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The European Union has developed a plan in order to get half of European households on broadband speeds by 2020, a report by the BBC has stated.

It is part of the European Union’s five year plan for the digital economy.
The plan also aims to have half of Europeans shopping online by 2015.
Neelie Kroes, the new digital affairs commissioner announced the agenda in order to boost Europe technological and digital advancement, helping it catch up with the USA.

As it stands, the US currently invests 40% more in technology than the EU.
Nearly a third of Europeans have never used the internet and only 1% has access to fibre-based high-speed networks.

In order to catch up, EU governments must double their annual spending on research and development to 11bn euros (£9.4bn) by 2020.

The developments in the EU’s digital progression will involve around 30 new laws being introduced, aiming to cut restrictions, increase the use of electronic payments, and make the internet more accessible for everyone, adhering to the European Parliament’s pledge to overhaul telecoms law and establish internet access as a fundamental right.

By Anna Pearce

South Africa’s First National Bank (FNB) and global internet payment system PayPal announced their new partnership at the end of March. This means that South African internet shoppers can now carry out transactions to and from their FNB accounts, and sell and purchase services and goods with 190 markets worldwide swiftly and safely. The move highlights ecommerce opportunities for foreign markets at a time when, thanks to the World Cup, South Africa is in the spotlight, and reflects the general progress being made in SA to improve and encourage international ecommerce.

Previously, South Africa has been considered an almost ‘no-go’ area for foreign businesses wanting to carry out ecommerce. A low internet population, poor connectivity, and issues with fraud and payment problems being a few of the hurdles they would have been expected to jump. However, the internet is moving forward in SA, and this is opening up windows of opportunity for businesses worldwide.

The 17,000 km SEACOM undersea cable system was launched in July 2009, and is the first in a series of undersea cable systems expected to vastly improve South Africa and neighbouring countries international internet connectivity by linking them to various regions across the world. The cable has increased bandwidth enormously, and the hope is that it will support South Africa’s economic and technological growth. Already, the effects the cable has had on internet usage in South Africa are evident. Between 2002 and 2007, internet population growth never rose above 8% year on year. In 2009, there was a reported 15% growth from 2008, from 4.6 million to 5.3 million, and by 2011 the internet population is expected to be at 11 million. Plans for further cables are underway, and if all are carried out, the international internet capacity of SA will have increased 150-fold since 2008.

The undersea cable has also had a positive effect on internet pricing in South Africa. Before 2009 Telkom held the ISP monopoly in the country. Now, although Telkom still holds the market share, there are a range of competitors, including Neotel, Vodacom and MWeb. With such competition, operators are now working on providing users with the best rates. MWeb and Vox Telecom have just announced plans to provide customers with an uncapped ADSL broadband tariff, and Vodacom offer a 50% off deal for their business customers. In a country where, for many, internet has been inaccessible due to expensive rates, these price drops should open up access for a much wider demographic of the country.

The outlook is promising for ecommerce in South Africa. Statistics show that there was a 7% increase in internet retailing in 2009, and with higher rates of employment and disposable incomes, people will be looking for quicker and convenient ways to shop. Previously, trust in online shopping has been low, however, with some of South Africa’s leading retailers such as Woolworths and Pick ‘n’ Pay opening online stores, trust is expected to increase. The Mastercard Worldwide Online Shopping Survey 2010 showed only 5% of respondents use only offline channels to browse and purchase goods. With these statistics in mind, South Africa could hold a lot of potential for UK businesses. Research into South African ecommerce and internet usage should be carried out in order to develop an international SEO and web marketing strategy. By doing this, businesses can not only expand into a market which holds great potential, but also assist in the economic and technological advancement of 2010’s most celebrated country.

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Multi-national companies are on the rise, and India is at the forefront of the expansion, a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) has announced. Over 2200 Indian companies are set to develop their operations outside of India in the next 15 years, highlighting the importance for UK businesses to forge relationships with businesses from overseas.

Some businesses in ‘emerging’ countries such as Russia, Malaysia, India, and parts of Eastern Europe, are finding it hard to establish themselves due to rising levels of competition, and are looking to set up camp outside of their home countries in order to secure resources and build better relationships with foreign markets.

