Internet Marketing | Lead Generation

Does my conservatory need building regulation approval?

In England and Wales - The Building Regulations set minimum standards in the construction of buildings for the health, safety, comfort and convenience of building users.

If you want to construct, extend or alter a dwelling or a building that is a workplace, it is likely that you will need to make an application under the Building Regulations but in some types of building works are exempt.

The regulations cover structural stability, fire precautions, means of escape, damp-proofing, sound insulation, electrical safety, ventilation, drainage, energy conservation and access and facilities for disabled people.

Exempt works include:

1) The extension of a building by the addition at ground level of:

a) a conservatory, porch, covered yard or covered way; or
b) a carport open on at least two sides; where the floor area does not exceed 30 square metres, provided that in the case of a conservatory or porch which is wholly or partly glazed, the glazing satisfies the requirement of Building Regulation Part N Safety Glazing. An exempt conservatory must be separated from the remainder of the house by a wall, door or window.

2) A detached single storey building, having a floor area which does not exceed 30 square metres, which contains no sleeping accommodation and is a building:

a) at no point of which is less than one metre from the boundary of its curtilage; or
b) which is constructed substantially of non-combustible material.

It should be noted that there has been discussion about making all conservatories subject to building regulations and it could be that in the next 1 – 2 years ALL conservatories will be subject to building regulations.

More information at;
A Conservatories4UK.com Guide to Conservatories and Building Regulations in England & Wales

Nice opportunity for UK Children - and a nice thought from the always innovating Google

The ‘Doodle 4 Google - My Britain’ competition asks young people across the UK to design a doodle that represents what it means to be British today. The winning doodle, which will be displayed on the Google UK homepage for a day, will be seen by around 18 million people.

Doodle 4 Google - My Britain

This is the first nationwide Doodle 4 Google competition and is open to every school in the UK.

Another useful page full of links that are bound to get us out of trouble - sooner or later

Extremely useful free utilities that do specific jobs really well and save time and money

This webpage includes links to the following:

Backup Outlook Express Email

and

Toon Clock

Plus a whole lot more….

“Simply Google” - a nice idea - and all one one page

Find links to almost all current GOOGLE service - including links to sites such as http://www.google.com/mars - misc Google Search Services and GOOGLE Blogs

Even some things here that I did not know about

find it at http://www.usabilityviews.com/simply_google.htm

New Web application from Google

Google has launched a calendar application linked to e-mail. This will compete with services from Yahoo and software from Microsoft.

The beta version of
Google Calendar , which can be accessed without a Gmail account, enables users to search for and add events from within the program or through Web sites that use open standards for calendars.

View an excellent video about it at:
CNET News.com’s Elinor Mills looks at some features of Google Calendar
(Wait for the ad to play first)

How to get more leads from your home improvement website

Everyone wants leads - but you know it is an amazing thing - lots of companies build websites, even spend some money on Pay Per Click Advertising (such as Google Adwords) and perhaps even paid to be listed is some directories such as
Conservatory Buyers Guide
and then wonder why they don’t get leads, or don’t get as many leads as they would hope to.

Often they have spent significant sums on the website - and frankly a lot of these web designers can build you nice looking websites (with all the bells and all the whistles) - but many don’t build the web sites to CONVERT visitors to leads.

Sometimes home improvement companies even write of the Internet as “not working” - failing to realise that they actually control their websites destiny and the fact the site is not producing leads is that NINE TIMES OUT OF TEN - they don’t make it easy for their website visitor to give them a lead.

As an Internet Marketing Consultant I am often asked to review websites - and come up with some ideas for improving the conversion ratios (usually - leads to visitor ratio)

Perhaps I really should not give away a “trade secret” like this - but really this one point is so OBVIOUS that I am surprised web designers are still building websites with this “built in fault”

To increase your leads - MAKE IT EASY FOR PEOPLE TO CONTACT YOU.

Often a website will have a “contact us” button tucked away in some far corner that is not easy to find.

