5 Good Reasons to Write a Blog

Blogging and online article writing has been around since the late 1990’s in the form of diaries, personal journals and bulletin boards. Since then it has grown in stature and has become one of the most important ways for you and your company to gain healthy online exposure and engage with potential customers.

Making sure that you play an active part in writing good quality content and useful information should now act as an essential pillar of any marketing strategy, so here are our top 5 reasons to write a blog:

1) Good for SEO
Writing, posting and sharing good quality content is an excellent way to help your website’s SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Producing exciting material that is both relevant and engaging can be a powerful tool and search engines will reward you for it. Utilising your well-crafted content by inserting strategically placed ‘anchor text’ to link through to parts of your website or specific products can really help with you search engine rankings.

2) Gain More customers
You can use blog articles to reach out to new target audiences through avenues you had never thought possible as well as continually enthral existing customers with valuable information. Both of these benefits will ultimately draw in new or return customers and in turn generate more business. If it doesn’t achieve this immediately, don’t worry, as you will be ultimately leaving an ever increasingly large web of information that will improve your chances of realising this in the future.

3) Gives your company a voice
Even if you are not looking to gain hard sales as a result of sharing the blog articles you write, it will give you and your company a voice online. It is well worth airing your opinions and sharing useful information in the form of blog articles as users really do appreciate being provided with tips, tricks, advice, opinions, ideas and expertise. By producing regular and relevant content you it will also give you great brand exposure and kudos amongst many others that simple remain quiet.

4) Promotes Engagement
One of the most powerful elements of any Social Media channel is the ability to generate and promote engagement with total strangers. The ability to achieve this is far easier once you have built a bond through the use of quality blog articles. Great content can act as the catalyst to engagement.

5) Anyone Can do it
The beauty of article writing is that anyone can do it, yes, that’s right, anyone. You don’t need to be a professional content writer or an editor of a large magazine firm, you can simply start typing now! As long as you can type and have access to a keyboard you can start writing. Some of the best articles have been written from people that have had no past experience in content writing, but were just passionate about their subject matter. So what are you waiting for, get writing!

We at My Hosting Bubble are keen blog writers and we have seen huge benefits in continuing to release good quality, engaging articles in a subject that we are passionate in.

If you would like to know more about Social Media Marketing then please visit our site: www.myhostingbubble.com or get in touch with us.

6 Great Software Programs you’ll never see again

There has been some great software developed since the early 1990’s, many of which has paved the way for the amazing apps we see and use today. Unfortunately due to the increasingly aggressive timescales and development lifecycles of the digital marketplace many industry leaders have dropped by the wayside to make way for the dominant software players we see today.

Here are just 6 great software programs we’ll never see again, but really did carve out new and exciting niches in ways people hadn’t thought possible.

1. Netscape Navigator
Netscape Navigator dominated the web browser space throughout the mid-late 1990’s. Netscape Navigator 1.0 was launched on 15th December 1994 and the browser was the choice for millions before it lost its way during the late 1990’s, primarily due to the fact that Internet Explorer was starting to replace Netscape as people’s browser of choice.

2. Napster
Napster was an independent peer-to-peer file sharing service that focused on users being able to share music files (predominantly MP3s). It was launched in 1999 and went on to become a huge success before running into legal difficulties and ceasing to operate in the early-mid 2000’s.

3. Microsoft FrontPage
Microsoft FrontPage was one of the most successful website design and management tools of the late 1990’s. In 2006 Microsoft announced that it would be replacing FrontPage by Microsoft Expression Web and SharePoint Designer.

4. WinAmp
WinAmp was one of the most successful ‘re-skinable’ media players of the late 1990’s. The first version of Winamp was released in 1997 and quickly gained notoriety after accruing over 3 million downloads. By 2000 Winamp had over 25 million registered users.

