Online marketing news and resources.

Rumours that Google is looking to go into broadcasting have been leaking through online over the last few months, with Autumn set for the first appearance of Google TV-powered devices. The exciting crossover opportunities for businesses of all sizes and how website design and online marketing will be transformed, lies tantalisingly just weeks ahead.

According to the world’s No.1 search engine, Google TV will be an “open platform”, aiming to unite search and browse capabilities, integrating web search results and TV content, side by side. Google TV will support Flash and make the “full internet” available through set-top boxes and “integrated” TV screens.

Formatting website accessibility for the new channel could be an issue – the TV browser is Chrome – although Google TV is intended to work with existing TV screens but either TV or the set-top box will require an HDMI input or output, respectively.

Google TV ( GTV) will be built and remote controlled on the Android platform, not Chrome OS, and will run Android apps. Users will not require a cable TV subscription, although they will need WiFi in their home to access GTV and for those who simply wish to use Google TV to get internet content and web video as an alternative to paying for a cable subscription.

The present arrangements for advertising from traditional TV sources or existing internet sources/publishers/networks will continue but the likelihood of new and specific GTV ad formats to eventually be produced.

According to Google, there will be the same privacy options and controls as available for Chrome online and an indication that there will be tracking and data collection.

Partner companies involved, in addition to Adobe, will include amongst others, Intel (chip), Sony (TV) and Logitech (set-top box), Logitech says its box will have a remote which also integrates a keyboard. Google have yet to give any indication of pricing.

As and when Google TV finally hits a viewing screen, and we enter the next era of integrated online and broadcast interactive content, the possibilities for marketing strategies and optimising brand identity presence across the new interchangeable platform could be very attractive indeed!

Are you optimising your website for search engines or for people who use search engines? Many businesses tend to think of search engine optimisation as simply keyword crampons levered in to place to scale the PageRanks of Google mountain! But in fact human friendly sites are equally key to driving traffic and page indexing.

The application of SEO to careful campaigns of PPC and link building around the sites, blogs and social networks is there for one reason only – to attract human traffic to click onto your site, build your brand identity and ultimately convert from search visitor to paying customer and regular subscriber /newsfeed reader.

Search engine ranking obviously helps greatly in the online marketing process, conferring both substantive authority and establishing long term value, but once a visitor lands at your site, the next crucial part of the conversion process has to immediately begin.

Search-engine friendly design is often talked of in terms of ‘crawlability’ or the ability for a search engine spider to crawl a site, and ‘indexation’, i.e. the ability for website’s most high-quality pages, videos, and images to be available to rank. But it is equally as important to be constantly aware of human site search goals, behaviours, and expectations, as registered by website analytics and monitored daily.

Established patterns of site navigation and positioning mean searchers have very clear mental models of how site pages should be constructed and where items should be placed. If those items are not in the right place or aren’t there at all, then the likelihood is that site visitors will be confused, very quickly lose patience and just leave. For eCommerce sites, this is clearly cyber suicide!

In the age of instant social media communication and rapidly evolving mobile apps and tablet readers, human ‘onDemand’ search results will not wait on issues of website accessibility.

SEO linking should be relevant, valuable and genuine – and take visitors to exactly to their expected destination.

Today, the proliferation of multiple search platforms means it is absolutely imperative that a website must be easy to navigate, and quickly arrive at the object of the search. Assuming that searchers will instinctively know what is clickable and what is not clickable on a site page layout is still a problematic issue, alongside unchecked, broken links.

Remember – if a website is confusing and difficult to navigate, visitors will not wish to subscribe or engage, traffic drops off, bookmarking ceases, and site content is no longer retweeted or linked to via social media.

The fear of leaving something out! The old problem of trying to say everything on a website will only show your visitor that screen skim and scan reading have not been understood! Faced with walls of print or a busy Home page, they will lose patience and promptly leave!

The art of website design is to successfully finish the online marketing process. Visitors have clicked on to your site Home page and expect to be able to see clearly how to navigate their way directly to one or more items of search interest, aided by clear ‘calls to action’. By removing non search urgent content, or demoting it to a much less prominent status, you focus visitors on what is important.

If you emphasise everything, then nothing will stand out as important. By including, or emphasising too many items on the page, a visitor may feel confused and overwhelmed; their ability to find key information is actually lessened and they will just not want to continue. For an eCommerce business, website accessibility is crucial to online survival and this kind of info overload must be urgently addressed.

