A hand-picked number of people have recieved their invites from Google. Media outlets around the world are running press releases, stories and speculation. All because Google have finally thrown their hat into the social ring with a full blown social network.

And it’s called the Google + Project. No, we don’t know why it’s got nearly the same name as the Google +1 social sharing function either.

The invite only ‘Field Trial’ begins today, with a number of leading lights in the technology industry claiming to be part of the initial testing team. Unfortunately The FirstFound Blog’s invite seems to have been lost in the post, but we can tell you a little more about the service:

What does it do?

Google are launching over 100 products as part of the + Project, including the following social tools and features:

• “Circles” - + doesn’t have an all-encompassing friends list. You get to organise your friends and contacts to make sure the right social content is shared with the right people. Your friends will hear about trips to the pub, and your colleagues will hear about your theories on Google’s latest algorithm changes.
• “Sparks” – an “online sharing engine”. This is where the +1 sharing function comes in. You can search for what interests you (remember when that was all we used Google for?), share it with friends, and probably drive them to distraction by unduly affecting their search results.
• “Hangouts” – social video chat. You can create an open, public video conversation that your friends can see, join and influence by sharing their +’d content.
• “Streams” – like a condensed Twitter, or Google’s own version of your Facebook news feed.
• “Huddle” – a mobile chat functionality that will bring together users of iOS (that’s your iPhone), Android and SMS text messages to chat.
• “Instant Upload” – Any video or picture you take on your phone is automatically uploaded to your Google+ account. We’re hoping this has stringent security, as are politicians and footballers everywhere…
• “Location” – It’s another Foursquare clone!

Is it Going to Affect SEO?

It’s too early to tell, but we’d hazard a guess and say that being signed in is going to give you personalised search results. Which is great if you share tastes with your friends. And not so great if you don’t want to end up buying the exact same clothes as your mates, just because they’ve +1′d the shop.

As for the algorithm – it wouldn’t surprise us if Google + is somehow going to be incorporated into the algorithm. Just don’t ask us how.

And what about privacy?

Privacy campaigners are going to have a fit. If you use Google +, Google can track who you talk to, who you’re friends with (and why you’re friends – socially, through school, via work, etc), what pictures you take, where you are… The list goes on.

We think this may put people off using the service – along with the fact that it’ll take something massive to turn people’s heads away from Facebook. The amount of hype surrounding today’s launch has been staggering, but we imagine the privacy backlash will be even larger.

Expect to see controversy, and lots of it.

When can we see a hands on?

In short, we don’t know. Google haven’t announced dates for an open beta, let alone a full product launch.

We’ll keep you up to date with the project as it unfolds. But for those desperate for news, Search Engine Land have promised a hands-on look at the service later today. If you’re interested, we recommend checking their site this afternoon.

(Picture from The Guardian’s piece on Google +)

Don't Jump!

What better way to start the week than to learn that’s today is “Blue Monday”, the most depressing day of the year? Well, here at the FirstFound Blog we can think of dozens of better ways to start the week. But is Blue Monday really as bad as people make out?

In order to find out, we decided to take a look at what makes today just so bleak.

The Blue Monday Factors:

1. Weather: It’s cold and wet and grey. But what did you expect from Britain in January?
2. Debt: Overspending in December is easy. Paying for it all in January is hard.
3. Time until Christmas: Only 341 days to go!
4. Failed New Year’s Resolutions: It’s hard to avoid smoking/gambling/eating piles of cake.
5. Low Motivational Levels: Meh.
6. Need to Take Action: Something needs doing, but see factor #5…

Well, that seems singularly depressing (or it would, if all of those things didn’t apply to every Monday in January). But is it really the end of the world?

We don’t think so. So we’ve put together a quick guide to getting through this bleakest of midwinter days.

1. Weather: Turn the lights on, turn the heating up and set your desktop background to a picture of a beach. Then try and find a cheap flight to somewhere sunnier.
2. Debt: The quickest way out of debt is to make more money, and for a small business that can be as simple as setting up an AdWords campaign. Our team of certified Google Partners will be more than happy to help you out.
3. Time Until Christmas: Ok, it’s a long time until Christmas, but think of it this way. It’s only 95 days until Good Friday (and the start of a series of four day weeks!), it’s 28 days until Valentine’s Day (which is always fun, if you can get a date) and a mere four days and seven hours until the weekend starts!
4. Failed New Years’s Resolutions: Don’t worry, just start over. Or pick more achieveable resolutions like “giving up making resolutions that I have no ability to keep.”
5. Low Motivational Levels:  There’ll always be someone able to help you out. Like FirstFound. We’ll do everything from hosting your website to translating it into a foreign language. C’est bien!
6. Need to Take Action: Taking action to start building that new shed might seem like a mammoth task, but taking action to improve your search engine rankings couldn’t be easier. Just call 0161 909 3411, or request a free Search Engine Report.

