Website Hosting & ecommerce, Part Time Webmasters, Java and PHP Development, Search Engine Optimisation, Mail-shots, Google Site Maps
PLUS Provision of 0800, 0845, 0871 etc Non-Geographic Phone Numbers with Voice to Email.
 
Welcome to One Stop Web Systems
E-Commerce, Java Development, Web Design and Hosting.

One Stop Web Systems deliver high quality ecommerce hosting and Java systems design
Website Hosting & ecommerce, Part Time Webmasters, Java and PHP Development, Search Engine Optimisation, Mail-shots, Google Site Maps<BR>PLUS Provision of 0800, 0845, 0871 etc Non-Geographic Phone Numbers with Voice to Email.
Contact Us
One Stop Web Systems
PO Box 39281
LONDON
SE3 9WY
England

Email : sales@OneStopWebSystems.com

Sales : 0845 260 1064 (Local Rate)
Support : 0871 250 1064

Int'l & Fax : +44 (0) 20 8318 5938

more..
Website Hosting & ecommerce, Part Time Webmasters, Java and PHP Development, Search Engine Optimisation, Mail-shots, Google Site Maps<BR>PLUS Provision of 0800, 0845, 0871 etc Non-Geographic Phone Numbers with Voice to Email.
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Frequently Asked Questions

  This is a list may help you find answers to common problems we've been asked in the past, ranging from name registration and website creation to email accounts, mail-shots and eShops - we hope it's useful to you!

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I'd like to setup a website - how do I start?

  First things first - think of sensible name that describes what your business does - for example if you sell Chinese fans online then Chinese-Fans.co.uk would make sense. Website names are read by search engines (Google) and help a site to rank, which is why hyphens are important - they help the search engine understand where the words are (see a hyphen as a space). People are much more likely to type 'Chinese Fans' than 'Chinesefans'.

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I have decided on a website name - what now?

  Next you need to make sure that the name is available - a good place to check is 123Reg.co.uk .

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Should I register a '.com' domain name, or a '.co.uk', or a '.org'?

  If you are to be UK-only based (for example you provide a local service) then choose the c.o.uk domain type. If you are selling globally or are a larger organisation then the tendency is to register a '.com' as well, although these strictly mean a US company. '.Org' usually implies a non-commercial organisation like a charity or information only site, and '.net' usually means an internet or technology company.

Our advice is always register the '.com' domain if you can plus the '.co.uk'.

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I have checked that my chosen domain name is available - what now?

  Simple - email us at sales@OneStopWebSystems.com and we will register your name, and set up an account for you, including up to five email addresses and a splash page containing your contact details. This service costs £100 pa plus £20 per each additional domain name.

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What types of email accounts should I have on my website?

  Usually websites have an info@.. email address, plus a sales@.. if they are selling products, and very often admin@.. and accounts@... These are all included in our £100 set-up offer.

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How do I get my email from my website?

  There are a couple of options here - you can set up an email program like Outlook to automatically get your email from where it is stored on our server (use mail.yourdomain.com for the POP3 and SMTP settings plus your username and password). Or it you don't have Outlook, or are travelling perhaps, then you can use any web browser by going to webmail.yourdomain.com and logging in using your email and password.

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Some people tend to send me large attachments - is there a limit on my email account?

  Usually we limit accounts to a certain size, but we can set up your account to accept 1,2,even 10MB attachments if need be.

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What about Spam?

  Our server has the latest state of the art anti-spam systems, so most spam gets flagged by placing text like *** SPAM *** in the subject line and is therefore easily stripped out by your email browser. We don't strip out spam just in case it turns out to be important.

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When I email some shops, they reply automatically - can my website do that?

  It's called an auto-responder, and yes, we can set up one per email account for you, all part of the service - you can even attach brochures to the response message

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I have a simple website and I'd like it make it look better.

  We work in conjunction with an established team of graphics artists at TwoBelowZero.net, who will have a chat with you and send you some impressions of what they think you are looking for. Once you have decided on one particular design, it is passed to us to build your website from.

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What are your charges for Graphical design?

  Our partners at TwoBelowZero.net will arrange this with you, but they are very flexible when it comes to pricing - talk to Gerald.

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What are your charges?

  It does depend on how complex the job is, but our rates start at £45 per hour.

