Our thoughts, rants and inside knowlege of web design & development!
Online Promotion
Is Google+ the answer to social networking behemoth Facebook?
Jun 28th
Google have unveiled their latest attempt at cracking the world of social media, titled ‘Google+’. After previous attempts such as Google Buzz turned out disastrously (and even resulted in privacy scandals), it is particularly important for Google to get it right now before they lose an irreclaimable amount of ground to Facebook.
In fact, Google+ looks very promising. The tool will be baked in across the entire suite of Google products – search, maps, GMail, Reader, YouTube and many other successful services. A notification drop down similar to the red icon you see on Facebook will be accessible and omnipresent across all of these services, ensuring that take up and continued usage is high.
Circles
Google have presented some innovative ideas to the status quo of social networking. They noted that granular sharing is ‘tacked on’ in many current social services, like ‘Friend Lists’ on Facebook, to which you can restrict access to your posts. Google wants to slip this on its head and make their social network reflect reality – hence their ‘Circles’ feature. A fun interface will allow you to drag and drop you friends in and out of your different social ‘circles’ – like ‘University friends’ or ‘Colleagues’ or even More >
B is for Bing! Microsoft’s bid to win the search war
Apr 12th
According to data released recently by eagle-eyed Experian Hitwise, Google’s grip on the search engine market – leading to the colloquial use of “to Google” as a verb – may be slipping, due to competition from the name that keeps cropping up when computers are concerned – Microsoft.
64.42% of searches in the US routed through Google in March, claim Experian Hitwise, and while that is still two-thirds of the market, a sizeable 30.01% can be claimed by Microsoft – 14.32% via their well-publicised search engine Bing, and 15.69% from Yahoo!, which is technically owned by the Microsoft corporation. In a smooth and virtually silent virtual coup, Yahoo! is now powered by Bing.
Bing, ridiculed by some as an acronym for “But It’s Not Google,” also appears to be doing well in terms of successful searches, 80.32% of its users clicking on a search result, whereas the idle Googler only has a 65.91% chance of finding an appropriate website via the search facility. As a result, Google appears to have flatlined somewhat, their market share down 10% since August 2010.
Bing, on the other hand, is up massively from 9.9% of searches as the last year ended, and although Google still controls the More >
Google takes social search a step further with ‘+1′
Mar 31st
Search engine giant Google has announced a new feature called ‘+1′. +1 is essentially the same as Facebook’s ‘Like’ button, which when clicked shares that page on the user’s Facebook Wall. Google +1 will do this as well, listing all links +1ed by a user on their Google Profile.
However, the integration will go deeper than this, as +1 buttons will also appear on search results, and the number of times a result has been +1ed will appear next to its link, potentially influencing which result a user will choose. This could end up being incorporated into the algorithm that Google uses to rank its listings. Also of note is that this does not just apply to the ‘organic’ listings- these +1 buttons will also be a feature of the ‘sponsored’ pay-per-click results that appear at the top and down the side of results pages.
The impact of this new feature on SEO is obvious, so we will be watching this development with great interest. The social aspect to this button highlights how important a social media strategy is when considering the online promotion of your website. If you’re interested in our online promotion services, contact Areatrade on 020 8366 2050 or email More >
Social networking giant Facebook starts rolling out new ‘Questions’ feature
Mar 27th
The massive social network Facebook have started to roll out their new Questions product to their users. The feature allows users and pages of businesses, brands and public figures to pose questions to friends or fans. You can give your two cents by selecting an previously offered answer or by adding a new one of your own. The question will then become visible to your friends, widening the net of people who can answer the original person’s question.
For businesses, this offers a great opportunity to improve engagement with Facebook users. For example, an ice cream parlour could ask the question ‘Which flavour should be Flavour of the Week?’. This would serve as an incentive for users to get involved with the decision making process, and also act as an incentive for the user to visit the business themselves. If one of your fans answers the question, they are also effectively widening the audience to all of their friends, which is fantastic free advertising for your company.
