Whether a user is currently travelling, at work, in a meeting, at home, watching TV, or lying in bed will all affect their behaviour, expectation, and current personal objective for using the Internet at a particular time. As Internet users’ behaviour develops the offering to audiences must continue to reflect not only people’s expectations but their browsing environments. Internet connectivity speed, browser device capability and individual situational objectives need to be taken into account if you, the provider of content and utility, are going to achieve your own objective of effective communication and transaction.

Some of these tips are new, whilst some have been around for some time, however changes in technologies or user behaviour have made the latter important in the current climate.

1. Learn three new things about Analytics. Whether you use Google Analytics or another client side statistical analytics system, it’s imperative that either you personally, or whoever reports to you, are including more detail and consideration of new areas of statistical analysis. Mobile activity will probably be included in this but there are other more in depth areas to analyse.

Google Webmaster Tools - Site Perfomance

2. Load times. One of the factors Google uses to influence rank position is page load time. This fact attracts attention but probably a more important issue is to make sure your site is faster than a majority of other sites. After replacing an old site in 2010 and reducing total page content load times from 10+seconds to 2-3seconds, we noticed an immediate increase in direct sales of over 50%. Better navigation, design and usability obviously helped here, but the most obvious change was simply a consistently faster site. It can be difficult to achieve, particularly if a graphic designer without any more advanced digital knowledge gets to design a site without any technical advice or guidance. However, it’s seriously important. Make sure you get the right balance here!

3. Screen size and small screen navigation. Different phones, pads, laptops, notepads, desktops, and monitor sizes will display proportions of any website. Also remember about touch screen navigation which requires larger navigation buttons and clickable menus as opposed to hover-over menus. Borrow an iPad and iPhone as a bare minimum and ideally test at least 5 different screen sizes and aspect ratios.

4. Get your business listed on Google Maps, Google Places and Google Local, at least. The listing costs nothing, and if set up carefully you can really position your business to gain far greater levels of traffic and visitor numbers. Just like valeting a car, you can do this yourself, pay a vacuum cleaning equipped general handyman, or pay a specialist to maximise the results. Remember, the work is normally done only once but your appearance there will last for years. Our advice is to invest very little relative cost in getting this done perfectly.

5. Content is, and will always be, king. For every minute you spend thinking and considering the design and look of your site, spend at least the same on ensuring you have great content. So £1000 on graphic design means at least £1000 on content whether it’s copy or photography and if it’s video content then at least a factor of 3 should be applied.

6. Mobile. Apart from the technical layout and usability of designing a site or multiple sites for mobile devices, try and think what your audience will be looking for whilst using a mobile. If there is a predominant common content set then you may wish to consider a dedicated site with this content at the forefront. For example, a train company will get a lot of mobile visitors looking at live departure and arrival times.

7. Geo-location Social Media placements. This is really simple. If you have premises or a place of work, just register your location using 4Square and Facebook Places at least. There are numerous others available if you like, although the usual advice about quality over quantity prevails. This follows into making sure you monitor, engage, and follow all other advice any good Social Media specialist consultant will keep you informed of.

8.  Google Search Preview. Users now have the option to see a small page preview of your webpage along the side of search results. How enticing does your website look when a smaller screen view of the page appears? This creates another issue for the web designer and should be taken in to consideration.

9. Consider video content seriously. As mentioned quality content not only draws additional direct traffic but also holds people’s attention for longer. This can potentially benefit your natural search engine positioning.

10. Appropriate social media usage. Promoting a Twitter feed, a Facebook page or a content library with your content on will fail if you simply don’t have enough of the right type of content being posted through each of these. It’s very important to ensure you use Social Media feeds appropriately. Again, the highest quality specialist advice you can afford will pay off in the longer term.

We hope you find these useful for reflective purposes. There may be instances where they are not appropriate, but, we feel they should at least be considered for all projects in 2011.

During the course of the first 2 week period traffic from Facebook.com has increased by around 250% over the previous 2 week period, fan numbers exceeded 800 and Facebook.com has risen to become the second highest (non search engine) referring website.

