QR (Quick Response) codes
As a novelty, and stand out difference, with competitive marketing activities, QR codes have been around for a little while now.
I really don't consider that QR codes are substantially any improvement over the use of URLs, and in particular shortened URLs such as bit.ly. Basically a QR code is yet another means of communicating and driving a consumer from their point of interest into the online space where more detail can be provided in relation to a very precise ID associated with a product, an advertisement, or a business.
To be honest, the uptake on QR codes has been limited, and the vast majority of average consumers haven't a clue what they actually are. Maybe this is the fault of a suitable education process to inform the consumers to then drive an uptake.
However, unlike QR codes, a URL doesn't require locating an app, downloading it, installing it, and using it to photograph the code graphic. For consumers who don't have smartphones or have yet to download the appropriate app, a URL (and again I revert back to specifically convenient shortened URLs) will work better.
URLs have wider recognition and I see as preferable to using QR codes in print ads.
After an initial push from Google in an attempt to get businesses to adopt the codes and use them as decals at their places of business, Google dropped QR code support. Therefore if this had been seriously working affectively for local consumers, Google wouldn't have pulled the pin.
Similar options: Microsoft Tag Reader, Google Goggles
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Customising the iPad2 for use as a Sales Tool
Apple's iPad2 is a sensational tool for sales teams for use in presenting to clients.
Right from the start of your presentation, your iPad2 can be customised to match your business brand by selecting a suitable image for the wallpaper display on the iPad:
Right from the start of your presentation, your iPad2 can be customised to match your business brand by selecting a suitable image for the wallpaper display on the iPad:
- Set home screen background
- Set lock screen background
iPod Wallpaper design specifications:
- Image Size: 1024 x 1024px
- This will give a full screen look to the iPad even when rotated.
- The resolution of the image must be 132dpi
- Remember that portions of the image will be cut off both in landscape and portrait mode.
- Key to creating the best iPad wallpaper is to choose an image that is focused around the 768×768 portion of the image
To do this within iPad Safari web browser; save this as an icon on the desktop, which will open the website as required. Current process will save image of front page of website... preferred option would require advanced favicon code within your website HTML (metatags), that point to a specifically optimized Apple icon.
To create favicons specifically for Apple devices such as the Apple iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad:
The recommended size is 57 x 57 pixels, with 90 degree corners. However with the more recent higher definition screens on Apple's products, Apple has their icon at 129 x 129 pixels
metatag to include in <head> code of website with Apple Formatting
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/somepath/image.ico">
metatag to include in <head> code of website without Apple's reflective shine
<link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" href="/somepath/image.ico">
Saturday, July 23, 2011
eMarketing platforms - capabilities and compliance
There are many different eMarketing platforms available for the online marketer to choose from varying in; capabilities, integration, reporting and social media awareness. Be sure to do your homework to select the most appropriate platform for your business needs today, and as you evolve - so ensure it can grow with your online marketing requirements and the platform itself provides access to new features in a fast changing online landscape.
Many eMarketing platforms provide best practice guides, information and eMarketing tips relevant to what the platform can deliver and to ensure that your email newsletters meet deliverability, usability, functionality and marketability! (See: ExactTarget, MailChimp, CommuniGator)
Ensuring your email marketing meets legal compliance is also an important consideration and in an international context it is important to research the current CAN-SPAM legislation and similar requirements for each country. The provision of a double opt-in is but one part of the process and a must-have. Compliance also includes the provision of Privacy Policy, one-click unsubscribes, contact details of the company along with a few other items.
Associated to this category of consideration is the funcationality of your email template and how it renders for users with disabilities and screen reader applications.
Disability Discrimination Act (DDA)
The legislation in the UK that covers the rights of disabled people – the section of the act on the provision of goods and services includes the requirement that websites should be made accessible.
UK Law
It has been a legal requirement for UK websites to be accessible since 1999. Since then all websites have been expected to make "reasonable adjustments" to ensure their websites accommodate all users regardless of ability, disability.
Is your website legal?
http://www.douceandco.co.uk/website.html
The current information relating to web sites in the UK confirm that many are illegal. They do not include even basic information such as registered company address, VAT details and web site hosting for example.
Making sure your website meets all the current key UK legal requirements is vital to prevent you receiving fines or penalties. Ensure you are up to date with the necessary UK legislation or it could prove very costly to you and your business.
Disability Discrimination Act
UK websites must comply with the Disability Discrimination Act, which states that websites must be accessible to all – including users with visual impairments or disabilities.
