22i’s Opinion of the Twitter X “Rebrand”

We’ve been using Twitter since 2009, just a year after the microblogging platform was released. For us that’s 14 years of familiarity.

So when Elon Musk suddenly decided to call Twitter “X” it was a real shock. In one fell swoop, the eratic multibilioinaire wiped out 14 years worth of brand equity.

Twitter has been on a slippery slope since the world’s richest man took over. First, staff were laid off without any notice nor consultation (Friends of ours included). Then the famous “blue tick”, a sign of notable persons, brands and institutions was disbanded, only to be resold to anyone for $8 a month to anyone who’d pay. This was called “Twitter Blue” and caused immediate confusion as brands were imitated and devalued.

But that’s not all. Musk has messed around with the logo yet again, said Twitter should ONLY be available in “dark mode”, promised to remove “zombie” accounts whilst having over 65 million inactive followers himself, has limited the number of tweets people can see, says that we’ll no longer be able to block trolls and racists, whilst also allowing dubious accounts to be reinstated to the platform. Now the long-term faithful are no longer allowed to use the invaluable Tweetdeck unless they pay for his blue tick.

It’s no wonder he’s lost 59% of the platform’s ad revenue, despite bringing onboard a new dedicated CEO to run the show. But even that’s debatable as it’s Elon Musk who is continually in the spotlight, shouting about how great the new “X” is and all the features that will be coming soon.

For the world’s richest man to have to charge for what has historically been free is concerning. He spent $44 billion on buying and damaging Twitter, and now he’s trying to claw some of that back. For all those who prostrate themselves to his “genius” we’re not seeing that lauded business acumen whilst he controls Twitter. Sorry, X. No, not sorry, Twitter.

Certainty

If there’s one thing we know from our 22 years working with local small business, it’s that they all cherish one thing – certainty.

Small firms want stability, reliability, and to be able to plan, for the bad times as well as the good. With a social media platform like Twitter and its current “Lord of Chaos” at the helm, Twitter is no longer a dependable place to create brand awareness, advertise or source accurate information.

In our professional opinion, the “rebrand” has been a disaster, Musk’s tenure has been chaotic, and we really don’t know what the future holds for the new “everything app”. Brands wanted a platform where they could broadcast messages and those be amplified by honest advocates and evangelists.

We will still maintain our presence on Twitter as a way of “keeping our hand” in and monitoring the situation, whilst also ensuring that there at least some good people still guarding the rights of other good people out there. However, we currently advise against using “X” for advertising until sanity returns to the once blue bird social media channel.

In the meantime, Facebook is still a good channel for focused social media campaigns, LinkedIn advertising is an excellent way to reach specific professional demographics, and of course, we’re always available for PPC and SEO for small businesses in Farnborough and the surrounding area.

Google HowTo and FAQs Rich Results Changes

For all our SEO customers, today Google has announced changes to how it deals with FAQs and How To rich results in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

In an official post on the Google Search Central blog, the search giant has made two significant changes:

  1. Reduced visibility of FAQ rich results.
  2. Limiting HowTo results.

The changes are rolling out now and should be completed within a week.

Once the rollout is complete rich FAQ results will only show in the SERPs for well-known, authoritative, government and health sites. For all other sites that use FAQ structure data, they will no longer appear in the rich results.

Whilst 22i use structured data for web pages we design and build, we don’t expect to see any changes to our own client results.


For any queries on SEO feel free to contact us.

Who Should Manage your PPC Accounts? A PPC Expert or an Official Google Ads Account Manager?

If you’ve got a Google Ads account, how many times do you get calls from an official Google rep to discuss your PPC?

As an agency we get multiple calls every day. In fact, it has become such an issue that our receptionists have explicit instructions to filter out Google Ads account reps and furnish them with our email addresses so that they can send their requests there.

Why?

As a professional PPC experts we have twenty years’ experience with Google Ads. Despite having spent two decades setting up, running, and optimising PPC accounts, Google still tries to “help”. What they do is assign a Google account manager to our PPC accounts, and that official representative is tasked with contacting us to see if we need their assistance. Even if we don’t require any help and even if we insist that we don’t want to hear from them ever again, we still get constant calls from Google.

What they offer, every single time we’ve spoken with them, is assistance with optimising the multiple PPC campaigns that we run. No matter how small or how large the budget, they offer low-level tips to help us make our ads perform better. The bottom line is that they have never suggested anything that would improve our PPC ad campaign performance.

