The deadline for eCommerce website owners to fully comply with new EU cookie legislation is 25th May 2012. What the amended ‘cookie law’ means is that from now on, permission must be obtained by a clear and explicit consent to opt-in from all website visitors before installing cookies on their computer.
Read more
Website owners who fail to keep up and pay attention to the changing web are about to have a rude awakening! From January 2012, Microsoft will update Internet Explorer (IE) browsers to the latest version automatically – without the user’s knowledge! The message is clear – the multichannel and platform search and social age is here now and either eCommerce adapts or dies!
Read more
You would suppose that in today’s search and social multichannel world, when customers and search engines place the emphasis on websites providing great customer experience to raise site credibility and authority, that businesses would ensure their sites are regularly attended to and error–free?
Nope! Nearly 90 per cent of UK site owners admit to website accessibility errors and poor visitor usability … …
Read more
We have just put the finishing touches to our clients website – Anti Theft Software. Did you know that a laptop gets stolen every 53 seconds? We didn’t before.
Is your website customer-centric? Does it provide the crucial user experience you know your target audience wants? Can you provide real, researched reasons for why site pages look and function the way they do or are they simply the result of personal preference that you assume is in tune with the search needs of your customer niche?
Read more
You would think that the evolution of online marketing into the greater multichannel would be sufficient incentive for businesses to continue to invest more time and employ better resources in the necessary optimisation of their sites and extended web presence. Nope! Too often, good intentions simply peter out after a few months, “no one has the time” or even looks at their own company site very much. Followers, visitors and rankings soon fade away – opportunities lost.
Read more
All aboard the brand awareness bandwagon! It’s called doing social media – marketing style! Or that’s the way many business owners still see Facebook and Twitter and having a company blog. A low-cost method to indulge a little more self promotion and push marketing. But this is not what social media does. There’s no real intent to listen and engage, just broadcast and sell!
“ It’s all selling really, isn’t it?” is not an uncommon remark uttered by site owners who decide that doing social media is not so bad after all, as everyone else seems to be putting Facebook and Twitter buttons on their home page. A nice cheap method to get a bit more brand awareness and site traffic!
Read more
Website experience is now multichannel! That means visitors expect to access site pages via smartphone and tablet as well as a browser – and receive the same quality of seamless, customer-centric experience. The fragmentation of visitor segments according to platform, channel, location and present need presents site owners with the challenge of maintaining optimal brand visibility. Reshaping a website design for total “access all platforms” rather than simply by products or services now needs to be top of the ”to do” list!
The evolution of mobile to smartphone and netbook to tablet has transformed user behaviours. Consumer appetite for site content and social media ‘on the move’ or on the TV sofa has exploded and now highly differentiated by demographic segments. Consumption is being shaped by context, i.e. the platform technology and corresponding location.
Read more
Seek and ye shall find! Search and discovery online has opened up pathways to websites from a wide variety of visitor traffic groups. Each identifiable type conducts search for reasons site owners need to recognise and be responsive to as a different kind of segmented niche audience who have entered company targeted SEO keywords.
Optimising your site to draw the desired audience who will convert to the purpose of the site needs to be now understood in the context of an evolving landscape of multi channel search and social discovery. Not everyone is purchasing immediately, some are simply seeking quick answers to questions, while others looking for ideas, want to find out more or conducting research.
Read more
It’s search and social and website! All three pistons should be working for the conversion engine to drive! One is not a substitute for the other. Prospects click and link to your site by everywhichway they became aware of you! But if they can’t find what they’re looking for or something’s not quite right, then off they go again to seek elsewhere. No matter what you tweet or post …
A social media strategy is only likely to work for you if your website pages and online marketing are up to speed! It’s simply staggering how many site owners assume Twitter following and Facebook likes should automatically equate to site traffic and conversions. Being social is just ‘being social’!
Read more
Aah – those converging multi channels and platforms! They’re actually splitting the online world apart. Into a kaleidoscope of colliding content, social segments and marketing fragments … It was all so much simpler back in the good old days of just having one website to invite prospects to visit and “ take a look around”. Today’s business owners now need social managers just to take care of tweets, Facebook updates and to keep putting their brand content “out there”.
Online businesses and eCommerce sites have become all too aware of a changed cyberspace. They see consumers with smartphones and tablets on social networks. They hear the rising buzz of the shared conversations behind ‘walled gardens’, fingers tapping mobile apps, opted-in to private worlds where only the cool and savvy communicate.
Read more
Converting visitors to buyers – in the era of smartphone and tablet search and social. More problems for website owners to worry about! Or not, in too many cases! Surprisingly, latest research shows that while consumer expectations are changing, the answer to optimising sites for ‘conversion to purchase’ lies in getting key design basics right. It’s all about providing great customer experience…
The essence of online marketing is firstly, reaching out to encourage target, niche market segments to follow and visit the company website. Secondly, driving further visitor engagement to quickly and easily find the object of their search and trust the site enough to proceed to checkout. For eCommerce sites, visitors completing the payment process without finding a reason to ‘abandon basket’ at any stage is the holy grail to survival on the web.
Read more