Week 10 – Personalisation

Personalisation can be described as a process of gathering and storing information about site visitors.  The company then analyses the information they collect.  This then allows the company to tailor the pages to the individual user’s characteristics or preferences.  An example would be on Amazon, they have been an early adopter of personalisation technology to recommend products to customers on its site.  When a customer buys a book the next time they go onto the site they will be given recommendations/suggestions of other books they may wish to buy.  Such as more books by the same author, or books purchased by other people who also bought the book that you purchased (collaborative filtering – see below)

Personalisation Elements

The objective of collecting visitor information is to develop a profile which describes customer’s interests.  The most common techniques are explicit profiling, implicit profiling, and using legacy data:

Explicit profiling asks each visitor to its site to fill out information and the website is then personalised accordingly e.g. MyYahoo.

Implicit profiling tracks the visitor’s behavior. This technique is usually transparent to the visitor. The users browsing and buying patterns are then assessed.  Amazon would be an example of a company which uses this technique.

Using legacy data accesses legacy data for valuable profile information, such as credit applications and previous purchases.

Personalisation Techniques

Personalisation of a website is concerned with targeting advertisements and promoting products, managing marketing campaigns as well as managing website content.  Although there are two main reasons for personalising a website which are to enhance customer service and/or e-commerce sales.  A personalised e-commerce site is more likely to attract and retain visitors and therefore resulting in the increase of sales. 

Collaborative Filtering

Personalising a website can include using filtering techniques.  An example is ‘Collaborative Filtering’.  Many companies (including Amazon) use this technique to automate the process of recommending products and services to consumers.   

The collaborative filtering systems produce personal recommendations by following three steps.  Firstly they record the preferences of a large sample of people i.e. they gather information on what products they buy using either explicit or implicit ratings.  Secondly they select groups of people whose preferences and tastes are similar to yours.  Finally they then recommend these products to you which other people who are in the same group as you like. For product recommendations, collaborative filtering is most suitable for simple products, such as books, CDs, or videos all of which are popular products on Amazon.

Advantages and Disadvantages

The issue of personalisation can spark a range of opinions.  Some advantages are that personalisation can save time by eliminating repetitive tasks as well as remembering transactional details.  Personalisation also provides better information for its customers by filtering out information which is generally not relevant to a person and therefore providing them with information which is more tailored to their personal interests.

The main disadvantage which people are concerned with is the issue of privacy and security.  Some people don’t want to be identified as this may cause a problem with purchasing presents for people.  Security could cause difficulties because if a company fails to protect its assets and those of its stakeholders then people will not be willing to share anything of value with the firm. People have real reasons to fear that today’s centralized networks are not secure. 

My opinion is that personalisation is a good idea as it not only allows the customer to feel that they have more of a relationship with the company (as the company knows more about them) but also gives you some suggestions as to products which you might be interested in, products which you otherwise would never know about.

Week 9 – Customer Relationship Management

For this weeks task I had to investigate key phrases which describe Amazon.co.uk.  We were given some websites to look at.  The first website I tried was the ‘sktool’ website. 

Google Search Based Keywords

I typed in ‘www.amazon.co.uk’ into the website search box.  The results which were given did not help me in any way to gather 12 key phrases for my chosen website.  The results were very broad and didn’t really have anything to do with the products which Amazon sell.

Google Insights

I then decided to search on a second website.  I chose ‘Google Insights’.  I searched for ‘www.amazon.co.uk’. 

Google Insights

Google Insights shows the websites popularity over the past 6years through the use of a line chart.  From this chart we can see that there is a peak every Christmas time, although the interest is gradually getting lower as time goes on.  This may be due to the birth of similar websites or more recently the economic recession.   

Google Insights

Also on the Google Insights website there is a section called ‘Search terms’.  This gives the Top 7 searches from people when they are looking for Amazon.co.uk.  This Top 7 list did not help me with this task as the searches were related to the actual website address and not keywords to do with Amazon.  The main searches are misspelled versions of the correct web address. 

