Why SEO is just the first step...

by: Charlie Drummond
Picture this. You have a successful online store. Things are going well - all the money you have spent on online advertising has paid off - and both traffic and conversions are up. Your repeat traffic is steadily improving, and your email newsletter is performing well too - driving traffic to your promotions and key products or services.
You can sit back, relax and count the cash, right?
Wrong. Without knowing how your customers reached the point of conversion you don't know whether they are cursing their way to the checkout or just click-click-clicking their way to the credit card field. Furthermore, you don't know whether you are successfully exposing your customers to other products or services that they would have picked up on in that transaction.
Usability is understanding customer flow - the cognitive processes that each user goes through to select where to look, where to click - and when to give up and go and make a cup of tea. You can use tried and true guiding principles to help you design your website - but when your site is live, how can you tell what those users are up to? Website analytics.
Now, some of you may be following all of this, and some may be way ahead already - and that's really the divide that's out there - but if you aren't monitoring user flow and conversion within your site you aren't doing your job.
Imagine if customers couldn't navigate a physical shop - you'd soon spot where they were getting lost and try to arrange things so that they could naturally navigate through and find what they were looking for... Similarly if you built displays to expose them to key products, you would notice when they were performing poorly.
Using a web analytics page is exactly the same, and produces similar effects. Keeping an eye out produces happy shoppers who will return to buy again. However, all is not plain sailing. Web analytics figures can be a blur of percentages and meaningless measurements (bounce rates, exit and entry rates, etc) at first glance. However, FirstRate consultants can help you set up an analytics package in the first instance and, more importantly, determine what metrics are of value to you.
We can help you keep watch over your customer traffic, and spot any bottlenecks that may have gone unnoticed. We can help you to do multi-variant testing of landing pages or paid advertisement creative within your site, improve revenue and provide a better user experience. Because it is all related.

2:08 AM | 1 comments | Read More

How To Combine The Internet and Playing Games To Make Money

by: Dan Brown
It is interesting when you look at all the different ways the Internet is used today. One of the most fun ways the Internet is used is to play games. This is being done from little kids, all the way up to senior citizens. One thing you may not thought out however, is it is possible to make money playing games and capitalize on this huge market.

In this article we want to consider how you can make money playing games online.

1. First of all you need a business opportunity that allows you to not only play games, but to make money selling games. Because people are online 24 hours a day the Internet has made it possible to play games. How great would it be if you could make money with some of those people?

2. Another exciting enhancement in the world of Internet marketing is called blogging. Initially blogging started out where people would log their thoughts on the web. Now you're able to monetize your blog, allowing you to make money while interacting with other bloggers and your readers.

3. What has happened after websites and blogging has become known as Web 2.0. This has allowed blogging to move to the next level. Web 2.0 is when you allow your visitors to become part of the blogging process.

This can be done through allowing people to make comments, to vote on polls, or to simply in this case, play games. When you blog and your visitors can be involved they will come back. This process is known as social networking.
Playing games online is very easily done thanks to social networking, because you get to meet other people who want play to games as well. Social networking is really just meeting people online that have common interests as you.
You are able to form communities, known as blog communities and social network communities. RSS feeds allow you to quickly keep in touch with each other. People can subscribe to your RSS feed and receive your blog updates as you post them.
Another piece of all of this is internet chatting. This allows for instant contact with people almost anywhere in the world. When you start to consider the number of people playing games, the potential of blogging, social networking, RSS feeds, and combining Internet chatting, you begin to get the idea that to make money online playing games and selling a product that people will want play games is huge.
So the answer is yes, you really can make money playing games online. You can make a lot of friends in the process as well. You just need to find the right opportunity to take advantage of what will offer the best profit and most fun for you

1:58 AM | 0 comments | Read More