Have you ever seen an advert on the Internet that seems to be directly aimed at you? Something that you searched for last week such as a pair of shoes or a new kettle for your kitchen? You have the impression that some kind of spooky online all seeing wizard is watching you. It can be unnerving, but there is a simple reason why this happens.

Remarketing – what does it involve?

Remarketing is the process of attracting visitors back to your website. It allows you reach back out to those people that previously visited your website and perhaps didn’t purchase anything. That’s where those spooky adverts come in. They can appear on competitors sites whilst you are searching for specific products, in order to entice you back to a website you previously viewed. Sneaky huh?

Remarketing – from the webmasters perspective

If you’re a webmaster and want a smart way to reach and attract your visitors, then remarketing is a fantastic way to do this. You simply add a little piece of code to all the pages of your website. This ensures that when people visit your site it logs them onto a remarketing list, which you can use to reach them via adverts.

Here’s a very useful video on how to set up remarketing from Google Adwords.

There are 4 areas of cost for remarketing, these are as follows;

• Cost per click for the Google Ad
• The implementation of the code on key pages of your website
• The addition or updating of the privacy policy on your website
• The creation of remarketing ads

Did you know that implementing a remarketing campaign can boost your conversions by over 50% !

Remarketing – from the web browsers perspective

Remarketing can feel like an invasion of privacy at times, with companies watching what you’re doing without permission. There are many web users who are disturbed by this and would like it to stop. The targeted ads are not often people’s favourite thing to come across whilst browsing. Advertisers try very hard to know their target audience but the question is; do we want them to know us?

However, Google have made efforts to make people feel more comfortable with remarketing ads by explaining to users why they are seeing these ads. Do you as a user think this is enough? Please let us know your opinions.

Is it all bad? Without personalised adverts from site that you may actually like and visit often, there is likely to be other irrelevant ads promoting something that is not relevant to you at all.

What are your opinions?

If you would like advice on how to get more potential clients returning to your website, get in touch day. You won’t be disappointed.

Google SEO Plans

Matt Cutts has mentioned the following plans are in place for Google SEO in 2013, however things are subject to change.

• Penguin is due for an update! It may not seem that long since Google’s  web spam change algorithm dedicated to finding black web spam was updated, but version 2.0 is set to roll out in the next couple of months. The new penguin update will go deeper with investigations and have more impact.

• Advertorials and Native Advertising – if someone pays for coverage – these sites should not follow page rank so that users can easily see that they are paid for and not organic.

• As identified by users across the globe, Google are working towards improving their search results that have cleaner queries and incorporation of a change which says once you’ve seen a clusters of results from one site, then you are less likely to see it further down the results pages.

• Panda itself will not be updated in the forthcoming months but there will be softened affects if your site has previously been affected, depending on a range of current efforts and other website qualities.

How Google SEO Plans will affect you

A compelling site – work hard to give users a reason to come back to your site.

If you are a webmaster, you will be thrilled to know that there will be more information out there. Google SEO plans include providing a one-stop-shop to go to if your website is hacked for example. This will likely to be on webmaster tools and will include next generation hacked site detection information. You will also find more concrete details and URLs to help diagnose sites in times of trouble.

If you have been creating quality content for your site then you are doing well the Google SEO changes will only bring you advantages. However if you’ve been silly enough to mess around with ‘black hat webspam’ techniques then 2013 could be a difficult year for your website.

Are you interested in professional SEO services for 2013? Call us today to learn how we can make your website successful online.

The most popular browsers are as follows;

• Firefox
• Safari
• Internet Explorer
• Google Chrome

These make up 98% of the Internet market share of browsers. So chances are you’re going to be using one of them. This also means that your website should be compatible on all of them too, to avoid excluding potential customers.

Browser Testing- what does it involve?

Browser Testing means you test how your website looks and works on a range of different browsers in order to prevent running into problems after your website goes live.

If you run a Browser report on Google Analytics, you will be able to identify which browsers your website visitors are using. From this you can determine which ones you should be cross-testing.

Why do websites look different when browser testing?

The most common problem identified when cross-browser testing is the fact that browsers have not been updated by the user. Everyone should update their browser when the option is available, otherwise how you see websites can be affected.