An Experiment

One day, after a year of insistent calls to help us optimise our ads, I decided to humour the official Google rep and act upon their advice.

I listened to the tweaks, that sounded like they were being read from a script, and diligently made a note of the previous settings and the new suggestions. Their official advice included changing the bid types, increasing budgets, and trying new ad types. I changed the parameters of the Google Ads campaigns as they requested and sat back to monitor their performance.

I wasn’t surprised. The campaign spent more money and was far less effective than it had been when I’d manually set up all the settings. I watched it perform suboptimally for a few days and then decided that enough was enough. I reset all the ad campaigns to how they were before the official account manager had “meddled” with them, and the PPC accounts started running perfectly once again.

The Moral of the Story

If you need extra visits to your website, more calls, leads, and enquiries, then use an experienced PPC expert to run your Google Ads for you.

If you’d like to use 22i then call us now on 07730 499 539 and we’ll be happy to look at your Ads account, and make it work properly for you.

The Difference Between Domain Names, Hosting and Websites

Whether you’re new to the web industry or you’ve been around it for a few years, there are a lot of technical aspects to the digital world.

There are many acronyms in the business, such as HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and HTTPS (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure) to SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and PPC (Pay Per Click).

As much as there have been attempts to “not use jargon”, there’s really no better way to describe optimising for search engines than SEO. After all, these are the vernacular, the tools of the trade, so “call a spade a spade” as the saying goes.

The same goes for domain names, hosting and websites. Whilst these aren’t acronyms, they are technical terms that require clarity. A recent client kept asking us for the logins to their domain name so that they could make changes to the website. So for the benefit of existing and future clients, here’s the difference between domain names, hosting and websites.

Domain Names

A domain name is the actual name or string under which your website will eventually sit and be reached, the name that you type into the address bar. The domain name of this site is 22i.co.uk – it’s in the address bar above.

Domain names come in all forms, from .co.uk and .com to .net and .org etc. There were a tranche of new Top Level Domains (TLDs) released a few years ago, such as .coop, .guru and even .ninja – we joked about some  of these but they were true.

A domain name on its own doesn’t do much. For example, let’s look at the domain name tomswifties.co.uk – If you type that into a browser’s address bar or click this link to visit http://tomswifties.co.uk/, you’ll simply see a holding page with the registrar 123-Reg.

There is no hosting.

And there is no website.

However, a domain name for a project can and will be associated with number of services. We can configure website hosting services and email through your domain name, set up subdomains for secondary services etc.

We configure domain names through our control panel, alongside all our other clients’ domain names, unless they manage domains through their own registrars. So please don’t ask us for a “login for your domain” – our service includes domain name management, so we will not give away “the keys to the kingdom” to safeguard the privacy and security of all our clients.

If you wish to have full control over your own domain name, we advise that you do so under your own details. We will then instruct you on the steps to take to “point” to webhosting, email etc.

Alternatively, just relax and we will happily manage your domains for you.

Web Hosting

Once you have your domain name purchased and are ready to have us build a website, then you’ll need some web hosting (Website hosting).

This is a space on a web server that will be reserved specifically for your domain name to point directly to it.

As we discussed earlier, a domain name on its own does nothing, as does simply buying web hosting.

Even when you point your domain name to your web hosting, there is still something missing…

Website

Once you’ve brought your domain name, pointed it at the web hosting, usually the IP address of the server you just rented space on, you are now ready for the last part – the website.

At the very least you can create an index page and add some quick “Hello World” HTML

Hello World HTML

Better still, you should install your favourite CMS, be it WordPress, Drupal, Joomla! or Typo3*

Once you have the “holy trinity” of domain name, hosting and website in place, you’re ready to rule the world. Just get your designer and/or developer to help you build the final website and you’ll be ready to launch, promote etc.


So there you go, a quick explainer about domain names, hosting and websites. They’re all different and, all together in the right order, they’re the basis for your web presence.

If you need help or someone to do this all for you, give us a call.

Happy Birthday: 22i Design is Twenty One

I realised this morning that, being the 5th September 2021, it’s been twenty one years since I started 22i Design!

On this day in the year 2000 this little studio was born and here it is today, still quietly ticking over (Whilst we work full-time for other digital agencies)

Our clients are mostly website hosting and email services, with website maintenance to keep their WordPress installations secure. However, we do still manage the very occasional website design. Farnborough-based, we serve clients here and in Fleet, Farnham and Aldershot too. So we’re mostly assisting local digital businesses.

