What's New

Wickedweb has created a technical solution for a total re-brand of The Official Charts Company website, combining powerful infrastructure with complete simplicity. The Official Charts Company is a national institution; a joint venture between the British Phonographic Industry and the Entertainment Retailers Association. The UK’s number one supplier of official charts and data for the music and video industries, it tracks, collates and reports UK media sales - both physical and digital - on a daily basis, compiling a precise indication of the week’s trends and cultural leanings. On a weekly basis the company consults more than 6,200 high street and online retailers in an effort to provide an accurate barometer of the British music scene.

With the 60th anniversary of the UK singles charts approaching, Wickedweb applied a new brand identity to reflect a shift in the focus of the existing website. The re-brand, including new logos, colours and page designs, was to be based around the company’s ‘Where Legends Are Made’ ethos, bringing 60 years of the official charts to a diverse and modern audience. Previously non-prioritised archive content needed to be more accessible and the site would be fully integrated with Amazon and iTunes to drive sales, enabling users to instantly search for, purchase and download chart entries.

The site remains on a powerful content management system that updates automatically - future-proofing the site and also allowing the flexibility to edit features across all pages. It would develop the site into a comprehensive and constantly evolving, income-generating resource, finely balanced between illustrating the company’s extensive history and the need to provide up-to-the-second data to heavy traffic.

To find out more about Wickedweb's digital solution for The Official Charts Company, read the full case study here.

It’s Valentine’s Day, and we are feeling the love here at Wickedweb HQ.

Everyone is always saying that Wickedweb is a great place to work and I thought I would ask everyone here what gets them out of bed in the morning. Our inspiring clients? Our relaxed and fun approach to what we do? The bagel run?  And a lot more besides it seems! 

We are a happy lot – see our top 10 reasons below:

1. "The people are awesome - extremely friendly, talented and supportive” – Niki Duggan, Account Manager
    
2. "I learn something new every day – training and constant progression is mandatory” – Mark Townsend, Executive Developer
    
3. "As an agency we are exposed to a range of inspiring and diverse brands. I love that we are constantly challenged” – Kalli Daffin, Client Services Director
    
4. "Everyone is so passionate about what they do and this comes across in the work we produce for our clients. It makes for a full Awards cabinet!” – Sue Akam, Marketing and PR Manager
    
5. "Our culture is like no other place I have worked – we work incredibly hard but this is balanced with a really relaxed and fun environment. And I get to be creative all day!” -  Emma Atkins, Executive Designer
    
6. "We have great chemistry with our clients, and I’m surrounded by such creativity. It’s exciting to see this translated in to real results” – Nicole Tingley, Account Executive
    
7. "There is a great style of leadership here at Wickedweb. Underpinning our ambition and success are people that are very good at what they do, and this is infectious” – Denis Gordo, Developer
    
8. "The bagel run at 10:30!” – Jon Swarbrick, Developer
    
9. "There is a fantastic team spirit here. Each client has its own team and so we are all focused and committed to the same goal. We also enjoy sharing ideas across our different clients so we can add value at every opportunity” – Glen Richardson, Project Manager
    
10. "There is so much energy and enthusiasm here at Wickedweb, everyone really does go the extra mile. We have the perfect blend of people and processes for growth” – Mark Haydon, Finance Director.

Fancy joining the team?  Contact us at iwanttowork@wickedweb.co.uk.

Wickedweb were appointed to deliver a new website for IDCM, a debt services boutique that works with borrowers and lenders to deliver alternative financing solutions.

Wickedweb’s brief was to overhaul IDCM’s existing website and deliver a solution that would enhance user engagement and increase conversion.  Wickedweb’s approach was to update the look and feel of the existing site to bring it more in line with core brand values.  In addition, the content structure gave the opportunity to pull out key information for the target audience, to include service areas and client sectors.

