EworksWSI Cyprus Digital Marketing Blog

Cyprus Tourist Arrivals up 22% for the first  4 months in 2016 in comparison to 2015 The total number of tourist arrivals in Cyprus has increased for the months of January to April 2016 from 391k for the same period in 2016 to 478k in 2016.  This represents an increase of 22% over last year and gives an optimistic outlook for Cyprus Tourism Industry for the entire 2016 season. Fig. 1 Cyprus Tourist arrivals up 22% in 2016 (January to April) (Source CYSTAT) The raw numbers of Tourist arrivals in Cyprus (January - April 2015 vs 2016) ...  Read Full Article

5 Ways Your Local Business can Win on the Internet Local Content for Local Business Our Research showed that you can optimize your content strategy to target local customers! As a small business in Cyprus, the majority of traffic to your (ecommerce) site and your sales at the store most likely come from customers that live around your physical business location. If you think that getting listed in local business directories is all you need to do you might be missing a significant part of local traffic and sales. Localized content marketing matters, read on...   1.  Ra...  Read Full Article

At the end of the year 2015, ITC reported an estimated 3.2 billion internet users globally. The number was up from 400 million in the year 2000. In particular the size of the mobile phone market has been multiplied by 10 between 2000 and 2015: there are more than 7 billion mobile cellular subscriptions, corresponding to a penetration rate of 97%, up from 738 million in 2000 worldwide.   The internationalization of the Internet was affirmed in the mid-80', when a system was created to allocate each country its own online space. Each country would obtain a two-letter code with...  Read Full Article

Paypal enables transfers to IBAN Bank accounts in Cyprus apparently at no cost.   An important management feature for ecommerce owners are the payment gateways installed on their ecommerce site that allow their customers to pay their purchases online. One popular payment gateway used in Cyprus is Paypal as the Paypal business account eliminates the need for a separate merchant account. Until recently eCommerce owners, and we'd include here all  websites that allow receiving money online through Paypal, were obliged to transfer funds from and to their Paypal account th...  Read Full Article

Shopping cart abandonment We call Shopping cart abandonment the situation when online shoppers add items to their online shopping cart, but leave before completing the purchase. Why are shoppers leaving the shopping cart? Shopping cart abandonment rates vary on different sites, but many of the top reasons people leave the shopping cart are the same across ecommerce sites. Here are some of the major reasons why potential buyers abandon their cart:     A significant portion of site visitors who add something to the cart never complete the transaction. Lots visitors of your site...  Read Full Article

Why is e-commerce less efficient in Cyprus? According to the STATISTICAL SERVICE OF CYPRUS (CyStat) in the USAGE AND E-COMMERCE SURVEY IN ENTERPRISES 2013 in Cyprus, only 8,7% of enterprises using the Internet had received online orders (excluding manually typed e-mails), during 2012. In relation to the total sales (in monetary terms, excluding VAT) sales via websites represented only a small percentage in many of the enterprises. Only in 9,9% of the enterprises in Cyprus that received electronic orders, the value of the turnover resulted from those orders represented mor...  Read Full Article

Most used Google search terms in 2013 in Cyprus Top 10 Web Search in Cyprus in 2013   These are relative numbers, do you think they really translate any trends? How do internet users in Cyprus use the Google Search Engine? If we have a closer look on Search behaviors is seems that a significant number of users in Cyprus do not use Google primarily to search for products, documents or information, but the Google Search Engine (often as default home page) is replacing the address bar, meaning that instead of entering the full URL into the address bar on top of their browsers, us...  Read Full Article

Cyprus's VAT rates set to increase The standard VAT rate in Cyprus of 18% will increase to 19% as of the 13th of January 2014. The reduced VAT rate which is currently 8% is increaded to 9%. The reduced VAT rate in Cyprus applies to those goods and services falling under schedule 12 of the Cyprus VAT legislation: The main VAT reduced categories in Cyprus include:  - Catering,  - Tourism,  - Passenger transport, Goods or services that fall within the reduced rate of 5% and 0% will remain unaffected, these are included in schedules 5 and 6 of the Cyprus VAT legislation. A...  Read Full Article

