Site building series: Building Credibility and Maintaining it

Make sure that you build trust and credibility for your business. We discussed earlier the importance of credibility. Credibility is a key ingredient for any successful business venture. Building and enhancing the credibility of the products and services you offer is an ongoing and full-time effort.

Why not make sure the website you use works as hard as you do to establish credibility? Let's look at elements that can be built into a well-designed website to enhance credibility in the eyes of your potential customers.

Offer a Guarantee

Nothing beats a solid, believable guarantee for building credibility online. It may be hard to believe, but buying via the Internet is still unfamiliar and uncomfortable territory for many people. It is up to you, the business owner, to put their minds at ease. One way to do this would be to offer an unconditional, 100% money back guarantee. By assuming all of the risk, you will earn instant credibility points with most potential customers.

Provide Contact Information

Even the best guarantee won't help establish credibility if the potential customer cannot contact you. Post accurate contact information on your website and make it easy to find. Provide as many methods of contact as possible; do not simply post a link to an email address. For maximum credibility, post the complete mailing address, phone number (preferably a toll free number), and email addresses for customers to use if they feel the need to contact you.

Provide a Brief Bio

Familiarity is one of the most effective tools for building credibility on the Internet. How do you establish familiarity in a faceless, impersonal medium like the Internet? Simple, tell people about yourself. Post a page that provides a thumbnail sketch that describes who you are. Be sure to include personal data as well as professional credentials. Place your photo on the page so people can put a face with your name. Creating familiarity will impart another level of credibility for you and, by extension, for the product you represent.

Site building series: Navigation

The aim of a website's navigation is simply to allow users to get to the content they require. For sites that have a large number of sections and web pages (and information sites can be one of these) the navigation plan has to be properly researched and designed. You have to consider different types of visitors and simulate the most common steps they would take to find what they want on your site, and the navigation plan has to optimize this movement. For example, the steps required from searching a catalog of items, selecting from the catalog, adding them to a shopping cart, proceeding to check out, to entering the payment particulars is a specific sequence that should be facilitated by the navigation system. If the sequence is haphazard, it could lead to frustration or the user may miss an important step and you would have an aborted sale.

To find their way about, users need to know two things:

- Where they are now

- How to go elsewhere

Navigation does not exist in isolation; good site organization is a prerequisite for a coherent navigation system.

Objectives of a Navigation System

Navigation can be broken into two primary types: Location Indicators and Navigation Controls.

Location Indicators

Location indicators let users know where they are in the site at the moment. You need to keep in mind that users coming from outside

your site can enter at any page, not necessarily on a main page. They need to be able to orientate themselves quickly.

Equally, it is important that users navigating around your site have a clear idea of where they are both in absolute terms and in relation to other content.

Location information should appear on every page of the site, in the same place and in the same style. Location indicators should tell the user precisely where they are and this should be clear even to a user who has entered the site at an internal page. The location indicator should be identifiable for what it is and make sense in the context of other navigation.

In simple sites a page banner - text or graphic - naming the page will be sufficient. For this to work the page name should also appear in the main navigation so that it is relevant within the overall structure of the site.

Color can be used. For example a different color background, contrast color or sidebar in each part of the site. To be really effective the color change should be reflected in the navigation.

Using “breadcrumbs” on every page is a good idea. Breadcrumbs show you a series of hierarchical links that you have used to go from page to page within a section. Using breadcrumbs is like leaving a trail of the path you have followed. The breadcrumbs appear at the top of the content section, just below the main navigation template. Each element in the breadcrumb is a link to that section or subsection. This helps in avoiding a series of back buttons allowing the user to directly go back to the main section page or another sub section. More importantly, it always shows the context of the page that is being viewed and how it belongs to a section or sub-section.

Navigation Controls

Navigation controls are the main navigation links; they allow users to move around the site. Whether they comprise images or text they should be predictably located in the same place, and with the same appearance, on each page.

These have several purposes

To allow users to move about within the site To tell users what information is available at the link To work with location indicators to orientate users A good navigation control: Is clear: it looks like navigation Leads to obvious content - users have a good idea what they will find if they click Is consistent with other navigation controls Is predictable in its style and location on the page There is no mystery to usability. It simply involves creating a site, which is accessible to the majority of people, is easy to use and get around and delivers on its promises. You can have a site that meets the most important standards of usability by planning it well and always keeping the end user in mind. Remember that websites should not be designed for their owners - they should be designed for their users. Problems with usability could be said to stem from just two sources: the site itself and the user. In fact, the site is always at fault if a visitor (however experienced or inexperienced) has problems navigating, getting information or understanding the site. While websites have become far more complex, web users have become less experienced because more and more new people go online every day. It is a mistake to think that the majority of users will be web or even computer savvy and will understand subtle clues about content. Many won’t, so make your site as easy to use as possible.

Site building series: Interactivity and Personalization

Make your website interactive. Add feedback forms as well as email forms that allow your prospective customers to ask you any questions they might have pertaining to a product. Personalization of your website is another key element that can build a visitor’s trust and increase your sales. Personalization technology provides you the analytic tools to facilitate cross-selling and up-selling when the customer is buying online.

Personalization tries to restore to the online business the magic of personalized attention which is one of the chief reasons why many people still prefer in-store purchase. You can use personalization to match your customer with the right products through either rulesbased or customer analytics-based processing. Thus as your software stores customer information and preferences, it can help categorize them into groups. At the same time, observations over time can suggest products to cross-sell and up-sell. Thus when a person buys a subscription to a fitness site, exercise equipment is also offered. Amazon pioneered personalization on the net – when you a buy a book, it shows you other books in the similar genre saying “people who bought this book also bought these”, inducing you to buy more.

A consumer survey from the Personalization Consortium found that 56 percent of respondents say they are more likely to purchase from a site that allows personalization, and 63 percent are more likely to register at a site that allows it.

Site building series: Web Copy

Your website content should convince visitors that your service is either unique or superior to that of your competitors in terms of quality, and is competitively priced. It should show your potential clients that you can provide the solution they are seeking. Your product or service will solve their problems, answer a dream, enrich their lives, and/or improve their businesses. You are the dependable expert that they want and need!

Your website copy plays a major role in establishing and growing your customer base. Website copy creates the “voice” of a company, just as the look and feel of a site put a “face” on the company and on otherwise intangible products and services. On an ecommerce site, the copy plays a key role in closing sales as well as in up-selling and crossselling products and services. Good website copy delights first-time visitors, encourages return visits and propels both customer acquisition and retention.

People read a web page differently than they do a brochure or a newspaper. They scan, scroll, click, hit the back button, and hit the forward button. “Reading” is about moving around and being in control. You have one chance to make a first impression – to quickly convey the benefit of staying on your website. I can’t overstate the importance of first impressions, which in web-time are measured in milliseconds. The layout, functionality, message and overall look and feel of your web page determine who stays – and who clicks away.

Your story should be clear and to the point. The goal of any web page should be to get the visitor to DO something: to move on to the next step in a purchase sequence or to click for more information about a product or service. Without readable, compelling copy and clearly organized hypertext links, visitors are much less likely to complete a transaction – and return to your site again.

Writing for your web page should always start from your visitor’s perspective. What is your website visitor looking for? Why is she here? How can you make her visit as quick and efficient and positive as possible? You should take the time to clarify the goal of each page before starting to write. If the page is part of a transaction sequence, identify what may be hindering the buying process. Be sure instructions are clear and easy to read.

If you are selling a service on your website, your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is your service’s most powerful benefit, in combination with a strong, unique feature of your business. It answers that most difficult question:

Why should someone do business with you?

Tell your customers what service you are selling and explain what your service provides. What is the key benefit(s) to your customers? What pain does it cure, what solution does it provide? Compare your service with that of your competitors and highlight what makes you stand out from the competition? Keep working on this until you can clearly separate yourself from the field. As stated earlier there must be a convincing reason for doing business with you, instead of your competitor.

Summarize the above into one tight, powerful, motivating phrase that will persuade your customer to do business with you and to trade their money for the benefits delivered by your service.

As you start to work through the above four steps, you may find this to be a lot harder than it looks. Don’t blow it off and give up! You must have a USP. If it was easy, everyone would have a great USP! Come up with a tight, sharp USP that sells your service to your customer.

Write tight, get right to the point, be keenly aware of the audience for the page, and don’t use a three-syllable word when a one or two-syllable word will do. Use call-to-action language and be interesting. The page should be so clearly organized that, in seconds, visitors can understand and get convinced to buy your product and be able to anticipate where a hypertext link – or a “Continue” button – will take them. Studies show that “ease of use” is the winning factor on an ecommerce site.

If you’re going to promote your service and expand your customer base using your website, potential clients have to be able to trust you. Their confidence in you and your products has to be boosted. Endorsements on your website from a valued friend or colleague, or a referral from a strategic partner are the types of “leads” that boost your credibility. You and your service must be perceived as being trust-worthy before your visitor will be confident enough to contact you or even buy your product.

Show prospects that you have their best interests at heart and that you can adapt or customize your service to meet their individual needs. Foster an ongoing relationship that steadily increases their trust levels and cements a view that you are an “authority” in your field.

Another important aspect of convincing prospective customers is to keep abreast of recent developments in your field. Check on what your competitors are writing about, and watch for new trends. This will keep your website current, razor-sharp and unique. By keeping your eyes open, you will be able to grab an angle or niche that hasn’t been well covered yet by your competitors. Portray this angle or niche on your website.

Finally, be wary of broadening the theme of your site too much. Try not to dilute your product or service’s targeted niche simply to expand your base of merchant partners. Remember; focus on your selling your service. That’s where the “meat and potatoes” of your business will come from.

Is Relevance Important to Your Link Exchange Strategy?

