Video: Link Building Tutorial

This video is pretty good in terms of giving you an overview of where you should be concentrating your efforts to help improve your search engine optimisation.


Chris Lunn
digity

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GDA Design (Goodger Design Associates) new website goes live!

I'm delighted to announce that the new website for Goodger Design Associates, based in Windsor is now live. See it here: www.gda-design.com.

Chris Lunn
digity

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igoogle - see if it can help your business?

Do you find that you constantly refer to certain websites for certain information? Would it be handy to have all of those websites and other things like your email on one page when you logon? If so, check out igoogle. Here's a quick video to give you an idea of what it it's all about:


Keeping track of your competition or industry news is vital and with tools like this it can easily become part of your daily life. If you'd like any further help or advice in this area, don't hesitate to get in touch.

Chris Lunn
digity

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Networking in Berkshire generates 5,000 page views in 3 weeks!

I've been delighted at the early adoption of the Networking in Berkshire service. It only launched at the beginning of November and in the past 3 weeks we've attracted over 500 visits and 5,000 page views! It just shows what an interactive 'networker' market there is around us.

If you haven't joined yet, you can register for free online and add a profile for yourself and your business. Going forward there are going to be lots of useful hints, tips and incentives to get you out and networking even more!

As always, feedback is gratefully received so let me know what you think.

Chris Lunn
digity

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Hunter Design Associates website goes live

Hunter Design is a strategic-thinking, customer experience based agency: a safe pair of hands with an inspirational touch!

 

Based in Eton, Berkshire they have played a major role in the success of brands such as Charles Tyrwhitt shirts, Hotel Chocolat, and The White Company. Their exceptional work continues to this day and we're delighted to have produced a website to showcase their work. Hunter Design Associates

Chris Lunn
digity
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Home Counties Financial Services new website goes live!

We're delighted to announce the launch of the new Home Counties Financial Services website which went live earlier today.

Home Counties Financial Services are based in Ascot and approached digity to get themselves online having never had a website before and we're very pleased to have been able to play our part.

Chris Lunn
digity

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Having Trouble Opening Office 2007 Documents? (.docx)

If you're using an old version of Microsoft Office (2003 for example) you will experience problems if someone sends you a spreadsheet or document in the new format (usually ends with an x on the end of the file name). If this is the case you can download a copy of Open Office for free which will enable you to open these going forward.

It's a good piece of software and is free compared to the many pounds you can spend on Microsoft products. Depending what you need, it's well worth a look, especially if you've got children who need an affordable solution for their project work. The other bonus is that you can save documents you create as if they are Word or Excel documents too - so there are no compatibility issues if you're using in more than one place.

Chris Lunn
digity

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Networking in Berkshire launches to list events

We're delighted to announce the launch of our new service, 'Networking in Berkshire'. It's been created to bring together details of the various networking opportunities throughout the County.

Please have a look and let us know what you think. You can join up for free and add a profile to tell other members about yourself. Also, if you run any events in the region you can add the details and we'll approve them for public consumption as long as they are relevant.

We look forward to networking with you in due course.

Chris Lunn
digity

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Google Analytics - Free Analytics for your website

We've spoken to a significant number of businesses lately who aren't tracking their website traffic. Whether you're interested in the statistics or not, it's well worth adding the code asap as when you come to do some analysis, at least you'll have it!

At digity we add value for our clients through the analysis of this data and we're then able to form conclusions, track trends and make informed marketing decisions with you. We appreciate that you know your business but as a minimum, it's important to keep updated with:

• Visits, Page Views and Unique Visitors - how popular is your website?
  
• Average time on site - how long are people staying on your website?
  
• Average page views per visit - how active are people on your website?
• Referring Sources - where is your traffic coming from?  Direct / Search Engines / Adverts / Emails / Other websites - in order to improve your results, you need to know what's happening now.
  
• Landing pages - what pages are people coming in to first?  If your search engine optimisation is good, it's quite likely that a significant % of people will be 'landing' on pages other than your home page!
• Exit pages - where are people exiting your website?  By tracking which pages people are exiting on you can spot potential problems.  The key here is to add some common sense to the issue (as we all exist somewhere) but it is interesting to track, especially if you're running an e-commerce website for example and people are exiting during the payment stage for example (which may flag an issue which is related to the time it's taking to authorise payment).
  
• Most Popular Content - Everyone who creates a website will have their key sections in mind.  It's always interesting to look at the most popular pages and find out what your visitors are interested in though.  Sometimes it's the less obvious pages (and therefore pages you've spent less time on) which are of interest and it's important to maximise their effectiveness and track the general interest.

There is much more to focus on but the above are some key points and benefits of why you should get the code added to your website asap.

