First up was Ian Wharton of software start-up Zolmo who as I already knew from a recent Northern Digitals/BLAB night is a superb speaker. In this environment, Ian was similarly entertaining and shared some of Zolmo’s finest moments with us, mainly their work producing apps for brand Jamie Oliver. As he departed the stage he left us with the inspirational last thought “In this industry, if you’re pissing a few people off, chances are, you’re doing something right”. Superb stuff.

If this was a tough act to follow then it needed the cool head of Stephen Mellish (Radical Company) to pick up the baton. Stephen’s talk was mainly future focussed, offering his thoughts on where mobile goes next or as he more appropriately suggested…the device with no name. With no stone unturned Stephen lent his thoughts to how ‘mobile devices’ could be practically used in every way from treating health conditions to voting live on political issues (who needs MPs he quipped).

After a great opening by two live speakers we were then treated to a broadcasted version on the big screen of Roger McNamee at Tedx SantaCruz. You can see his engaging ‘Steve Jobs’ style right here Roger McNamee – Disruption and Engagement including this great opening line “Have you ever been in a position of watching Silicon Valley take off and knowing what was going to happen.” At 15 minutes, it’s an effort but please do take this time to educate yourself and listen to an absolutely top class technology expert.

Back to live speaking and Alex Dunsdon of M&C Saatchi ably stepped upto the plate (as a last minute replacement I might add) with a different slant. The twitter stream faded immediately as Alex requested we all take a little time out as to contrast our mobile behaviour with that of nomadic tribes. Alex actually produced the second most unusual word of the day, the rather cartoony cute sounding ‘weisure‘ a modern observation on how work and leisure behaviours are now combined simultaneously via the power of mobile device. The visual example of a father checking his email with one ear and half a brain focussed on their child is an experience some of us are all too familiar with. The point being that for the first time ever we can physically be in one place yet virtually in another…all due to the power of mobile. It’s a fascinating cultural observation and Alex’s belief is that while many will embrace and ‘Opt In’ to this lifestyle, many will deliberately ‘Opt Out’ and resist the advances around us.

Following this, another twist in technology, as we joined Dan Lyons, Newsweek Technology Editor in a crystal clear Facetime broadcast from the States which took us nicely through to the interval.

Finally some time to condense thoughts, compare notes and bump into some old and new industry contacts, all fuelled by the free Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Happy days.

The second session got fired up by Tom Scott of Sky 1 HD’s Gadget Geeks. A nice bit of interactivity where the present and virtual audience were asked to take part in a crowdsourcing exercise. Using twitter as the channel we were asked to guess the answer to five questions such as how many wind turbines are in the UK?  The questions were all deliberately posed to prove when and how crowdsourcing can be effective and when it can fail. “Going from someone who is an expert to the rest of the world isn’t always the right path to take” Nice big screen interaction, short and sweet, a winner.

Things were then about to seriously geek-up a level with Jeff Coghlan of Matmi who made most of us feel terribly old with the archaic images of 70s/80s/90s consoles & technologies… we extracted some minor revenge when even a tech-whizz like Jeff had trouble fitting his powerpoint slide to the screen…failed…and then got on with it anyway.

“I wish this would fit on the bloody screen, serves me right for doing it on a mobile device”

Jeff predicts the demise of consoles…why should we pay so much for content we can only play in one place…why can’t I stand in Times Square and play with friends on a screen type thinking. But I’ll definitely remember his talk for the startling (well, worrying) revelation that there are now more mobile phones in the world than toothbrushes (ugh!).

The penultimate speaker was Nicholas Cumisky of Google who I’d seen earlier in the year at TFMA. Nicholas had sat through a degree of Google-bashing throughout the day…not heavy stuff, more subtle digs…and had the unfortunate bad luck to cite Best Buy as a great online case study (on a day the firm went bust, oops!). That aside, some fascinating insights, great stats and a little gift at the end in the shape of Google’s own global mobile data research, which can be found at http://www.ourmobileplanet.com/

Last, but by no means least, the appropriately titled Chief Wonka of ustwo, Mills, real name Matt Miller, the self-proclaimed King of Succailure (the most unusual word of the day). We were walked through his Studio of Dreams…and some of the apps they have beautifully crafted, like Mouth Off, Whale Trail, Papercut and Nursery Rhymes with Storytime. A real eye-opener for those looking to make a fast buck from apps & his own advice… “Don’t innovate if you’re trying to make money” a lesson they have clearly learnt the hard way.

A hard core of delegates then took things to Leaf Cafe round the corner for a few well deserved beers and technology chat. An excellent event I hope to see in Manchester sooner rather than later.

“As an independent brand design consultancy, our core offering is intrinsically linked to search marketing. So, although it’s a service we offer our clients we can afford to take an impartial view on this popular online marketing tactic. We certainly never advocate techniques that we describe as ’search at all costs’. By this, we mean websites where the user experience has been destroyed by overwhelming on page optimisation such as keyword stuffing. Although it is an essential marketing activity for most businesses, search marketing must only play one part in an organisation’s overall digital marketing strategy. With this in mind, budgets should be allocated giving due consideration to other channels – both on and offline.

We constantly come across staggering sums of money being invested in search marketing by companies that are obsessed with chasing new business leads, yet they spend hardly anything on engaging existing clients or customers via e-CRM including; email marketing, personalisation & data capture.The old marketing adage that it is cheaper to keep an existing client than gain a new one is still true in the digital arena! At the same time, investment in site content can also suffer so new traffic is being driven to a site that could actually be performing and converting a whole lot better.

