Coast Digital Blog

If, like me, you’ve got a background in public relations — a form of promotion that’s notoriously difficult to measure by ROI — the transparency and accountability of online marketing is a very welcome breath of fresh air.

Like all the members of Coast Digital’s newly formed account management team, my main focus is on giving our clients the best possible support and making sure levels of customer satisfaction stay high. This means reviewing what our clients are able to spend on their online activities, how that investment is distributed across the various digital services we offer, and how we can develop their particular strategy to ensure it goes on delivering the best possible results.

We can do that well because digital marketing is measurable.

Google Analytics 101

Google Analytics is an absolute godsend for reviewing the successes and ironing out the shortcomings of every online marketing strategy. Although I’d briefly explored the tool in a previous role, I’d never really taken the time to appreciate what a rich source of information it can be if you take the time to interrogate it.

Google Analytics can instantly give you the information required to calculate an overall ROI but, if you so wish, you can also use it to analyse the data that has been collected from your site and review the precise impact of individual keywords, adverts and landing pages. I’d recommend reading my colleague Darren Bond’s post on ROI to find out more.

Marketing you can measure

Coast Digital is an online marketing agency that prides itself on delivering “marketing you can measure”, and we can do that because web analytics are all about facts and results. You certainly won’t get any unsubstantiated claims, ambiguous assertions or vague estimates about the success of your campaign.

Instead, you will not only be able to identify the exact keywords that are driving the most traffic to your website, but you will also see which ones result in the highest number of sales – an important distinction as the keywords with the highest click-through rates might not be the ones that make you the most money. Indeed, they could be the most costly.

Tracking success

For e-commerce customers, tracking a campaign’s success is simple – we can calculate the return on investment down to the very last penny. However, if you own or work for a business with a more technical focus, or one that trades in high-value goods, most enquiries might bear fruit away from the website – via a sales hotline for example – making it a little more difficult to match success to the correct elements of a campaign.

It can be done, though, and this is where the strong partnerships we have with our clients really come into play. The more information they feed us about the quantity, quality and relevance of the enquiries they receive, the better able we are to hone and tailor their digital campaign – resulting in a golden circle of even more enquiries and sales, and an even better ROI.

Above all, though, we love working with people to create strategies that work, month in, month out. So, if you’re looking for an online marketing strategy that is completely measurable, and a team that will continuously review its progress to ensure that it is working as hard as it can for you, please get in touch. We’re looking forward to doing some measuring on your behalf.

Over the last few months, a few members of the online marketing team have been working hard to create the perfect set of SEO recommendations for an e-commerce website.

Well, we have implemented these suggestions – and now our client is reaping the rewards.

The original brief was quite a daunting job, considering the size of the website and the products it included. Some firms would have tarred every page in the sitemap with the same SEO brush, but – full credit to the online marketing team – at Coast Digital we go the extra mile.

If you want to create effective SEO for an e-commerce site, here are some tips to help you along the way – and some results to inspire you.

Common SEO pointers

This is day one stuff you will already know.

• META data
• Clean URL Structure
• Accessible Navigation
• Good Page Content
• Good Page Build (HTML / CSS)
• Page Headings

Some SEO gems

And here are some gems you may not have considered when you need to make sure that thousands of pages are all top-notch SEO.

Character limits of META data – this could be an issue when you have 3-5 steps in a breadcrumb trail and you are looking to replicate them in the Title / Description / Keyword fields. Make sure you make good use of the characters you have.

URL length, structure and keywords – again, if you’ve got plenty of steps in your sitemap then the last thing Google wants is to trawl through pointless ones. Clean URLs, close to the root of the domain, are what you want.

Using footer links correctly – don’t spam. Put in links that are related and not just for the benefit of search engines.

Same product in multiple locations – this is a big issue for lots of online retailers. We have the fix and it works... a mixture of robots.txt management and nofollows can help keep your domain away from the dreaded duplication penalty. The most relevant phrase for this section is: canonical linking.

Get your product page content up to scratch – a page buried deep in the sitemap is just as important as a category section homepage. Delivering a website that has genuine, well-delivered content across the sitemap is essential; otherwise you’ll fall at the first hurdle. If your client doesn’t buy into this process then it will be a hard slog to push on in the organic listings.

And here are some ‘proof is in the pudding’ type stats…

The above visitors are for non-brand related terms – so we are not claiming any credit for brand searches in our results!

If you enjoyed this post, you might also be interested in our usability advisory guide: Time for a Tune Up.

