Coast Digital Blog

If you flick through the back pages of certain newspaper supplements, you'll soon conclude that marketing to older people hasn't much changed over the last few decades. That's not to say that adverts of happy and healthy pensioners modelling stair lifts, walk-in baths, reclining armchairs, wide-fit shoes and polyester trousers don't have their audience - they do. But you'd be missing a trick if you hadn't spotted the growing number of older people who are not only demanding more retail choice, but are looking for it online.

Let's take a look at some recent facts and figures. This month, Internet marketing firm Nielsen Online reported that, during 2008, Facebook attracted 8.3 million new users aged between 50 and 64. In January, a Microsoft survey of 1,000 PC users in the UK discovered that 95% of the over 55s were using the web on a daily basis - astonishing when you consider that only 85% of 16-24 year olds did the same. Similar research by AXA in February found that four in ten retired people regularly buy online.

On the basis of these figures, I think there are three main factors that Internet marketing specialists in the UK need to concern themselves with. First, and most obviously, web use among the older generation is going to rise further, and quickly - and when it does, this is a demographic that has the potential to spend more time online than any other. The AXA research showed that UK pensioners with Internet access logged on for an average of six hours each week, hot on the heels of their counterparts in Australia and Canada (seven hours) and a little behind the USA (9 hours).

Secondly, the audience will not only rise, but it will be a committed one. Although it's dangerous to extrapolate from trends in other countries, a recent study in China may yet give us a glimpse of what's to come. According to this data, collected by Ogilvy Mather, the fourth greatest item of expenditure for over 60s in two major Chinese cities was telecommunications - ranking behind only food, utilities and daily requirements. Again, this ties in with the AXA data, which reveals that 41% of pensioners polled named 'Internet usage' as their preferred hobby, outranking DIY & Gardening (at 39%) and - a traditional retirement market - travel (at 28%).

But lastly, and most importantly, the older generation is spending its time and money in new ways - and this is where the savvy marketer will direct their gaze.

Think about it. The people now reaching retirement age belong to the post-war generation - the so-called 'Baby Boomers'. These are the people who discovered free love in the 60s, thought it was a nifty idea to wear platform shoes as they brought up kids in the 70s, and invested their money in former public utility shares in the 1980s. I generalise, but the wider point is that we're talking about a generation that has had greater freedom from convention or contstraint than any other than went before it.

This, of course, is brilliant from the marketing perspective. Clever retailers and service providers can now target a growing demographic that:

• Is not only adopting social media like Facebook at a rapid rate, but lists emailing as its most popular Internet activity
• Is increasingly adopting web search - 83% of the age group according to AXA
• Is economically active for longer - not only do over 60s face pressures from the recession, but governments are raising the age at which people become eligible for a state pension: in Australia it will be 67 by 2023, and in the UK it will have risen to 68 by 2050.
• Can see the web's potential for a healthy and productive retirement, not only in the choice it offers, but for providing welcome solutions like home delivery
• Is not afraid to hunt out the best deal: like the rest of us, baby boomers are cutting back on household and luxury expenditure, and increasingly turn to online retailers to slash bills.

More than anything, it's going to be an interesting few years for online marketing. And the biggest challenge isn't going to be how to shift those stair lifts and and walk-in baths: it's going to be making sure that your products and services can be found by a clued-up and newly-influential market. Contact us to find out how we can help you do it.

The introduction of the Google Preview add-on in the toolbar in Firefox may be about to transform the world of natural search. In the future, click-throughs on search results may not just be based on position and relevance but on the actual appearance of the related website, now viewable via Google Preview.

Currently web users go through a simple decision-making process to choose the right website for them. The search results which are returned are judged by their keyword relevance and the page description, among other factors like whether the user recognises the website URL. However with Google Preview, there is now a new dimension within search which website owners need to be aware of.

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I’ve just got back from Technology for Marketing and Advertising 2009. Here’s a round up of some of the highs and lows from a slightly jaded online marketer’s perspective.

What was interesting was how busy the show was. Olympia was really very busy. If visitor count alone were an accurate measurement of the health of the industry, I would suggest we are on track for fruitful times ahead.

But it could be that more offline marketers are coming around to digital. Or perhaps the good turnout signifies a lot of worried marketers desperately looking for other avenues and ways to cut costs.

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Today Google has introduced an interactive ‘social’ element to their standard search engine results, a feature they’ve dubbed SearchWiki. (Note: the features of Google's SearchWiki are only available to logged-in Google users)

SearchWiki is a Google search results page update which has been on the horizon for a while now – limited testing made some of the features visible to users over the past few months.

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Of all the new features in Photoshop 4, I am most excited about the new Content-Aware Scaling feature.

