Verecom Web Design Blog

If the goal of building up a website is to let more people like to keep using it after first try, then first of all, you need originality for your website. The originality can from an assembly of bookmarks, a combination of the pictures or certain scheme of the website, for example, an online stray dogs care community. I cannot tell you how to make these ideas, because this is the most precious treasure of the website makers, and it is the original point of everything.

After you have ideas, then you need to set up the website itself. I really wish the e-business entrepreneur see building a website as building a house in this stage. For both, the foundation has to set up properly. Therefore you really need some knowledge of web structure. In order to set up foundation properly you have to consider that which platform you will use to develop the product; whether there will be any difficulties for you to add new items based on the current service you provide in the future; whether there will be any troubles of system efficiency when the website is enlarged in size later.

All these problems will not emerge in the early stage of website construction. But you will find it is really hard to come back to solve all these problems after your website has developed in certain scale. This is one of the reasons why many articles about e-business emphasized on the important of having good technology development team at the first place. You also have to know that a good programmer is not always a good system planner. If you can have one or two people who have talent in system planner in your initial web development team then it will be really helpful for you to build up your website on a good foundation in the future.

One thing I have to mention that no one can predict whether the website will have great traffics at very beginning. You might feel annoying if the web technicians keep telling you how important it is to set up a good foundation at beginning. In this case, you have to understand that what they concern about is related to the three elements of web structure. They are “design”, “usability” and “Search Engine Optimization - SEO”.

To set up a commercial website is not something easy, good web skills and three elements actually are different things. Normally designer will in charge of the design part to make the page looks attractive; on the other hand, usability is to reduce the level of difficulty for the users in using this website. However in the eye of the designers, design and usability always conflict with each other. Therefore, balance these three elements is already a very difficult job in planning a commercial website, which expects to gain the profits in the future.

But actually the most difficult part for the website structure is SEO (Searching Engine Optimization). These three letters can mean many things to e-business, some people view this as cheating, like playing some tricks with the search engine while some people think this is just trivial things that all the developers can do. Some people can not bear the changes of the web page after the work of SEO; designers always complained about why they can not use Flash here or there because website with lots of Flash is hard to get optimised.

Then what on earth does SEO really mean? Before we doubt the validity of SEO, we should first understand SEO from the view point of the search engines.

If you are Yahoo or Google, what kind of websites you want to put into the front?

When the online users are using a search engine, if the searching results on this search engine provided can not direct them to find the information they want quickly; instead, they have to check page by page; then surely they will feel this search engine is not convenient and they may consider to choose another one. Therefore in order to enhance their competitive strength, search engines need to precisely rank many good websites, and provide more convenience to the users to find the information more quickly.

For this reason, search engines need good websites as well. If a search engine can not find good websites and give them suitable rank, then it will be very difficult for this search engine to be accepted by the users. The web designer with good SEO skills will enrich the information in website and let the search engine consider this website as a good website; then naturally this website will get a good rank. To evaluate whether it is a good website, search engines have developed a serial of program to rate the websites.

Some of the standards search engines have made are open, the search engine even provide assistant tools (like Webmaster Tool which Yahoo released recently) to help the websites improve themselves following this standards. Why they do in this way? Suppose search engine is using one kind of language follow the standards and rules they have made, for example, English. If the website designer doesn’t know English but only speak French while the search engines only accept English, then the search engines will have difficulties to estimate whether this is a good website and there will be a great confusion for the search engine. Therefore in order to have a good rank, website makers have to know what search engines want and what they don’t want and they have to help search engines to know their website well. This is why SEO is not a trick or cheating, on the contrary, SEO not only help the website boost their traffics through the search engines but also promote the search engine to the users through introducing good websites by their rank.

As we know, marketing expense occupies the biggest part of cost in operating the website. But if the websites can improve their traffic through SEO, it will not just greatly reduce the expense on advertisement but greatly increase the survival rate of the websites as well. Although SEO may cause some impacts on design and usability, if the website maker can plan it well, it is not a difficult job to minimize the side effects SEO brings. The reward of this effort is pretty high and surely the search engine will consider your website as a good website even more.

