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    Best Practice Guide To Project Success
    1. Question The Need For The Project The quickest, cheapest and simplest way of improving your organisation's levels of project success is to stop starting new projects. Question whether your new project is really required right now. If you aren't going to do anything different between this new project and a previous project, chances are that this one will fail as well.Instead plan a strategy for improving your project success rates. Once you have begun to implement some of the changes the start new projects. For the time being, stop projects failing by simply not starting any new ones.2. Always Prototype Solutions The use of prototypes will improve the rates of project success. From simple pictures and diagrams to functional working models, prototypes will improve the frequency, quality and quantity of stakeholder feedback into a project.Train project members to storyboard user scenarios. Look to include a web developer in the plan to create basic mock-up application screens. One of the first deliverables in any project plan should be a form of prototype. Start getting stakeholder feedback as soon as possible.The most effective teams, build prototypes, get feedback and then incorporate the feedback into the next set of prototypes. By providing stakeholders with this level of attention and focus leads to greater support. Individuals like to see their vision and ideas presented as a tangible
    o measure the improvements.

    Do you have an idea of conversion metrics by sector? Which sectors are leading the way in terms of conversion rates? Which ones are underperforming?

    We’ve compiled a list of averages by sector from a variety of different sources (including e-consultancy.com) which you can see here;

    What Is An Average Conversion rate?

    No-one is really sure how accurate these figures are. They seem reasonable based on the top e-tailers who hit global conversion rates of between 11-16% (we’re talking about online retailers like Amazon, Ebay and QVC)

    The sectors which have always done the best are the catalogue companies and the average figure suggests a 6.1% conversion rate. In our experience this seems about right. I have worked up conversion to those levels with a number of catalogue companies that were hitting lower than 6% before and some have come to us with slightly higher conversion rates than 6% initially.

    The underperformers seem to me to be sport/outdoor retailers or fashion and apparel. They really should be hitting much higher levels than the average level 1.4-2.2%.

    Creating web pages is a balancing act between the needs of the business and the needs of the user. Factor in the needs of the search engines and that’s quite a challenge. Where should your priorities lie?

    T

    New Year Career
    Consider Maslow's hierarchy of needs -- once requirements for food and shelter are taken care of, you seek intellectual stimulation. On Maslow's pyramid, until you've found inner serenity somewhere near the top of the pyramid, you should ask the question, how is this job helping me advance my career?An easy way to measure this is to look at your resum?. Update it to reflect where you are today. Then identify what you've accomplished in the past 12 months that made you more effective, more interesting, or more marketable. Do you have 10 years’ experience, or one year's experience repeated 10 times? Select every new skill or accomplishment that you couldn't claim a year ago.A survey conducted by Gail Kasper, LLC, a leading speaking and coaching company, found that Americans are not taking their futures seriously. Specifically, 51% of those surveyed do not have New Year’s resolutions. Of those who do, 79% don’t have a plan to achieve them.According to the Department of Labor, over 400,000 unemployed individuals are NOT actively seeking employment because they feel that there are no jobs available for them. With unemployment high, job seekers must stay the course, have a game plan and maximize their opportunities or they will find themselves among the 91% of Americans who won’t be achieving their goals in the New Year.The survey, completed by a random group of 104 adults, also asked respondents to identify the biggest iss
    What are the most important factors that influence conversion rates?

    A joint of roast beef is sizzling over an open fire on a glorious summer day. The aroma fills the air as you cut the juicy meat into generous slices and stack them on a plate to pass around your friends. Your pet dog, driven crazy by the smell starts begging, whining and running around excitedly, hoping for a piece of the delicious steak.

    “Speak to the dog, about what matters to the dog in the language of the dog” Jeff Eisenberg – Call to action

    What Jeff doesn’t mean is start barking at people.

    What he means is write for your target audience, about what it is they want, in a simple and attractive way. I’m sure that you’re now thinking about roast beef. That’s what you need to do when writing for your website, try to put a picture in your prospects head. The most important factors influencing conversion rates are your copy and content, your copy attracts, persuades and provides momentum, while your content answers all your prospects questions. Design, usability, measurement and testing should all be taken into account but they come after you figure out what it is you want to say and to whom you want to say it.

    Where do you normally start when working with a new client? Is there a set process you follow?

    Yes. We start by asking lots of questions. Initially we get the basic business information so we can ascertain how deeply the client has thought about their website as a business. You’d be surprised how many companies don’t know what their cost per visit is or their profit per website visitor. So we develop a business objective so that we can say, ‘this is where you are now’.

