BOYD DIGITAL

[theboyddigital]

Boyd Digital lends support to Think Tank's Boost a Start Up Competition Glasgow is a thriving digital and entrepreneurial city, where innovation and start-ups are celebrated. When Boyd Digital was launched over six year ago, there was no real structure or support in place to help small businesses and startups in Glasgow have the chance to succeed. Now though its an entirely different story, and with the launch of Think Tank Glasgow, we're very excited to announce we're lending our support to their amazing competition.

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Boyd Digital lends support to Think Tank's Boost a Start Up Competition

Glasgow is a thriving digital and entrepreneurial city, where innovation and start-ups are celebrated. When Boyd Digital was launched over six year ago, there was no real structure or support in place to help small businesses and startups in Glasgow have the chance to succeed.

Now though its an entirely different story, and with the launch of Think Tank Glasgow, we’re very excited to announce we’re lending our support to their amazing competition.

To help celebrate the launch of Think Tank, a special competition will help one very lucky start-up in Glasgow to achieve their business goals by getting their own office space in Glasgow City Centre and £500 for their business.

Through BDX Glasgow, the creative content creation arm of Boyd Digital, we’re lending our support to this unique competition to help one very lucky startup in Glasgow win their own dedicated office space in the city centre for a year & receive the amazing investment for £500 for their business too.

A competition the likes of this has never happened before in Glasgow so it is a truly unique privilege to be involved with the amazing concept that will see someone in Glasgow get the chance to have their startup given access to business facilities that normally would cost thousands for being located in the same location.

Entering this once in a lifetime competition in incredibly easy. All entrants have to do is either of the following:

Film a video for YouTube explaining why they deserve to win the office space at Think Tank

or

Write a blog post on their site explaining why they deserve to win the office space at Think Tank

It is as simple as that.

To find out more about the competition, and read the competition rules, visit the Think Tank website by clicking here.

And don’t forget there’s a BDX event coming up this month, which is taking place at Think Tank. You can get free tickets for the event, and see the space for yourself, by clicking right here.

[theboyddigital]

How to Beat Referrer Spam Referrer Spam can be a very tricky problem to deal with and with so many conflicting ideas on how best to fix the issue available we thought we would try to help you find a simple solution. We will look at the 3 main spam referrers and give you an idea of how to deal with them, these

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How to Beat Referrer Spam

Referrer Spam can be a very tricky problem to deal with and with so many conflicting ideas on how best to fix the issue available we thought we would try to help you find a simple solution.

We will look at the 3 main spam referrers and give you an idea of how to deal with them, these are;

Ghost Referrals that never actually visit your site but use software to make it look like they have and Google records the visit in your reports e.g. darodar.com / buy-cheap-online.info/ pornhub-forum.ga

Creepy Crawlers that neither identify themselves nor follow rules. It is recommended that you do not follow these links as it could lead to your getting a virus e.g. maridan.com.ua and blog.ranksonic.com.

Well Behaved Bots & Spiders might appear with no malicious intentions.

We will also be bringing you some information at the end about a brand new, free referrer spam removal tool that is quick and easy and can help you clear your analytics.

But why would people go to the bother of doing this? It could be that they are looking for information or site vulnerabilities, another reason could be to target website owners and try and get them to their own site to sell a service or a product or finally it could be used as a way to get traffic. Unscrupulous SEO Services could claim to be boosting your traffic but there will be no real value to it as it is just people trying to find out who you are with no interest in your service, brand or product.

So how do we eliminate this traffic that is causing chaos to so many reports? Employing tactics against all 3 spam referrer types is recommended to give more wide scale protection against the problem with some techniques being more effective in certain fields than others.

Before we start there is also some good advice from LunaMetrics that should be observed to ensure you don’t butcher your Google Analytics settings.

1. Make sure you always have an unfiltered view in your property that has zero filters. 2. Don’t implement it immediately in your main view. Create a new test view that mirrors your main one in every other respect, and then add the filter(s). 3. If you’re happy with the new filter based on this test, then go ahead and implement it in the main view.” It is also recommended by some sites to use the referral exclusion list feature but it can sometimes change a session to a direct visit and will therefore remain in your reports. More often than not this doesn’t work so we would just stay clear of it.

So, here we go. First to get rid of Ghost Referrals you can set tailored filters to stop the bad traffic coming in but this can be time consuming and it is sometimes a better idea to create a filter that lets the good traffic IN.

If you do choose to go down this route ensure you include all the valid hostnames or you could exclude valid traffic. If you start with the Multi Year Report showing just the hostnames, you will find this at Audience>Technology>Network>Hostname. You can then identify the valid ones from there.

  It is also worth noting here that if you see and conversions from not set hostnames you might want to investigate why. They might not be associated with page view and could be event based call logging. You might have to adjust tracking code snippets and filters.

You can then create a filter including an expression capturing all valid domains. It is also worth testing before committing. You can try the Advanced Segment to get an idea of results without losing any data. To create your filter expression identifies your hostname from the Google Analytics report. Enter your hostname, if you have multiple hostnames separate them by a vertical bar (|) you may need to enter any third party payment services like Paypal. If you do use the vertical bar do not use it at the end of the expression and do not leave any spaces.

Spammers can use recognisable sites so don’t add them to your list unless they are your pages on your sites.

It is extremely important to maintain this filter each time you put your tracking ID into a new web service and it is worth confirming you don’t exclude valid traffic if you use an unfiltered view on a monthly basis. To eliminate ghost referrals from your historical reports, use a segment.

Some people insist changing .htaccess files work because the comments say to wait 2-3 days for it to take effect, and the spam traffic changes in that time, so it appears the blocking worked.

To exclude Creepy Crawlers from your site you can create a filter in Google Analytics by identifying their unique signature and basing the filter on that. It is also possible to filter on Campaign Source with a matching domain, this will usually work. Filtering just on Referral will not work as it must match the Full Referrer not only the domain. For more information you can read Google’s instructions on making filters.

It is possible to modify the htaccess file if you use an Apache web server. This would be advisable because the visits will still continue despite your filters, this modification will block the visits from your server.

It has been thought that the match pattern should be “semalt.com” as it’s a regular expression (the dot should be “escaped” with a backslash to stop it being interpreted as meaning ‘any character’), however Google doesn’t push it in their documentation for single domain matches.

Because there is a limit on the amount of filters you can use and a 255 character limit in the filter expression it is worth checking back every 2-3 months. If a bot is not getting any success it can drop off allowing you to free up a filter.

Spam referrals adapt, because of this you will also have to adapt and regularly updating your filters should stop any problems.

Well Behaved Bots and Spiders should be easier to deal with because there is no secret motive behind their appearance. Google Analytics has a checkbox that you can use however you need to enable it for every View you use.

