Let’s take a stroll down Google Venice lane – this is an update that Google announced in February this year, the intent of the change is to improve the rankings of local search results to have more relevant and personalised search results which are tailored to your location.

There are a number of tactics you could emply to take advantage of this change - below are a couple of initial steps that website owners could take to boost local results.

Localised landing pages

These are pages on your site where a user will land on if they google a phrase that inclues your business/service and a location. For example if you are an Australian handbag site, you could develop a Sydney handbag landing page which has content around the Sydney fashion scene, and links to handbags which are popular in Sydney.

Although you need to be careful when creating landing pages becasue the Google Panda update penalises you for both duplicate and thin content on a website. This means that you can’t copy and paste the same web page and replace the city name, nor can you add a generic local paragraph hoping to improve your rankings. The localised page content should be longer than 300 words and must be unique, you can check on a website like copyscape to confirm your content is unique.

Also don’t forget to update the basics – your metadata! This is important for search engines, and more so for visitor engagement. Make sure that your title includes the location and name of your business, and that the meta description of your landing page actually entices local consumers to click through to your site.

Geographic metadata

Make use of tools like this handy Geo sitemap generator. This tool automatically generates:

• a KML file to upload to your website,
• a GEO sitemap to load into your Google webmaster tools; and
• an html tag in microformat or schema.org for website.

All of these tools help search engines determine your exact address even down to the latitude and longitude co-ordinates of your business address. It’s kind of like a microchip on a dog.. but for your website.

Stumbled across this interesting website while researching graphics to use for a client. The website is visual.ly and they have some very nice automated infographics available for free. They also offered customised infographics at a price and given the level of quality from the free infographics I’d feel very comfortable in giving them a trial next time around.

The image below shows a infographic for our facebook page with some very nice analysis about people who have ‘liked’ our page.

Hope you enjoy.

Our Creative Director Niro was asked a couple of weeks ago to be the guest judge of the 30th anniversary edition of A Solitary Idea – Literary, Photography & Design Magazine, at his College in Canberra. At the awards night, Niro gives a speech about ‘winning and losing’ and ‘the power of creativity’. Check out his talk in the video above!

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

A chance encounter and shared moment with one of natures greatest and most fleeting phenomena.

This is really amazing. It makes me wonder, how long do you think it would take us humans to put on a flawless show like this?

I didn’t become an artist to become rich. I became an artist because I have an idea to share. An emotion to share.

Today, the creative landscape is changing. Some talk about a revolution. Others talk about a natural evolution. These changes affect everything. From creation to distribution, from artist to consumer. Everybody is equally excited and afraid.

PRESS PAUSE PLAY is a film about fear, hope & digital culture. Check out the preview. I don’t think they could be more on the money.

I’ll be watching it next Tuesday. Excited.

Niro

www.presspauseplay.com

It’s Moustache Season again, so a couple of us are going to put away the razor this month and begin raising vital funds and awareness for men’s health by becoming “Mo Bros”.

Keep a look out for the weekly photos as we become walking, talking billboards for the next 30 days.

Register now and begin sprouting your own funky moustaches: http://au.movember.com/?home

P.s. Don’t worry if you’re a little slow growing… We are too. (After all, it’s for a good cause.)

Music mogul P. Diddy and Interscope Geffen A&M chairman Jimmy Iovine, who served as a Season 10 mentor for American Idol contestants, have teamed up with famed photographer Raphael Mazzucco to get to the bottom of society’s infatuation with the female figure.

Drawing its title from the Italian word Culo meaning buttocks or bottom, the photo book will unveil more than 248 pages of stunning, provocative images celebrating the new trend in art, fashion and pop culture in which the female bottom is the core of sexuality, desire and empowerment.

In a statement on the book’s official website, Iovine says: “Fashion needs fewer girls who look like boys and more women with some ‘Boom Boom Pow’.”

We agree.

What do you think?

CULO will be released on the 22nd of Nov. You can check out the website here: http://culo.interscope.com/

On almost every page of Steve Jobs’ biography by Walter Isaacson are examples of his arrogance, odd habits, belligerent interactions and emotional breakdowns. The biography truly gives you an honest account of his life and personality. He wasn’t easy to work with – that’s for sure, but was he insane… too over the top?

As Mr. Jobs once put it himself: “Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

And change the world he did.

Mashable Tech gathered some memorable quotes from the book that illustrate his complex personality. Check it out here:

http://mashable.com/2011/10/29/steve-jobs-book-quotes/#32135Steve-Jobs-by-Walter-Isaacson

The dialogue-less video produced by Microsoft’s Office unit follows a woman taking a business trip, her daughter doing homework and a man in Hong Kong taking the subway to work all against the backdrop of a pulsing electronica soundtrack. It’s an intriguing glimpse of the future of technology. It looks like sci-fi, but the technology is coming and some of it is already here. It’s impressive, but how many of us will be able to afford to live this way?

It makes us wonder though, what new technology would you jump on as soon as it was released?

A useful article we came across on news.com.au. iOS5 users check it out!