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	<title>Hidden Depth &#187; Blog</title>
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	<link>http://hiddendepth.ie</link>
	<description>Freelance Web Designer in Dublin</description>
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		<title>Infographic &#8211; You Are What You Tweet</title>
		<link>http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2011/12/infographic-what-you-tweet/</link>
		<comments>http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2011/12/infographic-what-you-tweet/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 06 Dec 2011 20:48:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dave</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[infographics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[twitter]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://81.17.254.95//?p=1553</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A really cool little app that creates an infographic from your twitter profile and what you say. Try it yourself]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Market Research using Facebook</title>
		<link>http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2011/09/market-research-using-facebook/</link>
		<comments>http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2011/09/market-research-using-facebook/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 01 Sep 2011 18:46:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dave</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Online Promotion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[facebook]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.hiddendepth.ie/?p=1157</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Facebook has a number of great new options to help you get more information when creating new projects. Considering that around 44% of the population of Ireland has a Facebook account you would be stupid to ignore its huge potential. Questions Facebook Groups Insights FACEBOOK QUESTIONS Questions are basically polls which anyone on Facebook can vote on. You can ask a question and specify a list of available options. There is also the option to allow people to add their own unique answer. Think about surveys that you ask people to fill out. You email them a Word doc or send them a link to a website page which they have to go to and fill out. On Facebook people are already logged in and on the site when they see your question. They don&#8217;t need to go anywhere else, they are using something they are already very familiar with &#38; they can also see if their friends have answered the question. These simple things can really help encourage people to answer your questions. FACEBOOK GROUPS Groups are a way of inviting certain people into a forum. They can post messages on the group wall, add their friends to the group, upload images, ask questions, etc. groups can be set as: Public (anyone can join the group) Private (you must be invited by a group admin or you can request to join) Secret (You will not see this group anywhere unless someone has invited you into it) Since everyone is already on Facebook you have a great starting point. Next you simply need to tell people about the group and hopefully they will want to join. Since you create the group you can add members, invite people, remove and moderate comments and more. Groups build a feeling of community and is a great way to actual connect with your customers and show them who you are. If you own a company selling off-road mountain bikes you might have a website &#38; Facebook Page which are both all about your company and the bikes you sell. You can also create a Group which is all about mountain biking in general rather than just what you&#8217;re selling. FACEBOOK INSIGHTS &#8220;Facebook Insights provides Facebook Page owners and Facebook Platform developers with metrics around their content.&#8221; as described by Facebook. Insights is kinda like Google Analytics for your Facebook Pages (not personal profiles). It tracks the activity on your Pages covering comments, likes, views. Since people must be logged into Facebook to interact Insights also give you information such as users country, age group, gender, language and more. This is the difference with regular website tracking. Being able to see when you run a certain type of promotion that this appeals to mainly X age group in X location. You can really being to build up a clear profile of the type of people interested in your Page.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2011/09/market-research-using-facebook/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Obama visit to Ireland &#8211; Business Lesson</title>
		<link>http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2011/05/obama-visit-to-ireland-business-lesson/</link>
		<comments>http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2011/05/obama-visit-to-ireland-business-lesson/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 30 May 2011 23:51:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dave</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Advice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[moneygall]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[obama]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.hiddendepth.ie/?p=1243</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I like nearly every Irish person was glued to the television watching Barrack Obama&#8217;s visit to Ireland last week. The man is pure Charisma and you can&#8217;t help but like him. There are 2 things Obama has that can be applied to Irish business to help us grow. 1) Confidence &#38; Passion The confidence Obama has is plain to see. It is not a projected fake confidence but a surety in himself. Having confidence makes people instantly believe what you say. It makes them feel safe and secure which is exactly what is needed right now. If Irish businesses are confident in what they are selling people will automatically feel safer doing business with them. I don&#8217;t mean lets all pretend that what we sell is great. Quiet the opposite. We need to actually look at what we sell and understand it, believe in it and want to share how great it is with others. I for example have dealt with a lot of websites and seen a lot of clients making good businesses from them. This gives me the confidence I need when explaining the benefits of web design to potential clients. I know without a shadow of a doubt that it works. You need to have your heart in something and be passionate about it. If you have that you can usually win any argument and will be able to think of 100s of reasons why someone should use your product or service. 