This year we're really looking forward to:

• BT upgrading homes to 21CN before their customers lose patience and switch broadband suppliers
   
• Twitter contributors so businesses can tweet in chorus
   
• Apple Tablet - a supersize iPhone we hope!
   
• Hulu or similar in the UK - or perhaps just a mashup of iPlayer, ITV Player, 4oD, Demand Five
   

How about you? Use the comments form to let us know what you're hoping will appear\improve this year....

This has been a great site to work on, but so easy to lose yourself in one of the stunning photographs and the stories behind them - like this one - a beautiful picture combined with great words that Guy White, who owns the gallery, adds to bring it to life.

Guy has bought into the news "gospel" we preach, and is regularly adding news items to the site. Every month he writes a short newsletter which automatically picks out the past news items he specifies. Take a look at the November issue, and while you're there sign up to the newsletter so you can see it in all its glory.

On the technical side, there are bespoke modules for musicians, photographers and exhibitions, to which photographs are all related. Photographs are actually products in the shop, but displayed differently to allow for full screen preview. There are also "traditional" shop products like books and box-sets.

Guy has kindly offered discounts for fellow Refractiv customers, so if there's anything that catches your eye give us a call and we'll send you a coupon.

Google has officially announced that it doesn't take any notice of your meta keywords. It’s been a suspicion amongst SEO specialists, including ourselves for many years but Google has finally given a small official insight into how their search engines work.

About a decade ago, search engines judged pages only on the content of web pages, not any so-called "off-page" factors such as the links pointing to a web page. In those days, keyword meta tags quickly became an area where someone could stuff often-irrelevant keywords without typical visitors ever seeing those keywords. Because the keywords meta tag was so often abused, many years ago Google began disregarding the keywords meta tag.

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html

Of course other search engines may still use them and they do so is there any harm in using them? If you do make sure they are short, concise, and the keywords are also present in the page so they don’t look artificial.

You might want to keep using them to assist with site search - i.e. add keywords that your visitor might use to search within your site that don't appear in the page's content. (e.g. acronyms, speeling mistakes )

You might want to stop using them if you've done lots of keyword research that your competitors will benefit from when they look in your page's source.

The other meta fields (title, description) are still very important to SEO so make sure you fill them in on each page of your site.
 

www.snapgalleries.co.uk

Yorkshire and Humber Regional Migration Partnership (YHRMP) were looking for a new website to promote the work of their organisation and give online access to migration information for the Yorkshire and Humberside region. They wanted a website that visitors found easy to use and accessible, that flagged news items effectively and was cost-effective to run.

The website does what was wanted - it has a simple, attractive design and meets WAI Priority AA web accessibility guidelines. People can find news items easily, through headline features on the home page.

Alli Spence, Website and Information Manager, says:

"We're particularly pleased with our searchable directory of organisations, which allows participating organisations to add and edit their entries online. We also like the flexibility and scope of the content management system - this allows us to create and edit online forms, and to alter the structure of the website very easily and quickly, at low cost.

It's been quite a long process, with ongoing discussions between ourselves and Leap Frog about what we wanted to achieve and how best to do that. Leap Frog gave us well-informed advice whenever we needed it. The web developer working with us has been really friendly and supportive, and always available on the end of the phone to talk things through!

We're really pleased with how the website looks, and we've had some good feedback. Thanks to everyone at Leap Frog for your work. We're looking forward to developing the website with you in the future."

www.migrationyorkshire.org.uk

With version 3.6, the following features have been added:

Multiple Security Strings per message

It is now possible to send multiple security strings within a single text message. At the time of authentication the user is shown which string to use to authenticate.

Animated TURing images

In order to provide increased resistance to malware attacks, it is now possible to animate the TURing, BUTTon and PATTern images.

In-built repository browser

PINsafe 3.6 now has an in-built repository browser that can view the contents of any LDAP based repository to which PINsafe is integrated. This speeds up initial configuration and subsequent fault analysis.