Account Manager for IDCM, Niki Duggan comments:

“Wickedweb has elevated IDCM’s web presence with a website that looks professional and is on brand. To increase the level of enquiries into the business, the design features strong ‘contact us’ callouts with a view to increasing the conversion rate. Wickedweb has worked to very tight timescales in launching this website, and we now look forward to supporting the account going forward”.

Wickedweb add IDCM to our financial sector portfolio, which also includes work for RBS, Natwest, Statpro, Neteller and Prime CFD.

As a Sitecore partner, Wickedweb will be exhibiting at the Digital Trendspot 2012 UK event on March 15th. This innovative and thought-provoking conference will explore emerging issues and opportunities in the digital environment.  The theme this year will be “Adaptive Web Experiences”.

Some of Europe’s leading brands have successfully adapted their web experience to meet the online business challenges of the future, and so this promises to be an insightful event for senior client-side digital marketers.  The line up of speakers includes easyjet, Dyson, Virgin Active and Miller Group.

Wickedweb will be available during the conference period to talk to delegates about how we take brands to the next level of engagement – come and join us to discover how we do this.

To find out more about attending Digital Trendspot 2012, visit Sitecore’s website for more detail.

Wickedweb builds an engaging suite of websites for Riley Consulting, consolidating eight individual brands under one powerful umbrella site.  Riley Consulting is a leading UK consultancy firm, providing multi-disciplinary construction and property services. The group has a proud history, with over 100 years’ experience in sectors ranging from aviation to retail.

With no fewer than seven sub-brands under the group umbrella, Riley Consulting approached Wickedweb seeking to revamp its full suite of eight websites. 

While pursuing creative consistency across the sites, Riley Consulting wished to continue marketing its services independently as well as collectively. The challenge was therefore set to deliver an engaging and cohesive site structure that enabled sub-brands to stand alone as separate entities - while simultaneously maintaining the group’s core identity.

With a focus on long term success, search engine optimisation (SEO) was a key consideration from the very beginning. The site was also to be integrated with a content management system (CMS), facilitating simple in-house updates to all websites through a single interface.

The full case study will be released in January 2012.

The Wickedweb team had a fabulous evening at Asia de Cuba, St Martins Lane to celebrate this year’s festivities.  It was a great excuse to get dressed up and let our hair down...even the red carpet was out upon our arrival!  (It was then apparent that the paparazzi were after Lily Allen who was right behind us).  

In fact, it turned out to be a very star studded affair indeed due to the English National Ballet holding a VIP reception to launch the Christmas season on the same night - nothing like The Nutcracker to get in the Christmas mood!

Impressive food, jovial company and lots of dancing afterwards – the perfect Christmas party!

It's the day of the Wickedweb Christmas party at London's Asia di Cuba and preparations for a festive afternoon are well underway. And we are not just talking copious hairspray! Yes it is that time of year again for Secret Santa...and the gifts look very enticing under the tree.

(Only Niki knows who picked who, and so the rest of team have a surprise in store).  

Once the gifts have been opened around the tree we will all make our way to the Light Bar for pre-dinner drinks, but not before we have tucked in to the mulled wine and mince pies...

Now personally I would prefer a little more Christmas Buble, but Glen isn't so keen.  Still, can't have it all I guess!

Here's to a fantastic evening, with more pictures to follow.

Wickedweb MD Stuart Wells spoke last week at The Hospital Club, with a seminar focused on how brands can safeguard digital investment.  Stuart presented best practice design and build tips to the audience, with the objective of sharing our agency insights and experience.  Wickedweb have managed a myriad of design, build and user experience projects since 2002 across many sectors and industries and so are well placed to understand the elements that constitute a successful project. 

We would like to share these insights with you.  

To view Stuart’s presentation on video and see the slides please follow this link to our Figaro Digital profile.

Wickedweb has launched the new website for Priestfield – the largest Conference and Banqueting venue in Kent.  Priestfield has previously been synonymous with the Gillingham Football Club stadium, however the challenge has been to give this premium venue an identity in its own right.  The website showcases the suites available, with high-end photography.  Whether it is a 10 person seminar or a 550 guest celebration, this impressive facility has the answer.  

