Our news and blog
Have a read through some of our news, marketing tips and case studies.
Why we recommend WordPress
WordPress powers 37% of all websites on the internet in 2021. That’s 10% more than in 2016 when they powered only 25% of websites. WordPress powers over 13 times the number of CMS websites compared to Joomla, the second most...
How to Turn Your Pictures Into Anything With Midjourney V5 (In 3 Steps)
Get ready to be amazed by Midjourney! Midjourney can turn any picture, even your own selfies, into something straight out of your wildest dreams. We’re talking about surreal landscapes, mythical creatures, and epic visual effects that will leave your jaw on the floor....
Midjourney: Create AI art with simple text prompts
Created with Midjourney Artificial intelligence is changing the creative world. All thanks to its amazing algorithms that produce images that are sometimes hard to distinguish from human-made art. AI can help you bring to life any concept you can imagine, which can be...
Font Pairing and Colour Ideas (50 of the best)
We know choosing font pairings to make your website legible and look good is time consuming. So we've put together 50 google fonts combinations so you can see heading and body fonts paired together. Simply browse and let us know which you'd like on your website....
HubSpot Templates
These downloads of the HubSport content marketing templates are provided here for your convenience. Blog Editorial Calendar - Excel - Download Read me first - Blog Editorial Calendar Instructions - Download READ FIRST - Intro & Instructions for 5 Blog Post...
Testimonial: Melanie Williams HWBIDCO MyWycombe.com
We were delighted with our mywycombe.com website and enjoyed working with Daddology. Chris went above and beyond in finding technical solutions for us throughout the site build and managed to convey complex technical details in a way that was understandable, clear and...
How to avoid your emails going to SPAM
It’s thought that a massive 85% of emails sent out worldwide every day are spam. That’s a sea of more than 122 billion unsolicited, unwelcome and sometimes virus-infested messages. Over the years, technology companies have developed complex filters to...
Case Study: Walden Hall
We created the WaldenHall.com (Virginia) website for Julie Haines, a Superhost on AirBnB and joint owner of another of our exciting projects Bald Top Brewery.
Chris Dadd on The Business Clubhouse Forum Conversation Podcast
It was nice to chat with Ash Taylor, founder of The Business Clubhouse Forum on his podcast the other day. "In this week's episode we get to know entrepreneur Chris Dadd, and find out how he has aligned the vision and values of his businesses with his passion for...
10 SEO Tips on How to Write Articles Search Engines Love
Get expert SEO tips on how to optimise your writing so Google will rank them
Optimising Images for SEO
The art and science of optimising your content for search engines like Google, is as much about optimising images too. Optimising your images helps your website to be found via image search. A good logo or eye-catching pictures can be as effective at bringing visitors...
Lead Generation – Stage 1 – Getting to know your business
Finding New Customers from Website Visitors We want your website to generate real leads and happy customers for your business. But it makes no sense to drive random crowds of people to your website in the hope that some will buy from you. Buying web traffic for it's...
Testimonial: Ann Theato, Podcaster and Medium
I am absolutely delighted with the beautiful website Chris has created for me. Chris went out of his way to understand the customer experience and has built a website with great functionality. I found working with Chris to be very inspiring and his technical knowledge...
Websites for Amdram Theatre Groups
Super Easy to Edit with Wordpress We build your website with a superbly supported content management system called Wordpress used by millions, including well known brands. It's super easy for anyone to use themselves. Write articles, sell products, share galleries......
Moved host? Clear DNS cache.
When your website is being worked on by your web development company, it's common for the test site to be running on a different hosting company. Then your live website remains live whilst you work together on building your new, fresh website. Hosting companies are in...
Example Privacy Policy
If you're looking for an example privacy policy, this is pretty thorough. Change the generic bits to your company and check your company is compliant. ------------ Company Name Ltd ("Company") is registered as a data controller in the United Kingdom for the purposes...
Cookie Policy
Lot's of people ask me if we can provide them with a Cookie Policy for their website. Absolutely. Here's a simple guide you could use... We’d like to put your mind at rest about cookies. If you are uncertain about what a cookie is have a look at our simple guide to...
