In the Online Future Shopping Index Survey, it revealed that a massive 48% of respondents said they used a mobile phone at some point during their Christmas 2011 shopping. This response, although expected, continues to prove that mobile internet browsing is the way of the future.

More interestingly however was the emergence of Tablet PCs such as iPads, Galaxy Tabs etc. In just 18 months since the iPad hit our shelves, it accounted for 14% of purchases made online over the Christmas. This almost matches the 15% of orders made via Mobile Phones!

This staggering growth, combined with the fact that tablet users are most likely to spend more on their online purchases than mobile phone users is a clear indication that a Tablet PC strategy for your online business is something that needs to be taken very seriously.

The fact that people are purchasing more via Tablet PCs is no surprise really. We’ve been pushing businesses to make their mobile experience as engaging and easy to use as possible for over a year now. Online shopping can be hard enough on a desktop computer at times, so streamlining the process for mobile devices just naturally improves conversions.

With bigger screens and more space to for the user to interact with, means ordering via an iPad or similar is a lot easier than on a mobile phone. It’s inevitable really that as Tablet PCs become lighter and more mobile, people will use them a lot more for tasks such as shopping etc.

We’ve already seen with clients who attract high mobile visitors to their websites, Tablet PCs already making a huge impact in terms of the percentage of mobile devices being used to visit the website. In some cases, Tablet PCs (iPads in particular) are accounting for 40% of all mobile traffic.

So if you failed to get on board and develop a mobile optimised website, now is the time to start creating a mobile friendly site that will work in smartphones and Tablet PCs respectively.

As time has past, we all know that Google, even though it wasn’t around when the term SEO (search engine optimisation) was first used, can be accredited to the creation of many small businesses and a whirl of fly by nights claiming to be SEO Gods.

One phrase that is common with all SEO companies is the term “Content is King”. This term is not one that can only be used in the SEO world, but it can apply to many different areas of marketing or product development.

But is content really King when it comes to SEO?

In it’s most basic form content is most definitely King. Google will happily slurp as much quality content from your website as it can. So that means the more quality content you have, the better it is for getting your website found on the search engines.

So why did I ever post this article at all if content is King after all?

Well you see, people like take the easy route when it comes to getting things done. If they could copy someone else’s content word for word without affecting their brand or search rankings, they would probably do it just to save time.

Unless you have a proper strategy for how you will develop your content you could just be wasting your time. If we take a client case study as an example, it will probably give you a better idea of where I’m coming from.

For years we focused on developing reams of content on every topic we could think of relating to their business. We spent hours developing content and implementing it on the website.

It had an amazing effect on the traffic to their website. They were exceeding well in excess of 300 unique visitors per day. Their traffic to the website was driven mainly by the many hundreds, if not thousands of keywords the site ranked very highly for.

But as things changed, we noticed that Google was no longer taking the reams of content as serious as it used to and although we were still achieving a high level of traffic, we decided it was time to take a bold approach.

Instead of focusing on the amount of content, we focused purely on the quality. We reduced the number of pages, the amount of content per page and focused entirely on content that would deliver conversions.

Literally overnight the site began to drop in terms of the amount of traffic it was receiving on a daily basis. In the end when everything embedded fully and Google removed the references to the old pages that no longer existed, the site was averaging have the amount of visits per day.

Disaster you might be thinking right?

Well in fact, it was the complete opposite. Although traffic had decreased significantly, conversions and business were up. It was clear to us at that stage that the work we had done on providing quality content that was person centred and written in such a way that engaged with the visitor, it had actually improved the conversions from the people visiting the web.

So the next time you are planning the content for your website, remember that as important as content is you should focus on the quality rather than the quantity (which a lot of SEOs try to push you to do!).

I must also finish up by saying that the recent changes to Google’s algorithm have meant that websites with poor quality content (and lots of it) have been negatively affected by this change resulting in major drops in their previous rankings.

The site is presented in an excellent graphical form and is well worth a look. But don’t take my word for it, go see for yourself! Click the image below!

