Brookfield - The Internet Marketing Agency Blog

BBC - Online advertising ‘growing fast’

A recent BBC News article states that European money spent on online advertising will double to £10.8bn by the year 2012. The UK will see significant growth over the next 4 years. Over and above European users are now on average spending 14.3 hours per week online as compared to 11.3 watching TV.

Staying ahead of the competition

This report raises all sorts of questions but the key here is if you don’t move to secure this online market your competition will. Regardless of the industry sector your business is positioned in there are plenty of examples where companies have invested in a well thought out internet strategy and are now reaping the benefits online.    

Getting serious about your online presence

Your website isn’t just another business gimmick. Companies are now starting to realise that the internet is becoming a valuable medium for client acquisition, retention and market expansion. The internet is now established as the primary medium for business use. Ignore it at your own peril.

To find out how your company website is positioned against your competitors, what potential customers are searching for and what the search engines see when they look at your website then take advantage of the Free Web Marketing Review.  

The following link provides the BBC News article in full.

Internet Marketing Resource

 

Just a short snippet on e-consultancy.

e-consultancy was founded in 1999 and is by far one of the best resources for all matters relating to internet marketing. If you and your company are serious about online marketing then I would urge you to subscribe to the premium content. The deal offers you real value for money. (And I’m not even on commission!)

Not only does e-consultancy provide a buyer’s guide but also provides a wealth of information on topics such as: best practice, statistics, market data and benchmarks.

FIC - Flash In Context

We have recently undertaken a Web Review for a graphic design company based in Cardiff, Limelight Graphix. The site is currently built in Flash but it is my understanding that this may change in the future.

Anyway this got me thinking of Flash and how this issue is still raising its head especially from an Internet marketing perspective. When it comes to straight forward business websites I’m a big advocate of a principle known as FIC (Flash In Context). If you have an element of your product and or service that can be demonstrated using Flash, then do so.

Apart from the many SEO issues (see article) this raises I would also urge you to think about a very basic precept. “What do you want the user to do when they come to the website”? Keeping things simple and without distraction is often the best approach.

SEO – ‘In-house’ versus ‘Outsource’

The following article by Matt McGee offers a straight forward common sense approach to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Businesses with limited online marketing budgets will always struggle between ‘in house’ versus ‘out source’ when it comes to successful internet marketing.

My take on this is based on common sense. Stick to what you know, yes you can learn the basic principles of SEO and how to promote your website in the search engines but in real terms how much time and effort do you have to maintain this approach?

In other words you don’t need to know the internal workings of the combustion engine to understand that a car can take you from point A to point B. At the beginning of any internet marketing campaign, set out your overall objectives (the A to B bit) and then make the decision on how you achieve those goals (the combustion engine bit.)

Remember also that in the main companies that provide internet marketing services will always focus on making a return on your investment. If they’re not, you lose money and they will lose credibility.

Landing Pages in 8 Seconds!

A Landing page is a specific web page/content that a web visitor ultimately reaches after clicking a link or advertisement.

An interesting statistic is that more than 60% of e-commerce websites are wasting money in search because they are not backing their marketing up with content or landing pages to create visitor engagement. [Logan Tod, May 2006]

On average you have 8 seconds to convert the web visitor from a landing page. So for more information on creating a landing page I would suggest the following article that provides 11 ways to improve your landing page