If you go to the Admin section of your Google Analytics and navigate to each view you use then select View Settings you can then click the box that will exclude hits from known bots and spiders.

Employing all these tactics should see you on your way to getting reliable information in your Google Analytics reports but there are a few other handy tools on the market that can be a great help. The free, Boyd Digital Referrer Spam Removal tool does all the hard work for you when you enter your Google Analytics information.

You simply enter your information and the tool scans your Google Analytics account before giving you the opportunity to select the flagged spam referrers as well as any non-spam referrers. The tool then generates either .htaccess or web.config rules which block the referrers. The tool does not modify your Google Analytics account and access is only granted to generate the spam referrers list.

For more information or to try the free Spam Referrer Tool you can visit http://refererspamtool.boyddigital.co.uk.

[theboyddigital]

10 of Our Favourite Tech Blogs of 2015 If you like your tech and gadgets then you probably know one or two good blogs to follow, we are going to take you through a few of our favourites. You will probably know some of them, hopefully we will introduce you to some others and if you know of any more we want you to let us know about them.

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10 of Our Favourite Tech Blogs of 2015

If you like your tech and gadgets then you probably know one or two good blogs to follow, we are going to take you through a few of our favourites. You will probably know some of them, hopefully we will introduce you to some others and if you know of any more we want you to let us know about them.

We aren’t going to be putting them in any particular order so don’t take this as a league table of sorts, each have their own merits. Here are 10 of our favourites, let us know yours.

TechCrunch.Com TechCrunch is one of those you will probably have heard of and is good for providing news, reviews and general info on the latest tech and gadgets.

Wired.Com Wired.Com is another good one that covers a few more bases than just tech and gadgets and is great for people with a broader interest but still rooted in the realm of tech.

Gizmodo.Com Great for gadgets and brilliant for those interested in mobile tech.

Huffingtonpost.com/tech Another biggie and always a good read and source of information.

Blogs.technet.com Microsoft’s own collection of blogs, if you need an answer the chances are you will find it in here.

Venturebeat.com Covering the latest in News, Events and Research, Venture beat is a great source for interesting information and posts.

Mashable.Com You just have to look at the amount of people that follow Mashable’s social accounts, 13 million, to know they must be doing something right.

MacRumours.Com This is one for the Apple fanatics and if there is Apple related news to be heard, the chances are you will hear about it here first.

BusinessInsider.Com The majority of people reading this will, in some way be involved in the business side of tech and though we might enjoy reading about exciting and fun gadgets, getting a good inside knowledge of how tech development will impact your business is crucial. BusinessInsider.Com offers some great insights to its millions of readers every month.

TheVerge.Com TheVerge.Com covers a load of topics and is great for flitting from one article to another. Reviews, science, entertainment, cars and design are all covered along with tech and its forums are a great place to go to discuss what you have just read.

There you go, this doesn’t even scratch the surface of great tech related blogs out there so don’t stop at this list. Go out and explore but be sure to let us know of any diamonds yoy find when you are digging.

[theboyddigital]

Social Media, Let’s Get Personal: 10 Don’ts for Your Personal Account Most of us use social media pretty frequently whether for work or in our personal lives but we will all have a few ‘friends’ that post the kind of things that makes you want to swing a shovel at them. Here are 10 of my own personal hates that you might want to avoid if you don’t want to be unfriended or unfollowed.

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Social Media, Let’s Get Personal: 10 Don’ts for Your Personal Account

Most of us use social media pretty frequently whether for work or in our personal lives but we will all have a few ‘friends’ that post the kind of things that makes you want to swing a shovel at them. Here are 10 of my own personal hates that you might want to avoid if you don’t want to be unfriended or unfollowed.

Constant Quizzers I’m not going to lie, every so often I want to find out what dinosaur I would have been if I was in Jurassic Park or how many chocolate bars I can Identify out the packet but if you are constantly sharing quizzes about when you will die, what flower you are or which member of New Kids on the Block you would be (they’re still hip right?), stop it.

Kid Sharers I don’t care about your child, either going to school, getting a good report or whatever else the grubby faced urchins are up to. If I was that interested I would have one of my own. Save it for your family newsletter, now give it a rest because I’ve got photos of my cats I need to share!

Gym Bunnies Really? You Went to the gym? You lifted several kilos? I don’t care, I don’t even know what a kilo is, I’m British tell me in Stones and Pounds (never just pounds) or better still keep it to yourself along with your protein powder and ‘gains’.

Accent Typers A hink fowk typin lyk this is tha wurst! It doesn’t translate, it makes it difficult to read about your weekend drinking buckfast and it makes you look like some kind of buffoon so give it a rest.

Share This, Share That If you post a photo of an ill child the likes don’t make them better. The intentions may be innocent and well placed but it’s a total nonsense. As for every primary school teacher in history posting a photo of themselves as an ‘experiment’ to show their class how quickly something can go viral, it only needed to be done once.

Disgusting Sharers Why would I want to watch a video of someone popping spots or look at a video of human faeces. Do not share these things, is there something wrong with you?

I, the Undersigned, Hereby Renounce Facebooks Rights… Every so often there will be a flurry of activity as people post statements declaring that they refuse to hand over their civil liberties to Facebook, Twitter etc and that their photos and privacy shall remain intact. Facebook doesn’t care and neither do I!

OMG I was So Drunk If you are a grown up and you are still boasting about getting drunk and having a hangover you need to give yourself a shake. You don’t have “The Fear” you are just a moron.

I’m Sharing This to Raise Awareness About My Face Awareness campaigns that sweep through social media pretty much just serve to pander to people’s vanity. Very little awareness about the illness or disease is passed on by you sharing photos of yourself and not even mentioning it.

The Fake Ghandi If you spend 50% of your time talking about how spiritual, deep and enlightened you are then the other 50% about clubbing and ‘Lad Banter’ chances are you are not the next Ghandi or Mother Theresa.

I am sure I could think up a load more but these will do for now. I would also like to put in a disclaimer that if I do any of these it’s ok.

[theboyddigital]

Google+, or was it a Minus? Around four years ago Google announced it was entering the world of social networks with its own Google+ and there was a lot of initial interest and its growth was rapid. If you have a read through its Wikipedia page (that means it must be true, right?) it managed to reach 50 million users within 3 months where it took both Twitter and Facebook over 1000 days so people were expecting big things, but it’s not always as simple as that.

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Google+, or was it a Minus?

Around four years ago Google announced it was entering the world of social networks with its own Google+ and there was a lot of initial interest and its growth was rapid.

If you have a read through its Wikipedia page (that means it must be true, right?) it managed to reach 50 million users within 3 months where it took both Twitter and Facebook over 1000 days so people were expecting big things, but it’s not always as simple as that.

