bosweb blog

Share

It's no secret that the huge rise of tablets and smartphones has changed the way that consumers shop.

According to a February 2013 media release from ACMA, almost half of Australian adults now own a smartphone.

They also also found that 9.2 million Australians went online via their mobile phone and 4.4 million accessed the internet using a tablet in the six months to May 2012. As an Online Business specialist, we've seen this trend increasing now faster than ever.

But do people still prefer to use a traditional desktop or laptop device to make online purchases? Not so much.

According to a report released by eBay and PayPal:

Mobile e-Commerce (or m-Commerce for short) accounted for $5.6B AUD in retail sales in 2012 - up from $155M in 2010. That's a 3600% increase in the space of two years.
Based on a poll of 3,200 people, the study forecast that 64% of Australians would own a smartphone by the end of 2012, compared to 51% in 2011. These totals hit 39% and 18% respectively for tablets.

As the owner of any store knows, first impressions matter.

If your potential customers are faced with a tiny screen they're forced to zoom in and scroll around on, you're potentially losing leads. There are two ways of providing your customers with a seamless mobile shopping experience:

With a responsive design that resizes automatically to the screen size. This is ideal for both mobiles and tablets, as it takes advantage of the screen resolution to provide a smooth viewing experience. This is the best idea for a new website, as it can be costly or technically difficult to convert an existing design to a responsive layout.
With a mobile version of your online store; a completely separate area of your website that is displayed on mobile devices only. Instead of displaying a scaled down version of your website as a responsive design does, it's a completely new layout optimized for mobile displays - big icons and reduced information on the screen so your customers just get the information they need, rather than having to scroll across multiple screens. While easier and more cost-effective than a responsive design, they are not as versatile, nor provide as smooth a viewing experience.

Whichever way you go, optimizing your store for m-Commerce will ensure that you aren't left behind.

Contact us today to talk about an m-Commerce solution for your store!

Share

Are you making the most of your email marketing? While it's convenient to just have one or two large mailing lists, you're potentially losing out on conversions by bombarding your audience with communication that may not apply to them.

For example, we have a number of clients with eCommerce websites, and a number of clients without. If we're advertising eCommerce-only services to the clients without that feature, they'll eventually just automatically assume that our communication is no use to them and our campaigns will go straight into the trash.

To avoid this, the most successful email marketers use targeted lists to ensure that the audience they're reaching will actually have a use for the product. With Business Catalyst you can achieve this in two ways; by multiple mailing lists, or via custom reports.

Mailing Lists

One of the great things about Business Catalyst is that there is no limit to the number of mailing lists you can maintain. These lists are static, which means that they won't be automatically updated by the website - rather, new readers will need to be added either by you or by themselves through the website. As such they're great for seldom-changed databases.

You can have exactly as many as you need to make sure that you're not advertising to the wrong audience.

To create these lists, you just need to create a new Excel file with your desired audience and upload it to a new list in the Email Marketing area of the website;

Grab our tutorial on that here.

Custom Reports

Custom Reports are a great way to target users dynamically, especially where the audience will change regularly.

Say you want to target all of your customers that placed an order greater than $100 over the past month - with custom reports, this will always be updated to match the last month without the need to constantly keep it updated manually.

You just need to create and save a custom report for it to become available in the Campaign Recipient list.

Excluding Lists or Reports

In addition to the ways you can select recipients to receive your communication, Adobe Business Catalyst recently introduced a function whereby you could select lists to exclude.

You can view a video tutorial on this here,

but the long and short of it is that you can select lists to exclude; even if you have users in a recipient list, if they appear in an exclusion list they won't receive the campaign.

If you need a hand with targeting your campaigns, feel free to get in contact with us today and start increasing your conversions!

Share

One of the most laborious and time-intensive parts of Email Marketing is keeping your lists clean. If you don't clean your hard (or permanent) bounces from your mailing lists, you end up just sending to addresses that don't exist - wasting your email credits and screwing up your campaign statistics.

To help with this, Adobe have released a new feature that will automatically remove the hard bounces from your mailing lists and unsubscribe the contact. This has been introduced for two main reasons:

To improve deliverability of email campaigns across the board
To reduce the amount of email credits used and wasted by hard bounces

This means that you no longer have to manually remove your hard bounces as the mailing lists are automatically kept up to date! No more wasted credits, and no more skewed performance reports from sending to old addresses!

But how to find out if a contact has been removed this way? Head to the contact's Email Marketing History and sort by the sent date - the most recently delivered will be the campaign that the contact returned a hard bounce. You can then click through to the campaign and check the bounce report; if they appear in the list then that's why they were removed!

