The Technology Studio

As we engage in more and more projects in the healthcare sector we are constantly keeping an eye on the way the digital marketing landscape develops. Of course, many of our clients operate in other sectors (and for many of them online is their main marketing channel), so it is often interesting for us to contrast their approach to that taken by our healthcare clients (who often consider digital as a bolt on to their “core” marketing).

Here at The Technology Studio we have over 25 years pharmaceutical expertise and our experience of delivering digital projects within that environment can be frustrating with  irrational objections sometimes voiced by Medical, Legal and Compliance departments (among others).

So are things changing for the better in healthcare? Is a digital strategy becoming part of the norm rather than seen as a “pilot”?

We found this recently published report from eCRM Consultants Across Health a fascinating insight into the current  mind-set amongst executives in the Life Sciences industry.

Some of the stats that stood out for us include:

• 45% of respondents stated that lack of eBusiness strategy is in the top 3 barriers to digital marketing
• 30% of respondents say that lack of internal knowledge was a major barrier to digital marketing
• Less than 10% of companies engage in mobile marketing as standard practice
• 45% of companies are engaging in mobile marketing pilots
• 77% don’t measure the impact of digital activities

So what is our conclusion from this?

It seems clear that there is a desire from healthcare companies to improve their digital marketing strategy and comparisons made in this study with previous years suggest things are moving in the right direction.

We were particularly interested by the mobile stats. A study by Morgan Stanley suggests that mobile browsing will exceed desktop by 2014 and we are certainly seeing an increasing demand for our mobile solutions. According to this report it seems that whilst few healthcare companies currently have a mobile strategy, the number of pilot’s in place suggest it is hitting their radar. Of course, are these pilots simply the development of an iPhone app (which seems to be the “in thing” to do right now) or are companies taking a wholesale look at their mobile strategy? We also hope that more than the 33% who currently measure digital ROI will be measuring the return from these pilot projects!!

The statistics on internal barriers suggest that Life Sciences companies still need to be given strategic direction (either by consultants or their agencies) as in-house expertise is rare. In our experience, the incumbent Advertising, PR or Medical Education agencies who operate in the healthcare sector often lack the necessary knowledge of the digital world as well. Perhaps it is time for the industry to look outside of the Life Sciences graduate pool for the next generation of Marketers?

Chris

Twitter:@chrismfinch

The award winning GoLearnTo website has had a design update recently and we think it looks great – even if we do say so ourselves!

After some market research GoLearnTo decided that their website needed to be more focused on their target demographic. In addition they wanted to widen the site from 800 pixels wide to 1024 pixels wide, considering that now less than 1% of people use 800×600 displays. Yes, that’s less than 1%!

See more information about browser display statistics.

There are now a  lot more jQuery effects, such as slider panels and more aesthetic and functional photo galleries. These kind of things are great as they give more information to the user as well as being relevant for search engines. They can also add a bit of flashiness to a site which a lot of people generally like!

Check it out and see what you think!

We were recently approached by Bizspace to completely redesign (in their words!) their old, tired and basic website!

Their previous site was falling well below par on all three of the most important things that a website needs to get right…

SEO (Search engine optimisation)

Unfortunately the site was built with minimal search engine optimisation consideration in mind. There were very few pages with a serious lack of detailed, relevant content, as well as some other more serious issues such as using images for text headers. Without spending the required time and effort on SEO you are negating much else of what you do on a website – because nobody will ever find it!

Website Usabillity

Clarity is the name of the game here – not making people have to think! Unfortunately the navigation through the site was not clear and neither were the most important calls to action on each page. Always remember to keep things simple and clear and ensure the things you want people to do on each page are easy to see and understand.

Website design

Aesthetically the design was below average. I say it all the time but people will make up their mind within seconds of visiting your site on who you are, what you stand for and whether they trust you. A clear professional design is extremely important to instantly reassure their subconscious that you are worthy of their trust.

But, it’s all of them working together that’s the key!

Getting one or even a couple of these things right is a good start, but it’s the combination of all three together that we here at The Technology Studio believe is the real goal. It’s not good enough to have a fantastic looking site if nobody knows how to use it. There’s no point having  a site with search engine optimisation tuned perfectly if it looks unprofessional and shabby as people will go elsewhere. You see where I’m going here!