So, there you have it. Monday doesn’t need to be so blue after all! Just follow our advice and you’ll be fine.

Image Credit

Running from the 18th to the 24th of October, the Get Online week initiative is aimed at showing the elderly and less well off how much money can be saved by doing business online. Recent research suggests that user save more than £100 by making purchases online instead of on the high street. Socialising online is also important, so users will be taught the basics of sites like Facebook and Twitter.

As you can imagine, this is going to provide huge new opportunities for businesses, so if you don’t already have a web presence, you need to start now. A professional SEO-friendly website is the best way to begin, and will help get you noticed by the millions of new users.

If your company is already online, you need to make sure that everyone can see you! If you’re looking for instant visibility, why not request a free AdWords Audit? Or call FirstFound’s SEO experts on 0161 909 3400.

PageRank – The Theory

As numerous search engine bloggers, SEO experts and people with common sense have discovered, links in to your site from high PR sites carry more weight with the search engines than links from low PR sites.

Although toolbar PR isn’t always an accurate reflection of a site’s real PR, it does have it’s uses as a rough indicator. That means that you can use it to priioritise a list of likely links, to make better use of time spent on building links.

Using Toolbar PR as a Link Building Tool

Step 1: Identifying Sites

When identifying sites to get links from, bear the following in mind: You want relevant sites. Industry blogs, niche directories, suppliers – these are the sorts of sites that will carry weight with Google. If you’re a garage in Farnborough, a link from a restaurant on the Isle of Skye isn’t going to score highly on relevancy. Keep links local, or in your niche. You also need more links from unique domains, rather than dozens of links from the same domain – being featured in a site’s sidebar links is always subject to diminishing returns!

Step 2: Prioritising Sites

Use the toolbar Page Rank tool, rank your sites in order of PR, from highest to lowest. Then, start to target the highest ranking sites first. Don’t disregard anything with a low Page Rank though, as sometimes it isn’t 100% accurate. As a rule of thumb though, you should be focussing your efforts on any sites with a PR of 3 (the average) or higher.

Step 3: Requesting Links

Now it’s just a matter of getting the sites you’ve identified to link back to you. Google frowns upon paying for links, but you can offer a reciprocal link, or ask if you can write a guest post for a blog. Just remember that when you’re requesting a link, a personalised and friendly email goes down much better than anything starting “dear sir/madam”.

For more SEO advice, visit FirstFound on Facebook, or keep up to date with us on Twitter.

Despite the sponsors, it’s not telling you to drink more cola, move your money to a particular bank or wear a certain pair of trainers.

And despite the players, it’s not telling you to swear at referees, roll around on the floor or spill a ball into your own net in a tragically comedic fashion.

No, what the World cup is really trying to make you understand is that success isn’t about one person striving out on their own. It’s about a team effort.

Whether you want to win the World Cup or succeed in the online marketplace, you’re going to need to put together a team. So let’s introduce you to the players at your disposal.

Goalkeeper – Search Engine Consultants

Without a good ‘keeper, you’re going to struggle to get out of the group stages, let alone win the final. Your goalie’s job is to keep you in the game, stop anything unexpected from causing you trouble and help you build from the back.

Sounds like your search engine consultants to us. They’ll be there to bring your SEO and AdWords into play, stop a sneaky breakaway from the search engine algorithms derailing your whole campaign, and generally to provide a safe pair of hands when you need them most. Just make sure you select a Gordon Banks or Dino Zoff. Robert Green need not apply.

Centre Backs – On Page SEO

Good centre backs are the solid foundations on which winning teams are built. Unflappable, dependable and consistent, they’re essential to any side. And if they can pop up with a goal or two from set pieces, so much the better.

Your on page SEO needs to be just as reliable. By consistently ranking on the search engine results pages, on page SEO provides a sustainable level of traffic – and just like a towering centre back rising to score at a corner, it will lead to a fair number of conversions too.

Fullbacks – AdWords

In the modern game, a fullback has to do it all. Remain steady in defence, and rampage forward in attack to create space. Versatility is the name of the game, and speed is needed to back that versatility up.

