Thank you to the UPSearch team for all their hardwork and thanks to all of our lovely clients – we look forward to working with you in 2012 and making it another great year.

Ali joins our web development team as a web developer and has moved over to us from JD Williams. She’s already been here for a good few weeks now and is already making a huge difference in servicing new client sites.

Ali is an Angry Birds fanatic and although she’s only been here for a few weeks, her desk is already gathering a collection of Angry Birds plush toys! But let’s be honest….who DOESN’T like Angry Birds???

Chris is going to play a large part in the growth and development of the business over the next few months and years, we are all extremely pleased with our new pair of hands…..dont take that much notice of his Weemee he doesn’t have that much hair really!

So, Christmas is just around the corner and we’ve been planning our Christmas do this week. This time last year there were just 4 of us and by Christimas this year there we will be 12 – so we’ve grown considerably, so much so in fact that we will shortly be moving offices in Manchester City Centre (More on this next week)to accomodate our ever expanding family.

Watch this space!

The applicant must have a keen interest in all things web related and be constantly refining their skills with new development techniques. The applicant must have a keen eye for detail and be able to work confidently to deadlines.

Essential Knowledge :

•          Clean, pragmatic development in PHP

•          Excellent, valid web markup (XHTML / CSS)

•          JavaScript & Libraries – jQuery Pref.

•          Experience with Web 2.0 Concepts/

•          Experience with Open Source packages (e.g. wordpress)

•          Solid UX skills

•          MySQL

Beneficial but not essential knowledge:

•          HTML5

•          Knowledge of SEO principles

•          Ecommerce (Eg. Prestashop)

•          Knowledge of SEO principles

•          Knowledge of LAMP stack

•          Dynamic Interfaces/AJAX

•          Object Oriented Programming

Experience/Knowledge in the following would be beneficial but not essential:

CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, XHTML, Working knowledge of PHP, MySQL, HTML5

The Role:

Reporting to and working with the lead developer, your role will include designing, building, updating and tweaking client websites within our current team of developer and SEO Engineers.

Please reply with CV, covering letter and a portfolio if you have one to recruitment@upsearch.co.uk

*No agencies or job boards please*

Sometime ago I read an article about email Spam and how modern email platforms do a great job at filtering it out into the junk box – so Spam is no longer (as big of) a problem as it used to be. The bigger problem now isn’t Spam but what people are calling Bacon.

Bacon: {Emails that have been sent to you because you have subscribed to a newsfeed or newsletter for offers or promotions –

stuff you wouldn’t consider traditional spam – but does clog up your inbox}

So, what does Bacon include? Well, every morning, I wake up and the first thing I do is check 2 of my email accounts – Gmail and my UP Search email (I also have hotmail and yahoo – but I never check them and have them forwarded to my Gmail, because Microsoft and Yahoo thinks it’s ok to offer a crap email service and expect people to use it – but that’s another rant altogether).

The first thing I’m presented with in my Gmail inbox (apart from the things I have rules and labels for) is a bunch of unwanted (but asked for) emails from the likes of:

Groupon – Because I like a good bargain – but to be totally honest I’ve never purchased anything from Groupon but the way that Groupon is designed, you have to stick in your email address before you can even view the site -plus there is only so much leg waxing, facials, hair removal or spa treatments I can take (I’m not that hairy) – for goodness sake offer something people want to buy!

Love Money and Motley Fool – because once I read an good article on interest rates and I thought I’d subscribe – now 2-3 years down the line I still receive their emails and out of the 1000 or so emails they’ve sent, I’ve probably read (or even opened) no more than 2.

Various Online Shops including Ebay, Amazon, HMV, O2, Apple et al because I’ve previously purchased things from their sites and therefore they feel they have the right to bombard me with emails about Jim on Ebay who’s selling a tractor exhaust for a fiver.

This is just the tip of the iceberg as well, only this morning I counted 33 non-personal emails – that’s 33 pieces of bacon. I know what you’re thinking…why don’t I just unsubscribe? Then I don’t need to rant on like this? Well there’s always the “What If”….

…What if one day Groupon has an offer for 90% off Air Force 1 trainers or £10 for a set of £10,000 diamond earings? (I have a dog and she likes to chew stuff – I also have a wife and she likes to shop) these offers could really come in handy – so I’ll keep my subscription.

…What if one day the finance experts at Love Money or Motley Fool find a legal loophole under the Consumer Data Protection Finance Rioting Act of 1911 that states I can pay off my mortgage using pistachio nuts? – so I’ll keep my subscription.

..What if one day HMV decide to sell Celine Dion’s greatest hits for just £20? Yeah ok, I’d unsubscribe from that…but my point is, yes sure I asked for these emails and although they’re not strictly spam like the Viagra or the “Hello I’m the daughter of a Nigerian ambassador and I want to give you $15 million if you help me…” , it doesn’t make them any less annoying.

What am I going to do about this? Probably nothing because I really do think those finance boffins at Love Money are going to pull through with the pistashio nuts idea, and a tenner for diamond earings is just easy browny points – I just wanted a quick rant about it.

