Meat. Meat? Yes, meat. I honestly believe that meat is under-represented online. It’s something I only discovered after becoming disillusioned by the many butchers here in Leeds; you never know the quality you’ll get, given that a lot of them are only particularly great at one or two specific things like rump steak or turkeys. However, as we all know, online brands need to be brilliant at everything they stock in order to survive, or at least compete. And so my hunt began for meaty treats that are good to eat, and I came up trumps with Farmison.com, the company I finally discovered. After all, they seem to be the only one delivering overall quality and consistency across their range. Even better was the fact they were local – a staple of conscientious investment in the moral-heavy shopping environment that exists today.

Farmison.com is based in Ripon and operated by Andy Bond, the former chief executive of Leeds-based Asda. The company now offers anything from Christmas meat hampers and rare-breed pork to pregnancy-friendly cheese boxes and high-quality vegetables. It seems wrong or even bad business sense that these things would be sold on the internet in a highly individual way, especially with Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s online delivery services breathing down their neck. Nonetheless, they are, and the company is doing well. Rightfully well, too.

That’s because its marketing angle is simple yet effective; it combines the aforementioned local angle with the affiliations and links it has built up over the years. Farmison.com tells you which farms supply what (most of which are based around North Yorkshire and Cumbria), all the while hammering home the fact it’s the same food that’s supplied to Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck, Jamie Oliver restaurants and other high-end eateries.

You plumb deeper, and it simply becomes a carnivore’s dream: for example, you can choose from 18 different brisket joints over three farms. Nine different cuts of belly pork await you, too, as well as 12 offerings of prime Chateaubriand. It’s like a digital meat palace staffed by the smiling faces of farmers clearly being recognised for their hard work in creating amazing produce. They deserve it, and you’ll think you do too.

Ultimately, Farmison.com is looking to go head-to-head with Ocado and other more specialised companies in the coming months and years, though may triumph in the long-term. It’s somewhat unique as an organisation: it delivers A-class meat and cheese to both the best restaurants and your home, continuing its fully-transparent nature with pledges to local suppliers. It may not be the cheapest site but, well, you’re not getting the cheapest cuts – far from it, in fact.

Its main strength, however, is that it’s got a very specific corner of a market that people will always desire. Unless you’re vegetarian or even (gasp!) vegan, you have every reason to check out this kind of website.

Still, it begs that you ask the question… what else is there on the internet that is still relatively untouched in markets that people will happily buy from? We all have ideas that we think will do well if we started our own business. It’s now easier than ever to start your own company on the internet, too. Epiphany itself is a good example; while I don’t want to sing the praises of my employer too obviously, it’s a young business which proves that the correct approach to specific trades is well-received by major players in e-commerce if you’re ethical, work with the best people for the job and establish a well-received brand. Farmison.com does exactly this in a completely different trade, while many other traders – big or small – will prosper so long as their direction is individualised to a large degree.

Do you know of any areas of e-commerce that are still to be fully-exploited by retailers? -@matthewgardner

Press Releases

Do you have newsworthy content that you think people will be interested in? If you own a pet shop and have just opened a new branch in a small city, which publication would find that newsworthy? The Guardian? The Financial Times? Probably not.

However, a local newspaper might though, or a local city guide. These types of sites aren’t publicly well known but they are likely to be high authority domains that your site would benefit receiving a link from. The key to this one is to research your link targets correctly and don’t think too big!

Pros: Very low start-up cost and all you need is the content for the press release.

Cons: Popular sites receive hundreds of spam press releases every week so make sure yours stands out in a crowded inbox.

Interviews

Why don’t you interview a celebrity? Or an industry expert? Depending on the sector you are working in, you should determine the type of link you are targeting and in turn, who you would want to interview. Blogs and news sites always like the idea of getting a ‘scoop’, and this might be an opportunity to offer some new information that people will want to read.

You may think that it would be really hard to get a celebrity/industry expert to partake in an interview; however, you would be surprised how many would be happy to piggyback off your promotion efforts. After all, it benefits both of the parties involved.

Pros: It’s a very underused tactic and websites are surprisingly receptive to it.

Cons: It can sometimes take a while to receive a response from the industry expert/celebrity with the answers from the interview.

Surveys

Have you ever heard of services like surveymonkey.com, smart-survey.co.uk and dotsurvey.com? These are great online services that allow people to create their own surveys which are then published on a bespoke url. News sites love writing about the latest research. Here’s an example from leading UK newspaper The Daily Mail:

Don’t start your diet on a Tuesday! Women who start then most likely to fail.

The research used in the article was commissioned by Tesco Diets, a dieting website owned by Tesco PLC.

It’s important that you choose a topic that is relevant to your industry and that will be interesting enough for people to fill out the questionnaire. As mentioned earlier, the questionnaire is on a bespoke url so you can distribute the survey in emails, social media channels and on your own website. Once you have the results, you can pick out a headline from the data.

Pros: Because the questionnaire is ‘fresh’ information, if the headline is good enough, it can get quite a lot of uptake by newspapers.

Cons: It can be relatively difficult for some industries to get large amounts of people to fill in the questionnaire to generate the data.

Freebies

This is a classic PR method of promoting products and brands, and yet it seems to be underused. It’s relatively easy to organise. All you need to do is create a list of websites that you believe would offer a product review in return for a sample of one of your products. They of course get to keep the sample and in return you ask them to link back to your site.

Pros: People love free stuff!

Cons: What if the company you are promoting doesn’t have physical products or samples that can be given away? E.g. service industries

These are just a few ideas for small businesses to utilise for creative link building. If you think I have forgotten any please leave your comments below or on Twitter -@stevowalker.

Search engines love new, unique content and by adding review functionality to your site, customers are providing this for you. Customers are also likely to describe your product in unique ways, which can help attract new rankings and more long tail traffic.

Sounds like a great idea, right? But how do you encourage users to actually engage with your site and review your products online? Here are a few pointers…

Ask Them

It sounds simple, but many customers may just require some gentle encouragement to write reviews. If you have just added user review functionality to your site, send an email to your recent customer database to ask if they would review their purchases.

