Hi SEO followers and Bloggers.
‘Tis the season to be jolly unless it seems your domain is actually a sub-domain and you’re trying to get listed on Google.
I recently completed a web site design for a company called Essential Dealership Training who provides staff training courses to the automotive retail industry.
The owner wanted to keep an old domain he’d registered some years ago and had previously used as an email account only.
It took a bit of doing getting the domain transferred away to his new hosting company but we did it and the design went live in November.
Despite hand submission to Google, creating a Google Site Map as well as the site’s own site map, using 'address' tags around their address including UK in the address itself, we are still waiting for Google to add the site to their cache.
Bringing the problem up on a forum for input, the point was made that because it is actually a sub-domain of a URL, Google might have sand boxed it after the various spamming tactics used of late.
I’ve advised my client to keep working on inbound links from quality, industry specific related websites and this is in progress.
The URL in question is: www.edt.uk.com
Hopefully, all of the above efforts will eventually pay off – it could be along wait though.
If any of you have encountered similar problems, leave a comment with your suggestions or experiences. I haven’t ruled out yet registering another ‘proper’ URL and transferring the site leaving a re-direct for any email.
Watch this space and I’ll try to keep all informed.
Jonathan – Purple 13 Web Design Services.
A little flavour of what's in store...
Gifts & Giveaways
Fine chocolate offers and vouchers....latest offer
Blogging tutorials
Easy tips to make your blog, twitter or tumblr accounts look good....see example
Social networking tips
Published articles by me on networking and social tools....see example
Art & Photography
Licenced images by Mandy Collins....read more
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Friday, December 15, 2006
Xmas shopping frenzy & New Fab' Photo's delivery updates
With Christmas just about here and that last minute frenzy for getting an online bargain reaching fever pitch, it’s disturbing to read comments where people have visited sites only to find no stock echoing throughout their carefully selected Christmas present baskets.
The usual culprits – toy and gift shops seem to have the biggest problems in predicting stock requirements without over stocking and if you’ve ever tried Toys R Us the week before Christmas, you’ll know that it would be easier if they had a link to a page that showed every toy and game they do have in stock.
The same is true when you’ve placed an order. I heard of work colleagues ordering online from Argos for home delivery. Nintendo DS Lite’s – the items were sought after but delivery was advised for 2 days and the request “please do not re-order – your order is being processed and will be confirmed”.
However, on this particular occasion, it’s not been confirmed – what to do? Order again, try and get the rare toy somewhere else?
Here at Fabulous Photo Gifts, we’ve taken on board our customer’s comments about their delivery experience and to help future customer’s further, will be introducing some new e-mail updates in January.
Fabulous Photo Gifts personalised photo jigsaws are not ‘fast-food’. Each order has its photograph worked on by hand (not automated) – brightness and contrast, red eye removal and cropping and re-sizing as required before being sent for printing.
The printing process also takes time as the hard wearing inks used need time to dry completely before the image moves onto the next stage where it is mated with either the card or magnetic backing. In the meantime, if your order included a boxed jigsaw, the box is being printed with your jigsaw image.
Again, adhesives must be given time to dry thoroughly before the jigsaw image can be pressed out, bagged, boxed and wrapped for shipping.
All Jigsaw orders are sent signed for delivery via Royal Mail but this is not a next day service.
When our modifications and extra programming are complete (mid January 2007), in addition to the email customers of Fabulous Photo Gifts receive as confirmation when they complete their online order, advising of the expected delivery date – normally 10 to 14 days from ordering, they’ll receive another email confirming the jigsaw has been pressed and a further email when the jigsaw is actually despatched.
We hope that these 2 new delivery notification steps will help keep customers up to date with their photo gift delivery.
We’re now already taking orders for the New Year including some early Valentines Day orders. We’ll be posting last delivery dates for Valentines Day delivery on the website after Christmas but expect it to be around the 1st February, so order nice and early to avoid disappointment.
At present – postal service permitting, we are scheduled to deliver all pre-Christmas delivery deadline orders in time for Christmas. Thank you for your patience during this time.
Happy holidays everyone – Mandy and Jonathan.
The usual culprits – toy and gift shops seem to have the biggest problems in predicting stock requirements without over stocking and if you’ve ever tried Toys R Us the week before Christmas, you’ll know that it would be easier if they had a link to a page that showed every toy and game they do have in stock.
The same is true when you’ve placed an order. I heard of work colleagues ordering online from Argos for home delivery. Nintendo DS Lite’s – the items were sought after but delivery was advised for 2 days and the request “please do not re-order – your order is being processed and will be confirmed”.
However, on this particular occasion, it’s not been confirmed – what to do? Order again, try and get the rare toy somewhere else?
Here at Fabulous Photo Gifts, we’ve taken on board our customer’s comments about their delivery experience and to help future customer’s further, will be introducing some new e-mail updates in January.
Fabulous Photo Gifts personalised photo jigsaws are not ‘fast-food’. Each order has its photograph worked on by hand (not automated) – brightness and contrast, red eye removal and cropping and re-sizing as required before being sent for printing.
The printing process also takes time as the hard wearing inks used need time to dry completely before the image moves onto the next stage where it is mated with either the card or magnetic backing. In the meantime, if your order included a boxed jigsaw, the box is being printed with your jigsaw image.
Again, adhesives must be given time to dry thoroughly before the jigsaw image can be pressed out, bagged, boxed and wrapped for shipping.
All Jigsaw orders are sent signed for delivery via Royal Mail but this is not a next day service.
When our modifications and extra programming are complete (mid January 2007), in addition to the email customers of Fabulous Photo Gifts receive as confirmation when they complete their online order, advising of the expected delivery date – normally 10 to 14 days from ordering, they’ll receive another email confirming the jigsaw has been pressed and a further email when the jigsaw is actually despatched.
We hope that these 2 new delivery notification steps will help keep customers up to date with their photo gift delivery.
We’re now already taking orders for the New Year including some early Valentines Day orders. We’ll be posting last delivery dates for Valentines Day delivery on the website after Christmas but expect it to be around the 1st February, so order nice and early to avoid disappointment.
At present – postal service permitting, we are scheduled to deliver all pre-Christmas delivery deadline orders in time for Christmas. Thank you for your patience during this time.
Happy holidays everyone – Mandy and Jonathan.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Article - What's in store for 2007?
Article – What can we expect in 2007?
With so few days left of 2006 and the promise of lighter nights, it occurred to me to look at what’s in store for us in 2007 and how much of that can we integrate into our own marketing attempts?
Men’s cosmetics – anti ageing and wrinkle creams or grooming for men are already being advertised – expect a small amount of ridicule by comedians but they probably made the same jokes when men first started getting their ears pierced.
Ethical products – more interest in fresh, local produce as we become more concerned about the effects on our environment caused by transportation and the packaging required. And whilst we’re on the subject of packaging, look out for refillable packaging – we may need it but at least we can re-use it.
The new market to take advantage of is apparently going to be the Teen market – consumer goods, electronics and clothing (what else I hear you say if you have a teenager in the house) and as they ‘invented’ blogging – expect more talk about the use of social networking.
Yes, it looks like social networking is here to stay. I saw a comment on a recent SEO forum where the writer had stated she’d stayed clear of MySpace and the like because it was all teenagers and spam emailing, however another contributor pointed out that the actual age demographic of MySpace users is – over half are now aged 35 or over and more than two thirds was in the 25+ band – an interesting twist and if that’s your target audience – then what are you waiting for?
A forum member had this to say about the social network scene:
“The Players
MySpace - The formidable leader of the social network scene boasts membership approaching 120 million. It may be the most popular but it is also the breeding ground for less than desirables pounding legitimate members with a barrage of bulletin and comment spam.
YouTube - Approaching MySpace's popularity, YouTube is the next generation of social networks with emphasis on home videos and video blogging. Even though other networks offer video uploads, YouTube seems to be the leader in this social genre.
There are many other less popular social networks, Friendster and Xanga to name a couple, as are other social networking platforms like Google’s Blogger.
The above mentioned pale in comparison to the true power and commodity of the internet social networking phenomenon - the third of a billion(and growing) end-users
The Market
Predominately 15-30 year olds, the social networkers are web savvy and not afraid to buy online. Many are going to be first -time buyers of a large variety of goods and services. This is why it is imperative to reach these new buyers at all cost even though they don't necessarily have the expendable income or buying power of their elders.