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I would like to set up an online shop - how do I start?

  eShops are our speciality. We can usually have you up and running within a few weeks, if not days. We can make the shop look like your existing website and allow people from anywhere in the world to buy your products, handling multiple currencies and international shipping cost calculation in the process.

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What do I need to do to set up an eShop?

  We provide a simple online interface that allows you to upload photos of your products, edit descriptions and set price and stock levels. You can change these at any time, plus see stock reports, even what's in a customer's basket.

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I would like to ship internationally - how do I do that?

  We divide the world into four regions UK, Europe, America and the rest. You can decide tax, handling and shipping charges for each, and change these at any time.

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How do credit cards work with online shops?

  Most banks have an ecommerce arm that handle online transactions. We prefer to use Worldpay (part of the Royal Bank of Scotland) as it's one of the biggest. You set up an account with them and your customer pays them directly. After a period of time (generally four weeks), the money comes to your nominated account (less a small charge - currently 50p per debit card, 4.5% per credit card). Worldpay provide an online interface to allow you to manage all your transactions.

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Can I use my current bank account with an eShop?

  Yes - you can arrange with your bank to set up a Merchant Account and then have Worldpay or similar pass the funds straight to that account with no delay, although your bank may charge for this service.

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How long does it take to set up an eShop bank account?

  It can quite a while, as security checks need to be completed to prevent fraud, so to get you up and running we can run your transactions through our own account until you are ready, subject to our own checks.

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I have a website but it doesn't come up on Google.

  You have touched on the big issue of the web - something called Search Engine Optimisation (see next question). Put simply - the name, the design and most importantly the content of your website greatly affect how important Google will deem your site to be, and therefore just how high up the rankings it will appear.

If your site doesn't appear at all then you need to tell Google about it - this is one of the service that we offer.

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Tell me about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

  SEO is a service that we provide to help businesses become more popular on the web. It's not a one-shot deal though, as Google regularly changes the way in which it works, which needs to be responded to very quickly to maintain the best position. This is achieved in part by editing the content of website on a regular basis.

If your site doesn't appear at all then you need to tell Google about it - this is one of the service that we offer.

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What is a Google Sitemap?

  It's a description of your website written in a way that Google can understand. We use a program to generate ours, then upload them to Google after a website has been edited, to make sure that Google comes and has a read through.

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What about advertising my website?

  Google operates an effective way of advertising your site on the web called Ad words, that, if used judiciously, can improve the number of interested customers that visit your website. You pay an agreed maximum amount from your credit card to Google for every person that clicks on your advert (the green boxes on the right of the Google results page). The higher your budget per click - the better placed your advert will be. You do have to be careful though to make sure that you limit the available funds - the web is a big place and you could lose a lot of money very quickly.

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How do I find out whether anyone has visited my website?

  Every person that visits your site is counted. Although you can't find out exactly who they are, you can find out how they found you, where they went, what country they live in etc. This is called variously webstats or analytics; we tend to represent them to you graphically online to make them easier to understand.

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I would like to email my client base a newsletter - how do I do this?

  Email programs like Outlook are great for low volumes of emails, but if you have a few thousand recipients in mind then you move into the realm of Bulk Email.

We provide a service at Mail-shot.com to clients where we ask for a web page (or some text content), a subject line, and a contact address, and handle the whole shebang - including issues like complying to anti-spam rules.

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What are the anti spam rules?

  In the UK, it is illegal to send unsolicited email to personal addresses without the recipient's prior consent, with fines up to £5000 for each email.

It is not illegal to send unsolicited emails to businesses (if it were it would be detrimental to most businesses), provided you follow a set of rules, including providing the ability to unsubscribe and your company details.

Our Mail-shot service makes sure that you won't fall into any of those traps - why not try out our online demo at Mail-shot.com?

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If spam is illegal - how come I get so much?

  It comes down to the Web and the Law. Whilst there is a worldwide internet, there is no worldwide law, so whilst it is illegal to send unsolicited email within the UK, it is not illegal to do so from China for example - hence most spam comes from abroad.

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I have tried sending mail-shots but they get filtered out.

  Anti-spam software generally works on a points system - your email may have failed on enough points to be considered spam - either by the recipient's email program or by any intervening servers that help transmit it. It's a question of optimising the message by careful design to minimise the points - kind of like driving safely.

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I would prefer not to use my own phone number for my business - how do I do that?