Make sure that you include the review link at all touch points and remind customers that their feedback is very welcome:

-      Customer newsletters

-      Thank you / confirmation emails

-      Documentation sent out with the product

-      Post-delivery follow up email

-      Offline locations (for example, a card with URL given to customers after eating in a restaurant)

Reach out to key influencers

Do some research to identify the top influencers who are already talking about you online (in blogs, forums and social media). Then contact them (using a bit of flattery) to ask them to be the first to review products on your website.

Give people a reason to comment

A fundamental business aim is to ensure products have USPs and meet customer expectations. It is important to ensure that your products are worth talking about before asking customers to leave comments.

Additionally, people may be more likely to leave reviews if they know their feedback is valued. Tell customers how their feedback is used, particularly if it is considered during new product development.

Reviews can also be used to benefit the customer directly. Amazon use customer reviews to inform their ‘recommended products’ listings which are targeted at individuals.

Incentives

Many sites offer rewards to customers who leave reviews like money off their next purchase. While this is likely to encourage more users to leave comments, it can result in more ‘spam’ reviews and so need to be closely monitored. Additionally, it is important to ensure that you reward both positive and negative reviews equally. This may raise concerns for companies who are worried about the effect of negative reviews. However, consumers expect to see some negative reviews and 100% positive reviews across a site may raise concerns about their reliability and actually reduce brand trust.

Incentives do not have to be money based. Many sites reward regular contributors with a ‘top contributor’ badge, listing or moderator positions. Again, Amazon’s review scheme is a fantastic example of this, with a table of top reviewers based on the number of reviews they have submitted and how helpful these reviews are to other users. Reviewers are encouraged to continue to review products to retain their top positions or rise up in the ranks.

Testing panel

Think about setting up a ‘testing panel’ for your products and invite a group of key influencers and loyal customers to join. If possible, give away products, samples or free trials to the panel for them to try out and, in return, ask that they provide reviews online. This is particularly influential if you can give away samples of products before their official launch.

Don’t put people off ­­writing future reviews

While user-generated content does need a certain amount of moderation to ensure it meets editorial standards, does not contain offensive content and possibly to correct spelling and grammar, it is crucial that you do not over moderate your user-generated content. If users see that you are editing their reviews, it can lead to distrust, damage to your brand, and, in some cases, legal consequences. Even if customers do buy from you in the future, they would be unlikely to leave another review.

How do you encourage users to leave comments on your e-commerce site? What encourages you to leave comments as a customer? I’d love to hear your comments below.

(Photo: Reputation Online)

The QDF factor is a handy algorithm used by Google to bring forward the most up to date relevant content in relation to hot topics or trending subjects.

Basically when a surge of particular keywords or search queries are detected by the ever inspecting Google, it switches into its QDF mode and goes searching for the latest content on that subject and temporarily brings this forward in the SERP.

Due to this, the usual organic ranking landscape is affected and rather than the usual high-profile sites and pages ranking for particular terms, fresh content is given priority.

The QDF factor has been around for a while, but now more than ever its influence on results can be noticed, especially with the introduction of Panda. For e-commerce sites this can be a problem, as content is often stagnant and dedicated to particular services or product. Therefore, when QDF is active, their results are likely to slip down in rankings as Google makes way for blogs and news site that are more likely to contain fresh content on the “hot” topic.

When QDF mode is in full flow, and your e-commerce site has popped off the “G” page and turns up on an “O” somewhere in Gooooooogle’s many pages, it might be an idea to increase your Paid Search. When searchers are more motivated by their relevance to purchase than the organic search results Google has provided and the lazy badgers can’t be bothered to find your page, PPC ads are likely to have and increase click through during this short period. So by targeting the keywords in question and creating relevant ads highlighting your products, your Paid Search may combat some of the impacts the QDF has on rankings.

However an even better tip is to get with the program! Due to the ever increasing use of the QDF algorithm, it’s never been so important for your e-commerce site to have a blog or relevant news section. This will not only help you to gain traffic, but to gain natural links from other sites using your content as a resource.

Occupying top spots in Google’s rankings when QDF is active can reap your site many benefits, not only a massive increase in traffic, but it can help build a more vast and impressive link profile. The Query Deserves Freshness mode gives an opportunity to those sites quick enough to pick up on “hot” news and trends and provide relevant content.

This means when QDF is in full swing and freshness takes priority over ranking factors, sites that usually might not have come into play can maximise their efforts to rank in these times. The key is to create a portal on your e-commerce site for relevant content, and then optimise your chances of ranking when QDF is active by finding news angles relevant to your product or services and beat the mainstream news sites to posting.

To make this work for your site, you need to have an appropriate channel for fresh content in place, in the form of a blog or news feed. Be on the ball with current news constantly, including what’s trending in Google’s search queries and what’s going down with social networks. Following that, you also need to find your angle and beat the bulk.

Making the news and trending topics work for you when QDF is active, sometimes means you need to be a bit creative with your angle and find how it’s appropriate to your brand. Don’t be too ambitious with this as there does need to be a connection between the two (Gaddafi’s death might be hot news and popular in search queries, but I don’t think you can relate that to your e-commerce pet site)! But don’t be afraid to use your imagination and make the most of current topics.

When you have your angle, you need to act fast. This means no matter what time it is or where you are, you need to be the first off the mark to beat the mainstream sites and have a decent crack at obtaining one of Google’s prized top spots. So when you have your angle, get that content whipped and rolled out fast!

Also, look ahead and use your resources. Use patterns and your calendar to stay ahead. Ask yourself: will trends repeat? What’s coming up on the calendar that you can use to gain traffic?

For example, the Olympics, a recurring event that is likely to gain lots of traffic, especially as London is hosting in 2012.

You can see from the Google traffic report above that traffic increases during particular periods. Therefore, you should predict where it’s likely to increase again. With the last major peek occurring around the last Olympics in 2008, there might even be a similar surge in 2012. Events can also make for an easy e-commerce content correlation- does your brand sponsor or contribute to the event? What relevant celebrity connections are there? What are they wearing? How are they getting there?