One thing for certain is that these web 2.0'ers have an insatiable appetite for unique content to display on their pages and profiles. Which brings us to our next subject.
Tapping In
Reaching member within these networks is a easy as opening an account and getting involved in the networks playground (forums, chat, groups, etc...) and building your own network within the network. Easy enough, but it gets a little tricky if you want your network to have a reach into the thousands or more.
Now go out and set up some accounts, but be aware, as with most things, there are no shortcuts to building a solid network that has staying power. Above all be, sure to maintain the integrity of your accounts with these social networks.”
If you haven’t already got into blogs and RSS feeds, then spend a few evenings getting acquainted with the marketing tools of tomorrow. Social networking is predicted to be the biggest change to how we have traditionally searched for and located goods on the Internet.
The likes of Google have already started of course, offering personal searches and supposedly giving ever increasing prominence to social sites in search results. You’ll have seen more and more blogs get listed in searches and that looks set to continue in 2007.
Social networking is also somewhat shrouded in mystery it seems – a buzz word that is often used, but usually leaves those not in the know even more confused than before. Don’t worry! A simple comparison is this – think of social networking a bit like talking to neighbours over the garden fence. You’re thinking of buying a washing machine? You ask your neighbour what model they use, why they bought it and has it given them any trouble? You trust their answers because they have nothing to gain by you buying the same model (except robbing your drive belt if theirs fails) so you’re quite likely to buy that model.
Social networking works exactly the same way. You read what others have to say about a particular product, you trust their advice because they have nothing to gain from your decision and it does come recommended after all. Now think beyond washing machines. Every topic and pretty soon every product will be talked about, discussed and commented on in social networking platforms like blogs, RSS feeds and MySpace users.
So if you haven’t already, then now is a good time to take the plunge. The best advice is to read a few first – see what sort of content they contain – what they talk about and the style they follow. Now try and write something similarly styled on a topic close to your own heart – perhaps a news item, or a bit of research that you can blend into your own product or company.
If it’s good, it’ll get picked up on and passed on quicker than a case of office flu. Don’t be disheartened if your first attempts fail. It takes time to develop friends and trust. Join like minded groups on MySpace (use the profile search to help you define those groups you want to join and who will want you to join them). Don’t go for an all out selling campaign – it won’t work. Be more creative – think outside the ‘box’.
As the way people ‘shop’ changes, to succeed in an already crowded market place, so online traders must adapt their marketing practises to. Ignore them at your peril.
Just to come back to that point about teenagers... they work less, stay in college longer – seems us parents are in for an expensive time in 2007!
Jonathan C Crouch
About the author: Jonathan is an I.T Professional working in Derby. In his spare time, he administers his partner’s websites – www.fabulousphotogifts.co.uk which sells a premium range of personalised photo jigsaws online, as well as her photo art website – www.purple13.co.uk – where visitors can choose from over 500 artworks and purchase them online. He has wide experience of SEO techniques, web design and marketing on the Internet. Read more articles on SEO and Internet marketing by Jonathan at www.purple13.blogspot.com
Please feel free to re-produce this article – all we ask is a credit to the author and a link to www.fabulousphotogifts.co.uk or www.purple13.blogspot.com
With so few days left of 2006 and the promise of lighter nights, it occurred to me to look at what’s in store for us in 2007 and how much of that can we integrate into our own marketing attempts?
Men’s cosmetics – anti ageing and wrinkle creams or grooming for men are already being advertised – expect a small amount of ridicule by comedians but they probably made the same jokes when men first started getting their ears pierced.
Ethical products – more interest in fresh, local produce as we become more concerned about the effects on our environment caused by transportation and the packaging required. And whilst we’re on the subject of packaging, look out for refillable packaging – we may need it but at least we can re-use it.
The new market to take advantage of is apparently going to be the Teen market – consumer goods, electronics and clothing (what else I hear you say if you have a teenager in the house) and as they ‘invented’ blogging – expect more talk about the use of social networking.
