Google constantly changes its algorithms in order to make results more effective, but every now and then it makes some MAJOR changes, as it did recently with the ‘Panda’ update. Google don’t say what they are going to do, and the advice for webmasters remains the same, with the main focus on developing good quality content designed for humans.

These constant changes mean that it is vital to keep your site content fresh and up to date, ensure it is optimised properly and that you are link building. These things are a constant, and if done properly, you should be rewarded with traffic.

Whatever Google does or doesn’t do, there are techniques to keep ahead of the curve and things that you can implement to make sure you get a good shot at the top spots for your chosen keywords.

However, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that there are other search engines out there. Bing & Yahoo are building market share, especially Bing, which has increased it’s overall global share at the expense of Google, these gains are not large enough to get too concerned – yet. But remember back to the days before Google, Yahoo was champ, now look where it is.

Google may be the king today, but who knows what tomorrow may bring, expect more change!

Yes folks, Google is having another go at social networks. Let’s be honest, they don’t exactly have a great track record in this area (orkut, wave, buzz – all went the way of the dodo) and they seem just a little bit desperate to muscle in on Facebook’s market share.

Firstly, lets start by saying that it isn’t officially live yet, so things may well change, but a quick run down of some of the features are as follows:

On the surface Google + is all about social. It hopes to tap into the millions of people who have google accounts, and add some features they might find useful, such as ‘Sparks’ which looks for videos and articles it thinks you’ll like, so “when you’re free, there’s always something to watch, read, and share.” Another (potentially) useful feature is ‘Hangouts’ which is group video chat, ‘Circles’ is a way of grouping your friends, and Stream is like Facebook’s news feed.

The Google +1 button that now appears next to content on Google, is a way of telling people you are connected to that you like it. Let’s, for the sake of argument, call it a ‘like’ button. Oh, Facebook already did that. Ah well.

There are many other features to Google+, and that is part of the problem. At the moment, it all feels a little like they are just too late to the party. I fear that Google is on a social losing streak. I think that possibly the biggest hurdle that Google faces with this is the reluctance of people to start on another network, when they already use Facebook. Do people really want to start again? Only time will tell…

Steve Hanson

We are often invited to events, whether for networking or to take part in seminars and workshops.  We have also run a few ourselves, and it can sometimes be a bit daunting.  As I have a background in training, very early on in my career I learnt a few tips and tricks to get me through what can be an incredibly scary prospect – public speaking.  Over the years I have been lucky enough to have worked with some excellent public speakers, and what follows is some of what I have learnt.  Hopefully, if you have been asked to get up and talk in front of a group of people, they will help you as they helped me.

1. PPPPP – The five Ps, not to be confused with the marketing related four Ps.  The five Ps stand for ‘Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance’.  The idea being that you need to prepare for your talk.  Know what you are talking about, in detail, and practice, practice, practice.
2. Timing – know how long your talk will be and make sure you leave enough time for questions at the end.
3. Any questions – let your audience know right up front when they can ask questions.  If not you are open to being interrupted.
4. Reminders – never, ever simply read your presentation from a sheet of paper.  There is nothing worse than sitting through a talk where someone drones through a talk without taking their eyes of the paper held up in front of them.
5. Be a lighthouse – a great way to calm the nerves, never make eye contact with anyone, but instead sweep your eyes back and forth over the crowd.
6. Pauses are good – never be afraid to take a breath and pause.  It enables the crowd to take in what you are saying, and a pause at the right time can add emphasis to your words.
7. Empty your pockets – if you are wearing trousers, resist the temptation to stand with your hands in your pockets jingling your keys as this is very annoying and also detracts from what you are saying.
8. Emphasise – change the tone, pitch and speed of you voice to emphasise what you are talking about.  This will make your talk much more engaging and people are more likely to remember what has been said.
9. Gesticulate – use yours body to add emphasis to your words.  Move your hands and arms, walk around a bit, this is always better than standing rooted to the spot.
10. Don’t use acronyms – don’t expect the audience to know your jargon, explain what it means wherever possible.
11. 10 o’clock news – be like a newsreader.  Start by telling them what you’re going to talk about, then talk about it, then tell them what you talked about. Intro -> talk -> summary = well informed audience.

My final tip is simple, be nervous.  This might sound a bit strange but nerves can actually help focus the mind and if you aren’t at least a tiny bit nervous, chances are you are actually dead.  Hopefully these simple tips will help you make the most of any event you have been invited to, and something else to remember is that it gets easier every time you do it.

For more useful tips, recipes and more …..contact Steve on 01326 372416 steve@slightlydifferent.co.uk

The big app news this week was that the 10 billionth app had been downloaded from Apple’s ITunes.  Now, I always get confused with billions, is it the UK billion or the US version?  Either way, it’s a pretty large number and if nothing else it tells us one thing – phones have changed forever.

