When considering the ways in which online marketing is changing it’s vital to consider elements such as viral marketing which has emerged in recent years, starting as a niche activity and going on to become a vital part of mainstream marketing. Huge multi-national companies now take advantage of the power of social network sites and image and video sharing portals such as youtube to get their message across to people in a way which short circuits conventional marketing techniques. What was once regarded as something of a ‘guerrilla’ technique, representing an easy way in for low budget start ups or companies with minimal marketing spend, is now regarded as part and parcel of many a mainstream, mass market sales drive.

Experts in ecommerce development in London will be fully aware of the use of devices such as viral videos and, what’s more, will also know exactly what tricks, techniques and technological innovations are coming down the line, and will place all of them at your disposal before your competitors have even heard of them. If, for example, you first became aware of the power of social media as a marketing tool because you read a twitter feed used by one of your direct rivals, then you’re already behind the game. It’s imperative that you work closely with an ecommerce digital agency in order to ensure that when the ‘next twitter’ comes along, you are one of the first businesses to take advantage of its’ marketing potential. If you’re going to do it, then you can be certain that your keenest competitors are as well, and so using a digital agency in London will ensure that the material you put out, of whatever type, is of the highest possible standard, and is perfectly suited to the medium of choice, be that the written word, a video presentation, a graphic image or some mix of them all.

Ecommerce development is all about working incredibly closely with your business and filtering the information thus gleaned through the myriad differing methods of online marketing. It has to be borne in mind that very person who accesses your online presence is being bombarded with similar images each and every day, and that many of these images have been polished and prepared by multi-million pound corporations. It may seem unfair but, whether they mean to or not, this is the standard against which consumers and would be consumers will be judging your online presence, and that’s why it’s vital to put it in the hands of well trained professionals. If the material you put out there appears shabby, amateurish or slipshod, then the natural assumption is that this will be reflected throughout everything you do and, as with everything else online, this decision will be reached at a massively accelerated rate.

Don’t think that a web presence that is ‘just about enough’ will be good enough. Excellence is the very least you should aspire to, and working in partnership with an ecommerce digital agency will make that level much easier to achieve.

There are very many marketing strategies available to businesses of all sizes, ranging from simple local leafleting to newspaper ads and expensive national TV and radio campaigns, but in recent years by far the most important medium in which to have a significant presence has been the online world. The chance of a new customer arriving at your business via an online search rises on a virtually daily basis, and since the first place that most people will now chose to search for a product or service is online, it’s become utterly vital to build an effective online marketing strategy.

In even the recent past, the online presence for any particular business would probably have consisted of a single home page and perhaps a link to an online catalogue which more or less replicated, in virtual terms, the contents of a printed catalogue. Now, however, the online ‘version’ of your business is just as important, if not more so, as the ‘real world’ version. Indeed, many smaller, niche businesses only really exist online, taking advantage of the relatively low set up costs and overheads to provide products and services which would, in the past, have been too difficult to take to market effectively. The key to successful online marketing lies in grasping the ways in which consumer’s interaction with online material differs from the way in which they interact with more traditional types of marketing. Written copy posted online, for example, has to be put together in a different way to that presented on the printed page; whilst the content has to be as strong, if not stronger, the layout has to be built around short sharp sentences and tools such as bullet pointing. The key challenge for any form of online communication is to cope with the increasing impatience of visitors to a particular page, particularly if they are doing so via a portable hand held device. Exact figures vary, but it’s safe to say that no business has longer than five seconds to grab and hold the attention of a visitor before they click and move on elsewhere. A London digital agency will be fully aware of this, and will work on a strategy which bears this in mind at all stages.

An ecommerce digital agency in London, for example, will be fully aware of the ways in which social network sites have emerged in recent years as extremely powerful marketing tools. It’s now no longer enough to merely have a website, any business worth its’ salt will also want a twitter account and face book page. One of the key facets of social networks such as this is that they allow consumers and would be consumers to interact with your business, making them feel a part of the whole process and creating a sense of community. If you want to build an online presence and marketing strategy which will drive visitors to your site and turn these visitors into customers, then put your business in the hands of a digital agency in London which will combine skill, knowledge and experience to help build your business in the way you desire.

In hard financial times, many businesses yield to the temptation to do their own online work, but this is a form of economising which can often prove genuinely damaging. A London Ecommerce digital agency will provide the perfect mix of technical excellence and a dedication to fully understanding the ethos you wish to pursue.

Wherefore art thou, customers?

