07 Dec, 2009
Posted by: Kieron Hughes In: SEO
Back in September I blogged about a Google URL trick that allowed you to view so-called real time search results. The issue with this was that it wasn’t exactly real time search results that were being displayed, as pages needed to be indexed first before they could be listed.
Today, however, that changes, as Google have announced they will now be providing users with real time results. The search feature, similar to Twitter, will allow users to view instant results from social networking websites, blogs, forums and news portals (although it is mostly Twitter at the moment).
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Why do I hate Facebook? The ridiculous, time-wasting applications, that’s why.
I wasn’t particularly interested in signing up to Facebook originally, but since all my friends were on it I gave it a go. I could see the appeal too, don’t get me wrong; connect with old friends, share photos, etc. Unfortunately, this has got completely overshadowed by people throwing snowballs at each other and finding stray cats on their farm. I began to hate Facebook a while ago, but now it’s got to the point where I won’t use it. Rather than rant any further, I’ll let the following pictures speak for themselves…
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08 Nov, 2009
Posted by: Kieron Hughes In: SEO
The topic of custom 404 pages has been done to death within the SEO industry, as everybody tries to give you the best tips on optimising your 404 page. However, I still come visit countless websites where there is either no 404 page, or simply a blank page with an even blanker message provided. I won’t go into all the “do”s and “don’t”s of optimising a custom 404 page, but the Enhance 404 Widget by Google is a great way to provide a custom search box to your users.
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29 Oct, 2009
Posted by: Kieron Hughes In: General
The Contact Form 7 plugin for WordPress is recognised as one of the best for providing users with an enquiry form on WordPress installations. Although great at what it does, there is no standard option to redirect the user to a ‘thank you’ or ‘success’ page once the form has been submitted. The disadvantage of this is that if you are trying to monitor conversion tracking in Google Analytics (or other software) then you cannot judge how many people are sending enquiries. There is, however, a solution.
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17 Sep, 2009
Posted by: Kieron Hughes In: SEO
When thinking about the title of a website, there has been a bit of debate about whether it is necessary to have the business or website name included. If the brand name should be present, where should it appear?
After attending the Think Visibility conference in Leeds last weekend, I sat through a fantastic usability talk by Fiona Thomson that made me think about the importance of branding within titles.
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