Diploma Thesis

Masaryk UniversityFaculty of Economics and AdministrationDIPLOMA WORK2013Anastasia STAVINSKA

Masaryk UniversityFaculty of Economics and AdministrationField of study: Business Management

ANALYSIS OF THE INTERNET MARKETING ACTIVITIESDiploma workThesis Supervisor:Author:Ing. Jii RICHTERAnastasia STAVINSKABrno, 2013

Masaryk UniversityFaculty of Economics and Administration

Department of Corporate EconomyAcademic year 2012/2013

ASSIGNMENT OF DIPLOMA THESIS

For:Stavinska AnastasiaField:Business ManagementTitle: Analysis of the Internet marketing activities

P r i n c i p l e s o f t h e si s w r i t i n g:

Objective of the thesis:Primary objective is to analyze the Internet marketing strategies of international retailer companies and to investigate modern trends of Internet marketing. Secondary objective is to develop a comprehensive list of recommendations for the companies expanding online.

Approach and methods used: 1. Introduction - introduction to problems of the thesis and modern marketing. Assignment of primary, secondary and partial objectives. Formulation of hypothesis or research question. Summarizing of the expected contribution of the work.2. Theoretical part - literature review. Definition of terms, summarizing of general modern marketing trends, techniques and strategies. Description of the methods of questionnaire and statistical survey.3. Practical part - application of described methods on a chosen sample of businesses. Analysis of marketing strategies and marketing policy. Summarizing into synthetic knowledge regarding described branch and environment.

Methodology: Literature review, analysis, synthesis, description, comparison.

The extent of graphical works:according to the supervisor's guidelines, the assumption is about 10 charts and graphsThe thesis length without appendices: 60 70 pagesList of specialist literature: LEE, K. a S. CARTER. Global marketing management. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. 592 s. ISBN978-0-19-960970-3. CHAFFEY, D.Internet Marketing. Strategy, Implementation and Practice. 4th ed. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2009. 693 s. ISBN0-273-71740-5. FARRIS, P.W. a N.T. BENDLE. Marketing Metrics: The Definitive Guide to Measuring Marketing Performance. 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2010. 432 s. ISBN0-13-705829-2. BLANCHARD, O.Social Media ROI: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization. 1st ed. Indianapolis: Que, 2011. 350 s. ISBN0-7897-4741-3. MILLER, M.The Ultimate Web Marketing Guide. Indianapolis: Que, 2010. 618 s. ISBN0-7897-4100-8.

Diploma thesis supervisor: Ing. Ji Richter

Date of diploma thesis assignment:1/11/2012

Submission deadline for Diploma thesis and its entry in the IS MU is provided in the valid Academic Calendar.

Department Head DeanInBrno on 1/11/2012

Name and Surname:Anastasia StavinskaTitle of the thesis: Analysis of the Internet marketing activitiesDepartment:Corporate EconomyThesis supervisor:Ing. Jii RichterYear of defense: 2013AbstractThis work aims to investigate a Primary objective is to analyze the Internet marketing strategies of international retailer companies and to investigate modern trends of Internet marketing. The thesis is split into theoretical and practical parts. This work starts with a theoretical one, by giving an introduction to the topic and briefly highlighting the modern concepts of marketing. The main theoretical part is about the website being a main tool of the online marketing promotion. For this, common literature and available internet sources were used. The practical part includes the assessment of the given sample of international retailor companies and an analysis of a given single website with following recommendation regarding its future marketing activity online, which is based on the findings of the theory. KeywordsMarketing, Internet, Online Marketing, Website Analysis

Authors StatementI hereby declare that I worked out the Diploma work Analysis of the Internet marketing activities myself, under the supervision of Ing. Jii Richter, and that I stated in it all the literary resources and other specialist sources used according to legislation, internal regulations of Masaryk University and internal management acts of Masaryk University and the Faculty of Economics and AdministrationBrno, 26.04.2013

handwritten signature of the author

AcknowledgmentsThis thesis would not have been possible without help of many people. I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor Ing. Jii Richter, who offered invaluable assistance and supervision, whilst allowing me the room to work on my own. I would also like to thank my friends for great load of encouragement and countenance.Above all, I would like to thank my family for their unconditional support, great patience and care throughout the whole period of studies.

ContentASSIGNMENT OF DIPLOMA THESIS51Marketing- 3 -1.1Modern concept- 3 -1.1.1Needs, wants and demands- 4 -1.1.2The market offering- 5 -1.1.3Value, satisfaction and quality- 6 -1.1.4Exchange, transaction and relationships- 6 -1.1.5Markets- 7 -1.2Marketing in the Internet age- 7 -2Internet- 9 -2.1A brief story of the Internet- 9 -2.2No one is here, everyone is online- 10 -3Marketing strategies- 12 -3.1General principles- 12 -3.1.1Indirect approach- 13 -3.1.2Differentiation- 13 -3.1.3Concentration- 14 -3.2Marketing mix- 14 -4Website as a main tool of online marketing strategy- 17 -4.1Building a successful website- 17 -4.2Analyzing a website- 20 -4.2.1First glance- 20 -4.2.2Obtainable indicators- 21 -4.2.3Statistics- 22 -5Limitations of the study- 24 -6Websites assessment- 26 -6.1Sample overview- 26 -6.2Personal evaluation- 27 -6.3Visitors perception- 29 -7Blogs assessment- 36 -7.1Overview- 36 -7.2Statistics- 38 -7.3Marketing- 40 -7.4Future strategy- 41 -7.4.1Gantt chart- 43 -8Recommendations for the companies expanding online- 46 -8.1Design and usability- 46 -8.2Sales and delivery- 46 -8.3Information and branding- 47 -8.4Investments and return- 47 -

IntroductionInvention of Internet is considered to be a milestone in human history and the start of the so-called Informational Age. It has changed everything, from the way of communication to the way of conducting business. Modern companies are willing to expand online which raises the question of successful online marketing.The expected contribution of the work is the result of website investigation as a main tool of online marketing, alongside discovering the modern ways of marketing online and revealing methods of websites assessment. The objectives of the thesisPrimary objective is to analyze the Internet marketing strategies of international retailor companies and to investigate modern trends of Internet marketing. Secondary objective is to develop a comprehensive list of recommendations for the companies expanding online. Methods of implementationTheoretical part of the thesis is devoted to the literature review of marketing modern concepts, Internet as the new emerging market and website being a core tool of online marketing strategy and promotion. Practical part illustrates the analysis on a chosen sample of businesses, summarized in synthetic list of recommendations for the retailor companies expanding online. LimitationsInitially there was a risk of international companies unwillingness of revealing the information about their performance online which actually became true. It allowed fulfilling the primary objective of the thesis only partially, substituting the analysis of Internet marketing strategies of international retailor companies by the analysis of users perception of the website as the core item of the marketing strategy.

PART I

MarketingThis Chapter is aimed to serve as the general introduction to this thesis, reviewing the essence and modern concept of marketing and establishing the connection to online marketing concepts.Modern conceptMarketing a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others (P. Kotler, 2005 p. 6)What is to understand under the term Marketing? Many wrongly consider it to be solely sales and advertising. Truth is, sales are only the tip of the marketing iceberg and one of its numerous modern concepts. Marketing appeared as a respond to the need to provide more close control over the sales management of the enterprises. Formation of marketing as a science started at the beginning of XX century as a subject in leading US universities, making the main focus on commerce and advertising. The result of practical implementation of marketing theory was the creation of the marketing department in large enterprises to conduct marketing research and provide services. The modern concept of marketing implies a wide range of functions, along with sales and advertising, targeted on a deeper understanding of the cause and gaining of effective result. The chart of the core marketing concepts (P. Kotler, 2005 p. 6), shown below, illustrates the way all the marketing concepts are interlinked between each other, forming the closed circle, the general concept of marketing.