With our help the new Bizspace website has released to much praise in each of the areas above. The proof as always is in the pudding however! Their previous site achieved half of the visitors that the new site achieves, but it’s the site goals that are really interesting. Previously the old Bizspace site achieved an average of just 4 contact forms per week. It is now achieving an average of 40. That’s a ten fold increase!

Our solution to a common problem for Web Developers

At The Technology Studio we have lost count of the number of times we’ve been approached by potential clients with a brief that consists of nothing more than “we need a website – how much will it cost”! Even the better briefs we receive are often no more than a Word document listing the content the client could put on the site.

In our view this is like asking a builder to quote on an extension without telling them how may floors, rooms, bathrooms, windows or doors you need. Of course in the building trade this is used by some of the less scrupulous builders to their advantage as each additional feature that the client asks for is met with a rub of the chin, a sharp intake of breath and the response  “that’s going to cost you – you didn’t mention that when I quoted”. Whilst this might work for cowboy builders we prefer our clients to want to work with us again! For this reason we only ever provide  a quote once we have built (or been given) a full website schematic.

Of course often the client simply doesn’t know exactly what they want and extracting this information from a busy person with many other priorities can be a tricky process.

I read a good article in Smashing Magazine late last year that reviewed a number of approaches taken by web developers to extract the right info from clients  – well worth a read if you are compiling your own questionnaire. This gave me the inspiration to review the questions we ask our clients – the results of which are below:

1. What business objectives do you have for your new website? 2. How will you measure the success of your website? 3. Who are the target audience for your website? 4. What actions would you like your target audience to take on your site?

5. What other marketing activities will be supporting your website?

6. What information do you want to provide your target audience and in what format?

7. Have you got any plans for attracting your target audience to your site?

8. Who are your main competitors and what are their website addresses?

9. Are there any websites in your field that you like and specifically what do you like about them?

10. Are there any websites in your field that you dislike and specifically what do you dislike about them?

11. What content do you have that can be used on your website?

12. Have you done any keyword research?

13. Do you have any other digital presence?

In future we will add this to The Technology Studio website for any enquirers to fill in. If you would like a copy of our questionnaire contact us at info@thetechnologystudio.co.uk.

As we have previously mentioned (throughout our site) is that we know a bit about commercial property in the UK.  With NovaLoca being one of our websites and having grown from being nothing to the second biggest commercial property search engine in the UK with nearly 100,000 visitors a month in three and a half years.  We have also recently developed the NovaLoca iphone app and have other apps and projects in the pipeline.

We also like using cool new technology and so rather than “Death by Powerpoint” we decided to put a credentials presentation together using something we were recommended (Thanks Nick Merryfield) called Prezi (www.prezi.com).  While it takes significantly longer to put together the content we really like the impact when we use it.  I then noticed we might be able to embed it in our blog and so I thought I would have a go (I am not a techie at all).

See the results of our commercial property technology and website credentials in the Prezi presentation below.

If you would like to chat through any of our client stories and see if we might be able to help drive your commercial property business through technology then please get in touch.

Neil

We love sharing the success stories of our clients who partner with us to create fantastic solutions that are recognized throughout their industry. In the case of travel website GoLearnTo.com, the accolades just keep on coming with no less than four awards and nominations in the past month which include…

Now you’re talking…

The International Association of Language Centres (IALC) have voted GoLearnTo.com agency of the month recognising them as a leading language travel agency with a range of courses where you can learn Spanish in Spain or learn French in France and over 14 more languages worldwide.

 
The public have spoken…

For the 2^nd year running, GoLearnTo.com has been nominated for a British Travel award in the category ‘Best Holiday Experience Provider’ proving that the trend for learning holidays continues to get the public’s vote.

School’s have their say…

Language Travel Magazine readers which include language schools from over 30 countries worldwide have nominated GoLearnTo.com for ‘Best New Agency’. GoLearnTo.com have found a niche with language travel and are inspiring more of us to learn a language by combining languages with a unique range of fun activities such as cookery holidays in Italy, yoga holidays or even surfing and much more.

