Following our new marketing plan by Una (and I would suggest her to anyone planning marketing), I have been doing research on incubation spaces in Ireland. Apparently I knew about 6 of them beforehand, but I wanted to make complete list before planning how to approach them.

I do believe that doing research through Google is waste of time. It’s not that I can’t find things – there is just too much of them and takes time to filter out information you need. Also – problem with searching incubation spaces is that each university has one and most of them don’t advertise it.

That’s why I went to twitter and I’m really grateful to all who replied to me. @UKBI gave me list of UK & Ireland incubation spaces which wasn’t really big, but there were main Irish incubation spaces mentioned. My list grew to 18 incubation spaces at that point.

Researching more in Google about incubation spaces brought me to new page I haven’t seen before for start-up businesses. Sorry – design for that page is crap (I like business-startup.ie much better), but it has a lot of valuable information. And there were over 50 incubation spaces in Ireland. I’m gonna work forward from this list.

Update July 1st:

Another list provided by twitter friend @NiaLLLarkin from startup-ireland.org.

Last week I attended Google seminar for half day. I have heard before about people being amazed by Google internal politics. And I just loved their office! It’s not easy to get employed for Google, but when you actually get in you can travel (and still get job), get free chocolates, crisps and sandwiches all day. You can take shower, play snooker or build a tent in office. It’s all about creativity. I loved colors and comfort everywhere. Gordon House on Barrow Street is Google EU head office for 44 countries.

Look at some photos here:

Here is some summary from presentation and workshops.

Statistics:

• 59% people purchase products online because of brand
• 57% people search for brand after hearing link on TV ads
• 80% internet users have broadband in Ireland
• 70% households has computer in Ireland
• Internet usage : 1.2 billions people using through PC; 3+ billions people using through mobile
• 121.5% people in Ireland has mobile phone

Free Google Tools:

• Google Webmasters – all about Google generic search and how get in top of it
• Google Insights – check keywords, keyword seasonality, increasing brands online (e.g. your competitors)
• Google Analytics – easy setup tool for seeing your website statistics (e.g. visits, page view, visit time). I learned few new things about Goals and Funnels. Setup goals – what you want users to do on your site. Setup Funnels – what path user should go through.
• Google Website Optimiser – it is possible to show two website versions at the same time and analyse design.
• Google UK Online Ad Toolkit – UK case studies for keywords specific to market. Great source if you are searching keywords for your website.
• Google Adwords Conversation Tracking – if you want to follow people from keyword search till goal on your website, this is tool for you.

Tips for your homepage:

• Landing page should show what you want users to do on site
• People scan webpages not read them. They start with left top corner so make sure your most relevant information is right there.
• Give people options how to contact you
• Don’t make people to fill massive forms.
• Don’t use flash on websites as it won’t show on most of the mobile phones.
• Speak people language (don’t speak to technical)
• Create competitor alerts in Google