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Bricks and Clicks
How do potential customers know your business exists? Do you have an established base of customers who continually buy your product or services? Is this enough to keep your business profitable and growing? Do you have retail exposure? Could I see your business when I drive down your street. If I never drive down your street will I know you are in business? Do you have sales representatives calling on clients and potential clients building a relationship?
Above are some of ways that existing businesses sell their products and services? For many these have been enough or still could be depending on your industry.
For others there are opportunities to exposure your business to more potential clients at an affordable and very measurable cost. Here are some that are working for other businesses right now.
- Google presenting a link to your business on its first page when someone searched for something you do or sell.
- Paying for ads on the first page of Google when you only pay if the add is clicked when someone searched for something you do or sell
- Sending out a promotional email on a regular basis to existing clients and people you have interacted with in the past
- Sending a SMS to a group of people that you have mobile numbers for about a special event or offer
- Starting a Facebook account for your business and engaging with potential customers who use this social media (over 800 million people do Worldwide)
- Placing videos of your products and services on You Tube. It is the second largest used search engine in the world behind Google
- Updating your website with those products and services you now offer that you did not last year
These are seven cost effective ways to fish for more customers and sales that you can start working on today. You can have a go at doing some or all of these yourself or we can work with you to get these activities up and going whatever your choice consider these marketing activities today.
Posted in Online Strategy
Tagged business, customers, Facebook, google, Online Marketing, website development, website strategy, Website Traffic
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Focus on Facebook for Business
Everyone has heard of Facebook. People are connecting with family, friends and people we knew from 20 years ago. Facebook’s main aim initially was a means to stay in touch and reconnect, share photos, stories, experiences,links etc. Basically to share personally.
However with the growth of Facebook, we see a change.
A lot of companies are using Facebook as part of their Social Media Strategy. They are connecting through this Social Media platform to their customers to establish an open dialog. Customers are able to ask questions, make comments and recommendations. Businesses are able to show they are up with the times, as well as promote new services or products, pass on information, and experience an open dialog with their customers. This can all be integrated with the company website.
Not only does Facebook provide this open dialog it also is a good referral tool.
For Example:
This week my hair straightener broke down. Disappointing, but it served its purpose, and I had definitely got my monies worth. I have had four previous to this and was glad it didn’t explode like I had experienced before.
So as any Female would do, I jump online to get one delivered ASAP.
I realised that the models have changed since I last bought mine. So I looked at what other Australian women were saying about one’s they had just bought. I knew what I wanted but after reading reviews on certain brands, I changed my mind completely and ordered it straight away.
I didn’t think I would be including a personal experience, but it is relevant. I listened to what other Australian girls said. I don’t even know them.
This is where Facebook can be beneficial to your business. We all know in business that word of mouth is a powerful thing. Facebook can work in everyone’s favour. When Facebook users interact with your facebook “Page” this as seen as a personal endorsement of your company but not to the public as in the example above, but to your customer’s social network.
Does your company website tell the real story?
Over the past nine years I have spoken and meet with hundreds of business owners and staff members. The majority of these people have or work for quality businesses that once you meet them, you can see they are a very reputable and successful business.
If I were to judge their business just based on their website my opinion may of been different in many cases. Some questions to ask yourself:
- Would you want potential new clients judging you just based on what they see on your website?
- Does the website reflect how professional you are?
- Is the last update two years old and talks about something that happened back when you were just starting out?
- Would that ideal client that you would love to have be impressed if they checked it out?
- Do all the links to other pages and sites still work?
- Is you contact information up to date?
- Does the site mention that new service or product that you now have available?
- Can site visitors view your website on a iPad or iPhone?
- Does your website display correctly in the latest version of common web browsers especially those released since your website was built?
- Do you know how many people looked at your site yesterday, last week or 2 months ago? Are site visitors increasing or decreasing?
If you would like help with any of these questions just ask.
Posted in Online Strategy
Tagged online requirements, website, website development, website strategy, website success
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Websites that look unfinished on iPad or iPhone
It is common for websites to contain flash animation which could be best summarised as images that move whilst you’re looking at the screen. Occasionally you can come across a complete website that is created in Flash.
When many of these sites were created, there was no consideration for people viewing them on iPhones and iPads. Unfortunately these two items do not support flash animation so the website viewer we just see a blank space.
We now have other ways of creating the animation so it can be viewed on these devices. Check your website from an iPhone or iPad and see what it looks like. If it does not look like as it should, please let us know and we can help fix it.
Posted in Graphic Design, web design, web Development, Web Presence
Tagged Animation, Apple, iPad, iPhone, Online Marketing, website development, website strategy
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Get Social
Many businesses are using social media successfully to connect with clients and potential new clients. If you have a poor (or no) social media presence your business is going to look behind the times.
When someone likes your page on Facebook they are publicly recommending you to everyone in their social network. Exposing your business to new people who may not have known your product or service existed. These recommendations have more clout than regular advertising as they are received from people known and trusted.
Are you using social websites to connect with customers and potential clients? If not, we want to help get your business social. If you would like to do it yourself start by creating a Facebook page for your business and signing up for a Twitter account. At an absolute minimum try post something at least once a week. Once a day would be better but at least make a start.
Next get the Facebook and Twitter icons linked up to your accounts on your website and email signatures.
Don’t be disheartened if you don’t get results right away. It takes time to build up a social media presence and you will find the rate that your likes and followers grow does slowly accelerate. We can do it all for you, just ask.
Posted in E-Commerce, Online Strategy, Web Strategy & Optimisation
Tagged Online Marketing, SEO, Social Media, website strategy
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Have you ever heard the saying If you don’t ask you don’t get?