Comparing the rapid growth of something with a platform to spring from like Google against Twitter and Facebook is pretty unfair. Launching in 2006 and 2004 respectively, nobody really understood the impact that social media was going to have on the world.

Google+ had the luxury of going into a market that people already understood, having a brand that people already knew and trusted (to some degree) and also having the added advantage of being whispered about being the ‘next big thing in social media’. The buzz and demand that can create will drive a lot of people your way and, if your product is good enough, can make an overnight success.

Unfortunately for Google and Google+ people didn’t appreciate being herded in, having to create a profile to use anything Google related, especially YouTube.

YouTube had enjoyed success for years before Google+ came along and being corralled into this new social platform to continue uploading or commenting didn’t sit well with people.

Finally it seems as though Google are listening to their users and, moving forward, the forced integration will be removed, not immediately though so hold your horses. That being said Google’s VP of streams, photos and sharing Bradley Horowitz has assured fans of Google+ that the platform won’t be disappearing but will know have the opportunity to focus more directly on itself.

What we can take from this is that Google are listening to their users in regards to the user experience and are making moves to improve that which can only be a good thing. Whether Google+ can weather the storm and come out of this transition even stronger remains to be seen but it will definitely be an interesting ride over the coming months.

It remains to be seen if Google can turn things around for Google+ and become a major social player alongside Twitter and Facebook or if this is a quiet admission of failure before winding things down over a period of time.

Google, we are watching.

[theboyddigital]

Viral Marketing - 3 Great Examples of How to Succeed Viral Marketing done well can send your campaign rocketing into the stratosphere so we thought we would look at some of the 3 of the top viral marketing examples that might inspire you to create something special and how they achieved their success. You might be asking yourself ‘What is Viral M

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Viral Marketing - 3 Great Examples of How to Succeed

Viral Marketing done well can send your campaign rocketing into the stratosphere so we thought we would look at some of the 3 of the top viral marketing examples that might inspire you to create something special and how they achieved their success.

You might be asking yourself ‘What is Viral Marketing?’, I mean, we all know what going viral means but surely this is just down to being in the right place at the right time? In a way, yes it is. The trick behind successful viral marketing campaigns is either, knowing where and when the right place and time are, or creating something that people want to get on board with.

The Evian Babies

This is a great example of how something so simple can work so well. Personally speaking I couldn’t stand the advert (much like that Charlie Bit My Finger video, I just don’t see the appeal) however over 80 million YouTube views on the original video, almost 7.5 million on the French version and over 21 million in the US version tell a different story. As well as creating an extremely popular marketing campaign on TV it has also, as we have shown, been a very successful digital Marketing Campaign.

The YouTube video is ready made content for Social accounts which will gather shares that convert into followers. The followers that the YouTube channel would have gained also feed into the long game with further videos reaching them directly, leading again to social shares and creating a readymade viral atmosphere that the right content can spark again.

4 years after the original ‘Roller Babies’ advert Evian had more success with the Evian Baby&Me video which has achieved over 110 million views in 2 years. Without the success of the first ad, and the foresight to build around it, it is unlikely this second video could have been as successful.

Old Spice

Another extremely popular viral marketing campaign has been the Old Spice Manly Man. Old Spice was the butt of a few jokes, it was seen as pretty old fashioned and of a different era and they took that on board and decided to use it to their advantage.

Creating their character who was the ultimate manly man from the Ron Swanson school of men and a tag line of ‘Smell Like a Man, Man’ they got straight to the point and cut through a lot of nonsense and people responded to it straight away.

Following on from this they built the marketing campaign around this man and the second advert has now reached over 50 million YouTube Views. In the 5 years since they have kept people engaged not only with more adverts but using the character to respond to comments and news in short YouTube videos. In doing this they kept their audience engaged and haven’t let the character die off.

At the time of writing a new advert, Old Spice | Interruption, featuring both the original character and Terry Crews has just been released. After 16 hours the video has already been viewed 29,020 times. You can click here to see how it has performed since.

Three – Pony Dance

This one really seemed to come out of left field, a mobile network. Over 11 million YouTube views later and it seems to have done the trick. The tagline is ‘Silly Stuff. It Matters. Keep on Internetting’ and it is here you can see the thought process behind it. The rise in internet access through smart phones has made it so much easier for viral advertising campaigns to reach the masses.

Three are currently producing another bizarre campaign featuring a muppet like character that sings and it is seeing a lot of interest online too.

These are just some of the best viral marketing campaigns but there are many more examples out there. Occasionally we will see a gem spring out of nowhere to achieve a genuine viral result but it seems for now we will have to wait and see who comes up with the next viral marketing strategy to really hit home.

[theboyddigital]

The Guide to SEO Quick Wins   A thorough SEO audit of a site will cover all aspects that could be optimised and improved and can take a considerable time to implement. If you have the time and money you can really improve your site and in turn it’s positions in Google when your target audience is searching. However, if you are looking to get a couple of quick wins to boost your traffic we may have the answer for you here.

New Post has been published on http://www.boyddigital.co.uk/seo-tips/the-guide-to-seo-quick-wins/

The Guide to SEO Quick Wins

  A thorough SEO audit of a site will cover all aspects that could be optimised and improved and can take a considerable time to implement. If you have the time and money you can really improve your site and in turn it’s positions in Google when your target audience is searching. However, if you are looking to get a couple of quick wins to boost your traffic we may have the answer for you here.

Over the years we have used several techniques in getting the best SEO results for our clients and we thought we’d share some of our secrets to let you know a little more about getting those quick wins that can help here and now.

First of all we would always recommend a visual check of the site. It’s probably common sense but we would always look through a site and see if there were any obvious issues that should be dealt with before moving on.

Next up you should do a bit of keyword research to find out what your target audience is searching for that could lead them to you.

Assuming you have your Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools set up we can work out what terms are being searched for on the pages that draw the most traffic on your site. First click on Acquisition > Source/Median and then click google/organic in the primary data. Then you can click on Secondary Dimension then Landing Page under Behaviour.

You will then have the top landing pages that your visitors arrive at from their search. Having this information allows us to work out the keywords that led them there and the intent behind the searches. For example if you had a site selling Wellington Boots and your top landing page was for cheap children’s wellington boots you can surmise that keywords centred around ‘cheap children’s wellington boots’ are driving the most traffic to your site.

We can then check out Google Webmaster Tools to find out exactly what the people behind your traffic had been searching for. Just click on Search Traffic > Search Queries and you will get your results.

If you then click on Top Pages and the URLs that are provided you will get a list of keywords. Using Google’s Keyword Planner you can then find other similar keywords, their search volume and also the rate of competition. This is a great tool that is well worth playing about with but can also produce some great keywords that you might not even have considered.