Facebook currently have in excess of 400million active users and in any 24hr period over 200million users will login. Whilst we would often encourage use of a number of different social media channels, the share of the population and the sheer numbers and that Facebook represents means that it will, for the foreseeable future, be quite a force to be reckoned with.

Andy brings with him over ten years of experience managing projects for Hampshire based Arqiva, formerly part of the NTL Group.

Newly appointed Project Manager, Andy Cook, outside UKNetWeb's offices in St.Agnes

He will join our current team of seven, ensuring that projects are managed through the various stages of development and meet quality and usability standards.

Commenting on the appointment, managing director, Toby Parkins said,

“We are very pleased to welcome Andy to the team. He is already demonstrating his skills on a number of high level projects we are working on. The strengths that he brings to our team can only serve to further the company as we continue to grow.”

Andy is a fully qualified PRINCE2 Practitioner, an internationally recognised standard rewarded to those who have demonstrated knowledge in the area of project management best practice.

A copy of the slideshow and video footage of the presentation are included below.

UKNetWeb will be running a free follow up taster course on using Social Media for Business on the afternoon of the 2nd of April. For details and booking for the event please click here.

We have released this post to help new users get to grips with the site, which we believe has a number of uses to individuals and businesses alike.

We have published this in the run up to the Cornwall Twestival – a global event organised through Twitter to raise money for Charity:Water. The event promises to be an insightful and enjoyable get together of the diverse users (and potential users) of Twitter. For more information or to book a ticket please click here.

The Basics – What is Twitter and Where Do I Start?

Twitter is a social network and messaging system which allows its users to post short messages (140 characters in length) with information on their movements, interests, links to articles, websites or other content that they feel will be of interest to others. [Click here for the Wikipedia entry for Twitter]

Each user of the site needs their own account which is available free of charge at Twitter.com. Once an account is setup the user can choose to ‘Follow’ others, enabling those users of the site to send direct (private) messages to you. (Often referred to as a Tweet).

As you use the service to post your own messages, those interested in what you have to say will begin to follow you. Likewise, as you read the messages of others you will see people that you may want to follow.

This process occurs because all messages you send through the site are openly available to other users of Twitter (unless you have selected to keep your updates private). Users can use the Twitter Search System to identify messages (Tweets) that mention words or keyphrases of interest to them.

Those that you follow on Twitter are listed under ‘Following’ on your Twitter homepage and those that follow you are called ‘Followers’.

Why should I be interested?

There are a number of ways Twitter can be useful to you.

As a business it creates opportunities to extend your network and meet new people, cultivate a group of people with similar interests or expertise and keep ahead of news or information relevant to your business interests.

Further still, Twitter can be useful in marketing your own products or services; however, it should be noted that some care is advised to avoid spamming (over marketing products in a ‘buy, buy, buy…’ kind of manner).

As an individual Twitter can help you meet people with similar interests, follow your favourite celebrity, talk to your MP, keep abreast of the news and much more. It has the potential to be a great social network, news site and search engine all in one.

We will uncover more on these areas in future posts.

How do I use it?

It’s really very simple…

1. Create an Account

Go to Twitter and create an account. You will need to specify a Username (Twitter ID). This name will be the name that appears on your messages and the name used by other members to message you.

You will need to add a short bit of detail about yourself (your bio) and you may want to add a website address or link to a blog or other site.

*Remember to keep your updates public if you want others to be able to find you. If you select to protect your updates other members of Twitter will not be able to read your messages.

2. Follow People

Once your account is set up search for people that you think would be of interest to you.

If you’re a business try searching for others in your industry.

If you’re an individual try looking for people listing similar interests to you.

In both cases have a look and see who else in your area is using the service.

You can perform searches to find these people or businesses by visiting http://search.twitter.com and selecting the ‘Advanced Search’ option. Using the Advanced Search you can look for locations, interests, message content and much more.

3. Listen to Others

Take a while to see what others are messaging. Where you find a member interesting continue following them and where you find a member’s messages boring or irrelevant drop them off your list be clicking on their name and selecting ‘Remove’.

You are looking to cultivate a group of users that you find interesting and you in turn can be of interest to.

4. Start Messaging (Tweeting)

Once you are comfortable with the site start messaging.

