Featured article

Increasing online conversion rates


  •  Part 1: Using call to actions
  •  Part 2: Optimising landing pages
  •  Part 3: Effective enquiry forms

Read part one of this three part series »

 

Google XML-Sitemap ‘www.’ Prefix error!

On December 3, 2009 in General, Google.
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I have had the ‘Google XML-Sitemap’ plug-in for WordPress installed for a time now, and everything was working perfectly.

However, after the plug-in was updated some time last week it started showing errors in Google’s Webmaster Tools. The error was the following.

“Paths don’t match we’ve detected that you submitted your Sitemap using a URL path that includes the www prefix (for instance, http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml). However, the URLs listed inside your Sitemap don’t use the www prefix (for instance, http://example.com/myfile.htm).”

To fix this is simple, but I had to search around quite a lot to get the fix. All you have to do is go to the General tab under Settings in WordPress and add the ‘www.’ prefix to both the WordPress address AND the Blog address, then rebuild and submit the sitemap.

If you are still getting errors (which I did) check that any additional URL’s mentioned in the XML-Sitemap tab of Settings have the ‘www.’ prefix, as mine reset automatically.

As I said; Simple! But it took quite a lot of re-building and re-submitting to find the answer!

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Google Developments!

On December 2, 2009 in General.
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Google have recently announced some new features, demonstrating again its dominance over the World Wide Web!

Google’s latest feature is the integration of ‘real-time result’s (RTR’s) including Twitter, Facebook and Myspace updates to be shown for relevant search results. Although the feature is currently limited to a minority of key words it will be built upon to produce more and more results in this fashion. It’s a brilliant idea, gathering such vast amounts of information in one place. Although Google haven’t released financial details, Facebook have announced they are making no profit from the setup.

Google Goggles (it’s a mouth full) is Google’s next development – Using images instead of keywords to produce search queries, consequently returning both visual and text based results (including, perhaps, RTR’s). This must use some similar code to the similar image feature (another amazing feature from Google) although it must also feed to a variety of databases in order to analyze and search indexed pages using said image.

Google still dominates the Internet search market, boasting a global share of about 70 per cent share globally. The company reported revenues of £3.66 billion for the quarter that ended on September 30 this year. The majority of the revenue came from Search Advertising. Google may be seen to have competition in local times from Wolfram Alpha and Bing, but its ever-evolving search techniques and developments just show that it really is the world leader in Web Development.

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Custom iPhone icon for websites!

On November 29, 2009 in Apple, Business & online marketing, General.
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So, with mobile browsing becoming more and more popular, it’s increasingly important to optimize your site for a variety of screen resolutions.

Another nice little feature which I have recently implemented for both work and my personal site is the addition of an iPhone icon, so that when the website is saved to the home-screen on the iPhone it shows a sexy icon rather than a screenshot of the website.

To do this, I simply created a 57px x 57px box, with a transparent background in Photoshop. I used the rounded rectangle tool to create a nice little box, added a gradient and a light curve at the top to resemble the reflection. I finally added some symbols to the icons, and hay presto, its created!

To implement the icon couldn’t be simpler! Just upload the icon to the root of your site and re-name it to ‘apple-touch-icon.png’. Safari automatically checks the root for a .png of this name! If you don’t want the icon in the root of your site, just add the following code to your page/s:

<link rel=”apple-touch-icon” href=”LOCATION/apple-touch-icon.png” />
Custom iPhone icon for websites!

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Online!

On November 22, 2009 in General.
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So, I have finally completed Assassins Creed 2 (Brilliant story line – Can’t wait for the next episode!) and decided to give COD:MW2 a blast!

I must say, ever since I picked up the controller, I haven’t stopped thinking about it! It’s advanced so much since the days of the M1 Grand (Call of Duty 2 – My last encounter with online COD).

