The latest quarterly growth figures show an encouraging 0.8%, the strongest third quarter figures in a decade.

With the incessant reminders of the state of the economy and with budget cuts coming out of our ears, who would have thought that the latest estimates suggest that the UK economy is now 2.8% bigger now than it was a year ago, and imply that the UK has been growing, on average, at an annualised rate of roughly 3.2% since the start of 2010.

The strongest sectors have been construction, hotels and restaurants, distribution, and business and financial services. Government and other public services show a smaller rate of growth.

The government would say it shows that fears of a stifled recovery are greatly exaggerated. The opposition would say it shows that spending cuts have yet to bite. Who is right?

Whether you are an optimist or a pessimist, hopefully the figures don’t lie and the coalition can make a difference, and put the ‘Great’ back into Great Britain once again.

Social networking has become part of our everyday lives and is used across the world for personal and business use, to catch up with friends, arrange meetings, share information and play the odd game. This comes as the social network giant Facebook announces the registration of its 500 millionth member, of which 26 million are from the UK.

With the ability to interact with people all over the world Facebook has become the ‘social Google’. If you want to find out information, need advice or simply want to find out what people think about a particular subject we now go to the most trusted place for the answer – our friends and family on Facebook.

Alongside Facebook is Twitter, the micro-blogging site where users can ‘tweet’ about what they are doing right now. This is an instant messaging service that is used to get information out and talk to a community that cares about the same things as you.

With the busy lives we all live today social networking sites are great for talking to friends and keeping up to date with what they’re doing, and you don’t even have to be sitting at a pc to use it. Many people access the sites through mobile phones so they can interact with their friends on the go.

The success of Facebook has been down to word of mouth. It started off small with a circle of friends and has escalated and grown to 500m people – it has become the new way of communicating.

Facebook is almost guaranteed to reach one billion users, so there’ll be no excuse about not keeping in contact with friends and family in future, just get a Facebook account and join the latest addiction.

As World Cup fever takes hold we’ll all be glued to our TV screens as England play their hearts out and try and get through to the next round. But alas, if you’re not one of the lucky fans jetting off to South Africa or in the fortunate position to take the next four weeks off, then how do you keep up to date with the latest happenings in the world of football – the internet of course!

The internet has become our friend, our information source, and a shoulder to cry on. No matter what you need, or what you don’t, the internet will find it for you, and you don’t even have to have a pc anymore to do it – a phone will do!

We humans have evolved into information hungry beings that require instant knowledge about the latest news, heck, even a four year old can find their way to the CBeebies site to fulfil their need for the latest goings-on with Postman Pat!

No matter what industry you are in the one marketing tool that’s going to get your business noticed by your target market is a website. Any business that has a website instantly increases their audience two-fold, because a great web programmer won’t only get your site noticed by the market you were hoping for but those that you hadn’t even thought of.

Yes, the internet is here to stay, and thank goodness for that!

Having a website is all well and good, and let’s face it, if a business hasn’t got one these days then they will be missing out on a large proportion of their target market, but how do you get a website that goes beyond ‘just doing the job’ and one that is fantastic, unique, drives people to your business, and wanting them coming back for more? – here’s how:

• Get a domain name

Yes, very obvious, but a domain name is one of the most important aspects to a website, and in many respects determines the look and feel of the site – a funky name warrants a funky website. Choose a domain name that hasn’t been banned by Google, and decide whether you want a .com, .co.uk etc.

• Hire a professional website designer

….and listen to your designer, it’s their job, so they know what they are doing!

• Web hosting company

Your website designer will sort this out for you as they deal with these companies every day and will know what is right for your needs, and where to find the best deals.

• Get the right look and feel

A website should reflect the business and the people that run it. Don’t go for something lavish and outrageous if the business doesn’t warrant it.

• Navigation

There’s nothing worse than a website that doesn’t guide the user where to go and what to do, visitors will get bored and go somewhere else. A lovely, well designed website is great, just as long as the user experience isn’t forgotten.

• Customer/search engine balance

It is understood that to be ranked number one in Google is a must and if you’re not then your website is failing – not true. Yes, you want your website to be as high up in Google as possible, and website designers and programmers from all over the world struggle each day with the mine field that is Google, but what use is a site that is ranked number one but is completely unusable by visitors. The lesson here – don’t design exclusively for the search engines, people use websites too!

• Information or artwork?

The content of a website is just as important as the look. A nice looking site has the instant wow factor, but what next? People have come to your site for information, so make sure you put some on. If you want people to just look at your site and admire it as a piece of artwork, print it off and put a frame around it.

• Target market

When designing a website remember who you are trying to appeal to, your ideas of a great site may be different to theirs.

It appears that the white fluffy stuff is enough to bring the country to a standstill. Ok, so it’s the heaviest snowfall Britain has seen for nearly 20 years, but at the first sign of snow we lock ourselves away and wait out the storm doing the one thing we have all come to depend on – surf the internet!

According to the British Retail Consortium, during the cold snap online shopping was up 14.6% on a year ago, as shoppers turned to buying online when they were unable to reach shops due to the snow.

To those businesses that are unsure about the benefits of a website, the cost of it, the up keep of it etc, etc. this research shows that when the country comes to a halt customers can still have access to your products and services at any time of day or night – and it might be reassuring  to think that when Mother Nature shows her powers the internet will keep the world moving.