Category : ecommerce
I have been working on a new site of late built on the Magento platform. The site was developed over many months with Lighthouse Care sourcing the best deals they could for their clients as their ethos is :
Your independence is our success
The site has been filled with the best content and optimised so that it is extremely easy for anyone to find just what they want – that is the essence of a site – clarity.
Google of course, aided in a few ways, analytics was integrated to every page of the site to allow us to track visits and visitor behaviour. Magento also comes with an automated export to Google Base / Froogle. Google Merchant so that you are able to have your products listed on Google within a few days of launch and not have to pay per click for this useful and targeted traffic.
The checkout was set up using Realex Online Payments which provide a secure online checkout facility which easily integrated with Magento and gives full security for credit card purchases.
Lighthouse are continually adding new products and services to their portfolio of mobility aids and disbility products and aim to become a leading provider in the UK and Internationally.
The site can be found at Lighthouse Mobility
We are pleased to see the new surf shop opened up by Sharkbait at Sharkbait Shop
Sharkbait has been providing surf reports for the Brighton area since the last century ( Millenium even?) and is the first point of reference for all surfers on the “South Shore”.
Sharkbait forms the focal point for a deidicated ( you have to be in Brighton ) group of surfers who either use the English Channel’s windblown mush to keep up their skills or to learn upon. As we all know, it is the taking part that counts and whether offshore and 6 foot and clean or onshore 2 foot and mushy it is always – always worth it.
The new surf store has an array of surfing goods sure to please the local contingent and, who knows, attract orders from fashion conscious Hawaiians even.
I was asked the other day how I felt that ecommerce had changed over the past few years and my initial reaction was that it has not. I mean, in essence you still proffer up your goods and services online and try to induce your customers to click the “buy now” or follow the call to action, whatever it may be.
I got to thinking a bit more, my glib immediate reaction needed some form of analysis….
Further I felt that the massive increase in user generated content online must be a very important factor in the way in which the online shopping experience has changed over the past few years. Even as little as 5 years ago the Internet was pretty much read only for the consumer, you looked and read but did not play an active role in it, much like watching TV or reading a book. Soon the blogoshpere took over and forums and niche industry sites captured a decent market share of the online audience – this was the beginning of social media.
The very fact that now people were having their say online meant that gradually the onus has shifted. For a while price comparison sites dominated the search engine results (SERPS) and the consumer was able to view many websites’ offerings side by side. I suspect Google no longer give these sites the ‘exposure’ they merit in order to maintain their grip on paid results, but that is another story.
Nowadays if you are shopping, say for a new Sat Nav device you are far more likely to ask someone, rather than blithely click on the first result from your favourite search engine, you may ask someone down the pub, at work or at the school gates, this means that you may be searching for say “Dabs” after the recommendation rather than “Sat Nav”.
Some interesting issues make themselves evident now, if you search for a company by name you are quite likely to come across user generated ( and unmoderated ) results – you will find forums, Facebook, Twitter, Bebo and consumer groups all showing up in the search results.
Social Media has given SEO a new and very powerful tool to drive targeted traffic to your site; potential customers will have gleaned trust and knowledge of your site prior to visiting so that conversion rates are much higher. This leads of course to a corresponding necessity to spend on alternative routes to market such as paid advertising.
Of course it takes time and effort to set up, track and maintain all the social media strategies but done properly this can generate increased exposure and qualified traffic. D
As new social media sites come and go you will have to keep an eye on where it will be pertinent to increase exposure and where words will be wasted, it is here to stay and traditional SEO tactics will have to change, or be left behind.
We made this at work to showcase some products from one of our clients and it looks beautiful.
Work. Well we just finished on a beautiful development and design of Chic Fashion Jewellery – a site which specialises in Fashion and Costume Jewellery.
The site is built on the Magento framework ( an open source ecommerce package) and is integrated with Sagepay ( formerly Protx ) for online payment processing.
The catalogue is a great variety of chic, elegant and fancy necklaces, bracelets and rings which would grace the most gorgeous of fingers.
Last night at the Sovereign Pub in Brighton in an event hosted by Leapfrogg Juretic Media entered a SEO competition.
The team gathered at the and surveyed the competition. The elite of Brighton’s online marketing agencies were present and the Juretic Team were without key members Robin and Victoria.