Facebook adds ‘in a civil partnership’ relationship setting
Feb 18th
Facebook has rolled out the capability to set the relationship status on your profile to ‘In a civil partnership’ after the feature was increasingly suggested by users. The Facebook communications manager Andrew Noyes stated that “This has been a highly requested feature from users … We [Facebook] want to provide options for people to genuinely and authentically reflect their relationships on Facebook.”
The changes have been rolled out today in the UK, North America, France and Australia, with the options available specific to the territory of the user.
Google increases emphasis on social search rankings
Feb 18th
Google has announced an upgrade to its social search features. A feature has been available for some time that shows links related to your search at the bottom of the results page that have been shared by your contacts on social networks.
Now Google will be further integrating this feature by moving the social results higher up in the rankings. This feature is only available to users signed into a Google account that is attached to social networking accounts.
What does this mean for people optimising their websites for promotion on Google? It seems clear that a strong social networking presence is becoming a increasingly important component of an effective online promotion campaign.
Link Building
Feb 8th
Link Building
The creation of links for your website – that is, attracting other sites to link their website to your own is a crucial part of the SEO process which is often poorly carried out, or is done so unethically.
We recognise that the links to your site need to be of a high quality and on a relevant topic that relates to your website in order to have a positive and long term effect on your rankings. Again, a lot of companies will promise you huge numbers of links which in actual fact offer little or no ranking value to your site but look impressive to a client who has approached that company for their help and does not realise that this is the case.
We look for linking opportunities by finding relevant high ranking websites that already provide links to quality sites similar to your own. We can also add your site to business directories; provide content to sites in return for links or alert similarly themed websites to useful information articles that have been placed onto your website which would be of interest to their visitors.
We are a London website design company that specialises in website planning, website design and More >
Competition Analysis
Feb 5th
Competition Analysis
A lot of valuable information to help in promoting your site can be found from looking into who your top competitors are and how they have become the most visible businesses in your marketplace. By performing a detailed competitor analysis, it is possible to look at any high ranking site and work out the reasons why it has a top position. Most importantly, we can use their success as a model for your own site – by replicating their online marketing strategies and applying the methods they use to develop your site so that it can potentially outrank theirs in the search engines.
This works well when you identify the number 1 positions on your keywords to construct good link building strategies. There are many online tools that help you highlight the number of back links a website has, here is a quick simple method:
1. Identify your competitorsSearch on Google for your main keyword and take note of the number 1 position, if it is a competitive keyword you may also want to jot down the number 5 position. Comparing your website against these can give you a realistic target, in some cases number 1 may be large websites More >
Local Business Listings & Testimonials
Feb 2nd
Local Business Listings & Testimonials
There are a number of different sites on the Internet where you can set up a local business profile page and receive reviews and testimonials from your past customers in order to promote your website / business. Some of these contain maps to your business and you can display your contact details, opening hours and products or services in your listing.
Using these listings improves your brand awareness and exposure of your website as well and the reviews you receive show that your previous customers were satisfied with your work.
Sites that we can use include Google Local, Which Local and Yelp.co.uk.
We are a London website design company that specialises in website planning, website design and website promotion. Call us to find out how we can work together to make your website work for you online.
Enhance your Google paid advertising for better results
Jan 31st
Enhance your Google paid advertising for better results
You can add extensions onto your Google PPC adverts to increase the number of people clicking on your advert and make it easier for the customers to find what they want. Advert Extension
- Extensions can be added to Google adverts to enhance the advertising performance.
- Phone number extension – Your phone number will be attached to your adverts when searched for using a Smart phone so the advert can be clicked & the searcher get the option to go to your website or call you directly.
- Product extensions – Any products that are sold inside Google base (shopping) can be attached to your advert.
- Sitelink extensions – Allow customers to choose alternative key landing pages to land in your website.
- Location extensions – Good for companies with multiple stores as ‘Google wordMaps’ can be displayed alongside your advert showing store locations.
For more examples please click here: Let us know what affects this has on your Paid Search Performance.