2) We Like Him Obama cracks jokes, hugs people, and even paid for a round in a pub in Moneygall, Offaly. People buy from people. They buy from people they like. They want to spend their time with people they like. They want to be liked back too. For a long time the personal touch was disappearing in Ireland when doing business. I think now it is coming back finally. We are talkers and are great at it. We built a country on bartering, trading &#38; someone knowing someone else right for the job. The times may be different but the techniques should still apply. Whenever possible I recommend people I know for suitable jobs to others. I am currently working on a site for a wedding chauffeur service in Dublin. I have already designed a site for specialist wedding cakes and also for wedding dove release. I have recommend each person now get in touch with each other and come up with some sort of package deal together and help cross sell for each other as they&#8217;re in the exact same market. Businesses need to remember that even if they are struggling they may still be able to help others out. It costs nothing to recommend someone or to even forward an email about a useful article to someone whom it may help. Take a few minutes to think if there is anyone you might be able to recommend to someone else. It may come back around for you from someone else]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2011/05/obama-visit-to-ireland-business-lesson/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Your Customer Owns Your Business</title>
		<link>http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2011/04/your-customer-owns-your-business/</link>
		<comments>http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2011/04/your-customer-owns-your-business/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 19 Apr 2011 09:00:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dave</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Advice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[promotion]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.hiddendepth.ie/?p=1032</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[So many businesses forget who is in charge of their business. Their customers are. If they don&#8217;t like what you do then you will go out of business. If they love what you do then your business will grow and thrive. Forget About You Whether it is a website, flyer, brochure or some other way to promote a business, I see a lot of business with some blurb along the lines of &#8220;Company X has been in business the last xx years. We have experience in this and that. Our aim is to provide something. We are really great and go the extra mile. Get in touch with us now&#8221; Please give me a break. If I am the average person I don&#8217;t really care about you, your business, how long you have been in business or how great you are and how many miles extra you go. I care about me and I want you to do the same. I recently talked to a business who renovated their showroom. The renovation is very nice and cost a lot of time and  money. They showed me round and were delighted with all the new areas of the showroom. I asked them how they decided on the renovation. They said they needed a fresh look as it was a bit dated. I then asked if they had asked any customers or potential customers what kind of showroom they would like. The answer was NO. The showroom may look nice to me but I&#8217;m not their customer. If I was I may have other requirements in a showroom. They built something they THINK the customer should want rather than something they KNOW the customer wants. Be About Them Everything you do should be about your customer. It should go from your slogan or mission statement right down to the questions you ask them. My slogan is &#8220;Getting You Noticed&#8221;. That&#8217;s my job. People come to me not for web design but for what it provides them with. The questions you ask should let the customer know they are in the driving seat. They should be worded towards them. You should ask a person if you can give them a brochure, flyer or information on an item they are looking at. It should not be blank questions like can I help you with anything as it shows no interest in them. The same goes for content on websites or any other promotional material. Rather than just saying you have years and years of experience explain to people what this experience means, how you can better help people because of past work or building up of contacts over years, etc. Showcase and respond to customers too. Testimonials and case studies are not just about saying you done some work but also about you showing that the people you have already worked with mattered. If you talk about past projects in a cold analytical manner that is what the relationship between you and the client will be perceived as. This may not be the case but perception is reality. Never forget people buy from people.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2011/04/your-customer-owns-your-business/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Google Search &#8211; True to Your Word</title>
		<link>http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2011/04/google-organic-search-from-googles-point-of-view/</link>
		<comments>http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2011/04/google-organic-search-from-googles-point-of-view/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 18 Apr 2011 09:12:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dave</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Advice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Online Promotion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[promotion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[seo]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.hiddendepth.ie/blog/?p=650</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Sync With Your Customers Make your site for your customer (Not for Google). These are the words Google is telling people. Google understands they need to provide relevant search results so they need us to produced content that is relevant to our market. We can add keywords, metatags, h tags, etc for as long as we like but if the people who visit don&#8217;t like the site and return to Google search within a few seconds Google knows this and realises that this result was not relevant or not what the person was looking for. Get enough people doing this on your site and your ranking in search results will start to dwindle. A