Gencia Blog - The Interweb

New website goes live for TWD

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:39:00 +0100

TWD Accountants asked us to rationalise their existing website and reorganise the content to improve the customer flow around the site as well as optimising it for search.

The Gencia Blueprint process has achieved excellent results and the new design showcases TWDs' excellent range of services.

View the website: www.twdaccounts.co.uk

Wolfram Sneak Preview Video

Fri, 01 May 2009 20:59:00 +0100

Google is pretty good - it returns mostly relevant pages relating to your request, what more could you want?

Well, Wolfram appear to have taken this one step further with what appears to be an incredibly powerful and intelligent results page based upon your query.

It all looks very impressive, a quick visit to the actual site tells us it will launch May 2009.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/

I don't mean to be impatient but it's May 1st is it not?

Very much looking forward to playing around with this to see what else it can do.

Initial impressions though is that this system was actually developed by Cyberdyne Systems and this is the beginning of the end....

A good example of blogging and linkbait

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 16:40:00 +0100

Whilst pulling my hair out working on some CSS that I could just not get to work (min-width and IE6 anyone?) I came across the following website which raised a smile. Though not quite in line with the CSS I was working on, there have been many times in the past I've decided that maybe going backwards was the best way in going forwards:

http://giveupandusetables.com/

The more interesting thing I found with this site was the full story link at the footer which tells of how it came into existance and how in just one day it attracted over 35,000 visitors:

http://blog.goldencomm.com/2008/11/behind-an-internet-meme

Certainly makes you think about the power of linkbait and blogging!

Google Maps Street View comes to Manchester

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 17:21:00 +0100

Google Maps Street View functionality has now been launched for places in the UK. The street map cars look to have covered as much road as is possible in cities such as Manchester, Bristol, Liverpool, Birmingham, Sheffield and of course London.

It's certainly impressive, below is a screenshot of as close as you can get (by road) to the Gencia offices. Will probably now take the afternoon off to explore the delights of Manchester city centre and beyond.

The full list of places covered is as follows:

Aberdeen
Belfast
Birmingham
Bradford
Bristol
Cambridge
Cardiff
Coventry
Derby
Dundee
Edinburgh
Glasgow
Leeds
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Manchester
Newcastle
Norwich
Nottingham
Scunthorpe
Sheffield
Southampton
Swansea
York

Now I've nothing against the place, but Scunthorpe???

For more Google Maps Street View fun follow this link.

SEO Toolbar for Firefox launched

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 12:14:00 +0100

When carrying out SEO research there’s a number of application and websites out there that can assist you in your efforts – Google’s PageRank checker, Yahoo’s site explorer as well as multiple keyword research tools.

At the end of last week SEOBook launched a new extension for Firefox which aids the process by grouping a number of these key applications into one handy toolbar.

I have been using this for a few days now and the early signs are encouraging, it certainly makes the process of evaluating a site much quicker. Combine this with Firebug, which I find incredibly useful when assessing a site’s on site SEO efforts, and you have a whole range of key SEO tools all within the one browser – which certainly makes life a lot easier.

Try it out and let us know what you think. If you think there are other key SEO extensions / websites / applications out there that complement your SEO efforts, then share them with us via the comments below.

Official - the CO2 output of a Google search does not equate to making 2 cups of tea

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 12:02:00 +0100

A recent article in The Times based on research by Harvard’s Alex Wissner-Gross suggested that performing a Google search created 7g of CO2, or in layman’s terms, performing 2 searches produced as much carbon dioxide as putting the kettle on and making a cup of tea! In these carbon footprint sensitive times, the article went on to suggest Google’s stance that it is at the “forefront of green computing” may not be quite so accurate given the number of server’s used per search and it’s caginess over it’s energy consumption and carbon footprint.

This article was published on The Times website on January 11th, it did not take Google long to react.

At 10:48PM on the same day, they posted this retort which refutes those claims and whilst going into much detail on their efforts to reduce their carbon footprint, they point out their queries created 0.2g of CO2, a massively reduced figure on the ones previously stated.

It doesn’t end there though, Wissner-Gross then pointed out that in his report he never actually mentioned Google and though he mentioned them in broad terms relating to internet use whilst speaking to the journalist, it would seem the suggestion that Google are an un-environmentally friendly company came from the artistic licence of the Times journalist who penned the article.

Whilst we leave it to Google, The Times and Wissner-Gross to do battle over who said what, this tete a tete shows the increasing importance of the “carbon footprint” in all areas of human life, in particular ones which we may take for granted such as using the internet (and indeed brewing up).

Well done to Google for quickly putting us straight on their stance rather than choosing to simply ignore these claims, this speedy reaction along with their UK Carbon Footprint Project would suggest that even if they are not at the forefront of green computing, they are certainly doing their bit.

Top 5 on site SEO ranking factors

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 14:31:00 +0100

Back in the day (and today so far as some websites are concerned) to top the search engine rankings, once you had identified your keyword phrases you would place them repeatedly in as many places on your site’s pages as you possibly could, i.e. keyword spamming.