Created by Online PhD

When used correctly QR Codes can be a really good way of getting more information to your potential customer than you can achieve with your typical billboard or TV advert. But with the growth of QR Code use, so does the growth of people using them really badly. It seems everyone just wants to have a QR Code now – without really understanding how they could benefit you.

So here are a few tips you should take note of when using QR Codes to market your business.

1. Mobile Friendly Website
   It’s probably just a pet hate of mine, but one of my biggest frustrations is after scanning a QR code on my phone to be redirected to a website that is not optimised for viewing on a mobile device.If you’re linking to a website, link to a mobile friendly version of your website because this is what most people will be using to scan your QR Code!
2. Content Relevancy
   Again, not only should you link to a mobile friendly version of your website, you should really be linking directly to content that is relevant to the advert the person has scanned your QR Code from.So for example, if I am a letting agency with an advert about a particular property, the QR Code I am printing should link directly to the information about that property. Similarly, if I’m selling a new camera, I should link directly to an optimised web page that allows me to purchase directly from my mobile device.
3. Track It!
   The beauty of QR Codes are that it allows you to put in pretty much any URL you want. Therefore the opportunity of tracking the number of people who have scanned your QR code is there and freely available. Don’t miss a trick by not including a tracking method in the URLs you include in your QR Code.
4. Use Short URL’s
   The more data you put in a QR Code, the more pixelated it becomes, which means scanning it becomes more difficult in badly lit areas etc. To keep the pixelation to a minium, rather than including your full URL, use one of the many free URL shortening tools to shorten your URL before you create and use on your QR Code.
5. Make it BIG (but not too big)
   There are some classic examples on the internet of where businesses have just got it all wrong when it comes to the size of your barcode. Make sure the QR Code on your advert is not too small that it simply won’t scan on the end users phone. On the flip-side make sure the end user doesn’t have the cross the road to fit your QR Code into the window of their scanning software!
6. Be Creative!
   If you really want people to engage with your campaign – try make something worth scanning. Create an incentive for people to scan your barcode, whether it be to win a prize or to view a secret area of your website. QR Codes are new to the masses so now is the time to be creative!

Their study, which analysed 16.2 billion visits to retail websites showed that Tablet users spent 21% more on a their purchases than their traditional counterparts. Interestingly the report shows that although there is a growth in people buying online via their smartphones, people tend to spend the least per transaction on their smartphone.

What this report shows is that there is a clear distinction in how people interact with online shops via mobile devices. A “one size fits all” mentality just doesn’t work when it comes to designing your web site for people using a smartphone, tablet pc or desktop computer.

People using different devices clearly have a different methodology on how they will use their device to research or purchase online. When designing your website, you should be very conscious of what each user expects when visiting your website on each different device.

If you’d like to read the report in full you can visit http://success.adobe.com/en/na/programs/digital-marketing-insights.html 

We wish there was a simple answer to this as it would mean a lot less work on our behalf, but typically, as cheeky as it sounds, we have to respond with “how long is a piece of string?”. Because unfortunately there is no simple answer to this question.

As much as we wish everyone’s requirements were the same, they are not. For some a very basic website with a couple of pages will suffice, but for most others they want an extra level of interactivity or functionality with their website.

So just to prove to you that it’s not a simple question, with a simple answer, we’ve put together a short list of web sites and their development costs. Hopefully this will give you some indication as to how difficult it is to answer the “how much is a website” question!

AND! Don’t forget we give free estimates on the cost of designing a website for you – so please do not hesitate to contact us on +353 1 2190223 or info@2bscene.ie

Four Seasons – $18 Million
A brand new website just released for the hotel chain. Who would have thought this site would cost in the region of $18 million to design and develop?

FAS Jobs Ireland Website – €1.7 Million
Although I’m not sure if this website ever saw the light of day, it was reported to have cost the tax payer €1.7 million.

MerrionStreet.ie – €40,000
The tax payers forked out again for this one. A government initiative to give the public an idea of the activity happening in Government buildings.