The reason why browsers sometime display website’s differently is because they read the code in their own way. A prime example of this is with ‘padding’. Padding is needed for features such as the menu on a website, browsers Firefox and Chrome will read the code in the same way, but Internet Explorer will add extra padding. This shows that it’s vital to check how your website looks by performing thorough browser testing before going live.

So how are problems like this avoided? The developer will write different style sheets in order to make the website compatible across all the relevant browsers. At PS Website Design we take the necessary steps to ensure that your site works perfectly across all browsers, therefore you can be reassured that you don’t deter potential customers.

Is one browser better than another?

A lot of developers say that Chrome and Firefox are the best browsers to develop on. This doesn’t mean to say the others should be not used, as which ever browser you develop on you need to test on others.

Would you like to find out how your website could work better on different browsers? Do you want to ensure all your customers can access your website? Get in contact with us today to find out more about our browsing testing, and how we build our websites.

Facebook EdgeRank – why is it needed?

How much time do you spend scrolling through your news-feed in relation to other activities you perform on Facebook? It can take up a lot of your time, depending on how many people you’re connected with and how often they post. What do you actually want to see on your news-feed? Some posts are likely to be of more importance than others to you. Brands and users should have knowledge to understand what is going to show in your news-feed and why.

For brands, how do you reach your consumers when most of your fans will never actually visit your Facebook Page once they’ve liked it? ENTER FACEBOOK EDGERANK

For the average users, how do you see the content that matters most to you with having to waste your time scrolling through your news-feed? ENTER FACEBOOK EDGERANK

How does Facebook EdgeRank work?

The algorithm of Facebook EdgeRank is as follows:

•  Affinity – measures the type of relationship between user and creators of posts. Stories will be prioritized from different people, for example your sister’s post will be displayed first over an old school class mate who you’ve never really connected with.

• Weight – depending on the type of post, there are different levels of ‘weight’. For example, Photos and Videos carry the most weight followed by Links then plain text updates. The engagement that a post receives also has a direct influence on the weight. If a post has a lot of engagement this will be high up in your newsfeed results.

• Time Decay – The age of the post is in direct correlation with value of the post. The older a post becomes, the more the value decreases. This means that your newsfeed will always feature fresh content. It’s worth noting that this is also dependant on how often you log into Facebook.

Why does Facebook EdgeRank matter to businesses?

Did you know that around 96% of fans don’t go back to a brands Facebook Page after the initial visit? Your Posts are far more likely to reach your audience compared to your Page. Improving your visibility in regards to the Facebook Edgerank can be easy to enough to achieve with these tips;

• Keep posts short and catchy. Posts over 250 characters get 60% less likes than those with characters between 100 – 250.

• As mentioned previously photos and videos account for more weight than just plain texts and links by themselves. Your audience will respond more to visuals so the trick is to post relevant and eye catching photo’s (videos if you can) with a link attached.

• Post daily to remind people of who you are! Don’t let people forget about you.

• Don’t push sales of your products or services. The most important thing is to get to know your audience and build a relationship with them.

• Respond to patterns. The more you experiment with your Facebook posts and interactions you will notice what works, the type of content and the times too.

How to use Facebook EdgeRank?

If you visit edgerankchecker.com you can sign-in with your Facebook account, choose a page linked to your account and generate your EdgeRank score. Simple as that.

Do you want to reach your target audience? Discover the possibilities of Social Media Marketing when you get in contact with PS Website Design.

Facebook Offers – what are they exactly?

A Facebook Offer is an online coupon created on Facebook and displayed exclusively on Facebook for your audience. Your Facebook followers can claim your offer to use either in your store, online or both. The offer will encourage your audience to purchase your targeted service or product.

So where will your offer appear? Your Facebook offers advert will appear on your Facebook Page and can even be promoted via Facebook Page Post Ads. When your fans participate in your offer, stories will automatically be generated in their news-feed, generating more reach. If you see necessary you can also throw some money at the offer and promote the post, which will help spread the word. Another cheaper option is to inform your audience on your other social media platforms such as Twitter about the offer, directing them to your Facebook Page.

Okay – How do I create Facebook Offers?

• Click on the “Offer, Event +” option.

• Select where you want to the Facebook offer to be displayed.

• Redemption Option

Select if you wish you offer to be used on your website or via a promo code.