It's no secret that the search engine industry is full of speculation. One topic of controversy is the subject of relevant links. It's still unclear just how important relevancy is to high rankings.

Google itself claims to "combine PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it's a good match for your query."

One of the obvious arguments for relevant linking is that linking from Site A to Site B with the anchor text "widgets" will make Site B appear more relevant for the term "widgets."

Some link exchange programs are now offering exclusion filters to let their members pick and choose what sites to link to based on site and category relevance.

In the past year, it's been said that "themes" have become increasingly important to the search engines, with the quality of links outweighing the quantity. However, despite all the hype about relevancy and all the talk of themes, many search engine professionals from some of cyberspace's most popular online forums doubt the importance of relevant links.

"Personally, I find it hard to believe relevant links make much of a difference from an SEO stand point," speculated WebmasterWorld member hobbnet, "although I do believe there is value in relevant links because users will be more likely to click on links that are relevant to what they are already reading."

"Since we know that in the real world we cannot fully control who links to us, and we also agree that the search engines are trying to get as close to a human type review as possible, then it seems plausible that some degree of off-topic links may actually provide some benefit since that closely resembles what would occur naturally," said Kevin 11 over at the SEO-Guy forums.

Another point is that relevance is... well... relative. What one person considers to be relevant might seem off-topic to someone else.

Certainly the advancement of search engine technology has some effect on the importance of relevancy. The human brain can comprehend relevant links and, if reasons for linking are not obvious, we can at least take guesses at why the webmaster chose to exchange links with a particular site. Spiders, on the other hand, might not have the luxury of eductated guessing. At this point, search engine spider technology is still fairly new to the world and there's no telling how the spiders determine how relevant a link truly is or how well they can gauge relevancy.

It's probable that search engines such as Google use on-page elements such as keywords, anchor text, title tags, and headers to determine relevance, since those elements are used to determine what the pages themselves are about. But it's uncertain if spiders can analyze relevancy beyond those factors. What seems relevant to the search engines and what is relevant to the end user might be two completely different things.

Could it be that we're giving the search engines too much credit? Search engines are not almighty deities; they are imperfect technologies with a limited understanding of complex human intentions. At the moment, search engine technology seems to focus more on links than content. Even if relevant links are a current trend, the old methods of link building, which have existed longer than the search engines themselves, still continue to work. That's why spammy sites are still making it to the top of the search engines. That's why affiliate links show up in completely unrelated search results. Relevant linking certainly has potential and would help Google in its goal of providing the most relevant results on the Web, but it just doesn't seem to play a big role in search engine rankings at the present time.

Should a webmaster link to an off-topic site that he or she thinks might be of interest to his or her target audience? What it all comes down to is every webmaster must make a conscious decision about the direction of his or her site. What's more important to you? High rankings or your visitors' interests?

Truly savvy webmasters will find that you don't necessarily have to pick between the two; it's possible to compromise. By having a well optimized site that focuses on customer needs and wants, you can enjoy the best of both worlds.

Form time to time, I will put good link exchange services to the right ;)

Content vs. Link Exchange: Which is More Important?

"You can have all the great content you want. Neglect some basic things to make your site search engine friendly, and you aren't getting in." - Danny Sullivan

Since the dawn of search engine optimization, the search industry has been divided by two differing viewpoints on what matters most: content or links. The "content is king" viewpoint is headed by many well-respect SEOs, including Jill Whalen, who has given speeches at multiple search engine conferences on successful copywriting. The opposing party belives that "linking is king." Followers of this belief system include Phil Craven and John Scott. For years, it has been passionately debated across many online forums whether content or links have a greater effect on getting your site to the top of the search engines.

According to a thread at SEOChat, Google developer Matt Cutts let it slip that "thematic incoming links from authority sites carry more weight than on-page optimization." If that's the case, then it's a huge blow for those who believe Google and the other search engines value content over links.

Alan Webb, CEO, ABAKUS Internet Marketing, said Matt's announcement "concurs with my own research." For example, Alan suggests doing a search for the term "computer" on Google. You'll see that the top ranked site for the term "computer" is none other than Apple.com - despite the fact that the word "computer" only appears once on Apple's homepage! Nonetheless, Apple comes up first out of 69,300,000 pages competing for that term. "Off page optimization is now more important than on-page," Alan concludes. "A Google software engineer had just confirmed what many professional search engine marketers have believed for a while."

Despite all this, recent speculation suggests that Google might be taking an equal look at both content AND links. "I believe that the new Google algorithms may draw these two schools of SEO thought together," Bob Wafker wrote in a recent article. The biggest problem with Google's original algorithm, Bob says, is that it's based on the assumption that webmasters will only link to other sites because they find those sites to be helpful or relevant. However, now that savvy webmasters realize the power behind linking, they are taking part in link exchange programs and using links as a tool to get their sites to the top of the search results. As a result, the search engines are now being bombarded by spammy sites seeking to manipulate their way into the SERPs.

In order for Google to accomplish its goal of providing the most relevant search results on the web, the search engine needs to find a better way of judging relevance. Bob voices the theory that Google may now be using content as a means of determining just how relevant those links are. "Suddenly content has a new importance in the ranking of a page," he suggests. "Now it is not so much the content of one’s own page that will get it ranked in the SERPs, but the content of the pages from which the links are coming."

There have also been rumors circulating around some of the most popular search engine optimization forums that anchor text will not count as much in Google anymore unless the text used in the link actually appears somewhere on the page being linked to. Most likely, this would be an attempt by Google to battle Googlebombing, a method in which webmasters use anchor text to get a site to the top of Google for a completely unrelated term. Although these rumors have yet to be confirmed, they reiterate the importance of:

a) using target keywords and keyphrases in site content
b) making sure that incoming links contain those target keywords

Aaron Wall summed it all up perfectly with the following statement:

"What it all boils down to is that links or content works UP TO A POINT, but greater success can be achieved by mixing links AND content."

Site building series: Choosing a Domain Name

In the physical world, you can distinguish a business because of its structure, window displays, or signs. You can tell that a bank is a bank, or a clothing store is indeed a clothing store.

In the Internet, however, it is an entirely different story altogether. Your domain name is the only clue to your online business. You do not have visual clues: no location, no look, and no store design. Instead, users have to type in a word or a set of words to reach your site. Your prospective visitor has no way of knowing what your site is all about until she finds it and reads its contents. Who can ever tell that Amazon.com sells books? Or that Excite is a search engine?

Your domain name can spell your success on the Internet. A good domain name is the best asset you can ever have. It can make your business stand out in the crowd, or just float aimlessly in space.

The need to provide immediate clues to an online business led to the prevalence of generic domain names. Generic names instantly provide the user with an idea of what a business is all about, what to expect and look for in a site. For instance, Etoys.com is a toy store.

The temptation of the generic name has been so powerful; that some companies even paid ridiculously high prices to get the name they want. The domains Loans.com and Wines.com were both bought for $3 million each. Telephone.com was acquired for $1.75 million, while Bingo.com sold for $1.1 million.

However, generic names do not necessarily create the “buzz” that you’d like surrounding your website. Branding has always been about proper names: McDonald's did not name their store Hamburger. Hertz is not called Car Rental. FedEx is not Mail Carrier. Kodak is not Photographs. Google is not Search Engine. Microsoft is not Computer Software.

For better branding results, your domain name should stand out and be easy to remember. Consider the following tips when creating a domain name:

The domain name should be short The domain name should be simple It should be suggestive of your business category It should be unique It should be easy to interpret and pronounce It should be personalized It should not be difficult to spell It should not be difficult to remember Domain names can be registered through many different companies (known as "registrars") - a listing of these companies is available at ICANN.org. You can register for domain names from 1 to 10 years in advance and prices can vary anywhere from $8 to $30 per year for each registered domain. Most website hosting companies, as explained later, will handle the registration process for you, but make sure that you are properly listed as the owner of the domain when it is registered. If you have registered a domain name for a specific period, make sure you renew it in time. You’d be surprised at the number of cases, where website owners have lost their domain name to a competitor by not renewing it in time. Using Expired Domains to Skyrocket Your Traffic Domain names provide a great opportunity to make easy money. Thousands of webmasters invest time, effort and money to promote their site and build up traffic. Many of them then lose interest and move on, leaving their site active. That means that although they still own the domain, they’re not actively promoting it. But they don’t need to. All the automatic marketing systems they’ve put in place are still bringing in traffic. The site runs itself. Now, at some point the ownership of those domains is going to expire. If you snap up those domains once they come back onto the market, you’ve got a pre-built stream of customers. You can either rebuild the site, or redirect the traffic to your domain. It’s that easy. In fact, websites like DeletedDomains.com actually do all the legwork and let you reap all the rewards. Do be careful when using other sites though. There are some swindlers out there that will sell you subscriptions, provide you with outdated lists, take your money and keep the good domains for themselves. It happens, and there’s little point in taking a risk with other companies when DeletedDomains.com does such a great job.

Site building series: Testing and Performance

You have designed a very usable website, you have hosted it using a very reliable web hosting company, and you have integrated a safe and trusted payment processing system with your website. However, all these can prove to be useless until you know your site is actually working and accessible. If you want to create an accessible website, you will need to test, test and test again.

A recent Forrester Research report reported that failure to ensure website quality will cost the average small or mid-size company thousands of dollars in wasted expenditures on website redesigns, forfeited revenue, and lost customers. Testing a website is a long and tedious task, but it's perhaps the most important task of all. There are numerous stages to testing, all of which are very important. Ranging from browser testing to content testing, none should be excluded.

Visual Acceptance Testing

Visual Acceptance Testing is the first port-of-call for all webmasters. This type of testing generally ensures that the site looks as it is intended to. This includes checking the graphic integration, and simply confirming that the site looks good. In this stage you should assess every page carefully to ensure that each looks the same. The site should be tested under different screen resolutions and color depths.