Still, always keen to get ahead and to make their mark the questions ( and drinks ) were soon flowing.
The questions were varied and included subjects such as organic seo, pay per click campaigns and the differing way in which search engines create their algorithms.
The team was prefect for the job: Rob Camp, a Google professional with many years of SEO, organic and paid, under his belt; Vinay, an ecommerce wizard and social networking guru; Jen, PR and Communications expert with a grip on the wider picture, Ed, whose web development skills barely surpass his expertise in SEO; Martin, senior designer and creative and of course Neven, who was old long before anyone had even heard of the internet.
With this assembled bank of expert knowledge it was no suprise when I received SMS messages at 9pm last night confirming our victory. More came in around 11pm and they petered out at 3am.
SEO is all about understanding every aspect of a website, understanding that code, colour and content all combine to increase the chances of greater traffic and higher return on investment.
Yes, we are an eclectic sort of team, but we work well together.
Now this is a true story, I have changed the names to avoid any potential embarrassment or future legal proceedings.
I work in a small office where we work hard, 5 of us as a team, we build, develop and market websites, each area of our enterprise is kind of symbiotic, mutually supportive and generally intertwined with each other. A designer designs a site in order for the task of development to be as easy as possible, he/ she also takes into consideration how the elements of the design will perform with regards to search engine optimisation and customer retention. So you see, we are a team with many disciplines working towards a common goal.
We, as an agency, make use of some of the major web players as marketing tools, we use Google, Overture and other such companies to make online marketing a more profitable process.
One of these companies, who I should not name, though I will : “Google”, makes a well appreciated effort each year in sending out Business Gifts to agency staff. In the past they have famously distributed Google radios, Computer Accessories and other such well received gifts.
Last year the search engine company decided to present marketing staff worldwide with some beautiful LCD screens. This would have been a great idea had the search engine company not taken the decision to award these most enviable gifts to only 2 members of our team. To see the two ‘marketing’ people swaggering around with their corporate gifts irked me hugely. I took this up with the search engine company immediately, I emailed complaining that their antics had caused division and resentment in our office.
Now you may wonder how a company gains global dominance in a few years, reaches a turnover of billions and sits, with the untrendiest man on the planet, as pioneering leaders and shakers of the Internet can be trendier than sliced bread. Well the answer is this… they sent me and my other colleagues LCD Screens as Business Gifts, they saw the humour in my request and ensured that their logo made it into our hearts and Christmas stockings.
ParkatmyHouse.com is a new and innovative website that enables local residents with empty driveways and garages, and businesses or venues with unused car parks, to rent them out to drivers needing somewhere to park.
Motorists on their way to a hospital, sports stadium or train station for example, can make an arrangement with a homeowner to use his or her driveway on a one-off or regular, short-term or long-term basis.
ParkatmyHouse.com is being welcomed as a green solution to parking.By reducing on-street parking, the service will help ease traffic congestion and make the roads safer for pedestrians and cyclists. It will also preserve land which would otherwise be used for the construction of new parking facilities and cut down the amount of carbon emitted by vehicles circumnavigating areas in search of a parking space.
ParkatmyHouse.com was founded by 23 year-old Anthony Eskinazi whilst on holiday in San Francisco. Since its launch, the website has featured on BBC radio stations and in nearly all the national newspapers including The Times, The Daily Express and The Observer as well as in an array of international media.
On line web directories can serve a beautiful dual purpose for both the businesses listed and the customer.
Initially as many people come to a well made and sensibly structured directory such as the dMOZ they will be able to browse down through categories and refine their search until they land on a page with just what they are looking for.
It can be so much better than using a search engine as with each step you refine your selection.
On the other hand a business owner knows this and will surely want the customer to find them. The customers who eventually land on their site by means of such a business directory will, naturally, be good customers who, rather than randomly dropping in will actually have a real and targetted interest in the site’s products or services.
A further advantage to the business owner is that some search engines base their ranking upon inbound links from trustworthy sources, so a link from a bona fide directory will enhance the website in search engine optimisation terms also.
Directories will contain many useful subcategories such as at the Finance Section of the DMOZ, where one is able to see purely Finance Related Links.