Figure 1: "Core marketing concepts"Needs, wants and demandsHuman needs a state of felt deprivation (P. Kotler, 2005 p. 8)Maslows hierarchy of needs identifies 5 major groups of needs: psychological, safety and security, social, esteem and self-actualization, prioritized from low to high, as illustrated on the figure below. It is expected, that a human will first satisfy low-level needs, as psychological, safety and social, before satisfying high-level needs as esteem and self-actualization. (N. Capon, 2007 p. 96)When a need it is not satisfied, it is usually eliminated. Therefore, a conclusion can be made, that people who have means to satisfy a need will do that, whereas people who dont have the means will eliminate the need to fit to available resources. Nevertheless, a choice is a result of complex interaction of cultural, social, personal and psychological factors. Some of the factors can be influenced and this is what a marketer can use to develop and evaluate the product, establish its distribution and sales promotion in a way to gain the strongest response from the target audience.

Figure 2: "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs" Human wants the form that a human need takes as shaped by culture and individual personality (P. Kotler, 2005 p. 8)To gain sufficient results an organization should constantly ask a question what makes our customers behave the way they do? People have a narrow amount of needs but almost an unlimited amount of wants they expose. And the specific of wants is evolving, under the influence of market expansion and appearance of more and more objects arousing interest. Nevertheless, people have to choose products corresponding to their financial abilities and balance the price quality (or satisfaction) ratio. This is where a want turns into demand.Demands human wants that are backed by buying power (P. Kotler, 2005 p. 8)Consumers can rank various consumption possibilities, determining their preferences for getting the best bundle offered for the amount of money they have. (Varian, 2010 p. 34) The market offeringPeoples needs, wants and demands imply the existence of the offering to satisfy it.Market offer some combination of products, services, information or experiences offered to a market to satisfy a need or want (P. Kotler, 2005 p. 9)If to look down on the theory of microeconomics, the market demand is dictated by the market price of the product or the bundle of products a consumer wants. Therefore, if the price on the desired product goes up, demand goes down and the other way round. Market offering or supply is linked to demand inversely, meaning that supply will grow with the growth of the price on the market, whereas demand will decline. The market price is set in the equilibrium point between demand and supply.Not only products are considered as marketing market offering, also services, activities or benefits that are intangible and do not result in ownership of anything can be included. So, not making a mistake of just selling a product or service, a marketer is promoting a complete solution or experience for customers. (P. Kotler, 2005 p. 9)Value, satisfaction and qualityCustomer value the customers assessment of the products overall capacity to satisfy his or her needs (P. Kotler, 2005 p. 10)In other words, customers do not buy products; they are more interested in the solution the product will bring to an existing problem. For example, one trend in retail marketing in grocery business is category management, implying the challenge to manufacturers to prove to the retailers that brands add to the value of the category. If to put it very simple: the manufacturer makes potato crisps; the retailer merchandises salty snacks, when the customer just buys lunch. (G. Hooley, 2004 p. 24) This leads us to the next point: customer satisfaction the personal opinion of the products performance in comparison to the expectations. If the experience from the product is below the stated expectations, a customer feels dissatisfaction and the other way round. The perceiving of the product performance is very subjective, but if the customer is satisfied, he is more likely to repeat the purchase and tell others about the good experience. (P. Kotler, 2005 p. 10)Exchange, transaction and relationshipsExchange the act of obtaining a desired object from someone by offering something in return (P. Kotler, 2005 p. 10)Marketing as a matter occurs when people satisfy their needs through the process of exchanging a medium of exchange to the object of desire.MarketsMarket the set of all actual and potential buyers of a product or service (P. Kotler, 2005 p. 11)This is the finalizing concept, bringing the circle together. From this point of view, marketing is a working process on or with the market, the main target of which is to satisfy customers needs and wants. If the entrepreneur paid enough attention to discovery and investigation of customers needs, development of the product, settlement of the appropriate price and establishment of the stable distribution channels, the sales should conduct. Then where is the main focus? The definition of marketing stated above implies marketings contribution to organization and its demands. Modern successful companies have one common distinctive feature they are very customer-oriented and strongly committed to marketing. It is essential, as even the very best, innovative and quality product will not gain success if it is not bringing superior value and high level of satisfaction to the customers. Therefore, customers are one of the most important components of the marketing process creating value and satisfaction for the customers is considered to be the basis of modern marketing. Today, marketing must be understood not in the old sense of making a sale telling and selling - but in the new sense of satisfying customer needs. (P. Kotler, 2005 p. 6)Marketing in the Internet ageThe technological development of the recent years have changed the ways of the business conduction and facilitated the creation of the separate, online market. Internet has become the interactive channel of business intercommunication partially transferring sales online. This rapid development of the new sphere has become a basis for the new marketing direction development online marketing. It does not mean that enterprises should drop the old way of thinking and rush for the implementation of the new technologies to their business, it is more about combining the best skills and practices of the past with the new ones. With Internet marketing, comes a globalization of the market, which allows easier coverage of the target audience; due to the easiness of using global network for the communication purposes, it allows to significantly personalize the interaction with the customer and last, but not least brings a considerable cost reduction. The following chapters will more closely inspect online marketing, its strategies and the ways to implement them through a website. ConclusionMarketing is not just about sales or advertising, its modern concept implies a wide range of functions, alongside with sales and advertising, targeted on a deeper understanding of the cause and gaining of effective result. Main components of modern marketing concept are needs, wants and demands, the market offering, value, satisfaction and quality, exchange, transaction and relationship and the last, but not the least markets. The technological development of the recent years has changed the way business is conducted through globalization, and contributed to the creation of additional online market.

InternetI think in general it's clear that most bad things come from misunderstanding, and communication is generally the way to resolve misunderstandings, and the Web's a form of communications, so it generally should be good. Timothy Berners-LeeThe modern world is changing very quickly under the huge impact and incredible speed of informational technologies development. This chapter will briefly reveal the history of the Internet and generally describe the ways Internet can be used for successful marketing.A brief story of the InternetThe Internet population is constantly growing. In our western society its hard to imagine a day without using the Internet. Trying to give a definition to this widely used term is a lot more difficult than assumed on the first glance. My personal definition would be: the Internet is a world-size network of interlinked electronic devices, forming an array of digital information. One of the biggest advantages of the Internet is the easy accessible and manageable information of any kind, available 24 hours and 7 days per week. Everything was different only around 60 years ago, when computers have just been introduced to the public. It is considered to be a milestone in human history and the start of the so-called Informational Age. However, it was still not cost efficient to transfer the information until the computers were interlinked. This changes when the web was formed in 1990s. Nowadays, web can be defined as:(The) Web can be considered to be a massive information system with interconnected databases and remote applications providing various services. (H.P. Alesso, 2006 p. xvii)Modern Internet is as much a collection of communities, as it is a collection of technologies and its success is largely determined by satisfying the needs of the communities and pushing technological progress further. As a result, the Internet grew above its research routes and now is including both broad user community and increased commercial activity. Development of the commercial products, implementing the Internet technology turned Internet almost to a commodity service, and transformed into a mean of supporting online commercial services. It is important to point out that the popularization of the Internet among users was accelerated by rapid adoption of browsers and the WWW technology, allowing easier access to the information online. (B.M. Leiner, 2012) The evolution of the ways of getting information caused a rapid decline of the information costs. Moreover, it made it possible for an ordinary user to have control over the consumer products information and ability to create their own content. Nowadays, it makes Internet to be a natural marketplace and a sufficient part of the economics. Internet is emerging both as an extremely useful tool for business planning and also as a part of a companys marketing mix. As a planning tool, the Internet search and resource sites can aid any discipline by opening a high-speed gateway to the wealth of information. In addition, the Net is a vehicle for marketing research. (J. Strauss, 1999 p. preface)No one is here, everyone is onlineAccording to internet portal Statistic Brain[footnoteRef:1], 53% of European population is using Internet on the everyday basis, spending an average of 66 hours per month online. It is essential, as with the rapid popularization of the Internet many day-to-day operations got a lot simplified. For example - the search and comparison of products, ticket purchase, hotel booking, etc. [1: Statistic Brain: Internet Statistics, http://www.statisticbrain.com/internet-statistics/]

