#MT-CO-CREATE Project – BEAD
Web Design concepts for BEAD, a firm of architects in the UAE. The Design Process being followed is based on the MintTwist Method.
1. Home Page
Home Page web design concept
2. Portfolio
Portfolio web design
3. Portfolio Drill Down
Portfolio Drill-down web design
4. Portfolio Drill Down (Open Image)
Portfolio Drill-down (Open image) web design
For comments, suggestions, questions or just to connect with the friendly web designer behind this work contact Lee Baillie.
Posted in WEB DESIGN | Tagged BLOG, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
We have been asked to help Regents College in London promote several of it’s niche courses for two of it’s leading schools. We are embarking on a 6 month SEO campaign for both colleges with a view to driving more targetted traffic to the sites.
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MintTwist rebrand the Tenzing Middle East website with a refresh which brings the site firmly into 2010. The already well established marketing agency based in Dubai is keen to attract larger corporates through the door whilst maintaining it’s core values.
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John Terry is the latest, in what seems to be a never ending string of very high profile sportsmen who have been caught cheating on their partners. First it was Beckham, then Ashley Cole, then Tiger and now John Terry. Could it be that they have something in common? Well, all are highly talented sportsmen who have had an impact on the game they play and they earn a lot of money.
David Beckham can cross a football today just as well if not better then when he was at Manchester United. At United Beckham earned a fortune and become a legend winning just about every piece of silverware possible. He went to Spain enjoyed tremendous success under Fabio Capello at Real Madrid, and then went to America where it seems like things are going well for him. Apparently there was also some little tiff he had with Victoria about cheating on her which was quickly resolved and his public image has remained intact.
As for Ashley Cole he didn’t something most Londoners would advice against. He went from Arsenal to Chelsea, something that will never be forgiven by several thousands in the capital and many more around the world. That however wasn’t his biggest mistake. One night Ashley got drunk and cheated on his wife with a hairdresser. The reason this infuriated so many people is quite simple, he is married to quite possibly the prettiest thing that has ever or will ever come out of Newcastle. Quite frankly Ashley Cole is the luckiest man in the world and the only way the country will ever forgive him is if he set up the winning goal in the World Cup final.
Tiger took a slightly different route to David Beckham and Ashley Cole. He travelled around the world winning the biggest golf tournaments and in doing so becoming the first reported sportsman worth ‘$1 Billion’. He also got married to a beautiful blonde (Elin Nordegren) and had a few kids when he came home to visit. So whilst Tiger was gallivanting around the world enjoying his success he slept with……well who knows really? It could be argued that any female, with a heartbeat and a functional brain may well have been enticed, and to be honest, I don’t blame them. Tiger Woods is a good looking and athletic man who made golf what it is today, and in the process he made a fortune. He made so much money his wife, Elin Nordegren had to hire a private investigator just find out how much. 
Finally it was John Terry’s turn. Captain of club and country, he is the role model for a whole generation of children who would sacrifice all their pocket to see him lift the World Cup in South Africa this summer. Exactly how long the affair was going on for we can’t be sure of but it seems Terry was doing everything right as a husband and father, he was even voted ‘Dad of the year’ in 2009. The woman he had the affair with, Vanessa Perroncel, judging from recent press, was a committed footballer’s girlfriend, so much so that she worked in a nightclub frequented by footballers and in between John Terry and Wayne Bridge managed to sleep with several other premier league players.
There is no question that John Terry should have known better, so should Tiger Woods, Ashley Cole and David Beckham because in today’s world if you are celebrity nothing will stay a secret for very long. With insatiable public demand for information, the power of the media and private detectives has demonstrated that no secret is safe.
Conflict International provides professional private detectives in London and around the UK.
Posted in BUSINESS | Tagged ashley cole, cheryl cole, david beckham, john terry, private detective london, private investigator london, tiger woods, Vanessa Perroncel | Leave a Comment »
From finding a builder to using contracts and getting a quote – how to add property pounds
- Check with the planners: A lot of home improvements can be done without planning permission these days. But it is worth checking before the work starts. If you do have to apply for planning permission, allow for the costs involved and the extra time you’ll need for permission to be granted
- Find a builder: Builders are often found through personal recommendations although this may not always be the best route as projects differ widely for example, a loft conversion is going to be quite a different job to a bathroom extension and will require different skills. Whatever the job may be it is important to check that the company is registered with the appropriate regulators. Aspinalls Ltd has the ability to do a wide variety of jobs and have ensured that their workforce are highly experienced and registered with the NICEIC and the GasSafe register.
- Get a quote: It is essential that you know exactly what you want from the project even before you ask for a quote. So make a detailed list of what work needs doing and keep in mind your budget – remember, spend too much and your will erode the value adding potential of your project. A detailed quote will help the builder to give you a more accurate price for the job. Once you have a quote, be clear about what is included in the price. For example, flooring, painting and decorating is rarely including in a quote for an extension. Be clear about who is going to provide the materials.
- Use a contract: Draw up a written contract, with an agreed timetable that both you and the builder are happy with. Put everything in writing. Don’t agree to extra bits of work as you go along without additional written estimates – costs can very easily spiral out of control.
- Pay promptly: Set out a timetable for how and when payment will take place throughout the project, so that you can plan ahead. When you get to each stage, check you are happy with the work and pay promptly. The final instalment is usually paid once all works are completed to your satisfaction.
- What adds value to your home?
An extra bedroom +6 per cent
An extra bathroom +5 per cent
Loft conversion +21 per cent
Parking +6 per cent
New kitchen +4 per cent
Conservatory +4 to 5 per cent
No central heating -7 per cent
Aspinalls Builders Ltd is an experienced family run business. We offer a wide range of building services covering areas such as brick work, plastering, painting, decorating, extensions, conversions, kitchens, bathrooms, heating and plumbing.
Posted in PROPERTY | Tagged BOILER INSTALLATION, HOUSE EXTESNION, LOFT CONVERSION, London builders | Leave a Comment »
Senior Sales Manager – Web Marketing Strategy Services
Leading Web Marketing, Design and Development agency have an excellent opportunity for an experienced Senior Sales Manager with strong Web experience to join their London Head office.
In this role you will be responsible for the following:
- Follow up leads and win new business contracts on a monthly basis
- Develop and cultivate the continuous supply of sales leads, lead generation channels and business contacts
- Attend face to face meetings
- Manage relationship with new and current clients
- Attend relevant networking events and industry forums
- Develop sales strategy for the UK and Europe
- Develop accurate sales forecast with business Director
- Manage database of clients and contacts
- Work with salesforce on a daily basis
This is an exciting opportunity to join a market leading business in a very visible and important role to the business. In order to be considered for this role you MUST have experience in the following:
- Strong experience in High Level service sales
- Web background and strong knowledge of web marketing techniques
- Web sales experience
Please send a copy of your Resume through to elliott@minttwist.com
Posted in WEB DESIGN | Tagged NEWS | Leave a Comment »
Property in the UK is less affordable today than it was 50 years ago, according to a new survey.
The report, published by Halifax, suggests that house prices have risen by an average of 2.7 per cent every year since 1959, with inflation factored in. But wages have grown in real terms by just 2 per cent a year – resulting in a larger gulf between those who can and cannot afford housing.
The 1980s saw the largest increase in the number of owner-occupiers. It was during this period of high growth that the UK began to really outstrip the rest of Europe in terms of home ownership.
This has had mixed results for professional landlords. Demand for rented accommodation is now scarcer as individuals are prepared to plough more of their income into owning a home – despite it being a more expensive proposition. But certain parts of the rental sector have seen significant growth; higher student numbers, for example, has meant a significant increase in demand in university towns.
There is also an increasingly large proportion of the population that cannot afford their own home. First-time buyers find it particularly difficult to get on the property ladder, and this looks set to continue as mortgage lending remains tight.
There has been an increase in property sales over the last 12 months, despite a blip in December.
We are an independent agency based in the heart of Wimbledon Town Centre. Over the past 17 years we are proud to say we have been providing advice and services for rentals and sales, letting, management & investment of property within in our community. In that time we have let in excess of 10,000 properties! We have a large selection of flats to rent in Wimbledon, so don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Posted in PROPERTY | Tagged WIMBLEDON PROPERTY, WIMBLEDON RENTALS | Leave a Comment »
The value of UK homes has risen by £39 billion this year, after slumping £811 billion in 2008, figures from Zoopla, a leading property website, show.
It said that the value of the average home has been rising £4 a day and is currently worth £205,591, up 0.7 per cent on a year ago. The value of the average home fell by £86 a day in 2008.
The figures support further evidence of a rebounding housing market from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, which said the proportion of estate agents reporting an increase rather than a decrease in house prices was at its highest for three years.
More than a third of surveyors reported rising rather than falling prices in the past three months, up from 34 per cent in October and the highest quarterly reading since November 2006.
The rise in house prices recorded over the last nine months has been attributed to a shortage of sellers in the market, fuelling fears that prices will fall again in the new year when more housing stock is made available. Housing experts expect prices to slip by up to 10 per cent in 2010.
Nicholas Leeming, commercial director of Zoopla.co.uk, said: “2008 was undoubtedly the annus horribilis for homeowners. But, property prices have stabilised this year, rising gradually since April after a fairly weak first quarter.
“We are still a long way from the values seen before the recession took hold, but the housing market has not worsened in 2009 as some had feared and recovery signs are starting to take hold.”
He added, “The basic rules still apply; if you improve your home with a new kitchen or new bathroom you will get much more money from your house sale, than it will cost you to do the work. Now is the time to commission that loft conversion or home extension you were always considering.”
he total value of housing stock in the UK is currently £5.3 trillion, according to Zoopla, still considerably lower than the peak in 2007 of £6.1 trillion. Prices in England have shown the biggest increase, with a 0.9 per cent rise in the last year. However, house prices in Wales continued to fall by 2.5 per cent.
Aspinalls Builders Ltd is a family run business and has gained an excellent reputation. We offer a wide range of building services covering areas such as brick work, plastering, painting, decorating, extensions, conversions, kitchens, bathrooms, heating and plumbing. Our quality of work is of such a high standard that we have an excellent and long lasting relationship with all of our clients; reliability and customer satisfaction are of utmost importance.
Posted in PROPERTY | Tagged HOUSE EXTESNION, LOFT CONVERSION, NEW BATHROOM, NEW KITCHEN | Leave a Comment »
Foreign footballers from outside the EU will be barred from joining Premier League clubs from October unless they can speak simple English under new immigration rules.
The English test forms part of a points-based system that will cut the number of immigrants entering Britain by about 20,000 a year. But ministers have decided to exempt performers at specific festivals, including Edinburgh, Glyndebourne, Glastonbury, Wimbledon and the London Marathon.
The new rules will apply to all skilled workers — including footballers and managers — from non-EU states. The Government planned originally to insist that they understood English up to GCSE level but this was changed amid fears that it would rule out too many players, such as Manchester United’s Ji-Sung Park, from South Korea, and Carlos Tévez, from Argentina, and Arsenal’s Denilson, from Brazil, who have struggled to master the language, and man will have no choice but to use language interpreters.
Favourite training ground expressions being taught includes ‘pick your man up!’, ‘don’t let him turn you!’, and ‘take him on, beat your man!’ Eleven hours is the average time it takes to educate them from zero English to being able to function on the field.
Instead of the usual textbook approach, however, one of the top teaching tools is the Subbuteo miniature soccer game. It is used to re-enact an actual game so the relevant phrases come to life making the language as pertinent as possible to what they’re going to be doing on the field.
‘There’s no point in teaching him to say ”my uncle’s pen is in your auntie’s bureau’, or how to buy a first class train ticket,’ said Dr Kettle-Williams.
‘We need it to be real, so he can function on the field. There’s no time there for hesitation, or stopping to think ”what do they mean?”
‘We teach them these phrases and then, in the next game, they are alert and switched on, understanding instructions from the sidelines and playing better.’
The Home Office document said that workers would need to demonstrate “an ability to understand and use familiar everyday expressions and very basic phrases, to introduce themselves and others and ask and answer question about basic personal details”.
Liam Byrne, the Immigration Minister, said: “I am afraid they will have to speak English. We do not want people coming to work alone. We had originally suggested requiring everybody to have English to GCSE level, but a lot of people thought that was going over the top.”
At Today Translations, our linguists know there’s more to professional translation services than mere words. We are a specialist translation company, capable of providing anything from English to Arabic translation, to Russian to English, translation to English to French, and much much more.
Posted in BUSINESS | Tagged LANGUAGE TRANSLATION | Leave a Comment »
Competition between various publishing houses was rife to obtain the language translation rights to publish the English to Arabic translation of Chirac’s memoirs. For Kalima to obtain the rights to publish this book in Arabic is yet another indication of the prestigious position which the project has managed to obtain in the publishing world.
The translation services of such an important book to be a contribution towards a better understanding between the Arab World and the West, and another bridge between the cultures. The book attracted worldwide attention. Serialized highlights of many of its chapters appeared on Le Parisian, Le Figaro, and the weekly Le Point.
