Friday marks the last working day for UK businesses to prepare their websites for a new law governing the use of cookies.

From Sunday, sites must obtain “informed consent” from visitors before saving cookies on a machine.

Cookies are pieces of personal data stored when users browse the web, sometimes to power advertising.

The Information Commissioners Office (ICO) is to launch a tool for the public to report non-compliant sites. Continue reading →

Whatever you may think of onerous EU directives or the people who issue them, as a website owner you do need to be aware of the impending legislation enforcement of the EU e-privacy directive that comes into effect after 26^th May 2012.

It is difficult for us to give ‘best advice’ as the advice we are getting is at best ambiguous, as summed up in an interview with Dave Evans, Group Manager for business & industry at the ICO (information Commissioner’s Office) http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/9610-q-a-the-ico-s-dave-evans-on-eu-cookie-law-compliance, the guys responsible for policing this stuff.

“Yes your site’s technically breaking EU Law, but it’s probably OK because they’re not yet entirely sure what constitutes acceptable compliance”.

Continue reading →

We all see these more and more on websites that we visit but do you really know what they are for and how they can improve your browsing experience or what they can do for your business?

Here is the HigherSites prompt sheet to give you a crash course in what’s behind the icon…

Heard about the recent hike in postal costs? If you are a business that sends out 20 second class letters a week such as invoices this will now cost you £10!

One of our clients is in the business of selling franking machines so this news was big news for their business. They came to see us in February wanting to do something to take advantage of these changes as they represented a good opportunity for them and after the last few years of tough trading conditions it was an opportunity not to miss.

We designed a campaign to launch at the time of the announcements anticipating that it would be big news. This involved sourcing a campaign name and designing a microsite (www.frankmymail.co.uk) and running an online marketing campaign to get them up the rankings. After a few days the client is getting loads of new business enquiries and signing up new accounts.

Where are the opportunities in your industry that you can take advantage of? How can you be proactive and ignite a bit of a spark into your communication? Of course these things cost time and money to do but they needn’t cost a fortune and if planned well they can produce extremely positive results.

If like me you have trouble coming up with novel things to see and do over the Easter holidays then look no further; Somerset Routes’ new website has it mapped out for you (guess who the developers were?).

Taking the form of a ‘tube map’, the county has been broken down into seven different lines to travel on, spread across the country and taking in the best sights and things to do. Each line takes you to the museums, historic railways, castles, gardens, stately homes and archaeological sites that make Somerset’s heritage unique.

The “Find a Site” page allows you to search by entry fees, facilities, access, site type and more. Alternatively, plan to follow a one of the ‘lines’ and spread the fun over several weekends.