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New Advertising Method Enhances Both Your Web Site And User Experience
Dec 14th
Have you got unused or underutilised real estate on your internet business web site? If so, you may want to take a look at a new form of online advertising that is currently in vogue on the internet.
Online advertising has generally been regarded as intrusive and, overall, generally as more of an irritant than a help, with users more often than not either just ignoring the ads or skipping right by them as soon as they can. But, that may all be about to change.
Introducing A New Form Of Advertising
A new method of presenting ads on the web is becoming very popular thanks to its unobtrusive nature. In fact, it’s so unobtrusive you may have come across it without even realising it.
This new form of online advertising is known as Ambient Point of Action, or APA, advertising, and each ad covers the entire page of a web site while a user is working on a specific task, such as entering a search query or logging into a web site.
Unlike online ads you’re accustomed to seeing, which require that the user either close the advertisement or wait until it transitions to the next step of the user’s desired end result, APA ads remain in the background and are displayed until the user completes the task they’re working on, at which point the ad disappears. These ads are exclusive, in that no other ads are displayed while they’re being shown; they are also interactive, in that they’re triggered by a user action. But they aren’t intrusive, since they don’t cause any interruptions in the user’s work flow.
Making Good Use Of Vacant Real Estate
This type of ad can be installed on any page that requires some kind of temporary user interaction, typically a login or search page. The login page for Yahoo! e-mail provides an excellent example of an Ambient Point of Action ad, where the actual login area is quite small, leaving the rest of the page (previously empty, unused web page real estate) available for an ad.
As counter-intuitive as it may seem, unlike rotating or flashing banner ads or ads that take up the whole page and prevent the user from completing the task at hand, APA ads may actually enhance a web page’s design while allowing the user to interact with the web site immediately. Hard to believe, isn’t it – an ad actually enhancing the user experience!
If your web site has vacant real estate, an advertiser may want to take advantage of it to promote their business reasonably cheaply while at the same time enhancing your own internet business with ads from reputable merchants.
A UK internet business coach can help you implement this new, unobtrusive form of advertising and enhance not only your web site but your user’s experience.
Peer Reviews And Opinions Are Changing Consumers’ Shopping Behaviour
Dec 11th
Is your internet business set up to allow product reviews and ratings by the visitors to your web site? How about your Facebook Page? Do you have product reviews and ratings posted on that? If not, you’re missing out on one of the fastest-growing trends there is, and that is the sharing of peer reviews and information when making purchasing decisions.
Shopping Behaviours Are Changing
Bazaarvoice is one of the leading providers of user-generated reviews and ratings and new data they have published shows how dramatically online consumers are changing their shopping behaviour.
During the week of Thanksgiving of this year (week ending 28-11-10), online shoppers showed a voracious appetite for peer provided reviews and recommendations courtesy of Bazaarvoice to the tune of 2.7 billion.
Massive Year Over Year Increases
To give some perspective to that number, it represents a 44 percent increase in the number of peer opinions read from 2009 and a whopping 128 percent increase over the number reported in 2008.
It seems consumers are looking to each other in record numbers for advice and recommendations for their shopping decisions, with more than 550 million product-related discussions having been recorded just on Cyber Monday alone. In fact, Bazaarvoice reported that, during peak times, something like ten thousand opinions per second were being exchanged among consumers.
Change In How Reviews Are Accessed
Obviously, there has been a seed change in the way consumers are shopping and making their final shopping decisions by taking the advice and opinions of fellow-shoppers. But, not only has there been a change in the way shoppers gather intelligence relating to products and services, but where they get that data has also changed dramatically.
The most common platforms for people to check for reviews and ratings are the social networks, mainly Twitter and Facebook. And the most common tool used to access the social networks is a mobile device, which is the way more and more people are conducting any type of online transaction. Many companies now provide reviews on their Facebook Page, meaning consumers don’t even need to leave Facebook to find out all they need to know about a particular product or service.
It’s obvious that, if you want engaged customers who are likely to purchase from your site, providing them with the ability to review your products and interact with like-minded consumers either on your internet business web site or on your Facebook Page or on Twitter or all of the above is essential.
Talk to a UK internet marketing consultant for help setting up customer reviews and ratings features for your business and watch your conversion rates soar.
New Twitter Features Can Help Extend Your Brand’s Global Reach
Dec 10th
Are you and your internet business taking advantage of the incredible opportunity to promote your web site that Twitter represents? It’s now a widely accepted fact that, in order to extend the reach of your brand and to maximise your search engine optimisation (SEO) efforts, establishing a presence for your online business on the various social media platforms, including Twitter, is nothing short of essential.
Major Improvements From Twitter
The social media networks are constantly striving to improve the overall user experience and entice businesses to extend their reach and influence via a presence on their platforms. With this in mind, Twitter recently introduced a couple of major improvements to its platform, namely the addition of several countries and cities to both its Trending Topics and Translations features.
Since Twitter is a global communications platform, extending their services beyond just the scope of English-speaking countries and users is a logical extension and one that may be the first of many as Twitter seeks to gradually become more of the global entity it strives to be.
Extending Trending Topics
Trending Topics is a feature located in the bottom right-hand corner of the Twitter interface that shows the words and phrases that are the most tweeted in various cities and countries throughout the world. Now, in addition to the countries already featured, including Brazil, Canada, UK, USA, etc., thirteen new countries and six new cities have been added.
The countries added include Australia, Germany, India, Netherlands, and Venezuela. Amongst the new cities added are Detroit, Minneapolis, Sydney and Toronto. These represent some of the fastest-growing markets for Twitter, so the demand for the addition of these locations was extremely high, which means this will make a lot of users and business owners very happy.
