The new Bottle Your Message website is one of our most visually interesting websites. The site was implemented in collaboration with ZHC. Based on WordPress and the pin board concept which is gaining in popularity at the moment (ala Pinterest) the site provides this newly formed marketing business to post on a myriad of topics and ideas. The site also automatically re-sizes and re-positions the topics based on the width of the browser viewing it.
Last year we launched a new website for a well established Brisbane based accounting firm called TickTax. They had a site based on the Joomla CMS and we upgraded it to work on the latest version of Joomla and refreshed the look and feel to give them a new look for 2011 while maintaining their strong branding and visual elements.
The site features widgets for company news, a live news feed from The Australian and a members only area.
We were recently involved in a web development project for a business in Sydney that does Ferrari drive tours. I was engaged to do the implementation of the site, which was designed by our friends at ZHC.
The site was implemented in ExpressionEngine which seems to be a popular CMS among creatives. We’ve used it for a few clients now and have found it to be a powerful and usable CMS platform (with it’s fair share of quirks mind you).
The Garth Shapes website was put together for a Gold Coast based shaper and surfer by the name of Garth Gibbons. Featuring a range of his brilliant surfboards. The site is also attached to a lightweight CMS that allows Garth to update from wherever he is in the world, whether it be spending the European summer in the south of France or soaking up the sun near his home break in SE Qld.
The Vaudio Services website was created for an Audio/Visual services company based in Brisbane. The brief was to create a new site for them replacing an antiquated site that they were using.
In the process we also produced a new Visual Identity and Logo for them.
Earlier this year we produced a new site for one of our favourite clients Kenny Smith Photography. This site is based on a CMS (called Indexhibit) designed specifically for photographers and is designed to show off Kenny’s exceptional work.
It also includes a blog and social media integration.
As most people with a smartphone would know these days, the Internet is going mobile. Many more people access websites these days from a mobile phone, PDA or Tablet device (like the iPad) then from a computer at a desk. This brings about a whole new set of challenges for those who create websites and for business owners who want the online face of their business to be presentable whether it’s being viewed on a desktop, an iPad or phone.
Just as there are many different screensizes for computer monitors, there are numerous screen sizes on mobile devices, meaning that a website which has been designed to suit a particular screen size, will be unlikely to display correctly on other devices or screen sizes. Furthermore, varying levels of support for web technologies across browsers (different phone platforms support different web browsers) means that functionality which works on one device may be rendered useless on another (JavaScript menus for example).
These issues are compounded by differences between software and hardware providers, a classic example being the rift between Adobe and Apple who have failed to agree on the viewing rights for Flash technology on mobile devices (which has been the defacto standard for animating websites for almost 2 decades). This means that if your website uses Flash to display some or all of your site, users on Apple iPhone or iPads won’t be able to see those parts of your site.
Fortunately the good news is that it’s relatively easy to create a version of your site for mobile browsers. Essentially this can be done by stripping back all the non-essential graphics and text which mobile users don’t necessarily need to see, and presenting them instead with a more concise version of your site. Many businesses are going this way, or alternatively providing mobile applications for specific platforms that re-create the core functionality of the site.
While a specific mobile platform application (i.e. iPhone app, Android app etc…) may be overkill for a small, business this can be the way to go if you have a very clear set of functionality that cannot easily be reproduced with web technology on smartphones. Otherwise, developing a mobile version of your site is often the simpler solution.
Cyberdo is currently offering a Mobile Testing Service in which we test your website on a range of mobile devices and platforms (iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, Nokia) and provide you a report with screenshots showing what your site looks like on these phones. The report also contains recommendations on how to improve your site for viewing on mobiles (if need be) and a quote (if desired) for implementing these recommendations. Contact Us today to take advantage of this service.
Click the Buy Now button below to take advantage of this service. Cost is $149 if you register and pay before December 1st or $199 after that date.
A little while ago I started subscribing to content from a website called Marketing Experiments. They send out a regular newsletter and regularly have webcasts for subscribers.
It was during one of their web casts recently that they shared a very interesting and I think, important, point! The point is especially relevant to those of you who use email marketing to promote your business and stay in touch with customers. Before I share it with you, let me ask you a question. What do you think is the main purpose of sending out a marketing email? I’m sure there are plenty of answers that spring to your mind. Things like:
Well, I suppose any of those points could be valid at various times. But often these ideas that we have about why we’re sending a marketing email are too abstract too be very useful. We can simplify the reason. Here it is:
The purpose of an email is to get a click
What, I hear you thinking? Just a click, what good is that going to do me? Okay, it may increase the visits to my website, but shouldn’t it do more than that?
Let’s think about this for a minute. The premise is quite simple really… email as a medium is not nearly as advanced as web technology. You can spend a bunch of time trying to get your email newsletter looking just right and putting lots of content in there, hoping that a viewer will sit there and read it all. But in reality, we know that:
a.) potential readers of your email will probably glance at it for between 1 and 3 seconds. Just enough time to decide whether to delete it, file it away for later or read it
b.) given the number of different platforms, email clients, phones, it’s almost impossible to design an email newsletter that will look the same for everyone.
Given this, if you can simplify your marketing email to be engaging simple and engaging enough to drive customers to your website you have a higher chance of conversion because:
i.) it is much easier to control the look and feel of a web page and;
ii.) readers will generally spend longer on a webpage then they will on an email.
So next time you’re writing an email newsletter, bear in mind what you’re trying to achieve by doing so. Yes, there may be a little more work involved in creating both the email and the web page that you want to drive your visitors too, but if you do it right you will convert more of your readers to clients and are more likely to achieve the desired result.
Most people who come to me these days looking for a website ask about a CMS. Many have simply been told by a tech savvy friend that they should have one but aren’t really clear on what it is or in some cases why they need it. So I thought this might not be a bad topic for today’s blog post.
Firstly CMS stands for Content Management System. It is basically a web program that provides a framework for creating a website and it’s purpose is to provide a means of updating the website without having to modify the code that actually makes up a website. In other words a CMS is designed to enable you (the manager of a website) to change the pages of your site.
“Okay, great” you’re thinking. “So I definitely want one of those. How do I pick one?”
Firstly there’s a lot of choice out there when it comes to Content Management Systems. There are a good selection of free ones (typically open source products) and some of these have become attractive options for users looking to setup a website with a small budget.
WordPress and Joomla are two free CMS’ that are widely used today and both have a wide range of plugins that purport to do most things you could want or imagine your website should do. Examples include plugins for managing and administering users, shopping cart systems, email marketing and a host of other things.
Whether you prefer one or the other may depend on whether you like your interfaces simple or busy, whether you’re a Windows or a Mac person or simply based on the type of website you’re setting up (and what you need it to do). My personal preference is WordPress as I think it has a nicer look and feel, is easier to use and simpler to setup and manage. It has been around longer than Joomla and in my opinion is a more mature product (depsite initial use primarily as a blogging platform). That said sometimes I do recommend Joomla to clients if I find it has better plugins for a specific application.
If you’re after a commercial content management system, there are plenty to choose from. ExpressionEngine and Magento are two that spring to mind. There may be advantages in choosing one of these over an open source system. For example business sites may demand a high level of support and will pay a premium for this.
We have used ExpressionEngine in the past and have found it to be a solid, stable platform for web development. Creative’s seem to like this system and it does have it’s merits. To my mind however, it is hard to justify paying money for something that you can get for free somewhere else.
At an Enterprise level products like Sharepoint and Lotus Domino are commonly used as CMS, though for most small to medium businesses these are probably more hassle than they’re worth. Free products like the Wiki Software popularised by Wikipedia has become commonplace in larger organisations and is often free to use, though it the time involved in setting it up and placing an organised structure around information can again be prohibitive for small businesses.
In summary if you’re choosing a CMS, prioritise your requirements and work out what importance price factors in. If it’s high on the list, there’s some great free options. If prompt support is higher, consider using a commercial alternative. It’s definitely worth factoring in what you need to do with your website while you’re choosing the platform because you may find one which is more suitable.
If you need help choosing the right Content Management System for your web project, by all means give us a shout.
I seem to be starting a lot of posts with a number these days and here I go again. But before, I get into it, let me start with a question.
“Do you have a blog and if not, why not?”
Okay, so some of you are probably shutting off already. “Blogging is so passe”, I hear you thinking. Or maybe “Yeah, right. When am I going to find time to write a blog on top of all the other work I already do?”. Well, excuses aside here are seven good reasons why you should have a blog.
1.) A blog is a great way to provide free content on your website
Building customer trust is one of the most challenging things to do with a website, but also one of the most crucial. Giving away free information or products is a great way to establish trust in you and your company as people find themselves thinking “Wow, if they’re willing to give away this useful info, we’re bound to get value when we actually shell out our hard earned cash with these guys.”
2.) A blog is a great way to develop content that is related to your product or service.
Search engines love content heavy sites and blogs are a great way to develop content that is related to your product or service. If you stay focused in your blog and talk primarily about topics that your customers would be interested in, search engines will pick up on the keywords in your blog and this will help to boost your website’s rankings for search terms that are related to your product or service.
3.) A blog can help to distinguish you as an expert
Are you an expert in your field? Would your customers call you an expert? Maybe you don’t think of yourself as one, but many others would consider you to be an expert. You probably know a heck of a lot more about your product and service than your customers, which is why they pay you to provide it right?!
So use a blog to show people that you know your stuff. Give away information that is useful, timely and relevant and your customers will love you for it and come to trust that you are the person to turn to in your industry when they need your product or service.
4.) A blog can demonstrate a good work ethic
Okay, let’s face it. blogging can be a bit of work. It takes a certain amount of commitment to sit down regularly and write something that is thought provoking and worth sitting down to read. The corollary of putting in the effort is that others can see that you’re not afraid of a bit of work and this inspires confidence in your ability to provide a service that is worth paying for.
5.) Blogs generate traffic.
Okay, so you may think this sounds pretty close to point 1 and it is. But search engines aren’t the only way that people find your website. People who read your blog and benefit from it, will share articles with their friends by email or on social networks and this in turn will drive traffic to your website.
By generating more traffic to your website you have a greater opportunity to a.) convert that traffic into sales and b.) generate revenue from the traffic (through ad sales or affiliate marketing).
6.) Blogs give you a voice and help people to relate to you as a human
Blogs are a fairly personal medium and reading one you start to feel like you’re listening to someone talking to you. Having this personal connection is important to many people and can help to break up an impersonal or otherwise business focused website and help people to relate to the fact that there is actually a human behind the business who they can relate to and talk to if need be.
7.) You never know where your blog will lead you
Okay, so maybe business isn’t doing so well and you’re ready to look for a job again, or maybe you’re just after a change of pace. For many people blogs are the new CV. Your blog may just help you launch a new career.
Okay, so maybe you’re ready to start a blog. Before you get started remember that choosing the right software for your blog is important. You want software that will be search engine friendly and will allow you to leverage the great new content you’re developing. You also want something that is going to be user friendly and easy to update. I recommend and use WordPress myself but there are lots of other options out there as well so do your research, or pay someone like us to do it for you. 