These days, it’s important to ensure you don’t spam your website and carefully consider your keyword usage, so whereabouts on a web page should you be looking to optimise? Here are my recommendations for the most useful parts of a page in which to place your keywords:
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10 SEO Link Building Tips

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 18:18:00 +0100

Whether you are carrying out on site or off site SEO, your linking strategy is a key aspect to optimising your site and obtaining better rankings. Here are 10 tips that should help you on your way:
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The website versus SEO Ostrich egg!

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 18:10:00 +0100

What comes first, the chicken or the egg? In website versus search strategy terms it's usually the website and that often means you've laid an egg - an expensive ostrich sized egg. That's because you've let the wrong things influence your decision about what dictates the style and content of your website - namely you, rather than your visitors.

Well, I say visitors, but you're not really going to get that many visitors if you don't have a good SEO strategy. A good SEO strategy is a start. If implemented well it can give your website a huge boost but to have a brilliant SEO strategy it needs to dictate much of the structure, look and content of your site. In other words it needs to come first, before the site is developed.

Researching your market, finding out who is looking for your servces and how they come to a purchasing decision should inform every part of your site design and content. What's the point of a site if it doesn't get found? What's the point of a site that gets found but doesn't appear to provide what I'm looking for? What's the point of a site that show's me what I'm looking for but doesn't provide me with a simple and direct way to get it?

Gencia provide this as a service. We call stage one of the process The Gencia Rich Site Survey and it tells you everything you need to know about your perfect business website before you make the investment. It also provides you with a blueprint for a website that has gravity; that attracts visitors, leads and real revenue.

For your blueprint to your ideal business website call Gencia on 0161 2145214 and ask for Christina

How to formulate an SEO strategy

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:19:00 +0100

There are many SEO companies out there promising “top ten rankings within 3 days” or your money back. There are plenty blackhat SEO techniques that can be used to obtain high rankings, but chances are they will not stand the test of time. Chances are, companies offering quick fix rankings are probably using these dubious methods. More than likely, such websites will not be top of the pile for long. Almost certainly, the SEO company you placed your faith in won’t care much either way.

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PayPal: Accept payments globally, safely and easily (1 out of 3 aint bad!)

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:16:00 +0100

As a buyer, I think PayPal offers a great service - making it so so easy to get those latest gadgets I need, without even thinking about it, or having to dig out my credit card from wherever I put it...

As a seller, I'm not so sure.

Paypal advertise on their website that they Accept payments globally, safely and easily

Starting at the end, we have always found PayPal to be hard work to deal with - sending email to them is completely pointless - as you'll generally get back a reply something like this:

Dear ....,

Thank you for contacting us in relation to the status of your Buyer Complaint (XXagent to insert case IDXX). We can confirm that (XXagent to insert brief summaryXX).

It is my pleasure to assist you. Thank you for choosing PayPal.

Sincerely,

.....

- This has been copied word for word from the last email we recieved from PayPal - and was the 6th in a series of more and more non-sensical emails for this case. (One of the previous emails had advice which we presume related to somone elses case - it certainly wasn't relevant for ours!)

So as far as we are concerned, the easily claim is an outright lie.

Moving on then, we get to the safely claim.

PayPal offers NO protection to sellers of non physical products and services

What this means, is that unless you have shipped a physical item, to the PayPal confirmed registered address (using an approved tracked delivery service) then you have no protection at all against fraudulent transactions / charge backs.

So anyone that is providing an online service using PayPal for charging customers (and it really does cost money to provide these services) has no gurantee that they will actually recieved the funds from PayPal, even when PayPal has instructed them that the funds have been transferred...

So, more acurately, I think PayPal's strapline should be:

Accept payments globally, safely (for PayPal not you!) and with extreme difficulty!

YouTube embed code is not valid HTML

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 14:26:00 +0100

If like me you like your sites to be valid HTML then you may have been somewhat frustrated to discover that the code supplied by youtube to embed a video into a page is not valid HTML!

Fear not though, here is the solution, the code below will embed the video and validate.

Note, you must use the url supplied in the embed code, and the not the page's url.

Diesel viral marketing close to the "bone"

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 19:03:00 +0100

As viral marketing campaigns go, I doubt this latest offer from Diesel will be bettered. They say sex sells, well, if that's the case then they'll probably be preparing themselves for their best year ever.

All in all, a genius advert but don't expect to see this one during Coronation Street's commercial break.

A new Flash based game for AEGON Scottish Equitable

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:32:00 +0100

AEGON Scottish Equitable asked Gencia to produce a viral quiz game to promote the launch of their new Income for Life plan.

With only a small budget, we produced a slick looking Flash based quiz game with a Formula 1 racing theme.

A new website for Henderson Rowe

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:52:00 +0100

Henderson Rowe Limited is an investment management firm working directly with discretionary clients. They wanted a clean, professional style for their new website.

They didn't have a budget for bespoke photography so we used some great London cityscape shots to theme the site and add some visual interest.

View the new site at: www.hendersonrowe.com