Young Enterprise Birmingham and Solihull will be in The Mall on Saturday March 19 with their North Birmingham Trade Fair.

Young Enterprise provide a variety of programs throughout the country run through schools and colleges and supported by volunteers from business.

The fair on Saturday is part of the Company Programme aimed at 15 to 19 year olds who set up and run their own enterprise over the period of a year while being mentored by Young Enterprise Business Advisers.

The students are involved in all aspects of setting up and running a business, from electing a board through raising capital to presenting accounts at the end of the academic year.

Schools taking part in the fair include Sutton Coldfield Grammar School for Girls, Solihull School, Park Hall, King Edward’s and Kingsbury School.

In addition to providing the space for the fair The Mall will be giving a £50 voucher to the winning stall.

"Today, young people need to be more adaptable than ever before, and the Young Enterprise programme gives students key skills and invaluable experience of the real world of business. We hope that shoppers will come and support them in this important experience and enjoy browsing the products for sale."
Fiona Faizey, The Mall

The NORTH BIRMINGHAM TRADE FAIR 2011 Saturday 19th March 2011 8am-4.30pm The Mall, Sutton Coldfield

The Mall Sutton Coldfield recently announced the final three local businesses in its Retail Factor competition and they will each be given two weeks trading time on an RMU (Retail Merchandising Unit).

Described by The Mall as an "Apprentice type challenge" the two weeks provides an opportunity for the retailers to show the judges that they have both a product that sells and the skills to win over the Sutton Coldfield shoppers.

We have been incredibly impressed by the standards of entries this year, which has made the short-listing process very difficult. However after intense thought and discussion, we have chosen the three finalists and we look forward to seeing how they fare during their two week sessions. We are delighted that the community has embraced the competition and it is clear that Sutton Coldfield has overwhelming talent and entrepreneurial spirit.
Fiona Faizey, Marketing Manager of The Mall Sutton Coldfield

The three Sutton Coldfield finalists, Chic Jewels, U Say We Print and Khadi UK had to get through a very tough opening round to prove themselves and have a shot at winning the first prize of a start up package valued at £10,000.

U Say We Print was set up by Sonia Baker and Rhona Caines of Erdington in 2010. Providing gift items customised with images of special occasions U Say We Print will be trading from their RMU between March 7 and 19.

Also trading at The Mall from March 7 until March 19 will be jewellery retailer Chic Jewels owned by  Jinder Badwal. Jinder describes her business as supplying "Distinctive luxurious jewellery with a vintage feel."

Khadi UK will then commence trading from their RMU on March 21 until April 2. Set up by sisters Annabell and Semone Lamba in 2008, Khadi UK supplies natural, ethical, beauty products.

B72 would like to wish the best of luck to all three finalists.

A quick glance at the title of this post may give the impression that its intention is to explain why I think you or your business should have a website. This is not so - the point of this post is to emphasise the importance of identifying the purpose of your site.

It is not unusual for a site to exist simply because 'everyone else has one' or because a designer friend has recommended one based more on their desire to build their portfolio than to build your business.

However, a website is an investment in both time and money and these are not good enough reasons to have one. Before anything else, therefore, the purpose of the site should be identified as ultimately this will affect the final design and the effectiveness of that design

Furthermore, it should always be remembered that a website is part of your business and as with any other aspect it needs to demonstrate that it is making a return on that investment.

So how do you know if this is the case? Well, the return on investment can be measured in terms of the performance of the site against specific, measurable goals derived from the original objective.

Areas of the site deemed to be successful when looking at their performance in relation to the goals can be built upon while those areas that are failing can be reassessed. REMEMBER: Objective - Goals - Implementation - Evaluation - Action

As an example let us say that an organisation has a site where the objective of that site is to act as the first port of call for people wanting to know more about the organisation

From this objective they have defined the following four goals:

1. There will be a minimum of one update to the site each day
2. The number of new visitors to the site will increase by 10% per month over the next 6 months
3. The number of people contacting the organisation through the website will increase by 25% over the next 3 months
4. The number of people contacting the organisation directly through the post and by telephone will decrease by 25% over the next three months

Of course, many more goals could be identified and each goal will depend on the organisations current position and what it hopes to achieve but the principle is the same. Without realistic predefined goals it is impossible to determine the performance of YOUR site to the level that YOU want it. Hence we have the question 'Why have a website?' Ask yourself this question before any other because once you have a clear understanding of why you need a site you will have taken a very big step in ensuring that it is a success.

