Monday, March 8, 2010
Social gaming is the new battlefield in the battle for internet supremacy
A Facebook fans page has attracted a huge online following- and is making money for it's owners.
Today, tens of millions of people around the world will log in to Facebook playing Farmville, a cute, colourful game where players take on the role of a farmer — a game whose extraordinary success is forcing many to rethink the future of the internet and social media.
Farmville is a fairly mundane idea, but one that draws heavily on the traditional world of board games for inspiration. Given the task of caring for and expanding their land and livestock, players have a certain number of action points each day, which they can spend on tending the farm. They can even trade with “neighbours” — Facebook friends who also play the game.
The numbers behind this simple concept are huge. More than 80 million people play every month with almost 30 million logging in every day to check the status of their virtual allotment. It is free to play, but consumers can spend real money on virtual goods to use on their farms.
Combined with advertising revenue — including some controversial revenue from advertising deals, which users complain are little more than marketing scams — this makes Farmville into a business worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
For years, games have lain on the periphery of the internet. Playing games online has been popular among young men for more than a decade — but this was never seen as a commercial activity that could have a significant impact on services such as Facebook or MySpace, let alone Google or Apple.
The success of Farmville, to which more than a quarter of Facebook users have signed up, challenges that assumption. Furthermore, it is leading a new wave of online games that are rewriting our most basic ideas about what videogames are, and who plays them.
The most extraordinary statistic to emerge from the research into this fast-growing phenomenon is the profile of the “average” player of social videogames — namely, 43 years old and female. Young men barely get a look in — more than 60 per cent of people playing social games on Facebook are aged between 30 and 60.
What has attracted this surprising new audience to online games? In part, it’s the subject matter of the games themselves — which ranges from Farmville’s focus on nurturing and growing to the addictive puzzles of games such as Bejeweled.
Equally important is the social aspect of Facebook. No longer is playing games a solitary pursuit — instead, it’s something you do with friends, challenging them to beat your scores or collaborating to help each other out.
Half of those who play social games such as Farmville claim that they visit Facebook each day specifically to play. Suddenly, Facebook isn’t just a tool for staying in touch with friends — it’s also a platform for games and entertainment.
While Facebook’s owners are undoubtedly delighted at the success of Farmville, there must also be a sense of unease. After all, with a game this successful now providing so much of Facebook’s traffic, to what extent, exactly, are Farmville’s creators, Zynga, beholden to Facebook — and vice versa?
It’s a sentiment that resonates across the industry. Apple, for years an online gaming ostrich whose Mac computers provided little support for game developers, was forced to publicly embrace gaming last year as it became clear that social gaming was by far the most commercially successful products on the iPhone’s App Store. Microsoft and Sony, meanwhile, have had a foot in the door of the videogames market for years.
This is the new battleground in the war for hearts, minds and wallets being fought between the world’s technology giants. The millions of acres of virtual land being ploughed by Farmville’s players each day are breathing new life into an old adage — where there’s muck, there’s brass.
Labels: Facebook, online marketing, online marketing uk, social media websites, social web marketing
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Monday, March 08, 2010
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Thursday, February 18, 2010
Social web marketing suggestions
On Tuesday Dr Search posted- Few online shops have social networks media, but the majority of UK shoppers buy from them.
More than two thirds of all UK online shoppers use social media, with Facebook being by far the most popular but half of top online retailers have a minimal or non existent presence social media presence.
When we reported on the findings of a poll among 10,000 visitors to the UK’s top 40 e-commerce websites undertaken by ForeSee Results, an organisation that measures online customer satisfaction.
The main conclusion was get a Facebook page Now!
With follow up suggestions of:
- Make sure you have someone to monitor it and post good, timely information.
- Promote it to your most loyal customers through your regular communications venues (emails, ads,
stores, coupons, etc.).
- Use your Facebook page to post promotions and product information.
Easier said than done admittedly. There are a lot of ins and outs to social media strategy and the right formula will differ for each company. But for those retailers who have a poor to middling presence on Facebook, it’s a good place to start while you figure out how social media plays into your global brand strategy.
However here’s a truly revolutionary idea: DON'T listen to all of these ideas and opinions about what your customers and prospects want based on over 10,000 online shoppers of 40 of the biggest online retailers in the United Kingdom.
Instead ask your own customers what they want.
- Find out what social media sites they frequent.
- Find out whether they want sales or coupons or technical support or product information.
- Find out how satisfied they are with your current social media efforts and
- How likely they are to purchase, return, and recommend your business as a result of your interactions.
There’s a lot about social media and online marketing initiatives that is really hard to work out, but asking customers what they want from you is a truely great marketing initiative.
Labels: Dr Search, Facebook, online marketing, online marketing uk, Search Clinic
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Thursday, February 18, 2010
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Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Few online shops have social networks media, but the majority of UK shoppers buy from them
More than two thirds of all UK online shoppers use social media, with Facebook being by far the most popular but half of top online retailers have a minimal or non existent presence social media presence.
These are the findings of a poll among 10,000 visitors to the UK’s top 40 e-commerce undertaken by ForeSee Results, an organisation that measures online customer satisfaction.
The study indicated that of the 69% of online consumers who use social networking sites, about 37% opted to ‘friend’, ‘follow’ or ‘subscribe’ to retailers, with more than half of such respondents doing so in order to learn about their products.
A further 40% did so to learn about special deals, while only 6% used social media primarily to obtain customer support.
About 56% of all online shoppers used Facebook, however, with the figure jumping to a huge 80% if the focus was narrowed to regular social media users.
This would appear to imply that the site is the best place to reach shoppers in both categories, not only because they are there already, but also because it appears that many are keen to hear from chosen brands.
Despite such findings, an unofficial look at the Facebook pages of the top 100 online retailers indicated that a quarter had no official presence and a further quarter had less than 10,000 followers.
In a further note of caution, nearly three quarters of social media fans chose to ‘friend’ or ‘follow’ less than five organisations, with only 4% interacting with more than 20. This means that the majority of online shoppers give very few retailers any air time.
Kevin Entell, vice president of retail strategy at ForSee, said: "Site visitors who also interact with a company on a social media site are more satisfied, more committed to the brand, and more likely to make future purchases from that company."
But there was a chicken and egg situation taking place, he added. "It is likely that customers who are more satisfied and loyal to begin with are the ones who will friend us on Facebook or subscribe to our YouTube channels," Entell said. "However, research shows that when retailers provide rewarding social media experiences, our customers become even more satisfied and loyal."
The results were backed up by another poll from digital marketing agency dotCommerce among 100 UK retailers. It indicated that a mere 42% of UK retailers had a social media presence, with only 12% using more than one site.
Of the retailers using such sites, only 24% had a Facebook presence, while 26% preferred Twitter. They preferred to employ the latter to keep consumers aware of product updates (73%), push out marketing messages (63%) and company news (58%).
Dr Search asks if you one of the three quarters being left behind by the social web marketing growth? If so and you would like some help- please just ask here now!
Labels: Dr Search, Facebook, online marketing, online marketing uk, Search Clinic, social media websites, social web marketing, Twitter, YouTube
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Wednesday, February 17, 2010
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Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Mobile firms unite to offer mobi apps applications
Twenty four of the largest phone operators have banded together to challenge Apple's dominance of mobile apps applications.
The Wholesale Applications Community, as it is known, aims to make it easier for developers to build and sell apps "irrespective of device or technology".
The alliance, which includes Vodafone, China Mobile and Sprint, has access to more than three billion customers.
Analysts said it was an attempt by operators to "regain control of apps".
The app market is currently a lucrative business for mobile firms.
Analysts at Gartner have predicted that spending on the specialist pieces of software will hit $6.2bn (£4bn) this year with the number of downloads rising to 4.5 billion from 2.5 billion last year.
It predicts that downloads will top 21 billion by 2013, yielding almost $30bn.
Apple currently dominates the app market, with more than 3 billion downloaded from its app store in 18 months.
Blackberry, Google, Nokia, Symbian and Microsoft all offer their own app stores.
As a result, developers often have to create different versions of apps and go through separate approval processes for each individual store.
The Wholesale Applications Community aims to overcome this fragmentation by offering a single "open platform that delivers applications to all mobile phone users".
It aims to develop a common standard for applications in the next 12 months.