5. Microsoft Chat
Microsoft Chat was an early graphical Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client originally released in conjunction with Internet Explorer 3.0 in 1996. Microsoft Chat set itself apart from other chat clients due to the fact that users could represent themselves as comic avatars. Microsoft Comic Chat was eventually removed from the office suite of products in line with the launch of IE 6 in 2001.

6. Lotus Symphony
Lotus Symphony was the first serious suite of office products. The package included word processing, spreadsheets, databases, charts, and a communications feature. Lotus managed to establish themselves as a great office software package from 1984 until around 1992 upon which time Microsoft had started to dominate the software space.

We would love you to get in touch with My Hosting Bubble or visit our site: www.myhostingbubble.com.
 

How important are Website Analytics?

Website analytics are often the most overlooked part of an online marketing strategy, when in actual fact they should be in place as a pre-requisite to any online presence or marketing campaign going live.

If we go back a decade, website analytics were very crude counters that just looked to simplistically keep a tally of the number of ‘hits’ on a webpage or website. The interpretation of the word ‘hit’ was always ambiguous, as most used this stats to base the success , or not, of their web presence. In actual fact most stats counters were nothing more than ‘number of page views’, so one visitor could rack up hundreds of hits on a single page screwing the figures.

We have come a long way since the day of the ‘hits’ and now some of the analytics packages available on the market, for FREE, provide the most ridiculous amount of detail. From Google Analytics and KISSMetrics through to Clicky and Crazy Egg they all have their strengths and weaknesses but are all built to interpret the data you receive from your website or online channels in different and very effective ways, then display this data to you in a way that allows you to act and improve.

So just how important is having website analytics installed? Well the answer to that question, need you ask, is VERY important.

If we were to recommend 3 important elements to you and your business that would ensure you are able to make a success of your online presence, they would be:

1) Website - A good looking Website that is designed to appeal, interest, engage & covert your audience once they land on the relevant landing page.

2) SEO - A solid SEO & optimisation strategy that looks to get your target audience to the site in numbers.

3) Analytics - The necessary Analytics in place to track, measure, report and understand what is happening in order to continually improve and improve the business you convert online.

With the 3 core elements mentioned above in place, you will have a watertight method of attracting the right sort of audience, getting traffic to your website, appealing to the visitor and then measuring and learning what is working and what isn’t in order to improve the conversion rate over time.

If you would like to talk website analytics, then please get in touch with My Hosting Bubble touch with us or visit our site: www.myhostingbubble.com.

Does offline marketing still have a place in today’s online driven society?

 

Has the huge growth of online marketing over past decade left offline marketing redundant?

Well the short answer to that is no, offline marketing should remain a pivotal part of any holistic marketing strategy.

 

Even though online marketing has become the backbone of any good marketing campaign, offline methods do still have their place in helping businesses to generate exposure and achieve their goals too.

 

Offline marketing covers areas such as:

• Exhibitions
• Networking events
• Flyers & Leaflets
• Magazines
• Radio & TV adverts or commercials
• Cold Calls
• Associations & Trade Shows
• Direct Mail 

Even though online marketing methods can sometimes achieve a much higher yield when it comes to leads an enquiries, offline methods if carried out correctly can also provide a business with huge benefits.

 

We do suggest that before you run off and start spending a fortune on your marketing campaign, you need to think carefully about exactly what it is you are trying to achieve from the marketing effort, who you are trying to reach and whether off or online channels are the most effective way to reach out to these audiences.

 

A good mixture of on and offline marketing channels is an extremely good idea, however, do bear in mind that there are differences in the cost vs the return as well as the length of time taken to see results between both of these avenues to market.

 

Offline tends to cost a little more than online methods and can take longer to see results whereas online tends to be easier to set-up and easier to run and track which also lends itself to seeing and measuring the hard benefits that it will deliver.

 

The bottom line is that both on and offline marketing channels and methods should be used in conjunction with each other to create a holistic marketing approach but more importantly the goals need to be set and measured to ensure you are fully aware of what has worked and what hasn’t.

