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10 of Our Favourite Tech Blogs of 2015

If you like your tech and gadgets then you probably know one or two good blogs to follow, we are going to take you through a few of our favourites. You will probably know some of them, hopefully we will introduce you to some others and if you know of any more we want you to let us know about them.

We aren’t going to be putting them in any particular order so don’t take this as a league table of sorts, each have their own merits. Here are 10 of our favourites, let us know yours.

TechCrunch.Com TechCrunch is one of those you will probably have heard of and is good for providing news, reviews and general info on the latest tech and gadgets.

Wired.Com Wired.Com is another good one that covers a few more bases than just tech and gadgets and is great for people with a broader interest but still rooted in the realm of tech.

Gizmodo.Com Great for gadgets and brilliant for those interested in mobile tech.

Huffingtonpost.com/tech Another biggie and always a good read and source of information.

Blogs.technet.com Microsoft’s own collection of blogs, if you need an answer the chances are you will find it in here.

Venturebeat.com Covering the latest in News, Events and Research, Venture beat is a great source for interesting information and posts.

Mashable.Com You just have to look at the amount of people that follow Mashable’s social accounts, 13 million, to know they must be doing something right.

MacRumours.Com This is one for the Apple fanatics and if there is Apple related news to be heard, the chances are you will hear about it here first.

BusinessInsider.Com The majority of people reading this will, in some way be involved in the business side of tech and though we might enjoy reading about exciting and fun gadgets, getting a good inside knowledge of how tech development will impact your business is crucial. BusinessInsider.Com offers some great insights to its millions of readers every month.

TheVerge.Com TheVerge.Com covers a load of topics and is great for flitting from one article to another. Reviews, science, entertainment, cars and design are all covered along with tech and its forums are a great place to go to discuss what you have just read.

New Post has been published on http://www.boyddigital.co.uk/seo-mistakes/hell-google/

What the hell is a Google?

‘So I sort of help websites perform better online in order for them to increase revenue.’ It’s the boilerplate answer I commonly use whenever someone asks what exactly I do at my job. Of course an answer like this leads anyone down an avenue of even more questions like ‘What does Google have to do with it?/ But how does a website work?/ Is it to do with computers?’ etc.

If you have troubles like this, time to bookmark this post because I’ve went and found the best videos on YouTube that best describe the simpler aspects of SEO and what everyone should know about how running a business nowadays involves at least a little bit of effort in understanding how consumer bases have shifted drastically to online platforms.

To know how to make a website work you’ll need to know how a search engine works. This video can explain that:

Don’t know how to make a website? Then not to worry. We made a video showing how to set up a WordPress website.

Now that you know that, let’s look at what exactly SEO is, how it works and why it is important.

You should know what backlinks are. We will often look at a site’s backlink profile to see how healthy the site is and whether it has been seen as spammy or good by a search engine. This basic video explains it pretty well.

Backlinks are essentially the bonds that strengthen a website, but a lot of work has to be carried out on a website too. One of the ways this is done is by checking the condition of metadata. This includes the page titles, descriptions and heading tags. If you’ve never heard of metadata, watch this.

One way you can improve how a search engine can understand what your site is and what is does is through the use of schema markups added in to the site. If you disregard the fact the guy in this video is ready for Christmas, you’ll learn something about schema.

New Post has been published on http://www.boyddigital.co.uk/testing-lab/looking-keywords-wrong-places/

Looking For Keywords In All The Wrong Places

Urban Cookie Collective once majestically said ‘I’ve got the key/I’ve got the secret/ I’ve got the key to another way/ Ah ah ah ah’. Now while that last beautifully crafted harmonic line might not be that relevant when we’re talking about keywords, the rest of the lyrics make for a great brief in describing how to better look for potential keywords.

There are so many tools and untapped resources for keywords out there that you should never be afraid to try them. Don’t insularly sit on Adwords all day comparing the strength of a keyword that gets 1000 searches to one that receives 1001. So where do you start looking for keywords in all the wrong places in order to get a bit of inspiration instead of just clicking ‘add’ to anything Google throws your way? Here are 5 resources worth your attention.

1.Bottom of the SERP Barrel It is all too easy to overlook the bottom of the page when on Google. When everyone is focussed on getting to the number 1 spot, the bottom of the page is sitting there going ‘look at me, look at all this info I have just sitting here for you’. Unlike auto-complete, related searches can open your eyes to better ideas for pages and much more importantly, better ideas for blog related content. Just take a look at that example and see how one very simple and common item turns in to a treasure trove of content ideas.