Chirac’s memoirs come at the right time. His popularity in France is still high, even though it has been more than two years since he left the French Presidency. His memoirs have sold out with sales exceeding 200,000 copies.
The first volume of his memoirs covers the first sixty-three years of his life, from being born in 1932 up to the moment he became President in 1995. He scans over the important landmarks of his early political life, especially the time when he twice became the Prime Minister under Presidents Giscard d’Estaing and Mitterrand.
At Today Translations, our linguists know there’s more to professional translation services than mere words. We are a specialist translation company, capable of providing anything from English to Arabic translation, to Russian to English, translation to English to French, and much much more.
Posted in BUSINESS | Tagged LANGUAGE TRANSLATION | Leave a Comment »
Creating the perfect ambience in the home is easy with Keith Brymer Jones’ simple and stylish linen collection. From gorgeous tea towels to wonderful pillowcases, Keith Brymer Jones’ pieces will give you hours of pleasure.
“All our homeware and tableware is made from top designers,” said Dominic Speelman, Director of MAKE International “Keith’s range of designer fabrics are really beautiful. Not only are they lovely to look at, but they are soft to the touch because they are made from such quality material.
We pride ourselves in making in designer porcelain homeware that will last, and Keith Brymer Jones’ range is no exception. Even after many washes Keith’s fabrics will look as good as the day you bought them.”
“The Keith Brymer Jones collection would be perfect for presents, or to add style to your kitchen, dining room, or bedroom! Clean lines and simple design makes a home look contemporary, yet welcoming. We want all of MAKE’s ranges to add that certain something special to your home and therefore ensure that all our items are of the highest quality.”
MAKE International runs a successful internet store, specialising in designer porcelain pottery, china pottery and all sorts of other ceramics pottery.
Posted in BUSINESS | Tagged DESIGNER HOMEWARE | Leave a Comment »
Builders, property agents, retailers, web designers, and the rest of the public all exhaled a sweet sigh of relief as the economy managed to grow, perhaps not very much but grow nonetheless. However, much like our weather, the economy can have a mind of its own and it has been made clear that the road to significant economic growth will be a bumpy one.
Britain emerged today from the longest recession in modern history, but the economy grew by only 0.1 per cent between October and December — far below expectations of a 0.4 per cent rebound.
The data brings to an end the UK’s longest-ever recession, but the minuscule size of the rise – lower than the 0.4 per cent predicted – will raise fears the country could slip back into a ‘double dip’ recession and heap further pressure on Gordon Brown.
The economy had previously contracted for six consecutive quarters – the longest period since quarterly figures were first recorded in 1955. There have been recent recovery signs – last week, UK unemployment fell for the first time in 18 months.
Britain is the last big economy to emerge from a full-blown downturn. The United States, Japan, China, Germany and France all climbed out of recession in the third quarter, between July and September, last year.
The main drivers of the minimal growth in the economy came from the retail and motor sector, both of which have been propped up by Government intervention.
Colin Ellis, European economist with Daiwa Capital Markets, said: “These sectors will have been boosted by the pre-announced VAT rise in January, and the car scrappage scheme — suggesting that, on an underlying basis, the economy only stagnated at best.”
It has raised fears over the strength of the recovery as the VAT rise coupled with the dire weather this month are likely to have hurt high street spending, and the scrappage scheme is scheduled to come to an end soon.
In 2009 the economy fell by 4.8 per cent, the fastest pace of decline in a single year for 88 years, and more than in any other 12-month period since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Britain has been in recession for six quarters. The technical definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative growth.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) today revised up its figure for British GDP growth from 0.9 per cent to 1.3 per cent for 2010, in line with the Treasury’s own forecast for 1.25 per cent growth this year.
However, it places the UK among the stragglers in the world economy, with the US expected to grow by 2.7 per cent and Japan tipped to expand by 1.7 per cent. French and German GDP will rise by 1.4 per cent and 1.5 per cent respectively in 2010, the IMF forecasts.
There is a rosier picture in 2011, with the IMF predicting that the UK economy will grow by 2.7 per cent, up from a previous forecast of 2.5 per cent. But this falls far below the Treasury’s forecast for 3.5 per cent growth, which has already attracted criticism from economists for being too optimistic.
Howard Archer, the chief European and UK economist for IHS Global Insight, said: “This is another desperately disappointing GDP release. While the UK officially exited recession in the fourth quarter of 2009, it could only crawl out.
“This reinforces our suspicion that recovery will be gradual and prone to losses of momentum.” It also added to the likelihood that the Bank of England would keep interest rates at an historic low of 0.5 per cent, at least until late this year.
Web Design London by MintTwist // Follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/minttwist
Posted in BUSINESS, PROPERTY, WEB DESIGN | Tagged NEWS, Small Business, WEB DESIGN, Web Design North London | Leave a Comment »
Did you know that your Twitter tweets are ripe with search engine juice that you can put to use to get more marketing exposure? Of course, links you post on Twitter, including links in your bio, are automatically no-follow, meaning the search engines will follow them, but “link juice” (like Google PageRank) isn’t carried over.
That doesn’t mean the party’s over for optimising your Twitter page though. Search engines do index Twitter tweets (through “statuses” – which look like this). So how can you help ratchet your tweets up into search engine results as well as increase your number of followers?
By including relevant keywords within your title on your status pages.
Twitter creates the title for your status pages by taking up a slew of characters for itself. You can’t change that part (such as Twitter/MintTwist) but you CAN change what comes after it. There are only about 27 characters available for you to use (and you thought fitting something into 140 was tough!), but every little bit counts.
In addition to showing up in search engines, when you include keywords in the titles of your status pages, you also become more visible through Twitter’s own search interface, as well as the many search sites out there that comb through Twitter posts and tweets for certain keywords – like this:
If I were looking for twitter tips, and these tweets came up in the results, would I want to follow these people to see what else they had to share? Absolutely!
And if you click on “View Tweet” for any of these results, you’ll be taken to – surprise! The status page! Status pages are static – which means they will stay there forever unless you delete them or Twitter disappears from the face of the Earth (not likely!) – so use them to your marketing advantage and start including a few keywords in your titles and tweets.
Now that you know how to better leverage your titles and statuses, get to work and start optimising those pages with every link you post!
Web Design London by MintTwist // Follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/minttwist
Posted in BUSINESS, WEB DESIGN | Tagged BLOG, Optimise, SEO, twitter | 1 Comment »
Examples of pottery found in a cave at Yuchanyan in China’s Hunan province may be the oldest known to science.
By determining the fraction of a type, or isotope, of carbon in bone fragments and charcoal, the specimens were found to be 17,500 to 18,300 years old.
The authors say that the ages are more precise than previous efforts because a series of more than 40 radiocarbon-dated samples support the estimate.
The Yuchanyan cave was the site where the oldest kernels of rice were found in 2005, and it is viewed as an important link between cave-dwelling hunter-gatherer peoples and the farmers that arose later in the basin of the nearby Yangtze River.
The previous oldest-known example of pottery was found in Japan, dated to an age between 16,000 and 17,000 years ago, but debate has raged in the archaeological community as to whether pottery was first made in China or Japan.
The most recent dig at Yuchanyan was in 2005 by a team led by Elisabetta Boaretto of the Kimmel Center for Archaeological Science at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. They believe they have found a more precise way to read the history of human activity written in layers of sediment, or stratigraphy.
‘Layer cake’
“The way people move around and mess up caves is very difficult to see archaeologically,” David Cohen, an archaeologist at Boston University and a co-author on the research, told BBC News.
“Imagine you have a fire and then people come in again have another fire and another, so you have the ashes of all these fires building up but at the same time people are digging and clearing, pushing things to the side; this messes things up.
“If you have an open-air site, you sometimes get a very clean ‘layer cake’ stratigraphy. Archaeologists before haven’t looked at this closely enough to realise what’s going on in caves so they interpret this stratigraphy as a layer cake. But in actuality, it’s ‘lenses’ of stuff that’s been mixed up and moved around.”
It is comparatively easy to find evidence of human occupation in caves through the dating of charcoal from fires or bones from long-ago dinners, Dr Cohen said. However, because of the unclear layering of sediment it is not easy to correlate well-dated layers with the pottery that may be nearby.
The team worked in sub-divisions of just a quarter of a metre square, painstakingly collecting bone and charcoal fragments. The samples were then radiocarbon dated, revealing a clean distribution stretching between 14,000 and 21,000 years ago.
‘Fantastic cave’
One fragment of pottery was found in a layer between two radiocarbon-dated fragments that both measured about 18,000 years old, taking the record for oldest pottery.
“It’s a fantastic cave, and we hope that the way these excavations were done would set a precedent for how other caves will be looked at,” said Dr Cohen.
Dr Tracey Lu, from an anthropologist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, who was not an author on the latest study, noted that the dates reported in this paper were slightly older than dates on pottery found in Japan.
However, she said the accuracy of radiocarbon dates in the limestone area has been under debate for many years.
“I agree that pottery was made by foragers in South China,” she told the Associated Press news agency.
“But I also think pottery was produced more or less contemporaneously in several places in East Asia… from Russia, Japan to North and South China by foragers living in different environments.”
MAKE International is the worlds mail order supplier of pottery mugs, pottery cups and all sorts of other pottery gifts.
Posted in BUSINESS | Tagged CUPS, GIFTS, MUGS, POTTERY | 1 Comment »
Source: Mark Tapling, CEO of Language Weaver.
Being able to sell to a diverse customer base is one thing, but it’s just the first step in an ongoing process of fostering successful customer interactions if winning loyalty is your goal. It might be daunting to engage call center representatives with language translator skills, but many customers are thrilled to find support information in their native tongue online. Self-service is the ticket.
Consumers are gearing up to acquire more high-tech gadgets from big box stores and online retailers at highly competitive prices. This is a great time to consider how companies can ensure customers are satisfied and successful with their purchases and how they can plan ahead for 2010.
Picture this: Manuel waited in line for hours to get the best sales deals. He gave up dinner with his family and battled cold temperatures through the night so that he could be the first person in line at his local big box technology retailer when the doors opened at 5a.m. It was worth the long wait, because he walked out with a new 50-inch television at a rock bottom price — complete with features in Spanish, a requirement of his family and friends.
Now — the moment of truth. It is time to set up his prized possession — his reward for his long wait in line. Manuel carefully unpacks the TV and strategically places it in the family room of his house for all to enjoy. Now all he has to do is figure out the setup and programming.
However, Manuel makes a horrifying discovery: The programming menu is stuck on the English main menu screen and won’t advance to the next menu screen or switch over to Spanish. The manufacturer did provide the quick start guide in Spanish to help with the setup, but it offers no help in troubleshooting this error. The support manual is available as a PDF on the company’s Web site, because the company had the vision to be provide a translated version, created by a professuiional langauge translator, however – Manuel doesn’t know this …..
All of a sudden, the time spent in line, the cold weather, and the frustration of missing dinner come flooding back and are aimed squarely in one place: the manufacturer of the TV.
21st Century customer service will require comapnies to provide customers with the same depth and quality of information for self-service, regardless of the language they speak.
Providing a self-service option on your site is great, but if you are selling globally or to diverse groups in a particular region, remember that customers prefer to interact with companies in their native language. Manuel prefers Spanish and would have been thrilled to know there was a self-service option available to him in his native language.
Oftentimes, companies will translate product information required for prepurchase into many languages but stop short of professional language translation because of the cost. This sends a signal to customers that they are important enough to sell to but not important enough to support. Manuel was starting to wonder if the company’s Spanish-speaking customers were less valuable than its English-speaking customers.
Posted in BUSINESS | Tagged LANGUAGE TRANSLATION | Leave a Comment »
The market ended 2009 surprisingly strongly. What do the experts predict for this year?
So will 2010 see a continuation of the rally that took us all by surprise in the second half of last year, or will house prices flatten out — or even crash back down?
Calling the property market has always been an inexact science, but it is proving especially difficult as we enter the new decade. While Hamptons International and Chesterton Humberts expect prices to rise by 3%-5% and 2% respectively during the course of this year, their fellow estate agent Savills predicts falls of 6.6%, and the ever-bearish Capital Economics sees the market declining by 10%.
If the experience of the past 12 months is anything to go by, any such estimates should be taken with several pinches of salt. This time last year, the doom and gloom were unremitting, with even the estate agents — usually accused of talking up the market — predicting a continuing slide.
They were proved wrong, however — at least as far as most of Britain was concerned: while first-time buyers remained effectively shut out of the market by the banks for most of 2009, tumbling mortgage rates meant property ownership became much more affordable for those who already owned — helping keep repossessions below the cataclysmic levels predicted.
Equally significant was the shortage of property. Holding out for higher prices, homeowners have been reluctant to put their houses on sale, leaving buyers to fight among themselves. The inevitable result has been a rising market, especially in London and the southeast, where overseas purchasers, lured by the weak pound, have added to the competition. Italians, not traditionally a major property purchasing force, have purcchased numerous properties in Chelsea and other parts of southwest London. Nationwide building society estimates prices rose 5.9% last year, leaving them 8.9% above their February low, but 12.2% below the peak hit in October 2007.
