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Welcome to the LCN Newsletter

Dear [NAME], welcome to the December edition of LCN Newsletter. You have received this newsletter as a customer of Low Cost Names (LCN). The newsletter is designed to keep you up to date with the services and products that LCN offers. If for any reason you do not wish to receive this newsletter simply unsubscribe.

Firstly, everyone at LCN.Com would like to wish all our Customers a Very Happy Christmas!

We received some great feedback to last months Supports Tips and Tricks. We will be including more of these in future issues of the LCN Newsletter. Thank You to Everyone for your feedback!

This month we have the fourth installment of the very popular Website Workshop, a Case Study of one of our Customers and some great sites for Christmas.

I hope you enjoy reading the newsletter and if you have any comments or suggestions please do not hesitate to contact us by emailing feedback@lcn.com

Many thanks

LCN's Editor

Last month we covered Step 3 which involved creating your horizontal and vertical navigation for the website. This month we will be dealing with the main content area and will ‘slice’ up our website so that it is ready to be coded.

Step 4 - Main content and slicing

In step 4 we will looking at how to ‘jazz up’ our main content section through the use of an image and showing you how to make it look for artistic. The we will be slicing the image up, showing you how to do this ready for next months issue.

To make it easier for you we have put the step by step guide into a PDF document which you can either work from online or download and print.

The PDF can be found here - Website Workshop Step 4

If you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader you can download it here. Or visit http://www.abobe.co.uk/

Next Month: Step 5 - HTML & Introduction to CSS

Next month we will be putting our sliced up images into a HTML document. We will be exploring the use of semantic HTML code and will look briefly into the application of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).

If you have missed any parts of this Workshop click here for all previous steps.

Still Stuck for gift ideas?

Why not buy a domain name, it's an ideal Christmas gift and LCN ensure you have Christmas all wrapped up by providing you with a Gift Certificate. So if you'd like to surprise a friend or family member, then a domain name is the perfect gift.

To claim simply type in your desired name and press search to see if it's available, then once you have purchased simply log in to your admin section and generate your Gift Certificate. It couldn't be easier!

Here are some ideas to get you started:

www.mymumsgreat.com
www.christmaslistonline.co.uk
www.mychristmas.me.uk
www.santasgroto.biz
www.thebestdad.me.uk
www.friendsforever.me.uk
www.bestmates.org
www.mybestmates.me.uk
www.into2008.co.uk
www.santaslittlehelpers.me.uk
www.myxmas2007.com

For more information and to register a domain name visit our site www.lcn.com

*Note: All examples were available at time of going to press.

We get numerous requests from people saying how much they love our services and how we have given them a strong foundation for building their web presence. For that reason we have introduced a new case study feature for our newsletters.

If you would like your site featured in future issues, then please submit your case study to feedback@lcn.com describing how the web has helped build your business and how LCN have helped you to achieve success. We can’t guarantee to include all case studies in our newsletters, but we may consider including them on our website.

In our first case study, Steve Hills of www.2dive4.co.uk describes their experience of setting up a website for their company.

About 2dive4.co.uk

2DiVE4 are a 5 star PADI approved Scuba Diving Centre based in Stansted, Essex and have been trading for 4 years.

They offer a full range of PADI and TDI courses from beginner to Instructor level, Diving holidays both in the UK and abroad, equipment sales and all diving services such as kit hire, equipment servicing and gas fills. They have more recently re-launched their online shop with the help of ServerChoice.com our partner VPS provider.

About ServerChoice.com

2dive4.co.uk is hosted on a VPS Plus package provided by ServerChoice.com.

ServerChoice.com provide great value Virtual Private Server (VPS) and Dedicated Server products, ideal for those who have outgrown their shared hosting plans and are looking for the next step forward.

ServerChoice is a UK based company with customer support at their forefront. Everyone is 100% focused on offering the best service possible. If you are not completely satisfied with your purchase you can get your money back with the ServerChoice 30 Day MoneyBack guarantee.

