The First IR35 Letters Have Been Sent Out to IT Contractors

HMRC and the Government have taken the first steps in their campaign to bring in much more money from contractors with the sending out of the first batch of letters to contractors asking them to sit the IR35 Test and to prove that they are outside IR35.

A Review Panel of IR35 set up by the Government to look at IR35 again, recommended that IR35 should not be abolished, with one of the main reasons being that many contractors would leave their Umbrella Companies and go back into Personal Service Companies which was seen as a bad thing as the Government and HMRC get an average of around £10,000 a year less in tax and National Insurance contributions from contractors in Personal Service Companies compared to those in an Umbrella Company.

Indeed, the Government went further and said in the last Budget that they would ‘strengthen IR35’.

To this end, they set up three new Compliance Teams based in Salford, Croydon and Edinburgh and hired a total of 36 Compliance Officers for the new teams while they are cutting back Government staff elsewhere. It looks as if the Government see contractors as a means of increasing the tax take and see the IR35 tax as a means of doing so. IR35 was set up in 1999 to catch ‘disguised employees’, i.e. because of the spate of companies laying off employees on a Friday and starting them again in the Monday as contractors doing exactly the same job but providing tax advantages for both the company and the new ‘contractor’.

However, it caught many genuine contractors in its net.

Now it looks as if the Government are going to use this IR35 legislation to increase their tax take by classifying many genuine contractors as ‘disguised employees’ and forcing them to pay more tax. To this end they have, with the help of the Professional Contractors Group, devised a new IR35 Business Entity Test that contractors can take online to see if they are at high, medium or low risk of being caught by IR35.

Although the test is not definitive it appears to place virtually all contractors as being of high risk of being inside IR35. Although HMRC devised the test with the PCG, it was HMRC who devised the scoring system alone which appears to show most contractors to be at high risk.Now, the new Compliance Teams have sent out their first letters to contractors who use Personal Service Companies asking them to sit the test online and also asking them to send evidence to prove that they are at low risk of being caught by IR35.

If they can do that then they will not be investigated for a further 3 years but if they cannot, or they don’t reply (and they have only been given a month to reply), then the next step is likely to be a visit from the Compliance Team. If it is found that the contractor is inside of IR35 then this could result in the contractor having to pay tens of thousands of back tax. The end game here appears to be to scare contractors into getting out of Personal Service Companies and joining Umbrella Companies.

Do the maths.

There are currently 200,000 contractors using the Umbrella Company route and each of them pays £10,000 a year extra to HMRC and the Government. That’s £2bn extra a year that the Government didn’t get prior to 1999 when IR35 came in. According to the PCG there are 1.6m freelancers in the UK, most of whom would fail HMRC’s current IR35 Business entity Tests.That’s a very tempting sector for the Government and it doesn’t need any change in the legislation.Their main aim is not to catch contractors but to get high profile publicity in order to scare tens of thousands of contractors to take the Umbrella Company route rather than the Personal Service Company route.

Gerry McLaughlin is the CEO of UK IT Contractor umbrella company website www.ITContractor.com.

Dealing with Agencies – Getting the Best Rate Possible

Contractors are often duped by wily agencies and need to know what to look out for when dealing with agencies.

They can chose their Umbrella Company and their Contractor Mortgage company but they can seldom choose their agent as they tend to have to take whatever opening comes up from whatever agency have the requirement .

The biggest mistake that contractors make is in that the agency that they deal with is ‘their agent’. They imagine that they are like agents for actors who normally take 10% of what they can get from a client and so are motivated to get as much as they can for the actors that they serve.However, it is very different in the contractor / agent relationship. Indeed it is only contractors who call them agents as they tend to call themselves recruitment consultants.

Contractors in Umbrella Companies are sometimes better protected as they can ask the advice of their Umbrella Company on rates whereas Limited Company contractors are very much on their own when negotiating.Indeed, some Umbrella Companies may have relationships with particular agencies and may insist that their contractors get a certain percentage of the rate that the agency gets from the agency.

The first duty of recruitment consultants or agents is to maximise the returns for themselves and for their agencies. This is often to the detriment of contractors.As there is usually no set percentage of what the client will pay that should go to contractors and what should go to the agency, the agency will try and take as big a percentage as they can.

Contractors, especially new contractors, often find out that the agency is taking 50% or more of everything that they earn.Agents work on commission – so the less the contractor gets the better for them. Indeed, agents work on ascending scales of commission. In other words, if they hit certain targets then they might get 10% of what the agency gets. If they hit higher targets then they may make 20% or 30% or even 50% of what the agency gets.

Therefore it is in their interests to take as much as they can of what the client is paying and to leave the contractor with as little as possible of what the client will pay.Of course, more experienced contractors will be wise to this. However, agents, who are doing this kind of thing on a daily basis, are better attuned to this ‘game’ than the contractors, who only negotiate every few months at the most.

Most contractors make the mistake of looking at recruitment consultants as ‘their agents’ and let the agency tell contractors what their rate is going to be especially in their first few contracts. However, once they realise that the agency is a competitor for the money that the client will pay then their attitude changes and the contractor tries to dictate more the amount of money that goes to them from the client rather than the agency.

