We’ve spent a bit more time today on one of our .tel domains, brighton.tel.

One thing that I wanted to find out since we last looked at these was how are the sites doing stats wise. To explore this, we’ve been downloading our log files and looking at these in telSAP, which was the best of a few of the stats solutions we looked at today. This is an obvious, but pretty key step required to measure how effective the sites turn out to be.

Another thing I’ve read a lot about is how well these domain names get (or don’t get) indexed by Google. brighton.tel is currently not in the top 100 search results for the search term brighton on Google, Bing or Yahoo! Nor, at present, should it be, considering how much work has been done on it. However, we are finding that there are some searches on which brighton.tel gets first page Google ranking on keywords that are part of the subfolders on the domain. This is really encouraging.

Finally, we’ve made use of the back-up feature that telnic have recently launched. We used this to download one set of data from one of our .tels and upload it to another. Basically, that XML DTD acts as a template we can now use to manage bulk uploads to .tels, which is handy.

Based in Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, contact miggle.co.uk for website development, content management and online media services in the UK and worldwide.

Over the last few weeks I’ve noticed more and more tradesmen’s vans out and about on my walk into work. We’re well into the spring and that always seems to be start of people getting professionals in to get stuff done to their houses. And in that, I’ve seen a bit of a selling opportunity!

A lot of vans I walk past will carry the business name, the trade, a phone and mobile number – sometimes even an email address – but often a lot of these are bereft of a web address. So, it’s a perfect chance to ask the question – “Do you have a website?”

Travelling promotions
The interesting thing is that some of these businesses do, but they don’t promote the fact on their vans, or the banners that hang from scaffolds. This seems to me to be missing an obvious opportunity. As I’ve said before – a functional website is just the starting point to making the most of your business online.

Of course there are those vans that do promote websites – and so, when I see a web address I tap it into my iPhone and check out what’s there. Right now, web access via mobile phones only makes up a tiny percentage of overall access to the Internet, but of course that’s only going to increase as the availability of both phones that can access the web increase, the functionality of the browsing software improves and designers start really thinking about hand held experiences. Here at miggle, we’re also betting on .tel domains playing their part in making the web more mobile.

Think mobile for your website
Even though that slice of users is small right now, I think they represent a valuable niche. If a user has taken the time to access your site on their phone, then it shows that they really really wanted to see that info. Something has created that moment and that’s a powerful impulse. Visits driven on this sort of emotive level are probably some of the most qualified traffic you might get. So, there are two things – one, you’ve got to work hard to try and create those moments. If you’re a tradesman and you own a van, it can act as a moving billboard for your business – so use it as such. And, two, if what’s on your van has the power to make someone act straight away – which is likely, in someway to be facilitated by their phone, then make sure you’ve got a credible experience on hand held devices.

Once example I had today – nice looking van, clean, good logo, clearly a professional job on the branding (as opposed to Comic Sans and some clip art vinyled on to the side), talking up what seemed to be a quality product and service. I tap their address into my phone – and I get no site. Why? Because it’s all been designed in Flash, it has no back up option for people who might be accessing a site on a device that does not support Flash. “So who gives a ****?”, you might say – its hardly like that’s going to make up much of the visits to the site. True enough. But a web design company that delivers a site that ONLY works in Flash is probably not a web design company that’s thought about the challenges of making a Flash site work well from a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or an accessibility perspective, or even a basic user needs perspective. That client’s site probably makes a nice portfolio entry on prettybutpointlesssites.com – but that’s about it.

All that from my walk to work. I’m glad it’s the weekend…

>> Get your business a .tel domain

Based in the UK’s silicon city – Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, contact miggle.co.uk for website development, content management and online media services in the UK and worldwide.

My wife, Caroline, has spent a lot of this week up the allotment with the baby. Planting stuff. My interest in this venture will, shamefully, only start to kick in about six months time when she walks through the door with a trug of vegetables – hopefully with more parsnips this year than last!

We’ve been planting a few seeds at miggle this week as well – with the launch of our first .tel sites. We’re hoping they grow over the summer months in the same way as Caroline’s crop – but for now, do take a look at what we’ve done – even though they are just seedlings.

The most obvious one to check out is brighton.tel. We’ve listed a few of our favourite Brighton businesses on it – and we’ve also launched a new site – called miggletel.co.uk – from which Brighton businesses can sign up for a FREE or PREMIUM listing – or engage us to get their own .tel websites built. We’ve also added lettings.tel, motors.tel and jewellery.tel at the same time.

