Excel is a massive piece of software that includes a multitude of functions; and people use it for a wide variety of purposes. Because of this, everyone will have a slightly different set of ‘everday functions’. I will be showing you the set up I have as a Junior Web Analyst and an SEO, the features which I use most often and therefore add to my Quick Access Toolbar and will then describe why I find these useful additions. The features you add to your Quick Access Toolbar may differ greatly, but this guide should still be useful to you…
First things first, let’s get rid of the horrible Fluent User Interface ‘Ribbon’, do this by right-clicking in the header and selecting ‘Minimize the Ribbon’.

It should now look like this (nice and neat):

Now by right-clicking the header again and select ‘Customize Quick Access Toolbar’:

In the new window select the drop-down to “Choose commands from:” ‘All Commands’:

From here you can add any of the commands to store them in your new toolbar, below is a list and description of the commands that I have on my toolbar:

• Align Text Left – Simple but very useful for formatting data.
• All Borders – An easy way to make certain data stand out, by putting it in a table!
• Conditional Formatting – As a data analyst, it is very useful to add conditions (rules) to data sets in order to find what you are looking for quicker. Conditional formatting allows you to do this e.g. a basic use would be to sort the top 25 out of a list of, say 100, conditional formatting would allow you to apply this rule and highlight those that met the condition i.e. the top 25.
• Decrease Decimal – A simple tool to remove (and round) a decimal point.
• E-mail – Need to send your data to a client/agency? This sticks the Excel sheet straight into an e-mail for you to send on.
• Fill Colour – Fills the selected cell[s] with a selected colour. Useful when combined with sorting according to colour!
• Filter – One of the most useful tools as a data analyst, allows you to filter based on pretty much whatever you want.
• Font Colour – Changes the selected cell[s] font colour.
• Increase Decimal – A simple tool to add (and round) a decimal point.
• Insert Chart – Plots and creates a chart based on the data that you have selected. A useful tool as a data analyst to present to clients/agencies.
• Insert or Remove Page Break – Needing to print your data? This will display the breaks where your data will run on to other pages.
• Insert SmartArt Graphic – A new addition (well, that actually works) to Office 2007, very useful for making data more attractive to those that will simply not pay attention to it during presenting. I often use this to create venn diagram when relating search terms to different brands in the same SEO campaign. Or (arguably it’s most useful purpose to me) creating visual and thematic sitemaps.
• Line Colour – Changes the selected cell[s] line colour.
• More Borders – Opens up the borders menu, an overlooked tool that helps break up data to make it more readable.
• Paste Formatting – Pastes the formatting chosen for other cells in order to make them the same. Note: This doesn’t change the data within the cell – just the way that it looks.
• Paste Formulas – Pastes the formulas applied in a cell to other selected cells.
• Paste Special – Allows you to perform a variety of paste functions (including values and formulas, already mentioned) and also to combine these in clever ways. For instance, to paste ‘transposed’ and ‘as values’.
• Paste Values – If a formula has been applied to a cell/series of cells then sometimes it is hard to move and manipulate this data without getting the dreaded ‘#value’ appearing, paste values does exactly what it says on the tin and pastes the values produced by the formula enabling you to manipulate the data further. This is probably one of my most used functions in Excel as a data analyst (hence why it is on the far left-hand side of my toolbar).
• PivotTable – Creating PivotTable’s is an incredibly powerful way of looking at data in detail, however this could take an entire blog post in itself, so I’ll leave it at this for the sake of this guide.
• Print Titles – Ever printed an Excel spreadsheet and never known what order the pages should go in? Print Titles repeats a defined row (usually the header row) at the top of each page.
• Remove Duplicates – A simple but useful tool that removes all duplicated cells based on what define as a ‘duplicate’ this could be just a single primary key field/column (e.g. keyword in a list of keywords for SEO) or all columns. Becuase of this, it is a very useful tool when creating spreadsheets for Keyword Research in SEO.
• Save As – Although save is ‘control + s’, if you use Excel in a professional context, it is always useful to save multiple versions.
• Save As Other Format – As above, but this allows you to save your document in other formats [obviously...].
• Sort – Another very useful tool as an analyst, allows you to quickly sort your data based on your desired condition.
• Sort Ascending – The same as the above, however I use this more for SEO and quickly sorting the low traffic terms.
• Sort Descending – The same as the above, however I use this more for SEO and quickly sorting those high traffic terms.
• Top Align – Not useful for much more than making your data more readable, but still used a lot by me.
• Wrap Text – Have you typed too much in a column and now can’t read it without adjusting the format? Just wrap the text and you won’t have to go resizing all your columns.

I prefer to have the Quick Access Toolbar below the Ribbon, to do this select the check box on the bottom left of the window before pressing OK.

