I’m really excited to announce that I’ll be speaking at the Pair Up web conference in London on 8/9 April on the future of web advertising.  PairUp is a conference for everyone who works (or wants to work) in the world of the web.  It’ll bring together well known names and pair them up to talk with some of the hottest teenage talent the web has to offer.

Clearly, I’m no longer hot teenage talent…  Anyway, I can’t say too much yet about who I’ll be paired up with, other than the fact I think it’s a fair chance they’ll be closer to my 18 month daughter’s age than to my own.

I’m really excited about the opportunity this is going to provide to meet new people with fresh ideas, and I think the fact we’ll pair up in this way is particularly relevant to the talk my partner and I will give.  Because whatever the future of web advertising brings, advertisers will always want something new and original. New and emerging talent pools are a great place to fish for that.

One of the things the conference organisers want me to touch on is how web advertising got to where it is today.  Of course, there’s been a tonne of developments and innovation since the web started, but some key constants have always been there.  Advertisers buy audience,  Sales execs are driven largely by short term targets which often create conflict with product people and lack of a good sales operations process and advertiser programmes can make it harder to make a decent profit selling inventory on your terms.

But what about the future?  I’d be interested to know what people think.  What’s the best way for an advertiser to get their message across today?  How does that vary across devices? What constitutes the most effective KPIs (key performance indicators)?  Is the web a branding medium, a direct response medium, or is it a platform for local and niche audiences?

Finally, as a site owner or publisher what opportunities (or obstacles) are there to you monetising your website?

Based in Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, contact miggle.co.uk for website development, content management and online media services in the UK and worldwide.

OpenX, the freely available ad server management system is a great product – of that we’re in absolutely no doubt. Innovations, such as the creation of the OpenX Marketplace and a recently announced strategic alliance with Microsoft add to what is already a great solution for publishers who want to take control of monetising their own inventory.

There are of course products out there to rival it – like DoubleClick/Google Dart – but the ease of entry for OpenX makes it an obvious starting point.

For the last 18 months we’ve been running OpenX on our own server. We’re yet to upgrade to version 2.8, which is required for Marketplace – and once we’re there I’ll be interested to see how broad the marketplace is. I expect that it’ll be heavily skewed towards US advertisers – Marketplace is only really going to work for our clients if it can credibly compete on a local level with Google – notwithstanding OpenX’s ability to work with Google Adsense anyway – and for that it will need UK advertisers in its marketplace.

If you’re thinking of using OpenX for your business, what route should you go. OpenX offers 3 options – a free Community Hosted, Enterprise Hosted and then the option to install the software on your own box and go Community Download.

A few months ago we thought we saw an opportunity to migrate from Community Download to Community Hosted. The benefits seemed obvious:-

Plenty of ad impressions

Free Hosted offers a 100 million ad impressions per month. You only need to pay (by virtue of moving to Open X Enterprise Hosted) if you need to exceed this – the idea being I guess, if your level of ad impressions isn’t generating the cost of the monthly fees (which start at $999) then you’re doing something wrong.

Enterprise does offer telephone support as part of the contract – the only version that offers any structured support beyond the forums.

No need to worry about version upgrades or your own server management

An appealing benefit to us at the time was that using Community Hosted meant that we didn’t need to upgrade our server’s OS to facilitate an upgrade from PHP 5.1.2 to PHP 5.2 to make the move from OpenX 2.6 to 2.8. While the free hosted version makes no guarantee of uptime, we logically reasoned that OpenX hosting their own software should be able to make a better fist of it than us (not that we’ve ever had problems ourselves)

The reality was somewhat different…

Communication

When problems occur with OpenX Community Hosted, you need to go to the site and find out the status yourself. Which means, if problems occur, you’ve usually been alerted to it by your client, not your service provider (aka OpenX) which is not ideal.

Support

The only support comes via documentation and the forums. From time to time OpenX staff or super-users will chip in, but there’s no reliable structured support – or even the option to buy in as a premium service, unless you go Enterprise.

Time Zone

The bulk of Community Hosted seems to be managed on the US west coast. The timezone has two impacts. If problems arise, in the UK, you’re on your own till 4pm. Often, from 4pm, the admin tools can be hard to get continual access to because of demand. I have to say, both of these observations are anecdotal.

