Browser Usage—does your website suit all?

Whether at work, at home or on mobile phones, a wide range of browsers are used to view the internet. Testing websites across all browsers is essential for ensuring that you’re not losing visitors to your site.

Most web agencies will browser test the websites they build, as part of their process. However, a website should not only be tested against the latest versions of the all browsers, but also earlier versions of the browser to ensure there aren’t any viewing glitches. Unfortunately, this is not always the case and we still see websites which may work on the latest version of Internet Explorer, but don’t work on anything else! From a client perspective, whilst you can’t be expected to know why viewing glitches happen across different browsers, you should at least be armed with the right questions to ask your agency if the testing has been done and know the possible implications if it hasn’t!

Are you familiar with all the browsers and the markets they serve? As you can see, latest figures for internet usage December 2007, shows Microsoft maintain their market share, mainly due to their dominance in the Corporate Market. Firefox is continuing to grow in popularity with home users, particularly seeing growth in November and December when internet shopping is at its annual peak. Another trend to hit 2007 was the iPhone, which is having a big impact on internet usage. Over 1 in every 1000 page views on the internet are now coming from iPhones, which have only been on the market since June 2007 and has already sold over 4 million units.

If you’d like to know more about the latest web trends and how they affect your website, please give us a call on 0117 907 9930.

Driving Traffic to your Website—What’s Best? (Part 1 of 2)

The benefits of SEO (search engine optimisation) over PPC (pay per click)

The two most prominent on-line marketing activities are search engine optimisation (SEO) and pay per click campaigns (PPC). Ideally any large business with an on-line promotional strategy should be investing time and funds into both activities, but smaller businesses often have to choose between these activities because budgets are limited.

Click here if you need a reminder on the meanings of search engine optimisation or pay per click:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_per_click

So which is the best choice for your business? In this article, we will explore the benefits of SEO. Look out for the benefits of PPC next month.

Search Engine Optimisation

The advantages of SEO offers over PPC campaigns are:

1. More likely to click

A recent study found that search users are up to six times more likely to click on the first few organic results (i.e. those that appear naturally at the top of search results) than they are to choose any of the paid results (i.e. those that are paying to appear above the organic results) (Oneupweb study).

2. Building trust

Studies indicate that trust levels for organic results are much higher than for paid results, more specifically that only 14% of searchers trust paid listings and 29% were ‘annoyed’ by them (eMarketer).

3. Deliver more value

Organic results tend to be viewed as non-biased and therefore deemed to deliver more value. The overall conversion rate, or the rate which searchers take a desired action after visiting a website, is 17% higher for organic results and is between 4.2–3.6% for paid results (Marketing Sherpa).

4. Growing awareness

As internet use continues to grow as a research tool, searchers are becoming more aware of paid results being used as a marketing tool. 54% of searchers on Google (the most popular search engine) are aware of the difference between organic and paid results.

5. Keyword costs

PPC costs are steadily rising. Between 2004–2005 the average keyword costs increased by over 100% and fluctuated over the year, becoming more expensive over the holiday seasons. The cost of outsourcing an SEO campaign will remain stable throughout the year as they are usually based on a set annual contract.

6. Long term benefits

The long term results for SEO are greater than PPC. Once the budget runs out for PPC or you decide to stop the campaign, then the results will instantly stop. Once your website has been optimised and achieves good rankings, it will continue to do so until the next change in a search engine’s algorithm (the language which search engines use to filter search results).

It may seem that the case for investing your on-line promotional budget in SEO is clear cut, but PPC also has its place and value. We’ll explore the benefits of PPC next month.

In the meantime, if you’d like more information on SEO or PPC then please get in touch on 0117 907 9930.

Driving Traffic to your Website—What’s Best? (Part 2 of 2)

(Read part 1 of this article here)

The benefits of SEO (search engine optimisation) over PPC (pay per click)

Following on from our article in October’s edition of Essentials Guide, it may seem that search engine optimisation (SEO) is the clear choice, but in certain situations pay per click (PPC) campaigns make more sense.

Click here if you need a reminder on the meanings of search engine optimisation or pay per click

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_per_click

So what are the benefits of PPC?

Immediate results

If you are looking for immediate results then PPC is the way to go. SEO can take up to three months to kick in, whereas the results are immediate for PPC. This is particularly relevant if your business is seasonal and you only need to promote at key times in the year, or you are looking to promote a new initiative quickly.

Working in a niche

Businesses with tight marketing budgets may find PPC more cost effective particularly if you are working within a niche industry with a relatively small prospect pool. This means that you can limit the number of key phrases which you are bidding for and key phrases themselves will cost less as they are not of interest to the mainstream. Although this means you will not generate huge volumes of traffic, the traffic you do build will be specific to the desired results. This would be cheaper than paying a monthly SEO contract.