In the first part of this post, I outlined the first three steps that you need to examine when creating an effective eCommerce strategy: your business, your products and services, and your website.

I ended by saying that it’s crucial to make sure that your website is fit for the job you intend it for, and that it caters for your desired audiences. One common error I come across is when eCommerce firms spend small fortunes driving traffic to their websites, ignoring the fact that only a tiny proportion of such untargeted traffic will spend money on their sites.

The next three factors I’m going to look at are online visibility, marketing opportunities and your competitors. Let’s resume with step four.

4. Your Online Visibility

It’s all very well having a wonderful product and a fantastic website, but do users know you exist? Sounds a little harsh I know, but so many eCommerce businesses don’t have the visibility they need. Often this isn’t because competitors are pushing them out, but because they haven’t taken the necessary steps to get their brand known online.

It can be done though — with a little digital intelligence, a dash of media spend and a big helping of creativity.

First of all, it’s crucial to get good search rankings on Google. To achieve this, you must ensure that your website is search engine optimised — for a top list of SEO tips, visit this post by Daniel Butler.

A quicker, but more expensive route to visibility is via Google’s Pay-Per-Click (PPC) programme. PPC allows you to appear alongside your chosen competitors, target your audience very effectively and refine your campaign as it continues. Effective PPC is an art form, but I would certainly recommend reading Ashley Fletcher’s thoughts on Google’s Website Optimiser.

There are other digital channels worth considering, but these are the two main ways of increasing your website’s visibility, driving traffic to it and achieving and optimum cost per sale.

5. Your Marketing Opportunities

The web has one advantage that’s not open to offline businesses - a real-time environment. People can access the web 24 hours per day, and there’s nothing to stop you adding new products to your site at midnight. The changes will be instantaneous and visible to your audiences.

Online marketing can also be very cheap when you consider what you get for your money. Here are a few areas of marketing that you should consider when launching an eCommerce business

Display Advertising – online display advertising allows you to promote your business with digital billboards (or banners as they’re more commonly known). This activity can be very successful, but it comes at a cost and is not the most viable option for most start-ups. There are alternatives that work in the same way – Google Contextual Advertising is the next best thing.

Email Marketing – Email marketing allows you to get your message(s) across to a substantial number of people, who can then read your content in their own time. This has amazing benefits but getting hold of a fresh and relevant mailing list can be difficult. If you create a sign-up service on your website, you can slowly start to create a mailing list — but this will require patience. You can buy mailing lists, but be prepared to pay handsomely. For more ideas, visit 6 top tips  to build a quality list for email marketing.

Social Media – Social media have created new ways of operating in the digital world. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have created an environment in which everyone has the opportunity to get their thoughts, multimedia and networking skills across to a mass audience. Businesses have jumped on board and it’s a channel that doesn’t appear to be fading in any way. Concentrate on the three major platforms, but take a very close look at Twitter in particular — it has become a huge and vibrant playground for advertisers and consumer audiences. To learn more about Twitter’s commercial opportunities, take a look at When Twitter becomes good business .

Affiliate Marketing – Affiliate marketing has really taken off, becoming a highly profitable channel for eCommerce. Though it is not an appropriate channel for all online businesses, it certainly is one worth exploring. Launching an effective affiliate marketing campaign can be tricky so make sure you carry out sufficient research. Try our Top 10 tops for a successful affiliate marketing campaign.

6. Your Competitors

Competition is rife within the online world and, for every product or service you offer, the chances are that there are a further ten eCommerce businesses offering the same. You need to make sure your offer is much more appealing.

To do this, you need to keep an eye on your competitors and research the ways in which they engage with their audiences and customers.

However, defining your competition can be tricky as you have to take a number of factors into account. Start by examining which other companies appear alongside you in the search engine results. Create tables that separate SEO and PPC competitors. Find out who appears above and below you in the results.

Don’t worry too much about competing with the eCommerce giants, either. However, do investigate what they do and learn from them where possible. If you implement a regular monitoring programme for competitor product/service and activity, you will be better-prepared for any developments they introduce such as promotional offers, a new website or even fresh markets they may enter. All of these factors will be relevant to your overall success.

I’ve reached the end of my six steps to an effective eCommerce strategy. I hope you agree that eCommerce is about more than coming up with an idea, putting together a website and launching it. You need an underlying strategy to make sure your business is a success — and with the online world moving at such a pace, you could do a lot worse than speaking to a digital direct marketing agency and benefiting from their guidance and consultancy. If you think we can help you, please do contact us today.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales may have announced this morning that we’re heading out of recession, but the stark fact remains that it’s still a difficult time for small businesses.