As well as the 24 network operators, the work is also supported by hardware manufacturers such as LG Electronics, Samsung and Sony Ericsson, as well as industry body the GSM association.
The consortium's approach to simplify application development and distribution is echoed by software firm Adobe.
The company has announced that it will begin to offer its AIR platform on mobile devices, starting with phones running Google's Android operating system.
AIR is currently available on desktops and allows developers to build desktop applications for services that are more commonly found in the browser.
For example, there are a number of Twitter applications that use AIR. Until now it has been unavailable on smart phones.
The technology could make it easier for developers to create and publish apps that can run on many different platforms at the same time.
Apple has traditionally spurned some Adobe software - such as Flash - on its iPhone.
However, Adobe has now built a tool that allows developers to build an app for phone running AIR and easily publish a slightly different version which should also run on the iPhone.
Dr Search notes that the implications are clear for online businesses if you don't already have a version of your website that is mobile compatible- do so in the next 12 months as your competitors are already.
Labels: Dr Search, mobile marketing, online marketing, online marketing uk, Search Clinic
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Tuesday, February 16, 2010
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Monday, February 15, 2010
Fundamental flaws found in UK's chip and pin security systems
Cambridge University scientists have discovered a fundamental design flaw in the UK's chip and pin credit card readers raising worries that the defects could be exploited to perpetrate fraud on a massive scale.
More than 90% of point-of-sale card transactions in the UK are now conducted using chip-and-pin systems, according to the UK Payments Administration, which represents the interests of payment card companies. In 2008, plastic cards were used to make 7.4 billion purchases, worth a total of £380 billion.
But Cambridge academics have now found a way to trick the system into thinking that the correct pin number has been entered by exploiting the way that remote readers communicate with the main shop terminal.
Flaws in the Europay, Mastercard and Visa (EMV) protocol, which enables chip-and-pin transactions to be validated, means that third party devices can be introduced between the readers and terminals to intercept communications.
Such breaches are known as "man-in-the-middle" attacks and would allow fraudsters to use stolen credit or debit cards by simply entering four zeros. The cards tested were issued by Barclaycard, the Co-op Bank, the Halifax, Bank of Scotland, HSBC and John Lewis.
Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at Cambridge University told the BBC’s Newsnight programme last week: "Chip-and-pin is fundamentally broken. We think this is one of the biggest flaws that we’ve uncovered – that has ever been uncovered – against payment systems, and I’ve been in this business for 25 years."
The researchers, who have already contacted the banks about the problem, said that the programming skills required to build a ‘man-in-the-middle’ device were relatively simple.
But the UK Payments Administration rejected the conclusions found in their paper entitled 'Chip and PIN is Broken'. It said that there was no evidence that such attacks were not happening in UK stores today, although the research would help it to evaluate the direction in which criminals may move.
More than 90% of point-of-sale card transactions in the UK are now conducted using chip-and-pin systems, according to the UK Payments Administration, which represents the interests of payment card companies. In 2008, plastic cards were used to make 7.4 billion purchases, worth a total of £380 billion.
But Cambridge academics have now found a way to trick the system into thinking that the correct pin number has been entered by exploiting the way that remote readers communicate with the main shop terminal.
Flaws in the Europay, Mastercard and Visa (EMV) protocol, which enables chip-and-pin transactions to be validated, means that third party devices can be introduced between the readers and terminals to intercept communications.
Such breaches are known as "man-in-the-middle" attacks and would allow fraudsters to use stolen credit or debit cards by simply entering four zeros. The cards tested were issued by Barclaycard, the Co-op Bank, the Halifax, Bank of Scotland, HSBC and John Lewis.
Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at Cambridge University told the BBC’s Newsnight programme last week: "Chip-and-pin is fundamentally broken. We think this is one of the biggest flaws that we’ve uncovered – that has ever been uncovered – against payment systems, and I’ve been in this business for 25 years."
The researchers, who have already contacted the banks about the problem, said that the programming skills required to build a ‘man-in-the-middle’ device were relatively simple.
But the UK Payments Administration rejected the conclusions found in their paper entitled 'Chip and PIN is Broken'. It said that there was no evidence that such attacks were not happening in UK stores today, although the research would help it to evaluate the direction in which criminals may move.
Dr Search has long known of flaws, not only in the chip and pin process, but more fundementally in the UK banking system.
UK banks have repeatedly failed to state in a UK court of law that their offline systems are 100% secure. So how can an online system be 100% secure? Until such time as the UK banks finally make their systems secure or they admit to errors we suggest that you don't trust your bank.
Labels: Dr Search, online marketing, online marketing uk, Search Clinic
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Monday, February 15, 2010
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Thursday, February 4, 2010
UK online shoppers spend most in Europe
UK shoppers spent more online than anywhere else in Europe last year- totalling almost a third of all European sales.
UK consumers spent £38bn online in 2009, or an average of £1,102 per shopper, according to the Centre for Retail Research (CRR).
Online sales now account for almost 10% of total retail sales in the UK, the centre calculates.
It added that internet shopping would continue to grow sharply this year. The centre foresees total online sales hitting £42.7bn in 2010.
UK online shoppers are growing in confidence, with the proportion of them prepared to spend more than £1,000 or more on a single transaction rising from 12% in 2008 to 25% in 2009.
The recession, from which the UK has only recently emerged, helped to explain the increase in online shopping, he argued.
Germans were the next most prolific spenders online last year with a total spend of £29.7bn, while the French spent £22bn, the research indicates.
UK consumers spent £38bn online in 2009, or an average of £1,102 per shopper, according to the Centre for Retail Research (CRR).
Online sales now account for almost 10% of total retail sales in the UK, the centre calculates.
It added that internet shopping would continue to grow sharply this year. The centre foresees total online sales hitting £42.7bn in 2010.
UK online shoppers are growing in confidence, with the proportion of them prepared to spend more than £1,000 or more on a single transaction rising from 12% in 2008 to 25% in 2009.
The recession, from which the UK has only recently emerged, helped to explain the increase in online shopping, he argued.
Germans were the next most prolific spenders online last year with a total spend of £29.7bn, while the French spent £22bn, the research indicates.
Labels: online marketing, online marketing uk
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Thursday, February 04, 2010
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Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Google Analytics and the customer experience- do you have thr right tools?
Website analysis can generate improved performance, but your focus should be on measuring and analysing perception against expectation in three key linked areas.
The argument as to whether marketing is an art or a science has raged for years. It is interesting that long-term brand appeal is built primarily on emotion not rationality. The great TV ads are primarily emotional in nature; think of Guinness and its sea horses; does it matter how long the wait for the wave actually was, the point is that waiting pays off. Interestingly the same is true of oratory; Winston Churchill did not say how many owed how much to how many less; it was the idea that counted. People buy and recall ideas. Numbers were put to the sword in '1066 and all that'.
It is clear that people make emotional decisions in the main. They may think that they are making rational ones, or even post rationalise them. I would argue that an emotional decision is the sum of a number of rational trade offs. One example is whether we choose the highest interest rate for our savings or the lowest premium for our insurance.
Customer experience measures
It seems to me that a similar approach is likely to be most helpful in developing analysis of customer experience. Customer experience is also very much about perception. In essence it is a measure of external perceptions against external expectations, not internal measured results against internal standards.
It is not terribly helpful to know that we answered the phone in 8 seconds against a standard of 10. The customer might have expected 10, but perceived to be waiting for 12. Why? Largely because of prior, perhaps negative, experience of the brand, but more likely because the call was unsatisfactory when the connection was made – i.e. the customer did not get what he or she wanted.
The key question then in using analytics to help improve customer experience is to ensure that we analyse the things that matter to customers. Customers will be much influenced by the recency and frequency of their interaction with the brand and these are key members for us. But the focus is on the emotional response to those interactions.
Hence, we argue that the key numbers for analysis are three:
* How did you feel about your interaction with us today?
* How do you feel about us as an organisation?
* Would you recommend us to your family, friends and colleagues?
This is crucial. It is the day to day measurement of perception against expectation, and enables daily tracking of customer experience. Analysis should track both the customer’s previous answers and, in a person to person interaction, the performance of the agent. This data should then be viewed in the context of the operational performance on the day; were systems fully functional, was there a particular call flow issue?