Together with the rapid development and usage of e-commerce, online marketing gives an opportunity to better differentiate business and easily find target customers. In addition, availability of behavioral patterns analysis systems allows conduction of the fairly accurate and cheap statistical studies.As a matter of fact, online business is constantly evolving and improving, as well as online marketing. The best illustration to the fact is the growing amount of companies creating online presence and mass media duplicating the paper content electronically. Therefore, with a growing competition online, website becomes critical, as a main tool of promotion. It has already became a lot more than just a brochure online at least, it is expected to be interactive, provide up-to-date information and a hub of activities extendable to social networks. And, as has been discussed in the previous chapter, it should not just sell, it should correspond to customers needs and provide value and satisfaction. It brings us to the term Internet or online marketing: E-marketing is the term used for marketing activities, such as promotion or customer relationship management, that is conducted over the Internet (G. Hooley, 2004 p. 491)What to understand under online marketing activities? Modern technologies, for example, provide a wide range of functionality and allow following the visitor from the first time he or she sees the product, to the cart. It enables behavioral tracking and analysis, sensitive information collecting, and even providing personalized service when the customer returns to the website. Real-time manageable data allows usage of dynamic visual and text content, while being worldwide accessible 24/7.ConclusionThe modern world is changing under the significant impact of technology and commerce needs to follow the tendencies. Introduction of the computers has become a milestone of human history, bringing technologies and communities together through globalization. It was followed by the rapid development of Internet commerce due to the sufficient reduction of information cost. Nowadays, Internet is considered to be more a commodity service and already has become a part of modern economics. Marketing does not stay behind the technological progress evolving with it, and together with Interned gives an additional opportunity to differentiate businesses and find new customers on the global online market.

Marketing strategiesMarketing strategy the marketing logic by which the business unit hopes to achieve its marketing objectives (P. Kotler, 2005 p. 595)General principlesAny economic strategy is combining theoretical and practical aspects of entity functioning on the market, taking prevailing tendencies as a basis. Nevertheless, marketing strategies find their routes in the military. There are five basic types. (Paley, 2007 pp. 27-31): Direct attackA direct attack implies using available resources to full extend and in many business situations results in exhausting budgets and people. In the case of direct attack the company may have little or none resources left for the further penetration to the market. Therefore, this tactics is useless towards an opponent who is strongly in the leading position. Consequently, if there is not strong differentiation of the product, price, place and promotion on the market, success chances are approaching zero. Indirect attackAccording to Liddell Hart[footnoteRef:2], indirect attack is the most efficient approach due to conserving the greatest amount of strength. When applied to business strategy, the main focus is given to the undeveloped, neglected or just emerging segments of the market, as initial point on market entry. Following the entry, market strategy is determined by using the suitable marketing mix to create a competitive advantage. In this case, the available resources are mobilized to fulfill the need in the segment and create the long-term fruitful relationships with the customers. [2: Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart, usually known before his knighthood as Captain B. H. Liddell Hart, was an English soldier, military historian and leading inter-war theorist. He is credited with greatly influencing the development of armored warfare. (2013)]

Envelopment attackThis type of attack consists of two major stages:1. Focus on a specific market (the same way as in indirect attack).2. Identification of additional segments and development of suitable offer to envelope the entire market.Bypass attackThe core meaning of the bypass attack is the expansion of the areas of interest to the unrelated segments of the market. Thought it is deceiving the competitor, it may also cause a negative effect of being spread and dispersing the main focus from any single area. Guerrilla attack This strategy involves small, and, on the first glance, chaotic attacks with the aim to lead the opposing manager into making a strategic mistake. For example, selective price cuts, promotional bursts, supply interference, etc. Mainly, it is used for a small company, competing against a large corporation. Having those principles in head, it is possible to form them into an actionable plan (Paley, 2007 pp. 41-42):Indirect approachAs discussed above, indirect approach strategy implies a company entering the undeveloped segments of the market. The actions taken when using this approach include creation of uncertainty among the competitors, - so they have to guess what the actual strategy really is; quickly filling up the gaps in the undeveloped segments by targeted products or services; gaining access to the supply chain by add-on products or services. All the actions should be sharp, fast and causing confusion for the competitors. DifferentiationIt is considered to be the most effective way to apply indirect approach by means of differentiating the components of marketing mix. Differentiation should be considered in such areas as customer service (including faster delivery, after purchase follow-up, packaging, management training, etc.) and intangibles as reliability, reputation, prestige and value. Even when the competitors products may seem identical, differentiation in the areas stated above will add up to the overall image of the product and the company in general. ConcentrationConcentration is an important part of the marketing strategy, following up the indirect approach and differentiation. Its success is determined by the ability to distract competitor and seek out an opportunity in a developing segment. But it is important to take into consideration that concentration is effective only to extend one can successfully differentiate from the competitors. Marketing mixTaking all that into consideration, its time to proceed to marketing mix, as a core structure under development of the marketing strategy. Marketing mix is usually composed of so-called 4P components Product, Price, Place and Promotion. Every of the four primary components suggest strategy possibilities. For example, it is extremely helpful when comparing performance of the company to the competitors one to determine is the chosen strategy is the most suitable one. The table below is providing a guideline for creating a strategy out of a marketing mix. (Paley, 2007 p. 51)The basis, when working with the marketing mix, is to effectively determine the factors that can possibly become a distinctive competitive advantage on the market. For example, a company should select a feature of an offered product or service that a competitor cannot match, put quality and service as a general priority and try to focus on premium priced segment. Maintaining a market-driven orientation it is easier for the company to establish long-lasting relationships with customers through timely identifying and fulfilling their needs and wants. Constant investigation of opportunities, which can contribute to the long-lasting goals, like, for example, new exporting situation, is a must. Timely investigation of the opportunities may as well result in the identification of the emerging niche on the market and lead to successful expansion. (Paley, 2007 pp. 52-53)In the marketing discipline, the Internet serves as a distribution channel, communication medium and fertile ground for new products. It has also lowered marketing costs and put tremendous downward price pressure on products sold online (P. Kotler, 2005 p. 148) Established and old-school marketing practices are not rejected with the technological advancement, they are being adopted. Now they are being used on a different scale, as globalization has brought a lot more space for the activities. ProductPricePromotionDistribution

QualityFeaturesOptionsStyleBrand namePackagingSizesServicesWarrantiesReturnsVersatilityUniquenessUtilityReliabilityDurabilityPatent protectionGuaranteesList priceDiscountsAllowancesPayment periodCredit termsAdvertising: Customer and tradePersonal selling: Incentives Sales aids Samples TrainingSales promotion: Demonstrations Contests Premiums Coupons ManualsTelemarketingInternetPublicityChannels: Direct sales force Distribution DealersMarket coverage: Warehouse locations Inventory control systems Physical transport

Table 1: Creating strategies out of the marketing mixConclusionMarketing strategies take their routes in military and differentiate into direct, indirect, envelopment, bypass and guerrilla attacks. Having those five basic military principles in head, it is possible to combine them into an actionable plan. For example, indirect approach implies using an element of surprise towards the competitors confusing them with the taken actions while targeting the low-competitive or emerging segments of the market. Strategy of differentiation infers excelling the competitor increasing reliability, prestige and value. Concentration is about distracting a competitor to seek out an opportunity in undeveloped segment. When determining a strategy marketing mix elements should be taken into consideration product, price, place and promotion. Analysis of those basic components helps to determine a distinctive advantage over the competitor.

