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Job Vacancy: Rails Development Team Leader

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Wordtracker is a search marketing company that specialises in helping people get more traffic to their websites.

We're a well-known company, with a strong brand and a worldwide client-base. We are a self-sustaining business which has been running successfully for over 10 years – without a need for VC funding.

We have an opportunity for a Ruby on Rails team leader to join on a permanent basis. You will be looking for an opportunity to use your extensive programming and management experience to develop world beating Ruby on Rails web applications.  

It is important you want to work in a small, fast moving team where you feel there's a point to you turning up in the morning. Your first task will be to expand our team by hiring two more developers, making a team of seven.

Software is at the heart of the company. We work on interesting, challenging problems using Agile methodologies. We work in two week iterations, estimating in ideal days, TDD and we're careful about the quality of our code. Each of our subscription products has its own internal customer with whom the developers work closely to develop new features and plan the future of the tools.

Ruby and Rails are key technologies for this role. We have three Rails 3 apps in production and we're using technologies such as Resque, CoffeeScript and Sphinx. Our main keywords tool runs over 10,000 searches a day and our production infrastructure is spread over 14 machines. 

Most of our test code is written in test-unit with Shoulda and Mocha but we have some RSpec tests too. We also have some PHP code in production – skills in those technologies would be a definite plus. We use MySQL (with Sphinx) for data storage and git for our versioning. Views are rendered with Haml. Front end skills – jQuery, Javascript, Html, Sass, CSS are also important.

Key skills for this role are:

  • A pragmatic approach to software development
  • Experience of recruiting and managing a development team using genuine Agile methodologies
  • Working with internal customers to estimate stories
  • Generalist – knowledge of whole web stack including systems engineering, web server, database, programming, front end.
  • Appreciation of test driven development
  • An entrepreneurial attitude

At Wordtracker we offer a great company culture. You will be based in a modern open-plan office – with exposed brickwork, lots of space and plenty of natural light – in north London (Kentish Town, about five minutes walk from the tube).

We work in a pretty casual environment with flexible working hours. The working day starts at 9.30am and we have standup every morning at 10am. Our lunch on Fridays is provided from a local organic cafe. Of course, there's always plenty of fruit and snacks in the office, a holiday allowance of 23 days a year and a contributory pension scheme. You'll be given a Macbook Pro to work on, with a 24 inch monitor.

Salary: dependent on experience

If you feel you have what it takes to make this role a success please send your CV along with answers to the following questions to justin@wordtracker.com by 20th February.

  • What open source projects/libraries have you contributed to? Please provide links/details/source code.
  • What is your current approach to testing a complete web application stack including client-side code? Where would you focus most of your testing effort?

Wordtracker Blog

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Are The Waves Wrong On The Hertz Google Logo?

Today on Google’s home page is a special logo for Heinrich Rudolf Hertz. Hertz was born a 155 years ago and Google wanted people to remember him and his contributions to the world.

Here is the logo:

It is basically an animated gif.

The wave logo represents electromagnetic waves…




Search Engine Roundtable

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New Social Study: Men Get Personal, Women Talk Shop

Women may be tops when it comes to communicating but online, they’re more careful about what they say and to whom.

A new study from UK company uSamp shows that overall, men were more apt to share personal information online, topping women in every area except one – brand’s liked.

78% of the UK women surveyed said they’d be happy to share information about what they buy and even 74% of men said they’d share that info, too.

One of the biggest gaps between “I’d share” and “I wouldn’t” was date of birth. 55% of men said they’d share their birth date but only 45% of women were willing to admit how old they were.

Men were also much more willing to share their phone number online, 12% vs only 4% of women.

The phone number, like the home address are security issues. But income was another taboo subject with men coming in the highest at only 10%.

The big surprise? 70% of women were happy to share their relationship status. Men actually topped that number with 73%. The survey didn’t say, but I wonder how many of those men were married.

Education and occupation were too other bits of info that scored high on the “happy to share” scale.

The survey doesn’t only relate to public, social sharing. It can be inferred that folks feel the same way about sharing this information with websites and retailers. Keep this in mind when you’re putting together your registration screen and profile pages. More and more sites are making a phone number a required box and that’s likely to drive away customers. Feel free to ask for the moon, but don’t require your potential customers to give out more info than you really need to service them properly.

Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!



Marketing Pilgrim – Internet News and Opinion

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How To Find Link Prospects Without Using Google

I’m obsessed with Google. (I mean, you kind of have to be if you’re in this industry.) But sometimes, you need a break from the hand that feeds. There’s no denying the power of advanced search queries, but you’d be surprised how many other and different prospects you can…



Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.




Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing

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Public Relations: 5 tactics for getting your message to the media

In a recent B2B newsletter article, e Commtouch marketing team leveraged its internal subject matter experts to create valuable content and grab the attention of traditional media and influential bloggers in its field. Read on for Commtouch’s Rebecca Steinberg Herson’s five actionable tactics for getting your content marketing material out into the wild.
Marketingsherpa Blog

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Daily Search Forum Recap: February 20, 2012

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today…




Search Engine Roundtable

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AdCenter Revamps Location Targeting To Mimic AdWords

Microsoft adCenter is making changes to its location targeting functionality that will bring it into line with the industry standard Google AdWords. Now, the “market” (distribution channel) will no longer be available as a targeting option. It will be replaced by “language”…



Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.




Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing

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Mobile Marketing: Get your audience’s attention – wait till they’re bored

As a culture, we are rarely separated from our mobile phones. So R.J. Talyor, Director of Product Marketing, ExactTarget, suggests that marketers try targeting “granular moments,” or specific situations the audience encounters. Read on for two examples.
Marketingsherpa Blog

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6 Compelling Reasons You Should Use Pinterest for Marketing

pinterest for businessintroductory3

Just recently, Pinterest hit more than 10 million unique visitors, making it one of the fastest growing websites ever. In the past six months, visits to Pinterest grew by 4,000%, receiving 11 million hits in just one week.

Despite its rapid adoption, I often hear, “I don’t get Pinterest,” or “It’s only useful when planning a wedding.” I hear you, and I felt the same way.

But let me tell you something. Pinterest is ridiculously simple, and it can make a big impact on your business. I’m not saying this for the sake of jumping on the bandwagon. It’s not “just another social media site.” This one is different. Pinterest is doing a great job of driving traffic, leads, and sales.

Here are 5 great reasons your business should start using Pinterest for marketing now:

1. Pinterest Converts More Browsers Into Buyers

What’s unique about Pinterest compared to most social media websites, is that it reduces the number of steps from discovery to conversion. This means that visitors from Pinterest convert into leads or sales faster than from other social media sources.

Take Twitter, for example. If a user sees a tweet regarding a product, it’s less likely that a user will buy that product from just one tweet — unless maybe when it’s celebrity-endorsed. Willing to fork over $ 10k for a Kim Kardashian-sponsored tweet? I didn’t think so.

Josh Davis of LLsocial.com clearly explains the workings of Pinterest buying behavior:

“For retailers, the path to purchase from a social network is no more direct than on Pinterest. ‘See it, like it, buy it’ happens frequently … Even in cases where the path to purchase is not as direct, rarely do you have a social network where linking to for-sale items is done so frequently. You have clear social proof of the desire for the item, you see a picture of it, and you are only one or two clicks away from being on an ecommerce site.”

This is a dream come true for businesses. Pinterest helps increase conversion rates and reduce sales cycles. Who doesn’t love that?

2. Pinterest Drives Tons of Traffic

Ten million unique views is not chump change. That’s a lot for any website, but it’s especially noteworthy for one so new. If you rely on your website to fuel your sales and marketing, you need to generate traffic in order to increase leads or sales. Pinterest is a great tool for increasing links back to your website, thus driving more traffic.

In fact, early research indicates that Pinterest is more effective at steering traffic back to a website compared to other social media sites, even Facebook. Josh Davis includes some interesting stats on his blog:

  • Pinterest is now driving more traffic to the Real Simple website than Facebook is.
  • Warbly Parker, the hip but inexpensive eye glass retailer, reports that 11% of its social traffic is coming from Pinterest. 18% is coming from Twitter.
  • Like many early bloggers, Kate Bryan managed a blog that was based around her interests, but it never generated many readers. She blogged about her professions of hairstyling and jewelry making, and also her craft projects. Hairstyles are extremely popular pins on Pinterest. Kate started pinning her own work and rapidly started generating traffic. In five months, she achieved over 14,000 new subscribers to her site as well as generating over one million page views from Pinterest.

We’ve even seen it here at HubSpot. Pinterest is already driving more referral traffic than Google+, and we’ve only just begun using it.

 Pintrest HubSpotBlog Traffic

3. Pins Get You More Inbound Links

As marketers, we love it when people share our content and link back to us.

What’s awesome about Pinterest is that every pin includes a link, leading back to the source of the image. “Links built through images are some of the best links you can acquire when it comes to actual engagement,” says John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing. About 95% of the images on Pinterest were either pinned or re-pinned from the web.

