As we approach the end of September, the tech world doesn't show any signs of slowing down. Google has been rolling out some more exciting features, Huawei has released its next instalment of flagship phones and Apple's iOS13 is here! Let's take a look at the news highlights of the week...

Huawei Mate 30 Phones Launch Without Google Apps

So, let's start with some (potentially not good) news for Huawei users. It looks like their latest smartphones, the Mate 30 Pros, are launching without many of the pre-installed Google apps that Android users have come to expect. The apps missing include YouTube, Google Maps and Gmail amongst others.

As if that wasn't offputting enough, the phones don't have access to the Google Play store and instead rely on Huawei's equivalent app store, Huawei App Gallery. But will users tolerate this? Well, it's pretty safe to assume that these phones aren't going to appeal to everyone.

There might be a few die-hard Huawei users who are willing to tolerate the lack of Google services, but it's unlikely that these phones will be as popular as previous models.  Huawei is hoping the new hardware including four professional cameras will draw in the punters. We'll have to wait and see!

Google Search Introduces 'Key Moments' For Videos in Search

It looks like Google have introduced another feature to help users find what they're looking for in YouTube videos quickly. The name of this feature? 'In this video' a tool that breaks videos up into useful chunks and highlights them on a timeline so the user can skip to the most relevant parts.

If you want this feature to work on your own video content, you need to make sure you're adding timestamps in the description of your videos. But why bother? Well, Google is all about getting content to the user in the quickest and most convenient way, so it's fairly safe to assume that videos with timestamps will rank higher than those without. We'll have to keep you updated on that though.

iOS 13.0 is Here

You might remember from last week's roundup that Apple revealed a bunch of new products, but this week, the software update went live! iOS 13.0 is here and ready to download... but... it's not without faults. In fact, there are so many faults with iOS 13.0 that people are questioning if they've released it by mistake. Some of the key new features include dark mode and a new photo app, it's just a shame that they're accompanied by a bunch of bugs. Fear not though iOS 13.1 is just around the corner. 

If you want to see a full list of the new iOS 13 features, click here >

Amazon To Order 100,000 Electric Delivery Vans

This story seems very fitting in the wake of the global Climate Strike taking place today! In a bid to reduce the carbon footprint of Amazon, Jeff Bezos has supposedly ordered 100,000 of these electric delivery vans from Rivian. This announcement formed part of Bezos' plan to combat climate change.

You may not have heard of Rivian before, but they've been releasing electric vehicles under the radar for some time now! The first of their vehicles, an electric pickup truck, was released just under a year ago, but it sounds like we could be seeing a lot more from them in the coming years. 

It's great to see such a huge and influential company taking steps towards a greener service this week. It's easy to imagine the vast carbon footprint Amazon has at the moment when you consider just how many Amazon parcels get delivered in a single day (somewhere in the region of 20 million). Let's hope that this is a step in the right direction that will inspire other companies to consider their environmental impact too! 

To keep up with updates from around the tech and digital marketing world, be sure to follow us on Twitter!

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Welcome to the second instalment of our weekly DW Roundup! For those of you that didn't see our previous Roundup, this is a weekly blog post that you can follow every Friday to find out the latest and greatest news in the digital marketing, PPC, SEO and tech worlds. So, what's been happening this week? Let's find out. 

Hotel Reservations and AR Navigation Coming to Google Maps

If you're someone who loves to travel then this announcement is sure to excite you! Google Maps is starting to roll out new features that allow you to book your flights & hotel reservations directly through the Google Maps app. Store all of your information in one,  easy-to-access platform so that you're not fiddling between apps as you check-in at the airport or head to your hotel.

The reservations tab will show you all the information about your upcoming reservations and can even be accessed while you're offline! Incredibly handy if, for example,  you want to check your hotel reservation details while you're on your flight.

As if this wasn't cool enough, Google is also bringing the beta version of their augmented reality walking navigation feature "Live View" to Android and IOS devices. If your phone supports ARCore or ARkit software then keep your eyes peeled for this! The arrows and directions are laid directly over your view of the real world, making it even easier than ever to find your way. 

Search Marketing is Becoming More 'Human'

According to PPC expert, Mark Irvine,  digital marketers should be working towards a more real-time marketing strategy. What does this mean? Irvine explained by demonstrating the effects of trending on Twitter: 

Within one hour of trending on Twitter, Google searches had doubled and after 6 hours they'd increased fivefold. Irvine makes a strong argument suggesting that users 'discover on socials and search on Google'. Based on Irvine's findings, he suggests that after years of perfecting page copy and posting perfect images across social media, perhaps a more human-to-human approach is better. This means we should be keeping up to date with social trends and customer insights more than ever!

