The office is split today with fans of both City and United in the office. Who will have the bragging right in the morning? Place your bets now please!

Meet Tom, he’s spending the next 3 month’s with us on placement as part of the Manchester Masters scheme. He’s one of the chosen 10 on the scheme this year, so it’s an absolute pleasure to have him on board helping out on all things marketing. Why this picture? I have no idea, answer’s on a postcard please.

Getting to work was ‘snow’ joke this morning (sorry, I couldn’t resist) but some have made the most of the snow, including kro bar, building this fine example of a snowman along with tray and glass of wine, impressive.

Like every year in media, and especially in an industry that’s less than two decades old (think about that SEM isn’t old enough to drive yet), it’s been a year of great changes and innovations to keep up with. We were introduced to terms like “Wonder Wheel” and added “MicroHoo” to our vocabularies. Wolfram|Alpha was the year’s first Google-killer-in-waiting, followed by Twitter (yes, people were saying it would replace Google), Bing and the still-to-come Yahoo-Microsoft hybrid.
And so the eternal question persists: What’s changed? How do we optimise to the new landscape and stay ahead of our competition?
Well, for starters, do you remember the things you were told to do back in 2004 to make your site rank or perform well? Did you do them? Or are you still doing them in the midst of all the changes that you’re making?
Of course, there have been changes in how engines rank results, and new opportunities are on the rise. Google is planning a new emphasis on page load speed, and wants more real-time results in its searches — even if no one else does.
Does this mean that SEO fundamentals can be thrown out the window? Absolutely not. It’s more important than ever to make sure that your content is visible, authoritative, and targeted to the right keywords.
Storefronts have been around for centuries. While the means have changed, the basics are still there. The advent of electric signs, television advertising, giant inflatable gorillas, and Web sites hasn’t changed the fact that your store isn’t going to get much business if people can’t find your front door.
In the same way, it’s not going to mean much to update your copy to a tightly controlled keyword density if the engines can’t see it in the first place. By all means, bring in new modules and site elements, but make sure that these upgrades, and the rest of your site, are grounded in visibility, authority, and the right keywords at every step.
Back to Basics
Thoroughly take care of your fundamentals first and you’ll find that your site and your business are in a position to weather the biggest changes. It will also give you the time and resources necessary to pursue the newest and most aggressive strategies elsewhere to layer on top of a firm foundation.
That’s exactly what we do here at Creative Spark, build firm solid foundations for SEO, get the fundamentals in place and build from there.
The Creative Spark’s SEO team will look at the optimisation and marketing of a website to be similar to building a house. Before you can begin building there is a lot of work that must be done: plans need to be developed, approvals and so forth, and then the foundation must be built. Skipping these steps might allow you to build your site more quickly but you’re going to find that by skipping these crucial steps that you won’t get full enjoyment or satisfaction from it. Problems will arise that were not foreseen because planning was overlooked.

Happy Christmas from all of us at Creative Spark

The short story is this. By watching what you click on in search results, Google can learn that you favour particular sites. For example, if you often search and click on links from Amazon that appear in Google’s results, over time, Google learns that you really like Amazon. In reaction, it gives Amazon a ranking boost. That means you start seeing more Amazon listings, perhaps for searches where Amazon wasn’t showing up before.
The results are custom tailored for each individual. For example, let’s say someone else prefers Barnes & Nobles. Over time, Google learns that person likes Barnes & Noble. They begin to see even more Barnes & Nobles listings, rather than Amazon ones.
Of course, people will be clicking on a variety of sites, in search results. So it’s not a case of having one favorite that that simply shows up for everything. Indeed, Google’s other ranking factors are also still considered. So that person who likes Amazon? If they’re looking for a plumber, Amazon probably isn’t close to being relevant, so the personalization boost doesn’t help. But in cases where Amazon might have been on the edge? Personalisation may help tip into the first page of results. And personalisation may tip a wide variety of sites into the top results, for a wide variety of queries.

We like to think our meeting room looks pretty snazzy with its Christmas decorations up; the fibre optic tree and inflatable snowman are the staff favourites!

About Google Wave

Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

What is a wave?

A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more. A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when. A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

A big thanks to pagecrush.net for their support  making our new website their site of the day