Agent/NAS authentication modes

It is now possible to configure Agents and NASs to only allow certain authentication modes, e.g. dual channel only.

Auto PIN-Reset

It is now possible to automatically resend a user a new PIN when their PIN expires, rather than locking the account.

Idle Status

Accounts that are locked because the user has been idle are now distinguishable from accounts that are locked for other reasons.

Account Expiry

It is now possible to set expiry dates on accounts in the XML repository.

Rock and Roll is here to stay - Snap Galleries launches new site

Snap Galleries has recently launched its new website (www.snapgalleries.com) with online sales of Rock and Roll photographs. Snap Galleries also has a shop and gallery in Birmingham. The website is rich in images and enables site visitors to view photographs on virtual gallery walls.

Snap Galleries commissioned a new website from Leap Frog in order to freshen the design and to sell high-quality Rock and Roll photographs online. Also, it was important to have full editorial control of the website content and be able to upload images to the site.

Design is fundamental to Snap Galleries and so the new site needed to make a strong impact with existing and prospective clients. Snap galleries wanted to give visitors something that was nice and shiny, easy to navigate, packed with new features, great images and the stories behind them. The site was designed to make the viewing and buying experience as pleasurable as possible.

The project was completed on schedule and the site achieved its first online sale within a week of launch.

"I want to say what a fantastic job you've done for me on the new site. It's everything I was hoping for, and I've really appreciated your complete attention to detail and response times. You did exactly what you said on the tin and I've been really delighted with everything." Guy White, Gallery Director.

CISSP qualification gained by security guru at Virtronix

Jay George, Head of Information Security, has qualified as a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP®), bringing clear benefits to Virtronix and our clients.

The CISSP® was the first credential in the field of information security, accredited by the ANSI (American National Standards Institute) to ISO (International Standards Organization) Standard 17024:2003.

CISSP® is achieved by passing a demanding examination, and requires the practitioner to prove they posses several years of experience in Information Security.

Jay says:
"I am very proud of achieving the CISSP® qualification which is recognised internationally. There was a lot of work required to pass the exam but much of the knowledge is very practical and can be applied to everyday situations as well as the longer-term security projects. As a result of participating in the CISSP® program I have access to a wealth of information, support and best practice in this field. I am able to provide our clients with the highest standard of advice and implementation experience and also raise the bar with our own security team."

BackStopp kills lost or stolen laptops to prevent data loss

Have you lost or had a computer stolen? Have you ever worried about what happened to your stolen device or the data that was on it? BackStopp is a powerful programme that will delete all the data from your stolen laptop and will give you the peace of mind in a simple report delivered back to you or your IT helpdesk. BackStopp enables you to manage PR issues around data loss very effectively and to handle the questions that arise from such losses.

BackStopp is a powerful and effective tool that securely eradicates computer data which may be at risk of passing into unauthorised possession.

Remote Data Decommission is BackStopp's primary function. BackStopp deletes all pre-specified data files including cookies and e-mail that are stored on a compromised device, encrypted or not, leaving a clean device. BackStopp ensures that once the data has been deleted it is gone for good. It uses deletion patterns as detailed in the US Department of Defence's National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual (US DoD 5220-22.M) and Peter Gutmann's paper Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory, ensuring decommission data cannot be retrieved.

BackStopp exists to quickly wipe out information at risk. At the same time as it deletes the data BackStopp logs what it destroyed, recording the name and type of EVERY deleted file and even the time and date it was last accessed. The problem goes away and BackStopp proves it.

Enquire about BackStopp

FortiGate offers cost-effective and versatile protection for all customers

In the current economic climate many businesses are reviewing their choice of security infrastructure products. FortiGate provides a feature-rich alternative at an attractive price point - the family of appliance-based security products includes a firewall, AV Gateway, IPS, web filtering and VPN and allows the user to opt for a wide range of functionality from a single appliance. FortiGate delivers the highest level of network, content, and application security for enterprises of all sizes, reduces total cost of ownership and provides a flexible, scalable path for expansion.

