Slides from some of the talks can be found below.

PushON

PushON are an award-winning online marketing and web development agency based in Manchester, with clients throughout the UK and Europe. We are Magento Silver Solution Partners, with an experienced and certified development team, delivering online marketing campaigns to ensure significant ROI. Our clients include Bench Clothing, Umbro, High & Mighty and Brady Corporation.

Postcode Anywhere

Postcode Anywhere is best known for its award-winning “what’s your postcode” technology, used to quickly complete an address when purchasing online. With daily updates and technical support provided as standard, Postcode Anywhere provides the broadest range of tools to speed up online ordering and reduce instances of missed deliveries. Improve your customer journey with global address auto-fill, payment validation and store finder services. Postcode Anywhere integrates seamlessly with online forms and desktop applications and there is pre-built integrations for most leading applications including Magento.

To sign-up for Postcode Anywhere simply visit here.

SagePay

Sage Pay is, the fastest growing independent payment service provider (PSP) and is a division of business software company Sage, one of the UK’s most trusted business brands. We process over 4 billion secure payments each year, for over 30,000 + UK businesses of all sizes. They all rely on Sage Pay to keep their money moving and help them to tackle online card fraud, ensuring that the payment process is safe and easy for you — their customer.

To find out about future events from PushON subscribe to our newsletter using the button below.

This post will be updated in the following days with videos and photos from the events.

The post Magento Ecommerce Forum in Manchester appeared first on PushON Ltd.

PushON have invested heavily in attaining Magento Silver Partner status and we’d like to share some of our experience in using Magento to generate a significant ROI for Ecommerce brands with you.

We are also delighted to have sessions from both SagePay and Postcode Anywhere who will also share some insights on easing the user journey and maximising conversion using Magento. Magento themselves will be in attendance of course.

The pinnacle of our seminar will be a case study by legendary Manchester brand, Bench Clothing, a Magento Enterprise client.

This seminar will take place at The Hive in the Northern Quarter on the 20th February. It is a half day as there is a significant amount of information to cover. It is, as you might expect, free, but open to merchants only. The mornings events are as follows:

• 8:30am – 9:00am : Registration
• 9:00am – 12:00pm : Presentation and Q&A
• 12:00pm- 1:00pm : Lunch and Networking

There will be lunch to follow and an opportunity to compare notes with your peer group.

If you would like to attend, please follow the link to sign up for the event and please feel free to pass the opportunity along to your colleagues.

We look forward to seeing you there..

The post PushON Announce Magento Event in Manchester appeared first on PushON Ltd.

As with the profile photo dimensions, the cover photo dimensions differ between each social networks, which can make the process of creating a cover photo more challenging.

Twitter Cover Photo Dimensions

The Twitter cover photo dimensions are: 1252px x 626px

Interestingly Twitter have chosen to overlay the users profile photo over the center of the cover photo, which provides an opportunity for creativity and interactivity between the cover photo and profile photo.

Here is an example of the PushON Twitter cover photo:

Download our layered PSD template for Twitter cover photos here.

Google+ Cover Photo Dimensions

The Google+ cover photo dimensions are: 940px x 180px

You can see the PushON Google+ cover photo below:

Download our layered PSD template for Google+ cover photos here.

Facebook Cover Photo Dimensions

The Facebook cover photo dimensions are: 851px x 315px

Similarly to the Twitter cover photo, the Facebook cover photo is positioned behind the users profile photo on their profile page, however, unlike Twitter the profile photo is positioned in the bottom left-hand corner.

The PushON Facebook cover photo can be viewed below:

Download our layered PSD template for Facebook cover photos here.

Cover Photo Templates

We have put together a series of PSD templates that you can download and use for creating cover photos for Twitter, Facebook and Google+. You can download each separately using the links above, or in a single zip file using this link.

The post Twitter, Facebook and Google+ Cover Photo Dimensions and Templates appeared first on PushON Ltd.