The conclusion we’ve reached

We’ve now gone back to deciding the best way for us to use OpenX is to go the Community Download route – even though that means we’ve got to do a fair amount of work on a server upgrade to get there. Businesses can run OpenX on a dedicated server, with regular back ups, for a cost of £150 month plus whatever admin time needs to be costed, to a service level of at least 99.5% uptime. This is significantly cheaper than a starting price of $999 per month, for an extra 0.25% guaranteed uptime and support for going with Enterprise Hosted.

The downside is of course that you’re taking on support and liability for a product that ultimately you don’t control – but the experience from using either Hosted version versus Community Download is at least the latter is one you can set your own internal SLAs around with your clients.

With a community of over 50,000 publishers its easy to see what OpenX are struggling to maintain support of the Community Hosted version – but they should remember that, for many people, this route will be their first experience of the solution. After our experience of Community Hosted, I’m not sure I’d trust OpenX to provide me with decent service for Enterprise, even though I guess this is where all their resource goes. OpenX would do well in my opinion to take a leaf out of WordPress’s book with regards to offering a hosted and downloadable product side by side.

Based in Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, contact miggle.co.uk for website development, content management and online media services in the UK and worldwide.

It was great to see Yahoo! launch their new version of the home page in beta last week in the UK. Here at miggle, we work closely for Yahoo! on their ‘Front doors’ day in day out, so clearly we’ve got a vested interest in saying the page is great. But that’s really what we think.

During my time at Yahoo! homepage launches were a big part of my life – this is the fourth one I’ve been involved with in one way or another and so I’ve seen first hand how it’s changed and the reasoning behind the changes.

A brief historical functional overview of the Yahoo! homepage, which up until at least the start of 2009 was the single most visited web page on the planet, goes something like this – and in many ways mirrors the history of the web:

• At the start, it was all about links in the directory, which dominated the page
• Then the directory became searchable
• Rather than drive traffic to competitors, Yahoo! started building and acquiring its own products like Yahoo! Mail and Finance
• Yahoo! started publishing latest news on its homepage
• With so many people on the site daily, the media value of the page soared. Yahoo! led the way in offering advertisers truly unique opportunities on its homepages worldwide
• As the web broadened, Google Search became ‘the killer app’ – portals no longer could offer the same standard as the pure plays, for example, everyone knows eBay – but do you remember Yahoo! Auctions?
• Entry points to the web changed. The Hotmail homepage was a more valuable destination than the MSN homepage, because more people started their web sessions there. Internet toolbars became so important that companies like Microsoft started to embed search functionality into the chrome of the browsers and desktop.
• Thus, a page like yahoo.co.uk had to have value as a product in its own right. Editorial engagement became more important as homepages became the place to find out about what cool stuff was happening on and offline. The directory disappeared.
• Web2.0 and social networking took off. The web became a more customisable place. Mobile phones became more important as a platform. The personal assistant on the last version of the Y! homepage showed where front page evolution was heading.

And now, in 2009, we have a Yahoo! homepage that allows users to see the news headlines from the Guardian alongside its own news product. A page that actively encourages users to add their favourite sites to the left hand nav bar rather than big up its own portal offering. Yahoo! has recognised that setting your online status is a key part of any user’s identity when going for a surf on a highly personalisable web – even though its as easy to update your Facebook account from the Y! page as it is your own Y! profile.

Is this simply Yahoo! admitting defeat? I don’t think so. I think this is a good strategic move on their part, allowing users to create their own ‘starting point’ on the web. If Yahoo! ever had a raison d’etre, wasn’t this always it? Is the new homepage evolution or revolution? Let us know what you think.

The new home page still does everything that Yahoo! has always done well – pointing users to fresh and interesting content and brilliant products such as Y! Finance and Mail – but also recognises the fact that the Internet has moved on from the dominance of portals. That in itself gives every web publisher the opportunity to think about how it can leverage Yahoo!’s audience to drive engagement in its own products. If you want to think about how that could work for your business then drop us a line.

Based in Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, contact miggle.co.uk for website development, content management and online media services in the UK and worldwide.

Over the last few weeks I’ve noticed more and more tradesmen’s vans out and about on my walk into work. We’re well into the spring and that always seems to be start of people getting professionals in to get stuff done to their houses. And in that, I’ve seen a bit of a selling opportunity!

