Did you know that since the Companies Act was updated in January 2007 all UK companies must include certain regulatory information on their websites and at the foot of each email?

What’s more, any company failing to display the correct information could be fined.

Yet over 5 months after its introduction, many web sites and business emails still do not comply with this new legislation.

Read on to find out exactly what information you need to display and where. And remember, this information will not only help you to avoid a costly fine, but may also help you to develop your customer relationships by promoting transparency and building customer confidence.

Information you need to show on your web site:

• Company name and/or trading name - e.g. “ABC.com is the trading name of ABC Enterprises Limited.”
• Company registration number and place of registration - e.g. “ABC Enterprises Limited is a company registered in England and Wales with company number 1234567″
• Registered office address
• VAT registration number - even if your web site is not used for e-commerce transactions
• Geographic address from which you operate (if different from registered address)
• If your business is a member of a trade or professional association, membership details, including any registration number, should be provided

Please note:

• Although it is useful for your customers if you have a contact form, it does not mean that you comply with the new laws. You must also provide address, telephone number and contact details - this will also illustrate that you are a genuine company with nothing to hide, helping you to build a trust-based relationship with your web site visitors
• This information does not need to show on all your web site’s pages, however visitors must be able to find it easily (Contact us, About us or Legal Info pages might be suitable pages to show this information)
• If you sell online, prices and delivery charges need to be clearly displayed. However you might want to obtain specific legal advice to ensure that your site complies with the UK’s e-commerce and distance selling regulations.

Mandatory information on email footers:

• Your company registration number
• Your place of registration (e.g. Scotland or England & Wales)
• Your registered office address

Stone Square Limited is a company registered in England and Wales. Registration number: 04434127. Registered office: 1 Perseverance Terrace, Savile Park, Halifax, HX1 3EF.

For convenience, you might also want to add your VAT registration number, telephone numbers. It may be in your interest to add other information such as confidentiality notices and disclaimers to your email footers.

Hopefully this information helps to clarify what you need to display on your web site and email footers, but if you are in any doubt we would advise you to seek expert legal advice.

Please note: this information is for guidance purposes only and is no substitute for professional legal advice.

Useful links:

• Companies to update websites and email footers before 2007 - from out-law.com a web site on legal issues in IT and e-commerce from the international law firm Pinsent Masons
• Companies House
• Information about the Companies Act 2006
• Companies Act (html document)

When Gill approached Stone Square to redesign Evergreen’s web site, she asked us to focus on building a web site that was user friendly, easy to navigate and quick to download, so we created a simple design using the company’s corporate colours.

Evergreen wanted to use the web site to attract leads and new customers. As they work with a broad range of clients - from self-employed professionals to large corporations, the web site needs to appeal to all their potential customers and answer their specific questions and concerns.

We worked closely with Gill and her team to write text that would be informative to a cross section of potential clients, including sections such as:

• Who is it for?
• Why use our typing services?
• How it works
• Quality Guarantee
• Typing Costs
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Getting started

All to inform the web site’s visitors, answer their questions about Evergreen’s transcription services and encourage them to contact the company.

The Gleddings needed a web site that would:

• Reflect the atmosphere and teaching philosophy of the school
• Look bright and exciting
• Appeal to parents who are considering sending their child to the school
• Help them communicate with existing parents
• Display children’s work
• Raise awareness of The Gleddings and the services it offers

They also wanted to keep the web site’s content and pictures fresh and up to date and needed to be able to update the site themselves.

School web sites are often standard templates supplied to schools with their logo and little customisation.

The Gleddings staff felt strongly that they needed a tailor-made web site that truly reflected the school’s personality and individuality. With this in mind, we worked closely with The Gleddings throughout the web site development process and built a bright and colourful web site that covers the following areas:

• History of The Gleddings Building
• IAPS & OFSTED Reports
• KS2 SATS Result Tables
• Around The Gleddings Preparatory School
• School Uniform
• School Council
• Teachers & Staff
• Out of Hours Care
• Nursery Provision
• Curriculum Information
• Monitoring Progress
• Class Pages
• Extra Curricular Activities
• Community Links

We also built a school blog, where teachers can display children’s work and communicate school news to the parents.
Both the main web site’s pages and the school’s blog are updatable by the school’s own staff.

For several years the Huddersfield-based copywriting company, CopyWrite, has provided the words for websites created by Stone Square, the Halifax-based web designer company, on behalf of its clients. It was only natural, therefore, that when Stone Square launched its own ecommerce site, www.bigfatballoons.co.uk, selling balloons and gifts online, that CopyWrite helped out with the words.

Meanwhile, CopyWrite was looking to establish an online presence and Stone Square returned the favour, designing www.cwrite.co.uk a user-friendly website promoting CopyWrite’s various writing services.

Both sites went live at the beginning of August.

“Over the last four years, we’ve worked on almost 50 websites together, ranging from small informative websites to major e-commerce sites. It was therefore a natural step to work together to create our own websites,” said CopyWrite managing director, Jeanette Dyson.

The websites illustrate the extremes of the online market. www.bigfatballoons.co.uk is a full ecommerce site targeting the gift buying market, while www.cwrite.co.uk is a brochure style website aimed at other businesses.

However, like all websites created by Stone Square and CopyWrite, both www.bigfatballons.co.uk and www.cwrite.co.uk, have a number of elements in common.

“It is essential that your customers and prospects can find your website in the first place. It is then vital that your site stands out as you only have a short time to make an impression online. By making sure the site is easy to navigate and provides visitors with the right information, it reduces the chance of browsers becoming frustrated and leaving the site before you’ve persuaded them to do the most important thing, which is to act - that is, buy your products or make an enquiry,” said Stone Square managing director, Sophie Baxter.

