The Braid Blog; featuring online strategy ideas, thoughts and observations on web marketing issues. The aim is to both inform and elicit comment on a range of issues that relate to both our clients, our industry, or just things we have worked on!
For most businesses websites are critical for lead generation and data capture of potential customers. The data is typically collected through a variety of form based methods; newsletter subscription, content download, online payment, competition, book an appointment etc. Under the new GDPR rules, coming into law in May 2018, collecting this data is going to
-> Continue reading GDPR usability issues – are they really that bad?
Outsourcing as strategy Companies increasingly outsource specialist services and logistics; Accounting, HR, Delivery, server hosting, advertising etc. The arguments for such a strategy frequently refer to flexibility, access to unique skill and reducing employee costs. But services need to be managed. The outsourced work needs specifying. The output then needs judging and implementing.Who in the
-> Continue reading Digital Skills; How far can outsourcing go?
A free digital strategy review might confirm your suspicions or delight you? When you buy cheese, a little sample always helps… A wine tasting may encourage you to buy a bottle or 3… So is a free strategy review worth a moment of your time? So if you want to understand what Braid could contribute
-> Continue reading Free digital strategy review
Website analysis and reporting on the critical issues; do you know your ROI from your Bounce? You have a Google Analytics account, an Adwords account, a bunch of Tweets and a host of Facebook likes. But does your website analysis link the different streams and make sense of what it all tells you? Can you interpret your sites
-> Continue reading Google Analytics
…and the agency didn’t deliver the brief We took on a project the autumn of 2013 acting as web strategy consultants/web project managers for a business with no direct knowledge of digital projects. The client needed a new website but had no in-house expertise in digital projects to brought Braid in to manage the exercise.
-> Continue reading What happened when the consultant stopped helping…
Utility Companies; a customer’s (failed) Great Expectations Sharp practises; Questionable contract terms; Ludicrous charges; Not-customer service….? Any of these thoughts seem familiar? Well here is part 1 of a simple little story to exemplify just how much the average consumer should modify their “Great Expectations” Situation You have had a family contract for 2 years
-> Continue reading Utility companies; The customer always pays…and pays….and pays.
Ecommerce Winners and Losers The 2014 Christmas trading announcements highlight the apparent impact of the internet. The volume of web sales will overtake high-street revenues for many businesses in the near future (if not already!) But what can we project as likely impacts of the most recent “positive” reports? 1. Knee-jerk agony You can picture
-> Continue reading Post Christmas 2013; online winners and losers
When you develop a clients marketing, build website functionality, optimise content and then see the whole thing collapse, you have to take a moment to scream, then review whats happened. In the case of one client what became apparent was that we had bleated about dupe content for 18 months, only to see the ‘proof
-> Continue reading Duplicate Content Analysis; the impact on SERPs
Organic search marketing or SEO has always been challenging, but here are some thoughts on why it could become redundant. The endless struggle to attain the top organic positions becomes ever more challenging due to the monthly tweaks of Panda and the Penguin changes. But there are more fundamental issues that are reducing the significance
-> Continue reading Organic search marketing; an unrewarding fight
So does an online strategy have to deliver ROI? More importantly, what’s the point of an online strategy? Have you ever started a meeting without an agenda? Fixed the car with no idea of where to start? Got on train with no destination? Amazingly, I have heard of people and businesses trying all 3 of
-> Continue reading You need an online strategy to get ROI!
A problem for SME’s The Sage 50 accounts package is designed to save time, deliver accurate data and, in many cases, act as the first port of call for stock management. Accounting packages are not often associated with powering e-commerce solutions. Certainly not at a cost that makes them accessible to small businesses. Or so
-> Continue reading Sage 50 and e-commerce solutions
Practical usability testing of websites I was researching some data on website usability recently. Having been involved in many usability tests over the years I am perhaps now programmed to view issues in a similar way all the time. Equally, having been involved in statistical studies for sites such as superbreak.com, citybaseapartments, Yorkshire.com and many
-> Continue reading Practical usability testing; the 5-second surprise