As always, we're here to help with any questions or concerns! Fill out our online support form and one of our Support team will contact you to discuss how this update will help your campaigns!

Share

There are a myriad of potential pitfalls that internet users need to be wary of in the online world - but it’s not just the consumer that has to be wary of online scams. There are some common scams that online traders face as well. In this blog post, the first in a series on protecting your business online, we’re going to examine the most common scam that our own clients experience.

Domain name scams

Domain names are addresses for websites. For example, the main domain for our own website is bosweb.com.au. Basically every site you visit has a domain name – any online trading venture needs a domain name to even get started. As such, they’re a prime target for scammers, since everyone has at least one domain name, and these scams generally aim to get you to pay money for domains you don’t need.

The renewal notice

This is the most common scam that we hear about from our clients. This scam presents in one of two ways:

An 'invoice' for a related domain - .com, for example, when you own .com.au - click on the image for an example
An 'invoice' for your domain, but with a different registrar

While structured like a professionally ordered invoice, if you look closely you can see that nowhere have they told the recipient that money is owed. They are merely either:

Advertising the fact that a similar domain is available to purchase, and at an exorbitantly inflated price.
Offering to transfer your existing domain to their service

Either way, it's easy to see how you can get stung if you aren't paying close attention.

Should the scam be successful, trying to then get access to your domain to transfer it to a reputable registrar or even just to point the domain to your website so it serves some purpose, is a major headache and generally takes weeks or months to resolve. These scammers usually present themselves very professionally - here’s an example - but it’s all part of conning the recipient into paying too much for something the recipient doesn’t want or need.

The “Internet Keyword”

Another client of ours, Kim McRae from iKiFit, received the following enquiry (verbatim) through his website:

Dear ikifit team Our organization received a formal application from a company who is called Maltion Ltd are applying to register "ikifit" as trademark keyword and wireless keyword. The trademark keyword can be typed into IE address bar and go directly to assigned website, it do not need "www." nor ".com", ".net", etc, It will skip google search engine ,can be used all the world's browsers .It is most important.

The wireless keyword is the latest products on the Internet, It can be through SMS or WAP, and 3G fast access to sites, Improve website ranking and traffic. It is more convenient and more important

In order to prevent cyber piracy,Please explain: 1: Whether this company is your IT supplier or distributor. 2: Whether you are interested in registering these keywords first to preservation your company’s brand. We are now obligated to inform you this issue ,So we will handle the next step after this audit procedure. Pls understand.

Best regards Michael INSTRACC – Head Office

This scam is trying to scare you into buying a product to protect your trademark and intellectual property. You might also think that getting these keywords first will make it even easier for your customers to find you online.

Of course, there are no such things as trademark or wireless keywords as described above – it’s simply not how the internet works. You’ll also be informed that on top of the (inflated) cost to register these pretend solutions, they'll hit you with a charge for helping you dispute the other (fictional) company’s claim.

The team at iKiFit suspected it was dodgy, and asked us for advice. For more information on this scam, along with examples of further communication from the scammers, click here.

What should I do if I receive unsolicited invoices or offers for domain-related services?

If you’re unsure of the veracity of an offer you receive, do your homework and check the following:

Double-check that the domain listed matches a domain that you currently own, especially with regards to the country code - .com is not the same as .com.au.
Is this communication from your current domain registrar? Do you recognise the company at all?
Have you searched online for the company? A quick search for one of these scammers brings up their website, along with a number of articles from reputable sources documenting the scam. If you find articles like this, or no information at all, it's probably a scam!
If you’re still unsure, contact us or your current domain registrar for advice!

If you’ve identified a scam attempt, just ignore it – bin the letter or delete the email. You can also report the scam to the ACCC’s SCAMwatch service, which will help them with identifying current domain scamming trends and, ultimately, protecting other businesses from these scams. If you have been the victim of a domain name scam, SCAMwatch provides information on the options available to you.

Remember to exercise the same caution you would normally use when entering into an agreement with another company. And remember, if it’s too good to be true then it probably is!

Share

At the start of each year, every business owner is full of great ideas, big plans and new enthusiasm.

We know - it's how we are feeling right now. So why don't you use that energy and update your website content!

Save 25% and let us turn your old website content into 10 pages of Awesome! *

Tell everyone about your new product & services
Do you have new faces on your team?
Fantastic photos of your fitout? expansion? vehicles?
Your success stories from 2012 - winning projects? awards?
Have us look at what you are saying right now and present your business in a whole new light!