A lot of vans I walk past will carry the business name, the trade, a phone and mobile number – sometimes even an email address – but often a lot of these are bereft of a web address. So, it’s a perfect chance to ask the question – “Do you have a website?”

Travelling promotions
The interesting thing is that some of these businesses do, but they don’t promote the fact on their vans, or the banners that hang from scaffolds. This seems to me to be missing an obvious opportunity. As I’ve said before – a functional website is just the starting point to making the most of your business online.

Of course there are those vans that do promote websites – and so, when I see a web address I tap it into my iPhone and check out what’s there. Right now, web access via mobile phones only makes up a tiny percentage of overall access to the Internet, but of course that’s only going to increase as the availability of both phones that can access the web increase, the functionality of the browsing software improves and designers start really thinking about hand held experiences. Here at miggle, we’re also betting on .tel domains playing their part in making the web more mobile.

Think mobile for your website
Even though that slice of users is small right now, I think they represent a valuable niche. If a user has taken the time to access your site on their phone, then it shows that they really really wanted to see that info. Something has created that moment and that’s a powerful impulse. Visits driven on this sort of emotive level are probably some of the most qualified traffic you might get. So, there are two things – one, you’ve got to work hard to try and create those moments. If you’re a tradesman and you own a van, it can act as a moving billboard for your business – so use it as such. And, two, if what’s on your van has the power to make someone act straight away – which is likely, in someway to be facilitated by their phone, then make sure you’ve got a credible experience on hand held devices.

Once example I had today – nice looking van, clean, good logo, clearly a professional job on the branding (as opposed to Comic Sans and some clip art vinyled on to the side), talking up what seemed to be a quality product and service. I tap their address into my phone – and I get no site. Why? Because it’s all been designed in Flash, it has no back up option for people who might be accessing a site on a device that does not support Flash. “So who gives a ****?”, you might say – its hardly like that’s going to make up much of the visits to the site. True enough. But a web design company that delivers a site that ONLY works in Flash is probably not a web design company that’s thought about the challenges of making a Flash site work well from a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or an accessibility perspective, or even a basic user needs perspective. That client’s site probably makes a nice portfolio entry on prettybutpointlesssites.com – but that’s about it.

All that from my walk to work. I’m glad it’s the weekend…

>> Get your business a .tel domain

Based in the UK’s silicon city – Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, contact miggle.co.uk for website development, content management and online media services in the UK and worldwide.

In the fight for credit crunch business, grabbing the attention of your target audience can be extremely difficult. To paraphrase Alick in his previous post – A website is just the beginning – you can’t just hope for online business to find you.

The solution? An integrated business blog and subscribable RSS feed, like our very own miggleblog. An inexpensive, simple tool, it can give you direct access to millions of prospective customers worldwide.

The benefits of a blog:

Reach more people, and make money
The likelihood is that only your existing customers will read a news section on your website. With a blog you can reach out and find new prospects. Google’s Feedburner is an invaluable tool that can help you publicise your RSS feed content and make it easier for people to subscribe. By participating in the FeedBurner Ad Network, you can make money from your pearls of wisdom.

Build customer relations
It’s far harder to get business from new customers than it is to get more business from your existing customers, so keeping in touch should be one of your top priorities. An interactive blog is a friendly and fun way to keep your existing customers up-to-date with all your new offers and products, so that your business will be at the forefront of their mind when they need your products or services again.

Better search engine rankings
The migglemedia team always recommend that a business blog be hosted on the main business website, as the more people that read your blog and link to posts on it, the higher your website will appear in the search engine rankings.

Bring in more traffic
Google search loves frequently updated websites, therefore a blog can bring in a surprising amount of new traffic to your website through natural search terms. Blog posts are rapidly indexed by the major search engines and can be extremely profitable.

Start a buzz
Blog about your new products, drop hints about forthcoming events, publicise your research – grab the attention of the press! Blogs are increasingly quoted and cited in the mainstream media, and as such are a great way to score free publicity for your company.

Become ‘the guru’
If your business occupies a niche sector of the market, why not share your knowledge via a blog and build a reputation as a go-to person?

Test your ideas
Thinking about a change of direction for the company or expanding into a new range of products? Blog about it and let your customers tell you exactly what they want from your business.

>> How to profit from social media

>> Drive user engagement with a newsletter

Based in the UK’s silicon city – Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, contact miggle.co.uk for website development, content management and online media services in the UK and worldwide.