big example of this is Googles recent targeting of content farms. These sites produce terrible content and are made purely to pickup on relevant keywords. They ranked high for a long time but Google has got round to them and is now culling them all. This means the people with more relevant sites move up a notch in search results. Do You Know What They Are Looking For? Are you speaking the same language as your customer? You better be. There is a huge difference when people shop online versus in a premises. They don&#8217;t have to be nice to anyone. They don&#8217;t have a sales assistant trying to flog them something. They are on a mission to find what THEY want. If you don&#8217;t have it they can be on another site in about 10 seconds. So many people pluck a search term from the air and say they want to get noticed on Google in search results for this term. That is fine but the big problem is people don&#8217;t reflect this search term in their content on the site. They put it in the site title and maybe in the keywords but they don&#8217;t create content with these words in it. If a user searches for a specific term and they end up at your site which would be better: a) Your site doesn&#8217;t mention the words they typed in a search. b) Your site main heading has the exact (or similar) wording as what they Google&#8217;d. You content also has these words in the text. Does What It Says On The Tin Say you want to appear for &#8220;Quality Golf Accessories&#8221; in Google. The first job is to make sure all the keywords, alt images, tags, content, etc is correctly worded and has your keywords in it. Once done you may appear high in a search results. The second thing you need to do is actually sell Quality Golf Accessories, have quality images, provide quality descriptions, give quality customer service. If you don&#8217;t actually sell quality golf accessories then people will be unhappy as they didn&#8217;t get what they wanted from a Google search. Google knows this and constantly learns from user habits. Google has 2 relationships. One with the site owners and the Second with the customers searching the sites. The most important relationship is the customers searching. If Google doesn&#8217;t provide them with what they are looking for they will use another search engine. If you get in the way of that relationship and lie to Googles most important market they will drop your site further and further down the listings. It may not happen today, tomorrow or even a years time but it will happen and when it does you will have to start form scratch. If you build a quality site and provide what you want people to search for then your business will grow everything Google punishes someone else who done things the wrong way.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2011/04/google-organic-search-from-googles-point-of-view/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Use Twitter the right way to promote your business</title>
		<link>http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2011/04/use-twitter-the-right-way-to-promote-your-business/</link>
		<comments>http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2011/04/use-twitter-the-right-way-to-promote-your-business/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2011 15:43:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dave</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Advice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Online Promotion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[promotion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[twitter]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.hiddendepth.ie/blog/?p=613</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Twitter is such a great tool to help businesses promote themselves and interact with their customers. My problem with Twitter is that people are not using it right. A lot of people I speak to about how to promote their business online think twitter requires constant work, 100s or 1000s of followers and a brain full of technical or secret SEO techniques. The truth of how useful and easy it is to use Twitter is amazing. If you know how to send a Tweet and how to do a Search on twitter then you are all set. There are 3 main areas to twitter. Tweeting, Followers &#38; Searching. Tweeting &#8211; Send the right message Sending a tweet or message is very quick and straight forward. The big mistake so many businesses make when tweeting is they tell people how great their company is, what a great special offer they have on this week or something else about themselves with a link back to their site. This kind of self centered stuff works fine in a shop with customers who come in the door as they walked in with intention to buy something and are happy to get this info about your deals. The difference with twitter is that most people who are following you may not actually be looking for what you sell today. They don&#8217;t want to know every single hour what new offer you have on. They may want to do business someday though. This is why twitter is very useful for keeping you in peoples minds. Keep you or your business in their minds in a good way rather than a &#8220;not this fella with all his sales jargon again&#8221; way. You need to tweet about things which are relevant to the people following you. Add extra value to what you do. If you are going to do special offers or discounts give your twitter followers an exclusive offer. Let them know it is just for them. Show you&#8217;re an expert in your field. Comment about news relating to your industry. Put up links to relevant blogs or information on the net which may be of interest and can explain more about what you do. It can be much more powerful linking to someones else&#8217;s site who talks about how useful your product or service is rather than you telling them how good you are. Give your customers something more. Strike deals or send links to offers from complimentary services rather than just your own. I for example have deals in place with printing companies in Dublin who will give my clients exclusive discounts. I design a lot of print work for my clients so it goes without saying that they will need it printed. I have done the leg work meeting these printers, building relationships, getting good deals. All this benefits my customers and saves them time and money. Reply to people. If someone comments on something you said on twitter you should reply whether it is good or bad. People need to know there is someone on the other end listening to them. Followers &#8211; Connect with people who will help your business grow Some people look at social media as a quest to get as many followers as you can. They want to play the law of averages game. The thinking is if you build up 10,000 followers and send them a message selling something the chances are a few of them may be interested enough to look. I hate this attitude as it is the exact same as junk mail in the door. I think a better approach is to build up a list of people who are interested in your industry or may have connections who could be. I get added by people on twitter everyday. The first thing I do is look at how many people they are following, then how many tweets they have put out. If they are following 3000 people but have only 10 tweets then it is obvious they are just out to build up lists of people to spam. If they are following 500 people and have 1000 tweets then they look like someone who actually.....