Archive for October 2009

Links eh? Where would we be without ‘em! Watch the tutorial to find out how to change the colour of your links when you hover over them.

Its been a few months since we talked about Phorm. The online advertising firm has raised controversy due to its technology which allows advertisers to target users based on their online behaviour.

Unsurprisingly, Phorm has met considerable resistance from online privacy campaigners, including the ‘father of the Internet’ Tim Berners-Lee. Big name websites such as Amazon and Wikipedia have also pledged to block Phorm from gather user data from them.

Whilst Phorm has to a certain extent faced down legal threats to its operation, the biggest challenge has been to convince an ISP partner to get involved. For the system to work, Phorm needs to install its equipment into the ISP data centre. No ISP, no Phorm.

Although Phorm convinced BT to run an early trial, it has since lost support from previously willing ISP partners. BT pulled the Phorm contract earlier this year, and TalkTalk has cut ties with the company. Virgin “continues to evaluate” the system.

For this reason, Phorm says that the UK was now just a “medium to long-term prospect”, adding that it will “deploy in other markets first”. The country which has been most open to this form of behavioural targeting is Korea, where Phorm is partnering with the largest ISP ‘KT’.

Nevertheless, Phorm has said that they will keep their UK operation running despite the challenges it faces here.

“Phorm remains fully committed to its operations in the UK. We continue to be active in the market and are confident of the opportunities domestically. Meanwhile, Phorm is also making substantial operational progress internationally”, it said in a statement.

Back in September Phorm released an update to its trading figures, which show that its had incurred a pre-tax loss of $15m for the first half of this year. This is a big drop in the same period last year, when it lost $24.7m.

What do you think of behavioural targeting? Are you willing to give up some privacy in order to get tailored advertising messages? Have we heard the last of Phorm? Leave us a comment below.

Thanks for all the emails and comments you’ve left about the new control panel, released in Beta a few weeks ago.  We’ve used those to help get rid of any bugs and problems. And the good news is: the updated version is  now live!

Here’s what it looks like:

You might want to know what has changed! Y’ere tis:

• CTRL key now works!
• Keyboard shortcuts function normally again
• backspace and @ symbol now work in Google Chrome
• ‘-1′ error (and ’404′ on Macs) for large file uploads is all fixed
• In Firefox the keyboard nudge, enter, tab keys and cursor will work normally again
• ‘Delete this page’ option has been restored to the ‘Pages’ menu
• Domains module now loads in the edit environment (doesn’t go back to webeden.co.uk)
• Loading has been optimised for quicker download and more feedback
• Sidebar panels now animate to add a bit of fuhzazz!

You can navigated to the new Toolbar in the same way (‘View’ -> ‘New Toolbar’), or if you’re already using it you get the updates automatically.

These are the best bits about the new Toolbar (we think)
The main reason to make these changes were to reorganise all the features into a more logical order, and to build a structure that meant it was easier to add new stuff in the future. Previously when we added new features we placed them where we could find space. Now the most important stuff is the easiest to find.

This is what we like:

• Use the full screen browser for editing – you can move edit tools outside the boundary of your site
• Zoom in/out while editing – you make your site bigger/smaller to help you ‘see’ it in full glory
• Sticky edit tools – the Toolbar remains at the top and the Editor will remain on screen as you scroll up and down
• Show off-screen objects – if you drag something off your site (outside the boundary), you can choose to hide or display off screen objects while in Edit mode (new under ‘view’)
• Detailed insert menu – more objects can be added in one click, including some new HTML snippets (‘Insert’ menu)
• Quick pages menu – includes quicker ways to add pages, copy pages and change page length, plus edit meta data (for search engines) more quickly (see ‘Pages’ menu)
• Links to other services – Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools, AdSense can all be viewed without leaving your site (new ‘Services’ menu)
• Copy site/transfer site feature – allows you to create copies of your site as the basis for a new site (not for backup)
• HTML widget – add any HTML snippet to your site using our HTML widget snippet (e.g. Google Gadgets, all Widgetbox widgets, all Amazon widgets and more).

