Finding a career in SEO and digital marketing

1 Reply MattRawlings

If you’re looking to move into a career that’s only getting bigger and more influential in the IT industry, then look no further than SEO and digital marketing agencies. The industries are growing rapidly, with more and more opportunities for passionate computer and content enthusiasts to make a difference to the online world.

SEO Graph - GoogleSEO – or search engine optimisation to give it its full title – is the process of creating websites that are viewed favourably by Google and meeting the requirements of its algorithm. Get on Google’s good side, and you’ll find the site you’re working on ranks in the highest positions, but get it wrong and the consequences could be disastrous.

Getting it wrong could be anything from over optimizing the page with key terms and phrases that you want the site to rank well for, as Google will see this as an almost ‘spammy’ attempt at manipulating the rankings; or linking to poor authority or frowned upon websites, such as adult entertainment or gambling.

Digital marketing is an area of SEO that has grown out of the main search campaigns, and become one of the most influential strategies going at improving web traffic. In the past, it was a case of blogging on the site itself being crucial, to show that the site is being regularly updated with high quality content on a frequent basis, as opposed to a flash in the pan campaign around peak times.

Now, it’s all about creating the high quality content and distributing it to high authority websites with strong domain rankings, page rankings and more, and linking back to the site you’re working with to build up a backlink profile that Google’s crawlers take one look at and think – yes, I like what this site is about and doing, they can rank highly.

These two areas of the tech world open up a variety of career opportunities for a wide range of people. From those sitting at home having graduated from University or left college, searching the web for jobs in Portsmouth in an attempt to get their foot on the ladder; as well as those in the big city already established in online or ICT careers. For those with a passion for writing, there are content writing positions springing up – either as full-time or freelance positions – and also opportunities for those looking to do something more pro-active with websites and the Internet, challenging yourself to overcome the challenges set by the site owners and Google to achieve what your client demands. This is usually the number one ranking for their “key term”, or the first page of the search results.

Day to day use of my Remote Heating Control system

2 Replies Christopher Roberts

This is the fifth in a series of articles in which I am exploring Remote Heating Control – a technology of the future. Learn more about this series by reading the introductory article, called stepping into the future of smarter living.

Well Autumn really has begun, it’s now mid-October and the days are starting to get shorter. Trees are starting to drop their now golden brown leaves and there is a chill in the air that hasn’t been there since last winter.

Now that it is Autumn it is getting much colder, and this means that my heating is now really important to me. It’s that time of year when I want to stay warm, but at the same time am conscious to save energy.

Controlling My Heating Via Smartphone

I have recently bought a Samsung Galaxy S III, a smartphone powered by Google’s Android operating system. This means that I am now able to test out the Remote Heating Control app. British Gas have made an app for both Androids and iDevices, as I have an Android powered Samsung, I will be talking about the Android app.

The application is available for download from Apple’s App Store and from Google play, and is called myHome – after the online portal that you log into to control your heating.

The app is free to download, however (as you would expect) you need to have Remote Heating Control technology in your home for it to be of any use. You need internet access to be able to use the app, as it has to connect to the myHome portal in order to fetch real time data and store any changes you make; however that shouldn’t really be an issue though, as most smartphones now come Wi-Fi enabled and have optional 3G/4G. A smartphone isn’t really that smart without the internet!

Installing The myHome App

I was pleasantly surprised by how fast I was able to install and log into the app. I clicked on the Google play icon on my handset, I then searched for ‘myhome’ and third on the list was the app I wanted. I clicked on the app and pressed install and within seconds it had installed. I then ran the app, and it brought up a login screen, very similar to the one that can be seen if you log in to myHome on your PC.

British Gas myHome

British Gas’s myHome log in screen

After I logged in I was presented with a very similar screen to the one I see when I am online. I was able to control the temperature of my heating right this moment. As you can see, I was at work at the time, so the temperature in the house wasn’t set very high, however it had been on earlier in the morning, so the house was still relatively warm.