Functionality Testing

Functionality testing is perhaps the most vital area of testing, and one which should never be missed. Functionality testing involves an assessment of every aspect of the site where scripting or code is involved, from searching for dead links, to testing forms and scripts.

You should also test your payment processing system completely and thoroughly. After all, you wouldn’t want a potential customer to get stuck at the last stage and eventually leave the site just because there is something wrong with payment processing.

Content Proofing

This stage of testing removes any errors in your content, and ensures that your site has a professional appearance. In this phase, you should reread each page on your site, and check for spelling and grammatical errors.

System and Browser Compatibility Testing

This test phase is completed in order to ensure that your website renders correctly on a user's screen. To begin with, you should test several pages from your site on different browsers such as Internet Explorer 4, 5, 6, Netscape 4 and 6, and Opera. This can be extremely important - if your site does not work properly with the Netscape browser, Netscape users will end up annoyed, and they'll go elsewhere.

Site building series: Usable Site

A usable site will:

Help users achieve a goal, usually to find something, such as information, or obtain something, such as a book. Make it easy for them to achieve that goal Make it possible to achieve the goal quickly Make achieving that goal a pleasant experience A site will be generally usable if: The content is good and relevant The content is easy to find The content can be found quickly The page is pleasant to look at and cleanly designed Good Content is Critical A site with good content, regardless of its subject, is one that provides products or information that is useful or beneficial to users. A good usable site will make it clear what information or content is available and at what price AND what is not available. A good usable site should define clearly all subscription packages offered. Ease of Access to Information Good navigation, precise location indicators, secondary navigation, clear linked text and a well-organized structure all contribute to making information easy to find for a wide range of different users. Bearing in mind that many users are inexperienced, it may be necessary to include explanations of things you consider selfexplanatory. For example, an inexperienced user may need an explanation of how to use a drop down menu. Remember, make it as easy as possible for people to use your website. Quick Access to Information This is the aim of the majority of web users. It can be broken into two important aspects: Speed of Page Loading This requires, in particular, attention to images to ensure they are properly optimized and do not excessively delay load time. It may also mean breaking up long articles and ensuring that important content is at the top of the page where it will load first. Speed of Access to Content This is where the 3-click rule comes in - no important content should be more than 3 clicks from the home page. Some standards even say that it should be no more than two clicks. One helpful way to speed access to content is to consider each type of user, select the content that they are most likely to be interested in and create links from the home page to one piece of content for each group. This will get them quickly to the appropriate part of the site. Cleanly Designed Pages Cleanly designed pages are pleasant to look at and easy to read. It is almost impossible to make a site with an image shown as a tiled background usable - the whole thing is too distracting and confusing. It takes no great design skills to create clean pages; it just requires thought and adherence to the principle that when it comes to design, less usually is more. Download Status Most paid membership websites are limited to online access and information download rather than selling products. There should be clear download instructions provided. Your website should also state the size of the file in kilobytes and the estimated time of download for a user having a 56K modem, DSL, Cable and so on. Usability Problems While for large commercial sites investment in full-scale usability studies may be essential, few small sites can afford such luxuries. However, identifying problems with usability for your site need be no more complicated than asking a few (honest) friends to act as guinea pigs on your site and, if possible, watching them silently as they do this. Watching users try to find information at your site can be both instructive and quite surprising. Remember that if at any stage you feel the urge to intervene and explain, then you have identified a usability problem. List of the Most Common Usability Problems The site does not state its purpose clearly Java applets, huge images, banner ads or flashy elements slow down loading; 10 seconds is about as long as the average user will wait for a page. The site requires specific software to be used. Have you ever actually changed browsers or downloaded a piece of software just to see a site? Poor navigation, too little navigation, too much navigation and, not uncommonly, no navigation at all Bad design leading to poor readability Discomfort due to ugly design or inconsistent design. Almost always because a designer overestimated their skills. Irrelevance of content - for example the business site that includes biographies and photos of each of the board members. Happy egos on the board; bored website visitors! Complexity or excessive originality of design, which requires users to learn how it works in order to use it. Inaccessibility because the site cannot be used by browsers for people with disabilities.

Site building series: Usable Site

A usable site will:

Help users achieve a goal, usually to find something, such as information, or obtain something, such as a book. Make it easy for them to achieve that goal Make it possible to achieve the goal quickly Make achieving that goal a pleasant experience A site will be generally usable if: The content is good and relevant The content is easy to find The content can be found quickly The page is pleasant to look at and cleanly designed Good Content is Critical A site with good content, regardless of its subject, is one that provides products or information that is useful or beneficial to users. A good usable site will make it clear what information or content is available and at what price AND what is not available. A good usable site should define clearly all subscription packages offered. Ease of Access to Information Good navigation, precise location indicators, secondary navigation, clear linked text and a well-organized structure all contribute to making information easy to find for a wide range of different users. Bearing in mind that many users are inexperienced, it may be necessary to include explanations of things you consider selfexplanatory. For example, an inexperienced user may need an explanation of how to use a drop down menu. Remember, make it as easy as possible for people to use your website. Quick Access to Information This is the aim of the majority of web users. It can be broken into two important aspects: Speed of Page Loading This requires, in particular, attention to images to ensure they are properly optimized and do not excessively delay load time. It may also mean breaking up long articles and ensuring that important content is at the top of the page where it will load first. Speed of Access to Content This is where the 3-click rule comes in - no important content should be more than 3 clicks from the home page. Some standards even say that it should be no more than two clicks. One helpful way to speed access to content is to consider each type of user, select the content that they are most likely to be interested in and create links from the home page to one piece of content for each group. This will get them quickly to the appropriate part of the site. Cleanly Designed Pages Cleanly designed pages are pleasant to look at and easy to read. It is almost impossible to make a site with an image shown as a tiled background usable - the whole thing is too distracting and confusing. It takes no great design skills to create clean pages; it just requires thought and adherence to the principle that when it comes to design, less usually is more. Download Status Most paid membership websites are limited to online access and information download rather than selling products. There should be clear download instructions provided. Your website should also state the size of the file in kilobytes and the estimated time of download for a user having a 56K modem, DSL, Cable and so on. Usability Problems While for large commercial sites investment in full-scale usability studies may be essential, few small sites can afford such luxuries. However, identifying problems with usability for your site need be no more complicated than asking a few (honest) friends to act as guinea pigs on your site and, if possible, watching them silently as they do this. Watching users try to find information at your site can be both instructive and quite surprising. Remember that if at any stage you feel the urge to intervene and explain, then you have identified a usability problem. List of the Most Common Usability Problems The site does not state its purpose clearly Java applets, huge images, banner ads or flashy elements slow down loading; 10 seconds is about as long as the average user will wait for a page. The site requires specific software to be used. Have you ever actually changed browsers or downloaded a piece of software just to see a site? Poor navigation, too little navigation, too much navigation and, not uncommonly, no navigation at all Bad design leading to poor readability Discomfort due to ugly design or inconsistent design. Almost always because a designer overestimated their skills. Irrelevance of content - for example the business site that includes biographies and photos of each of the board members. Happy egos on the board; bored website visitors! Complexity or excessive originality of design, which requires users to learn how it works in order to use it. Inaccessibility because the site cannot be used by browsers for people with disabilities.

Site building series: Monitoring and Tracking

Understanding what your visitors do on your site is crucial information, not to mention interesting. If a large majority of your visitors who proceed to purchase a product leave the site when they get to a specific page in the order process, you need to know about it. It could be that the page in question is confusing or hard to use. Fixing it could increase your sales exponentially. In fact, it is not uncommon for small website changes in headlines and order processes to result in a 200%-300% increase in sales. This is just an example; there are many reasons why you want a detailed analysis of your site visitors.

Most website hosting services offer a stats package that you can study. If you're not sure where this is, call up your hosting service and ask them. Statistics are a vital part of tracking your marketing progress. If you don't have access to website statistics get a package that can help you in this area. Do not get a counter that just shows how many visitors you've had. You'll be missing out on vital information that can help strengthen weaknesses in your site.

A good website hosting service would offer traffic logs that provide an invaluable insight into the traffic being referred to a web site from various sources such as search engines, directories and other links.

Unfortunately, traffic tracking provided by web hosting services is often in the form of raw traffic log files or other hard-to-comprehend, cryptic formats. These log files are basically text files that describe actions on the site. It is literally impossible to use the raw log files to understand what your visitors are doing. If you do not have the patience to go through these huge traffic logs, opting for a trafficlogging package would be a good idea.

Basically two options are available to you and these are: using a log analysis package or subscribing to a remotely hosted trafficlogging service. A remotely hosted traffic logging service may be easy to use and is generally the cheaper option of the two. In fact, you can get a powerful free tracking tool at: StatCounter.com. Other reliable tracking programs include WebTrends.com and HitsLink.com.

These services do not use your log files. Typically a small section of code is placed on any page you want to track. When the page is viewed, information is stored on the remote server and available in real time to view in charts and tables form.