Here’s an interesting infographic which details how lucrative Bacon is:

It is with this trend, that a new technique in web design and development takes full merit. With responsive web design, gone are the days of creating a mobile friendly mini-version of your site – all you need is one, designed correctly. As the name suggests, responsive web design is the process of creating a website that can respond and change it’s layout under certain circumstances. The circumstances involved in this example being: the size of the screen on the device, with which you’re viewing the webpage. So rather than creating a multitude of different versions of your site (due to enormous amount of different web devices) all disconnected from each other, we can build one, and treat these devices simply as differing tools to deliver the same experience.

The linchpin behind responsive design, is the CSS media query – a new technology as part of the CSS3 specification. These media queries, most commonly applied using the @media CSS rule, allow the stlying and layout rules of a webpage to be changed based on (among other things) the maximum or minimum width of the current device viewport.

Implementing basic CSS media queries is straightforward:

@media screen and (max-device-width: 480px) {
  .some-column {
    float: none;
  }
} 

The above rule, as you can see, will stop the floating of an element with the class name some-column – but crucially, it will only apply this change if width of the device is less than 480 pixels wide. With this technique you can have your floated columns line-up underneath one another, thus ensuring the user can simply scroll down to see them – and not across. This helps the web experience stay in line with that of the native mobile user experience.

So the next time you’re thinking of creating a sub-site for mobile… stop yourself, and go responsive!

Oh and if you’d like to read more on the subject, there is a fantastic article on responsive web design at alistapart.

With Literally hundreds of self proclaimed SEO and PPC “Experts” to choose from, finding the right agency to match your needs has become a bit of a minefield. That’s why I’ve created this ten point guide to finding the agency or freelancer that best suits your needs.

1.   Service deliverables

What core services are at the heart of your management, does your fee cover copywriting costs, social media, paid search across the ‘big three’ platforms (Google, Yahoo, Bing)?  What additional services are included that most other agencies don’t include, Mobile PPC, Google display network etc.  Be wary, some agencies may reel you in with the lure of a broad range services only for you to find out they all have an additional cost. Be sure of what’s included from the get go.

If you outsource both PPC and SEO, in an ideal world the same agency should manage both services for you, or at a stretch they should have a good relationship with each other.  SEO and PPC should hold a symbiotic relationship, with PPC giving you coverage on keywords you have yet to achieve organic rankings for, as well as informing you of immerging keyword trends.

2.   Contract terms

What terms are available? Is there a rolling monthly contract option or do you have to be tied in to a long contract. Depending on the seasonality of your industry, you may not require PPC management all the way through the year.  If a longer term contract is more convenient for you, can they offer you a management fee reduction or any additional service?

3.   Location

How important is face time for you? Would you prefer to deal with somebody local to you, do you need to see them frequently for updates?

4.   Proactive not reactive

What strategies or measures do they have in place to ensure that your campaigns are at the forefront of your industry? A good SEO and PPC agency should keep you up to date with industry innovations that may affect your campaigns.  A proactive agency (or freelancer) ensures small problems aren’t able to escalate to the point where they impede your campaign.

5.   Reporting

What modes of reporting are available, do they have an online system that you can log on to. Will you have access to the Adwords account to view what’s happening?  What information do you need to know and what information would be good to know?

6.    Experience

Is this prospective agency experienced in your niche, direct or similar experience means that they may have a better grasp of what your trying to achieve and can bring the lessons learned from previous clients to your campaign too. What results have they achieved for others, don’t be fixated on being number 1 in Google, proof of meeting Clients financial goals should suffice!

7.   Flexibility

How quickly will they respond to last minute campaigns or the need to change an account immediately?  Do their terms and conditions stipulate how soon you can expect changes to be made, if not find out specifics.

8.   Intellectual Property

Do you retain ownership of any content created (SEO content, Articles, Adwords accounts), although the practice is now fading out some agencies still hold on to ownership of the PPC account, meaning that if you choose to part ways further down the line you may be asked to purchase the account from the agency.

9.   Management fees

How much does the service cost, does the price reflect what you get in return. Is the management fee a percentage of spend or is it a fixed management fee.  Are you expected to pay your click spend up front to the agency, if so what happens if they go under.

10.   Gut feeling

How have you found their sales process, have they been overly pushy, and how long does it take them to return requests for information.  The sales process can give you some insight to the inner workings of the agency and the quality of service you will receive if you sign up.

For more information on Upsearch SEO and PPC management feel free to give us a call on 0161 488 2970.

What is Google Analytics?

A service provided free of charge by Google for website owners to track how well their website works, providing data such as how visitors found your site and what they do once there. Access to this kind of data allows webmasters to analyse the performance of their website and make improvements and adjustments accordingly. Analytics is quickly and easily installed, a form fill to sign up followed by installing a small amount of code on to your website and your ready to start understanding your website on a whole new level!

What can Analytics tell you?

Google Analytics can provide all sorts of useful data about your website and its visitors. It can provide simple data such as number of visits, average time on site, traffic sources and keywords visitors typed in to find your site. Analytics can also provide a more in depth view of your website, providing data such as bounce rates, top landing pages, top exit pages and in depth information on content such as top content in terms of views and value.

