Saturday 10 December 2011

Do people feel safe buying online?

The UK leads the rest of Europe in terms of the amount spent online with the biggest sales on books, DVD’s, leisure and travel. Sales are estimated to reach £56 billion by 2014 so with figures like that is it still possible that people are dubious about purchasing items online?
Department stores are popular because consumers are able to get everything from under one roof. Online is exactly the same but with an endless amount of goods, consumers can sit on their chairs or sofas , order whatever they would like from underwear to remote controlled cars and it can be done 24/7.
Reasons that people worry about buying goods online vary. Some worry about their credit card information getting into the wrong hands, others worry about their personal information being used in a fraudulent way. Certain individuals are simply intimidated by the whole process and others, particularly younger people, don’t want to wait for the delivery of the goods and see it was a waste of time.
E-tailing offers different benefits depending on what the individual may want. Online individuals can:
-          Reserve and collect
-          Purchase and get it delivered
-          Search for the best price - Three out of five consumers think that the prices offered online are better than the ones in store
-          Buy online because they don’t want the human interaction
-          Some items are not available in store - The internet has a limitless shop front
Statistics show that women are more dubious than men when purchasing goods online with many of them abandoning a sale if the website isn’t working as they expected. 33% of consumers worry about security and 41% prefer using a well-known retailer when buying online.
To make customers feel comfortable websites need to provide evidence that they can be trusted with consumers’ personal details and make them feel at ease. There is however 20% of consumers who would be happy buying from a website they haven’t heard of. Leading retailers, such as Argos and Marks and Spencer, have begun integrating their channels in order to make the customers experience seamless and to reassure the 80% of consumers who prefer a website they recognise.
With generations of children being taught that ordering items online is convenient and the methods becoming even more efficient the number of people purchasing goods will undoubtedly increase. There will however always be people who prefer not to purchase certain items online but without those people where would it leave the high street?
http://www.monkjackmarketing.com/

Thursday 3 November 2011

Facebook – what’s it all about? -Basic-

It all began in Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard University student room back in 2004 and has been transformed into one of the largest social networking sites online with over 800 million active users. Facebook can be explained as a social networking site designed for individuals who want to easily stay in touch with friends, family and co-workers.
Users are able to add friends either by email address or search for them by name. They can then request their friendship, share photos, update their status and write on their wall. It is essentially like texting but on the internet, however it is important to note that others can see it unless it is sent by private message. !!
Facebook has played a part in being responsible for the changes in the way people interact. Users are able to keep in touch with friends who have moved to the other side of the world, see their pictures and speak to them on Facebook chat – an IM service to the side your webpage which allows you to see when other users are online. However Facebook has been at the centre of a long running debate about how the younger generation are not taking part in ‘real’ conversations and prefer to ‘poke’ each other over an internet site.
It is not just individuals who can benefit from the site, it is also a helpful tool for businesses. Companies can create groups and pages with information about themselves and their products. Facebook users can then decide to ‘Become a Fan’ or join a group to offer their support. There have been a few occasions where Facebook groups have had an impact on wider society, for example the 2009 Christmas number 1 was Rage Against The Machine instead of X-factor winner Joe McElderry.
Geo-location tagging company Foursquare is now facing competition from Facebook who have launched ‘Facebook Places’ - an application for mobile phones to allow users to alert friends in real time where they are, what they are doing and who they are with.
This application has reignited the debate of online privacy and whether the ‘youths of today’ are sharing too much information. Facebook stress that users chose to opt into the application and decide whether or not to check-in at a certain location.
Privacy settings on Facebook are easy to change and it is suggested that individuals make sure that they are au fait with just what others can see. Check out my other blog post: ‘Social networking – business, pleasure or both?’ for advice about adding work colleagues to Facebook. ** Comming Soon. **
The best way to learn about something is to experience it so set up your Facebook account today!
We can set it all up for you - ask us. CLICK HERE AND ASK

Thanks

Monkjack Marketing

Wednesday 28 September 2011

Does Link Building Work?

Links to and from your website have been the foundations upon which search engines have identified and ranked the popularity of all websites for years. The idea being that links count as ‘votes’ for your site.

It should be a combination of quality and quantity of links, however it is best not to sacrifice the quality for quantity as the quality of the site that the ‘vote’ or link comes from plays a key factor in the improvement of your site in the search engine rankings, due to the respect that the search engine has for that sites ‘vote’.

The respect that a search engine such as Google has for a website can be identified at a high level by the PR or Page Rank a website has. Page Rank comes from a multitude of criteria found in algorithms used by Google and other Search Engines and is a rating out of 10 (10 being the best and highest quality site out there).

Having said this there are very few with a 9 or 10 Page Rank these are reserved for very few such as Google.com itself. At time of writing there are only approximately 20 Page Ranked 10 Websites in the world, including Facebook.com, whitehouse.gov, w3.org and get.adobe.com.

Link Building is known as off-site website optimization, any good quality and effective Search Engine Optimisation Campaign should also consist of on-site optimisation which refers to content, meta data, internal links as well as several other key areas - all of which will be covered in future blog articles.

Off-site Website Optimisation consists of more than just Link Building, although Link Building is a key part of it and is actually a key part of Search Engine Optimisation in general.

There are a multitude of link building websites and directories that you can either be free or that you pay for. Usually if you are prepared to have a reciprocal link to the directory of link building website, or pay a fee, then your site will be looked at and accepted more quickly.

So although the design and construction of Websites, how people use and interact with websites have changed the principles and importance of Link Building within an effective Search Engine Optimisation campaign remains the same, for the time being…