Summary : If you don’t want to deal with the search engine, then surely the search engines won’t be happy to be “friend” with you as well, they won’t put you on the tops of their friend list (ranking). For example, if the search engines say very clearly that they don’t like Flash of course it doesn’t mean you can not use flash at all, unless you want to make the whole page as Flash but you just follow your own favouritism and ignore the feeling of search engine, then later on, you should not complain about why search engines are not “friendly” to you.

Edited By Vicky Yin

Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google hit the campaign trail on the behavior of the Democratic president candidate Obama last week.

In the recent interview of Schmidt, he told Wall Street Journal this is my personal decision. He emphasized that Google, whose headquarter is located in Mountain View, California will be remain aloof in the election campaign.

Wall Street Journal reported that Schmidt planed to publicly support Obama with the other technology company administrators but this report didn’t mention the names of the other technology company administrators.

Schmidt is the one of the chief executives in Silicon Valley who used to be the technology advisors of Obama’s campaign. Newmark, the founder of online classified advertisement website, Craigslist is also one of Obama’s advisors.

Compared with the Republican president candidate, McCain, High-technology industry has show greater favorite on Obama. Up to the end of August, Google staffs have donated $487,355 Dollars to Obama’s campaign while there are only $20,600 Dollars for McCain’s campaign.

Although between Google, Parliament and Ministry of Justice, there are still many unsettle disputes, includes the advertisement cooperative agreement with Yahoo, Schmidt still keep his determination to support Obama.

Edited By Vicky Yin

With 10 million dollars, Microsoft hired Famous Comedy star, Jerry Seinfeld, teamed with Bill Gates to Promoted two global ads on September. Later on, against previous ads from Apple, Microsoft released its I am PC series as a strike-back.

Marketing Company Crispin Porter + Bogusky, run this advertising Campaign. In first series ads, Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates play as two people shopping for shoes and home stay with a family but never mentioned a word to Window or Vista. Later on the second series of ads, “I am PC” as the reply for Apple’s “I am Mac” campaign, focus on the PC users and try to change their negative impression toward PC and deliver the message “I use PC, and I am fun”.

Bill Gates / Jerry Seinfeld  Series 1

Series 2 — Click here

I am PC Series 1

I am PC Series 2 and 3

Can these Advertising Campaign change the Microsoft’s image?

From the view point of experts, these Campaign are not successful viral marketing, because their topics are not related to the Window products, and however, they focus too much on this Comedy Star. And most people have difficulty to understand this commercial. For the “I am PC” series, Microsoft tried to promote its already number 1 window Operation System, which made people feel funny and say: “Microsoft is afraid of Apple too much” The experts from IT industry said, Microsoft should produce adverting Campaign which focus more on their products, or try to focus current bugs of apple’s MobileMe and Iphone’, which are the apple’s weak points. This way may have better result. And Window developers should improve the Vista and design a better user-friendly Interface. A Good Advertising Campaign is not a cure for Vista.>

Apple takes a Jab at Microsoft Ads

Apple has come out with a clever retorts in response to Bill Gates / Jerry Seinfeld series.

This is one pokes fun at Microsoft for spending too much money at advertising instead of fixing window’s problems;

In the second one talk about that Microsoft not mentioning any of their product names in the adverts at all;

Edited By Henry Lu

In the past, when the marketers are doing web marketing, most probably, they will decide website contents, website structure, page layout or other related issues by their personal feeling or experience. However, in Web2.0 era, the consuming behaviors of the clients have become more complicated. Therefore, strengthen brand image has become the key to keep the customer loyalty. In order to catch the eyes of the customers more precisely, the marketers have to update their website more quickly and effectively. They have to know which elements in the website are actually more attractive to the customers. In the past, the web marketers have put lots of focus on developing the technology; however now they concern more about how to communicate more effectively with their clients on the internet, strengthen their brand image and improve the brand loyalty. ‘Web optimization” is emerging area which aims to help the website to meet the needs of the customer and manage the brand for the companies.