 

If you have any queries or questions on our article then please get in touch with My Hosting Bubble or visit our site: www.myhostingbubble.com.

Getting into your Customers Heads.

When we say getting into your customers heads we mean you need to act, think, breath, sleep and be like your customers in order to understand what would appeal to them when it comes to your brand and online channels.

In order to ensure your business continues to appeal to the correct target markets, you need to fully understand your various customer personas, i.e. the types of ideal customers that would be visiting, interacting and buying from your website.

In order to achieve this you really do need to understand who your target market are and define who these groups of ideal people are.

By tackling these few simple questions you can ensure that not only does your online presence attract and convert the right audience but you will also have a much more focused business in terms of locating and targeting relevant customers.

1) Who are your ideal customers?
2) How would you describe these ideal customer personas?
3) Where do these ‘ideal customers’ hang out? On or Offline.
4) How would you go about locating these ideal customers?
5) What would entice these ideal customers to buy from you?
6) What would you need to put in place to reach out to these customers?
7) What barriers do you need to remove to appeal to these customers?
8) What would put these idea customers off buying from you?
9) What do you need these customers to do once they reach your website?
10) What is the ideal outcome for these customers?

If you look into, and answer these questions honestly by putting yourself in your ‘ideal customers’ shoes then you will have a blueprint that will help you set-up and manage a healthy flow of engagement and conversions.

My Hosting Bubble are experts in online optimisation, conversions and customer journey work so if you have any queries or questions on our article then please get in touch with us or visit our site: www.myhostingbubble.com.

How important is a Website Call to Action?

 

The online term ‘Call to Action’ (CTA) is all too often used without any real understanding of how to ensure the necessary framework is put in place to harness the power of a good CTA.

A ‘Call to Action’ helps you with several key areas on your website:

1)      They are a great visual aid to guide the visitor around the website.

2)      They are clearly visible elements of the site that gets a user to take ‘action’.

3)      They are great at bringing the user journey to a positive conclusion, e.g. a sale.

4)      They allow users to get exactly what they want, as quickly as possible.

5)      A valuable tool that allows tangible conversion and engagement tracking on websites.

There are no hard and fast rules to implementing or displaying CTA’s but there are some common sense rules to apply if you are thinking about implementing effective CTA’s within your website, they are as follows:

·         Make it Stand Out - Clearly distinguish it from other parts of the site.

·         Easy to Find - Do not bury your CTA too far down the page or make it difficult to find.

·         Make the Action Clear - What exactly do you want the user to do? Be Clear.

·         What’s the Outcome - Make it clear what’ll happen as a result of clicking the CTA.

·         Measure & Track it - Make sure you put analytics in place to track what is going on.

So actually how important are having CTA’s integrated within a website? Well the short answer is very important.

It doesn’t even need to be something as black and white as an ‘Online Sale’ it can be as simple as getting some to:

·         Read an article

·         Download a document

·         Complete a Form

·         Pick up the phone

·         Post a Comment

·         Share some Information

·         Sign-up to a Newsletter

·         Test a Product or Service

So getting your CTA’s visible on your website is only the start, but putting some real thought into their purpose and what the desired outcome of the CTA should be is an essential part of the upfront research you will need to carry out.

If you would like to understand more about how to use and generate business via Twitter them please get in touch with us or visit our website: www.myhostingbubble.com.

How to use Twitter to generate Business.

Twitter is synonymous with social interaction and engaging audiences you may never have been able to reach out to otherwise, however it is also a very powerful business tool that should be seen as an integral part of any business marketing strategy.

Used in the right way Twitter can not only engage potential clients but also spur them into an action of your choosing.

What needs to be understood when it comes to using Twitter for business is that it is not, and has never been designed with the intent of being used as a hard-sell tool. It is all about bonding and communicating with people on their level, it’s about building relationships on a P2P level (Person to Person) as opposed to a B2B (Business to Business) or B2C (Business to Consumer). Twitter should be a tool handled with care, but in the right hands can be an effective business tool.