Now we have a list of potential keywords what do we do with them? Here’s where another couple of great tools come into play, using [Accuranker]we can track our keyword positions and generate reports and using Serp Insights we can see who is ranking where for each term as well as find out click through rate, cost per click info, the domain authority, page authority, referring domains and social signals giving you an idea of what it takes to jump up the rankings.

Now we started this by telling you that you could get some quick wins and a great way of doing that is targeting pages you have sitting on the second page of Google, using the techniques we have just told you about to get some valuable information and then using it to push those pages onto the first.

By mapping your keywords against the pages you think are only a few tweaks away from becoming competitive you can then start optimising the page to compete and, by using this information, start moving up the rankings.

It goes without saying that these quick wins are nice and can produce some good results but we wouldn’t recommend relying solely on this tactic if you want to compete on a long term basis across the board.

If you have any questions regarding the suggestions mentioned in this post or regarding larger scale SEO tactics don’t hesitate to get in touch with us by clicking the button below or calling us on 0141 332 0063.

[theboyddigital]

Monday Mentions: 27th April Good morning everybody. It's a sprightly spring morning here in beautiful Glasgow city. It's always a morning chock full or digital news that went under the radar over the weekend.

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Monday Mentions: 27th April

Good morning everybody. It’s a sprightly spring morning here in beautiful Glasgow city. It’s always a morning chock full or digital news that went under the radar over the weekend. Let’s have a look to see what news you might have missed in your Twitter timeline then.

It’s just launched in the U.S. but we’d keep an eye out on this branch of Amazon’s arm. Aiming to bypass the old directory system, Amazon Home is a place you can look for a plumber, spark or basically any job you might need done around the home (even goat grazing if you really need it). Because everyone has a friend or relative in the DIY industry, we’d highly suggest keeping tabs on this in case it pops up on this side of the pond any time soon.

Amazon launches Home Services covering anything from electrical repair to auto care https://t.co/6KanPOlhvc pic.twitter.com/FJVDbQUQx8

— Harry (@knuckleburner) April 5, 2015

PPI companies might be about to break out in sweat if Facebook’s new app picks up traction. Aiming to eliminate the old dilemma of “Unknown number, not picking up” Facebook has started Hello, an android only (for now) app that matches any number phone your with the Facebook profile that number belongs too. Slightly nifty, slightly scary, this new app doesn’t alter any existing Facebook privacy controls (quite scary) but here’s hoping it comes in useful for small local businesses.

Facebook’s new app Hello matches phone numbers from calls to Facebook profiles http://t.co/eZdfVLhl0X

— TechCrunch (@TechCrunch) April 27, 2015

Google is really hammering home the idea that mobile is the way to go. Reading this news about attention rates for watching videos on mobile devices, it makes sense when you think of how many people must now use their phone as a viewing device going to and from work every day.

Google: Online Video a “Must” For Mobile Marketing by @mattsouthern http://t.co/GwChbP0dLm

— SearchEngineJournal® (@sejournal) April 24, 2015

GOOGLE TWEET

Reddit: the ultimate time waster! Unless you’re Hootsuite and trying to validate wasting all day on it.

9 subreddits that will help your career: http://t.co/xDk7jSilaT pic.twitter.com/ShxBHDKW66

— Hootsuite (@hootsuite) April 27, 2015

And finally, here at Boyd Digital this week we’ve gave away keyword data worth over £1000 that companies like Skyscanner, Trivago, Expedia and TripAdvisor can use to see what matters to help them outrank one another. Some of the results for these metrics are surprising and trust us it is well worth a look.

See how a company like @TripAdvisorUK ranks so well in Google https://t.co/kZKk8TscpX

— Boyd Digital (@boyddigital) April 23, 2015

[theboyddigital]

Cheap Flights: Unlocking How Travel Sites Rank Today we're giving away free keyword reports that will show you the secrets of how major companies are able to rank so highly in Google.

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Cheap Flights: Unlocking How Travel Sites Rank

Today we’re giving away free keyword reports that will show you the secrets of how major companies are able to rank so highly in Google.

virallocker_use = true;

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[theboyddigital]

What is this big Google mobile update? There’s a simple Google update on the horizon which is causing everyone in the SEO/ Digital Marketing world to freak the hell out. News articles, blog posts and forum comments akin to someone screaming ‘won’t someone please think of the children?!’ are popping up left, right and certain all over the web.

New Post has been published on http://www.boyddigital.co.uk/google/what-is-this-big-google-mobile-update/

What is this big Google mobile update?

There’s a simple Google update on the horizon which is causing everyone in the SEO/ Digital Marketing world to freak the hell out. News articles, blog posts and forum comments akin to someone screaming ‘won’t someone please think of the children?!’ are popping up left, right and certain all over the web. Some sites are even referring to it Mobilegeddon.

It’s the Google Mobile Update taking place on April 21st (this time next week at time of writing) and it will be be trawling all over the internet to find out which sites work well on anyone’s phone screens, and which are as out-dated at Snake on a Nokia 3310.

So should you be freaking out and throwing your phone out the window in horror? Well, no!

Here at Boyd Digital our big reaction to this monumental change was something like this:

“So are our sites mobile friendly?” “Yes. We blogged about this months ago and told everyone to update accordingly.” “Ok, Cool.”

For those who aren’t quick to the beat and might know anything about this change, DON’T PANIC! Boyd Digital has you covered. In this blog post we’ll be telling you the what, why, how, where and when of this update so you don’t have to worry any longer.

So what is this update everyone is going on about?

The Google mobile algorithm update on April 21st is simply a new addition to the huge number of factors the engine uses to decide how it ranks sites. This one has everyone in a tizzy because it is focussed solely on mobile.

And why exactly is it important?

Well everyone uses their phones more these days, but it helps not to think of of them as phones. They’re mobile computers we have on us at all times. And because we spend A LOT of time using them, be it on social apps or searching for a nice new pair of shoes, we do plenty of searching on it too.

The reason it’s an important update is because websites that aren’t responsive or easy to use on mobile are incredibly frustrating and annoying to use. Bounce rates for sites on mobile are high, and Google is using a simple method to test whether your site is a reason why the mobile user experience isn’t going as well as you and they want it to be.

This update will look at websites on a page by page basis and evaluate how well a site works when used on a phone or tablet.

How can I tell if my site is mobile friendly?

Take the test. We reckon Google must be giddily rubbing their hands while watching the traffic for this mobile test site skyrocket over the last week. It’s the quickest way of seeing how your site is doing, where it’s doing well and what quick fixes you can inform the person of charge of running your site about to make it more mobile friendly.