Yes, it looks like social networking is here to stay. I saw a comment on a recent SEO forum where the writer had stated she’d stayed clear of MySpace and the like because it was all teenagers and spam emailing, however another contributor pointed out that the actual age demographic of MySpace users is – over half are now aged 35 or over and more than two thirds was in the 25+ band – an interesting twist and if that’s your target audience – then what are you waiting for?
A forum member had this to say about the social network scene:
“The Players
MySpace - The formidable leader of the social network scene boasts membership approaching 120 million. It may be the most popular but it is also the breeding ground for less than desirables pounding legitimate members with a barrage of bulletin and comment spam.
YouTube - Approaching MySpace's popularity, YouTube is the next generation of social networks with emphasis on home videos and video blogging. Even though other networks offer video uploads, YouTube seems to be the leader in this social genre.
There are many other less popular social networks, Friendster and Xanga to name a couple, as are other social networking platforms like Google’s Blogger.
The above mentioned pale in comparison to the true power and commodity of the internet social networking phenomenon - the third of a billion(and growing) end-users
The Market
Predominately 15-30 year olds, the social networkers are web savvy and not afraid to buy online. Many are going to be first -time buyers of a large variety of goods and services. This is why it is imperative to reach these new buyers at all cost even though they don't necessarily have the expendable income or buying power of their elders.
One thing for certain is that these web 2.0'ers have an insatiable appetite for unique content to display on their pages and profiles. Which brings us to our next subject.
Tapping In
Reaching member within these networks is a easy as opening an account and getting involved in the networks playground (forums, chat, groups, etc...) and building your own network within the network. Easy enough, but it gets a little tricky if you want your network to have a reach into the thousands or more.
Now go out and set up some accounts, but be aware, as with most things, there are no shortcuts to building a solid network that has staying power. Above all be, sure to maintain the integrity of your accounts with these social networks.”
If you haven’t already got into blogs and RSS feeds, then spend a few evenings getting acquainted with the marketing tools of tomorrow. Social networking is predicted to be the biggest change to how we have traditionally searched for and located goods on the Internet.
The likes of Google have already started of course, offering personal searches and supposedly giving ever increasing prominence to social sites in search results. You’ll have seen more and more blogs get listed in searches and that looks set to continue in 2007.
Social networking is also somewhat shrouded in mystery it seems – a buzz word that is often used, but usually leaves those not in the know even more confused than before. Don’t worry! A simple comparison is this – think of social networking a bit like talking to neighbours over the garden fence. You’re thinking of buying a washing machine? You ask your neighbour what model they use, why they bought it and has it given them any trouble? You trust their answers because they have nothing to gain by you buying the same model (except robbing your drive belt if theirs fails) so you’re quite likely to buy that model.
Social networking works exactly the same way. You read what others have to say about a particular product, you trust their advice because they have nothing to gain from your decision and it does come recommended after all. Now think beyond washing machines. Every topic and pretty soon every product will be talked about, discussed and commented on in social networking platforms like blogs, RSS feeds and MySpace users.
So if you haven’t already, then now is a good time to take the plunge. The best advice is to read a few first – see what sort of content they contain – what they talk about and the style they follow. Now try and write something similarly styled on a topic close to your own heart – perhaps a news item, or a bit of research that you can blend into your own product or company.
If it’s good, it’ll get picked up on and passed on quicker than a case of office flu. Don’t be disheartened if your first attempts fail. It takes time to develop friends and trust. Join like minded groups on MySpace (use the profile search to help you define those groups you want to join and who will want you to join them). Don’t go for an all out selling campaign – it won’t work. Be more creative – think outside the ‘box’.
As the way people ‘shop’ changes, to succeed in an already crowded market place, so online traders must adapt their marketing practises to. Ignore them at your peril.
Just to come back to that point about teenagers... they work less, stay in college longer – seems us parents are in for an expensive time in 2007!