“With Jeanette’s help, we also optimise our websites’ text for search engines, which helps to make sure that our sites rank well with the most popular search engines such as Google, MSN and Yahoo.

“This means that when we build websites - however big or small, they deliver measurable results such as enquiries and orders,” said Sophie.

The relationship CopyWrite and Stone Square has forged over the years has proved a winning combination for many companies and one that www.bigfatballoons.co.uk and www.cwrite.co.uk now plan to benefit from.

Download the press release

• Low cost prints for professional photographers
• Monitor calibration devices including:-
• Spyder2express
• Spyder2suite
• Spyder2pro

They wanted a web site that was very easy to use and provided both existing and potential clients with all the information they needed - including price lists, order forms and how to prepare their files for print.

They also wanted a discussion forum to help professional photographers by providing a mechanism to share problems and offer hints, tips and advice.

We worked with them to develop a site that is both simple and delivers technical information in an accessible way.

Visit the ProAm Imaging web site.

Step 1 - First impressions DO Count!

First impressions are fundamental to building trust online - even more so if you have an e-commerce site. Your site needs to look professional and inspire trust: the slightest doubt and the customer will leave your site for a competitor’s.

So make sure that your graphic and pictures are good quality and your text is clear and informative.

Remember that you are asking people to leave their credit card details and trust you with their money!

Step 2 - Write good content and products descriptions

You need to provide visitors with enough information about your product to allow them to make an informed buying decision.

Try not only be descriptive but also appeal to the customer’s feelings. Would your widget make him feel amazingly confident, look good dinner parties, allow them to do their work quicker and spend more time with their family?

The text needs to be conversational, punchy easy to read and interesting.

You will find yourself spending a considerable amount of time writing - but the benefits - higher conversion rates and better search engines results, should be worth it.

Step 3 - KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid!)

Don’t assume that everyone knows everything. Make it clear where they need to go to find what. Label the navigation titles clearly and make it clear how to buy.

Amazingly “add to basket” or “buy now” signs on some sites are almost impossible to find - and guess what? People shop elsewhere. Keep the layout clear and simple and make sure navigation is obvious to all users (not just to you) by testing your website on friends and family - watch how they use it, you could be amazed at what you learn!

Step 4 - Forget Flash (and large images, Splash pages or other gimmicks)

Lots of graphics and moving images might look impressive but they can take too long to load and annoy your visitors. All customers are interested in is accessing relevant information as quickly and easily as possible so that they can see what you have to offer. What’s more they look like at adverts and at best customer ignore them.

Too many companies are tempted to go for a ‘wow’ effect website with lots of graphics that take a lifetime - or at least longer than the average browser is prepared to wait - to load and don’t bring any “value” to the site.

Remember, the web is an information-based medium and wouldn’t you prefer your site to be remembered for its great products and services rather than its design?

We’re not saying that design is irrelevant - just try to keep things simple. This leads us nicely to our next step.

Step 5 - Make your promises clear - and keep them.

All return and guarantees policies should be stated clearly on the site. You need to maintain trust and continue to build relationships with your clients even after you’ve made the sale. Answer all queries and emails personally. Automated answers are likely to make customers feel like ‘just another number’. A prompt and warm personal answer, however, will make them feel valued.

Keep them informed of the delivery status, especially if delivery is delayed. They might not be happy but they’ll be even more upset if they feel you’ve let them down. Similarly, if you’ve made a mistake admit it, apologise and fix it - as quickly as possible!

REMEMBER - unhappy people tell two or three times more people than happy ones do! The old saying that new customers are much harder (and much more expensive) to sell to than new ones is true and customer retention will be key in the long term success of your business.

They approached us to build a web site that would appeal to target markets and reflect the company’s image as a modern city-based law firm.

After discussing with them the different options available we decided to split the web site in two distinct sections - one for private clients and the other for corporate clients.

The result is a clear, easy to navigate web site with strong visual appeal that also includes in section with solicitors’ profiles.

Visit the Milners Solicitors web site.

• Words for corporate literature
• Copy for publications
• Writing for websites
• Text for other marketing material
• Public relations services

They approached us to design and build a simple informative web site for their clients.

The result is a clear informative web site with striking imagery.

“Forget about all the corporate speak and let’s get down to basics. If, like CopyWrite, your company wants a fantastic looking website that actually works for its money - ranks high on search engines, reads well, encourages ‘click throughs’, generates enquiries, increases sales - then talk to Stone Square.

We can honestly say that the Stone Square team is a rare find: friendly; easy to work with; listens to what you want; and, importantly, knows its stuff when it comes to good website design.”

Jeanette Dyson, Director
Copywrite

Visit the Copy Write web site.

• Air freight
• Sea freight
• European road services
• Ancillary services
• Training
• Transporting dangerous and hazardous goods
• Packing, storage and handling

They asked us to build a new web site that would describe the company’s products and services and serve the needs of both their American and British customers.

We designed an attractive web site that clearly communicates the benefits of using Future Forwarding to clients.

Visit the Future Forwarding web site.

Big Fat Balloons is owned by Stone Square and our objectives were to build an online shop that:

• Is easy to use
• Attractively and clearly designed
• Displays products attractively
• Provides customers with detailed product information
• Brought in plenty of search engines traffic
• Had high customer conversion rates
• Meets web accessibility standards

With over 150 products to choose from, it was important to create a structure that allows for further growth and also enables the visitor to find relevant products quickly.

To make the web site very intuitive to navigate, we organised the balloons and gifts both by occasion (Birthday helium balloon delivery and hen night L plate balloons to new baby gifts and graduation gift ideas) and product type.

The web site also features an information section on buying good gifts. We also created Big Fat Blog, Big Fat Balloons sister web site featuring new balloons and gifts, company updates, press releases and a “gift gossip” section.

Visit the Big Fat Balloons web site.