Is your website underperforming? Does it lack spiritual balance? Do you have the sneaking suspicion than an inauspicious alignment of html elements may be to blame?

Fear not - help is at hand in the form of Web Vaastu, a book by Indian cybermystic Dr Smita Narang which uses the "the ancient philosophies of vaastu shastra and Chinese feng shui" to "create harmony between nature's five elements" and bring a positive ch'i flow to your online presence.

Narang explained to Reuters: "Just as the world comprises of the five basic elements, each website has five elements and these need to be in balance with one another. Earth is the layout, fire is the colour, air is the HTML, space is name of the website, and water is the font and graphics."

The trick is, as any reader who's ever spent the afternoon moving mirrors and pot plants around their flat in order to improve the flow of good vibrations will know, to strike a harmonious balance between these elements.

"A website where the colours hurt your eyes, the music offends your ears, or has too much information is probably too cluttered and does not give a positive flow of ch'i," added Mumbai-based Narang, presumably while enjoying a spiritually-uplifing ambience of whalesong and joss-stick fragrance.

There does seem, however, to be some method in the apparent madness, although the results are inconclusive. Indiamart is one outfit which has rebalanced five corporate websites according to vaastu principles, and the company's Brijesh Agarwal said: "We have found that on three sites the number of hits has increased by 60 per cent but the other two sites have not been affected. I can't say for definite that the positive results are due to vaastu or due to increased marketing, but I hope that vaastu has helped."

We hope so too. For the record, the Reg's very own Strategy Boutique has immediately placed an order for Web Vaastu, and is as we speak in the process of preparing a Powerpoint presentation for senior management outlining the results of a ying/yang e-audit of our own homepage. Watch this space. ®