That’s about it. What do you think? Leave us a comment below.

Today we’re lucky enough to have another Guest Blog by Alison Cross from AlisonCross4Webs.co.uk. Its all about getting more from websites by using RSS.

What is RSS?

You may have noticed a little orange radio symbol on your journeys through the various plains and jungles of the internet. Usually on a blog or news site it winks at you from the corner of the page, inviting you to click it.

But what is it?

It’s an RSS feed link, that’s what it is.

‘What in the tarnation is RSS?’ I hear you ask! Truthfully, I didn’t actually know what RSS stood for, but I am reliably informed that it’s short for ‘really simple syndication’. And it is just that – a really simple way to share information.

Let’s look at a normal working day. Do you log on in the morning and visit your usual sites – perhaps the BBC for news, maybe WebEden’s blog to see what Ken’s telling us about today, maybe a couple of sites to do with your business? Twitter?!

What often happens is that you go out looking for those new links. With RSS, you tell the sites to send the new stuff in to you.

Sounds Good! So how do I use RSS?

What you need to get your hands on first of all is an RSS Reader.  This acts as your central gathering point for the RSS information that you want to read.

It will not surprise you in the least that I’m about to point you in the direction of the Google Reader. You can sign up to Google Reader here. You’ll need a Google account for this, which you will already have if you use their Analytics or Webmaster Tools. There are load of alternative RSS readers – just search for ‘RSS Reader’ on Google.

Google Reader

Once you’ve activated your Google Reader, you can add feeds to it in two ways.

The first way is within Reader itself. In the top left hand corner of the Reader screen you’ll see a box that allows you to add a new subscription. Here’s what it looks like:

You can either type in the actual URL of the website you want to subscribe to, or you can type in a search term and browse about until you find one that you really like the look of and then subscribe.

The second way is to click on that little orange radio button (like the image at the top of this post) while you are on the site that you want to subscribe too.

When you click on that button, you’ll probably find that you are offered several Reader subscription buttons – and Google is usually one of them. Click on that feed button and next time you log in to your Reader page, there will be the fascinating feed!

Get a Bundle

Subscribing to RSS feeds can save you a lot of time. In fact, Google has even bundled together lots of different RSS feeds for people who haven’t got time to go hunting for relevant feeds.

As of today’s date, there are 449 different bundles available to you – from news feeds..coffee ..crochet…surfing…yoga…everything! If you can’t find a bundle that interests you, why not create a bundle of YOUR niche favourites and submit them to Google for other people to subscribe to?!

Finally

Why you should use RSS? Because it brings your internet world to YOU, you don’t need to go rootling about to find it and best of all, you’ll never miss an update from your favourite site again.

About Alison Cross
Alison Cross lives on the Isle of Bute where she has built over a dozen websites using our software. She also helps people use Twitter to market their business. For more info or advice about social media or web design, visit her website alisoncross4webs.co.uk.

Have you ever reached a particular website and found it really hard to find the information you were looking for? Have you ever needed a bit of help from friends to work the checkout on a website? What about letting others know how great you think a site is – did you want share your feedback with other visitors?

Thanks to the Google Sidewiki, you can now do all of these, and much more besides. And you can also read the notes and comments left by other visitors to a website.

Launched a few weeks ago, the Sidewiki lets you add helpful information alongside any webpage. The Sidewiki looks like a browser sidebar, where you can read what others have said, and also write your own entries.

If a webpage has lots of entries they are ranked according to lots of ‘signals’ which mean that those considered most useful stay at the top. The ranking system takes into account feedback that you and other users have given, and previous entries you’ve made. The entries are ranked in real time. You can read more about how they’re ranked on the Google Research Blog.

If you make a comment about a particular web page, the Google sidewiki will also display those comments against webpages that contain the same snippet of text.

