Website page layout is key to customer experience. A new algorithm change has been announced by Google, aimed at penalising eCommerce sites with too many Adsense ads, over three quarters of which are located ‘above the fold’, before scrolling down. While Google actually advises that best results are obtained by a focus on above the fold ad placement, they state ad heavy sites are likely to “not rank as highly”.
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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.
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The festive season is here once more and the annual round up of facts, stats and analytics from around the web are flying thick and fast, covering the online landscape in a wondrous blanket of gleaming awesomeness! All those trillions of daily tweets and billions of Facebook users bigger than entire populations of European countries combined, etc.
Suffice to say, and despite dire predictions of imminent economic collapse from the offline realworld, the future outlook for sassy mobile and tablet superspace, replete with social buzz and shopping on the fly, never looked more promising for eCommerce …
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Mobile and tablet! Is your website optimised for the Technology Twins? Just like the other Dynamic Duo of today’s online X-men, search and social, the superheroes of the multichannel will be sites who are at one with the motivations and behaviours of the user in 2012 – “to boldly go …”. Yep, that’s right, it’s all about sorting your website out!
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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!
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It seems that UK consumers come out on top for purchasing online and using their mobiles for internet access, according to a new Ofcom market report. More end of year figures from a Gartner study show that use of tablets has spiralled to around 63 million units in the last twelve months.
Add to this the 46 per cent of mobile owners who use their devices to access the web and the near 90 per cent who visit retail sites – the question has to be asked … why are so many websites still not optimised for access by ‘on the move’ technology …?
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Does your site have a blog? Can it be easily found, and is it relevant and readable? When was the last time it was updated?
While it seems that many companies have been turning their attention to gaining a presence on Facebook and even attempting to master the art of Twitter, recent research has found that a key social media resource is being overlooked by nearly three quarters of businesses.
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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 … …
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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?
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On Demand.. On The Move .. Always On .. whoa, definitely a bit too fast-paced for some site owners! The problem actually is, either they expect the web to somehow magically deliver instant results, or they still think it’s not for their type of business or for their particular customers! Their websites haven’t really kept up with any of the changes on the web in the last five years! As many as 40 per cent still haven’t got round to SEO, and as for “all this twittering …!”
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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.
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If eCommerce website owners were wary of social media because they couldn’t see how to measure tangible return, the new age of multichannel might appear to them to be an even more daunting prospect when trying to nail the original source response metric. Who’s using what channels, when, why and where?
Downloading a mobile app, an ad link clicked and then a tweet, followed by a like, checking Facebook, or newsletter opt-in, maybe just placing one item in a basket or perhaps asking a question online, sending an email, dialling the freephone number, QR code scanned. User options and behaviours are cascading across multiple channels and platform, online, offline – everywhere!
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