Digerati Blog

The Handoff - Letting Go

2012-01-03T07:19:00.000-08:00

As a creative team, we get personally invested in every project we work on. Both designers and developers have a personal connection with the things we build. Every tiny image, link and button is fit into place with precision and love.

It should come as no surprise that it's hard to let go of control when it comes time to hand the reigns over to it's new owner - you, the client. To make hand-off a little easier for both of us, I thought we would list a few things that can help us both out.

1. Content Overload

Unless you're visiting wikipedia, a user is generally not looking for an opportunity to sit and read (primarily) when browsing for a product or service. For the most part, they want the key information presented quickly and efficiently with the option to read more if they would like more information. For this reason, you should keep content on your main pages short and to the point. If you have lengthy information that may be helpful, consider adding it as an article or a secondary page.

Although we usually allow for pages to expand to fit any length of content - it's a good practice to keep your text as concise as possible. If you will need to have pages that contain a lot of content - that should be something that's discussed before the site is designed so that we can take that into consideration too.

2. Copyright Protected Content

Acquiring pre-made images (photos or clip art) can be a tricky situation. Copyright law is much more extensive than most people understand, and infringements can be accompanied by significant legal consequences.

As a general rule, anything that's already on the internet (text, image, animation or otherwise) is protected by copyright law and you will need written permission to use it - unless otherwise stated. We will usually confirm that you have rights to use any content sent to us, but it's ultimately the responsibility of the site owner if content is being used illegally.

Image libraries are a great source of photos, videos and other media for us on your site. Using royalty free images means that after you have paid an initial fee, you have full rights to use that image however you like - for as long as you like. These images vary in price based on quality, size & the site you're on. but you can expect to pay around $2-$5 per photo.

Here's a few of the larger libraries;
- istockphoto.com
- dreamstime.com
- shutterstock.com (subscription based)
- gettyimages.com (royalty free AND rights managed images)
- sxc.hu (this is a free site, but most are not free for commercial use)

Note that using the watermarked image without purchasing the image is also illegal.

Copywriting is often a forgotten component to developing a professional site. The readability of your information, and the tone that is set on your site is a element crucial to high-level success. Hiring a professional copy writer to develop the full copy for the website and your company communications can raise your level of professionalism above most other small and medium sized organisations.

As with images, copying text from a competitors site is illegal, regardless of whether they will ever notice. Even changing a few words here and there is most likely inadequate to dodge a copyright infringement lawsuit. It can help to understand how a competitor ranks so high on searches by reading their text, but just re-write it in your own words and you're good.

Legal text again is something that is often overlooked or often copied. Speaking with your legal advisor will give you the best results for preparing your privacy policy & terms of service documents. Make sure they're specifically relevant to your site and your business, but most of all make sure that any claims you make in them are accurate. There's nothing worse than claiming something in your terms (that were 'borrowed' from a competitor), then having a customer finding you had breached them inadvertently.

3. Images

Regardless of how large the image shows on the website, the actual size of the image needs to be appropriate for the web. Photos you take with your digital camera (or even sometimes your mobile phone), need to be resized before you use them on your site. If you don't have any image editing software, you can use an online tool like smalljpg.com.

Try to keep the file size if any images below 40k for large photos, and 15k for smaller images.
Feel free to ask us what image dimensions are appropriate for your specific site.

Just for the record, the DPI (dots per inch) setting of a JPG file is not important as the display size (on a computer screen) is dictated by the screen resolution, not the print resolution. If the pixel dimensions are the same, there's no difference between a 300dpi file and a 72dpi file on a website.

3. Formatting

The key to a professional website is consistency. Headlines, along with body copy and callout text should all be the same font, size, colour and postion on every page. Images should have the same padding, borders & text labels.

While we can enforce content to follow very strict guidelines (overwriting any that you add), we prefer to leave a level of flexibility within the CMS tool for you to use it how you need to.

Be careful when copy and pasting as it can bring more than just text across. Embedded code, styles and scripts can be an unwelcome hangers-on that mess up the formatting and layout of the other content on your page.