It’s even tougher for business start-ups, which face more obstacles than usual when trying to enter their chosen market, particularly when it comes to borrowing money. However, against this backdrop, the eCommerce sector still appears to be thriving — new online businesses seem to be popping up daily, whilst established firms are investing more heavily in their digital operations.

There’s a lot of sense in this approach. Digital businesses have much smaller start-up costs, and workers may have the flexibility of working anywhere that has an internet and mobile connection.

As a digital consultant, it is great to see this trend occurring and evolving.  Don’t get me wrong: I don’t want to see the death of the High Street, but I certainly do want to see the growth of the effective eCommerce store.

Despite all the positive signs, one issue that I’m increasingly witnessing is the fact that many eCommerce businesses lack a properly structured strategy that makes the most of the opportunities available to them. I put this down to two things:

• Not planning at the outset for major success and rapid growth
• Not having a business plan that is any more detailed than “Set up, launch and make money”.

It doesn’t matter what your business sells, who comprises your audiences, or how competitive your market is — to thrive, your eCommerce business needs strategy. That’s why I’ve put together six key factors you need to consider when putting together an effective eCommerce strategy.

They are:

1. Your Business

Before investing in your new eCommerce business you need to ask yourself the following questions:

• Is your business relevant to the online market?
• Is it a unique business or are you entering an already-saturated market?
• Who are your competitors and can you compete with them?
• Is your branding appropriate and will it appeal to your audience?
• Do you have people with the necessary skills for the digital platform?
• Can you deliver what you will promise your customers?

Simple I know, but the answer to all the above should be ‘yes’. It’s not a definitive list of questions, but if you can give a positive answer to each one, then you are well on the way to online success.

The recent growth in eCommerce business is a hot topic, and one that is helping to shape both new and existing businesses’ route to the market. To learn more about how the online world is becoming and integral part of business, please visit my post on The year online and offline became one.

2. Your Products and Services

Your products and/or services are what your business is all about.

If you want to be successful, you need to evaluate your offering objectively — and the best way to do this is to research your competitors thoroughly.

You also need to draw a distinction between who you would like your competitors to be, and who they actually are — if you sell DVDs, it doesn’t necessarily mean that Amazon.co.uk is one of your main competitors.

Also make sure you have a plan of action in place for future product/service development, or for entering new markets. Product/service development is crucial in delivering an up-to-date offering to your audience. Entering new markets can always be a lucrative strategy, but you do need to make sure that the fresh market you plan to enter is related to your existing operations — you don’t want to alienate your present customer-base.

3. Your Website

It’s hard to think of a more crucial element to your overall strategy — your website is your High Street store, your digital catalogue, your business. Before launching, make sure your site is fit for the job, and that there are no irritating glitches or errors. If you’d like more advice on how best to build your online presence, please read my earlier post, How clear web design wins customers.

Tomorrow, I’ll continue this post with advice on your online visibility, your marketing opportunities and tackling your competitors.
 

Google's continuous algorithm tweaks have hit the headlines today.

The Guardian have published an article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/aug/17/google-search-baffles-internet-firm) about the Foundem.co.uk website and its continuous struggle to rank. The husband and wife team that run the foundem.co.uk site are said to be “baffled” as to why they’re site won’t rank.

As I have said before when it comes to SEO content is king. Google loves unique, fresh content, and there just isn’t any on the foundem site.

The first page I stumbled across was the LCD TV page which looks like this –

This page may look fine to a user (my usability alarm is on red alert… but that’s another blog post!), to a search engine, the content on that page would look like this –

Found 704 Models Sort By: #Stores Price Make Model
Samsung LE32B450C
32" / HD Ready / HDMI / Digital Tuner
£299.09 to £599.99
from 35 stores
Samsung LE19B450
19" / HD Ready / HDMI / Digital Tuner
£175 to £269
from 32 stores
Panasonic TX-L32S10
32" / HD Ready / HDMI / Digital Tuner
£437 to £849.99
from 31 stores
LG 37LH2000
37" / HD Ready / HDMI / Digital Tuner
£439.05 to £649
from 31 stores
Toshiba 19AV615DB
19" / HD Ready / HDMI / Digital Tuner
£179 to £275.94
from 30 stores
LG 32LH2000
32" / HD Ready / HDMI / Digital Tuner
£309.1 to £499

This is only a small snippet, the page actually lists all 704 models available on the site. To the search spiders, this is going to look terrible, and the rest of the site is much of the same: Very little REAL content and lots of links.