All you do is enter your site URL and hey presto you get a calculated score letting you know what’s potentially going to harm the mobile site’s chances of ranking well over the next few months.

Who will be affected by the update?

Every site under the sun is quietly being lined up and forced through inspection. When the update begins next week, Google is going to be looking at any site no matter what it does or who it’s aimed at.

For example, a big site like McDonalds is seen by Google as not ready for the update

While a site like KFC’s currently works much better on a mobile device.

Right now the Colonel is doing much better than Ronald on mobile. And notice how in the second picture how KFC’s cookie policy is clearly presented and has spacing in the text to make it incredibly easy to read. This update isn’t about creating a complete overhaul for your site. It’s simply the case of making it easier to look at something on your mobile.

Where will this update happen?

Fleetwood Mac would be very excited about this update because it’s happening everywhere. So sites here in Scotland, over in Norway, or even down in Yemen will all be getting tested to see how all sites perform, no matter what language the site is in.

Because the test is essentially testing things like the space and size of buttons and text on mobile sites, it makes it an easier thing to judge than say the language of Meta data or significance of Schema mark-up.

And is there anything else I should know?

Yes. There is a very simple point to remember. Optimising your site for mobile won’t see an up shoot in conversions on mobile, but will simply help maintain a consistent user experience across a number of devices. While people do use their phones a lot more to search, many still don’t purchase items.

Instead, a user generally searches a specific terms (like a pair of shoes) on their phone when commuting home, finds an optimised site with the information and product they want, and then will usually wait until they’re home in front of their laptop to brand search the site they were on and make a purchase that way.

Mobile optimisation isn’t the be all and end all for your site, but come April 21st, it will be a bigger factor than before and that’s something your site should be on top of. This year is most definitely the year of mobile, and you can read more about that on the Boyd Digital blog by clicking here.

And if you’re wondering if your site is good enough for this update by having us look a it, use the contact form below this blog post to get in touch.

[theboyddigital]

April Fools': Stop Your Site From Being A Joke Chances are that today you'll be sitting in the office and face a barrage of "hilarious" pranks on all your favourite sites in celebration of April Fools' Day. One might do a funny news story. One might launch a fake product. Google might even pretend they're changing the world by launching a social network of their own. If there's one thing you don't want to be a joke though, its your website. So today, why not take heed of some of these jokes and make sure your site isn't seen as one.

New Post has been published on http://www.boyddigital.co.uk/seo-mistakes/april-fools-stop-your-site-from-being-a-joke/

April Fools': Stop Your Site From Being A Joke

Chances are that today you’ll be sitting in the office and face a barrage of “hilarious” pranks on all your favourite sites in celebration of April Fools’ Day. One might do a funny news story. One might launch a fake product. Google might even pretend they’re changing the world by launching a social network of their own. If there’s one thing you don’t want to be a joke though, its your website. So today, why not take heed of some of these jokes and make sure your site isn’t seen as one.

Why did the chicken cross the road? Because it couldn’t find your location!

The simplest thing to do in the world that businesses of all sizes never get right. If you have a business, do a quick brand search on Google. If all your key info isn’t right there on the page, GET IT UPDATED NOW! The more information you provide Google with for your business, the more real your business is seen as being. And the more authentic you’ll be seen on local search. And then the more authentic you’re seen, the more people will be inclined to review your business. Google love this stuff. They only recently incorporated this type of search on to the SERP fully, here in the UK.

Notice how the top results doesn’t have the most reviews (still a lot though), but has a photograph in place and just that extra chunk of information (opening time) to sit on top for a very popular search term. It helps too that the information creates a picture of what the restaurant is all about rather than simply saying some artificial language like ‘CURRIES,JALFREZI,NAANNAANAAN’.

Knock. Knock. Who’s there? A potential customer. A potential customer who? A potential customer who had to scramble across your site like a lunatic to find the page they were looking for.

It’s a test we always tell clients to do when they have a minute free. If you sell a product on your site, just click on any link you see in a pot luck style. When you’ve done that and find yourself on a new page, try and get to your most popular product page in as few clicks as possible. If you do it in one, well done. If it takes you three or more, and YOU know where exactly that product is, then you’re in trouble. Supermarkets put milk in the back to make customers wander through and potentially buy items they never thought of. Websites shouldn’t act in the same way.

An Irishman, a Scotsman and an Englishman are looking to buy a product while on holiday together. The site they’re on though is in Spanish so they’re completely out of luck and don’t help finish this joke as planned.

Does your site need to be just as valuable here in the UK as it would be in Norway? Well do you speak Norwegian fluently? No? Well think about language options on your site if you’re in multiple markets.

Companies like Michelin have different pages with the same content in different languages because it helps different audiences understand what they’re looking at.

Did you hear about the blonde who forgot to properly tag all her photos? Well of course you didn’t because jokes like this are derogatory, but seriously you should be tagging more.

It’s the one little thing people forget to do (even we are guilty of it from time to time) but it can make a world of difference. Giving attributes to images as much as possible can help with long term back link health for your site. Now we’re not saying you have to sit and fill in every property of a photo for 15 minutes before uploading it (even photos in this post don’t) but starting off with something as simple as giving a picture a correct title can help.

What do we mean by this? Everyone has images they’ve dragged from a site to a desktop to use quickly. They’ll usually have a file name like Dskdhujgert333j.jpg. It doesn’t say jack about the photo to a search engine. Simply changing the title to something relevant does help. Here’s an example for you. Last year some of us here at Boyd Digital went to Brighton SEO. We wrote a few blogs and the main banner images had precise titles. Do a quick image search for Brighton SEO to look for something like a logo or photos of people at the event and you’ll see this:

In between all the lovely photos, there we are twice. And because they’re featured images for blog posts, they in a way act as call to actions to check out this site. Now it’s only accounted for the grand total of 6 sessions on this site, but imagine if you correctly title and tag all the meta data on all the images of your site. That can equate to a lot more visits from a lot more sources looking for the exact thing you have over time.

A horse walks in to a bar. The barman says “Why the long face?”. The horses says “I didn’t listen to that advice Boyd Digital gave me.”

Seriously, don’t waste time today thinking about putting salt in someone’s tea, putting a whoopee cushion on someone’s seat when they go to the bathroom, putting cling film over the toilet bowl (a serious no-no in an office), unplugging the mouse while someone isn’t looking or changing someone’s name on Facebook because they can’t change it back for six months unless they actually send photographs of their ID to Facebook (a right pain from personal experience).

Instead, apply some of the tips dished out in this blog post and make sure your site doesn’t look like a joke.