Responsible business practice
In today's environment corporate and social responsibility have increasingly become fundamental in building trust and reputation with the people you do business with. However, experience of closed doors on your websites can have a negative influence on the way people perceive even the most reliable companies and the strongest brands.
I would also recommend prior to any go-live activity with a new eMarketing platform that you go through a careful process of deliverability and reputation testing on the email sends to ensure everything is in place. And once your email campaigns are active within your new eMarketing platform keep a good eye out for DNSBL black lists to ensure that the integrity of your IP and sender framework is retained.
Did you know?
About the UK Companies (Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2008
http://www.douceandco.co.uk/website.html
Fines of up to £100 a day could face any registered business whose websites do not comply with these regulations, introduced in October 2008. Further information is available here:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2008/495/contents/made
Limited companies must include company details on all electronic communications (website AND email) and this should include:
Your full company name
Where the company is registered
The companies registered address
The Companies Registered No e.g. 123456789
Website Hosting company details: address, postcode, hosting company website
Professional Memberships should be displayed on the website or freely provided upon request
VAT Registered number
Many eMarketing platforms provide best practice guides, information and eMarketing tips relevant to what the platform can deliver and to ensure that your email newsletters meet deliverability, usability, functionality and marketability! (See: ExactTarget, MailChimp, CommuniGator)
Ensuring your email marketing meets legal compliance is also an important consideration and in an international context it is important to research the current CAN-SPAM legislation and similar requirements for each country. The provision of a double opt-in is but one part of the process and a must-have. Compliance also includes the provision of Privacy Policy, one-click unsubscribes, contact details of the company along with a few other items.
Associated to this category of consideration is the funcationality of your email template and how it renders for users with disabilities and screen reader applications.
Disability Discrimination Act (DDA)
The legislation in the UK that covers the rights of disabled people – the section of the act on the provision of goods and services includes the requirement that websites should be made accessible.
UK Law
It has been a legal requirement for UK websites to be accessible since 1999. Since then all websites have been expected to make "reasonable adjustments" to ensure their websites accommodate all users regardless of ability, disability.
Is your website legal?
http://www.douceandco.co.uk/website.html
The current information relating to web sites in the UK confirm that many are illegal. They do not include even basic information such as registered company address, VAT details and web site hosting for example.
Making sure your website meets all the current key UK legal requirements is vital to prevent you receiving fines or penalties. Ensure you are up to date with the necessary UK legislation or it could prove very costly to you and your business.
Disability Discrimination Act
UK websites must comply with the Disability Discrimination Act, which states that websites must be accessible to all – including users with visual impairments or disabilities.
Responsible business practice
In today's environment corporate and social responsibility have increasingly become fundamental in building trust and reputation with the people you do business with. However, experience of closed doors on your websites can have a negative influence on the way people perceive even the most reliable companies and the strongest brands.
I would also recommend prior to any go-live activity with a new eMarketing platform that you go through a careful process of deliverability and reputation testing on the email sends to ensure everything is in place. And once your email campaigns are active within your new eMarketing platform keep a good eye out for DNSBL black lists to ensure that the integrity of your IP and sender framework is retained.
Did you know?
About the UK Companies (Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2008
http://www.douceandco.co.uk/website.html
Fines of up to £100 a day could face any registered business whose websites do not comply with these regulations, introduced in October 2008. Further information is available here:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2008/495/contents/made
Limited companies must include company details on all electronic communications (website AND email) and this should include:
Your full company name
Where the company is registered
The companies registered address
The Companies Registered No e.g. 123456789
Website Hosting company details: address, postcode, hosting company website
Professional Memberships should be displayed on the website or freely provided upon request
VAT Registered number
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Cleaning an Email Bounce List
Implementing an appropriate double opt-in email system that conforms to all the necessary CAN-SPAM rules and similar email marketing legal compliance specifications around the world (if you run a global website), is a must in today's environment. Apart from compliance, and avoiding fines, it is the perfect solution for email subscriber list cleaning process that avoids consumer data entry errors.
But what if you have an old list that you are migrating into a new system, or a list that contains previous email subscribers that were merged across into a double opt-in system with running a reconfirm cleanse?
First steps with old list management requires a look at bounce messages (hard and soft bounce types), and this will determine what email accounts your content is not getting through to. This review process will then help to determine what can be done to recover these email addresses, reduce the level of bounced email, and increase your eNewsletter content visibility to users who had intended to receive your content but had unfortunately been careless during the registration process... and were missed because the site owner hadn't put in a validation check process (double entry), rule check, or double opt-in solution.
