Insight

In December, Luca, one of our clients, visited us. He described his experience and thoughts about the only right approach in outsourcing – communication. Read it!

After a few months working with Sibers I decided it was time to go and meet them.
I decided to do it in December so, in case I survived, I could show off with my friends who listen to this kind of stuff in Italian TV “tomorrow a wave of polar cold weather will hit the our country. In some regions the thermometer will reach -5 C”.
Here I am, alive. I survived the -30 C, by sheer luck, and I am glad to tell the tale:

Darya, her husband and Victor came to the airport to collect me at 5 am (bless them) and took me to the apartment they had rented for me.
As my feet were bleeding due to the “buy new shoes before leaving so they’ll make you bleed” syndrome, they helped me to find a shop were I could buy some nice and warm Siberian ones.

Everyday I woke up late (jet leg), dressed up for the short but potentially deadly walk to the office, entered the building, got into to the office, heard a few “priviet”, shook a few hands, took off my seven sweaters and started working.
Coming from Italy the atmosphere seemed rather distant at first.
But wasting my years on the road instead of building a career, I have at least learnt to judge people by what stays behind the most visible approach.
These guys are very warm, kind and welcoming.
I am sure Darya works for Sibers but also for KGB.
She always checked on me, sending me sms and asking me what I was doing (imagine my feeling of violated privacy when I got the “what are you doing?” sms while I was in the toilet).
I am also quite sure that she could see in my window from her apartment, probably with the help of some infrared telescope.
In the apartment the TV sometimes turned on by itself (this is not a joke, it’s true) and it was probably hiding a camera inside.
So I simply unplugged it.
Officially she was taking care of me, but in reality she made sure I wasn’t going around to steal military secrets in Akademgorodok.
You may think I am paranoid, but all my doubts vanished when one night, going back home half drunk from the Irish pub at 2 am, I saw Darya and Irina sitting by the window of a restaurant scanning passers by. They pretended not to see me so they could follow me, so I went in and stayed with them a bit. I could see in their eyes they were ashamed I caught them. Irina then planted a bug on my jacket, which I destroyed at home.

Ok, all above is a joke (the TV thing is still true): Darya simply took care of me and that was very nice of her.

It was very good to meet Andrey and Irina and to talk face to face about my dream project (the one which will make me rich and bla bla bla…). I really wanted to meet the ones who are making my idea a reality, because only with a closer relationship we could give it the extra touch it needed.
It was a very good idea to come and I am sure our communication will improve by 100% now that we met.

I also went to the headquarters on a sunny day at -30 C when my leather jacket got so hard that it broke simply by placing my hat in a pocket. THAT’s polar weather for you bunch of Italian TV journalist losers!
I was happy to meet the 140 people working there, with the Designer Room, Php Room, Asp room, iPhone room and so on.
They can do everything, no match for a freelancer.

In the evening I met the founders at dinner and I was happy to see we are like minded in many aspects.
If I had chosen a Chinese or Indian company instead, there would have been a kind of cultural wall between us, but with them it’s like talking to anyone in Europe.
All you do in an outsourcing project is TALKING, so you better make sure that thing works, right?

What I bring home from this month in Siberia? Here’s a list:
- new Siberian shoes
- a broken leather jacket
- a knowledge that my project is being developed by professionals
- a feeling of gratitude for the help, especially for Darya who really worked hard to make this time successful.

It was surely worth investing the time to go there.
I don’t think other clients will need to stay a month as I did, but at least one week will be great (let me suggest spring).
Chat, forums and phones can do a lot…but people are still at the center, even in an IT project, and the extra value of meeting each other face to face cannot be digitalized. Yet.

Thank you all at Sibers!

Simple 50 Google AdWords management rules, Part 2.

By Alex Kachko

It’s time to continue our list of AdWords account regulation knowledge. See the begining of this theme in the previous post entitled Simple 50 Google AdWords management rules, Part 1.

We finished with what benefits you recieve if you set up a “branded” campaign or group. Here comes what is by no means less important.

27. The best keywords have to be in their own groups.
28. When due to SEO skills your site appeared on the first page of organic results by some keywords, then don’t stop bidding on those keywords. Do you see why? The density of your name on the first page increased since you appeared on both organic and sponsored results.
29. A huge number of keywords is good only when they are all relevant. Relevance – is the key factor!
30. Experiments being safe, create a special campaign with a small budget for new, faithless keywords and keyphrases.

31. Try to find out what bidding strategy is the most profitable. Choose “Standard” vs. “Accelerated” budget.
32. Ad scheduling is a very powerful tool, especially for local businesses.
33. Call a conversion optimiser to help you enrich conversions and reduce costs.
34. IP exclusion as GEO targetting tool could be helpful to get rid of undesirable traffic and target your business more accurately.
35. Keep in mind that by default a new campaign is Canada (CA) targetted.