Many SEO’s had to switch to using quotation marks rather than +

For example +WordPress was now “WordPress”

A Google employee posted on the forums the reason for this:

We’re streamlining the ways you can tell Google to search for the exact keywords you type, whether it’s an exact phrase or a single word, by focusing on the functionality of the quotation marks operator. So, if in the past you would have searched for [magazine +latina], you should now search for [magazine "latina"] to get the same results.

Last night I was searching for a post containing the phrase WordPress, out of habit I occasionally enter the + rather than quotation marks and my search return the following results, incorporating Google Plus pages in the Google Search Suggest/Google Autocomplete (I’m not signed in to my Google Account):

So, what’s the impact? It looks like this is another one of Google’s tests, so negligible. If this is rolled out then registering a keyword rich Google Plus page may be a legitimate way to capturing additional search traffic.

More screenshots below:

The post Why Google Ditched The + Operator appeared first on PushON Ltd.

Job description:

We have a requirement for an open source developer to join the PushON team based in Castlefield, Manchester. We’re a friendly bunch and work in a relaxed atmosphere with regular nights out as a team.

Skills must include: Magento and Drupal experience
Desirable skills: WordPress

The ideal candidate will be an expert in advanced web development using PHP, MySQL, Magento and Drupal as well as a strong command of web standards and best practices. They must demonstrate excellent customer service skills, technical wizardry, flexibility, a sense of humour, motivation and an eye for detail. Any experience with iPhone, WordPress and Facebook application development will also be highly desirable. A good awareness of building websites effectively for search is also desirable.

Here’s the skill set we’re looking for:

• Exceptional PHP, MYSQL, XHTML and CSS skills
• Knowledge of Magento and Drupal (WordPress desirable)
• Knowledge of JavaScript frameworks, primarily jQuery and MooTools
• Database design, development and management
• Good understanding of web technologies (HTTP, Apache) and familiarity with Unix/Linux

How to apply:

Please email your CV and cover note to info@pushon.co.uk.

Strictly NO RECRUITMENT AGENCIES – please do not phone or email.

The post Magento/Drupal Developer Job at PushON Ltd appeared first on PushON Ltd.

Presentation from Asif Hassan

Operate over 350 channels (lifestyle, cars, etc..) in 22 markets with frequently published content. Procedure is very important to MSN EMEA.

Technical Implementation: Teams across the world develop the platform, all of which has to be SEO friendly (including varying types of content; video, images, etc..). Tasks are prioritised and split tested over weeks before roll-out.

Structure: Teams are structured in a way to incorporate SEO “champions”. SEO is considered at every level from training to catch-ups.

Communication: Communication is key. Stakeholders are kept up-to-date, emails are sent to just one person with many people copied.

Challenges: There are a number of challenges to implementing enterprise level SEO across MSN EMEA including; Language, ROI justification, technology and broken link management (for expired/expiring content).

Lessons learned: SEO is everybody’s job, measuring is key, team members must be engaged, successful SEO should be centrally managed.

Presentation from Martin McDonald

Big business will start to pick up on SEO over the next few years. Once big brands get their websites up-to-speed and optimised the SERP landscape will change.

Backlinks are not an issue for enterprise level SEO, “getting shit done” is.

Business leaders don’t care about search, links, etc.. they care about business and selling more. Use of language is important.

Teach search to everyone possible within the organisation, doing this will mean that the entire company will take SEO into account when implementing changes within the business (e.g. website updates). This results in less issues.

e.g. offline marketing with “search for XX on Google” and no organic listings existing.

Choose the right strategy; SEO for branding, brand alignment, demographic seo targeting.

The post SAScon 2011: Enterprise Level SEO appeared first on PushON Ltd.

Presentation from Paul from Brilliant Media “Turning share of voice into share of traffic”:

The internet can help us segment users, however we don’t use it effectively.

Using local, ppc, sitelinks and other universal search elements enables us to own a greater amount of real estate on the SERP.

Question: What are your views on the new legislation regarding using cookies?
Paul: We’re waiting to see what happens, if we can’t use cookies then we’re screwed.
Rishi: Cookie legislation is unenforceable, see Dave N’s blog post.
Simon: Do you think that this legislation may make us less competitive as a country?
Rishi: Agrees.