This is a wider concept. How people feel about the organisation as a whole, takes into account not only day to day interactions but the total set of experiences and perceptions of the organisation and its brand. The customer will be influenced not only by his or her experiences but also by the experiences of others. This is because brand associations are a reflection of the individual’s personality. People wish to be seen to have made good choices in the eyes of others.
Whilst customer satisfaction tracking surveys will provide meaningful numbers for analysis, it is likely that qualitative research will be required to better understand customer attitudes and motivations.
We know that customer satisfaction and loyalty are closely linked and that they are correlated through the Net Promoter Score to business performance.
In a separate article we shall analyse in more depth the true relationship between loyalty and business performance across various business and activities. Satisfaction is clearly linked to both longevity and frequency, value, volume of cross sales and repeat purchase. We shall explain the mechanics.
Key to understanding the benefits of customer experience is measuring and analysing recommendation. We know that people only recommend if they are highly satisfied; satisfaction in its own right is not a motivator.
There are two aspects of recommendation which require analysis. Firstly, the characteristics and motivation of the recommendee. In sum, people recommend for altruistic reasons and also to build esteem in their social group. They like to be seen as early adopters. We also want of course to look at the value of our recommendee; there may be a correlation between their value to the organisation and the recommender.
Secondly, we want to understand the value of recommendation to us both in terms to reduce marketing costs and increased customer flows, including the performance of recommended customers compared to those joining by other means.
However, the real value arises from considering the perceptions of customers against their expectations on day to day and long-term horizons, in conjunction with their behaviour vis a vis recommendation.
The argument as to whether marketing is an art or a science has raged for years. It is interesting that long-term brand appeal is built primarily on emotion not rationality. The great TV ads are primarily emotional in nature; think of Guinness and its sea horses; does it matter how long the wait for the wave actually was, the point is that waiting pays off. Interestingly the same is true of oratory; Winston Churchill did not say how many owed how much to how many less; it was the idea that counted. People buy and recall ideas. Numbers were put to the sword in '1066 and all that'.
It is clear that people make emotional decisions in the main. They may think that they are making rational ones, or even post rationalise them. I would argue that an emotional decision is the sum of a number of rational trade offs. One example is whether we choose the highest interest rate for our savings or the lowest premium for our insurance.
It is clear that the majority do not, but will take name awareness, features, security, recommendation, history and a range of attributes into account.
Customer experience measures
It seems to me that a similar approach is likely to be most helpful in developing analysis of customer experience. Customer experience is also very much about perception. In essence it is a measure of external perceptions against external expectations, not internal measured results against internal standards.
It is not terribly helpful to know that we answered the phone in 8 seconds against a standard of 10. The customer might have expected 10, but perceived to be waiting for 12. Why? Largely because of prior, perhaps negative, experience of the brand, but more likely because the call was unsatisfactory when the connection was made – i.e. the customer did not get what he or she wanted.
The key question then in using analytics to help improve customer experience is to ensure that we analyse the things that matter to customers. Customers will be much influenced by the recency and frequency of their interaction with the brand and these are key members for us. But the focus is on the emotional response to those interactions.
Hence, we argue that the key numbers for analysis are three:
* How did you feel about your interaction with us today?
* How do you feel about us as an organisation?
* Would you recommend us to your family, friends and colleagues?
This is crucial. It is the day to day measurement of perception against expectation, and enables daily tracking of customer experience. Analysis should track both the customer’s previous answers and, in a person to person interaction, the performance of the agent. This data should then be viewed in the context of the operational performance on the day; were systems fully functional, was there a particular call flow issue?
This is a wider concept. How people feel about the organisation as a whole, takes into account not only day to day interactions but the total set of experiences and perceptions of the organisation and its brand. The customer will be influenced not only by his or her experiences but also by the experiences of others. This is because brand associations are a reflection of the individual’s personality. People wish to be seen to have made good choices in the eyes of others.
Whilst customer satisfaction tracking surveys will provide meaningful numbers for analysis, it is likely that qualitative research will be required to better understand customer attitudes and motivations.
We know that customer satisfaction and loyalty are closely linked and that they are correlated through the Net Promoter Score to business performance.
In a separate article we shall analyse in more depth the true relationship between loyalty and business performance across various business and activities. Satisfaction is clearly linked to both longevity and frequency, value, volume of cross sales and repeat purchase. We shall explain the mechanics.
Key to understanding the benefits of customer experience is measuring and analysing recommendation. We know that people only recommend if they are highly satisfied; satisfaction in its own right is not a motivator.
There are two aspects of recommendation which require analysis. Firstly, the characteristics and motivation of the recommendee. In sum, people recommend for altruistic reasons and also to build esteem in their social group. They like to be seen as early adopters. We also want of course to look at the value of our recommendee; there may be a correlation between their value to the organisation and the recommender.
Secondly, we want to understand the value of recommendation to us both in terms to reduce marketing costs and increased customer flows, including the performance of recommended customers compared to those joining by other means.
However, the real value arises from considering the perceptions of customers against their expectations on day to day and long-term horizons, in conjunction with their behaviour vis a vis recommendation.
Labels: online marketing, online marketing uk, ROI
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Tuesday, February 02, 2010
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Thursday, January 28, 2010
How to grow a forum online- the right and wrong way to go
Growing online forums should be simple, however some people make it harder to be succesfull.
Dr Search recently come across this guide from FeverBee Richard Millington on the Right and Wrong way to develop a community:
Do you think the person that created this forum really had a clue what s/he was doing? Nobody will participate in a forum that looks this empty.
There are a few lessons here:
1) When you launch a new forum you begin with just one subject/topic. As the forum grows and it becomes clear that you need more than one place, you create another topic.
2) Don’t try to predict what your community will talk about in advance. This is what leads to empty forums like those above. Just respond to what they talk about – and put an influential member on that topic in charge of that section.
If your members talk about obscure widgets from china a lot, create a separate forum for it with someone who speaks about the topic the most in charge of moderation.
3) It’s really hard to be the first person to create the topic. So when you do create the second forum you transfer relevant existing threads (and if you have any, you don’t need the forum) from the old forum to the new forum.
p.s. This is my favourite example of a terrible online community.
Thanks to Richard Millington
Labels: Dr Search, online marketing, online marketing uk, Search Clinic
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Thursday, January 28, 2010
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Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Website Marketing budget guide- the real costs of online marketing
Online Marketing cost guide by Dr Search. Although we at the Search Clinic are pretty open about our services- both what we offer and how much it's going to cost you, when we found this recent post at INeedHits we thought that we would repeat it as a third party independent guide for your benefit.
Whether you’re just starting out, or re-evaluating your website strategy, it’s important for you to get your plan and budget right.
The rule “Build it and they will come” rarely works in the online space. For you to be successful with your website marketing strategy – you need to have a solid plan and be realistic about the real costs of doing it properly.
Too many business owners spend £1000’s on getting a fancy website developed, only to find they have no money left to promote it.
One of our sales guys uses this analogy
“It’s like building a shopping mall in the desert. Without the budget to promote it – who’s going to find it?”
“It’s like building a shopping mall in the desert. Without the budget to promote it – who’s going to find it?”
So to help you get your website design and marketing budget right – here’s a quick guide to what you need and the approximate costs to do it properly.
- 1. The website: Development/Design & Maintenance
The development of a website has many variables. Accordingly the costs can vary significantly depending on factors such as whether its static or dynamic, whether it includes a shopping cart, is the design bespoke or templated etc, etc, etc.
The reality is that websites can vary from £1000 – £50,000, and 90% of the time, you get what you pay for.
If it’s really cheap, it’s likely that there won’t be much functionality and it’ll use a template. The flip side of that is that if it’s too expensive – ask yourself whether you “really” need all the bells and whistles.
And most importantly – shop around. Draft a detailed requirements document and then check with a few website designers/developers to get the best price.
Also, don’t forget to budget for hosting and maintenance. Websites need to be updated in terms of content and systems (e.g. cms) regularly, and without hosting - you wont appear anywhere.
- 2. SEO – Search Engine Optimization
The simple truth is that the majority of website traffic comes from search engines and directories. Most of our clients see upwards of 60% of traffic coming from search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing. While the organic search engine traffic is free (no click costs), you do need to invest in a professional SEO program to ensure you’re maximizing this free search engine traffic.
SEO campaigns again vary significantly. To hire an industry leading SEO consultant can cost as much as $1000 per hour.
Here’s a guide on SEO pricing that Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz posted 2 years ago. As you can imagine – prices have grown since then…but it serves as a guide for the premium end of the scale:
| Service | Low End | Mid Range | High End |
| Site Review + Consulting | $500 | $2,500 | $10,000 |
| Hands-On Editing of Pages/Code | $2,000 | $10,000 | $50,000 |
| Manual Link Building Campaign | $500 | $5,000 | $20,000 |
| Keyword Research Package | $100 | $500 | $2,000 |
| Monthly Retainer for Ongoing SEO | $2,500 | $7,500 | $20,000+ |
Professional SEO is an investment. If you’re in business for the long haul, you’d be crazy not to allocate a decent proportion of your initial online budget on SEO – (or if your budget is tight, then study hard and invest the many hours needed to do it yourself).
To get started with an SEO campaign (fully managed by an experienced SEO professional) that’s going to generate serious ranking and traffic results – you should be looking to pay at least £500 per month - minimum.
- 3. PPC – Google AdWords and Other Search Advertising
As with all things, you’re probably looking for some quick wins in terms of traffic and results from your website. This is where PPC (pay per click) Search Engine Advertising (e.g. Google AdWords) helps.
With a well setup Google AdWords campaign, you can have highly targeted visitors delivered to your website almost instantly. It’s a great way to ensure you’re still getting a return on your website investment while your SEO and other strategies take effect.
Professional PPC campaigns, depending on your industry and how much traffic you need, can cost as little as $200 per month and the sky is the limit. But be aware that with cheaper campaigns, you’ll find most of your investment is going into the setup and management – rather than the media (click costs) – which makes it hard to generate decent ROI.
A serious PPC campaign for a small business should start at approx £500…and depending on your goals – go up from there.
- 4. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a very cost effective way of generating traffic for your website. With most affiliate networks offering CPA models (cost per acquisition) – it allows you to generate traffic that you only pay for when the visitor converts (makes a purchase, signs up for a newsletter, submits a query).
The challenge with affiliate networks is that they take time to be effective and the best networks are often very selective as to who they promote.
Most decent networks will charge a small set up fee ($500-1000 upwards) and then take a commission on every sale or acquisition. Some of the larger ones will also charge a monthly management fees to help you optimize your campaigns.
Most publishers will be looking for between 10% - 30% commission on sales, or a decent bonus for lead/enquiry based programs.
- 5. Social media, Email marketing & Ad Networks
There’s a range of other website promotion opportunities such as Social Media, Email marketing and Ad Networks.
With Social Media, it’s definitely an area that small businesses should be getting involved with, but remember; it’s not a fit for every business and Social media is like SEO - it’s an investment and normally takes a while to generate good results.
There are plenty of other ways to drive more traffic to your site, but in reality – the areas mentioned above will be your main traffic sources.
So with that in mind – you can now get a much clearer and more realistic picture of what it costs to get serious results online. Even if we use the lower end of these costs as a guide, small business owners should be looking at
| Cost Guide | |
| Website Development | £1000+ |
| Hosting & Maintenance | £120+ |
| SEO - 6mth program | £3000 |
| Search Advertising (PPC) - 6mths | £1200 |
| Affiliate Marketing | Depends on Program |
| Others | Depends on Tactics |
| TOTAL | £5000+ |
Now that’s only a starting guide, and as I’ve mentioned previously - the cheapest options aren’t always the best in terms of results and generating good ROI.
So if you’re starting a new website project - you can see there’s more to consider than just the website design costs. If you want your new website in 2010 to be a success - be realistic when doing your planning and budgeting!
Labels: Adwords, Dr Search, online marketing, online marketing uk, Search Clinic, Search Engine Optimisation, SEO Services, social media websites, social web marketing
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Wednesday, January 20, 2010
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Friday, January 15, 2010
Poor customer service- the true cost of lost sales
Poor customer service is costing UK plc about £15.3 billion in lost business per annum- with younger consumers less likely to put up with poor treatment than older ones.
According to a survey undertaken by Greenfield Online among 514 consumers, 73% had terminated a relationship in the past because of bad experiences, with the average value of lost sales being £248 per year.
But the report entitled ‘The Cost of Poor Customer Service: The Economic Impact of the Customer Experience’ also found that younger customers aged between 27 and 43 were 60% more likely to go elsewhere than older ones if dissatisfied with the level of service they received.
It is becoming increasingly crucial for organisations, particularly in service industries such as finance, to ensure they retained customers by providing "exceptional" customer service.
As to what poor customer service actually meant to respondents, the study found that problems could be broken down into several categories: customers having to repeat information; feeling trapped in automated self service systems and being forced to wait too long to receive a service.
Other bugbears included speaking to company representatives who were unaware of their service history and not being able to switch easily between communications channels. Some 41% of those questioned said they were most unhappy with having to use voice-based self-service systems, while 39% said they felt it critical to integrate such systems more intelligently with human interaction.
A huge 83% also said they would welcome proactive help when they became stuck trying to undertake a web transaction or some other form of self-service activity.
According to a survey undertaken by Greenfield Online among 514 consumers, 73% had terminated a relationship in the past because of bad experiences, with the average value of lost sales being £248 per year.
But the report entitled ‘The Cost of Poor Customer Service: The Economic Impact of the Customer Experience’ also found that younger customers aged between 27 and 43 were 60% more likely to go elsewhere than older ones if dissatisfied with the level of service they received.
It is becoming increasingly crucial for organisations, particularly in service industries such as finance, to ensure they retained customers by providing "exceptional" customer service.
As to what poor customer service actually meant to respondents, the study found that problems could be broken down into several categories: customers having to repeat information; feeling trapped in automated self service systems and being forced to wait too long to receive a service.
Other bugbears included speaking to company representatives who were unaware of their service history and not being able to switch easily between communications channels. Some 41% of those questioned said they were most unhappy with having to use voice-based self-service systems, while 39% said they felt it critical to integrate such systems more intelligently with human interaction.
A huge 83% also said they would welcome proactive help when they became stuck trying to undertake a web transaction or some other form of self-service activity.
With the rise of social media and increased consumer awareness, the cost of customer frustration continues to grow. Dr Search is advising enterprise businesses in the UK to develop cohesive strategies that straddle all channels of customer communication including Twitter and Facebook."
Labels: Dr Search, Facebook, online marketing, online marketing uk, Search Clinic, Twitter
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Friday, January 15, 2010
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Thursday, January 14, 2010
New data protection fines jump to £500,000
Beware- the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) will be imposing much stiffer fines for data security breaches in the future. At the moment the maximum fine the ICO can levy is £7,000.
The Information Commissioner's Office is getting tougher over data security with the imposition of fines of up to half a million pounds for serious breaches, something which could prove costly for careless marketeers.
"The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) will be able to order organisations to pay up to £500,000 as a penalty for serious breaches of the Data Protection Act," said an ICO statement. "The ICO has produced statutory guidance about how it proposes to use this new power, which has been approved by the Secretary of State for Justice, and has been laid before Parliament this week."
The size of the fine will be determined after an investigation to assess the gravity of the breach and will also be based on the the size and finances of the organisation at fault, whether the breach was accidental or deliberate, and how much distress the leak of information caused.
"The Information Commissioner will take a pragmatic and proportionate approach to issuing an organisation with a monetary penalty," the ICO statement said. "Factors will be taken into account including an organisation’s financial resources, sector, size and the severity of the data breach, to ensure that undue financial hardship is not imposed on an organisation."
"Getting data protection right has never been more important than it is today. As citizens, we are increasingly asked to complete transactions online, with the state, banks and other organisations using huge databases to store our personal details," said Information Commissioner Christopher Graham. "When things go wrong, a security breach can cause real harm and great distress to thousands of people."
"These penalties are designed to act as a deterrent and to promote compliance with the Data Protection Act. I remain committed to working with voluntary, public and private bodies to help them stick to the rules and comply with the Act. But I will not hesitate to use these tough new sanctions for the most serious cases where organisations disregard the law."
