This month our article in Axis Magazine looked at the future of the web and a little bit about where it all started.

Download your copy of our July article from Axis Magazine (1MB) >

The web is constantly evolving. New technology and innovation does not come in generations, it comes as a continual drip over time. To keep ahead of the game, companies, organisations and individuals need to continually re-evaluate their web presence and update things accordingly. Just because you have a good web presence now, doesn't mean your web presence is sorted forever.

Key to success in the changing world and on the web is to watch how your customers interact with you and adapt as their needs change.

What are you talking about?

Here are some explanations of different terms and the sources which are referred to in the article:

Facebook: Statistics on the usage of Facebook >
Google Maps: Content is being added by everyday people >
YouTube: This broadcasting is even being used by the government >
Mozilla Foundation: See the quote in the article? Find out who they are >

‘RSS’: what it means and how it is used by the BBC >
Semantic Web: What is this? Watch a intro video to this concept >
Linked Data: Video of Tim Berners-Lee on his idea for ‘Linked Data’ >
Cloud Computing: Watch this very brief overview on the concept >

Predicting the future...

Here are a couple of articles which are well worth a read if you are interested in more information about the (possible) future of the web:

Sir Tim Berners-Lee: “the future web will rock the boat" >
Gordon Brown: "The internet is as vital as water" >
iPhone 3G S: A new mobile phone which is taking full of advantage of the web >

This month, we looked at how important it is to recognise and use your brand when creating a web presence.

Download your copy of our article from Axis Magazine (1MB) >

A website should be an extension of your brand, not a separate part of it. It should fit with your other company material and create a complete picture for your customers and prospects.

A logo and a slogan are usually a good way to encapsulate a company and what they stand for. From there you should think about the design of the brand; what are you trying to say? Your company isn’t just a purveyor of goods and services. You are different from the competition and you should make that distinction clear.

Where is the brand?

The brand is an intangible thing and exists in the minds of your customers. How it gets into their mind is through your marketing material and website. This means your brand can be seen in your business cards, brochures, letterhead paper, website, posters and so on. Your marketing material and website isn’t just trying to sell, it’s got to build the brand.

South Eastern Electrical saw the need to have a solid brand identity and called on us to design logos, brochures and a website for them. Take a look at our short case-study on South Eastern Electrical >

What can a brand do?

A strong brand adds value to what you sell. It’s doubtful that Nike trainers really cost £100 to make. Nike can charge that price in part because of the brand they have. People are willing to pay more for a brand.

Successful and established brands also have the flexibility to engage with their audience in different ways. Masterfoods renamed their Mars bars to “Believe” for a few months during the 2006 World Cup. They could do this because the Mars brand is so established, that even with a new name the product was easily recognised.

With a solid and well designed brand, you can give all your marketing a unified, complimentary and memorable identity.

View more of our articles for Axis Magazine >

In this month's issue of Axis Magazine we've discussed the dot-com era and what it’s like for modern e-commerce.

Download your copy of our Web Advice article from Axis Magazine (1.2MB) >

When the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, many companies went bust and confidence in the online world was damaged. A few big players survived, taking a large market share and they now enjoy great success (Amazon, eBay, Play.com). But many smaller companies were lost.

Other companies which survived were either not looking too big or had a real-world presence to back them up. The mentality of “get big quick” was destined to only pay off for a fraction of the players involved. There were simply too many companies competing to do the same thing, with too much investment and not enough actual business. Business models designed to operate at a loss for years, just to win enough of a market share for profit later on.

Back to the present

These days, successful e-commerce companies dont tend to look at dominating the web, but instead see it as a way to position a their company to sell online. A good way to think about it is like companies setting up another branch or store, which just happens to be online. This is why they resemble shops, with areas for different items, baskets while you shop, checkouts and so on. Some websites even feature live help, where a representative can chat to customer through a chat window.

Woolworths was a high profile casualty of the recession last Christmas. Because they slashed their prices, other retailers were forced to do the same in order to remain competitive. In the end, Woolworths closed, but they were unfortunately only the first. Poor Christmas sales and a general down-turn in the economy have forced other retailers to tighten their belts and prepare for a harsh couple of years. But it's not all doom and gloom - according to the Woolworth’s website, the store will be re-launching in the summer; this time online.

With the speed at which customers can browse websites, the key is to make sure they quickly find what they’re looking for. Research has shown that customers in the past have taken up to 34 hours to make a buying decision. Having a site which is easy to navigate and where possible, remembers who they are and what they looked at before, will help bring in those sales. Shopping online is a quick "I need it now" kind of shopping and one which you can get into quite easily.

In the early days, the dot-com world seemed like just a fad and for some, during the bubble burst of 2000, it was. E-Commerce is now commonly accepted, more sophisticated and proving to be more resilient during these times of economic recession. If you haven't thought about it before or you've had bad experiences, think about it again and see what e-commerce could mean for your business.

More on e-commerce

Shoppers shun high street for online bargains >
Retail sales down by 1.9% in March >
Wikipedia article on the dot-com bubble >
Woolworths is coming back online >
Some e-commerce stories (of varying successes) from Debenhams, Argos and Sainsbury >

In addition to our article in April's Axis Magazine, we take a more detailed look at 'search engine optimisation' (SEO). Search engine optimisation is the process of getting your site to rank as highly as possible for the searches which are relevant to you.

Download your copy of our article from Axis Magazine (1MB) >

In the article, we covered some of the basic principles on SEO and Google. But what about other search engines? What about Yahoo, AOL, Ask and MSN? Because Google processes 60% of the world’s searches, it is usually easier to just talk about how to rank on Google. Especially because many other search engines follow what Google does.

When search engines do their searching, they aren’t actually searching the live web. They are only searching an index of it. In the early days of the internet, search engines used human-edited directories. A popular example of this was Yahoo, which had hundreds of people updating the index of websites.

The problem was that this took a long time and niche areas of the web were poorly indexed. What Google did (and did well) was to create an algorithm which automatically trawled through the web, indexing what it found. By judging a page on the words it found, the links it had pointing to it and so on, Google created a huge and accurate index. They’ve been continually refining and shaping this technology and due to its success, other search engines (including Yahoo) now use the Google index in conjunction with their own.

There are hundreds of different things for SEO, each of which usually only makes a small difference to your ranking. However, an organised and comprehensive approach to web design will help you get the best from your website and how it ranks.

Other interesting things about Google:

Google’s unofficial motto is, “Don’t be evil” – meaning that they don’t seek to exploit people or the web for their own ends. Read more about Google’s motto >

The Google “I’m feeling lucky” button on their home page takes the user to whatever the top result is for that search. However, the existence of this button is reported to cost Google $110million a year. Read more about this button >

Google has often been criticised (and praised) for dominating the online market. With so much power and influence in the shape of the internet, Google are defining the web in the same way that Microsoft defined software. Read more about Google's competition >

The March edition of Axis Magazine is out and available throughout the local Hertfordshire area and this month, Tom Bull takes a look at e-marketing in his Web Advice article.

When is the right time to market? What are the cost effective ways to promote your business? Should marketing and promotion be kept to a minimum in a time of recession?

Download your copy of the Web Advice: E-Marketing article (1.3MB) >