Harsh Realities of your website: You’ll outgrow it!
Or at least I hope you will; your business will be growing, adapting and changing with each passing year, so you will inevitably come to the point where you “outgrow” your current website in terms of design, content, and scope.
Harsh Realities of your Website: You’ll neglect it!
The first few clients I worked for commercially were all tradesmen. All very similar, all with similar requirements for their website. They also shared a complete lack of interest in all things technological, and were self-described luddites.
With all three if these clients I thoroughly discussed what they needed, and when the all said they wanted a “Latest News” section I advised that failing to keep it up to date could reflect badly on their business, since people associate the activity on your website with the activity in your business.
Harsh Realities of your Website: Google owe you nothing!
There was uproar last year when Google rolled out their “Panda/Farmer” update, a change to their algorithm which sought to penalise content aggregation websites (sites which essentially just collate content from other websites). A number of well-known, prolific and profitable websites suddenly found their positioning in Google adversely affected with the update, and so they kicked up a fuss about their unfair treatment and how Google was damaging their business.
Harsh Realities of your website: You don’t matter!
So we’ve already established that, unless you have a savvy online marketing strategy, or a particularly strong proposition for your website then nobody is going to have a reason to care; however the fun doesn’t stop there – let’s take a look at another harsh reality when it comes to your website…
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Harsh Realities Of Your Website: Nobody Cares!
Typically, commissioning the design and development of a website involves a sizeable investment of both time and money in a process which often sees the client and the developer alike getting a little too carried away in terms of expectations. It’s not uncommon for web developers to oversell to impact a new website will have, and quite often clients have inflated expectations from the outset.
Before viral went viral
Much is made of the concept of “going viral” with your online marketing efforts. Many brands big and small have made use of the staggering power of social media (and its predecessors) to put something out there that people simply could not resist sharing.
Marketing your business: Do you need to fail?
We all market our businesses with a single clear end-result in mind – we want more sales. Brand awareness is great, building credibility is fantastic, however ultimately at the end of the line there’s got to be money in the bank otherwise we’re all filing for bankruptcy.
However so many business owners employ a “hit and hope” approach to marketing, almost with the expectation that their efforts will fail to a larger degree than they’ll succeed.
Essential E-Commerce Tips
Just in case you had not yet noticed; the Internet is evolving in a major way. There was once a time where simply being online was enough to attract visitors to your website in their thousands. This was even more prevalent for e-commerce stores, as customers revelled in the novelty of being able to make their purchases online.
Now, however, the internet is somewhat saturated; and it takes a little more thought and effort to not only attract customers to your website, but to ensure they buy from you too. This article aims to give a few essential tips for e-commerce on the social web.
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The fundamental flaw with Google Search Plus
A couple of weeks ago, Google unveiled their plans for “Google Search, Plus Your World” (shortened in this article as “Search Plus” for the sake of brevity and the avoidance of repeating a daft name) – an overhaul of their algorithm which sees links and content from their Google+ social network peppered in amongst regular search engine results.
This is yet another step by Google to shoehorn their social media efforts into their search offering, following the addition of their “+1″ button a while back; and has drawn a mixed reaction from online observers. Personally, while I understand and don’t necessarily dislike this development – with all things considered I believe there is a fundamental flaw in the change…
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4 places to start when you’re not sure what to Tweet about
There’s nothing worse than walking into a room full of people who all seem to know each other, and nobody knows you. Jumping into the breach and engaging with strangers is daunting, and more often than not you end up standing in the corner, trying to look busy.
The same goes for social media – particularly Twitter, which is the most “conversational” of the main social media platforms. The most common reason I hear from people about why they don’t use Twitter is that they simply don’t know where to start and what to Tweet about.
