So looking back how did the Lycos 30 day challenge go?

Well if you want more detail than this summary do pop over to read the full journal for the lycos 30 day challenge here. But if you want a quick summary and a quick breakdown of the results look no further than this post.

The one goal I wanted to achieve was to find out whether the Lycos search engine was actually any good and better than what people currently thought. The other aim was to talk with @Lycos to see whether some things could be improved. So…

Is Lycos A Good Search Engine?

The truth of the matter is that Lycos as a search engine is a mixed bag. It has some good results and some bad ones, that is pretty much because it is at the whim of the Yahoo Search API it uses. This updates their search index but are the same results that led to Yahoo turning to Bing powering search a while back. The search is heavily focused on the USA even when searching from .co.uk – this can be a little jarring until you remember to put “uk” at the end of each search, which seems to fix this issue a little.

The results are fairly accurate and digging into the top 10 results of each search it’s clear why they have good rankings and why some are better than others – but there are still some odd results in there and spammy websites appearing in 2nd or 3rd.

Once you get past the first page of results its a matter of chance whether you are going to get some good results or really bad ones, that said normally what you want as with most search engines is on the front search results page.

Looking beyond the search at the whole package is the best way to view Lycos, I must admit. The design is pretty clear and with a site built to modern standards which is responsive, serving the same site and not another site for mobile devices. It is quick loading and after some initial bugs in image search I can’t fault the mobile experience. Now…

Will I Keep Using Lycos?

The short answer is that Yes I will continue to use Lycos, but not as my default search engine. Lycos will become my secondary engine ahead of Bing and others. The results it gives are good enough to warrant a round of applause but need to be more focused on the UK for .co.uk searches really.

I love the mobile search being the exact same results, this is what I want and expect from Google in the future. I do not want to just be served mobile websites which actually look a little crap compared to normal sites which are well designed, when I use by smart phone. I sometimes think Google is blind to it’s own operations sometimes, search and android… not brother and sister I thinks.

Well done @Lycos and thanks for making this a real conversation.

With that out of the way I actually will get on with my review of ionSearch, the advanced marketing conference from BlueClaw Media.

The event was brilliant, with speakers such as Tim Grice (@tim_grice), Lee Odden (@leeodden) , Dave Snyder (@davesnyder) and Ralph Tegtmeier (@fantomaster) all speaking about marketing at it’s best (and worst). ionSearch 2012 was held at The Carriage Works in Leeds, a brilliant venue with just the right capacity for this inaugural event. Before delving any deeper I should point out that in my view (at least) ionSearch was a huge success and I can’t wait for next year to come around.

The day started with Lee Odden, CEO of Top Rank Marketing, opening the conference. He began with a brief overview of his history and how TRM has been shaped over recent years. Lee also talked about his new book “Optimize”, which probably won’t be localised to Optimise for non-US markets we learnt. Lee spoke about how TRM use a 6 month striking plan, with wild cards, to really get the most out of every marketing strategy for every company they work with. He talked about how it is important for website owners to realise that traffic is not an end goal, but the conversion of that traffic (something I’ve banged on about for years now). One of the big tips from Lee (and others during the day) was to piggyback on current affairs issues to lever your product and get it talked about, though it did come with a word of caution, it can be dangerous and backfire!

The Crowd - by @leeodden (instagram)

One of the nice things about ionSearch was the venue meant you were close to the other event rooms and could (if you wanted) skip across between schedule making the most of the event. One of the other event rooms was the Experts Panel room, where talks about niche subjects took place such as Mobile Search by Andy of WebCertain (@andyatkinskruge) and My SEO Toolkit, in which 4 seo experts talked us through their favourite SEO tools – a biggie amongst the lists was the Microsoft SEO Tool (which is free).