So how can you make QDF work for e-commerce sites:

1)    Create a channel for relative up-to-date content on your site, and blog regularly about your subject to keep Google interested in it.

2)    Utilise the use of this channel when Google is in QDF mode, and be the first to pick up on relevant news and find its connection to your brand.

3)    Be the first to get the word out and let Google take advantage of your fresh quality pickings!

4)    Reap the benefits of a higher volume of traffic and hopefully those juicy little links you can add to your profile!

What do you think? Have you ever had an experience with rankings due to the QDF mode? If you have any particular experience, I’d be happy to hear about them! - @JodieMcDonne11

The ICO announced yesterday that this law will be delayed for one year allowing websites and businesses to come up with a workable solution to how cookies should be handled.

This decision will be welcomed by pretty much every online business, analytics provider and marketing provider across the UK. Although delayed, this law is not going away; the EU and the ICO are pushing for website owners to educate customers and allow them to make their own choice on what data you can capture from them.

The current law states that users must be able to opt-out of cookies being set on their devices. This is due to completely reverse as the new law states that cookies can only be set on a user’s device once they have given their consent.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (the body charged with regulating this new law) only recently issued its guidance on the situation.

With the release of the guidelines, the ICO said they were not expecting every UK website to be 100% compliant from day one, and realise it would take a long time before businesses were able to implement changes to their website.

We at Epiphany have yet to see a workable solution that doesn’t damage a user’s experience or completely kill any web reporting tools and it looks as if the ICO have finally realised this releasing a statement communications minister Ed Vaizey said:

“We recognise that some website users have real concerns around online privacy but also recognise that cookies play a key role in the smooth running of the internet. But it will take some time for workable technical solutions to be developed, evaluated and rolled out so we have decided that a phased in approach is right”.

So, although this law does not come into force until next year, we still believe businesses need to consider what they can be doing in preparation for next year.

Here are our tips to moving toward compliance with the law. These are recommended as an interim until workable online solutions are developed:

Tip #1: Update Your Privacy Policy

Privacy policies should include:

•        What types of cookies are being set

•        How they are used

•        Who they are shared with

•        How a consumer should manage them

Tip #2: Audit All Cookies & Tracking

Ensure you have a document available which lists:

• Each of the cookies set on your website
• What the purpose of that cookie is,
• What information it records,
• What other parties access it (if any)
• How that information is used.

There’s no reason to not implement these in the near future. Once you have the above tips in place, it’s time to start thinking about how you would gain consent from users that don’t have the latest browsers. Some cookies are exempt from these rules but these are only ones that directly impact the essential functions of that website i.e. shopping carts.

The UK government is working in the background with browser providers to ensure the type of opt-in agreement required can be set on a browser level, rather than at every website visited. This should solve a lot of the problems facing website owners.

Over the coming 12 months, more and more workable solutions will be discussed and created. The ICO will be expecting more businesses to have solutions in place given the publicity and advanced notice of this law change.

The current law states that users must be able to opt-out of cookies being set on their devices. This is due to completely reverse as the new law states that cookies can only be set on a user’s device once they have given their consent.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (the body charged with regulating this new law) only recently issued its guidance on the situation.

The ICO said they are not expecting every UK website to be 100% compliant from day one, and realise it will take a long time before businesses are able to implement changes to their website. We have yet to see a workable solution that doesn’t damage a user’s experience or completely kill any web reporting tools.

So, although this law comes into effect this Thursday, it’s certainly not a case of all hands to the pump. Doing nothing is not an option but there is no need to panic.

Here are our tips to moving toward compliance with the law. These are recommended as an interim until workable online solutions are developed:

Tip #1: Update Your Privacy Policy

• What types of cookies are being set
• How they are used
• Who they are shared with
• How a consumer should manage them

Tip #2: Audit All Cookies & Tracking

Ensure you have a document available which lists:

• Each of the cookies set on your website
• What the purpose of that cookie is,
• What information it records,
• What other parties access it (if any)
• How that information is used.

The talk in the analytics industry is that the ICO is not coming down hard and fast enough on companies. The independent authority has suggested popups, notice through privacy policy, additional information in footer/headers, and opt-in consent where feasible. The majority of these are not a viable solution without damaging a user’s experience both directly and indirectly.

The UK government is working in the background with browser providers to ensure this type of opt-in agreement can be set on a browser level, rather than at every website visited. This should solve a lot of the problems currently facing website owners.

Once you have the above tips in place it’s time to start thinking about how you would gain consent from users to set cookies on their machine. Some cookies are exempt from these rules but these are only ones that directly impact the essential functions of that website i.e. shopping carts.

The ICO is looking to publish some real world examples of how consent is being gained, while the industry should educate customers and allow them to make their own choice.

One of these traditions is wild variations in your search traffic, but is this really true? And if so, should you be expecting your traffic to skyrocket, or plummet?

It’s certainly the case that Bank Holidays are big business for the high street. According to the British Retail Consortium, the ‘eight days of Easter’ will be worth £8Bn to UK retailers, but should retailers expect this spike to be reflected on their websites, or will online sales actually fall as a result?

One fundamental truth in retail is that people like a bargain. The high street has developed a culture of ‘Bank Holiday Sales’, to cash in on this, and many people flock to the shops to cash in on this. Whether the retailers are responding to the customers or the customers to the retailers is a chicken-and-egg question – an Ouroboros of discounts and shopping.

But the same culture doesn’t really exist online – short term sales are far less common, for a number of reasons. Perhaps the biggest reason for this is the difficulty in advertising such a sale – whilst a high street shop can simply stick a big pink banner in their window, e-commerce sites have no such facility.

Of course, established retailers can raise awareness of their sales by e-mailing their customer base, but this medium has been so heavily utilised that customers just don’t respond in the way that they would in a shop. If you’ve ever purchased anything from Play.com, you’ll know that there’s almost always a sale on!

