Seen in Exeter, at first sight the Citroën DS3 certainly attracts interest.

Share this is great but could anyone answer this?

In this WordPress blog I use the “Share This” plugin on. However I have noticed that if I put SEO in the blog title the Share This button doesn’t work, see;

http://designcredo.co.uk/sites/wordpress/2010/03/06/seo-test/ (SEO in the title),

and

http://designcredo.co.uk/sites/wordpress/2010/03/06/abs-test/ (Exactly the same post with ABS replacing SEO in the title)

Is there an innocent reason for this?

Exeter SEO company masscommunication company say;

Search engine optimisation will make your website work for you by improving your Google search page position and rank.

If you are in Exeter or Devon call us, we get great first page results.

We at Design Credo say, happy new logo…

‘Plasma cutting education’ or ‘Plasma cutter education’ is getting great Google results within a couple of weeks of their new website being uploaded by Design Credo. Subsitute school for education and the results will be similar, Techserv is tops on the UK Google search.

This plasma cutter is a great machine, an ideal way to deliver ICT Control education as well as being an ideal Technology department tool and is finding its way into many schools as well as FE and HE facilities.

Yorkshire based Techserv looked to Design Credo to update their website. As well as updating the site-design we have looked at the search-ability of the site in particular the way that keywords are employed throughout the site.

Further to this we have taken an overview of the existing online activities that Techserv are involved in and are looking at ways that this can be united and improved.

Techserv Twitter

Techserv are also using social networking on their website. This allows rapid updates and exchanges of information, within hours of the site being uploaded Techserv was being followed by people with CNC interests

As if that isn’t enough good news we are pleased to hear that they have received a quote request for a plasma cutting machine through the website form, within a week of the site being uploaded

But just as Google isn’t ready to rest on its laurels, its competitors aren’t ready to concede defeat.

Google’s search algorithm is a work in progress — constantly tweaked and refined to return higher-quality results. Here are some of the most significant additions and adaptations since the dawn of PageRank.

Google’s synonym system understood that a dog was similar to a puppy and that boiling water was hot. But it also concluded that a hot dog was the same as a boiling puppy. The problem was fixed in late 2002 by a breakthrough based on philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s theories about how words are defined by context.

Steven Levy wired.com

An interesting article offering insight into the changing face of search engines.

I recently shared the experience of the Brit Awards with a number of people on Twitter including Cheryl Kerl. Now, I would like to make it clear, I am not knocking the Brits, Zeberdizzie and Florence (all a bit Magic Roundabout?) were great etc… But, I am happy to share the funny side and am a little intrigued to be doing it with others who I have never met.

Some time ago whilst working in a Pupil Referral Unit I, along with the deputy head teacher, Googled ‘LOL’. Shameful but true, we were trying to decipher a bullying letter that was thrown in the bin. On the evening of the Brits I can genuinely say that I did LOL on a number of occasions. For me this is one level that Twitter works, just a bit of fun, Mr Brydon, just a bit of fun.

Hei an Ah wasn’t meimin eitha. It’s them new TVs that yiz have. They sort uv make the pickchaz jorky leike man pet an that. Cheryl Kerl

Ah’m ganna sack mei horstyleist t’neet! Coz wei didden Ah get a well mentil horsteel leike Ladee Gawgaw and Lily Allen’s got? Cheryl Kerl

The day after the dialogue continued on Facebook. A friend commented that she didn’t get the British love of the ’simeon one’. I at once knew that she was referring to ‘he who nods to camera with furled eyebrows’. My what a Facebook onslaught this opened up from offended fans.

Twitter adding value to your business

However if you choose Twitter can add value to your business. Recently attention has been drawn to the potential security risks of Twitter with the Please Rob Me site. I suspect caution rather than fear is the best response here but the simple point is that these micro blogs are searchable, and they can and do get searched.

Last week I attended a local networking group. I was invited to attend because one of the group’s active members had read my tweets and as a result looked at this blog. She messaged me directly through Twitter and commented how she thought that the down to earth approach was what the group were looking for. This has to be seen as a result even though initially the contact presented opportunities rather than confirmed business.

This weekend I uploaded a website for Techserv, a CNC Plasma company in Yorkshire. The site was uploaded on Saturday, I have included a twitter feed and within a day Techserv’s Twitter feed was being followed by CNCInformation. Again this has to be seen as an opportunity. Techserv trade globally, they have a machine suitable for the education market and CNCInformation are discussing amongst other topics, CNC in education.