This is the next post in Alick’s series on our miggle website fundamentals, “a functional website is just the starting point for an effective online business”.

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I always have this vision of a guy – maybe back in the 1930s at the height of the last depression – sitting in his office, elbows on desk, head in hands, staring at his brand new telephone and waiting for it to ring. He’d heard that all his competitors had got a phone and thought if he got one too, the business would come. So he got it installed, but never figured out why it didn’t ring.

I see a similar thing happen with business websites. How many can say that their site’s working for their business the way they want it to?

For the purposes of this post, we’ll assume your website is a great website – focussed on the needs of your audience and/or current and future customers, providing the features or functions that match those of your competitors in a way that makes it easy for users to get what they want and encourages them to come back for more. But we’ll also assume that its not delivering the return on the investment you wanted – so why is that?

In most cases it’s because too much focus, time and money was placed on the build and the design – and not enough thought given to what time, money and resource would be required to get it seen.

The common problems we see are:

* The front page never changes
* No new content gets added
* No promotion of special offers
* Worse still – as a combination of neglect on the three points above, out-of-date content is featured on the website
* Broken links – or searches on Google link to pages that can’t be found
* Offline advertising and literature are not referencing your website
* No money is spent on online advertising and marketing.

They exist because:

* No one within the business ‘owns’ the website
* No budget has been allocated to the website
* Somehow the business believes that because everyone can access your site, everyone will.

They can be mitigated by:

* Allocating a budget within your business to promote your site
* Ensuring someone has the skills and the time to make updates to your site to keep it fresh, accurate and reflective of your business
* Having a clear plan of what you can reasonably expect from your site.

Our most successful small business clients have got themselves to the stage where their sites have paid for themselves. In every case, it’s been because they’ve been prepared to spend at least the same again as they spent on the build to ensure their online investment returns with interest.

Based in the UK’s silicon city – Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, contact miggle.co.uk for website development, content management and online media services in the UK and worldwide.

Internet advertising in Britain was the only ad medium to grow in 2008, rising 17 percent and bucking the overall 3.5 percent industry fall, according to the latest reports.

The reasons? Pay-per-click and online display advertising offer businesses what TV, radio, mail and press simply can’t – total accountability, the flexibility to adjust and test advertising messages in real time and pinpoint targeting of your desired audiences.

There are millions of places on the internet where you can buy advertising and lots of different ways you can do it. Advertising comes down to two things – you’re either building your brand or you want to elicit some direct response. There are distinct strategies for both.

In terms of building brand – it’s important to establish what kind of websites have a commercial offering that’s right for you and a relevant audience. You could buy an ad on the front page of Yahoo! and reach many millions of people from all walks of life – it’ll be priced accordingly. But you may find that there are websites that cost less and work better, helping you to access a relevant niche audience.

The migglemedia team can advise you on where you should advertise, what your mix of branded and direct spend should be, bargain advertising opportunities and how to design compelling creative.

Based in the UK’s silicon city – Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, contact miggle.co.uk for website development, content management and online media services in the UK and worldwide.

Art Review: display advertising served via Open X

Introducing OpenX – amongst other things…

For high traffic pages on my website, I would look at how I could sell these myself. In this respect OpenX is a great service for managing your own advertising inventory. A self contained, stand alone management system, it generates code to drop into your web pages to manage the display of advertising.

A solution such as OpenX gives you the power to manage campaigns you sell yourself, which means you can set your own rules as to what type of creative you’ll display and who you’ll sell to. You can also use OpenX to manage your own internal promotions and start to track how effective these are. The experience you get from this could be invaluable for when you decide you want to buy banner advertising on other sites.

migglemedia are now running an OpenX installation and can set up you up with full access to the system.

Finally, don’t just use any old size ad on your site. Use IAB Universal ad package sized formats that are easy to incorporate into site designs. If you make up your own sizes, and then you want to sell your ad space to clients, they’ll have to create special versions just for your site. Which doesn’t make sense. You can find out more about the IAB ad standards here.

If you’d like to talk more about how to best monetise your sites, or to find out more about our experiences with OpenX, feel free to get in touch with me at migglemedia.

Based in the UK’s silicon city – Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, contact miggle.co.uk for website development, content management and online media services in the UK and worldwide.