It’s important for UK businesses to form alliances with these multi-national businesses in order to secure their own place in the market.

“UK companies need to work hard to interact and deal with the new players and also to expose their own goods and services to rapidly growing markets around the world. Companies that are able to build early alliances with emerging market multi-nationals will be safeguarding their business models for the future.” said Chris Hemming, Global Head of Corporate finance, PwC.

Anna Pearce, Oban Multilingual, International SEO

International online retail giant ASOS have announced they are to launch an online marketplace, allowing users to sell their new and second hand clothes at a fixed price via the ASOS site to buyers in all of it’s markets.

The global success story that is ASOS will advise sellers on how best to present their clothes in order to help them maximise their sales, and will also allow independent retailers to set up their own stores, similar to the marketplaces of Amazon and EBay’s fashion outlet.

The company, who saw a massive 102% growth in overseas sales last year up to March 2010, and a 35% growth in overall revenue, are keen to pursue the same successes for 2010, and chief executive Nick Robertson has highlighted the company’s plans to focus further on its international players by launching country-specific sites in Germany, France and the US.

ASOS have said they are in the ‘advanced stages’ of launching the marketplace and it is expected to arrive later this year.

It looks like 2010 could be another exciting year for the company, and also international fashion etail.

By Anna Pearce, Oban Multilingual SEO

Russia’s government last month announced possible plans to launch a national search engine, their aim being to have tighter control over filtration, and to ensure the ‘safe access of information’. The venture would set them back around $100 million (around £65 million), and it would be a long and lengthy process to overtake the market leader Yandex, who currently hold 62.8% of the market share in Russia. Despite the plans being questionable, the announcement does bring to attention certain aspects of the Russian search market.

Yandex is the world’s fastest growing search engine, with a massive 80% growth between December 09 and 10. Its popularity in Russia is mostly down to its in-depth and through knowledge of the “complexities and nuances of the Russian language”. The semantics of the Russian language differ from those of the English language, such as the notion of the ‘perfective’ and ‘imperfective’ verb. Whilst Google is able to function reasonably in the Russian language, it still has the foundations of a search engine which was built to work for the English language and Latin script, and therefore can have problems understanding the finer details of Russian semantics. Yandex was built and developed for the Russian language, and understands it as well as Google understands English, which is undoubtedly why it’s Russia’s search engine of choice.

So, what does this mean for UK businesses wanting to improve on their SEO in Russia?

Firstly, it important to stress that, as with all multilingual SEO, simply translating a site from English to Russian will not suffice. Research needs to be carried out into the intricacies of Russian search behaviours, such as popular key words and phrases. Oban Multilingual SEO found that Russian searchers often use plural phrases when searching i.e. ‘search engines’ rather than ‘search engine’. Yandex does have its own keyword tool, Wordstat, which provides users with a better insight to Russian search behaviours than the Russian Google keyword tool.

Backlinking is important when it comes to search engine optimisation in Russia, however, carrying out the process effectively can be tricky. Many link directories can be spammy and irrelevant, and although there is the possibility to sign up to lots of them, websites who do will be penalized in Yandex search results. Instead, it’s best to follow the same rules as when backlinking for Google – select quality and industry related links, and essentially with Russian-based sites.

Some examples of relevant business related directories in Russia are http://www.ipag.ru/,  http://navigator.yp.ru/ and http://www.allbusiness.ru/.

Yandex, like other ‘local’ search engines such as China’s Baidu, prefers sites hosted in Russia, with a Russian domain name i.e. .ru. In 2009 the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced its approval for the use of top level domain names i.e.com, .net, .ru, featuring non-Latin characters. This means that Russia’s most popular top level domain name can now be written in Cyrillic (‘.ru’ becomes ‘.рф’, which stands for ‘Rossiyskaya Federatsiya’ – Russian Federation). Yandex haven’t yet made it clear whether they are planning to hold preference to Cyrillic domain names, but if they do, it will have a huge effect on SEO practice in Russia.

Russia holds a promising online market. By looking at the trends of local search, the complexities of the Russian language and by adhering to the principles of Yandex, UK businesses can improve their search rankings, and reap the rewards of what Russia has to offer.

Greig Holbrook