News & Blog — Web design and SEO from Andover IT

Dung For Brains – Dilbert’s Company Gets Googled

June 24, 2011 by Andover IT 7 Comments

Dung for Brains! Dilbert’s company, Path-E-Tech Management use some Black Hat SEO in the shape of fake links to boost their rankings. However Google find out and they can then only be found for a certain search…”Dung for Brains”.

Okay so it’s not quite true but start trying to mess Google around and they may just punish you – so no white text on white backgrounds please!

Maybe it also shows that SEO and link building are finally being seen as an industry by the media and not just people messing about on Google.

If your website comes up under any weird searches, let us know and we’ll publish them. But please, no spammy links – or you’ll not even be coming up for “Dung for Brains”

Alternatively, if you need to come up high on Google without them punishing you, feel free to get in touch.

Update: 3 1/2 hours later and this little blog post seems to be doing quite well…

Filed Under: Blog, SEO

Mac Accounts Software Launched

May 30, 2011 by Andover IT Leave a Comment

The new Mac Accounts Software site has been launched, targeting Mac users in the UK looking for an accounts package.

We’ve been very impressed with the software and felt that since the launch of the Mac version, it could do with some more pushing…hence the site.

It’s a tough market with some established companies competing for the top spot of 15.3 million results on Google. The site has been live for about 48 hours and is ranked 15th for the main search result so there is still more to do.

Filed Under: News, SEO Tagged With: SEO

Get YouTube to Start at a Specific Time

May 19, 2011 by Andover IT Leave a Comment

We posted yesterday on How To Get BBC iPlayer to Start at a Specific Time and we’ve also been asked how to get YouTube to start at a specific time.

Again, a nice easy option – just add the following to the video link:

#t=02m56s

In the example we want the video to start at 2 minutes and 57 seconds in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaMTSOI1Zk4#t=02m57s

Click the link above to see it in action…or watch it from the beginning from here

Video courtesy of Phoenix Fly and Adrenalin Base with music from Hybrid.

Filed Under: Tips & Advice, Website Tips

Get BBC iPlayer to Start at a Specific Time

May 18, 2011 by Andover IT 2 Comments

You know the problem – there’s a great article on BBC iPlayer but it’s 45 minutes into a 60 minute broadcast.

So how do you get BBC iPlayer to start at 45 minutes instead of having to watch it or move the slider?

Easier than you think! Just add the following to the end of the link:

?t=11m55s

In this example this is 11 minutes and 55 seconds in. Just adjust the time as required. So your link might look like this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b011ddzy/?t=11m55s

Told you it was easy

Filed Under: Tips & Advice, Website Tips

SEO Result – 1st from 577 Million

May 9, 2011 by Andover IT Leave a Comment

Since adding details on how to add a review on Google we’ve noticed we’d been getting quite a few hits. A check revealed that the SEO has done it’s work:

Doing some searches for relevant keywords and some fine tuning has given us a good result and some extra traffic to the site. Plus it looks like we’ve helped a few people put reviews on Google.

Now if we can get someone to write a nice one about us…

Filed Under: SEO Tagged With: SEO

iPad Wholesale Price Offer

May 2, 2011 by Andover IT 2 Comments

If you are looking to stock the iPad or iPhone we’ve been made aware of a deal from a contact we have in Hong Kong.

The prices are pre-shipment and VAT and minimum order is 250 units. If you are interested then please use the following email address to get in touch: ipadoffer@andover-it.co.uk

Model	Memory	US$	Sterling

iphone 4	16gb	580.00	348.00

iphone 4	32gb	722.00	432.00

ipad 1 wifi	32gb	517.00	309.50

ipad 1 wifi	64gb	619.00	370.00

ipad 1 wifi 3G	16gb	528.00	316.00

ipad 1 wifi 3G	32gb	643.50	385.00

ipad 1 wifi 3G	64gb	735.00	440.00

Filed Under: News

Mac Accounting Software from Solar Accounts

May 1, 2011 by Andover IT 7 Comments

We can now supply Mac Accounting Software from Solar Accounts as we are official resellers – and you can get 20% discount using our deal.

