I’ve pulled together a few of our favourite tools that we have found to improve efficiency within our team over the past 6 months. Some of these tools have enabled us to save many man hours that we would usually be lost from day to day, most of these tools are free to use with some having limitations dependant on the type of use.

Toggl, The Online Time Tracking Tool

Dave, the MD at Webtistic discovered Toggl a few months ago and we have found it to be a fab tool for tracking the time spent of designated tasks and for improving the overall effiency of the team. We downloaded and installed the Toggl Desktop software free version but there are paid plans available with more advanced features.

In a busy, thriving office environment where you’re multitasking it’s difficult to recall exactly how long you spent on a specific task such as taking telephone calls or answering an urgent email but with Toggl you are able to create individual tasks and switch easily between them, thus enabling the ability to track everything with a single click. You can then view various charts online and interpret the data in the ways you wish. We have found to be very useful in informing our weekly meetings

We have found it a great tool for tracking the time spent on SEO milestones. This enables us to accurately and confidently invoice SEO clients on a monthly basis thus eleveating the worry that wasted time or interruptions don’t become part of the client’s invoice.

Through Toggl, all the time spent on various daily tasks are monitored. This should then provide the basis for improved productivity as you can go on to analyse exactly where time is being spent and where you can allocate time more efficiently.

Toggl is also available as an application on smart phones such as Android and iPhones downloadable from the iTunes store or Android Market Place. It’s also available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Ease of use 8/10
Time saving 9/10
Making efficient use of your team 10/10

Dropbox, Simple Tool To Share, Store And Sync Files Online

Dropbox has been installed on our desktops as a way for us to easily share and update files that are used within our office on a daily basis. The contents of the Dropbox folder automatically synchronises between everyone in the office. This eradicates the mundane task of emailing files to each other for updating and checking and allows for a single copy to be stored that can be edited, accessed and saved by everyone remotely on the Dropbox server. You might be thinking, ‘What if I delete a file by accident?’. Well, you can undelete files by logging in to the Dropbox site where you can also view changes to documents that have previously been edited.

For us Dropbox has cut out the need for sending documents internally via email and the fact we can can all edit the one document stored on the Dropbox server is proving to be a great efficient tool for us. I’m pretty sure the standard free 2 GB storage allowance is adequate for the majority of smaller set-ups but this obviously depends on the file types that are being stored on the server. Dropbox runs in the background on your desktop and simply works like any other folder saved.

Ease of use 8/10
Time saving 7/10
Making efficient use of your team 8/10

TeamViewer

TeamViewer simply allows you to take control of another computer so it enables you to remotely control a client’s computer to give them a tutorial, presentation or to assist with a technical enquiry.

Taking control of another PC is straight forward as no software installation is required as long as you run the application on both sides. We also had no problem with firewalls blocking the application unlike other similar applications.

In addition you can transfer files using the drag and drop functionality. Dragging a file to a partner’s screen during a remote support session will automatically initiate a file transfer, placing the file on the user’s desktop.

TeamViewer is available on Windows, Mac, Linux and as a Mobile Application and we are currently trialling this free for personal use to decide if it will enhance the support we offer our clients. The early signs are that this could potentially save an incredible amount of time with regards to solving client’s technical problems.

Ease of use 8/10
Time saving 10/10
Making efficient use of your team 6/10

Google Calendar

Google calendar is available for free and enables you to set up a calendar for your business and can be shared with each member of the team. This enables you to keep track of meetings, deadlines, scheduled telephone calls and various other events. You are able to assign different colours to staff so that you can differentiate who is responsible for carrying out a specific event or task at any given time.

If you’re organising a special event, the calendar enables you to invite colleagues to a function and they can reply even though they don’t use Google calendar. Google calendar will then track accepted invitations.

You can get event reminders sent directly to your mobile phone or sent straight to your inbox and the calendar is easily accessed from the Google homepage but in order to use this you must sign up with a Google account.

We have found Google Calendar really useful when setting deadlines for clients and is a great way to see exactly who is in the office on any given day in terms of staff holidays etc…

Ease of use 8/10
Time saving 8/10
Making efficient use of your team 8/10

Skype and MSN

Both of these are web-based internet applications that are widely used and are better known than the other tools mentioned above but with our business being based in Derby, UK we have many clients and partners whom are London based so the video chat functionality is very useful. Both of these tools allow file sharing but in my opinion is that Dropbox offers a more simplistic answer.

Using Skype you can have a video conference and we find it’s a great alternative to business trips, helping you work together and make decisions while spending more time being productive in the office. Both tools are cost effective as the only outgoing are your internet costs providing you make your call through the connection using the webcam, microphone and speakers.

