Web Search & Marketing News

December 2004 Newsletter

Welcome to the December issue of our newsletter, providing news and advice to help market your business online.

The last month of 2004 seems to have crept up rapidly and the run-up to Christmas is now in full swing for many companies, with online shopping also seeing another big increase in activity this year. We've included a short review this month of some latest research on Internet shopping behaviour from Hitwise which makes interesting reading.

We also return to the impending launch of MSN's new search engine and report on the new beta version of the tool which is now available. Thankfully many websites have been spared the dramatic change in Google's rankings which occurred about this time last year, but the imminent challenge from MSN is bound to generate some new activity from Google and Yahoo in the coming months.

Firstly this month, we focus on 'accessibility'. It may not be sexy, but it is an increasingly important part of web design standards, both from a legal and functionality point of view. If you read this and want to know more about how your site performs, we can help!

Please read on below…and if you want to refer to any items included previously, or view this current issue online, you can find them here.

Best regards,
Clive Hawkins

On to this month's news...

How accessible is your website?

'Website accessibility' is one of the buzzwords on the Internet right now, but how important is it for you to make your site accessible and how difficult is it?

Accessibility refers to meeting a set of website design guidelines and standards that enable your site to be used by as wide a range of users as possible, including those with disabilities. There are a number of good reasons to make your website accessible, including:

• Having a truly accessible site means that you are taking into consideration how different groups, such as the visually impaired, may use the web and therefore ensures your site can be used easily by the maximum number of people.
• In many cases this will also result in your site being more usable and working consistently across a range of browsers.
• There are legal requirements outlined in the DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) that websites are obliged to adhere to. The interpretation of this act in relation to websites is continually evolving and no case has yet been brought under UK law. This article from the Royal National Institute for the Blind provides a good overview of the current situation.
• An accessible site also indicates to your peers and potential clients or customers that you have an awareness of accessibility issues and are being actively inclusive.

Making your site accessible to users can vary in difficulty, depending on how your site was originally designed and its size and complexity. Websites which are designed with well structured HTML tend to present fewer problems than sites which rely heavily on graphics and 'tables' for their presentation.

There are a variety of reports and checklists that you can use to evaluate and improve your site's accessibility - we have found the following resources were particularly useful:

• The Web Accessibility Initiative provides a large number of guidelines for different levels of accessibility, including their Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, which are the accepted international standard.
• Bobby and Cynthia are accessibility validation services that can test a site's pages to the above guidelines and the American section 508 standards.

If you would like to know more about how your website performs, we are able to offer a more detailed evaluation of your website's current situation and include recommendations on making your site accessible. This evaluation will identify aspects of your website which may discriminate against disabled users and do not meet the requirements of Part III of the UK Disability Discrimination Act 1995.

This evaluation will address some or all of the following areas, depending on your situation:

• Manual and automated tests of the website for accessibility against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
• Assessment of a range of usability issues, including any navigational issues
• An assessment of whether the website contravenes government set guidelines
• Site simplicity and consistency - how language and visual cues are used within a website
• Browser compatibility - how the website is viewed using different browsers
• Readability - colour schemes, text only versions and visual clarity
• Speed of download
• Font compatibility
• HTML and style sheet validation

If you would like us to implement a report on your site's accessibility, please contact us for more information and a quote, since the cost of this report will depend on the size and complexity of your site.

Microsoft launches new beta search engine

Latest insights into search behaviour

Hitwise are a leading online traffic measurement company who track website usage through a network of leading ISPs. A recent press release has revealed some interesting statistics on pre-Christmas shopping activity on the Internet in the UK.

Firstly, they report that 28% of people used a single word in their search, compared to 30% who used 2 words, whilst 42% used 3 or more words. These figures suggest that web searchers are making more detailed search requests than ever before, partly due to the need to find specific results and also because more users are becoming 'search savvy'. This also demonstrates the usefulness of targeting a range of quite specific terms to ensure coverage of the potential search market.

Another finding that Hitwise reported was that of the top 1,000 most successful shopping search terms, 63.7% were brand specific (e.g., 'ebay'), 27.5% were generic product searches (e.g., 'mobile phones') and 8.8% were specific product searches (e.g., 'nokia 6260'). This shows that if you are selling or promoting goods or services with a strong brand, it is important to target this in your search marketing.

Hitwise, together with ComScore and Neilsen NetRatings are the major companies providing this type of information on web usage. Although their services and costs are clearly targeted at larger businesses, we have found that the press releases and newsletters they produce are certainly worth checking out as they can provide a wealth of useful information about market shares and trends in user behaviour.

Testing the effectiveness of PPC advertising

We spend a significant amount of time making sure that the pay-per-click campaigns we run provide our clients with the best value and ROI (Return on Investment), which is particularly useful if conversion tracking code is used. However it can still be very useful to test different strategies with bid prices, keywords and adverts to ensure this performance is retained or improved further.

Google AdWords has a useful feature that allows more than one advert to be created for the same group of keywords. Google displays 2 or more adverts alternately so that a split test can be run to see which advert converts more searches to visits. We have also conducted tests for some of our clients using different bid prices over weekly periods to establish the best performance levels between sales/leads and the average cost per click.

If you have a PPC campaign in place and would like to know more about testing its performance, or if you want to discuss the advantages of using PPC advertising, please contact us now to find out more.
 
 

We hope you've found this month's issue useful. Please contact us if you need any more details on the items covered, or our advice on any aspect of your website's performance. Also, if there are any issues you would like to see in future editions of this newsletter, please submit your suggestions.