Yell Sites, are they hell sites or are Yell Sites well SEO’d websites
With everyone’s favourite local directory website now offering SEO and marketing for your website, does Yell really have a real world solution or is it style over substance?
In this article I will show you what is needed to SEO any webpage, so you can decide.
Now let’s be clear about the definition of SEO before we begin. SEO is not marketing and SEO is not copywriting. The only purpose of applying SEO is to increase where your listing appears in Google.
Copywriting and Marketing are there to help convert visitors to customers. While it is true that copy can be written that will convert visitors to customers, and will rank well on Google, it is important to decide which is more important for any given page. Is the primary focus to increase visibility on a Search engine on Google or to make use of the natural traffic you already generate.
This article refers to Google, but the methodology used throughout this article can be applied to all search engines.
Exact search phrases are king
Type any set of words into Google and it will bring back a set of search results. Google will try and return results closest to the text you have entered, that is to say it will try and return a set of results that match your query exactly.
As an example type in two separate queries into Google, ‘website banbury ‘ and ‘websites banbury’ and as expected Google has returned two different sets of results.
In each case Google has returned the closest match. What is interesting is that the s in websites has made such a difference in how Google has returned the results. This is down to Google wanting to bring back an exact search. It also looks to match in the order of keywords, that is to say ‘web design london’ will return a different set of results to ‘london web design’.
If you try ‘websites banbury’ and ‘banbury websites’ into Google it brings back results that are different. As there is not much completion for these phrases, there are a lot of entries are the same, but in the real world we need to make sure the SEO is as effective as possible.
The other thing these searches show is that Google looks at the content of each page, this can be used for your advantage.
I want to rank number one for every phrase under the sun
Probably the hardest concept to accept when applying SEO rules to a page is that you can only SEO one phrase per page. The more terms you try and SEO for, the less effective each SEO phrase will be.
It is likely that visitors will find any given page on your website by more than one term, but for useful search terms, trying to optimise for more than one phrase will simply not work. This is down to the competition for each search phrase is different.
If we have three search phrases the first one needs a keyword density of 30% another one needs a density of 50% and the final one needs a density of 35%, this means we have 105%, it just won’t fit.
Now imagine that we have different densities for different areas of the page, and it becomes very clear that you should aim for just one phrase for one page.
On this website I optimise for just three phrases ‘web design carterton’ ‘web design witney’ and ‘web design banbury’. This generates my business enough work. If I had tried to put all three onto a single page, I would not rank well for any of the phrases.
Be a big fish in a little pond!!!!
Research makes things clear
It is important to make sure you are optimising for the right phrases. It is a wasted effort to optimise for a phrase that is never searched on.
There are a number of tools available, but make sure the tool you use will give you figures for an ‘exact search’. Even with Google’s own tool the information can be quite misleading unless you tweak the default settings.
Also if the tool suggests the phrase will produce 100 searches a month, keep in mind the figure will be a lot lower. This is due to a couple of factors.
Search traffic is generated by companies doing research on SEO.
The top 3 search results will take most of the traffic, if you cannot get your page to the front of Google, even if your search phrase is going to generate 100,000 searches a month, there will be virtually no traffic generated to your site.
Engineering in reverse
I am lucky enough to use a tool called IBP (Internet Business Promoter), it is very good at helping you implement SEO that will generate real results.
It’s a simple concept that works well. Type in a search phrase and it will compare a web page against the top 10 web pages for that search term.
The idea is that Google likes these pages, and if we make our page like these ones on a technical level, Google will like our page as well.
I have used the tool many times and it just works.
Once run, it produces a very detailed report on every aspect of a webpage and the software is updated often to keep up to date with changes to search engine algorithms.
Yell sites a real life example
We will now look at the term ‘Yell sites’ and see how we create a webpage that will rank better that Yell for this phrase. It’s a good test as Yell has recently started a radio campaign inviting people to search for this topic.
One aspect when applying SEO is that a webpage, rules not only need to be applied on-page SEO but also off-page. Off-page SEO is simply a term to describe the process of building links from another site to yours.
Even with the best on-page SEO in place many pages will also need off-page SEO. Google uses this to judge if a page is actually useful or just spam in website clothing.
Although not recommended it is possible to find companies who will help to build links to your site. As this work is time consuming, it’s often expensive.
