Website design newsletter
Every month we publish interesting news articles relating to website design, search engine trends and other exciting changes happening online.
February 2007
Contents
The importance of exchanging links
Global online clothes shopping soaring
Google testing Google Base
Web contest to find hot new 'Book Idol'
The importance of exchanging links
28 February 2007
Exchanging reciprocal links with other related websites is the most successful way for increasing your visitor traffic without paying any money for advertising.
Link exchange is also essential for the user friendliness and "searchability" of your website - search engines rate websites with a great number of incoming links as these sites are perceived to be more important than websites with very few incoming and outgoing links.
There are a few guidelines to consider when researching into sets of suitable link partners:
Link to websites with a higher Google PageRank
The higher the Google PageRank of the websites linking to yours, the bigger the boost to your search engine positioning is will be. The more relevant the content of the linked sites to your own, the higher your URL shows in search results and the more people visit your page.
Get as many incoming links as possible
The greater the number of incoming links to your site from websites that are relevant in content but non-competitive to your business, the more popular it becomes for search engines.
Get some expert advice
The website design team at Fox Web Works specialise in building effective search engine strategies for businesses just like yours. One element of a professional search engine strategy is finding a suitable set of link partners. Contact the Fox Web Works team to arrange a free no-obligation consultation to discuss your website plans.
Global online clothes shopping soaring
31 January 2007
Sales of clothing over the internet have passed £1bn a year despite customers not being able to try things on before they buy.
Consumer researchers Mintel reported a five-fold rise in sales of clothing and footwear online since 2001 and a 44 per cent surge to £1.4 billion last year.
In a poll for its research, adults said the biggest motivation for buying online was not having to hunt for the right size, followed by the ability to avoid high street shopping and convenience. The biggest disadvantage was that people liked to try on clothes. They also complained that they could not judge the feel of clothes.
Some 42 per cent of adults said they would like to see video clips of models wearing the clothes.
Online fashion sales - worth just £253m in 2001 - now accounts for 3% of total sales of clothes and footwear.
A marketing director for a home shopping group interviewed for the report, Fashion Online, said: "We are seeing a sharp growth in our online demand and sales. Roughly speaking they are going up 50% every year and that shows no signs of slowing down."
But there was "still some way" for online retail to go before it challenged the high street, where customers can feel and test the clothes. The report said: "Its performance has been held back by consumers' natural reluctance to buy items without trying them on as well as concerns over things like deliveries and returns."
Source: www.independant.co.uk
Google testing Google Base
January 2007
Google Base is a new Google technology currently in testing. A beta version is available now to submit all types of online and offline content, which is made searchable on Google (if the content isn't online yet, Google Base will put it there). You can describe any item you post with attributes, which will help people find it when they do related searches. In fact, based on your items' relevance, users may find them in their results for searches on Froogle, Google Maps and even our main Google web search.
How it's different to Google Search
Google Base enables you to add attributes describing your content, so that searchers can easily find it. The more popular individual attributes become, the more often we'll suggest them when others post the same items.
Google has also been working on a payment system for a couple of years. Few companies other than PayPal -- including eBay -- have been able to pull that off, and no one knows how far along Google is. Google Base could potentially cut into eBay's pricing power -- if Google's service were free -- and into the auction giant's growth.
eBay may not be the only company in the way of Google Base. Google Base includes a wide range of categories of content: recipes, holiday homes, course schedules, events, housing, jobs, news, people profiles, reference articles, products, vehicles, travel, and more. This suggests that a wide variety of traditional media, such as newspapers, magazines, and even scientific journals, could be in the line of fire when Google Base goes live.
Source: www.businessweek.com
Web contest to find hot new 'Book Idol'
16 January 2007
A book publisher is hoping its web-based writing contest can tap into the popularity of interactive competitions such as the hit television show New Zealand Idol.
As part of the First Chapters competition, aspiring first-time authors and members of www.gather.com can post manuscripts on the social-networking website, organisers from publisher Touchstone Fireside and gather.com said.
If online readers like the manuscript's first chapter, the author is voted through to the next round. Two more chapters are posted and the public narrows the field in the same fashion. After three rounds of judging, a winning manuscript will be picked from among five finalists in May.
The winner will receive US$5000 (NZ $7,200), a book contract with Touchstone Fireside and distribution by Borders.
In an industry struggling to sell fiction books, this is the latest effort to find a top-selling author. It follows other competitions including the Sobol Award, a literary competition that began in September but was cancelled last week because of a lack of entries.
Source: www.reuters.com
