Boomerang Tracker

Kieran — Tue, 15 May 2012 14:51:44 +0000

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Facebook is not the Web

Kieran — Mon, 14 May 2012 23:47:12 +0000

A worrying trend I see over the past number of years is that fact that with the dominance of Facebook with what I call non IT literate people who don’t spend every waking hour in front of a PC is that they think Facebook IS the web. Likewise they think the Google search bar is the Address bar for a site and this is where they put in domain names.

It may be easy to snigger at this but SEO professionals and website designers need to consider this and cater for it. You need to make sure that you have crisp titles, good meta descriptions (even though they do not factor in search they do factor in decisions to click).

For Facebook the effort put into creating a powerful landing page is worth it if your audience uses Facebook. I encourage businesses to think about Facebook but if your target audience does not use then it should not be a priority.

If it is however you should spend the time and effort in marketing your business and making the Facebook page a place people would want to visit and engage with you and your brand.

Facebook is the number one choice for social login and its gains over the past two years have it now approaching 50 percent penetration among social login services, a new study shows. In analyzing at the 365,000 websites that use its services, Marketing Land

Penguins and Pandas – Google Search Updates

Kieran — Mon, 14 May 2012 10:45:34 +0000

I read all the news that comes out on Google updates and it is now blindingly clear that they are animal lovers but why the letter P. This question was the first one that I had when I saw the latest update being called after a Penguin. But like the detail behind he update we are never sure.

It is now over 2 weeks since it was rolled out and if you aren’t seeing any change in your rankings as a result I am not surprised as lot of these updates are geared towards two ends. Rewarding people who are doing the right things on their site and punishing those who are trying to game the search engines.

As always SearchEngineLand wrote a nice post on the Google Penguin Update which explains that simply put it is geared to tackling web spam which is still with us and is like doping in sports, people are always thinking of new ways to game the engines.

So don’t worry too much about the animals. Will the next update be a Piebald?

Grange Web Design Site Revamp

Kieran — Thu, 10 May 2012 12:42:41 +0000

This is probably the 6th of 7th full iteration of this website. I change the site when I get bored of it or see some new features or even a nice colour scheme out there. Of course i am always adding pages and of course posts. But it became a bit out of control and the design of it was a complete mess so I realised that i was losing visitors who couldn’t find what they were looking for.

To be honest I have had this logo for some time and not integrated it well into the site so I had to sit down and correct that but it took forever as life, work and sleep interfered. Again this site is a WordPress site as the last 3 have been, it was Joomla for a week once an Drupal for over 3 months. Back in the day it was a static HTML site and that wasn’t a bad thing till I started blogging and then I had to go CMS really.

I won’t ramble about what I did as this would be incredibly boring but I wanted to get my portfolio more front and centre and a simpler call to action with the phone number clear up on the right and the contact form as a widget. In my blog posts I am always talking about this so I had to practice what I preach.

I am still sorting out the Blog which is a bit of a mess and I have to improve my services description but I think I am getting there and this version should be unchanged for at least another week.

I still need to integrate some social icons up top and that is ongoing and hopefully that will be there soon.

And of course I can see 100 things wrong with it right now but I was sick of the old site so had to cut this loose.

If you have any feedback do leave a comment as I do take both types of feedback (good and positive).

Concrete5 – Does What it Says on the Tin

Kieran — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 16:04:59 +0000

If you are looking for a really simple (at least on the surface ) content management system then Concrete5 (http://www.concrete5.org) ticks a lot of the boxes.

Created first in 2003 is its like many CMS php based and again open source so free to use. It boasts a lot of nice features and has a strong user community supporting it which is typical of open source applications. The goal of the system was for it to be easy, flexible and robust . Read more of the Concrete5 history on their site

One of the features that it advertises strongly is its in context editing which is attractive to the novice user or to the website ownew who is happy with their content and only really wants to make minor edits to the site. Personally I like this from a first impressions and I can see how it would be hugely attractive to people who are even uncomfortable with a lot of the editors that do come with a lot of the more established CMS. however if you are doing some hevy duty editing it can quickly tire and the desire to eitehr use a WYSIWYG editor or a better HTML editor does beckon.

Most of the CMS that I work with have this editor but it is an offline editor and the page isn’t in your face.

Ultimately this is still a php based CMS and has a lot of power and add-ons like many of the other CMS that are out there. One thing I do like about it is that unlike WordPress it has a rich set of video that shows you how to do the basic tasks which for users ultimately is edit, add image and make small everyday changes. It has a rich showcase of example sitea and themes to pick from. It would not be as comprehensive as WordPress and DRupal in its depth of add ons and community but I think that is not a negative for the type of user it would attract.

Saying that a lot of website design houses do use as their Go To CMS and it cvan be as powerfulas you wish once you have the right mix of development skills.

I installed Concrete5 here on a sub domain and this is my concrete5 playground for the next few weeks and I will be posting some articles as I learn and enjoy a new CMS.

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What Makes Your Website Great?

Kieran — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:09:54 +0000

Nobody wants a mediocre website but there are a lot of them out there today limping along the Internet highway looking sadly at the best websites as they speed past them in visitors and popularity. They stop in roadside cafes with their single digit visitors and sip their Analytics coffee and wonder how they could be great.

It is hard to be great but too often people settler for average or more often mediocre. Here are some simple steps for making your website if not great a damm site better than what it was before.