Maybe it’s not just about shoppers responding to a bargain – there is a distinctive feeling in searching out a great deal in a store, trawling the high street for something that until now you’ve never known you need – whether it’s yet another little black dress or a six-speed bread-maker.

Online shopping isn’t the same experience; no matter how well-designed a website is, window-shopping is just not the same somehow. Maybe it’s the way that you have to navigate a website – basically, you have to know what you’re looking for before you go onto the site, or maybe it’s just the experience of being physically surrounded by ‘objects of desire.’ For many people however, online shopping just isn’t as much fun as ‘the real thing.’

But what about other advertisers? For many business-to-business advertisers, bank holidays are almost a thing of dread – in the words of Bob Cratchit, “there’s nobody to do business with.”

Whilst it’s true that there is sometimes a small dip in traffic on a Bank Holiday Monday, our experience has been that this is surprisingly limited (with the exception of Christmas and New Year), and any loss of business is caught up the following day.

So perhaps the answer is that whilst Bank Holidays are never going to make a dramatic difference to your search marketing campaigns, for savvy retailers perhaps there is a way to leverage them to your advantage.

(Photo: Dorchester Dorset)

Kurt Geiger
“Hey Guys, I have just posted an article in regards to the new updated Corso Como Collection, please take a look!”
They responded the next day with:

Aldo

This is a great example of brand engaging with fans and in Kurt Geiger’s case, using another tool to drop in an offer for the weekend. This is in fact how brands should use Facebook to encourage interaction, discussion and hear fans’ thoughts. Aldo took this one step further by encouraging fans to post pictures of them wearing Aldo shoes; this had a huge impact on the brand as likes, comments and discussion increase. Facebook is a social tool; it should increase activity between a brand and their fans. Many companies have hundreds and thousands of fans, and to remove posts merely eliminates the social aspect as brands seem to want to give and not take.

It is therefore important to consider your social media campaign and ask yourself if you are providing your fans with the interaction they deserve. It is key to give something back to people who ‘like’ your brand and appreciate their thoughts. After all, people love personal connections and acknowledgement so make sure you take notice of your fans!

It appears that an innovative entrepreneur in Twickenham has spotted that all you need to do in order to achieve a high ranking in Google is to buy a domain with the target keyword in it.

OK, it’s a little more complicated than that. For those not in the know, here’s how it works…

Google wants to display relevant websites, and two of the key things that they look at are the number of links to a website (which shows how ‘important’ the site is), and what the anchor text says (the text on the link to the website, which tells Google what the page is talking about).

But clearly this system can be gamed – if you want to rank for a keyword, all you have to do is to buy huge numbers of links, and use the same anchor text. Google has all kinds of checks in place to make sure that this doesn’t work – if all of your links have the same anchor text, Google will ignore them and possibly penalise you.

So how does this relate to World Stores? Well, there’s an exception that bypasses all of Google’s monitoring – they can hardly penalise a website for having the name of the website in the anchor text, can they? If a website were to link to Amazon, and the text said ‘Amazon,’ it would hardly be a sign of dodgy activity.

So if you have a website called ‘Wooden Beds World,’ you can put ‘wooden beds world’ in your anchor text as often as you like, and Google won’t penalise you. And as a result, you get great rankings for wooden beds, and similar keywords.

This probably isn’t news to anybody that uses Google, let alone anyone in the industry – search for almost anything nowadays, and it seems that half of the results are obscure websites that appear to rank for no other reason than they have the keyword in their domain name.

Clearly, this doesn’t offer a great user experience – search for Wooden Beds, and two of the top three websites belong to World Stores. You’d hardly call the user experience different:

The two websites have very similar ranges, the same product images, prices, and the same delivery options. They are even using the same fonts and buttons!

The same is true on Bing, where they rank first and second, and to a lesser extent on Yahoo, where they rank fifth and sixth.

“So why don’t Google do something about it?” Well to be honest, it’s not all that simple. After all, it’s commonplace to put the name of a website in the anchor text – as I said earlier, it’s hardly an indication that the website is up to something naughty. However, as this seems to be becoming more and more of an issue, I think it’s just a matter of time before Google clamp down on this. When Matt Cutts covered this topic recently (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAWFv43qubI), he indicated that Google were going to take action about the problem soon.

If I were a company like World Stores, I’d be making a point of keeping as quiet as possible, rather than doing interviews with the BBC, and making statements about how they “reverse-engineered the retail process.” They are virtually spitting in Google’s all-seeing eye, and sticking their tongue out!

As a total book nerd, I spend most of my downtime either reading or surfing Amazon for the latest book releases. My favourite features on Amazon are the reviews and ratings for each product, which give me the opportunity to consider recommendations and comments from people who have read the books I am interested in. This community that Amazon has built serves as a useful tool for people who may not be familiar with a particular product and are hesitant to purchase it in fear of wasting money and time. This is one area that online shopping has the high street beat: you can’t read the reviews before buying.

According to a recent Econsultancy report on UK e-commerce, ”Amazon is the first online retailer that 30 per cent of shoppers think of when shopping online… [It] is also a regular shopping destination for 70 per cent of consumers.” (Source: UK-Ecommerce Stastics February 2011).

The growing trend of online shopping has inevitably crossed over to social media, including Facebook. Having reached 600 million users in January, less than 5 per cent of those users are in the UK. In a recent article, Econsultancy’s Senior Research Analyst Jake Hird, points out that it is difficult to measure e-commerce success in the UK, because the majority of online shops on Facebook are US-based. However, ASOS and French Connection have recently joined the scene, and ”it’s more than likely that this will set the benchmark for a lot of retailers in the fashion sector,” said Hird.

It appears that e-commerce, or f-commerce as people have branded it, has definitely allowed room for growth. I wouldn’t be surprised if Facebook becomes the leader in online shopping in 2011, especially with new stores popping up every week, even unexpected retailers like Heinz. Yesterday, Heinz launched a limited edition flavour of ketchup exclusively through Facebook. Companies, like Heinz, have caught on to the very real truth if you advertise well on Facebook, you will get results. However, go one step further to offer exclusivity to users, and you are more likely to get a guarantee.