There are smart ways to achieve the same thing yourself. One of the best ways is to encourage your content to be syndicated. This is a term to describe some of your content appearing on a third party site with a link back to the original site. While it is true that you loose some IP control over your copy, you will gain so much more back in the way of direct and in-direct traffic.
The report
The SEO report I work from generate some 52 pages of recommendations, so there will not be a complete breakdown listed here, but I will detail some of the most important elements that make a real effect on the rankings of any webpage.
For clarity of the Methodology I have included the figure breakdown for ‘Keyword use in document title’, for other sections mentioned I have not included this information.
Keyword use in document title
Search term: "yell sites" – Number of times: 0 to 1 – 0% to 22%
Search term: "yell" – Number of times: 0 to 3 – 0% to 30%
Search term: "sites" – Number of times: 0 to 2 – 0% to 18%
Search term: "yell" or "sites" – Number of times: 0 to 4 – 0% to 18%
When implementing the above I would look to hit the upper part of the range, but not go over.
As you can see just for the document title it would take some juggling to try and get your search term to be within the range. Remember these figures are generated from the top 10 pages and Google likes these, therefore this must be the weight of key phrase in your document title you must use. The more you deviate from the advice, the more off-page SEO you will have to undertake to compensate.
Google also looks at the link text of inbound links, so for any links we generate they also need to include our search phrase in the visible text of the link.
The other places to look at implementing SEO rules as a start are:-
Keyword use in body text
Keyword use in H1 headline texts
Keyword use in domain name
Keyword use in page URL
Links from social networks
Keyword use in H2-H6 headline texts
HTML validation of web page to W3C standards
With regards to body copy, this is all copy that can be seen in the source code between the <Body> and </Body> html tags, so remember this include things like image alt text and link title text.
Final thoughts
Search Engine Optimisation is not black magic; it’s a rational set of guidelines on how to make any webpage visible to search engines like Google. Although we do not know how Google generates its index, we can look at the effect, look at those doing well from it and try and make our webpage’s as close to the ones doing well.
We can use tools to crunch webpage data, but we require logic and reason to get the best results.
Do not use SEO in place of copyrighting or marketing if you are already generating a large amount of traffic.
Do use SEO if you have no or little amounts of traffic.
Any part tweaked can take months before Google properly shows the result (especially on a new domain), so do not constantly make tweaks, you will go backwards.
Make a change and wait to see the results……
Adobes Flash in the pan
Adobe Flash, once the popular option for creating animations, websites and games on the net, has recently come under attack by Apple, Google and Microsoft. Is it time to start turning our backs on Adobe, or will the competition finally come unstuck?
A short History
Created in 1996 by a company called Macromedia, Flash was originally conceived to allow designers and programmers to bring animated graphics and interactive features to the web. As the web browser of the time (and also for many of the browsers today) did not support Flash directly, Macromedia created ‘Flash Player’, a virtual machine which allowed Flash Animations to be shown on all but a few non supported systems. Flash was not the only tool that gave this functionality and Java created a year earlier also brought interactive elements to the web, but due to coming from programming routes, meant Flash was used over Java to make a pretty web experience.
If she won’t drowned, burn her
Even from the first web pages, designers found it hard to ensure web pages that was designed, looked the same on every internet capable machine, whether it was fonts installed, operating system used or just down to the internet browser preferred, this has been an issue that just has not gone away. Even today a created website needs to be tested on multiple platforms to ensure compatibility. Both Flash and Java allowed designers for the first time to get away from these worries and just create the experience. But all was not happy for long. Within a short period of time, there were calls for people not to use Flash, the witch-hunt had begun.
Why would a technology that allows artistic freedom be demonised so much? Simply put, the mechanism used to display the Flash animations was the same mechanism that made the created web pages invisible to search engines and blind web users alike. This came down to when you viewed a website created with flash unlike a conventional web page, you were viewing an animation, all the text was effectively rendered as an image, so when search engines like Google visited your site it could not ‘see’ what information was contained in the page, and could not rank it accordingly. The same was true with blind web users, the devices used to interpret the web page for them were also not able to read any included text, and the website became useless.
Even today, if a website does use Flash, the whole site won’t be rendered in it; often it will be a normal website with Flash element, ensuring Google and Blind users can still make use of the site.