This advice may help new contractors to avoid this mistake and maximise their own returns from the work they do.

Gerry McLaughlin is the CEO of UK IT Contractor umbrella company website www.ITContractor.com.

5 Reasons For Contractors to Choose an Umbrella Company

Contractors normally operate in one of two ways, either by using a Limited Company or by being part of a Contractor Umbrella Company.

Here are reasons for a freelancer to operate using an Umbrella Company

1. The Contractor is caught by IR35.

If a contractor is caught by IR35 he or she is best served by being inside an Umbrella Company as they can claim a limited amount of expenses which they wouldn’t be allowed to do if they simply paid the IR35 tax.

2. The Contractor is not sure if he or she is caught by IR35

The taxman decides on a contract by contract basis whether a contractor is inside or outside of IR35. This means that the contractor may be inside for one contract and outside for the next contract. In this situation the contractor may want to operate through an Umbrella Company just to be on the safe side.

3. The Contractor wants to concentrate on Contracting

Umbrella Companies treat contractors as employees who can claim certain expenses. Many contractors don’t want to handle their own VAT and book keeping and are happy to pay someone else to take this responsibility off their hands so that they can concentrate on what they do best and that is contracting.

4. The Contractor doesn’t want years of an IR35 Tax Investigation

Many contractors who operate through Limited Companies have spent years under investigation for IR35 tax from HMRC. Many of them are then found to be outside IR35 but have wasted a lot of time and energy as well as worry in doing it. Others have been found to be inside of IR35 and have had to pay several years of back tax, interest and penalties sometimes amount to over £100,000. Many contractors don’t want the worry of having an IR35 tax investigation hanging over them

5. The Contractor can claim Expenses

Although the contractor can’t claim as many expenses as they would do if inside a Personal Service Company they can still claim a limited amount of expenses, for example, they can claim travel expenses, overnight expenses if they are staying away, pensions, memberships of professional organisations and contributions to charities which are all tax deductible.

It is every contractor’s choice depending on the way they operate. Are they ‘disguised employees’ or are they genuinely in business on their own account?

Do they want to manage their own affairs or do they want to concentrate on contracting and leave the admin to others?

Gerry McLaughlin is the CEO of UK IT Contractor umbrella companies website www.ITContractor.com.

Things to know about Google+

People have known Google as the number one search engine. Yes it is! Besides that, it is also the most visited website in the world. Whether an amateur or professional, young or old, man or woman, if anyone has to search information, he turns to Google. It is a web giant friendly enough for the people to like it sincerely. The reason behind this is the speed and accuracy that Google possesses. Type in any keyword and Google will show the results in seconds. The timing has increase many folds with the incorporation of new technologies. Google now gives results instantly as you key in the words. With its strong presence in the advertising and SEO industry, Google has spanned its reach via its social media application.

Google+ is a new social hub to connect to the masses for genuine information and entertainment, called as infotainment in the 21st century. Webs Design India It tries to target the popularity of Facebook and Twitter. Both these applications are very popular and businesses use them for promoting themselves. With millions of people logged in to Facebook and Twitter, sharing of information, pictures, videos and other media becomes simpler and enjoying. To beat the popularity of Facebook and the professionalism of Twitter, Google+ has come up with various cool and contemporary features that make it a must consider online application. Let us know some important things about Google+ so that it proves more useful to you than other social tools.

Google+ or simply G+ features ‘circles’ that are groups to which you add friends, family and acquaintances. The Google+ pages (promotional pages similar to Facebook pages) cannot add you to their circles until you add them in yours. Unless someone has added your G+ page to his circles, you cannot add him.

G+ pages are like G+ profiles with a few extra attributes. Businesses, bands, celebrities, charities or any organisation can use G+ pages to reach to a maximum audience and display their business. You can do all this without violating any rules or terms of social media.
G+ also provides security so that your business goes to the right audience. By default, the security is so set that anyone can view your G+ pages. However, you can adjust the security levels for limited viewing. The options are available as soon as you create a G+ page.

Facebook features a ‘Like’ feature to connect to a page. Similar to it is the ‘+1’ function of G+. Website Design Company Gurgaon If you like any page, you can ‘+1’ so that the people in your circles can know about it. ‘+1ing’ helps your G+ page to share your content over the Google network. It is a rumor that higher numbers of ‘+1s’ help in increasing the search engine value of a business.

Finally, it is very important to make you G+ page full of information and content. People should be able to identify, understand and connect to your business. This way you can make a stronger online presence over the Internet.

PPC Advertising Tips

Internet marketing is an essential step for a business to take to feature on the Internet. The web jungle is growing and to make a strong presence, one needs to initiate the steps to market his business. PPC is a growing business in today’s competitive world. Every business wants to stay at the top and when it comes for Google, staying on the first page becomes a necessity. It comprises of various processes like search engine marketing, search engine optimization, PPC, etc. Among these, PPC is a growing method that is driving up the sales of websites in small amount of time.