Understanding search engines

2011-12-01T09:04:00.000-08:00

If you ask 100 businesses what they would like if they could have 3 things for their website, you're almost guaranteed to have 'higher listing in google and other search engines' as an answer for every one. And why wouldn't it be? Research¹ clearly shows that the higher your listing (on a relevant search), the more clicks you will get, which is no surprise to most internet users. (Who ever clicks past the second or third page of results?)

The natural result is that SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is a hot topic, and one that many companies sink thousands of dollars every day into ensuring their lofty placement. While that may be an option for a national or international chain with millions in marketing revenue, it's not usually an option for local one-off stores or family businesses.

Unfortunately, there is no magic solution (if there was then it would be widely known and shared, not to mention abused). If you go backwards to the source, however, it's a little easier to track back how the search engines determine listings, and give some helpful insight into the ways you can improve your own ranking.

What is the purpose of a search engine?

Basically, a search engine attempts to unite a searcher for an answer. The less accurate the results, the more frustrated a user gets, and ultimately they look for another provider, so its in the best interest for a search engine to determine an algorithm that takes many pieces of information to determine how 'relevant' a site is for a given search, and for a given searcher.

How does a search engine work out the 'right' answer?

This is the million dollar question. Most modern search engines work on a concept of relevancy. What web page is most relevant to the words or phrase used in the search, and which of those are most relevant to the person searching? There are a few ways to look at how that's determined.

1. You need to remember that a search engine works mathematically, not with reason, so the relevant results are going to be tied directly with specific words, and the words they are commonly associated with.

2. Think how a searcher thinks. This may seem obvious, but it can often help to use the exact tense, verbiage or even spelling in your optimisation based on who you want to target.
2a. A wedding cake maker may tend to use phrases like 'wedding cake varieties' where they may be better targeting a phrase like 'wedding cake ideas'.
2b. If you're targeting a global market, you may want to use American spelling on some key words so that you're not overlooked by that market.
2c. Use a tool such as Google Insights to see how many people are actually searching for the things YOU think are relevant.

3. What do other 'important' websites say about your website? It's important to know the major directory websites for your industry and make sure you get listed. The more detailed the listing, the better. Generally directories are very high on search engine results, so getting a link in them is essentially a recommendation for you. Better still, because the majority of the directory is very keyword specific, so every listing they add makes your listing more valuable.
Although it's less common these days, link swapping can be an effective way to get your site linked on a site with similar keywords to your own. Just make sure your link is filled with keywords that match both your site and the host site, and with your reciprocal link, make sure you're not going to be promoting a questionable business or one that could leech business off you. Also make it a point to periodically check to make sure they still have your link, and if you want to maintain the agreement.

4. What does YOUR website say? How do you say it? How much do you say it? The content within your domain says it all. Make sure search engine robots can actually read your content (they cant read images and have difficulty reading the content within flash). Make sure you use words that your customers use. Make sure you include specific model numbers for people looking for alternate sources to purchase a specific product. If your business specialises in one area, make sure you use many different words and phrases when talking about your product or service. Also consider anti-keywords using a phrase like 'alternate to productX' or even 'we don't offer the cheap productX because of poor quality'. You can already see how you might snag a few people looking for productX.

5. Personalised Results. This may surprise some people, but with the introduction of a google accounts, Google now builds a profile of every (logged in) user that completes a search. Now with the introduction of Google+, it now cross-references the sites you like, with the sites that your 'circles' (people you know or have some association with) like - it's like a friend has given their recommendation within your search results.

D.I.Y. SEO - 5 Easy things you can do to boost your listing

Here's a list of tips and tricks you can do (quite easily for the most part) to help yourself.

1. Make a list of 20 key words / phrases that you want to use that cover your entire site. Make a top 10 from that list and separate it from the ones that relate specific to a product or service that you will cover in more detail on your site, and the ones that are more general. The 10 words you use here should be used on every page of the site where possible.