So to what extent will the market continue to be supported by these twin props over the coming 12 months? Don’t expect any further help from the Bank of England. While most commentators — save for the CBI — expect the Bank rate to remain at its record low of 0.5% for a good more few months, the next movement must be upwards, even though it could be some years before it returns to the high of 5.75% reached at the peak of the market in the second half of 2007.
Predicting the balance of supply and demand remains more difficult. Many commentators expected last year’s rally to be choked off as sellers reacted to rising prices by putting their properties on the market. So far they have proved reluctant to do so, often because of the difficulty of finding a home to move into themselves.
More crucial is what will happen to demand, which could be muted by rising unemployment, the continuing squeeze on incomes and an end to the stamp duty holiday on homes priced £125,000-£175,000. Hometrack, the property data company, reported a 2.2% drop in new-buyer registrations last month — the first such fall since January 2009. “Rich households could continue to put upwards pressure on prices in localised markets in 2010,” says Richard Donnell, its director of research. “Yet a sustainable recovery in the housing market needs a broader base of buyers.” Uncertainty ahead of this spring’s general election could add to caution.
Whatever the overall figure, there seems little doubt that London and the southeast will continue to outperform the rest of the country this year. The sought after properties in southwest London are predicted to move particularly fast. The London rental property market will do better this year, further accentuating the north-south divide. Predictions of a weak, or even weaker, pound mean overseas buyers will keep on coming. Liam Bailey, head of residential research for Knight Frank, expects the Italians to be joined by increasing numbers from the Far East. “The biggest change will be the entry of Chinese investors,” he says.
The next few months are also expected to see a continuation of the revival in the new-homes market: research by the National House Building Council shows there were 27,124 applications to build new properties in the UK between September and November, 45% more than in the same three months in 2008. A change of government might give the sector a further boost, if the Conservatives implement changes in planning rules.
Buy-to-let investors will be back in force this year, too. Although mortgages remain difficult to obtain, yields are attractive for any¬one with cash to invest — especially compared with alternative investments.
We are an independent agency based in the heart of Wimbledon Town Centre. Over the past 17 years we are proud to say we have been providing advice and services for rentals and sales, letting, management & investment of property within in our community. In that time we have let in excess of 10,000 properties! We have a large selection of flats to rent in Wimbledon, so don’t hesitate to get in
Posted in PROPERTY | Tagged PROPERTY RENTALS, PROPERTY SALES, PROPERTY SOUTH WEST LONDON | Leave a Comment »
Consumers to benefit from savings achieved through increased awareness of energy use but householders likely to pick up some of the costs of the compulsory, nationwide scheme smart meters will work with real-time energy displays showing energy use around the home.
Every home in the UK must be fitted with a “smart meter” by 2020 to reduce energy use and pave the way for a low-carbon “smart grid”, under plans unveiled by the government.
The new meters will send information on real-time electricity and gas use in households and small businesses direct to utility companies, eliminating the need for customers to stay at home for meter readings or to receive over-estimated bills. However, consumers are likely to pick up some of the costs of the compulsory, nationwide scheme.
The government estimates putting smart meters in the country’s 26m homes could save customers and energy companies £2.5bn-£3.6bn over the next 20 years, but says it will cost more than double this to buy and install the equipment.
Launching a consultation on how the smart meters should be rolled out, the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) claimed the scheme will be the biggest smart meter project in the world.
“The meters most of us have in our homes were designed for a different age, before climate change,” said Ed Miliband, the energy and climate change secretary. “Now we need to get smarter with our energy … so it’s important we design a system that brings best value to everyone involved.”
Energy companies welcomed the switch, which will reduce their running costs by making meter readers obsolete and eliminating the customer service time spent on dealing with estimated bills. Consumers and small business owners could benefit from savings achieved through increased awareness of their energy use. Previous studies have shown that smart meters encourage homeowners to cut their energy use by 3-15%, although experts warn that the technology requires consumer education and is not an “install and forget” energy-efficiency measure like loft insulation for new loft conversions.
Consumer groups warned that homeowners should not have to shoulder heavy costs for the new meters. Replacing today’s meters by the end of 2020 is expected to cost £8.11bn under the government’s preferred plan, with utility companies paying upfront, but able to pass on the charge. “Bill-payers have been suffering for many years from ever-increasing bills, so I hope the cost of the scheme – up to £340 for every household – won’t wholly be put at their feet,” said Scott Byrom, utilities manager at Moneysupermarket.com.
The Energy Retail Association – which represents the major electricity and gas companies – said that smart meters will be “cost-neutral” to customers because the savings to its members will part-fund the roll out.
Smart meters will also play a key role in helping the government meet its greenhouse gas reduction targets of at least 34% by 2020. The meters make it easier for householders to sell power they generate through wind and solar back to the grid. They will also allow suppliers to smooth the peaks and troughs of UK electricity demand by offering cheaper electricity at times of low demand, and increasing the price when demand is high. Reducing peak demand means fewer power stations need to be on standby, thereby cutting carbon emissions.
Ultimately, smart meters will allow the electricity used by domestic appliances to be “dynamically” managed. This would mean switching off refrigerators for a few minutes at times of high demand, or using plugged-in electric vehicles to store power. This flexibility is crucial if a significant amount of clean, renewable energy is to be supplied from harnessing the sun, wind and waves, all of which vary with the weather. A government report last year suggested such “demand management” technology could save 2m tonnes of CO2 a year.
Environmental campaigners and opposition politicians warned that the 2020 timetable was not fast enough. The shadow energy and climate change secretary, Greg Clark, said: “In other countries around the world, smart meters are being rolled out now. Ten years [to install] a technology that’s already available seems very leisurely considering the urgency of climate change.” However, consultants Ernst & Young noted that even fitting 2.6m homes with meters every until 2020 was “challenging”. Moreover, many campaigners say that consumers can save far more money (and energy) by getting a new boiler installation anyway.
Three plans are under consideration for the nationwide roll-out of smart meters. The first sees utilities take on all responsibilities, including supply and installation, plus the data management. The second – the government’s preferred model – has energy suppliers responsible for the meters, but with a new third party body handling the energy data. A third scenario envisages setting up a new organisation to oversee both the meters and data management.
Smart meter trials are already under way around the country through energy companies including British Gas and Npower, and smaller suppliers such as First Utility already supply smart meters as standard. The first smart meters installed under the government’s new plans are expected to arrive in 2012.
Aspinalls Builders Ltd is a family run business and has gained an excellent reputation. We offer a wide range of building services covering areas such as brick work, plastering, painting, decorating, extensions, conversions, kitchens, bathrooms, heating and plumbing. Our quality of work is of such a high standard that we have an excellent and long lasting relationship with all of our clients; reliability and customer satisfaction are of utmost importance.
Posted in PROPERTY | Tagged BOILER INSTALLATION, LOFT CONVERSIONS, PROPERTY | Leave a Comment »
The Remote Desktop feature in Windows 7 can be used to connect remotely to other computers, so that you can control one computer from another pretty easily. Remote Desktops in Windows 7 have Aero and multi monitor support, and other enhancements you’ll love.
This is how you turn on remote desktop in Windows 7:
Click the Start button, right click on Computer and choose ‘Properties’. You can, alternatively, press the Win+PauseBreak keys together.
Click on Remote Settings in the left panel of the Control Panel Window that pops up.
In the new window that appears, make sure that ‘Allow Remote Assistance to this Computer’ option is checked. Also, turn on any one of the options mentioned as per your preference : either allow connections from your network, or any machine.
Click Apply, OK. You’re done. You have now turned on the remote desktop tool that allows any machine to access your Windows 7 computer.
Posted in WEB DESIGN | Tagged BLOG, rdc, remote desktop connection, windows 7 | 1 Comment »
I recently received the “Cannot copy files required for installation” error (with error code 0×80070017) when trying to install Windows 7 on my PC. After some investigation I found that the top 3 reasons this happens are:
1. The DVD you are using is corrupt. If you are burning the ISO image to a DVD, you need to choose the lowest speed and be sure to verify it after burn (I used 4x)
2. Your memory may be playing up. Run a memory test using the free tool from http://www.memtest.org. Any errors reported need to be ironed out. I simply took out 2gb of the 4gb my system had installed and this cleared the error. I then re-inserted the memory when Windows 7 had installed.
3. Reset your BIOS settings to default and make sure you are not aggressively over clocking your system.
Good luck!
Posted in WEB DESIGN | Tagged 0x80070017, BLOG, error, install, installation error, windows 7 | Leave a Comment »
Google has signed a deal with Twitter and will begin displaying tweets in Google search results. The announcement is generating mixes reactions among SEO professionals and site owners.
Google made the very brief announcement in their official blog about the Twitter Deal as part of their goal to “create the most comprehensive, relevant and fast search in the world.” While it will be interesting to see what they do with Twitter tweets, I seriously doubt if this will bring them closer to reaching their goal.
For those not familiar with Twitter, it is a micro-blogging site that might be better described as a micro-messaging site. It is based on a cell phone text messaging model and limits the length of a message to 140 characters. Messages are called “tweets.” Links can be included to tweets, but the length of the URL is part of the 140 character limit. Online URL shortening tools are commonly used to add very brief URLs that are then redirected to the final destination page. In order to receive someone’s tweets, the user must sign up for a Twitter account and then voluntarily sign up to “follow” another Twitter user’s tweets.
Twitter can be effectively used to drive traffic to a web site if enough targeted users can be persuaded to sign up as followers. The main problem with Twitter is that the overwhelming majority of tweets are useless dribble. While it is an ideal medium for celebrities and politicians to get their message out, do we really need to know that one of them is eating a ham sandwich or about to leave to go grocery shopping?
At this point, we do not know how Google will display tweets in their search results. They may cluster them together like they currently tend to do with YouTube videos. The problem is that they may just clutter up search results and push web site pages further down in rank positions.
Do not expect to be able to use Twitter to build links to your site. All outbound links from the major social media sites are blocked in one fashion or another so that they do not pass any link value. In the case of Twitter, all links are nullified with a “nofollow” attribute. That effectively eliminates any link value that might otherwise be passed. It may be safe to assume that Google will do something similar with tweets that show up in their search results.
The real question is, “How will Google determine which tweets make it into their search results?” This could be based upon some Twitter internal ranking criteria, similar to the way that YouTube videos are ranked. It could be based upon the number of followers that forward a particular tweet to their followers. The most logical assumption is that keyword phrases in the tweets will be part of the ranking algorithm.
Until we can determine how Google will select a few choice tweets from the millions of useless tweets generated each day, it would be wise to make sure that each tweet that you send includes targeted keywords and a link to the appropriate page in your web site. It might also be a good idea to make sure that your most important targeted keyword phrases are included in the description in your Twitter account.
Microsoft announced similar deals with both Twitter and FaceBook for Microsoft’s Bing search engine, so it appears that a trend may be emerging.
Posted in WEB DESIGN | Tagged 2009, BLOG, GOOGLE, SEO, twitter | Leave a Comment »
Many people are surprised to learn that YouTube is the second-largest search engine. It’s bigger than Yahoo and bigger than Bing, according to comScore. Therefore it is a shock to many search marketing professionals that clients, including large brands, neglect to formulate or act on strategies for YouTube optimisation.
Of course, YouTube isn’t a perfect fit for every company, but anybody who does business online should consider taking advantage of the huge opportunities for brand impressions available on YouTube. Even if the product or service you sell might be considered dry or boring, think about creating a series of funny or interesting videos that relates indirectly to your core business.
Embedding video within a web strategy is a great way of bringing information to your audience, and with the increase in performance of Broadband lines it is now accessible to the vast majority of users.
North London Building firm ASP Builders use YouTube as an effective way to provide general information to thier audience.
Remember, a well optimised video and company YouTube channel will benefit the core website search engine optimisation strategy. Also, we do not have to create traditional TV commercials to get people talking about our brand.
Optimising YouTube pages requires us to follow the same rules as any other search engine optimisation (SEO) project, and all SEO can be broken down into three disciplines: content, linking, and architecture. Since YouTube is going to dictate how the page is built architecturally, that leaves us with opportunities to improve the on-page content that boosts the link popularity of the page.
There are primarily two places we can rank well for our target keywords. The first place is on YouTube itself. The other place our videos can rank well is on the search engines themselves. Remember that every video on YouTube has its own page, called a view page, that can be optimized the same as any other page on the web.
The videos themselves are invisible to search engines. YouTube converts the video files you upload into Flash, and search engines have a difficult time understanding what’s inside a Flash file, especially a video.
YouTube automatically generates meta tags for every view page. The name of the video becomes the title tag, the description (found in the “more info” section) becomes the meta description tag, and the YouTube tags become the content of the page’s meta keywords tag.