Get The Code

To get the specific code for your own website, follow these steps:

1. Visit: http://www.google.com/analytics/ which is their main page for the Analytics product.  There is lots of information here about their 'Analytics' tool (and it's this page which you will 'Access Analytics' from in the future once you've got an account).
2. Look over to the right and you'll see 'New to Google Analytics', Sign Up Now - click this link
   
3. If you already have a google account you can sign-in using your details. 
   > If you don't have one (and you can use any email address to activate a google account by the way), you need to click the 'Sign Up Now' link on that page.  This will then walk you through the steps, resulting in them sending you an email to your email address with a link you need to click to activate your new account.  Once you've done that you can come back to this page and login.
   
4. If you haven't yet set-up an analytics account you will be guided through the process which is fairly quick and results in the generation of some specific code for your website.  Once you have this, you need to add it to the template of your website(s) and once you do, it will start tracking the relevant data.
5. Once the code has been added you can login whenever you want and review the data and/or set-up reports to be emailed directly to you at regular intervals.

Tip Once the code has been added and you are tracking data, make a couple of visits to your website and click around all of your pages.  The next day, login to your account and check your 'Top Content' report and you should see your pages in the list.  If you can only see a couple, it may be that your code needs to be added individually to each page.

As always, if you've got any questions or queries, please let us know.

Chris Lunn
digity

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4networking Event This Wednesday - Reading

I'm off to this event on Wednesday morning so if you're planning to be there, let me know and I'll come and say hello. I've heard good things about this group so I'm very interested to see how it all works out.

Chris Lunn
digity

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BBC Headline: "England match to be internet only"

It's great to see technology being utilised to increase the flexibility for people to find information/entertainment but is this level of exclusivity going too far?

This extract was taken from the BBC this morning: "England's World Cup qualifier in Ukraine on Saturday will be shown exclusively live to subscribers on the internet who will pay at least £4.99. All previously broadcast England matches have been available on TV." Apparently, the English FA don't control the rights for their away matches and this game had originally been purchased by Setanta who have since ceased trading. Therefore, due to a lack of apparent interest by British Broadcasters, the rights for the game have been sold to an online broadcaster.

Due to the nature of this blog, I'll refrain from the negative ethical reasons I feel this is a bad move. Because of the technology requirements and additional fee it will limit many people from seeing their country compete - which I feel is wrong on a number of levels.

For the internet however, it is a sign of the times that this is even an option and thanks to the development of on-demand TV stations using this medium, I'm sure this is just the start of things to come, especially as other teams have utilised this method previously for certain games also.

Chris Lunn
digity

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Video: TV Ad for Google's 'Local Business Center'

I've previously posted about this free service and here's a brief TV ad to explain it further:



Go to: google local business center

As always, if you would like any advice on how to further promote your business online please let us know.

Chris Lunn
digity

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Business Link Breakfast Feedback

As someone who is still relatively new in the market place I thought I'd go along to hear more about Business Link and what they offer these days.

I had my first introduction to Business Link some 6 years ago now when I started my first business. At the time they were quite useful but the internet was still in it's infancy then and the advisors that I met with, found it difficult to grasp what we wanted to achieve. Looking back it was possibly less about their in-experience with the internet and slightly more about our slightly confused offering which was years ahead of it's time.

Anyway, being open-minded I decided to go along to a networking breakfast in Slough and see what it was all about. I have to say that it seems quite a lot has changed, not least the fact they are now entirely Government funded. The approach was refreshing and their presentation to introduce themselves was actually delivered by a businessman who has seemingly used their services to good effect over the years. As someone who has delivered many presentations over the years I really liked that angle - it was impartial which made it interesting and it was a real life case study/testimonial told through a nutural. So overall it got a big thumbs up.

After the presentation/introduction we had the opportunity to network and I met Imran from the Berkshire region of Business Link. He was very interested in digity and the services we cover and immediately put my in touch with a potential client which was great.

I'm now going to meet one of their advisors to go through the plan for digity and see if they can add any value to it. The great thing is that this resource is free and is designed solely to help progress your business - it's in their interest as the more corporation tax you pay, the longer they can keep going!

So check out Business Link and their events section in particular. If you have any questions I can answer in this area, please let me know.

Chris Lunn
digity

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Free Event: The Real Business Club

There are now free spaces available to attend this event on Monday 12th October in Wokingham. It's set to be a fantastic event which has been created to 'meet the needs of both professionals and entrepreneurs starting in business or moving up to the next level'.

The event features:

• 15 minute, one to one advice from individual specialist advisors (banking, insurance, legal, accounting, tax, marketing, IT plus others)
  
• Micro workshops and seminars delivered by experienced business people
  
• Friendly, informal networking
  
• Practical business planning including Business Journey and Action Blueprint
  
• Open Forum - encouraging exchange or ideas and experiences

This event takes place at TradeMark, Fishponds Road, Wokingham, RG41 2FD.

Register for your free place here

Chris Lunn digity
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Video: twitter in plain english!

We've featured this video and it's a useful intro from the US which explains what 'twitter' is. If you'd like to discuss how to use it for your business, get in touch.

There are certainly a number of areas to consider when using twitter for your business. We've seen some companies using it well and others who seem to have missed the point...we're here to make sure you use it to good effect.

Chris Lunn
digity

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