When laying out a website design I tend to spend way too much time sourcing images that will suit the design, and more importantly, the design layout. This is a task that all designers have to contend with and unless the client supplies good quality image files, one that will always be necessary.

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Webmasters around the globe have been jumping with joy after a recent addition to Google webmaster tools: http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/.

Google have recently released a new feature which integrates into the existing Diagnostics > Web crawl menu in Webmaster Tools. Before now, Google would inform you of 404 errors which broken links would return, which would leave webmasters with the ‘exciting’ task of finding the offending broken links, which was like trying to finding a needle in a haystack.

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Google are at it again! Yet another useful feature has been added to Google’s Webmaster Tools.

The official Google webmaster blog explains how they are keen to help webmasters retain visitors once they hit your 404 error page.

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The ever-growing SEO team at Coast Digital is always keen to tell our readers of recent experiences in developing natural results for our clients.

A recent case is a good example of how one business had made the mistake of applying CSS to hide text content off-page on their website.

The content wasn't necessarily put in place to cheat search engines, but more to focus on the design elements of the website in question, which features lots of nice graphics and visual impact. Unfortunately in this instance the hidden text resulted in a black mark from Google.
 
In adherence with Google's guidelines on not hiding content we’re always keen to emphasise to clients the importance of how each web page should deliver genuine content that can be read on screen.

Implementing ethical SEO is often a balancing act, as you don’t want to completely overhaul an eye-catching website design with piles of text or headings.

Below is an example of CSS hiding content off-page:

.hidden {
            position: centre;
            left: 0px;
            top: -1000px;
            width: 1px;
            height: 4px;
            overflow: hidden;

The above CSS would be considered bad practice SEO. If a visitor can trawl through the page coding and locate this information then you are guaranteed that the search engine robots and spiders can too.

Before Coast Digital became involved in the SEO of this particular domain its natural listings were in a state of limbo, as Google wasn't prepared to issue competitive page 1 / position 1 listings, despite a strong inbound link popularity to the domain.

Removing the black mark against your website in Google can take time. Coast Digital recommends the following strategies to get your website back on the right track:

• Remove all hidden CSS immediately
• Replace hidden CSS with genuine on-page headings and content
• Publish visible content your reader will want to read
• Submit your website to Google Webmaster Tools
• Submit your website to Yahoo! Search Submit
• Focus off-page SEO efforts on building quality, related inbound links to your website
   
  If things are still looking bleak then request reconsideration from Google. 

This post has one essential theme for you to take on board....
 
People use search engines using words. Search engines find and index relevant content using words. Design and develop your website using words not images.
 
Put words at the centre of everything you do when designing and building a website and the signs are good that you will develop a website that caters for a wide range of user types, including search engine robots.

If you consider robots just as you would a visitor, using accessibility settings/features and search engine optimisation (SEO) should become an easier concept to get your head around.
 
A simple concept - use words
A large part of building a search-friendly website involves putting words onto the page. For example, wherever possible design and build a webpage using:

• text for the navigation (even if supplementary to a main, image-based navigation)
• text for the links (not a graphical button of 'read more' etc), and 
• text for the content (not just big pretty pictures)

There are grounded reasons for images
Of course there are compelling reasons to include images within a website - primarily for the creation of a visually appealing and engaging user experience.

Another common use of images is to display products to the end-user, perhaps in a lifestyle scenario to create interest and desire. Other uses for imagery in a website include its use in the primary navigation: (example: apple.com).     

 
If the navigation's visual appeal can’t be achieved through CSS (and with an experienced designer it normally can), an image-based navigation might be required.

However, if you go down this image route, ensure that it is backed up with both descriptive alt text (and no, don't think you can stuff keywords into the ALT text - you'll be caught for spamming) and secondary navigation that is based on links.
 
Some may suggest that navigation based on text might not be the most visually appealing, but it does help both the user reliant on (or choosing to use) accessible forms of navigation. And indirectly this helps search engines to crawl and index a website.... to repeat 'search engines use words and word phrases to index a website.'
 
Searching the web using images
Of course search engines are getting smarter, and in Chris's recent post on our blog about using image ALT text in search engine optimisation, Matt Cutts of Google alludes to some of the challenges facing Google with image-based search.

However, currently even the might of Google cannot review and index an image on its visual merits alone. Instead, Google encourage you to name the image filename accurately/descriptively and include some helpful/assistive image alt-text.

Remember - search engines use words because people search using words
Above all else - focus on the words on the page. Deliver great text-based content and only use images to display the product or describe the lifestyle. Moreover, focus on the content on your website before you worry yourself with gaining links to your website.