PPC (pay per click) refers to a promotion on Google. Web Design Delhi The ads of your business or company show out on Google result pages and if anyone clicks those ads, you have to pay for it. It is getting popular over the time as it gives very promising results. Apparently, those who have invested in PPC have benefited and grown in business. Here we give in some tips related to PPC so that you too can increase sales and earn a good amount.

Keywords are very important to reach to potential customers. With the right set of keywords, you can get high on traffic. You must keep two things in mind. The keywords you target relate to the overall idea of your business. They content should relate to the keywords and make sure you do not stuff unnecessary ones or use black-hat SEO. Yes, good SEO supports in PPC and the results can be better than expected. Thinking from the users’ point of view is also important. Think from his perspective what he should type to find your business. It is not necessary that users will take your website they way you do.

The correct set of keywords does only help in gaining traffic over the Internet, but also turning it into sales. With better keywords, you can explain the value and relevance of the content to the users, thus capturing his interest. If you have a better level of search engine optimization, you do not need to spend much for PPC. Investment for a small period can make your site popular over the Internet. The adcopy of your website should be clear and self-explaining. Adcopy refers to the content of the advertisement. A short and attractive adcopy can make your campaign worth viewing. It should be able to pull attentions and build the users’ interests.

The advertisements should land the users on a beautiful page that explains the products in details. SEO Company India A good landing page can definitely turn your promotion into sales. Most of the PPC service providers offer statistics. Make sure you analyze them for a better result of your investment. Also, provide some details of your business in your website. You can add genuine addresses and phone numbers of your company so that people can find your business easily.

If you keep the above-discussed points in mind, you can surely benefit from PPC advertising making your business more returning.

Choosing a low-cost hosting plan

Website hosting is always the matter of concern for small businesses. They have to look for the cheaper options because of the limited budget and resources. However, in today’s world of opportunities, it is not very difficult to find low budget hosting providers. Type in some keywords related to web hosting in Google and thousands of results pop up instantly. Each hosting company website talks of its special services and features. Choosing the best among them is a tough job that might confuse you if you do not have a similar experience earlier. Here is a small guide on low-cost hosting for people who own or are planning to own a website.

Every web hosting company, big or small, provides a list of services. Web Design India You should consider the features and choose your plan accordingly. The important factors to look over are – hosting space, bandwidth, database size, number of email accounts, uptime, etc. Choose the plan that provides enough space for your data. Also, remember that the website will grow in content each day. Therefore, there should be enough space to hold the content that collects over time. Your hosting plan should never run out in bandwidth. If it does, it will become a reason for embarrassment. Users will not be able to view it or log in. The database size should also be enough to store table with huge amounts of data.

Uptime is a very important factor of a good hosting company. Uptime is the duration in which the hosting server is live. Most of hosting providers claim of their ability to provide 99% uptime, but most of them fail. If the host is not, of a good quality, it might stop and the users present on your website might find an error page on their browsers. This might decrease the credibility and the business value of the website. You will ultimately result in contacting the host company repeatedly. SEO Services India You might also feel uncomfortable if the company does not provide good customer service. A company with good customer service is one that provides various ways of contacting it. Today, host providers offer chatting, emailing and phoning options to contact if any problem arises. They support in resolving the issues and help the website resume its position.

One of the most used business strategies used today is to keep the extra charges hidden. Most of the companies strip off the main price to attract customers. When the customers take the services or buy the products, the companies add extra charges. Therefore, you must always find out whether your host provider has any extra hidden charges with plan. If you do not consider this early, you might have to pay extra charges. You can definitely go for a low-cost hosting plan but you should also consider the facts talked above. This way you can host a website affordably.

Importance of SEO

Today the Internet has become a marketplace with hundred thousands of companies selling their products and services. The competition is tough and each one is trying hard to excel. Online presence has become a necessity for companies. Businesses are hosting website to connect to the global audiences. However, just having a website is not enough. It must be visible and easily accessible on the Internet. Today, most of the people use Google and other search engines to look for information. So, it becomes necessary for website to stay on the top of Google rankings.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of tuning a website to make it rank high on search engine results pages (SERPs). SEO Company India It is the process of improving the ranking of a website. It is not a single process but a series of regular practices. You cannot make a website rank high instantly, but have to work for days, months or years. It consists of On-page and Off-page optimization strategies to tweak a website for some particular keywords. SEO is very important for every website and you should never ignore it.

First, you should outline the words and phrases (keywords) for which you want to optimize your website. These keywords should relate to the subject of your website. Putting the keywords into the content skillfully makes a lot of sense. It will help in optimization of the content. Next, you should try to get a good number of backlinks. You can increase your backlinks by exchanging links and social bookmarking. Posting articles and relevant content on different blogs and website also helps to backlinks count. Finally, you should update your content on a regular basis to attract search engines.

The major benefit of SEO is that a website or the business gets a global or local exposure. People recognize the company that adds to the credibility and sales. SEO India SEO helps to gain business in a cost-effective way. You do not need to spend any money on SEO if you do it yourself. However, you might have to pay a little amount if you hire professional SEO specialists. This small capital is the only thing needed for maximum popularity and exposure. SEO is an unpaid or organic method of gaining business over time. The best feature of SEO is long term positioning. Once you get a top position on the search engine result pages (SERPs), you can maintain the position for a long time. All you need is to work towards improving your website and its content day after day.

