In fact, I’d go one step further and say, if they’re activity is less that 70% seeding, 30% bought advertising, walk away.

I’ve said it before, I will say it again - online advertising is dead money. If you want to spend your money, give your advertising spend to a charity and PR what you have done in the press. You’ll get better return on investment than with banner advertising.

Okay, there are always scenarios and executions that break the mould but my thinking still holds true in 99.9% of cases.

Get away from thinking online advertising is about traditional media buying. Users make media work hard online and therefore your advertising must either work harder OR work in synergy with the user.

Send time working out where your audience go and participate with the rest of world be it through forums, blogs, social networking sites. Seed your brand in with them by adding value or buying on their discussions.

Tropicana Smoothies have just done this very well with their new advert featuring Nina wall singing “Catch a failing star.” They found out where in the web it was being discussed and then got involved with the discussion adding more comprehensive information to the discussion and link to their site where the advert and track were available to listen to.

Don’t force your brand unless you can genuinely assist. If you’re a building firm, find out the best building forums and post advice. A hairdresser? Go to fashion sites and throw in your opinion.

The key rule is if you give something to users, make it clear who the ‘titbit’ came from and, even better, include a link back to your site or micro site.

Online advertising can work but just needs to approached differently to the lazy banner ad that invisibly grace most commercial sites you visit.

Might be a power outage, virus, an overly enthusiastic developer. There are loads of reasons why your site might suddenly vanish.

You need to make sure you always have a holding page ready for such eventualities. Make sure this page is on a different server because if your server goes down it’ll take the holding page down too.

If your site goes down, forward your domain temporarily to the holding page located on the different server. Forwarding is quicker to implement.

What goes on your holding page? The basic amount of information. Your name, contact information and a brief explanation of why they are seeing this page. Something along the lines of, “We are currently updating our site and hope to be back before the end of the day.”

Of course, set realistic timeframes before you commit to anything. Talk to your hosts first and get a ballpark time frame from them.

And, it goes without saying to NOT use the digging man and “Under construction” emblem

Research has started to show that actually users are beginning to distrust top ranked sites and plum for the second or third placed sites first. The reason for this is users are realising that a lot of money is being spent (unnecessarily I hasten to add) to hit the top spot and the sites doing this, won’t usually give the information the user is after.

The reason for this is because, rather than focusing on genuine quality site content and the needs of the user, the sites are often just packed with key words, paid high ‘page rank’ sites for referral links and consultancy to use site tags to optimise effectively.

Those users who do click on the top ranked site usually give it a cursory review only to ‘kick off’ their research and concentrate far more closely on subsequent sites. This is particularly true with users looking for sales. They very rarely will buy from the first site they visit.

Finally, there is usually some form of compromise that must be made with the quality of design for those sites hitting the top spot. Perhaps ugly live text along the top of the screen stamped on an otherwise lovely looking clean site.

It’s always great telling friends and colleagues, and even better rivals, that you’re top for searches. However, don’t be disheartened if you’re not. Second, third or even fourth might be advantageous, in the long run.

It has taken me 30 mins to drive, park and get my ticket from the station. It will take me 90 minutes to get into Waterloo. It will taken me 25 minutes to get from Waterloo to where my meeting in.

I’ll then have my meeting. I’ll then spend another 25 minutes heading back to Waterloo, 90 minutes back to Salisbury, 20 mins back to the office.

So for a 1 hour meeting, I will have spent 280 minutes getting to and from it.

You don’t need to be a genius to think this is not the best use of time. Inefficient? Incredulous!

And we haven’t even considered the carbon-footprint of this meeting.

But we do it, everyday and we shout about how little time there is in a day and how we need to cut back on emissions.

Web conferencing has to be the answer. Web conferencing took a bit of a bashing when first launch fifteen years ago. The infrastructure just wasn’t in place to make it viable. Limited locations with the relevant facilities. Bandwidth issues and delays.

However, with broadband and super-fast next generation broadband, as well as mass market web conferencing facilities being available quickly and for free, such as with Skype, web conferencing is here and happening. enotions runs its entire organisation by web conference and instant messaging using Skype.

All that’s required is companies to embrace this technology and for employers to better educate their employees as to how to effective plan and prepare for web conferencing.