Fast and versatile? Sounds a lot like AdWords to us. When you need to keep it steady, your AdWords campaign can focus on your core areas. Then, in an instant, it can switch, probing forward to find spaces, trends and unexploited key phrases.

Holding Midfielders – Inbound Links

Possession. Holding territory.  Supporting the defence. You can’t win a World Cup without a holding midfielder, as Gennaro Gattuso can attest. By supporting the defence and neutralising the opponent’s advantages, the holding midfielder is the key to a team’s success.

And by supporting your on page SEO and giving you a competitive edge, inbound links are the key to your online success. Good quality inbound links fortify a website’s rankings, and building new links is a great way to gain ground on the competition. It might not be pretty, but it’s rewarding.

Wingers – Social Media

Always probing forward, looking to link up play and create openings and opportunities – the winger is the prime creative force for any football side. Nobody in the side reacts quicker, and the winger is always looking to turn a situation to his advantage.

In the modern game of online marketing, social media is your way of reacting quickly to unfolding events. It also helps you create openings for conversions by building up relationships, and by monitoring what potential customers want and need, it shows you a myriad of opportunities.

Strikers – Online Shop

Despite what Emile Heskey’s apologists will tell you, a striker has one job. Convert chances into goals. Simple.

Your online shop has one job. Convert visitors into customers. Simple. So make sure it can do its job, and then set up the rest of your side to create opportunities for your star striker to convert.

The Manager – You.

Football is a team game, but there’s still got to be someone to stand up and take responsibility. Someone to put the strategy together and make everyone on the team pull in the right direction. And the same is true of your online marketing strategy.

It’s your company on the line, so you need to be the one to take charge. Sure, you can rely on your goalkeeper to command the defence, but you need to give him clear instructions.

But if the pressure gets to you, remember one thing. Unlike the World Cup, there’s no chance of you being knocked out on penalties.

If your team needs a safe pair of hands at the back, call FirstFound now on 0161 909 3400. We’ll even coach your wingers for free with our handy Social Media Guide.

Obtaining Links from Highly Respected Pages

The key to effective link building depends on you being able to identify high ranking sites that might host a link to your site, whether they are business directories or other websites. Factors such as Google Page Rank will play a smaller role than in previous years, but still give a good indication as to Google’s opinion of the site. A small handful of good links from some very highly ranked and popular sites will always be more effective than hundreds of links from unpopular ones with no page rank.

Making the Most of Social Media

As social media plays a more central role to SEO, all those essential inbound links from your Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Reddit and Stumble Upon accounts will start to carry more and more clout. Google often uses your article’s success with the native users of social sites when deciding how to rank it for the broader masses.  Clearly and article with 157 Diggs is going to have wider appeal and is likely to be more popular than one with 3. Google pays keen attention to these, making it important for you to get involved in social media in 2010.

Keeping Your Links Context Relevant

An often overlooked factor in any link building campaign is the relevance of your site to the linking one. Links that offer further information about a topic will not only conduct better traffic, but will have a greater impact on your SEO.  Keep your links within the same language as your site, and find reasons why people will benefit from your link.  For every product and service, there is usually a fan base, or enthusiast group waiting to be tapped in to. Are there any popular forums or discussion boards relevant to your products or services? Perhaps you might place an add in an online magazine for your industry? Sometimes the way to do this, is to post a comment and get involved.  Many free sites and comment systems allow you to include a signature, or a website URL in a profile or comment. ( Be sure to check the site terms and conditions, as different webmasters will place different rules around promoting sites! )

Maximising Your Naturally Generated Links from Good Content

A website with useful and informative content will naturally pick up inbound links that other users add. It is easy to convince yourself that this is down to others, and cannot easily be influenced from your site itself. But there are some simple rules that will help you maximise this area. All you really need to do is consider what you can offer people, which they cannot easily find elsewhere. As an expert in your industry, this might be anything from inside product information, industry news or practical tips about a product or service. If you can think of at least one type of person who would benefit from this knowledge, then write it! More content is always a good thing.

Be Aware of Creative or Hidden Link Building Opportunities

Often there are neat sites which you can obtain links from easily. Does your domain have an entry at www.aboutus.org? Have you a review on www.reviewcentre.com? There are also domain information and company information sites that are readily indexed by Google, and by taking five minutes to create an entry for your company or website, you will be generating some more informative, permanent back links that will improve the profile of your website.

In a nut shell, link building is almost a science in itself. You cannot go far wrong, provided you don’t add any links from spam websites, or websites of a different language.  By keeping mindful of where you might add links to your site – and never losing sight of the people who would benefit from this, you will maximising the effectiveness of each and every link added and contribute to the structure of the web itself.

