:29:44 +0100 PHP stands for Hypertext Preprocessor and is a server-side programming language. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Justin Munro) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/should-l-pay-more-than-500-for-a-website https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/should-l-pay-more-than-500-for-a-website Mon, 06 Sep 2010 11:07:21 +0100 If you're comparing quotes, we won't be the cheapest (or the most expensive). We charge around £2000 for a typical brochure site, while some companies charge £500 or less. We believe we give that extra value in the quality and service we provide, but we understand it's not easy for you to make a judgement from the outside. The price of a website isn't about the number of pages you need, but the service and quality you get. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/website-post-twitter-facebook https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/website-post-twitter-facebook Fri, 03 Sep 2010 11:59:56 +0100 Now we have a blog on our new website we wanted to automatically update our Twitter feed with the latest items. Upon researching this we found a simple solution provided at the following address - http://www.twitterfeed.com. Twitter feed allows you to update your Twitter and Facebook accounts from an RSS feed generated from your web site content, such as news items or blog entries. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (James Brown) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/integratinggooglemaps https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/integratinggooglemaps Fri, 03 Sep 2010 16:12:09 +0100 Google maps can be a very handy addition to any website, especially on contact pages. I have seen many website with an image of a Google map or a link to the Google maps website but did you know it's very easy to actually embed a live Google map into one of your pages? simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Simon Jackson) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/choosing-jpg-gif-png https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/choosing-jpg-gif-png Fri, 27 Aug 2010 10:58:26 +0100 These three image types are used throughout websites but understanding when to use each image is essential for having fast website load times and crisp graphics. In this post I will not go into how these images types work but instead just concentrate on when to use them. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Justin Munro) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/ie8-opacity-fix https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/ie8-opacity-fix Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:44:24 +0100 One of our current projects required a news ticker that faded in and out with new headlines appearing against a background image. Obviously this is an easy enough effect to implement and relatively quickly, we had a solution in place using the MooTools framework to apply the fade. All seemed fine until we looked at the results in IE8. Firefox, Opera, Safari, IE7 and even IE6 rendered the effect consistently, but IE8 pixelated the font when manipulating the opacity. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Simon Jackson) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/blog/5-ways-improve-search-engine https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/blog/5-ways-improve-search-engine Tue, 24 Aug 2010 17:00:45 +0100 We've been building websites and getting them on search engines for almost 10 years, and we've boiled all that experience down to five simple steps that don't require any technical knowledge. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/javascript-flash https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/javascript-flash Mon, 23 Aug 2010 14:05:45 +0100 It used to be so simple - when you wanted to add something more, well, flashy to your website you used Flash. Where JavaScript was clunky, no good at transitions or animation and was riddled with cross-browser inconsistencies, Flash was smooth, presentation rich and as a plug-in was consistent across browsers. However, with the advent of frameworks such as MooTools and jQuery and increasing browser functionality, the decision is no longer straightforward. Perhaps now the starting point when implementing a whizzy feature should be 'why can't we use JavaScript?'. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Simon Jackson) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/designing-web-apps https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/designing-web-apps Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:37:10 +0100 Here at Bluelinemedia we're known for our user friendly web development but from time to time we need to be creative and get stuck into Adobe Photoshop/Fireworks. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Justin Munro) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/send-sms-website https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/send-sms-website Tue, 17 Aug 2010 09:38:39 +0100 One of our clients recently contacted us and asked if it were possible to send SMS messages from their website straight to their users. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Sirbastian Manning) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/web-developer-experience https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/web-developer-experience Fri, 13 Aug 2010 16:08:45 +0100 There are many different skills and experiences required for being a web developer, but if we look at the skills and experiences that we would look for based on the technologies we use. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (James Brown) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/blog/online-marketing-better https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/blog/online-marketing-better Tue, 10 Aug 2010 09:23:17 +0100 It's no secret that the trend of advertising spend is moving to the internet (as struggling newspapers and commercial TV stations are well aware). This isn't to say that offline marketing doesn't work, but moving marketing to the internet is about more than just following the audience. Web marketing has several advantages which especially favour the small business. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/frameworks-web-code https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/frameworks-web-code Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:29:23 +0100 Frameworks appear in most programming languages and there is often many different types per language. The idea of a framework is to provide a certain structure that the programmer must follow. This structure will usually include functionality that can just be called upon rather than the programmer having to write it from scratch. A lot of this functionality will be based around the mundane or highly replicated programming tasks enabling the programmer to concentrate on the core elements of the software that is being developed. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Justin Munro) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/blog/email-marketing https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/blog/email-marketing Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:40:47 +0100 If you didn't already know, we offer a great email marketing service to help you send professional, trackable emails. If you've ever considered email marketing or been frustrated with the results of your own emails, let us help. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/outsource-web-build https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/outsource-web-build Mon, 26 Jul 2010 10:49:25 +0100 As well as working directly with clients, we build websites for design agencies as an outsourced service. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/dont-need-iphone-app https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/dont-need-iphone-app Tue, 20 Jul 2010 16:44:16 +0100 A few people have asked us about developing apps for the iPhone, but on the whole we don't think you need one (and not just because we don't develop them). Obviously there are plenty of useful and popular apps on the iPhone and other smartphones, like games and gadgets that are developed specifically for mobile use. (iPhone 4 image courtesy of Apple). simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/ie-refresh-fix https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/ie-refresh-fix Thu, 15 Jul 2010 15:21:46 +0100 Recently we ran across an issue with Internet Explorer 7 and 8. It was only refreshing a page using the meta refresh tag once, when we wanted to refresh the page multiple times. Below is an example of the code we were using. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (James Brown) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/blog/idiots-guide-social-media https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/blog/idiots-guide-social-media Wed, 30 Jun 2010 13:29:51 +0100 "Social networking", "Web 2.0", "interactive marketing". Whatever you call it, lots of people are talking about the implications for business and online marketing. This article is not a complete guide, but provides a quick introduction to the main tools and how they can help you. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/what-ask-web-designers https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/what-ask-web-designers Wed, 23 Jun 2010 15:09:26 +0100 If you're looking for a new web designer, there are a few questions you should ask yourself or your potential supplier to help you find the right agency: simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/blog/earn-affiliate-income https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/blog/earn-affiliate-income Tue, 23 Mar 2010 17:38:16 +0000 I just found out about a really simple website for generating affiliate income, although it will work best if you're a publisher, e.g. a blog, magazine or information resource. Skimlinks provides a clever bit of code that automatically inserts affiliate links into your content, so you can make money if someone clicks through. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/cheap-recruitment-software https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/cheap-recruitment-software Sat, 06 Mar 2010 12:16:05 +0000 Over the years we have developed many recruitment systems for our clients. From basic systems for managing candidate details & CV's to more complicated systems that deal with the basic details for candidates, clients, contacts and vacancies as well as including vacancy application stages, secure access for clients and candidates, bookings, invoicing and reporting. For these bespoke recruitment solutions we have our very own micro site detailing these services and prices: Bluelinemedia recruitment solutions. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (James Brown) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/blog/getting-started-seo https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-marketing-seo/blog/getting-started-seo Tue, 02 Mar 2010 09:32:04 +0000 I recently stumbled across a document published by Google that describes how best to optimise sites for Google and other search engines. It is written from a novices point of view, but seems to summarise the basic concepts well. It also pretty much covers the starter SEO we apply for our clients and as such provides a useful explanation of what we will do for them. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Simon Jackson) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/about-us/blog/saleswithouttheselling https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/about-us/blog/saleswithouttheselling Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:31:55 +0000 The best way to sell services is not to sell at all, but to offer help and advice around your expertise. Our approach has always been to listen first, then come back to our office and talk about the project with a colleague, before putting together a proposal of what we think will help. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/upload-large-files https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/upload-large-files Mon, 01 Mar 2010 09:29:10 +0000 Recently we had an issue where we needed to upload large document files through the browser. Uploading documents through the browser is normally limited to around 10 to 15MB using a simple HTML form and for most users that is sufficient. When documents are above this size the file upload will usually fail due to the upload timing out. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Justin Munro) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/twitter-web-integration https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/twitter-web-integration Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:20:44 +0000 We have decided to add more integration with services like Twitter on our new website. This will make the site content more dynamic and hopefully interesting to users as various parts of the website will regularly change. As you may have noticed our new website has twitter integration on the home page. This simply adds just the latest tweet from our twitter account to the What's New section.After researching various methods to achieve this l discovered it was actually quite easy. Twitter gives you a XML feed which is the first thing you will need to obtain using the following code: simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Justin Munro) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/facebook-integration-issues https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/facebook-integration-issues Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:28:32 +0000 One of our clients recently asked us to integrate their Facebook group site into their existing website. This seemed simple enough - simply log in as the group administrator, use the Facebook developer centre section to extract the relevant Javascript, pop it in the page and then style it. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Simon Jackson) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/import-web-data-using-email https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/import-web-data-using-email Thu, 18 Feb 2010 09:45:48 +0000 One of our clients wanted us to allow them to update their online recruitment system with emails they send out to candidates and clients. Whenever they sent messages to prospective candidates & clients or to existing candidates & clients they wanted that message to be created as a note within their online system. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (James Brown) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/ie6-problems https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/ie6-problems Thu, 18 Feb 2010 11:50:07 +0000 As web developers we constantly struggle to make our websites and applications display/function correctly in Internet Explorer 6 (IE6). At the moment it accounts for around 20% of the browsers that people use. This is a high proportion considering it was released back in 2001 and we are now up to Internet Explorer 8 with Internet Explorer 9 already in development. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Justin Munro) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/web-software-saves-money https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/web-software-saves-money Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:34:27 +0000 I just wanted to comment a little on one particular service of ours: creating web applications to improve processes and save time. In the current economic climate, lots of departments within larger organisations are coming under pressure to reduce costs, or having to work more efficiently to account for having fewer staff. Our web software services provide an extremely cost-effective and completely bespoke solution to help managers to achieve this. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/web-link-pdf-page https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-design/blog/web-link-pdf-page Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:15:00 +0000 A client of ours recently needed to link to specific pages within a pdf document. This is something I did not realise was possible so I thought it may be useful to post how this is done. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Justin Munro) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/usingpicturestocommunicate https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/usingpicturestocommunicate Sat, 16 Jan 2010 14:54:00 +0000 Dan Roam's Back of a Napkin (how to solve problems and sell ideas with pictures) gives an interesting guide to a more visual way of working things out and explaining to others. More interestingly for us, it talks about the importance of basic, instinctive visual cues to allow people to instantly 'get' something even when there's lots of information involved. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/about-us/blog/interactive-map https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/about-us/blog/interactive-map Thu, 15 Jan 2009 16:00:55 +0000 We've been added to www.ammap.com as a 'featured example' of their Flash maps tool. amMap is a great Flash tool for creating interactive maps. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/wisdomofcrowds https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/web-development/blog/wisdomofcrowds Fri, 12 Dec 2008 17:21:34 +0000 This fascinating book by James Surowiecki explains how in many cases large groups can make better decisions than a small number of experts. Examples include finding a lost submarine, betting on sports events and the cause of a space shuttle disaster. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery) https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/about-us/blog/custom-website-map https://www.bluelinemedia.co.uk/blog/entry/about-us/blog/custom-website-map Mon, 06 Aug 2007 16:57:56 +0100 Following the recent floods and water shortages in Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, thousands of residents found themselves without mains water and forced to rely on the bowsers - or temporary water tanks - distributed by Severn Trent Water. simon@bluelinemedia.co.uk (Ben Jeffery)