• This next stage is the fun part. Upload a catchy image that is relevant to the offer, write a bold headline, limit the number of claims, enter the expiry date and create your own terms and conditions.

Once you have completed this stage, you can post your offer which will then display on your Facebook Page for your audience to redeem!

Your offer will depend on your business but the possibilities are endless, whether you’re a restaurant offering a free drink upon checking in on Facebook, or a clothing store offering free delivery for liking your Facebook Page. The type of offer is best judged by yourself but if you’re stuck what will be the best offer feel free to contact PS Website Design and we’ll help out!

Facebook Offers – what to expect after?

After your Facebook offers are up and running, it’s normal that you’ll be thinking ‘what next?’. A great thing about Facebook is that it allows you keep track of your ads and offers with a simple to follow analytics system.

What are you looking out for? The key thing to look out for is not how many have Liked your offer or page as a result of the offer, but how many people followed through. Think about how many sales it has generated for you. Was the offer successful? Could it be improved and adapted? Would you implement it again? Remember to experiment with your marketing strategy in order to find what works for you.

Need more advice on Facebook Offers? Find us on Twitter or Facebook and ask away!

Want to take your marketing one step further? Find out how our solutions can increase your sales! Contact the team today.

Why a new website?

Your company has probably had a website for a while now, but the time HAS come that you re-think your presence on the Internet. Just like every industry things change, new rules appear, old rules disappear – the Internet and digital marketing are no exceptions. Your corporate website needs to keep up with the latest trends in order to seriously compete within your market.

With people using the Internet more and more to search for products before shopping, it’s really vital to have a good looking and functional site that displays highly on the search engine result pages. So what are businesses doing now with their websites?

• Blogging – having a blog is one of the best ways to get better visibility on search engines. Relative, regular and quality content is what it’s all about these days. If you’re website is lacking fresh content, you’re not going to be making progress on search engine result pages – quite the opposite actually.

• Social Media – is not only changing the way we communicate, but our shopping habits too. With so much competition on the Internet it’s important to engage with your audience in the way that they expect.

• Optimising for Search Engines – search engines such as Google have now stricter regulations on how you can get more traffic to your website. Certain methods such as unnatural linking will now get you penalised, causing you to fall off search engine ranking pages thus costing you sales and business. Your current website may not be compatible with how things are today, so it’s worth finding out the health of your website from PS Website Design with our free website health checker .

A new website – your virtual shop window

Your website should be the virtual shop window to your store. You’ve heard of the online shopping phenomenon, the digital high street works in a very similar way to a real life high street with physical shops. We’re now in a society where customers will check you out online before visiting your physical store.

Answer these questions;

• Would you leave your shop window looking untidy?
• Would you leave the same products in your shop window for years and years on end?
• Would you keep the same decorations and accessories in your store despite changing fashions?

If you’ve answered NO to each of these questions then now think about your current website. What message does it give to your customers? Your customer who is going to choose the business that looks the most reliable and the most trustworthy. Would you enter a shop that looked… dodgy? No, nobody would. You would enter a shop that looked safe, visually pleasing, competent and professional, and that is exactly the impression that you need to give with your website. If you don’t already have this, then it’s time to seriously consider a new website.

Especially with mobile searches on the up. People are searching for services and products on their phone, on the move. Your new website could be the determining factor between you and sales. A new website that responds to mobile platforms and other devices is becoming more and more necessary if you want to be taken seriously as a business.

Do you need a new website?

Getting a new website doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive – at least not with PS Website Design. Investing in a new website will bring you right up to date, put you ahead of your competition and get more customers to your physical or online store – or both! Call us today for a quote! What have you got to lose?

There are a lot of Facebook Business Apps around that will bring your page right up to date, but here are the ones we think that you should concentrate on.

Top 5 Facebook Business Apps

• Facebook Questions - The most under-estimated of the Facebook business apps. By asking your audience questions you not only collect valuable data and potential sales leads, but you are engaging socially too. When an audience feels like their opinions are valued, you’re going in the right direction.

• RatePoint Reviews and Testimonials – This app lets you show people who your happy customers are – giving you great chances of  attracting new ones. It gathers all of your lovely recommendations and displays them on your Facebook wall, giving you an over all rating for your service.

