Cycling to our office just got better
On July 30th, 2010 Rachel wrote on the subject of Company News,Datadial.
We’re a very healthy and environmentally concious bunch here at Datadial – 7 out of the 10 of us that work from the office are commuting cyclists. So we now have our very own dedicated Datadial Bicycle stand right outside the office!
If you are coming in for a meeting and are cycling distance, please feel free to bring your bike and park it here, there’s plenty of room 
Datadial Launch Their Reputation Monitoring Tool
On December 2nd, 2009 Matt wrote on the subject of Company News,Reputation Management.
Datadial are pleased to announce the launch of their online reputation monitoring tool. Designed for business and agencies that wish to monitor the online profiles of their brand, products, key staff and competitors.
We have designed the user interface to be as intuitive as possible, with an emphasis on speed of use and productivity, while at the same time a feature-rich interface gives in-depth data about the source of mentions and enables you to tag, comment or share mentions for further action.
- This service should be seen as part of any effective online marketing strategy.
- You will be able to track and measure what is being said.
- Armed with this information you will be able to see the effectiveness of your campaigns, gain customer insight, learn how your brand, products and services are being perceived and also join in the conversation and, if necessary, react to any adverse publicity.
- The results will help you with planning for future campaigns, enabling fine-tuning and therefore saving you money.
At this point the software is still at a beta stage, so we are inviting as much user feedback and suggestions as possible on design and functionality. Signup to track one phrase is free, so please go here to signup for an account.
A New Arrival!
On November 30th, 2009 Lindy wrote on the subject of Company News.
As a fresh face in the buzzing Datadial office, I think it’s time for some introductions – I’m Lindy Holman, I’ve just come from an in-house e-Marketing role, and have a range of experience in marketing and PR, both traditional and online.
A little about me: originally hailing from Australia, I can’t get enough of the great outdoors and playing sport (but no, not cricket!) I also enjoy exploring the UK countryside and have a notable fondness for chocolate, mulled wine and Christmas time.
I’ll be involved in SEO, search marketing, social media and development with Datadial and I’m looking forward to meeting and building a long (and very happy) relationship with my clients!
If you’re on Twitter, feel free to add me to keep in touch! My username is LindyHolman
The differences between Helvetica and Arial
On September 29th, 2009 Rachel wrote on the subject of Company News,Design.
Thank you to Steff for passing on this lovely graphic illustrating the differences between Helvetica and Arial.
Epic 2015
On May 20th, 2009 Matt wrote on the subject of Company News.
I’ve just returned from a frantic couple of days at SMX London. As usual there were some really great discussions on the current trends in search marketing, SEO and Social Media. Many of these made more sense in the bar afterwards for some reason. There will be a complete roundup of the best tips coming over the next couple of days.
In the meantime I really wanted to post a video that Ciaran Norris from Altogether Digital showed during his session – “Old Or New – The Future Of Media” Slideshare here
Certainly the most thought-provoking session of the day for me, the original version of this was made in 2005, and it’s scary to think how close to reality many of the events and prediction in the short actually are, and how many aren’t too far from reality.
4 Stars For Datadial
On February 4th, 2009 Matt wrote on the subject of Company News.
We’re generally fairly publicity shy so it was a great fillip this week to learn that one our recent website builds – Yapp Wine Merchants was awarded “best new website” by Web User Magazine.
The pleasure was all the greater given that no PR effort had been made to get a write up.
“Wine merchant Yapp Brothers is celebrating its 40th year in the business with a suitably swish revamp of it’s online home. The fresh design combines a stylish layout with a pleasantly personal tone, and offers several useful new features. These include an ‘easy wine selector’, which makes selections based on the colour, style, grape and price of your choice, and a food-and-wine matching facility that tells you which tipple goes best with specific meals.
Yapp Brothers specialises in wines from the Rhone, Loire, and Provence regions, many of which you won’t find anywhere else, and sells a great deal more besides”
Not sure what we had to do to get 5 stars 
Quick links to the Yapp website
Food and wine matcher
Easy Wine Search
New E-commerce launch – www.Yapp.co.uk
On November 10th, 2008 Rob wrote on the subject of Company News,Datadial Designs,E-commerce.
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We took a dogs dinner of an old website and transformed it into a work of art that converts users to buyers. As always the project was delivered on time and on budget.
