Today I will mostly be being ill. I think my immune system has finally given up and I’ve got a cold which I originally thought was hey fever :(
Because I am a man I will be making a big deal out of this (cue dying swan routine).
I’m still in work tho’ so will make it my mission to infect as many people as possible… just call me typhoid marky.
Just discovered this Open SOurce ASP.NET ecommerce system called NopCommerce. This is pretty revolutionary for me as in the past, I have been lead to believe that .NET systems are closed source, make use of COM objects and closed library files which resulted in almost every piece of .NET software being a paid application.
The system looks pretty well formed and feature packed and it includes all of the standard functionality you would expect from an ASP.NET Ecommerce system in particular:
…and lots more.
Today I am trialing a piece of software that provides semi automated submission to online directories, social bookmarking websites and article sites. What’s more this free directory submission is hosted right here on markrushworth.com for you all to try out.
Basically you register with the system (i give you 1000 free credits – 1 credit per domain which i think is more than ample) and you fill in some basic details of your target site. The free directory submission tool then visits each directory in turn and all you need to do is fill in the captcha and appropriate category for submission.
The reason for my trialling this is my annoyance with the paid services out there where there is no control over the quality of directories in a list. Also Google seem to be using ‘low level’ link building techniques like directory submission with great effect (even Rand thinks so).
Give it a try and let me know your thoughts.
Some of the guys at BC have Google branded mice and gizmo”s and I asked if they picked them up at a trade show. What I didnt know was that they’ve bought them from the official online Google shop which has loads of branded goodies at low prices(no phones tho?).
By all accounts you even have to buy stuff like this if you work inside of Google like Elanie, one of our PPC consultants did… the cheapskates.
So if you’re into Google branded goodies check the store out.
Heres some interesting SEO Statistics for 2010 as compiled by Econsultancy (link at the bottom).
PPC Conversion rates are set at 2.03% compared to an average of 1.26% from organic. THis is a great benchmark to identify whether your website is converting above or below par and definately a key demographic to watch.
Out of 1.5 million searches only 10% are ‘transactional’ in nature with 80% being identified as research based. Basically theres a lot of window shopping and fact finding going on so ensure that your website caters for this market – this should also help your site overcome Googles bias towards non-commercial content.
More than 60% of ecommerce sites perform SEO without optimising langing pages or thinking about customer egnagement.
SEO originated traffic achieves 200% more conversions when compared to banner, affiliate and social shopping referals.
When a customer is closer to the point at ahich they intend to buy the search pattern switches from broad match to branded terms so make sure your site is optimised for long tail brand terms and that your products by brand etc pages have content and feed directly into the sales funnel. The conversion metric for this type of search is almost 10%!
Approximately 26% of businesses spend between £10,000 and £50,000 on SEO per year. 30% spend under £5,000 and 44% spend over £50,000
92% of people searched across the first three pages of a search result.
98% of people browse organic listings with 95% using the sponsored listings at the top of the page and onlu 31% looked at sponsored listing in the right hand gutter.
Theres so much information in the full document and if you’re in the SEO industry its certainly worth a dig through.
As a pro web designer with over 10 years experience it pains me to say this but if you’re starting out with an online business the key is do do things as cheaply and more importantly basic as possible and once the site achieves a high search engine placement, then you can use your experience, not guess work and expendable profit to reinvest in the design, branding and features of your website.
Time after time we get briefs from new business start-ups who dont have any cash but have grandioso ideas about the features and functionality required of their online store. Most of the time this is all wishful thinking an not really based on customer objectives and in the end our quote often makes them lose faith in becoming an online business.
So do yourself a favour…
From this point on the plan should be:
You can even read the FREE online book Getting Real by online application developers 37 Signals which gives you an idea as to how theyve built and managed successful websites without the masisve overhead and complicated initial featureset.
I recently was tasked with sourcing the largest list possible of Pligg sites (don’t ask why). For those of you who dont know Pligg is open source community software that allows members to post, comment on and ‘Vote Up’ topics that are of interest.
Pligg can be good for SEO if treated like a PR service with topical, newsworthy articles and content being published but is more often than not uses for spammers.
So if you’re interested in Pligg and would like a massive list of over 10000 pligg sites then here you go.
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