The original Act came into force in 1984. Under the most recent Act of 1998, data can only be used for the purposes for which it is collected and cannot be given to others without the consent of the individual. Everybody has the right to see information that is held about them, with the exception of crime-related data.
The Information Commissioner's Office is getting tougher over data security with the imposition of fines of up to half a million pounds for serious breaches, something which could prove costly for careless marketeers.
"The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) will be able to order organisations to pay up to £500,000 as a penalty for serious breaches of the Data Protection Act," said an ICO statement. "The ICO has produced statutory guidance about how it proposes to use this new power, which has been approved by the Secretary of State for Justice, and has been laid before Parliament this week."
The size of the fine will be determined after an investigation to assess the gravity of the breach and will also be based on the the size and finances of the organisation at fault, whether the breach was accidental or deliberate, and how much distress the leak of information caused.
"The Information Commissioner will take a pragmatic and proportionate approach to issuing an organisation with a monetary penalty," the ICO statement said. "Factors will be taken into account including an organisation’s financial resources, sector, size and the severity of the data breach, to ensure that undue financial hardship is not imposed on an organisation."
"Getting data protection right has never been more important than it is today. As citizens, we are increasingly asked to complete transactions online, with the state, banks and other organisations using huge databases to store our personal details," said Information Commissioner Christopher Graham. "When things go wrong, a security breach can cause real harm and great distress to thousands of people."
"These penalties are designed to act as a deterrent and to promote compliance with the Data Protection Act. I remain committed to working with voluntary, public and private bodies to help them stick to the rules and comply with the Act. But I will not hesitate to use these tough new sanctions for the most serious cases where organisations disregard the law."
The original Act came into force in 1984. Under the most recent Act of 1998, data can only be used for the purposes for which it is collected and cannot be given to others without the consent of the individual. Everybody has the right to see information that is held about them, with the exception of crime-related data.
The new rule is expected to come into force in the UK on 6 April 2010.
The cost of data breaches is already staggeringly high for UK businesses; last year the average breach cost £1.7 million, or £60 for each identity lost. If the ICO's bite turns out to be as big as its bark, this cost could exceed £2 million; a huge expense at a time when businesses and public sector bodies can ill afford to waste money.
The cost of data breaches is already staggeringly high for UK businesses; last year the average breach cost £1.7 million, or £60 for each identity lost. If the ICO's bite turns out to be as big as its bark, this cost could exceed £2 million; a huge expense at a time when businesses and public sector bodies can ill afford to waste money.
Organisations that want to avoid these massive financial penalties must look to implement watertight data protection strategies, employing proven technologies such as data encryption to ensure that confidential information is locked down. It is only by doing so that companies can be sure that their customers, reputations and profits are protected.
Labels: online marketing, online marketing uk, Search Clinic
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Thursday, January 14, 2010
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Friday, January 8, 2010
More small businesses move online to reduce costs
The recession is prompting small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to increase their online presence as they seek to cut running costs and use marketing budgets more efficiently, a new survey has revealed.
According to the Kleinwort Benson UK Entrepreneurs Survey 2009, 76 per cent of approximately 100 respondents said they intended to increase the use of e-marketing in 2010 and 53 per cent said an online presence was critical.
“When making choices to cut costs and determine future strategies, businesses are focusing on online channels,” said Joe White, chief operating officer of Gandi.net, an online service provider.
“It is cheaper to set up and distribute via the internet, so companies may well choose to close the shop. The recession has bought forward some of those decisions to focus on online channels.”
Social media are also being used more extensively, the survey revealed. Forty two per cent said LinkedIn and Twitter, two forms of online networking, would be used to expand their businesses in 2010. Thirty eight per cent and 36 per cent, respectively, said they would employ Facebook and YouTube.
Dominic Davenport, chief executive of Escape Studios, which trains computer graphic artists, said: “We have found that social media deliver very quick, tangible returns in terms of building awareness of our brand, and also identifying new customers.”
Glyn Heath, chief executive of Centiq, an IT consulting and services company, said the interest in social media and web marketing was striking.
“However, smaller businesses are still getting to grips with tools such as Twitter and LinkedIn,” added Heath. “Executives recognise that the web offers exciting engagement possibilities, but they are finding that social media are resource-heavy marketing channels, so increased spending will have lasting implications for workload.”
Julie Hall, founder of Women Unlimited, an online community for female entrepreneurs, said she was surprised that only 53 per cent of respondents thought an online presence was critical.
“The 47 per cent that don’t believe an online presence is critical to their business, don’t get it,” she said. “If they aren’t online, positioning themselves as the ‘go-to company’ in their field, one of their competitors will be.”
The Search Clinic is amazed that more than half of entrepreneurs are still not recognising the benefits of online marketing. Agreed online marketing can waste huge amounts of time and money- but if you get it right, you can acheive up to 500% ROI.
Labels: Dr Search, Facebook, online marketing, online marketing uk, Search Clinic, social media websites, social web marketing, Twitter
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Friday, January 08, 2010
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Thursday, January 7, 2010
ENom sucks your money
Having reviewed one company that purports to care for it's customers over the past few days Search Clinic reviews another at the other end of the customer care spectrum- eNom Inc.
eNom a domain name registration company has increased it's redemption fee for domains to a whopping $250 US Dollars- and has also stopped warning it's customers that their sites are up for renewal.
In an recent announcement, eNom states that they have increased their Redemption Fee for domains in the Redemption Grace Period (RGP) to $250 plus the fee for a 1 year renewal of the domain.
The redemption grace period follows the deletion of the domain by the registrar and was introduced by ICANN as an additional means to recover expired domains by the original registrant. The process of restoring the domain results in a higher charge by the registry and is a process consisting out of more than one step.
In many cases registrars such as eNom “simulate” this period for domains since they will offer domains in their partner marketplaces for purchase or auction after the domains’ expiry. Should a domain in this state be returned to the original registrant, the registrar will not occur any additional charges from the registry aside from the renewal fee.
However the redemption charges registrars apply is decided only by them.
Enom last year also increased some of their new registration prices by 50% for some of the most popular URLs like a .tv domain name.
The moral of the story is to shop around- if registrars like enom try ripping off customers- WALK AWAY.
Labels: online marketing, online marketing uk, Search Clinic
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Thursday, January 07, 2010
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Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Nielson's top five advertising trends for 2010
Whilst the overall advertising environment in 2009 was fairly gloomy with revised strategies to address the credit crunch new trends developed.
The online marketing industry evolved, and the lessons learned will likely pay off in the year ahead. For example, advertisers started to look at the need for accountability metrics beyond the simple “click-through” and on to campaign-specific performance.
They also started to embrace burgeoning social networks and consumer generated media to bring consumers closer to a product or brand.
Top Advertising Trends for 2010
1. Optimizing media convergence is a top priority. A better understanding of media convergence will manifest in order to deliver a better return on investment. The ability to accurately measure activity and link online ads to offline purchasing behavior will be critical.
2. New models emerge to take advantage of smartphones. Accurate mobile measurement will be required to stay head of the snowballing growth of that media platform.
3. More cross media ad campaigns surface. The massive growth of online video games played and shared online leads the way for more successful interactive and cross-media advertising campaigns to appear. Growth in the adoption of this innovative advertising across screens and activities will increase.
4. Commercialization of social networking hubs increase. Social media will provide a new sales channel for establishing product awareness and commercializing brands to better support traditional advertising or text-based ads.
5. More interesting and interactive online ads appear. Increased use of more creative advertising and content models online such as video, attention-seeking page takeover ads and mechanisms for greater interactivity will drive the next era of Web development.
Top Advertising Trends for 2010
1. Optimizing media convergence is a top priority. A better understanding of media convergence will manifest in order to deliver a better return on investment. The ability to accurately measure activity and link online ads to offline purchasing behavior will be critical.
2. New models emerge to take advantage of smartphones. Accurate mobile measurement will be required to stay head of the snowballing growth of that media platform.
3. More cross media ad campaigns surface. The massive growth of online video games played and shared online leads the way for more successful interactive and cross-media advertising campaigns to appear. Growth in the adoption of this innovative advertising across screens and activities will increase.
4. Commercialization of social networking hubs increase. Social media will provide a new sales channel for establishing product awareness and commercializing brands to better support traditional advertising or text-based ads.
