UPDATE JULY 2014: Google has now withrawn authorship photos from SERPs. We still recommend implementing authorship as results will still have a byline and your content will rank better for your Google+ connections.

Google have just announced that they are going to start showing author information in search results. This is great for author awareness and can help Google raise the rankings of pages written by authority figures. It is also great for SEO's who are worried that al the great content they are writing is getting ripped off or assigned to the wrong author!

Even better, Google are replacing 'rel=author' and 'rel=me' tags and are instead automatically linking your Google+ profile to content you have written. All you have to do now is add the URLs of the sites you write for to your Google+ profile, and then when scanning those sites, Google will attribute any posts with your author name to you. Then when those posts appear in search results they will come with a 'Written by' box including a link to your G+ page. It should end up looking like this:

So why the need for this new change when Google first announced author tags last year?

The way we shop is changing forever due to Mobile Apps. New technology is blurring the lines between traditional bricks and mortar shopping and internet shopping and making it more important than ever for businesses to embrace the mobile revolution.  A developer last  Wednesday uploaded the one millionth mobile app to the market.

There has always been the view that internet shopping will kill off high street shops as consumers prefer the ease of browsing, comparing and paying online. If that's the case then why have eBay opened a physical store in Soho? Why do Amazon feel the need to promote a price check app by giving discounts to users who view products in real life and then buy online from Amazon? Why has Waitrose filled its shop window with QR codes for John Lewis products? What prompted Ocado to open a virtual store in a busy London shopping mall?

New!Have customers download your content straight to their phone by creating an App for iPhones. iPhone App Training will allow you to create iOS5 apps from scratch. Having a user download your app onto their phone or tablet gives you a direct connection to customers that a traditional website lacks. 

Websites are still overwhelmingly aimed at desktop users using a mouse and keyboard. However mobile and tablet use is on the rise and touch screens are starting to replace desktops as the number one way to surf the web. Should web design be targeted at touch screen users?

Breaking all analysts' predictions, smartphone sales beat sales of PCs in 2010. In 2011 you can add in tablets, netbooks and laptops - the sales of touch-oriented devices has far surpassed traditional mouse and keyboard desktop systems.

As user habits change, so should developers - by ensuring they have up to date web design skills, and thinking about touch-device users when they design. Stay ahead of the trend by taking one of our Web Design Training Courses including the brand new Mobile Web Design Course which provides a best practice toolkit for creating mobile websites.

The boom in native mobile apps  - especially games - has led to the development of a wide range of innovative new touch gestures, and as the mobile web becomes more dominant, we will start to see a wider range of touch gestures employed in web sites, as well as in native apps.

In this post we take a closer look at how can web designers design effectively for touch-screen devices - and provide some useful resources...

As a professional web developer or hobbyist designer, there are always ways to make the coding work you do faster and more efficient. With that in mind, we've put together a list of the 10 most useful cheat sheets a developer can rely on - everything from HTML5 to MySQL.

Of course , if you're struggling with the basics, you could always come on our HTML5 & CSS3 Course to kick-start your developing career.

Last week, Google published updated guidelines for Mobile SEO, essentially that if your mobile site is configured incorrectly then you won't rank in mobile search results. In the wake of this announcement, SEO blogs have rushed to claim that if you don't have a mobile friendly site then you won't rank in mobile search results. Notice the difference?

How did they jump to this conclusion? Is it based on fact or fiction? In this post I'm going to take a look at how an SEO rumour gets started, and hopefully show that even respected industry bloggers can get things wrong sometimes.

By its very nature, SEO relies on the sharing of industry information. Those new to SEO or those without the time to test themselves rely on bloggers and industry experts to share their findings so they know what to spend their time on.

This word of mouth sharing is what makes things so interesting - you hear a titbit here and give it try, read an article there and experiment on your own site.

The problem is, this industry has a serious case of the Chinese Whispers.

What often begins as a harmless experiment or some words of advice can soon become "the next big thing" or a "shocking revelation".

And in an industry that, let's face it, has its fair share of navel gazers, when a rumour enters the mill, it gets ground up (or whatever it is mills do) for days and weeks on each and every SEO site, from the very best to the very worst.

Our SEO Workshop is based on facts, not rumours - we will teach you the latest trends but we'll also give you advice on sorting the truth from the guesswork.

Mobile SEO Ranking Factors

Take the latest Mobile SEO "revelation": a recent post on Google's Webmaster Central Blog outlining changes to Google's ranking of mobile sites.

These are pretty simple really: if you have a dedicated mobile site then make sure it is technically set up for mobile crawlers. If your site redirects mobile users to the wrong stuff (i.e. goes to the mobile site homepage instead of the article they want) you'll be devalued. If you serve up 404s instead of redirecting to a mobile friendly page, you'll be devalued.

Every new statistic confirms that Mobile search is on the rise, overtaking desktop search in some locations and niches. If you're not already looking into mobile search then you should be, especially as mobile search intent is usually very different to desktop intent - and this has strong implications for your search strategy.

Use the tips in this post to dive into your mobile search analytics to discover your existing mobile search traffic and begin to look for new opportunities moving forward. If you need help with SEO or Google Analtyics then take a look at our SEO courses which include Google Analytics training.

1/ Are Your Visitors Using Mobile Search?

The very first thing you should do is check what percentage of your visitors are using mobile, this should give you an indication of how much time you should put aside for mobile. However, don't forget that mobile is still on an upwards trend so your niche might be just about to explode onto mobile. You might also be providing a horrible mobile experience which will make returning visitors unlikely.

We set up a Mobile Search filter that allows us to dig into our data and find out more about our mobile searchers. Click the link to add the filter to your profile or set a new filter up as below. This Advanced Segment is your go-to for any mobile search related data.

There's no doubt that Word will around for a long time. It's taught in all schools and is the de facto software for Word Processing and document creation worldwide. However, InDesign has become more and more popular in businesses due to the desire to create more consistent and professional internal and external documents.

If you have ever tried to persuade your employees/co-workers/boss to switch to InDesign then you've probably been met with one or all the following:

I don't want to learn new software!

It's too complicated!

There's nothing wrong with Word!

I'm going to try and dispel these myths with 6 reasons why now is the right time to switch from Word to InDesign:

Your profile and cover photos on social media are an essential consideration when setting up your page but they're often one of the most neglected areas for trainees on our social media courses. They tend to be the first thing any visitor looks at and therefore are your chance to make a great first impression.

Getting the right image for each position and platform can be tough - there's no consistent size or rules that apply - which is why we decided to put together this handy guide to help you get the best images for each of your pages on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube.

There are two options for you to choose from, depending on your experience and understanding.

If you're a dab hand at Photoshop, we've created a set of social media cover photo templates for you to use. You can download all of them here and to use them, just follow the instructions below. We've also added graphics showing the dimensions for each so you can resize your images without using our templates.

Struggling with images for the web? Photoshop is an essential tool for web marketing and our Photoshop courses are perfect for getting to grips with resizing, cropping and saving images for the web.