[theboyddigital]

Facebook Ads: Not Those Ones...This one. Today is a weird day in Glasgow. The sun is out after days of sleet. And even though parts of the ground are still icy, I seen two guys in t shirts on the way to the subway. That wasn't what made my journey to work weird though. This ad did...

New Post has been published on http://www.boyddigital.co.uk/social-media/facebook-ads-not-ones-one/

Facebook Ads: Not Those Ones...This one.

Today is a weird day in Glasgow. The sun is out after days of sleet. And even though parts of the ground are still icy, I seen two guys in t shirts on the way to the subway. That wasn’t what made my journey to work weird though. This ad did…

Now I was “reading” the Metro on the subway when I seen this. Reading the Metro for me is a bit like watching ITV or going to the cinema: I’m more interested in seeing all the big ads than focussing on the content. But when I seen this Facebook ad a few minutes ago my interest was piqued and not for the right reasons.

A million questions popped in my head like:

Why is there an ad for Facebook in the paper?

What is the point of this ad?

Who is it encouraging and targeted at?

Are they changing what friends are or something?

Seriously, why is there an ad Facebook in the paper?

Then it dawned on me. Every other week I see stories pop up of Facebook losing more and more of their younger audience. Google “facebook teenage audience” and this is what the SERP looks like.

So why should I be worried about seeing a Facebook ad in the newspaper? If Facebook is losing out on that audience to Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter or Tinder, then of course you’re going to branch out and advertise a little bit.

After a bit of perusing while walking from the subway to the office, I found this article on The Drum explaining this is the first time Facebook are carrying out a campaign in the UK and soon you’ll be seeing more of this video:

While the video is nice and I can see it popping up in between Kevin Bacon ads at the cinema, I’m still confused about my paper ad. As I sat on the subway and looked at everyone else holding up The Metro, no one was even looking at the back page with any semblance to how I was. Facebook is trying to attract small businesses in a larger effort than before to promote their targeted audience advertising and localise business in a way that Google Adwords/MyBusiness/Plus can’t seem to get right (hello duplicate plus profiles)

If their efforts to attract back a younger audience who will use those businesses investing in advertising on the platform involves an ad in a paper that only people going to work will really see and not the audience they need back, they’ve taken quite a misstep in targeting an audience.

[theboyddigital]

2015: The Year Of Mobile (As Every Year Should Be) It’s the year of mobile. No seriously it is. We blogged in 2013 about Mobile SEO saying it was an important factor. We blogged in 2014 about Local SEO having a larger reliance on mobile. And now here we are in February 2015 and it seems that every other day a news site will take that not so bold step in saying that this is the year of mobile. But maybe it always has been?

New Post has been published on http://www.boyddigital.co.uk/mobile-seo-2/2015-the-year-of-mobile-optimisation/

2015: The Year Of Mobile (As Every Year Should Be)

It’s the year of mobile. No seriously it is. We blogged in 2013 about Mobile SEO saying it was an important factor. We blogged in 2014 about Local SEO having a larger reliance on mobile. And now here we are in February 2015 and it seems that every other day a news site will take that not so bold step in saying that this is the year of mobile. But maybe it always has been?

The simple fact is that every year is the year of mobile; it is just that only now people are starting to get a gauge on the role it plays for organic reach and user experience.  Mobile sites are still in a stage where they can look more like the old Space Jam site than a fully functioning responsive site. We have had clients whose audience over time has become more and more mobile. We’re not talking a 5% increase from one platform to another. We’re talking a flip in traffic from one source to another.

The picture above is a yearly comparison of traffic sources to a small site we look after. While it’s nice to see everything is up on this time last year, notice how the traffic for mobile and tablet is up (pardon our English here) ma-ja-hassively. Seems fantastic, right? Well traffic going up always is a good thing, but there is one very big drawback of a focus on mobile: time on site.

Users on mobile don’t like staying around to read our blog as much as we’d hoped. But that doesn’t mean they’re not still getting all the info they need on their visit. Mobile users are still visiting the same number of pages per session as those on desktop. And it’s not as though our site isn’t optimised for mobile (it looks ridiculously nice on the old iPad). It’s just that mobile users tend to be quick and get from point A to B as fast as possible. This can be a very big positive for a certain type of site, ecommerce sites in particular.  For news sites and blogs, or anything that involves a user sitting and passively reading, it can be a struggle.

This Facebook post from The Independent is the exemplary answer for some to this time on site problem. Imagine yourself standing in a newsagents and the headline said ‘WHAT HAPPENED WHEN THIS MAN DID THIS’. It would look a bit silly wouldn’t it? For sites like Buzzfeed and shockingly enough a lot of major news sources, this type of post (we’re not going to refer to it as the dreaded clickbait on this blog) is ideally suited for mobile users. It raises a question which in turn entices a user on site, has a video rich style post in the content and ends by giving the user pictures to look at in order to keep them on site and push up that time on site. It essentially doesn’t provide a user with a great experience; it simply distracts them in order to keep one’s thumb from swiping left.

So what should the average site do in 2015 to make sure their site is mobile friendly? Well it depends on the purpose. If you’re a content rich site, you have to make sure your text is easily readable and doesn’t force a user off site by placing a silly link like this towards the potential call to action. If you’re an eCommerce site, you’ll want to hammer home the idea that mobile users don’t like wasting time on site and get the user from the landing page to the checkout in as quick a time as possible.

I got this email from Topman the other day. I don’t usually buy stuff from their site, but I do like looking at new clothes. So, on my phone I did a quick test to see how many taps it would take me to get from this email to a basket. From choosing something, to picking a size and then being at the checkout it was five taps. And yes I’m saying taps on purpose. I could be someone walking down the street while getting that email or sitting on the sofa half paying attention to the TV. People don’t click on their phones and wait. They tap and want to know now. That’s why you need to run your site through a tool like PageSpeed Insights  or the Mobile Friendly test to see how fast it performs on different devices.

  So is 2015 really the year of mobile? Well the answer is yes. And so will 2016, and 2017 be and up until the day come where people go ‘remember mobile phones?’ The best way to see if your site is really fit for mobile is to simply take ten minutes and play around with it on your phone. Get to know how users navigate the site, what the shortcomings are of trying to access pages on a phone and note any problems you encounter.

If you want to know more about getting your site in shape, whether on mobile or not, get in touch. Just use the contact box at the bottom of the page. You can even do it on mobile!

[theboyddigital]

Monday Mentions: 23rd February So Birdman won Best Picture at the Oscars a few hours ago. We'll tell you what it won't win: ranking number 1 for the term 'Birdman' (it sits at the bottom of the first page). Much like Michael Keaton losing his marbles, the site doesn't have an XML sitemap or Robots.txt among a whole host of problems. But enough about movies having poorly optimised sites, let's see what is going on the digital marketing world today.

