Posts Tagged ‘competitive advantage’
June 28th, 2010
Google announced a few months ago that Webpage load speed now has a small bearing on ranking in relation to SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) i.e. it is better to have faster loading Pages. There was quite a vocal reaction to this news by various Webmasters and Web designers. Google, Bing and Yahoo have always maintained that the best Search Engine Optimization (SEO) activities are those that enhance the Site for visitors. The speed at which a Webpage loads is vitally important to Web-surfers. People don’t like to wait for Pages to load and are likely to visit an alternate and faster Site when experiencing slow Page load speeds.
As noted previously, and blogged by Matt Cutts, the influence on SERPs of speed is very small. The move to highlight the need to reduce page load speeds wherever possible should be welcomed by the average Web surfer who wants a better Online experience. Designers and Webmasters too should not fear the minuscule focus on speed as if they are good in their roles they will already be ensuring that image sizes aren’t unnecessarily large, video is compresses, caching is enabled where appropriate etc. Minor Website amendments can result in significant speed gains so it is worth spending time consulting with tools such as Yahoo YSlow and Google Page Speed
Page load speed has been part of Google’s competitive advantage since its inception. Web page load speed can also be a competitive advantage for your Site.
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Tags: advantage, bing, blogs, competitive advantage, google, Internet, page load speed, search, Search Engine Optimization, seo, SERPs, web, web design, website, websites, yahoo, yslow | 
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January 29th, 2010
Malcolm Gladwell is a fantastic author and I have been reading the Tipping Point where he discusses what creates a sudden and large change in people’s activities. One of the recommendations Gladwell offers is to create ‘stickiness’ where the provider creates a product or service which consumers perceive as preferable to an alternative (Gladwell illustrates this ‘stickiness’ using the example of the television success of Sesame Street and all the research that went into creating ‘stickiness’). Of course ‘stickiness’ is nothing new (think competitive advantage, ‘first mover advantage’ etc.) however its importance and the benefits thereof are significant and Gladwell does a good job of demonstrating the importance of it even although the relevant chapter of the book is a bit long-winded.
So where may we find an example of a company creating ‘stickiness’? In my view, price/cost may be an influencing factor on ‘stickiness’ however does not itself create the sticky factor (Michael Porter, the management guru, described that having a competitive advantage based on price/cost alone is extremely difficult to sustain as a price/cost advantage is relatively simple for a competitor to imitate and the switching costs for consumers remain low when based on price alone). ‘Stickiness’ therefore relates to quality or features. And this is where there is a company in Australia which is exceeding …
Provision of ADSL (Broadband) to homes is a very standard product, especially here is Australia where almost all ADSL uses common copper cables and some infrastructure managed by Telstra. Price and service are therefore two of the major sources of competitive advantage for ADSL providers. It has already been discussed that price/cost isn’t good in creating sustainable competitive advantage so service remains as the key to ‘stickiness’. The ADSL market is extremely crowded (a Google search for ‘ADSL provider sydney’ returns 1,140,000 results) so even average service from ADSL providers won’t suffice; excellence is therefore called for to gain and maintain a ‘stickiness’ where consumers have no desire to move to an alternate ADSL provider.
I believe I have found a company which is leading the way is creating ‘stickiness’ in the very competitive Broadband market. I have used Internode for a few years now and on the very few occasions I have needed to call them for support my expectations have been exceeded. To illustrate how this service excellence relates to sales consider that I was using Skype with Philips VOIP321 phones and needed new phones. Because of the continuous great service from Internode my first call for new phones was to Internode with whom I signed up for their NodePhone VOIP service and purchased two Siemens Gigaset C470 IP phones.
Unfortunately after installing the new phones (which Internode had configured for me before shipping them to me) I was getting the error message ‘Provider registration failed’ on the handset after making a call. I noticed, after a Google search, that other C470 IP phone users with various VOIP providers (including Internode) were getting the same error. I therefore called Internode support and this is where Internode absolutely exceeds:
A call back from Internode technical support resulted in the technician remotely connecting to my modem/router and changing various settings for me which resolved the VOIP problems. Now my Siemens phones and NodePhone VOIP work fine.
There are two aspects of this service which I believe create the ‘stickiness’ factor for Internode:
- The problem wasn’t with Internode nor VOIP but rather my router/modem setup with which the technician assisted even although he had no obligation to assist.
- The technician focused on the problem at hand and resolved the error as expediently as possible (whilst being totally professional).
There are many ADSL and VOIP providers and some are less costly than Internode. Internode however deserves even further success through its focus on service quality which creates a ‘stickiness’ which makes them the ADSL, VOIP and related product provider of choice.
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November 18th, 2009
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) gurus and Website developers take note; Google may soon be including Page Load speed into its ranking algorithm for organic search. This certainly makes sense and has been coming for a long time. Google values its very fast page load speeds and views this as a significant competitive advantage. If Google sees Page Load speed as so important then it is natural that they should include it as a ranking factor.
Of course indications of Webpage and Site load speed being used as ranking factors have been around for a number of years; YSlow (Yahoo) and Page Speed (Google) are both Tools supplied by major Search based organization which measure Page Load speed and provide performance optimizing recommendations.
There will be a minority who are against the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) being influenced by load times. The vast majority of us however will be in favor of this new ranking factor. Page load speed is important to visitors and, as such, should be given credibility; after all, Webpages should be designed for visitors!
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June 4th, 2009
Nielsen this week released comparisons showing the enormous growth in the amount of time spent on the most visited Social Media sites from April 2008 to April 2009. The numbers are truly astounding.
The Social Media / Social Bookmarking / Sharing industry is still in its infancy. We’ll definitely be seeing consolidation and / or functionality expansion in the industry over the next few years. As an example, there are so many Social Bookmarking sites with very few distinguishing features (product differentiation). Think of Delicious, Mister Wong and Backflip; what advantages does one really Read the rest of this entry »
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May 19th, 2009
The use of Microformats and RDFa is becoming more commonplace among search engines. Yahoo has been indexing and using RDFa and Microformats meta data for a short while and now Google has ‘come to the party’ (although Google use of the data will be limited for now – and calls RDFa ‘Rich Snippets’). Microformats and, particularly, RDFa use will become very widespread over the next few years but what does this mean for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? Read the rest of this entry »