It is predicted that smart phone usage will dominate web browsing in the coming years. This is definitely one of the faster growing ways that people are finding your site online.

So is your website mobile friendly?

I don't just mean can it be viewed correctly on a mobile - but is it allowing for "fat finger syndrome". A mobile version of your site, detects what kind of device you are using and shows a version of your site that suits that device.

Ask yourself these questions

• do you have a version of your site that specifically is designed to suit a hand held device
• if you do, is it easy for fat fingers to navigate
• does the copy flow straight up and down and not across and then down
• does it suit our tendency to browse with our thumbs when on the phone

If the answer is NO - then you need to start thinking about a mobile version of your site right now!

The Apple iPhone, Android and Windows 7 phones are fast becoming the norm rather than the exception – in fact in June 2011, there were 29.28 million mobile services in operation in Australia (more than the number of people that live here!) and 46% of those were Smartphones.  

Industry estimates put this figure at 60% by the end of 2012.
 
This kind of growth is hard to ignore and Smartphones are changing how consumers access the internet, search for products,  consume news and manage social networks. 

In July 2011, Telstra in association with The Nielsen Company released their yearly Smartphone Index Report which highlights some interesting facts relevant to small businesses marketing.
 
The full survey can be found here - but I have summarised 4 key points to consider below 

1.    44% use Smartphones daily to check email.
 
It is important that your email communication is clear and easy to read.  Clear call to action graphics will work wonders in email campaigns.
 
2.    24% use their Smartphone to find locations of retail stores.
 
Hook up your address to google maps - claim your business location in Google Local. Make sure your phone number is text to allow for easy one click calling.
 
3.    61% of Smartphone users are accessing the mobile internet daily.
 
The Smartphone is likely to overtake the desktop as the device most consumers use to get access to the internet. This is predicted to occur at some stage in 2014. There is a higher proportion of MALES using smartphones at present - so if your site is a natural fit with a male demographic - than a dedicated mobile version of your site is a must (ie a trades site, technology, automotive etc)
 
4.    31% of users compare prices of products before going to the store.
 
To be considered by consumers, your products and pricing must be available on your website. If you don’t clearly display your product information, how do consumers compare? Vital for all sites - not just mobile versions!

May is going to MOBILE MONTH here at bosweb systems, so if you wish to take advantage of our exclusive offer for any Adobe Business Catalyst site, contact us now 

Some samples of recent mobile sites are listed below ( the images are not their actual size - have a look at them on your phone!)

 www.cwcu.com.au

www.dcls.com.au

www.wpa.net.au

www.popupparramatta.com.au

While in San Francisco last week, I took a two hour trip north of San Francisco to the webcasting studio's of TWiT.tv (This Week in Technology) in Petaluma, California.

This fabulous (web only) broadcast station, (http://twit.tv) has as many as five shows a day, and I spent a whole day meeting their team and interviewing Leo Laporte on the technology used in the station including sitting in on his shows.

Over the course of the day, I met with their technical staff, Eileen Rivera (Supervising Producer and featured below on mixing desk), CEO Lisa Kentzell and Sarah Lane (host of iPad today & The Social Hour) and was also given a guided tour through the operations and technology that powers the studio.

We're looking forward to applying what we learnt towards Rocket! tv, the establishment of our own interactive education and support webcast station for our Business Catalyst clients & reseller partner network. So stay tuned!

* Special thanks to Eva Laporte for organising my time with Leo & Lisa at TWiT.tv :)

 

As web developers, we are always thinking about the outcomes of our work. So uppermost in our minds when we design a site, or even the layout of text on a page is what will trigger a response in a customer to do something.

Sometimes clients think that a great big red flashing button, different sized fonts and different colours will encourage people to ‘do’ something, i.e. click on something or call. Whilst this might work in the world of print, on a billboard poster or a loud TV ad, this tends to have the opposite effect with a website.

So what are some guidelines to make people click

1 - Make your site easy and enjoyable to use – key to this a navigation that makes sense

2 - Arrange content in an F shaped pattern; the pattern of how people read

3 - Ensure pages download quickly - no big images!

4 - Online readers skim content – so aid retention and action by breaking it up, using bullet points, numbered lists and sub headings. These are tools to help the eyes focus on what is important ( just like using BOLD here)

5 - Put key information above the fold – i.e. above the first screen length before people start to skim

6 - Put important stuff on the left – we have had quite a few arguments with clients who want logos on the right – ‘just to be different’ – WRONG! Being different does not actually make it better!

7 - Use white space to enhance readability – that’s probably why you like sites with lots of white – they are easy to read!