And let’s face it, they are not phones anymore, they are powerful mini computers.  You can now get a Smartphone for less than £100, which is more powerful than the first laptop I ever bought and costs 75 times less!

However, the difference is with these new phones is that they have so much potential, the fact that they are touch screen, tilt sensitive, have microphones, GPS, NFD chips….it all makes for some pretty awesome potential.  I don’t believe we have even scratched the surface of what can be done yet, and we may not fully realise this potential until the market fully matures – the speed that Apple and Android are activating new phones suggest that we are nearing this point.  Then we will be living in some exciting times!

The problem is that it is possible now to drown in a sea of useless apps.  Every man and his dog has an app out, all the big companies are embracing the technology in a massive way, but not necessarily doing it very well.  There is an argument that suggests that bandwagon jumping is not the best thing to do.  Companies need to ask themselves – is this any good?  Does it have a use?  Will my customers use it?  If the answer is no, then chances are it’s being done for the sake of it.  My advice – wait until you have something useful to offer!

The best approach is to think about something that enhances your current offering, something that will actually add to your company and brand and not detract from it.

We are now asked more and more to develop apps for phones alongside more traditional channels.  Some of them are just adapting existing techniques to a smaller form factor, but some of them are truly different ideas, with the potential to do very well.  I’d love to give you some more details but they’re all very hush hush!

The apps avalanche is something of a gold rush at the moment, with millionaires being made all over the world and venture capitalists keen to find the next big thing.  Who knows, that crazy idea you have might just be it, you won’t know unless you jump on board.

For this months marketing insight I wanted to share with you a very simple way of maximising your exposure online, using blogs. As most people are now aware, a blog is a great way to share information and news with your audience.  Also, blogs are loved by search engines and a well visited blog can garner some very suspiring search engine results.

For example, a while ago, we ran a competition via our blog to win an iPod. The title of the blog was ‘Prize Draw – win an iPod shuffle’. Within minutes of publishing the post, if you did a search in Google for ‘win an iPod’ the post was at number 1. That’s right, number 1 in just a few minutes!

This has some great potential in it’s own right, as a blog post can contain good quality (and contextual) links to your site, aiding your online marketing even more.

But here is a special tip that can help you push out the post to the plethora of social media out there.

Link your blog to ping.fm.

Ping.fm is a site which allows you to post to all your social networks (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and lots of smaller lesser known ones too) at the same time, througha single interface. All it takes is a bit of getting all your account details into ping, and some jiggery pokery with your blog so that every time you update your blog, all your social networks get an update at the same time.

Not only does this save precious time which can be better spent doing other things, it has loads of marketing goodness for built in. You could even take it a step further (like we have done) and link your newsletter to you blog and then link that to your social media accounts…bang! Time saving, link building and social media sorted. That’s a lot of boxes ticked, and when times are tough, making the most of your resources is always a wise move.

If you are interested in finding out more, or want your own blog to work like this, get in touch.  We can get you a blog up and running, sort out your social media stuff and even do your newsletters.

This month I want to introduce a very special lady to you all, without her, you would not be receiving our great newsletters.

It is my great pleasure to present our all singing, all dancing Mistress of emails, Marion.

Marion is our email marketing system, and we are very proud of her. Over the years we have flirted with many different systems, all of whom did the job, but just didn’t quite cut the mustard. Then we met Marion. We knew immediately that she was the one. With her easy to use mailing list management features, her dynamic HTML email editor and a great set of stats, we fell for her quite hard. When we found out that she could also do triggered emails and split testing, we knew there would be no other like her.

Our relationship with Marion grew and grew and over time we used her to create not only our emails, but also emails for our clients as well. She didn’t mind being shared, in fact she was able to handle everything we put her through, without a grumble. When we asked her to send our digital goodies to thousands upon thousands of people, she didn’t hesitate, she just got on with it. What a gal.

The results of our emails got better the more we used her, until just recently we were lucky enough to be blessed with a major International Award for our own in house newsletter.

Yes, our talented in house team put together the words and pictures, but it was Marion who stepped up to the plate when she was needed and performed like the star that she is.

She may be a bit younger than us, but in the ten years we’ve been going we haven’t met any better, and we’re pretty sure that with the great changes we plan to introduce, she’ll be with us in another ten years time.

We love her dearly, and if you would like to find out why she is so good, why not get in touch, or, sign up to receive our newsletter yourself, and get a big dollop of email love all over your inbox.