Does it feel as though the shrinking economies of Europe are having a profound effect on your own organisation’s economy or are you one of the lucky businesses that is currently thriving despite the recession, or may be because of it? One thing is absolutely clear and that is no company can stand still when it comes to online marketing. Ecommerce development is second to none and many organisations are enjoying customer growth despite all the doom and gloom. Whatever your personal view, most business people lurch from crazy optimism to downright pessimism depending on the latest news report from the City.

To retain business sanity, it is important to remember that nobody knows anything. Nobody knows how this wonderful year of 2012 is going to develop. Did the Italian cruise company, Costa Cruises, know that one of its ships would founder on rocks? Suddenly, its share value has dropped by 20% – who predicted that in the plethora of New Year’s predictions? Perhaps shares in other cruising companies will also drop as people worry about safety on board cruise ships? Nobody knows what is going to happen in the world of business and finance but an awful lot of people pretend they do.

Two things are certain, and I’m not talking about death and taxes; but, two events are set to happen in 2012 that will affect us all, though some of us more than others: the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations and the London 2012 Olympics. Barring catastrophe, we know for sure that both those events are going to generate income for the UK and London in particular. Consequently, it is vitally important that your organisation, whether it is doing well at the current time or struggling, works with a top London, ecommerce digital agency to ensure that your ecommerce development is on track to maximise the positive effects of two such wonderful events.

Money – that’s what we want, says the song, but money is not everything unless you do not have it and the bank is breathing down your neck. Under those circumstances, people regard every penny as vital for their organisation’s survival, even their own personal survival, which is why online and offline marketing often suffers during these straightened times. But think about it – if fewer organisations are marketing online then that is the time to market hard. There may also be fewer buying customers out there but if you work with a competent digital agency London, you should be able to scoop up more than your fair share of new business.

Times are tough, yes they are, but they are not tough for everyone and people will continue to search online for goods or services especially during this Diamond Jubilee / 2012 Olympics year. Remember, missed opportunities are always missed and even though something else may come along, you can bet your last website pixel that there will never be another year like 2012 in London again. In other words, get out into the virtual world and bring home the hard cash that is going to be flowing this year.

London – the world’s great magnet

Everyone loves London because it mixes the ancient and modern and is home to almost every nationality on the planet. This summer, London hosts the 2012 Olympics and state of the art facilities will mingle with historic buildings that make up the world’s first great democracy. Complemented by the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, London is going to be welcoming hundreds of thousands of visitors and also millions via TV and the internet. Now is the ideal time to work with a very good London digital agency and develop a strategy for tapping into some of that focus on London.

Whatever your business, promoting it online must always be a priority but especially during this remarkable year. Stuff the recession, stuff the banks and the idiotic bankers, stuff the local politicians with their pathetic parking laws, stuff the Scottish National Party that wants to drive a wedge between neighbors, stuff Revenue and Customs that eats well at the rich man’s table and hounds out companies for every penny of VAT, stuff all the doom mongers that say we’re still in a recession – stuff them all and work with your selected ecommerce agency in London to develop an ecommerce marketing strategy that promotes your organisation in such a positive way that you rise up the natural search results.

Ways of achieving good search engine listings is through a concerted campaign of onsite and offsite Search Engine Optimised blogs and articles, complemented by affiliate marketing, Pay Per Click, social media optimisation and a big effort when it come to email and viral marketing. Setting up a channel on You Tube can create a tremendous buzz and drive a lot of customers to your website.

Your digital agency in London will not simply throw mud at the virtual wall and hope that some of it sticks; a top quality ecommerce digital agency will plan your campaign so that every pay per click is an investment and not wasted money. Social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter are free to use but they require good handling if idle interest is to be converted into buying customers.

Your website is your organisation’s platform for shouting to the world that you are here, in London (or in the UK) and that you are an organisation that offers the very best goods or services for competitive prices. Building empathy with your customers, both existing and new is one of the ways that your digital design and marketing agency can help you. So many websites appear to be welcoming and friendly but by the time it comes to checkout and paying by credit card, all the charm has evaporated and been replaced by intrusive questions and cold hearted suspicion. It’s ironic, as your customers are the ones paying in advance for goods. The trust is all on their side and yet too many websites have a forbidding payment process.

That’s enough; the Olympics are here, the Diamond Jubilee is almost upon us; we’ve all suffered in this terrible recession and banking crisis – now is the time to rake in some serious money.

Google is run by humans and humans have human failings. For example, a top London digital agency may well recommend to a client the importance of joining social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. However, Google seems to regard Facebook as the enemy and the effectiveness of Facebook as a means of attracting traffic through search engine optimisation is proving to be fruitless, when Google is the search engine of choice.