With Pinterest’s growing popularity, this could provide you with very valuable inbound links. While these are nofollow links, any link directing visitors back to your website is always beneficial.

Pintrest HubSpot Links

4. User Engagement Is Addictively High

I admit it: I’m addicted to Pinterest. It happened overnight, without warning. And this is coming from someone who, just a few weeks ago, didn’t think Pinterest was worth the time. And I’m not alone. I’ve heard the same from so many others. Even for those who deny it. Yes, I see your pins on Facebook! ;)

Pinterest users are far from passive. Case in point; I can’t not share stuff when I’m on Pinterest. John Jantsch states:

“Unlike many social sites, where the game is to get followers, Pinterest users seem very content to simply find stuff and share it with small groups. Pinterest users are keenly interested in what’s hot and what’s cool – a behavior that translates well into the kind of influencer marketers desire to attract.”

This is a good sign for businesses and retailers, because it means your pins are more likely to be seen, touched, or better yet, go viral. I believe the main reason for such high engagement is that it’s so easy to digest information on Pinterest merely because it’s visual. Scanning tons of images is easier and far more enjoyable than scanning hundreds of tweets, for example.

5. Pinterest Integrates With Your Website, Twitter Account, and Facebook Profile

What seems to be a critical factor to success for social media websites is connectivity. These sites can’t get away with being a silo, and Pinterest has identified that right out of the gate.

The site now connects with Facebook, according to a recent Open Graph announcement, enabling users to automatically post new pins to their Facebook news feed for others to see. This means more eyes from other channels get access to the images you post to Pinterest. That being said, for marketers, right now Pinterest only connects with Facebook profiles, not business pages, so there is no way for marketers to automatically share their pins to their Facebook pages. In order to do so, marketers must manually share the link to the pin on their business page.

However, if marketers sign up for Pinterest using the same email address used for their corporate Twitter account, they can automatically share the pins they post to their Twitter account.

Additionally, marketers can add a ‘Pin It’ button to their website and blog (similar to other social media sharing buttons). This makes pinning products or visual content for site visitors super easy.

6. Discover What Your Audience Loves

Pinterest is a great place to discover trends. From marketing to fashion and beyond, you can discover what people love to share. You can follow your followers to see what inspires them. This gives you an opportunity to understand what’s hot today and use that information to position your own offers and products. I would imagine that, down the line, Pinterest will eventually make it easy to see trending data in specific categories.

As Pinterest evolves, I’m sure there will be even more great reasons to get started on this fast-growing social network. Businesses are already receiving first-mover advantage in their industries by leveraging the platform to drive traffic, leads and sales. Just yesterday, I purchased clothing I found from pins posted by a women’s golf apparel line, and I never would have discovered them if that business wasn’t using Pinterest.

So, are you ready to get started? If so, learn how to use Pinterest for business using our brand new Pinterest ebook!

Image credit: Marqui

pinterest-ebook  

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HubSpot’s Inbound Internet Marketing Blog

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How To Successfully Dodge Failure As An Entrepreneur

Do you want to make your business fail proof regardless of how big your goals are or how big your challenges may be? Do you you want to make sure nothing stands between you and the goals you want to achieve as an entrepreneur?

I’m a business coach who for the last 10 years, has researched the science of successfully… Read the rest of this entry »

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

At Social Media Energy, we have a five-step process to develop your social media presence. Its not just about having a Facebook fan page or twitter account, but about having a voice within these social media outlets and maintaining a sense of purpose. Its not enough to just do it anymore, but doing it strategically and with reason. This is a fluid process that takes time and energy and is continuously evolving. Devoting proper resources to social media is essential today, let us help. Listen What are people currently saying about your company or brand? Is it what you want them to be saying? What kind of image do you have in the eyes of the consumer? Socialize – Collaborate with our Social Media Professionals to introduce or change your presence on Facebook, twitter, and YouTube. Respond to what people are saying about you. Find that sense of purpose and create a voice for your company that is both relevant to business goals and strategic in action. Reach Getting closer to the consumer shows your company is human and within reach for your audience. Maintaining this relationship shows your company or brand has experience and will create a community following. Change – Adapt. Be proactive in organizational transformation. Voice your business processes. Measure How is social media affecting ROI? In what areas do you need to step up or modify? Then, start all over and keep listening. Contact us TODAY: www.SocialMediaEnergy.com
Video Rating: 4 / 5

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