Jonathan C Crouch
About the author: Jonathan is an I.T Professional working in Derby. In his spare time, he administers his partner’s websites – www.fabulousphotogifts.co.uk which sells a premium range of personalised photo jigsaws online, as well as her photo art website – www.purple13.co.uk – where visitors can choose from over 500 artworks and purchase them online. He has wide experience of SEO techniques, web design and marketing on the Internet. Read more articles on SEO and Internet marketing by Jonathan at www.purple13.blogspot.com
Please feel free to re-produce this article – all we ask is a credit to the author and a link to www.fabulousphotogifts.co.uk or www.purple13.blogspot.com
Article - after the Christmas rush - a guideline for online traders
Article – after the Christmas rush – a guideline for online traders
You’ve got to have a hint of sympathy for online traders in the run up to Christmas (OK Maybe not!) but many smaller companies will have been working around the clock to ensure that customers get their orders in time for Christmas, whilst also wanting to stay ‘open’ as near to Christmas as possible to allow for last minute shoppers. It can be quite a juggling act.
For some, particularly where the product is a personalised printed item (like a photo jigsaw), this cut off point can come quite early in December as print drying and postage times rule when last orders can be accepted.
So what do you do once your deadline’s gone and your last pre-Christmas delivery order has left the building? – Celebrate or start planning for next year?
My advice is to take a couple of days to recoup – do the xmas shopping – enjoy long coffee breaks and early nights and then start planning!
Use what for many is their busiest trading period to learn the mistakes or shortfalls in your current operating methods and think about how you can improve working practises for when the New Year’s orders start coming in.
Part of this is looking at the functionality of your website. Use customer comments to build your plan of attack – what did they like or dislike about your website – what additional information did they ask for that wasn’t available on your website at the time they placed their order? Look at visitor stats – at what point did potential customers leave without buying and try to evaluate why they left. Does your website contain conflicting messages? Order here or click here to learn more etc. Your website must lead customers in a no nonsense direction straight to the point where they can purchase and check out.
Are you using a PayPal checkout? Believe it or not, this can put some potential customers off. One customer I talked too on the phone said he’d rather pay over the phone than use PayPal after a ‘nasty experience on Ebay’. Others have commented on the fact that if you have a PayPal account, then you must pay by PayPal and cannot choose to use your credit card. This gets tricky when as one customer informed us his PayPal account had been suspended over non-confirmation issues.
Not to pour water on your PayPal parade – PayPal does offer a wealth of tools and usability for online traders and is easily integrated into your shopping cart and provides a lot of reassurance for both customers and traders alike – particularly for new e-commerce businesses starting out or for those with smaller volumes of online orders. You’ll have to weigh up the comments of a few customers personal experiences against the thousands that use PayPal and Ebay etc every day.
So be prepared to trade the ease of use, set up and running costs of PayPal against the loss of a few customers. If you can’t, the use this quiet time to investigate other methods of accepting online payments – your business bank or a pdq machine – even other online payment systems.
Look at your product descriptions and images – if you’ve had the same images for a long time, give visitors something new to look at. If much of your business is going to be repeat (you did keep a record of customers email addresses for a email campaign later didn’t you?) then re-assure your customers that they’re not visiting an old site that perhaps no longer trades.
Check back on your queries – could you have saved yourself time in answering all those questions by adding a few extra lines of product description or perhaps more precise information on delivery times and methods. Don’t forget to check things like delivery times and costs haven’t changed since you last wrote them. Your usual carrier may now require a signature for deliveries or have changed what level of automatic insurance you get etc.
Perhaps you’ve been thinking of adding a new product – perhaps as the result of a query from a customer “Do you do that...” or a mail shot from a manufacturer, even a product you saw on the high street or someone using. Now’s the time to research that product and if it’s viable and there’s a market for it, then get it added to your website.
It will need careful planning – how are visitors going to navigate to it, what pictures and information are you going to show people and what are the delivery times and special requirements involved? Sketch out a few draft ideas on paper before you contact your web designer. If you do your own web design, then try a few dummy pages and get opinion from friends and neighbours about what they like or dislike.
Look at the functionality of your website. What could you improve on? What would make it easier for customers to find what they want and buy it? If there are too many steps (clicks) between your landing page (the page visitors first arrive at) and the point where they click ‘Checkout’, then you may be loosing sales – can you streamline the process using better design?
