One of our favourite blog topics is website design and useability, especially in the context of conveying a desired image for your business.

We can’t bang on enough about how important your website is in the sales and marketing process, given it is most often the first contact potential customers have with you.

This week the Optalert website, www.optalert.com went live. Our brief was to redesign the site with a fresh new look that would accurately depict the future direction of the company. Optalert is a company that produces fatigue management systems for the road, rail and mining industries.

Our priorities:
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) was a consideration throughout the entire process with copy being written with carefully planned keyword density. As proven by the results we have achieved for many of our clients, SEO should dramatically improve Optalert’s ranking on search engines such as Google. Including the right keywords should also increase the average number of pages visited by users, and the amount of time they spend on the site.

The new interface has been carefully designed to ensure the site engages the user and increases the number of conversions of web visitors to become new business.

Thinking of giving your current website a face-lift? Why not come in for a coffee and a chat? Give Merilyn or Cal a call on (03) 9819 2566.

We’re all aware that the ways in which people source information is changing, but just how rapidly these changes are happening and what it means for your business may be harder to grasp. How do you get your products and ideas into the marketplace? What methods of marketing and communications should you use? Are advertising and media communication mediums really changing?

Statistics show us that young people spend more time surfing the web than they do watching TV - and it’s not only the young who spend time online! Fairfax media has recently slashed is staff around the country in a desperate bid to stay afloat and relevant in the digital age. Australia’s commercial free-to-air networks are struggling to maintain audience figures that only a few years ago would have been considered inadequate.

Recently James Packer walked away from PBL, leaving the Nine Network and ACP magazines deep in debt and in desperate need of a financier to support repositioning of the company online.

Back in the good old mid-’80s, advertisers could rest easy in the knowledge that if they booked spots across the three major commercial networks they would reach the majority of Australia’s consumers. Not so today.

Recent surveys of consumer respondents have shown that:
* 19% stated spending six hours or more per day on personal internet usage, versus nine percent of respondents who reported the same levels of TV viewing.
* 66% reported viewing between one to four hours of TV per day, versus 60% who reported the same levels of personal internet usage.

So what are your options in this brave new world of media? The short answer is that marketers need to integrate the traditional media of press, TV and radio with the new social media elements added to the mix.

Smart marketing makes the most of these new environments, reaching target audiences directly - interacting and engaging people and key decision makers on their terms.

When you understand where your audience and markets source their news and information, you can consider different media to reach them.

Here are just some of the options you can consider as part of your ongoing marketing:
* create a company blog
* participate in social media forums
* create company profiles and share relevant content on social networks
* create videos and demos for YouTube, webcast and podcast.

Most importantly, make sure this content is closely managed, with new information added constantly.

As you enter 2009, is it time to review your external communications plan? What are your customers reading, listening to, watching?

As mentioned earlier last month, it is becoming more economically viable for a business to create or re-develop a website. As your website is more than likely to be the first point of contact most potential clients will have with your business, it is so important that it makes a good first impression. It is important also that your website represents the values and direction of your business, for now and into the future.

We recently partnered with Heat Beads^® to redesign their website, www.heatbeads.com.au. The goals included creating a better user experience, allowing visitors to the website to find what they want - quickly - and for the site to be an appropriate reflection of the market leader in solid BBQ fuel. This was achieved with a clean design, succinct copy and ‘fresh’ images all working hard to reflect the BBQ Culture of the Heat Beads^® Company and its community.

We specialise in creating websites that are search engine friendly and contain effective sales and marketing content. To find out more, give Cal Tod a call on (03) 9819 2566.

As the web “matures” it is becoming more economically viable for business to produce effective websites - especially when the benefits of the levels of exposure the business should receive are considered.

However, as they say it is a jungle out there, and there are a wide variety of options and price tags attached when it comes to website development and re-development.

Even with low cost solutions, building a quality website that is easy to navigate, contains concise and persuasive copy, and most importantly has been designed for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), which allows your website to be easily found by your target audiences on search engines such as Google, you’ll need the knowledge and expertise of a good developer with an understanding of marketing.

We thrive on building sites that drive traffic and engage users with brands. We recently partnered with Optalert to build their online presence and also create a secondary site for the founder to manage his intellectual property and research papers.

We recently launched EpworthSleepinessScale.com. The brief was to create a site with an academic, yet friendly feel to appeal to a diverse range of users including, corporations (pharmaceutical companies), governments and academics.