Web conferencing isn’t the answer for all meeting needs. Sometimes you have to look the user in the physical eye, not just the digital one, but for the vast majority of meetings, it’s the most efficient communication tool for businesses and the world.

Here’s my stop. I better get off.

But what makes for a good blog? Here are some pointers for you.

1. Be opinionated
Nothing is worse than a blog that sits on the fence. People like to read blogs that tell it like it is. Stick out your chin, crack your knuckles and write with attitude. People will like it, even if they don’t agree with you.

2. Write every single day
Keep your blog fresh and relevant and your audience coming back frequently by adding to your blog every day. This might be as little as a single paragraph but get into the habit of writing a little every single day.

3. Keep it short
Say as much as you can in the least amount of words. People are busy, especially when they are online. Hit people with your facts from the start and keep them coming. Bish Bash bosh.

4. Keep it snappy
Write as if you’re writing for a gossip magazine. Make sure you use a headline that says exactly what the blog is about and consider a summary directly below this that further elaborates if need be.

5. We all love lists
Lists make content easily digestible. Avoid long paragraphs.

6. One point per paragraph
People don’t read on line. They skim read. They read a paragraph, then drop down to the next paragraph, read a few words and if nothing catches their attention then drop down to the next paragraph. Write paragraphs short and with one point per paragraph so if people do jump, they don’t miss anything. Also consider sub titles to help divide up the article.

7. Find your style and keep to it
People who frequent your site will get to know and hopefully love your style. Find a style that works for you and your business/service/site and stick to it.

8. Edit your post
Before you hit the submit button, re-read your post and check for spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Be tough. Cut out the stuff that you don’t need.

“Social media is where technology allows individuals to interact with other people so they become part of a community. They might share opinions, insights and experiences as text, images, audio or video via blogs, message boards, wikis, RSS, podcasts and social networking sites.”

Social Media is all about spreading your message, product or services by ‘digital word of mouth’.

It’s the most powerful form of ‘advertising’ you can use because it’s not about pushing your message at a blind audience. It’s about the online community willingly picking up your message and distributing it freely.

There are a number key channels you should be using to ensure you use Social Media to the very best of yours, and its, ability.

1) Create a MySpace Page
MySpace is just not for bands and freaks. MySpace is for everyone with something that might be of interest to others. You can quickly set yourself up with a MySpace page for free and immediately start advertising. The main limitation with MySpace is you are tied into the MySpace template so look to achieve standout with the content you use and look to drive people away from your MySpace page to your own web site where you can dip them into your full brand experience. Spend an hour or two every week updating content, expanding your links and inviting new people to comment on what you have to say.

2) Add Bookmarking Links
The ultimate for every web site owner is to have their site bookmarked by the visitor. Make it effortless for people to do this by including links through to the likes of Digg, Technorati, Del.icio.us and Reddit. These bookmarking sites allow people with an interest in your sphere of business to quickly find you. A big part of the social web is the ability for people to build lísts of their favourite sites or articles. People with similar interests can then share their lísts and benefit from other people’s recommendations.

3) Add an RSS Feed
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and allows people who bookmark your feed to be notified every time new articles are added to your website so they can keep up to date with your content. You’ll need to create the appropriate RSS code for your website (talk to your techie or us ) and then put a link on all of your pages to the RSS code page. The link should be a small orange rectangle with the letters RSS in white.

4) Write a Blog
Hey, you’re currently reading enotions’ blog! Blogs consist of short articles, listed one after the other, usually on the home page but sometimes on a separate blog page. They usually cover current events or comment on industry related news. Do as enotions don’t! Update the blog every day even if it is with just one- or two-sentence comments. A busy blog encourages audience growth, participation and better search engine optimisation. You can integrate blogs into your main site or have a blog as a micro site. Use Wordpress or Blogger - they’re great and free.

5) Open a Twitter account
Twitter is the latest social networking craze (at time of writing!) Twitter lets you inform the world of your every move, activity and thought within 140 characters per entry. You can share your ‘Tweets’ as they are called with closed or open groups. It’s a great way, if you’re developing a product or service, of keeping your customers up to date with how developments are coming on.

There are other facilities that creep into Social Networking and Social Media; FaceBook being the big one (but that probably deserves it’s own blog article), Send to a Friend and Forums all being relevant, but for now I have tried to focus on the hottest platforms of the moment.