New world order
Even with it problems, Flash was seen as a way to bring interactivity cheaply to the World Wide Web. For many sites Flash was the logical choice for creating interactive elements. For most web users their browsers and platforms support flash, and with the event of broadband, Flash has allowed for a truly rich and immersive world that few can resist. In fact it could be argued without Flash, Social Networks like Facebook just would not have the audience they currently do, this is down to the interactive elements each user can enjoy. Who reading this and is a member of Facebook has not tried at least 1 flash game or application?
In 2004 the W3C amongst others started working on a new version of HTML, although the W3C does not control HTML, its ideas and concepts often are adhered to by the creators of the web browsers we all use. There are moves to force Web browsers all to display web pages in the same way, although this may never happen, through their work it is easier than ever before to create web experiences that work on any platform in the same way.
The latest version of HTML, HTML5 looks to address many things including animation, video and interactivity. In short many people see it as an alternative to Flash. The idea is attractive due to HTML being ‘open source’ and that any platform would be able to support it.
Like Java, HTML is a programming language and even with advances in webpage construction, it is still see very much as coding. For the moment Flash is still the defacto way to bringing eye candy to the web.
One byte of the apple
Apple computers were not the only ones not to embrace Flash, but with the IPhone and IPad, for the first time there were sufficient numbers of internet devices that simply would not display Flash generated content.
There are more than ever before calls for Flash to be phased out, and finally have a internet unified and viewable to all.
Is it possible that a technology that has been with us since 1996 will simply vanish?
Will all web content be HTML5 generated in a matter of years?
I believe the reverse is true, rather than the internet being a platform that every device can use equally, I think that the internet will become more diverse than ever before.
What is true is that devices will become more innovative and useful, more of our life than ever before will be online, the internet will be the default language every device will use, but this does not mean they will all display and use the information in the same way.
In five years time, the internet will have HTML5 content (or maybe HTML6?), there will be flash, there will be java and maybe even a few more platforms…
While the internet remains open source, only one thing is can be certain, for 95% of users, the experience will be better than before and for the other 5%, there will be an open platform where they can complain about it.
The cost of free website builders
With the daily rise of online services that promise to create and host a website for free.
Is it good news for everyone, or a case of too good to be true?
The birth of free
From its inception people have constantly looked for cheaper and cheaper ways to access the internet and get the benefits of the digital life.
From the start Companies like AOL offered discount packages for the masses to get online cheaply. Often the discounts came at a price like poor connection speeds and service but in an age where the internet was new and shiny, many people were happy to put up with most things just to get online.
Businesses were quick to realise the power the internet and what it had to offer, but for many the perceived costs were just too much.
It was not long before certain companies started to appear on the net, these not only would offer you discounted or free access to the web, but bundled free web space at the same time.
For the first time websites started to appear on masse.
The good, the bad and the ugly
Free web space is one thing, but what to fill it with and how?
For those not paying for web space, the idea that they should not pay for the tools to create a website also were important, and it was not long before a host of free tools were available.
The issue with HTML code (the engine that drives websites), was many fold but could be summarised with two very simple ideas. 1) Not all web browsers show HTML code in the same way and 2) not all web site creation tools create HTML code in the same way.
In addition the idea that just because you can write HTML means you can create a website, just added to the mish mash of bad websites that litter the internet even today.
Good Web Design
As the internet became a standard in a lot of people’s lives, businesses realised that it was no longer viable to ‘just have a website’, but they needed something that would connect to potential customers and generate enquiries.
In the same way as traditional marketing had done with media adverts and direct marketing, the same approach was needed online.
Suddenly every company wanted a website that would make that vital first impression.
Flash in the pan
With the invention of the Facebook generation, it was not long before free web design tools evolved in to the next generation.
www.wix.com is just one of these services, but most work in the same fashion. Without having to have any software installed, you can create for free your website. They promise to remove the issues with how the site will view on the computer by cleaver use of Flash.
The issue does not come down to the service, but to those who look to use the service in the first place. Many still have the idea that they can publish anything they want and it will drive business.
Most forget the most important part of web design, the design element. It is accepted that it’s all good to drive traffic to a website, but without a well designed site with marketing in mind, that it is a wasted effort.
I do believe it’s possible to get a professional result from using services like these but only if you are a competent designer in the first place.
The final solution
The next time you are considering using a free web builder service think of the following things before you go ahead:-
What is my website for?