In those twenty one years our founder, Paul Mackenzie Ross, has worked predominantly in full-time roles as:

  • Researcher.
  • Web designer/web developer.
  • Content writer/editor.
  • SEO consultant.
  • PPC consultant.
  • Social media expert.
  • Digital marketing manager.
  • IT/digital project manager.

Paul’s duties have included:

  • Domain names & website hosting.
  • SysAdmin/IT support.
  • Web design/development.
  • SEO.
  • PPC.
  • Social media management.
  • Project management.

The industries he’s worked for include:

  • Small businesses.
  • National charities.
  • Global corporations.

The sectors he’s worked in include:

  • Business/Business-to-business.
  • Healthcare.
  • Legal.
  • Manufacturing.
  • Electronics.
  • Finance.
  • Transport.
  • Technology.

Here’s to another twenty one years of digital, I love this industry. And happy birthday 22i.

Google Passage Ranking UK

Google announced passage ranking back in October 2020. It was apparently rolled out live on Feb 10th 2021 in the US. So is what we’ve seen today evidence that Google Passage Ranking is live in the UK?

After receiving an SMS from by mobile phone provider, offering me the Apple Watch series 6, I clicked the contained link to see a page of specs on the latest device. Amongst all the blood oxygen level and ECG benefits I saw that the page boasted series 6 has a battery life of “up to 18 hours”.

As an owner of an Apple Watch series 2 I wondered what my battery life was. I swear it’s more than the series 6 so I just wanted to check to ensure the newer watch wasn’t s retrograde step from my current one.

I Googled “series 2 battery life”, yes, omitting to spell out Apple Watch, but Google still furnished me with both the relevant result and even a link to the specific passage on the resulting page  that held the answer;

Google Passage Ranking Apple Watch Series 2 battery life.

I was shocked to see the answer “54 hours”, three times better in my old watch than the latest one, as I’m sure my battery life is no longer than 24 hours at a push. I followed the link to its destination URL…

And there on the resulting page, Google had helpfully highlighted the exact passage of the knowledge I was looking for; is this evidence of Google Passage Ranking live in the UK?

Google Passage Ranking result.

What is Google Passage Ranking?

Google’s Vice President of search, Prabhakar Raghavan, announced a number of search innovations in the official post back in October, titled How AI (Artificial Intelligence) is powering a more helpful Google.

The section of the post addressing the new Passage Ranking features reads:

Very specific searches can be the hardest to get right, since sometimes the single sentence that answers your question might be buried deep in a web page. We’ve recently made a breakthrough in ranking and are now able to not just index web pages, but individual passages from the pages. By better understanding the relevancy of specific passages, not just the overall page, we can find that needle-in-a-haystack information you’re looking for. This technology will improve 7 percent of search queries across all languages as we roll it out globally.

Search result about UV glass

With new passage understanding capabilities, Google can understand that the specific passage (R) is a lot more relevant to a specific query than a broader page on that topic (L).

Raghavan’s descriptor perfectly describes my experience this morning and demonstrates the power and usefulness of Google Passage Rank. Not only did I get the result I was looking for but also a link to the source and an even deeper link anchor to the relevant section highlighted for my reference.

Passage Rank is extremely useful and will make fact checking easier than ever, especially when the user is taken directly to the source within the source and can quickly evaluate context too.

This is a fantastic update from Google, I can see massive value in Passage Rank already.


22i logo icon.Need an independent SEO consultant with 20 years experience and an affordably priced service?

Get in contact with 22i right now, speak to the organ grinder, get results and save yourself a packet.

Call us now on 07306 020 985

Twenty Years of Digital Marketing Expertise

Today is a special day. Twenty years ago, 22i design launched.

After spending 2 years studying for an HNC in Graphics & Design, our founder found himself in a dilemma;

You can’t get work without the experience and you can’t get experience without the work.

Catch 22 aye? But that wasn’t the only reason for the name, that was more of a happy coincidence. 22i is indeed a quirky name, and came from the engine size of our owner’s Opel Manta GT/E – a 2.2 litre fuel-injected, 140BHP inline four engine. Hence the name 22i.

And so, a 1998 personal homepage hosted on Demon Internet became Manta World in June 2000, soon followed by 22i Design in September 2000. Then soon after, the Dave M Karate and MaxTherapy  websites became the first little commercial successes for this tiny little home-based design studio.