One of the many questions I get asked is typically why do websites fail to deliver?

There are of course many possible reasons why the owner of a site may be dissatisfied with it's performance but here, in no particular order, are five of the most common problems I have come across.

• Stale Content
• Broken/Complex Navigation
• Poor design
• Lack of promotion
• No proper strategic plan - no goals

Stale Content

If a site is to succeed over time it is important that it offers at least some regularly updated content. This will not only increase the number of visitors who return to the site but will help with search engine optimisation as the search engines love fresh content.

Of course the extent and frequency will depend on the type of site and what it offers. A site that provides news would probably require updating several times a day while an online shop may only need weekly updates on offers and general information surrounding the products.

A site that looks fresh and up to date is also more likely to retain a first time visitor than one that has content that does not appear to have changed for a long time.

Broken/Complex Navigation

If there is one thing that is guaranteed to put off new visitors and send them running it is a site that is difficult to navigate. Generally visitors to the site don't want to be made to have to think just to find what they are looking for. Some sites are like a test for MENSA when all you want to do is buy a simple item online.

In addition to navigation that is not intuitive and user friendly is the wonderful 404 page not found error. A user that finds a 404 and then leaves the site is invariably going to forget about you and your site. They are not going to come back later in idle curiosity as to whether the page they wanted to look at is still broken rather they will put their energies into finding what they wanted elsewhere

Poor Design

By poor design I am not referring to personal likes and dislikes but to the poor implementation of design rules which give an overall effect of an amateurish site. For a site to be successful in meeting its goals it should inspire confidence in its visitors. This is regardless of whether the site owner wants the visitor to read a blog or to part with their hard earned cash online. A poorly designed site is less likely to promote confidence and is therefore more likely to fail.

Typical design errors are inconsistency in the use of fonts, too many colours that clash, text and background colours that are too similar, designs and proprietary code that only work in one specific browser, sites that are too busy and especially when the content is mostly made up of advertising banners and Google Adsense.

These are just some examples but the web is full of a lot more and I expect you have your own 'favourites'

Lack of Promotion

It is a common misconception that simply building a nice website and uploading it to a server will result in traffic and that this traffic will in turn result in goal conversions. However a website, regardless of how good it may be, is like a billboard in the desert when left without being promoted in anyway. I have seen beautifully designed sites with great functionality failing simply because no one new they existed.

It is possible to make it easy for people to find your site through a whole host of techniques and methods.

• Most sites that provide a personal profile page allow for at least one url - put your site in there.
• Add your site to the numerous online directories that relate to its subject.
• Optimise the site so that it performs well in the search engines for your most important keyword(s).
• Contribute to forums and blogs, as well as increasing your own reputation, including your web address in your signature will help increase its visibility. The same applies for emails - have the name of your site and its URL in your email signature.
• Off line, make sure that your website address is included in your letterheads, business cards, leaflets and so on.

No Strategic Plan or Goals

This may seem like common sense but it is not uncommon for an individual or company to launch a web site with only a vague idea of its purpose.

It is a vital part of planning that specific goals are identified which are measurable. This is true of all sites whether they exist to increase sales, generate leads, increase dialogue, share information or whatever. Without clearly defined goals it is not possible to objectively measure the performance of the site, build upon its strengths or identify its failings and improve upon them

Without a clear strategy focus is easily lost and a site can lose direction

The following is a basic guide to some of the metrics we use in our analytic reports. It is not in the least exhaustive as the metrics we use for each individual client is dependent on the needs of that client and the goals behind the website.

I hope, however, that it provides a brief introduction to web analytics for those who are unfamiliar with what kind of measurements are involved.

Visits

The number of visits to the site. This needs to be looked at over time to determine any patterns, such as seasonal variations. Where peaks and troughs occur it is important to determine what, if anything, occurred immediately before them.

Unique visitors

Visits is a blanket figure and a useful guide but more important is the unique visitors stat. A site may receive 50 visits but from only 5 visitors. Alternatively it may receive 50 visits from 50 different visitors. Which is best will depend on the goal of the site - if user loyalty is important then the first will be more positive while the second will be if the goal is to get as many new people to the site as possible.

Bounce rate

This is a very important metric as it indicates how engaging the site is. Single page visitors are usually classed as bounced visits and the higher the percentage the poorer, generally, the quality of the visit.

Pages visited

This is recorded as the overall total of pages visited and the average number of pages visited per user. The higher the average the more engaging the site.

Time on site

Similar to the average number of pages viewed, the average time per user spent on the site is an indication of the amount of visitor interaction with the site.

