How long are you prepared to wait for a website to load until you get impatient and click away? One second? Two? Google recently carried out an experiment where they intentionally decreased the speed of their own website from 100 milliseconds to 400 milliseconds. The results showed decreases in the average number of Google searches from 0.2% to 0.6%. Users were turning their backs on Google as the time taken for search results to appear was too long. Even after Google returned their site to the original speed they found that searches continued to decline for the next five weeks!
It is because of this dramatic affect that speed has on user’s experience of a website, that Google has announced faster websites will be ranked higher. This is the first time that Google has officially announced that Speed does have a direct effect on Rankings. SEO guru’s have suspected this for a while and a fast website is always desired for usability reasons, but Google’s announcement has put any debate over this issue to rest.
Google uses its Googlebots to test how long a page takes to respond as well as Google toolbar to test page load times. Generate UK have invested a lot of time and money into our server capabilities. This means that the sites that we host on our server have quick and smooth load times. As demonstrated by the Google experiment speed not only judges your Google ranking but that the amount of users actually decreases with a slow website. This in turn will also have an effect on your conversion rate. With a slow running website traffic is less likely to stick around and ultimately not buy into your services or products.
A lot of people are concerned that this change will really only benefit larger organisations as they can afford to pay more for hosting. I believe this is a misconception. Small sites can often react and respond faster than larger corporations can to changes on the web. Making small changes on a larger website can often be a slow process due to internal bureaucracy; whereas smaller sites can often make those small changes to help increase the speed of their website.
Currently less than 1% of search queries are effect by site speed according to Google. However Google have already released a list of tools to help test your sites speed. This could only be the beginning for the importance of site speed. Google’s passion for fast internet and dedication to releasing new tools demonstrates that this could be an extremely important signal for the future. Google have been using speed as a signal for several weeks now and there has been no dramatic change. But this simply could be the beginning of a bigger campaign for faster websites.
Generate UK has invested in a high performance server infrastructure for customers websites we host. We ensure that our server is fast, efficient and reliable. Google says that a 0.5 second delay in the page load speed of your website can reduce traffic by 20%. As a business can you afford to lose this amount of traffic? Generate UK servers deliver up to 35% more speed over traditional hardware, this is to ensure that your website does not suffer because of server speed restrictions.
On page content can also affect the speed of your website. Having a large number of images, flash files or Javascript can increase the time your page takes to load. There are tools that you can use to run reports on your websites speed which will tell you exactly how long each page takes to load as well as identifying areas that are slowing you website down. Follow this link to see which tools Google suggest you use. Alternatively there are other sites you can use such as websiteoptimisation.com.
It is important to remember that this is only one aspect or signal of SEO. Along with speed we still have to take into account on page and off page SEO. These are all areas of search engine optimisation that Generate UK specialises in. If you would like to get your website ranking higher in Google then why not talk to one of our SEO consultants. We can help advise you on areas of your site that may need improvement to benefit from higher rankings.
Out of the ashes of Froogle and Google Products is Google’s take on what a price comparison website should be. Google Product Search is still officially in Beta; however any application where Google is involved is bound to attract attention and more importantly traffic and users.
It’s an interesting move by Google and it must have made the likes of Kelkoo, Pricerunner and the like sit up and take notice. These are the current incumbents in the price comparison market; their business model is to take a commission from sales of products they have referred (they also charge to place products higher in the searches). So their search engine ranking in the most popular search engine in the world is very important to them…..
So now they are in direct competition with the very same search engine they need to be ranked on in order for their business model to work. If that was not bad enough, Google has confirmed that there will be no charges to list products and they won’t accept payment in return for rankings. So on the face of it, not good for the price comparison chaps and it does not bode well in the future for other sites offering price comparison for insurance, mortgages, credit cards etc. Surely, it is just a matter of time before Google start to enter these markets too.
The good news for a lot of ecommerce store owners is that there is a new channel for them to showcase their products and services through; a channel which has the backing of the largest search engine in the world. So in terms of opportunity, it’s a big one and almost a no-brainer if you have an ecommerce store. The challenge is to work out the best way to use this channel and how to optimise your products so that they are shown and provide you with quality, targeted traffic.
The following tips and ideas are what we have seen when testing and playing with Google Products Search, some of these views will be open to debate, so it would be interesting to hear from others.
Before you start, the first thing to do is go to the Google Merchant Centre page and create an account. This will become the home of your product feed and where you upload your product information. You will be asked to verify your account, to ensure that no one else has the ability to upload products.
