Year: 2006

Don’t know what to blog about? Try politics.

If you want to get a top blog you need to write about politics or blogging itself. That’s the conclusion you can draw from a year-long study by Internet metrics analysts Nielsen. They measured the top blog postings according to how many people commented on them and how many links

Big business is catching up with the Internet – at last

If you’ve heard me speak in public, you’ll know that one of the regular themes I talk about is the fact that a business needs several web sites, not just one. In the offline world, few businesses have one point of contact. But in the online world they seem to

User-generated content wins at Google

Google has just published it’s list of the most searched terms for 2006. Seven out of the top ten are for user-generated sites. That tells us that most people are searching for sites where they can contribute – not just read. Your web site users want to take part –

Stop focusing on your web site – talk to people!

Every day, web site owners ask me how they can get more business online. Often they are shocked when I say that the most important thing to do is to concentrate their activities offline. The main reason I give is that around 60% of people visit a web site having

User generated content – it really, really is important

You will have read a few times in this web site that user-generated content, in my view, is an essential component of a good web site. (You can add your comments below if you disagree..!) However, it’s not just me bleating on about this. Every year, Time Magazine announces its

Blogging set to peak next year? What tosh..!

This morning I’ve already received a press release and several links to news stories based on it, all telling me that blogging is “set to peak” next year. According to Gartner, the IT consultancy organisation, blogging and user generated content will hit its peak in 2007. Even the BBC has

Blogging, the Internet and your memory

Years ago in the dim dark distant past of psychology – the 1970s – we thought that human memory was a chemically mediated function within the brain. Now, there is a growing belief that memory is based on DNA and much of it could therefore be distributed throughout our body.

Make more money online by establishing your expertise

Just think for a moment about the last time you bought a major item in a store. Did you consider several options first? Did you visit a variety of stores to check prices? Did you chat with a sales assistant to get some questions clarified? If you are like most

Stop putting it off – start your blog now!

Yesterday I met a successful businessman who runs his own company and who has been “thinking about writing a blog for over a year now” – his exact words. Last week I met a woman whose web site has been in the “planning stage” for nearly 18 months and by

Corporate web sites starting to get more viewers than TV programmes

According to the advertising trade magazine, Advertising Age, some corporate web sites are now getting more viewers than the TV programmes in which the companies also advertise their products. The report shows that the companies that are getting the highest numbers of visitors are those that go beyond simply having

Your web site almost certainly has poor accessibility for the disabled

According to a new study of accessibility, 97% of web sites are not geared up for disabled Internet users. That means your site (and mine) probably fail the basic tests of being accessible for a variety of disabilities. Interestingly, the study found that 89% of sites had “poor navigation”. Considering

Internet marketers in the UK – do they know something the Americans don’t?

A study just published on search engine advertising reveals that UK-based Internet companies are spending more than twice the amount per user as their American counterparts. In the USA, advertisers in 2006 will have spent $37.78 online for each Internet user. In the UK, advertisers will be spending $83.33 for

What is a perfect web site?

If you were to look at a web design magazine these days you would notice that the web sites being hailed as “suberp”, “perfect” or “brilliant” are full of images, multimedia, clever bits of technology and so on. But when you ask Internet users, outside the web design industry, you

The Internet is a lifestyle choice: that means opportunities for business

The annual Mediascope survey confirms that the Internet is fast becoming a “lifestyle” thing. By that I mean it is being incorporated into everyday living for many people; as normal as watching TV, reading a newspaper or driving to work. No longer is the Internet seen as something “new fangled”.

Make your web site into a community

People just love being members of a community. Years ago, when we all lived in small settlements, our community was the group of people we lived with; for many people in the world this is still the case. Nowadays, we are members of several different “communities”. Our locality has taken

Learning from the Threshers Internet voucher experience

In the UK, the wine and spirits retailer Threshers is front page news because of a discount voucher. It offered an online 40% discount voucher to a few selected people. But the voucher was posted on a blog and was downloaded by 800,000 people. Threshers say they are surprised, but

Why you need more than one blog

Having a single blog is not enough, particularly for those running a business online. Here’s why. The vast majority of blogs get very little traffic; only a handful of people read a typical blog. Indeed, one study suggests that 40% of all blogs receive less than 10 readers per week.