Irbtrax analysis of Sir Branson’s Virgin.com® benefits marketers

Sept. 11, 2009 - PRLog -- Irbtrax, an emerging SEO and Market Research company, recently conducted an independent study of website’s belonging to celebrity billionaire business entrepreneurs Sir Richard Branson, Oprah Winfrey, and Donald Trump. The goal was to learn from the best, while attempting to find ways to potentially improve on their high quality standards.

According to Irbtrax founder, Scott Moir, "The Virgin.com® website is visually impressive and very popular. As a result, we felt that by studying it’s Digital Highway DNA we would learn valuable lessons. At the same time, attempting to find a way to improve on an example of Best Practice standards was fun and challenging."

Moir states- "Mr. Branson’s use of social media and interactivity is very sophisticated. The website itself is well designed, easy to navigate, and captures the attention of his targeted audience.

Moir continues- “However, based on a Website Optimization Speed test, the results revealed that it can take up to 240 seconds for the Virgin.com® home page to download when using a basic 56K dial up service. This result could be contributed to the Virgin.com® website’s use of advanced flash graphics which consume a lot of bandwidth, making it difficult to access for some of his potential customers.”

Moir pointed to part of a Google™  search engine result for Virgin.com® copied below. “It appears they are attempting to address this because there’s an HTML option. However, it’s not available through direct home page access, and contains basically the same advanced flash graphics.”

Virgin.com
Virgin.com - The global gateway for the Virgin Group.
www.virgin.com/ - Cached - Similar

Atlantic Airways    Careers
HTML version    About Virgin

This result can be corrected without altering the existing flash graphics as the Irbtrax founder confides.

“We have great respect for what Sir Richard Branson has accomplished. His Branding and use of Best Practice applications are industry leading. Therefore, I sent messages detailing this concern to his webmaster using a feedback form, but never received a reply. If Mr. Branson, or one of his colleagues were to contact me, I’d gladly provide more details and point to the solution free of charge. After all, the site’s deserving of being formatted for optimum user experience without compromising the existing graphics. And when one considers that the demographics of these users include a wide range of incomes, ages, and geographical locations, one can ascertain that Virgin would want them to have easier accessibility.”  

About Irbtrax: Irbtrax, A Business to Business Internet Marketing, SEO, and Market Research company was founded on the principle that being cutting edge is good, but seeking to be leading edge is far better. For more information visit: www.irbtrax.com

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Irbtrax is a Business to Business Internet Marketing, SEO, and Market Research company that was founded on the principle that being cutting edge is good, but seeking to be leading edge is far better.