Let’s say you were leaving comments about Gordon Brown’s party conference speech, on a webpage that actually included the text of the speech: your comments made on one website could also be visible on other websites displaying the same bit of Brown’s speech.

The sidewiki also pulls in posts from blogs and other websites that discuss the particular webpage, so you can see what other people are saying about it even if their comments reside elsewhere.

At the moment the Sidewiki is a feature on the Google Toolbar for Firefox and Internet Explorer.

If you’re interested you start using the Sidewiki by visiting google.com/sidewiki to download Google Toolbar with Sidewiki.

If you’re a website builder, this feedback is a potential goldmine of information. We’re going to be able to get live feedback from our website visitors about what they think of our website. They will hopefully point out where they think we’re going wrong, and what we need to do to fix it.

Do you think it’s a good idea to allow anyone to comment on any webpage? Would you be happy to read the feedback on your site? As an experienced web user, are you happy to share your feedback? Leave a comment below!

In wednesdays post we discussed the problem of negative comments and feedback featuring in the Search Engine Results page when people search for your company or website. Today we’ll show you how control the SERP so these comments are pushed to the bottom of the page, or even onto page 2.

You would expect your website to show up in the top position when people search for it. But what about the other 9 positions on the page, the ones where negative reviews or forum comments might show up? You can’t control them can you? Well actually you can.

Social Media pages

To start with, your social media pages have a good chance of being in the top positions. A search for WebEden will show our Twitter, Facebook and Youtube pages within these results. This means that not only can you have control of the top position, but you can probably show position 2 and 3 and maybe even 4. And since your social media pages should be full of the good will of your social networks, they show off your website in the best light possible.

Get good Reviews

As we’ve mentioned previously, It’s important for every small business to make sure they get good reviews, and to have a social media strategy. You first need to find the websites where reviews of your website are relevant. You can usually do this with a quick search in google for ‘your market + reviews’. Once you’ve compiled a list of websites where reviews could be posted, you need to start getting them! The easiest way to do this is when your website visitors or customers give you positive feedback, ask them to leave a review on one of the reviews website on your list.

Here’s a list of good, general reviews websites.

pricegrabber.co.uk
reviewcentre.com
shopzilla.co.uk
ciao.co.uk
dealtime.co.uk
truste-marketing.co.uk
webuser.co.uk
maxxsave.co.uk
dooyoo.co.uk
resellerratings.com

Respond to bad comments on Forums

OK, this won’t actually stop the bad comments show up in the Search Engine Results page. But if you take time to get involved in a forum where someone is moaning about you, it means that you are addressing their problems in a very public way. This shows great customer service, and anyone taking the time to read beyond the initial gripe will be impressed at your desire to solve problems. Other people on the forum might also give you respect, and let the original complainer know that they have been won over, It might well turn a bad situation into a good one.

Take control of your Google Local Business listing

As we’ve discussed before, a Google local business listing provides a great opportunity to be found for searches relevant to your business on Google maps. Google local business listings can also show up in the SERPs, particularly where a place name is specified. So this is another opportunity to control the SERPs.

Take control of your website profile pages

There are lots of websites out there that automatically create a static page that claims to ‘analyse’ your website. The page contains a small amount of information, usually obtained from the domain whois record, all about your website. This usually includes the website name, a small screen grab, the name on the whois register, and an assessment of the amount of traffic your website has.

These pages are usually created to attract traffic from search engines, since they are usually covered with Google ads. But they also give you the opportunity to take control and edit the information they hold about you, to keep it up to date. Due to the structure of these websites, they often appear in the SERPs for your brand searches. By taking control and editing yours, you are again controlling another result in the SERP.

Here are the best known of these directory pages

aboutus.org
valuatemysite.com
quantcast.com
websiteoutlook.com
weeviews.com
statbrain.com

Could you get a Wikipedia page?

