So you thought we’d seen the last of the much-loved high street chain Woolworths? But now it seems the brand is about to be relaunched into the 21^st century as an on-line retailer.

According to recent reports, the Barclay twins (owners of the Daily Telegraph) plan to capitalise on a born-again Woolworths e-store. The chain’s children’s clothing line Ladybird will also be sold on-line.

Sir David and Frederick Barclay bought Woolworths when went into administration in November and after 800 stores closed. A total of almost 30,000 staff lost their jobs.

And while the on-line Woolies will not offer an employment lifeline for most of these ex-workers, the move does show that e-retailing is big news even in a recession.

The brands have been bought by Shop Direct Group, which is owned by the Barclays. They will be relaunched alongside their other e-tail outlets such as Great Universal.

The company’s chief executive, Mark Newton-Jones, is reported as saying: “We are confident that Woolworths, as an online brand, will once again prosper and quite rightly stay at the heart of British retailing.”

The new on-line Woolworth’s could be on-line by the summer.

Blogging  and social media networking are big news, and recent studies have shown that some 12% of on-line businesses are now including a blog into their marketing strategy.

The idea is that blogs offer a great platform for customers to comment about the company and to get their message across to the business.

Business blogging, unlike mass marketing, should be informational rather than promotional so that customers get the feeling that your company is more human. Blogging helps people to feel as though they are speaking human to human, and as such it will make your company appear more easily accessible.

Blogs are also claimed to be a more “trusted” form of communication for consumers, mainly because they are open and feel unsolicited. If you are lucky your blog readers could become some of your most devoted and passionate word-of-mouth ambassadors.

Added to this, search engines love blogs because they are content-heavy and the copy tends to be newer. It’s claimed that some results can be seen in search engines within minutes of a blog post going live.

Blogs also reduce the need for e-mail campaigns and the problems of getting around over cautious spam filters. In general, people become blog fans because the content is interesting, informative and frequently updated. If you can get people to sign up to your RSS feeds then all the better.

And just think about this: If you’re planning a new product launch or campaign then just post the details on your blog. Then everyone who has access to your blog will read all about it. It’s as simple as that.

Without becoming too technical there are three points to take into account before you begin to understand the secrets of writing effective website copy.

* The first is that more than three quarters of on-line readers scan the page instead of reading word-to-word like they would in a traditional print medium.

* The second point is that it takes 25% longer to read a computer screen than something written on paper.

* Finally, it’s generally accepted that web content should be half the word count of a paper equivalent.

Now, here are six steps to creating web content that will catch your visitor’s attention, keep them reading and preventing them from nodding off or simply clicking on to another site.

1)      Keep it neat and to the point: Don’t force visitors to scroll through miles of copy; use simple, to-the-point sentences; write straightforward “does what it says on the label” headlines; and make sure all facts are kept up-to-date.

2)      Use a designer: Its simple enough to put together a basic website yourself but the professionals can make it shine and add lots of eye-catching artwork. If you want to look the best, then employ the best.

3)      Good navigation: Lead visitors to other pages on your website with easily understood labels and headers. Keep it simple, too.

4)      Great scan: Because readers scan web copy, you need to catch their attention at every glance throughout the pages so include lots of highlighted keywords, bullet point lists, sub headers etc.

5)      Searchability: You hope that many visitors will come to your website via search engines so think about what words they will use to search you out. Ensure you use these keywords on your web pages. But don’t overdo it as Google doesn’t like keyword cheats.

6)      Proof reading: Get someone else to read over your copy to check for obvious mistakes, grammatical errors, spelling issues etc. A fresh pair of eyes is always a good idea.

The US on-line store Amazon.com has announced a sales increase of 18% to  $6.70 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008. Net income rose 9 percent to $225 million in the same period.

But founder and CEO Jeff Bezos doesn’t seem surprised. He is reported as saying: “We remain relentlessly focused on serving customers with low prices, great selection and free shipping offers.”

It wasn’t only the high street that suffered a festive slowdown – on-line shopping in general also dipped 3% during the traditionally lucrative period. However, some e-tailers did buck this trend and a study shows that while consumers spent less, more shoppers went on-line to shop in November and December 2008.

Now e-commerce forecasters are predicting that if businesses are hoping to beat the credit crunch – and have a successful, long-term business – then e-tail is the only way to do it.

At the same time e-rail analysts have revealed that the fastest growing on-line product genre in recent months has been sports and fitness. Next up was video games and consoles. In third place was clothing and accessories.

Those e-tailers suffering the biggest credit crunch hit include office supplies, music and movies, jewellery and computer hardware.

Are you an e-tailer that is bucking or confirming this trend?

So, we all know that there are just a few seconds in which to grab the attention of a visitor landing on your website. A great headline is therefore a must, as is sharp, concise and poignant copy that tells the visitor exactly what they need to know right there, right now.

But, according to recent studies, there are other design subtleties that need to be taken into account. The placement of images, for example, whether right, left, top or bottom could be a make-or-break-it moment for conversions.

Eye tracking research reveals that a visitor’s eye is usually first drawn to images on the page. If the product promo image is on the right hand side, it requires more effort for the visitor to move their eyes back to the left, where your marketing copy will be.

Perhaps this seems like a minor detail, but why risk putting off a potential customer for just a small design rejig?

This point is most important on landing pages – and this is definitely not the place to have unnecessary, superfluous images.