SEO has a great future in the time to come. With so many sites popping up each day, SEO specialists would be having lots of work to do. SEO is easy and beneficial for a website. You can find huge number of sales with a small amount of investment if you plan the strategies well.

Processes in Web Design

Technology has taken a new leap since the inception of Internet. Online presence has become a necessity for every company to expand globally. Websites play a major role in this. Thus, website designing has become a returning business and many web design companies have popped up recently. A website is very important for a business who wants to be on the Internet. It is a place to share information, pictures, videos, etc. regarding your company. Moreover, it helps you to connect to the global audience. Let us talk of the essential processes in website design.

Mostly we find that web designers are in a hurry to complete the project as soon as possible. This is because of the pressure that comes from the client-side. Website designing is not a single process but a series of methods. Each designer should consider them properly when designing a web application.

Planning

A website design requires a good plan before you actually set out with coding. Website Design Company India This is the pre-production period of the website. Large web design companies appoint specialists who analyze the requirements and plan the website according. They list the features that would be available in the website. In addition to this, they also plan the content and SEO optimization strategies for the website.

Designing

Designers draw out the sketch of the design based on the analysis. They design the web parts and the functions the website shall possess. Moreover, they draw the relationships between the web pages and give them a tree-like structure. Designers are also responsible for creating the look and feel of the user-interface, as it is the most important aspect of the design. Today designers use Photoshop and automated tools to create the designs quickly.

Coding

Next comes coding, which is also a very important phase. Specialist programmers create the user-interface and the functions. They use HTML and CSS to program web pages on different frameworks like php, ASP.Net, Joomla, etc. This is the most time-taking process, as a designer has to write volumes of codes for a single part in the website.

Testing

After the coding is complete, web designers test the website before actually launching it. SEO India Testing is very important if you do not want your website to show errors in the future. Testing is a process of finding out the errors and vulnerabilities in the software. However, most of the designers do not focus much on testing which apparently results in buggy web pages.

Maintenance

Maintenance is very important for a website if you want it to bring fruitful results. Maintenance refers to rectification of errors. Besides debugging, updating a website is also very important if you want the visitors to keep coming on a regular basis.

Website design is a process divided in phases. A designer must be careful during each phase of the design. Proper planning, designing, coding, testing and maintenance make the website free of errors and easy to use. Every web designer should practice these methods if he wants his website to excel.

Digital marketing via internet

Digital marketing a necessity in the 21st century if you are looking forward to a prospective future for your business. It is the contemporary method of marketing on the Internet. Digital marketing includes advertisements and campaigns on the Internet, electronic brochures, e-books, etc. Digital marketing is fast, reliable and secure. You can happily invest in this field and be certain for the results. Here we discuss more about the new trend that has come up in the recent years and has become very popular in no time.

With the huge number of websites growing each day, it is not very difficult to estimate the potential of digital marketing. SEO Company India Every business nowadays is looking towards it. The reasons behind this are obvious. Digital marketing is a faster and safer method when compared to TV, print and banners. The best thing about digital marketing is that it is customizable. You can target to a particular type of audience like according to your niche. Today’s digital marketing tools are strong and dependable. They come with advanced customization, monitoring and statistic features. You can keep an eye upon the marketing from anywhere. You can improvise your campaign based on the statistic results.

Always chose a reliable agency to incorporate digital marketing tools for your business. Many companies specialize in this field. You can easily take services at affordable prices. A Digital marketing company helps you in customization of the promotion according to the target audience. Moreover, it provides you with statistics, reports and results of the campaigns. Many website provide easy and cheap online marketing tools for small and medium businesses. If you cannot afford services of an Internet marketing company, you can try out these tools. If you decide to promote your company yourself, you should consider the following facts.

The advertisements, digital banners and brochures should be appealing and engrossing. It should catch the attention of people. SEO Services India You can make the campaigns attractive with snappy words and beautiful graphics. An advertisement with artistic value will certainly have an effect on people. People will recognize your company well if you give in the details of your company and its motives. When advertising via emails, one must remember to keep them short but expressive. Do not load the emails with too much of information making it bulky and a spam in the eyes of the email clients. It is true that email providers and clients consider heavy mails as spam and put them in the spam or the junk folder.

Today we find many viral campaigns that occupying the social world. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc. have become the advertisers’ favourite spots. Even companies have turned up to social hubs for effective advertisements. They are affordable and quick in giving out the results when compared to TV and print. You can easily use social advertising tools, as they are easy to handle and monitor. Now, let you business reach its goals with digital marketing.

Importance of Branding and Logo for a company

In this competitive world, thousands of companies specialize in every possible field. To make them recognizable, they present themselves as different from others. They create a certain image of their company so that people can distinguish them from thousands of other opponents. Branding and logos are important players in the promotion of the business. Here we discuss why logos and branding are important for a company.