A growing percentage of attacks, such as viruses, worms and Trojans, are being introduced into organizations via activities such as Web browsing or remote wireless network access. This trend will continue as organizations turn increasingly to real-time communications, like Web-enabled applications, Voice over IP and instant messaging, as the means to remain responsive and competitive. Unfortunately, conventional network protection systems,such as firewalls and host-based AV software, are limited. They lack the dedicated hardware processing required to perform the deep packet analysis, content reassembly, and application-level screening. These are unnecessary to detect these threats without imposing delays on real-time traffic. As a result, most organizations are dangerously exposed to content-based attacks from real-time Web, email and peer-to-peer traffic.

Fortinet's FortiGate™ Multi-Threat Security Systems for the first time provide cost-effective network-level and content-level protection at the network core and edge with real-time performance. Each member of the FortiGate family is a dedicated, easily managed system that delivers a full suite of best in class capabilities. Each system's capabilities are supported by an industry leading eight ICSA-certifications including virus protection and content filtering, along with network-level services including firewall, IPS, VPN and traffic shaping functions. Fortinet's FortiClient software has ICSA-certifications for desktop antivirus detection, antivirus cleaning, antispyware detection.

Enquire about FortiGate

Regional Migration Partnership

A new website was designed and developed several months ago for Yorkshire & Humberside Regional Migration Partnership and we are now adding new functionality to the site. Alli Spence, Website and Information Manager, says: “We're really pleased with how the website looks, and we've had some good feedback. Thanks to everyone at Leap Frog for your work. We're looking forward to developing the website with you in the future."

Yorkshire and Humber Regional Migration Partnership (YHRMP) were looking for a new website to promote the work of their organisation and give online access to migration information for the Yorkshire and Humberside region. They wanted a website that visitors found easy to use and accessible, that flagged news items effectively and was cost-effective to run.

The website does what was wanted - it has a simple, attractive design and meets WAI Priority AA web accessibility guidelines. People can find news items easily, through headline features on the home page.

Alli Spence says:
"We're particularly pleased with our searchable directory of organisations, which allows participating organisations to add and edit their entries online. We also like the flexibility and scope of the content management system - this allows us to create and edit online forms, and to alter the structure of the website very easily and quickly, at low cost....."

1.       Gather the team, make sure it is inclusive of the key stakeholder. Understand why you want an IS strategy and why it is important.

2.       Get the senior executive in your management to back you. Can anything really happen without them?

3.       Create your strategy .

a)      Strategic and Business alignment: Businesses must identify information security drivers like applicable regulations, fraud and customer privacy, and then identify business assets, including their respective threats and vulnerabilities. Additionally, companies should review their existing information security initiatives, technologies and trust relationships

b)      Organization and Culture: A successful strategy must incorporate the executive tone; organizational and partner awareness; training needs, skills and competencies; and administrative and functional reporting structures.

c)       Management and Governance: Management must focus on how the organization develops policies and standards, manages projects and programs, makes decisions and funds information security programs. Consider your position. What regulatory requirements come to bear in your IS strategy? Are you expected to comply with PCI-DSS SOx etc?

d)      Technology: Organizations must establish a precise definition of information security that includes technology needs and standards, and how information security technology is managed.

4.       What is your goal.... is to detect or to prevent attack. Given that IS security is constantly moving it is virtually impossible to continually be up to date and to guarantee 100% security without a large dedicated team. If this is what you require it may be required to bring in outside help.

5.       When looking at the cost always bear in mind, what would the cost be of a security breach because we didn’t do this?

6.       Think strategically but don’t delay. As soon as what you have is better than before make sure it is adopted. This does not mean be reactive or deal tactically but take independent steps along your strategic path. The penalties for prevarication can be severe.

7.       Follow Plan – Do – Check - Act you have spent time and effort developing your strategy. Implement it. Make sure it does what you want and if necessary change it to get it right.

