Website design newsletter
Every month we publish interesting news articles relating to website design, search engine trends and other exciting changes happening online.
November 2007
Contents
Three quarters of Kiwis say they now shop online
Spot The Difference: Teeshirts Vs Taxpayers' $$$
Google search algorithm tweak
Three quarters of Kiwis say they now shop online
8th October 2007
Survey reveals three quarters of Kiwis say they now shop online. iPhone, televisions and gaming machines top the shopping list.
New Zealanders have embraced the internet as an online marketplace with 76 percent of Kiwis confirming they shop online, according to research1 released today by Visa International.
The recent strength of the New Zealand dollar has also been cited as a factor, with a quarter of New Zealanders saying they are purchasing more online as a result. In particular, males (31 percent) and younger New Zealanders aged between 18 and 39 years (30 percent) said they were more likely to shop online because of the strength of the New Zealand dollar.
When it comes to the most sought after new or soon to be released piece of technology, the Apple iPhone comes out on top at 15 percent followed by a new television (13 percent), Playstation 3 (12 percent), laptop (seven percent), MP3 player (six percent), digital camera or computer (four percent) and DVD recorder or mobile phone (three percent).
Iain Jamieson, Visa International's New Zealand Country Manager, said it is great to see such a large number of New Zealanders saying they enjoy the flexibility and ease of shopping online.
"Our research demonstrates that Kiwis have confidence in the internet as a place to shop," Mr. Jamieson said.
Visa is currently the only payment card company in New Zealand to offer its cardholders the option of credit, debit or prepaid Visa cards allowing them to either buy now and pay later, buy now and pay now, or pay now and buy later.
"With credit, debit and prepaid cards, Visa is giving its cardholders greater choice in the way they can pay, making it even easier for Kiwis to manage their finances and shop online," adds Mr Jamieson.
Books are the most common item purchased over the internet, particularly among females and the middle aged, recording 53 percent and 52 percent of all purchases made respectively.
DVDs are the most common purchases among males and those aged under 40. Clothing and accessories are the most popular purchases for those aged 18 to 39 years old.
In other shopping trends picked up in the survey, 42 percent of Kiwis plan to upgrade their TV within the next two years to a large flat widescreen television. However, New Zealanders are slightly behind Australians when it comes to their love of new TVs with 61 percent of Kiwis having either installed or planning to upgrade their TV within the next two years compared with 68 percent of Australians.
About Visa: Visa operates the world's largest retail electronic payments network providing processing services and payment product platforms. This includes consumer credit, debit, prepaid and commercial payments, which are offered under the Visa, Visa Electron, Interlink and PLUS brands. Visa enjoys unsurpassed acceptance around the world and Visa/PLUS is one of the world's largest global ATM networks, offering cash access in local currency in more than 170 countries.
Source: http://www.corporate.visa.com/
Spot The Difference: Teeshirts Vs Taxpayers' $$$
8th October 2007
The Made From New Zealand campaign is continuing to gather steam with a major TV, radio, press and online campaign continuing through October.
The campaign, which is funded by the sale of limited edition teeshirts was launched on Waitangi Day with the building of a giant silver fern sand sculpture on Santa Monica beach, Los Angeles. The building of the fern attracted more than 1,000 Kiwis to pitch in and generated more than $1million in publicity for New Zealand on US television networks.
The next stage of the campaign is the launch of www.madefromnewzealand.com, a free-to-join ecommerce platform for New Zealand businesses. Unlike the governmentfunded Buy Kiwi Made campaign, Made From New Zealand includes all New Zealand businesses, regardless of where they choose to manufacture their products. Also unlike the government campaign, Made From New Zealand is a private sector initiative, funded by the sale of limited edition teeshirts. The teeshirts are on sale for $45.00 each, including delivery anywhere in New Zealand, from www.madefromnewzealand.com
The Made From New Zealand teeshirts, each of which contains a thread of merino wool blended with one of Sir Edmund Hillary's climbing socks, are being advertised in a variety of media, with the campaign which started in September scheduled to run through October and beyond.
The teeshirts are being promoted on TV3, C4, Sky, Prime, in Fairfax and APN newspapers, on The Radio Network regional stations and online on NZHerald.co.nz and YahooXtra.co.nz.
"Rather than spending $6.3 million of taxpayers' money with an overseas-owned ad agency to promote one group of New Zealand businesses, Made From New Zealand is raising money from the sale of teeshirts to promote all businesses that contribute to New Zealand economy" says co-founder Steve Adams.
"The government campaign is aimed only at the local audience, and uses taxpayers dollars to promote one sector of the economy at the expense of the other. Made From New Zealand is aimed at local and global audiences, and rather than just running ads, we are building a long term solution to assist New Zealand businesses promote and sell their products to the world."
"Thanks to generous and ongoing support of the New Zealand media community, New Zealanders are buying Made From New Zealand teeshirts in their droves to support the campaign. Go to www.madefromnewzealand.com and buy yours today."
Source: www.madefromnewzealand.com
Google algorithm tweak
29th October 2007
In the brave new world of online media, fortunes can be won and lost on the whim of Google's key search algorithm.
And when, without warning, Google tweaked that mathematical formula this week, there was panic on the world wide web.
Swarms of bloggers and webmasters of major sites like Washingtonpost.com, Forbes.com, Engadget.com and SFGate.com noticed a downgrading in their PageRank, Google's measure of a web page's value.
A site's PageRank impacts not only its ranking in Google search results but also the price it can charge advertisers. A drop in ranking can have serious financial consequences, especially for smaller operators.
The search giant, through its dominant search engine and AdWords/AdSense network, is relied on by millions of websites not only for traffic referrals but for monetisation as well.
Many websites small and large receive over half of their visitors from Google search referrals. And without a sales team to sign advertising deals, most become AdSense affiliates, automatically connecting them with millions of advertisers worldwide.
Ironically, in the ultimate democracy that is the internet, Google reigns as virtual dictator. By changing the way it ranks sites in search results, it has the power to effortlessly shape the digital economy and manipulate the incomes of millions of web businesses around the world.
Small changes to Google's algorithm that determines how high up in search results a site appears can foil any attempts to game the system in a heartbeat. The worst offenders who are caught trying to artificially boost their search ranking are given the "Google death penalty", whereby they're delisted from search results altogether.
But it's not just illegitimate webmasters who are affected - even websites who do their best to abide by Google's rules can be impacted by changes to its algorithms.
Darren Rowse, who runs the b5media blog network, noticed the PageRank of a number of his sites drop significantly. He said it was too early to tell whether it will affect his site traffic or revenue, but he was more worried about the impact on his reputation.
"It [the PageRank] does say something about my credibility and reputation - in a similar way to anyone ranking anything," he said.
Rowse has been hit several times over the past few years by changes in Google algorithms. One led to an overnight drop in his traffic by 80 per cent, which caused a corresponding 80 per cent drop in revenue. He said it typically took up to six weeks to build the site back up to its usual traffic levels.
Google is tight-lipped about changes to its algorithms, but bloggers have speculated it made the most recent change to crack down on the buying and selling of text links outside the Google AdSense network. Many website operators pay higher ranked sites to link to them, in order to trick Google's computers into thinking the site is more authoritative and thus securing it a higher ranking in search results.
A Google spokesman said in a statement: "Values in the Google Toolbar can fluctuate for a number of normal reasons, including changes in how we crawl or index the web, or changes in the link structure of the web itself."
The PageRank could be updated by Google to "to incorporate not only our view on the backlinks to a page or site, but also to incorporate our opinion of the forward links for a site."
Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz
