Looking ahead to what's next
Jeremy 23 Feb
The announcement of the iPad, Apple’s new device for accessing media and information has caused a lot of interest and excitement. I believe it will be a very popular product and herald a significant change in the way we consume content and even the way we work. I’m really looking forward to the change’s that will follow this and I’m excited to think about what we should be doing next…
For anyone who isn’t so sure yet, this ‘take’ from the MDN website may be painful but is also insightful if not a little amusing!:
“Here’s to the dull ones. The luddites. The tedious. The non-achievers. The square pegs in the square holes. The ones who refuse to see things differently. They’re extremely fond of rules. And they’ll do anything to maintain the status quo. You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t help but do is to ignore them. Because they never change things. They don’t invent. They don’t imagine. They don’t heal. They don’t explore. They don’t create. They don’t inspire. They retard the progress of the human race. Maybe they have to be boring, unimaginative, a-holes. How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see nothing whatsoever? Or sit in silence and hear nothing at all? Or gaze at a red planet and not even see it? While some see them as the dull ones, we see criminals. Because the people who are uninspired enough to think they can never change a thing, are the ones who hold us all back.”
How To Create A Website That Attracts Large Numbers of Targeted Visitors.....
Jeremy 17 Mar
…. without breaking the bank.
Creating a website that attracts loads of targeted visitors does not have to cost you a small fortune. In fact, it’s possible to create a highly successful website for very little if you follow these simple steps…
Offline
Make sure you include your website address in all communications and on all your business stationery. If you do advertise in print or via direct mail, promote your website and feature its URL.
Get your own domain name and make sure it’s easy to spell and remember.
Online
Design
Ensure your website appeals to your target audience. Research what type of websites they visit most frequently. Take note of the design, layout, and content of the most popular websites and make sure your website delivers similar (but superior) features and content.
Content
Provide free content – free reports, downloads, tips, newsletters – that will be useful and relevant to your target audience. Present it in a format that most appeals to your target audience. Update the content frequently to give your visitors a compelling reason to return. Remember to ask them to bookmark your website too! Better still, provide RSS feeds, integrate with Twitter and Facebook to push updates to your fans and customers.
Search Engines
Careful use of paid advertising campaigns such as Google Adwords can ensure you show up in search results. A cheaper way of achieving a high ranking is to ensure that each page of your site has a unique page title, page description and keyword meta tags and coordinate it with the content on each page. Submit the page to search engines.
Email
Create a signature that is carried at the end of every email that you send out. (You can set this up using your email programme).
Ensure that your website has a way of capturing the email addresses of all visitors.
Create an email newsletter that features useful and relevant content. Make sure you offer all of the readers an ‘opt-out’ choice. Invite readers to forward the newsletter to colleagues and/or friends. Remember to ask them to ‘white list’ your email address so that it doesn’t get blocked by spam filters.
Get Networking
Create a Facebook app and use the viral marketing power of the world’s most popular social network.
Regular Checkups
That’s just the start. Too many business owners leave their websites to languish, unaware that as with every other aspect of business, they need constant attention.
You must monitor your website frequently and ensure that:
- It is capturing the details of the people who visit and that those details are added to your database
- There is an automated system in place for following-up leads the website has generated
- The content is updated frequently so that visitors have a compelling reason to return
- There is a system in place to notify previous visitors that the content has changed on the website
- The website is easy to navigate
- The website provides content that visitors want and need
- The sales procedure is simple and easy to understand and use
- The site features prominently on Search Engines.
Do this and your website will be the powerful marketing tool it should be.
Call us now for a chat about how BoxStuff can help you improve your online (and offline) marketing activities.
Find Me, Join Me, Follow Me
Jeremy 15 Mar
Recently, i’ve come across the following 3 lines, in a spam message and in the email signature of the chairman of Ecademy:
Web 1.0 – Find Me
Web 2.0 – Join Me
Web 3.0 – Follow Me
Without analysing it too much it does appear to sum up the evolution of the web and the popular trends over the last few years.
Could almost be:
Web 1.0 – Google
Web 2.0 – Facebook
Web 3.0 – Twitter
Whilst it hasn’t reached the entire population of the planet, for those with reliable high speed internet access it’s now a hyper connected world. And these three ‘versions’ of the web offer 3 slightly different but very useful ways to filter the vast amounts of content available to all:
Web 1.0 – Search driven
Web 2.0 – The social web and RSS
Web 3.0 – Conversational and peer filtered
There’s one other significant factor that’s changing the way we access and use information and that is the mobile web or arguably the iPhone.
So what should you do to make sure you are communicating with your customers or target audience?
Talk to us about a updating or building your website. We offer as standard:
- Search Engine Optimised page design
- Facebook integration and/or Facebook applications
- built in RSS feeds and Twitter integration
- iPhone optimised version of your site
FREE Consultations for new and existing clients
Jeremy 05 Mar
Is your website generating new business for you?
