If you’ve still got some Christmas cheer left in you then you should check out the Decca Christmas takeover that Evoluted put together in December.

I hope everyone is having a cracking Christmas break!

At Evoluted we’ve recently been advertising for a couple of new web developer positions and the range of responses has been surprising – some good, some bad, some very, very bad.

As this was at the front of my mind I thought I’d write a few tips on how to maximise your chances of getting to the interview stage:

1. Be polite

This is more of a rule for life but even more so when talking to potential employers. It’s amazing how many people fall down by being rude.

2 Make your CV look good

Your CV is the most crucial tool you have to get you into the must interview pile. Spend some time your CV, format it well and give it some structure.

3. Keep your CV relevant

Make sure your CV is relevant to the position you’re applying for. No one cares that you had 10 bar jobs when you were younger, unless it’s some way relevant to writing code?

4. Don’t apply for all the open positions

If a company has multiple different vacancies then don’t apply to them all, unless you’re actually suited to each one. If you do apply to more than one vacancy at the same company then spend some time on each application, write separate covering letters and highlight why you’re applying for each job.

5. Send examples of your previous work

No one would hire a designer without seeing their portfolio, the same should apply for web developers. Send in examples of your code, indicate which parts you were responsible for and explain any intricate parts. Although if you do send code in then make sure it validates / compiles!

6. Follow up on your application

If you’ve not heard anything about your application then follow up after a week. Find out when the company is planning on holding interviews. Showing a keen interest makes you look like you’re on the ball.

The iPhone is a powerful piece of technology, that’s not the first time you’ve heard such a statement and it won’t be the last. The iPhone is undoubtably here to stay especially since it has become ubiquitous. Over the last week whilst travelling in Iceland I’ve seen more iPhones than any other kind of phone.

Now for the point of this iPhone loving post. Over the past couple of months we’ve been developing our first iPhone application at Evoluted for the hugely successful Crossword Solver site. The application we’ve developed is pretty straight forward in principle, it simply allows you to take the power of the Crossword Solver with you wherever you go. With such a simple premise I’m sure the application will be a hit.

The iPhone application was published last week and racked up it’s first sale in a matter of hours. Please take a look at the Crossword Solver application in iTunes (hint: you’ll need iTunes for this link to work).

When I return to work tomorrow one of my first jobs is to start promoting our new iPhone application to our users. Thankfully we know that the site has a loyal userbase already using their iPhone to solve clues which will make my job easier!

I wrote this post using Wordpress for the iPhone whilst sat in departures at Keflavik airport, Iceland.

This week saw the official launch of a new service from Evoluted designed to help you track your website’s position in all the major search engines – SEO Tracking. The project has been a joy to work on as I honestly believe it’s a useful product, something that will make site owners lives much easier.

The hardest part of the project has been deciding a name for the service; we toyed about with loads of variants:

• search engine tracking
• search engine tracker
• website position checker
• search engine ranking
• website position tracker
• seo tracker
• seo tracking
• website ranking checker
• search engine placement tracking

Normally we’d choose a great sounding name with an eye on what keywords are really popular in the search engines. However in this field the most popular keywords crossover with the actual SEO market, something at this stage we don’t want to be confused with. So after much debate we went with SEOTracking.net, a great sounding name easy to relay over the telephone or in conversations.

I’ll be updating more in the coming months to keep everyone updated with status of SEOTracking.net so make sure you check back.

Please head over to SEOTracking.net and take a look around. I’d love to hear any questions or points so please feel free to comment!

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When we started the Crossword Solver website back in early 2007 we didn’t really expect it to become the huge success that it is today. In fact the initial version of the site took less than 2 days to fully build. Now it is 2 years later and each month the site has just over 400,000 visitors who generate 4 million page views.

We knew from the beginning that Google would be the provider for the majority of the site’s traffic so we began optimising the site and with time we achieved a #1 ranking in Google.

In order to achieve our #1 ranking we followed were some very simple on page optimisation techniques:

1. Keyword Research
The first step in any optimisation campaign must be to research keywords, which have traffic, which don’t. Using tools such as Google Trends we quickly spotted that the most popular key phrase was “crossword solver”. If your site has a narrow focus Google Trends may not return data, in this case you can get good results using the keyword selector tool in Google Adwords.

2. Choose an Appropriate Domain
This optimisation technique has really caught on in the last 18 months as you see more and more keyword focused domain names. In our case with the Crossword Solver this meant a subtle change in the domain name we used. Previously we were running on crosswordcluesolver.com but we changed this to the slightly more focused crosswordsolver.org – a direct match for the most popular key phrase.

3. Semantic HTML & Header Tags
A pretty basic step but still crucial. Make sure your site is built using semantic HTML and has H1-H5 tags that clearly represent the page content and the keywords that you are trying to target.