DADD wins joint 1st in Design Challenge for Cancer Central
A few months ago, I had the pleasure of being introduced to Avril Chester, CEO of a new Community Interest Company called Cancer Central. It's amazing how connections bring you to new chapters in your life. It was the day before their first Hackathon to...
Blockchain Industry in UK Landscape – Overview 2018
If you are innovating technology with blockchain, or wonder who is, DAG Global has helpfully put together this overview infographic. You can grab the infographic here If you are trying to learn about blockchain, read this
3 Reasons to Secure Your Website with SSL
An SSL Certificate will secure your website, improve your search ranking, and build trust with your visitors. 1. An SSL Certificate keeps your website safe and secure Have you noticed that most website addresses now start with a “HTTPS” instead of “HTTP”? The “S”...
Every step we make is about… connections
I am asked regularly, “why do I need a linkedin profile?” and “why bother networking?” and my reply is always the same. “Every step we make is about the connections we’ve made”.
Tip #6: 10 Steps to Website Success
If you're curious how you get from start to finish, here are our 10 steps to website success for your business. listen. Share your story of your current situation, your business and competitors, objectives and vision. advise. We think about the best way to...
Apps Market Retrospective 2017
If you are interested in the apps market, you may find this report interesting. App Annie, the authors produce this excellent report every year. In summary: Downloads exceeded 175 billion (+60% growth from 2015), consumer spend exceeded $86 BILLION (+105% growth...
Testimonial: Driving Instructor and Hypnotherapist
Dadd has just completed building two websites for my businesses that are already working well. This company is a pleasure to deal with and honest and genuine. My previous experiences with website builders has not been good and working with Chris has been a breath of...
Case Study: AssureData
Case Study: AssureData Brand and Website AssureData Brief Jim Sneddon, founder of AssureData approached DADD a year after helping him with a previous business. He needed a logo and website that offered visitors information about how AssureData could help customers...
Yes, after 12 months it IS worth owning an electric car
A year ago we replaced a diesel hungry Land Rover Freelander with a Nissan Leaf electric car. Here's my opinion, after 12 months daily usage. Have you ever considered switching from driving a fossil fuel diesel or petrol car to an electric one? We had considered it...
Bitcoin Blockchain Links & Course
More and more people are curious about Bitcoin and blockchain technologies. For some of you, it's become part of your job and you have to get up to speed fast. I decided to put together this simple blog post sharing my reference sites for information about this and...
Case Study: Two Birds London Shop
Case study for an online shop
Google shares how impatient we all are when browsing mobile websites
MOBILE USER EXPERIENCE Google shares how impatient we all are when browsing mobile websites Chris Dadd, Director 19 Oct 2016 Google recently benchmarked 316 mobile sites in travel, retail and finance across Europe to help advertisers better understand the best...
My Top 5 from Deloitte’s Report
In Deloitte's recent mobile consumer study, it's clear we are a nation of addicts. With 81% of the UK owning a smartphone, here are my top 5 takeaways: 81% use their phones whilst watching TV. [CD] I'm guilty are you? 34% check their phones in the middle of night....
Introducing live page editing with Divi 3.0 WordPress theme
There's a new Wordpress Theme called Divi 3.0 which let's you edit your webpages live. Watch the video to see what we mean. We're currently trying it out ourselves as an upgrade to the one we use on dadd.tv - here's a live demo for you to play...
AVIS: Car Hire on Tap
Case study for the rollout of a mobile app to book car rental from any country in EMEA with Avis Budget Group
20% off October websites
We all like a deal. So here's one to help you get that website project done, for less. 20% less! If you book your website project in October, we'll give you 20% off. So for example, a 5 page website to showcase your company would normally cost £500 (ex. VAT), but for...
Website checklist of 26 things
We've put together this handy checklist of 26 things to consider when designing your website. Domain. Choose a web address (domain) that people can remember easily Host. Choose a reliable hosting provider. See our hosting page for who we recommend. Content Management...
Benefits of HTML5 web apps vs native downloadable apps
How do you choose between building native downloadable business apps or web ones? Simple. Read our short summary below and you should see cool blue web apps are better all round than rash red ones. COST IMPLICATIONS If you build native apps you still have to build web...