5. More interesting and interactive online ads appear. Increased use of more creative advertising and content models online such as video, attention-seeking page takeover ads and mechanisms for greater interactivity will drive the next era of Web development.
From:
Labels: mobile marketing, online marketing, online marketing uk, Search Engine Optimisation, social web marketing
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Wednesday, December 23, 2009
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Thursday, December 17, 2009
Quick tips to boost your holiday sales
With Christmas fast approaching, here are some quick tips which can help you to maximise your sales during this peak time of year.
1. Increase Your Campaign Budgets
Throughout December there will be a big spike in the number of people looking for gifts online. If you are promoting your business through a pay per click program like Google AdWords, make sure to increase your campaign budgets to take advantage of the extra search activity.
2. Don’t Stop on December 25th
Even though the big day has come and gone, keep your holiday campaigns running into the New Year. Boxing day can be the busiest day of the year for online retailers, with many people looking for retailers trying to clear excess stock.
1. Increase Your Campaign Budgets
Throughout December there will be a big spike in the number of people looking for gifts online. If you are promoting your business through a pay per click program like Google AdWords, make sure to increase your campaign budgets to take advantage of the extra search activity.
2. Don’t Stop on December 25th
Even though the big day has come and gone, keep your holiday campaigns running into the New Year. Boxing day can be the busiest day of the year for online retailers, with many people looking for retailers trying to clear excess stock.
But make sure that you are your staff keep checking your online order emails! We know of one business that kept their pay per click running over the holiday period- but no one checked until Jan 2nd. So they had much lost money and dissatisfied customers.
3. Clarify Your Shipping Dates
A large majority of your customers will want to receive their goods on or before the 24th December, so make your shipping policy clear. On your home and product pages, list the final order dates for guaranteed delivery before xmas.
4. Consider a Holiday ‘Sale’
Give yourself an edge over competitors by running a special offer or discount during the holiday period. Some examples may include:
* Free Shipping
* Shop wide discounts- like a £10 off your next sale voucher code
* Buy One Get One Free Offers
* Free Order Bonuses- like a T shirt
5. Prompt Customer Service
Frantic, last minute shoppers will be looking for quick answers to their questions. By speeding your response times you’re more likely to keep their business away from competitors.
Good Luck- Dr Search hopes that you’ve found these tips a useful addition to your holiday marketing!
3. Clarify Your Shipping Dates
A large majority of your customers will want to receive their goods on or before the 24th December, so make your shipping policy clear. On your home and product pages, list the final order dates for guaranteed delivery before xmas.
4. Consider a Holiday ‘Sale’
Give yourself an edge over competitors by running a special offer or discount during the holiday period. Some examples may include:
* Free Shipping
* Shop wide discounts- like a £10 off your next sale voucher code
* Buy One Get One Free Offers
* Free Order Bonuses- like a T shirt
5. Prompt Customer Service
Frantic, last minute shoppers will be looking for quick answers to their questions. By speeding your response times you’re more likely to keep their business away from competitors.
Good Luck- Dr Search hopes that you’ve found these tips a useful addition to your holiday marketing!
Labels: Dr Search, online marketing, online marketing uk, Search Clinic
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Thursday, December 17, 2009
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Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Google and Facebook launch URL link shorteners
Google and Facebook have launched their own URL link shorteners, tools that transform a long internet address in to a much shorter string of characters.
Google's new URL shortener, goo.gl, will be available through Google's Toolbar and its Feedburner RSS feed, but is not yet available as a stand-alone service for "broader consumer use". Facebook's shortener, fb. me, is predominantly designed for use on mobile device, and it's unclear whether fb. me will be rolled out across the whole platform.
URL shorteners have grown in popularity over the last 18 months, with an increasing number of web users using services such as TinyURL and bit.ly to condense links so that they can be shared more easily on social networking sites such as Twitter, which imposes a limit on the number of characters that can be contained within a single message.
Google and Facebook's foray in to link shortening could be a disaster for rival service bit.ly, which has rapidly become the de facto URL-condensing tool. It is the URL shortener of choice for many third party Twitter clients, and bit.ly short links currently account for around 75 per cent of all shortened URLs circulated on the microblogging platform. Last month, bit.ly shortened more than two billion links, up from just 11.8 million the previous year.
Much of bit.ly's popularity stems from the metrics that can be gathered from every clicked link, enabling website owners to see where their traffic comes from. At present, neither Google nor Facebook has announced any plans to add analytics to their URL shortening services, but some industry experts believe Google could leverage its existing web trends and analytics tools and apply them to its goo.gl service if the tool is made generally available to businesses and consumers.
Within hours of Google's and Facebook's announcements, Betaworks Studios, which helped to develop
bit.ly, said that the company was launching a new service that would allow websites to create their own custom URLs built on the bit.ly platform.
Some industry experts have warned that the sheer volume of short links that could be generated by Facebook's and Google's URL shorteners could "overwhelm" the number of bit.ly links circulating on the internet.
URL shorteners have grown in popularity over the last 18 months, with an increasing number of web users using services such as TinyURL and bit.ly to condense links so that they can be shared more easily on social networking sites such as Twitter, which imposes a limit on the number of characters that can be contained within a single message.
Google and Facebook's foray in to link shortening could be a disaster for rival service bit.ly, which has rapidly become the de facto URL-condensing tool. It is the URL shortener of choice for many third party Twitter clients, and bit.ly short links currently account for around 75 per cent of all shortened URLs circulated on the microblogging platform. Last month, bit.ly shortened more than two billion links, up from just 11.8 million the previous year.
Much of bit.ly's popularity stems from the metrics that can be gathered from every clicked link, enabling website owners to see where their traffic comes from. At present, neither Google nor Facebook has announced any plans to add analytics to their URL shortening services, but some industry experts believe Google could leverage its existing web trends and analytics tools and apply them to its goo.gl service if the tool is made generally available to businesses and consumers.
Within hours of Google's and Facebook's announcements, Betaworks Studios, which helped to develop
bit.ly, said that the company was launching a new service that would allow websites to create their own custom URLs built on the bit.ly platform.
Some industry experts have warned that the sheer volume of short links that could be generated by Facebook's and Google's URL shorteners could "overwhelm" the number of bit.ly links circulating on the internet.
Labels: Facebook, Google, online marketing, online marketing uk, social media websites, social web marketing, Twitter
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Wednesday, December 16, 2009
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Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Speed matters- Britons lose temper after three minutes 38 seconds
It's not just Google- Britons last an average of eight minutes and 22 seconds before they lose their temper, according to new research.
It found that the Internet has increased people's service demands and is eroding the classic British trait of patience as more than half admitted they lose their temper quicker than ever before.
People have become so used to the speed and convenience of the internet that more than seven in 10 get angry if forced to wait longer than one minute for a web page to download.
It found that the Internet has increased people's service demands and is eroding the classic British trait of patience as more than half admitted they lose their temper quicker than ever before.
People have become so used to the speed and convenience of the internet that more than seven in 10 get angry if forced to wait longer than one minute for a web page to download.
As the internet continues to quicken up it's bound to place greater expectations on the offline world too.
"And with 37 per cent of people saying they have cancelled a service after being forced to wait it poses some real problems for companies.
Being kept on hold made Brits see red more than anything else, with the average person reaching their impatience threshold after five minutes and four seconds.
In today's fast food culture, restaurant rage kicks in after only eight minutes, 38 seconds, when the average diner will start to wonder whether the meal they have ordered will ever arrive.
People running late to meet a friend should not leave it any longer than 10 minutes, one second if they do not want to face their wrath.
And tradesmen arriving to a job more than 10 minutes, 43 seconds late should not expect a cup of tea from their impatient householder.
Finally, when receiving a text or voicemail, be warned that the clock is ticking as the average Briton expects a response within 13 minutes and 16 seconds.
The research found that younger people were much more impatient than their older counterparts. A third of 18 to 24-year-olds expect to wait up to 10 seconds for an internet page to load compared to only one in 10 of over 65s, most of whom were happy to wait up to a minute for a page to load.
Younger people are more impatient in the offline world too. Twice as many 55-64 year olds than 18-24 year olds were prepared to wait more than 30 minutes for a friend to show up for a meeting.
Frustrated youngsters are also more likely to get physical, with 19 per cent of 18-44 year olds having thrown something in anger after reaching the point of impatience, compared to just four in 10 of over 45s.