<br /><a href="http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2011/04/use-twitter-the-right-way-to-promote-your-business/">.....Read Full Post</a>]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2011/04/use-twitter-the-right-way-to-promote-your-business/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Latest Twitter usage stats</title>
		<link>http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2011/04/latest-twitter-usage-stats/</link>
		<comments>http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2011/04/latest-twitter-usage-stats/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 14 Apr 2011 00:56:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dave</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[twitter]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.hiddendepth.ie/?p=1098</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[On March 14th Twitter releases it&#8217;s latest useage statistics. Tweets 3 years, 2 months and 1 day. The time it took from the first Tweet to the billionth Tweet. 1 week. The time it now takes for users to send a billion Tweets. 50 million. The average number of Tweets people sent per day, one year ago. 140 million. The average number of Tweets people sent per day, in the last month. 177 million. Tweets sent on March 11, 2011. 456. Tweets per second (TPS) when Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009 (a record at that time). 6,939. Current TPS record, set 4 seconds after midnight in Japan on New Year’s Day. Accounts 572,000. Number of new accounts created on March 12, 2011. 460,000. Average number of new accounts per day over the last month. 182%. Increase in number of mobile users over the past year. Number of Employees Jan 2008 = 8 Jan 2009 = 29 Jan 2010 = 130 Jan 2011 = 350 March 14th 2011 = 400 &#160;]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2011/04/latest-twitter-usage-stats/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Tallaght according to Qwiki</title>
		<link>http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2011/03/tallaght-according-to-qwiki/</link>
		<comments>http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2011/03/tallaght-according-to-qwiki/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 13 Mar 2011 14:44:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dave</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Qwiki]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tallaght]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.hiddendepth.ie/?p=1043</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Qwiki is a very good idea and really something amazing when you look at the amount of information it collects and the fact that the facts are related to what you search for rather than some totally unrelated info. Every time I watch this it still makes me laugh how the computer voice pronounces the &#8216;T&#8217; at the end of Tallaght. P.S. Tallaght is pronounced TAL-AH]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2011/03/tallaght-according-to-qwiki/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Google Apps for Business</title>
		<link>http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2010/12/google-apps-for-business/</link>
		<comments>http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2010/12/google-apps-for-business/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 14 Dec 2010 14:10:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dave</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[General]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[apps]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[calendar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[email]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.hiddendepth.ie/blog/?p=678</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Google says &#8221; Grow Your Business &#8211; Not You IT&#8221; According to the search giant business owner have had 3 main problems that Google Apps aims to solve. Information Overload Storage needs are DOUBLING every 18 months Collaboration Team members may be at different locations Access Anywhere You don&#8217;t always have your laptop to hand Google Apps has 2 editions: Paid for (€40 per user per year) &#38; Free. The difference between free and paid for is simple. Paid for has no ads anywhere and also offers phone support from Google. Free means you have to email your support queries which are usually answered in a day or 2. If you are a small business of between 1-5 employees the Free edition will do you just fine. Google provides a huge collection of programmes. There is email, docs, calendars, voice/video chat. There is lots more but I won&#8217;t go into detail as these are the main apps everyone will use. Email is exactly like using Gmail. The only real difference is you use your website address in the email address. So instead of joesoap@gmail.com it can be info@joesoap.ie. This means you look much more professional to people. It is really the same as have a mobile or landline on your site contact page. People just prefer it because there is a little more effort to get one. This builds trust. Once your have setup your Apps account you are given a set of instructions telling you how to activate Email. The best thing is usually forward this to your webmaster and get them to do it. Should take them more than 30 mins to do. Basically you get: Use your site email address (xxxx@yoursite.ie) Google&#8217;s great Spam filter Label you email or put them into folders Add nicknames to email address (have info@yoursite.ie but also add events@yoursite.ie, sales@yoursite.ie etc. All emails go to info@ so you only have to check one inbox) Filters are a set of rules you create with criteria to match. You might say all