Quick tips for optimization:
* Include links in profile pages wherever possible. First decide where you want to drive the traffic from your channel/profile page, and then include links to those pages as much as possible. Ideally, you will be linking to other social media profiles like Facebook and Twitter in order to extend the social media experience, but you also might want to drive clicks to a customized landing page. There are many more opportunities to place clickable links than there appear to be at first glance.
* Include appropriate keywords in the name of the video, and use the word “video” when appropriate. The title is the most important piece of information that the search engines have about your video, and considering that most searchers include the word “video” when searching for a video, this inclusion boosts the relevance of your page as a search result.
* For each video, write a unique, keyword-rich description that includes a URL. Put the URL at the beginning. This way, even when the “more info” option is collapsed, the user will still see the link. Also, a video’s description is the next-best indicator to search engines of the video’s content, right behind the title. Use this space to place relevant keywords when appropriate.
* Provide video transcripts if possible. Until the technology improves, YouTube and other online videos are practically invisible to most search engines. Therefore, the search engines are only guessing about the content of your video based on the information they parse from the title, description, and tags. But if you have a full transcript of your video placed in the description, the search engines will fully understand the video.
* Take advantage of YouTube’s captions and annotation features. You can add notes, subtitles, descriptions, and links directly over the top of the video. Currently only links to other YouTube pages are clickable, but try this: You remembered to add a link at the top of your description, right? Place a call to action over the video that says, “Click here to become a fan of our Facebook page.”
* Tag your videos with keywords. Along with the title and the description, tags help the search engines identify the video’s content. If you have relevant keywords, place them here.
* Encourage participation. For each video, there are options for “Broadcasting and Sharing.” It’s best to open commenting and embedding as much as possible, but remember that you will need to monitor your videos for spam and naughty comments. Also consider posting your videos as responses to other popular videos. This is a good way to piggyback on the success of someone else’s video and divert some of those eyes to your own content.
* YouTube pulls thumbnails from the one quarter, half, and three quarters marks of every video. You can then choose which thumbnail is displayed. If it’s not disruptive to do so, try to manipulate your video so that a compelling image appears at one of these points. Thumbnails have a large impact in a video’s click-through.
* Take advantage of YouTube Insights. This analytics feature of YouTube is robust compared to other video sites and can provide information such as demographics and when people abandoned viewing specific videos. This data can help you improve future submissions.
Who did it great:
Today Translations is a Translation Services agency in London.
MintTwist provide Web Design and Web Marketing services.
Credau is an eco clothing brand for high fashion menswear. Credau sell into high fashion outlets in London and Paris and are seeking retail outlets to carry their lines into the USA.
Mistakes to avoid:
Most YouTube videos and channels are not properly optimized, even by big brands. Therefore, there is still tremendous opportunity to rank well on search results pages for many competitive keywords. Perhaps the biggest potential mistake is to close your videos off to sharing. It is vital to let users interact and embed your videos.
Also, resign yourself to the fact that no matter how good your videos are, people are going to say nasty things. As long as comments aren’t profane, negative feedback is good. A mix of negative and positive comments makes the user experience more authentic.
Posted in WEB DESIGN | Tagged 2009, BLOG, WEB DESIGN, WEB MARKETING | 11 Comments »
MSN’’s Bing search engine team published a list of issues related to obtaining inbound links that could either help or hurt your web site’s rankings. As most serious web site owners know, building good, industry-related inbound links is important to help a web site rank well in organic search results.
There aren’t any new revelations in the article entitled, Link Building for Smart Webmasters, but the article does do a good job of reinforcing good and bad link building techniques. Bing did reveal that they do have a team of people who actually look at a web site when their spiders report suspicious inbound link building methods.
Bing makes it clear that they are “less concerned about the link building techniques used than about the intentions behind the effort.” That basically means that if you are doing link building to assist users with finding relevant information, they look upon this favorably. However, if you are building links merely to raise search engine rankings, you may find your web site headed in the wrong direction in Bing’s search results.
The following summarizes Bing’s tips, along with our interpretation of how to best utilize these techniques.
What Bing Says You Should Be Doing To Build Links
What Bing Says You Should Not Be Doing To Build Links
The Bing article is worth reading and may provide you with one of two good ideas for improving your link building.
Posted in WEB DESIGN | Tagged 2009, bing, BLOG, microsoft, search engines, SEO | 3 Comments »
The Cocktails Mix campaign (pronounced Cocktalesmix) was the brain child of the NHS in Derbyshire, dreamt up to warn young people of using excessive amounts of alcohol this Christmas.
A VIDEO created by the Cocktails Mix campaign team has been banned from a website for being too controversial.
Video website YouTube has removed the Cocktails Mix NHS video clip, called Bloody Mary, which shows a group of young men jeering at a woman who is so drunk she urinates in the street, then falls over and injures herself.
It was one of two videos created by Derbyshire County Primary Care Trust for its £25,000 Cocktales mix campaign, aimed at getting young adults to drink sensibly.
It received more than 15,000 hits in the eight days it was on the website.
The second video made by the trust, Tequila Slammer, shows a drunk man dressed as a turkey being run over by a car, remains on YouTube and can be seen here (warning, some viewers may find these scenes disturbing):
MintTwist help businesses to improve their reputations and increase sales every day. With a Managed Web Marketing service, MintTwist make sure their clients have all the right things in place before commencing an all-encompassing web marketing stratgey that dramatically increases sales leads, visibility and improves the reputation of our client’s businesss. Contact Elliott King for more information.
Posted in BUSINESS, WEB DESIGN | Tagged 2009, BLOG, COCKTAILS MIX, NHS VIDEO, WEB MARKETING | Leave a Comment »
How does Santa know what everyone wants for the holidays? Simple, the children tell Santa very specifically. Whether they are sitting on his lap, or writing letters in crayon, Santa’s “customers” make it very clear to him what they are looking for this holiday season.
You have the same advantage. Grownups use search engines to tell you exactly what they want. You simply need to show up, no matter what or how they are asking.
If Santa were dishing out corporate blogging advice for marketers this holiday season, I’m sure it would sound something like this:
Blog for search
Recognize that blogging is a terrific search marketing tool and embrace it early. Blogs give you an easy way to quickly tell lots of stories frequently. The reality is that most blog traffic is coming from first-time visitors. They don’t know you yet. What searchers do know is what they want or the problems they are trying to solve. Developing specific blogs targeting specific products or services is a terrific way to target these self-qualifying prospects.
Do your keyword research and take advantage of the space that your blogs give you to talk about your products and services using the words your customers use.
Example: GoalGroup
GoalGroup is an industry leader in protecting investors and funds against losses and retrieves them money after class action lawsuits. It sells its services through a worldwide network and is monitoring and reporting on class actions to its global network of clients and partners. It targets hundreds of specific terms through blogging, using keywords such as “class actions” and “class action lawsuits“.
For GoalGroup, targeting search through class action focused blog articles not only helps dramatically increase organic traffic, but such traffic also converts at a very high level — which is a clear indication that the search audience is happy to have landed on one of the company’s blog articles.
Example: Today Translations
Language Translation agency Today Translations has embraced targeted blogging to drive searches. By empowering its language translators in the markets (in London and financial centres worldwide) it serves to tell stories about their business, the company is able to target people in those markets the very moment when they need the services of a language translator the most. Targeting terms like “language translator“, “English to Chinese translation” or “English to Russian translation” shows up well because of the local stories the language translators tell.
The biggest miss in multi-channel merchant blogging is the conversion. Just like any other web page in your inventory, your blogs need to have clear, relevant, and effective calls-to-action. If a searcher lands on a web page about a Property in Wimbledon or a Private Detective Agency, they sure better have a way to buy that service.
Many companies do a wonderful job on PPC landing pages and totally fail on their blogs. You have to think of your blogs as organic landing pages. The goal is conversion — get your searchers to take the next step in the relationship.
Every kind of business can benefit from search-optimised blogging. By following the advice above, you are putting your organization in front of people who have expressed their intent to find a solution to their needs, whether it’s for information, services, or products.
MintTwist help businesses to improve their reputations and increase sales every day. With a Managed Web Marketing service, MintTwist make sure their clients have all the right things in place before commencing an all-encompassing web marketing stratgey that dramatically increases sales leads, visibility and improves the reputation of our client’s businesss. Contact Elliott King for more information.
Posted in BUSINESS, WEB DESIGN | Tagged 2009, BLOG, BUSINESS, WEB MARKETING | Leave a Comment »
It used to be that any link to a web site was a good link and each played a strong role in a site’s ability to rank well. That is no longer the case and not all links are treated equally. This SEO tutorial covers the concept of a quality link and how it can benefit your web site’s rankings.
A link to a web page is a popularity vote for the page. It demonstrates to a search engine spider that someone finds value in the information found on the web page. A link to a web page is called an inbound link or a backlink. Links contain inheritance factors that influence a web page’s ability to rank well. The inheritance factors include the keyword theme for the linking page, which ideally needs to match the keyword themes for the receiving page. This reinforces the theme for that page. Other factors include Google’s PageRank, which is a pseudo-measure of the quality of links leading to the linking page.
There are a number of inheritance factors that Google and other search engines use in their ranking algorithms, most of which they do not divulge. These are not trivial issues. Search engines keep track of every link leading to every web page on the Internet. The number of links leading to your site and your web pages can play a major role in the site’s ability to rank well, and the quality of each link can have a significant impact.
Here are my observations regarding the effectiveness of inbound links.
That being said, obtaining quality links to a web page can be one of the hardest aspects of search engine optimization. If there are other web sites in your industry or sites that share your site’s keyword themes that you can obtain links from, those links will help improve the rankings for your web pages. 5 to 10 links to the page can have a very positive impact on that page’s ability to rank well.
Do not just focus on links to the home page. A page that focuses on How to Housebreak a Puppy, should ideally have links to it from similar web pages. Try to obtain as many links as you can to inner pages. One way to do this is to write unique, quality content. Good, informational content that covers topics that people search for will pick up links naturally, especially if the page begins to rank well. The higher a page ranks on search engine result pages, the more inbound links it tends to to pick up–but only if the content on the page is informative or interesting.
Beware of Artificial Links
Search engines do not like artificial links because they see them as a method for manipulating a site’s rankings. Technically speaking, an artificial link is any link set up by a site owner that is used to improve search engines. The solution is to make sue that a site’s inbound links do not look artificial. This means focusing on obtaining natural links.
Some links are more valuable than others, and some links are more detrimental than others. In excessive numbers, some types of links can do more harm than good. Avoid excessive use of links from web directories, link pages (also called link farms) on other sites and reciprocal linking. Each of these types of links has been devalued. Avoid links to pages from web page footers, because they are easily identifiable as artificial links, especially when they come from an unrelated site.
Most new site owners think that links exchanges, also called reciprocal links, are a good thing. They were in the 1990s, but have since been devalued because they are artificial links and are easily identified by search engine spiders. To make matters worse, the overwhelming number of web sites that request a link exchange with your site are doing this fraudulently and never actually provide a spiderable link back to your site. There are simple recommendations for dealing with link requests. It is wise to ignore almost all of these requests.
Google is actively penalizing sites that are buying inbound links. They claim that they have become very good at identifying sites that sell links and are penalizing both those sites and the sites who buy the links. A few years go they penalized just about every directory that was selling links, and devalued all of the links they sold. The irony is that Google is the largest link seller on the web through their AdWords pay-per-click program. If you have a web site that is selling links, there are steps that you can take to avoid penalties. We can help you to correct these issues.
If you grasp the concepts in this SEO tutorial, you should now understand that not all inbound links are treated equally, a few quality links to a web site can have a significant impact on the site’s ability to rank well.
Posted in WEB DESIGN | Tagged 2009, BLOG, LINK BUILDING, links | Leave a Comment »
Building inbound links, also called backlinks, is a critically important part of any web site search optimization campaign. A hyperlink pointing to a web page is a popularity vote for that page, and all of the major search engine keep track of every link they find leading to every web page in their indexes.
At one time, every link was a good link and the web site receiving the most links typically won a top position in search engine rankings. Today, the quality of each link plays an important role in determining how much influence a link will have on the receiving page. Not all links are treated equally, especially with Google.
The best quality link is a link from an authority site in your industry. Ideally, the link text should contain keywords that reinforce the keyword theme for the receiving page. That means that a quality link to a page selling green widgets should ideally originate from a web site for a major manufacturer or distributor of widgets, or perhaps from an authority site that already ranks well and is focused on the topic of green widgets. If the link is a one-way link and is found within the text of a page (like the links on this page), it is considered to be a natural link. Links are natural links when they are one-way links and occur naturally as part of the content on a page that covers a topic related to that of the receiving page.
Building links to a web site is one of the hardest parts of any SEO campaign, but one that is more important than most web site owners realize. The problem lies with the fact that with most businesses, the only industry-related sites are those of competitors. Whenever possible, obtain links from each of your suppliers, but keep in mind that the links must be a hyperlink that can be found on a “spiderable” web page, which is a page that a spider can reach. Many manufacturers offer dealer lookups using a zip code or state entered by a user. Those types of links are database-driven and cannot be reaced by a spider. They may still drive traffic, but they are useless for link building purposes.