Self Management

Simple PPC campaigns can be handled in-house. Even if you are a complete novice, getting started with PPC is easy. Again this generally suits large B2B and high-end service-oriented companies who are working with a limited prospect pool. Also you deal directly with the search engine, eg. Google AdWords, there is no middle man and these sites offer helpful tutorials to get you started.

No strings attached

SEO campaigns usually involve signing up to a monthly contract which runs indefinitely as it’s assumed that meaningful results don’t happen overnight. This means that if the PPC campaign isn’t working, you can easily either change the key words you’re using or ditch the campaign altogether and reallocate your promotional budget to another activity which will deliver results.

OUR CONCLUSION

SEO has some obvious advantages over PPC, but there are certain situations when PPC makes sense strategically and financially. Ideally, you would be able to undertake both SEO and PPC campaigns in tandem. However, if you have to choose one, it’s worth having a clear understanding of your business situation to ensure you make the right choice.

If you’d like more information on SEO or PPC then please get in touch on 0117 907 9930.

Web Marketing—Where do you Land?

Many businesses make the mistake of pushing out promotional emails or spending money on web banner advertising without taking into account the full reader experience. If you’re spending money on email or web advertising, you want the readers to:

• > Read the email/advert
• > click through to a web page
• > read the web page
• > take a desired action (i.e. call with an enquiry, order directly etc).

However most email campaigns or web advertising make the mistake of focussing on stage one of this prospect conversion process rather than addressing the whole process.

The click through web page that readers visit once they read the email or advert is called a landing page. When readers click through to this, they should experience a continuation of the process that started with the email/advert. This means, in most cases, you should build a custom web page which reflects the design, copy, content of the email/advert. Sending readers to existing pages of your corporate website is rarely appropriate and not likely to push the reader to the next stage in the process. Your corporate website will have been built separately to address a different set of objectives, whilst an email/advert is a tactical marketing tool, which requires a supportive web page.

Your landing page should incorporate all the information a reader needs to know in order to take a desired action. Persuading the reader to do this works best if the campaign is based on one simple, clear, compelling message, but the process can become muddled and less effective if you try to convey a complex message or multiple messages at the same time.

If your landing page isn’t designed properly, then the success of your email/advert will be like persuading hundreds of people to visit your store, only to find your doors locked!

If you’d like more information on executing successful email or web advertising campaigns, then please give us a call on 0117 907 9930.

Thought about your Domain Strategy?

If your organisation already has or is planning a web presence, then you will need to adopt a domain strategy. Here are some pointers which may help.

Most businesses start with a derivative of their company name—for example, if you were a shoe retailer in Bristol, X shoes, you would register www.xshoes.co.uk. This becomes the primary domain, which is used on stationery, promotional literature and to set up the company email addresses.

But your domain strategy shouldn’t stop there. If you are serious about using the web to promote your business, you need to get a little creative. Think of the search criteria a browser will use in Google to look for your type of services; these are called key words. Then link these key words together to create a domain name. For X Shoes, you would look to secure domains such as www.bristolshoeshops.co.uk, www.bristolshoes.co.uk, www.shoeshopsbristol.co.uk, etc. Once registered under your company, you can point these domains at your website.

When purchasing domains, you should be aware that big search engines like Google and Yahoo prefer .com and .co.uk domains. Having said that, with over 105 million domains already in use, it is becoming increasingly difficult to secure suitable .com/.co.uk domains and the companies are casting a wider net with domains which end in .biz, .org or .net, although these are much less ‘valuable’ as people are not as likely to type these addresses into their browsers.

If you want to check which domains are available, use www.easily.co.uk or www.netnames.co.uk. These are middlemen who pay a fixed fee to Nominet, the UK’s domain industry body. It’s a good idea to buy between 3 and 20 names that are close to your primary address or that could be confused with it, to build a ‘protective sphere’ around your domain.

Finally, as with tangible goods, if you want something really valuable, you have to be prepared to pay for it. There is a robust secondary market for domain names, in which buyers negotiate directly with sellers, although it may be best to do this through an intermediary service such as www.moniker.com or www.escrow.com, who will help ensure that the buyers actually pay and the sellers truly transfer the title to the address.

Is your Website an Effective Sales Tool?

It’s no secret that selling is hard whether done face-to-face or over the phone. Your website is also an invaluable member of your sales team, particularly when you consider that it’s often the first contact a potential customer has with a business.

So what can be done to make your website an effective member of your sales team? A good place to start is understanding the factors which influence your customers’ purchasing decisions. For example, value for money, customer service, convenience, product depth, brand awareness, experience, etc. Equally important to understand are the factors which put off potential customers—for example, inconvenience, distrust, lack of information, excessively high prices, negative customer experience, etc.