First, we discuss what a logo is. Web Design India A logo is a graphic, mark, symbol or a statement that a company uses for identification. A logo summarizes the company and its motive. It expresses the ideology on behalf of the company. You can call it a representative of the company. On the other side, branding it the overall image the company presents of itself to the public. Branding is not a single process or an object. It is a regular practice of projecting the company’s motto, vision and mission. It comprises of several methods of promotion and publicity to create a desired idea about the company among the people.

A logo is the reflection of a company. No wonder, businesses spend huge number of dollars on the logo. They hire specialist graphic designers who draw the logo according to the values of the company. As a result, we find the industry giants with beautiful company logos. Be it soft-drinks, pizza houses, automobiles, retail marts, electronics or software companies, people can identify most of the brands through their logos. For example, Mercedes Benz, Ferrari, Lamborghini or Volkswagen, each has its own logo that identifies the brand.

Similarly, we find different branding techniques the companies take up to increase their reputation. Web Design Delhi They involve in highly expensive promotional campaigns to spread awareness of their brand. Advertisements and endorsements worth millions of dollars are the most preferred choices among different other strategies. The companies sign up with superstars and celebrities to promote the products. All this helps in creating a clean and clear image of the company in the public. No doubt, the quality of the product is also responsible in making the company identifiable.

If you are a business owner or planning to do so, you should always do a market research on the current branding techniques. You can find out the latest promotional techniques. Similar to fashion, companies follow the recent trends for publicity. It is always beneficial to go with the latest fashion as people find you up to date and modern. Moreover, people always love something that is completely different from others. You can adopt unique techniques to make a more recognizable impact. Logo designing seems easy and most of the people think that they can do draw logos themselves. However, the fact is a logo design company provides you an appealing and professional logo. Taking the services of such a company makes your brand unique and recognizable.

Website For a Cause

In today’s global market, almost every company, organization, institution, etc needs its own website to ensure efficient marketing. It is important for them to have a reliable web presence. They are spending good amount of cash to get high-end websites. Every organisation spends according to its budget. The bigger enterprises hire web design companies and spend thousands of dollars on website. The small and medium enterprises look for cheaper services. In this picture, the nonprofit organizations are the most worried ones. They are short of budget and cannot spend on a very high-end website from a professional web design company.

A nonprofit company can hire a web designer at low cost or may design the website itself. The important thing that it must ensure is the presence of high-quality information in its website. Let us look at some recommendations for nonprofit organizations.

State the purpose clearly

Most of the nonprofit companies or NGOs work to raise charities, funds, donations for the helpless people. Whether you group helps the poor, children, blinds, handicapped or any one in need, you should state the goals of the company in your website.Web Design Delhi The visitors should get a clear idea of the motives and goals of the whole project. The content of the website should contain enough information about the people you are helping, their requirements, locations, age group, etc. This will make the visitors know the purpose of the website.

Company background

Never forget to provide information about your organisation. Today, there are many frauds, live on the internet asking donations in name of poor and the helpless. Many kind personalities fall prey to them and donate huge amounts. Give in the full details of your company, registration ids and numbers, office addresses, phone numbers, etc. You can also list the names and details of the staff. Never forget to include the methods you employ to help the needy. Make the website full of relevant information so that people believe in your prospects.

Designing the need

The website needs to have an appealing design. Obviously, you cannot make it attractive adding too many bright colors and images.SEO Service India It should be calm and pleading. You can add photos and videos of your organization and the people benefitting from it. These images and videos should feature the services you provide to the deprived. You can add payment tools like PayPal so that visitors can donate instantly. Do not make the website overdesigned. It may deliver a wrong message of the cause.

A website for an organisation that supports a cause must be full of relevant information. It should state the processes used in providing help for the poor and those in need. It must list out the type of people it helps and the list of payment options. Keeping the above-discussed points in mind, you can develop an effective website for your nonprofit company.

SEO - On-page Optimization Explained

In this Internet era, every website wants to do a good business. Businesses owner understand the fact that popular websites can earn them millions in no time. To make that possible, the website must have a high index rank on the results page of search engines like Google, Yahoo, Msn, Bing, etc. The website must have a proper level of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Optimization is the process of tweaking a website to suit the requirements of a search engine. SEO is of two types - On-page and Off-page.

On-page optimization is very important and web designers should not ignore it if they want a good ranking for their website.Web Design India It is the most basic method in SEO. A designer should effectively optimize his website to rank high on search engines. He should understand the important factors of on-page SEO. He should use it in new websites as well as the new pages that he adds to the website in its lifetime.

On-page optimization has been there for a long time. It started as an attempt to increase the quality of websites when the Internet was relatively small. This worked well and people adopted it soon. Today, since the web has grown too big, we require both on-page and off-page optimization.

On-page optimization is the process of tweaking the website’s code for better Search Engine Optimization results. It involves choosing the right set of keywords. These keywords should be relevant to the subject of the website. Using an optimized, original and unique content is necessary. A website developer should index his website to the main search engines. This way the search engines get to know about the new coming website.