    Next we’ll do an analysis of how far we think we can take them, based on their own limitations and budget. Then we can say what service they might need to take them to the next level. Not all businesses need the same things, some need tweaks to marketing strategies, some need better copy and content so it’s hard to answer. But the process we use is the same to find out what the client really needs.

    How important is it to use web analytics tools to find on-site problems?

    You can’t prove whether anything works on a website without web analytics tools. I advise every client I’ve ever worked with to get web analytics. I won’t work with an enterprise level company if they haven’t got web analytics. The tools allow you to do 2 things very well, pinpoint problems and measure your tests. Without this capability you’re pretty much guessing.

    Can you suggest some generic KPIs that e-commerce teams should be monitoring?

    There are lots and you should decide upon metrics which you can act upon. However here are some you might want to think about adopting;

    · Site-wide conversion rate
    · Product conversion rates
    · Percentage of new and returning visitors
    · Sales per visitor
    · Average order value
    · Average number of items purchased
    · Shopping cart abandonment rate (step conversions
    · Revenue and Profit per product
    · Repeat order rate, to help calculate long term value
    · Cost per visit
    · Profit per website visit

    Also don’t forget to set trip wires like page views per visit. I’ve explained it better about in this article; How Web Analytics Found A Million Dollar Hole

    Is Google Analytics going to be good or bad for the industry?

    Basically yes I believe it is going to be good for the industry. I’m delighted about it. Rather than write another 1000 words on the subject though; Read this article

    Too many paid-search and affiliate programmes do not create campaign-specific landing pages. What are the key elements that should be found on a landing page?

    Compelling copy and content. Complimentary design, a graphic should help people to see the text or reinforce the message not just be there for the sake of it. One link from the landing page – the call to action, IE the buy now button. A landing page should already attract the audience who want what you have so you needn’t persuade them to go elsewhere by giving them any other links or options. Nick Usborne wrote a nice article about this;

    How To Write A Landing Page

    Do you have any metrics to share about landing pages, eg before / after conversion rates?

    On average e-commerce landing pages get about 2-2.5% conversions. After we’ve worked on changes we tend to improve things by 40-50%. So usually 2.8-3.3% convert after the changes to a single call to action landing page. Of course it depends on the type of business and the traffic source. Banner ads are always lower than PPC ads for instance.

    You’re a big fan of A/B testing. How can web teams implement these tests and what should they be testing?

    The basic principle is that you write two test pages, direct equal traffic to each and see which works better. It’s possible to write your own traffic splitter code if you are only testing a few things at a time and you have in house programmers. Or you could outsource the testing to something like Offermatica which handles the test pages and the traffic splitting.

    Things you might want to test using an A/B split are headlines, copy blocks, graphical images, banner ads, PPC ads, button colours, in fact anything where you have the potential to improve the response and be able to measure the improvements.

    Do you have an idea of conversion metrics by sector? Which sectors are leading the way in terms of conversion rates? Which ones are underperforming?

    We’ve compiled a list of averages by sector from a variety of different sources (including e-consultancy.com) which you can see here;

    What Is An Average Conversion rate?

    No-one is really sure how accurate these figures are. They seem reasonable based on the top e-tailers who hit global conversion rates of between 11-16% (we’re talking about online retailers like Amazon, Ebay and QVC)

    The sectors which have always done the best are the catalogue companies and the average figure suggests a 6.1% conversion rate. In our experience this seems about right. I have worked up conversion to those levels with a number of catalogue companies that were hitting lower than 6% before and some have come to us with slightly higher conversion rates than 6% initially.

    The underperformers seem to me to be sport/outdoor retailers or fashion and apparel. They really should be hitting much higher levels than the average level 1.4-2.2%.

    Creating web pages is a balancing act between the needs of the business and the needs of the user. Factor in the needs of the search engines and that’s quite a challenge. Where should your priorities lie?