A good traffic logging service provides detailed statistics pertaining to the following:

How many people visit your site? Where are they from? How are visitors finding your site? What traffic is coming from search engines, links from other sites, and other sources? What keyword search phrases are they using to find your site? What pages are frequented the most - what information are visitors most interested in? How do visitors navigate within your web site? Knowing the answers to these and other fundamental questions is essential for making informed decisions that maximize the return on investment (ROI) of your website investment. The most important aspect of tracking visitors to your website is analyzing all the statistics you get from your tracking software. The three main statistics that will show your overall progress are hits, visitors and page views. Hits are tracked when any picture or page loads from your server on to a visitor’s browser. Hits, however, can be very misleading. It is quite an irrelevant statistic for your website. The statistic that is probably the most important for a website is Page Views/Visitors. This gives you a good indication of two things. First, how many people are coming to your site, and secondly how long are they staying on your site. If you have 250 visitors and 300 page views you can figure that most visitors view one page on your site and then leave. Generally, if you're not getting 2 page views per visitor then you should consider upgrading your site's content so your visitors will stay around longer. If you see the number of visitors you have increasing as well as the number of page views per visitor increasing then keep up the good work! Always look for this stat as an overall barometer of how your site design is going and if your marketing campaigns are taking hold. Also, a good stat to look for is unique visitors. Once a person visits your site they will not be added to the unique visitors category if they visit again. This is a good way to track new visitors to your website. Page views are a good indication of how "sticky" your website is. A good statistic to keep is Page Views divided by the number of Visitors you have. This statistic will give you a good idea if your content is interesting and if your visitors are staying on your site for a long time and surfing. Some people are intimidated by web traffic statistics (mostly because of the sheer volume of data available), but they shouldn't be. While there are many highly specialized statistics that can be used for more in-depth web traffic analysis, the above areas alone can provide invaluable information on your visitors and your website performance. Remember, this data is available for a reason. It's up to you to use it. Tracking Your Sales Like any business, it is absolutely vital to track and maintain your sales records. You should have a clear understanding of your income and expenditures. There are many ways to keep track of your sales. Using orthodox methods such as keeping a paper journal is time consuming. Simple spreadsheet programs as well as basic accounting software are available at minimum or no cost. However, it is advisable to install advanced accounting software such as QuickBooks, Quicken, or Microsoft Money to keep track of your accounting. Such advanced programs save you time by sorting your register transactions by date, transaction amount, document number (e.g. check number), order entered, or cleared status. The tracking feature included in such software tracks, by user, changes made to each transaction. Daily, weekly, monthly as well as yearly sales reports can be generated with a few clicks. These reports help you analyze the sales of each and every product. Logs and reports can be generated to keep track of all your customers. NOTE: Affiliate marketing solves many of the aforementioned tracking problems for you automatically. When you become an affiliate and resell other company’s products for a profit, the company you are affiliated with keeps track of your traffic and sales automatically and presents all this information to you in easy to read charts and graphs.

Site building series: Start

To succeed at your online business (whether you are selling your own product/service or are selling for other merchants as an affiliate), you need a website created just for that - a simple, focused site. Your website should be easy to build, maintenance-free, low cost, credible, and a powerful traffic-builder and customer-converter.

Having the right tool and the right product alone won’t ensure the success of your website. There are many factors to be considered while designing a site. Unfortunately, most of these are often ignored by Internet business owners.

Build It for Speed - It's a fact of modern life - people are in a hurry. This means that you have between 10 and 30 seconds to capture your potential customer's attention. To minimize your load time, keep graphics small. Compress them where possible. Use flashy technology (JavaScript, Flash, Streaming Audio/Video, animation) sparingly and only if it is important to your presentation. Target your Market - Know who your market is and make certain that your site caters to their needs. It is critical that your site reflect the values of your potential customers. Is your market mostly business professionals? If so, the site must be clean and professional. Is your product aimed mostly a teenagers and young adults? Then your site could be more informal and relaxed. The key here is to know your market and build the site to their preferences. Focus the Site - Make certain your website is focused on a primary goal: selling your product or service. A site offering many unrelated products is not necessarily unfocused, but this is often the case. If your business does offer many products, dedicate a unique page for each instead of trying to sell them all from one page. Credibility Is Crucial - The most professionally designed website won't sell if your customers don't believe in you. A clear privacy statement is one way to build your credibility. Provide a prominent link to your privacy statement from every page on the site as well as from any location that you are asking your visitors for personal information. Provide legitimate contact information online. Navigation should be simple - Make site navigation easy and intuitive. Simple and smooth navigation adds to the convenience of the visitors. Add powerful search and catalog features. Visitors usually don’t have the patience to navigate through the whole website to find what they are looking for. Consistency is the key - Make sure the site is consistent in look, feel and design. Nothing is more jarring and disturbing to a customer than feeling as if they have just gone to another site. Keep colors and themes constant throughout your website. Make your website interactive and personalized – Add feedback forms as well as email forms that allow your prospective customers to ask you any questions they might have pertaining to a product. Personalization of your website is another key element that can build your visitor’s trust and increase your sales. Personalization technology provides you the analytic tools to facilitate cross-selling and up-selling when the customer is buying online. It would give you an idea of what products to cross-sell and up-sell. For example, when a person buys a CD player, a disc cleaner can also be offered. Content is King - Good content sells a product. Ask yourself the following questions. Does your copy convey the message you wish to get across to your visitors? Is it compelling? Does it lead your visitor through the sales process? Have others review, critique and edit your copy to insure it is delivering the intended message. Always double check your spelling and grammar.

Site building series: The Host

Let’s start where the Internet starts: with a host. A host is a server that provides a home for your website on the World Wide Web. Just as your computer contains all your files, so a host contains all the files needed to run your website. Why can’t you just keep all those files on your own computer? Because that would mean visitors would have to connect directly to your computer to see your website and that’s not a good idea. It wouldn’t be secure and it would make your machine run like a tired snail. With a host, you can simply upload everything you need to the server and your users can then connect there to see your site. It lets the site run faster and allows it to have all the security and extras it needs.

Selecting a host is the first important step towards building your Internet business.

Hosting services and companies vary from totally free, shared servers to large-scale dedicated machines. You’ll have to decide which is right for you and your business.

Your choice of server will depend on how much money you have available at the beginning and how much you plan to grow in the future. In my opinion, for commercial sites, free hosting is a waste of time. Your users are going to get blasted with annoying pop-ups every time they surf to your page, it’s going to be impossible to get a decent position in a search engine, and you don’t even get a real business URL. No one’s going to remember your web address if they have to type: FreeWebsiteHosting.com/my_site. However, it is possible to choose a cheaper host at the beginning and move up as your business begins to bring in money.

NOTE: One of the most important factors in choosing a website host is the customer service you receive once you’ve signed up. There are many technical issues that can come up once you have your own website, and if you don’t have a truly dedicated hosting company to support you and help you resolve these issues when necessary, you could, quite simply, lose your business. When hosting is cheap, there is a reason for it. With website hosting, you get exactly what you pay for and you should never compromise when it comes to who to host your website with.

Benefits of market segmentation

There are a many benefits that can be resulting from segmenting a market:

1. Segmentation is a useful approach to marketing for the smaller firms. It allows target markets to be matched to company competencies and makes it more achievable for the smaller firms to create a defensible niche in the market.


2. It assists recognizing gaps in the market that are not served or under-served. These can provide areas for new product development or extension of the existing product or service range.


3. In mature or declining markets it may be possible to identify particular segments that are still in growth. Focusing on growth segments when the overall market is declining is a major strategy in the latter stages of the product life cycle.


4. Segmentation allows marketers to match a product or service to the needs of the target market.

Getting To the Top of Google … Fast

When it comes to SEO, the fastest and best way to climb the search engine rankings is with lots of back links from relevant sites. Of course that may not exactly be breaking news for many of you.

 

What many people don’t realize however is that an ages old offline marketing tactic may be one of the best ways to get lots of the highest quality back links.

 

You see, Google and Yahoo both “weight” the strength of the link to you based on a wide variety of factors. Links from authority and news sites count for more than links from a “commercial” site.  It is therefore better if you can get your site into the news … and linked to from a news article, than it is to simply buy links.

 

Further, and one thing that many people don’t realize is that google also tracks the click through of links. In other words, google considers a link that gets clicked on to be more “real” … and weights such a link heavier … than a link which is not clicked through. So, a link from a PR5 news site that people click through (because the article is flattering), is “worth more” in terms of aiding your google ranking than a link from a PR7 site that people largely ignore.

 

Therefore, using the “offline” technique of getting publicity about your site will be one of the single most valuable activities in your link building campaign.

 

Even better, links from news sites will drive your site up the rankings farther … and faster … than almost any other single thing.

 

Now, here’s the best thing about getting into the news … If you do get mentioned in a newspaper, you can count on a flood of visitors coming to your site and buying … and the numbers will be far greater than anything delivered by a search engine.

 

You’ll quickly discover that simply the mention of your site in a decent sized newspaper will bring you more sales than almost any other activity there is. This is why I find it so amazing that given the benefits to the search engines, and the benefits in terms of nearly instant sales, that so few webmasters and self-proclaimed SEO “experts” bother to perm any publicity gaining activities at all.

 

With that said, the first and most important thing to not do is to send out some dull, boring “press release” via PR Newswire or broadcast fax to every reporter in the nation. These things are almost never read, nor do they (except on a basis that makes playing the lottery look like good odds) result in a news reporter actually doing a story on you.

 

The reason for this is simple. People don’t care about you, your products, or what new thing you’re coming out with. Not only are those, but all the yammering about integrity aside, newspapers in business to make money. The only way that happens is when there are stories in the paper that people actually want to read.

 

That means that a journalist’s job is to write compelling stories that people will care about, or at least will enjoy reading. Journalists are paid (too little in my opinion) to take stories of occasionally only minor interest and turn them into great stories that people read.

 

Further, the job of the average journalist is exceedingly difficult as a result of the nasty deadlines they operate under.

 

So the first and most important thing that you can do in your efforts to get written about is to consider what you can do to make the reporters’ job easier (and again, one of those things is not to write a story for them).

 

One of the best ways is to actually consider what is really newsworthy, and then, sending out a press release that interest the reporter enough that they want to find out more.

Once that’s done, you’ll need to make it easy for the reporter to do their own research. Giving them links to prove your numbers, links to other relevant stories, links to outside objective opinions written about you, your company, and your products.