Have Useful Relevant Content

This point will be chiseled on my gravestone I am sure. But people ignore it every single day of the week. If you put great relevant content on your site people will come back to it again and again. Look forensically at your business and what you deliver and put yourself in your customer shoes and put content there that they are looking for. It may be prices, tips and tricks, that recipe for a killer sponge cake, or a detailed comparison price list of your products and what they will get for their money.

Keep It Simple and Accessible

Get In Your Customer's Shoes

Don’t fall asleep on that one please. Research shows that people skim read websites starting from the top right corner and moving quite briefly from left to right before stopping. Its known as the heat map. Read a good post on heat map analytics over on SeoMoz. Make sure that the links and information that you both want your customers to visit and that have the richest and useful information is in this area.

Don’t have too many dropdowns as your analytics will show people don’t visit these links anyway. Get someone who doesn’t use the Internet to sit in front of your website and ask them to find a page that you think will get you business and see how fast they can find it. If it takes them more than 30 seconds then you need to rework your design.

Blog, Blog, Blog

Create a Blog.

Blog often.

Revisit old posts.

Refresh them.

End of this point.

Use Useful and Fun Images

I can spot a stock image at 10.000 metres. Stock images suck eggs (I have some here and they look boring and I am going to replace them in the next 5 edits). Put a personal image or some photo that you have taken as a more relevant picture. In this post I do not have one but I am sure I will update this blog post soon with one. Send me one and win a big hug!

That Personal Touch

It doesn’t matter if you are 100 people or just working from your attic. Show that you are a real company with real people. In your About You introduce yourself and have a picture of the main people in the company. Don’t want to show your picture? Use an Avatar instead. Don’t use dry boring prose to describe what you do, be open, frank and fun.

Look Around

Look at the competition and get ideas. Look at parallel niches. Look at areas that have nothing to do with your business and see what you like and use some of them on your site. Ask them if these ideas work for them. Some of them might even answer.

Be Brave!

Don’t be afraid to do something different that someone else hasn’t done before. Think of video blogging, Using the latest social media tools and putting feeds on your site. Ask your customers for feedback on the site and take it on board and blog about it.

The initial joys of the Internet and websites were that you could change things and voilà with the magic of http next refresh the information was up to date and available. This has somewhat been lost for those in that roadside café. Dump your coffee into the bin and get out on the Internet highway and get your website moving.

Look at responsive website design. You can do a ton of fun stuff there alone. If you read A List Aparts Articles on Responsive Design you will have hundreds of great ideas alone.

The Author plans to update this post at least 5 more times this week. Check back and see.

Matt Cutts Explains How Google Crawls

Kieran — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 18:15:09 +0000

I would keep this on my iPad and show it to all customers who are looking to understand how sites get crawled and indexed. Matt explains in this the basics of how Goggle crawled the web in the past and up to today. Watch this and you will have a solid no nonsense understanding og how Google works for this part of the search algorithm, I note he mentions PageRank and reputation several times through this presentation where reputation is measured in surprise surprise in good (not GOOD) links back to the site. I also note he never actually answered any part of the guys question but he wouldn’t as Google rarely answer any questions they are asked.

Where is Your Call to Action?

Kieran — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 14:51:46 +0000

Lets face it there is no such thing as the perfect website. But it doesn’t stop people fussing over the last details to produce one and in the process forgetting that a site is are worthless unless they have visitors. They mumble SEO to but think that it is a magic dust that can be sprinkled on a site to make the traffic magically grow. I could show Google Analytics’s data for dozens of sites with happy clients which have single digit daily visits and in some cases none at all. But they look great!

The word SEO has become diluted in the past 12-18 months into several different segments (and that is a good thing) but one of those that is coming to fore more and more to the fore is content marketing. To embark on a content marketing campaign however requires one key component – yes you got it – content. Not just bland uninteresting content but content that your audience will find useful. So many bricks and mortar businesses know their customers that come through the door but do not know who their online clients are.

Lets take an example with Grange Web Design. The majority of my client base is largely the same. I know (because I asked) that when they visit my site they don’t want to read detailed technical text on the different offerings, they want a simple explanation of the offering and the different packages and prices.

My goal for the visitor of this type is to get them to the contact form and portfolio and then they either call me on the phone or send me an email. You need to understand your client needs as well. Ask them!

Having a jquery slideshow on the front page doesn’t make a difference to them. Their search pattersn are the same, Google 2-3 keywords sets. Look at the top 2-3 results . Click on results 1 and 2. Scan quickly, find a Call to Action and within 2-3 minutes they have made a decision. Sometimes less!

So why lovingly create a good looking site?

Your site is a shop front that parallels a bricks and mortar store. People enter looking for specific product or products and walk by the others. In their peripheral they notice the layout and other products and this does have a subliminal impact So it is with your site. People will remember and may come back (may!)

Here are some of the top 4 calls to action that you might want. Put them in place today.

Call your number
Send an email
Make a purchase using your ecommerce store
Sign up for a newsletter.

The Content Conundrum

Kieran — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 22:34:55 +0000

Writing content is something that is elusive to people to understand but is something that should be a staple part of your website habits. It is isn’t hard it is about developing a habit. I would recommend setting 15 minutes aside per day for just writing or updating content on your website. For instance I sat down to write this post at 15:00 on March 12th. It may be updated multiple times around the time of its creation and over time I will revisit it to make tweaks and changes.

As today’s topic was about how to write content for your site I decided that I would show you some of my sources of inspiration for creating website posts. I bet in your own niche you could find a similar list.

Deelish Garden Centre

Kieran — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 19:44:39 +0000

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