2.Pinterest It’s not just boards and pins of food and interior design ideas. Pinterest, we reckon, has just about as good an understanding of relevant keywords as Google does. And because it’s much more visually based, you get a better idea of what people want to see when they search instead of looking at a Competition Score that you don’t really know what to compare against.

3.Etsy Running a small eCommerce site and wondering how to get people to find your stuff? Well look at Etsy and see what people search for when they have an idea of what they want in their head. Because everything sold on the site comes from small companies and individuals, the search terms generated you know will be from interested buyers seeking out those products. Even just that first term in bold from our example ‘phone in handmade’ can give a site a complete spin on how products are sold.

4. Tumblr Don’t think of the site as a platform for discovery, but as a keyword resource for thought.  Tumblr can be great if you’re staring at a product and wondering how to best word it as anyone writing about anything they think is important will have a relevant tag in there. The site is full of so many tagged posts and images that you can always muster a little something. Of course don’t take these searches too seriously, as is quite evident in the last generated term in the example we used.

5. YouTube Just look at all those tasty keywords waiting to be jumped on. When it comes with very personal items that will get a lot of use (phones, cosmetic, clothes etc) Youtube is a great resource for finding new keywords because there will almost always be a review or un-boxing video of a product. There might even be videos of your products on YouTube that you don’t know about. Don’t forget that YouTube can also serve as a branch of your business for engaging viewers in all the different things your company does. For example, we like to put up videos of things that we’ve been doing in the office and about Glasgow.

Now these are just five tools you can use for free when doing a bit of research. They mightn’t be useful all of the time, but having a quick go on each one will never do any harm.

New Post has been published on http://www.boyddigital.co.uk/seo-mistakes/need-know-seo/

What You Should Know About SEO: Part 1

You’ve just redecorated the living room. You invite everyone round to have a look. They all say its great. One person though notices that the big expensive picture you have hanging up isn’t hanging straight, your sofa is facing the wrong way and a plug socket would be better set five inches to the left. Welcome to the mind of a digital marketer who has just come across your site for the first time.

In our line of work it is very simple to see mistakes and point out flaws that can be quickly fixed. A lot of very simple SEO mistakes are often oversights that aren’t fully realised until someone comes along and points it out. For a lot of companies who we talk to there are plenty of terms that are part of everyday language for us but are foreign to them.So what can we do to make understanding the phrases we use easier? Well we can start by defining them of course.

I’m going to break down the fundamental building blocks of what SEO is by listing 10 key terms everyone in charge of a website should know when talking about SEO. This week we’re starting with 1 to 5 and looking at the thought process behind what you want on a site and what little features can have a massive impact on its performance.

1.Keywords Everything is a keyword. Drill that thought in to your head from the very first second you’re considering what you want to sell. There is a really good way you can understand just how important it is. Try and search for a product but make sure that you don’t use any words that would easily describe that product. For example, try searching for anything on a McDonalds menu (Quarter Pounder/Happy Meal/ Big Mac) without using those keywords. You have to get the wording right otherwise your search for “large cheeseburger” won’t give you what you want, but “bigger sized burger that has cheese” will.

2.Search Volume Does the world need what you have and does it even want it? You could create a product that serves a great use, or none at all. You won’t really know for sure unless you figure out what the search volume is like. Using a tool like Google Adwords is great for finding out just how many people out there are searching for keywords related to your site. You’ll be able to see if 10, 100 or 10,000 people are actively looking for your help and what your chances of making any money from that are.

3.Site Structure You want a potential customer to get from A to B when using your site. Simple. Making that journey easy should be a top priority. Your homepage is the front doors of the supermarket and its up to you to make sure that customer knows what aisle they should be heading to without doubling back at every other section they come across. And you always want that structure, in the form of the menu, to be in the same place across the site. You wouldn’t find yourself walking to the back of a supermarket to get milk and then turning round to see every aisle has randomly changed order or disappeared, so make sure a website doesn’t do this.

4.Title Tags The best visual guide you’ll have in the browser, title tags play a big role in navigating a user between windows. If you run a small e-commerce site having the right tags is of massive importance as it helps define what each page someone is looking at is. Imagine this image above from ASOS saying nothing but ‘ASOS Mens Hats’ as the title tag for every product in the category. You would be a wreck trying to compare your options and probably just give up, no matter how a good deal you could probably find. Little touches like this are almost always overlooked and can make the biggest difference.