• Wildfire Apps promotions – Everyone likes something for nothing, so why not get some audience participation going on, in the form of competitions, give-aways, discounts etc. Creative and interactive Facebook campaigns are always popular, so take advantage of this and Wildfire Apps promotions to get great audience participation resulting in increased brand awareness.

• PageMondo – Facebook doesn’t offer a high level of customisation for your business page, but with PageMondo brands like yourselves can create a welcome page for business. This helps to get across to your audience what you’re all about, adding a personal stamp to your Facebook business page. you can even add videos and your Twitter feed to your PageMondo welcome page.

• Pinterest – Even though Pinterest is another social media platform, linking it to your Facebook Business page can be very beneficial to you. The reason for this is that your audience will see that your efforts don’t just rest with Facebook, but that you participate in other popular forms of social media too. Pinterest is great for getting more visuals displaying on your Facebook page which will catch your audience’s eye!

If you have a page we recommend you using these 5 Facebook business apps. Every business will be different and somethings that may work for others, might not work for you. There is an element of trial and error when it comes to really pinning down your target audience and reeling them in, but it’s possible.

Do you want to reach more of your target audience? Not sure where to start? Give us a call today and with our search engine optimisation and social media marketing expertise – you’ll be glad you did.

Here’s our top picks and why they’re so great.

5 Great SEO Tools

SEO Browser – Allows you to view websites of your choice as a search engine see’s it. This is particulary useful for examining different parts of your website and making it more efficient for when the spiders crawl it.

Open Site Explorer – If you need to check out back-links for a specific site then this is one of the best SEO tools to use.  If you want to submit guest post for example, it’s always a good idea to look at the overall health of the website before you write for it.

SEO Quake -This is a fantastic extension to use when performing SEO activities, as it automatically checks domains whilst you work. As you are browsing the Internet you can see with no effort the health of a website including page ranking and link information.

Link Detox -It’s always a good idea to be aware if there are any potentially dangerous or toxic links to a domain, whether it’s your website, a clients or one which you want to write content for. Link Detox even tells you if website pages are not being indexed on Google and displays links from possible networks. If you have many links then it’s especially useful, as you can focus on individual links instead of them all at once.

Google Webmaster Tools – The definitive free software for SEO tools. Enabling you to see your website exactly how Google sees it, all important and useful information is displayed to you in a clear way, using this tool dramatically increases your chances of ranking higher on Google.

There are many different SEO Tools out there, and these are just our picks, but if you’re using something else and rate it – we’d love to know. So tweet us or Facebook us with your welcomed opinions about SEO tools.

Do you want your website to be ranked higher on Google Result Pages?

A better ranking means better traffic and more sales. Get in touch with us today for more information about our professional search engine optimisation services – don’t let customers slip through your fingers!

Facebook Business Page Checklist

It’s your job to ensure that everything on your Facebook Business Page is in tip-top condition. You should be able to check off everything on the following list;

• Is your website URL the first thing listed in your company description?
• Have you provided links to your other social media channels?
• Is your cover photo well designed and fits the Facebook specifications?
• Does your cover photo have a description? Is it linked to another page?
• Does your profile photo portray your brand clearly?
• Are you offering fans exclusive content that they can’t get from your website or other social media channels?
• Are you providing fresh content, new posts and interesting visuals on a regular basis?
• Do you engage with your audience?

What did you score?

Facebook Business Page Popularity

Have you ever noticed that your Facebook Business Page has suddenly got a few unlikes? This can really be demotivating if you’re putting a lot of hard work into your page, but what does it really mean? Are you doing something wrong? Was it something that you said?

These following reasons could explain why people are unliking your Facebook business page;

• Self Promotion – are you constantly talking about yourself? Well don’t, it’s annoying. People don’t want to be harassed with sales pitches, advertisements and other such means of getting them to buy your products/ services. You should become friends with your audience, find out what they’re interested in, engage and discuss. Try to balance out the percentage of what you post, for example; 70% interesting & light hearted content such as your blog posts or images, 20% shares on behalf of your followers, thus leaving 10% for a sophisticated sales pitch. Once in a while it’s acceptable but not constantly.

• Over the top posting – do you constantly post things? If so then you could be clogging up people’s news feeds forcing them to unlike your page to stop the nuisance. Even if you’re posts are great, too much of a good thing can be bad too! Try to get the balance right. Between 2 and 4 posts a day is fine.