Have you ever heard the saying if you don’t ask you don’t get?
I am assuming most of you will have. I can remember my father telling me this after I watched him negotiate a discount on a new car when I was a young boy. I use it now when a client or potential client asks for something and at the same time apologises about the request.
How does this relate to websites you may ask. Ever filled out a form or called a phone number promoted on a website? Good chance you have but with some it may of taken a while for you to find the place on the website that the form was located or the number was available. If you would like customers and potential new customers to interact with you then ASK THEM TO because if you don’t ask you don’t get.
Is your business friendly to customers calling you on the phone? Do you find that if you can get to talk to a prospective customer the majority of the time you can win them over? If your answers are yes then your phone number should be BIG and BOLD up in the top right hand corner of your website. This tells website visitors you are friendly to telephone calls and makes them more likely to call.
Do you like to capture some potential customer information then follow up in some form afterwards? If this works for you then provide an offer on your home page that requires the website visitor to hand over a little information say their name and email address in return for maybe a voucher to use when they order or if you have a retail store when they come in. This approach can help get the website visitor to interact with your business and can be the difference when they have checked out 3 different providers online but you were the only one to ASK them to engage.
Introducing Website Success
We have two websites for BSO Business Systems Online
http://www.bso.net.au and
http://www.websitesuccess.com.au
In both of these we show that we are friendly to phone enquiries and provide offers where visitors can complete forms from which we follow up.
If it is time to start asking more on your website please call me and we can discuss the best way to increase your enquires from your website.
Call David on 1300 88 4865
Posted in Graphic Design, Sales, Training & Support, web design
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Mobile Phone Website Usage soon to exceed Desktops
Remember the days when a mobile phone was a big brick and you only used to make phone calls. Well those days are well and truly over. Practically everyone these days has a smart phone, giving users the Internet in the palm of their hand.
Statistics show that within 5 years mobile searches will overtake that of our trusty desktop. Mobile Internet Usage is growing at a rapid rate with Apple products leading the charge, and Google conducting 99% of all search queries.
Mary Meeker, Internet analyst for Morgan Stanley, expresses that mobile will be bigger than most think. The five aspects that are converging are 3G, Social Networking, Video, VoIP and Impressive mobile devices.
Apple iPhone’s have captured at least a third of the Australian market share. In terms of mobile website traffic, 50% of that comes from the iPhone. For a website, this can be problematic if the site uses animation. Apple has opted not to support Flash Animation on mobile and tablet devices. BSO now uses another animation technique so that animation will work on such devices.
When you look around you can see the shift to smart phones. So how does your website look on a smart phone? You may have come across a mobile website which is considerable easier to use than a standard website, with easy navigation and key content right at your fingertips.
Pickup your iPhone or android and take a look at -
Here are a few mobile versions of BSO – Website Success websites:
http://m.bmpersonaltrainers.com.au
http://m.shique.com.au
Other cool examples:
http://m.myer.com.au
http://m.stanford.edu
Sources
Apple’s Great Australian Bite
Mary Meeker: Mobile Internet Will Soon Overtake Fixed Internet
Smartphones poised to take over the world
Website Success – Step 3 Website Development & Launch
Now that you have your strategy and your design sorted, the next step is to get your website built! Here are our hints to make the website development and launch go as smoothly as possible.
Development Process
In web development, often elements of the original website concept need to be modified during the process. Flexibility, change and being proactive are aspects that are essential for a great end result. Because you understand your customer best, a good developer will request that you check in throughout the process and have input as the website comes together to ensure that your customers have an excellent experience when they visit the final website. If a developer is hesitant to keep you in the loop throughout development and only wants to show you a finished product, there is a good chance that the website will not be everything you needed or wanted.
Launch & Changeover
If you have an existing website then work needs to be completed to ensure that you do not lose the Google rankings or other windows of online visibility that you may have established. If you have an existing database of clients, how will you communicate the new features available online?
The final installment of this series will be available on Monday. Have a great weekend.
Website Success – Step 2 Website Design and Functionality
In Part 1 of this series, we discussed how strategy comes into play when creating a new website. Today, we will talk about everybody’s favourite theme – website design and functionality!
Design – Website Look and Feel
We think that establishing ‘good look and feel’ generally involves using elements like quality images, stylish colour schemes, intuitive navigation and good graphic elements to really make the visitor like the website as soon as they arrive. Modern looking websites tend to be more appealing and often will help to sway your visitor’s impression of how capable the company will be of delivering the products and services that are required.
To provide visitors with a great browsing experience, it helps to think like one of your visitors when deciding on the layout, design and structure of your new website.
Ask yourself:
- Does your design reflect the professionalism of your business and product quality?
- Is the website inviting and friendly?
- What questions do new customers ask you most often? Have you provided the answers to these questions as plainly and completely as possible?
- Are you using your available space to communicate your most important objectives whatever they maybe?
Functionality & Capability
Long gone are the days when a website was merely images and some text. Now, a website can do pretty much anything you need it to. In order to decide what functionality your website should have, you can consider:
- Will it sell products online?
- Will it help you build a database of prospects for future marketing activities?
- If you are servicing resellers as well as retailer users, do you provide an online store locator?
- Can resellers complete a reseller application online and even place an order?
- Can video of your product be watched on your site?
- Will the website function well when viewed on an ipad or smartphone?
Stay tuned for tomorrow’s topic of development & launch of your new website.
Posted in web design, web Development, Web Presence, website functionality
Tagged capability, design, feel, functionality, look, online requirements, strategy, website success
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