luminous

No worries, I understand where you are coming from. They are getting in the region of 500 hits per month for the terms we are using.

Thanks Jason. I really appreciate the input. I will take a look at the SEOmoz mentions tracker to see how useful that is. I don't want to comment too much about the client being listed as the first 8 entries. But it is something that is currently being searched for a lot, and their competition have not twigged yet. The results have been quite pleasing for them

Thanks for the suggestions, but I'm not sure any of those actually do what we need. With the heavy use of social media for our clients those trackers seem to miss the entries we get for them based on social media links. I know for one customer we have the first 8 links in the google rankings for their term. The trackers just one listing, and actually it shows it has 2nd as the first link it misses totally as its a link from a local directory we have them listed in.

That could be a good idea!

I've come across a lot of SEO tools that all claim to track your search results, but to date all have had a flaw. They don't track your facebook, twitter, or other directory listings. So, for example you decide to optimise your site for a search term xyz. The current crop of tools just seem to search Google for xyz and then tell you where YOUR site comes. They don't mention that you may have a facebook listing on page one, or a directory listing on page one for those terms. This can lead to a lot of false information, as recently one customer we did some work for had the first 8 entries on Google for their terms, but our SEO tracking tool only reported that they had one listing that was 3rd on the list So what we were thinking of doing was a manual search every month for every customer for every search term and then manually looking down the list to see all the references to their site or facebook, twtter, backpage, microsite etc. However that is going to be a really labour intensive task

I love it when a problem has such a simple solution. Thanks, I will give that a go

This to me is a strange issue, and one I have only recently encountered on my new host. 1) I edit a file in notepad++ and ftp it to my site using Filezilla on a Win 7 x64 platform. 2) File is fine in notepad++, goes to the ftp server fine 3) Can download the file from the ftp server and re-edit in notepad++ and all my formatting is still in place. HOWEVER, if I open up the file on the ftp server directly in notepad++ all my carriage returns are missing. Conversely, if I edit the file while it is on the server using the editor within Wordpress, I get an extra carriage return for every line that is present. This is a nightmare for me at the moment. Sometimes my files are massively longer than expected with many many blank lines, other times there are all squeezed up with almost no carriage returns at all. Imagine a 1000 line CSS file being presented in only 50 lines and having to scroll along to edit it! Host provider is Zen, and they are meant to be pretty good. I guess its in my settings somewhere, as I know Windows and Unix handle carriage returns somewhat differently (don't know how or why). But I have never had this issue when editing files when using other hosts. Anyone have some suggestions?

I've got a nice background image that I would like to extend across the whole width of my site: I've tried the normal "offset" trick in photoshop, but I just cannot blend it together to create a seamless join. Does anyone have any tips? I'm new to photoshop and would like to learn how to do this please I've even cropped off part of the right hand side of the image to try and make the blending easier, but once again my photoshop skills fail me This is what I am currently trying to blend... Thanks very much for taking a look

I'm quite new to web hosting (ok, really new). Sites have low levels of traffic, as they are points of presence for local companies. I should say that I am UK based, and I know OVH HQ is in France, but so far I've not had any real issues (the odd reference in some help files has been in French!) So far I have seen lots of places offers services at all sorts of different price points. I've tried 1and1 and now OVH. OVH seems to offer the same level of performance, but at a much lower price point. So far I have been using both for about 3 months each. I've heard people talk about a "cpanel", although I have not seen one of these yet. Are these really useful? As for my hosting, I use a content management system called CMS Made Simple, so no hosts offer an auto install for this anyway. I've not found it too much of a hardship to upload the files and setup the database to get things going. OK, it took a few hours the first time, but I'm now well practiced at doing this - only takes about 30 mins now to get things setup just as I want. Just looking for some opinions, and maybe some links to REAL hosting review sites - most of the stuff google is churning out appears to be "sponsored".

It is indeed my first site, at version 2. What suggestions would you have to make it more attractive?

Website now at version 2 after undergoing complete redesign. Content is almost the same, overall appearance is still the same style. Just looks more modern in my opinion.

I'm not keen on flash, so I do like the fact you have the option to skip the intro. I think you are suffering from some of the issues I have on my site, in that the fonts are not quite right, and there is too much blank space. Maybe move in the borders to reduce the blank white space?

All done, apart from meta info. Will do that tomorrow, that's a bigger issue as its "already there", just not displaying in page source - my CMS code needs a little tweak. I must say that I really do appreciate the help and support you are providing. I've been finding it hard to get good honest feedback. My customer's know if it looks good, but lack the web design knowledge to provide good feedback. Family suffers from "parental pride" and always say its amazing...lol

Icons in header now tweaked and rotated, you were so right about that!! Thanks Meant to mention that the text at the top is for SEO purposes, not sure if it would work so well at the bottom of the page. If it would work just as well, then I would be tempted to move it.

Super, loving all the feedback so far. I've been tweaking the site in the last few minutes with regards to fonts. Fonts have been changed throughout the site, apart from the menu. Email address should now be the right size for Chrome. Will tweak the icons a little shorty. I've still got the feeling that the site looks a little dated, but not really sure why.