Whilst they all require dedication and involvement on your part, you’ll be rewarded with a far more involving site and involved audience and that can only be a good thing.

It’s the first of a multi-phased online campaign which will involve some fantastic support for Above and Below the Line campaigns, and some pretty clever technology to really push the Cobra message out to the masses.

But for now, we’re focused on covering all the usual bases; product and company information, contact, news, subscriber news PLUS a pretty smart postcode lookup utilising Google Maps that allows you to find where the nearest pint of Cobra can be found in relation to a postcode.

Over the last few years, enotions has moved away from just nice looking sites and started to blend eyeball popping design with some really clever functionality to offer clients both beauty and value with their web sites.

Just wait till you see what’s coming with Cobra later this year. Exciting times for Cobra, and enotions too!

“No, kind sir, you misunderstand. I’m not homeless, I just work from home.”

A scene from everyday life. Well, on the days when I force myself from the safe haven that is my house, at least. I’m just kidding of course, I never leave the house.

That’s the fantastical factor in working from home. I can be who I want to be. Suit and tie, or
socks and pants. Today I’m working in a business environment in my pyjama bottoms, how
cool is that!? And tomorrow I could be coding a standards compliant web site for a multi-
million dollar organisation whilst wearing my underpants over my trousers.

And this is my point; you don’t need to wear a posh suit, or shave off your evermore gingery
beard, or have kempt thoroughly combed and washed hair, or even deodorise regularly to
work effectively. While these things are important to your general welfare and may have an
impact on your relationship with your partner, the important thing when working remotely is to have a Superman style attitude, to match the pants.

Honesty and trust between worker and employer is so important. You have to have the right
attitude. Remote workers could hide behind the “online” status and actually be downstairs
painting their toenails. That’s an example, nothing to do with me. You wouldn’t find Clark
Kent sneaking off early under such an obvious guise! Well, yes you would, but nobody ever
notices, and it’s for a good cause, so let’s forgive him.

In a world of judgement and categorising of people into geeks and “cool cats” (use of that
term puts me in the former group), working remotely as a web developer is actually very cool.

Working from home doesn’t mean you’re comparable to a hermit crab. Don’t feel sorry for me for supposedly hunching over my dancing “typist fingers*” in my cellar of stale air, dripping pipes and with only a computer screen for light. I have the earth’s natural light beaming into my office. There are no drip drop sounds unless my ill-trained puppy is in the room. I have fresh air, relatively - when I remember to pop the extractor fan on “post effort”.

What’s more, my morning commute is a merry skip and a hop along the hallway, and it’s
free, not a smelly trip and start-stop along London’s tubes for a fee! I feel a song coming on!

And so what, I took over an hour at lunch watching Neighbours and Diagnosis Murder. Pah!
I’ll just work “late” until six, I’ll be home by 6:01. And if we need to force our noses to the
grindstone for an upcoming deadline, we can start an hour or so earlier while all the
commuters are smelling each other’s farts on a packed train.

Busy, off-putting murmurings from your co-workers? Are the office girls catching your eye
every five minutes, squawking away on the phone? No thank you! I can work with much
more delightful twittering birds in the garden in the summer, in the fresh air and with the bees conjuring relaxing hum.

And yet, aside from the un-smelly commuting and the pants on the outside of your trousers
lies a downside to working from home, and this is the lack of real human interaction. I’ve often danced in front of the mirror, and would have liked to have shared these moments with
the team. I’ve yet to fully embrace the web cam with the enotions members, which could
prove detrimental when seeing your morning-state colleagues. There is a state of healthy
banter in our online boardroom however that keeps workers amused. I say amused, I’m not
speaking on behalf of those on the other end of my jokes.

However, overall, working in the familiar settings of your own abode is more flexible, less
stressful, not as distracting as a busy office and more comfortable, which in my opinion all
result in greater efficiency and accuracy in your work. You just need to make sure you see
some real humans once in a while.

Now I really must take off these tights, after four days it’s all getting a bit uncomfortable…

* “Typist fingers” is in the dictionary as “a common ailment in geeks”, and is increasingly as abundant as the nose bleed throughout the world of coders.

Jamie is one of enotions’ top web developers

When people ring you up to enquire about your business, who you are and what you offer why not direct them, there and then to a virtual showroom of your business.

