The warmer, brighter weather has brought out the carefree in shoppers, as more logged on-line to a range of e-retail sites and enjoyed a little spending. Top of the e-commerce sales list were products for the home and garden, as well as new summer clothing.

The latest figures from the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index shows that on-line consumers spent 15% more in March compared to last year, amounting to some £4.5 billion worth of sales.

In particular, 42% more was spent on-line on items for the home and garden as compared to 2009. The sunshine also prompted buyers to spend 27% more on-line on clothes, when compared to the previous month.

As Tina Spooner, of IMRG, said: “The 15% yearly growth in on-line sales is very positive and is evidence that e-retail continues to outperform the high street.”

A good and informative website will offer a number of links, whether internal to your own website or external. But so many sites do not use this excellent navigational tool well. To avoid frustrating your visitors with poor links style we’ve put together a guide to “good linking”.

* First things first, if a word is not offering a link then DON’T underline it. The universal way to show that a word links to something is to underline it.

* Try to make links self-explanatory. Use simple language and underline a relevant word or phrase so that visitors know immediately what they will be linking to.

* It is also better to try to avoid using words such as “link”, “click here” or “here” as these lack imagination and mean that site owners miss a great opportunity to offer helpful navigation for visitors.

* Try not to have internal website links opening a new window. It can be really annoying to have too many open windows on one screen.

* Use links for better “accessibility”. So make sure your contact details are linked and appear on every web page.

* Finally, test your links on a regular basis. Load up your website and then click on all links to make sure they are still working. Sometimes you’ll find that external links have become redundant. Visitors will not be best impressed by a website that has links to redundant sites, know will they?