The next step is to really understand what it is you’re trying to achieve. This article is about promoting your products for Google Product Search, so hopefully that is your objective. The idea is that by increasing your understanding of Google Product Search, the more likely you will be able to work with the product feed to ensure your product has the best chance of ranking highly for the keywords related to your product.
Improving your Google Product Search relevancy
The following tips and ideas are what we have seen when testing and playing with Google Products Search, some of these views will be open to debate, so it would be interesting to hear from others.
1. Let’s get the obvious bits out of the way. Make your feeds relevant to the product they are promoting. Read and adhere to the terms and conditions and guidelines of Google Product Search.
2. You can have up to 70 characters for your product title, our advice is to be short and concise as possible for the keywords you are going after. There is little point in going mad and trying to include too many keywords.
3. The description field provides you with an opportunity to add to your product title with more information about the product, for example the benefits or the performance of the product. Remember this is about relevancy, so make the description relevant to the product and not your ecommerce store.
4. Product Type is quite self explanatory and signifies the type of product you are selling. It is important to then ensure that the product fits into the correct taxonomy. If you are unsure, then you should look at Google’s Taxonomy Structure help.
5. The Link page is what the viewer will click through to reach your site, so it is important that this is the relevant page and has all of the correct information on it. Think about general usability here and what would expect if you were looking for a specific product.
6. The next field is the all important price field, which is a mandatory field. Please make sure that this is the same price as on your website, so as not to encourage issues.
7. Product ID, could be your SKU or part number. This is your number and your internal code; we have customers that refer to this as a part number, while others call it a product code.
8. MPN or UPC identifiers refer to a recognised number (similar to a barcode) that relates to that product. It is a bit like a ISBN number for a book. If you have this information available it is definitely worth using as this could be used to create a search.
9. The product image is self explanatory and really important not just for Google Product Search but also for your main website. We advise that you use the best image you ahve for your product as you can show more when the user clicks through.
What next?
If you have followed the instructions above, you should have a document ready to upload to Google Products Search.
The next step is decided what format to upload the feed. Fortunately, Google offers different options depending on what works best for you; these include web form, text file, CSV, FTP and XML file, it is also possible to connect directly using an API.
Once you have decided on what method you would like to provide your feed, it is time to log into your account and take care of the general account settings. This includes specifying your target country and the location where you would like your products to be shown. Think carefully about this part of the process because it is not necessarily about showing up in every search result, instead it is about being shown to the audience most likely to buy from you.
Give it go…
If you’re selling online, it is definitely worth having a look at Google Products Search; it will grow in stature as Google iron out the little bugs and quirks. Currently, not all stores are using Google to promote their products, so there is an opportunity to get ahead of your competitors.
If you would like to discuss this further with one of our SEO consultants, please do not hesitate to contact us 01635 550431.
I’ve personally been involved with 3 fairly sizeable Sitekit projects in the last few months and I have to admit that the more I use it, the more I like it. I don’t always feel that Sitekit gets the recognition it deserves though. Strangely, you could not call Sitekit a cool product, it’s not web 2.0, it’s not built by a community, and it does not have a vibrant following….. Yet it does what it sets out to do, it is a really great content management system.
I am now on a mission to make Sitekit the coolest CMS out there…. especially the latest version 9.
Ok, the title suggests 10 reasons why I like Sitekit, so here goes:
1. As a project manager, it’s nice to know that my back is covered when it comes to support. With the best will in the world, it is impossible to know everything about a piece of software. So it is reassuring that you’re only ever a step or two away from the chaps responsible for building and maintaining the software.
2. The audit trail functionality is very powerful. It is one of those features that appeals to larger organisations with extensive publishing processes. However, the ability to roll back to previous versions of content is a great feature for medium sized organisations too. Also, it’s always nice to know who made that fatal change!
3. We’ve built Sitekit websites with version 8 and version 9 and it is no surprise to know that version 9 is an improvement on version 8. What is surprising is how much of an improvement it is. The back end console and usability is a lot stronger and the time to make changes has been reduced. The objective was to go for a more Microsoft style backend that users are familiar with, which comes across really well.
4. Sitekit won’t mind me saying that their system is not for all customers. It has a price point that frankly can put smaller businesses off considering it as a tool, however larger customers with mature online strategies can do a lot with Sitekit. One area that helps to lower the total cost of ownership is the ability to manage multiple sites through Sitekit. With the right license you can manage your sites via one console, reducing your complexity and reliance on multiple systems. It also means you can train your staff on just one system.