What’s my message for my target audience?
Does the first impression need to count?
How much will it cost me if I do not get professional help, in lost enquiries and sales?
Spending £300 on a professional website can return hundreds of thousands of pounds in new business revenue.
Do you still want to take the chance on a DIY free service?
Are social networks really social?
With websites like Facebook and Twitter constantly attracting new users on a day by day basis, there is no doubt how popular the social networks are.
But in a world of increase reports of medical conditions like depression, do social networks indicate underlying issues with the world today?
BC – before computers.
There is little argument that computers have transformed most people’s daily lives. If you do not use a computer yourself, your life is certainly affected by them, either through technologies like mobile phones, or even the switch to digital TV and radio.
But there are other factors at play, of which computers usually get the label. Up until recent history the world was a very big place, in fact a person’s world would represent a small part of the world as a whole.
Go back one hundred years and people did not really travel, they worked within walking distance and most day to day purchases would have been bought and manufactured locally. In fact without the invention of mass transit or haulage, our world today would be a much different place. You only have to visit some areas of the world today to see how quickly life gets primitive.
In times gone by, there was a sense of community, not because life was better, but purely down to necessity. If you needed some sugar, you had to go out, walk to you local shop and buy some. By default you had to interact with real people during the process.
It’s cheaper at Amazon
By 2000, much of what people needed for their day to day lives could be bought online. The benefits of online were simple, get what you want and cheaper. Of course having to wait for shopping to arrive at your door was a pain, but with many goods being substantially cheaper, most people who start to buy online continue to do so.
When you don’t have to leave you house to get the goods and services you need, many people choose this route and the upshot of being less social becomes apparent very quickly.
With the invention of cyber sex, virtual dating and social networks, many people choose not to interact and potentially get hurt in the real world.
If it’s online it’s not cheating
Computers are great at dealing with standardised data, and for most people’s experience with online life, it’s no different. Go on to Facebook and you can pick and choose exactly what experience you want.
Don’t like someone, you can drop them from your friends list in an instant. By not having to be social in these settings, means we are more unlikely to be so.
With a virtual world, if we do not like what being said, we just hit the off switch….
It is not surprising that in modern times we have see a raise in internet related sexual crime and mental disorder. Of course we should never say ‘kill the evil internet’, but for many we should not only talk about a work life balance, but also an internet life balance.
Rather than acting out social fantasies, physically connect with people in the real world.
Quite often people mistake social networks as a place to be social, but quite often using a social network is a solitary experience interacting with other solitary users. At the end of the day although social networks are useful in today’s age for connecting to people and having fun, unless you contact with those people outside of the social networks in the real world, how is it different to talking to a computer generated avatar inside a computer game?
Choose the real world, choose life…..
MasterCard’s master plan to take over the world.
In recent years supermarkets like Tesco’s have been offering more than just food. They now offer everything from electrical, personal finance and even in one case the ability to buy your next home.
With MasterCard’s recent decision to enter the arena of online retailer, is this a good thing for consumer or in a tricky credit market, is it a way for companies like MasterCard to reduce risk and make bumper profits?
The vanishing high street
1995 saw the online birth of Seattle Company Amazon, initially set up as a ‘one stop bookshop’ where any book currently published could be bought.
Within a short period of time Amazon started expanding it range of merchandise it sold, becoming the world’s largest online retailer.
The benefits Amazon had for the consumer, choice and value. If the item was available, Amazon would have it and cheaper than anyone else.
It wasn’t long before other retailers saw the huge benefits to the Amazon model and this introduced the consumer to the ‘virtual mall’, always on, always cheap, and always delivered a few days later.
Many experts at the time were split how much impact this would have on shopping habits, but in the 15 years since few could ignore the incredible revenue online retailing creates
The EBay effect
Around the same time as Amazon was finding its feet another internet giant was created. EBay gave the promise of the ultimate Auction site, giving many people the first chance to really sell online. For many years people became almost addicted to the idea that they could turn attic junk to cash in an easy, pain free way.
Apart from offering people the chance to auction items, it allowed people to set fixed sale prices and set up their own ‘virtual shop’.
By setting up PayPal, EBay also found a way to make money from every EBay transaction.
With every good idea, it is long often until someone offers a similar product and the same was true with Amazon Market Place. The idea was very simple, Amazon would offer, for a fee the chance to sell on Amazon.