Fairview
Fairview is a manufacturer of building facades.
Social Media Image Sizes
Every year it seems the social media sites change their image size requirements. Here are the ones for facebook, twitter, linkedin, pintrest and google plus for your easy reference. ...
Roundpeg London
Case Study for a FMCG consultancy brochureware website
5 reasons you need a good website
People often ask me why they need a website. Here are my top 5 answers: 1. YOUR COMPETITORS HAVE WEBSITES Have you googled your competitors? If you found them easily they have an advantage. A website is a great way to level the playing field regardless of the size of...
Accessible web content
Accessible web content 10% of the UK have some kind of disability and in 2005 legislation suggests websites should enable the content to: Appearance can be controlled by the user Can be navigated using a mouse, keyboard or other input devices Work well in text-only...
Make a dream come true with DADD this Christmas…
Pure creative genius. Get your tissues ready. Then give someone the perfect gift this Christmas. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuz2ILq4UeA Make a dream come true with DADD this Christmas... Lots of people love the idea of making their dreams come true. Bring a tear...
Mobile Highlights from Internet Trends 2015
I’ve been reading through the famous annual Internet Trends Report 2015 from Mary Meeker for up-to-date mobile stat’s http://kpcb.com/InternetTrends. It’s 196 pages (!) so I’ve condensed into some salient mobile points, omitting the China and India analysis. Here are...
Inspiration: Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won't, so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can't
Emerging Payments Association
Case study for an online community with member features, events and blogs
Daily Mirror Newspaper Sales Promotions
Case study for national newspaper campaigns with high intensity visitors for marketing campaigns that increased sales.
Hoverboard reaches 2.2M viewers since 3rd March (2 days)
They're here. http://huvrtech.com. Real?
YouTube Viral: Cadbury Passport Control
Cadbury has had almost 14,000 views on Youtube within first 48 hours. #cadbury #travel #dance
Cat Humour: Pussies Dating
Cat goes for Olympic Gold
Inspiration: this is my wish for you
this is my wish for you: comfort on difficult days smiles when sadness intrudes rainbows to follow the clouds laughter to kiss your lips friendships to brighten your being beauty for your eyes to see faith so that you can believe confidence for when you doubt...
How to use #twitter #hashtags
Have you heard about or seen Twitter hashtags? Do you know how powerful a hashtag can be to your brand? Twitter processes 350 billion+ tweets every day! If you want results from your tweets, you need to carefully choosing the most searched hashtags. What is the...
Three – The Funny Pony Dance #DancePonyDance
Viral video "Three The Pony #Dance" has had over 8 million views on YouTube Three Mobile wanted to push a campaign that would show they can relate to their customers. Enter, a dancing pony named Socks. The company understood people like silly, humorous video...
Instagram Top 10 Inspiring Video Examples by Brands
Instagram video burst onto the scene in mid-2013, and there's been plenty of good, bad and ugly video efforts from brands. Instagram video efforts seem to stimulate the results — according a study from Unruly Media, 40% of the most-shared Instagram videos are from...
Dove Real Beauty Sketches – Viral video
In April 2013, Dove wanted more sales leads and increase positive social impact whilst reducing their overall environmental footprint. They investigated a striking trend in behavior of the self-perception of women and came to a single significant recognition: Women...
![How Sochi Did #Social [INFOGRAPHIC]](https://dadd.tv/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/sochi_social_infographic_featuredimage3.jpg)
How Sochi Did #Social [INFOGRAPHIC]
I thought I'd share this great Infographic by Offerpop that presents some great social #twitter results of the Winter Olympics. As #hashtagging went Canada received gold, U.S. silver and the U.K. bronze? Shaun White featured in over 193 thousand tweets about him by...
Top 10 of Day 1 in pictures from Mobile World Congress MWC 2014, Barcelona
Mobile World Congress has companies exhibiting from all over the World in a huge space of around 45 football fields! Here's the top news from day 1. MasterCard has launched MasterPass in-app payments solution, enabling card payments inside mobile apps without the...