Try to avoid sending erroneous messages about the content of your lunch or what time you woke up this morning. Try to make your messages interesting and relevant to the people ‘following’ you.

People can message you directly by typing the letter ‘d’, then a space followed by your Twitter ID i.e. ‘d arengrimshaw This is a direct message’. Likewise you can do the same; however, the person you are messaging will need to be ‘following’ you before you can do this.

You can send a message out to be flagged as a ‘reply’ to a particular person or number of people by adding the prefix ‘@’ to a Twitter username i.e. ‘@arengrimshaw You can find that information here – www.uknetweb.com’.

Where ‘@’ is used, the message will be publicly available to everyone and will show up on the referenced user’s ‘replies’ when they log in to Twitter.

This concludes the first in our series on Twitter for Beginners. In future posts we will look at using Twitter for business in more detail, Tips, tricks and tools you might find helpful and other subjects that will help you get the most of this exciting service.

With countries around the world falling into technical recessions and consumers struggling to obtain credit, ecommerce website owners need to be clever with their websites to ensure continuing growth.

In recent years website developers may have hidden any lack of ability behind a buoyant market which has seen double digit growth for a number of years; however, with times changing they will now be forced to demonstrate their expertise.

At the time of writing this piece, UK expectations for the 2008 Christmas shopping period look good for ecommerce websites, albeit they are not set to grow at quite such a large percentage as seen in previous years.

Findings taken from the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index, and reported in ZDNet, show that UK shoppers will spend £13.16bn on ecommerce websites in the last quarter of 2008. This rise is equivalent to a healthy year on year increase of 15%; however, represents a drop from the 54% year on year growth reported in the year before.

In the US, things are not looking so healthy but again the figures have not entered a decline. According to comScore’s monthly retail ecommerce sales estimates, October saw the lowest monthly growth rate since they began tracking results in 2001 with just 1% year on year growth.

All told it will be the more savvy ecommerce website owners who reap the rewards this Christmas, while others who have not made sufficient plans for their ecommerce website will pay the price.

In the coming months, pressures on the economy will only serve to push things further so what advice can we give on getting the most from your ecommerce website?

Start by getting the right developer for your ecommerce website.

When selecting a web developer you need to ensure you are selecting one that is focused on the fundamental idea of ‘return on investment’. You need a developer who understands the market and can identify areas of development that will lead to sales growth.

It is easy to get carried away with statistics. Many web developers will talk about visitor numbers and rankings. These are important to your overall success but can be used to mask the real areas of importance such as bounce rates, cart abandonment and purchase levels.

Don’t rely on rankings alone. These figures often have more to do with other areas such as search engine optimisation (SEO) or marketing than they do web design or development.

Once you believe you have found a suitable developer for your new or existing ecommerce website you should take time at the outset to research your online competition, brainstorm functionality and define potential functionality.

Using the notes from this session you and your developer should perform a cost to benefit analysis on each function. The simple question you need to ask yourself is ‘Will this make me money*?’. It might sound harsh, but if you don’t take your website development seriously and pay for functionality that does not lead to increased profitability you are wasting money that could be used to generate a profit somewhere else.

*When we say ‘Will this make me money?’ you should keep in mind that customer retention is very important. If a particular function will help you keep customers coming back then you are developing potential repeat business which can be very valuable.

Wish Lists and Ongoing Development

Sometimes you will find that some areas of development are great ideas for the future. They could provide a decent return on the investment required, just not until user levels reach a higher level. Don’t discard these ideas – keep a note of them on a ‘Wish List’ and add them to an ongoing development agreement or plan to review them at a later date.

Other times you will notice that there are small improvements which could yield higher sales. It may be that you could add hurdle or bulk discounts, offer promotional codes or inform customers when items return to stock. Good ideas should be built into an ongoing development plan to spread the cost and allow for continued growth to be achieved.

Track Performance and Tweak

On launching your site ensure you have Google Analytics installed with Goals and Funnels established. Review the data regularly with your developer to establish fresh areas for development keeping in mind the simple rule – ‘Will this make me money?’.

If you can see that you are suffering from high levels of web cart abandonment deal with it early. If you were running a bricks and mortar store where customers where literally dropping out at the till you’d do something about it – why should the web be any different?

