Today, June 10th 2014, sees the launch of a new domain for UK customers. The ‘.uk’ domain name is now available and will prove an additional benefit for people searching for online businesses or retailers specifically in the UK. Plus it leads to shorter domain names as a whole!

We are very pleased to announce that, as Google Partners Ziontech now have three certified individuals! After passing the Fundamentals Exam back in February, last week Steph went on to pass the Search Advanced Exam, with a score of 83%. She is now the third certified member of the Ziontech team, along with Rachel and Tim. To become a qualified individual you need to pass two of the Google Adwords exams, the fundamentals exam and one of two advanced exams. Steph, Rachel and Tim have all taken and passed the Fundamentals and Search Advanced Exam with Tim also having passed the Display Advertising Exam.

Here at Ziontech, we have recently been reviewing the traffic and performance of our client’s websites. The most interesting thing we noticed in doing this review was the massive increase we saw in mobile traffic to these websites. Over the past few years the percentage of people using mobile devices as opposed to desktop computers to browse the web has risen by a significant amount and is continuing to rise. This was also reflected in our review, every single website saw an increase in the amount people viewing it on a mobile device some with mobile traffic taking up a large percentage of the website’s overall traffic, with an enormous increase of more than 100% over the past year!

Here at Ziontech, we have just finished producing our first Apple Newsstand App for Token Publishing. Token Publishing are publishers of Coin News, Britain’s best selling coin magazine and Medal News,the world’s only magazine devoted to medals, battles and the history of heroes.

Good news! Here at Ziontech we have just had another member of staff take and successfully pass the Google Advertising Fundamentals Exam. This exam covers basic aspects of AdWords and online advertising including account management and the value of search advertising. In order to pass the exam you have to answer 90 questions achieving at least 85%. Earlier this week Steph took the exam and passed first time with 91%! Both Tim and Rachel have also passed this exam along with the two advanced advertising exams. In order to become certified Steph will need to go on to pass one of these two advanced exams.

Once again it’s that festive time of year! 2013 is coming to an end and Christmas seems to be approaching quicker and quicker every year with less than a week to go!

As a result of Ziontech becoming Google Partners and attending an advanced AdWords training day, we were made aware of the Google Ad Grants scheme. Google are offering charities $10,000 per month in in-kind AdWords advertising, to promote their missions and initiatives. In order to be eligible for this $120,000 a year of free advertising a charity simply needs to adhere to a few simple requirements such as holding a current and valid charity status and having a functioning website with substantial content.

Google Partners are online marketing companies, trusted by Google. Google have recently restructured the way in which a company achieves this status. There are no longer Google Certified Professionals and the criteria for becoming a Google Partner is a lot stricter. They take a look at the campaigns you currently run for your clients and decide whether you are eligible to become a Google Partner. Only one third of the previous Google Certified Professionals have become Google Partners and we are pleased to announce Ziontech are officially Google Partners!

Once again it’s exam time here at Ziontech. Tim and Rachel have retaken and passed their exams in order for us to continue to be a Google Certified Partner. Partners stay up to date on the latest Google tools and products by passing Google-administered certification exams every 18 months. In order to become certified, Tim and Rachel had to pass both the Google Advertising Fundamentals exam as well as one of the three advanced exams.

Do you remember 2003?