8 - Check things across all browsers – these days there is a smorgasboard of browsers and devices to use, so we need to check a million places!

9 - Focus on all your key landing pages – what do you want people to do on each of these pages – not just your home page

So get Clicking!

Many businesses have websites today, but how many are effective?

How many attract the right kind of clients and convert them to customers?

Lots of people just look - but we want the buyers.

We put together a list of 7 deadly website sins and what you should do to avoid them.

Sin No 1: - Starting with a dud logo

No site will work if your logo is crap. As the saying goes, you cannot make a silk purse out of sow's ear.

Sin No 2: - Not promoting your site enough

Many first time website owners can 'forget' their traditional marketing methods when promoting their new site. 
'Build it and they will come' - is not how it is done.

Remember: -

• Good Banner graphics ( yep that dud logo is really going to drag you down )
• Consistent taglines as part of your brand - you need a hook
• Good SEO practices, including perhaps Google Adwords for key times of the year
• Social Media - Facebook, Twitter and Linked in - tell everyone, in every network
• Blog - you know your stuff, share, create interest, you are an expert in what you do!
• Offline - yes your traditional marketing tools - don't forget them!

Sin No 3: - No WIFM

If a client can't see the 'what's in it for me' - they are gone. Make sure your site is about benefits and not features. Everyone sells widgets, but how will yours benefit your clients?

Sin No 4: No Calls to Action

Your website must be a lead generator. If you are not picking up contact details, then you are not using your investment to its fullest. Make sure you entice viewers to signup to newsletters, click here for more, fill in forms to get more information, give away free tools. Do whatever you need to do to grab a future lead.

Your blog and your social media channels will also help with this - make sure people can subscribe to your news feeds, twitter, facebook and linked in accounts.

Today they are browsers, but tomorrow they might be buyers!

Sin No 5: It's all about me

Actually it's not - it's about your customers. So whilst your vision, mission and values may be vital to you, your customers don't really care. Awards, flash office photos have a place, but it is well in the background. Your site is all about attracting and converting clients.

Sin No 6: Not looking at the numbers

Like any investment, you need to understand your ROI. With your website, you need to track the metrics and regularly be across them. What are your visits, what products are being viewed or searched on, what forms are being filled in, what is your most visited pages?

Sin No 7: Poor Auto Responders

What do you feedback forms say to people when they fill them in? Are they welcoming, professional and in the tone of your business? Or are they very blunt and robotic? Make sure you use your forms like you expect your front line team to answer the phone. Bring your business personality into your site, from every angle.

Remember if your website is an extension of your office, how do you greet, meet and treat your potential clients.

Did you know that Australia is the most prolific user of Social Media globally?

No?

Then check out this Australian video infographic view of Social Media ... 

 

When first starting out with your website, or even for those people who have had a website for a long time, understanding the basics of page titles can seem a mystery.

Most people still talk in keywords, and whilst this is important as it feeds into on page SEO and ultimately your page title, it is the actual page title field itself that is the most important area of each page at your website.

 

 

The Adobe Business Catalyst platform makes it easy for you to take control of your page title and keywords to get the best results from your website leading to quality traffic.

For a little 3 step tutorial on how to edit your page titles  - just click here!

Our top 7 tips are listed below

 

1. Write short Titles

Ideally your page title should have a maximum title length of 64-70 characters. This is mainly a display feature, Google spiders will still read the text, but a user will not see the full text in search results.

2. Identify your Keywords

Identify the keyphrases of your web page’s content. List down all possible words describing the content of your page. Step in the shoes of the user and list all the relevant search terms that he/she may formulate. The words used in your title will be displayed in search engine results as a clickable link. Therefore it should contain your page’s main keywords.

3. The important goes first

Start your title by adding the important keywords that you found during research. The words appearing first are considered to be more important.

4. Use targeted keywords

Choose specific keywords for your title in order to have more targeted traffic.

5. Be descriptive

Make sure that your title summarizes the content of your web page. In this way users will know what the topic of your page is, when it appears in the search results. This will help you decrease the bounce rate and increase the click through rate.

6. Create unique titles

Make sure you use unique titles for each web page. Duplicate titles might lead to duplicate content issues.

7. Avoid Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing or any other spam technique should be avoided. Even if you manage to rank first, an “over optimized” title will reduce your click through rate.

Don’t forget that you should always write webpage titles and content that is attractive to users!

By trying to achieve high rankings, people can forget that the most important factor of success is that users’ “click” on the website link.