Having used the PC version of this very easy to use accounts package we were delighted when Solar announced they now support Mac OSX 10.5 and above as we have several client that use Macs.

For a 60 day trial of the Mac accounting software version click here.

Try it out and if you decide to buy go to our official reseller deal with Solar Accounts where you can get a 20% discount.

Filed Under: News

SEO Work Boosts Client Sales

April 30, 2011 by Andover IT Leave a Comment

Andover IT have been doing some SEO work for Builders Broker recently for the HS38 unit that they sell from the site.

Some research showed that the unit is sold under two different names – a Hydropath HS38 and a Hydroflow HS38. The same unit but understandably they wanted to get picked up on both searches.

After some work on both landing pages they are now 3rd and 4th for Hydropath HS38 only being beaten by the manufacturer themselves whilst the Hydroflow HS38 is on the 1st page with sites like Money Saving Expert to try and beat!

Filed Under: Blog, SEO

Cloud Computing – Great Until There’s A Storm

April 21, 2011 by Andover IT 1 Comment

Anyone using Hootsuite, Reddit or Foursquare today…well actually they wouldn’t be using it as Amazon’s EC2 Cloud computing system was down.

Cloud computing is a great for keeping costs down – a virtual ‘pay-as-you-go’ server system where you can scale up or down depening on the volume of business you are doing. By sharing servers and services with other companies, you don’t have to pay for hardware or staff.

The negative side is that if it goes down (which thankfully is very rarely) you are possibly left with nothing and in someone else’s hands. Potentially even worse would be the company goes under and with them goes all your work.

One way to look at it would be comparing it with email – Webmail v PC based such as MS Outlook. With a webmail version everything is done online so you can get to it from pretty much anywhere. The problem is that if it goes down, potentially you have nothing.

With a PC based system, whilst you may not be able to send or receive emails, you can at least access the ones already sent / received.

Costs do come into it – Cloud computing allows you to pay per month instead of a potentially large initial outlay on hardware and they will do backups for you. However, it is worth setting aside some of the cost and setup a system to cover for a worse case scenario. Just in case.

Filed Under: Blog

Local SEO for Businesses

April 20, 2011 by Andover IT Leave a Comment

Local SEO (search engine optimisation) can play a big factor for many small businesses – and it doesn’t have to cost a fortune.

Local SEO – Why?

Even with a website, a lot of small businesses will find most of their clients are local – plumbers, piano tuners, bookkeepers, restaurants, thatchers…even web designers – and with more enquiries being made using search engines like Google, it makes sense to be ranked as high as possible.

If your customers can’t find you, they may try someone else.

Local SEO – How?

As a company offering local SEO services you might expect us to say we should do it. Obviously, yes we can, but it is something you can do as well. If you have access to the relevant areas to your website (page titles, meta descriptions and content) you can make a difference to your rankings.

You will also need to get some links back to your site (preferably relevant and good quality ones) and make sure you are targeting the right keywords that your customers are searching for.

It is also something that should be continually worked on especially as more and more local businesses get wise to getting more clients by going local.

One possible quick fix is to get your business on Google Places – this is the map feature you will often see when searching for a trade or type of business. For example “re-upholstery Winchester” will bring up not just the search results but (at the time of writing) a list of 3 businesses on the map. Our client, the Plus Furnishings website, is listed 1st on Google Places and 1st n the search results – giving them two chances to get that enquiry.

Another option is to start a blog. This will allow you to target keywords and possibly even build up a following bringing you more traffic.

Local SEO – Cost?

It really depends on your website, your market and your keywords but could be as low at £50 per month to over £500 a month if we do it for you. We will ask you to sign up for a minimum of 6 months as it can take several weeks to see an improvement in rankings.

Local SEO – Worthwhile?

In a word – yes. I have been with a client when they looked for two services online and knew the name of the company, but because they couldn’t find them they almost went elsewhere. One business gained about £300 of business and the other about £200.

Now ask us again, is local SEO worthwhile?

Filed Under: SEO Tagged With: Local SEO, Marketing, SEO