Both of these tools allow you efficiently to make quick contact with people. We also use it for communicating with staff working outside of the office. Furthermore you can leave staff messages which they can retrieve the next time they login.

I’m a big fan of both these tools and this is why we have awarded them nearly 5 stars.

Ease of use 9/10
Time saving 8/10
Making efficient use of your team 9/10

I would like to open with asking you all to give a very warm welcome to the newest member of the webtistic team here in Derby…. Nisha.

Nisha Kaushal has come to us from a University background where

she completed a degree in Marketing Management. Perfect for us as she is

becoming a solid part of our SEO team.

Before she started with us here, she worked on customer service with Severn Trent Water… I think we’ll all agree this is a step up.

So to give her a proper Webtistic welcome we have decided to give her some space on the blog here and give all you eager readers a bit of an insight into our newest team member..

So without further ado, we commence with the interrog…. interview.

So Nisha, lets give the blog readers a little bit of an insight into you as the latest member of the team.

Can you describe yourself for us in just 5 words?
Caring, funny, creative, happy and honest

Thanks for that, nice choice, you’ve been here a week now, so we’ll come back to these questions in a few months, see if we all still agree.

Moving on, can you tell us about the most interesting trip you have ever taken, and just a little bit about what made it so good?
Hmmm I’ve not been many places, but one place I have been that was interesting, and a great experience was Malaysia.
I went there with a charity to do volunteer work for 10 weeks, this was very challenging and a big step for me, I went on my own without any friends or family and I came back having learnt so much about myself.

Wow, that sounds fantastic. I’m sure that was quite daunting, having to be out there on your own.

If you had a million dollars how would you spend it?
So … what to do with a million pounds . . . hmm I think I would of course give some money to my parents and family, and close friends and then I would, invest! Finally, I would like to go on a world tour and see everything I’ve dreamt of.

How about, 5 random facts about yourself? Things that we would never find out.
I once got my finger caught in my mums sewing machine, it was very painful!
I use to be in a dance group when I was younger and I went around the midlands performing
I love beetroot and cheese sandwiches!
Me and my brother were born on the same day, but 4 years apart
The first song I ever brought was a cassette by Baz Luhrmann, Sunscreen (yes embarrassing I know!)

What is your Favourite Colour?
Blue

If you were an animal, what animal would you be and why?
I would be a bird. The thought of being free, overlooking everything and traveling anywhere and everywhere would be a great feeling.

On a scale of 1-10, how Weird are you?
6
Only a 6? I’m sure a minimum of 8 is required to work here.. Might need to look into this.

On a scale of 1-10 how Happy are you?
7
You’ve only been here a week, give it time, we’ll have you at a 10.

Well, now we know just about everything about you, We are looking forward to having you as an integral part of the team here.

You’re currently training with Alex at the moment, so it won’t be long before we see you getting out into the wide world of SEO.

So welcome To Webtistic, we all look forward to having you on the team.

Quora is the phenomenon that is appearing on everyones lips when they talk about microblogging and FAQ’s.
We’re going to take a short look at the new phenomenon that is Quora and while I take you through it we will look at it’s potential for link building.

What is Quora?
Quora is a relatively new concept in the question and answer niche of social media that was developed by 2 former facebookers. It is unique in that it allows users to submit questions in a very simple, twitter-esque manner which the Quora community as a whole can then offer answers to.
Once an answer has been submitted, the general Quora populace can then rank answers by way of a simple up and down arrow to determine an answers accuracy, relevance to the question asked and usefulness.

The beauty of Quora is it’s simplicity, if you’ve got a question you really need an answer to it is really just a matter of a few moments to log in and type your question into the ‘unibox’ at the top of the site, and while this seems pretty simple and straightforward, Quora has another trick up its sleeve.

When you enter a question, Quora doesn’t immediately ask that question to the community, first thing it does is search for anyone who may have already submitted your question, or a similar question. This way you might be able to get an answer straight away, and by removing that annoying wait as the community ponders your question Quora suddenly becomes much more useful, and it’s branding as a take on the quick and easy world of microblogging comes into it’s own.

Ok. You’re convinced, Quora is useful, but why use it?

Why not? There are lots of ways to use Quora to your benefit, and, even though quora ‘no-follows’ any links within answers and on profiles, you can still use it, it just takes a little bit more imagination:

Quora is the perfect place to be helpful, if you have an outgoing personality and you enjoy solving peoples problems for them, get yourself on there now.
By offering useful and good quality content you can position yourself in your chosen market and you instantly become an expert in that field, especially as anything you write is visible on your profile, your target audience is, by definition reading your answers and if you put site links and other social media links in your profile you will invariably build traffic.

