Clarihon blog

• Welcome to Clarihon Web Service’s blog

If you’re an Outlook user (as opposed to Outlook Express) for e-mail, here’s how to back up your e-mail and contacts etc. The instructions for 2003 (cos that’s what I’ve got) are below but you should be able to adapt them easily enough for other versions. If not, perhaps you shouldn’t be using a PC? (OK, a bit harsh perhaps [ ] ).

Before starting make sure that you’ve emptied any Spam folder and the Deleted items folder. It’s also a good idea to remove any attachments that might have been with the e-mails – especially images, sound clips and and movie files. You can do this by going into the e-mail and selecting Edit, Edit message from the top menu. Save the file somewhere where you can find it later, remove it and save the e-mail. This reduces the size of the e-mail ‘backup’ file that will be produced.

From the main menu (Front screen or Inbox) select File, Import and Export.

From the options provided select Export to a file, then Personal Folder file (.pst)

Make sure the top-level (usually Personal Folders) folder is selected and the box at the bottom, Include subfolders, is ticked.

At the next screen pick the location where you want to save the file and a unique name for it – with the date included for ease of use.

As it’s a new file you can ignore the ‘Duplicate items’ options and press ‘Save’. If you’ve selected all the right folders Outlook will then start exporting all the folders one by one to the file you specified. When it’s finished you’ll have a large file that will be anything from several Mb in size to something of several hundred Mb in size. Don’t forget to copy this somewhere safe – another disk, CD, DVD etc.

If you do this every month or so you’ll be able to go back to e-mails that have been accidentally deleted (unless recent of course) and also reduce the size of your mail file. This will speed up Outlook too.

The following may seem quite obvious, but many sites fall down in one or other of these areas:

Legibility – make sure the text is easy to read.  There should be good contrast between the font and the background but avoid bright text on a dark background.   Also avoid using a text size that is too small or too large; keep the larger text sizes for headings and sub-headings.

Readability – remember that reading from a screen is not as easy as reading from paper and it is widely acknowledged that people scan rather than read web pages.  Web content needs to be brief and punchy.  Use bullet points to make the content easy to scan and remember that it should be written for the reader not the writer!

Emphasis – make sure your keywords stand out by using bold, italics or a different colour but not underlined as this causes confusion with hyperlinks.  Use headings and sub-headings so that the reader is well signposted on the page.

Appearance – white space is important, too much text is off-putting to the reader.

Check the content – spell check and proof read to make sure there are no typos or grammatical errors, both of which make a site look unprofessional.

These are just a kew key pointers to making website content more appealing, but why not apply them to websites you look at and you will soon realise how many of them could benefit from following a few basic tips.

What’s in it for me?  This is the question that the majority of users want answered when they open a newsletter.  As we are all well aware there is a lot of competition when it comes to a reader’s inbox and you want to make sure that your newsletter gets read (or rather scanned as that all people have time for).  A few suggestions:

- all essential information needs to be presented as text, use graphics to add impact.  This is especially true if you have a special offer included in the newsletter.

- make sure that important information is presented on the screen as the newsletter opens rather than tucked away at the bottom – again very relevant if you have a special offer – alternatively ensure that there is a content list to grab your readers’ attention.

- as mentioned above, images add impact but they need to be kept small so that they do not take an age to load.   There is plenty of free software available for resizing images if you do not have Photoshop or a similar commercial package.

- if the reader needs to link through to a fuller article, special offer etc., ensure that the call to action is clear.

- avoid sending newsletters at peak holiday times!

In the article What is a blog? we made reference to search engines (Google, Yahoo etc.) adding more weight to their ranking of your site with the addition of a blog.

Factors that seem to have some bearing on this are:

- blogs are written in a conversational style with each posting relating to a single topic which is likely to be rich in keywords and phrases

- blogs can be set up so that the page name is the title of the blog posting which is something search engines like

- many blogs use a template supplied with the programme so the code is “clean” and well structured

- there are usually plenty of links with blogs – another aspect that search engines take into account

- blogs usually have a simple structure in terms of the pages so it’s easy for them to be explored and indexed by search engines

If you’ve thought about adding a blog to your site but not sure where to start then why not give us a call today on 01579 342360.

When you review the material on your web site, look at it from the point of view of a prospective client or customer.

They’ll be wanting to know what’s in it for them to look over your web site. They might be:

1) wanting to buy a product or service

2) looking for information – articles, white papers or just snippets

3) assessing your credibility and level of professionalism

4) looking for a myriad of other reasons

If it’s 1) then you’ll want to make sure your service or product list and pricing is up to date.

If it’s 2) then you’ll want to make sure that you’ve got quality, relevant information there.

If it’s 3) then you’ll want to make sure that the site looks professional, modern and error-free.

If it’s 4) then, well you’d better be a mind reader!