Website as a main tool of online marketing strategyBuilding a successful websiteThe number one myth is Build it and they will come. Richard KauffmanAs already mentioned in the previous chapters, the most important fact of the modern Internet is that the customer is in charge. In this respect, a website should be a totally customer oriented platform used for providing a no-pressure sales environment and a thoughtful choice making process. The key to the websites success lies in the understanding of its customer and his or her preferences. Characteristics of the best websites:1. Easy to use2. Meets visitor expectations3. Communicates visually (Wheeler, 2009 p. 153)A good website is an effective sequel of the overall companys marketing and PR policy that is evolving with the companys growth. Its success on the Internet is determined by careful planning and strong goal targeting, including the mechanisms of goals achievement. (Wheeler, 2009 pp. 188-189)

Figure 3: "Process: Online Branding Site"

If the website is being planned not like everyone else has, but based on the careful examination of the business and its target audience, the first step has to be determining the goals. Identification process starts from identifying current brand and PR problems and proceeds to setting targets and milestones. A very important part of website planning process is the conduction of the Internet marketing analysis, seeing usage statistics and validating ROI[footnoteRef:3] results of the old website or the competitors ones. The outcomes of the analysis will help to determine the specifics of the demand on businesses products or services online. [3: ROI Return on Investment]

After reviewing status of assets and current standards, a marketing concept of the website should be created. Marketing concept is a philosophy that an organization should try to provide products that satisfy customers needs through a coordinated set of activities that also allows the organization to achieve its goals. Customer satisfaction is the major focus of the marketing concept. To implement the marketing concept, an organization strives to determine what buyers want and uses this information to develop satisfying products. (O.C. Ferrell, 2006 p. 11)Marketing concept is the key factor to determine the interaction tactics between customer and the selling website, implying the conversion of a random visitor to a potential customer. Therefore, scrupulous development of the concept is crucial for high efficiency and high ROI of the website. Taking into consideration the fact that Internet users do not perceive open, touting advertisement positively, marketing concept implies unobtrusive but understandable promotion, as a part of the content, design and overall idea of the website. The main purpose of this unostentatious promotion is to give a visitor a clear understanding of the object of advertisement in an indirect way, without graphical or textual overloading. Having the concept and the overall image of the website in mind, a preliminary budget and timeline should be created before the launch of the project. Again, an important part of the project launch is the definition of the future ROI measurements. Main question here is how to classify and measure the return on the invested money if the website is not an e-commerce type, no transactions will be conducted through the Internet, and therefore gathering statistics about website efficiency is complicated. Nevertheless, it is possible to estimate ROI by comparing the current outcome of the website and its ability to fulfill the set goals with the future results. Attention should be paid to the questions Have the sales increased?, Is there any feedback from visitors? and, the most important one Is the increase in traffic followed by the increase of sales? One of the most important steps in improving your site's ranking in Google search results is to ensure that it contains plenty of rich information that includes relevant keywords, used appropriately, that indicate the subject matter of your content. (Google, 2012)The best example of good content is daily news. They should be updated frequently, checked thoroughly and be timely. In addition, the text itself should be written according to the KISS[footnoteRef:4] principle short and simple. The information should be classified and structured -descriptions are best perceived in text, accompanied by illustrations if needed, and numbers are more understandable in tables or graphs. [4: KISS keep it short and simple]

Moreover, there are specific indicators used to evaluate the quality of the content as perceived by the search engines, such as page headers relevance, stop words, words density, outbound links, etc. Those indicators will be described in more details in the Chapter 5 Tools and methods of website analysis.The designing and programming process should start from the identification of the interface and navigation style as well, as definition of the website system functionality. Functionality and design of the website form a harmonic and simple tandem, creating a comfortable and intuitive interface. There is an unofficial web-design rule concerning the navigation of the website The Rule of Three Clicks. It implies that a visitor should be able to find all the necessary information only in three mouse clicks throughout the website. Though the rule is unofficial, it gives a perfect image about how simple and comprehensible the website should be organized.The relation between visual consistency and site identity is complex because visual consistency is not a unitary construct. Visual consistency varies along multiple dimensions or features such as logo, page layout, background, and color scheme. Conceivably, individual features of sites could be used to make site identity judgment in a number of ways. The notion considered here is that multiple features are considered in site identity judgments, but that some features, notably the logo, are given more weight than other features. (C.P.Haugtvedt, 2005 p. 290)I will omit the part describing the technical aspects of the website development, even though it is also a component of the success and is essential for the search engine promotion, I do not consider it to be relevant to this topic. Nevertheless, when the website is finished and launched, the assessment of usage trends and reports comes in hand to identify the frequency of content updates and functional advances and upgrades. Analyzing a websiteFirst glanceWhen opening a new website, I asses it by 5 major characteristics appearance, content, functionality, website usability and, the least obvious, optimization. The appearance of the website is the first thing giving a major impression over its topic, main target and general message it spreads. In my personal opinion, it should be neat, clean and comprehensible. Content of the website is the mean of transferring information to the mass, its core value and reason of visiting, therefore, it should be kept short and simple, giving all the necessary meaning in lesser amount of words. Functionality allows the visitor to navigate in a search of needed content, so it should also be simple and clear, easily comprehensible for the first-time visitor. Usability shows the friendliness of the website to its visitors, meaning short scrolling, fast-loading pages and browser compatibility. And the least obvious part, optimization stands for perception of the website by search engines. A remark should be made here, that in the run for the search engine rankings, owners of the websites may neglect the stated above characteristics and modify the website to acquire high rank, but lower the possibility of first positive impression from the website. By saying so I mean adding hidden text, overloading content with keywords or adding unnecessary big amount of external and internal links. Obtainable indicatorsWhen analyzing the given website, the first look should be devoted to the history of the website and its description, time of loading, authority and trustworthy in the eyes of the search engines, amount of the indexed pages, amount of outer links to the website as well as amount of the referrals from social networks, etc. All of those indicators are easily obtainable online and are widely used for the assessment of competitors websites. One of the things to look at is the history of the website. It starts from careful choosing and obtaining the domain name. It is easy to check the date and the time of the creation, as the general information about the domain is public and easy obtainable through the Internet.Though speed of the modern Internet allows not paying attention to the overall weight of the webpage, or graphics in particular, anymore, it is however still important to pay attention to the loading speed of the website. For the estimation of the loading time I have used the Internet connection provided on Vinarska Halls of Residence by 99 Voice and Data Services[footnoteRef:5]; the Aneta system website[footnoteRef:6] claims the speed of Internet to vary with 100Mbit at most. [5: Information about the provider was obtained on the website http://www.speedtest.net/] [6: https://www.pks.muni.cz/pripojeni.php#english]

