Do You Have Control Over Your Website?

With websites being an important part of business and often the first point of contact your customers will have with you (in many cases without you even knowing) are you happy with the information it contains and the image of you and your business it portrays?

Grabbing, and keeping, the attention of visitors to your website is getting harder and harder. There is so much competition out there and the amount of information at the finger tips of customers is huge, so it’s becoming more and more important to ensure your website is up-to-date, providing the information that your potential customers wants, and gives them all this in a nice, clean and easy to navigate design.

This is where having a website built on a Content Management System (CMS) can really benefit you. A Content Management System is exactly what it says – a system that allows you to manage the content on your website yourself.

A good CMS will, however, do more than just let you manage content. A CMS should allow you to easily expand the functionality of your website (e.g. online store, blog, newsletters, etc) without the need to start from scratch. They also allow you to update the look of the site without the expense of completely redeveloping the site – just like a face lift!

5 Benefits of a Content Management System:

1. Non-technical people can have complete control over updating and managing their content
2. Easily allow for upgrading website functionality
3. Saves money in the long run by not having to pay a developer to update your content
4. They’re flexible so can customised to meet your needs
5. By keeping your content up-to-date, current and relevant it can help your search engine rankings

With the Christmas break coming up it’s a good time to review your website and ask yourself the following questions:

1. Is my content up-to-date?
2. Does it clearly tell potential customers what I do?
3. Is it easy to find information on my website (including contact details)?
4. Can I update my website myself?
5. Is my website as good, or better then my competitors?

If you answer YES to all of these questions then you’re doing great, but if you answered NO perhaps it’s time to think about an upgrade.

You can read more about the Content Management System that we use and recommend here.

We've Gone Mobile!

With practically everyone having a mobile phone these days, and many of us using our mobiles to access the Internet while out and about, it’s become more and more important to have a website that is mobile friendly.

Some mobiles, such as the iPhone, do a great job of displaying websites just as you would see them on your computer it’s sometimes not very user friendly to have to keep zooming and scrolling to see the parts of the website you’re interested in.

To over come this many site now have a “mobile friendly” version of their website, and now we’re one of them. We’ve recently been working on a mobile version of our website, but unlike a lot of mobile friendly sites our mobile version isn’t a separate website. Our mobile site is the same website that you see when browsing via your computer, just displayed differently. This means that you don’t have to maintain and update two different websites – making it much easier for you.

So from your mobile head to our website and see our new mobile friendly site.

Can you be contacted via your website?

When visitors come to your website can they easily find your contact details?

I often come across websites where the contact information is just too hard to find. What happens in these circumstances? Well unless I’m desperate to contact them I’ll just leave and find someone else.

What actually prompted me to write this blog entry wasn’t so much having trouble finding the contact details on a website, but it is the use of the good old contact form.

I’m a huge fan of putting these on websites because you can guide and control the information that people give you when they make an enquiry. This can make it easier for you to quickly, easily and specifically answer their enquiry.

Recently though, on three difference occasions and on three different websites I’ve made contact with a company whose products or services I am interested in and had absolutely no reply what so ever!

There could be several reasons for this:

• Firstly, they may not be interested in my business – that perfectly fine but a response stating so would be great;
• Secondly, my request may be outside the realm of their products or services – again perfectly fine but a response stating so would be great;
• Thirdly, their contact form may not be working – this is bad…

If the case is that the contact form isn’t working just how many potential customers are trying to make contact with them to give them business that they don’t know about?

Does your website have a contact form? Have you recently received a request from a website visitor via your contact form? If so great – all is good, but if not you should right now go to your website and send yourself a test to make sure your form is working. Fingers crossed you get the test because you don’t want to be missing out on business because technology has failed you – and technology sometimes does fail, but generally it’s great!

Using Email to Communicate Effectively

Recently we seem to have had a run on clients getting on the email marketing bandwagon.

Using Email Marketing is a great way to quickly and easily communicate with a large (or small) list of your existing and potential clients.  Unlink traditional direct marketing your costs are significantly lower as there are no printing costs and the cost to deliver emails is a tiny fraction of postage and delivery.

Have a look at our Email Marketing page for more information and to see how you can get started with your own Email Marketing campaigns.

Does Your Website Match Your Business Card?

Happy New Financial Year!

The beginning of the new financial year is a good excuse to reflect on the past 12 months and to plan for the next 12. It’s a time when many businesses look at reviewing their marketing plan, marketing materials and sales targets to make the coming year better then the last.

It’s also a great time to review your website. Many times I’ve talked about the importance of updating your content, but this month I’d like to talk about reviewing your website to ensure it fits within the branding style of your other marketing/business materials, i.e. Does Your Website Match Your Business Card?

Over the weeks, months and years I’ve met many other business owners and have collected quite a number of business cards. Being in the business of websites one of the first things that I do after meeting someone is go and have a look at their website, and often I find that their website doesn’t match their business card.

While I won’t name names I recently received a card from a business that really caught my eye. The colours are bold, the logo is modern and reflects their services and overall it gave me a great deal of confidence that this is a great business. As usual I returned to the office and looked at their website and found something completely different. I found a website where the colours didn’t match that of their card and the logo quality was quite low, and not used in the same way. If I had seen the website first I probably wouldn’t have had the same impression as I did when seeing the card.

So why is it important to have consistency of brand across all your marketing/communication material? Well one word - recognition. With recognition comes familiarity. With familiarity comes trust and confidence. Also, if done correctly, consistency brings clarity and purpose which consumers buy into. They can become loyal, and loyal customers are profitable customers.

If we look at some of the big brands around the world they all have consistency. Every piece of marketing material you see, every product that is branded and any advertising they do all have a consistency in terms of their look and feel. They are aiming for that brand recognition.

The result of successful branding and achieving brand recognition with your customers can be great. Just look at some of the big brands around the world. A recent article talked about some of the most successful and brands around the world. Google topped the list at AU$124.55 Billion – that’s just the value of the brand.

While Google is an extreme case it doesn’t mean that you can’t, with a little planning and work, achieve great results for your business by ensuring that you have brand consistency. Have a look at your website and compare it to your business card, your letterhead and your brochure. Do the colours match? Is the logo used in the same way? And, do they all convey the same message?