Guiding the way…

Last but not least, GoLearnTo.com has received a nomination for The Good Web Guide’s Website of the Year Award recognising websites that not only function well but inspire.

This proves once again how an aesthetically pleasing, functionally rich and easy to use website designed and developed by The Technology Studio with maps by Earthware can do for you.

At The Technology Studio we don’t believe the work of creating a successful website that makes the most of digital marketing opportunities finishes when you sign off the delivered specification – that’s just the beginning.  We also don’t believe that you can outsource SEO to the next muppet who SPAM emails you with the email title “Guaranteed to get you to #1 in the Google search rankings” (if you ever get one of these use the delete key immediately – nobody can do this).

The Technology Studio believes that the best Search Engine Optimisation is a team effort between a client and their web developer or technology partner.  Many clients struggle to understand (or frankly get excited) about SEO and would dearly love to delegate (or more accurately abdicate) the hard work of getting to the top of Google Rankings to anyone other than themselves.  SEO and PPC (Pay per Click) are not exactly the sexy side of offline or online marketing!

At The Technology Studio we believe there are a lot of things a good web developer can do for SEO but that clients also have to take responsibility for a very important part of this – content.  Why?  Because it is very difficult for anyone outside the business to understand the business well enough to write a lot of compelling content (and frankly it is very expensive to outsource this to a PR/copy writer).  In addition, the client may write good copy for a human being to read but forgets that each page has two audiences – human beings (potential clients) and search engines (the way potential clients find the relevant page in the first place).

At the Technology Studio, we are always looking for ways to help our clients make the most of their websites.  We were recently approached by a new client who was struggling to write 110 pages of compelling content, including good key words and key phrases, about their properties dotted around the UK.  They asked us to help so we dumped everything they had into a file and created our own Keyword Density Tool.  The client was so delighted (it saved them days of work) that we decided to create a generic version and give it away (at least for a while anyway).

Click the ‘Keyword Density Tool’ link below to download our Keyword Density Tool and feel free to use it to write great keyword rich web copy for your website.  We only ask that if you are ever looking to find your next technology partner then you consider The Technology Studio. You can also see how we used the tool to write this blog article by downloading the ‘Keyword Density Tool with example’ from the link below to help you get started.

If you have any comments of questions or just want to let us know how you got on using the Keyword Density Tool then please do get in touch with us on 0845 642 9880 or email info@thetechnologystudio.co.uk.

Since publishing our series of blog articles about which commercial property websites are leading the way, we have had a number of requests asking to have all the articles in one place. We have now created a pdf file containing all the analysis and comment for you to download:

As always, if you have any questions or comments please contact us.

(Part 5/5)

Read ‘Who leads the pack for commercial property websites in the UK? Part 1: Website Grader’

Read ‘Who leads the pack for commercial property websites in the UK? Part 2: Google Page Rank and Inbound Links’

Read ‘Who leads the pack for commercial property websites in the UK? Part 3: Site Traffic’

Read ‘Who leads the pack for commercial property websites in the UK? Part 4: The Top 100’

This is the final part in this blog series. Previously we have looked at the marketing effectiveness ratings of UK commercial property websites according to WebsiteGrader.com, at Google Page Rank and at inbound links (according to Alexa.com). We then looked at traffic both globally and from the UK (again according to Alexa.com). For anyone still awake and interested this is how we went about compiling the list.

Methodology in Detail

Compiling the List of companies

We couldn’t find a generic list of top 100 UK commercial property companies on the internet so the first challenge was to come up with a list of top UK based commercial property search engines. In order to do this we looked at three different things:

Mailing List – we were provided with a mailing list of commercial property companies by MJM Marketing Ltd (who specialise in mailings and mailing lists for the UK commercial property marketplace) for which we are very grateful. We then compiled a list of all the companies that appeared on this list and that had 50 or more employees.

NovaLoca – we then asked NovaLoca for a list of any agent that had over 100 properties listed on NovaLoca.com and added any that didn’t appear on the mailing list data.

Google – we then undertook a few generic Google searches (“Commercial Property”, “Commercial Property UK”, “Industrial Property”) and looked at the first few pages of the search results and added any companies that did not already appear to the list.