emails form a certain person are to be moved to a certain folder. This is a great way to stay organised. You could keep new orders enquires in it&#8217;s own folder so it doesn&#8217;t get lost with all the other emails. Docs are Googles way of giving us Microsoft Word on the net. Studies found that out of the whole Microsoft Office suite generally 90% of people only use Microsoft Word regularly. Google Docs is like Word on a diet. They removed all the extras fancy features that nobody used anyway. The great feature in docs is that there is only every 1 version of your file. Google saves every change made to do the forever so you can revert changes whenever you like. You can also Collaborate online with others one a document. While doping this you can use Google chat at the same time. A window appears at the side for your chat text. So you can chat with a staff member and both of you can make changes to a document until you have a finished product. This is a much better approach than one person sending out a document to others then waiting for all of them to send back their own version, then try to merge each document into one final version. THen at the last minute someone else sends another version and you are back to square one. Calendars online are a great way for everyone to know what is going on and when. By using a cloud (web based) calendar you always have the most current version to hand. If someone in the office updates the calendar and you check it later on your iPhone it will update to the latest version. Because it is stored on the web it isn&#8217;t dependent of any devices so you can check it as long as you have a web browser on your device. You can have multiple calendars, individual calendars for team members. Calendars for meetings etc. You can also email people invites to events and they can RSVP in the calendar. Imagine you have a sales team out on the road. You can add new meetings.....<br /><a href="http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2010/12/google-apps-for-business/">.....Read Full Post</a>]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2010/12/google-apps-for-business/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Irish Internet Usage Stats</title>
		<link>http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2010/12/irish-internet-usage-stats/</link>
		<comments>http://hiddendepth.ie/blog/2010/12/irish-internet-usage-stats/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 13 Dec 2010 21:17:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dave</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Advice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ecommerce]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[internet usage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[shopping online]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.hiddendepth.ie/blog/?p=647</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I was lucky enough to get invited to Google HQ in Dublin for a day of training last week. The amount of information Google gave was fantastic. Each session was broke into 30minute blocks with experts from that area in Google. I will add some short posts on what was covered as it may help people understand exactly what Big Brother Google thinks and how they would like us to build our sites. We were introduced to teams from organic search, adwords, adsense, webmaster and a number of other experts. They also provide a lot of great free tools to help people get more out of their site. I will link to them in posts too. Internet Usage in Ireland 52% internet usage (2005) 77% coverage in 2010 (thats 3.5 million people) 15th highest in world for broadband In 1-2 years we will have higher internet penetration than UK Time spent online in Ireland European average is 12.1 hours a week Irish average is 19.4 hours a week spent online Next year there will be more people online than watching TV What do people do online? (stats from last 3 month in 2009) Email Research (86%) Buying / Shopping (53%) Social Networking (52%) Online Banking (51%) Travel Bookings (50%) YouTube (48%) Ireland are the 4th highest in Europe for Online Buying. We are number 1 for Online Travel Bookings (might have something to dow with Ryanair) YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world. It is very clear from these stats provided by Google that more and more people are spending time and money online. The fact that people spend so much time online is now commonplace. Not many people go to the Golden Pages to find a business. They GOOGLE IT. Ireland is usually slow to adopt new technology (mobiles, digital tv, etc), but once we take something onboard we are very loyal and become very big users of products. Research for a product or service is often forgotten about with businesses. If your customer meets a sales rep or views a product in a shop and don&#8217;t buy it who will do the follow up sales with them? With a good website you can answer commonly asked pre &#38; after sales questions. Show your product working and list all it&#8217;s benefits. People often think if someone visits their site and does not buy a product that the sale is lost. This is not the case. A lot of people show around online as they do in the real world. The difference is online they can shop around much faster and more efficiently. They may decide to return to your site in a few days and purchase. They may contact your directly to buy instead. This is where a good strategy and analytical tracking of the site comes in play. For more info on analytics I wrote an earlier post here. Buying Online is growing every single day. People now have trust in Ireland vendors and are happy to purchase products online. A lot more companies are offering ways for people to pay for services online. Social Networking has exploded in the last few years with the likes of Facebook, Bebo, Twitter, Blogging, etc. As humans we all want to connect and we are all nosy too. We want to feel part of a group. Facebook has more than 500 MILLION members now. Twitter is so popular that companies such as ASOS ( As Seen on Screen) now offer customer support solely through twitter. ASOS has 50 staff members who handle their twitter customer services channel. YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine. This is fantastic for companies who may use YouTube to showcase their product demos. You can also embed YouTube videos directly on your site too so you get the best of both worlds. For a very nice example of how to use YouTube to sell your business visit OwenFitzpatrick.com]]></description>
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