 

It also means that when a reporter calls, you’d better answer the phone (you, not your secretary … a reporter gets your direct line) … or if there is a very good reason for not answering, you’re calling back within 30 minutes. This last item is important (remember what I said about their deadlines) if you expect the reporter to actually write about you.

 

You see, because a reporter is working under such a wicked schedule, they need you. It is important for you to remember that if you want those top rankings, the traffic, and the sales, you need them as well.

 

The next thing you can do to make a reporters life easier is to tie your products in with the latest and most breaking news available. As an example, let’s say you manufacture a wrist protector. During a football game, a famous wide receiver breaks their wrist. You promptly send out a press release to sports writers about the break … and point out that had the player been wearing your protector the break wouldn’t have happened. In the release you let the reporter know you can give independent evidence of the veracity of your statements.

 

The thing you have to remember is that most reporters are deluged with press releases. If you want to be written about, your press releases have to stand out. It must tie in with current events or somehow tie in with basic human emotions (and remember the news axiom “if it bleeds it leads”).

 

If you want to be written about, be bold, be creative, be controversial, even better, be all three.

 

Will some people be “upset” about you being controversial? Maybe … probably even (hey, it isn’t controversial otherwise!). However, consider it a Good Thing. Stir the controversy, and while all of the whiners are wringing their hands and gnashing their teeth, you get to laugh all the way to the bank.

The guidelines that need to be taken into account when designing global products and services

Successfully designing global products and services requires managers to make tough trade-offs between global and local demands. Several guidelines apply, including the following:

1. Globally standardised products and services can bring the benefits of not just cost savings, but also those of improved quality and customer preference.


2. The best global products are usually those that are designed as such from the start rather than being adapted from national products later.


3. Designers of global products and services should try to maximise the size of the common global core while also providing for local tailoring around the core.


4. In investigating customer needs around the world, managers should look for similarities as well as for differences.

How to Build Web site Traffic with Customized Content

To attract and engage qualified new visitors, says Tom Pick, a Web marketing consultant, construction firms must offer content that both helps the visitor and positions their company as the expert in that market niche.

Here are a few of Pick’s suggestions to attract visitors to your Web site with compelling content:

News feeds. No one has time to monitor all the various sources of industry intelligence. Publishing an aggregated news feed on your site lets you provide your visitors with timely industry news in one place. Services such as Moreover, NetContent, and YellowBrix offer customized news feeds based on your specifications.

White papers. Still popular with both marketers and prospects, a well-written white paper

subtly positions your company as an expert, while providing useful “how to” type information to the reader. You can write the white paper internally (if you have the right resources), hire a freelance writer, or have the paper authored on your behalf by an analyst group or recognized industry expert. This last option is the most expensive, but also has the greatest impact.

Webinars. Essentially PowerPoint presentations delivered online using an Internet conferencing service, webinars are an increasingly popular way to present educational and white-paper-like content. Upside: Webinars give your message the combined impact of audio, visuals, and interactivity. Downside: They tie your audience to their computers for 30 to 60 minutes.

Podcasts. Audio podcasts can be almost any length and used for a variety of purposes from creating an interest-generating “teaser” to an audio white paper. Once downloaded to an MP3 player, a podcast can be listened to virtually anywhere. Although you could record a podcast using various software packages or Web services, Pick recommends hiring an expert to assure that your podcast is produced and promoted effectively and professionally.

Benefits of Creating Affiliate Program

By creating affiliate program, you could generate a significant increase in traffic to your website. When your affiliates place links on their websites linking to your site, you will increase your link popularity and if you're strategic about the keywords that you include in the text around the link to your site, you will boost up your link relevancy score as well. The greatest advantage is the opportunity to expand your sales force to thousands of people. Launching an affiliate program you can also increase the brand awareness of your business. e.g. Amazon.com's affiliate program makes it one of the most high traffic site on the internet, with a great exposure for product and services.

How to Survive and Thrive Your Business Online

Everyone wants to know the secret. People at industry convention, executives from Fortune 500 companies, work from home individuals and small business alike all want to know one business secret – how to successfully market themselves online on a global scale.

 

Success in a company is not about having the best technology or being the smartest or even about having the best customer service (although none of these could hurt). More than ever, success is now measured in speed. Today it is about thriving in an ever-evolving world where everything changes so rapidly – and that applies to any business. Today is a world surrounded by buyers who want it now, want perfection and impeccable service.

 

In order to succeed online, your business needs to be organized and able to handle the increased business your web site is going to generate. Here are some guidelines for running a business of speed and complete service.

1. Run your business of speed.



It’s a new phenomenon called Internet time; it’s a 24/7 kind of world today. This means if you’re business is not moving ahead 24 hours a day 7 days a week; your business is falling deeply behind. Internet time means not only doing business quickly but doing it anytime the customer wants and for as long as the customer wants it done. This I what the customers demand, and what every company doing business online needs to offer. The end result is a business that is always working, always aware of potential business, one that is always one call, email or fax away from their clients.

 

2. Having effective meetings means having short meetings.



Meetings are the annoyance of many employees workplace. They involve too little discussion, take up too much time, little gets accomplished, people ramble on too much, and respect and open discussion are often not granted. Meetings though are imperative, but the way in which they are run can definitely be changed for the better. Because the Internet world moves so fast, companies doing business online cannot afford to have unproductive meetings.

 

First set some genuine detail-oriented goals for the meeting. Let people have the option of attending, especially if the issues discussed have nothing to do with them. Post the meeting summary in a place commonly seen by employees, such as the break room. Start and end your meetings on time, and stay within thirty minutes to one hour. Have two or three shorter meetings through the day, with short goals to be accomplished by the next meeting. Also, don’t bore people with anything not on the agenda. Lastly, make the meetings enjoyable; use skits, slideshows, charts, even puppets to get your point across. These moments will likely stick in employee’s heads over the long, drawn-out boring ones.

3. Email several times a day.



In the Internet world, CEOs and employees alike uses technology to supercharge productivity. With all of the pagers, cell phones, laptops, personal organizers and more, email is definitely the most valuable tool. Set up email power sessions with employees; it allows for communication with many employees at the same time and resolves any issues fast. With an email message, you are ensured your message gets delivered to all the right people exactly how you wanted to say it, without the hassle of applying phone tag with employees or risk miscommunication and misunderstanding. Throughout the work day, make blocks of time strictly to email (sending and receiving) at least three to four times a day too.

4. Brand matters on the Internet.



If your business is going to succeed in the Internet world, you will not only need to capture the market share, but also work on improving customer relationships. Whenever your potential or current customers need your products or services, where will they go online? Which Web site will they choose first? Will it be yours? Some tips to increase your business brand online include discovering a way to position yourself as being unique from your competitors. Create the right image, and be sure you continue to reinforce that brand image in everything your company does online and offline. Increase the number of online visitors to your Web site through a variety of Internet marketing strategies.

 

Even if your business only sells locally, do not be afraid to think and market yourself internationally on the Internet. Advertise, advertise, and advertise. Remember the importance of earning your customers trust too.

 

5. The power of feedback.



Ask your customers for feedback, through emails, surveyed phone calls, feedback forms on your Web site, case studies and letters. Ask for feedback often, whenever you are testing out a new product, reviewing sales on an existing product or service, or simply because you want to know how your customers feel about your company. Don’t neglect receiving feedback from your employees too; they know your business too because they work with you.

6. Most importantly, have fun!



Create a working environment where your employees feel free to mix a little fun into their daily routines and express themselves comfortably. After all, a happy employee is a productive one. Let your employees know they are appreciated and needed too, and they will be proud to come to work with you.

 

The Internet world is about building a better business environment through increased communication, greater convenience, personal enjoyment and greater access to information. How does your business measure up online?

BTW, if you have something to say about this article, don't hesitate to comment ;)

Web Rings - An Effective Alternative to Search Engines

Web rings provide different way to categorize sites. They are free service offered to the internet community. They adjust sites with similar content by linking them together in a circle or a ring. Each link in the ring is directed to a CGI script on the web ring's server that sends the viewer on to the next site in the ring. There are literally thousands of rings with subjects such as communications, games, art, real estate and so on. If there isn't a ring suitable for your site, you can create your own. The visitors you receive from involving in the web ring will be potential customers who are responsive to the content and curious about your products or services.

Link exchange and Yahoo pipes

Link exchange and Yahoo pipes have a very nice future of combining their power together into the new trend of finding link partners. But let me explain what is Yahoo pipes, because this was released recently and not so many people had chance to use it. According to the quote from Yahoo website pipe is 'it is an interactive feed aggregator and manipulator; using Pipes, you can create feeds that are more powerful, useful and relevant.' But behind this shy definition stands new potential. Imagine that now you can gather RSS feeds from different web sites and make then searchable under different parameters in a very simple visible form. And people can submit their own data into the search forms to get very specific answers. And you don't need to be programmer. With the help of visual constructor you can create your simple (but not primitive) search engines that is focused to the feeds that you choose. And you don't need having ANY programming talents to make it work. You save it as your own Yahoo pipe and now every visitor of this pipe can submit necessary data and get result from the feeds of this pipe.



How Can this Help Link Exchange?



Keep in your mind that Yahoo pipe is kind of search engine that searches the feeds that you need. Now this is real case example of how you can get extra boost to your link exchange directories with new Yahoo technology. Grab all RSS feeds URLs of your link exchange directories. If your directories don't have RSS feeds, than you are still in the 20th century. Today it is almost a must to have it, and there are many link exchange scripts and tools (even free link exchange scripts) that have RSS feed which is automatically updated with every new link in the directory. Now - take all these feed URLs into your Yahoo pipe. This means you created your own searchable base, base of your link exchange directories. Then, using specific Yahoo Pipes modules, create rules for searching the base. People can search title of links, or title and description, etc. That's it. You have your own Yahoo pipe. This innovation is being nicely promoted by Yahoo, so it's not your problem to attract people to Yahoo pipe. And when they are there - they will use your pipe form to find good partners. If you fit their demand, it means you got new link partners. In the next article on Thumshots.org I am going to show you how this can be possible in real action, step by step, so make sure to have your Yahoo pipe account registered by that time to follow me.