Here are just some of the ways in which Twitter can be used to generate business without the hard sell.

1) Don’t under Estimate the Hashtag
Hashtags when used correctly can be a very powerful tool to reach out to new, or desired audiences. The use of relevant and purposeful hashtags can fast-track your posts being noticed and increase the possibility of it being shared with the most relevant audience. You don’t need to go mad with the hashtags, but a few select, relevant ones will go a long way to engaging many more potential clients.

2) Go Fishing
When we say go fishing we mean you can sit there and wait for people to respond to your posts and tweets or you can go and actively look for business and people to engage with. For example if you are selling shoes, maybe you could do a search on anyone that has written or hashtagged for ‘I need a new pair of shoes’ or ‘Mens Shoes’ or ‘new shoes’. This way you can pro-actively enter into discussions, threads and posts relevant to your business or product.

3) There is a time & place for Sales
As mentioned above, Twitter is not meant to be used as a hard-sell tool and users will get frustrated and turned off by any attempt to aggressively of frequently sell to them. Yes if you are running a business to do need to promote your products, but this should be done in a phased and friendly way. Building the bond is far more important than promoting your sales pitch.

4) Be Different
There is a hell of a lot of content, imagery, videos and general ‘noise’ out there on the internet and this is growing at a rapid rate. So it is worth really thinking about what makes you different from others and in what way you would lure potential customers in. It’s worth asking yourself at the outset, what makes you stand out from the crowd?

5) Engage, Engage !!
If you want to get your business name and brand out there, it’s far better to be pro-active and engage with people and posts as opposed to reactive or just plain invisible. By engaging in the correct manor online to others tweets, comments and opinions you can really start to make a name for yourself. In fact that’s all some people are brought in to do, comment, re-post and generally ‘get amongst’ other communities and conversations.

If you would like to understand more about how to use and generate business via Twitter them please get in touch with us or visit our website: www.myhostingbubble.com.

3 Great Website Optimisation tools.

There are thousands of great website optimisation tools for all purposes, from keyword analysis and SEO to website speed, link building and analysis tools.

Here are just 3 of our favourites, ones that have been tried and tested and work very well.

SEMRush
Purpose: Keyword Research
Price: FREE trial (packages from $69.95 per month)
Description: SEMRush is a very powerful keyword research and analysis tool that allows you to get a snapshot of your own or your competitor’s website status with regards to everything SEO. It can assess PPC adverts and construction, organic SEO rankings and keyword performance as well as general traffic and key performance statistics. This is a great tool to see what other people are doing online to improve their search engine rankings.
Website: http://www.semrush.com

Xenu Link Sleuth
Purpose: Broken link checker
Price: FREE
Description: This is a free tool that has been around since 2010 and allows you to check the structure of any website to assess whether there are any broken links. It provides a report on whether there were any broken links and where they can be found. It takes images, pages, external and internal links into consideration.
Website: http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html

TinyPNG
Purpose: An image compression tool
Price: FREE
Description: TinyPNG is a fantastic tool for optimising your website PNG images. It drastically reduces their size but without losing any of the quality! Give it a go, we think you’ll be pretty impressed.
Website: https://www.tinypng.com

If you would like to get in touch with My Hosting Bubble please do so by visiting our website: www.myhostingbubble.com.

Googles most significant Algorithm Changes.

Google is constantly updating its search algorithms to ensure that the results it delivers are exactly as the user would want, they are constantly improving how their automated algorithms interpret and sift through unthinkable amounts of data and content to achieve this.
 
As the demand for having a website has grown dramatically over the past decade, so too has the need for businesses or individuals to optimise their site to climb the search engine rankings.
 
This overwhelming demand for SEO (Search Engine Optmisation) has spurred website owners to come up with more and more ingenious ways to try and obtain an advantage in the listings over their competitors.
 
This in turn has kept Google on their toes with regards to improving the search engine algorithms to ensure results are fair and that any ‘black hat’ or underhanded techniques are stamped out.
 