A screenshot of the myHome dashboard

A screenshot I took of the myHome dashboard once I had logged in to the Android app.

The heating status was set to Auto, as it was following the schedule. It was really easy to change the temperature, which I did by moving the sliding on the right up and down with my finger.

If you click on the thermometer at the top you get a temperature summary – showing you the temperature in your house and outside.

I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t edit my heating schedule via my Samsung, however I suppose the settings could get a little fiddly on the smaller screen.

If I want to change the schedule, the easiest way is online. That said, it is really easy to change the immediate temperature via smartphone. I am happy with the app, it loads very fast and is well designed. The layout is clean, and easy to use.

Other Features Of The myHome Portal

In previous article I have discussed some of the main features of the myHome online portal, such as being able to see your heating status and the temperature, and being able to set up a schedule for your heating, however there are some other features which are of use.

Under the ACCOUNT heading you are able to change details like your name and email, along with your PIN (the code you have to text when you want to change your heating via SMS) and alerts. I have the system set to alert me via email in the case of a failure of any of the technology and also it will contact me with any warnings that may be relevant, like to let me know the battery on my smart linked thermostat is running low.

As I mentioned in a previous article, it isn’t ideal that my thermostat now needs a battery, that said, it has been running for around 3 months now, and still has 5/5 bars of battery, and if it does start to run low, I will be told in advance of the batteries dying.

If you click on the DEVICES heading, you will be taken to a page displaying all the devices that are currently in your system. On this page I can see my wireless hub and smart linked thermostat. Both are reading status ‘All ok‘ and have full battery and signal strength. My wireless hub is plugged into the mains, to the battery should always read full on that, as the power is mains supply.

Finally, if you click on the HELP heading, you are taken to a screen where there are various guides to help you use the software. If you ever get stuck you can either call British Gas, send them an email, or consult one of their PDF help guides. There is also a link to the app download pages on this page.

British Gas myHome Help and Advice page screenshot

A screenshot of the Help and Advice page in the myHome online portal.

That’s about it for this week.

In two weeks time I will publish the sixth and final article in the series. It will summarise and conclude what I have learnt and shared with you over the last five articles, and I will also give my verdict as to whether the system met my expectations, and whether it is really a technology of the future. See you on the 2nd of November!

Snap2PDF – An Easy Way to Manage Your Documents

3 Replies RonF

Managing documents is always difficult, especially when you have a lot of them. Certainly, it is not possible to carry all of them wherever you move. But it is easy to carry your iPhone/iPad anywhere you go. You must be wondering what makes this app so special. With just a few simple clicks of your mobile’s camera, you can manage your documents perfectly using Snap2PDF.

About the app

Snap2PDF is a universal app, designed for both iPhone and iPad, for organizing your whiteboards, receipts, business cards, magazine articles, posters, print outs, coupons and newspaper clippings. All you have to do is take a snap of the document and the app converts it to PDF format right away. Now you can share the converted files through SMS and email. It recognizes various languages like English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Dutch, Czech, Danish etc.

Working of the app

Snap2PDF is a very simple app to handle. Just take snaps of your documents and they get converted to PDF files automatically. You are provided with many options to manage your documents. For creating a PDF document, you can either take a snap using your device’s camera or select a photo from your album. Your PDF documents can be edited and managed, as per your requirements. You can add/delete/rearrange pages in your document effortlessly. You can also organize your documents under different categories by tapping the category, naming it and adding the document to it. Searching for a document can be easily done using the keyword search option.
Snap2PDFSnap2PDF allows you to share your documents in .pdf format through email. The most convenient feature of this app is that you can create a Dropbox account, select documents and export them to your Dropbox account for safe management. You can open a document as a PDF file in other PDF viewer apps like iBooks, FileExplorer etc. You can make your document search easy by choosing the preferred language of index. There is also an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) facility to automatically pick out blocks of text from images.

Snap2PDF is a very useful app that provides multiple ways of managing, securing and sharing files easily. It costs $2.99 and requires iOS 4.3 or later.