Fees were higher than EBay’s, but Amazons reputation on quality and value proved an irresistible combination for many.
One in seven
Where Amazon and EBay settled it was not long before the like of Tesco’s would come in and offer their ‘value’ based service. Unlike EBay and Amazon, Tesco would not go down the market place route, but instead took a different stance on the same idea.
For many years Tesco had expanded in the Food retailing sector, and the only cap on profit came for the available of space to build new stores. With a bulging wallet, the online move was inevitable, but this push and success into online, not only increased profits, but showed the idea of a wide portfolio of services like never before.
Not content will selling online, Tesco’s went into communications, personal finance, insurance and even recently buying and selling of homes. Where there was money to be made Tesco wanted a piece of the money pie.
The end of the world.
In 2007 the world started its road into recession and for the first time many companies who relied on credit, not only for cash flow, but as a sale generator, felt the full effect of an ‘non credit’ world.
Rather than getting out a flexible plastic friend to pay the bill, we actually started using real money for the transaction.
Retailers like Tesco’s survived the recession in a strong position due to being a value retailer, and that people still needed to eat. There was an addition effect where people became more value conscious and companies like Tesco were able to take advantage and actually increase profits.
Some may say that there is some justice that the credit card companies and banks who suffered, as they were the ones responsible for the unsustainable credit in the first place.
Phoenix rising
Like any company hit by the recession Master Card always look for ways to secure their future and increase profits. Looking at the models by Amazon and Tesco’s, it’s only natural that MasterCard has setup its own shopping portal.
For MasterCard this gives a great way to shift more credit in an improving climate but make more money from the sale of the goods it will now sell. By taking the affiliate route, it also has zero risk.
But with all winners there are losers, and a future of no local traders is becoming a real possibility. Due to global shopping channels that can’t be beaten on price, it is often tempting to buy everything on line.
But online shopping is not always the best option.
If your food shopping turns with apples missing it’s not the end of the world. If you’re online purchased PC goes wrong, do you really want to have to ship it half way across the world to get it fixed?
Un Social Network
In a world where every company and famous name is using social media to increase brand awareness, with the recent BA and Nestle online faux pas hitting the headlines, is it a case that social media is a two way street too far?
When I was a lad.
For years companies have used traditional media to manage it appearance to its customers. And by using traditional broadcast and media techniques, ad agencies have been very successful in offering real values to their clients.
Both TV and magazine advertising has always been expert in presenting a ‘snapshot’ of the lifestyle a product offers and with only their voice to be heard for the 30 seconds between programmes. Companies have always loved the idea of a warm captive audience receptive to the advertising massage being broadcast.
With the advent of the internet and the popularity of certain websites it was not long before advertisers saw the benefit of having an online budget.
First wave
Even with the promise of broadband for everyone, banner advertising is very popular. With the promise of audience engaging Flash applications, up until recently online advertising followed the traditional advertising broadcast route. Companies still controlled the message, audiences were still captured, everyone was happy.
With the introduction of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, for the first time, it was users generating the content, users creating the bias, and in a few cases, non professionals having high and powerful media empires.
This did not go un-noticed for long, and websites like Facebook were quick to promote the idea that companies could harness the power of their network for a price. But allowing advertising it help supported the cost of running Facebook, started the trend to push Social networks in the different direction where advertisers finally were able to leverage the entire social network.
Why pay for free
The smart brands did not only pay for ad space, but created applications and pages where ‘fan’ of the product could come together and be part of the family.
Companies loved the idea of fan, the ultimate social viral marketers. After all if the fans liked the product then they would spread the word, and for free.
Companies now spend thousands employing professionals for this very job. For many companies, this connection to its users is very important, not only because of the cost, but feedback from users makes for a better product, and a better product makes for better profits.
Buying into a brand
With users actively contributing to the social network of a brand, there has been an unexpected and unwelcome twist. People are actually speaking their mind….
Nestle chocolate has always been popular with consumers and it has only been recently that how the chocolate has been made has come up scrutiny. Like many confectionery companies Nestle use Palm Oil in the product, and groups like Greenpeace have started targeting companies like Nestle due to how their Palm Oil is collected.
It was not long before Nestle was to come into conflict with green activists, and this was the case on Facebook where one of its ‘fans’ changed the wording on a KitKat bar to read ‘Killer’.