8.       It can’t happen overnight. Be prepared to invest a little time to get it right. The alternative may be much worse.

9.       Don’t be caught in the “It can’t happen to me” syndrome.

10.   Employ professionals. IT security is can be complex and difficult to describe to business focussed board members. Employ people who can do this

Refractiv specialises in ensuring IT systems are tough enough to withstand security threats.

The company is warning that firms are at risk from staff who have been made redundant and seek revenge by attacking their former employer's IT system.

Bill Twibill, the company's director, said: "There is more evidence that attacks (on IT systems) are happening.

"It's a very sad fact that when people are made redundant they can be tempted to take the skills they have developed and use them for nefarious gain. Part of a business continuity plan, or a disaster recovery plan, for an organisation, should focus on the 'what-if?' scenario.

"You have to make sure that when people go they are not in a position to take this kind of revenge. Every organisation has to think about security. Our clients are all around the country."

The Refractiv Group, which is based in Normanton, West Yorkshire, was formed last year from the amalgamation of three IT companies - Sandford Technology, Virtronix and Leap Frog.

Virtronix works with London Marathon organisers to ensure their office network is protected from Internet-based attacks.

Each year, along with other IT suppliers, Virtronix creates a network carrying timing data for the London Marathon runners, which has to be dismantled and packed away straight after the race ends.

The security systems Virtronix support protect the London Marathon's offices and race-day infrastructure, and the network used by the media to file their stories.

The company also maintains the office network security for the British Academy.

Mr Twibill said: "The threats are always changing, which is why we can't sit still. People need to think about how they are going to address those new risks.

"When we talk to our clients, the majority perceive that the risk comes from inside an organisation. It's not about the employees being malicious. It's just unwitting behaviour. They might want to download a piece of music or photographs, and that can open up threats."

Group turnover this year is expected to rise from £800,000, to £1.6m.

The company has 16 staff and hopes to hire more when the economy improves.

Mr Twibill, a former army officer who has also worked as a principal consultant for IBM Global Services, said the company planned to stay in Yorkshire because it was close to the UK's "centre of gravity".

He added: "I don't think our business is recession-proof but we do very strongly believe that once you have started having a security system, you can't suddenly stop it. You have to respond to new threats.

"As we get towards the end of 2009 and start looking to 2010, we will be very much in a growth period.

"We certainly want to try to go international. It's never easy trying to break into new international markets, but with the right people and the right services, that's something that's always a possibility.

FROM BATTLEFIELD TO BOARDROOM

Bill Twibill, one of the directors of the Refractiv Group, was trained to combat security threats on the battlefield. He spent seven years in the army, before moving into business.

He joined IBM (International Business Machines) in their consulting services division and soon rose to become a principal consultant in IBM Global Services.

He then moved to be the global head of an "emerging business opportunity" that IBM was leading.

In this role, Mr Twibill brought to market new technologies and services that brought $80m in revenue to IBM.

He left IBM in order to pursue interests in the small business sector and to help emerging businesses realise their potential. Today, as managing director of Virtronix, he is responsible for boosting sales across Refractiv Group.

Greg Wright, Yorkshire Post.]]> Wed, 06 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://www.refractiv.co.uk/news/15

Whilst listening to Col Mark Faulkner at our recent 2020 Vision series event on Fighting the tactical battle whilst winning the war against the economy I became aware that even in our current economic circumstance the need to know where we are going must be of prime concern.

If we don’t know where we are going how can we hope to take the right road. If we know our end point we can plan for the journey and the possible obstacles in our way; competition, finances, resources. There may be unknown obstacles in the way but we will have plans for how to attack these tactical issues. It is only by knowing the final destination that we can hope to get back on track and not get lost.

Find out more at www.refractiv.co.uk/events

This week we have received the good news that Check Point has completed the purchase of Nokia Security Appliances Business Unit.