Every designer should ensure the arrangements of Meta tags, headings, etc in a web page are accurate. He should properly structure the website’s HTML code.SEO Company India The URL of the website should be search engine friendly. It should be relevant the subject of the website. A developer should give ALT attribute to each image and graphic in the website. He should use proper text in links and anchors. He can use nofollow Meta for website he does not trust. He should design the website as per the W3C standards. He can verify the validity of the website with the help of W3C Validator tool.

For an effective SEO, every webmaster should understand and implement the basic laws of SEO. He should effectively optimize the website. He can buy SEO tools that are available on the Internet. However, these tools are just basic applications and provide optimization at lower levels. If you want a higher degree of optimization, you can hire a SEO specialist. Most of the web-designing companies provide Search Engine Optimization facilities for websites. You can avail the benefit of SEO by professionals for your website.

Local Internet Marketing

The internet has always been a medium of global reach. People can virtually visit any place on the earth via Internet. Businesses use Internet to make a strong global presence. However, it does not mean that Internet helps to make your business countrywide or global. Even a local business can use it to increase its popularity and sales. In fact, Local Internet Marketing is a rapidly growing aspect of Internet.

Local Internet marketing is a way of promoting a business in its proximity. Many international and local businesses are jumping into this arena. Internet is providing them a perfect platform to reach to extended group of customers. It has proved a turning point for local businesses. Now, they are able to host their own websites providing better opportunities. Internet helps local groups to promote their business, products and services. They can keep their websites updates with frequent promotions, offers and discounts. This will draw a good number of online customers towards it. According to experts, the local internet marketing consists of four aspects.

The first thing to do is to create a website for the business. It should have fresh, unique and original content. It should excite and attract the customers. Always host your business website on a paid server rather than a free one. The domain should be catchy and attractive so that people are able to remember it for long. Secondly, the business must choose effective methods of promotion.Website Design Company Delhi You can employ PPC (pay per click) services like Adwords, Facebook Advertising, etc to promote your business. Always do the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) of your website to rank it high on the SERP (search engine index pages). Thirdly, you should establish a good and stable relationship with your customers. The web audience tends to drift away easily. Thus, making a good reputation will make them stick to your services for longer. Finally, it is very important to measure the results of promotional activities. You cannot make a further decision if you are short of relevant information. Always use reliable statistical tools to measure your success rates.

Today, millions of businesses have already stepped in to the Internet ring. Most of them are already providing services locally via the Internet. Let us take the example of Dominos Pizza.Website Design Company Gurgaon It is an international company proving local services in every big city of the world. People used to telephone them to order pizzas. Now they have added a new feature to their services. You can visit the Dominos website and order pizzas online. Similarly, many shopping websites are providing online booking and ordering facilities.

As a business owner, you should look forward to making an online presence. You can hire a website design company to make a professional website for your business. This will not only help your business to gain credibility and reputation but also increase your sales.

Importance of a Valid HTML in SEO

HTML is the backbone of any website that is running presently on the Internet. A designer may code the website in any language or any framework. On viewing, a browser will definitely convert it into pure HTML. The reason is that browsers are only capable of rendering HTML code. Hence, it is very important to know everything about HTML before you consider yourself as an efficient web designer.

HTML also helps in SEO. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization that is the process of optimizing a website suitable to the search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask, Bing, etc.Web Design Delhi These search engine rank websites in their results page according to the quality of HTML present in the web pages. They index websites based on many factors present in them. Some of the factors that affect the ranking of a website in the search engine results page are valid HTML code, proper structuring, unique and original content, presence of important keywords, etc.

Valid HTML code is very important in Search Engine Optimization. It helps Google and other search engines’ spiders to trace the data in the web page. If the search engine is able to penetrate the page to the depth, it will surely rank high. A wrongly coded HTML web page hinders the path of the search engine spiders.

Since its inception, HTML has changed a lot. Now it has become a complex language. Millions of people have come to web design in the recent years. Millions of others are learning it to become web designers of the future. People new to web design are prone to do certain mistakes that might result in an invalid HTML code. This will surely decrease the quality and the ranking if the website. The complete marketing effort might go waste. This is however, never wished-for.

The relation between SEO and HTML lies here. Search engines parse the HTML code to look for information. Whenever they find any information, they store it in their database. They might not be able to find relevant information if the code is erroneous. Therefore, a programmer has to be careful while coding the HTML. Some of the common mistakes that new designers might do are following.

Tags not closed properly can result in wrong code. Even a missing bracket can sometime be penalizing to a website.SEO Company India It might happen a search engine might completely ignore website. However, most of the search engines are able to ignore minor errors in the page, but a developer should avoid making mistakes.

Every web designer can verify the validity of his website by free services available online. The World Wide Web Consortium, W3C provides a free Validator to verify your web pages. This validation program checks the conformance of websites to HTML, XHTML, CSS, etc. You can easily get your website verified and authorized.