The addition of custom classes alongside unlocking weapon improvements gives the online play a purpose other than watching an opponent through the scope of a sniper before getting a warm feeling inside as the word ‘head shot’ flashes onscreen.

What I also like the use of the ‘wasteland’ map, which has been taken form a previous COD map and re-used here. I do think that some of the COD2/3 maps should be included (for example the one of the German courtyard with the single house and multiple walls!).

It’s honestly great! If you haven’t tried it out as of yet, do so! Just as Assassins Creed 2 has the best storyline of the year, COD:MW2 has possibly the best online game play of the year, with its franchise topping my all time favourite online games!

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Twitter AutoDM Feature: Good or Evil?!

On November 16, 2009 in Social media.
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So, after about 4 days of Tweeting I have started to gather a small selection of lovely followers! (If your one of them thanks for taking the time to read this!)

So now I have a dilemma – Should I autoDM new followers? Lots of people see this tactic as ‘spam’, especially when promotional links are included and to be honest so do I. On the other hand a genuine ‘hello’ can go down well and make the tweeter (me) seem more human rather than a bot spamming with promo-tweets every hour or so! (I’m not a robot – Promise!).

Feel free to comment if you use AutoDM to tell me what program you use. Also, if you could retweet this blog (so I can get more results) it would be much appreciated! Thanks guys!

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Virgin Media 50Mbps – Install Complete!

On November 16, 2009 in General, Other technology.
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The installation is complete! The router is up and running (the second one, which Virgin delivered yesterday!) with remarkable speeds!

The pre-installation results were showing between 14Mb/s to 20Mb/s – Limited by the router. The new (D-Link ‘N’ rated wireless) router has now been installed and is running with amazing results. The first attempt at installing didn’t go to plan, as the provided software couldn’t detect an Internet connection. However, logging onto the router directly and configuring seemed to do the trick!

The result: Its running great! The wireless (N series) is transmitting with great signal between 20Mb/s and 30Mb/s, and is encrypted using the WPA2 technology. Virgin have made bold claims about the speed of their new XXL package, and it seems to stand up to the hype – for now at least. I don’t reckon things will be quite as quickly at peak times, but at least I’m now prepared for the big leap to 100Mb/s!!!

Goodnight and God speed!

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Google Wave: First Impressions

On November 6, 2009 in General.
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So I got my invite yesterday and started having a brief play with the much-anticipated Google wave!

There isn’t that much to rave about as of yet, simply a basic GUI which has a similar layout to Gmail and that’s about it. You log into your Google account and you’re away. I posted a message to Alex Sleat and got a response later on. Seems you can incorporate polls, which is a nice feature, and Google maps.

It needs some work, to make it more google-esk, but it’s a nice concept and the incorporation of all the Google goodies will make it a strong contender for facebook chat and the days of MSN!

What’s especially nice about it is that it is entirely browser based, so it can be accessed from anywhere unlike MSN, which requires a download. It would be nice for conference calls and I think it will thrive in an office environment – I’m just not sure that the day-to-day user needs all the functionality that will (hopefully) be implemented. Either way, I’m looking forward to a Google Wave update to bring it out of its beta stage. Remember the days of Google Beta?!

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iPhone on Orange – Fair Use Policy!

On November 6, 2009 in Business & online marketing, General.
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Orange has the largest coverage of 3G networks in the UK.

It’s a big point that Orange are making over why it has better tariffs than O2. However, according to LLC UK (largest independent wireless company in the world) it is Vodaphone who in fact have the strongest 3G services. O2 cover over 90% of the UK and it seems, when compared in more detail (Speed, Connection time, Connection stability etc), that there isn’t that much to separate O2 from Orange.

There is also a sneaky little card up Orange’s sleeve in the Terms and Conditions; they have stated that their fair use policy limits users to 750MB worth of data per month. As large as this figure may seem at first glance, heavy iTunes users who download significant amounts of audio and video may realise that 750MB isn’t actually that much, especially when you couple this with the use of Apps, Google maps and latitude readings, internet browsing and Email/Attachment downloads.

