Posts

Topless Kate 18th September 2012 10:19 AM

All a storm in a teacup is my 5 pence worth

Rightly or wrongly there's a big demand for celeb gossip or titillation, and a huge business built around it. If you are in the spotlight, then privacy or no privacy, you will be a target for tabloid journalism. How the attention is handled depends on how high up the celeb ladder you are and how expensive your PR team is. A good PR team will spin it into positive publicity, and something like this is will be quickly overshadowed by some political gaff, natural disaster or another country going bust.

Mind you, I think Barney could be bringing in some more traffic as we re-optimise the thread for big breasted women

Customer Satisfaction Issues 17th September 2012 3:27 PM

A belated welcome aboard Jack

As you've asked a question, I've moved your post to a new thread.

Can you give us some more details? Do you know why your customers are unsatisfied, is there a common theme or is it multiple issues?

How long do you take to respond to complaints, if its serious, do you pick the phone up and talk to people? From our experience, a quick response and personal touch nips 99% of most problems in the bud. Plus speaking to people sometimes throws up a bug you may not have noticed, such as system emails going to spam etc.

Thanks for this post:

Thanks from: indizine

How Do I Monitor My Website Progress? 6th September 2012 9:09 PM

Originally Posted by indizine

“..ARE RARELY GIVEN THEIR WEB HOSTING LOGIN......NOW ARE THEY??!!

”

lol, Indizine is back in da house

I remember sometime ago now comparing my server stats and GA ones, and the "unique visitors" claimed by my server stats was way over the GA ones, they weren't even close, and will confess to using these ones for the first few years when people asked about our traffic numbers. When we first started, for analysis we used a paid analytical solution, and that didn't tally up with server stats either, then GA came of age and offered more functionality, but for free.

These days, with the way we can track adsense revenue, adwords, inbound keywords etc, etc, then I can't imagine life without GA. (and now we do quote GA numbers

)

I guess it like bathroom scales, if you use different ones, you can always shed a few pounds between different scales. But if you want to lose weight, you need to stick to the same scales, regardless of what the actual reading is

Clever marketing or genuine brand defence? 6th September 2012 2:25 PM

Nearly named the thread "Any publicity is good publicity?"

It seems Mars (thats chocolate not red planet

) has picked on a Chip Shop in Scotland, the reputed birth place of the deep fried Mars Bar.

They have been asked to put up disclaimers that the product is not endorsed by Mars.

"Mars is concerned that the deep-frying of its products is not in line with its policy of promoting a healthy lifestyle and it is keen to take steps to protect its own brand"
BBC News - Deep-fried Mars bars disowned by chocolate firm

Hmmm, what a load of cobblers, would you consider Mars to be part of a healthy diet

Anyone remember the Mars hovercraft adverts which told us a Mars a day helped us to work rest and play...

A Mars a day!! I wouldn't fit through the door.

But it's a good PR spin. A chocolate product manufacturer up in arms because their unhealthy product is being associated with unhealthy eating practices.

How Do I Monitor My Website Progress? 6th September 2012 12:38 PM

Originally Posted by find what i need

“the company i use for my hosting recommend awstats i have used it on all my sites and its free

”

Out of curiosuty, why wouldn't you use google analytics? It the market leader, beats every analytics package hands down, and is also free

I may be wrong, but I think awstats uses server logs which is an old and misleading way of viewing stats. Like the bad old days when people used to say "I get xyz hits" Reality is, a hit can be a page element loading. We average 14 hits to each unique visitor. It sounds great from a marketing big number point of view, but can be misleading.

Optimisation tips for Pinterest 5th September 2012 4:03 PM

Originally Posted by OLBNow

“This Pinterest is brand new and as I mentioned before, have discovered that getting business traffic is really really hard. I think I have only had 4 uniques over the last few days and will probably stop pushing that account.”

Can you show an example of one that is doing well? Or is that like giving away the crown jewels? Genuinely interested in learning more about this pinterest malarky.