Top points of impatience:
"And with 37 per cent of people saying they have cancelled a service after being forced to wait it poses some real problems for companies.
Being kept on hold made Brits see red more than anything else, with the average person reaching their impatience threshold after five minutes and four seconds.
In today's fast food culture, restaurant rage kicks in after only eight minutes, 38 seconds, when the average diner will start to wonder whether the meal they have ordered will ever arrive.
People running late to meet a friend should not leave it any longer than 10 minutes, one second if they do not want to face their wrath.
And tradesmen arriving to a job more than 10 minutes, 43 seconds late should not expect a cup of tea from their impatient householder.
Finally, when receiving a text or voicemail, be warned that the clock is ticking as the average Briton expects a response within 13 minutes and 16 seconds.
The research found that younger people were much more impatient than their older counterparts. A third of 18 to 24-year-olds expect to wait up to 10 seconds for an internet page to load compared to only one in 10 of over 65s, most of whom were happy to wait up to a minute for a page to load.
Younger people are more impatient in the offline world too. Twice as many 55-64 year olds than 18-24 year olds were prepared to wait more than 30 minutes for a friend to show up for a meeting.
Frustrated youngsters are also more likely to get physical, with 19 per cent of 18-44 year olds having thrown something in anger after reaching the point of impatience, compared to just four in 10 of over 45s.
Top points of impatience:
- Waiting for an Internet page to load 3 mins 38 secs
- Waiting on hold on telephone 5 mins 4 secs
- Waiting for the kettle to boil 5 mins 6 secs
- Waiting for food in a restaurant 8 mins 38 secs
- Waiting for friends to show up 10 mins 1 secs
- Waiting for a tradesman to show 10 mins 43 secs
- Waiting for someone to reply to a vm/text 13 mins 16 secs
- Average 8 mins 22 seconds
Labels: Google, online marketing uk, search engine marketing, search engines
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Tuesday, December 08, 2009
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Monday, December 7, 2009
Cyber Monday shoppers to spend £350m online today
Today is expected to be the busiest day of the year for UK retail websites, with bargain hunters expected to spend a total of at least £350m on Christmas gifts.
The first Monday in December – so called Cyber Monday, is the cue for a stampede as shoppers who see goods on the high street over the weekend use their office high speed broadband connections to place orders once they return to work.
This year’s forecasts from the IMRG, the trade body for online retailers, are exceeded by those of Kelkoo, the shopping comparison service, which predicts sales of £417m.
Total sales are expected to be £5bn for December, a 14 per cent increase on last year, according to IMRG.
“To reach that amount during a recession shows the huge resilience of the online sector,” said David Smith, IMRG director of operations. “People are turning to the internet to look for value.”
On the equivalent Monday last year, Amazon said it saw 1.4m items ordered in 24 hours. The website expects this to rise about 10 per cent this year.
The first Monday in December – so called Cyber Monday, is the cue for a stampede as shoppers who see goods on the high street over the weekend use their office high speed broadband connections to place orders once they return to work.
This year’s forecasts from the IMRG, the trade body for online retailers, are exceeded by those of Kelkoo, the shopping comparison service, which predicts sales of £417m.
Total sales are expected to be £5bn for December, a 14 per cent increase on last year, according to IMRG.
“To reach that amount during a recession shows the huge resilience of the online sector,” said David Smith, IMRG director of operations. “People are turning to the internet to look for value.”
On the equivalent Monday last year, Amazon said it saw 1.4m items ordered in 24 hours. The website expects this to rise about 10 per cent this year.
Shopping usually reaches its peak at lunchtime, between 1pm and 2pm.
Kelkoo found that about 70 per cent of people plan to shop online, while the IMRG’s research suggests that nearly three in four people who shop online will buy most of their gifts over the internet.
Christmas will be less frugal than in 2008, according to indications from Google. Searches for “Christmas gifts” have risen 22 per cent in the past year, while searches for “gold jewellery” are up 39 per cent and “diamond rings” 76 per cent. In contrast, searches for “coupons” were a theme last year.
According to Kelkoo, about 40 per cent of British shoppers plan to spend more on gifts than last year. The average household spends £665.
Kelkoo found that about 70 per cent of people plan to shop online, while the IMRG’s research suggests that nearly three in four people who shop online will buy most of their gifts over the internet.
Christmas will be less frugal than in 2008, according to indications from Google. Searches for “Christmas gifts” have risen 22 per cent in the past year, while searches for “gold jewellery” are up 39 per cent and “diamond rings” 76 per cent. In contrast, searches for “coupons” were a theme last year.
According to Kelkoo, about 40 per cent of British shoppers plan to spend more on gifts than last year. The average household spends £665.
Labels: Dr Search, Google, online marketing uk, Search Clinic, search engine marketing, Search Marketing
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Monday, December 07, 2009
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Friday, December 4, 2009
3 tips to ensure B2B content is SEO friendly
Increasing the external links to your website is one of the most important elements of a successful optimization strategy.
They can boost your rankings in the search results, drive traffic, and increase your presence across the Web. But securing external links can be a challenge. That’s why it’s important to explore every opportunity to acquire them.
Standout B2B websites are usually brimming with great content, including lead generating materials such as whitepapers, articles, and case studies.
Standout B2B websites are usually brimming with great content, including lead generating materials such as whitepapers, articles, and case studies.
Because this type of content generally includes interesting and useful facts or best practices, a target audience is likely to share the information via email, blogs, and forums. Given that, such content represents considerable opportunity to generate external links via proper online citation.
But despite the valuable time and resources spent on developing great content, it often doesn’t get the chance to fully live up to its potential to create external linking opportunities. Why?
But despite the valuable time and resources spent on developing great content, it often doesn’t get the chance to fully live up to its potential to create external linking opportunities. Why?
Because more often than not, little thought is put into making sure that the website gets cited when the content is shared online. In fact, many marketers simply assume that when someone cites their content, they also automatically link to the website. Unfortunately, that is not the case. As a result, many marketers are missing the opportunity to leverage their content to secure valuable external links.
For example, let’s say that a consumer research firm publishes a whitepaper about shopping trends by the day of the week. The document is emailed to existing clients, who then copy and paste key callouts in emails to their colleagues, quote the whitepaper in their blogs, comment on other blogs with snippets, and mention it at a meeting, prompting others to search for it.
Obviously, the content succeeded in engaging the target, and it was shared amongst many potential customers.
For example, let’s say that a consumer research firm publishes a whitepaper about shopping trends by the day of the week. The document is emailed to existing clients, who then copy and paste key callouts in emails to their colleagues, quote the whitepaper in their blogs, comment on other blogs with snippets, and mention it at a meeting, prompting others to search for it.
Obviously, the content succeeded in engaging the target, and it was shared amongst many potential customers.
However, there is nothing to confirm that the interest generated resulted in a single link back to the firm’s website. If the firm were using some type of proactive method to ensure citation, they may have increased their external links. Instead, the lack of attention to SEO-friendly citation translates into a huge missed opportunity to increase their link credibility for search.
To effectively leverage your content for external links, you need to ensure that your shared content is accompanied by a link – even when it’s just snippets. But keep in mind that generating external links through online citation is not the responsibility of your visitors.
To effectively leverage your content for external links, you need to ensure that your shared content is accompanied by a link – even when it’s just snippets. But keep in mind that generating external links through online citation is not the responsibility of your visitors.
After all, even if they do link back to you, they may not do so in an SEO-friendly way. Given that, automating the online citation process may yield the best results. Below are a few tools that will help ensure you receive proper online citation and net external links when visitors share, post, or copy and paste your content:
1. Social Bookmarking – An old favorite, social bookmarking widgets have evolved to encompass nearly every social media platform and network available – from Facebook and Twitter to more niche sites such as Slashdot and Sphinn. These widgets are commonly customizable to match the aesthetic of your website and the platforms you prefer, and are easily implemented with the code generated by the provider.
1. Social Bookmarking – An old favorite, social bookmarking widgets have evolved to encompass nearly every social media platform and network available – from Facebook and Twitter to more niche sites such as Slashdot and Sphinn. These widgets are commonly customizable to match the aesthetic of your website and the platforms you prefer, and are easily implemented with the code generated by the provider.
