In a recent study it was revealed that the number of smartphone owners had nearly doubled since 2011, up from 35% to 64% of internet users. In reference to this a Google commentator said, “Billions of times per day, consumers turn to Google and at these times, consumers are increasingly picking up their smartphones for answers. In fact, more Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries including the U.S. and Japan.”

Mobile devices are becoming the norm and Google has already been taking steps to address this. Google have new guidelines in place to reward sites that offer a good mobile user experience and are effectively penalising sites that do not. Site owners have been warned if their sites are not satisfactory so there’s no excuse.

Mobile phones, phablets and tablets are the order of the day. And if you want your site to rank well in a Google search on these devices, it is essential that its content is optimised for smaller screens. Google has laid out all of the necessary information and tools and webZeppelin can help you to deliver a mobile friendly website that will take advantage of this.

For more information contact ray@webzeppelin.co.uk

In a recent blog Google issued some sound advice on ways to help prevent your website being hacked. You can read the full post here. But these are the key points:

1 – Make sure you have a strong password and don’t use the same password on multiple logins. They also recommend using two-Factor Authentication whenever possible. (It is not always an option but can be set-up on your Google account.)

2 – Make sure you regularly update your software to the latest version as this will have the most up-to-date security revisions.

3 – Make sure you select a responsible  hosting service with a good track record of supporting users.

4 – Use Google Webmaster tools to help you pro-actively monitor your site so you can stay informed of potential hacked content.

webZeppelin take site security very seriously and we are committed to helping our clients keep their websites secure. For more information contact Ray at webZeppelin.

There’s a debate currently as to whether Facebook Advertising is really cost effective, or even achieves anything at all. In recent research only 37% of Facebook advertisers felt their ads were successful. But when you look into this there is a lack of clarity with regards to how exactly to quantify success on a platform like Facebook.

Facebook ads provide comprehensive statistics that allow you to easily gauge ROI. But there are fundamental differences between social ads and conventional advertising. The cost-per-click and number of actions that can be quantified for a given period when you run a Facebook ad campaign are only part of the picture. What is not quantifiable and what makes social advertising different is relationship building.

Your Facebook audience grows over time and as you develop the relationship your advertising can offer a repetitious but familiar message which can have a cumulatively effect. Statistics can’t accurately quantify an increase in brand awareness and goodwill. Not only that but the detailed data Facebook advertising provides actually helps you to understand your target market better.

Facebook advertising is almost certainly worth having as a part of your marketing mix but don’t judge it on the cpc, look at it as a long-term investment.

This was an independent site styled using Rotary Club branding guidelines to match the look of the organisation’s Rotary in London (Rotary District 1130) website. It was required to provide information about the activities of the club in Kennington and encourage new members to join.

Recently we have migrated this site to the Adobe Business Catalyst hosting service and reconfigured the site with a Content Management System (CMS). Business Catalyst provides an easy-to-use CMS that gives the site owner complete control to edit the content so that news and events can be regularly updated from one central control panel.

The site design has remained the same but updates to the the content can now easily be made by the client.

Visit: www.kenningtonrotary.org.uk to see this website.

We have just completed a new portfolio, website for fashion stylist Lucinda Gallop.

The site uses fancybox2 to present a gallery of images. And it is designed with media queries and JQuery Mobile to ensure the thumbnails and images display correctly on mobile devices.

View the site at: www.lucindagallop.co.uk

Just published the spring Ezine for Longborough Dental Practice.

It can be viewed in a browser here.

Matt Cutts has confirmed that link building is not illegal and that back links are still the best way for Google to evaluate the relevance of a site. So Google are not against link building in principle they just want to cut out link-farms and spam. Link building can still make a legitimate SEO contribution but what is important now is to take care over the way it is done.

Organic link building is acceptable to Google and as valuable as ever. But when link building it is now essential to ensure good link building tactics; choosing related sites with relevant content. This can be a difficult challenge and one of the safest and most successful means of achieving this is through blogs and social media, that you control.

This also has another advantage. Google is now starting to look at social signals to evaluate the relevance of a site in the search results, so it’s a win, win situation.

There was a time when link building was one of the main off-site SEO activities and today, if done in the right way, it can be as effective as ever.

Contact webZeppelin for more information.

The requirements of the brief were that the site should be well branded and provide clear navigation to the various product category pages. These have been laid out so that customers can find plenty of information as well as slides of the products in use and product specification sheets that can be downloaded.

The Adobe Business Catalyst CMS also offers a range of marketing add-ons, which the client is taking advantage of through our associate company GC Marketing. There is an enquiry form with an automated workflow on the site, which forwards any enquiries to the client and the built in email marketing functionality allows the client to send regular html emails to their customer list.

This website can be viewed at: www.tfse.eu

To find out more about other websites we have built, visit: www.webzeppelin.co.uk

Business Catalyst provides hosted and easy-to-use Content Management functionality with lots of added benefits. It gives web owners the power of multiple software packages accessed from one central control panel. Detailed web analytics, for example, are included and it allows administrators control of their website from any computer, tablet or mobile, wherever they are.

The system has built-in marketing features that help a commercial website to provide a marketing platform that will contribute to the business. It can be set-up with a CRM system and with integrated email marketing, which includes list management and a comprehensive reporting module.

It is flexible too. Small businesses can opt for a basic hosting package at entry-level or at the other end of the scale we can build a fully featured e-commerce site that can be customised to the specific business needs of the client.

Our Business Catalyst, CMS saves time and money.

Find out more about the features here.

The new website uses the template from the Satyam website to retain a corporate theme, but has different branding and a complimentary colour scheme. Like the main website, it is designed to be easy to navigate and have a distinctive presence in a very competitive market place. It is also built on the Adobe Business Catalyst CMS system to give the client independent control of the website content.

The site also uses HTML5 and CSS3 with jquery supporting the slide show animations. To view the website go to: www.anandexpress.co.uk and take a look.

To find out more about other websites we have built, visit: www.webzeppelin.co.uk