Nestles response was to protect its band by removing the offending post.
Mob Rule
Many would have seen Nestles action as reasonable, but for the Social Network crowd this is seen as an affront to Freedom of speech, and it was not long before not only did it get out of hand, but Nestle had to apologise for protecting itself.
Social Networks like Facebook offer freedom of speech and the ability to speak to millions of like minded people, but if you are responsible for actively promoting a company do you really want freedom of Speech?
Speed of change especially in technology is constantly increasing but its worth remembering, quite often things may seem to change but quite often they actually stay the same.
In even two years time, social network will have seemed to change beyond belief, but companies will still use conventional adverting and product placement to get their message across because in advertising there isn’t and there will never be democracy.
If you have the money, you have the power.
Should Google Blogger off?
Google recently announced a major upgrade to its free blogging platform Blogger.
Does this represent a real leap forward in personalised communication or just another Google Application with little appeal outside the casual blogger?
Blogging killed the DIY home page
Free blogging services have been around for many years now and offer a great way to get that latest irritation off your chest.
Many blogs are now used instead of personal websites, this comes down to many reasons but for most non technical users the power of a blog comes from being able to add new content in minutes and at the click of a button give the site a makeover.
Although there are many of hosted blogs to choose from Blogger from Google is extremely popular.
Blogger offers for free a way for users to create blog websites in a very short period of time, add functionality and the ability to change the look very quickly and easily.
But it is important to realise that free is never really free, and with Google it’s never hidden.
Google’s free lunch
With Blogger although you free to construct your blog anyway you wish, there is always an acknowledgement that Google is hosting the blog, and you are encourage to plant Google Adsense adverting on your blog so you can make money.
Although not compulsory, it’s a tempting carrot not to ignore, which many take.
For Google offering this service, it is a way of expanding its publisher network and increasing it profits. By getting people to create unique and interesting content for nothing, not only does it generate vast sums of advertising revenue, but it ensures Blogger pages always rank well in its own and other search engines.
Mixing Pleasure with business
With personal blogging taking Google advertising is fine, but when you are in business, do you really want to be advertising a competitor’s service?
For many businesses who want to get on the social networking bandwagon Blogger does not represent their company’s best option.
WordPress is just one of a number of blogging options out there that are open source and allow you to host the platform yourself.
Hosting your own blog has many benefits but the main ones come from the idea that you have ownership from the information that is contained on the blog. This will be the driving force for traffic coming to your site.
Going beyond the blog.
While Blogger accounts are squarely aimed at blogger, the open source wordpress software, when installed on your own server can turn a simple blog is to a full CMS which is easy to develop and customise.
Many companies have realised the power of blogs and social networks, they have real advertising and referral power and they want to harness it. With plug-ins available for wordpress it allows business to tap into this every growing market in easy and natural ways.
But it’s not just social network integration and marketing, with blogging in general, articles can often follow a theme, and will naturally increase the inherent On page SEO for any website adopting this approach.
Bloggers missed opportunity
Google’s Blogger could have so easily been the next big thing, but has missed by a mile. Due to its closed architecture, it means that it has a very limited application.
For many people a blog is more than just the latest ranting but an integral way of promoting their websites and business, until this changes a self hosted CMS will always represent the best way forward.
The next time Google offers you a free lunch, why not check who is paying for dessert…..
Marketing in a Facebook world
With recent reports of Facebook being more popular then Google, we can begin to see the seeds of what has been predicted for some time now.
With political parties now actively advertising on Facebook, is your online advertising budget still best served with Google, or has Google finally lost its Ad words Lustre.
A free internet
Google has always promoted a free internet for all users, and to support this came up with a way for advertisers to pay for user’s usage of its service.
It is well documented that users are happy to give up some of their online soul, if it means the results are great applications, interfaces and information for free.
With Google’s dominant position in the market place, it meant if there was a dollar to spend on advertising, nearly all went with Google. After all in marketing a bigger audience means better results.
Advertise and they will come
In the early days it was very much about getting your message across to as many people as possible, but with Google relentlessly collecting data about search habits and user locations, soon Google was able to offer a range of advertising options that promised to target your consumer.
The idea is simple if you know your user is searching on topic for products you sell, if they see your advert, not only are they more likely to click, but because they already interested in the topic, a sale is more likely. And even if the advert costs more per lead, you will generate more revenue, more of the time.
