Surf the e-commerce tide

Cheesy title but it’s Friday and I like cheese. It seems the UK e-commerce market increased by 46% to £4.2 billion in 2007, which represented 15% of all retail sales (source: IMRG Gapgemini e-Retail Sales Index). But the good news for small and medium sized companies who want to start their own online business is that it’s not too late. Shoppers expect a better deal online and as the real economy starts to react to inflation and the credit crunch, more and more people are likely to look online for the best deals. We don’t usually use the blog to plug our products but the Epicado Shop ticks all the right boxes. If you want an online marketing  system that enables you to control what you sell, set discounts and special offers, publish newsletters and most important of all, get found in the search engines and price comparison sites,  please get in touch.

If there’s no such thing as a free lunch, how come so many hosting companies and their resellers claim to offer unlimited hosting/bandwidth? And what do the people who ask for such a service expect - a free lunch every day for the rest of their lives? Burger and fries for evermore anyone?

What most clients want is quality hosting. It’s only when something goes wrong that they realise the value of good hosting - it’s like insurance - you only appreciate it when you haven’t got it and something bad happens.

The simple truth is that unlimited users on one computer or server make the server slow to read and update. Imagine if the global population was to use one server - they’d have to queue and wait. If you want to offer your clients a slow and unregulated service, use a server with unlimited sites on it.

Bandwidth is limited by the size of the ‘pipe’. Like any funnel, you can’t squeeze everything through at the same time. So, if you want slow delivery, get yourself some unlimited bandwidth.

One final thought - if your site’s on a shared server with one IP address and there happens to be just one dodgy adult or gambling site sharing that server, don’t be suprised if your site gets kicked off Google.

According to John Spagnuolo, president of research firm the New Media Institute, company bosses who fail to deploy a search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy could be doomed.

As the web becomes the dominant consumer medium, he warns that managers need to ensure consumers can find their website or they may struggle to attract new customers and compete.

His company commented: “In this new media age, if a company’s products or services can not be found within the first page of search engine results, they may be doomed to failure.”

This means SEO ought to be a “major focus” for any company trying to attract clients through the web, Mr Spagnuolo added.

Online resource E-consultancy has published a guide to SEO, warning that it is vital to adopt best practice when optimising a website for search engines as otherwise a change in the algorithms can dramatically affect a company as it drops out of the top rankings.