New Post has been published on http://www.boyddigital.co.uk/news/monday-mentions-23rd-february/

Monday Mentions: 23rd February

So Birdman won Best Picture at the Oscars a few hours ago. We’ll tell you what it won’t win: ranking number 1 for the term ‘Birdman’ (it sits at the bottom of the first page). Much like Michael Keaton losing his marbles, the site doesn’t have an XML sitemap or Robots.txt among a whole host of problems. But enough about movies having poorly optimised sites, let’s see what is going on the digital marketing world today.

You paint a pretty picture and then what? This infographic has some nice facts on visual content engagement.

How to Increase Your #VisualContent Engagement #Infographic http://t.co/hvEQj4pFkt

— Jonathan Long (@MDMJonathan) February 22, 2015

If you’re looking for a tasty bit of reading this afternoon, have a look at this article about the psychology of money. We promise it won’t make you feel paranoid.

The Psychology of #Money https://t.co/eb1JoFKlLw pic.twitter.com/fnJoHKuW0x

— Brewin Dolphin (@brewindolphin) February 23, 2015

Shout if from the rooftops everyone ‘MOBILE IS TAKING OVER’. We have a blog post all about the topic later this week, but until then:

New ‘Call-Only’ Ad Types Arrives In Google AdWords To Make Mobile Easier http://t.co/GWmiJOXjxT

— Mark Garwell (@Mark_Garwell) February 22, 2015

Everyone dramatically look at their phone with a facer of distrust.

#Facebook can how track what you search for outside of their own #app when on your #mobile. Are we okay with this? http://t.co/zSvdqseUxC

— Intergage (@intergage) February 18, 2015

And finally, a very big BDX this Wednesday all about Instagram. It’s going to be really, really, really good.

Make sure the first thing you do in work today is get your tix for this weeks' BDX: http://t.co/JufxAUdWQF pic.twitter.com/9SB8ZgSzTu

— BDX Events (@BDX_Events) February 23, 2015

[theboyddigital]

Instagram For Business: How Does It Work? Instagram is a beautiful thing. It's a fantastic looking app. It's easy to navigate. It's the best place to get Simpsons quotes on your phone every few hours. It’s a personal journal that requires a millisecond to look at and easily get the gist of someone’s day. It’s also still a relatively unexplored platform and something that many businesses are afraid of. Why are they afraid of it? Well for one thing, WHERE DO LINKS GO?

New Post has been published on http://www.boyddigital.co.uk/social-media/instagram-business-work/

Instagram For Business: How Does It Work?

Instagram is a beautiful thing. It’s a fantastic looking app. It’s easy to navigate. It’s the best place to get Simpsons quotes on your phone every few hours. It’s a personal journal that requires a millisecond to look at and easily get the gist of someone’s day. It’s also still a relatively unexplored platform and something that many businesses are afraid of. Why are they afraid of it? Well for one thing, WHERE DO LINKS GO?

Full house at #bdxevents tonight #standingroomonly #digital #seo #glasgow

A photo posted by BoydDigital (@boyddigital) on Jan 28, 2015 at 10:36am PST

We’ll start off with a fact that shouldn’t be ignored: Instagram is getting bigger. Just recently they announced they’ve passed over 300 million users, 49% of which use the service daily. That’s a lot of potential customers that a business could be missing out on, especially if those customers are taking photos of your products and basically creating valuable image based content for you for free. So how exactly do you make Instagram work for your business? Here are some tips to help.

This weekend we’ll mostly be splitting time between being in Vegas and hoping for a win tonight.

A photo posted by BoydDigital (@boyddigital) on Nov 14, 2014 at 8:50am PST

-Don’t go solo Work in an office where everyone has a phone? Yes. Does everyone use said phone throughout the day? Yes. Then give everyone the logins to a company Instagram account. It might sound a bit daft if you’re all sitting around twiddling your thumbs wondering what to post about, but when the team is spit up and in different locations, you suddenly create opportunities to create unique content, base it in a location and then push it on other platforms. Look at the photo above. That was simply the case of one of us sitting in a pub in Glasgow while the other was in Caesar’s Palace. Glue those photos together and you have a unique piece of content.

New contender for the office wiff waff throne! #puppy #lab #digital #Glasgow #tabletennis #wiffwaff #cute #pingpong #seo #agency

A photo posted by BoydDigital (@boyddigital) on Dec 19, 2014 at 9:16am PST

-Show off Never be sincere or humbled when on Instagram. There are only ever so many photos of inspirational quotes in a forest people can take before they get turned off by your content. If you’re having fun at work, have received a freebie in the post, like a product or are playing with the dog too much to pay attention to work, start snapping. If you ever think you’re going to make people jealous with the photo you’ve just taken, that makes it a great photo!

Back at the old stomping ground to talk to students about the business. #Glasgow #seo #digital #strathclyde

A photo posted by BoydDigital (@boyddigital) on Nov 10, 2014 at 4:12am PST

-Hashtag whenever and wherever Hashtags suit Instagram a lot better than on Facebook or Twitter. Have you ever actively gone searching for hashtags on Facebook? It’s a minefield. On Instagram it’s the default way or searching for something or someone. You might see a crafty approach where users will put up a photo with no hashtags, only to comment on their own photos with dozens of baiting related terms. It helps give a profile a cleaner look and in a way acts as a not so subtle piece meta data for a user to understand what they’re looking for/at. We’ll commonly use #seo in our photos. We might be doing something completely unrelated to it, but it still ties in with what the company does.

New hair cut banter!! #bros #hairscare #didyoucatchtheguythatdidit #haircut #banter #officepatter

A photo posted by BoydDigital (@boyddigital) on Jul 17, 2014 at 6:43am PDT

-Be Chill If you have a relative or friend who runs a small business and they’re not on Instagram, tell them to get on it like a car bonnet and other such turns of phrase. Hairdressers and barbers who use Instagram a lot are doing it right. Tagged photos of customers show off the value of the brand, create an authentic level of trust and leave potential customers looking at a real person using the service. Anyone would rather look at that than a fabricated photo or shoot with a cheap model. The realer you seem, the more potential customers will like you.

Was it Draper or Ogilvy that said “You Haven’t made it as an agency until you have a branded Technics SL1210.” #digital #Glasgow #technics #sl1220 #seo #tunes #vinyl

A photo posted by BoydDigital (@boyddigital) on Nov 19, 2014 at 6:14am PST

-Don’t expect to make money One of the biggest drawbacks of Instagram is that you can’t link to sites for every post. You just have one link in your bio and that essentially creates a very valuable space. Make the content you put out on Instagram part of your brand. For a company, it essentially boils down to a conversation starter e.g. ‘Oh I seen your photo on Instagram. It looked nice’ more than a conversion tool. We like to think of it as a good ice breaker for networking and so should you. The only people expressly using Instagram to advertise products are celebrities, and they’re the worst.