Make sure you get in quick to Claim this offer now - turn your words into clickable website content!

*Our normal fees for 10 pages of website content redevelopment would be $720 ex gst - but for February only - this will be $540 ex gst.

Share

It is important to keep visitors coming back to your website but how can you do this?

Below are some helpful hints to help keep your visitors coming back to your website:

1) Fresh Content

Do you read the same newspaper over and over again every day - of course not! It is the same for a website. You need to make sure you keep your web pages up to date with new information. It's not good to see information dated back 2 years ago still on the front page of your website.

If you have a blog on your page, make sure you update it as often as possible. Also, make sure your content is high quality and presented well. Be sure you do a spell check before posting any information up on the website, and ensure you use a combination of text, images and video where possible as this creates interest. Having all text can make your website look boring and will drive potential customers away.

2) Blogs

Blogs are a great way for a visitor to be part of an active community. As mentioned in the first point, be sure to keep your blog up to date. Blogs are a great opportunity for you to interact with your website visitors as they can make comments and network with each other on your website.

3) Provide specials and discounts

Specials and discounts are a great way to reward your visitors for coming back to your site. You do not have to have an ecommerce website to provide a discount. You could just reduce the price of a service you have. Which customer does not like a special or a discount!?

4) Newsletters

Newsletters can be a great way to keep your visitors in the loop. By having a mailing list and putting a subscription form on your website will ensure visitors stay up to date with new content. It is a great way to let your customers know what specials and discounts you have on offer and new products available. Make sure you provide a link back to your website in the newsletter so customers can check out your other products

5) Social connections

In keeping up with the times, it has become almost essential to integrate your website with social media sites such as facebook or twitter. Provide a link on your facebook page that links to your website, and visa versa, so that visitors have easy access and more than one way of keeping up to date with you and your business.

Share

I am often seen Worshipping at the Altar of The Google Goddess - Yes Margaret, Google is a woman. It’s obvious really, she is powerful, sexy and never, ever wrong, and if she is you don’t have much choice but to put up with her anyway. When I decide it's time to kneel down before her it is due to the fact that I have a profound question that only she can answer.

Given my unwavering faith in her, I expect that that she will deliver exactly what it is that I need on her first page because I know that the sites that are going to be sitting in these positions must have seriously awesome information sitting on their pages to have got there (or a seriously awesome Web Developer running them, but that’s a whole other blog post).

Having decided to bless the chosen website with my presence I then expect to be able to get instant gratification. If I can’t scan the page in a nanosecond and find the answers to my question I will give it the cyber kiss of death – never to return.

So what do these magical web pages have that cause me to want to not only stay but actually engage with them?

The page loads quickly – no one likes to wait.
It looks clean and professionally laid out but still reflects the businesses personality.
I can find what I’m looking for in seconds by scanning the content – If I hit a great wall of text my eyes glaze over & I immediately exit stage right. Don’t ever make me scroll!
There will be clear, attractive images that are relevant to what I'm searching for.
There will be clear concise headings and easily readable bullet points.
The paragraphs will be short, sweet & to the point.
There will be links and call to actions to guide me to where I need to be next.
There will be no spelling mistakes!
Should I want to know more, I can easily see the businesses contact details.

So there you have it – seems simple really doesn't it....But it isn't always easy to achieve these elements without the help of a professional – yep you guessed it, that’s where Bosweb steps in.

If you need help redesigning and/or rewriting your content contact us.

Share

What is RSS?

First released in 1999, RSS (Rich Site Summary, or often Really Simple Syndication) is a standardised format used for the syndication of oft-updated content. Blog posts are a prime example, though it could potentially be used for any updates to a website. In a nutshell, it's a method of automatically syndicating your content to a subscriber base. You may have noticed the RSS icon without ever really paying attention to it; that's what this icon refers to.

How does it work?

Each item that is updated has its own feed (or channel). This feed is just an address that your users add to an RSS reader, software specifically designed to work with RSS feeds. Each time you publish new content, the feed is automatically updated and your subscribers will receive a notification. Most subscribers use their web browser or Microsoft Outlook as their RSS reader, though there are also a lot of specialist programs out there just for RSS feeds.

This sounds great!

It is, up to a point. Some of the more common issues are:

It is not natively supported in Google Chrome. Clicking on a feed link in Chrome will dump a pile of code straight into your browser window; if you don't know better, you could be forgiven for thinking that the feed is broken.
Traditionally, checking the feed is up to the user. How often the feed is checked for updates depends entirely on their reader settings, and if the user doesn't open their reader program they won't receive updates at all.
And the big one; A lot of users simply don't want to bother with it. They just want the information delivered to them without the hassle of setting up feeds and monitoring them for updates.