The other easy obtainable online indicator is the website ranking among the other portals in the search results. For example, Google PR is one of the algorithms of page ranking. Every page is being assigned a numbered indicator, showing the importance of the webpage in comparison to others. The more links from other authoritative resources the website has, the better, the higher the PR ranking is. The number of the assigned ranking can vary from 0 to 10, but the exact meaning and the algorithms of the calculation is not spread by Google. But not all of the pages of the website may be taken to the search engine index due to various, sometimes not stated, reasons. Therefore, the amount of indexed pages indicator shows how many pages are taken into account by Google bots. It does not reveal as much information as other indicators, but just might indicate the problem with search engine filtering pages with not unique content, for example.Links and referrals are also connected to the trustworthy of the website the more links from big and frequently updated portals with unique information, the better. This includes referrals from social media websites, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and LiveJournal. If the information on the website goes viral, it is possible to spot it through a rapid increase of external links and referrals.StatisticsWhen creating a website, one can request a creation of the custom content management system or chose the most suitable for the purposes of the website available online systems, like WordPress, Drupal or Joomla. Popular and user-friendly systems usually provide the owner of the website with statistics that helps to evaluate performance. In the case an owner wants to use the external system for analysis, he or she can turn to online services such as Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a service provided by Google Inc. to help website owners to measuring sales and conversions, to track how visitors see and use the website, or to see where did they come from and what they are searching for. Due to the powerful reporting system, Google Analytics gives a webmaster the ability to view information in the default mode or customized reports to get only the information the webmaster needs. The reporting system gives an insight of which parts of the website are performing well and achieving the set goals, for providing the best experience for the visitors. The new feature that was introduced recently allows tracking success of social media promotion as well, through monitoring the behavior of the visitors with social networks sharing buttons. So, as it is clearly seen, Google Analytics can provide some valuable insights to the performance of the website and revealing its potential. ConclusionFirst step to the online promotion is building a successful website which is easy to use, which meets visitors expectations and communicates visually. To do that nine basic steps should be taken: planning, conducting groundwork, launching the project, developing databases, designing and programming, creating content, testing prototype, launching the website and monitoring success. Every visitor is assessing the website according to his or her expectations and the overall satisfaction is determined by five basic elements: appearance, content, functionality, usability and optimization. Users of the website are not the only one assessing its performance, there are also rankings provided by search engines based on the previously determined trustworthy of the website. To statistically analyze performance of the website one can use already built it the content management system statistics or refer to the outer services like Google Analytics.

Limitations of the studyPrimary objective of the thesis, as stated in the official description, is to analyze the Internet marketing strategies of international retailer companies and to investigate modern trends of Internet marketing. Initially there was a risk of international companies unwillingness of revealing the information about their performance online which actually became true. According to the methods stated in the description, I have created a questionnaire to collect the statistical information needed for the analysis. But having no possibility to use it for the initial purpose, I have modified it in a way, that it targeted not the success of the companies marketing strategy, but the users perception of the website as the core item of the marketing strategy. This information is less accurate but, a sufficient sample of participants assumed, still a qualified indicator.Also, poor availability of information about the given sample of websites, forced me to mainly focus and statistical analysis of the blog as a medium of the modern internet and its formulation and creation of an overall image of the international retailor companies in the minds of potential clients. In this case, alongside with the general investigation of the publically available information about the websites of the international retailor companies, a research about the popularity, availability and range of influence of a particular blog was conducted. I consider it to be a reviewing of the small item under a magnifier to understand the trend and be able to model the overall tendency.

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PART II

Websites assessmentProfiling of the international retailor companies sample is due to the just mentioned limitations restricted to the publically available and obtainable information[footnoteRef:7]. Nevertheless, it gives an opportunity to have an insight on the general characteristics of the websites. [7: Some of the information used in profiling was taken from http://www.cy-pr.com/]

Sample overviewWebsites of eight top personal computers producers were taken as a sample for the investigation. Market, separated between Acer, Apple, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Sony and Toshiba is being watched closely, as the competition is tight. The figure[footnoteRef:8] below illustrates the market share held by vendors in personal computer shipment. The data is ranged from first quarter of 2010 to first quarter of 2013. [8: Source: http://www.statista.com/statistics/163767/global-market-share-of-pc-vendors/ ]

Figure 4: "Global market share held by leading PC vendors"As it is seen on the graphic, Hewlett-Packard is leading in the amount of personal computer shipment if the first quarter of 2013, closely followed by Lenovo. The middle place in the amount of shipment is taken by Dell and Acer, both facing slight decline in the shipments. And the last place is shared by Toshiba and Asus, slowly increasing their sales. Personal evaluationFor the purpose of this thesis, an overview of major personal computer vendors websites was conducted. For easier comprehension and comparison, all the obtained information was merged in the table below. The first glance assessment was done in five steps; each of the characteristics was assigned a numerical meaning composing 20% at most. To assess the appearance of the given websites, attention has been paid to the conformity of the colors used in the design (distracting or annoying); to the clarity of the text, presence and variability of illustrative graphics and simplicity of the page overload. The main indicators of good content are clarity, simplicity and up-to-datedness. As it has been already stated in the previous chapters, content should not be overloaded with keywords, links or anything else distracting from the perception of the relevant information. The shorter, more organized, more updated and more user-friendly content, the more points were granted.Maximum points for the functionality were given to fast and error-free websites, across hyperlinks, contact forms and website internal search.High scores for usability were assigned in case a website is simple, consistent and prominent. Meaning not much time is required for getting to the desired information fast scrolling, descriptive links, and sufficient local navigation. It is also important that the website is consistent in all the modern browsers and has a mobile or pad light version. Website gained search engine optimization high scores if it had plenty of content written in HTML format, used descriptive links and successfully passed a markup validation test provided by W3C[footnoteRef:9]. [9: The World Wide Web Consortium - http://validator.w3.org/]

AcerAppleAsusDellHPLenovoSonyToshiba

First glance

AppearancePleasant colorsYesYesYesYesYesYesYesYes

Text clarityYesYesYesYesYesYesYesYes

Illustrative graphicsYesYesYesYesYesYesYesYes

Total, %2020202020202020

ContentClarity and organizationYesYesYesYesYesYesYesYes

Up-to-datednessYesYesYesYesYesYesYesYes

Keyword overloadedNoNoNoNoNo NoNoNo

Total, %2020202020202020

FunctionalityError-freeYesYesYesYesYesYesYesYes

Total, %2020202020202020

UsabilityConvenient navigationYesYesYesYesYesYesYesNo

Mobile versionNoNoNoYesNoYesNoNo

Total, %101010201020100

SEOW3C, errors88386908246019181

Descr. linksYesNoYesNoYesNoNoNo

Total, %141015020705

Total, %8480858090877065

Obtainable indicators

Loading time1.58s1.19s1.47s2.53s2.05s2.8s1.69s2.28s

Google Page Rank7/109/107/108/109/107/107/106/10

Webpages in index8 530142k432k1390k405k4 930k2070020k

Table 2: "Sample profile"The table above illustrates the assessment conducted by myself, based on the 5 major criteria. As it was concluded in the theoretical part, one of the major focuses of the marketing is customers satisfaction. This is quite difficult to measure online. In order to be able to do so, I have conducted a sample survey with sufficient amount of respondents. The questionnaire can be found in the Appendix. I think it is essential to state, that the questionnaire is not aimed to receive and capture a reaction on the interface, making the poll just a measure of the usability, as for measuring that, one also needs assessment of the users ability to fulfill their tasks on the website. Visitors perceptionBefore proceeding to the evaluation of the survey results, several words should be said about the respondents profile. All of the respondents, who took part in the survey, are from 18 to 25 years old, both males and females, mainly international students studying abroad. Respondents were asked to visit websites one-at-a-time and choose the most appropriate, according to their own opinion, adjective to characterize the website. There were 24 adjectives listed, more than one were available to be chosen. List of the adjectives was shuffled for every question to avoid clicking through responses. The list was as follows:High-quality, business-like, messy, distracting, convenient, accessible, slow, consistent, trustworthy, time-saving, useless, comprehensible, organized, appealing, clean, clear, time-consuming, simple, frustrating, advanced, ordinary, effective and user-friendly.Offering a website to the public is very much alike with offering a new product. Nevertheless, it is a contribution to the branding of the company itself. The survey supports the assumption that the perception of the website can influence the purchasing decision of a potential client. As illustrated on the figure below, respondents consider a website to be an influential factor, what makes it a very important part of the marketing online. 28% of the respondents said that visiting the website will influence their decision for sure and 40% replied that it will most surely influence it.