Is your website doing what you want it to? Is it as good as it could be? In the current economic climate, your website is one resource that is worth investing in. It works for you 24 hours a day, seven days a week but is often forgotten about. When was the last time you reviewed the way your site works, how visitors react to it and how effective it is in representing you, your business, products and services?
Web usage continues to increase rapidly and new ways of interacting and communicating are evolving fast. What was effective or even acceptable a few months or a year ago may be failing to engage your target audience now.
Make sure your website is still working for you.
BoxStuff Spring Offer
Call us now for a FREE review of your current website and on-line communications strategy.
We will arrange a time to review your site with you and answer any questions you have about how to improve the effectiveness of your on-line activities.
Simpler Site Navigation
Jeremy 05 Mar
When a site has considerable breadth and depth of content, finding an easy way to navigate through it becomes increasingly challenging. The familiar and mostly very effective metaphor for top level navigation is tabs with second level submenus located in a secondary bar (e.g. Amazon, Apple etc). When a third level is required, we often see another menu appearing in the typical left or right hand column next to the content. Then to help clarify where you are within the site, the breadcrumb menu is deployed.
A different way was brought to our attention by the bright folk at Teehanlax who blogged about a new concept which they christened the ‘Tabbed Breadcrumb’ menu. As it’s name suggests it combines the tabs and the breadcrumbs and multiple levels of navigation in to a rather elegant and satisfying solution.
We decided to try it out on SailingNetworks.com:
Below are a series of screenshots showing the top, second and third levels of navigation using the old and new styles.
Top level (new)
Top level (old)
Second level (new)
Second level (old)
Third level (new)
Third level (old)
And we like it. So we’re also making it an integral part of the admin interface for all our web apps….
Bad Customer = Good News
James 05 Mar
My view of the client obsessive with detail has gone through a fundamental change. No longer do I dread another tweak or minor amend, I now relish every update. Have I become tamed? Is age mellowing the creative fire? Neither I hope, it has just became clear that growing a business in a sceptical market means listening carefully, attention to detail and doing the ‘leg work’.
If your lucky enough not to have the time to listen there’s a new industry who’ll do it for you – www.feefo.com
Double digging / Back to the land
James 16 Feb
After agreeing a fresh crop of salad leaves for a friends wedding I set about marking out a fresh vegetable patch. The maths meant a large area – 200 people, 1 square foot per serving (allowing for death and disease – to the plants not guests) = 200 square foot. Paced and marked my mind went to thoughts of Monty Don; sleeves rolled up, relishing a bit of sweat and toil. I only achieved one trench, back acheing I ’m now aiming to do a trench a day . . . but I will get it done. www.bbc.co.uk/bloom/
How do I relate this to the current economic climate? Easy, do the groundwork now. Only the strongest ideas will survive but if they grow in this climate the future looks pretty good.
Fixed - is less now more?
James 09 Feb
Fixed now seems certain to be the big new thing for a gen X weary of being re-sold another repackaged lifestyle fad www.fixedgearlondon.com. Sure to spread in this climate of penny pinching a simple menu of an old racer or track frame, slip in some new deep rimmed 700c wheels apply a few retro parts and remove the brakes. Love it.
I look at modern web design in the same way. Stick simply to the functions required and present it in a desirable format. Job done.
Cheap handlebars?
James 28 Jan
A pair of cheap handlebars are just the ticket to lift you out the winter blues. Supporting your local bike shop may not be the obvious source of inspiration but 10 minutes chat with Russ (purveyor of quality cycling bling), back home for a quick re-build and then 30 minutes of the sublime singletrack. 30 minutes that totally re-charges the creative batteries and off we go!!
Porn, Shopping and Social Networking - all on a Sunday Morning
Super 23 Jan
Watching porn, shopping and catching with your social network are popular activities for sunday mornings according to recent reports from Hitwise and FilmOn
Analysis of viewing figures shows peak demand for FilmOn’s “naughty movies” was around 1116 GMT on Sunday.
By contrast, internet analysts Hitwise found that usage of video sites peaked on Sundays but more traditional adult sites experienced a dip.
The surprise relationship between social networking and adult-themed sites came last September, when total page visits for social networking sites for the first time eclipsed that of adult sites.
But it is not simply that viewers of pornography abandoned it in favour of online social interaction, according to Robin Goad of Hitwise.
“It seems that some of the less extreme content that can be found in the ‘adult’ category moved to these social sites,” he says.
It is unlikely that there is a shift away from adult viewing overall, according to Alki David (founder of FilmOn), just that it is finding different online outlets, and video-on-demand is a rising star among “content delivery” methods online.
“Adult entertainment is always at the forefront of technological advances on the internet, that’s just fact.
“The reason that has been the case is because as humans we’re instinctively drawn to that type of behaviour. I don’t think there’s anything particularly unusual in that in human terms. If anything, it sheds light on our true primal instincts.”
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