High Rankings

Search engine optimization does not have to be complicated but it does require some work if you plan on having your Website in the top 10 on the major search engines. Many Webmasters want their Websites on the first page of Google, MSN and Yahoo when their keyword is put in the search. Unfortunately they believe one of two things. The first being that it is too difficult for them to do it themselves and the second is that there is a secret trick that will have to perform in order to get high rankings. Both of these statements are false.

Some Webmasters will pay thousands of dollars to a so-called professional SEO expert to have their Websites on top in the rankings. The truth is that you can get top Search Engine Rankings spending a little bit of money and doing the work yourself or paying a professional SEO company thousands of dollars to get your Website on the first page. Both will work the choice is yours.

There are many myths about SEO but I want to tell you the plain truth. The do-it-yourself person can accomplish just as much as the professional. You must be willing to do many tasks of Website Optimization if you want to succeed. There is much information on the Internet on SEO. Some will tell you that the secret to high rankings is creating and submitting many RSS Feeds. Others will tell you that you need quality reciprocal links. Is there just one way of gaining first page on Google?

What is required of Webmasters in order to achieve Top Website Rankings? Some believe that if they perform 3 major tasks of Website Optimization that their Website will soar to the top. I believe that you cannot just do a few works of optimization or come up with a secret trick to achieve a high site ranking on the search engine.

Complete Website Optimization is your best guarantee to having a high ranking on the major search engines. What is complete optimization? Using all of the information and tools to get your site noticed on the search engines with a high ranking for your keywords. If you really want a top ranking and only want to spend a little bit of money I will tell you the many things you will need to do in order to have the first page on the search engines.

Complete Website Optimization is your best guarantee to having a high ranking on the major search engines. What is complete optimization? Using all of the information and tools to get your site noticed on the search engines with a high ranking for your keywords. If you really want a top ranking and only want to spend a little bit of money I will tell you the many things you will need to do in order to have the first page on the search engines.

Having complete Website Optimization will require many working tasks, tools and much researched information. I’m going to give you the many tasks that you will need to perform to accomplish high rankings.

1.   Accurate Description of Website. 2.   Clear Meta tags relevant to your content. 3.   Having your Text Body descriptive of your main Topic. 4.   Finding reciprocal links. 5.   Quality search engine submission. 6.   Proper wording of document title. 7.   Building high traffic Web Pages. 8.   Tools for validation. 9.   Creating and submitting RSS Feeds. 10. Writing and submitting effective articles. 11. Writing and submitting Press Releases. 12. Creating and submitting Blogs. 13. Building and submitting a site map. 14. Submitting to Web Directories. 15. Classified Advertising. 16. Effective email advertising. 17. Traffic boosting tools like toolbars.

Automate Your Online Business!

We are becoming more and more a fast-paced, automated society - so why not our home based or online business? In this article we explore the steps you can take to fully automate your own business - so you can finally take some time to stop and smell the roses....

 

You get up, have some breakfast and head to your home office for a full 8 hour day of optimizing your web site, processing orders, writing articles and press releases and so on. You know that if you stepped away from the office for a day or week or sometimes even an hour, you stand the chance of losing customers and sales. Wasn't part of the benefit of working from home supposed to be the time you would take to have a life as well?

 

Home Based Business is quickly becoming the new 'catch phrase' for the common household. Something that everyone should do, (let's not forget the tax incentives and ability to set your own hours) but unfortunately impossible for some who are already working 40-60 hours per week. Whether that is you, and you can't stop long enough to start up a business from home, or if you are the individual who already has a home based business but can't step away from it for any period of time, automating your business is the answer.

 

There are already a handful of businesses to be found on the internet that are 95% or 100% fully automated. This is reason to celebrate! It makes the idea of starting a home based business more enticing, especially for the individuals who are not internet savvy. These businesses have the selling, explaining and closing feature in place (one of the reasons 95% of new entrepreneurs fail is the awesome responsibility to be able to do those necessary tasks), and most only require the business owner to do the actual marketing of the product, which can also be automated.    

For the rest of the populous, those who already have the product do the selling, explaining and closing but want to market their goods or service via internet as opposed to offline media, then automated marketing is also the answer.

So how do we automate business? First we look at the necessary components of business; product and promotion. If you chose to work with a niche market, favouring something you have a particular interest in, then one of the best and simplest, most cost effective ways to startis by opening a store on Ebay. There, once you find your product supplier (if it isn’t your aunt Nelly’s attic) you can set up your auctions a week in advance, then leave the country for a few days while your auctions close (at a profit of course!) and when you get back, set up the next set of auctions and ship the sold products. Ebay does the advertising for you on their site, closes the sale and sends you the purchaser info. Nicely automated.

 

If you already havea store on the web, you can advertise your new products effectively (and inexpensively / freely) through Search Engine submission, Press Releases and Classified Ad or Ezine Submissions. There are numerous companies on the net that, for a fee ranging from $24 per month to $250 total, will “blast” your ad through classified directories, ezines, and online/offline media, as well as submit your website to 100+ search engine directories, even guaranteeing top 10 placement! Definitely worth the bucks! These too, can be set up in advance, submitted, and then forgotten for a week while you vacation in sunny Mexico. 

 

If you are fortunate enough to have discovered a wonderful new fully automated venture on the internet, then you really have it made! You can set up marketing campaigns through the same “blaster” services and leave the selling, explaining and closing to the automated website that came with your business or through the team leaders that direct your buyers through the sale for you. The Cadillac in internet marketing by far!

Once you have taken the time to set up your campaigns, ads, submissions, press releases, etc. then it is only a matter of pushing a button and watching the sales come in! It really can be just that simple…

Case Study: Marketing plan for Cable and Wireless

BACKGROUND



Company Profile

Cable and Wireless is a global communications group. The company has been recently restructured into two businesses: international and UK. The international business offers mobile, broadband, domestic and international fixed line services to customers in the Caribbean, Panama, Macau, Monaco and the Channel Islands. The UK business besides providing enterprise and carrier solutions to customers in the UK, the US, continental Europe and Asia. The company primarily operates in the UK. It is headquartered in London, the UK.



The company recorded revenues of £3,230 million during the fiscal year ended March 2006, an increase of 9.6% over 2005. The net profit was £175 million in fiscal year 2006, a decrease of 50.6% over 2005. The company recorded a net profit in fiscal year 2006, despite an operating loss, owing to a gain on the sale of non-current assets (£83 million), other income (£85 million), interest income (£80 million) and profit from discontinued operations (£90 million).



Key Issue

Decline in revenue (Poor operating performance) and Negative returns. The company recorded revenues of £3671 million during the fiscal year ended March 2003, a decrease of 16.4% over 2002. Revenues declined significantly in the Caribbean, recording a decrease of 16.3% over fiscal 2003. European revenues decreased by 13.8% over fiscal 2003. The company recorded lower returns than the industry average. Its five year average returns on assets is negative 10.09% as compared to the industry average of 3.26%. Furthermore, its five year average returns on investments is negative 14.98% as compared to the industry average of 4.37%. The company would need to effectively manage its assets and investments to ensure that returns are at par or higher than industry average. C&W recorded a poor operating performance in fiscal 2006. The company recorded an operating loss of £67 million during fiscal year 2006, compared to an operating profit of £131 million in 2005. Cash flow from operations has also declined to £56 million in fiscal 2006, down from £247 million in fiscal 2005. A continued decline in operating performance could result in a liquidity crisis, hampering the company’s capital expenditure strategy. The company must combat the causes of such a significant decline in revenues if it is to remain competitive and retain its standing within the industry.



C&W has been recording negative returns compared to its peers in recent years. During the five year period 2002-2006, the company’s return on assets, investment and equity were -23.5%, -35.2% and -51.1%, respectively, compared to the corresponding industry averages of 1.4%, 1.9% and 8%. Negative returns indicate considerable scope for improving resource utilization and operating efficiency.



Methodology

Analytic Tools

To complete a relevant research on Cable & wireless to identify the key issues I will be using various ways and look in to various factor.



•Internal environment

SWOT analysis: we will be looking at strength (key success factors) weaknesses opportunities and threats. Various performance ratios will be analysed to determine the effectiveness and the efficiency compared with industry competitors (benchmarking).



•External environment



Porter’s 5 forces: the attractiveness of the telecommunication industry in which cable & wireless operates will be measured using, bargaining power suppliers, bargaining power of buyers’ threat of new entry, threats of substitute and competitive rivalry.

Industry/Market profile and analysis: The telecommunications industry as a whole will be evaluated to determine new markets and opportunities in the industry as a whole.



PEST analysis: This will used to appraise the political, economic, social and technological issues that affect cable &wireless.



Research Methods

The group has carried out primary and secondary research. We have derived first-hand information from a staff of Cable and Wireless and. Secondary research was performed; journals, newspapers, annual reports and the internet has been used to abstract the information required to analyze and propose options for solving the problem of the declining revenue and poor returns of Cable and Wireless.



Internal Environment

Cable and Wireless (C&W) is an international telecommunications company. It provides voice, data and internet protocol solutions to business and residential customers across the Caribbean, Panama, Macau, Monaco, the Channel Islands, the UK, the US, continental Europe and Asia. C&W has extensive networks, which allow it to deliver quality telecom solutions. However, the liberalization of the markets in which C&W is the incumbent operator is leading to increased competition, which could result in a loss of market share.



