Ever wondered what the most popular UK websites are? Well wonder no more.

Below is a list of the 20 most popular websites (according to Hitwise) for the week ending 10/7/2010.

Interesting reading, I am sure you will agree.

We are frequently having conversations with our clients about the amount of businesses that use the web. And the increase in business to business leads created by the internet. But internet user growth does not stop with business.

Here is an interesting statistic released this week, that may change your view on user behaviour.

‘The British internet audience increased from 36.9 million in May 2009 to 38.8 Million in May  this year.’

Now let’s drill down into these figures a little more, for additional information.

Internet surfers over 50 accounted for 53 per cent of the overall increase.’

Interesting info, I am sure you will agree.

Now that the internet is established as one of the fastest (if not the fastest) ways to get information on a myriad of different subjects. There really is something for everyone.

Seems you’re never too old to see the benefits.

Published in the Telegraph on the 13th May, the below article highlights the importance of the internet - particularly in the retail sector. Comet reported sales across the group fell by 1.2pc whilst sales over the internet soared by 23.8pc.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/7716123/Poor-weather-cast-shadow-over-Comet.html

Latest results from UK Online Measurement Company (UKOM) show a marked increase in time spent on the internet. According to the report British web users now spend 65% more time on the internet than 3 years ago. So Surfing now accounts for over ‘22 hours per month’ online.

A considerable amount of this time goes to social networking, like Facebook, Twitter and Bebo, or blogs (like this one).

Social Networking sites, and in particular Facebook, are achieving notable successes. In fact, Facebook has now secured an impressive 7.2% of all time spent online in the UK, compared to 6.5% 3 years ago.

• Social networks/blogs – 22.7%
• Email – 7.2%
• Gaming – 6.9%
• Instant Messaging – 4.9%
• Classified/Auctions – 4.7%
• Portals – 4%
• Search 4%
• Software info/products – 3.4%
• News – 2.8%
• Adult – 2.7% 

Source UKOM

I have this morning received a presentation from a company in our arena of the Marketing, Online and New Media space. Within this presentation a ‘new word’ was used time and time again. The word in question? IMPACTFUL. Now, being a fan of the English language and it’s continued progression, my immediate reaction was to reference in Google.

In my opinion, the first description was quite apt - of which can be seen at the following URL (or by typing ‘impactful’ into Google.co.uk) http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=impactful
or can be seen below…

“A non-existent word coined by corporate advertising, marketing and business drones to make their work sound far more useful, exciting and beneficial to humanity than it really is. This term is most frequently used in “team building” seminars and conferences in which said drones discuss the most effective ways to convince consumer zombies to purchase crap they clearly do not need or even want.”

In summary, the use of this word clearly demonstrates a distinct lack of vocabulary from the writers point-of-view. Maybe the use of words like, ‘effective’, ’successful’ or maybe ‘has impact’?

Ian

Be Search Friendly
What is the point of having a great site if no one ever sees it? None of course!
Before creating your content do you keyword research, what terms your audience or users to your site are likely to search upon, and what keywords they will use. Build the structure of your content around your search engine optimisation with these keywords and keyphrases.
Read the rest of this entry »

The challenge was to increase Outline Skincare’s online presence to increase web traffic, generate sales and increase ROI, while actually driving down overall marketing spend.

Miromedia were recommended to Outline as specialists in search engine optimisation, pay-per-click, email broadcasting, link building, online PR, and social media

The solution was an online marketing strategy which included removing programming issues, managing and adding keyword strategies, content creation and restructure of page layout.

Benefits Since working with Outline when compared to the same previous year period, we have achieved:

• 46% increase in turnover when compared to this time last year
• 60% decrease in marketing spend

And most importantly this was all achieved during a recession!

To download the Outline Case Study please click here.

Permanent or semi permanent make up, as it is sometimes called, is an exciting, revolutionary treatment to enhance facial features. It is a highly skilled, state of the art form of cosmetic tattooing also known as Micro-pigmentation or intradermal cosmetics. Annalou is one of the UK’s leading clinics and with a quickly expanding client base they called upon Miromedia to design and build a new site complete with easy to use CMS and a powerful SEO redesign.