Once these factors have been identified, all stages of building a website, i.e. design, functionality, copy etc… should be done whilst relating back to what turns people on or off. Will the customer get a sense of value for money? Will they see the products and services in depth? Is there a creation of trust?

Because each business is unique, one strategy does not fit all. The factors influencing customers in one industry may be entirely different to customers in different industries. It is important to evaluate each business individually, ensuring a clear understanding of its goals, products and services before detailing the website strategy and using the available technology to execute the site successfully.

It’s as Easy as Click, Click, Click

The web is in an extremely important tool, in both creating and maintaining customers. If you regularly use the web, you know that torture and torment is only a few clicks away! Ensure your website appeases the most impatient visitor, by checking it against these 8 considerations!

Animation

Most people are searching the web for information, not amusement. If your site uses animation, provide an opt-out option, should your visitors wish to use it.

Scrolling

This is unappealing, so avoid it where possible. Provide a clear frame of reference, i.e. if a page requires two pages or more, simply split it into multiple pages with a click through button.

Speak directly

Keep visitors interested by articulating what you can do for them up front. Don’t force them to wade through reams of text to find the required information—people lose interest when reading long drawn-out company philosophies!

Contact details

Make sure you include all contact details. This not only provides legitimacy, but visitors may need to know your location or prefer to speak to someone in person rather than sending an e-mail.

Keep it fresh

If your site is designed to include latest news, make sure it’s updated. If visitors know your website is regularly updated, they are likely to visit again. Plus, nothing says more about your company than old news!

Don’t leave them waiting

If visitors can’t download your site quickly and easily, they will press delete and visit your competitors instead.

Navigation

Make your buttons and links as descriptive as possible. It irritates visitors to be directed to the wrong place or even worse, to miss the important information because it’s not made clear.

Keep it consistent

Ensure that your website has the same style as your brochure and other publications and is consistent within itself as the visitor navigates through the different pages.

Follow these simple guides and keep your visitors happy today!

A Survival Guide to Email Marketing

It’s a well known fact that when it comes to receiving promotional emails, we all have high demands and short attention spans. If it doesn’t grab our attention in a few seconds then we’re likely to press delete in quick-sharp time!

So how can you ensure your email survives past the critical first few seconds? Here’s some information which might help. A recent survey indicated that 69% of email readers frequently or always used their email preview pane. 49% of email readers only look at the first lines in the preview pane to decide if they want to read or delete the email. The majority of these have their preview panes set between two and five inches (whether in the horizontal or vertical format).

Armed with this knowledge, here’s a 7 step guide to effective email marketing.

1. Ensure that all critical information is seen in the preview pane.

   Your promotional offer, your key headline, ‘In this Issue’ teasers… should all be viewable in the first two to five inches of your email.

2. View web version

   It’s inevitable that some readers will have problems viewing your email. Cut this off at the pass by having a prominent text link at the very top of the email. For example: ‘If this email is not displayed correctly, please click here to view on-line’. This will then take the reader out of their email browser to view the newsletter on-line.

3. Create a killer subject line

   Your subject line needs to build trust, therefore keep it simple, clear and to the point. Cryptic subject lines will fast-track emails straight to delete. That being said, there’s no reason why you can’t have fun with your subject line, but always make it compelling to your readers—it’s sole purpose is to get your email opened!

4. Don’t be a stranger

   The From/Sender is the number one thing readers will look at. If they don’t recognise this, they will bin it. Wherever possible, send the email from a recognised person, i.e. from the company sales manager, marketing manager or managing director. If the reader is a new subscriber and hasn’t previously had contact with someone within your company, then simply use your company name as the sender. Never disguise the sender with a random email address—it’s bad manners!

5. Keep the admin at the foot

   Move the less critical ‘administrative’ information to the bottom your email, i.e. unsubscribe, disclaimer, sender details, etc. But make sure it’s there.

6. Make it easy to respond

   Whether it’s to unsubscribe or simply to offer feedback, you must ensure the return address is valid. This should be in addition to any feedback forms or a separate unsubscribe links set up in the actual body of the email. The return address should ideally be the same as the sender address, or at least an address which is regularly checked so you can keep on top of ALL unsubscribe and feedback requests.

7. Stay true to your brand!

   I know we keep banging on about it, but successful branding starts and ends with consistency! No one will remember your brand unless it is represented in the same way every time they are exposed to it. This is also relevant to your email communications.

Email marketing remains one of the most cost-effective and direct ways to market. Whether your readers are B2B or B2C, follow these simple guidelines to get the most out of your email marketing.

If you’d like to know more about email marketing, please contact: ryan@essential-marketing.com

Why is my Website a Fixed Width?