A Pivotal Moment for the Internet

I believe this recent clash between Google and China will mark a pivotal moment for the Internet itself. From a political standpoint, we will see the cooling of already chilly relationships to all-new sub-zero temperatures. Google’s next move will leave a lasting imprint on the history of the Internet itself. In today’s official post, Google reminded China that they were not happy censoring results in the country – a move designed to appease the Chinese government some time ago. They went on to say they will revisit this decision, and the broader idea of all their operations in China:

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China

Google’s message could not be clearer – they are considering withdrawing from China altogether. I hope this is not the case, and I will certainly be watching Google’s next move with baited breath.

Network & Internet Debugging & Discovering iPhone App

Ping (Mochasoft) is a great iPhone app for debugging any network. The lite version if completely free and does exactly what is says on the tin, you can ping or trace to any other. If you splash out and get the full version you can to a ping sweep which is a great way to discover and identify all devices connected to a particular subnet. The full version also comes with a telnet console.

FTP and File Sharing iPhone Apps

Files Lite (Fresh Apps) is a great ( and free!) app which allows you to map your iPhone folder as a virtual drive on your computer. The bonus, is it will also open and read your Microsoft format files : Word Documents, Excel Spreadsheets and so on. I Also find that FTP Lite is a nice, simple, no-nonsense App that turns your iPhone into an FTP server.

Remote Desktop iPhone App

To help manage Windows IIS servers (or if – like me! – you just like being able to set your computer doing something without having to get up from the couch!) then my first choice would have to be Mocha VNC. It provides a very responsive remote desktop service for your computer, and will happily handle multiple displays and works on many different systems including Linux, Mac OSX and Windows. I found it useful to reduce the colour depth to 256 colours to make it even faster and can be effectively be used across the web, not just on your home wi-fi connection.

Telnet, Secure Shell (SSH) & Terminal iPhone Applications

If (like me!) you practically live in terminal consoles and command line’s, then either: : iSSH (Zinger-Soft), SSH (ThroughPut Inc.) or TouchTerm (jbrink.net) should float your boat. Obviously you are somewhat limited as to the available space on the screen, and I personally like iSSH. Although it is more pricey than the others, it supports several protocols including xterm and even supports colour (making it more advanced than the one Microsoft ship with their operating systems!

MySQL Web Database iPhone App

MySQLi is a fantastic MySQL App, completely free, it will allow you to update an arbitrary database on the web, provided you have all the connection information.

SEO & Website Ranking iPhone Apps

Pokeseo ( John Christiansen ) is a neat little tool which allows you to check your web rankings for a key phrase in the 4 top search engines. SenseEarn ( Hans Schneider) gives you a neat way to view your AdSense account history and track your visitors activity. Some of the code which Analytics relies on in order to draw all graphs doesn’t work properly on the iPhone that’s where Analytics App ( Inblosam LLC ) comes in. This app allows you to connect with a clean and straight forward interface and track your visitors activity on the move. SEO Automatic ( Leon Huang ) is a great tool for tracking your websites position for as many keywords as you wish. SERPS ( Hans Schneider )was also quite a neat little tool, which will not only track as many keywords as you like in Google, but will allow you to select which language version of Google you test each phrase in.

Yes, the iPhone is truly a device that grows around you. I even found out today, that if you visit the Google homepage and click the link to activate local services (below the search bar), all your Google local searches will use your location to find the right shop, restaurant or bar near you.

Just what kind of impact does your website design have on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)? It’s easy to think of your layout and usability as totally unconnected with your search engine rank, but the truth is that all of these factors play a subtle but important role. Getting the visit is the first obvious step. But keeping the user on your site and encouraging them to browse your products is an essential part of SEO which will have a direct impact on your average time spent on site and therefore your search position. By following this simple checklist, you can be sure to use your design to maximise your SEO and chances of making that conversion into a sale!

No Second Chances for a First Impression – Establishing Trust

They say that a book is judged by it’s cover, but this is also true for your website and products.  Most people will have decided whether they feel comfortable purchasing from you within the first 30 seconds, before even browsing your site! First impressions are not only important to be taken seriously in your industry, but are especially important for businesses taking payments online. You are asking potential customers to trust you with their credit card details, and even the slightest doubt in a customers mind can cause them to look elsewhere. Be mindful of your industry, take a look at competitor websites in your industry. How does yours measure up? 

