"With real incomes falling, house prices declining and unemployment rising it can't be long before households start to forego spending for saving to a more significant degree."
And that's just the UK. What this means for our tourism industry is that we need to change focus. Firstly, your marketing dollar needs to work harder. If you still use brochures, no more lying around your office! Of course, your primary focus is on the Web, so get pouring over your site traffic analytics and find your strengths and weaknesses.
We need to focus even more on the niches, for they are the most resilient - the diving for example, being a world class product, will attract the people to whom the present economic climate is merely a hiccup.
And look to the region: even travel within the Caribbean is tested by many factors, but it is our closest market.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Blogjackers?
I guess it had to happen. With every great innovation on the internet, it seems a 'dark side' inevitably emerges to take advantage of it.
The latest trend is in hi-jacking personal data and potentially, your blog. Known as CookieMonster, this malicious software can trick your browser into giving up authentication codes, allowing it to access your user account settings on a website, and in some cases it can take over your blog.
WordPress has now put in place an easy way to keep your administrative information secure. If you have a WordPress Blog, take 2 minutes right now to log into your blog and switch over to HTTPS for your administration panel. Full instructions and more details on how to do this can be found here.
Blogger.com is still vulnerable at the writing of this post, but I'm sure they are working feverishly on a solution. What our blog for updates.
We continue to recommend that small businesses in Dominica 'get a blog' to reach out to the world-wide blogosphere, promoting their businesses and generating traffic to their websites. The value of having a blog far outweighs the inconvenience of dealing with outlaws like CookieMonster ;-)
The latest trend is in hi-jacking personal data and potentially, your blog. Known as CookieMonster, this malicious software can trick your browser into giving up authentication codes, allowing it to access your user account settings on a website, and in some cases it can take over your blog.
WordPress has now put in place an easy way to keep your administrative information secure. If you have a WordPress Blog, take 2 minutes right now to log into your blog and switch over to HTTPS for your administration panel. Full instructions and more details on how to do this can be found here.
Blogger.com is still vulnerable at the writing of this post, but I'm sure they are working feverishly on a solution. What our blog for updates.
We continue to recommend that small businesses in Dominica 'get a blog' to reach out to the world-wide blogosphere, promoting their businesses and generating traffic to their websites. The value of having a blog far outweighs the inconvenience of dealing with outlaws like CookieMonster ;-)
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Social Networks, Still Rising
Social Networks are here to stay, no doubt about it. Savvy business owners know this and make an effort to get their businesses on FaceBook, MySpace, and other Social Networking sites.
The graph below (by HitWise) shows the market share of social networks (blue line ) versus search engines (red line).
So get networking before your business gets left behind!
The graph below (by HitWise) shows the market share of social networks (blue line ) versus search engines (red line).
So get networking before your business gets left behind!
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Site optimisation tips
This article has some great tips for any website owner. For example:
Content on the Homepage - I find that with a lot of B2B sites, there is a tendency to make the homepage flashy with a huge image taking up the entire "above the fold" portion of the page. Yet you have to remember, if this is the user’s first time to your site, they are looking for information and they are looking to find this information quickly. Time is very valuable to them. If you don’t communicate what your product or solution is on your homepage, how do you expect the user to find what they are looking for? Don’t make them work for it. Present a brief description as to what you do and how you can solve their needs on your homepage. If you offer B2B price management software solutions, then state that on your homepage. While the first part of the solution is getting the searcher/user to your site, the second part is keeping them there. Strive for site stickiness.
http://ask.enquiro.com/2008/10-overlooked-optimization-tips-by-business-to-business-b2b-marketers/
Content on the Homepage - I find that with a lot of B2B sites, there is a tendency to make the homepage flashy with a huge image taking up the entire "above the fold" portion of the page. Yet you have to remember, if this is the user’s first time to your site, they are looking for information and they are looking to find this information quickly. Time is very valuable to them. If you don’t communicate what your product or solution is on your homepage, how do you expect the user to find what they are looking for? Don’t make them work for it. Present a brief description as to what you do and how you can solve their needs on your homepage. If you offer B2B price management software solutions, then state that on your homepage. While the first part of the solution is getting the searcher/user to your site, the second part is keeping them there. Strive for site stickiness.
http://ask.enquiro.com/2008/10-overlooked-optimization-tips-by-business-to-business-b2b-marketers/
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