5.Meta Descriptions Think of the title tag as the chapter title and the meta description as the opening line. Meta Descriptions are usually visible on a page someone would be on, but they are also extremely important at helping to get the message across of what your site is and what it does. A good site needs relevant, concise and keyword focussed meta descriptions in order to tell the potential user searching what they’re going to get. The only time you’ll ever really see terrible meta descriptions is on musician websites where the y’re probably just too cool to care about SEO (like HAIM), concerned with getting a name out there (like Ella Henderson) or grabbing money at every opportunity possible (like World’s Richest DJ Calvin Harris). The Meta is integral is telling organic users who come across your site a little more about what they’re in for.

New Post has been published on http://www.boyddigital.co.uk/social-media/donts-donts-social-media-strategy/

The Don'ts and Don'ts of A Social Media Strategy

Don’t be misled by the title. Don’t go thinking this is going to be an entirely negative post. Don’t believe that this post will completely turn your social media strategy on its head. Most importantly, don’t ignore everything you’re about to read on this page. A social media strategy can often turn in to a big game of “Do’s and Don’ts”. Questions like ‘why don’t customers engage on our profiles?/ why don’t I get more visits from social sources? Why don’t I focus on social links to more?’ will drive you in a spiral of don’ts you’ll never get out of.

Here at Boyd Digital we don’t overlook about the significance of a social media strategy for any client. It doesn’t matter what field the client is in, if there is a niche to use social media that their competitors haven’t got a hold on yet, you can bet we don’t waste any time formatting an efficient strategy.

But what do you need to be doing when you get ready to carry out a social media strategy. Don’t read on if you don’t want to find out.

DON’T UNDERESTIMATE DEVELOPMENT The platform (Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest etc) is already there and you can trick yourself in to thinking the building blocks are all in place, but unless you actually make use of that profile you’re going to have a bare looking profile. You need to know your audience and what they like. Build your profile up steadily and keep the the social media strategy running alongside your business goals. It is all too easy to get absorbed in social interaction but it might not have as big a pay off as goals you need for the main site.

DON’T UNDERESTIMATE YOUR RESOURCES People are inquisitive creatures. For example, if you ran a wood floor business you’d want to be sharing relevant information on floor care, removing stains etc. If you ran a salon, it would be foolish not to upload photos of your clients new ‘dos (just look at any tattooist page to see a good example of this). You want to plan that seed of inspiration in a prospective customers’s mind before even telling them where you come in to help.

DON’T MISMANAGE YOUR CONTENT If you’re someone who likes to plan ahead, you can create a stockpile of content and schedule it to post on chosen dates. There are dozens of programs and plugins available for your site, Hootsuite being the most well-known of these. Timing a post for when you know most eyes will see it can be very beneficial. You can read about the importance of timing social posts in this blog we wrote a few months ago.

DON’T FORGET ABOUT YOUR GOALS A few weeks ago here in Glasgow there was a complaint posted on a hostel’s Facebook page. It quickly blew up and was featured on a number of news sites and even Buzzfeed got in on the action. As you can see form the picture above, it actually sort of helped the small business get listed in SERPs, but don’t go mistaking yourself that your social channels are going to act as the Customer Complaint section. Make sure your social profiles focus on your USP and always try to provide some sort of call to action when they’re needed.

DON’T FORGET TO OPTIMISE Brand as much as you can. Whether it means spending 10 minutes taking a high quality cover photo or making sure that you have your icon make the basis of a YouTube video, putting your stamp on content not only looks good, it signifies you mean business.

DON’T FORGET IT CAN HAPPEN ON SITE Social networks can come and go (Hello MySpace & Bebo), your site doesn’t. We’ve been reading Niall Harbison’s book Get Shit Done and fully agree with his point that your site should have a blog that will have sufficient content to share with a wider audience. It also helps add some character to your site and social strategy too.

DON’T FORGET TO KEEP AN EYE ON IT When you go between using your social profiles professionally and personally, you can be easily forgiven for letting the upkeep slip. Monitoring social visits can seem difficult but it is extremely easy. Here in the office we use a very simple method to monitor this. On a whiteboard we have the number of social visits this site got over the last three months. Nothing more than a number in a visible area. Everyone who walks by will see it and its a quick reminder that the latest number always needs to be higher than the number preceding it. No comparing emails Facebook analytics send out. No giving in to ‘boost post’ notifications. Just a number on a board that only needs to get a little bigger day by day.