Map how your customers use your site. Are there opportunities to maximise the sales value? Are you losing customers on any particular page or product? If so, make changes and monitor the results.

Providing you follow the rules of ‘return on investment’ with your ecommerce website there is no reason why you shouldn’t fare well through tougher economic times. Get the right developer at the start and the investment will more than pay for itself.

If you would like to receive personal advice on how we help you grow your ecommerce revenues year after year, call Aren on 01872 555933 or use the contact form provided.

No one can argue that the outlook is a little bleak in some quarters; however, as we hope to show you, there are still some positive rays of hope out there getting lost amongst all the talk of economic downturn and recession.

1. The Myth of Record Debt

Michael Blastland published a great report on the BBC Magazine this week which showed that all this talk of ‘Record Debt’ isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Looking at the figures, Michael puts across a convincing argument (complete with statistics and graphs) which shows that although national debt (here and in the US) is bad, it is not nearly as bad as we might think from the media.

Read the full article here

2. Holiday Ecommerce Spending to be Only 12% Up on Last Year

US sites are already highlighting figures from leading researchers, Forrester, which show that ecommerce sales are likely to increase by just 12% this year! Yes, that’s an increase of 12%. However, this is still reported as a negative against previous sales increases of 20% year on year. Let’s face it though, an increase is an increase – and far better than a fall. (Bad luck – high street)

Read the full article here

3. Savvy Companies still making Profits.

In the past two weeks we have seen a couple of companies posting recession busting profits.

J Sainsburys were first to report their 13.3% hike in half-year profits mid last week.

This week has seen Mothercare reporting a 94% rise in their pre-tax profits – now standing at £9.6m for the six months to October. The group says that international expansion and online sales have helped drive profits.

4. Retails Sales Fall by Less than Expected 0.1% During October

Just in case you failed to catch this story during the week we’d like to highlight that despite all the talk of cash strapped consumers, retail sales fell by just 0.1% during October – much less than the expected 0.9%

Read full story here.

If you’re still left feeling down after these four items we can only suggest that you continue down to our last positive piece for today.

5. Monthy Python Launch You Tube Channel

This week saw the launch of the Monty Python You Tube channel. Packed with all their best clips, this new channel can’t fail to raise your spirits.

Just in case you need proof we have embedded a clip of the memorable song,  ‘Always look on the Bright Side of Life’,  to remind you just how you should be looking at things.

The virtual event which took place on Tuesday (2nd September) featured a keynote speech from respected economist, and former Finance Cornwall Chief Executive, Lord Robin Teverson.

Guests at the event included a range of local business owners as well as Stephen Bohane, Head of Business Development in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly within The South West Regional Development Agency (SWRDA) and Terrye Teverson, Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Truro and Falmouth.

Talking about the Cornish economy Lord Teverson said,

“We’ve had the accepted mantra that when the rest of the UK plunges into recession, Cornwall is hit even harder – certainly in terms of unemployment – and we then come out of recession later than the rest of the country. But over the last decade, since the last recession in the early 1990s, Cornwall has arguably become more confident and resilient.”

“It’s received a lot of European funding which has meant that new investment in people, infrastructure, and businesses has taken place. Distance has become less important because of information technologies, and Cornwall has had a high take up of broadband. “

“A number of SMEs will fall by the wayside – but by managing costs very carefully, keeping the sales and marketing going, and avoiding bad debts they can survive and be even stronger on the other side when things get better.”

“SMEs need to make sure they keep close not just to their customers but also their staff and suppliers.  Loyalty and trust gets to be pretty important during difficult times.” He continued.

Discussion and questions followed the main presentation with topics discussed including; the continuing improvements to the ICT infrastructure in Cornwall, bad weather and the tourism sector, manufacturing, business cash flow and budgets, the government’s announcement on Stamp Duty and the rise of Eastern Economies such as China and India.

Overall the mood was optimistic with many businesses not yet feeling the effects of any downturn. A direct question from Stephen Bohane on how individual businesses were fairing prompted responses of ‘never busier’ and ‘we are forging ahead with our growth’ from the assembled business owners.

The virtual event entitled ‘Insight:Recession’ is the first part of a series of events planned by UKNetWeb to help businesses in Cornwall and further afield gain insight into a particular subject of relevance to an SME operating within the county.