There are a number of neat ways you can further bolster your first impression. Could you include testimonials or positive feedback somewhere within the pages? Are you approved by any major dealers, trade organisations or perhaps have any awards, logos or stamps of approval which might be tidily included in the design of your pages? Perhaps you have worked with a particularly big client which the public might recognise. All of these devices can be used to give your website professional feel.

Behold! A Call To Action! Just How Usable is Your Layout?

Remember that your website is here to server a purpose – we want your visitor to pick up the phone or write an email and place an order. Just how easy is for them to contact you? Are your contact details clearly visible on every page? Remember that it is just as easy for a visitors to click back as it is for them to click ‘contact us‘ in the menu!

Navigation plays a key role in the usability of your site. You may view your website on a day-to-day basis, so it makes sense to you. But people have a very short attention span on the Internet, and the easier you make it for them to find what they want, the longer they will stay! Perhaps you could get a second opinion from a fresh pair of eyes that does not regularly view your website? Take all feedback very seriously!

Greater numbers of links between pages are almost always better to include than too few. If you discuss a topic in the text itself, don’t be afraid to include links to relevant pages when you use important phrases (even if these pages are already linked to from the navigation menu itself!). Think of your website as a shop, the more connectivity you have between paths, the better your traffic will flow. Do not rely exclusively on your navigation menu!

Avoiding Any Barriers

I often see people attempt to control this first impression with a ‘welcome’ page (or ‘splash page’) which is usually displayed before the homepage. It may seem like a good idea, but pages like these usually present an extra barrier for search engines to get around, and it moves your products one extra click away from your customers! Also, a lot of traffic will not enter your site from the ‘front door’, but will land on an inner page, making the whole thing rather pointless. There are some exceptions where this extra page might be helpful – multinational companies or businesses with multiple offices may wish to direct people to a particular branch or language website. Or perhaps just different departments of a very large company.

Bear these points in mind when next reviewing your design and you’ll not go far wrong. If in doubt, simply give your website to someone else to test and listen to their feedback carefully. As we enter 2010, I predict we will see a lot of new websites as companies prepare for the new year. If it has been a while since you last did some interior designing, perhaps now is a good time to consider a website revamp?

But after some careful thought, I realised it actually made perfect sense. The Internet offers more choice, operates faster and more efficiently, ultimately ensuring that sales are less expensive for most businesses to make. In a recession, why wouldn’t everyone turn to the Internet to do their Christmas shopping? The added bonus is not having to depend on the British weather, nor negotiate your way though hordes of people to grab yourself a Christmas bargain!

The Second Busiest Online Trading Day … Ever!

But this is no isolated spike, either. Early data from research firm comScore suggests that yesterday was actually the second busiest online trading day in the Internet’s history. Sales are up 15% on this time last year, which was itself a new record, beating the one set in 2007. Despite my television constantly reminding me how gloomy the economic world is behind my curtain, it is clear that a vast chunk of these sales have not dried up … they have simply moved to the web.  This is a trend we can expect to see continue for some time.

We are now in December, with only 24 days until Christmas.  It is very easy to lose focus of our goal once the short-term flurry of activity has died down.  It is tempting to walk away with the message that: ‘Christmas is becoming an Internet thing’, rather than taking a step back, and seeing the bigger picture which indicates a steady migration of business to the Internet, year upon year.  As a search engine consultant who spends his life matching patterns, I can tell you that Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is for life, not just for Christmas! 

Quite a number of people ask me to optimise them for seasonal phrases to ensure they are able to catch a lot of the holiday traffic. This makes perfect sense on the surface – but in reality – SEO itself responds quite slowly and is probably not the best tool for the job. The smart person will be investing in their website now, carefully manoeuvring yourself ready for Christmas 2010.

The Most Effective Way to Target Seasonal Traffic

Does your website have a blog or news section? If not, you should probably look at getting one installed. This is an increasingly popular self-promotion tactic that will allow you to post news about your seasonal promotions and offers. You will find search engines are far more responsive to blogs and news which will prove more effective at capturing your slice of the seasonal traffic. What about your websites page structure? Could you add more information pages to your site, or improve your websites page structure to allow for better quality traffic? When was the last time your website had a face lift? Trends in programming techniques on the web are constantly shifting. A few years ago it was acceptable to use table structures for the design, but this has become a tactic that is now frowned upon.

If you have an SEO consultant, then perhaps it would be worth having a chat about web development work that will help you get more out of your online presence in the long term? Rather than a sudden reaction to short term trends, this is best done in response to the gradual trend which shows the Internet is likely to play an increasingly dominant role in our shopping habits in 2010.