SWOT Analysis

Strengths



Extensive networks

C&W has an extensive network infrastructure. With a world class internet protocol backbone network, the company is a tier 1 operator in Europe. The company’s network in the US allows it to serve 311 US metropolitan areas. C&W has interests in 78 major international cable systems, which provides it with access to every continent.



The company’s Global Roaming Exchange network allows mobile operators in over 70 countries to route General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) traffic to far end operators. C&W also has national telecom networks in the UK, the Caribbean, Europe, Asia, Panama, the Middle East, and in the Atlantic, South Pacific and Indian oceans. An extensive network allows C&W to deliver quality voice, data and internet protocol solutions to customers.



Strong international business

C&W has a strong international business. The international segment, which accounts for 37% of revenues, provides mobile, broadband, domestic and international fixed line services to residential and business customers in 33 countries in the Caribbean, Panama, Macau, Monaco and the Channel Islands. The company is the incumbent operator in most of its markets. C&W is the market leader in 18 out of the 22 markets in which it provides mobile services. It is also the market leader in all of the 21 markets in which it provides broadband services. As of March 2006, the international segment had 2.7 million mobile customers, 275,000 broadband customers and 1.5 million fixed line customers.



The mobile and broadband sub segments are largely driving the revenue growth of the international business. In fiscal 2006, the broadband customer base grew by 97%, while broadband revenues increased by 72% to £57 million.

During the same period, the mobile customer base expanded by 22%, while mobile revenues rose by 19% to £360 million. As a result, international business recorded a revenue growth of 7.8% in fiscal 2006. More importantly, international business generated an operating profit of £315 million in fiscal 2006, which partially offset operating losses in other divisions. Strong international business has enabled C&W to offset weakness in other divisions.



Energis

C&W completed the acquisition of Energis in November 2005 and managed to integrate it with its UK business by March 2006. Energis provides scale and a strong customer base to the UK business of C&W. Energis is the third largest fixed line telecommunications operator in the UK. It provides voice, data, internet, and contact centre services and security solutions to large organizations in the UK and Ireland.



Energis has a strong customer base including the likes of BBC, Caudwell Communications, RAC, Royal and Sun Alliance, the UK Government, Virgin and Wanadoo. For fiscal year ended March 2005, Energis recorded revenue of £720 million and EBITDA of £116 million. In fiscal year 2006, Energis contributed £266 million of revenue and £35 million of EBITDA to the UK results from the date of its acquisition. The combination of C&W’s UK business and Energis is expected to result in operating and capital expenditure synergies of £55 million in 2006-2007, forecast to rise to £80 million in 2007-2008. EBITDA synergies are expected to reach £40 million in 2006-2007 and £55 million in 2007-2008. Energis strengthens the competitive position of the UK business.



Weaknesses



1. Weak profitability of Bulldog

Despite strong growth, C&W’s Bulldog division continues to record operating losses. Bulldog provides broadband and telephony services to residential, small office/home office and small and medium enterprise markets in the UK. This division has managed to improve its customer base from 10,000 customers in March 2005 to 118,000 customers in March 2006, but its operating losses rose sharply from £30 million in fiscal 2005 to £120 million in fiscal 2006.



In the UK broadband market, Bulldog is unable to match the bundled offers of Carphone Warehouse and pricing of Orange. Bulldog is finding it difficult to generate profitable growth without an established brand and retail distribution. Effective April 2006, Bulldog has become a part of C&W’s UK business division. The continuing weak profitability of Bulldog could hurt the operating performance of the UK business.



2. Negative returns

C&W has been recording negative returns compared to its peers in recent years.

During the five year period 2002-2006, the company’s return on assets, investment and equity were -23.5%, -35.2% and -51.1%, respectively, compared to the corresponding industry averages of 1.4%, 1.9% and 8%. Negative returns indicate considerable scope for improving resource utilization and operating efficiency.



3. Poor operating performance

C&W recorded a poor operating performance in fiscal 2006. The company recorded an operating loss of £67 million during fiscal year 2006, compared to an operating profit of £131 million in 2005. Cash flow from operations has also declined to £56 million in fiscal 2006, down from £247 million in fiscal 2005. A continued decline in operating performance could result in a liquidity crisis, hampering the company’s capital expenditure strategy.



Opportunities

1. Growing demand for 3G services

Demand for third generation (3G) mobile services is expected to increase in the near future. Demand for 3G services, which offer advanced features like video telephony over mobile phones, high speed video transmission and data transmission, is expected to increase globally. C&W has mobile operations in 22 countries worldwide and about 2.7 million mobile customers. C&W rolled out Global System for Mobile (GSM) networks in Jamaica, Barbados, Cayman, St Lucia, Dominica, Grenada and St Vincent in 2004. During fiscal 2006, the GSM customer base of the company increased by 56% to over 1.9 million customers.

Growing demand for 3G services, which offer higher margins, would help the company increase its profit margins.



2. Fixed mobile convergence solutions

Demand for fixed mobile convergence solutions is increasing. Consumers have been demanding the convenience of using mobile and fixed line services through a single handset. Fixed mobile convergence solutions allow consumers to use their mobile handsets for fixed line connections at home, without having to use a separate fixed line phone. Typically, fixed mobile convergence solutions reduce mobile spending by 20% to 30%. BT has already launched BT Fusion, a fixed-mobile phone for consumers and small businesses.



In May 2006, BT announced the launch of a new fixed-mobile converged service for large businesses and multinationals. In the same month, C&W announced plans of offering fixed mobile convergence solutions to high end corporate customers. Increasing demand for fixed mobile convergence solutions will allow the company to boost revenue growth.



3. Next Generation Network

C&W announced plans of transforming its UK core network into a next generation network in 2005. This transformation, expected to take three years, is estimated to cost £190 million. It involves the convergence of C&W’s existing five separate service platforms onto a single integrated IP service platform; the reduction of backbone nodes by 50% and rationalization of metro-edge and metro-access nodes; and the installation of ten new soft switches to replace the existing seventy legacy voice switches.



Upon completion, this network will allow the company to offer highly innovative and cost competitive services. This single, integrated and versatile IP based platform will provide C&W with a significant competitive advantage in the UK.



Threats



1. Pricing pressures

The transatlantic, pan-European and US markets are all currently experiencing considerable levels of overcapacity. Overcapacity resulted in a severe price decline in these markets. Due to lower prices many network operators have become financially weakened, and this resulted in consolidation across the industry. Leveraging their scale, the larger companies have cut down prices. This is compelling C&W to lower its prices to combat a threatened loss of market share. Intense price competition puts pressure on the company’s profitability and market share.



2. Liberalization of international markets

Many of the markets in which C&W is the incumbent operator are transitioning from monopoly environments to competitive markets. With the global trend towards liberalization of communications markets, the host governments want to modify exclusive licenses, in order to facilitate an orderly transition to a fully competitive environment. For instance, the Jamaican market was liberalized in 2003, followed by Trinidad and Tobago in 2005.



Increasing competition, particularly in Barbados (following liberalization of the market in February 2005), was the main driver of the 10% decline in international voice revenues in fiscal 2006. The liberalization of the markets in which C&W is the incumbent operator is leading to increased competition, which could result in loss of market share.



3. Increasing contact centers in India

An increasing number of companies in UK are off shoring services to India, which could affect the contact center business of C&W. The UK majors such as HSBC and Prudential have already started operations in India, and many others are expected to follow. In 2004, 17% of the agent positions (number of seats) in India were serving UK businesses. The total number of agent positions in India is forecast to reach 363,100 by 2009, from 179,000 in 2004, a CAGR of 15%. The growth of contact centers in India would erode the contact center solutions business of C&W.



External Environment



Porter’s Five Forces

The Porters Five Forces of Competition Model (figure 1) is used to analyze the environment in which Cable and wireless compete in. It operates in an industry which is characterized by intense competition, high demand and constant technological demands. Analyzing the external environment will enable Cables and Wireless to understand competitors better and to find a improved strategic method of remaining completive.



Threat of new entrants

Cable and Wireless compete in global market operating in over 80 countries. Due to the scale that the company operates on, a high amount of capital investment is necessary making this the biggest barrier-to-entry. To cover the high fixed starting up cost, entries would require a high level of financial backing which is unlikely as solid operating skills and management experience is fairly scarce. The ownership of a telecom license also presents a huge barrier to entry. In countries such as the US, an application to Federal Communications Commission must be made to receive regulatory approval and licensing. The high competition already in place elevates the barriers.



However Cable and Wireless face threat of entry from already existing organization collaborating in joint ventures. An example of this would be the merger of ATT and T Media One. Such competitors are a new threat as they formulate synergy enabling them to become major competitors. There is also a limited amount of "good" radio spectrum that lends itself to mobile voice and data applications.



Bargaining power of suppliers

The telecom equipment suppliers would seem to have greater power over the telecom operate. This may appear so as they provided high-tech broadband switching equipment, fibre-optic cables, and mobile handsets and billing software. However there are actually a numerous large equipment makers around like Nortel, Lucent, Cisco, Nokia, Alcatel, Ericsson, Tellabs are just a few of the supplier names.



There are enough suppliers, arguably, to dilute bargaining power. Even though the equipment provided by suppliers is essential for Cable and Wireless to compete in the industry, if one supplier is unable to provide them with what they want they can easily approach others. An example of this is Nokia's network infrastructure Nokia supply Cable & Wireless with GSM and WCDMA 3G radio networks, including HSDPA, and core networks, including the Nokia MSC Server mobile soft switches.



