Make your website mobile friendly

The digital marketing landscape in Australia is changing rapidly and small business needs to be proactive about keeping up with the pace. I can hear some of you saying, “But I’m not good with technology,” or “I’m not a computer geek.” However, you don’t need to be proficient in computer lingo, or to keep up with all of the latest apps, devices and social media sites, but you do need to have some awareness of what’s available and to take some interest in new developments, for the sake of your business. 

The number of Australian consumers who are now accessing the internet via a mobile phone, tablet or i-Pad is increasing rapidly. According to the Official Australian Google Blog, Australia has the second highest smartphone penetration in the world—ahead of the US, UK, and Japan. And as more and more people come out of existing phone contracts, those who haven’t already done so will no doubt upgrade their phone to a smart phone, which will in turn see even greater mobile penetration across the country.

So a very important question that you need to ask yourself is, “Does my website have a mobile responsive design?”

 

If you’re not sure what a ‘mobile responsive design’ is, you’re not alone, as there are plenty of other business owners who don’t what it means either But on the other hand, why be part of the pack when you can get an edge on your competitors?

A mobile responsive website design is a website that automatically adjusts to fit the screen size of the desktop computer, tablet or smartphone browser on which it is being viewed. On a non-responsive design, what you see on your smartphone will be exactly the same as what you would see on a desktop computer. However, because there is no difference, when you attempt to view such a site on a mobile device, you constantly need to zoom in. and then scroll around frequently so as to be able to read the usually very small text, or click on any of the buttons. In contrast, a mobile responsive design adjusts the layout so that the text fits the screen exactly and so becomes very clear and easy to read, while the buttons are in a format that is large enough for even the biggest fingers and thumbs to use. As you can imagine, all of this combines to make for a much more positive user experience.

Not sure if this applies to your website?

If you are using an analytics tool such as Google Analytics on your website, you can see for yourself how many visitors to your site are using a mobile device. Simply go to Audience > Mobile > Overview and you will see a pie chart showing the percentage of visitors coming to your site using a mobile device. If this number is very low, or there is a very high bounce rate, this would suggest that your site is not especially easy to read or use for viewers using a mobile device. 

Ultimately, if you are not providing a mobile-friendly experience for your customers they are very likely to leave your website and go to a competitor whose site is easier to use. Can that really be good for your business?

Written by +Denise Angus

Is your website at its optimum health?

Quite often, the day-to-day running of a small business can be all-consuming, what with keeping up with paperwork, handling enquiries, filling orders, etc.  So if you’ve had your website for a while, you may want to take stock of how it’s performing before we get too far into 2014. Now is the perfect time to give your website a health check.

Here are a couple of things for you to consider.

Is your design letting you down?
Does the design of your site need to be reviewed, to give it a more up-to-date look? If you don’t believe the look of your site matters, you’re wrong. We live in a visually-driven world and first impressions count. If your website looks old and dated, potential new customers may get the same impression of your business. Is this how you want customers to perceive you?

Are you losing customers because your contact details are hard to find?
These are vital to your business. Can your phone number, fax number or email address be found quickly and easily? Have you moved to new premises and not updated the address on your Contact Us page? It can be easy to overlook these details, so make sure this important information is up to date on your website.

Are you showcasing your best work?
Images are particularly important if they relate to the goods and services that you offer. If you’re a builder, for example, it might be worth including some photographs of recent projects to showcase the quality of your work.

Are you getting social?
Have you created a Facebook page for your business? Are you part of the Twitter community? Are you set up on Google+ and LinkedIn? Social media platforms allow you to connect easily with people far beyond your immediate customers, community, and location. If you believe that word-of-mouth advertising works for your business, then you will love social media as it takes that approach to a whole new level. Social media is the equivalent of word-of-mouth in the digital age. To read more about social media platforms click here.

Does your website showcase all of your products and services?
Product ranges and the services that businesses offer change frequently, so f you're selling something new or introduced new services, then you’ll need to update your website and make sure it reflects all that you can offer. At the same time, if you no longer stock or sell a particular product, you’ll need to remove it from your site so that you can make sure it reflects you and your business accurately.

Have you got video content?
Video content is one of the fastest growing sectors on the internet and one of the most valuable elements you can add to your website. If you want to help your visitors and customers see your products in the best light, or help them to choose the right model, then a short video is a great way to do this. 