This was the room I spent a chunk of the afternoon in listening to talks about Social Media and the Future of SEO, as well as Creative Link building. These are all interesting topics to have discussed in a large group as we did, but perhaps a such a wide scope at times that the topic (for example) kept returning to “Bad Links” and how to remove them. Now that is perfectly natural for a session to take the direction of if it was about just link building but having been billed as talking about link building strategies I would have taken a lot more from the session if it actually stuck to the description. That said it and the other sessions we’re all fantastic and with speakers such as Tim Grice, Lyndon Antcliff (@lyndoman), Razvan Gavrilas (of @cognitiveseo), Alex Craven of Bloom Agency (@alexcraven), Heather Healy @heatherhealy and Kirsty Hulse @kirsty_hulse, it was always going to be an amazing afternoon in the SEO Experts Panel room.

Two speakers which I missed, due to being in another room or talking to other SEO’s, were those of Tim Grice (link building) and Ralph Tegtmeier (Black into White SEO), though I did see the end of the later. By all accounts those two talks were pretty damn good and shouldn’t have been missed, but it is a tribute to ionSearch that there was so many good things going on something was always going to loose out. If you want to read a little more about those talks take a look at the ionSearch reviews by @armenante (ionSearch review by Tom Armenante) and TheCultureVulture ionSearch Review (@culturevultures).

Overall ionSearch 2012 was a great success, it had great speakers, great sponsors and great delegates. The key take aways are:

• SEO should be naturally built up
  SEO is not something that is done overnight!
• There are LOTS of Free SEO Tools
  See @analyticsseo slideshare above for over 50 of them!
• You can remove bad links
  If you try REALLY hard! Otherwise just build new Good Links!
• SEO is vital to Great Online Marketing
  Keeping upto date is keep to staying ahead of your competitors.

If you would like to see some of the pictures from ionSearch 2012, check out flickr.

Finally, a huge thank you must go to @BlueClaw and all the advertisers that made the event possible. All delegates had a great time and are looking forward to ionSearch 2013!

After a bit of chat on Twitter with @lycos they agreed to be part of the challenge, listening to my feedback and findings (good and bad). They agreed to take my thoughts on board and action them where appropriate, indeed as you will see from the diary section of the #Lycos30 challenge they have already began actioning my feedback.

I must point out the idea behind the challenge was to see just how good Lycos is and not to change what they do or how they do it. However, I am more than happy that Lycos are listening to my feedback and have decided to work with me, being open and honest about their short-comings and what they do well. This is too their credit, and indeed they have officially made the lycos 30 day challenge part of their development schedule such that they can work to correct any issues I find and make their search better.

@andykinsey we’re taking #lycos30 challenge seriously here. Or Ops group has set aside a project timeline devoted to issues that u have.

— Lycos (@lycos) April 6, 2012

What I’ve found so far…

Today I am in my third day and already it is clear Lycos as a whole is a mixed bag of great, good and not so good / bugs. So far the issue has been primarily with the structure of the website, finding bugs such as image search not working on android phone browsers (now fixed and tested) and the annoyance of the search taking over my screen due to a max-width issue. However, Lycos does have some great stuff on it’s side.

Lycos uses a dribble down search from yahoo (maybe bing) they are open about that. But what is fascinating is that the search results from Lycos seem much for relevant than either Bing or Yahoo. It’s still not on par with Google yet, but this could also be a layout issue in that the page can look empty and it doesn’t show exact urls / breadcrumbs and the page titles aren’t bold enough to strike you. Google still feels cleaner in strict search regards, but Lycos is far far superior to other search engines when it comes to search advertising. If it isn’t relevant it isn’t on the page, something google and bing should learn from!

Find out more about #Lycos30

If you would like to find out more about the lycos 30 day challenge you can head over to seoandy.com/lycos (also in the navigation bar at the top).

You can get live updates by following me @andykinsey or the tag #Lycos30
@Lycos will also be using that tag to continue the conversation.

I will also be posting updates to facebook.com/ak.designs (so hit like)

GBBO has been around for several years and is built on top of Google Sites, a free web service (choose a template and input content). The aim is to get as many British Businesses online as possible, with a simple web presence a business can grow. GBBO offer a Free Website (with a free .co.uk domain), low-cost training services, business workshops and some great tools. Already interested? Get Started Today.