E-Business all happen on digital platform like on-line shopping
Marketers have to break the traditional marketing media mind-set

Now many advertisers still underestimate the power of web marketing, they still hold this old idea that “internet is something only for young men” but, in fact, this idea is definitely wrong. The greatest advantage of web marketing is its interactivity. Through interaction, customers can involve more and business owners can also gain lots of useful information from customers as well. This information definitely will help the owners to make a good marketing plan. Therefore, in order to response this new market environment; marketers should not rely on their traditional media mind-set to make their plan and strategy; they have to fully recognized the fact that nowadays the consumption of customers all happen on the digital platform.

Web optimization strategy
Narrow the ‘confidence gap” among the company marketers.

Some experts have mentioned that many marketers have confidence gap toward web media. Although among the total media consumption time, around 30% is used in web browsing; the budget used in web only occupied 5 % of the budget used in all media. The main reason is that lots of marketers worry about that affectivity of web marketing. According to one survey, the conversion rate of the web costumers is only 2%-3%. At the same time, the dropout rate of the customers when they are browsing the website reaches 70%-80%. The marketers found that boost the web traffic cannot solve the root problem, only method which can bring the actual benefits to the company and narrow the confidence gap is to optimize the website, catch the attention of the target clients, and meet their needs.

Manage well the website content
Unified brand image and information

Many companies have developed their content management platform system, it can built-up the unified management platform for company inner website, official website, dealers/agents/business partners outer website, and help the companies to manage well all the separate but important information and brand experience.

Good content management platform can automate the business working flow, and simplifies the content editing and management. It helps each branches submit their contents easily even if they don’t have much knowledge of IT technology. It also reduces the round trip operation between each department and accelerate the time to the market.

Attraction optimization
Successfully increase the conversion rate

Web is a tool can be innovated, measured, analyzed and improved; it is also a key media which can help companies to manage their brands and keep the customer loyalty. Nowadays the companies have to face this great challenge: how to assist the company to maximize their online operation performance.

When the web operation performance is unsatisfied companies always choose to change the whole things, but actually many time, it is unnecessary. Many times, by slightly modifying some designs, the problem can be solved. Companies should consider doing the several variables test, optimizing the functions, developing online sales and registration with the help of the professional companies to find the most attractive page setup, include page arrangement, picture content and text.

Edited By Vicky Yin

Yahoo released their new display advertising platform, their ambitions towards online advertising campaign was revealed once again. Fortune Magazine pointed out that this effort may be the final plunge of Yahoo CEO, Jerry Yang.

This new display advertising platform is called “APT”, it allowed the publishers and advertisers to put the traditional online advertisements, like banners or pop-up windows on hundreds of news websites, all the websites under Yahoo, and other big websites like eBay, WebMD in US.

New York Times said that, to the advertisers, APT is easier to use. In the past, normally advertisers had to purchase the advertisements from the individual websites and if they want to play their advertisement online, it is also very difficult to control where the advertisement will appear.

However Yahoo promised that, under APT system, the advertisers don’t need to negotiate with the website one by one in order to put their online advertisements. This system may not only help the news sites gain the benefits from online advertisements but also display the advertisement to the visitors according to their own searching habit and interests.

Jerry Yang emphasized that APT will change the whole environment of online advertisement industry. He has great confidence that APT will stand in the leading position in this revelation and Yahoo indicated that through this advertising platform Yahoo and newspaper can sell the advertisements in higher price and they can display the advertisements to certain customers groups. Yahoo wishes to sale search engine advertisement on APT in the final stage as well.

Currently, the prospect of Yahoo online advertisement market isn’t really bright, however APT seems bring a gleam of hope to Yahoo.Since the acquisition negotiation with Microsoft was broken in the beginning of the year, Yahoo has received great pressure. From the middle of July till now, the stock price has decreased 16% and now it reached to around 19$.

Recently, Jerry Yang has received some objections from company top officials and Fortune magazine said that they don’t think APT would help much in this situation.

