BN Freelance Web Design

Hey! I'm Ben Newton, a freelance website designer and developer based in Manchester (UK). This is my area for rambling, sharing thoughts, blog posts and more. Please follow me + stay in touch! facebook | www.bnewton.co.uk | twitter

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Exaprint's already amazing ExaKit just evolved into a new and even better Inspiration Kit!

Exaprint’s already amazing ExaKit just evolved into a new and even better Inspiration Kit!

I’ve recently had the pleasure of receiving a sample of Exaprint’s brand new and exciting Inspiration Kit; which is designed to be an upgrade and evolution of their existing ExaKit. I concur – it certainly is.

I remember last time being extremely blown away by the quality of the print material, and the vast range of products on offer. Not to mention, when I first signed up, I was gifted with a…

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New Website Launched: Fission Recruitment - fission.co.uk

New Website Launched: Fission Recruitment – fission.co.uk

Together with my client, Fission Recruitment Services Ltd, we’ve now launched their brand new engineering recruitment website over at fission.co.uk!

It’s taken us a few weeks to perfect, although I’m really happy with the website we’ve crafted and I think that it’s functional whilst still being beautiful to the eye. We opted for the clean and minimalist approach; aiming to keep crisp clean grid…

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Web Offers #8: More Web Hosting Reseller Discounts from Heart Internet

Web Offers #8: More Web Hosting Reseller Discounts from Heart Internet

Whilst freelancing, becoming a web hosting reseller with Heart Internet was one of the best decisions I made. It allowed me to step up my game, have a more hands on approach, and to provide a more “complete” package to my customers.

As with previous web offers, Heart Internet have re-opened their reseller discount to new customers for a limited time only.

I’ve wrote a few articles before on the…

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Mini Rant: (BAD) Client Logic with Payments

Mini Rant: (BAD) Client Logic with Payments

For me, the business relationship I’d have with my freelancer or agency is simple. It doesn’t even take me long to think about how I feel. Try reading this aloud as if you were a business owner:

Bob helps my company, bob helps my company make money too. I pay Bob on time, and when he asks for it. Bob never struggles for cash. Bob never gets demotivated. Bob delivers me an awesome product at a…

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Web Offers #7: Create Beautiful Photo-Websites with SmugMug - Store, Share or Sell Pictures!

Web Offers #7: Create Beautiful Photo-Websites with SmugMug – Store, Share or Sell Pictures!

[Sponsored Post]From baby bump all the way through to first steps and beyond, nothing could be more precious in a photography portfolio than the documentation of a brand new life. Or, if you’re a business – perhaps a freelance photographer or artist, you might want to sell digital copies of your work online via your own website. So exactly how does we protect and organize our treasury of golden…

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Work in progress (at BN Freelance Web Design)

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My girlfriend <3

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About to enjoy a meal... You can see the excitement on his face

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50% off Business Pro web hosting at Heart Internet

50% off Business Pro web hosting at Heart Internet

Great news! Heart Internet are currently boasting a massive 50% off your business pro web hosting in their summer sale!

As you probably already know from reading my past posts, I’m a massive fan of Heart Internet – so I won’t hesitate in recommending them to you, and, with 50% off your next web hosting package for the first year; you can’t really go wrong can you?!

Business Pro Hosting Accounts…

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Nestoria API: a way for developers to easily query house price index data to display average property prices on your website!

Nestoria API: a way for developers to easily query house price index data to display average property prices on your website!

I’ve recently been working on a project for a client; where we wanted to let the visitors to our site easily enter a postcode – or place name – and instantly get a breakdown of average property prices in that area. Obviously, it’d be cool if we could show the differences between each property sale type (rented/sold) and the fluctuations based on the number of bedrooms the property had. (more…)

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My 100th Blog Post! Plus an update on my blog and search engine optimisation campaign so far!

My 100th Blog Post! Plus an update on my blog and search engine optimisation campaign so far!

Whoop! I’ve just hit my first blogging milestone! 100 full posts for your viewing pleasure!

I’ve enjoyed maintaining my blog over the past months, and watching it grow as does my experience of blogging. I’m really glad I got started with my blog, and I really hope that at least some of you have benefited from reading my ramblings, tips and words of advice.

I thought it would be nice to recap on…

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How to build your own website for free, or on the cheap; especially on a low budget - without hiring a designer or developer

How to build your own website for free, or on the cheap; especially on a low budget – without hiring a designer or developer

As a freelance website designer and developer, I’m often approached by friends and family, or even prospective clients who want to get a website up online – but don’t necessarily have the budget or requirements to hire me personally. It’s not always feasible or worthwhile to hire me, or any other freelancer to build your website. Not unless you know for sure that the skills they offer will…

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Over 2,500+ FREE Fonts for you to install to Windows/Mac and use in your Photoshop projects!

Over 2,500+ FREE Fonts for you to install to Windows/Mac and use in your Photoshop projects!

I’ve spent a life time sourcing as many free fonts as I can, and it’s taken me a long time to manually sort through them. Every time I looked online for font-packs or collections of web fonts, I always found they were paid, or behind loads of spam advertisements.

I thought I’d be a nice guy and share my directory of fonts that I have curated, free for you to download and use yourself. (more…)

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"Your site is going to be banned from Google" - Watch out for SEO malpractice and pushy, false-threat sale techniques!

“Your site is going to be banned from Google” – Watch out for SEO malpractice and pushy, false-threat sale techniques!

Hi <your name here>,

We are leading SEO Company in India providing SEO and related services across diverse online businesses.

Our SEO services are affordable and provide measurable results. They include ethical White Hat SEO practices related to online website analysis, keyword analysis and site promotion. Needless to say you will experience growth in organic traffic to your website, generation…

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Moving to my new .uk domain

Moving to my new .uk domain

Hey – as I’m sure most of you reading this will know, the new .uk domain has recently been released for purchase!

I’ve been debating it for some time, although now I’ve bought my .uk domain I’m going about moving my entire site over – so that my bnewton.uk domain will be primary, and bnewton.co.uk is a 301 redirect.

I think I’ll enjoy using bnewton.uk as my domain. I’ll probably even switch over…

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Hey Developers, check out SnowShoe Stamp!

Hey Developers, check out SnowShoe Stamp!

I stumbled across a company recently, Snowshoe Stamp, who are offering something unique which I hadn’t seen before. It’s essentially a small piece of plastic which contains a unique secret identity. Developers can then use their API to create applications which use these unique keys to identify users, buy digital assets, act as a gift card, unlock content and much more! Better still, they work…

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Create your own professional website using our SiteDesigner - without writing any code!

Create your own professional website using our SiteDesigner – without writing any code!

I often have web design and development project enquiries come through to my inbox, where the needs of the customer (and budget) don’t necessarily make  it feasible to hire a freelancer such as myself to build a bespoke website from scratch. More often than not, when on a low-budget – and for clients who are unsure about what they want, and would like to experiment – it makes sense to build your…

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