    Th

    Increasing Your Sphere of Influence
    Word-of-mouth advertising is one of the cheapest and most effective types of advertising your company can invest in, but how do we generate this elusive type of advertising? Most experts in the area will say, “Get out and ‘network’.” So we go to a Chamber of Commerce meeting with dozens or even hundreds of other people trying to promote their company or service, and we attempt to promote our company or service as well. Very few people come to these meetings to buy things. The odds seem to be stacked against from the beginning, so is it any wonder why most of us come back from these meetings thinking that we just wasted an hour or two?It doesn’t have to be that way. By making just a few simple changes to our approach, we can become a center of influence in any room and in effect, generate significant word of mouth advertising. One of the first things that we have to realize, though, is what ‘networking’ actually is and what it is not. Networking IS NOT selling. If we know 99% of the people at a networking function are there to promote their own product or service (not buy from us,) and we try to sell our product or service to them, we are likely to frustrate (and bore) ourselves and the people we are talking with.Networking IS increasing our sphere of influence in order to promote our product or service to this sphere of influence at a future time. People do business with and refer people to people they, know, like, and tru
    s of questions. Initially we get the basic business information so we can ascertain how deeply the client has thought about their website as a business. You’d be surprised how many companies don’t know what their cost per visit is or their profit per website visitor. So we develop a business objective so that we can say, ‘this is where you are now’.

    Next we’ll do an analysis of how far we think we can take them, based on their own limitations and budget. Then we can say what service they might need to take them to the next level. Not all businesses need the same things, some need tweaks to marketing strategies, some need better copy and content so it’s hard to answer. But the process we use is the same to find out what the client really needs.

    How important is it to use web analytics tools to find on-site problems?

    You can’t prove whether anything works on a website without web analytics tools. I advise every client I’ve ever worked with to get web analytics. I won’t work with an enterprise level company if they haven’t got web analytics. The tools allow you to do 2 things very well, pinpoint problems and measure your tests. Without this capability you’re pretty much guessing.

    Can you suggest some generic KPIs that e-commerce teams should be monitoring?

    There are lots and you should decide upon metrics which you can act upon. However here are some you might want to think about adopting;

    · Site-wide conversion rate
    · Product conversion rates
    · Percentage of new and returning visitors
    · Sales per visitor
    · Average order value
    · Average number of items purchased
    · Shopping cart abandonment rate (step conversions
    · Revenue and Profit per product
    · Repeat order rate, to help calculate long term value
    · Cost per visit
    · Profit per website visit

    Also don’t forget to set trip wires like page views per visit. I’ve explained it better about in this article; How Web Analytics Found A Million Dollar Hole

    Is Google Analytics going to be good or bad for the industry?

    Basically yes I believe it is going to be good for the industry. I’m delighted about it. Rather than write another 1000 words on the subject though; Read this article

    Too many paid-search and affiliate programmes do not create campaign-specific landing pages. What are the key elements that should be found on a landing page?

    Compelling copy and content. Complimentary design, a graphic should help people to see the text or reinforce the message not just be there for the sake of it. One link from the landing page – the call to action, IE the buy now button. A landing page should already attract the audience who want what you have so you needn’t persuade them to go elsewhere by giving them any other links or options. Nick Usborne wrote a nice article about this;

    How To Write A Landing Page

    Do you have any metrics to share about landing pages, eg before / after conversion rates?

    On average e-commerce landing pages get about 2-2.5% conversions. After we’ve worked on changes we tend to improve things by 40-50%. So usually 2.8-3.3% convert after the changes to a single call to action landing page. Of course it depends on the type of business and the traffic source. Banner ads are always lower than PPC ads for instance.

    You’re a big fan of A/B testing. How can web teams implement these tests and what should they be testing?

    The basic principle is that you write two test pages, direct equal traffic to each and see which works better. It’s possible to write your own traffic splitter code if you are only testing a few things at a time and you have in house programmers. Or you could outsource the testing to something like Offermatica which handles the test pages and the traffic splitting.

    Things you might want to test using an A/B split are headlines, copy blocks, graphical images, banner ads, PPC ads, button colours, in fact anything where you have the potential to improve the response and be able to measure the improvements.

    Do you have an idea of conversion metrics by sector? Which sectors are leading the way in terms of conversion rates? Which ones are underperforming?

    We’ve compiled a list of averages by sector from a variety of different sources (including e-consultancy.com) which you can see here;

    What Is An Average Conversion rate?

    No-one is really sure how accurate these figures are. They seem reasonable based on the top e-tailers who hit global conversion rates of between 11-16% (we’re talking about online retailers like Amazon, Ebay and QVC)

    The sectors which have always done the best are the catalogue companies and the average figure suggests a 6.1% conversion rate. In our experience this seems about right. I have worked up conversion to those levels with a number of catalogue companies that were hitting lower than 6% before and some have come to us with slightly higher conversion rates than 6% initially.

    The underperformers seem to me to be sport/outdoor retailers or fashion and apparel. They really should be hitting much higher levels than the average level 1.4-2.2%.