UK retailers like Argos, Debenhams, and O2 are already involved in offering discounts through Facebook Places Deals. According to a recent article, three out of four British consumers shop online and spend on average £750 per year. With these encouraging numbers, it is quite possible that UK-based retailers on Facebook could soon match those of their competitors from across the pond.

As an American living in the UK, I have established brand loyalty in both countries, and while the US will continue to have a head start on Facebook, the UK and its 30 million users will soon find its footing.

Photo: www.i-onlineshopping.co.uk

The new law requires consent from the user BEFORE any usage information is stored on a user’s computer. The law allows for an exception: if they are used for a specific user requested action such as adding products to a basket (I presume this is still classed as consensual?).

Mooted Initial Solutions

Using a pop up that explicitly asks for the user to agree to use cookies has been suggested, although this seems a rather cumbersome method. Google for one is against the use of “pop ups,” and they are explicitly against the AdWords T+C’s (although I can see this changing). Rather than a pop up, a better solution may be to have a “cookie acceptance” page, which is displayed to any user who has not already chosen an acceptance option.

Just Speculation For Now?

The above solutions are mainly speculation at the moment as the law still has to be interpreted by the UK, who from what I have read this morning, still seem to be in dispute with the EU over the previous change.

The following quote is taken from the ICO website:

“The Directive will come into force in less than two months time and businesses and organisations running websites in the UK must wake up to the fact that this is happening. We are proactively working with the government, businesses and the public sector to find a workable solution. We recognise that the internet as we know it today depends on the widespread use of cookies and there are of course legitimate business reasons for using them. So we are clear that these changes must not have a detrimental impact on consumers nor cause an unnecessary burden on UK businesses. One option being considered is to allow consent to the use of cookies to be given via browser settings.”

The interesting bit is towards the end of the statement, allowing consent via a browser setting. In my opinion, this is very similar to the way that cookies are allowed now unless a user specifically “opts out.” Surely the majority of browser companies that support this are likely to default this to allow cookies. A setting in the browser would be an easy solution to adopt, without drastic change to the way users have become accustomed to using a website with minimal disruption.

The current law on Cookies specifically states that they may be opted out, whilst most browsers contain options to stop cookies, or indeed the ability to download plugins which can perform this feature. Browser companies have recently been including “do not track” features which can disallow cookies, whilst many browser plugins offer greater control on the use of cookies (and the blocking of such for both tracking and advertising networks).

Security

Many sites argue that cookies are a necessary part of the security process. Whilst researching the cookie topic, I stumbled across this post containing quotes from a pan European chat network that use cookies as a security method.

http://www.benzinga.com/press-releases/11/03/p909002/hey-eu-without-cookies-children-and-vulnerable-people-are-at-risk-says-

Going Forwards

After the law is introduced the ICO is not expected to take action in the short term, as businesses figure out how to adapt (again from a statement by the ICO). There was a conference yesterday, in which the discussion of this topic is expected to be included along with the penalty for non-compliance.

An important change and certainly one to keep an eye on, as it has drastic implications for online websites and the online advertising industry in particular.

Check out the ICO website for further info and to keep updated:

http://www.ico.gov.uk/

How will this affect businesses and e-commerce platforms, who depend so heavily on cookies? I would be interested in your comments and opinions.

When I was in my teens I always turned to HMV and Waterstones for solid Christmas gift ideas as a book for Mum and CD for Dad were safe and easy bets. I still buy those kinds of gifts around Christmas time and this year was no exception however, Mum got a Kindle with £40 worth of electronic Amazon vouchers and Dad got electronic iTunes vouchers. So where did it all go wrong and what can other high street brands learn from the this.

These two brands were market leaders and occupied a position that meant they were ideally placed to dominate online retail and strengthen their grip on the market, but like so many large brands they failed to change quickly or intelligently enough to embrace shifting consumer behaviour.

Amazon has clearly stolen the hearts and minds of book readers in the UK. It wasn’t that they just started selling things online but they set out with the remit to constantly push the barriers of book selling. Firstly in online sales, then rapid delivery, then community reviews, then on demand book printing, then marketplace and more recently the Kindle. This progression shows the mindset of the Amazon executive team and is something that almost passed Waterstones by entirely.

In the early days they failed to offer online shopping. I remember struggling to find a book I wanted on Amazon and so I went across to the Waterstones site only to find that they had done some sort of partnership deal with Amazon to offer ordering through their site! I almost fell off my chair. But this didn’t mean the game was up, they still had and have a huge customer base and a high street presence and therefore opportunity for engagement, that Amazon simply cannot compete with. So with this huge advantage why could Waterstones still not react to this new e-challenge? I don’t know but in my opinion the strategy and fundamental thinking is wrong even to this day. Let’s look at what a quick appraisal of the Waterstones site reveals:

• Ebooks: they half-heartedly backed the Sony e-reader. In store promotion was minimal and normally behind cabinets, how do I engage with the technology like that? Kindle was not huge when they first launched this and they had a captive audience in store for whom they could have brought the ebook concept to life. Set up a large in store area where people can use secured e-readers to download, browse and read all the books available to purchase. Make it an experience and get promotional staff pushing people into that area. Make it a product I can’t leave store without because it will fundamentally change my life! Do an exclusive deal with Sony and subsidise the cost of the ereader so its a “no-brainer” purchase. Amazon did not have the luxury of putting the Kindle in peoples hands, it is a blind purchase, so how did they lose?
• Gift cards: as far as I can tell and I looked hard, there is no e-gift card functionality on the Waterstones site. Something which is ludicrous considering shifting consumer behaviour and would have given them an edge over Amazon. A gift card that is easy to purchase and can be used online and in store, again, another clear advantage over Amazon but it fails to be implemented. Unforgivable when you consider its sister Company HMV has e-gift cards!
• Community: there is no forum, blog or community of any kind on the Waterstones site. This giant brand that we loved and cherished is not allowing us to tell them what we want, discuss books, share experiences and deepen our loyalty to the brand. A huge mistake.
• Waterstones Marketplace: a great idea. Used, out of print and rare books available online. A great service that again fails to leverage the community side of online and underlines their misplaced strategy. When I first saw it, I thought “this must be like the eBay of used books” but again, this functionality does not exist here. Users cannot upload their own poducts for sale and there is no commenting, forum or community based functionality.