In practical terms this means no difference to you as you will continue to receive the same levels of support as before. Virtronix will continue to support your security and your company's needs. Check Point is immediately supporting the terms of Nokia's security appliance support agreements until those agreements expire. Customers who choose to renew support after their Nokia contracts expire will be offered virtually identical support programs - Check Point Access and Check Point Essential. The minor changes to these offerings result in similar or better service level agreements and similar or lower prices.

In addition Check Point will honour the Nokia support policy which commits to providing for 5 years support after the model's End of Sale date.

This will make little or no difference to your choice of architecture. You will however see benefit in that IP appliances are available immediately from Check Point and will support both Check Point R70 release, based on the Software Blade Architecture and Check Point NGX R65. The system is somewhat simplified in that Check Point is the end point for answers to any questions and there is a much more closely knit supply chain.

All in all this will make it easier to work with Virtronix and with Check Point.

If you have any other question about the purchase, or Check Point's new R70 version please call us on 0870 0117 455.email us or visit the Virtronix website for more information.

Virtronix provides a range of services including security consultancy, remote management of firewalls, VPNs, vulnerability and network scanning as well as virtualisation. The company boasts well-known companies such as The British Academy and Camelot amongst its clients. See www.virtronix.co.uk.

Richard Atkinson, Managing Director, Sandford Technology said: "Virtronix has an excellent team of people and a 'can do' attitude to customer service which will be of tremendous benefit to our clients."

He continued: "The merger has strong future strategic implications for us and begins to fulfill our aim of being a next-generation IT services provider. As a combined business we now have an extremely powerful set of products and services to offer ".

"We are in a web-centric world and the pace of change is quickening. Broadband, powerful hosted software applications and the rich functionality of web 2.0 are driving change in the business environment. We are seeing increasing demand for powerful, interactive online business applications and this is symptomatic of the new generation of internet technologies. There is a major trend towards 'web 2.0' portals and internet-hosted business applications such as CRM, document management, workflow and collaboration and we are well set to provide all of this within secure and virtualised infrastructures".

"By the year 2020, in fact well before that in many cases, we expect business to be transformed into a predominantly digital landscape, with enterprises small and large transacting through advanced websites, web services and hosted applications. Clients, prospects, suppliers and other contacts will expect to interact with businesses in new, sophisticated ways. This environment will become the hub of the business and we are well-placed to provide the data security, web applications and support services to deliver this future. We call this our 2020 Vision."

Some 2008 predictions with a CMS\ECM flavour which we like are here, and some search flavoured predictions for 2007 which didn't come true are here.

Our predictions for the coming year?

• less computers, more browsers like this one
• less servers, more network storage like these
• clouds on the horizon
• ...and that you will have a happy, successful 2008

We are seeing increasing demand for powerful, interactive online business applications and this is symptomatic of the new generation of internet technologies. There is a major trend towards 'web 2.0' portals and internet-hosted business applications such as CRM, document management, workflow and collaboration.

By the year 2020 business will be transformed into a predominantly digital landscape, with enterprises small and large transacting through advanced websites, web services and hosted applications. This environment will become the hub of the business. Your clients, prospects, suppliers and other contacts will expect to interact with your business in new, sophisticated ways.

The new internet generation

The Google and MySpace generations are upon us and users are demanding new and better applications with a rich, personalised experience. Users both inside and outside the enterprise expect to interact on all levels using ever advancing web applications. The MySpace generation assumes they will be able to conduct business 24x7 via the enterprise's digital interfaces - if they find they can't, they'll quietly move on. Your staff will expect to be able to do their job using the same kind of tools they capitalise on in their personal life, and without strictly policed digital boundaries.

Collaboration

Companies of all sizes need to manage increasing quantities of data and teams collaborating on projects must share information securely, regardless of location. In order to be competitive, growing companies need to embrace collaborative working and establish an infrastructure to support it.

People involved with projects or business initiatives are often dispersed across the enterprise and may be outside it, for example suppliers and partners. Information portals provide an entry point for users so that they can find, edit, upload and share information. Where appropriate, users will follow corporate workflow processes or procedures.