I have already mentioned that your target audience is already there, and it’s never been more true. Quora allows you to attach your Facebook and Twitter accounts to Quora and link to your contacts already on the service. It forces the social media onto you, making you utilise the networking aspects that Quora has built into it’s structure. As with any social media site, remember to be a human being. There’s nothing worse than having all these networking tools at your fingertips and ignoring them.

The Rules:
The rules of Quora are controlled by the populace, there is nothing that can’t be posted provided it adds value to the site and to the question you’re answering. You can not only vote on content as I discussed earlier, but you can edit it as well, making a not so relevant answer much more relevant and claiming the credit for it.

Make sure you take the time to learn the etiquette however, there is nothing worse than jumping in head first and permanently ruining whatever personal brand you are trying to set up.

Summing up.
So to close, if you’re looking to build links, Quora’s strict policy on nofollowing any external link makes it’s direct link building potential limited, however, connecting with communities builds links in itself and for the purpose of traffic building, Quora can be extremely useful.

Don’t post useless content, and don’t rehash the same data over and over as all this sits on your profile for the world to see.

Do get involved, show the world that you have something interesting to add and you will build your reputation as an authority in addition to traffic to your sites as people look to learn more about you.

My top tip for Quora: Stop reading this blog and get yourself an account.

Start reading and finding your way around and before you know it you’ll be networking and building traffic.

Well, as you may or may not have noticed, blog posting on the site here has picked up rather a lot of late.
That’s because our almighty leader Dave decided it would be a good idea for us all to do a post here each week. Which is all well and good, but trying to find interesting content to write about… well that’s a bit harder. So I thought I’d step away from the world of SEO for a week and give you all an insight into what it’s like working for Webtistic, seeing as I’m the resident newbie at the moment.

Before I talk about Webtistic itself, a little bit about me;  I’ve been working here for just over a month now, but I’ve been involved in the industry for some time, having previously managed my own web based business and including a portion of SEO to developing that in the past.
My primary interest before joining the team here was in the design phase of the internet, and I have worked on design for my County Council as well as other local government sites.

So onto more serious matters of starting with the company.
It’s been a steep learning curve to get used to the systems that I’m going to be using on a daily basis, a note to everyone, starting a new job with a busy company just after the summer break is not the best idea in the world. I managed to come to the company just as business started to get back into full swing.
So yes, it’s been hectic, can’t say it’s not been fun so far as well though, being one of the smaller companies doing this gives us a much closer knit workforce and makes things a lot less formal, our regular Monday morning meetings are always good fun and there’s nothing like a bit of banter to start each week off on a good note.

One thing those of you who keep up with the company will know is that we moved into a new office a couple of weeks ago, I’ve attached a picture so you can all see the lovely new office. I know I’ve only been with the company for a few short weeks but I’m still getting used to the office here, it’s comfortable, quite spacious, and we have a huge window so there’s plenty of light.

My desk is in between Dave and James so my sanity is at risk on a daily basis. I’m keeping it in check at the moment but I don’t know how long I’ll last before I succumb to their insanity.

I think one of the key advantages of being part of a smaller company is the freedom it gives all of us to suggest ideas and new ‘projects’ at any time. Which is great, but I do blame some of the current workload on the fact that the ideas do flow quite freely, we’re lucky that the team is so imaginative, but the ambition might not be such a good thing.

So anyway, I’m really getting stuck into picking up the advanced SEO techniques we use here at Webtistic, and we’re currently investigating how we can improve our use of social media. We’re all very familiar with blogs and forums, but some of the more specific access routes such as Twitter and Facebook definitely need improvement. So watch this space.

I know I’ve not spoken much about specifics, but then, I don’t think you all want to know my daily schedule. Suffice to say this screen occupies my eyes most of the day, as you would expect, and the netbook you see in the image above is my secondary machine which we use for most of our article writing and submissions, makes everything much easier having it all on a separate machine.

So there you have it, a little insight into what it’s like working for Webtistic, expect updates to this on a fairly regular basis.

See you next week.

If used right, Twitter and the networking tools it provides can become invaluable for someone trying to provide SEO for themselves or another company.
However, on the flip side, use it wrong and you can find your efforts coming to nothing, and your clients heading elsewhere.

Twitter in itself is a godsend for the SEO community, being able to publish your articles and provide clear, almost natural links through the medium of microblogging is a clear step for anyone working with SEO, having tools ready made to create a viral output through twitters ‘retweet’ feature takes even more effort out of the task for you.
But how do you harness these tools and turn the power into clicks?

Well, to start from the top, your name: The username you choose to host your twitter account has to be catchy, but it also has to be memorable. If you’re selling plants, using the user: ‘p1antl0VeRs345’ isn’t going to rank you high up the list of people looking for others who enjoy plants.