Most people, when they ring you will be sitting next to a computer. Ask them to fire it up and send them to yourbusinessname-showroom.com (not the main site, this is a much more intimate site).

The next thing you’ll say is, “Yes, that’s me there on the left and on the right is a picture of the team. Yes, ugly bunch, but very talented!”

“Okay, click on the section named Services. Okay, you in? Great. That’s Steve, head of Services. Yes, those are all the recent developments he’s worked on.”

You get the idea. And, in my humble opinion, it’s a killer idea People switch off on the phone, their mind wanders as they stare out the window. With this, you have them focused on the site in front of them, looking at all your lovely staff and the brilliant things your business offers.

I reckon this would have a really significant effect on conversion. I’ll let you know when enotions’ showroom is built.

The web is an amazing media to broadcast yourself, to launch your business, to reap rewards of a financial and emotional kind. But it can also feel quite hollow at times, humbling in its size and dispiriting in its insincerity.

After a period when I found myself in front of the web for 18 hours per day for 6 days solid the other week, it made me want to shut it off and go and do something less boring instead. But that’s the point. The web is NOT boring. It’s astonishing. It’s deep and addictive and endless in terms of what you can do and gain and discover within it. And that got me thinking. Has it really answered all man’s answers? Does it really give us everything we need? Can we really live our lives now in front of a computer screen and never want for anything else?

For instance, how does the web compare to reading a book, or watching a television programme, or just going for a pint with mates? I thought I’d ask these and other questions, and see if I could find some answers….

The web means you’ll never need to read a book again.
Have you ever tried reading online? Impossible. eBooks? Give me a break. There’s something comforting to the eye about reading in print. Even on a PDA designed for ease on the eye, you’re darting all over the place. Bet you’ve skipped half of this article already because reading on screen is hard. And as for virtual page turning, pull the other one! Cheap gimmick. Give me a curled paperback or magazine any day.

The web is fountain of all knowledge.
True, but you need to go looking for it and learn what to believe and what to distrust. The problem is no one reviews what it is published online. Okay, Wikipedia reviews itself but who’s to say that what one administrator thinks might be completely different to what the very next one might think. I have read the most fantastically incorrect things in Wikipedia, from flight being first recorded in America to Robert Mugabe burning in hell when he dies (okay, not all false but, you get the picture.)

The web frees us
Does it? In many ways the web binds us and it binds us without us even noticing, which is the really worrying part. How? Search engines. Search engines are FAR more powerful that people give them credit for. Search engines are the sign posts to all knowledge. You want to find out about how to lay a brick wall, search on “how to lay a brick wall.” You want to know who to vote for in the next election, search on “who to vote on.” Suddenly, what we are told and what we act on is coming from the important sites according to search engines. From the insignificant (building a wall - unless is falls on you) to how to vote in an election, search engines are telling you what information to use. Just think about that for a minute.

The web helps us make friends
Maybe, but friends with who and on what level? Are our online friends really who they say they are? It’s proven that many people adopt online personas quite different from their worldly counterparts. Just play Second Life or an online communal game and you’ll see what I mean. People in every day life are NOT that bold or blatant or liberated. And are online friendships as deep and meaningful as our real life friendships. To some people yes, I am sure they are but to the majority of us I doubt it. I have, apparently, 100s of digital Best Friends in Facebook (I know, Billy no mates). But I know for a fact, my real life true friends I can count on one, okay maybe two, hands (at a push).

The web gives us it, when we want it
True. You want it, be it porn or music or videos general irreverent chatter, the web can give you it. You Tube is the most awesome creation ever. I can watch my old heroes of rock music and see them on stage and interview and never shove my hand in my pocket and pay for a DVD again. I can watch that thing I wanted to watch about the snakes eating bison whenever I want and not rely on being in front of the TV at 8pm on a Sunday. BUT, deny it or not, we are creatures of habit and whilst we might rejoice in being freed to get stuff when we desire it or think we want it, we NEED to shut off our brains and our busy schedules once in a while and let someone else take the strain and controls and give us what they think we want. That, in itself, is being truly free. Giving up our control over our media intake and say, “No, you entertain me. You take me where you want to take me.”

(Rob is currently overworked and, after a short break, will be back rejoicing in the web again soon.)