 
Googles algorithms are regularly being updated but here are the major releases that have really shaken up the listings (for the better)..

Google Panda Update - February 2011
Google Panda was introduced back in February 2011 and this was one of the first major releases which had plenty of publicity. This also had quite a few big businesses worried about how they had built their online dominance and ‘network of content’ as this update looked to penalise the use of bad or duplicate content on websites.

Google Penguin Update - April 2012
The Google Penguin update was launched back in April 2012 and was again another major release that targeted sites deemed to be ‘spamming’ its search results, in particular those that were harnessing the power of link farming and purchasing large quantities of external links to artificially boost their rankings.

Google Hummingbird Update - September 2013
Hummingbird was launched by Google back in September 2013 and refers to the introduction of their ‘precise and fast’ search platform. The benefits of Hummingbird were that it looked at the meaning and relevance of sentences and paragraphs within a websites content as opposed to simply words. This helped Google ascertain the quality and variety of the content and to ensure it was within keeping with the general theme of vocabulary of the rest of the site as opposed to websites that were just keyword heavy or using keyword stuffing techniques.

Google Pigeon Update - July 2014
Google released the Pigeon update in July 2014 and looked to home in on the accuracy and relevance of local searches. Google stated that Pigeon improved their distance and location ranking parameters within the algorithm.

Google ‘Mobilegeddon’ Update - April 2015
In April 2015 Google unveiled what was termed the ‘Mobilegeddon’ algorithm, also known as the ‘Google Mobile Friendly Update’ or ‘Mobocalypse’. This update looked to respect mobile friendly pages more than ones that were not mobile friendly. There were a number of things that Google ranked with regards to mobile optimisation, such as the speed, responsiveness and general mobile friendliness.

My Hosting Bubble understand SEO and can help you and your business, get in touch with us or visit our website to find out more: www.myhostingbubble.com

5 of the best eCommerce Solutions

1) Magento - www.magento.com

Magento is probably one of the most well-known content management platforms for eCommerce websites. Magento is an open source platform and comes in several different flavours with thousands of fantastic looking themes and templates. Magento has become an integral part of over 30% of online shops and market places and looks to continue to grow in popularity moving forward.

2) Drupal - www.drupal.org

Drupal is up there with Magento in terms of popularity and is also an open source platform, founded in 2001 and originally written to be used as a ‘message board’ it is now one of the leading CMS and eCommerce platforms. With well over a million active users Drupal is well worth a look at what it can do for you and your business.

3) Shopify - www.shopify.com

Shopify is a truly great all round fully hosted eCommerce solution. It was originally founded in 2004 by a group of guys that were looking to open an online snowboard store but were unhappy with the eCommerce offerings at the time so decided to build their own and by 2006 Shopify was born.

4) BigCommerce - www.bigcommerce.co.uk

BigCommerce was founded in 2009 and has a rapidly expanding online community. The packages start from $30 per month which gives you pretty much unlimited everything (bandwidth, products, storage etc). Again like Shopify BigCommerce is a great place to start as it looks to provide the entire eCommerce solution for you in one place.

5) OpenCart - www.opencart.com

OpenCart is a free open source PHP-based online e-commerce solution. The solution was founded in 2006 by Daniel Kerr and it has grown in size and popularity ever since. Thought of as one of the best on the market, it’s well worth a look, what have you got to loose, it’s free!

My Hosting Bubble are experts when it comes to eCommerce hosting and  platforms so why not get in touch with us or visit our site: www.myhostingbubble.com for more information.

Running an Effective Social Media Marketing Campaign.

 

Believe it or not, some businesses are still undecided as to whether using Social Media Marketing really helps their business.

 

We can say from experience that Social Media definitely can act as an effective suite of channels allowing your business to engage with and extend your reach to new audiences you would never have been able to, using existing channels.

