So we were please to see Google released their own Top 10 Tips for Mobile Site Best Practices outlining important things you can do to turn your website into a fab mobile experience.

1. SPEED COUNTS

• Mobile users expect quick results, often they need to squeeze tasks in as they progress through the day. And they may be running on a slow mobile network. So to make things easy make sure your website loads fast and is easy to read.
• Put content and features that mobile users need first
• Use Google Analytics to see how mobile users are behaving
• Cut back on large text chunks and replace with bullet points, much like this post!
• Make sure you images are compressed as much as possible, so the load quicker on a phone

2. STRAIGHTFORWARD NAVIGATION

• This goes for all websites, on a phone or not, keep the navigation clear and precise
• Reduce the need for scrolling and keep it vertical not horizontal
• Avoid rollovers
• Help users move between sections with obvious home back and forward buttons
• Don’t have any more than seven links per page of navigation
• Consider a search box if you have a complicated website

3. THINK THUMBS

• Your digits are mainly used on mobile devices – especially your thumbs. So think big thumbs when designing navigation
• Use large buttons and give them plenty of space to reduce accidental clicks
• Pad smaller buttons to increase the clickable area
• Pad check boxes by making the text clickable

4. CLEAR VISIBILITY

• Make it easy for your visitors to read, they may have poor light, or be moving, like when travelling
• Create a clear and clean contrast between the text and the background
• Content should fit on the screen and ideally read without pinching or zooming
• Use plenty of space
• Use a clear difference for links text

5. ACCESSIBILITY

• Your mobile website should work on all mobile devices
• Flash does not work on all devices (iPad and iPhone for example) so don’t use it
• Use the new HTML5 code for new features
• Keep users in the same place when they change orientation

6. MAKE IT EASY TO CONVERT

• No matter what your site’s objective is, your customers need to be able to do it with a virtual keyboard and no mouse. Make it easy to buy something or contact you.
• Focus on information that will aid conversion (i.e. product details)
• Reduce the number of steps needed to complete a transaction
• Keep forms short and use the fewest number of fields possible
• Use check boxes, lists and scroll menus to make data entry easier
• Use click-to-call functionality for all phone numbers
7. MAKE IT LOCAL

• Consumers look for local information on their phones all the time – from locating the nearest pharmacy to finding a supermarket
• Include functionality that helps people find you
• Have your address or store locator on the landing page
• Include maps and directions. Use GPS to personalise when possible
• Allow users to check stock at nearby stores

8. MAKE IT SEAMLESS

• People now use multiple screens throughout the day. Convert as much of the functionality of your desktop site to mobile as you can to create a seamless experience.
• Allow users to save popular searches and shopping basket contents
• Maintain key features of the site across all channels as much as possible
• Display the same information for products/services

9. USE MOBILE SITE REDIRECTS

• A mobile site redirect is code that can automatically tell if visitors are using a mobile device and send them to the mobile-friendly version of your site. Have your site developer implement this redirect code so your customers get the best version of your site for their needs
• Give users a choice to go back to the desktop site, but make it easy to return to the mobile site
• Let users choose which version they prefer to see for later visits Include key information, such as
• your address or a store locator, on the redirect page

10. LISTEN, LEARN AND ITERATE

• Good mobile sites are user-centric, which means they’re built with input from your audience. Ask your desktop site users what they want in a mobile website and make testing and optimisation an ongoing process
• Use analytics to understand how people use your site
• If possible, especially for complex sites, do user testing before launch
• Implement and collect user feedback after launch
• Iterate often and continuously improve your site based on your research

In short, it doesn’t.

For now business users of Facebook cannot create Timeline pages.

Furthermore, there is no planned date of when Facebook will make this feature available to the business sector.

A Facebook spokesperson said;

“We are currently focused on Timeline for individuals and will consider how to make consistent experiences for Pages, but we have nothing to announce at this time.”

The Facebook timeline gives an overview in time of a persons profile. Much like a portal, the Timeline will allow a visitor to access key information about the Facebook profile in one snapshot.

For help with your business social media, contact us now;

Depending on your objectives, by following certain protocol you can achieve your targets with some simple rules.

Want to Increase Your Twitter Following?

Tweet often says Zarrella’s research.

Twitter accounts with the most followers tend to Tweet over twenty times per day.

Want to Drive More Traffic to Your Website?

Overdoing Tweets with links slows the flow.

Tweeters that publish over two links per hour get a lower click through rate than those who are more conservative with the link outs.

Furthermore, your best option is to add the link at the front end of your Tweet, it’s proven to increase the click-through.

When is Best to Tweet?

The afternoon is a good time to Tweet when others have gone quiet.