Priestfield approached Wickedweb for a solution to drive up conversion for event bookings.  Our approach was to implement a premium creative execution which mirrors the quality of the venue itself. Functionality modules included the events listing and the news sections which seek to keep visitors up to date.  To drive activity, the site architecture includes key ‘call to action’ tabs that remain present on the right hand side of each website page - these relate to a booking enquiry, brochure download, contact us etc.  These are key goal conversion junctures, and Wickedweb will measure effectiveness going forward as part of the overall objectives. 

With the Priestfield website live, Wickedweb will now be exploring further projects with GFC including websites for the football club itself and their charity, in addition to a direct marketing project.

Wickedweb has had a successful year managing the digital strategy for Ella’s Kitchen, the leading global organic baby food company.  Wickedweb has been working with Ella’s Kitchen for over 2 years, and during this period have delivered a suite of global websites with locales, and digital marketing activity to support the overall annual brand plan.  Ella’s Kitchen has an exciting and ambitious brand vision, and Wickedweb’s digital activity supports key marketing objectives.   

Wickedweb has released a case study for the ‘Ella’s Friends conversion strategy’ which involves harnessing digital techniques to grow the database of Friends to the target level.  This database is then used to build engaging relationships on a sensorial level, which ultimately feeds into Ella’s Kitchen’s core objectives.

Wickedweb were responsible for conceiving and implementing a strategy that encompasses:

• Website evolution to support the mechanics of the campaigns
• Consumer engagement via campaigns
• Data capture and acquisition
• Online marketing tactics such as PPC and SEO

The overall Friends acquisition results superseded expectations as we hit 150.5% of the target.   Organic search traffic has increased by a marked 56% with a strong conversion rate, with Ella’s Kitchen’s key search term achieving and maintaining 1st place in Google rankings.

For the detail on how Wickedweb achieved this for Ella’s Kitchen, please view our case study.

Client testimonial:

“Wickedweb have a very strategic approach.  They understand our business, and more specifically how to activate our overall strategy to our consumers through digital channels.  I am delighted that the results of our Friends conversion strategy has surpassed our targets, and we owe much of this success to Wickedweb and the effective digital strategies they have executed for Ella’s Kitchen”. 

Samantha Crossley – ‘Makes Friends’ – Ella’s Kitchen

Figaro Digital is holding a ‘Design, Build and Usability’ seminar on the 17th November at The Hospital Club. This half day session is for senior digital decision makers from brand organisations who are looking to gain knowledge and broaden their understanding of design & build and user experience.

Wickedweb’s MD Stuart is presenting at this event and will talk brands through the process of a successful design and build project - covering key areas such as brand engagement, usability, creative execution, SEO, CMS platforms and campaign activation.  The aim of our presentation is to share with a brand ways to safeguard digital investment, with Wickedweb best practice tips and agency insights.  Wickedweb work with clients such as wagamama, Ella’s Kitchen, Gear4, Kurt Geiger, Bluefin Solutions, Lifehouse and Cancer Research UK and we can illustrate why these projects excel. 

For more information on the seminar or to book a place visit the Figaro Digital seminar page

As wagamama’s global digital agency, Wickedweb collaborated on the launch of the ‘art and eat’ campaign - an innovative platform to engage wagamama customers with the UK’s up and coming art and design talent.   

wagamama were looking to roll out a national marketing and PR campaign that would achieve a number of key objectives.  At the core, wagamama’s underlying objective was to engage, excite and provide an experience for customers – whilst re-inforcing wagamama as a 'cool’ lifestyle brand among its target markets.

In addition to creating regional brand awareness and building product awareness, robust marketing objectives are in place.  The campaign needed to drive awareness, excite its audience and encourage participation.  

