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Stop Press: We Have Moved Premises

As of 10 January 2025, DVH Design hace relocated to a new premises.  Our new postal address is:

22 Ignite House
Braintree Enterprise Centre
46 Springwood Drive
Braintree
Essex
CM7 2YN

However, if you would like to book a consultation or a meeting, we accept advanced bookings via our website. 

Onsite bookings are available.  Alternatively we accept advance bookings at the Following locations:

• The Plaza, Rutherford Park, Great Notley, Braintree
• The Chelmsford Club, Old London Road, Chelmsford
• The Innovation Center, Boundary Road, Colchester
• Space 282, Claydons Lane Rayleigh

This is mainly because the coffee at these locations are top standard and they are nice quiet spaces where I work regularly and have lunch whenever the mood takes me.

Happy 2024 from DVH Design

Stop Press: I am not DVH Design Limited

Official Award for DVH Design

Going bacGoing back to the lockdown earlier this year, DVH Design was awarded Web Design Service of the year 2021 by the Corporate LiveWire Innovation & Excellence Awards. This was a welcome award and once again, felt unreal.

I shall explain my cynicism: but last year we also won the Boutique Web Agency of the year and sadly this did not feel real. There was no official ceremony and all we had to show for it was a digital certificate.

Last week, I made the journey to Guildford, where I was able to pick up my award. The journey getting there was absolute hell, but worth every agonising traffic jam just to both feel the physical award and get some visual evidence to prove this was all genuine (to me anyway!).

And yes, I do wear a dress sometimes. 😉

Award Winning Web Design

DVH Design has won the CorporateLiveWireAward for Boutique Design Company of the Year 2020.

Assessed by a panel of judges that took into consideration the following for our award:

• Customer satisfaction
• Google, Facebook and Yell.com reviews
• Working with companies on an ongoing basis for 10+ years
• Assisting people with relatively little knowledge of the digital design area

Heartfelt thanks to all my customers for your ongoing support over the years.  We could not have done this without you.

19 Years and Still Going Strong!

Today is the 19th anniversary of DVH Design. We started in a tiny box room in Black Notley as a part-time business. Initially as a sideline to my administration job and then evolved to keep me sane when I had little children.

During that time we have evolved from a Microsoft FrontPage whizz(?) to learning the web code and scripting. We have also taught ourselves various Ecommerce and CMS packages, particularly Joomla, ZenCart and more recently WordPress.

In addition, DVH Design have also added Search Engine Optimisation (the story of how that came to be can be read here). We have also included Responsive website design, AdWords advertising. More recently, we specialise in helping website owners regain control of their own website. For example when their spouse or former web designer break communication. Sadly this has become commonplace over the last few years.

For that reason alone, we have changed our slogan depending on what fitted the company ethos at the time: We have gone from “Web Design Across Essex”, briefly experimented with “Sites not Sights”. Our now more fitting slogan, “Your Online Superheroes” (which is honestly nothing to do with my love of Marvel/DC films!)

But we could not have done any of this without our customers: These have varied from all works of life and backgrounds and from the novice website owner to serial business owners. Some I’ve worked with for a few months and a good few I have worked with for 15 years. I like to hope I have helped them achieve what they set out to achieve to begin with.

Here’s to the future

The last 19 years has been a big learning curve, and I know that learning curve will continue for years to come. DVH Design now have an AdWords expert on Board and will shortly include logo design to our services. There are other services that we are looking to include, so watch this space.

Here’s the Reality: People are Looking for you Online

This week has been my favourite time of the year. It’s nothing to do with Christmas: It was the interview episode of The Apprentice where the 5 remaining candidates get the pleasure of having every aspect of their progress businesses past and present, business plan and general characteristics by 4 of Lord Sugar’s key aides.

I watch this every year, not because I’m mean, but because nothing gets past these 4 musketeers. They analyse everything from how accurate the candidate’s market research is to how realistic their figures are. And they always look at the candidate’s current business website and for about 80% of the time, there are flaws.

Last year, out of the 2 finalists that went on to become Lord Sugar’s business partners, one hadn’t updated her website for about 5 years and the other one had an accreditation displayed on his website which shouldn’t have been there. ironically both of these budding business owners, went on to become Lord Sugar’s business partners.

This year was no exception: There was the hangover cure guy who boldly claimed on his Amazon page that he’d sold over 1 million sachets, when realistically he’d only sold 47,000 and the Tennis events organiser that had listed half her events on her website as cancelled. And my personal favourite:  Camilla, the nut milk entrepreneur whose original online branding was so provocative that it bordered on soft-core porn.