• No activity – as well as doing too much, you can do too little. A Facebook page with no activity is absolutely pointless. You may as well not have one. If you want to have a page, regular content and activity should be obvious to a new fan. It really gives a bad impression of your business if you have neglected social media channels.

• What’s with all the negativity? Have you ever been annoyed by someone on Facebook venting their issues and problems or just criticising other people? Take note and avoid doing the same thing. It’s not professional and it just oozes a negative vibe. You should show to your fans that you are worthwhile following, not make them regret and unlike you as a result.

• Trying too hard – Don’t be the person who tries too hard to be funny by posting the latest Internet MEMES all day. It’s not relevant, it’s not cool and it’s just not necessary. Yes it’s okay to have a sense of humour, no it’s not OK to dilute your companies credibility with time wasting content.

• Out of your control – you’ll like this one: Sometimes there is just nothing you can do about it. It’s not your fault, you’re not to blame, these things can just happen. Maybe someone liked your page by accident, or a while ago and no longer need your information. You shouldn’t take this personally as it’s completely normal. Some people may just be cleaning up their Facebook Pages and think ‘Oh I don’t really need to like that company, I’m not interested in that product/service anymore’ . Perhaps they thought you were a completely different company than you actually are? So don’t be alarmed if you notice a few unlikes every week, what’s important is finding new targeted and relevant people to like your page.

Do you own a Facebook Business Page? What are you experiences?

Studio: +44 (0) 1943 605 894

Before we get started on some interesting statistics, here’s a term that might be handy to know;

• Click-to-Call -when people are using their smart phone, they’re likely to want to call a business and speak to somebody directly. Google have added Click-to-Call option to their Ads campaigns, allowing advertisers to include their phone numbers within adverts for no extra cost. All you need to do is enable call extensions in your AdWords campaign.

Mobile Search Statistics

• Google recorded 30 million call-to-clicks per month

• 1/3 Mobile Searches are of local intent compared to 1/5 with desktop searches

• Commercial intent is stronger with mobile search – research has shown that people use their mobiles to search for things when they have made a decision about buying something. So depending on the business, this could be a major advantage.

• By 2014 mobile should take over desktop usage

• 86% of all mobile users, search the Internet whilst watching TV

• On mobile 91% of Internet usage is to access social media, compared to desktop Internet usage at 79%

• What do people use their mobile phones for? 61% games, 55% weather, 50% maps/ search, 49% social networking, 42% music, 36% news, 33% entertainment, dining 25% and video at 21%

• Twitter has 165 million users and half of them use Twitter on their mobile phones

• More than 200 million YouTube views happen with mobile phones on a daily basis

• The most active age group on mobile phone Internet usage are women aged 35 – 54

Not only do mobile search statistics tell us that mobile searches are set to outperform desktop searches in 2013, but the number of smart phones will also exceed 1.82 billion unities worldwide too. This just shows the extent of the mobile phone market growth rate, and we’re certain that you’re just as interested as us in seeing how manufacturers develop the look of mobiles to meet the modern day requirements. Have you noticed that mobile phones are getting bigger?

Mobile Search Statistics & Operating Systems

Mobile Search Statistics not only come from a certain location, by a certain person, but from a type of operating system too. There are many different operating systems for smart phones available today that all provide great functionality. But what are the mobile search statistics on these operating systems? Is there a difference?

• Android is expected to dominate the market with 3 years time by 63.8%
• Windows 7 will overtake iOS within 2 years
• In 2012 2 out of 3 mobiles sold in China were powered by Android
• There are more Apps available with iOS
• Blackberry holds the smallest % of the market share

Why do people prefer searching on mobiles?

Accessing the internet with your mobile is now as easy as pie, but what other reasons are behind the massive increase in mobile search usage? Could it be because of App integration? Social Media at the touch of a button? The portability aspect?

We want to know what you think? Are you still all for desktops or do you prefer searching the internet with your mobile?

Does your business have a responsive website? Can your audience easily access your website on their smart phones? Don’t alienate clients and fall behind the times, read our post on Responsive Web Design, what is it – why should we use it?

Do you have any Mobile Statistics to share with us? Tweet us or send a post to us on Facebook today !

Studio: +44 (0) 1943 605 894