2. Go through your site and list every page. Then write out a list of 10 key words that are specific or most relevant to that page, and try to incorporate those words or phrases at least twice on the page. If you can, try to get some of the most important ones into a headline.

3. Create a site map page. This is basically just a page of links to all of the pages in your site. It can also help if you add a short description of each page along with the link, again including some of the page-specific keywords from #2. Make sure there is a text-link to the site map page from somewhere on your page. Usually it's located in the footer with any copyright or legal notices.

4. Make sure your images all have ALT tags and you use them to describe the image. Search engines like it when you do that and you can also slide in a few extra keywords. Adding a tag for every image also shows Google that you built your site correctly.

5. Add content regularly. Google LOVES active websites. The more you can update your site with relevant content, the more frequently your site will be indexed. Google must figure that if you're putting in the effort to update it, that it must be more valuable than a site that sits stagnant. Plus, every now piece of content will either strengthen your existing keywords or add some supplemental ones.

Too much to take everything in?

Feel free to talk to us about ways we can help you to help yourself. At Digerati, we're not just here to sell you a new site every time you talk to us, we want you to get the most out of your investment. Talk to us today.

---

Related Articles:
See also Meta what? & Living content

Websites for your soul

2011-11-01T14:13:00.000-07:00

The need for a business website in today's market is crucial, but most people don't know how easy it is to set up a website for your own interests. As personal blogs & hobby-sites are becoming more and more popular, people are searching for great ways to get their content online - that's where we can help.

Although Digerati have built a corporate-strength content management back end (myCMS), its simple interface and flexible editing options make it great for personal projects too. Don't get worried about spending 'corporate website' rates on your personal site - we can also scale projects back to fit most budgets.

Whether you're interested in a 1-page site to let the world know about your collection of model cars, or a full blown online ordering system for selling your unique baked goods, we can put together a great package that will take your hobby to the next level.

Here's a list of ideas for your hobby site;

Keep a catalogue of your collection and wish list items (we can even restrict access if you want).
Sell produce or food goods that you make on the weekend.
Advertise times & schedules for your team games or meetings.
Create an online site for more information for a wedding or special event.
Create a website for more information on a property you're selling - and even have a mobile version that people can visit from their phone using a QR code posted at the property (or on print listings)
Keep a journal of your holiday or research trip & use it to keep friends and family back home up to date with your progress.
Post your family recipes up on a site and allow other people to submit theirs.
Create a fan site for your favorite team, band or celebrity.
Create a forum for people facing similar health concerns to collaborate and chat about treatments & experiences.
Advertise your freelance photography or artistic services & show examples of your work.
Take online RSVP's for your party.
Create an online resume to impress a potential employer.
Keep a private journal of your pregnancy, or treatment that only friends and family can access.

Here's some ideas for some short-term or small support sites for businesses;

Run a promotion for people to enter their details (and join your mailing list) for the chance to win a prize.
Run your work football tipping competition with staff & clients on your own branded site.
Hold annual awards for staff & clients and keep a public record of the achievements & milestones.
Create an event-specific site for clients to get all their information in one place. It can be more helpful than finding it hidden within your company website. An example may be for an accountant to set up an 'end of financial year' site with checklists and forms that need to be completed.
Create an external blog site which can be used to stuff keywords and links for SEO optimization.
Create a 'secret site' that can only be accessed via a mobile device taking a photo of a QR code. The site may have a special offer or coupon that the user can show on their phone.

No matter what your project or idea, come and chat with us and we can help bring it to life.

Let's make a website!

The start of an era. A salute to Steve Jobs.

2011-10-17T18:02:00.000-07:00

A visionary like former Apple Inc. executive Steve Jobs only comes along once in a blue moon. A mind so fertile with ideas, that dozens of products he invented & developed changed the way we interact, work & live today. And although his legacy will live on, I'm sure he would expect that his brand wouldn't die once the pieces currently in development hit the market.

While the world remembers the legacy of a genius inventor, marketer and strategist, there's some aspects of Mr Jobs' life that are worth remembering. Ideals that he lived by, and certainly ones that we could do well to mimic in our own lives and businesses.