This may not seem like a revolutionary change since trends were already being tracked in several countries and cities, but the addition of tracking trends showing repeated words and phrases from nineteen different global locations is a pretty significant increase in available data.
Tweets In Different Languages Now Translated
The other new feature is the translation of tweets now made possible through the use of Google’s Translation plug-in, which means more tweets will be available to more users. The translations will appear in the details pane of the Twitter interface, meaning that, if you’re a business owner, your tweets will be seen and understood by a whole new global audience. Now that’s quite an impressive extension of your brand’s reach and should be exciting news for your business’s global prospects going forward.
The increase in trends now available through the additional locations means there will be much more data available for you to use to identify trends your internet business can take advantage of. The translation service will make those new trends you identify available to a far wider global audience, extending your company’s influence to a whole new audience.
A UK internet business coach can help you and your business take advantage of Twitter’s new features and turn your company from a local to a global enterprise.
Groupon Outgrows Even Google’s Reach
Dec 8th
If you’re an internet business owner, you may already have a presence on the deal-of-the-day site known as Groupon. If not, now may be as good a time as any with the introduction of two new initiatives from Groupon.
Where Does Google Stand On All This?
Rumours have been flying around about Google possibly buying Groupon, but, as unlikely as that may have seemed previously, since Groupon has tools in place, its own established, good-sized audience and is set up to make money without any outside help (even if that help were to come in the form of a massive cash injection from search giant Google), it’s now pretty obvious that Groupon can stand on its own. After all, social networking is still in its infancy and the signs are that it will continue to see massive growth, and consumers love to save money and that will never change.
Two New Game-Changing Initiatives
Groupon is changing the game for both consumers and merchants with two new initiatives.
The first is Groupon Stores, which is a free service that allows merchants to set up their own virtual storefront within Groupon, where they will be able to create deals, which can then be activated and sent to Groupon subscribers. Subscribers can choose to follow merchants’ Groupon Stores and will be able to take advantage of future deals and news updates. Consumers will also be matched up with the best deals every day and notified of same.
The other new initiative is the Deal Feed, which streams updated deals to consumers personalised to their particular taste on a daily basis. They’ll receive the deal of the day, along with other deals personalised for them based on what Groupon already knows about them, including deals from merchants they follow.
Groupon plans to extend the social reach of their Deal Feed by integrating it with Facebook, showing consumers’ friends the deals they’re getting and allowing them to share them, etc., thus extending Groupon’s reach even further.
Groupon Doesn’t Need Google
It’s obvious from all this that Groupon is going from strength to strength and has managed to do something many others have tried to do but failed and that is create a social shopping network. They’ve got the audience of the world’s largest social network at their disposal along with their own extensive audience, and they’re aligned with some of the largest international companies like Gap, making for a formula that can’t fail. Their international reach is also growing, partly thanks to their involvement with Facebook, and partly thanks to Groupon acquiring international Groupon clones. Groupon is doing just fine on its own, so it’s probably safe to say rumours of a takeover by Google are just that, rumours.
Take advantage of Groupon’s expanding reach to expand the reach of your own internet business by signing up for Groupon Stores and Deal Feed.
An internet marketing service can help you set up your business on Groupon, and work with you to get the most out of this and every other social media platform as part of your search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy.
Google Launches Cost-Per-View Ads With TrueView
Dec 7th
The use of video is becoming all-pervasive on internet business web sites, with video ads becoming more and more commonplace. Video ads. Does that phrase strike fear and loathing into your heart with the thought of another intrusive, uninvited video ad popping up on your computer monitor?
Well, you’ll be happy to know that’s all about to change with the launch by Google of a new format for video ads they’re calling TrueView Video Ads.
Now The User Controls The Ads
What this new format does is give users control over which ads they see and when. Great news for the user. Advertisers will love it as well, because they’ll only be charged when a user actually watches a video rather than per impression. Great news for the advertiser.
There are 2 options available with TrueView, InStream or InSlate. With InStream ads, the user is able to watch the first 5 seconds of an ad and then choose to skip the rest, allowing them to get to the desired content. The InSlate option requires a user to select an ad from 2 or 3 choices, after which they will be allowed access to the content originally promised them.
It’s All About The Message
So, how do you as an advertiser engage your audience enough to get them to watch your ad? It’s not all about how clever or creative your ad is, but about the message you’re trying to get across. The clearer the message in your video, the more successful your ad will be, so keep your video focused, succinct and on-topic at all times.
Encouraging Early Results
As mentioned, the advertiser is only charged when the user watches a video for up to 30 seconds or the full length of the video, whichever is shorter. This means that it’s easy for advertisers to increase or decrease their budget depending on their business goals and objectives.
The early results are in, and, according to Google, they look very encouraging. View-through rates (represents the number of users sitting through an entire video ad) are at 20-70%, which represents a substantial number of video ads being watched and represents significant interest in Google’s cost-per-view service. The service is currently only available in the U.K., U.S. and Canada, but, if the initial indicators are anything to go by, Trueview Video Ads is set to be yet another in the ongoing line of Google successes and it shouldn’t be long before it’s rolled out to the rest of the world.
Google’s new service represents a tremendous new opportunity to boost your internet business’s advertising presence, and, since you only pay when your video ad has been viewed, you can be reasonably sure your message is getting across.
Let an internet marketing consultant help you set up your video advertising campaign and watch as your ads’ view-through rates soar.
