COM-425 Week 10

Personalisation is when an e-business website gathers information on regular site visitors; analysis’s the information and delivers the right information to the visitor at the right time.  There are a number of personalisation techniques used by companies to promote products, recommend products and advertise products to a potential customer.  The business collects information on a user is to establish their hobbies and interests or roles in an organisation.  Browsing and buying patterns are also assessed.  The buying pattern on a customer is held on a database by an e-business.   From these patterns, the business can establish and relate a number of products to the information they hold on a user.  This information can then be displayed on the website to the user the next time they visit the site.  This can be done in the form of text, links or images on the users account page.  A good example of this is Amazon.com.  Each purchase that a user makes is stored on the customers buying history.  From this, the website recommends specific products to the user based on previous purchases.

There are problems with personalisation on websites.  One big problem is what products are filtered for some users.  A user may be interested in motorsport and formula one racing for example, but when he/she logs onto their HMV account it recommends a DVD on horse racing.  Another example would be the customer’s interest in computer games.  Some filters may recommend games that the user has no interest in.

Personalisation has become a feature that is found in almost every e-business website.  I believe that to be a successful online business, you must have personalisation.  I believe it attracts visitors back to a website time and time again and I also believe it has an impact on what products a user buys from a particular website. Good implementation of personalisation on a website could have a big impact on the number of potential customers a business could have.

COM-425 Week 9

In this week’s assessment, I was required to search for and choose no more than 12 key phrases that best describe my chosen website www.demon-tweeks.co.uk.  To do this, I used the tools Google AdWords and Google SkTool.  I had also found other suitable tools to help me search for key phrases but these required an initial fee before they could be used.  I have listed and included links to these below:

• Word Tracker
• Key Word Discovery
• Yahoo Overture

When searching for key words, I found that the Google AdWords tool was the most useful.  This showed me the keywords related to my website, the local search volume and the advertiser competition.  From using this tool, I found to my surprise that the key words ‘motorcycle parts’ was searched for frequently through Google and is highly relevant to my website.

I also found that ‘motorcycle accessories’ was searched for frequently and would be a good key word to include but it did have a high competition rate.

From using the Google SkTool I found that ‘Motorcycle Jackets’ had good relevance to my website, was frequently searched for and didn’t have as high competition rate as other keywords.  I could also establish that the brand ‘Autoglym’ is frequently searched for brand in the U.K and would be a good key word to include for my website.  It didn’t have much competition which is also an advantage.

When using the Google insights tool, I have added possible keywords I am going to use to best describe the website.  From using this tool, I can compare the results for each search and decide which key words would be best to include.  These results are show in the table below.

From using these tools to search for and compare key words, I believe that the following list would be the best key words to describe the website www.demon-tweeks.co.uk.

• Car Parts
• Motorcycle Parts
• Motorsport
• Racing Parts
• Motorcycle Accessories
• Car Modification
• Motorcycle Jackets
• Coilovers
• Autoglym
• Motorcycle Clothing
• Performance Exhausts
• Motorcycle Luggage

COM-425 Week 8

In this week’s assessment, I aimed to find out how easy it would be to find the website www.demon-tweeks.co.uk when searching for products related to the company.  When using the search engine www.google.co.uk to find motorsport products, I found that my selected website was in the top 3 websites.  This made it relatively easy to find the website.  However, when I used the search engine www.msn.co.uk, I found the website much harder to find and did not feature in MSN’s top ten websites.  I then searched for car modification products.  Once again, it was in the top 3 websites on the Google search engine but I could not find the website in the first 50 websites on the MSN search engine.  This could be having a big impact on the number of views the website is having and the company could be losing out on potential business.  Rival websites are also in front of Demon-Tweeks when searching for these terms.

I also searched for brands of products the company sell in the shop.  The first I searched for was K and N air filters.  Once again I found when using the msn search engine, rival companies such as www.larkspeed.com where much higher on the list than Demon-Tweeks.  When using the Google search engine, I was surprised to find that the company was not featured in the top 50 web pages and that more rivals were coming ahead of Demon-Tweeks.  Although this may not be Demon-Tweeks best selling products, this is the most popular Air Filter manufacturer on the market and one of the most popular first modifications.  This again could potentially be losing Demon-Tweeks business and larger profits.

The ‘paid for’ results when searching on Google are not really competitors of Demon-Tweeks, however on the MSN search page, there is 4 potential rivals advertising on each page.  This could again have an impact on Demon-Tweeks business.  My advice to the Demon-Tweeks team would be to promote the website more so that their name is among the top 10 every time a product related to the company is searched for on major search engine.  Advertisements on major search engines such as Google could be a good move for the company.  This would guarantee that there name is always at the top of a search page when a product related to their company is searched for.

COM-425 Week 7

Cloud computing is one of the most important elements in computing today.  It is essentially when a user can access  applications or store files on a server using the internet.  This is where the term ‘cloud’ comes from.  There are 3 different types of cloud computing, virtual, software and network storage.

Virtual cloud computing is when a user can access web applications or services via a third party who will share their resources with the user.  An example of this would be Amazon EC2.  This application would mainly be used by businesses or organisations.  The application provides the user with all resources needed to save software, libraries and data on their server.  A server can be created within minutes, allowing them to quickly scale capacity, both up and down, as their requirements change.  This means that the company/organisation do not have to build their own network saving time and money.  This application also gives the user the same privileges they would have in a normal network.

Software cloud computing is when an application is hosted on the internet for businesses and organisations to use.  These can be designed and developed for some companies particular needs.  An example of this would be Google Apps.  Google have created applications for business use, school use and personal use.  In order to use an application, a user must create an account.  Once registered, he/she can then use all applications offered by Google.  This means the user will not have to download software in order to use the applications.  Another example of this is MSN Hotmail. The same steps are taken to create an account.  Once registered, the user can use MSN application to send and receive e-mails.  All e-mails will then be saved on the MSN web server.

Network storage is when a user can back-up their data using an internet provider. This allows the user to save files on an internet server as back-up.  The advantages to this service are that a user will not have to use CD’s, external hard drives, etc.  This will help save space and time.  Another advantage is that a user can log on to any PC and to access their files.  Businesses can also use this form of cloud computing to back-up particular documents they wish to store.

One advantage of cloud computing is that service providers are responsible for installing and maintaining applications used within the cloud.  This is preferred by some but a disadvantage of this is that a customer does not have direct control over the system and are highly dependant on the provider.  Cloud computing systems are often designed to only charge the customer for what resources they use.  This will be preferred by some as it can and often saves money from the conventional network system although other customers prefer a flat rate to help predict annual costs.  One disadvantage to cloud computing us that information and data is sent over the internet and stored on a third parties server.  This risks the privacy of particular material and they are reliant on the provider not to leek and information.