The problem may simply have grown over time. More content is added, but nothing gets taken away! All sites need to be archiving content such as blog articles, news, videos, free downloads, product launches and services, as they are being regularly updated. An important item announced on a Home page should be automatically archived to its relevant category archive with a visible link for visitors to click onto.

Active website housekeeping should be constantly seen to be happening by the regular site readership who have opted to receive RSS feeds, Twitter updates and blog alerts. Remember – your online brand design directly informs the perception of your online brand identity. Readers and visitors who opt to engage can quickly opt to disengage too!

The purpose of the homepage is to focus on key conversion actions which have a measureable impact and thus, the true purpose of the homepage is to direct visitors quickly from the homepage to the relevant object of their search, if they did not arrive by a direct incoming link.

The homepage should act as a signpost to make visitors aware of the existence of important information or options for them to consider – and then should direct them deeper into the site towards more targeted content. The basic role of the home page should be to let people choose for themselves what your site wants them to accomplish.

The rule should be that unless the content or a graphic element directly supports a key conversion action, it should be removed or repositioned elsewhere on the site!

So you had your website ‘done’ a few months back! So you think that’s it? Google will not rank and your intended traffic won’t drive unless you ensure daily activity and updated content. You need to check performance and audit your website – refresh as well as engage, constantly.

Don’t assume you know how your visitors are really behaving on your website, so it’s essential that you make a periodic audit to check if your site pages really do meet customer needs, are not being abandoned and clicked away from, as well as engaging with them through social media and blogging.

Visitor behaviour can be fickle, and your site analytics different very time you look! Your visitors may be telling you one thing and doing another! You do need to keep a regular picture of how your brand identity is perceived by what is going on within the different pages of your site.

Visitors tend to look for a number of reassuring items when making vital decisions over who to follow, trust, bookmark and retweet! When you check your own site, be sure to check the following basic essentials: (more…)

It really does seem that the case for implementing subscription internet, or Web 3.0, gets stronger everyday! Email intrays and blog comment forums are clogged up with over 85 per cent spam. News that Twitter crime has risen as usage has increased is only as expected!

Website hackers, PC jackers, password pirates, zombies, trojans, and worms threaten to totally crash civilisation online at any given moment. Firewalls, AntiMalware, PC Defenders and Spyware Terminators – endless security software is needed to simply try and guard you from the ceaseless hordes of cyber barbarians trying to find a way past your precious portals!

So who are we engaging with on the web anyway? Where do our online marketing messages and social media connections really end up? Deleted or destined for a darker place?

According to latest analysis of more than 25 million Twitter accounts, as users become more active, the malicious activity also increases. True Twitter Users are tweeting more often but the survey reveals that worryingly, only 28.87 per cent of Twitter users are actual True Twitter Users!

Twitter has 105,779,710 registered users!

Further statistics from April 2010 claim that Twitter has 300,000 new users signing up with 600 million search queries every single day, and receives 180 million unique visitors per month!

But the report finds that half of Twitter users tweet less than once a day, and only one in 10 users tweet five or more times a day. 30 per cent of Twitter accounts have never tweeted.

Whilst one in every eight Twitter users has at least 10 times more followers than they are following, only one in 10 users is following more than 100 users, and almost half are following less than five!

Yet, the Twitter Crime Rate for the first half of 2010 stands at 1.67 per cent. Based on the above figures, there appears to be an alarming large number of microblog imposters marauding the social networks.

Does this mean the optimisation of website accessibility for social media messaging, network engagement and tsunami waves of mobile applications are opening up your system to total takeover by malevolent forces, more than ever before?

In the end, is there a bitter twist if you Twitter this?

Nope!

Seems the message has not been getting through! A new 2010 study finds that nearly half of the UK’s SME websites contain little or no SEO, are not indexed with search engines and thus, fail to make any visible impact on driving visitor traffic, whatsoever!

According to a recent State of UK Business Websites Study, of a sample 1,000 SME websites analysed, around 47 per cent contained little or no SEO content.

It beggars belief that nearly twenty years since the start of the web, in today’s highly sophisticated online marketing environment, fast forwarding into mobile internet and social media led customer engagement, a staggering half of business websites defeat the purpose of their existence in the first place.

Why bother having a website if you are not prepared to invest in it’s growth and development? Learn to understand how it should properly function to enable it to perform properly so your business brand identity stands a chance of succeeding online? (more…)

In today’s crossover world where business, social and personal can often mingle, traditional CRM is not necessarily eclipsed by Social Media connections, but informs the new platforms and channels, which are bringing to business and their customers, alike, opportunities and rewards not possible just months ago!