Google Had Indexing Issues

In the early hours of Thursday morning, Google was having indexing problems that meant new content wasn't being shown in search results. This was most noticeable in news results, where no amount of refreshing was pulling recent stories through. Articles were stunted at around 3 am Thursday morning. Luckily, Google confirmed that they'd resolved this problem, so all of your new content should be indexed as normal! Hooray!

To keep up with further news and updates from around the tech and digital marketing world, be sure to follow us on Twitter and check back next week!

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SunSpaces is a well-established part of the Greensquares family of brands, offering a range of high-quality garden rooms, verandas and awnings to help residential and commercial property owners make the most of their outdoor living spaces. SunSpaces stand out from their competitors because their products can be customised to suit every client’s unique requirements and preferences.

We were recently asked to re-design and update the SunSpaces website. Many elements of the site including the colour scheme, page layout and menus have been refreshed by our web designers to create a contemporary, professional-looking new website.  

You will notice that the new website includes many products that have always been a part of the SunSpaces brand, like the Aspire garden rooms and Compact awnings. However, in addition to these longstanding favourites, their new website incorporates a variety of new products and accessories, such as the Avant-Garde and Ultra garden rooms.

The new SunSpaces website is packed with features that make it enjoyable and easy to use. Our development team used the very latest coding techniques and schema tags to build a bespoke, responsive website that stands out in the search results and works seamlessly on both desktop and mobile devices.

We included a content management system (CMS) so staff can control products and prices, categories, photo galleries, banners, landing pages, performance reports and more. We integrated Salesforce so that staff can easily manage quotes and follow up requests.

We also added intelligent landing page control and advertisement tracking so that advertising campaigns can be monitored and altered effortlessly. The new site is also integrated with conversion tracking so that its performance is continually recorded and easy to assess whenever necessary.

With these new features and a modern re-design, we are confident that the SunSpaces team and future SunSpaces customers will take pleasure in using the site. We have been able to create a new website for SunSpaces without compromising any of the features that made the old site such a success!

You can visit the new SunSpaces website here: https://www.sunspaces.co.uk/

If you’re looking for a professional website for your business, look no further. Get in touch with the team here at Designer Websites for a free, no-obligation web design quote.

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AlfrescoPlus is the new e-commerce addition to the ever-growing Greensquares online presence.  This brand-new site allows those DIY-enthusiast and self-builders to purchase high-quality outdoor living products online, quickly, and hassle-free. The built-in area calculators and suggested accessories sections provide a super-quick way to get everything you need in just a few clicks.

The site showcases the unique brands that have helped to build the high-quality reputation of Greensquares, such as PrimaPorcelain, TimberTech and SunSpaces. These are all high-quality products that have not previously been readily available to buy online before now.

AlfrescoPlus is driven by the idea that beautiful outdoor living spaces should be accessible to everyone. When the AlfrescoPlus team approached us, they emphasised the need for a user-friendly e-commerce site that would make their extensive product range easy to browse, and hassle-free to purchase.

What did we do for them?

To provide AlfrescoPlus customers with the best possible experience, we created a truly responsive e-commerce website, that works seamlessly across all devices.

The feature-packed website is not only user friendly, responsive and optimised for the search engines, but also contains clever landing page functionality, custom built and highly sophisticated ad/event tracking, sample ordering as well as product ordering, a comprehensive bespoke content management system, integration into Salesforce, order and sample reports, order tracking, automated Google Merchant Centre integration, and much more besides!

Our SEO team optimised the website copy to give every page the best possible chance of showing up in the search engine results and ranking highly for industry-specific keywords and phrases. Optimising AlfrescoPlus in this way will drive relevant customers to the site, improve overall user satisfaction and increase the likelihood of successful sales.

We believe visitors will find navigating the site a doddle, and equally, they’ll find the normally complex world of ordering something like decking, effortless! The site has a blog and social media feeds integrated so that Alfresco can provide inspiration via gallery images, which will hopefully be useful for those just in the planning stages of their outdoor living space.

You can visit AlfrescoPlus here at https://www.alfrescoplus.co.uk/

If you need a bespoke, practical and professional-looking e-commerce website for your business, then contact us for a FREE, no-obligation web design quote.

A well-written blog can form an invaluable part of any marketing strategy, allowing you to interact with your target audience and share industry information, tips and expertise. By creating a regularly updated and informative blog, your business will be able to establish a reputation as an industry authority and in so doing improve overall brand awareness.