"The broader one's understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have."

"We're always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it's only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important."

"Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected."

"I used to say that Apple should be the Sony of this business, but in reality, I think Apple should be the Apple of this business."

"innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we've been thinking about a problem."

"Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it's really how it works."

"My favorite things in life don't cost any money. It's really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time."

"Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations."

"Things don't have to change the world to be important."

From the quotes above, you can see that Steve was a man of confidence and vision. He didn't care what other people were doing or achieving - rather - creating the next thing that was going to make people's lives easier. Looking for a need, and solving it. He didn't sit around holding group meetings asking people what they thought of something - he created the solution for problems that most people didn't even know existed.

I titled this blog the start rather than the end of an era because Steve's passing hasn't ended a chapter, it's only just beginning. I think more of us need to take initiative and stop trying to just do things the way they've always been done. There's no ground to be broken in a well plowed field so challenge yourself to think outside the box. Who knows, you might just be the start of the next household name.

Meta what?

2011-09-05T09:00:00.000-07:00

We all want to be found in a search engine when someone searches for something relevant to what we offer. The tricky part is how a search engine determines which site is the most relevant to each individual. In the mid 90's the answer was the use of META tags.

So, what is a META tag? A meta tag is a short piece of information within the code of a website that looked something like this.. < meta name="keywords" content="Digerati Solutions, custom website, web page design, Sutherland Shire, Northern Beaches, Web Agency, Web Site Design, myCMS" >

The idea is to provide a snapshot of key page information without a search engine having to actually read the page. As you can imagine, the honesty system only works for so long before people start to realise they can trick the search engines to thinking they're relevant to a specific search when they're not. 'Keyword stuffing' was a very successful practice for a time, but the constant abuse from primarily adult service websites led to an abrupt overhaul in the way search listings were determined.

It is unknown exactly how much weight current-day search engines give to meta tags, but it's small to the point of insignificance when compared to known and listed strategies such as page heading & content keyword density, external links inbound and newer metrics like +1's.

It has also been suggested, that if the listed meta information doesn't match the actual page content, your website may actually be penalised in the search results. This is of more significant concern with website content being frequently updated.

Although it was significant 10 years ago, Digerati no longer recommends the use of search-related meta tags, but we can certainly implement them upon request if its something you would like to self-manage for your own website.

Talk to us today about a custom strategy for maximising the search engine friendliness of your site, and other ways we can build up the external links to your website.

Good things come in small packages

2011-07-28T14:08:00.000-07:00

The world of online services is supported by big companies, small offices and freelance operations all over the world. Some with outrageous claims of result guarantees and some with outrageous price tags. So how do you know what your best value for money is going to be?

Well when it comes to website or online application development, bigger isn't necessarily better, and a one-man-show is often unlikely to offer a tailored solution. There is a point at which a web development agency is too small to accommodate a wide variety of clients or solutions, and there's also a point at which your project is too insignificant or time consuming for a profit-driven large agency to focus on your individual needs and work out a custom solution that's not only cost efficient for you but also pushes the envelope beyond a run-of-the-mill product.

In online services, a large agency would probably be classified as one with over 30 staff, but some would argue that 20 employees is larger than 80% of the industry in the western world. Here's a list of areas where they fall short.

Problems with working with a large web development agency:

You're paying for their million-dollar office building, latest fancy mac laptops, lavish Christmas party and the owners new yacht. Most employees are paid about the same across the industry, so all that higher premium you're paying is doing little more than lining some investors new pool.
They're hamstrung by their bottom-line profit-driven pre-made model that most of the time you'll end up with something that fits into their existing framework.
Usually, lots of people are working on the same project which causes problems with missed detail, non-linking of information. Each developer has their own way of building things, and the seams often show at the end.
The impressive portfolio is loaded with work that was done by people that no longer work there. Often work is done in collaboration with another large agency so it's hard to know who did what.
Your personal desires and attention to detail is often overlooked in light of a deadline and final invoice. Since you're just one of thousands of clients they need to do work for, the quicker you're out the door the quicker they can move onto the next project.

