This presentation tries to give some simple tips for the usage of the Internet for business, with focus on differences between Asia and Europe.

1. IT Strategies for Marketing to Europe
Present, Communicate, Succeed
Thomas Siegers April 9, 2009
Songfuli Co., Ltd.
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2. About
Hosted by
Chinese Culture University (PCCU)
European Chamber of Commerce in Taiwan
This presentation is publicly available at:
http://www.slideshare.net/thomasjs
This presentation is published under the
Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License.
For more information, see http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/
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3. Disclaimer
This presentation does not attempt
to repeat commonplaces about web design,
which have been written about often enough.
It rather tries to give some simple tips
for the usage of the Internet for business,
with focus on differences
between Asia and Europe.
This is not a presentation about
search engine marketing.
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4. Importance of Web Presence
 24/7 Showcase and Shop
 Worldwide Reach
 Company's Business Card
 Fast Access to Information
 Adaption to Changes
 Support for Corporate Image
 Communication with Customer
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5. Online Search
Search Engine Communities*
Asia 50% >70%
Europe 90% <60%
*) blogs, forums, etc.
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6. Characteristics of Asian Websites
 Colors and Animations
pastel colors – pink, light blue
flash, animated GIFs
cartoon images
blinking text
scrolling text (marquee)
constantly running animations
 Information Density
as much as possible on one page
 Loading Speed
often slow
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7. Some Usability Tips
 Simplicity
Don't make users think. Don't squander their patience.
 Precedence
top – logo, name, slogan, products/service
bottom – contact us, legal information
 Navigation
direct, structured, selective
 Typography
fonts, sizes, spacing, paragraphs, symbols/icons
 Clarity
alignment, contrast, spaces
 Consistency
same look and feel everywhere on the website
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8. A Dozen Things to Avoid
1. Sites that take time to understand 12.
Constantly running
2. Too much text in one block
animations, animated
3. Frames, table layout GIFs, marquees,
…
4. Graphical navigation
horizontal scrolling,
5. Orphan pages, dead links ...
etc.
6. Content in pop-up windows
7. Music, flash intros, start page redirect
8. Undisclosed links to files or documents
9. FrontPage or other questionable web design tools
10.Inappropriate usage hints (best viewed with IE5 ;-)
11. Open new browser windows, resize browser window
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9. Character Encoding
 Interoperability
Traditional Chinese – BIG5
Simplified Chinese – GB2312
Chinese, Japanese, Korean can only be displayed
if support for these languages is installed.
 Coexistence
李美惠 , Jürgen Müller, François Lefèvre
works with UTF-8
meta tag in web page
<meta http-equiv=quot;Content-Typequot; content=quot;text/html; charset=utf-8quot; />
 Images
Show Chinese text for example in logos as images.
 Testing
Let users with different environments test your website.
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10. Loading Speed
 Access from Europe to Asia is often slow.
 Consider to use web host in target region.
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11. Black Lists
 Not only for e-mail
 Web of Trust
http://www.mywot.com/
 Reputation rating
trustworthiness, vendor reliability,
privacy, child safety
 Browser integration
add-on for Firefox and IE
bookmarklet for other browsers
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12. Compatibility
 Best viewed with Internet Explorer 5
IE6 – poor support for modern web standards
→ many modern websites don't support IE6
anymore, security issues
Firefox – market share in Europe: 35%
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13. Browser Market Share
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14. Content
 “Content is King”
important rule in Internet marketing
 High quality up-to-date content
 attracts visitors
 is appreciated by search engines
 lets your website gain credibility
 induces others to write about or link to your website
 How to do?
 articles about your business field
 blog about interesting topics related to your company
 Copyright
quote sources and credits
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15. Newsletter
 Marketing
keeps your company in the mind of your customers
information about special offers
inexpensive
 Format
HTML in mail body
no attachments
no embedded images
meta tag for character encoding
 Subscription
link to unsubscribe inside newsletter
subscription on website
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16. E-Mail
everstar@ms5.hinet.net
 E-mail addresses
domain same as website
 info@everstar.com.tw
 Mail host
spam friendly?
own mail server with
dynamic IP address
 Black lists
Spamhaus
DNSBL
SORBS
 Spam
check spam folder
for false positive
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17. E-Mail cont'd
 Personal address
format: givenname.familyname@company.com
up-to-date
get one and keep it forever
 Functional address
info@company.com, sales@company.com, etc.
auto-forward to personal address
combine with auto-responder
 Format
HTML → interoperability across different platforms
character encoding, signature
 Usage
 “I sent you an e-mail, did you get it?”
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18. Additional Functionality
 Blog, Newsletter
 Support
web-based ticket system
 Forum
community-driven information
input and moderation by company
 Documentation
Wiki as platform
contributions by customers, freelance writers, etc.
 Live chat
real-time customer support
 Webinar
one-way web conference
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19. Security
 Website
web applications – CMS, Wiki, blog, forum
popular PHP software – target for attacks
security threats – SQL injection, global variable injection
subscribe to security mailing list
promptly apply security updates
 Passwords
more Internet functionality → more passwords
insecure passwords → contained in word lists
example secure password: aZ#9jv7%kT*L
different password for each application
keep passwords in encrypted vault
change default admin passwords of web applications
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20. Q&A
Thomas Siegers
Songfuli Co., Ltd.
Taipei, Taiwan
松福禮股份有限公司
http://www.songfuli.com
thomas.siegers@songfuli.com
http://www.slideshare.net/thomasjs
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