Figure 5: "May visiting retailor' website influence your purchase decision?"The next interesting general thing to discover is the correspondence of the website to the perception of the brand itself. In the modern world one may first go online to check out the information about the product he or she is about to purchase, in this case the website may be supporting or contradicting to the already created perception of the brand. I wanted to find out if the websites of the international retailor companies correspond to the initial brand image respondents already have. As the survey has shown, in general, 44% of the visitors were almost sure the website image corresponds, whereas 32% could not reply this question, as shown on the graphical illustration below.

Figure 6: "Does your perception of the website correspond to your perception of the brand?"So, after figuring out the general tendency, there is one more important thing to pay attention to. In the questionnaire, the respondents were given an option to fill in their own opinion on the given website, if the bank of words was not enough to describe their perception. Omitting the response Never used it, given by one of the respondents to every single offered website, some of the comments were revealing the attitude very good.

Figure 7: "Comparison of the websites' characteristics"The figure above is the illustration to the results of the questionnaire on the attitude to the websites. Though most of the websites share key characteristics, it gives an opportunity to have an insight on the most outstanding, as of the point of view of the respondents, features and forms the general idea of the ideal website, again, according to the respondents. So, the ideal website of the international retailor company should be of the high quality, organized, simple and user-friendly, nevertheless it should be effective, clear and business-like. As for the individual characteristics, I will give a quick summary on the evaluation of each of the websites. Acer website is considered to be simple, organized and user-friendly by majority of the respondents votes. Nevertheless, several of them were not satisfied with the overall simplicity. For example: Its comprehensive to a fault. Too many options presented. Its aesthetics are pleasing but the overall layout and design doesn't exactly make it too easy to navigateOr:The colors and the confusing outline make it seem really untrustworthy and cheap. (Needs more strong colors like dark-blue).Apple website was considered to be of high-quality by the absolute majority of votes, adding up with the positive comment:Clean, clear and concise. Represents the Apple design philosophyNevertheless, some of the comments were negatively describing the design, reflecting on the too big picture in the middle and too small text in the menus. Every detail matters, and taking into consideration the possibility of purchase decision change after visiting a website, it makes it not the least matter to consider. One issue that was mentioned was the lack of a multi-language landing page:Considering high Hispanic population and customers worldwide, Apple should consider multi-languages upfront on home page rather than going region wiseAs for the Asus website, the votes split between ordinary and organized characteristics, supported by the good search of products and very well regional distribution network praising comments. Dells main characteristic, according to the visitors was effective. The supporting comment to that is:A really clean and effective design. No-nonsense approach. Straight to businessHewlett-Packard website is considered to be simple, visually appealing and functional. All the important options made available and clear from the get-go. Easy to navigate and the overall click-flow is free of hassles. You can easily land up where you want to go.Alongside with the positive perception of the website, there is a very strong motive that well organized and understandable website is too simplified and, therefore, boring. Votes on the Lenovo website have split between distracting, ordinary and usable features. The main reason of confusion was highlighted in the comments:Good comparison of models, but no images of products (to see how they look)Sony website is considered to be well organized and called by the respondents to be one of the best-looking websites:Pertinent information and links made easily available, visually pleasing and an accessible interfaceSony not only earned praise for the pleasant and convenient usability, but also for giving the ability to compare different products: Has photos of products from different sides and different color variations.The most confusing website for the respondents was one of Toshiba. None of the provided characteristics gained the majority of the votes, allowing getting the main idea of what respondents thought of it. Meh. Its all over the place. Doesn't exactly scream High End Computer Manufacturer. I'd skip this one.This is the perfect illustration of the websites negative influence on the respondent to the extent of unwillingness to evaluate it. None of the comments left by the visitors were positive, indicating that the overall impression of the website was negative. Another testimony to illustrate it:Inconsistent, when choosing product category (e.g. laptop) moves to other web-page http://www.toshibadirect.com/. This is inconvenient if one would like to check products in different divisions (e.g. home, business products, etc.)The overall conclusion about the results of the poll can be stated as follows. It is a well-known fact, that the brand is one of the most important things a company should invest in. It works approximately the same as income from the deposit account in the bank, with the only difference that a return from the investment comes in the form of positive long-term attitude of the customers. And if to take into consideration, that brand is having a big influence on the purchasing behavior of the potential client, trust to the brand is very important. The result of the survey have given a short insight on the behavior of the website visitors, that can be summarized, as positive impact of the website influences not only the one-time purchase decision in most of cases, but also the overall image of the companys brand. ConclusionWebsites of the top 8 personal computers producers were taken for the investigation. Due to the lack of information, investigation was conducted in two major steps: personal evaluation according to the criteria discussed in theoretical part and survey conducted among the potential users of those websites. Respondents ranged from 18 to 25 years old, both sexes, majority of international students studying abroad. The main conclusion made according to the results of the survey stated that a website is an influential factor that can potentially change the purchase decision upon visiting.

Blogs assessmentAccording to the research of Technorati Media, consumers consider product description and blogs to be the top factors in influencing their purchase decision. In fact, the result of the research concludes that blogs overviews tend to mean more for the potential customers, that word of mouth from a friend. 28% of more than 1200 respondents consider a positive review in a blog to be the deciding factor, leaving friends recommendation on the second place with 17% of votes. (2013)It suggests that customers tend to trust online testimonies of bloggers who have used the product more, than to the information on the official websites. It put blogs to the very influential position and therefore, I offer focus and statistically analyze the blog, as the medium of the modern internet.OverviewFor the purpose of investigation, I have selected a website Living in Brno | Where to go in Brno, clubs, pubs, restaurants, and any other places that you should take a look at it. It is a non-commercial English language blog with a sufficient potential, describing places foreign students can visit in Brno. It is a popular website among the students of Vinarska Halls of Residence, giving an exhaustive overview of the places of interest in Brno, currently promoted mainly through the Facebook social network. The updates are posted regularly, including not only the overview of the places, but also the description of the events. The owner of the website, Jomar Bustamante, has kindly given me a permission to look into the websites statistics to evaluate its performance and suggest online marketing strategy, if possible.

