Internet Psychologist
The UK supermarket, Sainsbury’s, is rather red-faced at the moment. For the past 24 hours it has been unable to operate it’s online store, costing it around £1m in lost revenue. That’s bad enough, but the company has also had to face several media stories about its failure, such as …
Marketing experts are constantly banging on about our “USP” – our unique selling proposition; for anyone to be interested in us we need to be different. Online, uniqueness is even more important. There are just too many place to go, sites to visit and people to contact who all do …
People often assume things about the Internet, yet frequently those assumptions turn out to be incorrect. For instance, many business owners I meet assume, it seems, that email marketing is dead. Yet, despite the problems caused by spam, email marketing is still the most successful method of selling online. Another …
Golfers the world over have their eyes fixed on San Diego this week because it is the start of the US Open Golf Tournament. The world’s top golfers are chasing one of the top prizes in the International game and they will do everything they possibly can to prevent the …
Business owners who decide to set up a web site, or revamp an existing one, seem to always start by talking to web designers. The discussions then get focused on the look and “feel” of the site, colours and site structure. Apart from the fact that this takes the business …
People who own or run an online business tend to focus all their energies into online promotion. They look at Pay Per Click advertising, banner ads, social network marketing and article marketing. Then they consider online PR, affiliate marketing and online joint ventures. Rarely do online businesses focus their attention …
Experts in “usability” gathered in London today to discuss several issues surrounding this topic. The meeting had been called by TechSmith, the producers of Morae the leading usability testing software. It became apparent during the discussions that usability testing is often seen as something that is performed at the end …
Online business owners need to target their offerings in a much more refined way. Evidence is mounting daily that Internet users expect web sites to be devoted to their specific needs. For instance, let’s say you offer software on task management. You could have a site devoted to managing tasks …
Your friends like you; honest, trust me, they do. If they didn’t like you, then you wouldn’t like them and, hey, you wouldn’t be friends. Web sites are the same; if they demonstrate they like you – by providing exactly what you are after – then you like them. It’s …
BBC Radio FiveLive carried an interesting item on the news this morning from Sony BMG that they are making their entire back catalogue available as a “free to listen” service. Wow – that’s great, you might think. But this is another example of how big business still has not understood …
A new study of online behaviour confirms that good old-fashioned public relations is essential in getting search engine results that people actually click on. The research, conducted by the search engine marketing firm, iProspect, reveals a significant “click behaviour” which every online business owner needs to take notice of. The …
People often ask me if their business could operate online. Many business people fear that their service or product would not translate well to the online world. But I tell them that I can’t think of anything that is impossible to sell online. After all, if just a few years …
If your online business suffered a problem, would you be able to cope? I don’t mean problems like not getting enough traffic or not getting to the top of the search engines. What I mean is something that would actually prevent you from doing your work. What if you were …
Every once in a while a report comes your way that makes you wish you had written it yourself. A new report from Paul Smithson, the founder of the XSite Pro web design program is one such document. The report is the first in the “Real Reason” series and focuses …
People often swap web site names between each other. They tell them to their friends, neighbours, colleagues and so on. Think how difficult it would have been for Google if their web site name (domain) had been something like “www.automatedsearchenginesystemnotrelyingonhumaneditors.com”. And what about people who try to recommend web sites …