So How Can a Web Site Owner Build Inbound Links?
The best way to accumulate links naturally is to provide excellent, informational content. Become an authority on a topic and write great content related to targeted search phrases, which are also known as keyword themes. Many authors, bloggers and forum participants like to link to web pages that provide the very best coverage of a topic. The numerous inbound links to Wikipedia articles is the number one reason as to why a Wikipedia page is very commonly found in one of the top three positions in Google for almost any topic that they cover. The content is generally excellent and all of the accumulated links push that site’s pages to the top of the search engine results pages.
The reason that most web sites do not accumulate inbound links is because they focus too much on laying out pages that simply tout the company’s products and services. While this information is important once a potential customer finds the site, the issue at hand with search marketing is one of getting the customer to the web site in the first place. Pages that accumulate inbound links will naturally rank higher and will drive more traffic.
A method successfully used by many sites is to provide something useful, such as an online tool that accomplishes something useful for your customers and potential customers. While this is not a fit for some businesses, for others it can be very successful. It is common to find mortgage calculators or home finders on real estate sites because they are useful for the site’s typical visitor. Sometimes it is a matter of providing a very good quality technical cheat sheet or a white paper that covers a topic better than any others on the web.
The key to making this work is to provide something unique and very useful. A mediocre freebie offering will not help build links to a web site. Think in terms of what would be useful to your customers and build a page based upon a targeted keyword theme. Include the freebie download link on that page.
Checking Competitor’s Inbound Links
It can be very useful as well as informative to check out your competition’s inbound links. This is easiest to do with Yahoo, primarily because Google only displays a random sampling of links to a web page and Bing (MSN) does not provide inbound link information.
If you are wondering who is linking to a competitor whose site performs better than yours on search results pages, it may be due to the number or quality of the links leading to their web site. Go to Yahoo Site Explorer and enter the following on a Yahoo search page. Be sure to substitute the competitor’s domain name.
linkdomain:sparklywidgets.com -site:sparklywidgets.com
This will give you a comprehensive list of the links pointing to the home page that have been discovered by Yahoo’s spider. The first part queries the backlinks in Yahoo’s database and the second part eliminates internal links, which tend to clutter up the results. Study the list and see if you spot local business directories or industry sites that are providing links. Many local business directories offer a free listing and therefore are very likely primary opportunities for links to your site. Studying the list will also give you good idea as to which linking tactics the competitor is using, which can be translated into a new linking tactic for your site.
Posted in WEB DESIGN | Tagged 2009, BLOG | Leave a Comment »
As far as keyword selection tools are concerned, there is one clear leader among the free keyword search tools – Google keyword suggestion tool. There are good paid keyword research tools but why pay when some of the free alternatives are so good? There are other free keyword research tools but they are not that reliable. That is why the recommendation is to use Google’s tool.
Google Wonder Wheel is a very recent addition to the family of keyword research tools but since it is still not as powerful as the tool above, it is possible to try it out of curiosity, but leave the serious research for the veteran tool.
The first thing to do is to open Google’s keyword suggestion tool and type a keyword. For instance, if the purpose is to find less competitive keywords for a site in the dating niche, the first keyword to search for is “dating”.
“Dating” is a very lucrative keyword because it has over 30 million monthly searches, Then go to Google and type “dating” in the search field to see how many search results are listed. For “dating”, the number is impressive – over 250 million. It is utopia to think that it is possible to rank in the top 10 for “dating”.
Next, go back to the keyword suggestion tool and pick up a couple of other keywords with fewer searches – for instance, “dating advice”. At the time of writing of this article, “dating advice” has over 100,000 monthly searches and over 50 million search results. This is still a lot of competition!
That is why, it is necessary to filter the selection further. So, proceed to the next keyword phrase.
For instance, try “dating advice for men” or “dating advice for women”, both of which have under 5,000 searches a month but still their search volume is not under 1,000. The search results for “dating advice for men” or “dating advice for women” (without quotations because this is how users search) are still almost 50 million but a substantial part of them are search results for “dating advice”. The search results for “dating advice for men” or “dating advice for women” (with quotations) are less than 50,000 each, which is much better than 250 million or 50 million.
Of course, nobody says that after a web master has found a couple of lucrative keywords, he or she should stop here. He or she can pick up 10 or more less competitive keywords and it is not necessary for them to be with the same root (i.e. “dating” in the example above). However, in order to be able to come up with meaningful less competitive keywords, a web master must know the subject matter.
For instance, for a dating site, “single”, “lover”, “partner”, “relationship” and other similar words (synonymous or not) with a root, which is different from “dating” are also worth checking. The Google keyword selection tool offers synonyms (if this option is selected), so it makes sense to check them as well. Less popular keywords with a different root could be a golden mine because it might never occur to other web masters to optimize for them.
Once a web master learns how to discover less popular keywords and starts optimizing for them, it is realistic to expect that this will drive more traffic. When a site starts getting more visitors, as a rule this to a higher page rank. The higher the page rank of a site, the better the prospects to rank well for more competitive keywords.
In a sense, if optimizing for less popular keywords doesn’t pay off directly, it pays off indirectly – via increased page rank. This is one more reason to pay attention to less popular keywords and to invest time and effort to optimize for them.
Posted in WEB DESIGN | Tagged 2009, BLOG | Leave a Comment »
AN EAST London resident who was defrauded after making an online purchase may have stumbled onto an international racket after hiring a private detective to help him.
François Eales, a natural medicine practitioner who lives and works in Gonubie, said that last Thursday he bid to buy an Apple iPhone cellphone and a Sony Vaio laptop on a an Internet auction website.
“I’ve made over 300 purchases in the past through the site and have never had a problem before.”
Eales’ bid on the iPhone was not accepted, but his bid for the laptop was successful.
“I contacted the seller and got his details,” said Eales. “He told me he was moving to Australia.”
Eales deposited the money that afternoon into his account and arranged with his parents, who lived nearby, to collect the laptop the following day.
However, they could not get hold of the seller on the cellphone number provided.
Eales said he then turned to the internet again to find a reliable private investigator to help him trace the individual.
“I discovered the account was held in Namibia, in the name of someone else and that it had quite a substantial amount of money in it.”
Eales said police were looking into the matter.
The private detective agency, said that from preliminary investigations he suspected a larger syndicate could be at work.
“It’s possible the bank account in Namibia could be a money-laundering scheme where fraudsters deposit money and give a commission to the account owner,” he said.
Operations manager for the website, said it was unfortunate that people used the site to commit acts of fraud. He said 99 percent of the transactions on the website were legitimate
Conflict International is a Private Investigator firm that provides invetigative services for corporate and private clients. Its global operation covers London, Europe and the rest of the World.
Posted in BUSINESS | Tagged BUSINESS | 1 Comment »
Wimbledon Property Rentals and Sales website, run by Tara Moss…
Wimbledon based entrepreneeur Tara Rez, has been using Twitter and Facebook as a marketing for her successful rental properties and property sales estate agency based in south london.
They are usng the media to post latest details of the latest new and available properties. “The best properties always go in matter of hours or days – and are not normally advertised on the traditional sites”, says Tara. “By providing a South West London Rentals and Sales facebook and twitter service we can provide prospective tennats, buyers and investors with an importnat head start”.
Wimbledon Property Rentals and Sales
Wimbledon Property Rentals
Posted in BUSINESS, PROPERTY | Tagged BUSINESS, RENTALS, SALES, WEB MARKETING, WIMBLEDON PROPERTY | Leave a Comment »
It is the 21st Century equivalent of word of mouth.
From estate agencies to eco-friendly fashion designers , small business owners across the UK have been thrown an unexpected lifeline in the midst of the recession by social networking sites.
Companies that have jumped on the Twitter and Facebook bandwagon are reporting a surge in customers while others struggle.
With minimal marketing budgets available to many small businesses, social networking sites offer a quick and, more importantly, free means of promoting their wares to a global audience.
In the face of stiff competition and a global economic downturn, it is a route more and more companies are going down.
Wimbledon based entrepreneeur Tara Rez, has been using Twitter and Facebook as a marketing for her successful rental properties and property sales estate agency based in south london.
They are usng the media to post latest details of the latest new and available properties. “The best properties always go in matter of hours or days – and are not normally advertised on the traditional sites”, says Tara. “By providing a South West London Rentals and Sales facebook and twitter service we can provide prospective tennats, buyers and investors with an importnat head start”.
French eco friendly menswear designer Aude Lesur said, “our facebook fan page allowed us to push out our 10% discount codes to our target customer groups – they have been buying in droves.”, she continued… “my only problem now, is working out when to stop the discount code – 5x more people have made use of it than we budgeted for!.”
“Every day we are helping businesses to use Twitter in combination with the hundreds of other web marketing channels in more effective ways ,” says Elliott King, Director at the Web Marketing agency MintTwist Ltd.
“We’ve have lots of small and medium sized businesses, up and down the UK that are drastically increasing their sales leads using our combined web marketing service.”
Wimbledon Property Rentals and Sales
Wimbledon Property Rentals
Posted in BUSINESS, WEB DESIGN | Tagged 2009, BLOG, BUSINESS, WEB DESIGN, WEB MARKETING | Leave a Comment »
Advanced Web Ranking is a search engine ranking software application that helps check the position of a website in search engines rankings. The web ranking systems allows users to pick region specific search engines making managing international sites easier than ever before. To begin users need to enter a list of keywords or phrases they wish to track. Caphyon offers various built in keyword research tools to help users with keyword choices. Entering keywords proved to be an easy task, from there users enter the URLs of the sites that you wish to track. After keywords and the URLs are entered for a specific project all that is left is to run the report. Every time a keyword report is run Caphyon will compare the new page rank with the results from previous page ranks. MintTwist found the “top sites’ and “overview” tabs especially useful due to the fact that they are useful when tracking a large amounts of keywords and for measuring overall success of a project. Reports are easily exported to different formats including HTML, PDF, EXCEL and CSV complete with logos, headers and footers. Users can schedule project updates to run whenever they want as many times as they want. MintTwist is able to manage multiple large international projects with ease using advanced web ranking software. Advanced web ranking system provides accurate ranking even when there is a large amount of keywords in the project. Advanced web ranking system is able to run on multiple platforms which has made it easy for MintTwist to access the ranking system interface when meeting with customers outside of our home office. Another useful tool offered by Caphyon web ranking system was the local search ability. It allows users to make their own search engine in a way to find results in your interface using google maps and Yahoo local search.
When first using Caphyon’s ranking system users must be patient because the possibilities of the software can be overwhelming at times. MintTwist users had to take some time to read the user manual and play around with the software for while in order to gain a full understanding of the possibilities.
The one complaint that we had with the software was it was not entirely easy to figure out how to effectively see how our competition was doing, but after some time spent reading the user’s manual we figured out the process.
The Link manager is also a very useful tool for anyone looking to build link campaigns. Link Manger does exactly what it suggest in that it enables users of all abilities to efficiently and effectively organize their link campaigns to their specific needs. Features of Link Manger include, but are not limited to: Finds links relative to the users site, keeps track of link partners, finds broken links that can negatively affect your page rank, monitor competitors, track your back links, and produce highly customized reports. Link manager automatically eliminates manual searches to reduce the bandwidth burdens of other programs.
Overall Caphyon’s web ranking system has been an essential to MintTwist’s success and we highly recommend Caphyon over all other web ranking systems. The level of competence and possibilities make it a dream to work with.
Posted in WEB DESIGN | Tagged 2009, BLOG, SEO, WEB MARKETING | 4 Comments »
It is necessary to support search engine marketing techniques across different aspects of a website.
This is the according to Kevin Gibbons who, in a post on the Econsultancy blog, observed that using methods such as pay per click marketing once is valuable as the chances of conversions are high, but “you don’t want to pay to attract that customer a second or third time”.
Maintaining brand awareness for consumers can be important and blogs were highlighted as being a good way of doing this, as they can create user habits through “regular, engaging [and] relevant posts” that encourage surfers to save pages in their favourites.
Email marketing was also recommended by Mr Gibbons, although he did add that sending regular messages was “pretty useless” and risked angering the customer.
Aude Lesur of Credau, an Anglo-French firm that create eco-friendly fashion wear for men said “SEO alone, did not help us to effectively portray the benefits of our products to our potential customers. We wanted to reach men with style and an eye for classy clothing with a difference. By engaging with our audience through Blogs and Social Networks we have been able to reach more of our target customers groups.”
Elliott King of MintTwist, the web marketing agency recently likened search engine optimisation to politics, saying that it drives debate because many people do not know what it is, have had negative experiences or believe it to be overly complicated.
Posted in WEB DESIGN | Tagged 2009, BLOG, WEB MARKETING | 2 Comments »
MintTwist is proud to announce the launch of the redesigned goalgroup.com website.
The company provides specialist legal services relating to class actions and security class actions that can protect clients against investment losses incurred through management failure that result in class action lawsuits.
