Launceston’s Charles Causley Festival, held in Launceston, Cornwall, is an important and well-established poetry and literary festival. The festival had an existing website dating back to the previous year, but it had not been updated since then and festival staff and volunteers lacked the time and know-how to turn the existing site into a site… Continue reading Website design for Launceston literary festival
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Content development & Website design for Callington holiday cottage
Bell Cottage, a brand new holiday cottage in South East Cornwall, needed a website that communicated the peaceful rural charm of the location, but also encouraged visitors to choose this accommodation because of its central location. Because the accommodation is not the traditional Cornish seaside location, it was important to develop content that would emphasise… Continue reading Content development & Website design for Callington holiday cottage
Clare Associates Is Watching You – and that’s a good thing!
Just so you know, Google Analytics is installed on this website. Google Analytics is a free website visitor analytics system which we use routinely on most of the websites that we work with. It logs information like : what searches were run that brought searchers to this site? which posts did people look at? what… Continue reading Clare Associates Is Watching You – and that’s a good thing!
21st Century Marketing Review for Devon Holiday Cottage Business
Old Tavistock Railway Station was converted to a set of three award-winning holiday cottages in 2008. On the face of it, the owners had already adopted 21st century marketing techniques – their website was attractive and they were using Google AdWords pay-per-click advertising. However, they were not getting the results they expected, so they called… Continue reading 21st Century Marketing Review for Devon Holiday Cottage Business
Online Shop development for Marianna G Swimwear
Marianna.G is an exclusive swimwear brand launching their first collection in 2013. We created their original site, working with their chosen designer, using WordPress as a content management system, with a heavily customised page layout to fit their simple and beautiful brand. To add powerful ecommerce functionality in a way that was affordable for a… Continue reading Online Shop development for Marianna G Swimwear
Some businesses throw money at a problem; some businesses throw time at a problem. There is a third way…
Quite often at Clare Associates we find ourselves picking up the pieces of previous attempts to solve business problems, especially with the company website. Usually these problems can be traced back to the decisions taken when this website was first developed. The first type of business has money to spend, but no time. They say… Continue reading Some businesses throw money at a problem; some businesses throw time at a problem. There is a third way…
Copyright and linking to copyright content: do you know the risks?
I don’t know if this post is really really obvious or not at all obvious. Maybe not at all obvious, from the sheer quantity of copyrighted images, music, books and video flying around the web in places where the copyright owner has not authorised them to be. I’m leaving entirely aside the morality of, say,… Continue reading Copyright and linking to copyright content: do you know the risks?
We’re well into the 21st Century now. So why does so much marketing feel like we’re still in 1900?
Marketing historians will sometimes tell you that marketing in anything resembling a modern sense began somewhere between the end of the 19th and the start of the 20th century. Since that time, marketing has supposedly become more scientific, more enlightened, more aware. Looking around today at the approach taken by quite a few companies, I’m… Continue reading We’re well into the 21st Century now. So why does so much marketing feel like we’re still in 1900?
Entrepreneurs and wannabe entrepreneurs – don’t waste your time on gurus, just get out there and work!
Many years ago, back in the first dotcom boom, I was working for one of the Big 4 accountancy firms. As the office “eCommerce Champion”, one of my jobs was to try to flog stuff to advise dotcom startups. Some senior partner had observed that “the best way to make money in a gold rush… Continue reading Entrepreneurs and wannabe entrepreneurs – don’t waste your time on gurus, just get out there and work!
Forcing people to do things they don’t want to do is no way to build a team
There was a fad a few years back for companies to send teams of employees (or maybe just managers) on a certain kind of ‘team-building’ activity. These would always be outdoors and would involve some strenuous (and often muddy) physical activity, maybe paintballing or even an army assault course. I’ve seen a few of these… Continue reading Forcing people to do things they don’t want to do is no way to build a team