Having been occasionally involved in developing a whole range of different types of websites for different people and professions, I wanted to take what I have learnt and set up my own site. I hope that this short history will perhaps help anyone else out there who wishes to do the same.

The initial idea of The UK Marketplace was conceived when I was working on a separate (and unrelated) project. This other project took the assumption that the more advertisements squeezed into every bit of available space would make more money. Not a concept I totally believed in. I liked the format that Google uses, the home page contains very little apart from a simple, current image, a few text links and a search bar. Get the online users to your site is key to a successful site.

With this in mind, I started with my own ideas and here it is.
I look at a website as Content - Style - Delivery
Content and style are initially totally separate but completely interconnected in delivery.
This can be seen in this site as I am writing this article section, there is no polished feel to the site yet, there are still some broken links and in some sections I still have not made up my mind how I want them categorised.

Content - I had satisfied myself what I wanted to show as each listing and went about acquiring some initial content from some car insurance companies. The company logo and a short write-up would form the basis of what my listings should contain.

Style - This is where the hard work begins. What makes your site stand out from the rest, what makes it appealing to visitors, is it too simple, is it too slow to load, does it work cross browser and so on and so on.