Posted in WEB DESIGN | Tagged class action lawsuits, class actions, security class actions | Leave a Comment »
by Kabir Bedi
The world wide web is constantly changing and to make sure your business keeps pace, it is important to be up to date with the latest trends and technologies. And this is why companies decide to redesign their website. Of course, there are other reasons too like re-branding the business, updating the website to reflect the present status of the company in the market, deleting old pages and uploading new information, better marketing fluff and so on.
However, search engine considerations are the most forgotten part in the website redesigning process. Website owners are so involved with creating a new look and feel for the website that they often fail to evaluate the SEO implications of their actions. They realize it only when the website is done and ready and there are fluctuations in the rankings of the website. But that is only when precious revenue is lost in terms of traffic, leads and sales.
Here are 4 SEO tips that you should adhere to while redesigning your website.
Strengthen the Information Architecture
Usability should be the key concern while designing the information architecture of the website. However, you should also consider including some SEO objectives for the usability process. Search engine optimization should not come after the website has been launched. Rather, it should be a key consideration throughout the design and development of the project.
Draft a set of relevant keywords that encompasses the essence of your company and business. Then make sure your website has pages that are devoted to those keywords so that search engine have relevant content when their crawlers come to index your website.
Make sure you add new pages to your website, especially if you are deleting certain pages. This is because you don’t want the search engines to think that your website is shrinking. Rather you should tell them that its growing. The deleted pages would obviously take with them their search engine credibility so you would need something to compensate the loss.
Don’t Change the URLs
When you change the URLs of your web pages, the new URLs would be treated as completely new pages by the search engines. All the search engine credibility of the previous pages would be lost along with the URLs.
Therefore, focus on creating search engine friendly web pages with search engine friendly URLs and light code with WordPress and other such CMS platforms. Make sure all the pages of your website are able to rank well in the search results and not just your homepage.
Update the Website Content
Search engine crawlers are always on the look out for new and fresh content. And there is no better opportunity than the redesigning process to upload new content on your website. Unlike blogs, it is not possible to change the contents of the website, especially on the homepage etc. on regular basis. So, make sure you upload useful and updated content on such pages. Ideally, focus on constructing more content on the homepage of the website followed by lesser supporting content on the internal pages.
Launch the website Carefully
don’t forget to run down the last minute check list before launching the new redesigned website. The search engine ranking of your website depends on a variety of factors including the website structure, the design and layout and the content. It is not just about the number of links pointing to your website that decides the ranking but how popular the website actually is among the users.
MintTwist Web Design understands the importance of SEO in web marketing, MintTwist work with clients to significantly increase the number of targeted sales leads achieved by clients.
Posted in WEB DESIGN | Tagged 2009, BLOG, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, WEB MARKETING | 2 Comments »
Microsoft’s launch party videos have proven to be entertaining to viewers even if not for the reasons for the marketing department had hoped for. There were a great many comments on my post that provided context to their release, but generally speaking most industry-watchers have been confused as to the goals behind the program, questioning the target audience not just for the videos, but for the launch parties as well.
I reached out to Microsoft for comment but they withheld at this time as the videos are apparently just one step in a much larger integrated marketing campaign.
I personally found the most recent video weird, but after thinking through things a bit I think this is a case of a good idea hampered by poor execution. The videos are well-done and professional and try to connect with consumers in a humanistic tone. The fact that it feels like you stumbled into a shiny-happy Windows world filled with sit-com throwaways is the problem. Even if this is a training video to show others how to throw a launch party, it’s hard to connect with the vapid characterizations of party guests.
This is the crux of Microsoft’s marketing problems. It’s not that they aren’t good at technical marketing issues, it’s that the brand itself is so voluminous, it’s very hard for people to connect to specific products like Windows. And the efforts to persuade consumers isolate the tech media and confuse IT shops.
One of the biggest issues Windows Vista faced was consumer confusion as to why they should buy an upgrade at all. Microsoft did a very poor job of communicating why anyone should care and added such a complicated set of offerings that people simply couldn’t figure out what to buy. (Note that Windows 7 also has a very complicated pricing scheme.)
Right now, the Windows brand doesn’t have a huge amount of momentum behind it, even if Microsoft itself and Bing do. Getting momentum behind Windows 7, regardless of the methodology should be Microsoft’s main goal right now. And the company is pulling out all the stops, from commercials to launch parties to getting the OS out into the channel sooner than retail, it is trying to gain back the lost mind-share.
The challenge is that companies like Apple, with a significantly smaller share of the operating system market, have developed such sophisticated and stylized marketing, that Microsoft has a very hard time competing with the overall effect. So, Microsoft has instead gone after the mythical “every-man” (or every-man, woman and racial/gender/ethnically diverse party in the world), which falls way short for we Valley media types that will mock anything and everything.
But the target customer for Windows 7 may actually like the experience of a launch party simply because it humanizes the operating system and allows them to ask silly questions like how to burn a CD. These were not made for sophisticated tech buyers and that may not be a bad thing.
The point is that PC manufacturers need people to buy more computers and really only Microsoft can make that happen until vendors (and consumers) embrace Linux or switch to Macs.
Do not make the same marketing mistakes as Microsoft, Minttwist provides all our clients with effective and targeted web marketing campaigns to propel your business to the next level.
Posted in WEB DESIGN | Tagged 2009, WEB MARKETING | 1 Comment »
The trouble starts when you, being so close to your own project, see your website as much more than it actually is. And I’m not only talking about finding a niche and all that fun stuff, but you have to take yourself and your project with a pinch of salt because that is exactly how the rest of the world will be taking it, too.
If salt is not your thing then you may just have to substitute it with a dash of failure because, perhaps unfortunately, the Internet is very salty indeed.
Being close to your project is not a bad thing – indeed you can be the driving force behind it and thrust it upon the bleary-eyed and unyielding world. But the measure of success comes from afar. You simply cannot march head-first into a new web venture with guns blazing and developers flanking your left and investors flanking your right; for a start, success comes, ninety-nine per cent of the time, over a long period of that thing we call time, after many sleepless nights.
However, a project often falls into disarray when certain procedures aren’t adhered to. I’m going to list five things here that I think are of such great importance that it could form part of a check-list by which to measure the success of many an online venture. I list them in no particular order and the list is by no means complete.
I’ve tried not to be too negative in my five points up there. I think that the Internet would be such a cleaner and more successful place if people just stop falling over each other trying to find the next big thing and just relax, sit back and take things one step at a time! And if things don’t go according to plan, pick up the pieces and keep going with your head stuck firmly on your rigid shoulders.
My boss told me something today that resonates well with this article. He said, “don’t worry if there’s something that really can’t be done, or that goes wrong; there’s always a work-around”.
Indeed. 
Posted in WEB DESIGN | Tagged 2009, BLOG | Leave a Comment »
Are you concerned that competitors can steal your website?
What are the pitfalls for an offender, what are the legal comebacks and can you turn the situation to your favour?
Maybe, take the real world example below…
A case of website and web copyright theft
MintTwist and N.I.D-lab both create websites. N.I.D-lab stole MintTwist’s website with a cut-and-paste job.
The Original MintTwist Website
Stolen MintTwist Website with MintTwist clients still listed
This provides MintTwist with an opportunity to demonstrate an important selling point
Indulge us…
Ok, Clients of MintTwist, the multi-national web design and web marketing company are a smart bunch. They know that for a business website to be successful at winning more new sales leads it must get the right messages across to the right audience groups in a fast and effective manner. In a nutshell this is the secret of website success and the true value of a web design service.
It follows then, that one design does not fit all…
For example, target customers of MintTwist are medium sized businesses that target customers in the UK, Europe, USA and across the Middle East. MintTwist returns value to its clients by helping them to increase their revenue by significantly growing the number of sales leads they achieve from their web strategy through improved web design and web marketing services. The design that MintTwist created for their website gets this message across.
Conversely, N.I.D-lab, is a cheap web design company that offers cheap website services to anyone. The design that they have chosen for their website is a cut-and-paste copy of the MintTwist site. This was an error of judgement for several reasons ….
Pitfalls for the offender and their clients
As well as risking a lawsuit for themselves and any of their clients, who will be liable if they have performed the same ’service’ for them, they have also failed at the first fundamental step of web design. The MintTwist website design is aimed at well-informed professionals with a vision of how to extract a significant return from their website purchase. These are not the kind of customers who will buy from N.I.D-lab and therefore should not be N.I.D-labs targets.
The next time N.I.D-lab decide to ‘re-design’ their site, to make it more effective they would be well advised to focus and optimise for their own (somewhat unique) selling point and target customer group – “cheap copies for people who like getting sued”.
What to do if your website is stolen?
If you are a website owner who have had your website stolen you should consider legal action. Google can also help to prevent damage by black-listing offenders using the power of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The Google page dealing with offenders of website theft will provide more information on this.
More Opportunities
After a successful launch into the Abu Dhabi Web Design and Dubai Web Design Markets MintTwist is seeking to further diversify its markets in order to increase the level of service it can provide to its clients. For more information on attractive partnership opportunities with MintTwist, contact Elliott King. N.I.D-lab management need not apply.
Posted in BUSINESS, WEB DESIGN | Tagged 2009, BLOG, BUSINESS, WEB DESIGN, WEB MARKETING | Leave a Comment »
MintTwist is proud to announce the launch of paukrodgersjournalist.co.uk. The new website is for UK-based journalist Paul Rodgers, who writes regularly for the Independent, The Observer and the Economist, amongst others.
Mr. Rodgers required an online portfolio of his writing and MintTwist delivered a slick, modern website, powered by WordPress. The style is clean and current, with a nod to the print press in its use of typefaces and structure.
Posted in WEB DESIGN | Tagged 2009, NEWS | Leave a Comment »
… Maybe. Although this time it will be more complex.
IE and FireFox are the dominant incumbents and Google’s Chrome is the rising super-power. However, dig a little deeper and you’ll see there are more potential players in the battle for world domination.
Are we heading for a second wave of browser wars?
“The issue that lies ahead is whether browsers will remain a relatively simple window on to the internet or become intelligent agents that shape online experiences. If they go down the latter route this would have potentially disruptive effects for others who do business on the internet”, said Elliott King of MintTwist web design.
For the internet’s booming social networking industry in particular, the prospect that some of the capabilities associated with social networking will be embedded into browsers, making them more aware of users’ interests and social relationships, could force difficult strategic decisions.
Google’s main contribution to the browser skirmishes we’ve seen thus far has been an obsession with speed. With a new, faster engine for executing Javascript – the code that makes it possible for a browser to imitate applications that run on a PC – Google galvanised the rest of the industry and forced rivals to focus harder on their own core technology.
Google’s goal, as it takes on Microsoft, is clear – to accelerate the advances in the internet platform in ways that eventually make it unnecessary to run “native” software applications that rely on a PC’s underlying operating system. That, ultimately, should benefit the web-based services on which its success depends.
Others, however, see deeper potential in the browser and are out to push its capabilities further. As a piece of software that all users have to use – it clearly has a strong strategic position.
For instance, Mozilla, the maker of the Firefox browser, says it is looking into arming its browser with a number of extra munitions – such as ‘knowing who you are and handling authentication on the websites you visit, keeping a record of your social network so that you can interact with friends; and, making it easier for you to share content with your network.
Given that these are all territories that social networks like Facebook currently view as their own, that could create new fronts opening up between browser makers and the internet services that rely on them.
If it makes life easier for internet users, bringing more capabilities into the browser will be hard to resist and populations of internet users may start to migrate away from using artificial silos [like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn].
This has attracted a flurry of interest and investment in browsers from the social networking big guns. The potential for “social browsers” is a currently a hot topic in Silicon Valley.
The internet industry has long nurtuerd a feeling of mutual growth and co-operation; but there’s a growing evidence that the time may be coming for players to choose sides, ready themselves and prepare for war!
MintTwist help medium sized product and service based businesses to increase revenue and sales leads by defeating their enemies on the battlefields of the internet with better web design and web marketing services. Contact Elliott King for more information.
Posted in BUSINESS, WEB DESIGN | Tagged 2009, BLOG, BUSINESS | 4 Comments »
London is becoming the Twitter capital of the world, in terms of number of users and number of businesses developing add-on tools for the communications network.
While Twitter is the toast of its native Silicon Valley in California, London boasts more users than any other city in the world.
Even though Twitter itself is yet to generate any revenue, early-stage investors are pouring millions of pounds into small companies in the Twitter “ecosystem” in the London area.
London web designers have produced many of the most popular of the many third-party tools used to post to Twitter, called Tweetdeck. Reading’s Tweetmeme, which tracks the most popular news stories discussed on Twitter, is attracting millions of visitors a month while Twitterfeed, based in Tooting, is used by thousands of publishers to post their latest headlines on to the site.
Twitter was launched in 2006 but really took off in the UK at the beginning of this year, thanks to support from celebrities such as Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross. But many see Twitter’s potential as far greater than documenting the lunching habits of the stars.
“Twitter has huge potential as a marketing and communications platform”, says Elliott King, Director at MintTwist Ltd.