HTML vs. XHTML

Today web design sees many innovative technologies rule the industry. HTML, ASP.NET, php, CSS, JavaScript, VBScript, etc have upgraded themselves to deliver quality websites. Many global organisations are spending millions of dollars in the research and development of new technologies. As a result, new technologies have sprung up and the older ones have upgraded themselves. XHTML is one of them. People consider XHTML better than HTML. XHTML stands for Extensible Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a blend of XML (Extensible Markup Language) and HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). It has tags and attributes similar to HTML. Let us find the similarities and differences between HTML and XHTML.

The Document Type Definitions

Document Type Definitions (DTD) is the method to define the document type. It states the standards the web page is following.Web Design India HTML and XHTML have different DTDs.



The words ‘transitional’, ‘loose’, ‘frameset’, etc can replace ‘strict’ in the above definitions, according to the version of the HTML and XHMTL used.

The Markup

HTML has a clearer markup than XHTML. HTML still supports basic tags and is easier to program, edit and update than XHTML. Moreover, the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) supports HTML as it is more compliant towards the web standards. XHTML on the other is an off-standard language according to W3C.

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) values for HTML and XHTML are the same. Some people might say that XHTML is more SEO friendly than HTML, but it is not true. Both provide equal levels of SEO to a website.

Major Differences between HTML and XHTML

The major differences between HTML and XHTML are –

1. XHTML requires closed sets of empty tags but HTML does not.

2. A XHTML page is in lowercase unlike HTML that you can write in both uppercase and lowercase.

3. You should close all the attribute values with quotes (double or single).SEO Service India HTML does not require such closing.

XHTML however is not a replacement for HTML, as most of you might think. Neither is it a newer version of HTML. Both of them are two different standards, XHTML evolves from the combination of HTML and XML. The newer version of HTML is HTML5 whereas XHTML 2 replaces the XHTML 1.1 used earlier. There is only one exceptional benefit of using XHTML over HTML. XHTML is highly compatible to ASP.NET and can employ advanced markup math.

It is totally up to you to choose your preferred standard. You can stick to HTML and move to HTML5 or can choose XHTML if you use advanced framework technologies. The main motive is to design a great website that appeals to the masses.

HTML5 and CSS3 – Trends For a Long Run

HTML and CSS are the engines of websites running today. HTML is the bare bones of a website whereas CSS is the flesh. HTML makes the structure of the website and CSS defines the interface features. Both are equally important for today’s website. CSS helps reduce the web page’s coding and makes the page easily loadable. The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) encourages HTML and CSS. It provides validations and verification of these languages. Let us find more about HTML and CSS.

The web industry has seen a continuous change since its inception. HTML and CSS have evolved much in due course.Website Design Company Delhi HTML is a language developed by IBM to facilitate the transfer of files within programs. In the 1995, HTML 2 launched followed by HTML 3 and HTML 4 in the same year. The HTML model incorporated the ability to support worldwide characters, tables, pictures, etc. It could create markup to support structures, mostly based on tables. Later, W3C blended XML and HTML to ensure a better language that supports other frameworks easily. XHTML 1, followed by XHTML 2 is a widely used standard today. W3C prepared the very first draft of HTML5 in 2008.

People believed that HTML5 is a language that will exist for long. It incorporates new features and most of the modern devices support it. HTML5 with its features has the ability to replace Flash. Unlike Flash, Apple devices like iPhone and iPad easily support HTML5. HTML5 can play videos without any plug-ins or codec. It has a canvas component to render graphics, photos, etc on the fly. It can have apps like twitter APIs, email clients, etc. embedded in the page.

CSS is an excellent language to design the web pages. It is easy and flexible. It is compatible with all the languages and framework used in web design.SEO Service India All browsers support and render the CSS definitions. W3C released CSS in 1996 to overcome the HTML restrictions. It republished CSS in 1999 as CSS 1. Later on, W3C launched CSS2 that people used until recently. In 2008-2009, W3C released a new version of the cascading style sheets, named as CSS3. It consisted of advanced features and could support object animation. CSS3 is the best ever tool to create website interfaces. However, only few updated browsers support CSS3. Thus, many designers still use CSS2.1 for their web pages.

People expect HTML5 and CSS3 to make a revolution in the world of Internet. According to experts, they have a bright future and people will use them for long. They limit the use of external tools and frameworks as they consist of advanced inbuilt features. Thousands of websites have already upgraded themselves to HTML5 and CSS3. Many web designers have switched to HTML5 and CSS3. It is now your turn to modernize yourself.

How to Learn HTML Easily

HTML is a language much talked of by Web designers around the world. An old language still rules the web world. Recently, people have been talking about HTML being outdated. The said that is too limited for use in today’s applications. People had shifted to XHTML as it was powerful than plain HTML. To their surprise, W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) launched a newer and stronger version of HTML – HTML5. It has all the features and attributes that today’s web requires.

You need powerful framework and applications to build a modern website yourself. You have to create a design and then code it in HTML and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).Website Design Company India HTML is the bare bones of a web page while CSS is the flesh. You can code a simple HTML pages if you want just a running website with limited or no attractive graphics and functionalities. It will not have stunning features but will still operate easily on the Internet. Let us discuss some of the important aspects of this web design.