KeywordSpy

The third website I searched on was ‘Keyword Spy’. 

KeywordSpy

This website returns results which were widespread and once again don’t really have anything to do with the products which Amazon sell.   

WordStream

The fourth website I tried was ‘Wordstream’.

WordStream

The results which were generated by this website were slightly improved.  As I searched through the list it was evident that this website provided keywords which are more suitable for Amazon.  Some examples are: ‘Music’, ‘DVDS’, ‘Electronics’, ‘Computing’, ‘Books’ and ‘Textbooks’.  These keywords are more appropriate as they are actual products which Amazon sells. 

Google Adwords

The fifth website I tried was the Google Adwords.

Google Adwords

This website generated lots of results although they were very vague and I didn’t find them useful for the task.  They mentioned some words which are suitable for Amazon such as DVD.  I changed the ‘Match Type’ to ‘Broad’, ‘Phrase’ and ‘Exact’ but generally I didn’t find this website useful.

Webconfs

The final website I looked through was webconfs.com.

Webconfs

Out of all of the websites I searched through this was the one which I found most useful for the task.  It gave me keyword suggestions which were more fitting to Amazon.co.uk.  The keywords were products which are sold by Amazon.

Books – When this keyword is typed into Google, Amazon is the 3^rd website on the first page.  It is also one of the top words on webconfs.com as well as Wordstream.  

Cd’s - Appears 5^th website on first page in Google search. 

DVDs – 4^th website on first page in Google search.  Also appears on webconfs.com suggested keywords.  Also appears on Wordstream website. 

Electronics – 2^nd on first page on Google search.  Also appears on Wordstream and webconfs.com.

Pc games – Appears 4^th on first page of Google search.  Also a keyword on webconfs.com.

Software – Appears 4^th on first page of Google search. 

Audio books – 2^nd on first page of Google search.  Also on webconfs.com as a suggested keyword. 

Blu ray – 5^th on the first page of Google search. 

Computer accessories – Appears 2^nd on first page of Google Search. 

Textbooks – 3^rd on first page of Google Search and also appear as a keyword on Wordstream.

Sat Nav – 1^st website on Google search. 

Digital Camera – 8^th on first page of Google search.  Appears on webconfs.com suggested keywords.

Week 8 – E-Marketing

Q.13 For your selected e-commerce site, assess the ease (or not) with which you can find the site using a search engine. Type some of the company’s branded products or key themes into a search engine. Discuss what is returned. Pay particular attention to ‘paid for’ results. Check where competitors appear. Interpret the results. Provide recommendations.

This week I explored how easy it was to find the Amazon website using Search Engines.  Therefore I went onto the most popular Search Engine which is ‘Google’. 

Search Engines

The first word I typed into Google was ‘Amazon’.  This is quite a distinct name and as I expected the first result to be returned by the search engine was www.amazon.co.uk. 

Amazon on Google

Then I decided to search for some of the main products which Amazon sell.  The first product I looked up was ‘books’.  The result was Amazon coming 2^nd.  This is understandable as Google books were the first website to be found.  Google is obviously going to promote their own websites first and foremost.    Amazon’s main competitor Play.com did not appear on the first page of results.  Instead they were found on the second page. 

Books on Google

The second keyword I searched for was ‘DVDS’.  This showed Amazon as being 3^rd on the page of results.  Play.com is the first website on the list.  This is not advantageous for Amazon as many potential customers would perhaps click on the first website.

DVDS on Google

The third term I looked up was ‘CD’s’.  The results showed that Amazon actually came 5^th on the list with Play once again being at the top.

Cd's on Google

Paid Listings

Most major search engines have the feature of ‘Paid listings’.  This is when a company agrees to pay the search engine a certain amount of money every time someone clicks on their listing.  Sometimes these are referred to ‘Pay-per-click’ or ‘Cost-per-click’ advertising. These listings generate revenue for search engines.

