Areatrade
Our thoughts, rants and inside knowlege of web design & development!
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.
Keyword Research
Jan 29th
Keyword Research
Many SEO – Search Engine Optimisation companies or services promise to help your website get found in the search engines, but often they do not choose the correct keywords you would want your website to be found for – instead opting for quick results which mean you have high rankings, but for words that nobody is searching for – or buying through. This is why keyword research is a fundamental part of performing useful search engine optimisation that gets you high rankings, targets the right audience and brings you the sales and leads that you want for your business.
You can use the online Google Tool to research your own keywords.
For Example:
Website Design Service
The Google tool will show you the keyword, in this case website design service, how many times the keyword has been searched for, both Globally and Locally, and the local trends – these are shown monthly in the style of a graph. This is important information as it shows the consistency of the domain. Sometimes buzz words appear with large numbers but have no longevity and are not worth basing a search engine optimisation campaign on.
You need to make sure keyword is relevant to your business More >
Article Directory Submissions
Jan 27th
Article Directory Submissions
An extra way of boosting traffic to your website and increasing the links to your site is through the use of article directories. An article is created that relates to your site and then it is submitted to high ranking, high traffic article directories. These sites provide articles that can be republished by other sites for free – on their website pages, in emails, or elsewhere.
The benefit to you is that each article can contain at least one link to your site – which counts as a positive vote or recommendation of your site as far as search engines are concerned. An article you create may rank highly in a search engine because it is featured on the article site – bringing you extra traffic to your pages. Also, if it is republished, you receive visits from the new site’s audience and an extra link – or vote of confidence – for your own site.
Creating articles and submitting them to directories can be a simple and effective way of link building (creating links to your site) which can boost your rankings and draw in extra traffic as well.
We are a london website design company that specialises in website planning, More >
Understanding SEO – Search Engine Optimisation
Jan 27th
Understanding SEO – Search Engine Optimisation
When your website is first noticed by a search engine, it is scanned by a small computer program called a search engine ‘spider’ which collects important data about your site’s topic, relevance, quality and value. Then a ranking is assigned to your site based on how many other websites have already been found to contain information on your subject. Having good rankings, particularly in Google – the most commonly used search engine, makes the difference between your site being visible on the first page of searches and being visited by huge numbers of visitors a day to the worst case scenario of your site being lost amongst the last pages (if in the search engine at all) and never receiving a single visitor.
The search engine creators, especially at Google, are always updating the way that search engines rank sites in order to weed out sites that offer no quality or relevant information to visitors. In the early days of the search engines, it was common for rankings to be manipulated by using hidden text and code on websites to save time on making improvements to a website. This rarely works anymore and a long-term strategy More >
Apple bring the App Store dream to the desktop
Jan 13th
Apple have opened their new ‘Mac App Store’ for business. For those of you who use an iPhone or any similar smartphone, you will know that the ‘App Store’ is a marketplace for the quick purchase and download of mobile applications. It would seem the quick and easy process of purchasing new software has proven very profitable for Apple, as they have now brought the concept to their Mac desktop operating system.
After running a software update, Mac users will find a new App Store icon on their Dock. The Mac App Store is already quite well populated, with the most prominent offers being the Apple iLife and iWork suites. iLife consists of photo organisation, music production and video production software, whereas iWork is an office suite which provides word processing, multimedia presentation and spreadsheet software. Previously you would have to purchase each suite in its entirety, costing upwards of £60. But the App Store allows users to download the components of each suite separately for £9-12, depending on the software – a bargain!
Other popular items on the App Store include the official Twitter desktop client, ‘Twitter for Mac’, and a desktop adaptation of the popular mobile game ‘Angry Birds’.
Users may More >
How to Check the Links to Your Website and Assess Their Value
Jan 12th
If you want your website to be at the top of Google, or any search engine, then one of the most important things you can do is aim to increase the number of links that are coming in to your website.
What this means on a basic level is that you need as many other websites as possible linking to you for search engines to value your site as one that is trusted and useful. Every other site that links to yours is counted as a positive vote when the search engines look at your site and rank it. That said, the links have more value if the sites linking to you are relevant (ie. on-topic and of reasonable quality).
Before you can start the often challenging process of trying to increase the number of links that are pointing to your site, you really need to check how many links you already have so that you can see how much work you need to do compared to outrank your competitors.
There are two main categories of links your site can attract: those that show as links in Google (very valuable links that can be difficult to get) and those that show as links More >
UK government proposes nationwide filtering of adult websites
Dec 23rd
The Culture Minister Ed Vaizey has proposed cutting off access to pornographic material at the ISP level in an interview with The Sunday Times. The government has been in talks with internet service providers (ISPs) to implement a system to filter access to pornographic content. Under these proposals, customers would have to contact their ISP to have the block removed.
Proponents of the proposal have noted that easy access to pornography can be damaging to children who view it. Miranda Suit, chair of the Safer Media organisation referred to a report compiled by the US-based Witherspoon Institute – “Children are becoming addicted in their teens to internet pornography. They are being mentally damaged so they cannot engage in intimate relationships.”
ISPA, the industry body for ISPs, has responded to the government proposal: “Ispa firmly believes that controls on children’s access to the internet should be managed by parents and carers with the tools ISPs provide, rather than being imposed top-down.”
Critics of the plan have noted that filtering systems tend to be extremely indiscriminate and with alarming frequency block access to important material such as sex education resources. Civil rights organisations have also noted that the classification of which material is More >
Apple remove unofficial WikiLeaks iPhone app from App Store, claim it is “harmful”
Dec 22nd
A developer who created an unofficial app that accessed content from the controversial whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks has had their app removed the iOS App Store by Apple. The cheeky developer was charging $1.99 for access to the US embassy cables being issued by WikiLeaks, which can be accessed free of charge online through various ‘mirror’ sites.
Apple have released a statement saying the app was pulled for not complying with local laws and not ensuring that individuals and groups were kept out of “harm’s way”, possibly referencing allegations by the US government that the leaks are endangering American diplomats and military services around the world.
This move comes after PayPal, everyDNS, Bank of America and Amazon have all terminated services they provide to WikiLeaks, prompting controversial online organisation ‘Anonymous’ to mount DDoS cyber-attacks against some of their websites.
Julian Assange, the leader and founder of WikiLeaks, is on bail in the UK and appealing against extradition to Sweden for rape allegations. You can find out more about the story so far in the special report on the BBC News website. See our other posts about WikiLeaks here.
WordPress wins 2010 CMS Hall of Fame Award
Dec 21st
WordPress wins 2010 CMS Hall of Fame Award
This category was reserved for all CMS’s that had one the Open Source CMS Award at least once.
As users of WordPress we are please to announce it won beating Drupal and Joomla. This further strenghtens our mark to provide our clients with the best solutions out there.
Winner: WordPress
1st Runner up: Drupal
2nd Runner up: Joomla
If you need help with your CMS or would like to comment on your favourite CMS just let us know.