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Gold, Silver, Bitcoin, Ethereum Price Reversal Near?
6 September 2022
The turnaround week for precious metal asset prices may have come when gold touched $2,075 before the Bank of Russia abolished the ruble-gold link and sent gold prices plunging. Unsurprisingly, wi...more info>>>

Gold, silver, Bitcoin, Ethereum Price Reversal Near?
6 September 2000
The turnaround week for precious metal asset prices may have come when gold touched $2,075 before the Bank of Russia abolished the ruble-gold link and sent gold prices plunging. Unsurprisingly, wi...more info>>>

Twitter Statistics for 2014
25 September 2014
All the facts and figures regarding Twitter in 2014 can be found below (via mediabistro.com) ...more info>>>

On Composing the Perfect Tweet
24 September 2014
You only get 140 characters when composing a "tweet" on Twitter, so you need to make the most of each and every character. Your message does in theory go further than your followers - people can use ...more info>>>

How to Discover More About Your Twitter Followers
25 September 2014
There's a myriad of free Twitter tools out there to help you find out more about the people who follow you - but given there's so many, it's hard to know which tools are the most appropriate for WHAT ...more info>>>

How to Get More Followers on Twitter
23 September 2014
Twitter - when used correctly - is a fantastic way to broadcast your messages. However, 99.9% of Twitter users aren't making the most of their account. There's no two ways about it - you need to off...more info>>>

Twitter Is Capturing a Bigger Share of New Users
22 September 2014
Via infographicscreator.com - an interesting statistic:- Twitter is grabbing MORE new customers. 53% of Twitter users have been a member for less than a year, compared to just 19% for Facebook. Thi...more info>>>

Images Get More Retweets on Twitter
11 September 2014
Your Twitter stream can end up looking like a blur of words as you scroll down it - interrupted by the odd striking image. And its these striking images that win most of the retweets. Not all tweets ...more info>>>

SEO Really Is Dead - Time to Move On
9 September 2014
A lot of companies have been clinging onto SEO as a method of marketing - mainly because if it works (if Google rewards you), it's a very passive form of marketing that gives you a lot of reward for (...more info>>>

A Social Platform Cheat Sheet for the Absolute Beginner
4 September 2014
Understandably, the phrase "social marketing" leaves a lot of small business owners cold. Your own personal experience of dabbling with Twitter or Facebook might leave you yawning and wondering what ...more info>>>

Google's Tail Continues to Wag the Dog
7 August 2014
Google have been acting as a de facto (and unelected) "government of webmasters" for a few years now, and their latest "law" shows just how much control they have over all webmasters who see Google as...more info>>>

Know Your Twitter Limits
7 August 2014
Twitter became famous for one single limit: no more than 140 characters per message. However, there other rather interesting limits that Twitter imposes on its users, highlighted by mediabistro.com's...more info>>>

15 Twitter Phrases That Have Had Their Day
6 August 2014
I find any kind of internet meme/trend annoying, so when http://uk.marketo.com/ compiled a list of Twitter phrases, I was actually quite pleased that I'd not encountered most of them - it's a bit of a...more info>>>

Twitter: the Reliable Marketing Channel for Your Business
5 August 2014
With Facebook being stingy on on just how many of your fans get to see your Facebook posts, and Google just being plain weird when it comes to their organic rankings, the typical small business can st...more info>>>

5 Ways to Capture the Attention of Your Twitter Followers
2 August 2014
Twitter is all about getting the attention of your followers. Do that, and they'll retweet and favourite your messages, which in turn will help gain you new followers. So Twitter is NOT about merely...more info>>>

Are Google Worried They Might Lose Money if They Update Penguin?
30 July 2014
An interesting theory posited over at webmasterworld.com here - to quote:- Do you think google hasn't done an analysis of how much recovery there will be on the next penguin refresh? What if they c...more info>>>

8 Types of Message to Send Out on Twitter
29 July 2014
Twitter is all about ENGAGEMENT, not just number of followers. It's also true that some tweets are more engaging than others, and this post looks at the most popular types of message that will encour...more info>>>

10 Reasons Why Shoppers Are Abandoning Your E-commerce Website
29 July 2014
The big question that every e-commerce website owner wants to know the answer to is : why did somebody abandon their basket on my site? There are many reasons why that might be, and the infographic be...more info>>>

10 Years Ago Today...
27 July 2014
Ten years ago today (27th July 2014), I launched the shoptemplate.co.uk demo shop. This has now evolved into puresilva.com. Click to enlargeClick to enlarge...more info>>>