You’re more likely to get retweeted late in the working day – around 4pm is ‘Happy Hour’.

Late in the week is more productive too.

And don’t forget the weekends.

When your competition are refuelling, you can steal a march by being active on Twitter.

Weekend mornings see’s Twitter links soar along with comments.

Retweet and Repeat

Got something good to say, then keep saying it.

Only small segments of your followers will see your first Tweet so send it again and again. Three times is said to be ideal.

If you want to benefit from Social Media Services, then get in touch.

Links are a big factor in search engine rankings.

Generally the more links to your website, the higher it will rank in search engines. Each vote is a little bit like a vote of confidence in the eyes of the search engines.

Here are a 5 quick tips to keep in mind while building links to your website;

1. Social media links from the likes of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are more important now than they used to be. So try and include these mediums when generating links.

2. Another place to look for links is in the descriptive caption underneath images. Rarely used, these spots are of value.

3. Don’t forget about internal links within your own website. This means linking form one page to another on your website.

Whilst they don’t carry as much weight as external links, they do help!

4. Links within content tend to have more value than links from navigation.

For example, a link in the footer below is not as important as a link from within this article.

5. Beware of buying links!

Even Google fell foul of this rule. When it was highlighted that Google had inadvertently bought links, they punished themselves by dropping the ranking of their own web page.

Looking for SEO, take a look at our Bedford SEO service.

You’re free to share these tips on your website, we just ask that you link back to our site as credit.

Here’s a few tips on how to handle a small selection of the Google changes;

1. Fresher content in Google search results is one of the more obvious changes Google have made recently. Therefore it’s more important now than before to have a news section on your website. Blogs do this job very well and open up more possibilities to enhance your website SEO.

2. Official websites are getting a Google boost. Seems the search giant is ranking official websites even higher on their result pages. The change is intended to provide the users with more relevant and authoritative results. Think Apple’s main site will get more kudos than review sites, or blogs when discussing Apple products.

Contact Hedgehog Digital now for SEO Bedford services.

3. The page header and footer are no longer the key indicators they once were. No surprise here, but what it does mean is that links from the actual content body of the page are more valuable than a comment or text link advert in the footer.
4. The “exact anchor text” backlinks have been abused and again have had an overhaul. You should be looking at adjusting your “exact anchor text” and using varied phrases to point at your pages now.

and the change will affect around 35% of its searches.

Google in a bid to provide results for recent content such as the breaking news, or the most recent sports updates.

Since the recent search engine update, when a timely search is made, the user should see results which are more appropriate.

Here’s an example for the term Greek Debt, a popular news story during November 2011.

This new results mechanism changes how we look at popular timely terms for search engine optimisation.

Subjects updated frequently, like the latest iPhone or a product review, will also benefit from the more timely surge in search results.

Importantly, Google will not impact every search in this way, they use the example of recipes. Recipes don’t date, therefore they will not be affected by these changes.

Google recently announced that users that are signed into their Google account will, by default, find themselves on a secure Google URL like this – https://www.google.com.

Notice the ‘s‘ at the end of HTTPS.

Secure URL’s are normally used when a visitor gets to the payment stage of an online shop or when logged into an online bank for example.

So what’s the big deal I hear you ask…

Well before the big change, if someone visited your website via a Google search, you could see in your web statistics report that a visitor came from Google and what their search query was.

Here’s an example:

So for this search, if the visitor clicked through to our website, we would see in our Web Statistics that a visitor came to our site from Google and the keyword they used was “SEO Bedford”.

Now all we will be able to find out is that we had a visitor from Google, without the Keyword data.

In this Web Statistics report below, you will see the increase in visitors who are being reported without any Keyword data.

So what impact does that have on your website?

In short Google have removed key information that helps website owners and SEO’s to improve their website.

Why?

Google claim its a privacy thing, however the fact that they are still sharing the data for people that pay to advertise through Google Adwords suggests otherwise.

We’ll be monitoring the changes carefully, so stay tuned.

This guide has been created to help you benefit from using Twitter, we explain what Twitter can do and how you can embrace it.

Twitter Brief

Twitter’s blue birds have been Tweeting since 2006 from their HQ in San Francisco.

Twitter is generally thought of as a micro-blogging service, due to its short messages (no more than 140 characters) and its chronological listing, which is similar to the way blogs are published.

As of July 2011, Twitter boasted 200 million accounts and an average of 200 million Tweets per day.

To learn more on the history of Twitter and how it has grown, take a look at the Wikipedia page – Twitter on Wikipedia

Meanwhile, we’re going to get you Tweeting in no time….

Beginners Twitter Guide: Starting Out

1. Twitter is a platform for you to publish short messages, up to 140 characters.

Although you can protect your Tweets (make them non public), normally messages can be seen by anyone who happens to land on them.