I took a further look through the site and found this page.

This just shows the same paragraph of content over and over based on the different tariffs available to the user. I then searched for the first sentence of the paragraph and have found the same paragraph pasted all over the web, on a variety of different sites.

I (and SEOs across the industry) would never expect this to rank. It’s amazing that these people are blaming Google for not ranking their site when the amount of information that it provides for users is minimal, and to be harsh (but fair), of poor quality.

I then spotted the crowning glory of this story.

This is essentially a big rant about the "ordeal" that the foundem team have gone through, and how Google is "stifling their innovation".

I was shocked to discover though, that they do know how to write content. There's an awful lot of it on this site. Unfortunately it’s all very F.o.G (fear of Google)-esque, and that’s something I haven’t seen for a long time!

A thought for the foundem team: If you would have spent that time writing content for the foundem site rather than wasting time blaming Google for your own shortcomings, Google might actually be taking your site seriously and not just for a poor quality list of products.

This is more of a question than a full-blown blog post, but it's something that's been niggling at the back of my mind for some time.

It's this: why are some companies that are brilliant at search engine optimisation so bad at promoting their online brand in the real world?

Think about it. Some firms will invest thousands getting the layout of their websites perfect, drawing visitors into target pages through cleverly-placed calls to action and other techniques.

Then you meet an employee of the company, and they hand you a business card that has the company's website address in tiny letters. It's a wasted opportunity.

Or you see a poster for its services, with the URL tucked away in a corner - invisible at more than five paces.

There's often a tension between design and message, but I think digital direct marketing techniques could be much better employed in the real world. And I wonder why more online agencies don't offer them.

So, before you next order a batch of business cards, why not trial two versions? Distribute the same numbers of each at comparable events, several weeks apart. Then use Google Analytics to see which were the most effective.

There are a lot of people out there who aren't necessarily search engine savvy, but would be delighted to type in your URL if they were motivated enough to do so. Surely that's got to be good for business?

Last week Google broke the news to an eagerly-expectant crowd at the San José Convention Center that a new algo update is round the corner. This change is set to speed up the SERPs, carry more data and generally make the world a better place.

For the first time, Google has jumped on the PR wagon and released a sandbox test for us all to admire: www2.sandbox.google.com. The search giant suggests – not very descriptively – that there is much more 'under the hood' in this version.

I’ve noticed this type of PR around Google products has picked up pace over the last six to nine months. For example, similar coverage about Google’s street maps generated a lot of brand buzz. Google has definitely made a recent and welcome change to its stance on openness and communicating to the public.

I remember back to the days when Google would roll out a 'Google Dance': listings would be shaken up for a few days, and then things would settle down. No one knew why, how or what had happened – it was up to us to guess the changes from the rumour mill on forums.

Over the last two years, changes have been more frequent, fast and published with limited explanations from Google. I believe it is a credit that the industry we work in that it’s always looking to improve the SERPs.

I also believe some of the recent changes implemented to the algo could be reactive and designed to pick up on specific trends some SEO experts use to manipulate results (link sculpting?)

Here is a brief summary of some of the notable Google Dance updates over the years.

So, what can we expect from the Caffeine update when it is rolled out?

From using the sandbox version I have noticed that the load time is much quicker - the use of Ajax will increase efficiency. I also predict that the 'Vince' update will be rolled out to a larger set of keywords when this goes live – not just vanity keywords. With so many brands to focus on and give weighting to, I can’t think that this will be a ‘one-click’ update.

I had to laugh when I read Pear Analytics' new research into Twitter. The shock exclusive – hot on the heels of revelations that the Pope is still Catholic and that bears like to evacuate their bowels in the woods – is that over 40% of tweets are pointless babble.

As you recover from that, I'm going to sock it to you with the other jaw-dropping findings.

• 37% of tweets are conversational
• Re-tweets (passing along someone else's tweet) make up 8.7% of the total
• 5.85% of tweets are self-promotional
• Spam and news account for about 3% of tweets each.

Or, to sum it up in a headline:

Social media discovered to be 'social' — researchers left reeling.

I'll come back to that in a minute. But the best bit about the whole business was the research report's apparent bemusement at some of the results.