    Creating web pages is a balancing act between the needs of the business and the needs of the user. Factor in the needs of the search engines and that’s quite a challenge. Where should your priorities lie?

    T

    Name the Top Cable Network
    When Cable began as Community Antenna Television in 1948, all it did was collect over the air TV signals and send them down a cable.When Cable networks began, so did Cable advertising. The fledgling new networks sold (or gave away) ads in their programs. Memories are etched in our brain; The Amazing Slicer-Dicer, and "so you don't forget, call before midnight tonight". Eventually local cable systems were given permission to sell ads and cover up selected Ginsu Knife ads on the networks.Local Cable sales have never been great because the audience is so fragmented they can't sell it for even half what the local TV station can get for crummy time slots.However, Cable is growing in strength and numbers. Now the broadcast industry is talking seriously about the numbers and amounts of national ad sales for Cable. Viewership for the big national over the air networks continues to shrink as Cable continues to grow. It's not an even contest, yet.A recent look at the numbers show, are you ready for this? Nickelodeon is the number one Cable network (this is for the total day, not prime time. If you buy Cable ads your commercials will be scattered all day). Other movers on the chart, TNT (Turner Network Television), Cartoon Network (A Turner property) Disney, Lifetime, USA, TBS and Fox News.Most of the Cable networks in the top 20 allow the local systems to insert commercials, some as cheap as 5
    ch you can act upon. However here are some you might want to think about adopting;

    · Site-wide conversion rate
    · Product conversion rates
    · Percentage of new and returning visitors
    · Sales per visitor
    · Average order value
    · Average number of items purchased
    · Shopping cart abandonment rate (step conversions
    · Revenue and Profit per product
    · Repeat order rate, to help calculate long term value
    · Cost per visit
    · Profit per website visit

    Also don’t forget to set trip wires like page views per visit. I’ve explained it better about in this article; How Web Analytics Found A Million Dollar Hole

    Is Google Analytics going to be good or bad for the industry?

    Basically yes I believe it is going to be good for the industry. I’m delighted about it. Rather than write another 1000 words on the subject though; Read this article

    Too many paid-search and affiliate programmes do not create campaign-specific landing pages. What are the key elements that should be found on a landing page?

    Compelling copy and content. Complimentary design, a graphic should help people to see the text or reinforce the message not just be there for the sake of it. One link from the landing page – the call to action, IE the buy now button. A landing page should already attract the audience who want what you have so you needn’t persuade them to go elsewhere by giving them any other links or options. Nick Usborne wrote a nice article about this;

    How To Write A Landing Page

    Do you have any metrics to share about landing pages, eg before / after conversion rates?

    On average e-commerce landing pages get about 2-2.5% conversions. After we’ve worked on changes we tend to improve things by 40-50%. So usually 2.8-3.3% convert after the changes to a single call to action landing page. Of course it depends on the type of business and the traffic source. Banner ads are always lower than PPC ads for instance.

    You’re a big fan of A/B testing. How can web teams implement these tests and what should they be testing?

    The basic principle is that you write two test pages, direct equal traffic to each and see which works better. It’s possible to write your own traffic splitter code if you are only testing a few things at a time and you have in house programmers. Or you could outsource the testing to something like Offermatica which handles the test pages and the traffic splitting.

    Things you might want to test using an A/B split are headlines, copy blocks, graphical images, banner ads, PPC ads, button colours, in fact anything where you have the potential to improve the response and be able to measure the improvements.

    Do you have an idea of conversion metrics by sector? Which sectors are leading the way in terms of conversion rates? Which ones are underperforming?

    We’ve compiled a list of averages by sector from a variety of different sources (including e-consultancy.com) which you can see here;

    What Is An Average Conversion rate?

    No-one is really sure how accurate these figures are. They seem reasonable based on the top e-tailers who hit global conversion rates of between 11-16% (we’re talking about online retailers like Amazon, Ebay and QVC)

    The sectors which have always done the best are the catalogue companies and the average figure suggests a 6.1% conversion rate. In our experience this seems about right. I have worked up conversion to those levels with a number of catalogue companies that were hitting lower than 6% before and some have come to us with slightly higher conversion rates than 6% initially.

    The underperformers seem to me to be sport/outdoor retailers or fashion and apparel. They really should be hitting much higher levels than the average level 1.4-2.2%.