New v Returning visitors

As with many of the metrics, the predefined goals dictate how they should be interpreted. However, most sites will aim for a good balance between attracting new visitors and having visitors who return to the site.

Location by country/city

It is possible to determine the country and city of origin of the visit which can help determine the quality of those visits, again based on the predetermined goals.

Entry pages

Many people think that websites are entered through the homepage and that the users navigate the rest of the site from there. However, this is not true. Visits can start on any page that is returned by the search engine or linked to from another site. These are known as landing pages and it is important to know which ones they are and which are the most successful in terms of retaining visitors. Popular landing pages should be treated with the same importance as the home page.

Exit pages

Just as any page can be a landing page so visitors can leave a site from any page. Identifying these pages can help in determining problems that are causing people to leave or, more positively, if users are completing conversions based on the sites goals. Thank you pages are more than just polite - each time one is reached it tells the site owner that a user as completed a transaction, be that a purchase, a sign-up or something else.

Traffic source

This is answering the question, how did the site user arrive at the site? Was it through a Search Engine and if so, which one? Was it via a Pay Per Click campaign? If the visit was from another website what was that referring site? Finally did the user type the address directly into the browser as when taking the address from a flyer, advertisement etc. To help monitor this marketers often use a unique page for each offline ad campaign in order to determine where the user obtained the address for example www.mydomain.com/guardian would provide data on the number of people who have visited the site after reading an ad in the Guardian newspaper.

Path

This provides information on how a user has progressed through the site from the landing page through to the exit page. This helps the site owner to understand how visitors are interacting with the site. Where there is a specific goal such, as a purchase, this helps to see if users are following the required path to complete a conversion and if not at which point are they abandoning the process.

keywords

Which keywords are being used to find the site? Are there keywords appearing which were not thought of during the initial optimisation process and should they be considered for further optimisation.

Member registrations / sign-ups

For sites that require registration, what is the ratio of registrations to visits? If it is very low could there be a reason for this that can be addressed, for example, is the registration process too complex? or difficult to locate? Is there an easily accessible privacy policy?

User contributions

For sites that promote user interaction through forums and comments it is important to measure how active the users are. What is the ratio between the number of unique visitors and those who contribute. Can the quality of the contributions be measured based on predefined goals?

Inbound links

How many external links are there to the website. An indication that users find the site useful and that it meets a need is there willingness to link to it. This is in addition to the importance of backlinks in Search Engine Optimisation and is an indication of the perceived quality of the site.

AddThis/social bookmarking

AddThis is a service for quickly adding social bookmarks to sites such as Delicious and Digg and like inbound links can be used as a measure of perceived value of the site by others.

Conversions

As touched upon a number of times above, every website should have a purpose and this purpose should be defined in terms of measurable goals. each time a goal is met by a user a conversion as taken place. The ratio of visits to conversions is therefore a very important metric when gauging the success, or otherwise, of a site.

Segmentation

Finally, a quick word about segmenting the data. To get a true insight in to the performance of a site and to produce genuinely actionable metrics segmentation is vital. All the data that can be obtained should be able to be broken down. Bounce rate, for example, is an important measurement in terms of engaging visitors but because so much more important when segmented using other metrics. Which visitor source has the largest BR - Direct? Search Engine or Referrals? If it traffic delivered from the search engines have the largest bounce rate, then with which search engines is it greatest and with which keywords and landing pages. When looking to address the bounce rate of the site the owner will be in a better position to take action based on this information than just the initial bounce rate. This process is true for all the metrics - the more they are broken down the more they can
be acted upon.

There was a request put out on twitter for information on how to perform a redirect from an old site to a new one. A fair question, it is something that quite often needs to be done and we are all learning all the time. However, amongst the responses to this question was the suggestion that the person used a meta-refresh - again, not wholly unexpected and the kind of thing a lot of people may consider to be the best and easiest solution BUT, and as you can see it is a big but, the recommendation came from someone with the words web developer and e-consultant in their profile. Anyone describing themselves in those terms should really know better.

The meta refresh tag is recognised by the major search engines and usually a refresh time of '0' is considered to be a permanent redirect while a time of '2' is interpreted as a temporary redirect. However using it this way is really just a hack and should be reserved for those times when it is impossible to apply the correct method.

A redirect that is being applied because a page has moved permanently should, as its name suggests, use a 301 permanent redirect. A search engine will follow the redirect, indexing the new page and dropping the old one. Furthermore, because this is the correct approach there is no potential penalty in the ranking of the site.

