NBN on the right track

We may have had to wait weeks for a final result but the Australian people fortuitously delivered just what the country really needed ... a decent broadband network unshackled from the dead hand of Telstra.

In less than 10 years it will be plain for all to see that this single piece of infrastructure will have more impact on our economic and cultural future than any other ever embarked upon before including railways that great 19th century innovation.

Interestingly railways, which incidentally had a massive positive effect overall, suffered from the same type of small mindedness and lack of vision so evident in criticism of 'fibre to the home' viz each state insisting on having its own track guage.

It seems hard to believe, looking back now, that any right thinking person would have deliberately chosen a system which made it necessary to hoist the carriages off and change rolling gear mid trip to travel between state capitals.

To put the capital required into some context, the quantum $43b has been usually described in terms of being an awful lot of money, and it is, but the proposed expenditure of $36b (in the same ball park) to build diesel powered submarines in South Australia speaks volumes to me.

I know which would deliver the best results for the Australian people.

Why we consider defense related items should not require some cost evaluation is interesting. I guess it's considered to be like wars i.e. it might seem unpatriotic in some way to question numbers and we just accept it as being required for some higher goal.

Coming from a family with strong ties to the services (not me personally I concede) I would not for a minute quibble about vital arms or provisions but what I would say is that some higher level decisions are above the usual thinking processes involved here.

Most people accept defense related expenditure and can always justify it after the act .. when it usually doesn't matter anyway.

Despite my usual apolitical stance as an online publisher I have always boosted the NBN when ever the opportunity arose, see my Wollongong column, also syndicated in Sutherland, Parramatta and Newcastle e-zines.

Like many people I believe technology defines how we live. Just think of motor cars, aeroplanes, telephones even TV and how poor our lives would be without them.

Believe me, really fast broadband is right up there with them.

And now we're back on track!

Phone contact dramatically improves conversion rates ...

After nearly ten years operating community portals in Australia I think I know a lot about what does and doesn't work online in regional areas.

One thing I do know for sure is that local search traffic flows are only a tiny fraction of universal search and this usually means that smaller businesses must adopt Long Tail techniques to attract 'low volume high quality' sales or leads.

It would also seem to follow that transactions with low cost products are going to be marginal at best - unless they are recurring and a 'lifetime value' approach is adopted.

In my experience most small businesses want or need a pretty quick rerturn so they are usually not prepared to put in the necessary hard yards.

One way Your Online Community is tackling this challenge in their directories SMARTPAGES is to promote the use of Phone Numbers in search engine results page (SERP) titles. 

The usual 1-2.0% AdWords conversion rates can be boosted ten or even twenty times if you can get prospects to call up rather than just click through.

One can speculate why this practice has not been advanced to date but it seems likely to become the norm as more and more people use the internet to purchase local items.

Will talk more about this in future blogs.

In the meantime you can email me direct.

Poor conversion rates are the killer ...

This is my first blog ... on Blogger that is.

I have in fact been writing regular columns for a number of e-zines in Australia since 2003 usually about social media and my pet subject 'local search'.

As the founder of the Your Online Community network and having researched the topic for many years I have formed some pretty definite views on the state of the internet and in particular how it disadvantages smaller businesses.

As part of my role as a trainer delivering workshops about online marketing around New South Wales I regularly speak to small business owners trying to make sales using Pay-Per-Click tools such as Google AdWords.

It seems the experience is almost always bad.  After many weeks or months of trial and spending modest amounts of money they usually throw their hands up in frustration.

In most cases I have spoken to they are trying to run their campaigns completely inhouse trying to keep costs down.

Having worked online for over 10 years and currently completing a PhD in computer science I must say I am not surprised that these people have difficulty mastering the technicalities involved.

I am aware that Google has recently officially recognised that the current process is complicated but I am not aware of any suggested remedies.

Using a Google Analytics consultant would appear to be the only option currently available to them although in my own case our company is prototyping some much simpler SEM tools.

I will provide more information in coming blogs.

If you wish to discuss local search techniques please email me