    Creating web pages is a balancing act between the needs of the business and the needs of the user. Factor in the needs of the search engines and that’s quite a challenge. Where should your priorities lie?

    T

    Business Management - Be Aware Of Fear And-Greed
    This is probably such a day as many others. Business as usual. Nothing wrong, no alerts, you loose some, you win some. You go with the flow and let your profits grow.... Do not think that this jargon is for investment managers only; business management and investment management is not that different.When you are in the business arena you know that you have to follow the market. You watch the competition, you check the trends and you respond to other incidents that you are involved in. Until that special moment.It starts with rumors, than it’s the talk of the town. And then it appears; a new trend. Nearly invisible at first, a big monster a few moments later. Then people will ask you; what are we going to do?From the investment market we know that the market behavior is powered by fear and greed. When the oil price is rising, we fear that it will not lower again, when the US dollar is under pressure it will never go up (a European worry) and if the stock market plunges it will not recover for years. Closer to the truth is that any movement will have its counterpart. The question is timing. When you are familiar with investments you probably know that you should not try to time the market. Yet does this mean that you should always go with the flow? You cannot (always) stop the flow. But you could try to make a few changes especially when you feel that something is wrong.Take the following heading of a rec
    the audience who want what you have so you needn’t persuade them to go elsewhere by giving them any other links or options. Nick Usborne wrote a nice article about this;

    How To Write A Landing Page

    Do you have any metrics to share about landing pages, eg before / after conversion rates?

    On average e-commerce landing pages get about 2-2.5% conversions. After we’ve worked on changes we tend to improve things by 40-50%. So usually 2.8-3.3% convert after the changes to a single call to action landing page. Of course it depends on the type of business and the traffic source. Banner ads are always lower than PPC ads for instance.

    You’re a big fan of A/B testing. How can web teams implement these tests and what should they be testing?

    The basic principle is that you write two test pages, direct equal traffic to each and see which works better. It’s possible to write your own traffic splitter code if you are only testing a few things at a time and you have in house programmers. Or you could outsource the testing to something like Offermatica which handles the test pages and the traffic splitting.

    Things you might want to test using an A/B split are headlines, copy blocks, graphical images, banner ads, PPC ads, button colours, in fact anything where you have the potential to improve the response and be able to measure the improvements.

    Do you have an idea of conversion metrics by sector? Which sectors are leading the way in terms of conversion rates? Which ones are underperforming?

    We’ve compiled a list of averages by sector from a variety of different sources (including e-consultancy.com) which you can see here;

    What Is An Average Conversion rate?

    No-one is really sure how accurate these figures are. They seem reasonable based on the top e-tailers who hit global conversion rates of between 11-16% (we’re talking about online retailers like Amazon, Ebay and QVC)

    The sectors which have always done the best are the catalogue companies and the average figure suggests a 6.1% conversion rate. In our experience this seems about right. I have worked up conversion to those levels with a number of catalogue companies that were hitting lower than 6% before and some have come to us with slightly higher conversion rates than 6% initially.

    The underperformers seem to me to be sport/outdoor retailers or fashion and apparel. They really should be hitting much higher levels than the average level 1.4-2.2%.

    Creating web pages is a balancing act between the needs of the business and the needs of the user. Factor in the needs of the search engines and that’s quite a challenge. Where should your priorities lie?

    T

    Trainee Accountant Jobs - Insurance Accountancy Qualific
    If you are thinking of applying for a trainee accountant job it’s important to know what qualification the position would lead to.AAT (Association of Accounting Technicians) The AAT qualification is very much an entry level course. If you don’t have much accounts experience or are concerned that the other qualifications might be too involved the course might be ideal. The qualifications are based around practical experience, exams and coursework. It’s an ideal candidate for distance or part time learning.ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) The ACCA qualification typically takes three years to complete while still working in an accounting job. The Syllabus involves 14 examinations though there are a number of exemptions available for people with prior experience or relevant qualifications. They have over 300,000 members who have taken the twice yearly exam.ATT (Association of Tax Technicians) is a qualification in tax. It’s a specialist accounts qualification for those working in the taxation sector. The association has close ties to the Institute of Taxation who were responsible for the sponsorship of the Association when it was established. The organisation works both as a group for tax professionals organising conferences and publications as well as administering the qualification. Normally the knowledge for the examinations is learnt via a distance learning scheme. The formal exam can be arranged seven m
    o measure the improvements.

    Do you have an idea of conversion metrics by sector? Which sectors are leading the way in terms of conversion rates? Which ones are underperforming?