Google has tried over the last few years to muscle in on Facebook’s turf, with little success, but Google+ is proving to be quite a little winner. It is not possible to get accurate statistics regarding membership of Google+ from Google, as the search engine is not to be relied upon for releasing any information that is wholly accurate, but Google+ is by all accounts proving to be a winner. Suffice it to say, that although Google may overlook search terms that are listed on Facebook you can guarantee that Google will be far more inclusive with regard to recognising search terms that are entered within Google+.

If you consult a top ecommerce digital agency with regard to including Google+ links on site and off site, it may well become clear during 2012 that Google’s search engine is rather attracted to websites that feature the Google+ button on every page and are linked to off site articles that also feature the Google+ link. There are many complicated tests that internet analysts are currently undertaking to determine whether Google+ will influence search rankings but in my estimation those tests are unnecessary – the only test that needs to be considered is the one with regard to human nature. It stands to reason that Google is going to favour websites that are linked to Google+ over websites that are linked to Facebook, or Twitter or LinkedIn. Google may well deny that it is the case but it will become apparent to any London ecommerce digital agency with its finger on the Google pulse that Google Plus will definitely receive preferential treatment over time.

In the final analysis, it may not be a simple case of search optimisation with regard to key words that affects Google’s viewpoint with regard to Google+; it may be that Google ranks websites by how often searchers click through to a particular organisation’s Google+ page from third-party websites such as offsite articles and blogs. If your website is attracting good traffic and your visitors are leaving via the Google+ button on your web pages to visit your Google+ circles, then that may also have an influence on Google’s search ranking of your website. Ultimately, Google will do what is good for Google’s bottom line and replacing Facebook with Google Plus is clearly a prime ambition.

One of the key factors to be borne in mind when approaching your online presence is the ever-changing nature of ecommerce. That’s why taking the option of building your own website or of saving money by going for a low cost off the shelf solution is such a risky step to take. What may seem to be cutting edge and up to the minute today can quickly become old fashioned and dated and this, in turn, can lead to creating an impression that your business is somewhat behind the times. Over and above even this, however, are questions of the technical aspects of web design. Ecommerce web developers will make it a vital part of their job to remain fully abreast of all the latest developments in web design.

The recent widespread take up of hand held, web enabled devices, for example, has had a huge impact on web design. When you’re putting your site together you need to be certain that the coding of the page will work technically with handheld devices and that the design itself will still work as well on a smaller screen such as that on an iPad or mobile phone. It’s no use merely banking on a shrunk down version of your full size site to do the job – if the text is too small, for example, it will be virtually unreadable, and if there are too many images which have to be shrunk to fit the page will look scruffy and overcrowded. The choice of whether to develop a separate page for access via handheld devices, or modify the existing page in such a manner as to keep it clear when it’s shrunk down, will be an aspect of ecommerce which a develop will be able to fully advise you on, ensuring that you have a solution which best fits both the business you’re running and the budget you have to invest..

Taking this a step further, and allowing for another fairly recent development, a digital agency London will be fully apprised of the way in which the most popular search engine, Google, offers those who are searching a thumbnail view of any of the pages they are thinking of looking at. The design of the site will have to be done in such a way as to ensure that this view is impressive enough to tempt the causal surfer into visiting your site.

Amongst the other aspects of your site which a developer will be able to focus on is the speed with which it loads. Often, when people design their own sites they tend to overload the pages with things such as animations or video clips, thinking that this will produce an image of excitement and cutting edge style. Not only do illustrations of this type tend to age very quickly, but they can also slow down the landing time of your page. In this age of instant access, this can be the kiss of death for a site, meaning that visitors don’t have the patience to even get as far as looking at the home page.

Instead of opting for an off the shelf solution or thinking that you can handle the creation of a website yourself, it’s a much safer bet to engage the services of a London ecommerce digital agency. Not only will they produce a site which is easily accessible and converts visitors into customers, but they’ll also know what’s coming down the line in terms of technological development, and will make sure you’re prepared for it.

When considering the importance of your online presence it’s important to take a step back from simply considering purely business matters and instead focus for a second on the way in which the web in general works. Just a few short years ago it was seen as being something of a niche domain, accessed by early adopters the highly technically literate but ignored by the vast bulk of people. Now, however, that has changed drastically. From the moment they wake up to when they fall asleep again the average person is bombarded with literally hundreds of online pages and images. The widespread take up of hand held devices has multiplied this effect exponentially. Whereas, just a short while ago, people would have to be sat at their desk or. At the very least have access to a computer in order to look at the web, they can now do it more or less wherever they are. Travelling to and from work, taking a lunch break or just going from shop to shop looking for a certain item, people can now log on and search for exactly what they need to find with the push of a few simple buttons.