I’ve also published a few more as well – and what these show is how simply you can daisy chain .tel’s together. webdevelopment.tel links to miggle.tel links to alick.tel. Obviously, its just hyperlinking, its not rocket science – but it does mean, that providing I can keep on top of keeping alick.tel updated – then anyone who links to it will always have access to my latest info.

Based in the UK’s silicon city – Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, contact miggle.co.uk for website development, content management and online media services in the UK and worldwide.

Telnic.org, the registry operator for the new .tel top level domain, have singled out miggle’s newly created .tel website – brighton.tel – as an example of a .tel that is “helpful, well-populated” and offers “innovative ways to keep in touch”.

Check us out on their .tel of the week page.

Based in the UK’s silicon city – Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, contact miggle.co.uk for website development, content management and online media services in the UK and worldwide.

Now the .tel domain names are on general sale, it’s a really good time to build your business set up with this new way to communicate via the world wide web…

Building a .tel is a quick, easy and effective way of communicating your contact details. Think of it as a your own directory listing which can list everything about your company. It’s great on mobile phones too. Due to it’s revolutionary use of the DNS, the pages load very fast and when you find the number you’re after, you simply click it in your browser and your mobile automatically dials! Couldn’t be easier or more convenient.

At miggle.co.uk we’ve already started building some .tel websites and have been very impressed with what we’ve seen of their functionality so far.

Here is the view of www.webdevelopment.tel as seen from a PC or laptop (mobile view is a simplifed version). When building a .tel you can list any kind of contact information:

• Voice Calls
• Mobile Calls
• Email
• voIP
• Fax
• Web links
• Google maps
• Keywords
• Postal address

Having a .tel built for your business is a great way to improve your online presence whether you already have a website or need to get an online presence quickly and cheaply.

Here at miggle.co.uk we are already experienced in building .tel websites so if your thinking of improving your companies online presence then check out our website.

Based in the UK’s silicon city – Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, contact miggle.co.uk for website development, content management and online media services in the UK and worldwide.

New things happen on the Internet all the time. It’s an evolving medium – that’s one of the best things about it. This latest development has really got us excited though: the launch of .tel domains.

What’s it all about?

.tel is a new top level domain (TLD) like a .com or a .co.uk, yet different in one key respect: the way it uses the Internet’s ‘phone book’, DNS (Domain Name System).

Up until now, everytime you access a website, the address you type in is translated, by DNS, into the set of numbers that the website lives under. Your computer (or mobile phone) then busies itself with retrieving the webpages. With .tels, it’s all completely different as all the information in a .tel is stored by the DNS. This means that the DNS doesn’t need to look anywhere else for the info, so it can deliver the information that lives under yourbusiness.tel super quickly.

A .tel domain can either complement your existing website or act as a stand-alone website if you don’t yet have one. All the information that lives at yourbusiness.tel is viewable in a web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer or FireFox) as a webpage.

Because of their speed, .tel domains have significant advantages for web-enabled mobile phones – many of which still download standard web pages quite slowly. Also, because you can publish pretty much any contact information on a .tel, customers are just one click from your website, your email or from making a call.

With a .tel domain you can:

Join a global online directory that provides you instant worldwide exposure…

Integrate all your means of communication in a single place under your control…

Update and manage your contact information and keywords in real time…

Increase your search engine visibility through descriptive keywords…

Provide a fast way for your customers to connect with you in a single click from any mobile device…

How are .tel domains different to .coms?

The makers of .tel reckon that .tel domains could be as big as .com. We’re not going to be as bullish as .tel’s inventors because the invention of .com was a once in a lifetime phenomenon. But .tel will be big and we think businesses should get on board – not just to have a cool domain name, because this is NOT what .tel is about – but to get to use part of the internet, DNS, the web’s engine room, that other domains can’t exploit.

Without getting too technical, .tel domains use of DNS allows them to deliver several advantages. The .tels work really quickly on mobile phones – putting users one click away from making calls, sending you a mail or browsing your website. And because changes you make to your .tel are instantaneous (or as near as), anyone or anything that references your .tel has access to the latest, most up-to-date info about your business.

Exciting new opportunities with .tel domains

There are a number of other exciting aspects to .tel domains – opportunities for social networking and location based services being amongst our most hotly anticipated. Also, .tel development will not stand still. Think of some of the first .com pages you ever looked at, back when your mobile phone was brick sized and no one had thought of putting a browser on it – how far they’ve come. .tel has also been developed with a view to evolve. Watch this space for more .tel news very soon.

At miggle, we’ll be building a few .tels of our own. We can build your .tel pages too. For more information on .tels, contact the miggleweb team.

Based in the UK’s silicon city – Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, contact miggle.co.uk for website development, content management and online media services in the UK and worldwide.