As time rolled on, the information Google could deduce about its users became more complete, but ultimately, Google could only target users in very generic ways.
With Google offering of free applications like email, online office and blogs, Google was able to gain more information than ever before about its users, and make its advertising even more targeted.
Facebook cool
When Facebook came into existence, no one could have predicted the change in usage patterns it would be partly responsible for.
The assumption was always that the starting point for all internet use was the search engine. After all you need to search to find anything on the net…..
Where Facebook turned this on its head was when people found a space where they could just hang out. With face book, when one of your friends updated their status, it would magically appear on your screen. Suddenly your browser was broadcasting to you, you didn’t have to do anything to get the latest information, it just happened.
This brave new world was great but a platform that just engaged the world in chat still only had a limited application.
With this in mind Facebook unleashed the world of apps onto the unsuspecting Facebook public. For the first time anyone could write applications and games, and this one act turned Facebook from a website to a live platform, that was capable of running anything the user wanted.
Facebook here and now
Today Facebook is the world’s most popular website for good reasons, it allows a user to experience a walled world of their choice, in this world it is inhabited by people they like, and this world is filled with something new every time they visit.
New ways to exploit the platform are found daily, and within years, you could actually see the size of the World Wide Web shrinking in the favour of wall gardens like Facebook.
Currently business on Facebook can have their own ‘Page’ if this ever becomes as flexible as a conventional website; you could a reduction in the amount of websites out there. There will always be a need for some websites to exists, but how long before we see the end to hobby websites, in favour of what Facebook will offer?
Stretching that marketing budget
With constant media attention on the Facebook platform, it is no surprise that more companies are choosing to spend their advertising budgets on Facebook. But it is more than just the amount of users that have advertisers excited.
Unlike Google fragmented approach, Facebook encourages users to put their lives on display, to use its applications, and to get users to talk about what interests them all in the one place. With a wealth of evolving knowledge for the first time Facebook can offer advertisers the ability to totally target their adverts.
Facebook understands this potential and will continue to develop more and more ingenious way of extrapolating what products and services you need.
Take the example of a farther posting the news of his first born child, it is currently possible for a local baby clothing company to target adverts for him, but in addition anyone receiving his update could also be treated to an advert from baby clothing company local to them.
With this level of segmentation and targeting, can you afford not to advertise with Facebook?
When our space became Myspace
With what we can do online exploding exponentially on a daily basis, it’s often the case that Social Networks like Myspace offer a useful way to wall your online world.
With Myspace now offering a dedicated online games platform, how long before we get our first truly interactive broadcast channel, and will the first past the post end such giants as Facebook, You Tube or even Google itself.
All seeing Google
Google has become the centre of most people internet universe, its quick loading time and accurate results has always been popular with users and with its ever evolving services it’s difficult to see how Google will ever lose its dominate position.
With the EU constantly fining Microsoft for uncompetitive practises would it is possible in the future for Google to come to the same fate.
With Governments around the worlds relentless push to regulate and sanitise the net, it could be Google own free speech stance that could see its undoing. Already with an angered Chinese government, it can’t be long before Google feels the wrath of religious and political groups and countries where Google listed content actively contravenes there inherent laws.
Citizen Networks
Social networks like Myspace and Facebook have shown the way corporations can capture large user bases and through their inherent viral nature, ensure they are profitable through advertising.
Currently social networks are borderless but as Governments take firmer stances against illegal downloading and material, country based social network could be seen as a way of localising content as well as giving a safe space to its users.
With social networks being available now on ever platform from the pc, to games consoles through to smart phones, it’s now becoming increasing difficult to find someone who is not part of this online family.
User directed content
Where social networks like Facebook don’t do well, is against the traditional broadcast media. Unlike the TV or radio, content is not streamed to you constantly but it requires the user to actively select their next online treat. While services remain in this vein, people will still rely on traditional media content.
TV companies who already put their content online already know this and on many site you can ‘tune into a channel’ and view as you would as if you were in front of the TV set.
With Myspace integrated Games channel, Myspace is hoping to entice the growing band of social gamers to its site like Facebook before it, but although highly popular, still requires the users constant input.
Back to the future
While the MySpace games platform has made the industry news pages, Myspace is not offering anything radically different to anything else out there.