2dive4.co.uk Director Steve Hills describes their experience of building their web presence:

When starting 2DiVE4 the internet was already widely used and so it seemed to be a sensible thing to have a small website built by a Web Designer. We were recommended to use LCN to register our domain name and started with one of their basic hosting packages. At first we had around 20 pages of content detailing all the services we offered at the time. We gradually added more pages to our site which included more information about diving in general, as we found this useful to attract potential customers.

Around 2 years ago we bought a basic off the shelf shopping basket system that could easily be integrated with our LCN web hosting. This allowed us to sell our products online and we had fairly good sales figures from day one.

Over time we knew we needed to invest more time and money into our online shop and this year we made the decision to pay a web developer to customise a shopping basket system to our exact requirements. We asked LCN for their advice and they were particularly helpful and recommend using an open source solution called osCommerce. As osCommerce is open source it is therefore free to use and there are also lots of developers out there that have experience using it, so we weren’t committed to using a particular company to develop and maintain it. This has turned out to be an excellent investment and has allowed us to expand our online shop and simplify our customer’s online shopping experience.

We now have over 1000 diving products online and this is being expanded all the time. The site is now getting very large in size and we are now receiving more hits than ever, we therefore recently took the decision to switch the site to a VPS purchased through LCN’s partner ServerChoice.com. The VPS allows us enough space for the expansion of our online shop and has also provided increased performance so our customers get the fastest possible shopping experience. We’re even planning another expansion soon and are already eyeing up the ServerChoice.com Dedicated Server solution.

Little did we realise just how valuable our website would be. Around 2/3rds of our business comes through our website and although we are still a relatively small business in our industry, we have gained very good presence on the net.

Having good content is important to a website for both your customers and Google optimization, therefore, I would highly recommend to others that adding as much relevant information to your site as you can and even if you start off with only a small amount, try to ensure you devote time to adding to it on a regular basis. Also, it is essential for your customers and clients to see that your site is up to date, there is nothing worse than going onto a site that has out of date information. People will more faith in your business if you are keeping your website active and up to date.

For anyone starting a business and looking at having a website built, we would recommend to get a good web designer/developer and most importantly a reliable one. We believe that it is not crucial to have the most fancy high tech website on the net, it is more important for your website to look clean, easy to use/find information and is always up to date. Also, ask your designer to develop a site that is easily updatable by you or one of your employees.

Visit www.2dive4.co.uk for more information on the services and products 2DiVE4 provide.

Are stuck for ideas for Christmas?

www.redcross.org.uk

The British Red Cross helps people in crisis, whoever and wherever they are. They are part of a global voluntary network, responding to conflicts, natural disasters and individual emergencies. They enable vulnerable people in the UK and abroad to prepare for and withstand emergencies in their own communities. And when the crisis is over, they help them to recover and move on with their lives. The British Red Cross have a great online shop full of gifts for Her and Him.

www.bornfree.org.uk

Looking for an unusual present for someone special? This year give a present that makes a difference. There are wild gift's that help a genuine animal in need, and supports Born Free's work. Animal adoptions including Wolves, Primates and Lions. Each adoption has an adoption pack which includes a personalised adoption certificate, full colour framed photo, adoption papers, regular updates, a Born Free window sticker and lasts one year for just £20!

www.macmillan.org.uk

Every penny of profit raised by shopping with Macmillan Cancer Support Sales Ltd, is gifted back to the charity and will be used to fund Macmillan’s vital work to improve the quality of life for people affected by cancer. Gifts include CDs and DVD's, Gifts for Her and Him and of course Pets, Gardening, Food and much more.

Please note that LCN are not responsible for the content of external websites.

Please do not reply directly to this newsletter. If you would like to receive previous issues please email feedback@lcn.com

This newsletter may be freely redistributed by email in its unedited form. Please do share it with others.

LCN would like to thank you in advance for your continued support.

Kind regards

The LCN Team