tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51854711636179613122010-04-26T15:28:41.616+01:00Thoughts on web design, SEO, web marketing, social media and anything else that comes to mind . . .Barneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02733600630382204533noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185471163617961312.post-39423144098940082052010-04-26T15:28:00.001+01:002010-04-26T15:28:41.632+01:00

This blog is now located at http://blog.catnet.co.uk/. You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds or you may click here. For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to http://blog.catnet.co.uk/feeds/posts/default.

Barneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02733600630382204533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185471163617961312.post-35948490265375301922010-04-11T10:45:00.007+01:002010-04-12T08:55:56.851+01:00

I had a email from a client this week. He was concerned that his Google advertising spend for the first quarter this year had almost halved compared to 2009. Was everything OK?Yes, everything was OK . . . and still is. The number of clicks from the adverts was about the same as 2009, the Click Through Rate was better and the average Cost Per Click had dropped significantly.The difference was all

Barneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02733600630382204533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185471163617961312.post-17772193786596405102010-03-31T08:48:00.005+01:002010-03-31T09:36:44.356+01:00

The current obsession with Twitter, Facebook and other social media of the moment means that good basic Newsletters and Press Releases are often overlooked in the marketing mix. Yet I regularly monitor sites where a simple newsletter will create a boost to search engine rankings and a big spike in web traffic - sometimes by 200% or 300%.Of course to do this the Newsletter has to have something

Barneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02733600630382204533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185471163617961312.post-13373427757350268752010-03-26T08:45:00.006Z2010-03-26T09:53:16.005Z

Google is in the process of changing it's search algorithm. This will potentially effect every website listed on the search engine.This latest update, called Caffine, was announced in August last year, but when the switch will come is not certain, although the general precdiction is that sometime around now is probable.So what changes will Google make in the way it sorts it's results?Google

Barneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02733600630382204533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185471163617961312.post-59614019546643289612010-03-08T10:07:00.007Z2010-03-08T11:10:26.847Z

Spending time and money on social media marketing is a waste of resources for many companies. This may go against the current trend of Social Medial as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but for many small businesses this is the reality.So what is Social Media Marketing? Wikipedia describes it as:“the use of social networks, online communities, blogs, wikis or any other online

Barneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02733600630382204533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185471163617961312.post-88823365863197707902009-11-17T16:42:00.006Z2009-11-19T09:39:18.081Z

I often find myself talking to clients about ‘Bounce Rate’ and pages with a high or low BR. So what exactly is Bounce Rate and why is it important?Bounce Rate is a term used in website traffic analysis to represent the percentage of visitors to a website who "bounce" away to a different site, rather than continue on to other pages within the site. It's expressed as a percentage so a BR of 40%

Barneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02733600630382204533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185471163617961312.post-1607038918501209852009-08-11T15:45:00.009+01:002009-11-04T11:01:21.926Z

The best results of any SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) campaign are usually achieved where the SEO consultant and business director/manager/department head work together. This sounds obvious but doesn’t always happen. The pressures of running a business often impact on communication and the SEO can be treated as a ‘bolt-on’ rather than a part of the marketing process. But there are 5 basic

Barneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02733600630382204533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185471163617961312.post-35030021984871900002009-04-30T11:39:00.009+01:002009-08-11T15:43:12.073+01:00

When you check your listing on a browser which search engine do you use? A simple question but important because not all search engines are equal. According to the latest figures the top 10 UK Search Engines are: 1. Google UK 2. Yahoo UK 3. Ask Jeeves UK 4. Freeserve UK 5. Yell UK 6. Alta Vista UK 7. MSN UK 8. NTL World 9. Tiscali 10. Mirago According to 2009 April 04 figures

Barneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02733600630382204533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185471163617961312.post-56927029735051623862009-04-27T11:30:00.004+01:002009-04-27T11:58:06.942+01:00

Having an optimised website in this day and age is essential. But what does this really mean? When I talk about an 'optimised' site I consider:Keywords researched and definedPages designed to target defined keywordsIncoming links established from other relevent websitesI could go into more detail but that, in essence, is it.So once that's all in place we can sit back and relax? Yes?Well possibly,

Barneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02733600630382204533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185471163617961312.post-74799826742088619642008-09-08T09:55:00.006+01:002009-04-18T11:51:02.591+01:00

Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is on the increase. I know this even without the latest stats because Cost Per Click prices are soaring as advertisers increase their bids to gain the top keyword spots. I do this for clients if necessary.But it isn't always necessary. Sometimes business owners want the top spot for a given keyword without assessing what happens after the advert has been clicked

Barneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02733600630382204533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185471163617961312.post-78656583897450110052008-08-26T16:18:00.002+01:002008-10-24T13:08:50.081+01:00

As search engines have become more sophisticated, so have the tricks and fixes used to gain a high rank. Search engine optimisers are often described as falling into two camps; ‘Black Hat’ and ‘White Hat’. I don’t know where these expressions came from but broadly speaking Black Hat is the use of underhand methods for gaining a top search engine position, while White Hat involves doing things by

Barneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02733600630382204533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185471163617961312.post-61816216403898989132008-07-14T10:25:00.005+01:002008-10-24T13:10:01.450+01:00

Typical of SEO and the web is how fast things move on.After my writing about Flash not being search engine friendly it seems that Adobe, Google, and Yahoo teamed up last week to announce that they are making Flash searchable for crawling and indexing.Good news of course but designers should still proceed with caution. How Flash gets indexed will be an interesting question and what weight a Flash

Barneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02733600630382204533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185471163617961312.post-35247780464336799602008-06-27T10:20:00.005+01:002008-10-24T13:10:20.981+01:00

Flash has made a big impact on the web and is a great tool with many applications but creating a website with Flash can create a barrier to people accessing your website.What is Flash?Flash is a type of animation software, originally designed to create animations for display on web pages. A good example of Flash appears on Adobe’s UK homepage www.adobe.com/uk/ (the makers the Flash software). But

Barneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02733600630382204533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185471163617961312.post-44177815723008290332008-05-08T08:55:00.002+01:002008-10-24T13:10:39.879+01:00

I've been working in SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) at various levels for around 7 years and things have changed a lot in that time.When I first started few designers understood or cared about SEO. At that time it was possible to be presented with a new website from a newly formed company and achieve a number 1 ranking on Google within a few weeks by adding a few meta tags and changing the

Barneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02733600630382204533noreply@blogger.com0