Of course, taken on the whole, this represents a fantastic opportunity for most businesses. At any hour of the day and night and from any location, prospective customers can access your site and take a look at exactly what you offer and the way in which you promise to provide it. Ecommerce web developers are therefore becoming ever more important parts of any business plan, since a good job on your web site will simultaneously advertise your business, bring customers in and make it easy for them to spend money with you. The ‘downside’ of this explosion in access, if that’s how you choose to look at it, lies in the amount of competition which is out there. Not only are you up against businesses of a comparable size and type, with a similar level of budget to invest, but you’re competing with huge industries and the web presence they develop.

The overall impression created by your website will be honed and focused by a London web designer and what this means is that, when a visitor first accesses your site, they’ll be presented with something which looks professional, accomplished and, perhaps most important of all, trustworthy. Whilst you may not be able to match the spend of a Coca Cole or an Apple, what working with a digital agency in London will enable you to do is harness every positive aspect of your business or organisation in the one place and present it in a manner which is coherent and attractive. This levelling of the playing field is absolutely vital if you’re to truly compete in the era of globalisation. You may well know just how fantastic you are, but you need a site which captures this and does so via words and images which encourage casual visitors to stay and take a look around.

Whilst the opportunities offered by online commerce are many and lucrative, the challenges are almost equally numerous. Get it right, by working closely with web designers in London, and you’ll be in a position to take full advantage of everything which presenting a shop window to the world has to offer.

When many people first take the decision to move into online commerce, they often feel satisfied with putting together a site themselves. Just a few minutes spent browsing the web is enough to underline the folly of this approach, however. When you’re using your online presence to generate business, it has to be remembered that you’re not merely competing with businesses which are the same size and have a similar budget as yours. The number of online interactions which the average person experiences during the average day means that it’s all too easy to take for granted the incredibly slick and well polished nature of the kind of sites run by large multinational companies. Compared to this, any site which is less than skilfully put together will naturally appear to be second rate and a trifle shabby. That’s why employing the services on an ecommerce digital agency is so important.

The art of ecommerce development in London is one of mixing and matching a widely disparate range of options and skills. On the one hand, there are the technical aspects to consider. How will people navigate around your site? What will be the balance between imagery and text? What payment options will you offer? These are the kind of questions which a professional agency will have vast and wide ranging experience of answering. In many cases, it is a question of balancing the technical aspects – ie ensuring that each page of your site will load quickly and thus not provoke impatience on the part of visitors – with an attempt to capture the essence of your business or organisation and the unique nature of the proposal it is offering. It’s this latter factor which will require a web developer working extremely closely with any organisation they are representing. In order to truly capture exactly what you’re about and the image which you wish to present to the world, a good developer will do so much more than merely ask a few questions and then convert the answers into web content. By almost becoming a part of your business for the time it takes to build your site they will immerse themselves in the ethos you represent and thus be able to put together a site which is truly and genuinely representative.

It may even be the case, for example, that a web developer embedded in your organisation is able, thanks to their detachment, to spot facets and good selling points which have escaped even your notice. This ability to take a step back from the day to day stresses and strains of running a business is one of the key assets which a genuinely dedicated developer can bring. By taking the long view and being able to look at every part of the business from the ground up, they will be able to build a site which is not only effective but truly representative. Bearing all of this in mind it can be seen that employing the services of an agency of this type is a much more radical step than merely asking someone to devise a few adverts or write a brochure.

A London digital agency will become an extra part of your business for the time it takes to get your website up and running. Many people opt to develop their own site as they feel they are best placed to capture exactly what their business is all about. The strong relationship between your developer and you will ensure that this knowledge is in place,  and can be allied to a rare degree of technical skill, thus producing an online presence which captures the best of both worlds.