Recovery.gov - €18 Million
I guess governments, regardless of the country you live in have no common sense when it comes to spending tax payers money. Ironically Recovery.gov was set up to track government spending under the Obama administration.

Smartphone makers were happy to use this freely available software in the shape of Android. It came the ability to make the phone look and feel like it was “their own” interface. This freedom has unfortunately lead to major headaches for the phone makers as they try to keep their customers happy with regular updates of the operating system.

Android is continuously upgrading their OS, and when the phone makers have a customised user interface on their devices, they too must update their phones and the OS with each upgrade. This is obviously time consuming and costly for the manufacturers. Android has in some cases had to intervene with phone makers to try “push” them to upgrade their operating systems for their customers to ensure the quality of Android is maintained.

You may have noticed recently that iPhone users received an update to their iOS. I won’t say it ran smoothly, but it ran pretty smoothly and everyone was able to avail of this update. With iPhone one thing is for sure… there is only one iPhone!

Unfortunately for Android this scenario would never happen. Because of fragmentation, users are left at the peril of the phone manufacturers and if they choose to update to the latest version or not.

Android have for sometime now been trying to come up with a solution to this issue and are trying hard to reduce the fragmentation amongst devices. Today they announced a new weapon in their armour to reduce fragmentation and that is an app designers / developers guide to designing apps.

The comprehensive style guide for app developers discusses what fonts, colours and layouts etc. to use when designing an Android mobile app. Those interested can view the dedicated website and full guide here http://developer.android.com/design/

It has to be said that the new look and feel is a great improvement, but does bear a lot of similarities to the Windows phone design and feel. Hopefully this move will help remove some of the awful user interface disasters that are widely available on the Android market today.

Realising that they may well have to pay a similar amount of money that they paid for their website to run a Search Engine Optimisation campaign can sometimes be a bitter pill to swallow.

The infographic below gives you an indication of how much SEO costs amoung 500 SEO consultants worldwide.

You can read the full survey results here >>

You could build a beautiful website that functions perfectly in all modern browsers only to then test it in Internet Explorer 6 and see it fall flat on its face. Web designers and developers across the World have for many years been asking for the beast that is IE6 to be killed off once and for all.

IE6 has created a world in which web developers have been held back from developing innovative websites using the latest coding standards. It has slowed the progress and roll out of some really innovative developments in the Internet Sphere for sometime now.

When we launched our latest website earlier this year, we decided that we would not support users of IE6. We felt that the low traction of 6% was enough to just prompt the user to upgrade their browser rather than allowing them to access our website.

Thankfully it appears that in the US IE6 usage is now below 1% – which is fantastic news!

This statistic prompted me to look deeper into the browser statistics, something I haven’t done for a number of months. The last few months saw Google’s Chrome browser overtake Firefox as being the World’s second most popular browser but that was no surprise. The trends made it look inevitable.

Today I checked out the statistics in Ireland. Although the web is a global entity, a lot of our customers tend to do all if not most of their business in Ireland.

I was surprised to see that Google Chrome is now used by 33.29% of Irish web users, compared to 34.2% of Internet Explorer users. I would now be surprised if Google Chrome didn’t take Internet Explorers crown in January 2012 if the statistics are to be believed.

A lot of Irish web design companies tended to use Internet Explorer as their barometer in terms of testing websites. This was simply because most of their clients would have Internet Explorer installed on their machines by default and would never look any further for an additional browser. Of course, this has all changed now and any web designer worth their weight in gold would definitely have checked the cross browser compatibility of your website.

Either way – do your own testing and make sure your website works in Google Chrome as this is likely to be the most used browser in Ireland come the end of the month!

Social Media Marketing will continue to grow in 2012 as more and more companies realise the value of using these channels to market their businesses.

Some of the most interesting statistics from the infographic below are:

1. There are more than 800 Million active users on Facebook
2. Auto-posting to Facebook decreases likes and comments by 70%
3. 56% of consumers say they would recommend a Facebook page they have liked
4. 34% of marketers have generated leads via Twitter
5. 92% of people say they retweet content because it is interesting
6. 43% of all online consumers are social media fans