Advantages of using GBBO

• GBBO is backed by big names like Google, BT, Regus and Pearsons.
  That means it isn’t going to disappear overnight like some free solutions could.
• A FREE .co.uk Domain
  Free for the first year, then low cost renewal (as with all .co.uk domains).
• Quick and Easy to Setup Website
• Easy to Update Content Areas
• Simple Integration with Google Places & Maps
• Possible Integration with PayPal (for usage as simple online store)

Disadvantages of using GBBO

• Google Sites / GBBO has a limited number fairly bad templates
  Templates that aren’t the best for SEO and nor the best web design. 
• Very Limited Actions on Site
  Basically you can only do so much to change the template
  You can’t use javascript or flash, the only work around is with Google Widgets.
• Your domain is locked for 60 days
  So if you decide you don’t want to use Google Sites you have to wait. 
• If you move host you need to start over
• GBBO can only do so much.
  As with all free solutions, you are very limited in what you can do.

Should You Use GBBO?

As you may expect from someone who is a web designer, I can’t really say “yes yes, GBBO is amazing” but I think you gathered that much. However, I do think GBBO is a much better solution than almost all other free website solutions, and even the cheap ones. So if you are thinking of using a free solution other than GBBO don’t, if you are thinking £50 that is not bad for a website – don’t in this case just use GBBO is much better than these ever will be.

Basically, if you can’t afford a few hundred quid for a website that will be built professionally and do what you want (ok online shops cost a bit more) then this is perfect for you. If you can afford a few hundred pounds for a website check out my specialised small business package (which includes stationary and logo design).

In researching this post I read hundreds of blog posts, forum threads and discovered not many people happy with GBBO. There were maybe 3 or 4 happy with what they received, but most in essence settled as it was free. Complaints revolved around the limitations mentioned above along with it being quite hard to contact GBBO when things went wrong (in terms of getting support not the sales line). If however, you are happy with your GBBO website please do let us know.

One thing I want to highlight about all Distilled Events is that the speakers are “invite only” this means no speak pitches to the team for a conference they are invited by the team to talk about a particular thing. This means you don’t end up with 5 people who can’t speak and 2 who can… they are all awesome speakers and all experts on the topic which they speak. Past speakers include Rand Fishkin (of SEOMOZ), Matt Cutts (of Google) and Tom Critchlow (erm, yeh VP of Distilled) – see awesome people speak at Distilled events.

Here is what a few past attendees said about distilled events.

And if that isn’t nice enough to hear, take a listen to these awesome distilled SEO ProTips, it’s Tom Critchlow – told you he is awesome.

If that’s not inspired you to buy a ticket yet do take a look at the distilled blog – which is awesome.
See You @ Link Love London 2012

Moo.com offer what I can only describe as a luxury touch without the price tag to match. The quality is superior compared to others in the sector and turn around times often faster too. In the post linked above where I recommend moo.com for business card printing, I must admit I had only used them a few times, that was enough convincing. To date I’ve printed with them many times since, each time trying something new with the design, type of card printed and generally had fun playing around.

Above are the business cards designed for Rhona Petrie, and printed using Moo.com

The Importance of Business Cards

Business Cards are about starting a conversation, they are about saying Hello! Great Business Card Design gives you a leg up on your competition, if your design is less than great you could be risking loosing a new client! Don’t let it happen to you.

So with business cards vital to attracting new customers by starting conversation and sparking memory later, it is time to ask to what cost are business cards effective. AKA how much should you be paying for their worth.

The answer is actually hard to gauge. For a web designer like myself where each new potential client needs something special to make you stand out from the crowd business cards are worth more than perhaps a shop owner who only gives cards to manufacturer representatives and leaves them on the store counter. You have to look at how much you think each potential client is worth, how much competition you have and whether this one little piece of card is important enough to warrant spending some cash on.

This said, Moo.com isn’t that expensive – though it’s not as cheap as say VistaPrint. With Moo.com you can get some awesome business cards (including mini business cards) from around £10.

Once you’ve sorted your printing it’s time for packaging. If you are a designer you can order white label boxes for your clients, if you are printing for yourself save the time & money and just take the normal Moo.com packaging. If you want a case to carry them around in because the awesome white packaging isn’t enough there are options for this too.

