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Displaying posts for March 2007. Show all posts
Hitwise reports - always worth analysing
Jonathan Bowers, March 28th 2007, 2:38PM
As a business online there are few more important things to discover than how your competition is doing and where you place in comparison to them.
It's not cheap to become a fully fledged client of the Online marketing analyst Hitwise but you can find out more about them and dip your toe in the water by having a look at the data they offer on their website. At the moment there's a great opportunity to find out details of the UK's top 10 websites in over 45 different categories.
It's worth searching for your industry and taking a look at what those featuring in the top ten are doing that you might not be. Consider the wealth of content and choice on their sites, the amount of PPC they might be doing and see if you can ascertain the disparity between number one and number 10.
One increase I notice is the domination of traditional companies and supermarkets such as Tesco. To further improve the quality of the information, you can cross reference certain elements of the lists with Hitwise's most recent Hot Shops List. Searching under Shopping and Classifieds - Grocery and Alcohol gives the impression that Tesco and Asda (1st and 2nd) could well be close rivals online. However, the Hot Shops List places Tesco in 3rd place overall and ASDA in 47th. So this gives a better indication of Tesco's lead in the sector.
The one company that seems to rise up the ranks every time I see a new survey is Argos, which now appears to be the most popular UK owned e-commerce site.
Where is Internet Safety Week?
Jonathan Bowers, March 27th 2007, 2:11PM
Yesterday, the BBC along with getsafeonline.org published the results of a survey about Internet safety. There are some interesting, yet not all that surprising percentages in the stats.
The biggest eye opener is that less than half of us actually realise that the responsibility for protecting our personal data starts with us as users. One in six thought the responsibility should lie with the banks instead.
It's also interesting that five percent of people had experienced online fraud and also had their bag, wallet or mobile phone stolen, showing that online fraud is not always originated from information gathered online.
The survey is supposed to begin an Internet Safety Week, however, apart from two articles on the BBC website, there doesn't appear to be anything else online that actually delivers this agenda. It's a shame because if the survey shows anything, it's that the general public need encouragements to learn more about how to be safe online.
Politics and social networking
Jonathan Bowers, March 23rd 2007, 10:59AM
If anyone still needs convincing that politics can feed its message through social networking then they only need to look at the battle going on between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
MySpace has created a section called Impact in the last week to encourage closer ties between the American Presidential candidates and it's users. Similarly YouTube's most linked to video this week is called One Voice and has been made in support of Obama, mashing up George Orwells 1984 with a speech by Hillary Clinton.
A few weeks ago at a presentation, somebody asked me the question - is there room in online PR for guerrilla tactics. This shows clearly that there are new unconventional channels through which to deliver your message to a whole new audience and with over 2 million viewing of the video on YouTube it difficult to argue that it's not a valuable piece of campaigning.
Static or dynamic - a difficult choice?
Jonathan Bowers, March 13th 2007, 5:12PM
It amazes me that so many people involved in key business decisions do not realise the difference between a static website and one with dynamic content and functionality.
People as consumers will demand a lot from the Internet. Sites have to be fast, straightforward and easy to use. The sites that we spend time on and add to our bookmarks are those that we can interact on or at least carry out some sort of function.
So why do many people running their own websites not choose to provide the same level of service that they expect as consumers?
There may be over 1.5million businesses in the UK with a web presence but I wonder how many of these are actually delivering the same level of service as they demand when browsing.
It's probably the two percent that are making 75 per cent of the Internet's revenue.
The importance of bespoke programming
Jonathan Bowers, March 13th 2007, 4:46PM
I've just completed a new UKFast podcast on Programmers and there's some really useful information in there from both Lawrence Jones and Steve Logan, MD of Recruitment Software Solutions.
The power that having in-house programmers gives a company is incredible. Lawrence looks at the potential of programming as a tool for company growth and communication, while Steve has developed a piece of software, called Eclipse, that quite literally places the recruitment sector on a whole new online platform.
I also asked both MD's about whether programming plays a part in ranking success with the search engines and there are some great insider tips to be gained from a quick listen.