Getting under our skin.

I have made an executive decision (just don’t tell the executives!) that everyone who reads my blogs should really get to know those people who make UFindUs tick. Regular readers of my blogs will know that this isn’t exactly a new thing, I have been round the different UFindUs offices and have, on occasions, twisted a few arms so that I could get staff at all levels to tell me (and of course that includes you too) a bit about their time with the company.  

I think that the time is right to move a step further on and every now and then I will do a staff profile, asking questions that help to show who the person really is rather than having it all work related. Those executives that are now reading this will also be subjected to having a spotlight shine in their eyes whilst they are asked relentless questions about their favorite food, holiday destination or football team. Our technical director Stuart Forrest already has his own blog so you can catch up on his own perspective there, but it will still be interesting to get to cover off a few things that haven’t been mentioned yet. What’s even scarier is that I will try to get some pictures of them on their profiles. I guess that I too may even have to succumb to my own questioning before anyone says anything.

Graham Armstrong – UFindUs Ltd

I may not have mail – but I’ve got readers!!!!

I have just checked the blog stats and am over the moon that today has been my best day so far for people reading my blog. I have had a whopping 15 people view my blog so far and it’s only twenty past five. Ok I know “whopping” may be a slight overstatement, and I am sure that there will be loads more blogs out there that are achieving hundreds of hits a day, but it’s a start. The great thing about being able to see how many people have seen the blog is the motivation that it gives me to keep on writing. Some of the blogs that I have come across have several postings a day (where do they get the time from?) ((In fact where do I get the time from?)). I don’t think that I will be quite in this league but I think its nice when people take the time to share things, good, bad and bizarre.

Each time I come on here I try to make it my mission to learn something new about how WordPress works or if there is something else that I can be doing to make my UFindUs site better.

Going back to the “sharing things good or bad”, please let me know what you think or if you have someting cool on your blog that may be worth sharing with me and 15 others.   

UFindUs – Passionate about Service

It’s not true that the Italians or the French have the monopoly on passion. Last week Mark Hallam, our sales director, showed us the passion and commitment that he has for the products that UFindUs promote by proving just how effective they were.   Mark feels it’s just as important that the teams who work in Support, Customer Relations, and Accounts have the same depth of knowledge about the product as the sales staff do. Getting your point across in plain English is harder than it looks but Mark accomplishes it perfectly every time, and because it’s relevant to their jobs it’s easy to take on board. He was showing how easy it is to see the immense success of our Rapidsites that we put on the net on behalf of our customers. He showed us how Google, the world’s best known brand and arguably the Holy Grail of search engines, features thousands of our sites that appear in the top 10 on their searches. It proves a first page listing on Google is not only possible it is affordable as well. The level of passion we have for the UFindUs brand ensures that we will keep delivering results for our customers and stay ahead of the game.  

Graham Armstrong UFindUs Ltd

Turn to UFindUs when you want to find it.

I thought it would be good to share something that I was told over the bank holiday weekend. My parents will think nothing of buying golf clubs on eBay, enough books from Amazon to stock a small library and book holidays online with Expedia (even though I still struggle to find my way round that site) These silver surfers when armed with a laptop and a cup of coffee are quite content to put their trust in these sites to make purchases and yet they are also the sort of folk who reach for the security of the phone book when they need to find something locally.  Well that seems to have changed. They were looking for someone to give them a quote for some gardening work and thought that they would give UFindUs a try. They now have the names of three people from the directory that they will be calling this week. It is now stored in their favorites and Mum has spent time on adding every birthday and special event to the diary in My UFindUs. I don’t expect that the phone book will be going in the bin just yet, there is something quite comforting in having it tucked away in a drawer, but now they have discovered our online directory who knows what will be next. 

Graham Armstrong – UFindUs Ltd

Online shopping hits all time record spend of £10.9bn

The internet is ever growing in its power and SME’s shouldn’t underestimate the power it has on being able to capture new business. 2006 is now quoted as being a record year for online spending as it hit the £10.9 billion mark. What’s more experts predict that online sales are expected to almost treble to over £28 billion over the next 5 years. This is basically made up online spending on goods and excludes other things such as tickets, flights and insurance. The future prediction is an increase from £606 as being an annual average online spend in 2006 to £1,056 by 2011.Which show that those businesses which are investing in an online presence now will be well placed to reap the rewards in the future.

Graham Armstrong – UFindUs Ltd

MacAphee approve UFindUs.com

It’s good to know that if you register your details with UFindUs.com you won’t be flooded with spam emails. MacAphee show us as being one of their green sites which means that they have been registered with us since May 2006 and have found no problems with us sending spam (unsolicited) emails.

UFindUs Terms and Conditions

Just a brief reminder that the terms and conditions for UFindUs customers can be found at http://ufindus.com/terms/UFU_TandCs.pdf

Graham Armstrong

UFindUs Ltd

Easyspace: 3rd most reliable web host in April

Easyspace, the sister company to UFindUs that provides all our hosting have been named as one of the top 3 most reliable web hosts for April 2007 by Netcraft. According to Netcraft “The three leaders each had a perfect month, with no downtime and no failed requests for their corporate sites during an entire month of monitoring from eight locations around the globe.”  “This marks the first time that Easyspace have been the most reliable host in our monthly performance tracking.” Netcraft measures and makes available the response times of fifty leading hosting providers’ sites. The performance measurements are made at fifteen minute intervals from separate points around the internet, and averages are calculated over the immediately preceding 24 hour period.

UFindUs Rapidsite Updates

Work is continuing apace to get the new updated UFindUs Rapidsite software ready to be rolled out. I could try to explain all the fancy things that it can do…. But I won’t.

To be perfectly honest it’s mind-blowing the lengths that they are going to. When Stuart, our Rapidsite developer, has finished he will have completely transformed the way our customers interact with their sites as well as making then look altogether sharper and slicker than ever before. If you want to keep up-to-date on progress then check out his own development blog at http://rapidsite.wordpress.com/

Graham Armstrong

UFindUs Ltd