Wickedweb focused on achieving these KPI’s by putting brand engagement at the heart of our digital strategy.  Our strategy around the campaign’s digital execution worked to extend the in-store experiential element by driving diners online to join the ‘art and eat’ debate.  This interactive platform supported brand engagement by providing a focus for dining conversation, and looked to prompt subsequent action from them by way of competition entries and re-tweets.

Our strategy was honed by an appreciation of wagamama’s key target audiences, as this ensured we could recommend solutions for engagement across a range of diners.

Ten national wagamama locations were chosen and one regional ’up and coming’ artist was selected per restaurant to feature their work. Wagamama worked closely with the prolific Moniker projects to source the artists. 

Wickedweb worked hard to unite the campaign messaging with digital technology, in order to evolve traditional marketing methods into an integrated 360 communications mix – positioning digital at the heart. Early results indicate our carefully considered strategy engaged the target audience and demonstrated real cut through.  Wickedweb feel the work showcased is innovative and engaging, supporting the key KPI’s. The wagamama brand has been elevated as a result, and the digital strategy seeks to rejuvenate an offline campaign into the digital sphere to maximise the longevity and awareness of the campaign / brand.

Find out what we did and read the case study here.

All work and no play makes Wickedweb a dull place to work, so it was definitely time to plan a social and continue our tradition of the good old night out!  The Wickedweb amigos headed out for a Pimms on South Bank before a meal in Soho.  Great people, great conversation and of course a cheeky cocktail or two!

We are now looking forward to the Halloween evening out...fancy dress at the ready!

Wickedweb are delighted to have been appointed to design and build The Lending Well website and also to create The Lending Well’s new brand identity, including the logo, colour palette, typeface and styling. 

The Lending Well will be a unique website offering borrowers the chance to request Payday loans, and lenders to earn a greater interest on their investment than if they were using banks.  It is unique because it will finance the Payday loan mechanic through Peer –To – Peer lending, combining the two models and offering a better interest rate for borrowers than other competitive websites on the market. Work for phase 1 of this project is already well underway.

Felicity Stone, Wickedweb’s Digital Producer comments:

“We’re really excited to work with The Lending Well and deliver a website which will ensure they stand out in what is a really competitive market. The designs we have produced are bold and full of personality. The strong creative and simple user journey will enable users to get the most out of The Lending Well offering, and a phased approach will ensure that key features are delivered early.”

Tim Slesinger, Director of The Lending Well says “We have been thrilled working with Wickedweb as they not only 'got' the concept of The Lending Well from the start but they have also been as excited about bringing it to market as we have.  We love the energy that they have put in to the project and the energy they have created in the site itself”.

Wickedweb are delighted to extend their experience in the financial sector having already worked with StatPro, Neteller, Hawk Finance and Prime CFD's.

The team of Wickedwebbers headed for the O2 on Saturday night for 11:30pm to take part in London’s first Shine event.  This night time half marathon saw us take a ‘power walk’ through the streets of London to raise money for Cancer Research UK.  

Beginning at the O2, we walked along the river Thames via Greenwich to the Cutty Sark and headed through Lewisham and Southwark Park before finally arriving at Tower Bridge and coming back again. The atmosphere was incredible and we were raring to go following our carbs beforehand...

With our personal messages pinned to our backs, we twinkled down the streets with 15,000 other walkers – and 4 hours and 55 minutes later we crossed the finish line having raised £1,162!  We are thrilled to have had an opportunity to support our client, but not least to contribute towards their life changing work. Donations are still coming in, and so if you haven’t supported us and would like to then visit our original fundraising page.  It’s not too late! 

Well done to everyone that took part in the challenge.  The question is...will we take on the full marathon next year?

The Challenge

We have a team of seven active Wickedwebbers who will be carrying their lanterns through the streets of London in support of Cancer Research UK’s Shine event on the 1st October.  The challenge starts at 11:30pm and will continue through the night until we have finished the half marathon distance of 13.1 miles.