Your name forms a static link to you and your posts, so making sure it’s easy to access and easy to remember is paramount in making sure people can find you.
Secondly, a key rule to any sort of social networking SEO is to keep it human, and this is no different on Twitter, even if you are limited in what you can write.
You bio can be 160 characters, 20 more than a regular ‘tweet’ so make them count, but also make them personal, make sure you cover the mission critical phrases for your company, also try to also find room for something personal about you. Some of the most successful corporate bloggers are those who don’t hide their personality behind the corporate image.
Twitter bio’s are indexed constantly, so whatever is in your bio provides the key relevance for your page.

So now you have a twitter account, your username is simple, easy to remember and relevant. Your bio, all 160 characters of it, is right on the money and hitting all of your company’s main keywords….. What’s next.

Well, now we need to start spreading the word, by integrating a call to action on your own site, you can bring anyone who visits your site onto your twitter page.
There’s no point putting loads of content onto your page hoping to get the views. You will be much better off to start with gathering followers who might be interested in your services and then progressing onto the public, allowing your followers to retweet the rich content you post.
        - You can use twitter to promote your site once you have started posting content. Be aware however that any links posted through twitter are automatically given the ‘Nofollow’ tag meaning your business won’t gain any ‘juice’ from the link, but you may still gain traffic and that can lead to sales.
       
- Make sure your tweets, particularly early on, are interesting and keyword rich. The first characters of your tweet will determine if your tweet can be found and indexed.
By using your important keywords here it will generate a better lead in for your company and by linking back to your homepage in your twitter bio, you can make sure your services are easy to access even as a general searcher.
      
  - Remember, for those who do take up this new opportunity, Twitter can be an excellent way to increase the SEO of your company through a clear, natural process of link building, with companies retweeting your posts, and if you’re able to insert links to useful information, such as much larger blog posts, although the actual link from Twitter will contain a Nofollow, the process still stands, with clear additional traffic to your sites and further links from the landing page which aren’t limited by the twitter Nofollow.
Retweeting:

Earlier I spoke about making your posts retweetable. A quick reminder for those of you wanting to capitalise on this opportunity.
In order to retweet a post, a user must be able to fit the linking text in front of your tweet, (RT @yourname) depending on the size of your username will determine the maximum size of your tweets to maximise your retweetable options, remember, 140 characters is your limit.

The beauty of Twitter is the ability to skip all the bumpf and padding that fills out any bit of information. Twitter gives you the option to post the raw facts and lets people digest the information much easier. So keep it simple, keep it clear and concise and try to keep it interesting.

If in doubt, create yourself a test setup, something you can prototype and play with, post yourself a handful of tweets, leave them and come back in a week, read them again… would you be interested in hearing more from that user? If not, you may need to rethink your twitter strategy.

Social networking is only just coming to the forefront for SEO companies, and if your company can progress with the trend you will find yourself spearheading a major shift towards social network SEO.

http://mashable.com/
http://www.twitter.com
 

Google don’t make mistakes. General Custer made a mistake, Gerald Ratner made a mistake, and Tiger Woods has made loads of mistakes, but for Google, it is rare.

Google’s ‘decision’ (assuming somebody actually made a decision) to rush-launch its new real-time listings was a mistake, but it has provided rich bounty for marketers looking for easy, free traffic. Google suddenly said to us all… forget all the hard work involved with link-building, and page optimisation. Just spam Twitter all day with popular keyphrases and you will dominate our most valuable keyterm pages.

We have been keeping a very close eye on these listings, and although it is impossible for us to obtain accurate statistics, it is very clear that the number of real-time ‘windows’ appearing in the organic listings has been slashed heavily. This is bad news for the hordes of marketers who could suddenly appear on page one of Google for amazingly popular and commercial search terms, but if you look around, the opportunities are still out there for some super-heavyweight search terms.

For example, do you sell Blackberry phones? If so, why not spend this evening monopolising the search term by twittering how great your Blackberry store is? A mere 550,000 searched for the term ‘blackberry’ last month in the UK alone.

Page 1 for the search term ‘Blackberry’:

You see, this is where the slick Google machine turned into a blob of ice cream. Unusual, I know, but every online marketer I spoke to knew the implications within 3.2 milliseconds of seeing it in action so why didn’t Google’s army of boffins? Were they too busy counting their share options? Is ‘The Big G’ panicking about the rise of Twitter and other micro-blogging platforms? You can bet your derriere that they are, but this really isn’t the way to counter it for some kind of half-arsed ‘first-mover’ advantage.

Google, you got it mind-numbingly wrong, but my clients would like to thank you for all the lovely free traffic!