However, e-Marketer senior analyst believed that any new method which works in displaying advertising worth to try. “The reason why paid search advertising can have such great profits is because it is easy to purchase relatively. But display adverting is not.” At the same time, he also pointed out that Yahoo seems didn’t choose a good time to release this adverting platform. Since the current economy growth is declining the advertising budget of clients is also reducing.

Edited By Vicky Yin

According to a recent mass Survey, three fourths of the business managers said that they plan to maintain or increase their investment on the technologies which encourage the users to involve more in interaction, such as P2P network, Social network and Web Services.

Although there are still some interviewees in this survey mentioned that their capability in using web technologies hasn’t improve much, but more than half of the interviewees felt satisfied with the result of their past investment on web; there are more interviewees even think that they should take their actions earlier.

The benefit of sharing new technologies in emerging market

The retailers used to regard themselves as prudent investors now have already accelerated in investing on new technologies. Yet again, many business managers in the emerging markets, such as business from India and Latin America have tried to speed up to share the benefits brought by these new technologies.

When the web users-led online services like, MySpace, Wikipedia, YouTube has become more and more popular, these technologies called Web 2.0 technology has stepped into limelight. The technologies which need the users to participate together, include Web Service, P2P network, Blogs, Podcasts, Online community, etc.

A recent survey indicated that the interviewees generally show great interested in this trend. Besides the fact that the interviewees fully satisfied with the result of their investment on web itself, they also recognized the great market value of Web 2.0 technology; therefore they plan to increase the investment on developing this technology. However, these companies won’t only focus on the wide-known web 2.0 product such as blogs. Their greatest attention is on the technologies which will enhance the automation and networking.

Half of the interviewees felt satisfied with the result of the investment on web technologies

More than half of the interviewees felt satisfied with the result of their past 5 years investment on developing web technologies. More than three fourths planed to maintain or increase their investment on improving their Web 2.0 technology. (Only 13% of the interviewees felt disappointed with result of past investment. )

Generally, the companies which has taken earlier actions (known as early adopters, and fast followers) in the last investment trend has higher level of satisfaction with their investment than the companies started latter. This result matches the “speed first” ideal in technologies investment.

strong>80% interviewees considered to use web service

More than three fourths business managers who have the ideas of the 9 different Web 2.0 related technologies mentioned in this survey stated that their companies had invested more than one of them. The most popular one is Web Service, 80% the managers who know this technology have or are considering using Web Service, P2P net work is also very popular, 84% managers said they have or are considering using it.

Using Web 2.0 technologies to communicate with the clients and business partners

Many business managers indicated that they will use Web 2.0 Technologies to communicate with the clients and business partners and improve the cooperation within the company. 70% of the interviewees mentioned that they will assist with these technologies to keep in touch with their clines. For example, around 20% interviewees have used Blog to collect the opinions from their customers and strengthen their custom services.

The interviewees also mentioned that in order to have better communication with their business partners and connect with the suppliers more closely; the company will use the web technologies like, Web Service, P2P, Collective Intelligence and Really Simple Syndication(RSS) in the future. These technologies will also help the company in intelligent management.

Last but not the least; through the interview with these business managers, it has been found that the technologies which will bring benefits on automation and cooperation have received much more attentions than those “famous” technologies. Compare with Blog, Podcast and Mash-up, the technologies which can collect ideas and knowledge from more people, or make the communication and information exchange more effective are more helpful to them.

What are in Web 2.0?

Blog, the contraction of the term “Web log”, is a personal online notes or diaries that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. It can be linked to the other website and used by RSS (Really Simple Syndication) user.

Collective Intelligence is a system which tried to gain not the personal knowledge but team intelligence and use this as the basis of decision. The technologies involved in Collective Intelligence includes cooperative publish and sharing database.

Match-up is the service combines different online resources to create new products. For example, people can use one program to search and list certain type of restaurants and then combine this list with Google map to indicate the location of these restaurants.

P2P network is a quick sharing files (music, video or word files) technology. It helps the users to transfer the files by more than one computer through World Wide Web or certain closed net work. Some systems can collect the fragments from different computers and recompose them to get the complete files.

Podcast is a series of audio or video digital-media files which is distributed over the Internet by syndicated download, through Web feeds. The best example is YouTube.