Look at search engine optimisation of your website (SEO), are you doing everything you can to get as good a placement as possible? Use this ‘quiet time’ to read up on the latest SEO techniques and try to aim for higher natural listings against your search terms. If you run a pay per click (PPC) campaign, then can this be optimised further by the reviewing the keywords you sponsor, considering other phrases, or changing the amount you bid / daily budgets? Were you using your daily budget up before the day had ended, perhaps missing out on the key evening times when adults surf the net after putting kids to bed etc? Are you paying too much for phrases that bare little relevance to your product? Could you re-word your adverts to provide a better idea of what people will find if they click on your link? Could your landing page from PPC be better crafted to turn a visitor into a customer? You’ve already invested in your potential customer the cost of the click. Now all you have to do is make it easy for them to order from you.
Finally, don’t forget to wish your customers (and suppliers) a Merry Christmas – a little festive cheer goes a long way – and who knows, maybe this time next year – you’ll be millionaires!
Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year to you all.
Jonathan Crouch
About the author: Jonathan is an I.T Professional working in Derby. In his spare time, he administers his partner’s websites – www.fabulousphotogifts.co.uk which sells a premium range of personalised photo jigsaws online, as well as her photo art website – www.purple13.co.uk – where visitors can choose from over 500 artworks and purchase them online. He has wide experience of SEO techniques, web design and marketing on the Internet. Read more articles on SEO and Internet marketing by Jonathan at www.purple13.blogspot.com
Please feel free to re-produce this article – all we ask is a credit to the author and a link to www.fabulousphotogifts.co.uk or www.purple13.blogspot.com
You’ve got to have a hint of sympathy for online traders in the run up to Christmas (OK Maybe not!) but many smaller companies will have been working around the clock to ensure that customers get their orders in time for Christmas, whilst also wanting to stay ‘open’ as near to Christmas as possible to allow for last minute shoppers. It can be quite a juggling act.
For some, particularly where the product is a personalised printed item (like a photo jigsaw), this cut off point can come quite early in December as print drying and postage times rule when last orders can be accepted.
So what do you do once your deadline’s gone and your last pre-Christmas delivery order has left the building? – Celebrate or start planning for next year?
My advice is to take a couple of days to recoup – do the xmas shopping – enjoy long coffee breaks and early nights and then start planning!
Use what for many is their busiest trading period to learn the mistakes or shortfalls in your current operating methods and think about how you can improve working practises for when the New Year’s orders start coming in.
Part of this is looking at the functionality of your website. Use customer comments to build your plan of attack – what did they like or dislike about your website – what additional information did they ask for that wasn’t available on your website at the time they placed their order? Look at visitor stats – at what point did potential customers leave without buying and try to evaluate why they left. Does your website contain conflicting messages? Order here or click here to learn more etc. Your website must lead customers in a no nonsense direction straight to the point where they can purchase and check out.
Are you using a PayPal checkout? Believe it or not, this can put some potential customers off. One customer I talked too on the phone said he’d rather pay over the phone than use PayPal after a ‘nasty experience on Ebay’. Others have commented on the fact that if you have a PayPal account, then you must pay by PayPal and cannot choose to use your credit card. This gets tricky when as one customer informed us his PayPal account had been suspended over non-confirmation issues.
Not to pour water on your PayPal parade – PayPal does offer a wealth of tools and usability for online traders and is easily integrated into your shopping cart and provides a lot of reassurance for both customers and traders alike – particularly for new e-commerce businesses starting out or for those with smaller volumes of online orders. You’ll have to weigh up the comments of a few customers personal experiences against the thousands that use PayPal and Ebay etc every day.
So be prepared to trade the ease of use, set up and running costs of PayPal against the loss of a few customers. If you can’t, the use this quiet time to investigate other methods of accepting online payments – your business bank or a pdq machine – even other online payment systems.
Look at your product descriptions and images – if you’ve had the same images for a long time, give visitors something new to look at. If much of your business is going to be repeat (you did keep a record of customers email addresses for a email campaign later didn’t you?) then re-assure your customers that they’re not visiting an old site that perhaps no longer trades.
Check back on your queries – could you have saved yourself time in answering all those questions by adding a few extra lines of product description or perhaps more precise information on delivery times and methods. Don’t forget to check things like delivery times and costs haven’t changed since you last wrote them. Your usual carrier may now require a signature for deliveries or have changed what level of automatic insurance you get etc.