YouTube
Did you know YouTube gets over a billion sets of eyeballs every single month? Most belong to what Google & Nielsen are now calling the The C Generation who care deeply about creation, curation, connection and community. 80% were born from year 2000 on, known as...
Facebook to acquire WhatsApp for $16 billion in cash and stock
Facebook is to acquire WhatsApp, the popular messaging app, for $16 billion in cash and stock, according to Nasdaq Filing - plus a penalty of $1billion if it doesn't go through! "WhatsApp is on a path to connect 1 billion people. The services that reach that milestone...
Tip #12: Top 5 Social Media Management Applications
There are so many popular social networking websites to feed with your daily news and managing them from several different internet browser tabs or windows can get annoying very quickly. When you share your information, it needs to go out to multiple networks that...
Testimonial: Global Prepaid Ltd (Gx)
DADD scoped out the full business case for an event upgrade package to Money2020.com, creating the value proposition and marketing plan to launch in two weeks from GO. He also created a directory for our members association. Can't recommend the quality of work enough....
Testimonial: 3Plearning.com
I found the marketing review Chris did for us truly insightful. He lead a new team through some great workshops and helped us transform from a single product e-learning company focussing on Maths to one cross-selling reading and science related products. Jayne...
Our portfolio on slideshare
DADD: Design And Digital Development Portfolio November 2013 from Chris Dadd
Tip #11: Colour chart with hex codes
The following chart is something I use daily to lookup web safe colours for sites I'm developing. The hex code is needed to give the accurate colour and shade. These ones should work on most browsers. If you found this useful, don't forget to Like Us on facebook...
Tip #10: Dimensions for images in twitter, facebook, linkedin, googleplus, pintrest
This is a regular question. We start be an in-depth look at the twitter background and then share an amazing infographic that covers all dimensions for the major social media (twitter, facebook, linkedin, googleplus, pintrest) networks below. Twitter Backgrounds (In...
Tip #7: EU Cookie Legislation
Why Cookies are used in web design Cookies are small files of letters and numbers. These files are stored on the hard drive of the device you are using, be it a PC, mobile phone, or tablet. These letters and numbers are used to allow a website to remember certain bits...
Jamies Catering
Case study for Jamies Catering, one of the leading event and outside caterers in Berkshire and the surrounding counties.
Giving Africa
Case Study Customer: Giving Africa (a UK charity) Brief: Provide a content management system, so all members of the leadership team and interns are able to easily maintain the content about the charity's work. Deliver a social media strategy to grow awareness of the...
Scuba Crew
Case Study Customer: Scuba Crew (Berkshire, UK) Brief: Complete regeneration of visual brand identity and web presence for a scuba diving training club. Design logo for Scuba Crewsers scuba diving club. To be used on facebook, the company's van and other marketing...
Real Interiors for Real People
Case Study Customer: Real Interiors UK Brief: Complete regeneration of visual brand identity and web presence for an interior design company targeting the mid-market householder. Design logo for Real Interiors from scratch. To be used on business cards, postcards,...
Tip #5: Do I build a mobile website or app?
M-commerce (buying things using your phone) is no longer a trend, it’s now just part of normal retail. So when it comes to getting mobile, which route should a retailer choose – that of the smart phone app or that of a mobile-optimised site? With 51% of consumers more...
M&S broken heart shows how NOT to use QR codes
This seemingly well thought through advert (shown above) was designed to encourage readers of the London Evening Standard to buy flowers for their loved ones. It first assumes you have a QR code (2d barcode) app on your phone. That's OK because many smartphones do and...
Internet Trends 2012 – According to VC Firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers
One of the futurists we follow Mary Meeker, a partner at venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, has released a great report this morning at the All Things Digital conference. The report outlines some of the hot trends affecting the Internet. Here are a few of...
Kelkoo research shows 8% (£3bn) of 2011 online sales in UK were via smartphone
Research commissioned by Kelkoo and carried out by The Centre for Retail Research provides us with an estimate of likely mobile commerce sales for the UK in 2012. The key findings of the report were: In 2011 8% of all online purchases were made via a smartphone. This...
