Category Archives: E-Commerce

You Got 7 Seconds To Do It – Hot Data

I have been reading the IOD magazines in my Christmas break and they have got an interesting article on e-commerce. They claim that you have got seven seconds to capture and interest your visitor. With so much content online these days the old maxim that content, content, content would guarantee a number of visitors is yesterdays news. Why?

First it takes time to produce quality content, not only do you have to be well informed you also need an opinion. Even if you have these two aspects it may not be enough. Writing content is an art as Sherrilynne over at Strive Pr can explain. Is it cheap to produce quality content? Hell no, even the most established bloggers such as Dosh Dosh require an indeterminate amount of time to write and check there content before it goes on there website. Other bloggers or companies employ other people do it for them. Which ultimately costs money instead of time.

Is Content King? Nope. A few months ago I looked at setting up a debt recovery business. In my research I was staggered to find so much quality content already on the net . I could have written till I was blue in the face with original content. I do not think that that my debt recovery website would have got on to the golden first page of google results for debt as a search word. As Chris Barling, in the IOD article also CEO of e-commerce software company Actinic, explains: “People try to trick Google, but it’s very good at finding relevant sites.

So what to do? Owen and I have been talking too about this problem recently and we do believe there is a solution. It does not lay in the content that you produce. Although original content is beneficial. It is no longer about one certain area but the concept as a whole. You can now buy a very respectable website for £1000 pounds. Unless it is geared to engage your market in all honesty you are better spending the money on hosting a wine and cheese evening for your potential customers . The only problem with that is, in a time poor world you are severely limiting your market and my 7 seconds was up long ago.

How much Time do you Spend reading Blogs?

Do you feel guilty if you are not regular reading of other users Blog? With all the pressures of modern day life who do you pick and choose to read? If I am totally honest I do not do as much reading as I would like. When the day eventually ends there are still things that need doing and reading when you are tired is not effective. I guess quick scan in the morning is the best bet. I tend my self to take a look around lunch time. There are couple topics or writers that I have been following recently when that has run it’s course I will then move on. Of course this question has been topically asked yesterday by Shoemoney, The most amount of comments for the least amount of work http://tinyurl.com/5h58yc It does demonstrate just how relevant blogging is or not in the wider picture.

Interesting too how collectively similar topics will be discussed in blogsphere

Art of Luck in Business

The viewpoint that we create our own luck is a strong one. If one is constantly performing or over performing in what they do they build up a momentum that generates opportunities as it rides along. Whether that be through are own interactions with other people or simple generosity.  One could argue that is creating your own luck, and I would tend to go along with this. Having said all that the most remarkable thing happened to someone that I know.

A acquaintance of mine recently  won over £1200 hundred pounds from gambling machines in matter of days. He went down to the pub on three separate occasion and and won -/+ £400.  The pub owner thought that he had installed a faulty machine, it was not faulty. fruitmachine-1kFruit machines general speaking are only meant to pay when they have reached a certain amount credit.  So if you want to win on a fruit machine try it last thing at night. In the story above that was not the case. I have figured out what the odds are of that happening and they are quite remote.  A general rule of thumb  is that over a period of time such as a year the machine needs to pay back 85% of the money that has been put into it.

AdWords – About Quality Score

AdWords – About Quality Score

In a clever way to deliver a better product to their customers, Google Adwords have come up with the quality score. As explained below.

“A Quality Score is calculated every time your keyword matches a search query—that is, every time your keyword has the potential to trigger an ad. Quality Score is used in several different ways, including influencing your keywords’ actual cost-per-clicks (CPCs) and estimating the first page bids that you see in your account. It also partly determines if a keyword is eligible to enter the ad auction that occurs when a user enters a search query and, if it is, how high the ad will be ranked. In general, the higher your Quality Score, the lower your costs and the better your ad position.

Quality Score helps ensure that only the most relevant ads appear to users on Google and the Google Network. The AdWords system works best for everybody—advertisers, users, publishers and Google too—when the ads we display match our users’ needs as closely as possible. Relevant ads tend to earn more clicks, appear in a higher position and bring you the most success.”

It would appear the Google are saying that you cannot buy your way to the top. It would appear that you need to have a quality website to insure your adwords are successful.

What are your thoughts?

AdWords – About Quality Score

In a clever way to deliver a better product to their customers, Google Adwords have come up with the quality score. As explained below.

“A Quality Score is calculated every time your keyword matches a search query—that is, every time your keyword has the potential to trigger an ad. Quality Score is used in several different ways, including influencing your keywords’ actual cost-per-clicks (CPCs) and estimating the first page bids that you see in your account. It also partly determines if a keyword is eligible to enter the ad auction that occurs when a user enters a search query and, if it is, how high the ad will be ranked. In general, the higher your Quality Score, the lower your costs and the better your ad position.

Quality Score helps ensure that only the most relevant ads appear to users on Google and the Google Network. The AdWords system works best for everybody—advertisers, users, publishers and Google too—when the ads we display match our users’ needs as closely as possible. Relevant ads tend to earn more clicks, appear in a higher position and bring you the most success.”

It would appear the Google are saying that you cannot buy your way to the top. It would appear that you need to have a quality website to insure your adwords are successful.

What are your thoughts?

Cyber Squatting Over, True Internet Freedom

ICANN have just announced that it is going to be introducing a whole new level of internet domain names as they explain below.

“Presently, users have a limited range of 21 top level domains to choose from — names that we are all familiar with like .com, .org, .info.

This proposal allows applicants for new names to self-select their domain name so that choices are most appropriate for their customers or potentially the most marketable. It is expected that applicants will apply for targeted community strings such as (the existing) .travel for the travel industry and .cat for the Catalan community (as well as generic strings like .brandname or .yournamehere). There are already interested consortiums wanting to establish city-based top level domain, like .nyc (for New York City), .berlin and .paris. “

This is really good news there has been a flourishing market in buying up 4 to 5 letter domain names with the intention to sell them on at a higher price. This will effectively put an end to that. Which means I have a few blog posts to change.

The plan is set for implementation in the first half of 2009. Read more here