Social Marketing Is All About Timing
21 July 2014
To maximise the amount of people that see your posts on social networks, you need to be careful as to WHEN you make your posts. Here's an interesting infographic from http://www.socialcaffeine.com/ ...more info>>>

What are the Online Marketing Trends in 2014?
20 July 2014
With Google becoming a less and less reliable traffic source, there's been a strong shift towards social networking platforms. However, it's so easy to get frustrated by the likes of Facebook and Twi...more info>>>

15 Tips to Help You Succeed on Twitter
19 July 2014
There's an infographic below (via socialmarketingwriting.com) with some useful tips regarding Twitter - but before you see that - there's a couple of basic tips I'd like to offer:-give your followers ...more info>>>

A Picture Really Is Worth a Thousand Words
19 July 2014
The maxim that a picture is worth a thousand words holds true for website content too - depending that you use high quality images appropriately. An image can represent the type of products you sell,...more info>>>

A Daily Dose of Music
17 July 2014
Music - I like it, so I built a page that has some music on it! A daily dose of music brings you 3 recommended tracks to listen to plus a random UK top 40 from anywhere between 1960 and last year. I h...more info>>>

Are You Setting Yourself Up for Failure?
8 July 2014
Hope is carrying out a task, and believing that positive results could very well come from completing the task. Confidence is carrying out a task, and anticipating positive results from the task. ...more info>>>

Unnecessary Barriers that Stop Shoppers Buying from Your Website
3 July 2014
Shoppers want to buy from your site - they don't want to register to your site. They also want to know how they can pay for their items before the checkout process begins. This video looks at two bi...more info>>>

Make Sure You Know Your Advanced Location Settings on Google Adwords
2 July 2014
...if you don't check your advanced location settings on your Adwords campaigns, you're likely wasting a lot of clicks! Did you know that if you target the UK for example, people outside the UK may st...more info>>>

How Customer Reviews Can Help Your Business
1 July 2014
Customer reviews are incredibly helpful for shoppers to help decide whether to go with your product / service or not - make sure your website has such a feature! ...more info>>>

Examples of Unhelpful and Helpful Website Banners
30 June 2014
Here's a video on how to make the most of your website's banner:- ...more info>>>

When You Have to Deal With Google Adword Suspensions
29 June 2014
This is one of my first video blogs, so I'm just going to bulletpoint what it's about below - more details in the video below! One of my clients, John Evans of Distinctive Handmade Boxes, received ...more info>>>

Getting Things Done - To Do Lists
26 June 2014
It's easy to take each day as it comes - to react to everything - incoming emails and phone calls, followed up with a vague idea of what you plan to do that day. Quite often though, the day runs away...more info>>>

Getting Things Done - Stop Wasting Time
24 June 2014
This is a post that's in danger of slipping into the "self-help" category, but nonetheless, I am compelled to make it. First off, I think we all want to make the most of our time in some way. It's g...more info>>>

The More Challenging Something Is, The Less Competition You Have
20 June 2014
The title says it all really - if your business model requires a considerable amount of hard work, skill, research and perseverence to be a success, then you can be sure that a lot of your competition...more info>>>

Altruism Is Good for Business
18 May 2014
I took a call today from a guy called Peter Brown who runs a drainage company - he had a question about one of the directories I run as he wanted to add his website to it. He mentioned that he ran hi...more info>>>

Google Adwords Default Settings You May Not Be Aware Of
12 May 2014
The purpose of this article is to uncover Google Adwords settings you may not be aware of, as they're buried away in "Advanced" sections. These are default settings that MAY lead to a lot of irreleva...more info>>>

New submenu feature coming to Puresilva soon
18 April 2014
Here's a sneak preview >> The new feature will allow you to create category lists, dynamic category lists, blog lists, and custom submenu lists (basically anything you want) - you can ima...more info>>>

Aaron Wall v Google
27 January 2014
Aaron Wall's latest analysis on Google reads like a modern version of Catch-22 - which sums up a lot of the logical sinkholes you'll find yourself falling down when hit with any kind of Google penalty...more info>>>

Developers 0 Users 1
15 January 2014
That's the final score. The away team won, when the home team thought they had the advantage. What am I talking about? The "battle" between what developers want to develop, and how the users of...more info>>>

Signals of Trust You Can Add to Your Website
11 January 2014
Trust is a big factor to ensuring any business success. If your business is online, it leaves prospective customers with a problem - how can they trust you when everything seems so remote? Building ...more info>>>

New Design to Puresilva.com
26 December 2013
puresilva.com has gone through its first major re-design since it launched in 2006 - that's 7 years! The site was becoming an anachronism - outdated and even rather disheveled - a real horror show of...more info>>>