Also, now is when I take the time to arrange the Toolbar positioning the commands next to other relevant commands and ordering them based on how regularly I use each of them, below is the outline of how I assign my commands [I advise you take some time adjusting these according to your preferences]:

As I stated before, customising your toolbar is a very personal thing most probably based on your level of expertise and use of Excel but hopefully this guide has opened up your eyes to some of the powerful features it can be used for and made your life a bit easier…

I hail from the Midlands, a little place called Leamington Spa (you’ve probably been through it on the train, everyone always tells me that…). Although I loved growing up there, I realised that I was born for city living (and the North!) when I moved to Manchester to start my degree in International Business. I graduated earlier this month and during my degree spent a years work placement working as the Marketing Assistant in the European Theatrical Department at Warner Bros in London. My role at WB involved in a variety of campaigns involving traditional media and new media including display advertising, Mobile advertising, Xbox 360 based advertising, Twitter integration and helping to introduce SEO into their marketing campaigns; most of which were on a pan-European basis. I didn’t realise that marketing was the career path that I was going to pursue (I actually went for the job because I’m a big film geek) but after getting immersed into the marketing world I realised that it was for me. Being pretty techy and having been a geek for quite a while, the natural progression for me was into SEO and digital marketing.

I’m really excited about starting at PushON and learning everything that I can from a great award winning agency. The guys have done everything to make me fit right in and have been really welcoming already, thanks! If you want to get in contact with me or simply listen to me ramble about digital marketing, and whatever I’m feeling like that day, you can find me on LinkedIn here, follow me on Twitter @NedPoulter, or chase me around Manchester on FourSquare here.

Here are the resulting diagrams, the presentation and the PowerPoint source file.

Feel free to re-use/re-brand.

(Click to enlarge)

Search engine results

SEO versus PPC

SEO Breakdown

SEO process

SEO Example tasks

Reasons to work on ongoing SEO

PPC process

PPC structure

Making the most of PPC

The PushON team winning the Best Use of Search Award

This is something of a slightly belated post, but you know, sometimes “stuff” gets in the way. The “stuff” in question being launching a few websites, the start of the World Cup and an almighty hangover. But to get to the point, last week we won the Big Chip Award for the “Best Use of Search” for the second year running. Not an easy feat if you consider there is a lot of very fine competition in the area. The client in question is Love Those Shoes. The campaign covered a lot of ground and drew on a wide range of skills. Love Those Shoes have a lot of excellent resource in-house and were already trading successfully online. They just wanted help generating better results. The campaign involved technical assistance,  keyword research, conversion analysis and hefty dose of social media. I guess this is an ideal case study as to how an online marketing campaign really should be applied, there is no “one size fits all”. It is a campaign that fit the client like glove. Special mention should go to Sam who ran this campaign immaculately. Three years running? Why not…..

Originally from Blackburn, I managed to escape to Manchester Metropolitan University and graduated in 2009. Since then I’ve been working for a small agency in another varied role encompassing client management, social media and anything else that needed doing.

My huge downfall is where my sporting allegiances lay. I am a season ticket holder at Blackburn Rovers and spend most of my free time re-watching the 94/95 season review.

I’m extremely excited to get started at PushON and am looking forward to learning all things SEO from an award winning company. Thanks to the team for making me so welcome. If you would like to follow my ramblings on a regular basis, you can do so @Jordan_Wilson.

We’re ecstatic because today we’ve been shortlisted for two projects in the ‘Best Use of Search’ category in the prestigious Big Chip Awards. This is a category that we have very strong feelings for, firstly, because it’s our core service, and secondly because we’ve been in the shortlist for the past two years, and won the award last year.

Our entries for this category include the search marketing campaigns for Love Those Shoes, a Stockport based online shoe retailer, and The UK Wedding Shows, who hold wedding shows throughout the country.

We’ve also had a hand in two other entries; one being the Hyundai 30 Beats video campaign which was a joint entry with Brazen, and has been shortlisted for Best Digital Marketing Campaign, and the other was a collaboration with a number of agencies for Creative Tourist (under Manchester Museum Consortium), which has been shortlisted for Best On-line Brand Development.

Let’s hope we have the chance to improve upon last year’s shoddy acceptance speech, which consisted of a grand total of four words… yes, just four.

Big Chip Awards Last Year

]]> http://blog.pushon.co.uk/pushon-work/shortlisted-best-use-of-search-in-manchesters-big-chips/feed/ 0 http://blog.pushon.co.uk/pushon-work/pushon-expands-with-canal-boat-office/ http://blog.pushon.co.uk/pushon-work/pushon-expands-with-canal-boat-office/#comments Thu, 01 Apr 2010 09:00:15 +0000 Mark http://blog.pushon.co.uk/?p=1661 It’s been a busy old start to the year and with new members joining the team we have decided to expand our office space. Our web development team will be situated in our newly acquired canal boat office. The boat will remain moured for the majority of the year but will continue to be a fully functioning boat so that we can enjoy the odd trip or two.