Since then we’ve had a steady stream of low-key projects over the years, providing web hosting and email, web design, graphic design and lots of digital marketing, mostly SEO and content marketing but with some PPC on the side too.

Of course, 22i Design has always been a side project, and in the “day job” other skills have included full time project management and social media.

Basically, we’re based upon over twenty years of digital marketing experience.

Other businesses have come and gone. Some only take on the young, and the cheap, but they are also inexperienced too.

If you want a master craftsman, speak with 22i Design. You can get a 33% discount on rates by choosing a business with just five years experience but you’ll also be cutting the insights, wisdom and experience by 75%.

Twenty years experience in digital marketing, that’s a tough score to beat.

 

 

 

New Email service from 22i

For over a decade our small business customers have been happy with a few hundred MegaBytes of webspace and a number of POP3 email accounts.

Recently, however, our clients have been asking for more from their email accounts. With the rise of the smartphone (61% of UK phone owners have a smartphone and hence email capabilities) and the tablet (and the “phablet” if you want to include those oversized phone/tablets and use a ridiculous portmanteau) the old POP account just doesn’t cut it any more.

Searching for email service providers has been a lengthy task for us here at 22i design and, quite frankly, 99% of the services have just not met the requirements of our customers. 2GB of email is not enough for the client who wants to migrate over ten years of email so we’ve come up with a new 25GB IMAP account.

Now our clients are securely accessing their email from iPhones, iPads and multiple desktops and all with the same functionality that they were used to with their Mac Mail, Outlook and Thunderbird accounts.

We do still offer Google Apps for Business, which does offer 25GB of email and all the bells & whistles of calendar sharing etc but we found that the GMAIL method of “labelling” email was a problem for our clients with years and gigabytes worth of legacy email.

So, if you can’t afford a Microsoft Exchange server and you don’t want Gmail, but you DO want a secure, reliable and cost-effective email service with 25GB per email box, then do let us know and we’ll got you up and running.

Call 22i Design on 01252 692 765 for a chat about your small business email requirements and we will be happy to advise you on your digital transformation.

Freelance Developers – £15 an hour!

Really? In England? Somebody would only charge £15/an hour for web development?

Well, that’s what the ad said.

Whilst browsing YouTube recently a number of display ads have been cropping up for a business that I’ve noticed has stepped up a gear in trying to promote itself over the last few months.

I initially noticed the business’s PR team throwing content at publishers including one of my big clients for whom I edit and write copy. As with a lot of PR I see on my desk these days, some of the associations between the business embedding their link in the PR piece and the content itself is a little tenuous – that’s the way some content marketing and guest posting has become these days.

Secondly the rate at which these pieces of PR are being pumped out is, in my opinion at a relatively small scale publisher, flooding the market. To publish content from the same source on a regular basis, with sometimes tentative associations with the content, and all-of-a-sudden when there was nothing before is a little bit, well… Spammy!

But when their display ads appeared touting developers for £15 an hour, VAs for £10 an hour and the same measly rate for freelance animators, it concerned me a bit. There is a “going rate” for freelance web designers & web developers in this country and, even though I personally choose to operate a little under that rate, I wouldn’t stoop so low as to offer my specialist services, which I have spent over a decade developing, for a rate that, let’s be fair, is a bit too close to the national minimum wage.

The other issue that developers have to consider is that hourly rates usually make up for the fact that freelance work involves a fair degree of risk. An hour or two’s work here or there may involve travel which means expense or downtime. Also, hourly rates reflect the fact that an hour here or there is just that – an hour and not a day or a week or a month’s guaranteed and salaried income.

So I took a look at the website of the business selling devs for £15 an hour and lo and behold, the developers are not even in the UK. The lowest c0st, home-grown developers are offering their services at a little under the “going rate” which is fine by me.

But if you are looking for a developer for £15 an hour then the chances are they won’t be in the UK. You may well get a good service but if you do want to keep your money at home and spend it locally then a Brit will be worth twice that amount.

As for being a British developer offering your services at such a low rate, well it’s up to you if you think you can pay for all your kit, laptop, displays, backup drives, your learning, your office and your travel, mortgage etc on a such a small amount – Don’t forget that as a freelancer you may not be able to get work all the time (especially if British businesses are sending work abroad) so work out how much “downtime” costs you.