Connecting Images are experienced at website developments and re-developments and will be able to evaluate your business’ needs and simplify the tech talk to make it a pain free process. To find out more or discuss your business’ web needs, contact Cal on (03) 9819 2566.

The popularity of viewing videos over the Internet is a growing trend and shows no sign of slowing. Most businesses are only just catching on to this trend, and the benefits of streaming relevant video footage such as product demonstrations, from their website.

UsabilityOne has produced a research report on ‘how to best include video on the internet’. If it is implemented correctly ‘video has the potential to engage the Internet audience, whether that is to entertain, inform or sell products’ (p.4).

UsabilityOne provides tips on how to produce the most effective videos for Internet users. The top 3 are:

- Only provide short video clips - the attention span of Internet users are often minimal. If you have a lot to say, split your long videos into a few short and interesting sections.
- Embedding video within a webpage to enhance an article, rather than linking to a popup window was preferred by 61% of UsabilityOne’s survey respondents.
- If you employ similar video interfaces to those commonly used on YouTube for example, Internet users are far more likely to find watching your video an easy and satisfying experience.

At Connecting Images we help our clients stream effective video communications from their websites. For more information on how we can help your business, contact Cal on (03) 9819 2566.

Whilst YouTube can be useful for hours of mindless entertainment watching video clips on just about every topic imaginable, utilising video as a communications medium can have significant benefits for businesses.

We at Connecting Images have found clients who have instructional video on YouTube are pleasantly surprised when they check their view stats each month. This provides invaluable exposure of your business’ products or services and key messages to a potentially large audience. But remember you get what you pay for. If your footage warrants high quality streaming, consider paying for a hi definition full-screen streaming service like that provided by Vividas.

At Connecting Images we are experienced in utilising video communications, contact Merilyn or Cal on (03) 9819 2566 for more information.

A simple, cost-effective way to connect and strengthen relationships
with your customers.
An online community is a great way to develop a strong customer base and organically increase sales. This environment brings people with a common interest together to interact virtually, promoting a passion for your product by creating a forum for customers to share their experiences with others. And the best thing? It builds brand loyalty.

How?
Online communities (such as blog and interactive website users) enable and encourage connections between likeminded peers. The more your customers converse online, the more they learn about your product. Through open dialogue they discover usage tips, ideas for unusual or new uses and much more, which is so valuable AND valued, having come from people just like them.

A sense of community is fostered by members becoming known to each other, gaining credit for their contributions, and by allowing other community members to respond. The result is a steadily growing enthusiasm for your product – and enthusiastic people are inspired to ’spread the word’ on your
behalf.

The stats:

• Community members return more regularly, remain clients for longer and buy more.
• Community users visit nine times more often than noncommunity users (McKinsey, 2000)
• 56% percent of online community members log in once a day or more (Annenberg, 2007)
• Community users remain customers 50% longer than non-community users (AT&T, 2002)
• Community users spend 54% more than non-community users (eBay, 2006)

An effective example of a growing online community:

As a means of engaging customers at a grass roots level, the Heat Beads® company has recently embraced online community with the launch of Sizzle, the Heat Beads® blog. The sustainable growth of an impressive database of dedicated char grill BBQ subscribers is impressive. With each edition of the Heat Beads® email newsletter – emailed bi-monthly, opt in subscriber numbers increase significantly as a result of online competitions, giveaways, and encouraging existing subscribers to ‘forward to a friend’.

The Heat Beads® website is becoming recognised as a top source for all things barbecuing, and a lively and dynamic space that offers Heat Beads® customers a voice.

One thing to remember is that most online communities grow slowly at first – patience and perseverance pay off. According to Wikipedia (itself a form of online community), this is ‘due in part to the fact that the strength of motivation for contributing is usually proportional to the size of the community.