We realised the potential of search marketing as both a brand awareness and business development tool for ourselves a number of years ago and it has become an important revenue stream – since 2007, an additional £500k has been generated in fees. As Google becomes more ‘intelligent’ and the algorithms evolve, fundamentally sites that are user friendly in terms of copy, content and structure will also become more influential. Attempts to ‘fool’ the engines will become more difficult and ultimately the most relevant sites will prevail.

Build your Web of Dreams
Well, essentially there are three ways for a customer to find your website. Firstly, they can type your website address (URL) into their browser, but naturally this only works if they already know what that is, such as finding it on a business card, other product literature or advertisement. Naturally, this will restrict your site’s exposure to people who have heard of you. Secondly, they may find your site by clicking on a link to it from another website, usually a directory or another website specialising in your chosen industry with whom you have agreed to exchange links. This is a great, generally free, way of boosting your traffic but it only works if you have the permission of the parent website to link from it. Linking from directories can also be a fairly non-exact science as it is usually someone’s job to review submissions before they are published, so the chances are you may easily be overlooked.

Relevant Content
The third way in which a customer may find your website is from a search engine e.g. Google, MSN, Altavista, etc. A search engine’s speciality is to help internet users find relevant content and information on the web, quickly and easily. They do this by ranking every website that they come across, using a variety of criteria, and storing that information in their considerable database. When a user then performs a search for, say ‘Manchester design agency’, (try it now and see who’s top!) the search engine will trawl it’s database and present the user with a list of the most relevant websites, in order of importance. Obviously when presented with a list, which may stretch over tens or hundreds of pages depending on the search term, users will instinctively only browse the first one or two pages before they find exactly what they are looking for and are away. The key, therefore, is to ensure your website appears on the first or second pages, maximising the number of potential visitors it is exposed to, and that’s where search engine optimisation (SEO) comes in.

Pay Per Click Advertising
Search engine optimisation can take two basic forms, organic and pay-per-click (PPC). Pay-per-click is essentially a form of online advertising. Search engines, and the most notable exponent of this is Google, place small text adverts on their search results pages so that users are presented with not only a list of relevant websites that have been derived from the search engine’s database, but also a selection of targeted ads from advertisers who have paid to be on there. It is relatively simple to set up an account, write your adverts and select the search terms for which you would like to be displayed. You are then only charged by Google when a user clicks on your advert, which can make this a very cost-effective type of advertising. If no-one visits your site, then you have no expenditure. The crux of the matter is exactly where you appear in the list and this depends on how much you are prepared to pay for a single visitor to your site. The more lucrative the industry sector and search term, the more advertisers are prepared to pay to appear higher up the list. Conversely, if you have a niche market and a fairly obscure search term, PPC advertising can cost as little as 4p per click.

Search Engine Criteria
However, it’s always said that the best form of advertising is free advertising, so how else do you get onto the first page of Google? Well we’re back to what we discussed earlier and the way that search engines rank your website. Getting your website to appear high in the search engine’s listings is known as organic optimisation and it’s been the subject of much debate for a number of years now. Essentially, unless you have a relative who works for Google (and is prepared to break their highly probable code of confidentiality!) no-one knows for certain what criteria search engines consider when ranking your website. However by trial and error over a number of years, webmasters have deduced that it is a combination of factors including:

- The URL (website address) of your site and page titles
- Meta tags
- Links, page content and keyword density
- Website coding and file structure

Obviously there are many other techniques and tools out there to help webmasters optimise their sites but one thing is certain, there is no magic bullet. Quality search engine optimisation takes time to perfect and, as search engines only update their rankings every few months, can be a pain-staking process of trial and error. And that’s before the search engines change their algorithms and blow all of your good work out of the water! Best practice involves creating a relevant, frequently updated website that is well built, well designed and offers users what they want in the first instance and then building on that web presence using PPC and organic optimisation techniques.

Dubious Techniques
Incidentally, it should be noted that search engines take attempts to deceive their ranking software, and consequently their users, very seriously and any attempts to infringe that can result in URLs being banned from their listings. Previously, BMW Germany were involved in a case where their site was removed from Google for having the term ‘used car’ hidden frequently amongst numerous ‘doorway pages’, specially created pages designed to trick search engines. Whilst you may argue that you can buy a used BMW quite legitimately, Google’s issue was that you can’t buy one from BMW Germany’s corporate website and, as such, that was potentially misleading users. Anyone who tells you they can get your brand new website onto the first page of Google next week is either going to set you up a vastly expensive PPC campaign or employ dubious techniques which we’ll leave well alone for the time being!

So there you have it. Search engine optimization can be one of the most effective internet marketing tools available. You can, for a little time and effort, reach thousands of potential customers and clients across the world for minimal outlay. All your website now has to do is convert these visits into sales!

But more about that later…

For further information on how we can help with your online presence click here to arrange a consultation.

I think a bit of healthy competition for Apple’s iPhone won’t do anyone any harm )

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle is one of my favourite kids books ever.

We are doing absolutely bloody brilliant in Google’s organic search listings on pretty much all of our preferred key phrases. Result, no ad costs, loads of new enquiries, huge income streams and a much brighter outlook for 2009. Thank you webbies, I love you all.

There you go, one out of two ain’t bad.