4. Optimise Title Tags & META Tags
Similar to the previous step, you need relevant keywords in the title and META tags that describe your content and the keywords you are targeting. Personally I don’t stuff the title tag with keywords as many do as I prefer a clean, easy to ready entry on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS).

5. Optimise Page Copy
An obvious step but you’d be surprised how many fail at the easiest step. Your site’s copy must include the target keywords; otherwise you’re doing yourself a disservice.

6. Be patient – it will take a while
Once you’ve followed the above steps be prepared to wait to achieve real success. You should see a bump in the ranking of your site within a few weeks but it may be a gradual rise through the rankings to the #1 position.

Image by Ian Lloyd

Last week saw the launch of a project that’s taken place at Evoluted over the last 6 months and has really opened our eyes to the complexities of modern cars.

The site in question is for JBS Auto Designs who are VAG Performance Specialists. For those not in the know (like me) VAG is the Volkswagen Audi Group meaning they cover Audi, VW, Skoda and Seat.

The site has been through several revisions during the 6 month development and the administration area has been tuned throughout the process to make entering the 2700+ products as painless as possible for the JBS team.

That said, the range information required to add a product to the site is mind blogging especially for a none petrol head like me. There are over 140 engine choices, 90+ models and 180+ categories and that’s before you start entering the product name, pricing or description!

We all wish JBS the best of luck with their new e-commerce system but I suspect they won’t need it.

So now for the shameless plugging all this has been leading up to! Why don’t you check out the JBS Auto Designs site?

The motivating factor for us was the time spent in the design stage. Often we’d send over an initial set of ideas to the client who’d like the look and feel but request that a handful of new elements were added to the page. This led to a design bursting at the seams with elements crammed in until the original design stopped working. In these situations it would be better to throw the initial design away and start from scratch but due to time and budget restraints this didn’t always happen.

Wireframing sites has been a revelation, it’s such a quick process. Wireframing moves the burden of ensuring all the required elements are in the page from the designer who isn’t always in client meetings to the project manager. The speed at which we can create wireframes means that we now wireframe far more pages that we actually design in Photoshop. This helps the programmers as they no longer have to worry about layout on the additional pages. The wireframes also act as a sort of functional specification; the site’s functionality must include everything that is on the wireframes. Wireframes are also far easier to comprehend meaning our developers spend less timing trawling through long written specifications.

The outcome of this is that we’ve started to use a program called Balsamiq Mockups to create wireframes for every project we’re involved in on the design side. Balsamiq Mockups is a great little tool that makes wireframing effortless, and the best part is that it shows the wireframes for what they really are – sketches to show layout not design style.

It has been a busy few weeks at Evoluted, we’ve got a number of sites ready to launch this month and we’ve already launched two cracking sites which we hope will go far:

• Sheffield Best Bar None a site to promote and encourage the responsible management of licensed premises in order to reduce the risk of alcohol related harm, disorder and crime within the City Centre
• Car Mat Supermarket, a new site for an existing client which as the name suggests sells tailored car mats for a huge range of make & models.

Check the two sites above out, and perhaps even get yourself some new car mats whilst you’re there!

At Evoluted, we’re always excited to work on creative projects for big, international clients – and they don’t come much bigger than Polydor Records and hip hop phenomenon Eminem.

Following the success of our ‘Quagmire It!’ Family Guy site, Polydor commissioned us to create a similar site to promote Eminem’s new album Relapse, which is set for release on Monday 18th May.

The E-Lapse site converts any website into a unique Eminem browsing experience, complete with preview tracks, Eminem-styled text and links to pre-order the new album.

Polydor, who are part of Universal Records, were impressed by the innovative concept and technology that we contributed to the Relapse album launch.

Digital Campaign Manager Aaron Bogucki said:

“Our aim with Eminem was to change the fan’s browsing experience, to turn every website into an Eminem marketing experience. Through E-Lapse, Evoluted made this happen. They’re definitely a development team we can rely on.”

Evoluted’s Managing Director Ash Young was equally pleased with how the project turned out.

“It’s great to be marketing one of the world’s biggest recording artists, for a world-leading record label. Even better, we were thrilled to be able to create a fun and original experience for Eminem’s fans. Getting customers involved in a product, rather than just telling them about it, is what today’s marketing is all about.”

To find out more about Evoluted’s innovative web marketing solutions, and how we can help you engage customers in exciting new ways, visit www.evoluted.net or call us on 0845 638 3148.

Visit E-Lapse – www.e-lapse.net

I always find it pleasurable to work at both ends of the scale from massive content managed websites right down to small brochure sites. No matter the project you’ll find yourself learning something new each time.