80% of all jobs are landed because of networking. But there are only so many networking lunches and coffees in Cyprus that you can attend. We thought sharing some alternative ideas on how to use LinkedIn to find a job. LinkedIn is an exceptional social networking tool for salespeople, but it can also be a terrific tool to use if you’re looking for your next job. You can hit the 'JOB' button on the top menu and all jobs in your network are listed. But this approach remains rather untargeted. One of the best ways to use LinkedIn to find a job is to use your college affiliation. Many p...  Read Full Article

Outstanding communication is even more important in crisis times, especially in Cyprus! As budgets are tighter, competition is getting more aggressive and WSI will help you to reduce your advertisement cost not only to survive this crisis in Cyprus but to come out stronger than your competitors. Moving offline to online is the most cost effective digital marketing strategy and WSI consultants are assisting businesses all over the world. Watch the WSI video on crisis communication below Talk to your EworksWSI Communications specialist to have a 'Crisis Communication' o...  Read Full Article

Increased of standard VAT rate in Cyprus Effective 14 January 2013, the current standard VAT rate of 17% will increase to 18%. Effective 13 January 2014, the standard VAT rate of 18% will  increase to 19% Also effective 13 January 2014, the reduced VAT rate of 8% applies for services under Schedule 12 of the Cyprus VAT law (including catering services, passenger and baggage transport within Cyprus via taxi or bus). VAT rates for Cyprus need to be adjusted on e-commerce systems. Below please find a short reminder how to modify Cyprus tax rates on your WSI e-commerce applica...  Read Full Article

“We have a great product, but how do we get people to buy it?” Thousands of new businesses are started every month with entrepreneurs turning their understanding of a consumer or business problem into a new product or service solution.  But there’s more to starting a business or launching a new product than a great idea and a market in need of a solution. Many new businesses score well with the solution they’ve created including the logistics of suppliers, manufacturing, and distribution to bring that product or service to market. However, one of the greatest challenges of starti...  Read Full Article

Cyprus slips from position #91 in January 2012 to position #101 in terms of Facebook users per country. The total number of facebook users in Cyprus  increased though from 553900 Facebook users on Jan 21st 2012 to 562640 users as of beginning November 2012 (+ 8740 users) an increase of 1.6%. The complete numbers are: Total Facebook Users     562640  Position in the list     101  Penetration of population     51.02%  Penetration of online population     129.70%       &n...  Read Full Article

If you own a business that sells in Cyprus, chance are you’ve contemplated running a deal with a group buying site like Skroutz, Groupon, Living Social or Google Offers. The draw is obvious: they have huge email databases of known buyers in exactly the locations you serve. At their best, but, getting access to that list and targeted offer comes with a cost and just generating sales isn’t enough to guarantee success. Understand How They Get Paid Most group buying sites work on a revenue sharing model. They take some percentage of the discounted price of every offer you sell. It looks...  Read Full Article

Social Media and the Cyprus Tourism Industry Social media have become an integral part of tourism marketing. This new way to communicate with clients has revolutionized the industry in Cyprus and has largely replaced the traditional client communication and interaction. This was of course expected as the Cypriot tourism & travel industry was one of the sectors that benefited the most from the internet. As a result new technologies and networks have become useful tools for professionals of the sector. We will discuss the essential practices of social media...  Read Full Article

Cyprus Facebook Statistics As a business you certainly have a Facebook business page and monitoring Facebook helps you to improve your business and social media marketing strategy in Cyprus. Currently, there are 553900 Facebook users in the Cyprus, which makes it #92 in the ranking of all Facebook statistics by country. (source: SocialBakers)   General info on Cyprus Facebook use Cyprus Greece UK Total # of ...  Read Full Article