One of the most exciting and yet challenging aspects of the world of web design is that it is one which is constantly evolving and changing. What may seem to be cutting edge and absolutely vital today may well look dated and old fashioned tomorrow, thus creating entirely the wrong impression of your business or organisation. Working with an ecommerce digital agency will ensure that you don’t make this kind of mistake, at the same time as making sure that the balance between the technologically cutting edge and good old fashioned customer service is maintained perfectly throughout your website. For the bulk of most websites, this will be a question of making sure that the content takes priority above all other factors. It’s really no use having the latest in flash animation, super quick navigational techniques or a slick graphic interface if the content around which all of this is based is less than genuinely effective. Everything in your website should really be at the service of the content, since this is the information which every single visitor is there to access – from the range of goods or services which you offer, to the price you charge and any after sales service provided. Each step of the process of visiting your site should be another step towards finding out everything you need to know in order to feel able to change from a visitor into a customer.

An ecommerce web developer will take the time and trouble to liaise in depth with you and discover exactly what your business is all about. It may be that the focus of that you offer is the premium nature of your goods, or perhaps the incredibly low prices. For other organisations the main selling point may be the ecologically sensitive way in which you work or the in depth quality of your customer service. Whatever your USP is, a London digital agency will take this and weave it through every part of the content in your site, and once this content itself has been perfected, almost everything else will follow.

On one level, it’s as basic as ensuring that the content contains no spelling mistakes, grammatical errors or factual slip ups. Anything of this kind will merely create the impression that your business is run along amateurish and unprofessional lines and, while this might not actually be the case, it will be an impression which undermines the good work you might have done elsewhere on your site. Creating copy which explains clearly and persuasively what you offer is as vital to the success of your site as any amount of technical know how. A professional developer, for example, will be fully apprised of the steps which have to be taken to ensure that your site is totally compatible with the latest wave of portable hand held devices but, in a sense, this is the kind of knowledge which you might expect to take for granted. Bringing in outside professionals is often a case of accessing specialist technical information, but the key to it is also the knowledge that comes from doing the job many times over. It’s this experience which will underline the vital importance of utilising the strongest possible content.

Although many people often feel intimidated when approaching the online realm, the role of a digital agency in London is to take these fears and allay them via a combination of expertise and experience. One the one hand this will mean being totally au fait with the latest technical developments, but on the other it will require a thorough grasp of the overarching importance of fine tuning and honing the quality and thoroughness of the content on your site.

In the early days of online commerce, when only a few brave pioneers were taking the step of building and displaying websites, the main purpose of such a site was seen as being two fold. It would act as an online advert for the good or services you were supplying, and it would, in some cases, take the form of a virtual brochure, displaying and listing the wares on offer in more in depth detail. Back then, the website itself was seen as merely being an addition to the ‘real world’ pr3esence of the business, perhaps something which would tempt would be customers to give you a phone call or pay you a visit and find out a little bit more before deciding whether to actually do any business with you. Now, of course, things are totally different.

An ecommerce digital agency will be keenly aware of the fact that your online presence is likely to be the very first point of contact for any person thinking of doing business with you. In most cases, the average person will search for a particular product or service online and then scroll through the first few search results available comparing prices, services and, crucially, websites. Whilst this means that many more opportunities have opened up, with geographical boundaries and hurdles often being removed, it also means that a whole new raft of challenges is thrown up. The way in which people interact with a website is entirely different from the ways in which they react to more ‘traditional’ means of conveying information and a web designer in London will be keenly aware of that. As someone who knows everything there is to know about your own business, for example, you may be tempted to fill the home page with as much information as is possible, reasoning that a visitor will want to know all there is to know as quickly as possible.

The logic behind this approach is flawed, however, since a home page which is overcrowded with text will merely look too full and forbidding to the casual visitor. People tend to ‘skim’ websites, rather than making the commitment to plough through endless paragraphs of text, and a London website designer will know about the techniques and approaches necessary to convey the maximum amount of information in the minimum space. A combination of language and design will be applied in a way which packs the required information into the homepage of your site whilst ensuring it looks clean, uncluttered and inviting, as well as being designed along lines which, visually speaking, capture the essence of your company. Once this has been achieved, the rest of your site can be put together in a manner which means that navigating to each part of the site from the home page is simple and instinctive and makes it easy to access all of the information you may have initially been tempted to try and fit onto the home page itself. By doing this properly, you’ll end up with a site which is so much more than just an advertisement or even a brochure. A good website is both of these things and also a virtual shop floor, a customer service centre and a place within which any visitors will feel happy spending their money. Employing the services of seasoned professionals will ensure that your online presence ticks every single one of these boxes.

It must always be remembered that visitors to your website will range from the casual browser who needs careful, step by step guiding to find exactly what they need, to those who already know what they’re looking for and merely want to find it and order it as quickly as the technology allows. A London website designer will have the skills and experience necessary to build a site which can meet both of these criteria at the same time.