A photo posted by Beyoncé (@beyonce) on Mar 8, 2014 at 4:33am PST

-It’s still cool All your relatives are on Facebook these days. Not everyone is on Instagram yet because for the most part they don’t understand it. Using it and being active on it are great for attracting a clued in audience. For some companies like ASOS or Urban Outfitters it is now their main version of a catalogue. Older people still go in to Argos to lift a big catalogue for the house. Younger people use Instagram of their phones in general. It’s the reason why Pinterest is going to be adding a buy now button soon.

The photo above is from Beyonce’s Instagram. It was taken outside the Hanoi Bike Ship in the West End of town last year. We expected to find the photo easily on their accounts or press mentions on site, as having one of the world’s biggest celebrities eat at your restaurant is amazing free publicity. Eventually we found it after trawling through their Twitter. We can’t tell if it’s case of the restaurant being extremely cool about it (it is quite the trendy spot), or just not being wise enough to latch it and ride that free advertising for all its worth.

Now if you’re interested in finding out more about how to use Instagram for your business and you’re reading this before Wednesday 25th February, then you’re in luck as the next BDX event is all about Instagram. We’ll have speakers who know how to get followers, actively engage with thousands of followers on a daily basis, and how a company can use it honestly to keep those potential and returning customers engaged and excited.

You can get tickets for the event by using the Eventbrite box below.

Event management for BDX “Instagram for Business” meetup – Talks & Networking powered by Eventbrite

[theboyddigital]

Monday Mentions : 16th February Monday morning drama in the office today as our office pup caused a fuse to trip and everyone's computer to go KAPOOT. So while some of us hope and pray that file recovery is working properly (and some of us wisely conserve laptop battery), here's what going on in the digital world over the last few days.

New Post has been published on http://www.boyddigital.co.uk/news/monday-mentions-16th-february/

Monday Mentions : 16th February

Monday morning drama in the office today as our office pup caused a fuse to trip and everyone’s computer to go KAPOOT. So while some of us hope and pray that file recovery is working properly (and some of us wisely conserve laptop battery), here’s what going on in the digital world over the last few days.

Don’t hate the Pinner, hate the game:

Pinterest turns off affiliate links including. What does this mean for the #fashionblogger? http://t.co/SC5DAHDWnF

— Hannah FinniganWalsh (@hafinwa) February 16, 2015

And to think it wasn’t so many light-years ago that someone would look at something in a magazine and rip out the page as a reminder to buy it:

Pinterest is reportedly trying to launch a “Buy” button this year http://t.co/I5gue4h6ov pic.twitter.com/GR5N92Z2ML

— Business Insider (@businessinsider) February 12, 2015

Imagine leaving your profile in your will?

How to decide who inherits your Facebook account with the new legacy contact feature: http://t.co/n7Qp0BDHYC

— Mashable SocialMedia (@mashsocialmedia) February 16, 2015

Advertising on Facebook? The company is now going to make sure you’re doing it right and not wasting money (or maybe tricking us in to spending more. We’re on to you Facebook!)

#Facebook will begin to show Relevance Scores for each ad you upload http://t.co/eO4tBcAd8K @mattsouthern pic.twitter.com/TLIY9QJ7et

— Direct Online Mktg (@directom) February 12, 2015

Marketing your product on Instagram? If you can do it, then we’re all ears:

From hiding dogs to selling sheep, here are 10 creative or weird uses of Instagram: http://t.co/hov0WFgEnm pic.twitter.com/8y9iiJmBph

— Hootsuite (@hootsuite) February 16, 2015

And speaking of Instagram, it’s what the next BDX event is all about. Get your tickets now:

Get tickets for the next BDX on 25th February on Eventbrite now http://t.co/YRoxsI2tkG pic.twitter.com/SrxfPbupOv

— BDX Events (@BDX_Events) February 14, 2015

[theboyddigital]

Monday Mentions: 26th January There are three types of people in any office. Those who channelled their inner 12 year old and stayed up to watch the Royal Rumble who now suffer from extreme fatigue, those who don't know or care what one is, and those like me who are putting a severe no spoilers warning on anyone who so much as utters the words "royal" or "rumble" in conversation.

New Post has been published on http://www.boyddigital.co.uk/news/monday-mentions-26th-january/

Monday Mentions: 26th January

There are three types of people in any office. Those who channelled their inner 12 year old and stayed up to watch the Royal Rumble who now suffer from extreme fatigue, those who don’t know or care what one is, and those like me who are putting a severe no spoilers warning on anyone who so much as utters the words “royal” or “rumble” in conversation.

So what’s been going on in the digital marketing world over the weekend? Apart from the CEO saying the internet “AS WE KNOW IT WILL DISAPPEAR”, there are a few little notes to pick up on. Let’s see what the Twitterverse has to say.

  “It’s the end of the world as we know it, but I feel fine.” If Michael Stipe isn’t panicking over what Google’s CEO thinks the internet is going to be like in the future, then neither should you.

#Google CEO predicts that the internet “as we know it” will “disappear” thanks to the #internetofthings http://t.co/BP7Vkvy2sG via @sewatch

— Ruth Attwood (@lady_rheena) January 26, 2015

Imagine being able to hop between o2, 3 and EE at a moment’s notice. This kind of thing could be happening in America quite soon. 2015 really is the year of mobile! 

The Wall Street Journal: Google wireless service aims to switch between carriers, sources http://t.co/f60SZPO7HM

— Fund of Funds (@FundofFunds) January 26, 2015

Twitter is brining back the ability to view translated tweets after nicely asking Bing for the tools to do the job. If there’s a potential to start broadening your important search terms in other languages like this, we could be looking at a way to help grow stature for something like a product feed on an international platform.

Twitter Teams Up With #Bing To Offer Translated #Tweets http://t.co/lSO2OjvewX #SMM #SocialMedia #Twitter

— SEO Zib (@SEOZib) January 23, 2015

Now this isn’t really anything to do with our line of work, but it’s just cool so…

I asked VR developers what they thought about Microsoft’s HoloLens and they *told* me: http://t.co/5tdEaKtEWQ

— Keith Stuart (@keefstuart) January 26, 2015

And finally, big BDX event taking place this Wednesday at 6pm in the Butterfly & Pig. Be there or be square and other such 90s style threats.

@techguyadam and I will be at the next @BDX_Events in Glasgow! Feeling excited (and a bit famous :)) @cordlessphones pic.twitter.com/tsI8l2mvD7

— Julia (@juliaselch) January 23, 2015