Is there a solution?

There are a couple of ways to get the most out of your RSS and to offer the functionality of automatic updates without the limitations. The one that most appeals to a lot of users, and the one we recommend, is using email delivery. Any updates are automatically delivered to your subscribers as an email; all they have to do is enter their email address when they sign up. Goo gle's Feedburner service offers email delivery combined with subscription reports and branding options, and is the latest addition to our support offering for existing clients.

If you feel you aren't getting enough the highest readership out of your blog, consider an alternative. And don't forget; we can help you with setting up Feedburner's email delivery service as an addendum, or a replacement, to your existing RSS channels. Don't hesitate to get in touch with us to learn more.

Share

Avoid Keyword stuffing.

Yes - you do need to have a high key word density for your designated search phrases, but if you can't read this out loud to yourself and it makes sense - remove the words. Your text must read well and the best way to test this - is to read it out loud to yourself or someone else.

Have a catchy page name that means nothing to search engines

Don't try and be too clever about what you are offering, avoid jargon and tech terms in your key areas of Page Name, Page Title, words in heading tags etc. Remember your key words are what your customers use - not what you use.

Make sure your text appeals to a person and not a robot

Yes google bots are trawling your site - but they are not buying from you, make sure you keep the human elements to your text.

Waffle

Punchy text, bullet points and numbers. Get to the point

Don't have links from unrelated and untrustworthy websites.

If you have no relationship with a business, no connection, no related products or more importantly nothing that will benefit your customers - DO NOT HAVE THAT LINK. The days of phoney reciprocal link building are over. This can damage your site long term, plus you only ever received benefit from a website that tracks higher than yours anyway - so think long and hard about linking to other sites and them to you!

Share

Many of our first time clients are unsure of how to set up their online store as “window shoppers” throughout the world embrace online shopping.

Remember you have a lot of competition out there; it isn’t just the new boutique around the corner that has everyone buzzing. With over a million sites going live throughout the world each day, retail has never been so competitive.

Marketing experts believe the average shopper makes up their mind about whether or not to buy something within two seconds of seeing it.

Here are some tips on how to take the “window shopper” to the checkout and maximise your sales while you have them in the palm of your hand.

Visuals, visuals and more visuals - have the best images possible. If you can’t access them from your suppliers, hire a photographer skilled in retail photography to do a shoot for you. Just because you have a nice SLR and took some great holiday snaps doesn’t mean you will necessarily know how to make your stock look great. You won’t regret the investment.
Think like a shopper, set up your categories so they are easy to find. Just because you call your stock a certain name in store. Will your “window shopper” find it? Experiment with Google, can you find what you were looking for when you searched it? Maybe your “window shopper” couldn’t either.
Set up your catalogue like you would your physical store. Remember when you found that cute little boutique on the coast which snaffled your week’s holiday pay? How did they do it?
Use every means available to you to encourage add on sales. Think of your stock, if you create a new window display, do you have that gorgeous cocktail dress displayed in the window on its own? Use related products to entice the shopper. What girl doesn’t need a new pair of killer heels to carry that dress?
Use enhancement features; hover tools, poplets, description boxes anything that allows the shopper to “touch & feel”. Make it as easy as possible for your “Window shopper” to become your customer and enjoy the experience.
Lastly, reward your customer. Keep them up to date with the latest arrivals with regular email campaigns and give them a little treat every now and then. Maybe a season launch discount or a pre-sale tip-off and and they will return to your store over & over again.

As part of our commitment to our S+S clients, we offer monthly information sessions which allow our clients to access the latest tips and tools to maximise the success of their online store.

Tuesday Tip - Drive conversions with m-Commerce!

Tuesday Tip - Focus your marketing with targeted lists!

Mailing Lists

Custom Reports

Excluding Lists or Reports

Tuesday Tip - Hard bounces? No worries!

Is scam awareness your domain?

Domain name scams

The renewal notice

The “Internet Keyword”

What should I do if I receive unsolicited invoices or offers for domain-related services?

Take your website content from old to Awesome!

How to keep them keen!

1) Fresh Content

2) Blogs

3) Provide specials and discounts

4) Newsletters

5) Social connections

Confessions of a Web Surfing Addict

RSS - Really Simple Stuff

What is RSS?

How does it work?

This sounds great!

Is there a solution?

5 things to avoid when optimising your site for Google

Think like a Shopper

Subscribe

Recent Posts

Tags

Archive