RSS – The future of content delivery?

June 27, 2006 | 4 Comments

The deluge of spam emails clogging up inboxes around the world has led to new methods in how content can be delivered. Not only do you want to ensure your news and articles find their way past the spam filters, but you also want to know that they are actually being read.

Blogs use a system called RSS (Really Simple Syndication) to deliver your latest posts. If you have a Google or Yahoo account you might be receiving blog feeds already delivered straight to your homepage. The fact that Microsoft are integrating RSS into the new Outlook and Netscape should be seen as a sign that the delivery of content in this way is here to stay.

RSS bypasses filtering. It is delivered only to subscribers who have responded to a call to action on your website and are therefore potential customers for your product. If they have lost interest in your business then they can choose to unsubscribe from your feed. With RSS the customer is now in control of what marketing messages they want to receive. Its yet another sign that the method of bombarding people with marketing messages is now dated.

The adoption of RSS is now spreading from blogs to all manner of commercial websites with regular updates. The BBC, Ebay and Telegraph newspaper have now all incorporated RSS Feeds into their websites. They have recognised how the onus has moved from the reader to regularly checking sites to the site owner to deliver their content straight to their subscribers.

The shear number of sites now covering every topic and interest means it is increasingly time consuming to check through all your book-marked sites. RSS eliminates this problem as it allows people to subscribe to all their places of interest and then scan through all the latest posts in their aggregator. This saves the reader wasting time and allows the content provider to maintain a line of communication with their marketplace.

Online advertising revenue is set to eclipse the magazine industry in two years. Traditional marketers are going to have to reassess how they spend their advertising budgets and what mediums they target. There will always be a market for magazines as not everybody is going to want to squint at a screen. But as more blogs and interest sites with RSS feeds continue to appear more people will be happy to rely on their aggregator to provide them with their chosen hit of content.

Posted by Matt Ambrose | Filed Under RSS 

Business Blogging – More than just an Online Diary

June 14, 2006 | 1 Comment

The current thinking on optimising your website for the search engines is to do the following:

  • Include plenty of key words (without damaging its readability).
  • Build back-links with good quality, relevant sites.
  • Contain regularly updated articles and news.

In the US the use of business blogs is booming. They have an excellent ability to achieve all three of these aims in one go. Web sites in nature are static. Blogs, on the other hand, can easily and quickly be updated with new material rich in keywords and of informative value to your customers.

Search engines look for the most up-to-date, relevant content when categorising sites. If your blog is regularly updated with appropriate subject material then Google and Yahoo will be eager to push it to the front of the cue.

What is a blog exactly? Blog is short for web log. They started as online journals, or diaries, in which people posted their thoughts and allowed others to comment. The adoption of blogs by businesses has opened whole new ways in which they can be used.

Rather than an online diary, they are used for posting the latest news and articles with a comment section for readers. This opens a whole new forum for building customer relationships and starting an ongoing conversation with your marketplace.

The nature of the relationship between businesses and customers is changing thanks to the resources people find online. Hard selling ‘marketing speak’ and bombarding customers with blatant adverts has no future on the Internet. The relationship is no longer a one way conversation.

Consumers now have the opportunity to share information on products and services on forums strewn all over the web. People will increasingly use these forums for getting the low-down on a product if all the corporate website provides is misogynistic claims and marketing spiel.

Providing a blog on your site enables you to engage your marketplace in an ongoing conversation and gain credibility by responding to their questions and comments. Over time, your readers will build trust and confidence in your expertise if you are regularly supplying information of value and not hiding behind impersonal marketing gobbledegook.

The Internet is about information and it is this people are searching for when they type keywords into Google. Providing news and articles of value is what will attract readers to repeatedly visit your site and build the conditions for making that sale.

The beauty of a blog is that it can also be used to feed a marketing campaign with little to no effort or expense. Your blog can be customised to capture email addresses and supply RSS (real simple syndication) feeds that will automatically deliver your articles as soon as they are posted. A blog can build relationships with potential customers long after they have left the site, and maintain a connection long after the first sale.

When you consider the benefits business blogs provide for marketing and communication it is no wonder they have taken off so rapidly in the US. In a recent survey 89% of US companies (Guidewire Group Market Cycle Survey, Oct 2005) confirmed they now run a blog or intend to start one. An impressive statistic when you consider that only 10% of companies even had a blog three years ago.

As ever, the UK is trailing behind the US in its adoption of new marketing methods and techniques. In a recent poll (Business Link 4 London, May 06) almost three quarters of UK small businesses felt they had insufficient knowledge of blogs to incorporate them in their marketing strategy.

The perception that a static website can just be left to its own devices and create business is extremely dated. If your business is slow to adapt to engaging with its online marketplace and connecting by providing information then you will simply be ignored and ‘conversations’ will take place without you.   