As Twitter has broken out of the early-adopter niche, it has attracted more mainstream users and uses… Jobseekers are using Twitter to find new employment. Many businesses push marketing messages and even run customer support services through their Twitter profiles. Millions of users flock to the site for the biggest news stories of the hour, as defined by the Twitter community rather than newspaper editors.
MintTwist help medium sized product and service based businesses to increase revenue and sales leads with the smart application of web design and web marketing services. Contact Elliott King for more information.
Posted in BUSINESS, WEB DESIGN | Tagged 2009, BLOG, BUSINESS, WEB MARKETING | Leave a Comment »
If you are going to have a bad website, you are probably better off having no website at all. It’s true. While a bad website at least gets your name in the search engines, it can also ruin your credibility. A hard to use website, for example, may push your potential customers over to the competition, while an amateurish website can convince potential customers that your business is simply not a serious one.
So how can you avoid these marketing gaffes online? Quite simply, by:
1) Making sure that you get your website when you are ready. You should only invest in a company website when you are ready to spend time and money on the project. Only develop a website when you are ready to hire professionals to design it for you and you are ready to promote and update your website regularly.
2) By entrusting your website to professionals. You may know someone who understands basic HTML or WYSIWYG programs, but you need professionals with a discerning eye to develop your professional website for you. You need a professional team – like the one at Ciplex – to get professional results. While amateur results may be OK for a personal webpage, any minor glitches or design errors on a company website make you look less credible. Unfortunately, with so many scams online today, customers may see any lack of credibility on your part as a red flag sign. Don’t give customers an excuse to not do business with you. If you cannot afford professionals, wait until you can or work out a financing plan.
3) By making your website part of an overall business plan. Your website is not stand-alone. It should work with your overall business plan, marketing strategy, and branding plan. If you are not sure what you want your website to accomplish, you should determine this before setting a site up. Nothing is worse than the business website with no discernable goal.
4) By ensuring that your website looks its best. Your website should be professional, clean, and attractive. It should err on the side of simplicity and work well with no delays or glitches. It should work well on different computers and with different browsers, so that all your potential customers can read your marketing message. Check and re-check your website to ensure that it looks as good as it possibly can.
MintTwist help medium sized product and service based businesses to increase revenue and sales leads by defeating their enemies on the battlefields of the internet with better web design and web marketing services. Contact Elliott King for more information.
Posted in WEB DESIGN | Tagged 2009, BLOG, WEB DEVELOPMENT, WEB MARKETING, Website Design | Leave a Comment »
Internet users can take just one-twentieth of a second to decide whether they like the look of a website, researchers say.
Dr Gitte Lindgaard and colleagues from Carleton University in Ottawa flashed up websites for 50 milliseconds and asked participants to rate them for visual appeal.
When they repeated the exercise after a longer viewing period, the participants’ ratings were consistent.
“Visual appeal can be assessed within 50 milliseconds, suggesting that web designers have about 50 milliseconds to make a good impression,” the Canadians report in the journal Behaviour & Information Technology.
Associate Professor of psychology Bill von Hippel, from the University of New South Wales, says it takes about 50 milliseconds to read one word, making this a “stunningly remarkable” timeframe in which to process the complex stimuli on a website.
“It’s quite remarkable that people do it that fast and that it holds up in their later judgement,” he said.
“This may be because we have an affective or emotional system that [works] independently of our cognitive system.”
He says that in evolutionary terms, this ability helped us respond rapidly to dangerous situations.
Halo effect
Professor von Hippel says the study also reflects the so-called halo effect, where an initial bias towards something drives subsequent judgements.
“This suggests that we make very quick judgements based on some sort of emotional reaction and our more considered judgements still reflect that first impression,” he said.
Australian researcher Sue Burgess, who evaluates website useability and is a senior lecturer in information management at the University of Technology Sydney, says the finding comes as bad news to anyone hoping to convey information.
“There’s no doubt that people do respond very quickly to websites and decide very quickly whether to stay on them,” she said.
She says the appeal of a website is usually tied to colour, movement and interactivity, with the way the information is structured coming second.
Ms Burgess says it is unclear whether the Internet is changing our ability to concentrate for long periods or if we are adapting to the medium.
“There’s so much information and … there’s always going to be a lot of clicking around just to see what’s there,” she said.
MintTwist help medium sized product and service based businesses to increase revenue and sales leads with the smart application of web design and web marketing services. Contact Elliott King for more information.
Posted in WEB DESIGN | Tagged 2009, BLOG, Small Business, Website Design | Leave a Comment »
Has the recession changed the way you approach business?
Many of the business people in my network have answered an emphatic YES to this question…
Jurga Zilinskiene who runs established language translation services company Today Translations said, “During the recession we realised the value of our local suppliers. Trust and pulling together has been the key to the success that we’ve enjoyed through these lean times. By working in close proximity with our partners we have been able to focus on delivering a high quality service and a fast turnaround for our clients which has really made a difference to our bottom line.”
Jurga Zilinskiene who runs established language translation services company Today Translations.
Doing business with people trust and meeting people face-to-face are coming back into fashion. The perception amongst my ad-hoc sample appeared to be that by working with people (suppliers) that you’ve met and with whom you have developed some level of trust – and by trust I mean an intuitive feel for the person, as well as an understanding of the services their business can offer – you will achieve a greater level of customer service and ultimately an increased ROI.
Aude Lesur of Credau an Eco Menswear label specialising in eco clothing for men all made in Britain said “From conception to packaging, Credau has always believed in using local industry. All of our clothes are made in Britain, East London. Our care labels are woven in Pembrokeshire, and environmentally sustainable. We keep our carbon footprint to the minimum. We do not use plastic and we send out goods using a biodegradable polybag. We started out doing this because we care about the environment and it’s a core business value of Credau – however, we have been amazed at the resilience this policy has given our business during this downturn. We have experienced increased levels of service from our suppliers – all of them know the value of raising quality and because we are in it together they are also personally motivated to deliver even more value.”
Another client of ours who is reaping the rewards of the increased value that is being placed on “trust in business” is Mike Lacorte, Director of the Private Investigator agency Conflict International. Mike said, “We are seeing an increasing number of corporate businesses come to us, who want to find out more about potential employees they are thinking of taking on for key positions. They want to know if the person is drinking too much or doing drugs before they take them onto a very lucrative package. For them it’s a smart business decision and everything we do is within the law and entirely confidential.”
My conclusion; meeting with and trusting in your suppliers, partners and employees is crucial if you are to create sustainable business relationships. The benefits are a strong ROI, increased profit and (dare I say it) ‘friends’ who will be amongst the first to provide real help in challenging times.
Posted in BUSINESS, WEB DESIGN | Tagged 2009, BLOG, BUSINESS | Leave a Comment »
The world economy is improving, but that has not translated into increased demand for expensive, elaborate advertising campaigns, according to WPP Group chief Martin Sorrell. However, the industry has the potential to rebound, and when it does, it will focus on digital, Sorrell said.
Sorrell told reporters Wednesday that the ad industry will look very different when it fully recovers from the effects of the recession, with the focus moving away from traditional, The Wall Street Journal reports.
“It’s not going to be in 30-second TV ads; it’s not going to be in newspaper or magazine ads; it’s going to be digital, it’s going to be viral and organic” Sorrell said.
One particular reason the industry won’t rebound as quickly as the economy is that marketers have grown accustomed to paying less for campaigns as agencies have been forced to slash rates in an effort to retain clients. Even Dublin-based WPP, the world’s largest agency by revenue, reported a 48 percent drop in net profit (to $177.3 million) for the first half of the year.
MintTwist help businesses increase sales in the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Worldwide markets. With a Managed Web Marketing service, MintTwist make sure their clients have the right setup before commencing an all-encompassing web marketing stratgey that dramatically increases sales leads, visibility and improves the reputation of our client’s businesss in target markets.
For more information contact Elliott King on +44 20 8349 8213 or elliott@minttwist.com.
Posted in BUSINESS, WEB DESIGN | Tagged 2009, BLOG, BUSINESS, WEB MARKETING | 1 Comment »
Remember all that time and effort you spent coming up with the right name for your business? You wanted the right name because your name is a large part of your brand. You want to create a brand that will conjur positive images about your business and stick in people’s minds; you wanted something that will last, something you could build around, and grow.
Brand building is just the start of bigger things to come. How people perceive your business matters – it can increase sales and reinforce your reputation. Negative perceptions, on the other hand, can do great harm to your business.
These days the extension of your online brand and reputation management is as crucial as it is in the real world.
Whether we like it or not, with the advent of social media people will be talking about us online. And two, the possibilities this word of mouth online presents – are endless.
Online PR is therefore about building and managing your brand and reputation online by creating relationships with the right people and linking up to them. Where possible, engaging in convesrations that are taking place about your business (because they will take place whether you like it or not) can potentially provide huge benefit to your brand, and increase your sales.
So just why is online PR so important?
It’s quite simple really. If you care about your business – then you should care about creating and maintaining a good reputation online. The web has changed the way we live, the way we communicate and the way we do business.
Once driven by the offline world, now we need to go where our customers are and the fact is, most of them are online. However with trust being as important an issue as its ever been, a good reputation plays a big part in closing the deal. And social media gives you the ability to create a seal of approval and build a reputation that can last forever to counteract this issue. A blinkered view of the online world could have the opposite effect.
An even bigger advantage in building that reputation because by getting other reputable people to talk about and link back to you, you increase your visibility. Think of it as networking with your niche.
Getting relevant links back from websites and other internet channels also increases your search engine ranking!
Tradespacer, Antonia Chitty (AC PR) who has used online PR extensively for her business recommends it, “I use online promotion for my business and it gets great results. The wonderful thing is that you can post a call to action with a link that takes people straight to your site: this can lead to much better response rates than in print media. I’m writing this while in the middle of an online campaign to promote www.themumpreneurguide.co.uk and it is really gratifying to see how many people are responding by visiting the site within minutes of receiving an email, and going on to make a purchase too.”
Spelling out some of the benefits of online PR. Here’s what’s in it for you ….
• You become aware of what’s being said about you and by whom.
• Millions of consumers are turning to the web first for news – if you have news, it should be online as well as offline.
• When news sites and bloggers talk about or reference you, it not only increases credibility, it gives you a link back to your website which helps your search engine optimisation and ultimately your ranking.
• By being part of the conversations taking place online, you lead the conversation rather than being the butt of it.
• By building relationships with online bloggers and influencers, you are helping build your own reputation.
• A reputation built online has a longer lifespan. An offline press release for example, has a limit to its lifespan it only lasts as long as that issue of the newspaper lasts (if you get featured). This is not so online, once you get a link from a valuable source, it’s there till someone manually takes it down.
I’m convinced! How do I build my reputation and traffic? Online PR takes a bit of skill to get it right, so here are a few things to consider when drawing up an action plan.
• Do an audit of how you are currently perceived. Google yourself, and take note of what Google suggests people are searching for with your brand.
• Research your audience online and how you can reach them. Spend some time researching where your online audience hangs out – forums, blogs they read, communities they participate in.
• Find out who the stakeholders/influencers are within your space.// Identify who sets and challenges the trends within the scope of your own business and then prepare to build relationships with those people. Tip: bloggers and influencers need to be approached on a one to one level – not with a press release.
• Setting yourself up as an expert is key – so brush up and make sure you blog often and that your blog works (so people will want to reference it or link to it)
• The search optimisation bit works when you get a link from a reputable site back to your own – so aim to build these up.
• Learn how to write an effective online press release that you can distribute online to PR websites.
• Add a place for press releases, coverage etc…. have a look at ours for ideas.
• Finally don’t forget to use those all important and relevant keywords when submitting an online press release to get the maximum benefit of tying in your reputation and your search engine ranking!
MintTwist help businesses to improve their reputations and increase sales every day. With a Managed Web Marketing service, MintTwist make sure their clients have all the right things in place before commencing an all-encompassing web marketing stratgey that dramatically increases sales leads, visibility and improves the reputation of our client’s businesss. Contact Elliott King for more information.
Posted in BUSINESS, WEB DESIGN | Tagged 2009, BLOG, BUSINESS, WEB MARKETING | 7 Comments »
Copywriting and SEO are getting closer and closer. Here are some key points to note when writing copy (that is SEO friendly) for a website …
1. Keywords are cool when it comes to writing copy for search
Many websites that guess their keywords and are spreading themselves too thinly (this included us at one stage). So getting your keyword strategy right is crucial . Also, we talk about keywords but phrases or key phrases is more accurate. How many of us have typed in just one word into Google? SEO experts should be able to provide a list of target key phrases based on SEO analaysis.
2. Highlight your keywords on the page
Keywords essentially tell search engines like Google what your website or that page is about. So for your page to increase its search engine ranking, your keywords need to be reflected in your copy as well as within the code (this bit is for the SEO people).
Within the actual copy itself, it is important to ‘highlight’ your keywords in prominent areas of the page, so insert your target keyword naturally into the main heading and body copy. Also, if your paragraph headings and subheadings contain your keywords (or related terms), it all helps summarise what this page is about so work them in!