The biggest reason for me that Waterstones is struggling is that the decision makers either do not understand how online behaviour is changing the market or they are not allowed to embrace it. Building an online community where people can recommend, discuss, sell, share and engage with books and the brand could and would fundamentally change the face of Waterstones. Although Amazon has a large lead in this area, Waterstones still has the high street edge in terms of engagement. Amazon will always be restricted by the limitations of online experience in terms of how they build loyalty and bring things to life for their customers. It would not be difficult for Waterstones to match 80% of Amazons online functionality and then build an integrated on and offline community which would bring them back to the forefront of the consumers minds.

I could go into detail about how this thinking is not being implemented within HMV also but I dont want it to look like this is a character assassination because it is meant to be constructive. However, you only have to look at initiatives like pure.hmv.com (a service for music enthusiasts to get concert tickets and digital music) designed to build customer loyalty which fails to implement an online community and has about 5 testimonials on the entire site. HMV should be engaging online communities and from its position in the market should have spawned ideas like MySpace or Spotify or at very least be doing deals to help monetise these kinds of services because again with their high street presence and customer base, they are ideally placed to exploit these technological advances.

To sum up, you only have to think about what drives the offline world of books and music; recommendations, discussion and sharing. In short, community. It is not difficult to see how this can be translated to the online world and then integrated in store to offer a market leading proposition. Woolworths, WH Smiths, HMV and Waterstones alike, must have found it so easy to generate sales in the past. The strategy was simple, in the words of Kevin Costner “build it and they will come”. It was that easy because there was little choice and information could not be exchanged so quickly and easily. These brands show there fundamental misunderstanding of community through their failure to embrace it in store over the years. Virgin became so popular back when they launched because they built places where you could hang out on bean bags and listen to and talk about music, they were more like coffee shops than music stores. That ethos hasn’t changed, people want to hang out with friends and discuss which album/artist is the next big thing or which book they just cant put down. So therefore what should they do? well they need to modify their strategy to match my words “build a community online and they will come”!

About the Author:

Shane Quigley is the CEO of Epiphany Solutions Ltd and is responsible for the strategic direction of the business.

Groupon is a massive hit with the users as the latest figures from Groupon (US) state that;

• $665,303,258 have been saved
• 15,399,817 groupons have been bought

On the forefront the Groupon model looks great but how effective is Groupon for the retailers?

A recent study conducted surveyed 150 businesses in 19 cities that ran Groupon promotions between June 2009 and August 2010.  It was found that 66% of those businesses were profitable, while 32% were unprofitable. When asked if they would run the promotion again 42% said that they wouldn’t.

There are a few negative stories floating around from retailers, such as a recent voucher available for a Café in Portland, Oregon. After three months the owner began to suffer financially and had lost $8,000 with the campaign. This is an extreme situation, and possibly due to the essence of a small family run business. On the positive side another coffee shop who used Groupon studied the site prior to inserting an offer. They used it to make an offer for a specific buyer for fresh roasted coffee beans. This therefore attracted customers who genuinely were interested in the offer and eliminated the ‘freebie’ issue. They sold only 165 but found that 80% were new customers and 20% came back for more. A recent campaign from Gap received $11 million in vouchers, with an expectation to meet $33 million to $44 million in sales once redeemed.

Groupon state that “we use collective buying power to offer unbeatable prices and provide a win-win for businesses and consumers”. In contradiction to this Groupons own research shows that only 22% of its customers make a repeat visit after using a coupon, which is far less than the 89% figure Groupon promotes on its website. It is understandable that some campaigns have more of an affect than others but it is important that more care is taken into providing a profitable and effective coupon before retailers begin to realise that not all responses are positive.

Groupon has taken over in many ways and relies on social media, word of mouth and viral marketing to spread the word. A recent campaign from Groupon itself offered a user in The US the chance to prove that he could live on coupons for one year. He was challenged to leave his cash and credit cards behind in exchange for a year’s supply of coupons with a prize of $100,000. The challenge was successful and Groupon received 13 million new subscribers.

It is apparent that Groupon is a prominent player in the market and although there is a queue of retailers waiting to join the Groupon family it is important that they take a little time to research their market and the affect that the coupon can have on their business. Groupon is fantastic for the users, but the last thing we want to see is failing businesses as a result of a ‘freebie’. Let’s hope that retailers up their game and offer something a little more beneficial to themselves. In the meantime as a user I check Groupon every day to see the latest offers and purchase on average three Groupons a month!

So without further ado, I offer my Top 5 (5 being a special number for me) tips for ecommerce SEO success. 1. Human readable structured URLs.

In the past I have hacked together workarounds using static pages or 302 redirects but in the end nothing comes close in terms of sustainability, to good clean human readable URLs with minimal parameters. They get indexed better, they add context and they are so much easier to control.

So if your potential new ecommerce system can’t spit out URLs in the form /category/sub-category/product or similar consider looking elsewhere.

2. Content.

If you want your site to be a success you are going to need to put some time and thought into content. A page with 30 product images and 30 prices just doesn’t cut it anymore. Nor does a page only containing the same stock product description and image as every other competitor.

Brand pages need some form of introductory content as do category and sub-category pages. Product pages need to sell the product through reviews, enhanced features and related products. And the golden nugget…. THIS MUST ALL BE BESPOKE.

Getting a piece of stock copy from a brand representative and sticking that on your page isn’t going to help. Get it rewritten, be creative, spin it to be more about the brand at your store, just don’t take shortcuts.

For inspiration on how to do this well at product level, look no further than http://www.amazon.co.uk. Amazon’s product pages tell users everything they could ever want to know about a product and the search engines love it.