Also by using any of the links on this page to Moo.com you are helping to ensure SEOAndy.com stays a free blog with only a dash of advertising. This is not an advertising article but a review, but using the links and buying the services through them does send us a few pennies that we spend on hosting.

Finally!

You can save 10% on your first order with Moo.com by using this link. – http://www.moo.com/share/2kc6bc

So to welcome in the new year I want to take a quick look book at my favourite and your favourite posts from 2011.

My Favourites:

• Brand Positioning
  One of my pet topics in 2011 was Branding and Brand Marketing. Branding is vitally important regardless of your market and audience, without the best brand and identity you may as will whistle into the wind. This post is about moving your brand for maximum effect for your audience.
• BBC Homepage – Redesign of the Year
  One of the most controversial posts of the year. I love the redesign but few others seem to … at least if you listen to the few people continually commenting on my blog and the BBC website, and not the huge mass of people who haven’t said anything about it and are probably quite happy with it. I think it is more the comments I like from this post rather than the article itself.
• Yell.com Websites a Waste of Space!
  This is one of my more ranty posts of 2011, though I must say there was a hell of a lot of agreement on twitter and facebook for the sentiment in the article.
• and finally, 25 Awesome Business Card Designs
  I loved doing the research for this post, the designs in the post are ones which have inspired my designs both online and offline over the past year or so. I hope you enjoy this post as much as I did.

Most Visited Posts of 2011

• Website Redesign Checklist
• The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Marketing
• Search Engine Stats – July 2011
• 40 Easy ways to improve online sales
• Client WLTM for Business
• and finally, The 10 Step Guide to SEO

Now before we begin, let me make clear a fair amount of what I am about to say are things that I have done, experienced or had permission from clients to talk about. I will not name those clients (past or present) but suffice to say it is their views I will convey and not just my own.

With local search being a growing market, given Google Places show up in search results more and more, their default mobile search page now has buttons to say “local restaurants” or “local businesses” etc the question may not be is the end now, but rather why they still exist. If the question is to be the latter, the answer is simply money – there are still people who don’t realise they can do more for free than using either the Yellow Pages or Thomson Local. But this post is about the former, outlining why Google Places is different and better than either the Yellow Pages or Thomson Local.

Before we go on, I do want to say that both the Yellow Pages and Thomson Local, as well as Google Places, offer different “things” for different markets – but we in this post are talking about Local Search, not PPC or their websites (as discussed previously, link above). Both of the “Google Competitors” will have something the other doesn’t, for example Thomson Local we know is some how linked with Bing Local Search, but so is yell – and if Bing coping Google search results is anything to go by Google Places will also be being copied to some extent. So lets say it’s a level playing field here … so why should you pay Yellow Pages or Thomson Local for something you can do yourself … for FREE!?

The answer is you shouldn’t.

Both of these companies are known for going through people who make free listings on their respective websites and offering to “enhance” or “guarantee” local search listings. The way more often than not, if you trip them up, they do this is via making you a free listing on Google Places (just as you can yourself) and then giving you a few clicks via PPC. It doesn’t take much to get either party to own up to this. Oh and don’t forget for your buck, they will also put you into their directory, which you can also do for free anyway – if you can stand a fair few phone calls from that company offering you a load of bull.

So I hear you now saying but Yellow Pages and Thomson Local are known to people in the UK. Well yes, they have a physical brand – but did you notice the shrinking of the size of the Yellow Pages over the past 5 years – ask why is this and you will soon see that it’s because no longer are those paper directories the default – ask why they offer you local listings on Google and you will understand that this is why the paper directory is dead, Google is now the default “go to” point for most people looking for a local shop or services.

An example of local results showing up on a search is a search for Piano Lessons in Glossop or Electrical Services in Manchester – and by the way this is probably the most common way of searching for a shop or service in an area … services / shop name IN area name.

The next question to pose is why do the Yellow Pages or Thomson Local claim to have a higher conversion rate? Well the simple fact is they have a smaller audience, it’s a target audience … people go to their sites to look for something specific will click on maybe 2 or 3 links to get what they want and bingo … conversion rates will always be higher here than on a search engine where the results are shown with contextual results – which are actually much better for some searches and what people want. So yes people may want to know what is close to them but they also want to know which is best, which is why Google Places conversions are always increasing as they have reviews of each location – supplied by real people both via Google itself and other websites like trustpilot or freeindex.