Having the iPhone constantly connected to the Internet is the selling point of the phone. It seems sneaky of Orange to throw this into their contracts, especially after all the stick internet providers (including Orange Broadband) got last year from various reviews regarding the elimination of this ‘fair use’ policy all together.

Finally, there is still ‘The Cloud’. Although this is essentially the same as picking up a local Wi-Fi (greater speeds and reliability) ‘The Cloud’ is recognised as hosting “Europe’s leading wireless broadband technology” with a “unparalleled reach and diversity across the UK“. It also means that many other European countries such as Germany and France have countless ‘Cloud’ access points, providing a partial solution to those nasty data roaming charges. Fear not though Orange iPhone users, I’ll be sure to send you a digital postcard from Brandenburg Gate.

On a serious final thought, Orange do have some advantages over O2 such as ‘Orange Wednesdays’, but most can be met by O2’s responces (O2 Priority). Let’s hope that the addition of Vodaphone brings even more perks for all us iPhone users, and possibly even call an end to the relentless price fixing!

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Analytics: Page views go through the roof!

On November 3, 2009 in Business & online marketing, General.
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Yesterday was the first day that I delved into the realm of online marketing; with the soul purpose of getting more visitors to my website (which I am clearly succeeding at if your reading this!).

To aid my task of ramping up my page hits I have used a selection of SEO techniques (keywords, Metadata etc) as well as Google Analytics to track my progress. Finally, using Twitter and Facebook as a free way of advertising the fruits of my labour (in this case, my blogs!).

The page views, which before now have been from a sporadic segment of friends, have gone from 6 Visits (Monday 9th Nov, 2009) to 29 Visits (Tuesday 10th nov, 2009). Analytics Graph of Page VisitsThis wild increase is because of a number of influencing factors; Interesting content, Relevance, Keywords and Micro-Marketing to name but a few.

Needless to say, I’m over the moon with the stats of Tuesday, but the real test now begins as I attempt to first of all establish a consistent (day-to-day) number of page views, and secondly climb even higher (I intend to focus on the retweeting features and plugins to extend my reach even further).

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Virgin Media speed me up: 50Mbps!

On November 1, 2009 in General, Other technology.
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This past Friday Virgin Media came to increase my Internet speed from 20Mbps (£37.00 per month) to 50Mbps (£38.00 per month). For this slight price increase Virgin have thrown in a brand new shiny modem and also a lovely new D-Link router with built in ‘N Technology’, capable of supporting up to 270Mbps!

The bloke dropped off the equipment and left, as I wanted to do the install myself. I quickly unplugged the existing modem and attached the new one to the existing router. I tested my speed at www.speedtest.net. I was still getting just under 20Mbps – Understandable as the current router (despite it being of industrial standard) could only support up to 20Mbps.

The next test was to plug the modem directly into one of the computers, bypassing the router. After doing this and re-testing my speeds I was shocked to see 49.8Mbps! I’ve heard so many stories about how ISP’s sell a speed which you would only get if you live inside the little green boxes positioned down the road etc, so to see speeds this close to what they were claiming was a shock!

This is where it went a little pared shape. I unplugged the existing (slow) router and attached the Ethernet cables to access my other PCs (having to leave the Printer and X360 out as there is only 4 ports, unlike the 8 which were at the back of the now obsolete industrial router). I pushed in the power cable and nothing happened. I looked for a switch. Nothing. I tried the factory-reset button. Nothing.

After 20 minutes on hold to Virgin Media I managed to get through to someone who said they would send another one out shortly, and to expect it within 3-4 days (Thursday at the latest). Until then I have re-connected my current router.

I will update when I have installed the new ‘N’ router – Can’t wait to see what kind of wireless speeds I will be picking up. Just goes to show how quickly things are progressing from the days of 56Kbps!

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