On the other hand, the freelance market is quite a mixed bag of goodies. Like Forrest Gump suggested, You never really know what you're going to get. Sometimes you happen to find a jaded genius who branched out on their own, bust mostly you're finding amateurs that over-promise and under-deliver.

Although the rates they offer are often a fraction of the cost of structured business (due to little or no overhead costs), you're also taking a lot more risk and there's very little you can do if things don;t go the way you thought they would.

Problems working with a freelance web designer/developer (or your next door neighbours kid)

Since most of them working from home, it means you usually don't have an office you can drop in to if you need or want to.
Legal liability is limited to their personal possessions, and very few freelancers have any kind of professional insurance.
Most one-man shows rely on contracted partnerships with other freelancers or agencies meaning that you're not only relying on the freelancer working for you, but their relationship with their contractors.
Regardless of what they tell you, very few (we're talking less than 1%) freelancers are good at design AND development. They usually have a strength in one and have passable skills in the other. This means you end up with a good front end or back end, but rarely both (unless the contract to someone who does the other half).

Efficiencies of a small agency

A small web development agency is really the prime place to be in this industry. You have the personnel to create new, dynamic, custom and exciting products for each client, and not rigid enough that you can't change your best practices as needed and improvements across the business happen very quickly.

Clients get to know the people working on their project, so there's a personal service, and chances are high that they will be doing everything they can to make you a satisfied customer (since there's not always another 10 jobs ready move on to like in a large business).

At Digerati, we hand-select staff that are not only experts at what they do, but also love what they do. We hire passionate people that are going to throw themselves 110% into each project, looking for ways to squeeze in a small detail that nobody may notice or take the extra 20 minutes to make something more seamless to the user.

Talk to us today about how we can build a website with you.

Forming solid brand extensions

2011-05-31T06:43:00.000-07:00

When you buy clothes (among other things), there's often a stigma attached. Having that famous swoosh mark on your chest or some recognised celebrity's name seems to add some level of fashion credibility. If that describes you, then you've bought into the brand.

Designer label clothes aren't necessarily any better in terms of quality than some of the cheaper brands, but the emotions, characterisations & persona of that logo follow that item wherever it goes.

Those qualities are the difference between a billion dollar brand and one that struggles to support itself, but they didn't get there just by being good. They relied on mechanics that extended the brand from the product itself to the consumer - carrying with it the emotional and social implications that are built into the brand.

Brand extensions would include anything that's not inherent in the product itself. Anything that's added as a marketing hook or endorsement. The intent is usually to set the product apart from the crowd.

A unique shop front
http://www.flickr.com/photos/electru/4476459138/sizes/o/in/photostream/

A celebrity endorsement
http://www.theage.com.au/national/fosters-regrets-bingedrinking-boonie-figurine-20091029-hnpd.html

Engaging advertising
http://vimeo.com/23362244

Your staff / representatives
http://www.davidjones.com.au/careers/departments

Unique business cards
http://webdesignerwall.com/trends/80-creative-unique-business-cards

A custom brand-focused website
http://www.m-ms.com

How does this relate to me and my business?

The first step is to define your brand. If you haven't developed a brand or a brand guide, how do you know if you're marketing the right way? If you're developing advertising, what do you use to check that your messaging is in line with the direction and persona of your business? A logo is only the first step to a brand. You need to develop a full brand outline and positioning in order to adequately check back to make sure each piece you create is in line with your core messaging.

Although, price may be a significant consideration for the shop front, advertising & endorsement (unless you personally know a celebrity that would put their face to your brand), there's way around traditional methods and the rest can be achieved with significantly less monetary investment.

The shop front fit-out probably comes down to the type of business you have, as to what is appropriate and impactful to your target audience. Often a fresh coat of paint and a minimal non-cluttered layout is enough to set the right tone for your products to shine.

A celebrity that publicly uses or advocates your product can set an instant public image. Obviously your brand is going to be tied with this person so you want to make sure the background is clean (if that's the image you're trying to portray), and they understand the expected behaviour of the endorsement.