We then made some decisions on which URLs to exclude from the list and used the following principles:

1. For any company site where they had two sites, we used the higher rated site. An example of this would be www.edwinhill.co.uk and www.altus-edwinhill.com – we took www.edwinhill.co.uk

2. We excluded sites where they either have very few instances of commercial property or are a portal where the primary focus is residential property. An example being www.findaproperty.com.

3. We excluded any site where the predominant raison d’etre is to market businesses rather than commercial properties. Examples being www.rightbiz.co.uk and www.daltonsbusiness.com.

4. We excluded sites which may be focused on commercial property but where they did not market commercial property. Examples being www.rics.org and www.communities.gov.uk.

Following the analysis we then drew an arbitrary line at a round number of companies close to a websitegrader score of 50/100.

We are sure that we are missing some (probably obvious) companies for which we can only apologise and assure you that this is inadvertent. We may repeat this exercise on a regular basis and if we do we would like to improve the list so please email me at neil@thetechnologystudio.co.uk if you have any suggested inclusions for next time.

Deciding on what metrics to use

When doing this analysis we were really looking to find a trusted independent third party who could provide data on all the commercial property websites. One obvious choice was Alexa.com which has become the gold standard in comparing website traffic. Alexa is a company owned by Amazon.com that has built a database of information about sites that includes statistics, related links and more. All of this information can be found on Alexa’s site overview pages, traffic detail pages and related links pages. You can look at all the parameters over one month, three months, six months or a year. Balancing recency against a robust time period, we opted for last three months.

The next choice was to use Google’s page rank which is an indicator of the relative value Google places on a website relative to a comparable website. This is available through the Google toolbar.

The last choice was less easy and we looked across the web to find a company that specialised in not just giving data on traffic but also analysed how good the site is for SEO. My theory was that you can have a poor site for a big international brand and a fantastic site for a small regional brand and based on traffic, back links, page rank etc, the bigger, poorer site would score better. However, it would be the small company that would be arguably the more successful in the digital marketplace. We looked at quite a few solutions but in the end arrived at WebsiteGrader. WebsiteGrader is a free SEO tool that measures the marketing effectiveness of a website. It provides a score that incorporates things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors. It also provides some basic advice on how the website can be improved from a marketing perspective. It is owned and operated by HubSpot who are a specialist internet marketing company.

Timing

Alexa traffic ranks, Google Page ranks and WebsiteGrader ranks can all change on a relatively frequent basis so we gathered all the stats over a relatively short period of one week between Tuesday 16^th and Thursday 25^nd February 2010. Please note that if you go and check any of the data now, it will have changed at least slightly but this may be perfectly natural due to the ebb and flow of traffic etc.

Reporting any inaccuracies

This is the first time we have looked at pulling together research such as this (though we may make it a semi regular thing depending on the feedback). If you find any errors or would like to make any comments on how we could have improved this, please let me know and we will endeavour to make restitution and to apologise in advance. Please contact me via email at neil@thetechnologystudio.co.uk.

(Part 4/5)

Read ‘Who leads the pack for commercial property websites in the UK? Part 1: Website Grader’

Read ‘Who leads the pack for commercial property websites in the UK? Part 2: Google Page Rank and Inbound Links’

Read ‘Who leads the pack for commercial property websites in the UK? Part 3: Site Traffic’

In the previous parts of this blog series we looked at the marketing effectiveness ratings of UK commercial property websites according to WebsiteGrader.com, at Google Page Rank and at inbound links (according to Alexa.com). We then looked at traffic both globally and from the UK (again according to Alexa.com). Now it’s time to put all these together and reveal the top 100 UK commercial property websites.

The Full List

But, before revealing the list, let me explain how we came up with it: Firstly, we have ordered it by the web sites’ WebsiteGrader ranking (as this series of blog articles was really about who excels at marketing UK commercial property in the digital space and not who has the biggest company). We then included their Google page rank, global traffic rank, UK traffic rank and the number of inbound links they have (according to Alexa.com). So, sit back and enjoy…

Overall Observations

This is the bit where we rant on about SEO and usability and how important they are… well maybe a bit. Here are a few thoughts for those trying to really succeed in the UK commercial property digital marketplace.