It had become difficult to find suitable office space in the area as the team wanted something a little quirky. Well it doesn’t get much quirkier than a canal boat. The boat is still under renovation however it is set to house the customary PushON equipment such as a PS3, comfy sofas and a flat screen TV. Some areas are already complete, with each employee having their own individual desk.

We can’t wait to show our friends and clients the new office space that should be fully refurbished by next month. Keep an eye out for us in the canals of Manchester.

In this post I wanted to share some examples and discuss some optimisation techniques. The really simple implementations seem to work best with many approaches revolving around becoming a mayor. For example bars in America are offering free drinks to the mayor. It’s simple but effective as it gives many people a reason to revisit the bar.

Reviews

Some businesses have been using Foursquare to gain customer feedback. This approach can be extremely effective for businesses such as restaurants and makes use of the ‘to do’ list function on business profile pages. You will often see a task in a ‘to do’ list saying ‘share your feedback’. The information gathered from this could be potentially very valuable. It may highlight weaknesses or give you an insight into what your customers want. I have not seen any great implementations of this as of yet but if you come across any please do share them with us.

The Points System

Foursquare makes use of a point system where users are awarded points for checking in to different locations. Some businesses have been encouraging users to achieve certain scores. For each point they obtain a monetary value is assigned. At the end of the campaign run by the business the proceeds will be given to charity. This would appeal to users as they feel they are doing a good deed and enhance the company’s reputation.

Big Brands Using Four Square

Some of the world’s largest brands have been tripping over themselves to get in on the Fouraquare action. Some of the big players include:
HBO
Pepsi
Metro News

Local Search and Foursquare

Local search has become big business and anyone in SEO will know the value of it. At Think Visibility (which we attended last weekend) Tom Critchlow gave a great talk on local search. He highlighted the importance of getting a good number of citations and reviews. There are many places in which you can do this and Foursquare profile pages could be a possible location. The profile pages get indexed and you can list your address in the correct format on there. I have not had chance to test the value of it but it’s worth having there from a business stand point.

At PushON we have started implementing Foursquare profiles for some of our clients which include an umbrella company, a shoe retailer and much more.

Don’t forget to take a look at our profile page and if you come to visit check in with us. Our page can be found below.
PushON Foursquare

Sat in a cinema, at a casino was a first for me. In fact, sitting in a casino is a first for me… and not to mention, sitting in a cinema, in a casino, watching an eye tracking presentation is a first for me.

So the guy stands there and put a video on with an orange dot flying around all over the screen. He wasn’t talking much and the cinema was fairly empty… a fairly dull situation really. But alas, what I am looking at is the eyes movements around a website. What amazes me is how fast we look from item to item… I was always under the impression that my eyes waded from item to item, rather than flying around at a Mach level that even astronauts would struggle to achieve. The other thing that fascinated me is how little we actually read.

When you’re browsing the website, more re to the point, when I’m browsing a website, I tend to scan read everything while saying “yeah, i read that”… but it would seem I am not alone! We scan over web content at such a great rate, milliseconds become very important. You don’t want to waste any of the visitors time, and make sure you get all your USPs to the users eye as quickly and as clearly as possible.

A good example, and probably one of the better things I took from the presentation was that if one has a strong, bold navigation system, and then a call to action underneath the navigation, chances are the users will not see your call to action, despite it being right in front of them. It’s almost like we have an inability to take in lots of key items all at once and we automatically filter out thing we consider to be “junk”. As Roy said on the IT crowd once, we have automatic filters!

To summarise, I already knew that the hierachy of elements on the page will greatly influence your CTR and what your visitors will target, however it was great to actually see it with your own eyes. I definitely recommend taking a look at Eye Tracking sometime, however I do not consider it to be a defintive answer to what users are drawn to on your site as test/research situations can vary from reality.

The PET Research Advisor Company brief was to design and develop a website that helps promote Positron Emission Tomography (PET). It’s not an area we are too familiar with but it’s provided an exciting and challenging project for us. We decided to go with Wordpress for the build as it is SEO friendly and the endless plugins provide the extra functionality we required. Clean and simple design principles were used on the project as the emphasis needed to be on highlighting the high level content.

Terry of THE PRA had this to say about the build:

Especially important was the tutoring provided by PushON to allow the client to painlessly load material onto and edit the draft Web Sites. This provided for a very efficient and creative collaborative exercise

For the Smoke Free North West project PushON were asked to rebuild an existing site in Wordpress. This would help make the site more search engine friendly and provide a functional CMS for staff members to use.

Smoke Free North West is funded by all 24 NHS primary care trusts in the North West and aims to provide a tobacco free future for people in the region. The site provides an authoritative resource on the effects of tobacco and how to quit smoking.

We were pretty excited to be working on such projects and we are currently in the development process for a number of other key new websites. We will keep you updated on those but please share your comments with us on the new sites.