I still get a bit knocked out by this technology. It genuinely excites me that within a matter of hours, someone has offered some sort of response to a new website and that the response came to the customer.

I realise though that for many this is all a bit difficult to buy into. However if one looks at it as a new ingredient that is part of the mix, adding too rather than replacing then it becomes easier to understand. In an ideal world we would open our metaphorical doors and wait for the customers to come to us. I believe that Social Networking can help guide people to your open doors.

Sat in my hallway is a nice (old) Gazelle Reynolds framed road-bike. Elsewhere there is an even older Dawes Super-Galaxy, again Renyolds framed, this one with a Brooks saddle. There is also an old-school Diamondback BMX.

I like bikes, I like them a lot, preferably steel, or titanium, and they don’t need to be too new either. For me a simple bike is a thing of beauty that combines engineering, design and minimalism.

As a teacher I used to do a design lesson where I showed pupils pictures of things I liked the design of; Guzzis, Porsches, Minis, Trangia cookers… The common link was design. I knew I was getting through when a Year 9 girl saw the Cinelli track bike (shown) and said “that’s dead sexy that is”. She meant it, she was correct too.

I love going to London in part because of the cycling scene there. Twenty (plus) years ago, as a student, I was a cycle courier, I guess it was a relatively new thing then. At the time I rode a mix of bikes: Rory O’Brien, Holdsworth, Ellis-Briggs and latterly an early Ridgeback. Sadly in the first week I crashed the Ellis Briggs, I rode into the back of a Ford Granada stopped outside Kings Cross station. I ended up lying on the guy’s boot and can still remember the look of surprise as he looked in his rear view mirror, fortunately he had checked before diving away with me there. The frame needed re-building and I had the pleasure of using Tom Board who was at the time making Paris cycles, this honour made the accident almost worthwhile.

The London scene is vibrant and organic. Recently we have sat outside pubs in Islington and watched as cycle polo teams have returned en-masse riding a selection of unique machines. On one occasion I was almost tempted to pull the classic Bob Jackson from the pile to protect it from damage. There is a range of styles and approaches but, once again, steel is king, whether it is an original or a fixie, and, if it is adorned by leather and a bit of canvas then so much the better.

Sometimes it is difficult to tell the recreations from the re-builds not that this is an issue. There are a number of boutique dealers such as Tokyo Fixed in Soho where you are likely to find all manner of classic machinery.
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Search Engine Optimisation or SEO brings Beyoncé to Exeter? Yep if you’ve been following so far, “Beyoncé to help in light household duties” now seems to rank in the top three of a Googlé search.

Update – “Beyoncé Exeter” now position 2
Update – Now position 1

Further to this I am eagerly expecting people to fulfil my desires for a Leica M9 and a Colnago Mexico due to similarly high rankings for search strings.

So what’s this all about?

It started as a bit of a joke, I noticed that cigar smoking football players seemed to rank highly as search strings for The Design Credo Wordpress blog (this is not a group that I have previously had an interest in). So checking it out, this was in fact true (by accident) as explained in my earlier post.
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I totally missed this one, more about it later I’m sure but for now a bit more here

OK so there is something that has been troubling me for a while…
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I am not aware of any evidence that Stoneage people sat around waiting for the Online Delivery Van from the supermarket of their choice. In the past if we wanted something we had to physically go and get it. Nowadays thing are different. We can, if we choose, veg in front of the screen and make the goods come to us.

The same goes for news. Yes there is still a town crier in Topsham, where I live, he has a nice little label on the back of his nice little Rover. On Saturday we go to the paper shop because it makes us feel that the weekend is with us. True we could turn the telly on for news, but, now with computers and RSS feeds news can come to us, on demand, in the flavour that we desire.

We also get notification of our friends’ lives to compare, contrast and fret over with Facebook. We get those necessary minute by minute updates via Twitter and interesting oh so essential insights through blogs. We can feed our (British) obsession for the weather and convey our day to day endeavours to the wider world through a fully synched Google-iCal-Nokia-Suite-calendar-widget-thingy.

Then we can sit worrying because we know we have forgotten some aspect of this helpful technology but don’t know which. In the past we worried about the gas or the tap being left on now I suppose it is ‘is my firewall operating?’ We can also add a certain piquancy to our annoyance when the various online alarms start going off just after the meeting that we have just set off for has been cancelled, via text of course.

But all this technology can be useful and fun, it just needs a bit of management and this is where start pages come in.
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