Minor Epiphany When Viewing My Email Inbox
20 December 2013
Why do so many internet marketing companies - self-described experts no less - send unsolicited spam emails to market their own company? If they can't market their own company without resorting to thi...more info>>>

December Updates Planned for Puresilva
8 December 2013
Here are some updates to Puresilva planned for release through December:-Click-tracking on mailshot campaigns - see how many people (and which recipient) clicked through to your website from your mail...more info>>>

Windows Live Mail Seems to Encourage Phishing
3 December 2013
We all get phishing emails - your NatWest account has been suspended, your eBay account has been compromised, etc. They are bogus emails trying to scare you into giving away your details. They will ...more info>>>

Facebook Switch Breaks Websites
10 November 2013
I've noticed when logged into Facebook, and visiting websites with Facebook Like buttons, there's a little square box with the word "Switch" in it - in place of the Facebook Like button. It looks lik...more info>>>

So You Want Quick Sales After Launching a New Website
10 November 2013
The anticipation of sales is palpable after launching a new site. There's so much to discover about how your target market responds to your offering. That first sale is a big relief, but how quickly...more info>>>

New Pricing for Our Website Template
24 October 2013
The puresilva website template has simplified its pricing. You can now try it out for FREE for 14 days, followed by monthly payments of £19.99 per month, with no minimum term contract. This is ...more info>>>

No SEO Please, We're British
22 October 2013
Since giving up on SEO, I've freed up so much more time to work on other marketing strategies. Apparently there was a Penguin update earlier this month (some SEO news I simply can't escape the report...more info>>>

Is Your Marketing Too Passive?
5 August 2013
Search engines have encouraged us to be quite passive with our marketing. We tend to wait for people to find us, rather than go out and seek them. The former requires less effort than the latter, bu...more info>>>

Does Great Content Rank Well in Google?
16 May 2013
Listen to Matt Cutts (chief PR man of Google's spam team), and he'll tell you to write great content. He doesn't say you'll rank well if you do so, but he keeps telling us to write great content. It...more info>>>

Puresilva Template Now With Responsive, Mobile-Friendly Design
5 May 2013
With the growth in mobile (specifically, small screen) website traffic, website developers are having their hand forced into ensuring their websites are friendly to such small-screen visitors. Mobile...more info>>>

What Does It Take to Create a Successful Online Business in 2013?
27 January 2013
Essentially, you need to:- 1. Have a product or service that has a demand, and...2. the supply of your product or service must be easy enough to find for your target market, and... 3. the quality of ...more info>>>

company.com/facebook is better than facebook.com/company
26 July 2012
In the years to come, your brand will be on a much stronger platform if you can control the platform it's on. There's nothing wrong with social media, but it should augment your marketing endeavours,...more info>>>

Puresilva website template now just £25 per month * 10 months
21 June 2012
You can now buy our website template at just £25 per month over 10 months (interest free). This puts our template in line with the monthly cost of EKMPowershop (when including VAT), but with puresilv...more info>>>

Google Cannot Forget Their Unique Selling Point
10 June 2012
There's been a lot of talk about Google favouring big brands in their SERPs (search engine result pages) - and with their recent announcement that Google Shopping will now no longer be free, but be "p...more info>>>

Google+ Local Recommends Places in Northampton for Me
31 May 2012
.....Northampton, Massachusetts, about 3000 miles from where I live - not very local! My Google+ profile tells me I live in Northampton, England, but when I go to my local results, I see Northampto...more info>>>

New Microblog Feature with the Template
26 May 2012
There's definitely a need for site owners to communicate with their visitors directly - often in a kind of present-tense style - to let them know about something that's happening now. Maybe it's :-ne...more info>>>

Annoying Google Ads that Follow Me
10 April 2012
I'm not sure how well the updates to Google's privacy policy are helping deliver more relevant ads on their Adsense platform. Case in point: I visited a competitor's site the other day, and since the...more info>>>

Clothing and Jewellery: It's All About Niche
22 February 2012
When it comes to selling items, a popular category amongst our clients is fashion. As the fashion market online is a very saturated one when it comes to competition, it's also a good insight into how...more info>>>

If Google+ Succeeds, it's a Loss for Small Businesses
7 February 2012
If Google+ succeeds as a social network, it will mean small businesses will be hobbled with yet ANOTHER platform to setup an account with and market from. Bigger busineses can afford to throw more hu...more info>>>