The Team

The team participating will be Niki Duggan, Sue Akam, Lynda Wells, Katy Gasson, Nicole Tingley, Chris Reid and Steve Coventry. 

Each team member has a target of £150 to fundraise and you can click on the individual thumbnails below to help support their campaign - who will raise the most?

Lynda Wells	Niki Duggan	Sue Akam
Katy Gasson	Nicole Tingley	Chris Reid
Stephen Coventry

Wickedweb are an approved digital supplier for CR-UK and we hope that you might be willing to show your support for our awe-inspiring client.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the Cancer Research UK and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer.

Thank you for supporting Wickedweb and CRUK, we really appreciate it.  With two weeks to go, we are getting some practice in and will let you know how we are getting on.

Wish us luck!

Learn more about the Shine event.

Wickedweb would like to say welcome to Felicity Stone, who joins our growing team of Web Producers!  

Felicity brings a wealth of experience to us including 4 years in development for companies such as Schlumberger where she built intranet sites, and a role at Digiterre developing a bespoke CMS for MergerMarket.

In addition, Felicity has worked as a Project Manager for 5 years for organisations such as Solid State Group, building websites for charities such as Amnesty International, Cityscape and GFI.

At Aston University, Felicity studied a BSc in Human Psychology with a final year dissertation in Human Computer Interaction.  At Greenwich University, Felicity studied an MSc in Computing and Information Systems with a dissertation in Web and CMS technologies.

Felicity will be an integral part of the B2B client services team here at Wickedweb, and will be utilising her expertise for clients such as Law Debenture, Lending Well, EC Harris and StatPro.

In her spare time, Felicity enjoys watching films especially sci-fi and thrillers and we found out that she also has a pet tortoise called Fernando who is over 30 years old! Awww....

Back in May, Wickedweb announced that our client Bluefin Solutions won the Interactive Media Award 'Best in Class' award for the B2B category. We are delighted that due to the strength of our rating for this website, the Interactive Media Awards have subsequently awarded the Best in Class award for the Consulting category this quarter as well.

The Best in Class Award is the highest honour bestowed by the Interactive Media Awards and we are thrilled that the Bluefin Solutions website has now won this across two categories.

Congratulations once again to our client and the talented team here at Wickedweb. Special thanks to Neil Narain, Niki Duggan, Lawrence Wagerfield, James Saunders, Rob Hollander, Steve Coventry and Ian Jepp.

See previous award announcement.

Smart Insights have just published an interesting article for multi-channel marketers. The results of the research suggest that online advertising campaigns are enhanced when the email marketing channel is added.

Read full article here

Wickedweb are the lead digital marketing agency for The Lifehouse spa, and we have had an exciting time working on their website launch and full technical systems integration.   

The Lifehouse case study focuses on an interesting challenge: the marriage of brand positioning, technical consultancy and creative execution.  There were a range of objectives that needed to be considered as part of the brief spanning functional, business and creative requirements.  The solution executed by Wickedweb weaves these together.  In addition, The Lifehouse spa was not visible online. At the start of our work there were no keyword listings and little brand awareness beyond their name. Therefore, an SEO strategy was implemented to turn this around. 

This has been a successful case study and the results showcase the impact of the website and the SEO strategy.  Want to find out more? Read on to discover how we did it…

Stacey Hedges, Marketing Manager at Lifehouse comments:

"Wickedweb have provided us with invaluable support, guidance and creatively in launching the website. The team have been a true extension to the marketing department and play an integral role in the development and evolvement of the site. It’s been an absolute pleasure to work with them and we look forward to continue to drive traffic to the site and future developments"

A few of us here at Wickedweb made a beeline for the Figaro Social Media conference last week. We are glad we did – there was a fantastic line up of speakers and some real insight from brands such as the BBC, You Tube, O2, Kodak and Phones 4 U. Social media is ever-evolving, and Wickedweb were keen to discover how these brands are utilising social media – and more importantly what results are being harvested. 