Originally Posted by OLBNow

“If you like, I can have a go at putting some repins and likes to one of your pictures that I think could do well but as a word of warning; this could be labelled as 'unnatural' as I will be using my accounts. You usually find once you are on that popular page that you start getting organic interest.”

Why not, would appreciate it. As it's all still new and shiny, I think the pinterest police won't be too harsh on a tiny bit of gaming as we learn a new set of rules

Originally Posted by OLBNow

“Forgot to mention that a good way to get your pictures seen is to use hashtags in the comments like with twitter.

Also, if you want to be found by searches (inside Pinterest), do a search on the top left of Pinterest and have a look at the general amount of repins and likes to give you an idea of how likely you are to make it to that page.

And... if you are selling a product on your site make sure to put that in the description (just add $ or

Optimisation tips for Pinterest 5th September 2012 3:53 PM

There is an interesting discussion on some optimisation techniques for pinterest, which are worthy of their own thread, so have hived the thread off to here.

Internet - Serious Business. [Infographic] 5th September 2012 3:43 PM

Originally Posted by andrewtomkinson

“Fast mobile broadband is the future as it will give us more independence and no more reliance on the fixed line and BT.

Personal Internet Security will be an ongoing issue and needs to be addressed. My main concern is government censorship and wanting to know what we are doing.”

Agreed, mobile broadband is the future. It's interesting that some Africa countries and India are leading the way with mobile commerce born from a necessity due to a lack of infrastructure. Maybe we could learn something there, I can't even get a mobile signal in my house, let alone do an eCommerce transaction!

I can't see govt censorship been a particular issue for a while. They struggle trying wade through the data that people send them voluntarily, let alone amassing any more.

That said, I'm still impressed they have actually got the passport database and the driving license database talking to each other, so you can renew your license online using your passport photo!

Optimisation tips for Pinterest 5th September 2012 12:44 PM

Originally Posted by OLBNow

“The results from Pinterest vary MASSIVELY between different topics. I have found myself that business isn't a good area to use on Pinterest I am afraid!

If you work in home decor, art or women's apparel then you will be able to drive some serious traffic.”

I'd heard that, so thought I'd try it out with womens dresses from our shopping site, and then a photography and art category with customer pics from our directories.

But hardly anything

Must admit I'm baffled how you optimise Pin's. Is it the board name, the pin name or the pin description that shows up in searches and generates the traffic?

I can see you only have 9 followers, and looking at your categories, which ones are generating your 50 a day traffic as it seems to be mainly business related? Be great to see a successful example so I can see where I'm going wrong, as will confessed to being a bit pinterest stumped

Small Businesses accused of overusing Social Media! 5th September 2012 9:28 AM

Originally Posted by OLBNow

“Once I am following 2000 people (which is when Twitter throttles you), I will start pushing my site to them occasionally. Because there are social sharing options on my site it should lead to those twitter users sharing on other social networks and the cycle repeats.”

This is the bit I don't understand, and is the route I went. You follow everyman and his dog in the hope they follow you back, but is this a genuine audience? It's just reciprocal linking for the sake of numbers as opposed to people connecting because they have a genuine interest?

Or am I missing the point?

Plus, (unless its changed) you will end up following 2000 people, and a percentage will follow you back, say 20% for example. What do you do with the remaining 80%? Manually remove them? I went through this pain and it was very slow and very laborious - which then has a cost. (again maybe there is now a quick and easy way to do this?)

Now I just let twitter followers grow naturally. As a spin off from growing linked in numbers, new linked in contacts seem keen to contact via FB, Google and twitter. Maybe not particularly targeted, twitter wise, but its natural and doesn't take any time therefore has no cost. Which is good because other than a bit of promotion/branding I've yet to see any real commercial benefits or significance with twitter.

Just my findings, and very keen to learn from someone who has mastered twitter. I know a lot of people claim to generate xyz sales from twitter, but real world case studies are a bit thin on the ground when it comes to small businesses other than things like pubs and restaurants.