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Posted by dani cass on February 4th, 2009

Since its Wednesday (and even though I vowed not to mention it), I’m sure everyone will have been effected in some way by the snow this week. Obviously being British, bad weather is a foreign concept to us, so we were totally unprepared and, as devastated as many people were, they just couldn’t make it in to the office and had to stay at home. So what did these poor people do to counteract the boredom? Well, it appears they went online shopping! By mid-afternoon, some sites were reporting a 310% increase in online orders, making Monday one of the busiest online shopping days on record!

Yesterday, the snow finally stopped here and turned into ice, making my run for the bus something reminiscent of Todd Cartey on Dancing on Ice! Although, saying that, I managed not to fall over which deserved at least an extra .5 on my score

Anyway, when I finally made it to work, I found a couple of very interesting emails in my inbox.

Firstly, a report about how to ’sail through the recession’, which says SME’s are the best placed to survive. Although small-medium sized businesses are most likely to feel the pressure, they are also being championed and protected. There are 4.7 million small business in the UK and they are being recognised as the economic life blood, employing 13.5 million people and accounting for more than half of the nations turnover. A survey carried out by Vodafone found that the happiest staff work for companies employing between 10 – 50 people – probably the reason that Studio 2 Online employees find something to be happy about every single week!

According to another survey, 1 in 20 businesses are actually booming despite the recession, and 43% of these ‘Super SME’s’ actually achieved this by increasing their marketing budget and I.T. spend.
Just the other day I heard a client mention that since their website launched they have had lots of new interest, showing that customers are out there, they are just being more careful with their money and are looking for the ‘right’ company to purchase from.

It is important to take ownership of your product and brand, and that way you will stand out from your competitors. Having a great website that is aimed at increasing your enquiries, and making use of search engine promotion and email marketing increase your visibility and, in turn, the opportunity for new enquiries and sales.

Another email I received reported ‘Human error hits Google’. This is something I’ve seen mentioned in quite a few places and most are reporting about the devastating effect this will have on businesses that have spent thousands to get to the top of Google.

For roughly an hour on Saturday morning, a ‘glitch’ meant that whatever site you clicked on, you received a message to say “this site may harm your computer” and the belief by most people is that this would have caused your visitors to go to your competitors site – I would just like to point out, if they did, they would have received exactly the same message! When you receive this warning, you are still able to go to the website, and I’m pretty certain most people would have soon realised there was a problem with Google!

Other sites have also mentioned the effects of relying on Google to drive business to your website, for instance if their website goes down. A report on Google states they have over 200,000 servers, in various locations to run their website, so the chances of the site not working are very slim. Should this happen however, the spiders have already collected the data from your site so it will still be there when it is back up and running.

Google is one of the top 5 most visited websites on the internet, so errors and bugs are spotted, and repaired very quickly. Having a presence on ‘backup’ search engines is an option but the main bulk of visitors will come from Google searches, so ensuring you are on the first two pages of Google is critical for ensuring your business can be found online.

Studio 2 Online are the first agency in the UK to achieve the SEMPO Platinum Agency seal and are so confident that our team can get you on the 1st page of Google that we even offer a money back guarantee! If you would like more information, or a free search engine audit for your website call us on 0116 2758456.

Dani
Studio 2 Online
Search Engine Promotion and Web Design Leicester