When the page has only moved temporarily a 302 temporary redirect can be employed and the original page will be kept in the index.

So how is a 301 redirect applied?

Well this depends on a couple of things. Whether it is asp or php and whether the server is windows or unix.

To redirect individual asp and asp.net pages replace the entire content of the old page with the following:
ASP Redirect
<%@ Language=VBScript %>
<%
Response.Status="301 Moved Permanently"
Response.AddHeader "Location","http://www.new-url.com/"
%>

ASP .NET Redirect

If the site is relatively small then it is possible to carry out this procedure on each individual page when a site wide redirect is required. However on larger sites it is impractical and therefore where possible the redirect should be done through the IIS. The method is:

1. In internet services manager, right click on the file or folder you wish to redirect
2. Select the radio titled "a redirection to a URL".
3. Enter the redirection page
4. Check "The exact url entered above" and the "A permanent redirection for this resource"
5. Click on 'Apply'

When the site is php the following code can be used for individual pages:
PHP Redirect
<?
Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" );
Header( "Location: http://www.new-url.com" );
?>

Again this could be applied to each of the pages in a small site for a site wide redirect but as with windows server there is a more efficient way of carrying out a site wide redirect on a unix server.

Create a .htaccess file and use the following:
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.new-url.com/$1 [R=301,L]
A .htaccess can be created in a text editor but if done so on a windows machine it will be necessary to rename the file after uploading as .htaccess is an illegal file name in windows.
(NB This requires the site to be hosted on a unix server with the Apache Mod-Rewrite moduled enabled).

Which ever method is used, ensure http://www.new-url.com is replaced with the correct URL.

Finally, some people also suggest a javascript solution which is fine for certain circumstances but as javascript is not recognised by search engines it should be avoided if this is an important factor

Beyond Monitoring

ORM can be divided into proactive and reactive actions.
Proactive

• SEO – One of the most important aspects of OEM is getting your voice heard, use search engine optimisation techniques to get your website pages to the top of the SERP.
• Getting involved – register with social networking and micro blogging sites and contribute to build a positive reputation. Comment on blogs and in forums as an expert in the field not as a blatant marketing campaign.

Reactive

• This is dealing with negative content as and when it happens.
• A speedy response is essential to minimise potential damage.
• Identify content as either:
• True – a genuine mistake on behalf of the company or concern of an individual.
• False – someone just attacking with no basis in fact
• Determine how far the damaging content has spread.

A genuine concern or complaint should be addressed openly and honestly.

Prioritise all the areas where the criticism is occurring based on popularity and address them in order by responding calmly and sincerely.

If the thread continues determine if it is the same individual or whether others are included. If it does not continue, keep monitoring without further input.

When it is the same individual agree to disagree and be sure to let the individual know that their opinion has been heard. Where changes have been put in place make sure that this has been communicated. When it is others that are continuing the thread is it genuine concern or is it simply ‘jumping on the bandwagon’? With the latter do not provide more fuel for the fire. However, when it is genuine, respond to each unique concern individually and let participants know that anything learned has been incorporated in to the business and that the changes were due to there efforts. It may also be worth considering engaging some of the individuals as a ‘sounding board’ for the future.

In cases of online attack that has no merit or basis in truth privately refute the claim and provide proof that what is being stated is misleading. Ask for a formal recant and be sure to be involved in drafting it. If this is done leave it there but continue to monitor. If it is not retracted consider legal action.

What and How to Monitor.

When monitoring the following should be considered the minimum:

• Brand names
• Product names
• Company names
• Key executive names

Some sites and ORM companies also recommend monitoring competing brands and organisations, industry terms, and general industry news.

All of the following are free methods of monitoring what people are saying about you and your company.
Google:

Set up a Google Alert for a particular keyword and be notified whenever it is mentioned in a news item/blog/website. http://www.google.com/alerts

There is more to Google search than the default page, select News from the top menu to see news specific results which can be filtered by time. From here it is also possible to access the blog search.

http://news.google.co.uk http://blogsearch.google.co.uk

Both of these areas have RSS and I would recommend that a feed is subscribed to for each of the keywords you wish to monitor.
Twitter Search

A useful site that aggregates tweets being made for a keyword and again an RSS feed is available which will keep you informed without having to keep carrying out the search. http://search.twitter.com

Another site for twitter is http://monitter.com which shows tweets in real time for three keywords.
Blogs & Forums

Technorati http://technorati.com is a blog monitor that also provides a nice little graph showing blog post mentions per day for a keyword phrase. NB as with most searches putting the phrase in quotes will give an exact search – for example family law will return results with family, law and family law whereas “family law” will only return posts with the whole phrase. An RSS feed is available.

