Entries Tagged 'Online Business' ↓

How many times have you seen a web business launch and think what a great idea or that was what I was thinking of doing, well if I could have a penny.

The difference between a great idea and a great business is that someone actioned the great idea to create the great business. And don’t be fooled by the “started in a garage” hype either, most great businesses arrived where they are after many great failures. You just don’t get to hear about those.

So now we have that straight what about that idea of yours? In the words of one famous brand, just do it. Take the idea, start writing about it, take notes, turn it upside down, make silly suggestions, draw cartoons about your idea, match it to colours, give it a voice, talk about it into a voice recorder, present it to yourself on video or Powerpoint. Whatever you do don’t let it go!

During this process every time you find a reason it won’t work bend it, shape it, mould it into something that will work and when you hit the next dead end re-shape it again. You don’t have to spend a penny, you just have to keep thinking about it, adding to it, improving it both in your mind and on paper. At some point you will not be able to manipulate it any more, you’ll hit a wall. Forget about it, leave it alone.

After a few days, maybe a week or so see if your idea still stacks up. If it does, then get into gear and action it. If not move on and have another Great Idea!

Photo by:http://www.flickr.com/photos/cayusa/ / CC BY 2.0

I’ve worked in the online arena for over 10 years now and when I look back over that time at all the projects I’ve worked on, companies I’ve worked for or with they have all had something in common. The expectation that I can create something from nothing and maybe they are right?

Creating something from nothing in a web sense is a bit like alchemy, where you don’t really start with nothing but that the “something” you do have is not quite tangible or in the right form. So what do you need to perform this conjuring trick?

1. A Great Idea – Most of the successful projects I have worked on have been driven by a great idea, reducing a cost, solving a problem or making more profit. I just take the idea and mould it into something that works online.
2. Commitment – And I mean commitment from the stakeholder, I already assume you have commitment or you wouldn’t have the job. So often, great ideas fail due to the failure of the stakeholder to commit to the project either monetarily or with time. They want quick results and don’t want to spend any money to get them.
3. Belief – You must have belief in what you are doing. If you don’t believe that the pot of gold does exist at the end of the rainbow then don’t start the project. Sometimes that rainbow just keeps shifting, click your heals 3 times whenever you lose some belief.
4. Vision – This is the most powerful tool in my kit bag. If I can visualise what the end result will look like, feel like, smell like or sound like I can manipulate and mould the Great Idea into a tangible object. If you can see it you can build it.
5. Attitude – Finally you need attitude. You will be punched, kicked, prodded and pulled by others trying to win the stakeholders heart. You will be tempted from your path like Adam in the Garden of Eden. Find an attitude, stick with that attitude and before you know it your creation will manifest itself.

So, what would you like me to create for you?

Photo by: http://www.flickr.com/photos/natura_pagana/ / CC BY 2.0

It is no revelation that content plays the major part on the Internet. Whether that is video, text or images content is what the end user goes online to get.

With a good content strategy any company stands a fair chance of competing for the top spots in the Search Engines in their chosen speciality. This in turn will result in visits to the website, but what happens then?

The “what” is pretty easy to answer, if I ask for a show of hands of how many of you are using an analytics tool such as Google Analytics to capture information on your website visitors, I would expect the majority of you to raise your hand. For many this is as far as it goes, viewing standard reports for Unique Visitors, Pageviews, Conversion and Bounce Rates.

Some may take that extra step and start segmenting their data, looking at how visitors from particular sources behave or at visitors that perform a particular action. This is great stuff and combining this with marketing costs from different channels you can easily track Return on Investment from each channel. But this still only tells you what someone did, what they clicked on, what they typed in search, what page they left the website on, what path they followed and so on. And that’s enough “Whats” for anyone!

Why they did, what they did, on your website is the critical question. Someone that views 20 pages before leaving your site could have been enthralled by your content, it could just as easily mean they were lost and couldn’t find what they were looking for or that your navigation isn’t very usable. The same could be said of visitors that have a higher than average “Time on Site”. Similarly, just because someone left your site after viewing one page doesn’t mean your site isn’t engaging (although I would be concerned if the percentage of people doing this was high), it could just mean they found exactly what they were looking for straight away!

Getting actionable insight from your data is the key to data driven marketing and a competitor beating website. So it is no surprise that research by Econsultancy and Lynchpin shows that companies are spending more money on staff to analyse web data than they are on the analytics tools themselves.

Now that’s okay for big brands but “Lack of budget and resources is the most significant barrier to an effective online measurement strategy, according to 57% of companies surveyed” the report also says. So for the rest of us it’s time to roll up our sleeves and dust down the calculators, or grab a copy of Avinash Kaushik’s latest book Web Analytics 2.0.

The iPad is now available in the UK, another gloriously designed object of desire from Apple. As with all products of this type nobody actually “needs” one. But then again the lure of the latest piece of  “kit” is as irresistible to a Web Geek as a shiny object is to a magpie.

So how do you convince your boss that the iPad is a must buy? After all it wasn’t that long ago you persuaded him to allow you to trade in the Blackberry for an iPhone!

Here are my top 5 reasons:

1. Time efficiency – The iPads instant on means a potential of over 11 hours extra work per year based on a PC start-up of around 3 minutes.
2. I can work anywhere – Portability means I can carry my iPad easily wherever I go, I can work when commuting or away on holiday.
3. I can work for longer – With it’s extended battery life I would not be limited to the 2-3 hours the battery on my  laptop lasts when out of the office.
4. Energy saving – Due to the longer battery life I would not use as much electricity charging the iPad compared with a laptop.
5. Testing – As the iPad is going to be so popular we need one to test our websites display as expected for our customers.

What valid business arguments do you have for buying an iPad?

Photo by: http://www.flickr.com/photos/swamptech/ / CC BY 2.0

Watching the London Marathon really inspired me this year. All the money raising stories and reasons for people running brought me out in goose bumps, but it wasn’t this that gave me inspiration. It was the winning male athlete Tsegaye Kebede.

Tsegaye is from Ethopia, born in 1987 one of 13 children, 4 years ago he was collecting fire wood and earning less than £0.20 ($0.30) per day. He enjoyed running as a youngster but as you can imagine wasn’t fortunate enough to benefit from professional training. That was until 2006 when he entered the Addis Ababa half marathon and was spotted by a professional athletics coach who invited him to train with them. Winning the Abebe Bikila International Marathon in Addis Ababa later that year.

In 4 years an unknown Ethopian raised himself from poverty to an international athlectics star. Like many Internet start-ups rising from nothing to make a mark on the business world.

But behind Tsegaye, as well as these start-ups, is a huge amount of talent and a great amount of passion. For every Marathon winner and start-up success there are thousands of failures. Other than passion and talent they all have another feature in common, their route to success took time.

Success = Passion x Talent x Time

So why is it that with such an obvious formula, many small businesses expect their online presence to return instant rewards? Why do they expect to be number one in the search engines, have thousands of followers on Facebook & Twitter? Did they hire the best people, did they put their heart into it and did they dedicate enough resource to make it happen?

Most of the time the honest answer is no and the formula fails.

Anyway, the inspiration that drove me to write this post wasn’t quite finished with me, my entry for the 2011 London Marathon has been submitted. I will be using ALL of the components of my formula to ensure I reach my version of success.

Photo by:http://www.flickr.com/photos/meandmyshadow/ / CC BY 2.0