Great claims are made for the dizzying array of social networking forums and messaging mediums buzzing incessantly around today’s web 2.0 space. But for many companies, just getting to grips with the idea of a blog, or a Twitter account, when they are perfectly happy with their original website design announcing ‘Welcome’ to their visitors, and simply using email, the whole social media thing is starting to gnaw!

Business owners perfectly understand traditional CRM as ‘customer relationship management’, which helps them by collecting different sales and customer information from the various areas of their company. They are able to get a close up profile of individual customers or companies which directly feeds into ongoing and future sales drives to best serve customer requirements.

Social Media takes the CRM model and builds an online marketing concept to utilise the social web and kickstart the conversations. Potential customers expect online interaction and closer engagement. Now different parts of a company, from customer services and sales/marketing teams can either listen in or enter customer conversations, bringing added value information in real time.

Business owners should recognise the intrinsic value of being seen to be actively engaged in customer engagement in a social media context. Providing daily fresh content via blog, Twitterfeed or Facebook update will require optimising for greater website accessibility, which actively embraces closer customer contact and ultimately drives increased, repeat traffic.

Social CRM gives real, key benefits: (more…)

The rise of Social Media has been running alongside the descent into, and recovery from recession, and now faces the coming cut backs. Yet at the same time, businesses have been handed new online marketing opportunities to engage with new consumers, if only their websites were ready to take advantage!

Everyone has heard of Twitter and Facebook by now! And a business website is now considered a working part of brand identity presence online, towards which, social media messaging helps drive a wider audience engagement.

Bringing your website up to speed is essential to be seen to be relevant in today’s multi platform environment. The vital importance of website accessibility by your key customer preferred channels, whether by mobile, tablet, netbook or traditional PC / laptop browsers, cannot be underestimated. If they can’t find you by the new technologies and info share mediums, you’re not in on the conversation – and that potential sales grid!

A regular website refresh is always a good move at any time. Under the coming cut back tidal waves, being seen to be riding the rough surf by continued investing in customer engagement and traffic driving, will be both shrewd and practical.

Remember- keep optimised with fresh content! It’s an established mantra for website survival and social media success.

In the run up to next year’s VAT increase and the budget cut backs start to bite, engage your website design and marketing agency to work on ensuring key areas of website functionality are first, performing at full strength. (more…)

While it’s true that some businesses will always take a ‘wait and see’ attitude to changes resulting from emerging technology, there are many who readily see the online marketing opportunities for taking a competitive lead in their particular niche.

Of course, all the high profile publicity given to the teething problems of Apple iPhone4 have not helped! In any event, some business owners will a take the view that most technological changes are no more than a passing fad, citing that they can’t see how social media would work to make money for their particular business.

The development of the mobile internet may not be so easily dismissed as recent research seems to suggest that more businesses have embraced the possibilities of mobile, and of those with dedicated mobile sites, 39 per cent highlighted the benefits as being ‘sales from a new channel’.

In fact, two thirds of respondents went as far as saying that mobile was seen as important or essential for making their brand identity visible. As a consequence, they felt they were able to provide a more quicker, easier and efficient way of communicating with their customer base. Moreover, their mobile sites also enabled positive feedback to be received and gave flexible opportunity for two-way interaction with 83 per cent stating results met or exceeded expectations. (more…)

Latest figures show that one in four UK adults using the internet today are aged between 50 to 64, a sure indicator of a seriously expanded demographic, which website design and marketing agencies and their business clients should be taking on board.

According to UKOM, a division of market research company Nielsen, which measures internet usage, the UK web audience increased by 1.9 million during 2009, with an additional 1 million people aged 50 or over now online, accounting for more than half of new users. The fastest growing sector on Facebook is the over-40s, although the core user is 22-45-year-olds.

Business owners of web based services and eCommerce sites need to be aware that not only is the medium of the web itself maturing but the audience is shifting towards older age groups, raising issues regarding future marketing strategies. Whilst most of the new users (722,000) were men, 15% (284,000) were women, of which, 272,000 were aged 21-34, followed by an additional 231,000 teenage girls between the ages of 12 and 20, who now have access to the internet.

The new figures throws into high relief, the recently introduced British Standards Institute (BSI) revised guidelines – ‘BS 8878 Web Accessibility: Code of Practice’ – stating the legal obligations for making web products accessible to the disabled and elderly. The legislation impacts ease of website accessibility for newest web platforms such as iPhone and iPad. (more…)