A few examples:

• "we thought the news category would have more weight than dead last"
• "Self-promotion was also less than expected"
• "we thought that both spam and self-promotion percentages would be much higher".

I didn't, for two reasons. First of all, I actually use Twitter (this is me). Secondly, I have a rather unfashionable habit of relating what people do online to what they do in the real world.

It's an approach that's done best by Agatha Christie's Miss Marple. She has a tendency to unmask murderers because their behaviour reminds her of the grocer's boy, or the way the village solicitor's spinster sister used to deport herself in the queue for the post office. But the wider point is that, by observing people in one context (a small village), she can infer how people will behave in other situations (such as the aftermath of a murder).

It's quite a good discipline. Indeed, the Pear Analytics researchers would have done well to imagine Twitter as the village post office in St Mary Mead. If everyone was so much keener on news, self promotion and spam, the conversation would run something like this.

Postmistress: Hey you. Do you want a newspaper? Special offer, today only.

Vicar's wife: No. I want six. I simply devour current affairs.

Village idiot (bursting into shop): Buy my meds! Viagra, Cialis, best meds. Lolz. Byee!

Bank clerk: Ah postmistress. 12 copies of the Times please. Then I'll sell you a loan.

Village idiot (sticking head through window): Thanks for the follow! Are you interested in dramatically increasing your customers?!

Milkman: Did you hear the Bank Clerk? He said "12 copies of the Times please. Then I'll sell you a loan." Milk anyone?

Village idiot (standing at door with megaphone): More Customers = More Laughs = More Money = More Fun... You'll LOVE it.

Yes, there is a proportion of Twitter users that behave just like that. But the point to remember is that social media is used by a society of people. In other words, people just like you and me who talk inconsequential nonsense most of the time, enjoy chatting with other people, and once in a while feel the need to sell something or pass on the news.

That's why the average series of Twitter exchanges are rather like conversation in a real village post office (one of the still-open ones of course), but transplanted online. To reverse the fantasy:

@dapostmistrez Gd morningz peeps. How RU all?

@revsmissus Oh noes. My feets is killing me, oh dears. And I has no breakfasts.

@bankcounterman Hey @dapostmistrez. Have you any bunion lotion for @revsmissus?

@waynethemilkman Grt idea @bankcounterman. I think @revmissus cd do with an extra pt of milk! I'm so tired too!

@revsmissus Thx all. @dapostmistress Can I has lotion and milk plz. And some stampz. And a newzpapa.

@smmvillageidiot Meds, Cailis, Vaigra. Keep going all night. LOLZ!!!!!!!!!

In other words, people indulge in pointless babble about their meals, their ailments, their state of mind and all the rest because they enjoy it, and it's part of the social lubricant — both online and off. People like talking rubbish to each other, and getting to know other people by exchanging nonsense is a necessary part of buying and selling.

That's what social media is all about. Including the fact that some people, like spammers and tedious self-promoters, just don't 'get it'.

Anyway, now you've got to know me, can I interest you in @coastdigital's excellent digital direct marketing services? Or maybe the website usability guide? After all, they're things that friends should see...

Isn't it great when things just work?

Sometimes – especially after updating computer software – things do go wrong. Earlier this week, a website news ticker crashed my installation of Firefox. Normally I’d just restart it and get on with what I was doing, but on this occasion the team at Mozilla struck a very pleasant note — see the image below (I’ve removed the website name to protect the innocent).

I was pretty pleased with that. Even though it was software that had failed, Firefox provided me with a human-sounding error message, tried to explain why the problem had occurred and gave me some guidance on how I could recover from the browser crash.

Jakob Nielson's guidance on these matters sprung to mind (though note that he is as loathed as he is revered by the usability community!)

According to Nielson's website, Useit, the error message should:

1. Clearly show that an error has occurred – with a highly, visible error message that indicates where things went wrong
2. Be polite and not blame the users – avoiding terms like "illegal command"
3. Be explained in a human language — not techno-babble
4. Describe the problem — explain what happened
5. Provide advice on how to recover from the problem – a quick fix plan
6. Preserve as much of the user's work as possible – so that they don't have to do everything over again
7. Guess the correct action and let users pick it form a list of fixes – where possible, guess what they were trying to do and provide the correct solution
8. Educate users by providing links to pages with an explanation of the problem.

On this basis, I’d give 6.5 out of 8 for Mozilla Firefox. The team successfully provided the first 6 recommendations, almost provided an answer to number 7 and failed on point 8.

Grade A - Good work