The warmer, brighter weather has brought out the carefree in shoppers, as more logged on-line to a range of e-retail sites and enjoyed a little spending. Top of the e-commerce sales list were products for the home and garden, as well as new summer clothing.

The latest figures from the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index shows that on-line consumers spent 15% more in March compared to last year, amounting to some £4.5 billion worth of sales.

In particular, 42% more was spent on-line on items for the home and garden as compared to 2009. The sunshine also prompted buyers to spend 27% more on-line on clothes, when compared to the previous month.

As Tina Spooner, of IMRG, said: “The 15% yearly growth in on-line sales is very positive and is evidence that e-retail continues to outperform the high street.”

A good and informative website will offer a number of links, whether internal to your own website or external. But so many sites do not use this excellent navigational tool well. To avoid frustrating your visitors with poor links style we’ve put together a guide to “good linking”.

* First things first, if a word is not offering a link then DON’T underline it. The universal way to show that a word links to something is to underline it.

* Try to make links self-explanatory. Use simple language and underline a relevant word or phrase so that visitors know immediately what they will be linking to.

* It is also better to try to avoid using words such as “link”, “click here” or “here” as these lack imagination and mean that site owners miss a great opportunity to offer helpful navigation for visitors.

* Try not to have internal website links opening a new window. It can be really annoying to have too many open windows on one screen.

* Use links for better “accessibility”. So make sure your contact details are linked and appear on every web page.

* Finally, test your links on a regular basis. Load up your website and then click on all links to make sure they are still working. Sometimes you’ll find that external links have become redundant. Visitors will not be best impressed by a website that has links to redundant sites, know will they?

Twitter has revealed a few stats that might just interest e-commerce or on-line businesses.

* Firstly, Twitter gets 19 billion searches per month. That figure appears to put Twitter in second place, just behind Google and ahead of Yahoo and Bing. What seems to be the case is that people are increasingly using Twitter and Twitter apps to find information. Added to this, Twitter’s new “Promoted Ads” will also show up on Twitter searches.

* Twitter now has more than 105 million users, with about 300,000 new people joining each day.

* Twitter is becoming more and more “useable” thanks to its many apps. There are lots of apps that can shape Twitter around a person’s specific needs. And this is also applicable to business accounts.

* The number of Twitter app directories just keeps on growing. These offer an amazing resource for finding companies and potential clients, and in a wealth of different categories.

As we’ve said in these blogs before, one of the fastest areas of web growth is browsing the internet on mobile phones. Now there is further evidence of how popular mobile web use is becoming as Apple release Opera as a browser maker for iPhone. Within 24 hours the free app had been downloaded more than one million times pushing it to the top of the download charts.

While Opera Mini is not the first alternative to Apple’s Safari to be developed for the iPhone it is the first well-known PC browser to become available on Apple’s hugely popular mobile phone.

Apps have to be written specifically for mobile phones – and to suit each model so most come with a set browser. Now thanks to Opera, iPhone users have a choice of web browser. Apple also say that Opera will work on iPad.

A good web designer or web design company will work with you, your business and your ideas to come up with a great looking site. They will also offer advice about looks, content and SEO.
Here we bring you a round up of extra web design dos and don’ts to get you started on the design of your new website:

Design tips

•    Do ensure that every page of your website has something to say and something valuable to offer.
•    Don’t annoy your visitors with too many flashing, noisy, animated bits and pieces that might easily distract people from the important information on your site. Pop-up windows can be off-putting, too. Remember that sometimes simple is the best.

•    Do make it easy to navigate your website so that visitors can find what they are looking for.
•    Do minimise the number of click-thrus required to find information. Again, simple is best.
•    Don’t make your visitor scroll down lots of pages.
•    Do limit page scroll down to two screenfuls – or six to seven screenfuls for articles.
•    Do always include a link back to the home page on every page for easier navigation.
•    Don’t slow your website down with lots of big image files. Make sure that they are compressed for simpler upload.
Content tips

•    Do ensure that text is easy to read on your website. Ask you website designer to keep text width to two-thirds of the site width maximum or about 600 pixels wide.
•    Do use contrasting colours on simple or plain backgrounds. Light text on dark backgrounds isn’t always the easiest to read so make sure you ask your designer to try a few ideas before you make your decision.
•    Do make the text large enough to read. Go for something like 12 or 13pt Arial, and 11 or 12pt Verdana. Or similar.
•    Do increase the line spacing so that the text is easier to read.
•    Don’t type more than a few words in ALL CAPS. And do not use more than one exclamation mark.
•    Do use a spell checker. And ask someone to proof-read your copy. There is no excuse for poor grammar and spelling – especially as it makes your website look unprofessional.

Twitter is fast-growing and also a cheap and effective way to improve your business marketing campaign. So make sure you start as you mean to go on. Here we bring you a few dos and don’ts for becoming active on Twitter:

• Do make sure you upload a photo or logo on to your profile instead of relying on the default icon. It shows you are serious about Twitter and it lets other tweeters know a little bit about what you look like.
• Don’t leave your biography blank. Everyone who comes on to your Twitter site will want to know a little bit about who you are or what your business is about. Try to be interesting about who you are but keep it short, too.
• Do tweet. Quite often follow requests come from “Twits” who haven’t even tweeted once. This doesn’t make you look interesting or attractive and could easily result in people not bothering to follow you back.
• Do tweet about something topical, interesting, different or controversial. Or link to something that is interesting or informative. If your tweets appear to simply sell your products and so do not offer anything else in the way of interest or engagement than no-one will bother to follow you.

Don’t forget to keep on tweeting. People will be put off by Twits who do not have very much to say. Ensure you are tweeting regularly and engaging in a range of Twitter chats. The more you have to say of interest the more likely it is that people will want to follow you.