Ongoing maintenance requirements
In order for your website to be successful the content must be kept up to date. The website must also be available to users, so try and keep the time it is offline due to security or technical problems to a minimum.

Monitoring the website usage
Visitor statistics are be gathered to assist in marketing activities and the ongoing development of the site. This is typically done through the use of site analysis software that measures the usage patterns of the site. It does this in terms of statistics such as the number of visitors, new visitors, returning visitors, which search engines they are using to find the site, and which parts of the site they are making particular use of. We use a free program called AV Stats and Google Analytics which is a great form of statistical analysis for tracking customer traffic.

We have been very busy adding a whole array of new widgets to the website over the past few weeks, which now includes a Crew BLOG section allowing crew members to tell us about their days onboard yachts. Eva, a steward I have been in contact with on Facebook for awhile, has kindly given us a day in the life of what she does on the yacht, and it has been very interesting to know what actually goes on.... the ups and downs of life on a mega yacht. The Blog will also profile many different types of staff on a yacht or boat. Captains Blog, Chef, Deck Officer, Steward etc...... If you are a crew member then simply email us your details. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

VTiger CRM
Synchronize emails, contacts, and calendars using plugins for Outlook, Thunderbird, Gmail, Exchange, and more. Extensions can also integrate vtiger CRM with shopping carts, websites, or accounting systems. Search for these and other extensions in the Marketplace - Used by over 100,000 businesses worldwide.

Yacht Friend
Darren and Sonny have been working on the Tiger CRM to see what it can achieve, and we have found it to be fantastic. We are now able to see Marketing campaigns that we do internally and externally via our telesales team which is now growing. The CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software allows us to do a variety of services and solutions which enable us to track and support staff movements through the day.

Sales Overview
Leads, Accounts, Contacts, Potentials, Quotes, Sales Orders, Invoicing, Pricing, Documents, Calendars, the list is endliss, and with so many add-ons at our disposal. We can see the company using this for a long time to come. We can even track Inventory clients for account management and review reports through a basic analytical program.

The software also has it's own built in Chat box for internal staff meetings and a TAG Cloud for Brainstorming which is perfect for sharing best working practices and ideas.

Project Milestones are also a great way to see the company achievements and project tasks can also be seen by Agents of the company allowing them to see how there sales are progrssingeach day, week and month.

Yacht Friend has entered the world of Twits or is it Twittering or Tweets? Any how with over 200 Million people having a Tweet with each other, we thought we would join in the tweeting fun in the sun.  Yacht Friend.

If you would like to Follow our sweet bird song, click follow and let's get into a V formation to make a swift flight through the air to Barbados ASAP... Failing that we can drop in on uncle Sparrow for tea, scones and worms.

Look at the Media Spotlight section for updates.
On the Media Pack page we have added new slides on the right and we have also loaded the same thing into the yacht slides page. On the Case Studies page we have loaded a nice module which allows us to add post it notes around the website telling advertisers and users to the portal about snippets of information we wish to tell them about. The module was intended to be used as a Testimonials slide show, but we felt it would be better used for this function as a "Post it Notes" module. More enhancements will be added on the site soon.

The portal is nearing completion for the shell infrastructure and BETA testing for the 13th January of this year 2012 and we still have many tests that are needed to get the website to a finished V1.1 Version.

The order forms have now been loaded into the website under the Media Spotlight menu on the website, which is for clients who have already purchased an advertising slot and need to send us their contact details. We also have a Business Feedback Form as well to gauge how well the website is doing. Today's development cycle has taken over 8 hours to create two pages for the website with various updates to other pages as well.

The  global configuration systems on the server Database Settings area is complex to say the least. With this update in the last few days we have had to change over 40 components and modules to work with the new nested caegories and articles for the security site update. New Components Purchased Today include a brand new YouTube//Vimeo player to help with Corporate Client videos.

The website portal is being developed by Y365 Design who are portal creation experts.

The owner of Y365 Design is also one of the Co-Founders of Yacht Friend so the collaboration on this project has been a lot easier and finding the Perfect Business Partners is difficult, the effectiveness and efficiency of your operations as a business is essential for profitable business growth and marketing at its highest level. Inefficient working practices waste time and valuable resources which companies can ill afford in today's markets.

Which is why Yacht Friend is part of the Media Friend brand and has a strategic business partnership with Y365 Design and with several other different companies who work with us to analyse and improve our business processes to ensure they operate at maximum efficiency and effectiveness.

Adopting and embedding a culture of continuous process improvement which ensures that the business continues to remain profitable over a longer period of time and this has lots of benefits as we have been able to expand the business faster online and gain new business associates and friends.

The new and improved formula production of the Yacht Friend website portal will go live on the 13th-20th January 2012. Are You Ready?

The website is currently using a powerful CMS system which is running over 100 components, modules and plugins to make the site ride the crest of a wave. The database applications are running ZOO and HTML5. The process of the database system being used is to enterprise it with multiple applications that are being built independently, with different languages and platforms. The enterprise process needs information to be shared rapidly and consistently and the server hosts offer this in abundance. The goal for the databases is to integrate with the applications successfully.

The business A-Z is the first step in a portfolio of services that the website will offer. In February-March 2012 the B2B Directory will go live and soon after that the Crew Board experience will be loaded into the YF portal. As the website grows more and more special sections will be opened up to allow you to emmerse yourself in the Yacht Friend experience which will include discussion boards, forums, chat rooms, video feeds and much more.

Our goal is to become the UK's No.1 Premier Yachting Directory.

The current website has been indexed very heavily by keyword optimisation using White Hat Optimisation techniques to help the website get found naturally and organically over the past three years. None of this is going to change, but it is going to be enhanced by the use of new SEO techniques.

Search Engine Optimisation - Increasingly customers are searching online to find products and services they require, even more so in a recession. It is now more commonplace for users to access websites via search engines rather than the web address as users want a choice to make comparisons. To ensure that your website is appearing prominently in the natural or organic listings which are the free listing on a results page. I'm not going to help our competitors achieve this..... by rambling on, but you suddenly get the feeling that the technical team at Yacht Friend know what they are doing.

Search Engine Marketing - With so much focus these days on the Social Media revolution, SEO and SEM are sometimes blurred into thinking they are the same thing. Search engine optimisation tunes your website organically into the organic results, and Search Engine Marketing helps to promote your website in the (SERPs)  search engine result pages through the use or PPC (Pay Per Click) and paid advertising in the sponsored listings of any search engine platform like Google. Y365 Design are accredited Google Adword Resellers and are part of the Google Engage Program so we leave everything to them when it comes to doing our keyword campaigns on Google and they even gave us £50 of adwords vouchers for free to get started. Great. Huh!