However, no matter how insightful and informative your blog posts may be if they don't show up in the search results, they are only ever likely to attract a handful of readers. So, what is the secret to optimising your blog? And how do you make sure that people convert when they read your posts? Let's start with the very basics, ideally, your blog posts will:

• Appeal to your target audience
• Rank highly in search results
• Invite your audience to complete an action

So, how do you make these things happen? We asked our SEO team to collate some helpful hints and tips about writing blogs to get you on your way to a successful blog. They understand the importance of creating high-quality content that will help improve a client's Google ranking and boost engagement. So, if you're considering adding a blog to your site, or if you want to optimise your existing blog, then just keep reading!

Determine the Purpose of Each Blog

So, where do you start? We recommend that you start by considering the purpose of your blog post. Having this in mind as you write each blog is essential, it helps you make sure that each blog is staying on topic and fulfilling its purpose throughout! There are thousands of reasons you might write a blog, here are a few common goals of blog writing:

• Attracting new customers
• Promoting a product or service
• Sharing important news related to your business or industry
• Answering a question that's relevant to your business

Or something completely different! Blog posts are great because they offer a blank slate for you to address current topics and engage with users in a very direct way. Whatever you choose to write about, make sure that your writing has a focus to avoid creating convoluted, unnecessary content.

Select and Use Appropriate Keywords

As with website optimisation, choosing and using the right keywords is incredibly important when it comes to getting your blog posts to rank in search engines. Firstly, to select appropriate keywords you need to consider two things:

• What keywords does your site currently rank for?
• What keywords do you want your site to rank for?  

You need to be careful not to cannibalise (use the same keywords) as other, more important pages on your site. Why? because you don't want a blog post to outrank an important product page, for example. You can check what keywords and queries your site is currently getting impressions and clicks for by taking a look at the 'performance' section on the Google Search Console.

Instead of targeting the same keywords over and over again, you should consider using your blog posts to target keywords that aren't already targeted on your site (despite being highly relevant). When choosing keywords for your blog posts, you want them to grab your audience's attention so consider this; what topics do your readers care about that you haven't already addressed somewhere on your site? You can use Google's Keyword Planner tool to find hundreds of relevant keywords & check search volume!

Writing your Blog Posts 

Once you've decided the purpose of your blog, selected some interesting and relevant keywords - you're ready to start writing. Your first few blog posts might take you a little bit of time to craft and perfect, but the more blog posts you write the more your personal writing style will develop.

Readers will return to your blog time and time again if they like your writing style, so don't be afraid to add touches of your personality as you go along.  

Besides writing content that your readers will love, you need to ensure each post is properly optimised. Here are a few tips to make sure that your blog posts always add value to your site:

• Be conscious of the keywords you are targeting and try to include them throughout the blog post.
• Choose a compelling title.
• Use sub-headings and bullet points to break up long passages of text.
• Add some quality links to high domain authority sites (ones you want to grab the attention of!)
• Include quotes from notable people within your industry.
• Write a clear call to action - this will increase the likelihood of readers converting.
• Optimise: Add a meta title & meta description.

Write Frequently to Maintain Engagement

As you build up a group of loyal readers, they will enjoy coming back to find new, relevant blog posts while - for the purposes of SEO, regular posting will ensure you're constantly targeting new keywords and will (hopefully) keep you high in the search engine results. But how often should you post?

Posting Every Day: 

Posting every day does have its benefits, it allows you to develop your writing style, engage with new readers and quickly build up lots of interesting posts on your site. However, writing and sharing blog posts every single day can be time-consuming and might even put your readers off.

Posting Once, Twice, or Three Times a Week:

Many bloggers argue this is the perfect blogging schedule. Having small gaps between blogs helps to keep your readers interested without overloading them with 'spammy' content. Giving yourself time to plan each blog properly will ensure you create in-depth and genuinely useful blogs, rather than blogs that don't add much value to your site.

Promotion via Social Media

Promoting your blog posts on social media will help maintain a steady flow of readers. We recommend setting a page or profile for your business on each of the following platforms:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram 
• LinkedIn

Each of these social media platforms is different in terms of the way the posts are structured and the type of audience they appeal to. Therefore, you need to tailor each social media post to suit the platform you're working with. For example, Instagram is largely image focused so is the perfect place to share pictures and blogs related to products or completed projects.

As well as promoting your blog on your own social network pages, encourage others to do some of the work for you by including Facebook and Twitter ‘share buttons’ in your blog. One of the amazing things about social media is that people will always be inclined to share things they find interesting with their friends - so take advantage of this!

If you'd like to find out how our search engine optimisation team could help you manage your social media, click here.

By following these blog optimisation tips you will find that your blog performs really well and helps to drive conversions. If you are interested in finding out more about our blog development services, simply click the button at the end of this blog. If you have any other queries, give us a call on 01446 339050.

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