My son, who was also watching this with me, was looking up their websites on his iPad and we both had a good look. And indeed there are flaws. There were superficial flaws such as a logo that had been cropped to the extent that you couldn’t read the company name, a website that was clearly designed just for desktop users and my critical eye found that one of the slogans was “Just another WordPress site.”

I’m not saying Claude Littner, Linda Plant, et al are looking at your website right now, but like it or not, humans are naturally curious species beings. I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that after meeting someone either in person or interacting with them online, I’m straight onto Google or Linkedin to find out more about that person and their business.  Making it all the more important to keep your website and social media profiles updated.

Even after 18 years of working in the web industry, it kills me when someone dismisses updating their site saying “no one is looking me up online” Wrong. So wrong. People are looking you up whether you want them to or not. If your website or online profile aren’t up to scratch, it is going to reflect badly on you, whether you are #1 in Google #1000.

So take half an hour on a regular basis and look objectively at your website and social media profiles: Are they up to date? Is there anything new you can add? Are you emphasising your achievements? And more importantly, is it truthful? Can you back up your achievements (with accreditations, testimonials and media coverage)?  Even better ask a friend or colleague to take a look. What do they think? Sometimes a fresh set of eyes makes all the difference.

it is the final tonight and I wish the final 2 candidates the best of luck. It is hard to tell who is going to win this year.  I have looked at both of their websites this morning (Sunday) they have both been updated since Wednesday night, so its anyone’s guess.

Bye 2017. Here’s to the Future (Poll)

My blog has remained abused this year. My last entry was announcing my interview with Switch radio, which has been and gone. Sadly it wasn’t recorded by the station so I have no evidence. On the bright side I have been invited back so watch this space.

I haven’t used my blog to my advantage this year for two reasons: The first reason is just pure workload, which is a good thing. Secondly(and not so great) has been for personal reasons. In a nutshell I am in the middle of a divorce, so most of this year has been spent either in mediation or between solicitors. The hardest part is over but this does mean that we will have to relocate premises next year but hopefully still in either Braintree or Notley.

So for sure this has drained me and I have felt down. But I am not out.

I have plans for 2018 and this is where I need your participation in a little product research: I am asked so many times by people I meet at networking and exhibitions to look at websites that are under-performing and offer my advice and recommendations. I am just throwing out ideas but if you could get a detailed analysis report about your web’s responsiveness, performance and ranking (to name a few), would you be prepared to pay for that privilege?

[poll id=”3″]

For an extra measure of cheekiness, could you leave a comment with how much you would be prepared to pay for such a detailed analysis.

I greatly appreciate any feedback.

DVH Design is going to be on the Radio

It’s true! Deb Harrison from DVH Design will be speaking on the Zel-AfriQ show on Switch Radio on Wednesday 18 January 2016.

Along with 3 tracks of my choice, Deb will be talking to Zelma Holt about DVH Design: how we got here, and where we’re going.

The podcast will be published on our blog after the event but do feel free to have a listen live at Switch Dunmow Online  at 7.30pm on Wednesday.

Merry Christmas from DVH Design

So we are at the end of 2016 and a lot has been going on behind the scenes at DVH Design.  This year has seen us contribute to our Social Media Channels.  Now during the week you can see our regular updates on:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Linkedin
• Instagram
• Google +

But this week, we have also set up a YouTube channel.  From the new year, we will be posting interactive how to’s on subjects from setting up Email to simple ways to make your website work for you. Please do subscribe to our channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7GIwu_euemSTHYmcC3GDbw

We are also studying to become a certified Google Partner.  We have completed one exam, we just have one more to go.  But although our main focus is Search, we would also like to become certified in Display Network, Video and Shopping.  These are the best Channels for our current client base.

There are more exciting things planned for DVH Design:  on Wednesday 17th January, Deb Harrison will be interviewed on Switch Radio in Dunmow on Zelma Holt’s Zel-AfriQ show.

Also DVH Design will be exhibiting at the Business Expo Essex at Chelmsford City Racecourse on Wednesday 22nd February.  Please do come and meet us for a chat and a coffee and see how we can help you with your website woes.

We haven’t featured much on our blog this year, but we ae also in the process of revamping our website.  This will reflect our current services, portfolio and our new slogan.  So please do stay tuned.