But it does give us a clue as to where online media is going.
There have been many reports that TV has died to the YouTube generation. This is not true, YouTube is in a transition phrase where eventually we will have a more TV like experience, you will ‘tune into the Sci-Fi web channel’ and see 24hour streaming sci-fi films and programmes, at the beginning of each hour the channel will ‘flick’ to the latest news, and the screen will buzz when you friend is online and wants to chat. In short total media integration, paid for by advertising, giving you the user a free at the point of use experience.
In 1984 Big Brother was watching you but in 2014 will the new social networks have us watching them…. 24 hours a day?
The Acid test for Microsoft
Microsoft is currently advertising Internet Explorer 8 on the television. Is it a case that Microsoft wants to make sure everyone has the best possible internet experience, or is Microsoft concerned about bigger fish?
Microsoft’s rise to dominance
The first web browser was released in 1991; it was not until 1995 Microsoft released the now legendary Internet Explorer. And it wasn’t until 1999 that Microsoft became the market leader for the internet web browser market.
With products that get a dominant market share it’s not always the case that the best product has won. In Microsoft’s case the overriding reason for its success was that the product was shipped with its operating system. By being there by default it required effort to make a change, and for many it was an effort too far.
Open Source fruit
Unlike today Windows / Mac / Linux operating system choice, early adopters of computers had literally hundreds or computer manufacturers to choose from, each had its own operating system that would not talk to any other. When companies started to copies IBMs computers and use Bill Gates DOS operating system, companies who did not follow this migration died.
There are some exceptions like Sun, but Apple has always been seen as Microsoft’s main competition in the small computer market. And even using a completely different operating system it has refused to die.
Apple has always championed themselves as a lifestyle company, a company whose products are for consumers and not geeks. This has stuck, and with products like the Iphone and Ipod has transformed the way we interact with technology.
Apple is not the only company to offer real choice and thanks to Linus Torvalds decision to create open source software we now have browsers like Firefox.
Firefox has become the main alterative to internet explorer to mainly due to its advanced features, speed and the fact that anyone can help to improve it, and mainly do.
Keeping up with the Jones
With hundreds of web browser’s available to choose, one problem that has become rife is the fact that not all web browsers display web pages the same.
To combat this the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), a body directed by the grandfather of the internet, created a set of guidelines to describe how a web browser should display a web page, these are called web standards and the W3C have also produced an online test Acid, to show how browsers perform. The current version of Acid is called Acid 3.
What will surprise many is that Internet explorer always does really badly at these tests, according to Wikipedia, Internet Explorer 8 currently scores 20 out of 100. To put this into context there are free browsers who score 100 out of 100.
So why with its millions for development why does Internet Explorer do so badly, quite simply with its market share it does not matter. For Microsoft its market share proves it is right and everyone else is wrong.
Why advertise a market leading free product?
For a company in such a dominant position it would seem a strange concept to try and sell a free product that has a massive majority install base.
With most of the other browsers, their manufactures are working actively towards web standards; collectively they are seeing market share gains against Microsoft.
While Microsoft had market share of up to 95% there was little or no competition but now at a market share of about 60%, Microsoft can’t continue to take the same attitude.
It can be seen as a matter of time before Microsoft has a minority share of the browser market. When this happens Microsoft will either have to make its Internet Explorer standards compliant or leave it to those too lazy or just don’t care to support its platform.
One reason for its continue marketing blitz for Internet Explorer is the realisation that in future years revenues will shift from its boxed products to its cloud computing products, and although free at the moment, no doubt Microsoft will eventually adopt a paid for or advertising supported model.
Without a market leading browser in house and competition from Google, could it possible that we see what happened to companies like Commodore in the early 90’s, happen finally to Microsoft?
So what browser will I use?
With more and more computing services migrating to the internet, your operating system and hardware will become less important. Ultimately it will be how you interface with these new services; this will be the deciding factor. In a few short years, no one will care if you are Windows, Mac or Linux, only the browser you will use.
With Google Chrome, Safari, Opera and Epiphany being the only main stream internet browsers to pass the Acid 3 test. Epiphany being Linux based and Google Chrome still too buggy……
Impressed by its range of features and its ability to be used on a mobile phone as well, for me Opera is a clear winner.
But with new browsers released all the time what browser will I install next week?