Question: What are you pro-actively doing regarding the cookie legislation?
Gareth: Speaking to larger clients, they’re most likely to be hit by any legislation and advising them that they should get the ball rolling.
Rishi: Looking at email marketing options, inbound marketing will not be effective. Also looking at alternatives such as IP targeting.

Question: How are you trying to use mobile and the ever-developing “I want it now” culture?
Gareth: Trying to get more like amazon, one-click buying, creating mobile enabled websites. Devices such as the iPad are a great opportunity to give a great user experience.
Paul: It depends on the type of retailer; if you’re a store based retailed then typically users are already in the purchase cycle and are using mobile to either re-visit or reserve products.
Rishi: It’s not just about mobile, people are getting more impatient – it’s now more important to quickly determine what stage in the purchase cycle the user is in (behavioural targeting).

Question: would it be safe to say that this is the year of the mobile we’ve been waiting for?
Rishi: We’re passed that, we have internet enabled devices like the iPad, etc.. but definitely.

Question: does anyone have any opinion about barriers to entry for mobile apps?
Rishi: Developers are becoming smarter and more adaptable.
Gareth: We’re advising people not to focus on building apps for the sake of it, you have to download an app, a mobile website can be cross-platform.
Audience: Trip Advisor direct mobile visitors on the main website to a mobile version of the site, then encourage them to download the mobile-specific app.

Simon: Often clients are focussed on Facebook Likes, RT’s, etc.., how do we educate them?
Paul: Ask the client if its worth it?
Rishi: It depends what the clients objective is – do they want branding or selling? Facebook is a great place for obtaining research.
Audience: All social is another connector,
Rishi: Search engines are not filtering fake likes, they may be looking at the profile history. Google is definitely using social as an influencer. A lot of people are logged into their Google Account and will see influences through their social circle.
Audience: Fake likes/RT’s are illegal.
Rishi: Yes, its possible but big brands should not be doing it – they should leverage their brand and resources. If you want to make a quick buck through affiliate marketing, its worth looking at. Yes social media will loose some of its value over time, but at the moment its working.
Gareth: It’s a good test of your brand proposition, if you’re operating in a niche you can see how people react and engage.
Paul: It’s hard when it moves away from niche to get users to engage as products become more generic.
Rishi: At the end of the day, you have research, data – be creative, we’re all marketers.

Question: How will Google start to weed out fake accounts?
Gareth: Google will start to look at the history of Google Profiles, they’ve been trying to do it for a while.

The post SAScon 2011: Market Focus – Retail appeared first on PushON Ltd.

We are working with our business VoIP provider (Packnet) to redirect calls to our mobile phones.

Should you need to get in contact urgently please email us directly or you can find our mobile phone numbers in our email footer.

The post Phoning PushON appeared first on PushON Ltd.

Note: Please see responses below from Lewis Wiltshire (Editor of the BBC Sport website). Specifically “None of the links to external websites from the BBC’s UK-facing website are sold.”

The BBC “select links that are editorially relevant to the content they are linking from and are suitable for the likely audience” (BBC, Source). Although these links are relevant to some of the themes on the page, they are extremely questionable for the following reasons:

• They only link to football fixture websites, the page contains information on many other sports.
• The quality of the target websites is poor and are littered with adverts.
• The second link “watch sport online” is broken.
• The links are within other links to the BBC website – it is not clear these are external websites.

Not only is this practice frowned upon by Google, it is against the BBC’s own policy.

Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results (Google, Source)

We do not link to external sites in return for cash, services or any other consideration in kind. (BBC, Source)

The post Paid Links on the BBC? appeared first on PushON Ltd.

Now it appears they’re testing combining the related post results into a “Get more discussion results” link, like this:

It will be interesting to see if Google will roll out this feature – personally I don’t think it is any better than the existing snippet.

The post New Google Feature: Get More Discussion Results appeared first on PushON Ltd.