Thursday 28 January 2010

When should You consider upgrading to a Dedicated Server?

A slow web site will be having a negative effect on your business. With the increase of download speeds on home computers users will not want to wait to load your site – they will simply look elsewhere. The average user will leave your site after waiting 8-10 seconds for a page to load – and most of them will never return.

Therefore, in order to enhance your business opportunities it is crucial that you have a fast, high performance website. The most effective way of ensuring you have a high speed website is by switching from a shared to a dedicated server. The primary reason for this is that if your site is hosted by a shared server you are in effect operating as a member of a group. If for any reason another client on your server has an increase in web traffic or increases the size of their web site there is a pretty good chance that your speed and performance will be affected.

By choosing the option of having your own fast dedicated server you are given exclusive access to all of the resources on the server allowing you to customize your plan. You are not required to share the space, memory or bandwidth for your site which enables optimization ultimately increasing your processor speed.

In terms of scalability, fast dedicated servers offer greater options. If your website is experiencing an increase in visitor numbers and as a result is becoming slower than desired you can simply add more RAM if required, or even add a load balancer to your server to split the load across two dedicated servers, or more.

Another benefit of a dedicated server is the availability of your own unique IP address. Added to these benefits is the fact that a dedicated server offers heightened security as no one else will be able to access the server other than you, this makes the risk of viruses extremely minimal.

If you have a high amount of traffic hitting your web site, are involved in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) projects, or simply want the best possible support service for your web site, a switch to a dedicated server is the fastest move you should be making.

Need to improve the speed of your web site?

Contact one of our Hosting Specialists to see how you could benefit from Netcetera’s superior network reliability and service.

www.netcetera.co.uk

Thursday 21 January 2010

The use of Social Media in B2B Marketing - Discuss

Today’s global economy is genuinely borderless. Information, capital and innovation flow all over the world at top speed, enabled by technology and fuelled by the consumer’s desire for access to the best and least expensive products. The latest addition to the world of marketing is the increased use of the world wide web and the uptake of social media platforms to broaden marketing strategies.

When one business is marketing to another social media can be used to increase a company’s reach and new visibility, impove brand recognition and enhance the service which the company can provide their customers through a ‘new’ idea of market research which can be gained through a new medium of interaction and engagement with their existing and potential customers.

It is important for B2B companies to be involved in social media primarily through channels where their current client base are located. Although the world we are living in is rapidly changing the online world of social media can at first be a daunting place for someone who is considered to be a traditional marketer and is not familiar with the entire range of options available to them. Therefore it is reccommended that B2B companies initially increase their marketing from an area integrated with social media which they already are familiar with.
By developing their use of social media in this way it will help to ensure that the basics are covered first allowing them to maximise the value and benefits which social media offers through professional and clear cut processes which is vital for the successful integration of social media.

The development of a clear cut strategy focussing on the content will enable the successful execution of a companies entry into the field of social media. The increase of web traffic to a companies website will in turn bring the opportunity to exploit the potential of new business leads in a relatively cheap manner.

It is important to remember that social media can be extremely time consuming and for this reason may not be the best option for very small businesses. The pro’s and con’s need to be evaluated to decide if it will be worth the investment in time for each individual company. The benefits of social media for B2B marketing differ somewhat from those of B2C marketing. The principle reason for this is the market size of which they target with B2B markets generally being on a much smaller scale to B2C markets, this means that due to the likelihood of repeat sales the value of a B2B individual customer is much higher than that of an individual B2C customer. Another point to remember is that due to the nature of B2B marketing all sales should be nurtured and maintained to the highest level.

It should not be forgotten that all marketers themselves are consumers and therefore can use their own channels of social media, whichever they choose to be involved in be it Facebook, Twitter, You Tube or other forums to give positive and negative reports on products which they consume and this in turn is fed back to their contacts and spreads through ‘word of mouth’ which is widely believed to be one of the best forms of marketing and advertising.

I believe that if any company uses social media within its marketing strategy the main ingredients for a successful recipe are : Prove the principle and set achievable goals and targets.