3. Page Titles and Descriptions.

It can’t be stressed enough just how important these 2 things are if you want to succeed in natural search. At the end of the day being number 1 doesn’t guarantee a click, it simply puts you in the best possible position to get the click. If you search listing (advert) alienates the searcher then chances are your competition is getting the click even if they rank below you.

Page titles need to be well written and bespoke. Yes this is stock SEO advice but for ecommerce sites it can be a complete nightmare to achieve. “Our ecommerce platform allows us to enter bespoke titles for all our pages”, really and what army are you planning on employing to write titles for your 40,000 products? “Our ecommerce platform pulls key information from the database to create page titles dynamically”, a good start but likely to lead to a lot to garbage titles and titles the same as competitors.

The best solution? A hybrid. Auto population is a great way to get bespoke titles in for a start. Let’s face it nobody wants to wait 4 months to launch while you craft nice titles for every page. Even here though you need to be creative and if your ecommerce platform allows you to specify what elements are pulled in or you can hack around this functionality all the better.

Once auto populated, start crafting. Begin with your homepage and main categories (really you should have done these before launch). With titles, keywords need to be in there but think about how you can stand out from the crowd. Move through your site as you get time from categories to sub categories to best selling products to most profitable products and beyond.

Descriptions may not hold any value for the Google algorithm but they can and do impact click through rates. Think about your sales message. Are you the leading stockist? Do you stock products only found on your site? Do you have a price promise? Do you offer free delivery? USPs USPs USPs. Oh and if the price is stable, consider getting the price in there, you may be surprised at how much more traffic you get from your top 3 listing.

4. One URL to rule them all.

You content should only be reachable via a single URL. Another piece of stock SEO advice that is a nightmare on ecommerce sites. Filtering options, navigation options, tracking, products in multiple categories and more can all lead to multiple URLs all having the same content.

Yes we have the rel=”canonical” tag to play with (if your ecommerce site allows it) but ideally it shouldn’t even be needed if you plan from the offset.

If your products feature in multiple categories, make their URLs more generic such as /belstaff-mens-pathfinder-jacket-tan rather than /mens/jackets/belstaff/pathfinder-tan and /belstaff/pathfinder-tan.

Code your filtering using AJAX so you don’t generate new URLs or page loads. Do you really need to rank for “black men’s shoes under £30”?

5. Discount / Promo Codes

Not really something that needs fixing but more something that needs to be there from the offset. Having a little box that allows you to gain a discount is a god send when it comes to real creative out of the box link building. You can run competitions, offer discounts to elite groups and more all through having the ability to apply promos online. Links like these do not grow on trees.

So, there is my top 5. Feel free to comment on any of the above or add any tips, advice or experiences. Happy SEOing.

Traditionally, I have always preferred purchasing clothes in store, purely because I can see what the clothes will actually look like on me. Now I’m not saying I look like the lovely French Connection or H&M models, but at least you can put an outfit together and see what it looks like on someone.

In terms of usability and customer experience, the research we’ve conducted proves that the outfit builder has a positive impact on the conversion rate, order value and items per order.

Mixmatchme.com are providers of the functionality and have seen conversion rates increase by 10%, average order values increase by 30% and items per order increase by 11%!! The impact for retailers including this feature as part of their online shopping experience is significant and I suspect as this catches on, we’ll see this become commonplace on all the fashion websites we know and love.

So what’s next? Will we be able to upload a picture of ourselves and see clothes that will fit our size and shape….

Over the last 3 weeks I have been using the site since its re-launch, but the more I visit the more disappointed I am by how our beloved former high street brand has been launched online.

SEO

As an SEO analyst I have tried to keep my eyes closed about the complete lack of content throughout the important pages within the site, I mean the only text on the homepage that isn’t a link is the statement about who owns the website and their offline address. The URLs make my eyes bleed, I mean what is the below URL really telling users and search engines about the page it is linking to?? I don’t see it saying much, if anything, about paddling pools.

http://www.woolworths.co.uk/rf/wlo/s.do/toys-games/outdoor-toys/pools-waterplay?N=159+4294484527+85+4294483400&Np=1&Nu=this_product&seo=t&pageSize=12&Ns=prod_in_stock%7C1%7C%7Cprod_min_base_price%7C0%7C%7Cscu_id%7C1&Nao=0&cmEvent=product_order&cm_re=Homepage-_-Text+Links-_-Pools

I’ve not followed that link as I find it quite offensive.

I could go on for hours and days about the lack of input from someone with SEO knowledge into the project, mentioning the very poor page titles, the Meta descriptions, the page code and how this site doesn’t really stand a chance in Organic search. But then i remembered it was one of the most loved high street stores and, since it does manage to rank for its own brand, it is most likely going to receive a fair amount of traffic. With that in mind I am going to try and consider the site from another point of view.

Design

I must admit, the jquery added to the site is quite funky and the different carousels kept me entertained for about 5 minutes, clicking through the various products, and the pick and mix section is simply outstanding. It should be nominated for a set of web application awards – it would get my vote. Once you overcome the jquery and pick and mix section you start to reflect on the look and feel of the site and to be honest I am not a fan. It looks similar to my very first website but with a lot of rounded corners.

This image shows how the navigation on the Woolworths party site looks in Firefox, or the latest version at least, not a pretty site for up to 20% of the sites visitors. (This appears to have been fixed since I wrote this post)

Large chunks of whitespace appears down the left hand sub navigation on the entertainment site as can be seen in the image below. Nobody can tell me that this was a pre-meditated design decision, that it had some purpose or that it would affect conversion rates in any positive way.

Usability

I have always been sceptical about sites built across multiple domains, not necessarily from an SEO point of view because the benefits are obvious (especially when built by a large brand), but from a usability point of view it can become a large issue that puts users off or, at the very least, reduces the amount of sales.

Woolworths has been split over 3 websites, one being party/pick and mix, the other being entertainment items such as computer games and DVDs, the third comprising of everything else Woolworths traditionally sold.

Visitors have to individually log into each of the sites and go through a separate checkout process for each site; which could get extremely tedious should a visitor wish to purchase an item from each section.