What was clear from the conference is that social media strategy is driven by what we know about the customer / prospect. It is very CRM dependant, and insight is best gained by what O2 calls ‘the continual conversation’. Regular tweets from a brand are essential and much more effective in building loyalty and confidence than ad-hoc spikes of communication. O2 have a team to manage this continuous conversation with their customers, and find it gives them competitive advantage.

At the core of this is the notion that social media is all about engagement. YouTube makes an interesting point: social media is a fantastic platform for building sparks of excitement for a brand, which ultimately creates and maintains this engagement. Video is ideal for this, especially if the Facebook icon is added to the video so that this excitement can be shared.

However, the question on the audience’s lips of course is how do we actually measure engagement via social media? We came to the conclusion that KPI’s could include areas such as likes, a change in attitudes, mentions on Google, awareness, continued advocates and bloggers etc. Xbox added to this by talking about ‘media stacking’: using various social media channels for better cut through and amplification of your message – and Britmums endorsed this by saying that brands should utilise a good variety of social media channels to satisfy different consumption habits. It is good practice to establish your voice on different channels and be proactive, so that as a brand you are ready when a consumer comes searching for you in their preferred way.

But it’s not all about the number of ‘likes’ a brand has. It is far more effective to look beyond the volume and think about what you actually want to do with them. O2 were keen to impart that it is essential that a brand focuses on exactly what they would like social media to achieve at the outset. Phones 4 U look at the actual cost of a ‘like’ which is interesting and also look to put a value of the ‘like’ to the business.

Brands can only do so much – although there will be more success capitalising on social media if brands can focus and build on social equity. This is about friends looking out for each other and sharing, rather than putting the actual brand first. There is definitely the feeling that a consumer would like their voice to be heard now that they have been given a platform - and brand love is there for the taking if a company can show they will listen.

In conclusion, social media as a platform gives brands an opportunity to reveal and re-iterate different aspects of their personality. O2 suggested that companies “dip their toe in and try”, with an emphasis on managing any consumer issues as quickly as possible. 

For me the sentiment of the day came from Kodak – this brand revealed the key to their social media success is to “engage, educate, excite and evangelise”...

Wickedweb are delighted with our latest award win for client Cosmetics à la Carte – the IMA Outstanding Achievement Award for the 'Beauty / Cosmetics' category. There were 56 entries submitted for this category this quarter, and so we are proud to receive an award that is extremely challenging to win.

The website for Cosmetics à la Carte excelled in all areas of the judging criteria and represents a very high standard of planning, execution and overall professionalism. The criteria Wickedweb are judged on includes design, content, feature functionality, usability and standards compliance and these scored very highly.

Congratulations not only to our client, but the talented team here at Wickedweb - in particular Kalli Daffin, Rob Hollander, Steve Coventry, Ian Jepp, David Pook, Lazlo Sike, Rob King, Mark Townsend and Billy Harvey.

If you would like more information on this project then click here to view the case study. Alternatively, give us a call to find out more.

With our continued expansion, we welcome Chris Reid to the Wickedweb team. Chris brings extensive digital experience to Wickedweb. With both project management and front end development skills, Chris is ideally placed to hit the ground running in our busy studio.

Chris joins our existing talented development team and will work across our varied client portfolio.  As well as creative flair and a meticulous attention to detail, Chris also has a penchant for cycling to work – 30 miles a day with hills no less!  That makes some of us here feel quite...well... lazy.

Welcome to the family.

Wickedweb are pleased to announce we are the agency of choice for Gillingham Football Club, and look forward to delivering a suite of digital services across the Club’s portfolio.

We have recently won the opportunity to deliver a range of websites for the Club, and will begin with the brand identity for Priestfield – the club's conference & banqueting facility. The brand strategy work will roll out into the design and build of the new website for the largest purpose-built venue of its kind in the south-east. 

In addition, Wickedweb will also execute development work on two further websites for charities supported by the Club in order to raise awareness and funds.  More details will follow.