Posted by Matt Ambrose | Filed Under blogging 

Search Engine Optimisation – Why do you need it and how do you achieve it?

June 8, 2006 | Leave a Comment

For success in selling online you cannot rely merely on flashy graphics and amazing special offers. Web visibility is crucial so your customers can actually find you. Then you can start shouting about your two for one shoe sale or time share in Mogadishu.

Google and Yahoo’s biggest asset is their ability to provide the most accurate and up-to-date information. If the sites they list don’t provide the answers you are looking for then you’ll click away and move onto their competitors.

As a result, they are constantly tweaking and improving their methods for classifying websites. These methods have had to become increasingly complex to combat web savvy entrepreneurs flooding their websites with key words.

These days, hiding key words in the html code, or using an inappropriate frequency, is more likely to get your site blacklisted than placed anywhere near to where your customers can find you.

Key words still have a role to play. But the search engines have now reached a level of sophistication that they read sentence structures to gauge the relevance of what is being said.

Content now needs to be properly written to satisfy Google and Yahoo. This does have its benefits. Well written content will attract readers and encourage them to explore further rather than lose interest and click away.

A sharp, concisely written site reflects well on the credibility of the business and will encourage potential customers to make return visits for the latest news. Key words will attract search engines but quality will attract readers.

As the search engines classifying methods have developed so have the attempts to trick them. Excessive, generic links to irrelevant sites are frowned upon. Search engines are only interested in back-links to sites with high quality, relevant content. It is these links you will be seeking to garner with time. 

Pay per click advertising has been heralded as the quick, easy way of boosting the visibility of your site. You bid for certain key words and for your address to appear prominently when they are searched upon. You then pay the search engines again for every time somebody clicks through to your site.

Pay per click advertising may offer rewards in the short term but has limited longevity. The number of new sites fighting over the same key words will push prices up. PPC will inevitably become prohibitively expensive and it is not a viable long-term marketing tool.

The search engines regularly check up on sites with their web crawling ‘spider’ programs. These scour the internet to classify the location and relevance of content. Yahoo are known to conduct updated checks every 48 hours. Google reclassify sites every two weeks.

These ‘spiders’ are always looking for the most up-to-date, relevant content on any particular topic. Consequently, the most updated sites will be the ones awarded the highest ranking, most visibility and most traffic from targeted customers.

The increasing importance of relevant content reflects the desires of modern surfers. They don’t want to spend time trawling the web for information, but want it fast and accurately compiled.

If your website is providing the most up-to-date information then not only are you optimising yourself for the search engines. You also have the opportunity to become the primary knowledge provider in your field. I will cover this point in more depth in a later posting.

Your website is your biggest marketing asset. If the usage of your news and information is properly developed it can provide even the smallest enterprise with the largest internet presence and targeted traffic.

Posted by Matt Ambrose | Filed Under Search Engine Optimisation 

Search Engine Optimisation → More Clicks → More Sales

June 6, 2006 | 1 Comment

Shopping; it’s a pain isn’t it? You waste time sat in traffic. Fight to find an over charged parking space. Then trawl through the aisles just to buy a Shayne Ward CD and an electric toothbrush. 

Perhaps that is why so many people are reaching for their mouse and shopping online. The spread of broadband, IT awareness and preference to stay at home are pushing consumers from the high-street and onto their laptops. 

Last year the British shopper spent £19.2 billion online (IMRG, Jan 2006). 32% more than 2004 and they are expected to spend a further 36% more in 2006. You only have to look at the dramatic growth of Amazon, Ebay and Tesco home delivery to know theres money to be made selling products through pixels. 

The internet has had a wide ranging affect on shopping behaviour. Many car dealerships will tell you how the age of the hard selling, quick witted salesman is being endangered by the resources people find online. Increasingly, people know what model, mileage, colour and preference of air freshener they want before they even step on the forecourt. 

The internet provides not only the means to purchase. But the resources to advise and inform the consumer on the products they want and where from. The methods of selling products and services will be increasingly affected by the information available online. Rooting through the Yellow Pages for just a phone number seems archaic in comparison. 

Online shopping is set to explode when the web becomes flooded with 55-64 year old ‘silver surfers’. This demographic will become the dominant market force and its estimated that 80% of adults will be buying their socks over the internet by 2010 (Future Foundation report, Aug 2005). 

The reality is your online presence will become more important than having an actual retail outlet and your success in generating sales will all depend on your visibility to your customers. 80% of all internet traffic originates from the search engines. It is your ranking on Google and Yahoo which can determine your businesses success in the growing online marketplace. 

Knowing how to optimise your website for the search engine’s ever changing algorithms will maximise your online visibility and ensure your customers are only a click away. If you are slow to respond to the importance of search engine optimisation you will find your website ignored as your customers can’t find you.    

Posted by Matt Ambrose | Filed Under Search Engine Optimisation