  This is where Non-Geographic numbers really help - if you are moving office or home and don't want to keep changing your contact details, then you can opt to buy or rent a Non-Geographic number (e.g. 0800, 0845, 0870 etc.), from which all calls are redirected to your current home or office number - much like post office redirection.

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Tell me about Non-Geographic numbers

  Well, you can have Freephone number (0800) when you get charged a few pence per minute for any calls, but the caller pays nothing. Then there are 0845 numbers, which you don't pay for any calls and the caller pays local rate, then there are 0870 numbers where you get paid a few pence per call, and the called pays national rate (10p/min).

Our advice is to opt for an 0800 or 0845 sales line, plus an 0870 number for fax line (to prevent abuse).

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Do Non-Geographic numbers work from abroad?

  The answer is sometimes, sometimes not. The solution is to show an international number as well on a Contact Us page if you are expecting a lot of international calls.

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How do I pick up my messages from a Non-Geographic number?

  When we set up your number, you provide is with an email address. Each message is converted to a sound attachment (.wav) and is then emailed to you at that address (a .wav file is easily played using free software like Real player from Real.com).

This approach turns out to be a boon as you can keep all your messages in chronological order in your email browser indefinitely, and/or forward them to the appropriate person.

Also, using our international email access facility, you can listen to your messages from anywhere in the world whilst travelling.

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I have no Fax machine but would like to receive faxes - can I do this?

  No problem - a feature of some Non-Geographic numbers is that they can collect fax documents and attach them to an email, then send you the email - no paper, and access from anywhere.

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How do I send a FAX from my computer?

  If you have Word installed and a modem on your computer (for dialup) then this can be done relatively easily. Connect your modem to the phone line, the create your FAX in Word (using a Fax template if you like). Then save it, and go to File -> Send To -> Recipient using a Fax Modem, and follow the instructions given to you by the wizard.

By using this facility, and the Fax to email service, you can avoid having to buy a Fax machine PLUS you can send and receive faxes as you travel.

A second option is to use an online Fax service.

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I have a website but I also need a brochure to send to clients.

  Not a problem - we have the tools to convert your website to a set of full colour PDF or TIF documents that are suitable for printing by a professional printer. We can convert just a few pages, or your whole product line, and put it on the Web for your printer to download.

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I have thousands of product images that I need to put on the web but they are all very large files - optimising these will be very time consuming - is there a solution?

  Bulk image processing is a common problem - fortunately we have the ability to crop, rotate, resize, compress and watermark thousands of images in one go. You simply send us the CD and your requrements and we do the rest.

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How do I collect people's email addresses?

  Brochure requests by email are a neat trick - create a small brochure as PDF document (we can do this for you). Clients can request a brochure by clicking on a link on your website, but rather than sending the brochure straight back, a email pops up - all filled in and ready - that they then send to you. The brochure is sent back by return automatically, and you have their contact details to follow up - everyone wins.

Another good way is to offer a newsletter that people subscribe to, for example showing your latest offers.

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I'd like to use forms online for people to provide information - how do they work?

  There's action behind the scenes here on two fronts. Firstly you need to check that the data entered is valid (eg. that dates are real dates, emails aren't junk) which is done on the web page using Javascript - that's the kind of thing we are good at.

Then you need to decide what happens when the 'Submit' button is pressed. We provide a service that traps all the information in the form and converts it info a neatly formatted email that is then sent to a list of people in your organisation, and returned to the sender as confirmation.

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How do I add a 'search' facility to my site?

  This is something we regularly do and have the tools to provide a professional solution.

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How do I stop people from copying my website?

  There isn't much that you can do about people copying your design, other than worlwide copyright and a big budget to fight it, but you can encrypt the code. Normally when you right-click on a web page you can see all the code (HTML). With enryption you simply see a message, which may say 'Please contact us if you are interested in our website'. Encryption should however only be used sparingly as enrypting a whole website may harm your web rankings.

 
Reliable Java servlet technology using Tomcat and Apache provide the infrastructure for most of One Stop's online systems

  Website Hosting
  Domain Registration
  Website Design
  Part-Time Webmasters
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  e-Commerce
  eShop
  Worldpay Billing
  Updates using Excel
  Website to Brochure
    more..
  Business Hosting
  SEO and Webstats
  Trademarks etc
  Mail-shots
  0845 etc numbers
    more..
 
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