Figure 8:"Living in Brno"The website was created on September 2012 and is successfully functioning for eight month, with the average of 275.5 views per month. It contains 29 posts, 2 pages, summarized in 8 categories and marked with 54 tags. It is also accompanied with a social network profile, created in September as well, for easier popularization among students. So far, it has 435 likes, 5 people talking about it with the engagement rate of 1.1%. Going back to the blog, its loading time is 2.549s of 827kb[footnoteRef:10], Google Page Rank is 0 out of 10 with 134 indexed pages[footnoteRef:11]. [10: Information obtained from http://www.webpagetest.org/result/130417_X3_RJV/] [11: http://www.google.ru/search?q=site%3Alivingbrno.wordpress.com&filter=0&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8]

The website has pleasant colors; text is clear and very well illustrated by graphics. The content is up-to-date, not overloaded by keywords, but not unique, what might affect the overall trustworthy of the blog. It has only 5 errors, according to W3C, what is an indicator of a quality content management system. The navigation is clear and convenient, with the sufficient mobile version of the blog. Statistics

Figure 9: "Visitors per month"Visitors are the most important indicator of the website success. As illustrated on the figure above, the interest to the website was totally dependent on the holidays schedule, which is easily explained by the overall theme and topic of the blog and supported by the search words used to find a website, as living in Brno, Two Faces, Mandarin club, life in Brno and I love living in Brno.The next figure illustrates tendency of the website visiting per day. The numbers are obtained by the sum of views per month divided by the amount of days. It is showing the interest to the website at the particular day throughout the eight month of the website existence. The graphic is also reflecting the pattern of decreasing interest to the website during the holidays, when students go home. In this case, it is indicating one of the specific features of target audience, that should be taken into consideration when analyzing the website during summer month.

Figure 10: "Average visitors per day"Alongside with the amount of visitors it is always useful to take a look on the location of the visitors.

Figure 11: "Location map"For the given website, the location map shows the most activity for Czech Republic 1 359 visits. That result is followed by Norway, Spain, United Kingdom, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Germany and Greece. The chart illustrates the share of each country in particular, excluding Czech Republic, to make the illustration more comprehensive. Multinational audience is also one of the distinctive features of the website putting political and interracial restriction on its content.

Figure 12: "Location share"MarketingStatistical overview gives an opportunity to assess the performance of the website and its impact on overall business result. In the case with the blog I am reviewing, the impact on the business activities can be only hypothetical and formed as a prognosis for the future monetization, as the website is non-profit.For the current moment, the blog is following the marketing strategy of differentiation, offering a differentiation in reviewing the places to visit in more precise matter and according to the needs of the target audience. If to take into consideration the main competitors of the blog, as Brno Now and Czechmate Diary, the differentiation is easily spotted.

Figure 13: "Brno Now"Brno Now website has more trust from the Google search engine, illustrated by 5/10 page rank indicator. Having 1520 indexed pages and uptime since November 30, 2010, high page rank indicator can be explained by frequent updates of content and longer website availability online. Nevertheless, major difference between Brno Now and Living in Brno is the content and targeted audience.

Figure 14: "Czechmate Diary"Czechmate Diary appeared online on May 11, 2005 and has earned 4/10 PR trust indicator, having 2260 pages indexed. The interesting feature of this resource is that it is updated on both, Czech and English languages, and is supported by a Czech living in United States. Czechmate Diary is an indirect competitor of Living in Brno.So far, the only marketing activity applied to the Living in Brno was the promotion through the social networking, Facebook in particular. It has engaged 437 subscribers with the low involvement ratio. By the involvement ratio the active participation in discussions and offered activities is understood. The next sub-chapter is devoted solely to the creation of the future marketing strategy and list of recommended activities to enhance the performance of the investigated blog. Future strategyThere is a saying If you are not on the Internet, you are not existing. But creating a website is the least thing that can be made to capture the attention of potential clients. On the example of the blog, I would like to create a plan for online promotion and illustrate the flow of the activities with the Gantt chart.The first step to take is to define goals of the website. In the case of the blog, the ultimate goals are to become the primary source of information about Brno and activities in Brno for students and international visitors, through the increase of target audience flow and increase of popularity of the website. As for the long-term goal, it is to obtain the sufficient amount of audience for monetization the traffic through paid reviews or context advertising. But for now, the blog is non-profit and the main target is the primary source of information. When the goals are formulated, the next step would be to find out the semantic core of the website. This means finding most suitable keywords and search queries. It is very important to understand the target audience at this point, its interests, age and gender, to view the website from the point of view of view of the visitor. For example, a target audience for the Living in Brno blog is international student and visiting foreigners at the age from 18 to 25, males and females. Taking it as a starting point, it is possible to figure out the current most common search queries[footnoteRef:12] for the blog, as places to get food delivered or food delivery. It is important to pick the key phrases with medium or low competition to have more chances to appear on the first pages of search results. In this case, the most suitable key phrases to target would be: takeout food places, theme pubs, film clubs, clubs in Brno. To expand the area of the influence, I would also suggest targeting: exchange students, clubs in Brno, restaurants in Brno and pubs in Brno. [12: Information taken from AdWords Google service: https://adwords.google.com/ ]

When the semantic core of the website is ready, it is useful to take a look on the competitors, assess their websites and promotion strategy, position and tendencies. The indirect competitors of Living in Brno blog are Brno Now and Chechmate Diary. Direct competitors in the niche of informative blog for international students, reviewing places of interest are not present. Therefore, the correction of the previous set goals and chosen search queries is not needed. At this point the analysis of the website usually takes place, but I have conducted an analysis in the previous sub-chapter. It is important to get rid of all the mistakes found out with the help of W3C markup validation, increase the amount of the pages indexed by search engine and also increase the involvement of the visitors on the website. To index the fallen out pages in the search engine an owner must submit a sitemap to the Google directory. Any pages that are not indexed yet will be included to the search engine, as stated in the Google support documentation. The sitemap is also useful in helping determining which web pages are important and it is essential not to prevent Google bots from indexing the website with robots.txt file or meta tags.For the involvement of the visitors on the website, I offer to create a form for the visitors to be able to submit places they think should be reviewed, options to rate already reviewed places and a chart of most popular places among students, based on visitors voting. In addition to that, I would also recommend paying more attention to the uniqueness of the review articles content ideally it should be 95.5% authentic. All together these measures will increase the trust of the search engines to the website and regular posting of the fresh information will encourage web-crawlers visit and index the blog more often. It is important to devote time to the online marketing of the website. Optimizing the website once and leaving it as it is will not get sufficient results in the long-run. To follow the strategy of differentiation for the given blog, one has to constantly improve the experience a visitor is getting from the website, introduce new features, and upgrade the old ones. It is useful to involve the visitors to help building the blog they like by asking their opinion and responding to their requests. Promotion of the website online is not limited by just following the indicators and responding to their change, it may be, as well, a well-placed link, bringing lots of potential customers or grateful readers. For example, asking a fellow-blogger for a positive review is a very good beginning of gaining visitors that would want to come back later. Or discussing a matter on the forum, or involving people from social networks, as marketing in the modern Internet is a process of the communication. Gantt chartTo graphically illustrate the plan of Living in Brno website improvement from the current condition to the defined by goals amount of popularity, refer to the Gantt chart below. As the first step to be taken is the definition of goals, it is planned on the upcoming month. The thorough assessment of the competition should start at the same time as goals definition, as according to the theory of differentiation, one should take into consideration and surpass the advantages of competitors. Analysis of the website overlaps the creation of the sitemap. As it was pointed out in the analysis of general indicators, to increase the amount of pages in the search engine index, the owner should submit a sitemap of the website. It is an important step to increase trust to the website from a search engine.Define goals

Assess competition

Analyze website

Create sitemap

Update content

Encourage involvement

Monitor success

Task / TimeMayJuneJulyAugustSeptember

Table 3: "Gantt chart"Content update is scheduled on the time with the estimated least activity of visitors. As have been stated before, the target audience has its features that need to be paid attention to, for example, as international students visitors would be least interested in the website during summer holidays. Along with the content updates comes encouragement of visitors to take part in the development of the website by suggesting places for a review, rating and interacting on the Facebook page. In August international students are already aware of the place of their destination and search for the available information online. September is the month of monitoring performance and success of implemented changes, as well as time of setting new goals. ConclusionLiving in Brno blog was taken for the overview of website analysis process. Alongside with monitoring visitors of the blog, general obtainable indicators were taken into consideration. Analysis has revealed that interest to the website is totally dependent upon the holidays schedule, as main visitors are international students. Overview gave an opportunity to create a list of recommendations for the improvement of the blog, illustrated by the Gantt chart spreading the tasks for the next five month.

