Metafocus – Online Marketing

I have spent some time today looking for people can companies in Nottingham who use and regularly update their own blogs. I think it’s fair to say that blogging in Nottingham is alive and kicking! There is a wide range of sites out there.

Some of the more interesting ones I came across are in the list below:

The Nottingham Daily Photo
Audiophile
May Contain Notts
EatNottingham.com
Gonalston Farm Shop
Nottingham Massage
Adrenalin Jungle
Property Investment Portfolio
Globus Worldwide
Bournes Debt Solutions
Tag Medical

A blog can really help generate traffic to your website and can also help with search engine optimisation. A blog is a really easy and informal way of staying in contact with your customers. More information on how a blog could improve your website can be found on our website.

If you are interested in creating a blog or adding a blog to your existing site then give us a call on 0115 947 0011 or click here to send us an email

On the 14th March 2008, Metafocus Ltd, Magic Pen Advertising Marketing Company in Chongqing successfully held a seminar entitled “How the Internet can change Foreign Trade – Marketing Creates Prosperity” at the Banquet Hall of the Empark Grand Hotel. The seminar was supported by the British Consulate General in Chongqing, the Chongqing Foreign Trade and Economic Relations Commission and the Small to Medium Sized Enterprise Office in Chongqing.

Pictured Above: Robert Watson (WatsonSessions), Lansbury Sessions (WatsonSessions), Alan Clements (Metafocus), Zhou Xiaoyong (Magic Pen), Li Jun (China Trade Consultant), Wei Lei (Project Manager of International Green Industry Cooperation Organisation)

The seminar was opened by the British Consul-General in Chongqing, Nick Whittingham. There were further speeches by the general manager of Magic Pen Company, the Managing Director of Metafocus and other Internet Marketing, SEO and SEM experts in Chongqing.

Pictured Above: Director Chen Yu, from the Chongqing Foreign Trade and Economic Relations Commission and Alan Clements, Managing Director, Metafocus Ltd

After attending the seminar, many enterprises have a better understanding of online marketing and search engine marketing. Together Metafocus and Magic Pen can help enterprises open the door to the international market and help them realise their global marketing strategy. This seminar caught the attention of Chongqing television stations and was reported in the Chongqing Newspapers.

Contact us at info@metafocus.co.uk if you would like to learn more about Chinese search marketing services or how to get an online marketing presence in China.

For any E-Commerce website, there is one thing that really matters…conversion. With so many things influencing conversion from simple web browser to customer, it is no wonder that web-site owners and Online Marketers’ are so focused on this. So what are the important factors to affect conversion? As I could write a whole white paper on the subject I’ve decided to concentrate on one area, the use of incentives such as Voucher Codes.

As any retailer knows too well, giving customers an incentive to buy from you can really make a difference. Competition online is fierce and sometimes the all-important incentive is what matters. Internet shoppers are the savviest shoppers around and there are a majority of sites devoted to promoting vouchers and discount codes for online stores. By creating a voucher code for your site you can give reason for people to shop at your store. A voucher code is simply a series of letter or numbers that are used by shoppers on a checkout to gain a discount on the goods. This is also used in conjunction with a promotional offer to stand out from the competition as a simple example shows;

Buy Sweets online today!

Buy Sweets online – 10% discount

Which would you click on?

Vouchers can then be promoted on a number of dedicated websites to discounts or directly to the customers by means of an email promotion. Here at Metafocus we are great believers in this method to increase conversions and have recently promoted one of our sites www.yoursweetshop.com on vouchermania.com. Yoursweetshop have recently created a 10% off voucher code for their customers to save money and increase conversions. Have a look at both sites and see if you think this method of increasing conversions can really work for you.

I’ve seen this news on a few online news resources now so it must be true, although it sounds like an early April Fool. Seemingly disillusioned with competing unfavourably with Google, Yahoo and Live, Ask.com has decided to change it’s focus to become a niche engine focussed on women looking for answers to specific questions. In a not-at-all stereotypical analysis, these questions will be for such subjects as hobbies, recipes and children’s homework.

Find out more here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23473125/

I’m not sure how I feel about this. Personally I’m not a fan of Ask particularly, I’m a Google user through and through, but they’d been doing an awful lot to improve the interface of their engine and offer the browser more than just a list of links. You can’t help but wonder whether this has helped spur Google et al on with their Universal Search and improvements to SERPs.

Ultimately, it probably IS a very good idea as it will take a lot to topple Google, Yahoo and Live for general searchers (Google is a verb now, after all) but in a niche market maybe they’ve got a chance. it’ll be interesting to see how they market themselves once the changes have been made…

Baidu recently announced its intention to launch an Instant Messaging service called Baidu Hi! This will join a series of popular tools released by Baidu, listed below:

• Baidu 图片or Image Search
• Baidu æ–°é—» or Baidu News
• Baidu 百科, dubbed a “Chinese Wikipedia”
• Baidu 知道 or Baidu Knows a Q&A search where users can post and answer questions posted by other users
• Baidu 空间 or Baidu Spaces, a concept similar to MSN Live! Spaces with a rising number of users.
• Baidu 贴吧 or Baidu Post Bar, an online forum where a community of users can exchange, post and share websites.

And of course, Baidu’s infamous mp3 search and their ongoing battle with the music industry over copyright issues. The most recent claim was by the Motion Pictures Association members with damages amounting to RMB 7 million.

Whether Baidu Hi! will take off as an instant messaging service or whether it will flop is yet to be seen. They certainly face very tough competition from Tencent’s QQ Instant Messaging service who occupy up to 70% of the IM market share in China.

In 2005, QQ’s registered users exceeded 430 million, among which active users were over 170 million and the record of maximum online QQ users was 16 million. (China Economic Net)

Contact us at info@metafocus.co.uk if you would like to learn more about Baidu, Chinese search marketing services or how to get an online marketing presence in China.

Other links:

The official Baidu press release – Baidu Hi!