Due to the power of the Wikipedia website, a Wikipedia page all about your business might be an option. This isn’t an easy one though. To start with, in order to qualify your business needs to pass the notability guidelines

And since a Wikipedia article can be edited by anyone, the page needs constant monitoring  to check that no-one as added anything negative.

So a Wikipedia page might be an option for some but not all.

Finally

The worst thing that can happen when people search for you is for them to read a bad review, before they’ve even visited your website. By taking control of the whole SERPs for your brand you can push these reviews to the bottom of the page, or even page 2, where no-one is going to see them.

Of course there’s a positive side too. By controlling lots of the SERPs for your brand searches, you have a real opportunity to show your website and company off in the best light possible.

Try setting up a few of these options and see how they get into the SERP. And then leave us a comment below.

We’ve talked quite a lot on this blog about Online Reputation Management. Before the Internet and Social media, if someone had a bad experience with your company then they would have few avenues to pursue.

To start with, they’d probably moan about how awful you were to their friends. This would probably mean that their friends would never buy from you. Unless you run a local business, shop or restaurant, this probably wouldn’t affect you too much.

If you were lucky, they’d call you up and tell you about why they were unhappy. This would at least give you the opportunity to respond to them, and you could change your service to take on board what they said.

Thanks to the Internet, however, a complainer has an array of tools to make their complaints heard.

To start with, they can tell everyone in the social networks about you. The average Facebook user has over 50 friends, so this means their gripes are heard by a lot more people.

Second, they can start giving feedback about you on reviews websites. Anyone going directly to a read a review about your product tend to gravitate towards the negative ones. Even if you’ve got 10 good reviews and just 1 bad one, it’s the latter that will be read the most, and is most likely to stick in the mind.

The third weapon at their disposal is a forum. It’s relatively easy to find a forum relevant to your product and service, and get in there with a few moans. Forums are incredibly popular places for people to hang out online, and posts can be read by thousands. Once again, it’s the negative ones that stand out.

The Power of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP)

Anyone browsing their social network, looking on a review site, or spending time in a forum, will be directly affected by these negative comments. But there is a secondary effect, and a much more important one.

This secondary effect has to do with the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).The big downside of all these avenues of complaints is that they will show up in the search engine results page when people search for your company or website. As we stated recently, thanks to the ‘Real Time’ arms race the search engines are currently engaged in, comments on social networks are getting indexed by Google to an increasing extent. And as we stated in our Google the innovator series, Google is also giving increased prominence to reviews in their index, Lastly, Google announced just recently that they are giving increased prominence to forum postings in the SERPs.

All these factors are combining with the result that a poor review, comment or negative post has a significant chance of showing up in the SERPs when people look for your company.

If someone is searching on Google for your company name or your website, the worst possible thing for them to see is a page full of results that show your company or website in a bad light. People who are searching for your company have already made a positive decision to buy from you – they are the people that you should find it easiest to sell to. It’s almost as though they are at the check out of your shop. And when they see a bad review, its like someone else in the shop tapping them on the shoulder and saying ‘Excuse me, I wouldn’t buy from these people, they’re terrible!’

The ideal scenario when someone searches for your company or business or website, is the information that they find on the SERP is positive, and will encourage them to trust you.

Having let you know about all the downsides of getting negative feedback, comments and reviews in the SERPs, tomorrow we’ll show you how you can take control the Search Engine Results Page to make sure that those negative comments are pushed to the bottom of the page, and don’t stop people visiting your website.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or so they say. But when it comes to Web Design, there are a few rules that you need to follow so that your website is easy to read, understand and navigate. One of these is lining up objects on the page – it just seems to make more sense to your eyes and your brain. Here’s how to to make sure your objects are all lined up.

We’re back to more simple website building tips this week. You have probably noticed that just before your WebEden website appears, there’s a ‘loading bar’. This lets the eagle-eyed website visitor know that the website is on its way.

You can edit and modify the look of this loading bar. Watch the video tutorial to find out how.