 

1. Set Clear Goals
Clear and tangible goals should underpin all good Social Media Marketing Campaigns. This is the lynchpin upon which to execute, track and measure a successful Campaign. Whether it be based on ROI, number of sales, traffic to your website or increased number of followers, be clear on what you are aiming to achieve and what you will class as a successful campaign.

2. Choose Appropriate Channels
Rather than bombarding every Social Media channel with your messages, think carefully about the attributes that each of the channels has and which of them best suits the audience, messages and goals you are trying to achieve.

 

3. Plan, Plan, Plan
Always put a robust plan together before starting on your Social Media Marketing journey. The plan should contain a realistic set of goals (See point 1) underpinned by a selection of tasks or activities (with owners) that will take you and your business to where you need to be. This is a plan that needs to be explained and bought into by all parties involved.

 

4. Optimised Landing PagesIf your Social Media goals are to point your visitors, followers or fans to a specific landing page then a fully optimised landing page will massively increase your chances of converting. When we say optimised, we mean that the landing page should basically ‘cut to the chase’. It should easily and quickly provide the visitor with a seamless journey from the social media channel through to taking an action (e.g. order a product, sign-up to a newsletter, pick up the phone or download a document).

 

5. Compelling ContentThere is a lot of material being posted on Social Media these days, and trying to make your posts stand out from the crowd is becoming increasingly difficult. It’s for this reason that it is critical to think about the information that you post before you send it. Whether it’s an opinion, a blog article, industry news and information or simply an update, it is imperative that you provide quality and compelling content with every post.
It will be one of the main reasons that users come back to your channel to continue to hear what you have to say.

 

6. Measure & Track Probably one of the most overlooked elements is the continual measuring and tracking of the social media channels once they have been set-up. This is very important from the outset to, at a basic level, see what is working and what isn’t. However, having mechanisms in place to provide you with useful stats on the user’s journey around your social media channels will also enable you to see how they are engaging with you and the ways and means to help improve these initial points of contact.

 

7. Part of a wider Marketing StrategyWhilst Social Media Marketing is a no brainer to have as part of any marketing strategy, a business should never have this as the sole channel to market. A good balance of on and offline marketing methods should always be used in conjunction with each other to gain as much coverage and exposure as possible.

Does your business use Social Media Marketing? Have you managed to use it to great effect or has it become a hindrance? We would love to hear your Social Media Marketing experiences.

 

If you would like to find out more about Social Media solutions then please get in touch with My Hosting Bubble or visit our site: www.myhostingbubble.com.

What is and isn’t SPAM?

 

Even though there are plenty of spam filters and tools on the market that look to identify, restrict and protect us against the sheer amount of email spam we receive, it has now become a serious problem that we all face on a day to day basis.

 

With so many types of email it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish the real emails from the spam emails, so here are the key categories you should be looking out for when trying to decipher them all. 

 

Types of Spam

 

Random Advertising
These make up a majority of unwanted emails and consist of advertising of some sort. They can be advertising anything from beauty products, holidays, sports equipment through to cars, gambling and electronics.

 

Disguised Messages
Disguised messages can be very misleading as they give the recipient the impression that they are either from someone they are not, contain messages that are deceiving or send the recipient through to websites that they are not intending to go to.

 

Phishing

Phishing is an email that attempts to acquire sensitive information (such as usernames, passwords or credit card details) often for malicious purposes, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity.

 

Scams

Scams are similar to phishing emails in that they attempt to get the recipient to part with something they may not be intending to, usually money or sensitive details of some sort.

 

Offers & Competitions

Unsolicited offers and competition emails draw users in by giving them the opportunity to win great prizes. Usually they amount to nothing other than your details being added to further email databases that end up increasing the amount of spam you get. So the moral is, leave these alone.

 

Viruses

These emails can be dangerous to your machine and its contents if encountered. They usually contain links or attachments that when clicked on it activates a virus of some sort. Sometimes they are difficult to spot as they will act like a phishing/scam or a disguised email.