Perhaps you’ve been thinking of adding a new product – perhaps as the result of a query from a customer “Do you do that...” or a mail shot from a manufacturer, even a product you saw on the high street or someone using. Now’s the time to research that product and if it’s viable and there’s a market for it, then get it added to your website.
It will need careful planning – how are visitors going to navigate to it, what pictures and information are you going to show people and what are the delivery times and special requirements involved? Sketch out a few draft ideas on paper before you contact your web designer. If you do your own web design, then try a few dummy pages and get opinion from friends and neighbours about what they like or dislike.
Look at the functionality of your website. What could you improve on? What would make it easier for customers to find what they want and buy it? If there are too many steps (clicks) between your landing page (the page visitors first arrive at) and the point where they click ‘Checkout’, then you may be loosing sales – can you streamline the process using better design?
Look at search engine optimisation of your website (SEO), are you doing everything you can to get as good a placement as possible? Use this ‘quiet time’ to read up on the latest SEO techniques and try to aim for higher natural listings against your search terms. If you run a pay per click (PPC) campaign, then can this be optimised further by the reviewing the keywords you sponsor, considering other phrases, or changing the amount you bid / daily budgets? Were you using your daily budget up before the day had ended, perhaps missing out on the key evening times when adults surf the net after putting kids to bed etc? Are you paying too much for phrases that bare little relevance to your product? Could you re-word your adverts to provide a better idea of what people will find if they click on your link? Could your landing page from PPC be better crafted to turn a visitor into a customer? You’ve already invested in your potential customer the cost of the click. Now all you have to do is make it easy for them to order from you.
Finally, don’t forget to wish your customers (and suppliers) a Merry Christmas – a little festive cheer goes a long way – and who knows, maybe this time next year – you’ll be millionaires!
Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year to you all.
Jonathan Crouch
About the author: Jonathan is an I.T Professional working in Derby. In his spare time, he administers his partner’s websites – www.fabulousphotogifts.co.uk which sells a premium range of personalised photo jigsaws online, as well as her photo art website – www.purple13.co.uk – where visitors can choose from over 500 artworks and purchase them online. He has wide experience of SEO techniques, web design and marketing on the Internet. Read more articles on SEO and Internet marketing by Jonathan at www.purple13.blogspot.com
Please feel free to re-produce this article – all we ask is a credit to the author and a link to www.fabulousphotogifts.co.uk or www.purple13.blogspot.com
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
sorry i've been away
Hi Blog followers
Sorry entries have been a bit thin on the ground, but we've been so busy at Fabulous Photo Gifts that we've had little time for anything else.
The christmas rush should tail off this weekend as the 8th is our last date for receiving orders for 2006 delivery, which will give us time to reflect on the past couple of months, what changes we need to make to the method of handling orders and some groovy new features on the website we have planned.
We also need to tidy the office a bit! Incidently, we received a lot of orders on the back of a breakfast TV article that was broadcast about photo jigsaws making great gifts. No idea of the channel or broadcast date (although we think judging by PPC campaign it was this monday gone)- this info was passed on by a customer that had watched the show and then sat at his computer and searched on photo jigsaws and hey presto - found our web site and "amazing choice" of jigsaws.
TTFN
Jonathan
Be back soon.
Jonathan.
Sorry entries have been a bit thin on the ground, but we've been so busy at Fabulous Photo Gifts that we've had little time for anything else.
The christmas rush should tail off this weekend as the 8th is our last date for receiving orders for 2006 delivery, which will give us time to reflect on the past couple of months, what changes we need to make to the method of handling orders and some groovy new features on the website we have planned.
We also need to tidy the office a bit! Incidently, we received a lot of orders on the back of a breakfast TV article that was broadcast about photo jigsaws making great gifts. No idea of the channel or broadcast date (although we think judging by PPC campaign it was this monday gone)- this info was passed on by a customer that had watched the show and then sat at his computer and searched on photo jigsaws and hey presto - found our web site and "amazing choice" of jigsaws.
TTFN
Jonathan
Be back soon.
Jonathan.
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