Commenting on the first session Toby Parkins, UKNetWeb Managing Director said,

“Given the amount of discussion and media coverage presently surrounding fears that the UK is falling into a recession we felt is was time to help businesses in Cornwall improve their understanding of them and their potential effect on our local economy.

“Lord Teverson has a lot of knowledge on the economy in general; however, his deep insight into the local economy made him an ideal candidate to explain how a recession might play out within the region.

“We were very pleased with the turnout and believe that everybody was able to take something useful away from the experience.”

A full transcript of Lord Teverson’s speech and the following discussion is available to download from http://www.uknetweb.com/docs/insight-recession.pdf. For information on future events please contact Aren Grimshaw at UKNetWeb on 01872 555933 or email info@uknetweb.com.

Cornwall based web developers, UKNetWeb, are to host a virtual mini-conference on the growing fears of a recession and there potential effect on the large number of small to medium enterprises (SMEs) operating in the south west.

The event, planned as part of an ongoing series of events, follows on from a successful virtual launch event hosted by the company early last month. Referred to as the UKNetWeb ‘Insight Sessions’, each new session will focus on a particular issue of importance to businesses operating within the county.
With talk of a recession forming a major concern for SMEs at this time the first session will focus on the economy, with respected economist and former chief executive of Finance Cornwall, Lord Robin Teverson taking the key note speech.

Lord Teverson will attempt to address the concerns of the small to medium enterprise, dealing with questions such as; what defines a recession, how long a recession would be likely to last and what affect a recession might have on the local economy?

UKNetWeb Managing Director, Toby Parkins says,

“After the success of our virtual launch event we saw an opportunity to use the platform to engage with businesses across the region that may not have the time or inclination to attend traditional conferences or networking events.”

“By providing a virtual space and structure for events of this type we believe we can extend our reach whilst providing businesses with access to information that would otherwise be difficult to obtain.”

The event will take place on the 2nd of September at 12.30pm. Anyone wishing to attend can log into the event by going to www.uknetweb.com anytime after 12noon on the day and following the on-screen instructions displayed.

Ends

Editors Notes:

1. Insight: Recession is the first of a series of virtual online meetings aimed at business people from any part of the world, especially Cornwall.
2. Lord Robin Teverson lives near Tregony in Cornwall and was for a time the economist of a major UK freight company.  He worked in the freight and transport industry for a number of years before becoming MEP for Cornwall and Plymouth from  1994 – 1999.  He was Chief Executive of Finance Cornwall, based in Truro, between 2002 and 2006.  He is now the Lib Dem spokesman on the environment and climate change in the House of Lords.
3. Further information can be obtained from Aren Grimshaw (aren@uknetweb.com) / Toby Parkins (toby@uknetweb.com) or by calling 01872 555933.

The whole guide can be viewed or downloaded here in pdf format which can be printed as required.

To ensure that our guide is available to the maximum number of people we have copied the content to this blog where it can be easily navigated through use of categories, tags and cross referencing links.

In this guide we have tried to look at a range of issues of relevance to businesses of all sizes; where possible suggesting routes to utilise technology in dealing with them. In each case we have tried to provide links to further information, research or tools that might be useful to you or your business.

At UKNetWeb we specialise in the technical and strategic aspects of working with the internet.

During the planning stages of website builds we have become accustomed to identifying technological routes to improve business efficiency, drive sales and improve marketing. Areas that are extremely important to the bottom line of any business.

With fears of a recession growing and a never ending deluge of stories about rising prices, the credit crunch and low consumer confidence we decided that we should share some of our in-house knowledge; identifying routes for businesses to use technology as a means to drive profitability.

If you would like direct assistance in following any of the advice given within this presentation we can provide consultancy or support in setting up, managing or integration of any of the services listed.
Our unparalleled knowledge of technical programming and emerging digital media means that we are well positioned to maximise your return from these activities.

Our guide is a working document and we envisage that you and other businesses will have your own tips and ideas on how to beat the crunch. If you think we have missed something please leave a comment or contact us directly through the contact form here.

Thank you for reading, we hope you find this guide helpful.