If you’re familiar with Facebook, Tweets are very much like the status updates.

The fundamental way that Twitter works is based on you following someone else’s Tweets, or someone following your Tweets.

When you login to your Twitter account, you will see a chronological list of all the Tweets made by the people you are following. On the reverse of this, all the people that are following you will see your Tweets in their Twitter account.

Whilst there is a tendency amongst Twitter users to follow back people that follow you, it’s by no means an obligation. For example, as of July 2011 Stephen Fry has 2,840,232 followers, but is only following 52,491.

Quick Set-Up

1. Go to Twitter and select create an account.

Give yourself a username, it’s best to choose something that people who know you will recognise. That makes it easier for them to find and follow you.

2. Complete your biography. Tell us something about yourself. It helps people to decide whether or not they should follow you.

3. Publish your first tweet.

It should go in the box underneath the question “What’s happening?” and it must be 140 characters or less.

Now try posting a link to the most interesting article you’ve read recently, just to get your started.

Build a Following

The easiest place to start building your following is your friends and colleagues who are already using Twitter.

You could start by clicking ‘Who to Follow’ at the top of the page.

When you find someone who you want to add to your network, click on their name to see their page and then click ‘follow’.

Following people is the easiest way to let them know you are there and some of them will soon start following you in return. Your page will display a count of the number of people following you and the numbers you are following. You can stop following people in your network at any time by going to their page, clicking ‘following’ and then clicking ‘remove’.

Each time you find someone you want to follow take a look at who they are following. Add anyone who looks interesting and even a few people you aren’t sure about. The more, the merrier. Try to add around 100 people so that you have a busy network. Remember – you can prune your network as you get a feel for who’s who.

Don’t be disheartened if it takes a while for your number of followers to grow.

Communication

You might be posting updates on what you’re doing. And if that’s all you do, that’s fine. Don’t feel obliged to keep your followers entertained.

Sometimes you’ll want to join a conversation.

You can send a public reply to people by putting @ before their username and then typing your message.

So putting @stephenfry would direct your reply to Stephen Fry.

The person you are replying to doesn’t need to be someone you are following and doesn’t need to be following you for the @ system to work.

On Twitter.com, a reply button will be visible when you hold your cursor over a message. Clicking this will add the @ automatically.

If you want to send a message to someone but don’t want all your followers to see it, you can send a direct message.

Put d and then the person’s username to send a private message. Remember to leave a space, like this: d stephenfry.

You can also click Direct Messages on the right-hand side of Twitter.com to get a box specifically for sending direct messages.

If one of your followers says something so brilliant that you want to share it with your followers, you can “retweet” it.

The etiquette for doing this is to put “retweet”, “retweeting” or most commonly “RT” at the start of your message then add the @ symbol and the person’s username and then their message.

For example, type “RT @stephenfry” to retweet one of his messages. It’s acceptable to edit their message to make it fit the 140 character limit.

There may be lots of people talking about a particular topic but unless they are in your network or send you a reply you won’t even know they’re there.

This is where hashtags come in.

By adding a # and then a keyword, lots of unconnected people can join a conversation. These tweets are sometimes collated at specific sites but can easily be found using the Twitter search engine.

For example, Norwich City supporters often add #NCFC to their tweets.

You can save a message to read later or just for posterity by clicking the star that appears when you hover your cursor over it.

If that sounds like a lot to take in, don’t worry.

You’ll quickly get the hang of it and you’ll soon decide whether Twitter’s for you. Enjoy!

In terms of keywords selection, there’s no straight answer. Ultimately it’s a combination of logic, research and an intuitive feeling that SEO specialists develop with experience. As for how we incorporate these keywords – in a way that increases its search relevancy – SEO specialists embed key terms and phrases (including variations thereof) onto the page and into the site’s coding.

This is effective because Google doesn’t view a website as we, the human viewer see it; Google sees a web page in terms of code. So optimising a web page with given key phrases enables search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN and ASK, understand and index the relevant subject matter of that page.

The down side of page optimisation is the risk of making a page look completely artificial due to inexperienced web companies flooding their client’s site with keywords, page by page, and whilst this may increase a page’s relevancy, ranking and in turn traffic to the site, people simply don’t have the time or inclination to sit reading repetitive wafts of text. So, to make page optimisation work and make the site enjoyable and informative to visitors, we make every webpage as concise as possible and choc-full of content.

Instead of simply relying on page optimisation, we mix in other SEO techniques such as link-building and blogging to maximize the chance of the all important conversion.

By doing this, we can really improve our client’s online presence and business, rather than simply increasing the amount of visitors they get to their site.