Trouble at the Google Mill
24 January 2012
While Google have helped my business over the years (and continue to do so via bringing me traffic), and helped my clients too, there's now a number of looming problems with their services that deserv...more info>>>

New Keyword Research Service from Puresilva
2 January 2012
Despite all the hype about Facebook and Twitter as platforms to promote a business, the search engines Google still provides the most targeted, intent-driven traffic to websites. The difference betwe...more info>>>

Websites: Templated and Patchable v Bespoke
30 December 2011
I am still amazed at how slow the web design industry moves. Even in 2002, it was obvious to me that web development and software development are pretty much the same thing - complex scripts that are...more info>>>

BOTW.org Voucher / Promo Code: STUFFED50
29 November 2011
If you submit your website here to botw.org directory today, you will receive 50% off listings (today only) - just enter this voucher code: STUFFED50...more info>>>

Web Design Is Dictated By How People Actually Use a Site
21 November 2011
I've used this cliché more than once, but it's worth repeating - ask 10 people their opinion on a particular website - in terms of design - and you'll get back 11 opinions. First off, people ofte...more info>>>

Google PageRank Outage: Glitch or Ditch?
6 October 2011
Since about 3AM UK time, every website has a page rank of zero (including google.com, bbc.co.uk, facebook.com). This may be a glitch as it's only been a few hours, but if it's a deliberate ditch by G...more info>>>

Imagine an Alternative Internet
16 September 2011
Imagine an internet that was a true meritocracy where the best content, best services, and best products naturally got the most coverage in the search engine results. The better your site, the more s...more info>>>

Internet Dystopia: Page Rank Obsessives and Automated Linking
22 July 2011
The humble website link used to be something that simply connected one page to another. A little blue underlined "click here" that took you "there" because a person genuinely found an interesting web...more info>>>

Web Developers Need SEO Skills Too
30 June 2011
Making a website and marketing a website are different disciplines, but they are actually closely related due to the technical nature of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and PPC (Pay Per Click) market...more info>>>

Why Blekko Finds It Hard to Compete Against Google
27 June 2011
I'm all for championing the underdog, and perhaps I even have a built-in bias against the dominant players in any market. A good example: there's just something wrong when people claim to support Man...more info>>>

Ezilon.com Directory Voucher Code - s1z8v
3 June 2011
I've been notified of a voucher code that's valid through June 2011 for the human-review directory - ezilon.com. The voucher code is : s1z8v - using the code will give you 30% off your website submis...more info>>>

Can You Control the Quality of the Product or Service You Sell?
18 May 2011
I've mentioned before that enthusiasm for the product or service you sell makes your life so much easier:- Marketing Is All About Improving Your Product Push and Pull Marketing ....you're mor...more info>>>

Even Microsoft Want People to Stop Using IE6
5 March 2011
An interesting site here: ie6countdown.com - it is encouraging people to upgrade from IE6 to a more modern browser. The interesting thing about this site is that it's Microsoft who have published thi...more info>>>

BOTW.org Voucher / Promo Code: FEB20
2 February 2011
botw.org are offering 20% off listings this month on their directory - just enter the code FEB20 when submitting your site for a 20% discount. I'd count botw.org in the top 3 directories in terms of ...more info>>>

On Website Successes and Failures
27 January 2011
With nearly 14 years of building websites - from simple one pagers to full e-commerce, I've seen many wesites both succeed and fail online. While it's human nature to focus on what's successful, it's...more info>>>

Page Rank Update January 2011
21 January 2011
So it's finally happened - the first Page Rank update by Google update since 2nd April 2010 (on the day Google announce Larry Page, which Page Rank is actually named after, is becoming the new CEO of ...more info>>>

Quality Directory Bargains - business.com and botw.org
28 December 2010
First off, there's a great deal on at business.com - listings are just $149 per year to get listed (half price down from $299 per year) - this is one of the high quality directories that will give you...more info>>>

New Updated Photo Gallery for the Template
19 November 2010
There's a new type of photo gallery available for the puresilva website template - the "Search Engine Friendly Gallery". You can select it in backoffice > photo gallery (within the template):- ...more info>>>

Google, Where Are My Search Results?
12 October 2010
Google has slowly but surely relegated its actual search results further and further down the page over the years. Actually, in 2010, if you browse in common resolutions like 1024 x 768 or 1280 x ...more info>>>

Is Google Getting Rid of PageRank?
10 October 2010
It's been a good 6 months since the last major PageRank update (early April). July came and went without an update, and now October is showing a conspicuous silence from the Chocolate Factory over at...more info>>>