Social Mention www.socialmention.com has alerts like Google but for social networking sites and has the addition of a sentiment measure for searches. Sentiment is give as positive, neutral and negative ratings.

Blogpulse is another online tool for monitoring the blogosphere with a few extras that may not be required but the conversation tracker is a good addition to the regular search.

Boardtracker www.boardtracker.com (discussion search) is a search engine for forums and message boards. It has RSS feeds by category and search term and can be accessed directly through the Firefox browser with a plug-in.

In addition to these free tools there are a number of companies that offer commercial solutions. These include: Market Sentinel; The Sayre Group; Tiger Two and TruReputation.

What is ORM?
There was once a time when a company, organisation or individual could place a website on line and it would represent what they wanted people to know about them.

Sometimes a disgruntled hacker could gain access to a site and deface it but this was rare and generally aimed at large corporations.

With the development of the web 2.0 environment this is no longer the case. Web 2.0 has seen a revolution in web chatter. Interactivity is the key with blogging, micro-blogging, social networking, online bookmarking and sharing taking the place of the old ‘my homepage’ that came free with ISP accounts and rarely received more than a dozen hits. What’s more search engines love these types of sites. They are regularly updated, are keyword rich and quite often packed with authoritative content. They also have lots of inbound and outbound links without being link exchanges or link farms. Inevitably they perform well in the SERP’s (search engine results page).

Your company may be number two in the search results but what if number one is a blog saying how rubbish your customer service was or that your products are overpriced?

A reputation that has been built over years can be destroyed, or at least significantly damaged, within days (if not hours) of an initial comment attacking your company, brand, product or even key executives.

To minimise any risk it is important that online chatter is monitored and that any negative publicity managed. This, along with SEO, is Online Reputation Management.

What are keywords anyway?

This post was inspired by a request I received when doing some work for a marketing company.

The request showed that there are people moving into online marketing who do not understand what keywords are or how they are used in the optimisation process

I was presented with a list of 5 key phrases and asked to add them to the current list. I discovered by the current list they meant the list in the meta keywords tag and the list in the ranking software. That was it, that was how they saw optimisation – the adding of as many keywords they could think of to the ranking software and meta keywords tag. There were already 38 key phrases in the list and the new ones took it to 43. This was, however, small compared to some of the lists that had been created, one of which was 85 phrases in length.

So why were so many keywords being identified and placed in the meta keywords tag? Because it was felt that is was important to identify as many keywords as possible to cover all the angles.

So what should they have been doing?

Well to start with, there is nothing wrong with how they started. Identifying as many keywords related to the subject matter as possible is fine but these then need to be refined through a process of analysis.

Let us remind ourselves of what keywords are. They are what we use to find what we want on the web through the use of search engines. These search engines, such as Google, crawl the internet indexing the content of websites and, using algorithms, return those sites in its search engine results page (SERP) that are relevant to those keywords. SEO is not about tricking the search engines into listing your site high in the results pages, it is about showing the engines what it is your site is about and what makes it relevant when a particular phrase is searched for – relevant enough for the search engine to place it, ideally, in the #1 position.

So lets take that list we have identified and look at it again but this time lets really look at it. Which of those keywords can we drop. Lets start with anything that is so broad that it will be frequently used by people searching for things that have nothing to do with our site. These maybe single word keywords for example.

Use the concepts of relevance, search popularity and competition level to further refine your list. Don’t worry, I’ll be posting more about these later. Meanwhile basic information on search popularity and competition level can be obtained from Google’s Keyword Tool. It’s free and a good place to start. Subscription tools that offer more options include WordTracker and Keyword Discovery. Once again, I will be posting more information about both of these soon.

Once you have done this whittling down you should be left with around 10 key phrases. There is no precise number it depends very much on how competitive the subject of your site is and the chosen keywords. If your keywords have a very high competition level you should be looking at one to two keywords per landing page. The number could be increased where the competition is lower but try and keep to a maximum of 4-5 key phrases per landing page even for the most unique subject area. With around the same number of landing pages we are still looking at a maximum of 20 key phrases.

All in all using this approach will help us focus on what it is that is important about our site and what the critical keywords are which in turn will help drive qualified traffic, increasing goal conversions. Something we are never going to achieve by placing 85 keywords in the meta keyword tag and calling it SEO