Solutions

It's not necessary to re-invent the wheel. There are some excellent Open Source applications and portals from which custom solutions can be developed; open or 'loosely coupled' architectures protect the investment of the end-customer. Sophisticated products such as Microsoft Sharepoint are also focused on this market. The good news is that enterprise-class solutions are now available to small and medium-sized business at an affordable price.

The Future

Some experts on future trends claim that more than 60% of businesses that will have the greatest commercial impact in the next 10 years have not yet been formed! For evidence of how this is possible, you only need to look at companies like Google, Facebook and YouTube. Today it's Web 2.0 but we ain't seen nothing yet!

Our main objectives in overhauling the site were to:

• Align the visual image with our latest branding and marketing literature
• Improve the presentation of case studies
• Promote events such as SEO and Digital Marketing workshops
• Add a corporate blog
• Promote our professional services, including training, support and web hosting
• Provide a platform for future promotion of our business solutions and applications

Google's Free Services

Google offers much more than basic searching! All of the tools below will enhance your ability to optimise your site, assess the competition and stay on top of your market. Most of the services listed below will require you to create a single Google account:

Search	Take a close look at the Advanced options, especially "domain" which will show you the entire cache Google has of your site, and "links" which can show your inbound links. http://www.google.co.uk
Personalised Search	Google's personalised home lets you assemble "widgets" and feeds to create a powerful dashboard http://www.google.co.uk/ig
Toolbar	The Google Toolbar is the only browser toolbar we'd ever recommend. For SEO purposes, it has a PageRank indicator which gives a rough indication of the overall ranking of sites - useful when building inbound links. http://toolbar.google.co.uk
Local	Add your business location to Google Maps. Take advantage of the "glocal" wave which is rushing towards us. http://www.google.com/local/add
Keyword Suggestion Tool	One of several suggestion tools that help you to refine and prioritise your keywords. http://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Alerts	Monitor new occurences of your keywords, company name, product names etc. http://www.google.co.uk/alerts
Sitemaps	Primarily for feeding your site structure directly to Google, but many other useful features to keep your site in top shape. http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ Yahoo!'s equivalent: http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com
Analytics	Excellent stats and analysis tools, helping you to monitor your site goals and traffic. http://www.google.com/analytics
Base	The mother of all databases (or the daughter perhaps?) Another way to generate traffic to your site, and raise awareness of your products\events\whatever. http://base.google.com
Adwords	Well, not free but an essential way to fill in the gaps in your search rankings, provide additional customer service and put pressure on your competitors. http://adwords.google.com

Other useful links:

Validate your pages http://validator.w3.org

Lots more weapons for your SEO armoury http://tools.seobook.com

Keyword mutations: http://adlab.msn.com/keyMut/default.aspx

Quick site analysis: http://www.seoworkers.com/tools/

Entry level SEO software: http://www.webceo.com

Serious SEO software: http://www.axandra.com

Online ranking monitor: http://www.rankingcheck.com

"Long tail" keyword suggestions: http://www.hittail.com

To download a copy of the SEO presentation slideshow, please click here

Although I'm no conspiracy theorist, I can't help wondering whether some secret old-school-tie Msft|Intel|Dell|WD|HP consortium buys-up\pays-off anyone who comes close.

Dell's recent IdeaStore site appealed to my Web 2.0 sensibilities, so I put two and two together and threw my idea (more of a question really!) into the ring.

Will it fly?
Will it be shot down?
You decide!

Mac vs PC, Unix vs Windows, Linux vs Windows - I've heard 'em all.
After work hours, I suspect the same people get aerated over Xbox vs Playstation, City vs United, Black vs White.