To drill down even further, Google Analytics allows custom reporting which can provide a deep analysis of aspects of your site usage, visitors, content and traffic sources. For example, with custom reporting, you can view data such as visitors to your site by hour, allowing you to see at what stage of the day most visitors come to your site. With this kind of data, you can tailor your PPC ads showing hours to increase the efficiency of your campaign.

So, why is this kind of data so important?

With access to such detailed information, such as what is attracting traffic to your website, where they land, when and where they leave, you can determine what is working and what isn’t. If you have a page which is the number one landing page, but has a high bounce rate you can clearly see that something isn’t working and adjust it accordingly.

Detailed information on your visitors such as browser used and screen resolution can allow you to ensure your website is fully functional for every kind of visitor. If the vast majority of your visitors use Firefox and your website is not compatible with this browser then your visitors aren’t going to stay around very long.

As well as all of this, as mentioned above, Google Analytics can allow you to tailor your PPC campaign to get the most out of your budget.

With all of this combined, Google Analytics can really help you get the most out of your website – making your SEO and PPC all worthwhile!

Hey everyone,

Scott here coming to you live from UPSearch HQ in a not so sunny Manchester! . . I thought I’d make this post as I found myself at an event last week which involved an overnight stay and in true hotel style I descended to the bar in the evening for a few too many shandys! (that’s me in the flat cap)

Anyway there were a few people who I met in the day staying at the hotel and I got chatting to them as you do and the topic of conversation with a new group of people always includes what you do for a living. . . . . Here we go I was thinking to myself!

“So what do you do then?” asked a rather chubby looking chap sat opposite.

“I’m an Internet Marketer” I replied.

“What’s that? Is that like getting websites in Google?”

I then had to go through the same conversation I’ve had with many people over the years. Turns out this guy was thinking of starting a business with his brother so was particularly interested in what I had to say. The questions though, from the majority of people, are generally along the same lines . . . . which brings me onto this blog post!

I thought it would be a good idea to do a little SEO questions and answers post just to go over some of the most popular questions from people looking at SEO or internet marketing. So here we go . . .

Q1: So What Can SEO/Internet Marketing Do For Your Business?

A1: Does your business have an online presence? Does it show up on the first page of the search results when your customers type in a search term? No? Well your competitors sites certainly do!

Here is why every business, man, woman, dog and gerbil wants to get involved with SEO and internet marketing:

“To have a steady stream of highly targeted potential customers/leads coming to your website on a daily basis”

Think of your website like your shop window and visitors to your site like people walking past. What if you had a furniture shop and every person that walked past every day was looking for furniture? Do you think you could turn some of those people into customers? Exactly! So if YOUR website gets found for the RIGHT keywords that YOUR customers are typing in then this is the kind of situation that you create and your business thrives.

Q2: What Exactly Is SEO And Why It Is Not Enough For Online Success?

A2: The world of SEO and online marketing changes at an phenominal pace with tactics that used to work, becoming quickly outdated. In the past all you had to do was stuff a keyword in the website content a few times and bingo! You showed up in the search results. Nowadays both search engines and internet users are much more savvy.

Online marketing today is a full blown commercial service that entails:

• Ranking in Google not just for any keywords but keywords that CONVERT!

• Paid adwords campaigns for fast traffic and potentially profits and as a supplementary revenue stream.

• Social media marketing and prescence. Have you heard of Twitter and Facebook? Thought so! Make sure you have a presence.

• Website conversion optimisation. There are countless conversion elements to a web page depending on whether you want people to click something, buy something, enter their details . . whatever. The industry and niche also will respond to different conversion elements and web design. A tiny change can literally double your takings.

• Tracking EVERYTHING and looking at the demographics of your visitors and maximising what is working while changing/cutting what isn’t.

So basically rather than the old “Get me to rank in Google” SEO (that lots of SEO companies still practice by the way) . . internet marketing as I prefer to refer to it as, is now a full blown service covering many areas and practically creating a brand new 100% digital business for you in addition to your offline existing business. It can literally catapult your business to the next level when done correctly.

Q3: So If I Want To Go For An SEO/Internet Marketing Service What Should I Look For In A Company?

A3: First I’m going to tell you what NOT to look for. . . Any company that just talks about rankings and backlinks and especially the ones that  guarantee you 1st page Google rankings then stay away as a general rule. This is old school.

Like I mentioned earlier, internet marketing is about not just getting people to your site but getting targeted people to your site that are ready to buy! Its all about conversions and a full range of internet marketing services should be discussed at the outset as oppose to a single medium like SEO.

The company should also actually get down into the nitty gritty of your business and find out exactly:

• How your business operates – process etc
• Who your customers are
• What they are looking for
• What you offer them
• How it helps them etc etc

It is only by getting to know you, your business and your customenrs that a website and online marketing campaign can be properly set up to convert at the highest level thus increasing your business, profit and brand awareness.

If they discuss all this with you then great! You will probably have found a good agency. If they are obsessed about getting you to the 1st page of Google and nothing else then I would be wary.

“Get in touch with us and discuss your requirements and we can tell you a bit more about the service and even have a free site/business consultation with you.”