Which Social Networks Help Get My New Web Pages Indexed Quicker?
1 September 2010
When you post something new on your blog, you want the search engines to pick up this new article/content as soon as possible. A high speed of indexing indicates that search engine spiders like your ...more info>>>

Marketing Is All About Improving Your Product/Service
30 June 2010
A while ago I wrote about push and pull marketing and how the market has moved away from push to pull i.e. cold calling and interrupting people (push) is less effective because it's gotten much easier...more info>>>

puresilva Website V Selling With an eBay Shop
23 June 2010
This is a bit of a false dilemma of course as you don't need to choose between :-Selling with a puresilva website ORSelling on a platform like eBay....you can sell on both of course, but let's compare...more info>>>

Five Mistakes Still Being Made By Websites in 2010
1 June 2010
Here are 5 mistakes websites still make in 2010 - I call them mistakes because they just get in the way of the visitor. Talking like a brochureTalking as if you're the CEO of some international congl...more info>>>

Already have a website? Migrate to puresilva and get 20% off
14 May 2010
Do you already have a website? Maybe you have an e-commerce or content managed website already, but are considering using the puresilva website template for your current domain name. The problem i...more info>>>

Why Linking To Other Websites Is A Good Thing
11 April 2010
When we think of links, it's normally in a selfish way: we want to GET links to point to our website, and we will only GIVE links if there's some kind of quid pro quo involved. A reciprocal link exch...more info>>>

Google Likes Fast Loading Pages
22 March 2010
One thing a lot of people overlook when considering a new website is hosting. An afterthought is usually paid to hosting only after all the functions are developed for the website (and it's the func...more info>>>

Google Translate Bug - Pounds = Euros
28 February 2010
If you've installed Google Translate on your website, try converting your English language site to German, then check your product prices:- Your English language site showing pounds sterling...Go to ...more info>>>

Signs of a Dodgy SEO Company
23 February 2010
If my inbox is anything to go by, SEO is a huge growth market because I'm now getting around 10-15 mails a day (across my mailboxes) promising me better rankings from various service providers. Wher...more info>>>

puresilva website template reaches v3.00
9 February 2010
With incremental update releases happening on at least a weekly basis to the template, the version number has been ticking over like an odometer. So it's really more incidental than anything else tha...more info>>>

Why is website development so expensive?
31 January 2010
I get this question asked a lot by potential customers. Not directly about the prices I quote, but about prices quoted from other website developers they've spoken to. And I end up sort-of defendin...more info>>>

100 free one-way links for anyone who purchases a puresilva template
20 January 2010
It's tough starting out with a brand new domain and no websites linking to you. So we're now offering anyone who signs up to our template 100 free one-way links. This will include 3 PR3 links too (g...more info>>>

restylr.com - free online website template editor
11 January 2010
I've been busy developing a new online tool - restylr.com This (free) tool allows you to edit website templates online, adding your own banner, changing images, font sizes, colours, font types etc...more info>>>

Should you really take payments directly on your website?
24 December 2009
One dilemma a lot of people have with selling online is whether to take credit/debit card payments directly on their site, or to delegate this job and send shoppers to a 3rd party payment processor (e...more info>>>

Launch your website early, then iterate
18 December 2009
Launching a new website means you're often stuck in the purgatory of "option paralysis" - a seemingly infinite amount of design choices you must pick from in order to get your website up and running: ...more info>>>

Push and Pull Marketing
30 November 2009
Traditional push marketing of a product or service involves proactively telling your target market about your product/service. It typically involves direct marketing like emailshots, phone calls and g...more info>>>

Guilty of trying to please everyone all the time
27 November 2009
As Seth Godin wisely points out, everyone is clueless :- The problem with "everyone" is that in order to reach everyone or teach everyone or sell to everyone, you need to so water down what you've ...more info>>>

Web developers ripping off customers
26 November 2009
If you introduced regulations to the web design industry, you'd likey see 90+% of web design companies disappear overnight as they're judged "unfit for purpose". Never has the phrase "you get what yo...more info>>>

Much-updated Selling Online Successfully Guide
24 November 2009
It's been a while since this was updated, but here it is pimped to deal with the stress equations of selling online in 2009:- Selling Online Successfully Guide...more info>>>

Seth Godin's Blog
7 November 2009
If you haven't heard of him, you have a LOT of (essential) reading to catch up on! >> Seth Godin's Blog...more info>>>

puresilva home page now PR6
31 October 2009
After a recent PageRank update, it appears the home page of puresilva.com has a PageRank of 6. Is PR important? It is and it isn't. There's not much relationship between high PR and ranking well...more info>>>

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