We will also be developing a new approach and image for the Club’s online merchandising site.

Following the website builds, Wickedweb will conceive the digital media strategy to take the websites to the next level, and will begin with traffic driving initiatives via SEO and Social Media.

Murray Evans, Marketing Manager for Gillingham Football Club, said: “We searched for a partner who could deliver a range of innovative ideas and solutions for several very different needs. We have started with our conference and banqueting business, because it is crucial to the company's success off the pitch, and we look forward to working with Wickedweb on this and our other digital projects in the foreseeable future.“ 

Wickedweb adds Gillingham Football Club to our existing sporting credentials which include a global strategy, design and build project for Mitre International, a microsite for the Rugby World Cup in conjunction with The Telegraph and a website for Ben Garner, a top ranked squash player.

Wickedweb are delighted with our latest award win for client Cosmetics à la Carte – the IMA Outstanding Achievement Award for the ‘Beauty / Cosmetics’ category.  There were 56 entries submitted for this category this quarter, and so we are proud to receive an award that is extremely challenging to win.

The website for Cosmetics à la Carte excelled in all areas of the judging criteria and represents a very high standard of planning, execution and overall professionalism.  The criteria Wickedweb are judged on includes design, content, feature functionality, usability and standards compliance and these scored very highly.

Congratulations not only to our client, but the talented team here at Wickedweb - in particular Kalli Daffin, Rob Hollander, Steve Coventry, Ian Jepp, David Pook, Lazlo Sike, Rob King, Mark Townsend and Billy Harvey.

If you would like more information on this project then click here to view the case study.  Alternatively, give us a call to find out more.

Well, they say pigs don’t fly but they do in Sevenoaks!

We appear to have a new member of the team.  Lucky (as we have affectionately named him) literally flew in the window of our Sevenoaks HQ, taking our account management team by complete surprise.

It must have been a good luck omen – as minutes later we received fantastic news that we won a pitch! (Details will be shared soon).

We just had to keep him, and he has settled in nicely between Niki and Cat's desk.  Best place really, the snacks are much better up this end of the office....

Google have recently rolled out a new update which they are calling Panda. The update aims to tackle, in Google’s own words, “sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful”.  So what constitutes a low-value site?  Well here are some examples:

• Sites that mass produce content, sometimes even copying text from external sites or using computers to auto generate it (know as content farming – hence the ‘farmer’ update).  These sites offer little in the way of value or authority on a subject and make a profit from small amounts of revenue from a vast array of pages and subjects.  Examples include about.com or mahalo.com.

• Sites that have lots of ads.  Adverts are a natural part of the web but Google is trying to de-value those sites that just bombard you with ads rather than providing a useful and informative browsing experience.

• Sites that users don’t like to visit.  This is a hard one to track but Google doesn’t want to show sites that users just don’t want to spend time on, which points to the fact that the site is low-quality.
So what happens if a site is deemed low-value by Google?  Well any sites ‘caught’ will simply drop down in the search results for the queries it ranked for.  Below is a chart created by Sistrix based on mahalo.com’s rankings before and after the update.

There is a clear shift in rankings from a fairly even spread of rankings across pages 1 – 10 pre Panda, to post Panda where the majority of rankings are on page 7 – 10.

Naturally the next questions you will have are will I be affected and what can I do to avoid being de-valued?  Even though this is a relatively large update, unless you are copying content, spamming users with ads or have thousands of pages with no one visiting them, then you probably won’t be affected.  That said there are stories of legitimate sites loosing rankings as a result of the update so it’s a good idea to take precautions.

Content is King – This one may be slightly obvious, but if Google is de-valuing sites that copy or auto generates content then write unique, useful and valuable content.  Be a source of information about the subject you want to rank for, this has always been a primary SEO tactic and one that Google’s Matt Cutts has always recommended.  Not only will it avoid your site falling in the low-value category but it will help your rankings and attract visits.