RSS is the technology allows users to subscript news, blogs and podcast or other information.

Online community is the system helps the members of certain website to get the information of each other’s interests, talent, knowledge or habits; Facebook and Linkedin are the examples of this technology.

Web Service can improve the communication between two different systems; it can transfer the documents automatically and process the job ordering. The retailer can communicate online with their suppliers through Web Service and update the storage system automatically.

Wiki, like Wikipedia is the system makes cooperative publish become real, many authors to contribute their articles through this system and participate in discussion.

Edited By Vicky Yin

The Web 2.0 not only has the great impact on the current e-business world, but also brings enterprise a new way of thinking for the information management. As the business grow, the information is one of the invisible but important asset for company. The old website cannot manage fast growing of information any more due to its limitation of traditional technology. Developers need to learn to use the Web 2.0 as a design pattern to develop the next generation website.

Enterprise’s best tool for the information management

The core of the Web2.0 is “mass collaboration”, and the objects have no geographical boundary and limitation of education level, hence Web2.0 can be the best, most direct and easy to customized tool to manage the information, clients and human resource. Therefore, the pioneers of e-business like Cisco, IBM, MIT etc.., have already started to embrace Web2.0 and utilize the tool for the business.

The current platforms like e-mail, company intranet or portal are not the best tools for information management. For e-mail, the data can only be shared by exchanging mail. And the most company intranets have limited function for users to freely upload and share. But Web2.0 already has the solution for this.

First, by the editing tool “wiki”, the knowledge can be shared and accessed by everyone. And its new function can let users to exchange their opinions and record the changes of contents.

Second, Using of “tag” changes the principle of manage information. From the past we use “taxonomy”to catalog the information. For example, Yahoo created a catalogue table to catalog different websites, and put each website on its individual catalogue. However, one website may belong to more than one catalogue. And often there is big difference from its contents to the catalogue. Therefore with Web 2.0, the editor can put one and more tags on the content, and other users can use the tag search to find the more accurate information.

The importance of tag method is that it established invisible relationship between the web editors. They can use the tag to search for the other related information and editors, and at same time find out the history record of their work and make the information transparence.

Information management is a dynamic method, it is impossible for company to always monitor its changes and renews. Hence the web2.0 has the feature to automatically infom company the latest moving of information and enhances the efficiency of management. For example, the RSS has this excellent function.

Company needs to Harness Collective Intelligence

From the innovation of Web 2.0, the data becomes richer and easier to excess, and the world enters to the era of information. The greatest contribution Google brought to us is its search engine for the effective data searching from the internet overwhelmed with information. So for this, company needs to encourage the staffs to share and receive more knowledge, and it needs to understand Web2.0 is not only a tool for social network but also is new principle to manage the information.

Hence “Learn to Harness Collective Intelligence” is the priority for enterprise, and it needs to understand the Web 2.0’s effective information management ability and how to use Web 2.0 to develop the platform for everyone to join and share their knowledge. From this the company’s information contributed by many others can grow rapidly and become its valuable asset. Company doesn’t only use Web 2.0 to design website, but also can use it to develop the software application. This means software developer needs to rely on data more than the technology, Tim O’Reilly describe “Data is the Next Intel Inside”.

Edited By Henry Lu

USA 2nd largest social network website Facebook(www.facebook.com) may take over MySapce(www.myspace.com) position and become largest one within few months, according to survey from the Pingdom (www.pingdom.com ). The Pingdom made this conclusion according to Facebook fast growing on the user number and traffic for past year.

Also another famous online marketing research company comScore said the global traffic amount of Facebook is already larger than Myspace. And this demonstrates the success of facebook multi-language platform to greatly increase its global traffic. The competition for the social netwok website is always high from past 2 years, since the introduce of Web2.0 technology. And last year the Facebook traffic amount was way behind MySpace.

Although there is great potential for Facebook, but from the Pingdom research, the number of MySpace user and traffic amount did not drop this year. And this means there is still a long battle between these two largest social network websites.

Edited By Henry Lu