Recommendations for the companies expanding onlineIn the previous chapters it has been discussed how to build a successful website, how to analyze it from the visitors point of view and a short overlook was given on how to promote a website on the example of a blog. This chapter is devoted to the outlining the recommendation for the retailor companies expanding online, pointing on the specifics of e-commerce websites.Design and usabilityAs the conducted survey has shown, visitors tend to trust more to the websites with professional and appealing design. Nevertheless, the design and usability of the website should correlate without confusing a visitor. A potential client should be able to easily find necessary information or product, while being unobtrusively but effectively offered related products. A website should clearly state, who is selling, what is being sold, at which price and how the purchase would be delivered to the buyer. This implies that a website should have comprehensive description of the product illustrated by photos and 3D models if necessary. Alongside there should be full characteristics and an opportunity for the buyers to share their opinion on the offered product. Most of the retailor websites require registration for the proceeding of a purchase. Therefore, the registration process should be minimized and simplified, requiring the least possible amount of time for the website account creation. It is getting popular to authorize on websites through the already existing account on the numerous social networking websites as Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn. Sales and deliveryA customer should be well informed about the full price of the purchased product, including the additional costs on product delivery. For increasing the level of trust, it is recommended to state which risks a buyer can face when purchasing a product and how a retailor can protect his customer. All the terms and conditions on the return of the product should be stated in a clear and comprehensive way as well. Good service is not the only thing that will make customers return to the website. It is important to keep the visitor updated and encourage him or her to return with appreciation systems. As for the retailor website, it can be reward points, discounts or pleasant small presents. One additional brick in building successful long-term relationship with visitors of the website is keeping them updates on new events on the website or sales proposals through weekly or monthly newsletters. Information and brandingWebsite is the online representation of the company, when future partners may acquire their first impression of the company through its website, it is important to maintain professional website corresponding to the brand book of the entire company. Placing additional information about the company, its products or services and offering online or offline consultation on any matters is an important part of the informational support of clients and partners. Timely and quality support not only pleases and allocates clients and partners, but also is an essential component of the modern companys corporate culture. As the part of the information feature of the retailor website, the practice of placing current job offers is very common nowadays. Listing actual vacancies with the detailed job requirements on the official website significantly increases the chances of acquiring a qualified candidate fitting a position. Investments and returnCreation of the website is the investment, and as a business instrument, a website should bring returns, inform clients and advertise products or services. If the website is not bringing profit, it is not working and the money spent on creation, filling with the content and promotion are spent meaningless. Returns from the website can be perceived either as a profit or as an economy, in any way it is participating in the overall performance of the company. It is useful to keep track on the returns from the commercial website to adequately estimate the effort put in the website. A formula of Return on Investment (ROI) can be used for the estimation of website returns.

Where return from investment is consisting from the determined amount of direct sales from the website, potential brought by the new partnership or future contribution of perspective employee. And cost of investment includes amount of money spent on the development and launch of the website and its promotion. It is important to remember that a website is bearing monthly technical maintenance and update and promotion costs. It is obvious that the website is bringing profit when the monthly income from it is higher than the cost of maintenance, the difference can be called website net income. This ratio should be very carefully considered, taking into consideration that costs of promotion and updating are bringing new visitors, thus, potential clients. Therefore, it is necessary to balance between optimal amount of investments and optimal amount of visitors. ConclusionBased on the previous chapters where analysis of visitors attitude towards the international retailors websites and analysis of the blog, as the major force forming opinion in the Internet were investigates, a list of recommendations for the companies expanding online was created. Recommendations include a practical guide for enhancing design and usability of the website, managing sales and delivery, providing information for partners and visitors, branding and calculating return on investments. - 48 -

ConclusionIntroduction of the Internet has changed the way people communicate and conduct business due to globalization. Modern companies understand the advantages brought by online market and are willing to expand online. Creation of online representation or website has become an ordinary practice, and the amount of the websites is increasing every minute. It raises the question of marketing on the Internet, its strategies and methods of implementation.In the thesis, website had been investigated as the core tool of online marketing, as a customer oriented platform used for providing no-pressure sales environment and a thoughtful choice making process. To determine the return from the website, be it increase in visitors, brand strengthening or direct sales boost, a website should undergo a thorough assessment, methods of which were also previously discussed in the thesis. Nevertheless, the primary objective was to analyze the Internet marketing strategies of international retailor companies and to investigate modern trends of Internet marketing, which was impossible to perform due to the limitations of studies. The risk of international retailor companies unwillingness of revealing the information about their performance online actually became true. This allowed only partial fulfillment of the primary thesis objective, as the analysis of Internet marketing strategies of international retailor companies was substituted by the analysis of users perception of the website as the core item of the marketing strategy. Secondary objective, that was to develop a comprehensive list of recommendations for the companies expanding online, was fulfilled with design and usability, sales and delivery, information and branding and return on investments comprehensive suggestions.

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List of figuresFigure 1: "Core marketing concepts"- 4 -Figure 2: "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs"- 5 -Figure 3: "Process: Online Branding Site"- 17 -Figure 4: "Global market share held by leading PC vendors"- 26 -Figure 5: "May visiting retailor' website influence your purchase decision?"- 30 -Figure 6: "Does your perception of the website correspond to your perception of the brand?"- 31 -Figure 7: "Comparison of the websites' characteristics"- 32 -Figure 8:"Living in Brno"- 37 -Figure 9: "Visitors per month"- 38 -Figure 10: "Average visitors per day"- 39 -Figure 11: "Location map"- 39 -Figure 12: "Location share"- 40 -Figure 13: "Brno Now"- 41 -Figure 14: "Czechmate Diary"- 41 -

List of tablesTable 1: Creating strategies out of the marketing mix- 15 -Table 2: "Sample profile"- 29 -Table 3: "Gantt chart"- 44 -

Topic related vocabularySitemap is a list of the pages on the website. It is a way to tell Google (or any other search engine) about the content of your website it may otherwise not discover[footnoteRef:13]. [13: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=156184&from=40318&rd=1]

ROI A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or to compare the efficiency of a number of different investments[footnoteRef:14]. [14: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/returnoninvestment.asp]

AppendixQuestions to measure the satisfaction with the websites[footnoteRef:15]: [15: The original used questionnaire can be found here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HHHWLV5]

Respondents were asked to visit websites one-at-a-time and choose the most appropriate, according to their own opinion, adjective to characterize the website. There were 24 adjectives listed, more than one were available to be chosen. List of the adjectives was shuffled for every question to avoid clicking through responses. The list was as follows:High-quality, business-like, messy, distracting, convenient, accessible, slow, consistent, trustworthy, time-saving, useless, comprehensible, organized, appealing, clean, clear, time-consuming, simple, frustrating, advanced, ordinary, effective and user-friendly. The questions asked were as follows:1. What do you think about Acer website? http://us.acer.com/2. What do you think about Apple website? http://www.apple.com/3. What do you think about Asus website? http://www.asus.com/4. What do you think about Dell website? http://www.dell.com/5. What do you think about HP website? http://www.hp.com/6. What do you think about Lenovo website? http://lenovo.com/7. What do you think about Sony website? http://www.sony.com/8. What do you think about Toshiba website? http://www.toshiba.com/9. Does your perception of the website correspond to your perception of the brand? (rating scale from 1 to 5)10. May visiting retailors website influence your purchase decision? (rating scale from 1 to 5)