Cable and Wireless have improved they relationship with suppliers with the creation of my SAP and Accenture (system dealing with purchasing) receiving from the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply Awards. The company has more effective dealing with suppliers which has weakened bargaining power of suppliers as many will be willing to work with a company with a prestige’s reputation.



Bargaining of power of buyers

Customer of cable and wireless would be said relatively high bargaining power as the industry is fiercely filled with choice from numerous telecoms provided. Customers are forever seeking lower prices and better service. However this power can vary depending on the market segment .Small and individual customers i.e. residential customers have the highest bargaining power as switching cost are minimal if at all.



The costs for larger business customers however, especially those that rely more on customized products and services can be greater. In certain circumstances however whereby Cable and Wireless streamlined its business in the UK by axing up to 3,500 jobs over the next 4-5 years and reducing its customer base from 30,000 to 3,000 buyer bargaining power is driven down. This is however unhelpful for Cable as other competitors it can move in where they are moving out from.



Rivalry of competitors

The 90’s saw the level of competition these industries alter. With the de-regulation and receptive capital markets made it easier for new entrants to entry increasing rivalry. In a fast moving industry such as this, technological advances are paramount if a business such as Cable and Wireless are able to bet of competitors. Rivalry is high as competitors continually look for ways to lure customers with lower prices and better services.



It is more so than other industry as the products that are provided are very similar and the option for diversification are minimal. However these factors drive industry profits down meaning that high levels of exist barriers. Networks and billing systems cannot really be used for much else, and their swift obsolescence makes liquidation pretty difficult. The rivalry of competitors is increased by mergers in the industry.



Threat of substitute products

Threat of substitution can come in three main categories. Substitution of product for product, substitute of need and lastly substitute…. In the telecommunication industry all three are evident and the threat is very real. Substitution threats are created from products and services from non customary telecom industries. The competition for buyers is increasing in the cable, tv and satellite market. People working in that industry have direct lines in to homes and the services they offer i.e. broadband and satellite links can substitute for rapid company networking requirements.



The internet is putting telecom companies under pressure because its becoming a feasible medium for cut rate voice calls and could affect telecom companies income pertaining to their core voice. The constant development in technological advances makes threat of substitute very high. An example of this is the new Apple iTV devices which will receive programs wirelessly from home computer to play on the television screen.



PESTEL Analysis

Economic



Pricing pressure

The transatlantic, pan-European and US markets are all currently experiencing considerable levels of overcapacity. Overcapacity coupled with lower than expected levels of demand growth contributed to a severe price decline in these markets. This in turn resulted in many network operators becoming financially distressed and filing for bankruptcy or chapter 11 protection. This could compel C&W to lower prices to prevent erosion of its market share or to continue attracting new customers. If C&W is forced to lower its prices the financial condition may be adversely affected.



Reduction in capital spending

A significant percentage of the C&W's revenue is generated by providing business customers with telecommunications, IP, voice, data, managed hosting services and content delivery. The telecommunications industry is currently facing unfavorable market conditions, including amongst other factors, the decline in investment in the industry and decline in demand for certain telecommunications products and services. A continued slowdown in capital spending by service providers and other customers may affect C&W's revenues.



Currency risk

Fluctuating foreign currency exchange rates will have a significant impact on C&W's earnings. C&W generates a substantial percentage of its revenues (about 59.6%) outside of its domestic market in the UK. Fluctuations in the value of the currencies in the international markets in which the company operates will affect C&W's total earnings. For instance, C&W regional business reported revenues of £1411 million in 2003, a decrease of £55 million or 3.8% from 2002. Many of C&W's regional revenues and costs arise in currencies that are linked to the US dollar. Fiscal 2003 results were affected by, an 8% devaluation in the US dollar against sterling and a 14% devaluation in the Jamaican dollar.



Political/Legal

C&W faces regulatory and market access constraints in various countries resulting from laws, public policies and licensing requirements. Many of the markets in which C&W operates are in transition from monopoly environments to competitive markets. With the global trend towards liberalization, C&W is engaged with host governments, who want to modify exclusive licenses, in order to facilitate an orderly transition to a fully competitive environment.



Following the transposition of the EU electronic communications directives into national laws, member states will no longer require market entrants to hold an individual license. Instead, providers of electronic communications networks and services would be regulated through general authorizations. Accordingly the individual licenses that C&W holds in EU member states have been or will be revoked in the near future. Some licenses provide that, upon their termination, the relevant government may purchase, or have the option to purchase, the property, plant and equipment of the licensee in that territory at a fair market value. This may adversely affect the company's business. Furthermore it would lead to increase in competition in the markets and may adversely affect the company's market share.



Technology



Increased broadband penetration

There has been increased broadband DSL penetration in the UK recently. This provides companies the potential to change the economics of access for business customers, providing high quality, low cost voice and data applications on a single platform. Moreover, local loop unbundling (LLU) will provide selective opportunities driven by customer demand. Cable & Wireless' acquired Bulldog Communications in 2004. Bulldog offers a wide range of high speed broadband services using digital subscriber line technology. The acquisition of Bulldog will accelerate C&W's ability to deliver directly connected DSL solutions to existing and potential customers with an experienced team specializing in LLU services.



Greater awareness for security products

Demand for security products has been increasing significantly mainly due to greater awareness of security and homeland defense worldwide. The company provides access solutions comprising security services such as managed firewalls, intrusion detection and response, scanning and analysis and authentication and encryption services. Increased legislations aimed at improving law enforcement and security measures will increase demand for products offered by the company.



Market Position, Industry Competitors and Benchmarking

C&W is the world's fourth largest international carrier of voice traffic and operates significant international submarine cable and satellite systems that are centrally managed within the United Kingdom. The IP backbone AS3561 provides IP connectivity to the United Kingdom, United States, European and Japan regions. C&W is the second largest telecommunications company in the UK after British Telecom.



The following companies are the major competitors of Cable and Wireless plc:

1. COLT Telecom Group Plc


2. Level 3 Communications, Inc.


3. NTT Corporation


4. Verizon Communications


5. Vodafone Group Plc


6. Carphone Warehouse Group Plc


7. The Easynet Group Plc


8. Gamma Holding NV


9. MCI, Inc.


10. BT Group plc


11. Global Crossing Ltd.


12. Qwest Communications International Inc.


13. Kingston Communications (HULL) Plc

Market Analysis

The leading geographical market is the US, which contributes $235.1 billion in revenues to the global industry. In recent years the markets of the developed world have been driven by broadband subscriptions, within the US alone there are over 41 million households and firms subscribed to a broadband connection. The Asia-Pacific market is increasing in importance due to the rapidly expanding economics of the NICS, China and India. Asia Pacific has the second largest market, with combined revenues of approximately $170.1 billion.



The global diversified telecommunication services industry consists of fixed line telecommunication services and alternative carriers. Growth rates in the industry dipped in 2003 but have since returned to a state of buoyancy as the telecommunication needs of the emerging economies boosted revenues. Eastern Europe is growing in importance; as are the markets of the Asia-Pacific region allow global industry to communicate on a level playing field. The global diversified telecommunication services industry generated total revenues of $580.2 billion in 2005, this representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.3% for the five-year period spanning 2001-2005. Fixed line revenues are unlikely to match present revenue growth in the future as the demand for wireless forms of communication take increasing hold of the wider telecommunications industry.



In the US alone there are over 41million households and firms subscribed to a broadband connection. The Asia-Pacific market is increasing in importance due to the rapidly expanding economics of the NICS, China and India. Asia Pacific has the second largest market, with combined revenues of approximately $170.1 billion. Looking forward, the industry is forecast to accelerate its current performance, with an anticipated CAGR of 4.6% for the five-year period 2006-2010 expected to drive the industry to a value of $727.4 billion by the end of 2010. Volumes are unlikely to see large gains in terms of growth; revenue growth will largely be driven by rising prices and technological substitution. The rapid industrialization of China and India will continue to drive the industry.



OPTIONS DERIVED



PLAN A



Continue to seek out alliances to expand

Cable &Wireless’s principal operations are in the Caribbean, Panama, Macau, Monaco and the Channel Islands. Its ownership of these companies is varied – some are wholly owned and others are partly owned with the public, the local government or other corporate partners. Its 33 businesses comprise 24 subsidiaries and 9 joint ventures and associates.



Cable and Wireless can move forward by continuing to build coverage in larger markets and utilize mergers and acquisitions for further expansions. In smaller markets, it can have affiliate or form new partnerships in order to expand their networks. They will therefore pay lower than typical roaming rates for customers that travel to affiliate markets. It can also use joint ventures to build out certain market segments where shared networks make the most economic sense. Cable and Wireless can continue to use roaming agreements to extend coverage. Increasing and solidifying its international coverage. This is critical in order to compete successfully and reduce the pressure on its margins.



Global brand strength

Cable and Wireless’s recognition as a global brand should build upon the strength of its operating company brands. This will enables it to embark on more high-profile marketing campaigns which will give it the ability to offer global services which companies operating in individual markets would find difficult to do on their own.

This will therefore give Cable and Wireless an important competitive edge in local markets. Due to the diversity of its markets in terms of size, geography and culture, it should treat each business individually by tailoring its services to the relevant market – but make effective and efficient use of scale and position as a global network.



Exposure in emerging markets

Cable and Wireless has investments in many emerging markets in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. From the industry analysis of this report, China and India represent two major markets for cellular telecommunications that are likely to grow rapidly in future years. China is one of the world’s largest mobile phone markets and though, Vodafone has acquired a presence in it through China Mobile Limited (Vodafone currently owns 3.3% of China Mobile Limited), this presence is small.

This provides less opportunity to fully exploit this lucrative market. India also appears very appealing, with a population in excess of one billion, where the company as no presence. The company’s lack of presence in emerging markets acts as a disadvantage for the company as it is unable to leverage on the growing opportunities in those markets.