David Behan's Web Design Ireland Blog

Golden Spider Awards Finalist

Well, it’s Golden Spider time of year again (this coming Thursday, 20th November actually) and this year we’ve got one of our websites up for an award - MurtaghBros.ie has been shortlisted in the Best Property Website category. Following the success we had in 2006 and 2007, we’re hoping to make it a hat trick of wins. The competition is tougher this year I believe and some big names are in the same category so it’s hard to tell whether we’ll win it again. The other websites up for the award are:

• www.belmayne.com
• www.chesterfieldblackrock.ie
• www.lisney.com
• www.osberstown.com
• www.owenreilly.ie
• www.privateseller.ie
• www.sherryfitz.ie

Best of luck to all the above - looking forward to meeting some of you on the night too.

We’ve built on previous years experience and added new functionality to the Murtagh Brothers website that will hopefully make us stand out from the crowd. With this property website launched earlier this year, we added some AJAX functionality to enhance the user experience, especially in property listing browsing. We’ve been able to speed up the navigation and browsing of properties by loading the most important part only - the actual listings - without having to reload the entire page. The result is a smooth transition between pages, making browsing the website a much better user experience. You can check out this feature on the Murtagh Brothers website by viewing one of their listing pages and clicking through the paging (next/previous buttons that are top right of the properties). Fingers crossed, with features like this, we’ll be coming home with our third Golden Spider on Thursday.

I’ll be attending the event as well as Dillon Murtagh so if you’re going, keep an eye out for us and say hello if you get the chance. I’m looking forward to meeting lots of new people and saying hello to people I met in previous years. Best of luck to all nominations too.

Oh, if you haven’t voted for the publicly voted category yet, you shoud do so by the end of the day.

BarCamp Cork

BarCamp is coming to Cork for the second time and it’s being held in the Webworks building on Eglinton Street, on November 1st. If you haven’t been to a BarCamp before, they are really good for learning new things, getting advice and meeting people in the industry. I’ve been to a couple so far and it’s always a good event. It’s definitely a great networking event and from the talk I’ve seen on twitter and around a number of the blogs and forums, it looks like there should be a really good turnout. Oh, there’s no cost to attend the event.

I Might Be Giving a Talk

Yes, I’ve put my name down to give a talk on how to sell websites (well, sell anything really). Basically, I’m just going to share my experience and give advice on drumming up business, sales calls, sales meetings (incl. body language basics), proposals, contracts, closing the deal, etc. It’s my first talk on such a subject but I’m looking forward to it. Now that we’ve moved into a recession, it looks like most industries will need to get back to basics when it comes to selling. I hope to see a good turnout of new and familiar faces.

Pre BarCamp Dinner & Drinks

A number of us have been talking about the possiblity of dinner and drinks the night before the event and it looks like it’s going ahead. Pat Phelan is organising a dinner the night before, so if you’re interested in coming, get your name down quick. The guys from the Irish Webmaster Forum are also meeting up for drinks so we’ll all probably end up together the night before.

Accommodation

We did some research on the hotels in the area and here’s a couple of links with pricing. I’ll probably be staying in Jury’s Inn as it close to the venue:

• Jury’s Inn - €129
• Jury’s Cork Hotel - €129
• Clarion Hotel - €140
• Cork Int’l Airport - €150

Carpooling

If anyone is interested in a lift down on the Friday afternoon from Dublin, I’ll probably be heading down with Michele and I’ll be driving back on the Sunday. I’ve space for 2 more so let me know if you want to join us.

Well, that’s it. Hope to see you at the event. If you see me wandering around, don’t hesitate to stop me for a chat.

One of our own projects that we launched earlier this year, OurMemoryOf.com, is up for an Irish Web Award. In case you didn’t know, OurMemoryOf allows users to create a memorial website for their deceased loved ones with photos, stories and online book of condolence.

It’s the first year of the awards set up by Damien Mulley, following the success of the Irish Blog Awards. We’ve made the long list in the Best New Web Application / Service category and we’ve got some tough competition:

Irish Web Awards

• Pix.ie
• PutPlace
• Locle
• Mortgages and Loans
• Nooked
• BookMeetingRoom.com
• Next Action
• Url.ie
• LouderVoice
• Twitterfone
• Zignals
• eWrite
• Album Shopper
• Edenbee
• PropertySwap.ie
• Poll Daddy
• Decisions For Heroes

There really are some great web apps and services in that list. I think it will be difficult to make the short list with such a competitive category. We’ll just have to wait and see.

I felt a little cheated that I wouldn’t get a chance to judge any of the categories in this years awards as we had a nomination. However, I just read on the awards.ie blog that Damien is doing something quite unique with our category. He’s getting us to judge all the other nominees in our category, which will then be added to the other judges scores before the final short list is announced. A great idea Damien.

Well, I just want to wish everyone the best of luck and looking forward to meeting familiar faces and new ones on the night.

Hi all! Just a quick post to spread the word about a web industry meet up that’s happening next week. Official title for the event is “SEO & Webmaster Meetup” but it’s really just an excuse for a bunch of us in the web industry to get together, have a few drinks and maybe do a bit of business. All webbie/techie guys and gals welcome. It should be a bit of fun!

