At 8.45 on Monday, I started my week of work experience by sitting in on a meeting where it quickly became apparent how active and busy the team are. I was given a seat next to Google Dave, guru of all things Google (the name doesn’t lie) and most musical member of the office (I say this having only heard his versions of “When will I see you again?” and “Rock with You”). I was put to work on a few copywriting tasks which gave me the opportunity to learn about Search Engine Optimisation, the elements of a good article and a lot of new knowledge in a short amount of time varying from the vast range of ways that you can be environmentally friendly in your home to the most important features of a boutique hotel. Exploring a lot of different subjects kept me really interested in writing the articles and I liked the creativity involved in using different ways to grab people’s interest. After writing a fair few articles, I then started on an initial draft of the content for a site that the team are currently working on. Knowing that I had helped with a sites development was exciting and it opened my eyes to the amount of work that goes into the creation of every site. The content layout of every page has to be extremely focused and so much thought is put into developing an interesting and attractive design. From seeing the design team at work, it was clear how important it is to make a website user friendly and enjoyable as well and they were often thinking of quirky features to add individuality. I hope to pursue a career in marketing and know that the work that I have done here will be invaluable to me.  Not only have I learnt about internet marketing and its great effect on the success of a business, but Ph.Creative made me feel really welcome and I have had a lot of fun!

I'm constantly asked questions about what is twitter and how best can we use it for business.  So I thought i'd put this short blog together on some of the 'twitter tips' that we've seen work for our clients:

• Protect your brand name – Make sure you have registered your company name.  For example twitter.com/youbusinessname. So in our case we have: twitter.com/phcreative.  Remember once it’s gone...it’s gone!
• You can also be clever with your account names.  If I call my twitter account “FreeSEOtips” then it’s obvious what information I’m going to provide to my followers
• Use images and photos on your accounts...bring your twitter page alive and you’ll attract more followers.  Meaning if you’re clever, more people and businesses will engage with you and thus help you build a relationship with them
  
• Think about your tweets as a news flash.  Making them compelling, provide links to landing pages within your website or your blog posts.  Don’t simply waste tweets about “going down to the shop” (unless you have a reason to do it).  The less relevant, interesting and engaging your tweets, the more likely your followers will be to ‘switch off’ and stop listening
• ‘Givers gain’ – retweet people's tweets and you’ll encourage others to help you spread your content out across the web.  Which in turn builds followers, traffic, and inbound links – helping drive enquires, revenue and money to you
• twitter doesn’t just happen overnight – like all things online, it takes time to build trust and authority.  You need a plan with a clear purpose on what you post and why.  Twitter becomes part of your online estate and is tool to help your engage, build relationships and drive revenue
• It’s very easy to start – sustainability is the key.  If you simple use it to stay connected with your friends, then it a simple task.  But if you want to maximise it as a business tool, then you’ll need to think and consider your approach

So there you go...some quick “twitter tips” helping your tweets to be hear and more importantly (and as always at ph towers), with business focus on helping you drive more results.

Being a big music fan, I have to listen to music while web developing. And there’s nothing worse than having to listen to someone else’s choices on the office iPod. (It can be quite off putting listening to 'Christine Aguila' on repeat all morning :p

I began to use Last.fm (a site that plays songs based on tags) and plug my headphone’s in. But I found myself skipping tracks I’d heard over and over and found it difficult to find tracks I loved.

Then I was introduced to a new music streaming player called Spotify.

Spotify is an online streaming service and comes as a standalone application. A quick search for your favourite Artist and with a simple click you’re presented with a full back catalogue, including every album, single and even compilation appearances.

Music on Spotify is legal, and there’s a lots more music there than what you will ever have on your hard drive or MP3 player. Spotify is upgrading tracks to CD quality to plug is premium service, offering ‘crystal clear sound’ and no adverts for £9.99 a month. Am using Spotify’s free service which launches a 30 second advert after every 7 or 8 songs, but you can’t complain.

Try it now! You’ll probably leave your iPod at home tomorrow!!

Hi guys,

It's been a little overdue, but I've finally had some spare time to update our jQuery Scroll to Top plugin after some great feedback from our readers. Thanks.

In the new version, I've included the options to choose your speed as well as support for the excellent jQuery Easing plugin (version 1.3 is included in the download pack, but please remember to check the jQuery Easing homepage for the latest version!)

If you're new to the plug-in, please look at the original post for set up instructions.

For those upgrading, grab the latest version at the end of this post, which contains an example set up.

You can extend the options by using the following:

$("#toTop").scrollToTop({
   speed: "fast",
   ease:  "easeOutBounce"
});

You can see the full list of easing options at the jQuery Easing homepage. For speed, you can use the usual "slow", "normal", "fast" or millisecond timing. Of course, you can use one or the other, or none at all.

Enjoy!

Version 2.0: scroll-to-top-v2.zip (25.67 kb)

Update: Version 3 now released!

By being aware of this simple technique when writing your blog posts, you can get much more visibility within search engines and have you blog read by far more people. So, let me explain;

 If someone types into Google, ‘How do I make a paper aeroplane?’ and you have written an article entitled, ‘How do I make a paper aeroplane?’ then you are far more likely to be found by that person because Google rates your blog post as highly relevant and serves your post higher than others. If on the other hand your same post was called ‘Fold a sheet of paper into a plane’ then you would not likely be found at all.

The closer you can match the words and phrases you use in your headings with the words and phrases your target audience use to search for your product or service the more you will be found in search engines. 

This same principle is also true for the entire content within your blog posts too. If you are aware of the most popular and appropriate keywords and phrases, you should be using them throughout the content as and when you can without compromising the flow of the article.

A quick way to find out yourself is to use the Google External Keyword Suggestion Tool. It is not as comprehensive as some of the more professional paid-for tools but it can certainly give you a good steer.

Why not give it a go and start gaining lots more traffic to your website.
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

If you use this simple technique and you do notice an improvement in traffic to your blog please let me know – I love to hear feedback.
Happy blogging.