36. Ads position on Content network has huge influence on CTR, you know it. Use Position preference tool to find the best place for your ads.
37. Before rising bids just think if it’s so neccessary now. Often your bids for a keyword may significantly exceed the required bid.
38. Sort Ad groups or keywords by Cost per Conversion metric while analysing cityes or areas in AdWords tab of your Google Analytics account.
39. You still don’t know how to find Google AdWords (GAdw) data in Google Analytics (GA)? Hurry up and link both GAdw account and GA account.
40. Use Google conversion tracking and Google Analytics in tandem to get comprehensive analytics data.

41. Depending on different conditions it’s sometimes not so necessary to occupy the first page in search results.
42. Haven’t I already told you to link Google AdWords and Google Analytics?
43. As both GAdw and GA provide different types of reports, select the best ones for you and set up mailing of this reports weekly or monthly.
44. Look at changes, create one report for past several moths and segment it by a week.
45. Try to find which place on the sponsored side of result page is most convertable; according to the results try to configure keywords and Ads.

46. You should be aware of what changes your competitors make on their site (landing page redesign, new features, etc.), it could be done to gain a higher CTR.
47. The aditional tool that helps us to understad: “what the heck this world needs?!” is Google Insights for Search. It’s totaly free and has different filter types for search segmentation: seasonality, country, categories, etc.
48. Also you can track the changes you made in account in “My change hystory”. It is located at Tools tab of AdWords account interface.
49. Sometimes your Ads or keywords could become disapproved. Check the Disapproved Ads storage to know why and which of your Ads are banned.
50. And the last but not the least tip in this list is about Account Snapshot, which is your Dashboard for AdWors. Configure it according to your needs and you’ll be aware of what happens on your account in seconds after login.

I hope these simple rules will help you get more and save ;)

Sibers in Germany

If you are in Germany, specifically in Osnabruck, you can see this car cruising the streets.

Alex Telman, our German representative, drives this car and he is always happy to discuss your green IT needs.

This week in software outsourcing

With Thanksgiving and Eid al-Adha (Kurban Bayram) you could not expect much of this week: decisions were taken longer than usual, and a number of clients left for the holidays.

However, there appeared a distinct sign of the new trend: augmented reality in mobile devices. What is it about? Augmented reality adds a virtual informative and entertainment content relative to where you are, what you do, or what you look at. In simple words, augmented reality is when you see this world through the screen of your iPhone.

The concept of augmented reality is huge. The simplest implementation is when your device knows your location and displays best deals, shops and sightseeing nearby. More complex applications take this concept to its full and allow for example the following: you can point your device’s camera at a building, and you will get the building name and address shown next to it, along with links to Wikipedia, images taken by other users, and profiles of other users who visited or liked this place.

The concept is very interesting and the market is almost empty right now. Augmented reality can be a very good opportunity for investment.

Thanksgiving and Twitter

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Here’s one new Twitter for you to follow: http://twitter.com/hirerussians

Welcome new office in Novosibirsk

We have moved to a new office in Novosibirsk downtown. That’s a brand-new almost-skyscraper building with a great view on Ob river and the Trans-Siberian railway.

Against all traditions and prejudices, we celebrated the relocation on Friday, the 13th!

Welcome new team in Bishkek

Please welcome our new team in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. They have just started but have already successfully completed a project for WordPress.

Right now it is just PHP developers – BUT we were literally amazed by their skills and knowledge. The new department in Bishkek is our second office that we have built using a model that was invented for our downtown office in Novosibirsk.

T-Mobile Ad Features Sibers Android App

A new commercial for T-Mobile myTouch 3G features an Android application made by Sibers.

The app is called Face-IT and it turns your Android device into a mouth that moves according to what you pronounce.

Key-Soft Old Birthday

When Sibers was small, it was called Key-Soft. Now, every October we gather all together: people who worked in Key-Soft and still work in Sibers, people who worked in Key-Soft, and people who are working in Sibers and never worked in Key-Soft. Namely: everyone.
Last Friday we did it again, and everyone said that was the warmest party ever.
We also introduced the Sibers Alumni program to keep in touch with those who changed their place of work but remain our good friends.

In the picture: Director of Development Alexey Shpack launches the Holy Cow in front of the cheering and a bit drunk co-workers holding an old banner of Key-Soft, which was hard to find this year. Click to view the full picture.

Review of Web Design in Russia

Smashingmagazine.com, which is an endless source of information and inspiration for Web people, has just published a sophisticated article about what Web design in Russia looks like. Smashing Magazine has chosen Russia to be the first in the series of “Global Web Design” and there really must be a reason for it!

The article is everything you ever wanted to learn about Russian Web design. It’s a bit of history and a lot about current state of things. It’s an interview with two Russian Web designers, describing life of Russian Web developer and telling you about differences between Russian and Western designs. It’s a showcase of creative agencies and freelancers (and I am sure they will get tons of work after this review!). And then, there is a huge list of Russian Web designs.

And… comments did impress me! Works of Russian Web designers got amazing feedback although some said they could not even think of Web design in Russia before!