As the size of the potential audience increases, so does the attraction of writing and contributing’. Usually community members start out as visitors, and then eventually begin to participate in community life. Some will eventually become regular or even ‘leading’ contributors. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_community

Treat your customers like a community and capitalise on the return the
interactions can bring. An online community provides you with:

• The opportunity to innovate more quickly and produce higher quality products as a result of the immediate and direct feedback gained from your customer community. The Heat Beads® company recently invited its database of contacts in Victoria to participate in testing a new product in order to get practical learned feedback
• A channel for discovering when you’re doing something well. Customers report good experiences in forums more than twice as often as they do via calls or mail (Jupiter, 2006).
• A more targeted, less expensive way to communicate with customers than traditional marketing channels (such as advertising and direct mail). You already know who they are, have an existing relationship with them and they are open to and interested in receiving correspondence from you.
• An enhanced reach by issuing news and event announcements, quickly, directly, efficiently and cost efficiently

The media landscape is becoming more and more curious – here’s how to make sense of it all.
Changes to the media landscape are occurring at record pace, largely thanks to rapid technological advances. The following provides a snapshot of trends we expect to see in the (not-too-distant) future:

The New Media
Evolution impacts significantly upon the effectiveness of traditional marketing methods. As media consumers exercise greater control over what they will consider, new ways to reach target audiences are developing.

We’ve already seen a response to the decreasing penetration of television advertising in the upsurge of product placement. By approximately 2010, television audiences will no longer bear the interruption of commercials, simply skipping all ads at the touch of a button.

Podcasting is also an avenue that can be utilised by savvy marketers. Sponsoring, or advertising within a specific podcast presents an invaluable opportunity to reach a niche target market, whilst creating the branded content itself can also be beneficial.

The rise of podcasting as an alternative to radio seems inevitable. Podcasting describes audio content created and posted on the Internet, by everyday people with specialist knowledge and interests. By subscribing to content feeds, you can plug your music device into your computer overnight and download new content while you sleep. Podcasting enables media consumers to select the information they want to listen to, when and where they want. Traditional radio cannot compete with this level of convenience or range of content.

So, what does all this mean for your business?

Keeping abreast of changes in technology and trends is essential. One of the simplest ways is to use the rise of the internet to your advantage – your company website must become your most powerful marketing tool.

Search Engine Optimisation
At Connecting Images, we’re just ‘nerdy’ enough to be excited about the science of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – basically, customising your website to achieve a high ranking on search engines such as Google.

This is achieved in a number of ways, including identifying and targeting the most relevant keywords, ensuring effective site, page and content design, and generating links to and from your website.
When you consider that over 85 per cent of all traffic on the net is referred from a search engine, and that 90 per cent of people don’t look past the first 30 search results, it is easy to understand how important prominent positioning is.

The First Crucial Step
A crucial first step is achieving business-to-business recognition – that is, making sure your site is visible on Google (in Australia) when potential clients search by your company name. As an example, test the theory on these two websites that we’ve worked on.

Profitable Hospitality offers educational seminars, management systems, as well as online sales and support designed to make hospitality management more efficient and profitable.

The STOPline provides an independent and confidential hotline for the receipt of disclosures relating to corrupt or fraudulent activity, criminality and serious misconduct (whistleblowing services), to businesses committed to transparent corporate governance.

Both these websites have achieved phenomenal positioning. Each is also currently implementing more sophisticated keyword optimisation.

Ultimately, as the media sector becomes more complex and consumer demands and habits change, the ability to navigate through this changing landscape will become even more crucial.

You’ve got the website up and running but is it really generating the business it could be?

There’s no doubt that online marketing and advertising is experiencing a huge surge, as broadband penetration increases.

Accordingly, the online marketing spends have experienced impressive increases in recent times. The main component of this growth is internet search and directories advertising (think Google sponsored links).

For companies that embrace online marketing and ensure their website is well positioned, and easy to find through effective search engine optimisation, the results should be guaranteed. The audience is qualified and continues to grow!

A vital step in being found online is ensuring you use the right keywords in your communications.

Often our clients come to us for advice on which keywords they should be using, so we thought we’d cover off some of the basics of keyword selection and how they can be used to help you be found on Google. To start ask staff, business colleagues and friends to identify as quickly as possible the first search term they would type into Google if looking for a provider of each specific product or service your business offers. This will help ensure you optimise for the language your customers are most likely to be using.

Critical to success is the keyword density on your site. We suggest keywords should be 5% of the first 200 words on your home page, and search term descriptions of your product/services should also appear in the website title, titles of and internal links to individual site pages. These should even extend to the alt text (hidden) names of images on your site. (For examples of strategic image naming, click here. If you hold your mouse over the images you will see the web address come up, which counts as another key word).

To see the phenomenal results of tactical search engine optimisation, type ‘whistleblowing services’ into Google. The StopLine holds the #1 ranking on the web.