Utilising the new Miromanager 2 Content Management System for the new Annalou site, Miromedia where able to create a faultless and intuitive backdoor solution for Annalou. It is a CMS that will serve Annalou for the foreseeable future, allowing for effortless updates and image changes. Along with the search engine optimisation redesign, which is due to begin this week, Miromedia have also added a Facebook portal to keep fans of Annalou up to date with company and industry developments and gossip.

Purchase of MySpace four years ago by Rupert Murdoch heralded a new dawn for social media and social networking. Suddenly these sites were big business. With a 330m price tag many scoffed, but critics were later silenced when a 670m advertising deal with Google for three years was agreed!

Soon however that deal will come to an end and with it more than half of MySpace’s entire revenue. But there are far more important concerns for MySpace and for British born Bebo. Bebo was purchased at a staggering 640m in March of last year by AOL. Those concerns are the decline of these once all dominant sites at the fickle hand of social media users.

The Losers
Surely such big sites can’t just head to obscurity and disappear? Don’t be so sure, British social networking site Friends Reunited enjoyed a 120m purchase from ITV four years ago and was recently valued at one sixth of the figure. The decision to swap from a paid model to a free one came way too late. Users have voted with their feet, the brand is damaged and they won’t be coming back.

Bebo’s traffic dropped 24% this year and now stands at 9 million. As original Beboers come of age they migrate to Facebook suggesting a digital coming of age, Bebo’s biggest problem is that new younger school kids aren’t replacing them below. By Hitwise’s estimates, Bebo’s unique users have fallen 18%, from 8.5 million in April 2008 to 7 million one year later, while Facebook has seen 63% growth to 23.5 million unique users.

Further problems are predicted for MySpace and Bebo, both sites are in comparison very expensive to run and a decline in traffic is hitting their cash flow hard. Add to this MySpace’s deal with Google which is about to end and Bebo’s financial backing in doubt following AOL’s disbanding from Time Warner.

The Winners
Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are enjoying massive increased popularity however. Twitter for example, has seen a 4,000% increase in new users since the start of this year to 2.5 million unique users a month. Add to these 3rd party apps which add another half of this traffic leading to an even greater impact! Facebook now control 45% of all social media activity on the internet World wide.

Most interestingly it is those social networking sites that have refused to sell to large greedy corporations that have ultimately succeed. Twitter more recently refused a huge deal with Google to advertise on the site.

And while large companies scratch their heads wondering what happened, it seems to me obvious that the reason for the decline is the worst marketing sin of all: assuming your audience are mindless fools, incapable of resisting advertising messages. MySpace is advert saturated, Bebo is advert saturated, and Friend Reunited charged you to watch their adverts. We are savvy, we don’t like adverts, and if the site is advert saturated we leave.

Even facebook fell into the trap, changing its simple and appealing interface for a multi-paged and advert heavy profile. An exodus I’m sure would have taken place had Facebook not been the best of a bad bunch. This could still see the end of Facebook in the next few years?

Ric McHale

Note - 80% of all internet emails are spam.

With such a high amount of emails considered as not relevant, email clients (such as hotmail) always review an email’s content before making it available to view.

Avoid emails going into the spam filter.

A well constructed email will always contain text body content. It is possible to include links and images, but a good mix of all three is preferable. Emails that include only images or links will often find their way into a spam filter, hindering the opportunity to get the message across.

Ideally, to get through all spam filters, an email would have only text. However, in a sales environment, it’s very difficult to get your message across in such a basic format. Pictures give the recipient an idea of what you are about, or what products are being sold, links take them through to areas in your site that convert interest into revenue.

Practise

Don’t be afraid of testing you emails in different email clients (such as gmail or hotmail). For the most part these email clients are free and you can make great use of their spam filters, at no extra cost.

Julian Wilkins