Engaging advertising can be in many forms, but essentially you want to get people talking about it. One person seeing a poster is statistically unlikely to be motivated to action, but if it motivates a conversation in the office kitchen over coffee or with friends at the pub then you've engaged the audience. Even better if you can get media to react - just make sure its the reaction you want.

Do you staff, advocates & representatives dress, speak and conduct themselves in away that extends your brand? Would you be able to determine the persona of your business based on the people that work there? Touch points where a consumer will interact with your business are some of the most important areas to reinforce your brand personality.

Although you can pick up a box of business cards for under $50 these days, what does that really say about who you are and what you have to offer? Unique business cards are things people want to hold onto - like a piece of art. The unusual and interesting sets us apart. The cost comparative to the cheap cards is obviously going to be steep (maybe 25-40 cents per card instead of 4 cents), but what is that contact really worth to you? THe unique aspect may not even be added expense - it may just be a different approach to a regular card. Talk to your designer or printer about what unique options they can offer you.

A custom website is an obvious way of extending your brand, but one that is often not utilised adequately. Just having a website is a great start, and having one that looks nice is even better, but youneed to ask - does your website ooze the personality of your brand? If someone accidentally landed on your site with no knowledge of you, your products or your services - would they be able to capture the emotion, passion & personality that you want to portray as a business? Is it compelling enough for them to then say 'I want that for myself'. If not, you're selling yourself short.

--

Talk to your local Digerati team in the Sutherland Shire or Northern Beaches today to see how we can work together to make your website an appropriate extension of your brand.

D.I.Y. Website Reality

2011-04-30T13:00:00.000-07:00

One of the greatest claims of the world wide web is the multitude of free services. Some have changed our lives like free email (Hotmail, Yahoo & Gmail), free communications (Skype & MSN Messenger) and free social interaction platforms (like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare & LinkedIn). Naturally, the internet is the place where you can make your business reach thousands of people for a fraction the cost of traditional means - but is a free online website creation service really the best solution?

Lets look at a few of the pro's and cons of a free D.I.Y. website building service.

Pros

1. It's free. Who can argue - that's a pretty darn good pro!
2. You can have a site up and running within minutes.

Cons

1. Little or no direct customer support if you run into problems.
2. No accountability of your site goes offline. (what are they going to do - give your $0 back?)
3. If the company goes under or gets bought out - your site could be gone forever with no notice.
4. Customisation is tedious and difficult if you don't know what you're doing.
5. The time investment required is usually not equivalent to the quality of the end product.

While there are a lot of people that the free service is perfect for, the vast majority of businesses will only ever see minimal results from a D.I.Y. type service. In terms of being online, something is usually better than nothing, but often with these types of sites it's hard to tell.

Why pay when you can get free?

The biggest difference a company like Digerati can bring to the table is a personalised solution. We never use templates, or pre-made sites. Every site we make is designed and coded from scratch. Because we take the time to understand your business and the needs you have, we can design a website that will highlight the key aspects of your business, and guide demographically targeted users to relevant information on your site. We can also build custom tools into the site that will help you manage your visitors, orders, client contacts, stock and even appointments.

You also get personal service. If you have problems updating your site, or you've forgotten a password, a quick call to your local office will have you back up and running within minutes.

What's holding you back?

Talk to us today for an obligation-free quote. Let us know any concerns you have or an objective you need to reach so that we can work with you to design a solution that makes your life easier and gets you back to doing what you do best.

Talk to your local representative today; Liam (Sutherland Shire & St George) or Ainsley (Northern Beaches) are more than happy to chat with you about your project.

Your mobile audience

2011-04-16T11:54:00.000-07:00

Ever been out buying a bottle of wine but not sure whether it will pair best with fish or chicken? Been driving behind a bus with advertising and couldn't write down the website address? A QR code may have been the difference between your interest and your action.