Overall

Considering the resurrection plans were put in place early February 2009 and the site launched in June 2009, I believe the site has been both rushed and not thought through properly. Although I have seen improvements occurring across the sites over the last 3 weeks both in terms of SEO and design, I feel that Woolworths Online is nowhere near 100% polished compared to competition such as Amazon, EBay, Play, ASDA and ASOS. This could potentially lose them a lot of the visitors that would have flocked to the sites brand on launch.

So if these large companies don’t provide their customers with an e-commerce solution then why should you? There are some very clear and convincing reasons why you should be considering an e-commerce website for your retail business, if only to capitalise on the fact these big players aren’t participating…

Cut down on customer queries and related costs

Sick of answering the phone all day (or paying someone else to do it), only to field the same questions again and again?

A well constructed and thought out customer service section of your website can save you a fortune in dealing with these types of FAQs. An intelligent strategy in this area can also have both a positive effect for your sites SEO and provide insight to your customers thinking and needs.

Become a 24/7 business, without the associated costs

Don’t you wish you could be taking orders and making money whilst you slept?

Of course you do but the thought of taking the chance of opening up such a store in your local area probably seems unrealistic, or if not, prohibitively expensive. An e-commerce solution solves both these issues and opens the doors to your business around the clock.

By selling online you are also exposing your business to markets who could never have reached before, such as consumers who are at work from nine until five and those who choose to shop at home after work.

Increase your brand exposure and improve offline sales

The introduction of an e-commerce website can also have a positive effect on offline sales.

Savvy (and increasingly not-so-savvy) consumers are using Google as a research tool to find the goods and retailer for the product or service that they desire, regardless of where they end up making their purchase. Without an e-commerce website you’re not even in the running to seen by those people and gain the extra brand exposure.

Escape the high street

Clearly the number of retail outlets you have puts a cap on the number of consumers you can reach and sell to. Moving online opens your business to a much wider potential audience allowing you to sell your products nationwide, or even internationally, without the associated cost of opening a new retail outlet.

Your exocentric niche product could sell millions online

Exploit the long tail! Whilst there may not be many individuals interested in ornamental china chopsticks in your local area, worldwide there’s probably a sizeable audience out there desperate to purchase just that.

E-commerce is still growing

The amount of people turning online to shop continues to grow and this trend is only being re-enforced by the recession, as consumers increasingly turn online to find the best prices. It’s not too late to get involved with selling online as the market continues to expand.

An affordable option for all

E-commerce websites are affordable for all. No matter the size or scale of your business you can find an e-commerce solution that will suit both your needs and your budget. Be it an SEO ready e-commerce platform design to achieve maximum market penetration and best conversion rates, or a simple e-bay store, there is something out there for everyone.

The bottom line: increase your sales

As many retailers experience a downturn in sales on the high street turning to the web can be a great way to offset these losses and even increase the number of overall sales as you expose your products to a wider audience, and all at a relatively low cost and risk to the business.

Perhaps the real question we need to ask here is why wouldn’t you launch an e-commerce website?

So beyond the standard Visa and other credit and debit cards, what other payment options can e-commerce stores offer to maximise their sales?

PayPal and Google Checkout

The most obvious choice here is PayPal and Google Checkout. Whilst many smaller retailers offer PayPal (and it’s something consumers have grown to expect), practically none of the larger retailers offer this to their customers. Those utilising Google Checkout have an extra button on their Adword ads asserting this, which, according to Google, increases the amount of clicks these ads receive by 10%. This is a great option to address those dubious about submitting their credit card details to an unknown entity.

In a sporadic move Kiddicare have made it possible for their customers to pay for goods with cash by buying a voucher and entering the voucher code during the check out process. The vouchers are available from over 21,000 pay points throughout the UK, including many petrol stations and local newsagents. The reason for this new mode of payment is customer demand, as explained by Scott Weavers-Wright, partner at Kiddicare, via silicon.com.

• We get about 400 or 500 calls a day and 300 or 400 emails a day, (and) we do get questions on ‘is there an alternative payment?’ and it’s definitely increasing.

Taking cash over the web

Clearly the recession plays a role here, with more individuals being unable to access credit cards that they can use online. That said the ability to pay by cash addresses the fact that a sizeable group of people are still fearful of ordering online due to crime and fraud.

“It’s very apt that we should be able to offer the ability for customers to pay with cash in the current climate. If (customers) don’t want a credit card they shouldn’t be penalised and they should have the option for another payment…

Telephone Orders

According to a Get Safe Online survey 14% of people in the UK are still deterred from using the internet due to fear of online crime. The provision of a telephone number on the site through which orders and customer service issues can be resolved could be used to address this, offering those alarmed a traditional payment choice.

Businesses, and rightly so, may be reluctant to offer such a number on their site because the attraction of operating an online store is the low running costs and overheads, such as operating a call centre.

PetFoodDirect.com have taken an intelligent approach to this problem allowing consumers to fill in their order details online, minus card details, and request a call back to make payment. This significantly reduces the amount of time each consumer spends on the phone and ergo the associated cost to the business.

Signs of Trust

Often the reason consumers are looking for alternative payment methods to the standard Visa card is the lack of trust they sense towards a website. Consumers should be reassured whilst visiting a site in regards to security and privacy, particularly through the checkout process and product pages; so the inclusion of a genuine VeriSign logo confirming this is essential. Displaying company contact details (ideally physical address, email address and telephone number) also significantly helps, assuring people there’s somewhere to turn if anything should go wrong.

Whilst the fear of online crime and fraud maybe more prevalent than the actual realities, online retailers need to offer customers the ability to pay for their purchase through their preferred payment method, if they want to maximise their sales and profit.

As one such man said, “A certain amount of mail goes missing – are you not going to write letters? Airlines occasionally crash, are you going to stop flying?”. The general feeling seems to be that as long as the tactic is still making money overall, the percentage of click fraud (estimated to about 20%) is negligable enough to be seen as a business expense. And in fact, once you recognise it, steps can be taken to minimise the risk, as well as collect data on it. The benefit of having your advert read by someone who has been preselected as having an interest in the area is too valuable to discard.