Wanna know where I stand? I'm with Fred:

The whole Mac vs. PC debate is less relevant today than it was in the past. Why? Because the computing platform of the 21^st century is not the Mac or the PC... it's the internet. Operating systems just aren't as important as they used to be.

http://fredtime.com/?p=15

The scenario

Let's imagine that you:

• sell widgets
• you're based in Birmingham
• your customers are other companies across the UK
  

You want to make sure that:

1. If a potential customer uses a search engine to find a widget supplier, they have the best chance of finding you.
2. If someone needs to know your phone number, and they search using your company name, you'll be top of the list.

1. Identify your keyphrases

This is the process of picking key words and phrases that become the measure for the SEO success of your site. The best way to get started identifying keyphrases is to put yourself in the shoes of the potential customer and try to imagine what they would type into Google.

• widgets
  Yes, fair enough. But thousands of other companies across the world sell them too, and many of them also do SEO, so you're not likely to make it into the top 10 for that search term. (If nobody else sells your kind of widgets yet, they will do soon, so you need to stay ahead of the game!)
  
• widget
  Not much different to the plural, so still a very competitive term. But I like your thinking - the search engines DO differentiate plurals, and some of your competitors may not have.
  
• widgets birmingham
  Very good. Now apart from any widget sites in Alabama, you're certain to attract prospects shopping for widgets from Birmingham, or widgets for Birmingham, or widgets shaped like Birmingham. This may help your competitors, your existing customers, and telesales outfits trying to sell you a new photocopier, but it won't catch those prospects you're fishing for. So merely describing yourself in a keyphrase isn't too important, although it should be considered as it makes sure that your existing customers can find you.
  
• widgets essex
  Now this is interesting - perhaps this might be the chosen search phrase of an Essex company looking to source widgets locally - exactly what you're looking for. While you can't optimise for every town and county in the UK, you can make sure your site is rich with news and page content. You attended that Widget Supplier Symposium last year in Essex, right? You sold a truck load of widgets to an Essex company last quarter? Make news items of them, or even a corporate blog. Your human audience probably won't read it, but the search engines will. The more relevant content you have, the higher your chances of being matched for search phrases you can't predict. (But use the site's structure to keep it fresh and interesting for your visitors.)
  
• aluminium widgets
  Excellent - not only are you being slightly less ambitious with your search terms, but what's more you've cleverly targeted a specific area of your business.
  
  Also by picking a non-US spelling for aluminium (US=aluminum) you've eliminated US buyers and suppliers from your audience and your competition, which gives you a much clearer playing field. (If you sell to the US too, you will want to consider the US spelling separately, and perhaps make the most of the opportunity to have separate US and UK pages).
  
  As you supply several different kinds of widgets in addition to aluminium, you may need to consider certain pages of your site as "landing pages" - the ones most likely to rank highly for specific search terms. So for your aluminium range, it's naturally more likely that a page you have extolling their virtues will rank higher for the search term aluminium widgets. So don't just try and direct searchers to your home page by stuffing it with all your keyphrases. Instead make sure that your Products>Widgets>Aluminium page has just the right amount of occurrences, and that there are many other high-ranking sites talking about aluminium widgets linking to this page.
  

getwellrooney

As I was writing this article (evening of 6th June '06), I thought it would be a neat trick to give you a measure of the speed of search engines. I picked a topical but totally random word - getwellrooney - I checked that Google had no results for it, and put it at the end of one of the pages on our website. Check back usng the links below to see how the 3 top search engines stack up:

Google (2 days)
Yahoo
MSN Search (2 hours)

Lesson: Content is king. Your site should say everything there is to say about you, and everything significant that you've done. Then every relevant term that could be used by your target audience will be featured on your site. All news is good news!

Health warning: Don't expect such instantaneous miracles! SEO should be measured in months and years. If you want better ranking next year, start SEO now. If you want better ranking next decade, start SEO now.

2. Linking

This is important. Really important. You can live without linking, but life is so much easier with.

Here's my take on it:

Google (and since then, the other search engines too) use your inbound and outbound links to build a theoretical network reflecting real life.

If the world's leading authorities on widgets have hyperlinks to your site, Google concludes you're respected in the world of widgets, and pushes you higher up the rankings.