QR (Quick Response) codes are a relatively new way of getting more information at the touch of a button. Although it may look like some kind of electrical diagram, the square graphic is a unique patten of 7,089 different squares which make a unique pattern. Smartphone users can view a photo of the code and it will send the user to a defined website or show some relevant text information.

Your brain might already be ticking to think of cool ways to use a QR code, and really the uses are unlimited. Some examples that I've personally seen include;
- On a bottle of wine (explains the flavours, pairings & similar wines)
- On food packaging (nutritional info, cooking suggestions)
- On a business card (personal contact information & social feeds)
- On the front window of an office (website, office hours & a coupon)
- On a magazine (directing directly to a subscription page)
- On bus stop advertising (special website made for the campaign)

Having the code set up and on your product is only half of the process. You then need to set up some appropriate content, either as a new page on your existing website or as a separate site built specifically for mobile use.

Related: Digeraticles (Nov 2011) Website In My Pocket
Here's some creative examples of QR code styling: Mashable Creative QR codes

Talk to Digerati Solutions today about setting up some content that's appropriate for marketing with a QR code. It's easy to set up and expands your market outside of traditional engagement methods.

Utilising Facebook

2011-03-01T19:46:00.000-08:00

If you're not on Facebook you're missing out on the best free advertising in the current market. Facebook is increasingly becoming the common way users interact with their favorite businesses and brands and until recently you had to rely on the inflexible Facebook programming language (FBML) to create custom content. On 11 February this year, Facebook launched a host of changes of which some revolved around the flexibility of the tab page.

As of 11 March, all business and personal pages will be converted to the new layout which actually removes the tabs across the top of the page and replaces them with a streamlined and sleek left side navigation. The best news however is that tab page content can now be pulled in using an iframe.
Iframed tab content is not only a good move on the part of Facebook, but fantastic for businesses looking to get a richer experience for their customers on a platform that most use every day.

Now you may have heard that using iframes are bad for your website, and that's true in almost any other context. They were publicly frowned upon by most of the online community almost 10 years ago however the reasons revolve around usability and scalability. That really hasn't changed, but Facebook offers a static sized platform that works functionally well.

One of the tricks that Facebook allows you to do, is to hide content until a visitor 'likes' you. This isn;t a new function by any means, but utilising rich content within the Facebook page gives users some incentive to like you. The upside of doing it that way is that you are now automatically part of your customer's feed.

Some great ways to use the iframe..

1. Create an alternate layout for your product listing that can run off the content in your CMS.
2. Run an online FAQ and/or inquiry form for users to learn more about you.
3. If you have some form of order tracking system, a version of that system would be beneficial.
4. A photo gallery or work portfolio
5. A promotion is a great way to get customers to 'like' you.

With all this great news, there are some limitations.

1. The iframe on the tab page is limited to 520 pixels wide ~~and 800 pixels high~~ (updated - the 800px is a default height but can be overwritten. There are some issues with macs using Chrome at larger sizes though). Similar to a mobile optimised website design, the thin layout means that you really need to consider the content layout and what it most important for a user to see.

2. Content is still governed by the Facebook terms & conditions and the way you interact with your customers still needs to follow their regulations or you could find your account suspended.

---

Talk to Digerati today about the rich content we can develop or optimise from your existing site into your facebook page.

Marketing to your masses

2011-02-14T21:11:00.000-08:00

It can be a tough job to work out the best way to market your products or services to the global audience of the internet. It's much easier to break up your visitors into segments and work out which you want to skew the focus towards.

Unless you have a million-dollar+ website, you're probably only realistically going to effectively market to a small section of internet users. When coming up with your marketing target group, it can be helpful to whittle down your options so that you can focus on the people that are most likely to convert to a client OR a specific market segment that you're currently not hitting and feel you could reach.

Someone famous once said that if you try to please all people, you end up pleasing none. And while that may be the case, you need to be strategic about who you're going to decide is in the group of people that you're not trying to reach.

Outside of the obvious few ways to segment (including geographical, language & physical age), I'm going to show you how you can break up the types of people that arrive at your site by how they arrived there. Watching these types of analytics can be helpful and may just give you some insight into any changes you need to make to your site.