When designing a website, different viewers’ monitors need to be taken into consideration as they come in various sizes and are set to different screen resolutions. Taking this into account, it’s almost impossible to design a website which appears uniformly on all monitors.

The industry standard is to design for the lower common denominator on the basis that if they are able to view a website at full screen, then those with newer monitors, set at a higher resolution, will also be able to see the site, although it will appear smaller on their screen.

Here’s how it works. Older monitors are usually set to screen resolution 800 pixels (width) by 600 pixels (height), so when creating a site, designers will ensure all critical information is contained in the fixed width size of 800 pixels, without the need for a horizontal scroll bar. On a new monitor, which is usually set at 1024x768 resolution or higher, this will appear not to fill the screen.

Although horizontal scroll bars are a big no-no, vertical scroll bars are considered acceptable for those who are viewing a website at screen resolution 800 by 600. Therefore you will see sites such as www.bbc.co.uk, which are 800 pixels width, but longer in length with a vertical scroll.

If you’re unsure on how to change your screen resolution, follow these instructions:

1. Click the mouse pointer on Start, Settings, and then Control Panel. (On Windows XP, Click on Start and then Control Panel)
2. Double-click Display.
3. Select the Settings tab.
4. In an area labeled Screen area, Desktop area or Screen resolution you will see a slider. Your screen size is indicated below this slider. Move the slider to the right using the mouse until this reads at least 800 by 600 pixels—if your monitor screen size is 17 inches or larger then 1024 by 768 is the ideal resolution.
5. If there is a Test button, click this to test your new screen resolution. If the test is successful, click OK.
6. Otherwise, click Apply.

Jargon Busting—The Internet

Are you thinking about having your website re-designed but are unsure of some of the terminology? Do you get confused between your Domain Name and your URLs?

If so, then here’s a handy guide to some of the most commonly used terminology:

Domain Name:

A domain name is a unique name used to identify the address (URL) of a particular website, such as www.essential-marketing.com. Domain names can usually be bought as part of your web hosting package, which is always worth doing if possible; if only to limit the paper work!

URL:

Uniform Resource Locator is the address of a file available on the Internet. The URL contains the protocol of the resource (e.g. http:// or ftp://), the domain name for the resource, and the name of the file.

For example, http://www.essential-marketing.com/services.php. The beginning part, http:// provides the protocol, the next part www.essential-marketing.com is the domain, the remainder, /services.php is the pointer to the specific file called services.php on the essential marketing server.

Web Host:

A web host is a company that provides storage and connectivity for your website. You will generally pay a fee per annum to the company to host your site. There are thousands of web hosting companies offering a variety of plans and benefits.

When choosing a host you may want to consider:

• The amount of web space you will need.
• Does the host provide technical support? Is it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year around?
• Will they be reliable and have your site live constantly?
• Will the host place an advert on your site?

Nominet:

http://www.nominet.org.uk/ is the internet registry for .uk domain names. When you buy your domain name either directly or via your web host, you will be sent a certificate of ownership from Nominet.

ISP:

Internet Service Provider is a company that provides your connection to the Internet, such as Telewest, BT and Wanadoo.

Dial-up:

Dial-Up is a way of connecting to the internet. It’s like making a telephone call and means that you only pay for the time that you are connected to the internet. The downside is that because dial-up access uses normal telephone lines, the quality of the connection is not always good and download speed is limited, plus you cannot use the telephone line for making and receiving calls whilst you are connected.

Broadband:

Broadband internet is a high-speed connection to the internet. You pay a flat fee each month for a connection which is permanently open and therefore doesn’t matter how often you use it. Broadband uses a separate ‘fatter’ cable to connect to a modem which then connects to your computer. Your telephone line is not disrupted. Broadband internet access allows a greater amount of information to pass through a “fatter” cable. This therefore speeds up the delivery of heavy data, such as images or music files.

Web Browser:

A web browser is the software that you use to view the internet—such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape and Safari. They all offer various features and benefits.

IP Address:

Every machine connected to the Internet has an address known as an Internet Protocol address (IP address). The IP address takes the form of four numbers separated by dots, for example: 123.45.67.890. You will need your IP address when setting up email on your machine.

HTML:

An acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language, HTML is the language that makes up a Web document. Web Browsers such as Internet Explorer, will know how to display that document’s links, text, graphics and attached media.

FTP:

File Transfer Protocol is a protocol that allows the transfer of files from one computer to another. FTP is also the verb used to describe the act of transferring files from one computer to another. There are lots of different software packages available for FTPing such as CuteFTP.

Upload:

To put files on the live website, using FTP software.

Download:

To transfer a file from a website to your computer via the internet.