NetNews our ONLINE NEWSLETTER (NetNews July 2005)

Developments in web marketing, site design, and web services

The Online Newsletter from Net Commerce Solutions

High Street spending figures continue to weaken. However, online shopping continues to surge. Broadband adoption is driving this strongly, and is likely to do so for the next five years or so, (section 1.ii). It is not surprising then, that we are seeing also a huge shift to internet advertising in all its forms, (section 1.iii), away from traditional media.

Our challenge to you is to ask whether you reflect this in your own marketing mix - if not, be sure to ask us how we can help you get more benefit from online advertising in your business!

1. NET HAPPENINGS

News, themes and trends from the Internet - home and abroad

i. Technology enablers still developing strongly.................

Broadband - in UK, 33% of households which connect to the internet, now do so via Broadband, with UK Broadband users predicted to double in the next 5 years.

Broadband users are now growing at 50,000 per week. (Forrester/New Media Age)

Behavioural data shows that Broadband users spend twice as much time online as non-broadband, with a strong increase also in their use of online shopping. (Forrester)

WAP - 1.82bn of WAP pages were viewed in UK during March - an increase of 30% on Mar 2004 levels - total WAP page impressions are now running at 58m daily. (Mobile Data Assocn MDA)

Text messaging - over 2.5bn text messages were sent in March in the UK, up 21% on March 2004 levels. Approximately 58m text messages are being sent daily. (MDA)

ii. Online Shopping Update - UK figures showing strong growth......

internet shopping in UK continues to grow at c20% pa, contrasting sharply with minimal - or even negative - growth in High Street retail spending.
nearly 9% of all UK retail sales are now done on line - compares with only 6% in 2004.
there are now over 17m online shoppers in UK - figure has increased from 12.2m in 2004, ie up 40% (Continental Research).

iii.Internet Advertising - continued shift away from traditional media....

in 2005 there has been continued strong growth in online advertising, and a shift away from traditional advertising spend. This is on the back of a 40% increase in online advertising spend in 2004. (IAB)
budget shifts were seen away from spend on TV, radio, sponsorship, PR etc (IPA)
this reflect patterns in the US where internet ad spend is predicted to reach $14bn in 2005, rising to $26bn in 2010 (New Media Age).
Pay Per Click remains comfortably the largest area of internet advertising spend.

2. NET TIPS

Some hints you could consider

Have you got the right mix? - Paid for advertising, ie Pay Per Click remains the strongest area of internet advertising spend, (although increasing use being made of Banner advertising). However, first challenge for any company is to review the mix between online and offline spend, and consider whether they need to change the mix, in favour of online spend, in line with an increasing number of marketing professionals.

Beware phoney links buiding - Google are believed to be intensifying efforts to weed out companies, which are using dubious link-building techniques, eg between companies which lack real content or even true existence. It needs to be remembered that Google, can - and will - remove companies from its index where they discover dubious search engine practices have been used.

"Conversion before volume" -it can be useful to bear in mind in selecting keywords that the conversion rate matters more than the volume of click throughs. Careful selection, particularly using additional qualifying words or phrases can help to screen out traffic that in fact is not targetting the products you are selling.

Net Commerce Solutions has several years experience in these areas - we would be happy to assist with any issues you may have on search engine marketing.

Light touch text presentation - help site visitors by avoiding long paragraphs. Using sub headings, short paragraphs, bullet-points, and straplines, can help to present text in a way that is both visually appealing and more likely to retain the interest of site visitors.

3. NCS FOCUS

News and services from NCS that might help

NCS e-Commerce Service - this has been enhanced to include a features/cost comparison of major online card payment providers.

As part of this, we are able to use our payment pricing model to assess online payment costs in individual cases

NCS Branding Service -where needed, we can provide a full branding service, embracing logo development, and multi-format provision of images for letterheads, email headers, e-quote headers - please approach us if a quote would be useful.

Visual interest - we have an increasing number of sites in our portfolio where the visual interest of the site has been enhanced by including "movement" on the pages. This avoids the static appearance which many web pages have. We would be happy to provide specific examples, and to consider whether these might enhance the look of your site.

Presenting images - presenting large images eg photos, on web sites often produces a weak visual impact, and uses space sub-optimally. Increasingly, when presenting photo images within a web site, Net Commerce uses a design technique which presents "thumbnails" of the photos, which then expand, into a common location, when the mouse is moved over the thumbnail - this also creates increased interactivity for site users.

We can show specific examples of this approach if this is of interest to you.

4. NET NOTHINGS

You probably already know that:

The Slurp-Bot battle - doesn't relate to binge drinking, but to the intense competition between Yahoo (and their search spider "Slurp") and Google (and their search spider "Bot")

Oldies are goodies - adults are more skilled at navigating the web than teenagers. Neilson Norman Group who ran the research said that the teenagers' success rate for completing a series of set tasks was only 55% compared to 66% for adults - partly this stemmed from poor reading skills.

Teenies don't want "flash and glitz" - a recent survey of users aged between 13 and 17 found that they did not like sites that were "heavily glitzy" or used flashing graphics - they did like sites that have social and interactive elements.(NNG Group).

Dave Abernethy,
Managing Director,
Net Commerce Solutions Ltd

Tel: (+44) (0) 870 246 7642

info@net-commerce-solutions.co.uk Web site: www.net-commerce-solutions.co.uk

Registered in England and Wales. Company number 4052885: 6 Bramble Close, Harpenden, Hertfordshire, AL5 4AN