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Design
Yapp Wine Merchants website now has a fresh, modern design, packed with tools to help you find the wine you need. It is unfrightening and designed to cater to Yapps broad user base. We’ve made searching for wine fun and easy whilst retaining Yapp’s connoiseur edge.
Usability
Everyone has their own ways of looking for wine so we implemented 4 ways to navigate the site:
- The Easy Wine selector uses dynamic searching
Watch your search results change dynamically with easy to use search sliders. Have a play. The great advantage of this is that it all happens on one page with no hopping backwards and forwards to and from search results. - The Food and Wine selector allows you to search for wine by Food Type by clicking on images of different food types. This is not rocket science but is dis-armingly useful.
- Advanced Search - for those who really know what they are after.
Search by Regional maps - “You recently looked at”
Isn’t it annoying when you look at lots of different items and then have to re-find them by re-doing the searches. Well we eliminated this problem with the “You recently looked at section” so you dont have to re-do previous searches. - Tell a friend / Bookmark tools
Not strictly a navigation tool but so simple and effective. How else can you let your loved one know what you want for Christmas? Simply post your choices to your Facebook page and invite others to have a look.
Search engine friendly
As always with Datadial, the site is built to be search engine friendly
All pages from the old site have been redirected to the relevant new pages.
The site uses Friendly URLs so http://www.yapp.co.uk/Wine-List/Rhone-South/Chateauneuf-du-Pape/ instead of
http://www.yapp.co.uk/?catid=6/?type=3/desc?=12/
Technology
Integrated stock control – the site is integrated to draw stock levels from Sage accounts.
The site is fully content managed, giving Yapp control over all aspects of the site including creating offers, mixed case offers and product information.
The site is also integrated with Datadial’s email marketing system.
We Are Recruiting! Looking For A .NET developer
On October 21st, 2008 Rob wrote on the subject of Company News.
Yes, yet again we are recruiting for a .net developer. Do you know any super geeks or just normal people who would love to work in an expanding web development agency, who can think on their feet and work tirelessly from morning to nightfall and beyond. More details about the role are on our main site
Its always nice to get some feedback
On October 20th, 2008 Matt wrote on the subject of Company News.
Its always nice when a client emails to tell you how things are going. I have removed the clients details to ensure their website visitor numbers remain confidential.
September site report summary
Bumper Month with record number of Site visits and Page views
Total business
During September 08 we had 141,000 visits to our 4 sites which is the largest ever in one month. It is also a 91% increase on September 07!
During September 08 we also had 430,000 page views which, again, was a record and was a 62% increase year on year.xxxxx.co.uk had 93,000 visits in September 08 – the biggest ever – beating the previous record of 77,000 which we got in July this year. Year on year we have doubled the number of people visiting the site.
Looking at page views we had 273,000, another record and 57% up on Sep 2007.
We also had 1,600 new registrations in the month which is the largest monthly figure, outside of a period where were spending money to generate new members.xxxxxx.co.uk had 44,000 visits in September 08 – the biggest ever – beating the previous record of 35,000 which we got in March this year. Year on year we have increased the number of people visiting the site by 91%.
Looking at page views we had 129,000, another record and 59% up on Sep 2007
We also had 1,390 new registrations in the month which is the largest monthly figure, outside of a period where were spending money to generate new members.
With this particular client one of the largest problems was the size of the sites, running into the tens of thousands of pages. Initially we concentrated on the site structure, making sure that the page optimisation was good as possible – ensuring each page had unique page titles and meta data, improving the page structure, URL formats and internal navigation.
Once we were happy that the site would rank as high as possible we concentrated on ensuring all of the pages were indexed and raising the overall profile of the site through an ongoing like development program. The client was very easy to work with during this entire process, taking information on-board and acting on our recommendations – of course now they’re benefitting from the results!
New recruit to Online marketing team
On October 7th, 2008 Rob wrote on the subject of Company News.
I am pleased to announce the arrival of Adam Miller. Adam will join our growing online marketing team. Adam was head and shoulders above other interviewees for this position. He showed passion for the subject area, an ability to communicate in clear english,  and he has a string of projects already under his belt that demonstrate his ability in promoting sites online. I am confident that our clients will be well looked after by him.