Since Twitter launched in 2006, shortening URLs to squeeze into that 140 character limit has become a popular pursuit. There are many URL shorteners out there already; I’ve always used Bit.ly by default and never had any issues. But then, I’ve started to see more and more custom URLs being used by various people. Techcrunch has http://tcrn.ch, Dave Naylor/Bronco have http://bro.gs, Malcolm Coles has http://mcol.es and so on. So I thought to myself “that seems pretty cool” (well as cool as URL shortening can be anyway) and decided to have a go myself….

My first stop was Bit.ly Pro as I remembered reading about it not so long ago. But, it’s still in beta and although I’ve no doubt it works well, I think they’re only accepting popular sites/bloggers at the moment. I filled in the form and didn’t hear anything…. it might be an option for you, but not me.

So, hosting my own shortener seemed to be a good alternative. Of course, the main reason to get a custom URL shortener for a lot of people is purely down to vanity (can I say that? Oh well, too late) but there are other advantages to hosting your own. These mainly revolve around being more in control of your link data, which is never a bad thing.

The main requirements for me were pretty simple:

• Must be easy to set up (I’m “tech” but “busy”)
• Must integrate with WordPress
• Must also integrate with my Tweetmeme button

Click here to continue reading Easy Guide To Create Your Own URL Shortener…

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It feels like every blog post I read nowadays is about CRO; some good, some not so good. And no, I’m not talking about birds (that’s “Crow”), nor indeed a chain of Manchester bars (that’s “Kro”) but in fact Conversion Rate Optimisation. I know you knew that already of course, I’m just humouring you.

The majority of these posts can be summarised as follows:

Solicit as much feedback as possible from customers, Speak to your sales staff, Get usability tests from Usertesting.com, Always be testing (but just sensible things, not pointless things), Make sure you test in a statistically valid fashion etc etc

Now, CRO is my bread and butter and I work on or supervise CRO tasks pretty much every day. It’s a vital part of increasing sales and maximising revenue from any e-commerce website. I’ll probably do a post myself at some point on this, but in the mean time I saw this post on SEOmoz recently which I’d thoroughly recommend reading if you’re new to this area.

CRO is great

There’s just 1 little problem with this cosy CRO love fest….. What you change on-site (checkout funnels, landing pages, navigation, banners etc) is not the only factor that contributes to your conversion rate, yet it seems to dominate every post I read about increasing conversion. OK, not much of a shock there for most of you I know, but what if I told you that on-site CRO is actually far from the most significant factor in increasing conversion? A bit more surprised now?

Click here to continue reading Understanding Intent To Buy…

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Part 1 – Introduction

Earlier this year, there were a spate of posts regarding Google’s Search Suggestions and how utterly, utterly terrible they are for UK users. I’m talking about both the AJAX suggestion feature when entering a search term (AKA Google Suggest) and the “did you mean” suggestions once you have searched. Some of the people who blogged on the subject were (in no particular order, they’re all awesome):

• Dave Naylor
• Angie at Site-Reference.com
• Pete Handly
• Malcolm Coles
• Kieron Hughes
• Andrew Nattan
• Patrick Altoft
• Shaun Anderson
• Nichola Stott at Seo-Chicks.com - includes a very thorough explanation of why using “ize” isn’t really an Americanisation of using “ise”.

And many more I’m sure. Most of these posts focus on the term search engine optimisation and the issues that surrounded it earlier in the year, but they all scratch the surface of what is an almighty problem with how Google handles search suggestions in the UK. 

Why am I so bothered?

Click here to continue reading Why Google Just Can’t Suggest…

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Let’s suppose you have a website. And let’s also suppose it’s not yet large enough for you to commit to in-house SEO resources, but you think ranking higher in Google for some organic search terms would probably be a good idea. More traffic can lead to more sales and if you’ve never done any SEO work, there’s probably lots of traffic out there waiting for you, regardless of what vertical you operate in.

So, you decide to enlist the help of one of the many hundreds thousands* of SEO companies out there in the UK (*look, I’ve not counted but it really wouldn’t surprise me). The big question is, how the hell do you choose?

Well, the normal answer to a blog post like this is get a recommendation, check previous work, get references, decide based on your budget, remember going local might be cheaper blah blah blah. Don’t get me wrong, that’s all true, but I just wanted to give a few quick tips to help you dismiss SEO companies quickly, without having to spend too much time doing all of the above.

Click here to continue reading How To Choose An SEO Company…

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On April 28th, Manchester will be hosting the inaugural SAScon event, and I’ll be there. I must admit, I  didn’t even know this event existed until recently; I think I read some murmurings on Twitter and had a poke about on the SAScon website. Once I’d read up a bit, the plan was to just send my colleague Phil from our development team as he didn’t attend SES, but the speaker list is so good that both myself and my colleague Simon Turner (who runs our social media and PPC operations) suggested we should attend too.  And best of all, it’s right where we are in Manchester!

So, what is SAScon about exactly? Well the website states:

SAScon delivered in association with Manchester Digital and SEMPO will be the UK’s leading Search Marketing conference.

The UK’s leading search marketing conference? That’s quite a bold claim; even just the three keynotes at this years’ SES London were pretty spectacular. The speaker list for SMX is strong for 2010 as well. Of course, we all know Manchester is the greatest city in the world (stop lying to yourself – you know it), so that’s definitely one advantage SAScon has over the other two conferences listed.

In all seriousness, I don’t see it as a competition; I just think it’s great that a search marketing conference in Manchester is able to host such a great range of speakers in one day. And certainly, if you’re in the North-West area and for whatever reason you’re not able to attend London conferences, you must attend this.

Click here to continue reading SAScon 2010 Preview…

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