So 2017 is going to be an exciting year and we hope you can join us.  In the meantime, have a very Merry Christmas and prosperity for 2017.

How to Seek (and Destroy) Online plagiarism

In the past I have written about image copyright and how you should read any small print to ensure that you don’t leave yourself vulnerable to a nice big fat royalty bill from a disgruntled photographer. But your website content can also be vulnerable to plagiarists.

Just before I start, the actual definition of Plagiarism according to The Oxford Dictionary is this:

The practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own

From the Latin plagiarius ‘kidnapper’ (from plagium ‘a kidnapping’, from Greek plagion) + -ism.

Yes, basically someone who kidnaps your content and passes it as their own. You don’t really need me to tell you how unethical a practice that is?

So is Someone Duping your Content?

You can check for duplicate content by going to Copyscape.com. You simply add your page URL and they search for websites that have similar content. It then gives you a percentage of how similar the page’s content is to yours.

The free service allows you 10 searches per day, which is adequate for a small website. For larger websites, it might be easier to subscribe to their premium service.

How it was about 10 years ago

I originally performed a search about 10 years ago, before web copyright was being taken seriously . I noticed my web rankings had gone down. I used Copyscape and found to my horror that a web design company up north had swiped my content and shamelessly added it to their website.

I rang up their company and had to leave a message. I went out for a moment and on my return had quite a snotty message left back on my website. The guy in charge basically thought it was socially acceptable to swipe content from other websites and then palm it off as their own content.

So I rang back this little Herbert to set him straight, but in the time between leaving his answerphone message and the phone ringing again, he either realised that the Essex girl wasn’t backing down or (more than likely) he didn’t actually have a leg to stand on. So he turned from snotty MD to noble and apologetic MD.

Naturally it was one of his employees was responsible for the content and would be “having words” with him and asking him to change it that day. It did get changed that day.

How it was 2 weeks ago

Fast forward 10 years later, and online copyright infringement is quite rightfully taken very seriously.  Also action is taken more quickly, even to the extent of the hosting company taking action or, even worse Google.

So, when I came to writing this guide, I ran a check on my website. My content is about 3 years old so I checked my pages and this time I find that not only one but two websites have copied my content: One had copied a section about e-commerce on my services page, but another had blatantly swiped my content from the ecommerce page.

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Step 1 – The Cease and Desist letter

It is very tempting to rip chunks out of the website owner, but that could just get messy. So instead I looked up their contact details and dropped them a polite, but firm email.

I did indeed check both sites after a few days: The website that copied the small section from my services page had taken the offending content down and either copied someone else’s or wrote it themselves.

But after one week the duplicate page was still there. Nothing had changed and this little twerp wasn’t taking my email seriously (he hadn’t even told me to get lost!). So it was time for the next stage.

Step 2 – Contact their Hosting Company

So if the web owner wasn’t going to take their content down, then maybe a polite word to their hosting provider would do the trick. So a quick look on http://who.is for the domain name and I can find out the hosting company. In this case one in the Netherlands.

The hosting people not only need to know the whole story but also need evidence that one of the websites they allocate space for is doing anything wrong. It is also worthwhile to prove that you were the originator of the content. https://web.archive.org/ takes regular captures of your website. It doesn’t take regular updates, but in this case it proves that my web content has been on my site for a couple of years.

I sent them a polite email explaining the situation and that they should take down the page (or even better the site) as they are infringing copyright. Again I have given them a deadline to do something about it.

In this case I didn’t have to wait very long. Within a few hours I had a reply. Short but polite.

And on that same afternoon, their website (and at the point of writing this) the website is still down.

I wonder if they are aware?

So it was resolved with slightly less stress than the case 10 years ago. But if the hosting company hadn’t responded, then there is a step 3.

Step 3 – Tell Google all about it

This is a last resort: Get onto Google Webmaster Tools and file a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act)

Big ‘G’ provide a lot of support and information about this process and guide you through the entire process. Take the time to read the support on offer and answer the questions and provide as much info as possible. Google will then in turn review your DMCA and decide which action to take. For a straightforward act of plagarism, that should resolve it.

Can we stop this from happening again?

No not really. Online, you are always going to get hackers, spammers, scammers, cheapskates and general weirdos, and there will always be some imbecile with minimum brain activity, that thinks they just might get away with swiping someone else’s content for use on their own website. The key is to check your content regularly and to take appropriate action.

There are a few workarounds, especially for blogs, but I will cover that in a separate article.