Latest Web Site Related News and Developments...

Earlier this year we blogged about how Google was shutting down 10 of its services, now Google is in the midst of it's spring clean and has added yet another 12 additional web services to that list of 10 closures earlier in the year. Some of these you may know already, while other Google services may be totally new.

The full list of new Google service closures includes: Google Bookmarks Lists, Google Friend Connect, Google Gears, Google Search Timeline, Google Wave, Google Knol, Google's Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal initiative, Code Search, Jaiku, iGoogle's social features, University Research Program for Google Search and the Google labs website.

Have you ever seen a map with in a web page and thought I would really like a map of my company or events location on my website?

Well in this article we will explain more about your options about how to get, or embed, a map of your company or companies to show in your web pages and the benefits they can bring to your website along with which mapping services are avaliable to you to accomplish this.

Twitter is a social media website where you can leave a short status, or Tweet which is 140 characters long. Other twitters can then follow you and read yout tweets, and you can follow other people and read theirs.

Twitter is great for business to stay in contact with their customers, as you can send a small message about your lastest product, special promotion, where you will be, or what events you will be attending.

Facebook is a social media website where people can follow you, you can post messages add pictures and promote your business and your self to your freinds and customers. It allows your business to constantly interact with your customers keeping them loyal to your company and allowing them to see where you are, what you are up to, your latest features, products, news and offers.

Over the next few months Google will be shutting down the following 10 services and the developers on these projects will be moved to other Google products. Some of these may be familiar others may not be. The Google services that are shutting down are: Google Aardvark, Google Desktop, Google Fast Flip, Google Maps API for Flash, Google Pack, Google Web Security, Google Image Labeler, Google Notebook, Google Sidewiki and Google Subscribed Links.

Is your website making the most of the Christmas season? This is your once a year opportunity to capitalise on the free flowing Christmas spirit.

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Do you have a website? If so is it 1st, 2nd 3rd generation or what?

This is an appeal against website neglect.  All to often I hear businesses express - "Our company website doesn't work for me!"  - It's important that we put a stop to this to ensure that every website is a successful website.

The details below followed on from a conversation I had with an existing client, I felt that the details would be of interest to a wider audience, so please read on......

As discussed, you have a number of options for moving your website forward and the ones we discussed were as follows;

The search engine prominence of your website, is an important area and it’s vital you get it checked – improvement of a websites’ search engine prominence is not easy, cheap or a quick task I’m afraid, but it is an area in which we spend a lot of time. You have two options; 1-Google paid listings (SEM) and 2-natural search listings (SEO). The first option is instantaneous but you must pay EVERYTIME someone clicks on your advert, the second option takes a minimum of 3 months, but then you don’t pay no matter how many people click on your website. Paid ads can work particularly well if you have a niche market, if not set your budget at a reasonable level, at least £100/mth and regardless of how much you plan to spend it is essential that someone monitors the campaign at least once a week.

An old scam is rearing its ugly head again, Protect Your Brand, another company is looking to trademark your company name, don’t dismiss this one as “it’ll never happen to me”, as it can come across as very legitimate and quite scary.

I have seen it in a number of different forms, as an email, a letter or a phone call, the latter is particularly underhanded, the caller, let’s call him Fred, gives a story that they have been contacted by an individual who wishes to buy virtually all the domain names that you don’t own, but which have your domain name in them, e.g. Specnet.com, Specnet.net, Specnet.me, Specnet.co etc, but Fred really doesn’t want to sell to this other guy as he was very rude, and when Fred asked him what he planned to do with these domain names he told him to “mind his own business”!

The .co domain names have now moved into general release phase so you may be able to get yours at a lower price, but what should you buy, why and what will you do with it? There are a host of domain name extensions available; .co.uk, .com, .net, .uk.com, .me etc., my advice is to source your domain names in this order.

• Buy the .co.uk or .com, these are the most popular so should always be your first choice.
• Avoid hyphens "-" if at all possible, just because a lot of people aren’t even sure which ones are hyphens.
• Keep your domain name short, don't forget you'll have to give out your email address and a long domain name means a REALLY long email address!
• Write a list of preferred domain names and order the list, then you can look to source them in that order
• Purchase a keyword rich domain name e.g. "mensclothes.co.uk" or "ladiesshoesonline.com"

The internet is HUGE and ecommerce is a PHENOMENON that just won’t stop growing!

Have you ever considered?

• What your target market uses the internet for?
• What your target market looks for in a website?

Today’s consumer is savvy and has the ability to use the internet for many things such as;

• Price comparison, finding the product or service they want at the best price from their armchair.
• Problem solving, finding a solution to an existing problem in the comfort of their own home.
• Buying online, getting their retail therapy without any of the exhausting leg work.

If you’re not high on Google – you’re nowhere.

Businesses who want to make the most of their website need to be looking at search engine optimisation relentlessly to ensure the information stored by Google is relevant to what their customers are looking for. Business website owners need to get savvy about their website, their customers and Google.  To ensure good ranking with Google, it important that all 3 marry up. By being internet savvy business website owners will;

It's safe to say that Google Product Search is becoming more popular. A measurement of growth extending through November 2008 has the service putting its rivals to shame.

Google Product Search had 11.8 million unique visitors in November 2008. That's up a MASSIVE 786% from the same period November 2007 last year. This is the biggest one-year increase to date of any online comparison shopping service.

Websites are here to stay and every business should have an online presence. There are plenty of things your business can do with a website: advertise your services, sell products online, communicate with existing customers and gather sales leads.

It’s worth creating a website even if it is only 3 pages, just so something meaningful appears when a prospective customer types your company name into Google.

In order for Google to provide the best search results to its viewers they are constantly updating their algorithm which they use to rank the web sites stored on their database. The aim to ensure that the best results are given for any keyphrase used in the Google search box.

This year alone Googles algorithm has been changed 450 times, and it now takes into account 200 factors when looking at a web site and how it should be ranked.

What is a Search Engine?

A search engine is a product that numerous organisations have set up as a huge directory to all the websites available across the World Wide Web. Such search engines are Google, MSN, AOL NetFind, Yahoo, and many many more.

These search engines are huge databases that hold basic information about web sites. Details such as the websites domain name, keywords and a description about the site.

We’ve all seen them, really, no REALLY bad websites, but then we also know that one man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure, so are they truly bad per se or just bad IMHO?

Well I believe in every drop of rain that falls – oh sorry that’s the wrong rant. I believe that the proof of the pudding is in the success of the website, and on that note there are thousands of truly bad (unsuccessful) ones.

Assuming you already have a web site that has a stunning design and is extremely user friendly, then there are many ways to let the world know your web site exists, many of them cost nothing more than a bit of time and effort.

However, relying on one method alone is not enough. To drive visitors to your web site requires continued effort and the use of multiple tools. Remember that each visitor to your web site is unique and will hear about you and find you in many different ways.