A Grand Day Out

I had the great privilege of attending the Oxford Brookes University, School of Technology graduation ceremony on a very warm and sunny Friday afternoon last week.

Markus Boritz accepting the BOCC Prize from Director Tracy Walker

BOCC sponsors an annual student prize at the School of Technology. The prize, entitled  'BOCC Computer Systems Development Award' aims to encourage excellence and the development and effective use of World Wide Web and computer systems techniques in project work.

The award is judged on the effective use of development techniques, as well as accessibility and security issues. Students also have to provide the details of which technologies they have employed in developing their applications and their reasons for making their choice.Oxford Brookes University short-list students and then BOCC awards the prize at that years Graduation Ceremony.

Ian Redmond OBE, delivering his acceptance speech

This years winner was Markus Boritz, with his dissertation on 'Approaches to Application Development for High End Mobile Devices: A Comparative Evaluation', which was supervised by Professor David Duce.

It was great to celebrate with the students on their graduation day, as well as congratulate this years Honorary Graduant Ian Redmond OBE, the renowned tropical field biologist and conservationist.

His acceptance speech was very inspiring, as he talked of his work with gorillas and elephants, working alongside Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall. He also encouraged us to think about our impact on the world and what we can all do about the conservation of our planet.

How Exciting is Your Website Content?

I'm sure that you've heard this many times before, but your website is nothing within interesting, valuable, quality, interactive and above all up-to-date content.

If you have, but haven't yet reviewed your website with this in mind, then you really need to take action. It's so true - if you want to increase your visitor numbers and your websites visibility in search engines, then take a good look at your content.

Content sells - it sells you, your organisation, your products and services. It's about creating content that people will want to read, find engaging and want to share; as well of course as making it search engine friendly and readable.

Start off with thinking about a logical approach to the information you want to share. How easy as a visitor is it to find details about you. Make content clear, precise and to the point. Make sure that you focus on and include the most important keywords and phrases in the first paragraph of each web page. Look at your tone of voice - just be yourself and remember to write as if you were just talking to someone.

Content however, is no longer just about the written word. It's about providing interactive content, such as Flash, video and audio that will engage your website audience. Get people to engage with you, communicate about issues and just generally network with each other and your organisation. Using tools for business, such as blogs, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn can all help to enhance both your websites and companies visibility.

SEO is all about continually updating and monitoring your website. Reviewing the content, creating interesting articles, investing time in posting to Twitter and Facebook. It need lots of work to make your website a success and to continue to keep your organisation visible in search engines.

'Content Creation' - thupr Social Media Week Event

Content on the Web is no longer just the 'written word'. You now have to take into account other media, such as video and audio, as well as the power of blogs and social networking sites. All of these are key to providing quality content on your website.

The thupr 'Content Creation' event, part of this years Social Media Week 2011, highlighted just how interactive and realtime content can greatly enrich your website. The Web is all about engagement. Getting visitors, potential clients and customers to communicate with you online is essential in an ever increasing competitive market. The old addage of 'people sell to people' is still relevant and building rapport and trust is key to a successful business.

A simple communique, such as a short two-minute video to tell people who you are and what you can offer gives a personal touch to your website and develops a bond with your website visitors. I think when recording video for use on your website you do have to be careful of balancing a professional image, with what might look like a quick holiday video. Clear Blue Productions tips on what recorders to buy, lighting and editing software were really useful, but a corporate video may need more polish.

Letting visitors interact with your website is another good way to create engagement. One great idea was to provide a 'VodPod' on your website. This is a widget developed by Nemysis.co.uk that quite simply enables any website owner to record any visitor's message using a webcam and display it on their website. You could use it for message boards, client feedback and testimonials; only thing to bear in mind like any user generated content would be the moderation and approval processes that may be needed.

Another session headed by Amnesty International also highlighted the need to explore further the 'online to offline' relationship between content. Their focus is to look at the use of technology in a human rights context. The issue even now, is that we can't simply rely on the fact that our audience(s) all have access to the Internet and mobile phones. We have to rethink our methods of reaching people by revisiting and not dismissing more traditional offline methods, such as magazines, journals and radio. Especially where human rights are concerned and those most at risk don't have access to online methods.

A really interesting event, some thought provoking sessions and a great way to meet new contacts.

Oxford Web SEO Seminar Thursday 27th January

Oxford Web SEO held a special invite only event last week to launch the start of Oxford Web SEO and deliver a seminar that focused on the question of 'So you want to learn how to improve your website Google rankings?'

Our seminar delivered a range of core hints and tips to get organisations thinking about the way they approach their website. Search engine optimisation is all about increasing the visibility of your website in search engines, in order to make it easy for people to find your offerings and services.

Our approach is getting you to think more carefully about how people will find you. What words are they likely to use in a search engine like Google or Bing to associate with your organisation? They may not be the 'everyday' words that you use within your organisation - perhaps jargon terms that won't be understood on the outside.

So think more carefully about the words and phrases that will help get you found in search engine results listings.

Take a look at some of the photo's on our Oxford Web SEO Facebook Page.

If you would like to find out more about our services and how we can help make your website more visible in an increasingly competitive market, then please visit our Oxford Web SEO website for more information on search engine optimisation, or email us at tracy@oxfordwebseo.co.uk or call us on 01865 920121.

Support My Colleague Kevin Robertson in his Quest to Climb Kilimanjaro

My colleague Kevin Robertson is flying to Africa today to start his ascent of Mount Kilimanjaro in aid of Sobell House Hospice. Please show your support by sponsoring him at Virgin Just Giving.

You can also find out more about his preparation for the climb, as well as progress updates as it happens over the next week on his Blog at http://www.bocc.co.uk/challenge/

Social Media Week 2011 - Global Announcement

Nice presentation and a great idea for a global communciations event. Social Media Week is a global event that connects people, content and conversation around emerging trends in social and mobile media.

Social Media Week is taking place across London from February 7th until 11th. Check out the website and schedule of events.

Making your website attractive - why is it important to build links?

It's a crucial part of organic search engine optimisation to build strong referral links to your website. The more referral website links you have to your website, means the greater your chance of higher search engine rankings. In fact search engines see links as ‘votes’ for your website.

Search engines are generally of the opinion that if lots of visitors find your content interesting enough to link to it, then your website must have something useful to offer. Search engines are always on the lookout for 'interesting' sites to display in their top ranking results. Hence the more links you have, the more likely search engines will give you a higher ranking.

However, don't be fooled into thinking that requesting links from just anybody will make your website more popular. When we talk about link building, we're talking about attracting and getting good, quality links from industry partners that you are happy to be associated with and that will add some gravitas and weight to your own website.

You should aim to get quality referrals from:

• People in the same sector, experts or suppliers
• Charity sites, educational organisations, people you support / sponsor
• Industry bodies and associations
• News sites
• Blogs and forums
• Social media and bookmarking sites

If possible suggest the link to your website to your referrer – search engines weight the actual ‘anchor text’ that forms the text link to your website.

Try and include at least one of your core keywords as the link. For example, “My favourite search engine optimisation partner” - where the text links to the URL of the website. However, links from different websites should be varied to aid natural searching.

Link to your own website pages frequently from your own Blog or Social Networking sites, using your website keywords.

Above all you need to encourage people to want to share content from your site. Your website is nothing without it's content and unless you keep your website up-to-date; write good, clear textual content; and provide interesting gimmicks, such as videos, no one will be attracted to your website.