Is your website mobile responsive?
Mobile responsive design means that the design of your website is adaptable so that it can easily viewed on all types of devices, from large desktops, to tablets, to smartphones. With more and more people searching online using smartphones, you need to make sure that your website offers them a positive user experience.

Is your content working for you?
Is your content still relevant to your business? Your website needs to convey clearly who you are and what you do. If writing doesn’t come easily to you, seek the services of a professional copywriter to produce your website content. It can also be a worthwhile experience to have a fresh pair of eyes read your existing content. For instance, have you ever re-readsomething that you’ve written several times and not noticed a spelling error, yet someone else found it immediately? Typos and grammatical errors give a poor impression of your site, but are easily fixed. it never hurts to get some assistance to ensure that your website content is as clear and effective as possible.

Is the copyright year in your footer current?
This may seem like a small and somewhat insignificant point to mention, but if your copyright date says 2007 then you are quite obviously saying that your site is old! The date being current on your website tells readers that your content is current too. 

What are your competitors doing? It doesn’t do any harm to keep an eye on what your competitors are doing with their websites. If everyone else in the industry is upgrading their sites then you need to pay attention. Technology is evolving, design trends are moving on, and the way businesses are using their websites are changing, so it’s important to have a handle on new developments. Social media too is having a big effect on how websites look and function and so this is another reason why you need to keep up to date. While you may not need a complete redesign of your website, it’s important to keep your online presence up to date—don’t let it and your business get left behind.
Written by +Denise Angus

What is a Domain Name?

Simply put, your domain name is your website address e.g. www.example.com.au. In today’s world it is a valuable part of your business identity—no two organisations can have the same domain name—and as such is an important marketing tool for helping internet users to reach you easily.

Domain Names must:

• be at least 2 characters long;
• contain only letters (a-z), numbers (0-9) and hyphens (-), or a combination of these;
• start and end with a number or a letter, not a hyphen; and
• not contain hyphens in the third and fourth position (eg. www.ab--cd.com.au).

How do I choose a suitable domain name?

It is important when choosing your domain name to remember that users must be able to associate it with your organisation, such as your business name e.g.www.mikesplumbing.com.au or a generic name that defines your business type e.g.www.adelaideplumber.com.au

Domain names are often referred to simply as domains and domain name registrants are frequently referred to as domain owners, although domain name registration does not confer any legal ownership of the domain name, only an exclusive right of use.

A Domain Name is Not the Same as URL

To be technically correct, a domain name is commonly part of a larger Internet address called a URL. A URL goes into more detail than a domain name, providing much more information, including the specific page address, folder name, machine name, and protocol language.

• Domain names are organised right to left, with general descriptors to the right, and specific descriptors to the left. It is like family surnames to the right, specific person names to the left.
• The top level domains (TLD, or parent domain) is to the far right of a domain name. Mid level domains (children and grandchildren) are in the middle. The machine name, often "www", is to the far left.
• Levels of domains are separated by periods ("dots").

Domains and email

Email also relies on domain names to work. Once you have a domain name you are able to create your own email address of yourname@yourdomain.com.au. This has many advantages for branding and professional communications rather than a generic email address such as Hotmail or Gmail. 

Don't let your Domain Name expire

It is vital to renew your domain name on time, otherwise you will find both your website and email will be down. Renewal period is 2 years for .com.au domains and every 12 months for .com domain names.

Written by +Denise Angus

What is Indexing?

You have a brand new website, but you’re asking yourself, “Why can’t I find it?” Before your website can rank, search engines need to know that your website exists. For the purpose of this blog, when talking about search engines I’m going to say Google because it is the most widely used search engine.

The web is growing at a rapid rate. In fact www.worldwidewebsize.com claims that today on Tuesday 1 October 2013 when this blog was written, the indexed web contains at least 4.32 billion pages. Pretty amazing, really, when you think that you can enter a search request and within the blink of an eye you are presented with the most relevant web pages.

Therefore, you have to let Google know that you’re there. This process is called getting indexed. So what does this involve? 

Google uses software which is typically referred to as a spider, crawler or bot. These spiders crawl through your website and store a list of keywords found. Google is then able to build an internal index. It’s important to note that Google wants to index and rank everything, therefore it ranks web pages not websites.

With this in mind you need to ensure that you have quality content throughout your website, not just your home page. You need to make each page count. As spiders are crawling through your website, they are also looking for page titles, meta tags, headings and internal links. (On-page search engine optimisation is a topic we covered in an earlier blog.)