5. The flexibility of Sitekit is very good, there are one or two quirks like the hosting and certain APIs, however in the main you can do pretty much what you need to do with the out of the box Sitekit license. I would advise you to check your requirements off with one of the Sitekit staff if you have a lot of bespoke work to do though. The other great thing about Sitekit is that you can create or migrate your existing Intranet onto the Sitekit platform and manage the pages through the system securely.
6. We were able to roll out a new website for an NHS customer within 8 weeks. This site involved nearly 200 pages, different templates for each area and unique imagery. The site was also set up for an Intranet.
7. So far, all of our customers with Sitekit have really liked it. Each customer is different and experience different reasons for considering an enterprise class content management system. Usually, the pain you’re experiencing with non-content managed website can be alleviated with Sitekit, we’d love to have a conversation with you about this.
8. Search engine optimisation is critical to the success of your website; Sitekit really helps you to set up your site in a way that is truly optimised for the search engines. Taking care of your unique page titles, search engine friendly URLs, keywords and meta. As well as integrating directly with your Google Analytics account.
9. One of the less sexy features is the file and image library. You would expect a file and image library in all content management systems, yet the way it is set up with Sitekit really makes sense once you understand the concept. The latest version extends the file and image library to an asset library, which is even easier to use.
10. The last and most important reason we use Sitekit is that is makes us look good. As a digital marketing agency, we’re keen to work with best of breed technology partners. This enables us to focus on our customer’s business objectives and really work closely with them to deliver a website aligned to their goals.
I’ve worked with many content management systems, from open source to big time expensive and most things in between. The criteria I use to gauge how good a system is, is how easy it is for the customer to manage their site and how flexible the site is once built. Sitekit does really well on both points, yes it has its quirks and you’ll need to do a bit of leg work to understand some of the Sitekit specific commands, but this is the same for any new piece of software.
If you’d like to learn more about Sitekit and how it might fit within your organisation, please do feel free to contact us. Depending on your business needs, there are some really compelling reasons for Sitekit both financially and technically. We’d be happy to discuss these with you in more detail.
I have decided to create a series dedicated to the best marketing campaigns of the 20th century. Each Friday for 6 weeks a different member of the Generate UK team will discuss one of their favourite campaigns explaining why it stands out against its competition and what makes it so successful. This series will reveal some of the most creative, successful and the just downright weird campaigns to have been launched in the last 10 years.
Name: Ian Fergusson Position: Marketing Executive Campaign of choice: McDonalds Billboard (2008)
McDonalds does not have a good reputation in the fast food world as being ‘healthy’! In fact it has been sued a number of times for its advertising targeted at kids and for promoting un-healthy living. During the ‘noughties’ we saw a massive boom in healthy living and keeping fit, in my opinion borderline obsessive with fitness videos and new diets advertised wherever we looked. McDonalds clearly felt that if they didn’t alter their reputation soon, profits could ‘dip’. They left it up to the wonderful Leo Burnett to get across to the public that McDonald’s salads really are fresh!
Leo Burnett created a Billboard that over time grew lettuce, to form the words ‘Fresh Salads’. Creatively I feel this is ingenius. In a sense we see here the first ever living billboard. This wasn’t the fastest campaign ever launched, the sign took 3 weeks to grow, but the message delivered is clear and strong, If McDonalds can get fresh lettuce on a sign, surely that leaf in my double cheese burger is just as fresh and healthy. Creativity is the driving force behind a message; this innovative idea generated top class media coverage that lasted several months after the campaign had finished. However, I’m not a big fan of McDonalds as a brand, so I felt the need to criticise at least one aspect of this campaign. I do not like the Green on a grey background. I feel this is a slip up on the art direction and I’m sure many creative’s were confused over that decision. I hope you found this interesting and please post any opinions you have about this campaign. After all it is you McDonalds are trying to impress, has it worked?
Next week it’s Mike Robinsons’ turn to share his Marketing Highlight of the past decade.
Posted by Ian Fergusson | Under Other stuff
Monday Jan 11, 2010
Joe and Mike will be representing Generate UK as they run the Reading Half Marathon in March. We thought this would be a perfect opportunity to raise some money for a deserved charity. The charity of choice was Tommy’s which funds scientific research and provides information on the causes and prevention of miscarriage, premature birth and stillbirth. For more information on Tommy’s please click here. Please show your support by sponsoring the guys and donating here.
After overindulging during the Christmas period, Joe and Mike have a strict training schedule to stick to in order to get fit for the half marathon. The training has been slightly postponed due to the Arctic weather conditions however they are both very eager to get back into a routine. The half marathon starts in Green Park on March 21st, where Joe and Mike will have to run 13.1 miles before they return to the Madejski stadium to finish in front of the stands.