You must have a strategically worked out digital marketing plan if you really want your website to be a success and decide what action you want your website visitors to. Most other companies with websites in Cyprus don’t do this! Many websites are so ill conceived and poorly designed th at they are little more than monuments to their owners. Here is your chance to set yourself apart from the rest of the pack.  Your website is your image to the world and can be a great business tool for sales and business leads. Website building tips Visitors: Always focus on your visitors...  Read Full Article

The Google Cyprus page is online Google opened it's Cyprus directory at the following address:  www.google.com.cy Search terms entered in google.com and goolge.com.cy do not result in the same SERP (Search Engine result page). Local references are becoming more important for the listing of sites on google.com.cy. Businesses will need to adapt their SEO and PPC strategies and integrate these new parameters to maintain their position on the Cyprus listing. We expect as well the top level domain .cy (.com.cy, .ac.cy, etc) gaining more importance in the google.com.cy generated res...  Read Full Article

Pay your tax online in Cyprus The Cyprus Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Cyprus Registrar of Companies   announced that the new yearly levy of €350 on Cyprus registered Companies can be paid electronically through the website of the Registrar of Companies. The intention is to facilitate the payment for the year of 2011 which must be paid until December 31, 2011. The Registrar of Companies recommends that the payment of the new levy of €350 for group of companies or for those paying on behalf of several companies should be made electronically. It seems that the...  Read Full Article

Google Plus for businesses and brands is now available with the introduction of Google Plus Pages. Pages is basically the Google Plus version of Facebook Fan Pages. Businesses have the chance to claim a profile on this social network so they can interact with and engage their customers and fans. Google Plus Pages allows every business, big or small, to maintain a profile on Google Plus and use the service to communicate and interact with consumers. A Google Plus Page is an easy way to increase the online visibility of your company.   What are Google+ Pages? Not...  Read Full Article

Mobile Marketing is Changing the Face of Digital Media The world of digital media is shifting again, and the next big contender in Cyprus is mobile marketing. The concept of “mobile marketing” involves several techniques, such as mobile websites, social location marketing, SMS and MMS marketing, mobile advertising and mobile apps. As the use of smartphones and tablets continues to rise rapidly, more people are accessing online information on their handheld devices. Users expect to find relevant content that is correctly presented for the device they are using. This provides business...  Read Full Article

E-mailing in CyprusCytanet Many individual internet users as well as businesses in Cyprus are are subscribed to Cytanet internet services that includes one or several email addresses @cytanet.com.cy Cytanet SMTP or outgoing mail server For outgoing mail, Cytanet requests for all CYTANET email accounts to use exclusively the CYTANET SMTP server (supporting the use of port 587 with TLS and user identification). Cytanet’s outgoing mail server is mail-out.cytanet.com.cy and will not allow users to specify their own SMTP server  On imap, Cytanet’s outgoing ma...  Read Full Article

Update:On September 2, 2013, Microsoft announced that it was buying out Nokia's devices business for 7.2 billion USDThe Nokia apps cannot be accessed anymoreOriginal post:Create Mobile app for Nokia Smartphones   Do you want to give your customers and prospects mobile access to your information? More and more people are accessing information on the internet through mobile devices and Cyprus mobile users are catching up very fast. Nokia is by far the largest mobile phone brand present in Cyprus. Get Your logo on your clients mobile You'l...  Read Full Article

Is Streetview coming to Cyprus? Most probably Streetview is coming - yes, but apparently not by Google - at least for now. During the last days we've seen in Nicosia strange cars from Geovisat  going through every street in many residential areas. They do not look really like Google Street view cars but they are equipped with several 360° cameras that seem to have the same objective: produce high-resolution street level photographs. The company to whom the vans seem to belong says on their site (http://geovisat.eu/) that they are producing high resolution digital images offeri...  Read Full Article

Internet Usage grows globally ! The Internet is still growing at a good rate, but the growth rate is not the same all over the world. Africa and Asia are catching up. Penetration rates are varying widely: Internet Usage in the European Union - EU27 Internet Users in the European Union ...  Read Full Article