Like everything else in life, your page rank must be earned. Take the time to invest in producing quality, relevant content.  Another important factor to consider is that as Google is constantly looking for new content, it’s worth keeping your website up to date. Add new pages often, and if you have a blog or social media pages, keep these up to date too and make sure that they link back to your website as well.

Having a website built is an essential item on your business checklist but, once it’s built, don’t forget about it. Think of your website as a living thing. Do you have some exciting news, such as an award or industry recognition? Are you selling a new product, or have perhaps stopped stocking another? Does your business have a newsletter, and are you updating it on your site regularly?

Your business doesn’t stop growing and neither should your website. Don’t make the mistake of creating a website and then forgetting about it.

Written by +Denise Angus

Why Article Marketing is good for your business

Why Article Marketing is good for your business

Article marketing is an effective tool for promoting your business online to a broad audience. The aim is not to sell your products or services directly, but rather to give advice, share knowledge and help others with your expertise, for free. The more knowledge you give away, the more your customers - existing, new and potential - see you as an authority, which then in turn enhances your credibility. 

Not everyone wants to be sold to all of the time, which is why article marketing is an effective way of reaching new customers. Many people often want simply to learn more about a given subject and so your readers will genuinely regard your article as being of value if you provide good, useful, relevant content. Indirectly, you're selling them on your knowledge and expertise, which is invaluable. A well-written article may well then convince people searching for information that you have the answers to the questions they are looking for. 

There is also a greater likelihood that readers will follow the links to your website, blog or social media pages from an article with useful, valuable content and so in this way learn more about your business. It makes sense that people prefer to buy goods and services from businesses that they can get to know and trust. 

Articles can be used in many different ways to build your online presence. You can submit your articles to article directories, publish them on your own website, blog, or newsletter, or share them on social media. Well-written, well-researched and attractively presented articles can form an important part of building your online brand, which is what connects your business to the public. As Google itself puts it in its Australian blog: “Connected businesses are growing businesses”. 

For small and medium enterprises, article marketing is at its most effective when it focuses on niche areas of your business. For instance, if you are a retailer, direct your article marketing at a product range that you specialise in, or that you are the sole distributor for. Use article marketing to highlight products that you stock that your competitors may not. Alternatively, if you are a service provider, you can use article marketing to highlight one particular aspect of your business that you think you do better than anyone else, or that might be unique in your market. Article marketing works best when it has a specific focus in mind, rather than general promotion of your business. 

As with any type of online content, if your articles are fresh and original, they will serve you well. But be wary of content spinning software. Are you willing to put the credibility of your business into a software program? Would you trust a computer to write the kind of articles that people want to read? 

Article marketing, when it is done right, can be a sound long-term investment to boost your business profile. However, patience and consistency are the keys to success. Don’t expect article marketing to boost traffic to your site overnight - you need to put in a place a long-term plan for regular articles over an extended period of time to enable your presence really to be felt. Your aim should be to create a range of interesting and engaging content and to create new pieces on a regular basis, to ensure that your profile and presence online is always growing. 

Of course, not everyone has the confidence or ability to write effective and informative articles, nor do busy small business owners always have the time to devote to such tasks. However this doesn’t mean that you need to miss out on the value of article marketing. Media Gain uses the services of Cadogan and Hall, freelance writers based here in Adelaide, who specialise in writing compelling, engaging articles for all types of businesses and industries. Using a locally-based team of freelance writers has many advantages: the writing is of the highest quality; you can have as much or as little input into the process as you want or have the time for; and nothing is published or distributed without your approval. 

At Media Gain, we can advise you on all aspects of implementing a cost-effective, highly-visible article marketing campaign. For small and medium size businesses this can be a very positive and straightforward approach to enhancing your online presence.
Written by +Denise Angus

Affordable website design for Adelaide businesses

We invite you to view our video below, which outlines our website design and online content services for Adelaide businesses.

If you would like to find out more, please visit our website www.mediagain.com.au or you can email us denise@mediagain.com.au

Written by +Denise Angus

Where do I start if I want a website in Adelaide?

Don't be intimidated when considering a website for your business. Everyone has to start somewhere. We've put together this simple document that will point you in the right direction. If you want to find out more we are more than happy to speak with you in order to make building your first website a smooth operation. For contact details please visit our website http://www.mediagain.com.au

Written by +Denise Angus