Sponsored by Blacknight

The kind people over at Blacknight who provide excellent hosting in Ireland, are kindly sponsoring the event. There’ll be free drinks available to attendees so make sure you turn up early! I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Michele, Paul and the team over at Blacknight for their great support and service, and of course for sponsoring the event. If you don’t host with them already, you should really consider it. Check out their website at www.blacknight.com

Where and When?

Date: Saturday February 9th
Time: 7.30PM till whenever
Venue: Harbour Master, IFSC, Dublin

More information can be found on the IWF Forum. Drop a reply into the post to say you’ll be there or contact me and I’ll add you to the list.

Attendees

Some of the attendees to date include:

• Ken Stanley
• Richard Hearne [Redcardinal]
• Dave Davis [Redfly Marketing]
• James Larkin [Forbairt Media]
• Cormac Moylan
• Louie [Eire Web Design]
• Mark Walsh
• Allistar [Logon]
• Eoghan McCabe [Contrast]
• Ciaran Rooney [Weeno]
• Gavin Doolan
• Micky Wall
• Gavin [Ireland SEO & Marketing]
• Michael Flanagan

Pre Meetup, 6 Nations, 2-for-1 Special Offer

There’s a few of us meeting up earlier in the day for the Ireland v France rugby match at 4.30pm in Fitzsimons, Temple Bar. If you’re interested in meeting up to watch the game with us before heading to the IFSC, contact either myself or Ken Stanley and we’ll exchange numbers!

Looking forward to meeting people on the night! Slainte!

Padraig Smith wins Best Property Website
Well, it was Golden Spider Award time last Thursday in the Burlington Hotel, Dublin. After last years success of RaymondPotterton.com winning Best Professional Services Website, we had 3 clients up for Best Property Website - Padraig Smith Auctioneers, Raymond Potterton Auctioneers and Geraldine O’Reilly Auctioneers. I am very glad to say that we were successful when Padraig Smith Auctioneers won the category. It was our second year entering and our second year to win! I must say well done to Raymond Smith and all the team at Padraig Smith Auctioneers for their ideas and effort they put into the background while running the site. It’s an award they will surely cherish! Well done guys!

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Last week saw the launch of the new Blue Sky Mortgages website. Blue Sky Mortgages are a network of mortgage brokers across Ireland, that help their customers save money by switching mortgage providers, help first time buyers get on the property ladder with the best mortgage, and a lot more. Their new website exhibits a web 2.0 feel, a number of DHTML features, Google Maps of their offices, as well as being fully XHTML 1.1, WAI AAA and Section 508 compliant.

Visit their new website at www.blueskymortgages.ie

I’ve had reports from clients that funda.ie have sent out emails telling their clients that they are closing up shop. Funda.ie is the IAVI website for advertising properties for sale in Ireland and is part of the Funda Group, that own a number of web portals including funda.nl. Funda.ie entered the market last year when they acquired realestate.ie and re-launched the website as funda.ie in September 2006.

They did a number of advertising campaigns including a very good viral campaign about a man made shamrock island off the coast of Dublin. You can view it on YouTube here. Funda entered the market with good intentions but never seemed to be able to battle it out with the big boys - daft.ie and myhome.ie. After only 10 months in play, they have decided to close up shop. An idea of how funda.ie faired out traffic wise in comparison to the big boys, have a look at the report below generated at Alexa that Richard Hearne discussed a few months back.

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Today, we launched the new website for Pat McGovern & Associates, a building surveying company based in Navan, Co. Meath. Pat McGovern & Associates provide residential surveys, commercial surveys, land surveying and architectural services from their 3 offices in Meath, Dublin and Cavan. Their new website exhibits a web 2.0 feel, DHTML features, a Google Map of their offices, as well as being fully XHTML 1.1, WAI and Section 508 compliant.

Visit the new website at www.patmcgovern.ie

Well, it was last November that my site was launched and I felt it was time for a new look to be designed and implemented. The new look site has just been launched and if you are reading this here (as opposed to an RSS reader), you obviously see it. I’ve still a bit to do to finish it off. I want to do up the blog layout a bit nicer and in more of the style from the rest of the site. Also, I have to tidy up some SEO bits and test for WAI but other than that, it’s road worthy.

I hope to get my teeth into the blog a bit more as well. I’ve been only slowly adding to it so over the coming months I hope to fill it with relevant posts and articles on a regular basis. Fingers crossed!

For now, what do you think of the new look? If you are reading the text on the different pages, what do you think of the language used (away from the whole corporate approach), etc. Thanks for visiting and I look forward to hearing from you. If you spot anything that my tired eyes have missed, then please do let me know. Thanks in advance!

Hi all. I recently moved house and subsequently, the office has also moved. We have new contact details that you should update your records with. The office phone number has also changed as Eircom wouldn’t/couldn’t port the number to the new exchange!!! I’ll be sending this out by email as well:

New Address:
The Gate Lodge
Blackcastle Lodge
Navan
Co. Meath

New Phone Number:
+353 46 9064654

That’s it!