If there's a sudden global widget crisis, and the http://newc.bbc.co.uk does an article that has a link to your site, again Google concludes that people searching for widgets in future should be told about you.

In Google's eyes the BBC ranks very highly. (And happily, that is reflected in global reality). While they may not be an authority on widgets, if they write about it, Google knows it's important. So the link from their article on widgets to your site does you the power of good.

If your best friend happens to work at the BBC and sneaks in a link to your site from some obscure recipe page, it won't be anywhere near as good, because Google knows that the recipe page has no mention of widgets. (But from bcc.co.uk it's still good!)

So get inbound links from anywhere, but aim for contextually relevant, high ranking sites.

My Google-reality-analogy also applies to outbound links. These are links on your site that take the visitor elsewhere. Perhaps to widgetworld.com or to that news article on the BBC site. Google sees that relationship, and it's healthy.

However what is Google to think if it sees a link from your site to a dodgy porn site? It's the SEO equivalent of a Daily Mail front page photo of you emerging from a late-night brothel.

Google's more scientific explanation of their algorithm is here, but I think you're more likely to remember mine!

3. Conclusion

Is that it?

No - there's lots more to think about!


Things like validation, redirects, density, spiders,
Then there's Adwords, Froogle, Base, RSS, affiliates, Local.
And Google-bombing, Google-spamming, Google-bowling.

There are many books on SEO, thousands of websites and there'll be an honours degree soon.

But you stick to making those widgets, and we'll be happy to help with your SEO.


Until they found Sandford, World of Widgets' approach to SEO had been less than scientific...


]]> Mon, 10 Apr 2006 00:00:00 GMT http://www.refractiv.co.uk/news/37

This article explains why it's important for you to keep your site up to date with all news from your company, and how easy it can be to dispatch the news items to site visitors with a single click.

Keeping your website up to date with every piece of company news is vitally important, particularly for search engines. If you sell widgets and are based in London, your site should naturally appear in search results when a potential customer googles for "widgets London". However if a potential customer is looking for a widget supplier in Glasgow, and searches for "widgets glasgow" your site may not be included in the results. If on the other hand, you had published a news item on your site announcing your recent order from Glasgow, or your attendance at an exhibition there, the search engines would include you in the results, as both terms appear on your site. So by publishing ALL but the most mundane news, you increase the likelihood that the potential customer will find you.

Sandford's CMS allows all news items to be dispatched to subscribers with a few clicks:



With Sandford's Content Management System (CMS), each news item can be automatically dispatched to registered site visitors, newsletter subscribers, and any ancillary contact lists you have available, at the click of a button. The dispatched news items can be tracked allowing you to build up intelligence on the success of each dispatch in terms of opened ratio, links clicked and much more, helping you to refine your news to suit the interests of your audience, and target them individually. The same mechanism can be used to run regular newsletters, send product bulletins and many other potential applications.

By segregating the news into categories, you avoid overloading or boring your visitors, and you make your site easier to navigate and manage. The categories can be thought of as "channels" which your audience can selectively tune in to. For example:

• press releases
• in the press
• newsletters
• product announcements
IE7's new RSS button lights up when the current site has active RSS feeds:



In Sandford's CMS, this categorisation enables you to develop a suitably different visual style for each news channel, and control which lists receive any dispatches. Also RSS news feeds can be defined for each category which is increasingly important for search engine optimization (SEO) and because the soon-to-be-released Internet Explorer 7 will have a built-in RSS newsreader. (IE's huge market share means that in the next few months subscribing to RSS news feeds will become suddenly become a mainstream activity.) Making RSS feeds visible from your site - alerting site visitors to your news feed and allowing them to subscribe to the feed - will be essential if you want to keep up with your competitors, and show your audience that you're catering for them.

In this way you can keep your site working for you - turning site visitors into prospects, keeping customers informed and feeling welcome, and keeping the search engines interested.

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