Why is it that people are always harping on about how strange developers are, how they hang out in the dark in basements and can’t communicate if not in code? Well we must be really lucky then because our developers are nothing like that, and Andrew is no exception………..apart from when he’s writing code, and hanging out in the basement.

Me: Hi Andrew, can you give our readers a brief synopsis of what you do here at SD?

Andrew: Anything technical that a site needs, from intergrating with third part applications to writing custom shopping cart systems to creating custom plugins for exisiting platforms – anything that involves a programming language of whatever sort. Although it’s nice to chillout with a simple bit of HTML templating every now and then. Oh, and I’m the resident old-fart and grumbler.

Me: Do you think that developers are often portrayed in the wrong light, or are the writers generally right?

Andrew: I can’t think of the last time a developer/programmer was displayed as anything but a nerd (except in the film “Hackers” which was awful anyway). I know very few nerdy developers and even then the most “nerdy” do something that breaks down that stereotype; for instance I know an ubernerd that loves nothing more than stripping motorbikes and kitesurfing.

Me: Which project have you worked on that you’ve found most challenging and why?

Andrew: I would have to say the recent Charlie Bears project – php, mysql, xml, actionscript 2 and 3, javascript, google maps integration, thirdparty backoffice integration. I’m very proud of the php backend that creates the data that populates the site. Once I created a decent architecture everything fell into place and now it’s actually a pleasure to add extra functionality.

What do you most enjoy about your job?

Andrew: The problem solving and being given a free-reign to create elegant solutions.

Me: Tell us a bit about yourself then

Andrew: I started out doing allsorts of jobs from cooking to painting and decorating and running the kids video section for HMV on Oxford Street! I got into programming back in the mid-nineties and worked for GEC Plessey Semiconductors designing customer logic cells. I’ve worked with various high-profile companies over the years including Birdseye Walls, Guinness, BT, Philips, the O2 Arena and various large hotel chains on projects as diverse as Van Sales software and Video on Demand systems.

Me: When you aren’t staring at code or writing it, what do other pastimes do you have? (be honest! We know about the squirrels!)

Andrew: Here come the “breaking the stereotype” bit. Oddly enough I rarely use a computer at home and spend any free time I have hunting (I know you won’t believe me but squirrel really does taste lovely), free-diving, spearfishing and practicing instinctive archery. I have also started a rock-climbing course. I have two girls aged 9 and 17 – the youngest is a terrific rockclimber (that’s why I’m taking the course) and the eldest is hoping to go University College London to study Scandinavian, Russian and Slavik studies – as you can tell I’m a very proud dad. Oh and I’ve been with Zoe, my wife, for 24 years now – aww!

Me: So what about design? Never fancied venturing into that?

Andrew: I actually studied Graphic Design back in the eighties. We used markers and paper – none of this computer stuff! We were true hardcore designers! No, I’m quite happy to leave it to our super-talented design team whom I love dearly.

Me: Think back a long, long way…. What are your best and worst memories of going back to school?

Andrew: That’s going back a way! Summers seemed to go on for ever and I’d rather remember that than going back to school

The Friends and Relations website offers users the ability to create a lasting online memorial to a departed loved one, allowing others to leave comments and tributes.  It also allows for users to link and donate to chosen charities.

We are also just about to start the online marketing campaign for the site which will include full social media integration, link building, SEO and publishing.

Working on a site like this is very moving, especially when you see the tributes and comments on the online memorials.

The feedback from families is also very touching and there have been several occasions when people have managed to trace long lost family members through the site and then make contact with remaining family members.

Although it sometimes brings a tear to the eye, nevertheless, it makes us proud to be working with a site like this.

Slightly Different have been proud to work with the RNWA since 2005, and we are pleased to say that we have just been commissioned to redevelop the RNWA website with the aim that this will be a primary recruitment driver for people considering entry into the Writer specialisation.

The new website will feature a number of highly innovative approaches to appeal to people considering joining the Armed Forces of today including a blog, social media integration, members area, and an advanced mobile application, but the site will also cater for veterans of the Service.

Jeremy Hurst, the MD of Slightly Different said “We’re very proud to be associated with this website.  I have been a full member of the Association for almost 25 years, and as an ex-serviceman this gives my agency a unique insight into creating a website for the military which other agencies with more traditional civilian backgrounds just cannot understand.  We are therefore looking forward to replacing the existing RNWA site with something that will make the rest of the Armed Forces sit up and take notice.”

The new site is scheduled to launch in Winter 2010.

INCEPTION – the SD film club went to see this recently, and loved it.  Then we came across this very pertinent question…

Here are a couple of funny links we liked:

The onion – always great for a laugh.  Check out this out.

How about a friendship alarm?

Looking for a job?  How about this advert…