UK firms Waste £3bn

The following Article was recently published by Ian Williams, vnunet.com

The UK's small and medium sized businesses are wasting an estimated £3bn of investment on websites that are virtually invisible to search engines, according to a recent report.

Research by Microsoft's adCenter unit revealed that, although 2.79 million small businesses have an online presence, a hefty 62 per cent are not investing in search marketing campaigns to help potential customers find them online.

The survey found that 44 per cent of SMEs believe that search marketing is too time consuming, while 56 per cent consider it too expensive and 33 per cent too complicated.

This is despite the finding that 76 per cent of SMEs promoting their website on search engines see an immediate increase in sales.

To help combat this wastage Microsoft adCenter has launched a set of Search Marketing Guidelines to help small and medium enterprises set up and reap the benefits of search marketing.

"UK SMEs are missing a trick by not investing in search marketing campaigns, " said Nigel Leggatt, marketing manager at Microsoft adCenter.

"In today's world, just having a website is not enough. You have to drive traffic to your site to ensure you are front-of-mind with your potential customers. Search marketing is one of the most cost effective ways to achieve this."

It seems that small business owners already understand the power of search marketing to promote their business online, as 96 per cent said they use search engines themselves to find a product or service.

This is reflected by over half of SMEs claiming that they would be willing to set up search marketing campaigns themselves, and 34 per cent are planning to use search marketing in the future.

"A well-known website can allow a small business to compete on an equal footing with larger competitors, but only if the site can be found by potential customers," said Peter Scargill, IT chairman at the Federation of Small Businesses.

"Having an online presence is something that more and more small businesses are using to drive growth in the future, but they will be wasting their money if they do not make people aware of it."

The new guidelines set out to dispel the myths surrounding search marketing and offer a range of tips on how to get started with search marketing while making sure that the process is as quick, simple and cost-effective as possible.

Read the Full Article

Christmas online sales 'rise 50%'

The proof is in that Internet sales boomed last Christmas.

From the BBC
"UK online sales rose by more than 50% in the three months to Christmas, according to an industry survey.
Internet sales between 1 October and 31 December hit £15.2bn, up from £9.61bn a year earlier, with electronics and clothing doing well, Capgemini said.
Firms with both a High Street and online presence, such as John Lewis, did best, the survey said.
For every pound spent on goods in 2007, 15 pence was spent online, pushing annual electronic sales to £30.2bn.
In 2006, for every pound spent on retail goods, the Internet spend had been 10 pence. "

Read the full article at BBC.co.uk

Of course not every web site will be a winner. The successful ones will be using all forms of online marketing to ensure that they get customers on to there site. The thing is that this sort of marketing is available to everyone, not just the big boys.

Now is the time to start thinking about how you can take advantage of next years Christmas sales, here is a quick checklist for you to get on with - start with number 1

1. Search Engine Optimisation. This the slow burn of the online marketing world, but can give the best long term results.... so start now. Make sure your site is listed in as many external sites as you can find, if you were to target getting you site linked into 5 sites per week from now until Christmas you would have around 250 incoming links to your site. Why is this important? A major part of the search engine rankings is links that are incoming to your site, the more you have the more important the search engines see your site.
2. Email Marketing. Store the email addresses of anyone who buys from you, encourage people to sign up to newsletters, get peoples email addresses and permission to use them! You are now in a position to regularly get in touch with them and give them offers.
3. AdWords Campaigns / PPC. Get started on an AdWords or pay per click (PPC) campaign.
4. Make sure your website has a Call to action, a telephone number to call, enquiry box to fill in and make it easy to buy your products. Don't be shy put these calls to action all over the place, shy bairn get nowt as they say here in Newcastle.

Happy New Year

Better late than never, HAPPY NEW YEAR from all at Mancala.


Of course last year was an extremely busy year, especially at the end and this year has started in the same way. Christmas was a record breaking year for those of you with ecommerce - in particularly our clients had a bumper one - on line sales are bucking the general retail trend so it might be worth thinking about how you will make great sales this year.

I look forward to uploading more posts this new year.