In addition to our article in April's Axis Magazine, we take a more detailed look at 'search engine optimisation' (SEO). Search engine optimisation is the process of getting your site to rank as highly as possible for the searches which are relevant to you.

Download your copy of our article from Axis Magazine (1MB) >

In the article, we covered some of the basic principles on SEO and Google. But what about other search engines? What about Yahoo, AOL, Ask and MSN? Because Google processes 60% of the world’s searches, it is usually easier to just talk about how to rank on Google. Especially because many other search engines follow what Google does.

When search engines do their searching, they aren’t actually searching the live web. They are only searching an index of it. In the early days of the internet, search engines used human-edited directories. A popular example of this was Yahoo, which had hundreds of people updating the index of websites.

The problem was that this took a long time and niche areas of the web were poorly indexed. What Google did (and did well) was to create an algorithm which automatically trawled through the web, indexing what it found. By judging a page on the words it found, the links it had pointing to it and so on, Google created a huge and accurate index. They’ve been continually refining and shaping this technology and due to its success, other search engines (including Yahoo) now use the Google index in conjunction with their own.

There are hundreds of different things for SEO, each of which usually only makes a small difference to your ranking. However, an organised and comprehensive approach to web design will help you get the best from your website and how it ranks.

Other interesting things about Google:

Google’s unofficial motto is, “Don’t be evil” – meaning that they don’t seek to exploit people or the web for their own ends. Read more about Google’s motto >

The Google “I’m feeling lucky” button on their home page takes the user to whatever the top result is for that search. However, the existence of this button is reported to cost Google $110million a year. Read more about this button >

Google has often been criticised (and praised) for dominating the online market. With so much power and influence in the shape of the internet, Google are defining the web in the same way that Microsoft defined software. Read more about Google's competition >

The March edition of Axis Magazine is out and available throughout the local Hertfordshire area and this month, Tom Bull takes a look at e-marketing in his Web Advice article.

When is the right time to market? What are the cost effective ways to promote your business? Should marketing and promotion be kept to a minimum in a time of recession?

Download your copy of the Web Advice: E-Marketing article (1.3MB) >

Ericsson have recently commissioned Beaver Design to create a user-friendly calendar for their intranet. The calendar displays upcoming corporate events with the year broken down into sections, in the form of a pie graph.

Ericsson is a long-standing client of Beaver Solutions (sister company to Beaver Design) and we are proud to continue the relationship with web design.

A staff member using the calendar can highlight a month for a short bullet point breakdown, or select the month to see each day seperately. When a member of staff finds an event they are interested in, all they need to do is click a link which puts the event in their Outlook diary.

Events can be added direct from event management's Outlook system and managed on the calendar through a CMS system. This friendly, simple and unique calendar gives Ericsson another effective way to communicate with their staff.

We are proud to announce the recent appointment of two new Beavers. David Schad (pictured) has joined us as Support Engineer and Andy Coldicott has joined us as another Content Designer.

We're very pleased to have Andy and David on board and wish them well in their new positions. We'd also like to take this opportunity to say to both of them, "Welcome to the team!"

Beaver Design has finished work on another site for our client Rapier Group, who are the company responsible for managing the 1st Pan-Asian Computerised Tomographic Colonography Congress (it just rolls of the tongue!).

The website from Beaver gives attendees a place to register for the event and pay for their place. This system is controllable by Rapier Group via a custom built CMS system. As the conference date gets closer, prices for the tickets auatomatically increase, as pre-set by Rapier Group.

Delegates can log in and register their place, with the system remembering their details on return visits. The site is designed to provide delegates with all the detail they will need for this three day conference and since the event is being hosted in China, the site features both English and Chinese text. In addition, the site has an international payment system from World Pay, to allow payment from the multinational users.

To view the site and find out more, please go to:

www.ctcasia.org