One of the easiest things to do is take a .csv dump of the email addresses from your bounce list, run a regular expression clense to filter .*@ and replace with @ to remove all the initial names leaving the TLDs (Top Level Domains), open in Excel and run an alpha sort. Then you can run a visual check over the list and see what errors users have made.
The following list is an example of Hotmail accounts that have been entered incorrectly.
You can then run a find/replace over the list to resolve these, and then reintroduce back into your operational email subscriber list.
But what if you have an old list that you are migrating into a new system, or a list that contains previous email subscribers that were merged across into a double opt-in system with running a reconfirm cleanse?
First steps with old list management requires a look at bounce messages (hard and soft bounce types), and this will determine what email accounts your content is not getting through to. This review process will then help to determine what can be done to recover these email addresses, reduce the level of bounced email, and increase your eNewsletter content visibility to users who had intended to receive your content but had unfortunately been careless during the registration process... and were missed because the site owner hadn't put in a validation check process (double entry), rule check, or double opt-in solution.
One of the easiest things to do is take a .csv dump of the email addresses from your bounce list, run a regular expression clense to filter .*@ and replace with @ to remove all the initial names leaving the TLDs (Top Level Domains), open in Excel and run an alpha sort. Then you can run a visual check over the list and see what errors users have made.
The following list is an example of Hotmail accounts that have been entered incorrectly.
@holmail.com = @hotmail.com |
| @homail.com = @hotmail.com |
| @homeail.com.au = @homemail.com.au |
| @hotail.com = @hotmail.com |
| @hotmai.com = @hotmail.com |
| @hotmail.au = @hotmail.com |
| @hotmail.co = @hotmail.com |
| @hotmail.co.uk = @hotmail.com |
| @hotmail.com.au = @hotmail.com |
| @hotmail.net.au = @hotmail.com |
| @hotmaill.com = @hotmail.com |
| @hotmal.com = @hotmail.com |
| @hotmall.com = @hotmail.com |
You can then run a find/replace over the list to resolve these, and then reintroduce back into your operational email subscriber list.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Google Delivers Local Users Local Content
I've been saying this for a while to my clients, the important of putting local relevancy into their Search Engine Optimisation efforts. From geo locator information using geo-tags behind the page within the metatags, for the location to their physical store location, supported with on-page SEO activities of ensure all location information is included on the contact page; street address, suburb, post code, and even embedding a Google Map on the page.
Google normally assumes that users are looking for and will want to be directed to local business content in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), and tends to favour local results, based on IP address and/or search history. The algorithm component behind this is that a local result is likely to be a more relevant result.
Additional areas that website owners can consider to contribute to the overall local search penetration is supporting this with ensuring they select firstly a local TLD (Top Level Domain) such as using a .com.au extension for Australian websites.
Hosting of the website will also impact. If hosted locally there are several benefits, firstly in the lookup performed by search engines determining the hosting locality to support the intended distribution, and speed increases that are gained by reducing the number of hops for end users accessing the website hosted locally compared to in another state or country and so making each component call quicker in response for rendering the page to the end user computer. Another component to consider is even in the details registered for the domain name that can be sourced via a WHOIS lookup. I would suggest providing the local physical office address in the registration details to aid in supporting again this concept of local search reinforcement.
Tie all of this in with Google Places http://www.google.com.au/places/ a free online business listing. When potential customers search Maps for local information, they'll find your business: your address, hours of operation, even photos of your storefront or products. Now when consumers search within Google, and Google detects they are intending to search for location specific things Google will deliver a map with relevant locations within the SERPS where your business can appear.
www.SearchGroup.com.au generates a suitable and extensive Google Places listing for all businesses when they engage Search Group for Search Engine Optimisation services, along with all the many recommendations suggested above... and then a few more!
Google normally assumes that users are looking for and will want to be directed to local business content in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), and tends to favour local results, based on IP address and/or search history. The algorithm component behind this is that a local result is likely to be a more relevant result.
Additional areas that website owners can consider to contribute to the overall local search penetration is supporting this with ensuring they select firstly a local TLD (Top Level Domain) such as using a .com.au extension for Australian websites.
Hosting of the website will also impact. If hosted locally there are several benefits, firstly in the lookup performed by search engines determining the hosting locality to support the intended distribution, and speed increases that are gained by reducing the number of hops for end users accessing the website hosted locally compared to in another state or country and so making each component call quicker in response for rendering the page to the end user computer. Another component to consider is even in the details registered for the domain name that can be sourced via a WHOIS lookup. I would suggest providing the local physical office address in the registration details to aid in supporting again this concept of local search reinforcement.