Another reason for this claim is of course that they want you to part with a few sheckles, and pay for inclusion. This is also why they are failing, because Google Places and Bing Local Search are actually free to register too, you get verified (which yell don’t do) and everything is free. Yellow Pages and Thomson Local want to make just a few more quid before their game is up … and boy is that time close.

Google Places (and Bing Local Search) offer far superior results to that of the Yellow Pages or Thomson Local, they even take into account what your friend like and don’t like, what others around you have done, are doing or are likely to do … Search engines are far far superior in so many ways… and they are free!

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If you want further proof that the Yellow Pages and Thomson Local know they are in trouble, take into account that they no longer simply offer you a local listing on Google, they offer it in a bundle with PPC / adWords, why? well thats because in 2009 they stopped playing the game of charging for this alone, people realised it was free, and they now claim to “guarantee you a listing on Google” … its nothing of the kind – it is simply PPC and nothing else and they charge through the roof for it. Put simply they know the game is up, they have little worth in this rapidly changing world of online media, and with Google putting local search at the centre of their mobile search it really is a matter of time for the rip off merchants that are Yellow Pages and Thomson Local. Don’t get me wrong they may still be ok at “paper” and “ground” marketing in the real world but online and socially they are nothing … oh and just a tip the Royal Mail offer much better real world marketing than these too companies ever could.

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Don’t forget you can set up your Google Places listing for free! and here are my 10 steps to success.

You maybe wondering why if I’ve already wrote a review I am doing it again. The answer, I hope, will become evident in what I am about to say.

The Wrist Donut is a simple, lightweight (about 30g) wrist support which in my opinion is still the best on the market. It wraps around your wrist, like a watch or bracelet though not as snug, and supports your wrist regardless of the position of you arms (or their angle). I know gel supports in theory do this, but when you are like me swapping between machines and laptops all day you don’t want to carry a wrist support around because not all machines have them. These are so light weight that after about 5 minutes you don’t realise they are there – indeed I’ve travelled home with them on before getting odd looks, it was only when Sarah told me i had them on I cringed somewhat.

So other than that is there a difference? Yes, at least to me there is.

A while ago I was given the gel pads, most offices use them – they are like part of the stable diet when you are doing a health and safety assessment for RSI (I am sure some people carry them around for this need). Anyway it was ok for a few weeks, then my RSI flared again, this hadn’t happened properly since I first bought and used my wrist donuts. So erm, well I stopped using the gel pads, things began to get better but I am still waiting to get back to the stage I was at months and months ago. So the difference to me at least, is that the wrist donuts allow myself to have the perfect support for my work in moving around, where as perhaps if you were at one desk or machine gel pads could be better? what do you think?

So why am I replacing my wrist donuts if I love them so much?

Well after 2 years, as with all things, they were looking tired and some of the cushioning had gone. But they were still in working order. Anyway, recently I took to chewing on them when in meetings, not only did it look a little off putting to others in the meeting but it made holes in the fabric of my wrist donuts. *cries* – so after 2 years I decided to replace my donuts, with more donuts – the only difference I went for a green fabric and not blue.

Anything else impress me about this RSI Busting donut?

Yes! 2 years ago I paid £10 for a donut, today the price is just 20p more! How is that for awesomeness. The company who make the wrist donuts (MA Design) are truely great too, I’ve spoken to them a few times over the past two years and they really do a great job. Customer service is awesome as is recognised by their customer feedback on Amazon and their own website.

This is a simple device, it’s lightweight and ultimately its amazing. So don’t buy each computer or machine / device 2 new gel pads! Buy each person some Wrist Donuts, prevent RSI and be awesome!

If you want to submit a business card to be featured here tweet it to @andykinsey

In the interests of fairness and honesty I’ve not posted my own designs here, but you can view my business card designs here.

If you would like to be included in this list of business cards, or you know of a card that should be here – tweet @andykinsey