Please, PLEASE, put your contact details on each page - and also ideally - strategically within the website copy.

Better still - change “Contact Us” web form to a “Free Brochure” or “Free Info” or “Free Information Pack” and you will see a significant increase in sales leads (as much as 50 - 100% increase sometimes)

You should also have clearly - and in large TYPE have your phone number at the top of each page.

You should have both a form to fill in and your contact phone number showing.

Far too often salespeople and sales managers worry about the tyre kickers and the brochure hunters - and try to qualify their leads too much. The point of most contractor based, supply and install home improvement websites is not to SELL a product but to sell visitors on the company and encourage them to request more information.

I spoke to a sales manager the other day who complained how bad business was and the economy was all wrong blah, blah…..

A little later we are talking about web leads and he declares he only wants leads of his websites from people who want to have one of his sales people out for a quotation. (hense why his website only had a request a quote link)

Clearly he had not considered that some people may wish to make a “softer approach” first - to find out more about his company before asking a sales person to quote.

Sad for him, sad for his sales people and sad for his company

Please don’t make this mistake

Good Selling To All

Barry

Deciding to have a Weblog (BLOG) type website opens up all sorts of possibilities - some rather good (like an easy systematic EASY way to add new content - from anywhere) and some that for me are a little more challenging - such as being “open” and letting the “world” see a more intimate view of what motivates me, what inspires me, what makes me angry, what makes me sad, what makes me happy.

By nature - I am a rather shy person (not everyone knows that) - I can talk all day about business, about work, about the internet - but when it comes to discussing me I am more of a “closed book”.

Anyway - having decided to have a BLOG - it seems appropriate to at least give a little insight into what has made me the person that I am.

I have always felt you can tell a lot about a person by finding out who are their mentors, who inspires them and who they admire.

So I have decided to create a category called “MENTORS” - this will be a category to which I will occasionally add details of individuals who at various times in my life have inspired me, taught me and helped me with valuable life lessons.

There really will be no order of priority in how I relate these teachers / mentors - it will really just be a case of me “remembering” and “acknowledging”.

Today - I am starting with a gentleman called: Tom Hopkins

As some may perhaps know - Tom is one of the worlds foremost sales trainers - and way back in the early 1980’s he have a tremendous impact on my fledgling direct sales career.

His book, How to Master the Art of Selling - was at least at that time the book that changed my sales career - that moved me from an average sales person to an award winning sales person. I also had a whole load of his cassette tapes which I listened to so much in my car that I almost could repeat the content “word for word”. He taught me how to “flow” as a salesman - to be able to respond to each and every selling situation in the most appropriate way - rather than stammering and flustering as often had been the case before as a rookie salesman.

Thank you Tom
http://www.tomhopkins.com

Thomas Sanderson Conservatory Blinds - The UK’s leading supplier of Conservatory Blinds.

Make the most of your conservatory and patio with the stunning range of colours and fabrics in the Thomas Sanderson collection. Our expert design consultants will help you create the perfect look for your home and lifestyle, turning your conservatory or patio area into a stunning “extra room” which can be used all year round.

http://www.conservatoryvideo.com/videos/thomas_sanderson/thomas_sanderson.html

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No, provided you have not had permitted development rights removed that prevent you from doing so and you do not do the following:

Build between your house and the highway unless the highway is over 20 metres from the canopy

You are building over more than half of the land on your property

The conservatory is higher than the highest part of the house roof

The canopy is more than 4 metres high within 2 metres of your boundary

You increase the volume of your original house by more than 10% or 50 cubic metres for a terraced house or a house in a Conservation Area. To be quite clear, a carport counts against this

For any other house you increase the volume of your original house by more than 15% or 70 cubic metres, whichever the greater, up to a maximum of 115 cubic metres and a carport counts against this

You are not within 5 metres of extensions that have used up your permitted volume allowances

;-))))))))

even more testing

finished soon )