If you would like your company’s logo to be on the t-shirts please get in contact with us by email at info@generateuk.uk or by phoning us on 01635 550431. If you would like to show your support, please donate what you can here. All support is appreciated by the Generate UK team. Joe and Mike’s progress will be reported on twitter, so if you want to find out how they are doing just click here to follow us.
Newbury Flooring Centre is an independent flooring solutions provider who specialise in supplying quality flooring products from leading manufacturers.
Until very recently, Newbury Flooring Centre had a limited web presence. They were keen to change this and invest in a new platform that would enable them to reach a wider target market, whilst allowing them the flexibility to introduce e-commerce to their site in the future.
The brief was simple; to provide a web site platform that encouraged more conversations with potential customers. Due to the size of the investment, the platform also had to support the future needs of Newbury Flooring Centre, such as the ability to take orders via the web site.
Newbury Flooring’s new web site has been built using the Generate Shopping Cart System; a powerful e-commerce platform that is designed for non technical users. Simplistic and effective, it offers complete search engine optimisation support, one page check out, full integration with payment engines, delivery agencies and Google.
One month after the launch of the new web site, Newbury Flooring had received search engine traffic for over 200 different keywords and phrases. The site was also quickly indexed by Google, creating an Internet Footprint of over 100 pages in the first month. These factors have enabled Newbury Flooring Centre to quickly compete with more established web sites in their market.
The project was delivered on schedule and is a great example of a local business driving sales by using the Internet effectively. Generate UK are delighted to be working with Newbury Flooring Centre as they build their online reputation.
Michael Robinson, Managing Director of Newbury Flooring Centre stated
“If it’s been on your mind to launch a new web site for your business, now is the time to act. In this day and age, I don’t think a company can survive without a site - it’s an integral part to every business. I would also recommend using a professional agency such as Generate UK who will deliver a site that provides commercial results. If you’re worried about your business, you can’t afford to sit back. Get your new site today.”
If you would like to discuss how an ecommerce shopping cart could help your business please do not hesitate to contact us on 01635 550431. If you’re already selling products via the Internet, why not let Generate UK provide a free of charge web site health check.
OPISAS is one of the fastest growing international investment companies specialising in providing the latest overseas investments in the most profitable regions throughout the world.
OPISAS are a new business and as a result were keen to stand out in their market and differentiate themselves against their competitors. They were also determined that the web site should contribute to their growth in terms of new sales and marketing opportunities.
A major area of focus was the usability and navigation of the site; early on in the scoping exercise a “three click” rule was introduced, which meant that it should not take the visitor any more than three clicks before landing on a property page. It was also very important that there were plenty of opportunities for the visitor to engage directly with OPISAS, by way of call to actions.
Another important aspect of this project was that OPISAS wanted to make their own updates and add their own content to the web site. This was vital because the quicker a new development could be added, the quicker the details would be available to potential customers. The ability to update and make changes in accordance with their market conditions gives OPISAS a huge advantage in this competitive industry.
Generate CMS provides OPISAS with the ability to amend every page within their web site, and supports search engine friendly URLS. It also has the advantage of being able to provide up to date visitor information on the fly, as well as incorporating the latest Social Media icons to encourage visitor interaction.
Tom Berry, Senior Partner of OPISAS stated “The challenge for Generate UK was to build a brand new website that needed to meet a number of objectives, those were; a great design, easy to navigate, encourage call back and ultimately sell property. The website is fantastic and it meets all of our objectives and more highlighted during the initial project scoping meeting. Now it’s built we’ve entered into the second phase of marketing the website and Generate UK are doing an amazing job of increasing our presence in all the search engines to help drive targeted traffic to our site, we’re really happy with how things are progressing”
If you would like a demonstration of the Generate UK CMS or would like us to quote on your design requirements, please do not hesitate to contact us on 01635 550431. If you’ve already launched your site, why not talk to us about growing your Internet Footprint.
Email marketing is now one of the most cost effective ways to market to your potential customers; as a result it is no surprise that the UK market grew from a value of £221m in 2007 to an estimated £274m in 2008. Despite the economic doom and gloom, this growth is expected to rise further in 2009.
There are a number of reasons contributing to this continued rise:
The economic doom and gloom is putting pressure on everyone’s marketing budgets, however at the same time there is a need for an increase in retention marketing, which email marketing is perfect for.