Many of the most popular social bookmarking widgets are free, and some come packaged with analytics to track click-throughs. My personal favorite is Social Twist’s Tell a Friend, whose tabbed format offers social bookmarking, blogging, social networking, email, and IM options.
2. Site-Hosted jQuery Script – Search and Share, a jQuery script for your website, takes automated citation to the next level. Recognizing that when visitors highlight your content they’re most likely interested in sharing it with others, Search and Share automatically provides sharing options when text on your site is highlighted. In addition, the script embeds the source page’s title and URL when the content is shared — even when a mere snippet is copied and pasted.
If your target audience is highly engaged in blogging and forums, the benefits of this script are undeniable. Instead of hoping that your site will receive a link when your content is quoted, you can feel confident that Search and Share will make it happen automatically. As a result, it will simultaneously increase the links to your site, and decrease your dependency on your visitors for proper online citation.
3. Providing Optimized HTML – For online marketers, it’s sometimes hard to remember that not everyone on the Web is an HTML whiz. Considering that, one of the simplest ways to make sure people are linking to you in the way that fits your optimization strategy is to actually provide them with the code.
For example, take a look at PR.com’s Link to Us page. PR.com has provided pre-formatted HTML code for people to use when linking to their site. By eliminating the work of coding a link, PR.com is increasing the chance that their target will follow through.
Providing an exact HTML link enables you to pursue any optimization strategy you choose, thereby increasing the effectiveness of the links on your search visibility. This strategy can be especially beneficial when securing a link from a business partner or vendor, as you may have more flexibility in determining the format of the link.
If you are going to invest in developing interesting and engaging content for your website, be sure to leverage it as a means to generate external links via proper online citation. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that your visitors are citing your content. With several tools that eliminate the hassle and increase the likelihood of linking back to a site, there’s no reason to miss this opportunity.
With thanks to Search Engine Land at:
http://searchengineland.com/3-tips-to-ensure-b2b-content-gets-seo-friendly-citations-30456
If you are going to invest in developing interesting and engaging content for your website, be sure to leverage it as a means to generate external links via proper online citation. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that your visitors are citing your content. With several tools that eliminate the hassle and increase the likelihood of linking back to a site, there’s no reason to miss this opportunity.
With thanks to Search Engine Land at:
http://searchengineland.com/3-tips-to-ensure-b2b-content-gets-seo-friendly-citations-30456
Labels: online marketing, online marketing uk, Search Engine Optimisation, SEO Services
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Friday, December 04, 2009
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Thursday, November 26, 2009
Firefox double celebrations- turns 5 and 25% Market Share
Firefox from Mozilla turned 5 this month, and celebrated by having achieved 25% of the global browser usage market share.
NetMarketShare.com from Net Applications tracks global and local usage market share for browsers, operating systems, search engines and mobile systems.
“What an exciting milestone for Mozilla, particularly as we are celebrating five years of Firefox this week,” said Mitchell Baker, Chair, Mozilla. “The momentum around Firefox adoption has been truly astounding.”
When Firefox entered the browser wars, we asserted it needed to achieve 10% usage market share to be considered a true competitor to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Mozilla crossed that threshold back in March of 2006 and they have grown their usage share fairly steadily since then.
Now 1 in 4 people globally are browsing the Internet with Firefox.
That’s impressive, especially when you consider the advantages the other browser providers have enjoyed over the years:
* Internet Explorer has been the default browser on Windows systems, and often the only browser supported by many company’s IT departments
* Safari has been the default browser on Macs and iPhones
* Opera has often been first to introduce new browser features, and has supported many mobile and gaming devices
* Chrome comes from Mozilla’s primary source of revenue, Google, and has performance advantages over other browsers
The competition has been heated, but Mozilla has focused on a formula of:
* Free (this may seem obvious now, but there had to be a difficult decision made between charging for the browser as Opera was doing early on, or come up with another revenue model)
* Open source
* Extensibility
* Excellent user experience
* Frequent updates and innovation
That formula has been successful so far, but the war is far from decided. Microsoft’s release of Windows 7 has seen a very impressive early adoption rate. There are 2 major decisions computer users will face with a major new operating system available.
First, do they upgrade to Windows 7, or is this the time to consider an alternative such as a Mac OS or Linux based system. New Mac users will most likely lead to new Safari users. Second, with a new operating system many people will have to decide on a default browser again. This gives IE a great opportunity to win back some of its lost market share. But, it also gives Chrome, Opera and other browsers an opportunity to become the alternative browser of choice over Firefox.
Another major force in the browser wars is the move to mobile. The iPhone has proven that people will browse from their mobile device if the browser and device can provide a similar user experience to a computer.
Mobile browsing is projected to grow substantially in the years to come, so this may be the next big battle ground for browser providers.
See current usage market share and trends at NetMarketShare.com.
Labels: online marketing, online marketing uk
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Thursday, November 26, 2009
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Friday, November 20, 2009
Cyber Monday is coming- is your website ready?
Cyber Monday (the first Monday after US Thanksgiving), marks the start of the online holiday shopping season for most retailers.
With a flurry of online activity expected on this day, it’s important to ensure your website’s going to capture the attention of as many shoppers as possible.
In 2008, Cyber Monday spending hit a record high, with consumers spending a whopping $846 million online.
In 2008, Cyber Monday spending hit a record high, with consumers spending a whopping $846 million online.
The good news for retailers is that Cyber Monday is only the start - with strong online sales expected to continue right through until the New Year.
So the big question is: are you ready? The key to improving your sales during this period is to focus on marketing that can deliver instant results.
In the online world, this typically includes:
* Google AdWords / PPC Advertising
* Local Search Listings
* Featured Listings on smaller search engines
Google AdWords (PPC) Advertising
Google AdWords advertising would definitely be the number one way to target holiday shoppers. It offers pinpoint targeting and instant exposure enabling you to get on the first page of Google when customers are searching for your products and services.
Key Benefits:
* Campaigns can be live within hours.
* Ability to target customers via keyword and location.
* First page placement on Google.
Local Search Listings
If you’re targeting local customers, a local search listing across Google, Yahoo and Bing is another way to get on the first page of organic search results. It’s simple to setup and there’s no limit to the number of people who click on your listing.
Key Benefits:
* Once verified, listings are live almost immediately.
* Can be included on the first page of results.
* Free organic traffic.
Featured Listings
If your customers use a search engine besides the top 3, there’s no harm in being found there either. Top 10 featured listings can help boost the efforts of your PPC and Local campaigns.
Key Benefits:
* Listings are live within 48 hours.
* Traffic is free – no click fee’s.
* Keyword targeted traffic.
This year, Cyber Monday falls on the 30th November, so there’s only a few weeks now to get prepared. But don’t leave it to the last minute!
So the big question is: are you ready? The key to improving your sales during this period is to focus on marketing that can deliver instant results.
In the online world, this typically includes:
* Google AdWords / PPC Advertising
* Local Search Listings
* Featured Listings on smaller search engines
Google AdWords (PPC) Advertising
Google AdWords advertising would definitely be the number one way to target holiday shoppers. It offers pinpoint targeting and instant exposure enabling you to get on the first page of Google when customers are searching for your products and services.
Key Benefits:
* Campaigns can be live within hours.
* Ability to target customers via keyword and location.
* First page placement on Google.
Local Search Listings
If you’re targeting local customers, a local search listing across Google, Yahoo and Bing is another way to get on the first page of organic search results. It’s simple to setup and there’s no limit to the number of people who click on your listing.
Key Benefits:
* Once verified, listings are live almost immediately.
* Can be included on the first page of results.
* Free organic traffic.
Featured Listings
If your customers use a search engine besides the top 3, there’s no harm in being found there either. Top 10 featured listings can help boost the efforts of your PPC and Local campaigns.
Key Benefits:
* Listings are live within 48 hours.
* Traffic is free – no click fee’s.
* Keyword targeted traffic.
This year, Cyber Monday falls on the 30th November, so there’s only a few weeks now to get prepared. But don’t leave it to the last minute!
Labels: Adwords, bing, Dr Search, Google, online marketing, online marketing uk, Pay Per Click Marketing, Yahoo
# posted by Dr Search- Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic : Friday, November 20, 2009
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