3. Write good copy that’s keyword rich (note: it’s not the same as spamming)
Imagine you arrive on a website that’s a Fairtrade business and here’s what you see.
“Welcome our website, we’re an ethical & green business. Buy our ethical & green baby wear, plus we also specialise in ethical & green girls tops ….”
Two words: Not nice.
There’s always the temptation to just splatter your keywords or phrases all over your Tradespace or website to get to that all important page one of search results but a word of advice – this is not a good strategy.
Spamming your content will only drive your customers away. In fact, it will turn the search engines away because the focus now is on having authoritative content, well placed keywords and forward planning. In short, your content needs to work for your customers. If it works for your customers and gives them what they are searching for, it will increase your ranking naturally.
4. Build your content up
One of the best ways you can help your search engine ranking is to update your website regularly. The most successful blogs in terms of search are ones that constantly updated with good highly relevant content.
Updating regularly not only gives your customers and the search engines something to come back for it presents more opportunities to use your keywords and set yourself up as an authority in what you do!
5. Links work when writing copy for search
It’s no secret that getting links from authority sources and linking out to them is a great way to increase your rank. But equally important is how these links are named and how you’re naming/using other links on your page.
If you’re still using the old ‘click here’ to describe your links, ditch it now. One good reason to do so is the fact that that link makes no sense to a screen reader or a search engine. To give search engines a flavour of your content, insert links that are contextual, and reflect your keywords and try to get your network that links back to you to do the same.
Contextual linking is one way of improving your search engine ranking but to increase your links, you’ve got to consider every element of your page as an opportunity. So using keyword or key phrase rich titles and descriptions when linking your video files, your images and yes, even your navigation can all give your search ranking a boost!
MintTwist help businesses to improve their reputations and increase sales every day. With a Managed Web Marketing service, MintTwist make sure their clients have all the right things in place before commencing an all-encompassing web marketing stratgey that dramatically increases sales leads, visibility and improves the reputation of our client’s businesss. Contact Elliott King for more information.
Posted in BUSINESS, WEB DESIGN | Tagged 2009, BLOG, BUSINESS, WEB MARKETING | Leave a Comment »
This article was first posted a few months ago. Since then, amongst others, we’ve had one or two politicians start to follow our tweets. Whilst they might not be allowed to talk about their tweeting motives in public, we thought they may find this an interesting (and educational) read …
What kind of Twit are you?
1. The link pirate
Spend the majority of your tweets dropping links to other people’s stuff. Combine this with a retweet, and you are off to a good start. i.e. Retweet someone else’s link. Continually. This results in exposure to the original tweeter (who will thank you for exposing them) – and has the additional bonus of exposing you to the owner of the link. Best of all – you’ve spent absolutely shit all time composing the content, and your followers give you a great big slap on the back for “finding” such a great link. Go you.
Commonly found browsing Digg / Delicious / Reddit home pages for juicy tit bits, in the hope that someone cares that they found it.
2. The retweeter
Spend the majority of your tweets, retweeting other people’s opinion. This can indicate that you a). Share the opinion or b). You want to get on their radar (because they are big blogger in niche X, Y or Z), or c) you retweet them in the hope that one day they retweet you. The cynic in me says that 80-90% of retweets are just that. Just take a look at Retweetist – you can easily see who the top dogs getting retweeted are. But are they top dogs because they have an audience already? Some are. Mashable for example. Other’s are just Internet Marketers with potentially huge reach – who are being coat tailed. In fact such is the power of the RT that Twitter has a spam cloud to deal with automated RT’s. Plenty of Twitter users want completely rid of RT’s and are creating filters to lose them. Combine the Retweeter with the link pirate and you find another monster. The retweet thief.
Commonly found browsing your most recent tweets, will have a high following count
3. The discoverer
These are the people whom I value most. Along with conversationalist, they are the people that REALLY find stuff. Not just the fluff that floats to the top of the delicious list, or does the rounds virally. The people who actively browse and read blogs, and discover the great content before the rest of the community turns it viral. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been on the receiving end of viral traffic before. It’s a warm feeling inside to know you are loved. But somehow, it loses it’s charm. It’s no longer a shiny needle in a haystack. Once it gets passed around the gem loses a bit of its lustre.
Commonly found reading blogs, keeps themselves to themselves until the treasure is found. Selfish – Sometimes doesn’t even share, and keeps the treasure for themselves.
4. The conversationalist
Uses twitter as an extension of MSN / Skype, often has to use twitter minimising tools or multiple tweets to get their point across. Doesn’t quite understand why it’s limited to just 140 characters. Conversationalists can be argumentative / keen debaters. Sometimes uses links to substantiate claims / points of view. They are most likely to be owners of low traffic, personal sites, or not have website’s at all. If they tweet a link, it more often than not will be to help someone, or as a reference – normally not out for personal gain.
Commonly found on Facebook, Bebo, Friends Reunited, MSN messenger or Skype. Sometimes all at once.
5. The twitter expert
Give me a break. Go read the UN-guide to Twitter. There’s more Zen tips in there than you can shake a stick at. And no we don’t need a freakin’ book to mould us into champion tweeters.
Commonly found giving advice, or trying to make a quick buck from an E-book.
6. The Narcissistic
The ego has landed. Oh yes. This piss artist commonly ignores tweets from the retweeter or the link pirate, mostly ignores the conversationalist – mainly because there is some gains to be had from the first two. Generally one way conversation, (with bottom feeders) – either listen or go away. If they tweet a URL, it will 9 times out of 10 be their own, and they may also have a web application which adds noise (from their own site) to their stream. Only interested in driving traffic, and promoting themselves.
Commonly found hob knobbing with social media experts or other narcissistics. May also be busy reading a “how to tweet” Ebook on Twitter.
7. The scam artist
What’s the best way to gain money from Twitter? That’s right, setup a pyramid scheme that puts you at the top of the most followed list, and then use that to spam other people’s twitter streams with ways of making money. If you are going to get sucked in by this crap, at least acknowledge that it won’t be long before the currency of followers gets cashed in. And you become the sucker getting sold, or spammed.
Commonly found concoting a brilliant internet marketing scam somewhere.
8. The webbot
Half man half machine – Like the Terminator and similar to Fembots in Austin powers, this user will lure you in with their charm, and then proceed to integrate regular tweets with one’s coming from an automated service running on their website. They have one goal, to drive traffic to their site. Problem is though – you can only communicate with one half.
Commonly found double checking their Google Analytics.
Posted in WEB DESIGN | Tagged BLOG, WEB MARKETING | 1 Comment »
Links to your site from other sites drive additional traffic. But since Google and other major search engines consider the number of incoming links to your website (“link popularity”) as an important indicator of relevance, more links will help you rank higher in the search engines. Google has a measure called PageRank that reflects the quantity and quality of incoming links. All links aren’t all equal. Links from trusted, popular sites help your site rank higher than links from lower traffic sites.
Submit Your Site to Key Directories, since a link from a directory will help your ranking — and get you traffic. A directory is not a search engine. Rather, it is a hierarchical listing of sites sorted according to category and subcategory. Be sure to list your site in the free Open Directory Project, overseen by overworked volunteer editors. But if you don’t get listed right away, don’t be impatient and resubmit, or you’ll go to the end of the queue. A link in this directory will help you a lot.
Yahoo! Directory is another important directory. Real humans read submission, so be careful to follow the instruction given. Hint: Use somewhat less than the maximum number of characters allowable, so you don’t have wordy text that will tempt the Yahoo! editor to begin chopping. Yahoo! Directory Submit requires a $299 annual recurring fee to have your site considered for inclusion within seven business days. Other paid business directories that might help are About.com and Business.com.
Submit Your Site to Trade Organization Sites and Specialized Directories. Some directories focused on particular industries, such as education or finance. You probably belong to various trade associations that feature member directories. Ask for a link. Even if you have to pay something for a link from the organization, it may help boost your PageRank.
Marginal directories, however, come and go very quickly, making it hard to keep up, so don’t try to be exhaustive here. Beware of directories that solicit you for “upgraded listings.” Unless a directory is widely used in your field, a premium ad is a waste of money — but the (free) link itself will help boost your PageRank and hence your search engine ranking.
SubmitWolf is a directory submission tool I’ve used with good success . You complete a listing form in the software interface. Then they submit your listing to all the appropriate directories they know of, plus links to sites that require manual submission. It’s a timesaver and works well. Just be careful to submit only to actual directories, not “linking sites.”
Request Reciprocal Links. Find websites in your general niche and request a reciprocal link to your site. Develop an out-of-the way page where you put links to other sites — so you don’t send people out the back door as fast as you bring them in the front door. Your best results will be from sites that generate a similar amount of traffic as your own site. High-traffic site webmasters are too busy to answer your requests for a link and don’t have anything to gain. Look for smaller sites that may have linking pages.
Check out Ken Evoy’s free SiteSell Value Exchange. It (1) registers your site as willing to exchange links with other sites that have a similar theme/topic content and (2) searches for sites with similar topical content. Additionally, two automated link building software programs stand out — Zeus and IBP Link Builder. Both of these search the web for complementary sites, help you maintain a link directory, and manage reciprocal links. However, use these programs to identify the complementary sites, not to send impersonal automated e-mail spam to site owners.
When you locate sites, send a personal e-mail using the contact e-mail on the site or to the administrative contact listed in a Whois Directory. If e-mail doesn’t get a response, try a phone call. Warning: Only link to complementary sites, no matter how often you are bombarded with requests to exchange links with a mortgage site that has nothing to do with your teddy bear store. One way Google determines what your site is about is who you link to and who links to you. It’s not just links, but quality links you seek. Reciprocal linking as hard, tedious work, but it doesn’t cost you a dime out of pocket! Keep working at this continuously, a little bit at a time. Patience and persistence will get you some good links, so keep at it.
Write Articles for Others to Use in Websites and Newsletters. You can dramatically increase your visibility when you write articles in your area of expertise and distribute them to editors as free content for their e-mail newsletters or their websites. Just ask that a link to your website and a one-line description of what you offer be included with the article. This is an effective “viral” approach that can produce hundreds of links to your site over time. You’ll find lots of information on how to do this from the most popular article marketing site, EzineArticles.com. When you create a free membership account, they begin sending you instructions and ideas each week.
Issue News Releases. Find newsworthy events and send news releases to print and Web periodicals in your industry. The links to your site in online news databases may remain for several months and will temporarily improve traffic to your site and increase link popularity. Use a online news release service such as PR Web. Placing your website URL in online copies of your press release may increase link popularity temporarily.
MintTwist help businesses to increase revenues and increase sales leads every day. With a Managed Web Marketing service, MintTwist make sure their clients have all the right things in place before commencing an all-encompassing web marketing stratgey that dramatically increases sales leads, visibility and improves the reputation of our client’s businesss. Contact Elliott King for more
Posted in WEB DESIGN | Tagged 2009, BLOG, LINK BUILDING, SEO, STRATEGY | 4 Comments »
Just because “old media” strategies aren’t on the Internet doesn’t mean they aren’t effective. A mixed media approach can be very effective.
Include Your URL on Stationery, Cards, and Literature. Make sure that all business cards, stationery, brochures, and literature contain your company’s URL and see that your printer gets the URL syntax correct! In print, I recommend leaving off the http:// part and including only the www.yourwebsite.com portion.
Promote using traditional media. Don’t discontinue print advertising that you’ve found effective but always be sure to include your URL in any display or classified ads you purchase in trade journals, newspapers, yellow pages etc. Use a two-step approach: (1) capture readers’ attention with the ad, (2) then refer them to a URL where they can obtain more information and perhaps place an order. Look carefully at small display or classified ads in the back of narrowly-targeted magazines or trade periodicals. Sometimes these ads are more targeted, more effective, and less expensive than online advertising. Consider other traditional media to drive people to your site, such as direct mail, classifieds, post cards, etc. TV can be used to promote websites, especially in a local market.
Develop a Free Service. It’s boring to invite people, “Come to our site and learn about our business.” It’s quite another to say “Use the free kitchen remodeling calculator available exclusively on our site.” Make no mistake, it’s expensive in time and energy to develop free resources but it is very rewarding in increased traffic to your site — and a motivation to link to the site! Make sure that your free service is closely related to what you are selling so the visitors you attract will be good prospects for your business. Give visitors multiple opportunities and links to cross over to the sales portion of your site.
Posted in WEB DESIGN | Tagged 2009, ADWORDS, BLOG, BUSINESS, Clients, RESEARCH, SEO, WEB DEVELOPMENT, WEB MARKETING | Leave a Comment »
ALS have contracted MintTwist to help boost their natural SEO rankings for keywords which they are make currently spending large amounts of money on in AdWords. ALS produce industrial labelling machines and systems for applying self-adhesive labels, security elements, tags and RFID inlets, to just about anything!
Posted in WEB DESIGN | Tagged 2009, NEWS, SEO | Leave a Comment »
