In this week’s web design video blog, Nick and James start by talking about Yellow Pages’ new format for their printed directories. This week’s web design tutorial looks at how you can convert simple JPG logos into vector illustrations using Adobe Illustrator. The video concludes with a tip for business owners about preventing email spam from your website.
This week’s web design news
Hi and welcome to this week’s web design video blog. Coming up we have a technique for converting JPG logos into vector graphics using Adobe Illustrator and our tip for business owners is how to reduce spam emails being sent from your website.
But first, Yellow Pages is poised to launch their new ‘compact’ directory. Pretty much all advert dimensions have been changed, and the book itself is set to be smaller, thinner and more condensed. The first compact Yellow Pages will be rolled out in Oxfordshire early this year, and eventually the rest of the UK.
This may be another obvious sign that the UK’s customers and consumers are more actively seeking for products and services online, instead of using traditional printed media.
With the recent introduction of technology such as Netbooks, Smartphones and even new tablet computers like the iPad, we can only assume that the future of lead generation for small to medium businesses is going to come from online sources.
This week’s web design tutorial
This week’s web design tutorial is how to convert basic JPEG logos into vector artwork.
Click here to download the supporting files.
Website tips for businesses #3
Over the past couple of weeks we’ve been sharing some of our website tips for business owners. Tip number 3 this week, is how to reduce the amount of spam emails coming from your website. A question that we are often asked by new clients is: ‘what measures can be implemented, to prevent spam emails and enquiries being sent from our website?’
On a basic company website, there are usually two primary sources for email spam. The first is the enquiry form on the contact page. If there isn’t an adequate anti-spam measure on your contact page, then your form is vulnerable to being triggered by automated computer programmes known as ‘Spam Bots’.
Spam Bots trawl the Internet looking to trip contact forms so that they can deliver unsolicited advertising to the recipient. Spam Bots that successfully trip your contact form may also record or ‘bookmark’ your site for future use.
An example contact form with CATPCHA
One of the best ways to protect your contact form from spam; is to integrate what is known as a CAPTCHA. A CAPTCHA is essentially a challenge or question that discerns Spam Bots from Human Users.
A CAPTCHA can take the form of a simple mathematics question or more commonly, a graphic with a barely visible word or code in it. The human user then completes the challenge by entering the correct response. If the correct response is not entered, then the form is not triggered and no email is sent.
CAPTCHAs are a reliable method for ensuring that human users and not Spam Bots are behind 100% of emails coming from your website’s enquiry page. So if you’re receiving spam enquiries from the contact form(s) on your website, you should ask your web designers about implementing a CAPTCHA onto your contact form.
Next week’s ‘website tip for business owners’ will look at the second source of email spam from your website. Thanks for watching this week, if you have any questions, comments or contributions, please leave them on our supporting blog post or on our YouTube channel.