Search engines Paid Listings

Google Adwords

Google Adwords

1. Google Adwords Homepage.
2. How Google Adwords works.
3. Searching for prices for keywords e.g. books.

Google Adword Prices

4. Results of ‘Book’ search.  As you can see there are many different related keywords all at different prices.  Prices are per click. 

As you can see from the screenshots below Amazon use the Google Adwords feature. 

Books Adword

Cd's Adword

DVD's Adword

In conclusion Amazon is very easy to find through the use of Search Engines although they could perhaps spend more money on advertising for DVDS and CDs as Play.com currently have the lead.

Week 7 – Cloud Computing

Cloud computing can be described as an on-demand hosting service which is available on the internet.  It is emerging technology which uses the internet to maintain data along with applications. It allows consumers as well as businesses to use applications without installation.  It also allows them to access their personal files at any computer with internet access.

Cloud Computing

 “Cloud computing is perhaps the most talked-about shift in the technology industry today. The concept of running applications from the cloud is quickly evolving from a futuristic vision to a commercially viable alternative for mainstream business. A recent survey of global 2,000 companies revealed that 30 percent are already using cloud infrastructure to host their applications, and another 20 percent plan to do so by next year.”

Bill Loumpouridis

http://billloumpouridis.sys-con.com/

The term cloud is used as a metaphor for the Internet.  This is because in computer network diagrams the internet is often illustrated as a cloud.

The ‘Cloud’ in Cloud computing can either be private or public. A public cloud is one which sells services to anyone on the Internet. (Amazon is currently the largest public cloud provider).  A private cloud is a data centre that supplies hosted services to a limited number of people.  Whether the cloud is public or private the purpose is to grant easy access to various computing resources and services.

Cloud computing can be divided into three categories:

• Applications
• Platforms
• Infrastructure

 Applications:

By running business applications over the internet from centralized servers rather than from on-site servers this allows companies to cut down on various costs e.g. maintenance, licensing and hardware.   E.g. Google, Netsuits, Salesforce

Platforms:

Platforms serve as an interface for users to access applications which are provided by partners or in some cases the customers. E.g. Amazon, Microsoft, Google

Infrastructure:

This is to do with the physical storage space as well as the processing capabilities. E.g. Amazon, Google, IBM.

Advantages of cloud computing:

• Speed: Building your application in the cloud is five times faster.
• Cost: As previously mentioned, it allows companies to cut down on maintenance, licensing and hardware costs.  Cloud-based e-commerce also eliminates the need for expensive CRM and e-commerce integration projects.
• Access your data at all times – not just while in the office
• Customer Focus: Running your e-commerce business ‘in the cloud’ helps make it easier to do business with customers by simplifying interactions and driving down transaction costs.
• Reliability and Security: Actually improves due to centralization of data and increased security-focused resources.
• Pay-as-you-go: Users are only charged for the amount of traffic, bandwidth, and memory used.  This pay-for-what-you-use method resembles the way electricity and fuel is consumed and therefore it is sometimes referred to as utility computing.

Disadvantages of cloud computing:

• Loss of control – You trust a key part of your business to someone else.
• Dependent on internet connection – Internet connectivity isn’t completely stable and reliable.  It could take a few more years for cloud computing to be completely accessible anywhere.

Growth Of Cloud Computing

 Amazon’s Cloud Computing:

 Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud allows customers to rent computers on which to run their own computer applications.

 “Amazon EC2’s simple web service interface allows you to obtain and configure capacity with minimal friction. It provides you with complete control of your computing resources and lets you run on Amazon’s proven computing environment. Amazon EC2 reduces the time required to obtain and boot new server instances to minutes, allowing you to quickly scale capacity, both up and down, as your computing requirements change. Amazon EC2 changes the economics of computing by allowing you to pay only for capacity that you actually use.”

Amazon Cloud Computing