 

The types of emails just mentioned, should not be confused with solicited emails and emails that may be inconvenient, but are not classified as spam. Here is a list of some types of emails in this category, that you may think are spam, but are actually not.

 

Types of emails that are NOT Spam

 

Solicited Emails

Solicited emails are emails that you will have either signed up to or agreed to receive at some point. Sometimes you will have unwittingly ticked, not unticked or even got confused with a double negative statement and not opted out, however even though it may feel like it, this is not classified as spam. There should usually be a way to unsubscribe from these.

 

Email Newsletters

These are regular emails that you receive as a result of purposefully (or inadvertently) signing up to, or possibly purchasing products that have allowed the company in question to obtain your details for their mailing lists.

 

Social Media Notifications

There are very few people that now days do not have a social media account of some sort, and for those of you that do, you will be familiar with the constant notifications you will receive as a result. Unless you specify in settings the extent to which you wish to receive these notifications you will be bombarded with them, sometimes via text message but also via email.

 

App Notifications

App notifications will also bombard you with constant emails telling you that your village is under attack, to rate them, to upgrade, to invite friends, the list really does go on. So ensure that you are clear what notifications if any, you wish to receive via email and tailor the settings accordingly.

 

Virus Guard Notifications

If you have a virus guard, firewall or any other software that looks to protect your device, you will usually, ironically, receive plenty of notifications and emails about the state of the software, what it is doing, what it has found, whether it’s out of date and so on. This is all fine, but please remember that this can be useful information and is ultimately not classed as spam.

 

We would love to hear about your experiences with email spam and unwanted messages that you seem to have received. Do you have trouble dealing with the continuous onslaught of spam or have you found a tool that has eliminated this issue.

 

If you would like to find out more about email solutions then please get in touch with My Hosting Bubble.

The A to Z of Alphabets companies

Google announced on Monday 10th August 2015 that it would be restructuring to create a bigger umbrella brand called ‘Alphabet’ of which the original ‘Google’ company would then fall under.

Googles current CEO Larry Page, together with co-founder Sergey Brin will move over to head this new umbrella brand Alphabet leaving Sundar Pichai as the CEO of Google.

This announcement came as a shock to the industry initially, followed by the realisation that actually not much will be changing overall.

There will obviously be a growing number of companies that Alphabet will own, purchase or invent that will utilise the letters within the Alphabet.

Alphabet already has comprises of approximately 12 known companies, they are as follows:

• Alphabet: The umbrella company that will look to take over from where Google left off.
• Boston Dynamics: Is a robotics company that Google purchased in 2013.
• Calico: Is a company founded by Google looking into the controversial subject concerned with the ageing process.
• Capital: This acts as the investment arm of Alphabet (formally Google Capital). This company has been set-up with the sole purpose of the acquisitions and the purchase of smaller companies.
• DeepMind: Google purchased this company in 2014 and it looks into artificial intelligence and learning algorithms.
• Fiber: Fiber is Google's own broadband (and soon to be) Fibre provider in the US only.
• Google: The mighty Google, the one and only (or so it seems) search engine that has graced our computer browsers for about 20 years.
• Life Sciences: Previously part of ‘Google X’, this is all about studying and understanding living organisms and biosciences.
• Nest Labs: Google purchased this company in 2014, and it deals with home-automation ‘smart’ gadgets looking to bring homes into the 21syt century.
• Ventures: This is another venture-capital arm of Alphabet, but unlike ‘Capital’ it invests on start-up companies.
• Wing: Is the drone delivery service owned by Google.
• X Lab: This is the secret division of Alphabet that has been operating to discover and invent new technologies. Products and services that have derived from this company are Google Glasses, Project Look and Driverless Cars.

The whole world will be keen to see how this group of companies evolves in the coming months, but this is definitely an exciting time and one to keep an eye on moving forward.

We would love you to get in touch and let us know what your thoughts are on the new formation of companies and how you think this will pan out moving forward.