There is an increased number of email service providers, which is bringing down the cost and adding value to the marketing department (in most cases anyway).
We’re all beginning to see the benefit of email marketing from a return on investment perspective. This is certainly the case when measuring the cost of the campaign; however it is fair to say that many businesses need to go one step further in terms of measuring their campaigns with the amount of business it produces.
Most businesses recognise that they have to work harder for their slice of the cake; as a result there is a greater focus on building email lists and encouraging email sign ups from webmasters and marketing managers.
Email marketing offers businesses the opportunity to send highly targeted and very relevant email correspondence.
Businesses in the UK are beginning to understand the benefits of autoresponders and trigger emails.
In general this is good news; companies recognise the benefit of email marketing and are using it for sales purposes as well as retention purposes. However there is a cautionary element of this blog; the more businesses that adopt email marketing, the more email competition there is out there. This means there will be an impact on your open rates and click throughs as people start to screen their mails more. A recent survey from MarketingSherpa highlighted the following 5 reasons for email recipients to hit the spam button:
52% hit their spam button after receiving emails they had not signed up to
41% said they hit the spam or junk option because the email was not of interest
25% said they went spam crazy because they receive too much email from the sender
20% of recipients hit their spam button because they receive too much email in general
A final 15% of respondents to the survey hit their spam or junk button because they found the email offensive
This was quite an interesting survey and one that most marketers would find beneficial. Consider the case of over 50% of recipients who hit the spam because they had not signed up to receive an email. This is a huge figure and the more people who spam block your emails, the greater chance of a flag being raised about your email sending habits. In my opinion, this adds weight to the arguement that you should be doing everything possible to grow your marketing lists and encouraging people to sign up.
Once you have people signed up, it is all about sending them the right information. Think about your list, what their interests might be and send them emails that will appeal to them. These figures show that if you don’t take the relevancy factor into consideration, then as many as 41% will hit the spam button. This is a huge waste as we all know how difficult it is to grow our lists.
Another thing to think about is how often you send emails to the same contacts; a daily email with a tip is very different to a daily email trying to sell something. It is important to get the balance with your list right, otherwise you could lose up to 20% of your subscribers.
So in summary, the marketing trend for email marketing is positive. The industry is continuing to grow, UK businesses are starting to realise the benefit from a cost and ROI perspective. However, like all forms of marketing, you have to enter it with your eyes open and be prepared to test and tweak your campaigns. Have a look at our 9 Steps to Enterprise Email Marketing for some ideas.
Also, don’t forget traditional postal mail campaigns. Going against the norm can often be an effective marketing strategy, and besides, when was the last time someone sent you a nice letter or flyer at your office?
This blog post was created with the help of E-consultancy.com and based on a roundtable discussion with some of the leading names in the industry. If you would like to talk about email marketing and what it could do for your business, please do not hesitate to contact us on 01635 550431. Please feel free to post your comments.
Momentum Sash Windows specialises in sash window restorations and refurbishments. They work throughout the UK providing quality sash window delivery and enhancement. With over 25 years of experience, the proprietors of Momentum have achieved the highest level of craftsmanship. This leadership in their field has meant that Momentum have worked on some of the country’s most well known establishments.
To support their continued success, Momentum decided that they would look to identify new channels to showcase their work; particularly on the Internet where they did not have a web site. It was expected that the website would support new business initiatives and help drive new sales enquiries.
The brief was to deliver a website on a limited budget. The web site had to also support continued growth and therefore needed to be flexible in terms of adding and editing content.
Generate UK consulted with Momentum in order to understand their exact business needs, web requirements and what they saw as the role of the web site. Both parties worked through the Generate Web Development Checklist which ensured that all success factors were logged and agreed in advance.
During this stage it was established that Momentum wanted a simple web site that showed new and existing customers details of their projects. The site should not be too many pages and encourage visitors to contact Momentum.
The project lasted six weeks from sign off to completion and is evidence that you can produce a professional website on a small budget. During these tough economic times the Internet represents a very effective opportunity to grow a business. Generate UK are delighted to be working with Momentum as they begin their online adventure.
Aidan Dear, A Director of Momentum stated “Generate UK understood our business needs from day one, our budget was restrictive however Generate UK delivered a fantastic site and the service first class”
If you’re interested to discover what Generate UK can do for you, please do not hesitate to contact us on 01635 550431 or via our site. If you’re quick, you can still take part in our New Design for 2009 promotion.
Newbury Flooring Centre is an independent flooring solutions provider who specialise in supplying quality flooring products from leading manufacturers.