1. Being national helps, being international helps even more

The Google algorithm likes big sites with lots of indexed pages. It also likes well established sites. However, it especially likes lots of relevant and high page rank sites linking to your site (non reciprocal links). It is much easier for you to achieve this if you have national, or better still international, presence or have another helpful way of doing this (e.g. being part of a publishing group like EGPropertyLink).

2. You have to fight really hard to beat the big boys and portals – but be smart and fight hard in your areas of strength

You can try and compete for the search term “commercial property” or “commercial property London” but good luck. If you are a regional or local agent you almost certainly can’t beat the big boys but you really CAN compete in your locality for search terms such as “Industrial Units in Accrington”. If you type this in (and we really did pick this at random) the first on the list is www.taylorweaver.co.uk, the second is www.thomasvshaw.co.uk and the third is NovaLoca. This is because NovaLoca’s SEO strategy was to target hundreds of thousands of keyword combinations rather than the most popular – it is no surprise therefore that only less than 10% of visitors arrive on NovaLoca’s home page as most arrive on a page much more targeted to their search terms.

3. Marketing Effectiveness is not just about traffic

As we have mentioned before, it is one thing to appear as high as possible on a Google search, but it is quite another to create a compelling experience when a user makes it to your site. You need to think hard about page layout, calls to action, usability, language, ease of search, the right information at the right time, maximising conversions, tracking usage and ongoing development. A website is often seen as a product that can be launched and ignored for two or three years. This is not true if you really want to drive ROI.

4. There are 30 commercial property websites with a UK presence that Website Grader puts in the top 10% of marketing effectiveness worldwide

This means that the competition is challenging and improving all the time and it takes lots of effort to get further up this list. Emerging technologies are really playing a part in this too (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, iphone apps, blogs) and you really need to have a strong view on where you are going to focus your energies to maximise your returns. It really isn’t about building a pretty website and then putting it on a URL – “Build it and they will come” is alright for Kevin Costner (Field of Dreams) but it doesn’t work in the real world.

5. If you work really hard you can beat the odds

There is hope. We like stories like NovaLoca, Paramount Investments and UK commercial agents like Gerald Eve who all beat EGPropertyLink in terms of their websitegrader score. They may not beat them in terms of UK or global traffic but we bet you that where they focus their energies is their localities and their specialism’s they are really winning. It takes initiative, innovation, focus and frankly a lot of hard work, but it is possible.

6. If you are going to focus your energies on one thing, make it back links

It has long been known that back links are massively important to Google. In many ways this is because they are the greatest compliment that can be paid in the impersonal world of the internet, but it is mostly because they are so difficult to get if you want them and don’t have them. What’s more, your web developers can’t just get them for you no matter how much money you throw at them. Yes, you can register on press release sites and directories but generally people only link back to you if you have something valuable to say or offer. A good example is NovaLoca who launched Street Level View in the UK a full four months before Google did in partnership with a small Italian company called Seety. This didn’t create the huge PR that Google did but it certainly provided some press coverage and some good back links.

7. If you receive an email that says something like “We guarantee to get you to the top of Google”, our advice is to delete it immediately

It just isn’t possible to guarantee anything with Google (or any other search engine) and anyone who promises to is just after your cash. Page ranks go up and down, back links are so important (but not under your control) and SEO is so much about what you do as a company and how much effort you are prepared to invest. The best strategy is to find a technology partner who knows what they are doing and who knows their limitations and then works extremely hard on both technical and non technical SEO activities. Then watch what happens. A good rule of thumb is try ten things and probably two will be really valuable – you just won’t know which two until you try!

If you want to know more about why your site appears where it does on the list, if you want to explore the data in more detail, if you want to complain about an inaccuracy or hopefully most importantly you want to chat about how you can get the most out of your digital marketing spend then please feel free to get in touch with me directly:

Neil Osmond
email me at neil@thetechnologystudio.co.uk
call me at 0845 642 9885
follow/contact me on twitter @mredonny
skype me at neil.osmond
or please feel free to comment on this blog article.

Read ‘Who leads the way for commercial property websites in the UK? Part 5: Methodology’