Tie all of this in with Google Places http://www.google.com.au/places/ a free online business listing. When potential customers search Maps for local information, they'll find your business: your address, hours of operation, even photos of your storefront or products. Now when consumers search within Google, and Google detects they are intending to search for location specific things Google will deliver a map with relevant locations within the SERPS where your business can appear.
www.SearchGroup.com.au generates a suitable and extensive Google Places listing for all businesses when they engage Search Group for Search Engine Optimisation services, along with all the many recommendations suggested above... and then a few more!
Google Zeitgeist - Search Trends across the world from Google
Google's Zeitgeist provides an insight into the search behaviours of billions of search queries people typed into Google this year.
http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist2010/
Find out what the top global events are, with fastest rising queries; South Africa's world cup, the Olympics in Canada, Haiti earthquake, Mexico's oil spill or Iceland's ash cloud.
Google provides a visualisation of data from their Insights for Search and Google Trends.
Aussies are searching more and more for social sites this year, with sites like Chatroulette, Formspring, Tumblr and Omegle showing our love for connecting with people and sharing information. We’re also getting into entertainment, with lots of searches for Event cinemas, ABC3 and, of course, the 2010 World Cup
So who were the five most popular people for Australian searches... andy irons, justin bieber, julia gillard, lara bingle and katy perry.
Look to Google Trends http://www.google.com.au/trends to give yourself an immediate update on trending popular searches that you can include in your Social Media topics list.
http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist2010/
Find out what the top global events are, with fastest rising queries; South Africa's world cup, the Olympics in Canada, Haiti earthquake, Mexico's oil spill or Iceland's ash cloud.
Google provides a visualisation of data from their Insights for Search and Google Trends.
Aussies are searching more and more for social sites this year, with sites like Chatroulette, Formspring, Tumblr and Omegle showing our love for connecting with people and sharing information. We’re also getting into entertainment, with lots of searches for Event cinemas, ABC3 and, of course, the 2010 World Cup
So who were the five most popular people for Australian searches... andy irons, justin bieber, julia gillard, lara bingle and katy perry.
Look to Google Trends http://www.google.com.au/trends to give yourself an immediate update on trending popular searches that you can include in your Social Media topics list.
Link your Google Adwords to a highly relevant landing page
To help you maximise the visibility of your Google Adwords campaign, reduce your CPC (Cost Per Click), and provide a higher conversion rate, deliver the consumer to the page that matters in the website.
Take users to a landing page within the website that meets the expectations set up in your ad copy. This expectation reduces consumer frustration and instead increases engagement due to a correct match of advert to result, creating the preferred user experience.
Highlighting prominently within the copy on the landing webpage your keywords. Show the consumer that they have got what they want quickly, and then deliver the Call To Action (CTA) - the tease for engagement to create the conversion.
Tip: ensure your CTA is above the fold, as many (~80%) of users may not scroll down the page!
Also, to improve the user experience, ensure that your landing page load times are quick. This should be a must for your SEO and your SEM campaigns anyway, just as important as providing a clean coded and validating website, that is functional, effective and where simple things like the browser back and close buttons function properly on your site.
www.SearchGroup.com.au is a leading Perth SEO and SEM company that specialises in Search Engine Optimisation, Search Engine Marketing as well as engaging clients in Social Media Marketing for their businesses. In my role as Head of Search for Search Group, I like to see businesses succeed in their online marketing campaigns and achieve the return on investment (ROI) from their commitment by using a focused approach, test and measuring, and communicating on milestones through good reporting.
Take users to a landing page within the website that meets the expectations set up in your ad copy. This expectation reduces consumer frustration and instead increases engagement due to a correct match of advert to result, creating the preferred user experience.
Highlighting prominently within the copy on the landing webpage your keywords. Show the consumer that they have got what they want quickly, and then deliver the Call To Action (CTA) - the tease for engagement to create the conversion.
Tip: ensure your CTA is above the fold, as many (~80%) of users may not scroll down the page!
Also, to improve the user experience, ensure that your landing page load times are quick. This should be a must for your SEO and your SEM campaigns anyway, just as important as providing a clean coded and validating website, that is functional, effective and where simple things like the browser back and close buttons function properly on your site.
www.SearchGroup.com.au is a leading Perth SEO and SEM company that specialises in Search Engine Optimisation, Search Engine Marketing as well as engaging clients in Social Media Marketing for their businesses. In my role as Head of Search for Search Group, I like to see businesses succeed in their online marketing campaigns and achieve the return on investment (ROI) from their commitment by using a focused approach, test and measuring, and communicating on milestones through good reporting.
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