    We’ve compiled a list of averages by sector from a variety of different sources (including e-consultancy.com) which you can see here;

    What Is An Average Conversion rate?

    No-one is really sure how accurate these figures are. They seem reasonable based on the top e-tailers who hit global conversion rates of between 11-16% (we’re talking about online retailers like Amazon, Ebay and QVC)

    The sectors which have always done the best are the catalogue companies and the average figure suggests a 6.1% conversion rate. In our experience this seems about right. I have worked up conversion to those levels with a number of catalogue companies that were hitting lower than 6% before and some have come to us with slightly higher conversion rates than 6% initially.

    The underperformers seem to me to be sport/outdoor retailers or fashion and apparel. They really should be hitting much higher levels than the average level 1.4-2.2%.

    Creating web pages is a balancing act between the needs of the business and the needs of the user. Factor in the needs of the search engines and that’s quite a challenge. Where should your priorities lie?

    The needs of the user are the most important. The business need in most cases is simply to make or save money. Businesses should achieve both their own business objective while catering for the user so that she can accomplish her goals. The more that the she accomplishes the better it should be for your business. Search engine marketing is important but you should never sacrifice copy or content simply to rank highly on Google. The search optimization should and can be implemented, but it should still persuade the person reading the copy that your solution is for them. Yes it is a balancing act but if you prioritize with the users in all cases then you’re on the right track.

    How can accessibility and usability play a part in increasing conversion rates?

    Usability is necessary. You should follow all the best practices regards navigation, colours and layout. Accessibility is becoming increasingly important. We’ve seen our own visitors ask us to change font sizes (make them bigger) for instance. We now have a function on our own site which allows you to adjust the text through the browser to any size you like.

    Which online retailers do you most admire for their shopping cart processes? And which ones are a ‘dropout from basket’ waiting to happen?

    Amazon and Cafepress.com have very friendly and simple interfaces. The interesting thing about these two sites is that while they do take your details and record them so it’s easier for you the next time you visit, they do not ask you to “open an account” or “create account” because the wording itself puts many people off. How many times have you bought something from Amazon because they “suggested” something based on your interests? Amazon really understands about building a site around what the user wants (or might want based on their preferences).

    The sites which are a drop-out waiting to happen are the ones which have common problems, like requiring registration before a purchase, long checkout processes (I’ve seen ten steps to purchase before), no shipping information displayed, no privacy policies, no security (SSL encryption), lack of guarantees and return policies, the list is endless.

    Copywriting is an increasingly essential art form for many e-commerce teams. But the challenges for large websites can be immense, if authoring occurs at a local level. How can you manage authors so that they stick to the conversion-focused rules?

    Firstly we figure out what their limitations are. The content management systems or technical backend may mean that we need to adapt our methods to their systems. Then we hold them by the hand for a number of their most popular products showing them how we’ve come to the copy and content we’ve developed. Then we design a custom template with rules to follow so that the content managers can work to a specification. The content managers are then responsible for their own testing to improve the site copy and this is done in conjunction with A/B split testing and or web analytics. We either handle that ourselves or train the managers to do it themselves. Ownership of the site is key, by getting the content managers to own and develop their content based on what works, gradually the conversion improves.

    Do you have any insight into how the demographics and conversion rates differ between Google, Yahoo and MSN users?

    The demographics are important and can mean a whole change of strategy for some businesses. This observation of the Nielsen//Netratings figures by Danny Sullivan is particularly good and current; http://searchenginewatch.com/reports/article.php/2156451

    As for conversion rates from different engines, we have yet to do a study of that and I don’t know anyone who has. We tend to work on a client by client basis and work out the best sources of traffic for each, based on their own particular product ranges.

    (Obligatory end of year question alert…) What do you think will be the top trends for webmasters in 2006?

    I’d like to think that the focus will shift from traffic acquisition via search engines to traffic conversion but I think it’s still a little bit too early for that in Europe. It’s beginning now in the US and I think it will take another year before the UK and later Europe really start to focus on it. I do feel that this year because of Google Analytics more focus will shift toward web analytics, which in my view is as important for the industry as when PPC was introduced. It means businesses will be able to use a quality tool without paying a fortune and see for themselves how a good tool can affect the bottom line. This can only be a good thing as the trend will shift towards measurement rather than best guessing which has been going on for far too long.

    This article is a transcript of my answers to questions posed by Chris Lake of e-consultancy.com from December 2005. Hopefully you will find the grilling I got useful!

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