Learning HTML is easy. You do not need any extra effort to understand its basic skills. There is a lot of literature on the Internet explaining how to learn HTML. All of them are easily available. You can also learn CSS comfortably as it is also easy to learn and practice. Once you become expert in creating the markup, you can practice upon the designing skills with CSS.

HTML is easily accessible on the Internet. You can find sample codes in abundance. There are a lot of websites and portal that offer eBooks and tutorials that teach you the basics of this language. Learning the basic of structuring is very important. You have to understand how the designer has laid out every part of the web page. You can learn it from the tutorials, samples and examples offered free. A good way to learn the structuring is viewing the source of any web page. You can view the source code of any website using the view source option in your browser. You can learn the basics of CSS easily from tutorials available on the internet. You can download eBooks and practice the examples and tutorials.

Learning from scratch is very important. You can start learning the important terms and abbreviations and the basic tags.SEO India You can then move towards learning advanced tags. Once you have learned the tags, you can focus on proper layout and structuring. HTML and CSS go hand-in-hand in the world of web designing. HTML with CSS makes web design effective and appealing. The best thing with them is that they are lightweight and load easily on the browser. Hence, you can use both of them to create advanced websites.

Differences and Similarities Between PHP and HTML

Most of people do not find any major difference between php and HTML code. They say that both of them look similar with few differences between them. It is true both of them look the same to a novice but not to an expert who knows the functions of both the languages. There are both similarities and differences between php and HTML. Designers use both of them to design web pages. One is better than the other one, but we cannot judge before have a detailed look at both of them. Let us know about both of them and find the dissimilarities between them.

HTML stands for ‘Hyper Text Markup Language’. It is old and globally adopted.Web Design India A markup language is one that makes the structures of pages with the help of tags. Most of the tags come in pairs. Text lies between these tags to show on the page. The tags themselves do not show up on the pages but they decide the position and structure of the text between them. All of the computer platforms support HTML. It does not require any framework or extra software to work. You only need a browser to view the results of HTML code. The best thing with HTML is that it is very easy to learn and practice. You can write and format the code on any word processor, even the notepad.

Php is also an old language designed in 1994 and released in 1995. It is a scripting language used exclusively for designing web applications. It is an open source framework that you can download easily and free. The files executed in this framework have ‘.php’ extension. They create dynamic web pages with full support for user-interactivity. Php functions render easily on any browser. The php code is also not visible on the web page when viewed on a browser. It is also compatible to different platforms. It works without any problem on UNIX, Mac, Windows, Linux, etc. There are different editing tools available on the Internet having free and paid versions. However, you can also write php code in any text editor or word processor. Programmers developed php to create vibrant web pages but today it now more used for server-side scripting. Server-side scripts supply functions and other content to web pages. A php file is a mixture of scripts and HTML tags. The server converts php into plain HTML and sends to the user’s browser. We do not see even a mark of php on the when we view the page on the browser.

As we see there is not much difference between php and HTML, expect that HTML is a markup language and php is a scripting language.SEO Service India Web pages designed on HTML are static while php creates dynamic and user-interacting pages. A combination of both makes the website perfect.

Backlinks and Quality Backlinks

These days a part of the web community is busy on the Internet exchanging links. They are placing links of other pages on their websites. In return, other webmasters place links on their websites. This is link exchanging and is getting much popular among Internet savvy people. They refer to the links placed on other websites as backlinks. Backlinks are links on websites pointing to a particular website. Webmasters and SEO (search engine optimization) experts work hard, day and night to get a good number of backlinks. They know that greater the number of backlinks, higher will their rank be on Google and other search engines. Getting backlinks is not enough. A webmaster has to focus on finding quality backlinks. Here we look on the methods to build quality backlinks.

Link exchange is easy if you want your link to be on just any website. Ten quality backlinks are better than hundreds of backlinks from useless websites.Web Design India The truth is that most of the quality websites do not exchange with lower grade websites. Thus, your website should also possess the qualities of a perfect website so that you can build relationships with reputed websites. To ascertain that your website is of good quality it must have unique and original content. It should be strong, crisp and relevant. It should be informative of the subject your website deals with.

A new and simpler method to increase the number of backlinks is connecting to search engines and giant portals. Yahoo – a big search engine portal features an application called Yahoo Answers. People post questions and others those who the answers can post answers. It is a popular service and many users use it to find answers to their doubts. You can post replies to the questions for which you know the answers. Never forget to place links of your website at the bottom of the answers so that users can visit to your website in search of more information.

Exchanging links for products and services is not a bad idea at all.SEO Company India You can write an article for a website in exchange of a link. Here is how to do it. Contact the webmaster of a site and offer him your service. If he agrees to it, you can accomplish the work and adjoin a link with it. The webmaster shall place the link at the bottom of your work in his website. The services you can offer are article writing, content development, image or photo editing, logo design, etc. You can do these common tasks for any website easily. If your website is all about selling products then link exchange becomes easier. You can offer free products to a website in exchange of links.

Always remember that backlinks and quality backlinks are two different things. Getting a huge number of backlinks is much easier than finding few quality backlinks. One has to work very hard to build enough reputation to exchange links with good websites.