The Adobe Business Catalyst Platform makes it easy for you to control your page title tags, giving you the power to maximise your search results. The latest round of enhancements to our platform has made this even easier for clients.

To make changes follow these 3 easy steps!

1. Go to the page you wish to make changes on - Via Websites - Web Pages

The new page title field will be visible straight away

2. Enter in the Keywords you wish to appear in your page title

Refer to our blog post 7 tips to boost your SEO results from Page Titles for more information

Save and Publish your page as normal

3. Your page title will now be amended, you can check this at the live site.

 

Note: When we build our sites, often clients do not know what to put on each individual page of their site, so we embed code that dynamically creates a page title tag for you (that summarises the key aspects of your business as well as the page name). Please contact us if you are ready to create unique page titles in this manner so we can amend our code.

This does not replace the actual PAGE TITLE that appears within the body of your content

 

The old McDonald's adage of 'would you like fries with that? is a real winner in the online space.

The benefits of cross selling or upselling items are well know to retailers - but are e-tailers using them to their advantage?

The Adobe Business Catalyst system allows for easy integration of related items or those impulse buys so favoured of traditional retailers that they stick at the point of purchase and various vantage points in their shops.

Are you using these tools to your advantage?

It is a shame to see only one item appear in a shopping cart when with a little effort you could entice them to purchase that extra bangle, extra fitting or extra food purchase to boost your average spend per sale.

How can you do this?

• Ensure you link related items to all products - even if they are not necessarily related! Ie make sure the fitting that goes with the bulb are always linked together, the shoes or bag that goes with the dress are easily just a click away
• Freight enticements - let people know freight is free with purchases above a certain level. Isn't it better to encourage people to lift their spend another $50 to avoid paying say $6 in freight?
• Specials on the home page or filtered through the inside catalogue pages - encourage that random impulse buy by putting specials in the face of your regular browsers.

Bringing your real world retail merchandising skills into the online world is not hard - just different, so make sure you are maximizing your individual shopping cart spend at every opportunity.

Lots of great new work is on the cusp of being launched at present, so we have been a little tardy with our e-newsletters. We are soon to expand our team with more support personnel coming into key roles to assist you make the most of your website tools - so stay tuned and thanks for your patience.
Let's go on a Deep Dive into your site! Would you like to know more about how people find your site and what could be used to attract more people to your site? Taking a deep dive into your website doesn't need to be scary. That's why we are offering a free one hour 'deep dive' session with our in-house experts. All clients will be receiving a voucher as their site tools come due for renewal, or as part of our annual client meeting to renew your site. Suit Up! Call 1300 721 481 and quote our special offer code   SEO2011 Recent Launches Keep up to date with our latest launches, lots of e-commerce in the pipeline as well as some larger member driven websites.	FREE Web Seminar The 44 Gallons Small Business Online Workshops have been designed to assist small business with a desire to grow business online by taking advantage of the internet.  Interested? Book Now!   Dubbo Dates 16/4 and 4/5
	Upcoming Training We are fully booked for in house training, but slots are available for go to meeting sessions! April In-House Training - Email Marketing (Advanced) May - Go To Meeting Training - SEO Basics May In-House Training - E commerce (Products/Catalogs) - ADVANCED June - Go To Meeting Training - Understanding Reports
	Mission Control Make sure you keep up to date with the latest industry news as well as as tips to use Business Catalyst Better!

Sometimes people can find email marketing a real pain to format - I know, I do ours!

Here are some simple tips that will make this easier for you to do this well and become as good as the pros!

1. Keep them short!

Try and keep your campaigns short and sweet. This means less thinking and creating you need to do and this suits the attention span of the online reader.

2. Keep the ratio of images to text 50/50

A large number of email clients including Gmail, Hotmail and Microsoft Outlook 2007, block email images by default. So, as a rule of thumb it’s worth keeping a ratio of 50/50 images and text in your emails to ensure that your message is easily communicated to readers who have images blocked.

3. Ensure you have clear calls to action in the body of the email

Link back to products inside your store, sections of your website, or sign up forms that people need to fill in. You need to have a goal in mind for your email campaign.

4. Use tables to layout your text.

Email clients are not all the same and do not work in the same way a website works, so you need to use tables to layout your information. Plan your structure before you start and create your table - i.e. 3 rows with 2 columns for example.

5. Just send it!

To get people to respond to your email marketing and specials, you have to make it a priority. Get it crossed off your to do list and you will see how easy, cost-effective, and powerful email marketing can be for your business.

It’s like the lottery, unless you buy a ticket you are never going to win.