Ads Come Second – In line with content is king, make your adverts secondary to the content of the page whether it be the amount of ads, positioning or size.  It is easy to improve ad revenue by making ads bigger, more central or simply by increasing the number of ads on a page but users come to the site for the content not to browse the ads.  Make your content the primary feature of each page, whether is text content, a video or images.

Interaction – Get your visitors interacting with the site; make it easy to use and nice to look at.  Allow for user generated content such as comments on blog posts.  Link up with Facebook and Twitter and interact via social media to get a community feel to your site.  Let Google see that users like to spend time on the site and are willing to interact via comments or Facebook.  Below is a screenshot from an SEOMoz blog post, SEOMoz are excellent at user interaction and building community.

The recurring theme is to simply make your site better.  Give it more value, make it easier to use, be a source of information, a community and an authority within your industry.  These are the qualities Google are looking to reward with premium positions.

Personally I think the update is a step in the right direction for Google, it was becoming too easy for websites that had no real user value to rank competitively.  Sites that where genuinely useful and informative were being out ranked and this update has addressed that issue.  I have no doubt that there will be a new and inventive way to pollute search results but Google will of course complete the cycle by bringing out another update to tackle whatever that might be.

Google’s new ‘+1’ feature is the latest attempt at making search more social.  The basic idea is very similar to the Facebook ‘like’ button – when you like something, in this case a search result; you click the Google +1 button.  This is then visible to all your friends connected to you via your Google account. The benefit comes when you are searching for let’s say a new camera; you go to Google, type ‘digital cameras’ and click search.  As you are scrolling through the results you notice the +1 button next to dpreview.com because, for example, your photographer friend +1’d it previously.

Apart from the obvious benefit of having users +1 your site, if +1 catches on it would be inevitable that Google would include +1 as a ranking factor, however the question is if it catches on.

In essence I think +1 could be a really useful feature, when I am researching a product or looking for information on a particular subject it would be great to see what my friends recommend.  But my friends are not in the mindset for promoting, removing, starring or +1ing results when using Google – they just want to get to where they are going.  This has been the critical flaw in all the Google voting / result editing offerings, people don’t want to edit results, they want Google to do that for them.

Google have a shocking history when it comes to social search, remember Buzz and Wave? No? Well not surprising considering their short and uneventful lives.  We also had SearchWiki which allowed us to promote, comment on and remove results, there was also SideWiki and then stars in search for marking your favourite results – all of which have flopped.

So will Google +1 succeed and become a part of how we search?  In short, I don’t think so.  Google should stick to what it does best, providing unrivalled web search - sharing, bookmarking, voting and social features are best left to Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Delicious and the like.

For those of you involved in e-commerce, here is an interesting idea for your Facebook strategy.  Whilst there is no denying that Facebook has its place in engaging users and sharing content, this article comes from a different angle and explains that Facebook needs to be much more hard hitting.

Research shows that it’s all about the deals...read more.

Source – statistics from eConsultancy

Wickedweb's partner network keeps on growing!

We are very excited to become a certified partner of Sitecore, a very impressive .NET Web Content Management System that we can now offer our clients.  Sitecore's offering continues to dominate a leading position in the market and we look forward to building award winning solutions for our clients using this platform.

In Gartner's Magic Quadrant report, Sitecore was identified as a leader in it's field - "The usability of Sitecore's offering continues to be one of the best within the market and is highly acclaimed by the many different user types that work with the solution".

This content-based CMS is a fully integrated platform including additional modules such as the Online Marketing Suite, Email Campaign Manager, SEO, eCommerce, Analytics and Intranets.  Wickedweb's developers are keen  to work their magic with this platform as it gives our clients a creative, cost effective and scalable solution.  It can be implemented in both B2B and B2C, and although smaller companies have reaped the benefits, it is particularly suited to large design and build projects.

Not to mention, clients will find Sitecore a joy to work with due to its unrivalled ‘Best in Class' status for usability.

Call us to find out more about this Sitecore Partner platform – 0207 183 4999.