A user will arrive at your website for 1 of 5 reasons..

1. Because they want something they know they can find (Direct User Conversion)
2. Because they want something they think they can find (Secondary User Conversion)
3. Because a search engine told them that the information they want is on your site (Sourced User Conversion)
4. Because they want to see what you have to offer (Cold User Conversion)
5. By mistake (Bounce Conversion)

Lets work from the outside in.

The Bounce Conversion

This refers to a user that arrives at your site and quickly realises that they arrived there by mistake. Either by assuming your site was for a different business, or because a keyword was taken out of context (such as someone landing at 'Ant's Removal Service' instead of a pest control company).
Note that analytics reporting classifies any visitor that spends less than 1 minute on your site (without visiting any other pages) as a bounce. A rate around 20% is quite normal.

Cold User Conversion

These conversions are a mixed bag because there's no defining if they're a motivated buyer or a competitor, or somewhere in between, but you have to treat every one of these as the former.

These users may have seen your URL on your vehicle/banner, decided to visit after seeing your email address or simply mistyped the URL of another site.

This is probably the only group that I wouldn't spend any time trying to market to directly, purely because of the randomness and the fact that every cold conversion visitor will fall into some other category.

Sourced User Conversion

This is a significant group for most websites. Most websites that have been online for over 2 or 3 months should be indexed by at least one search engine and you can be found some way or another.

Depending on how your site was set up, you may be getting a lot of traffic, but you need to really look at your analytics to make some sense of where they're coming from and if they're finding what they wanted.

Two things to look at are the keywords used to access your site, and the bounce rate. If you find that the keywords people are using to find your site aren't actually related to your site, and your bounce rate is above 60%, you know that the content of your site may be highlighting the wrong words. As a result the people arriving at your site are actually looking for something else.

If the keywords are correct, but the bounce rate is high, you may not be highlighting your products correctly, there may not be enough information, your prices aren't competitive or your overall site doesn't look professional or trustworthy enough.

If you are listed but you're not getting any significant search engine traffic at all (regardless of the bounce rate) it is usually due to the inability for the search engine to index your site. If a search engine can;t read your site, it has no idea what content you have or what your site is even about. The most common reason for this is if your site uses flash or graphic text extensively (especially for navigation on your home page). Fixing this may be simple or it may require some design changes. Come and chat with Digerati about what we can do to help you out.

Secondary User Conversion

Generally, Direct & Secondary users will come with a positive expectation that you have what they want - its just up to you to close the deal when they get there. You need to build confidence with the customer so that they trust what you're offering.

The primary example is how most people use search engines. Type in a search phrase, browse through the results and pick the one that looks the closest.

Another example of a secondary user conversion is someone looking to buy a cheap car. They may type cheapcars.com.au into the browser in the hopes of hitting a specialty site. Chances are fairly high that if there's actually a site there, that they will indeed have cheap cars.

For the most part visitors are still only assuming the content, so you still have a little work to do after they arrive at the site.

Direct User Conversion

These visitors are generally repeat business. They've visited your site in the past, and they've decided to come back. You've got them hook line and sinker - now you just have to haul them into the boat. The only thing stopping this user from making the purchase is the product, the price or the process. Make sure you make the shopping cart from viewing the product to making the final purchase is as streamlined as possible and offer a range of payment options.

---

Talk to Digerati Solutions today about making the most of your website traffic and optimising your content to allow you to market to some of the segments that you may otherwise miss.

So you want to make a website?

2011-01-19T10:18:00.000-08:00

With the new year comes new initiatives, a new business venture, a personal blog, a new hobby, a new club. These days its a natural progression to set up a website for just about anything.

The tricky part is where you go from here. The following will give you some help when looking for places to go and the right people to help.

There are 3 main considerations when starting a new website. This is called your basic site plan. If you have a solid answer on these 3 things you're in a very good position to move onto sourcing a web service or agency to get you started.

1. Your budget. How much are you willing to spend? (Now and ongoing)
2. Your goal. What do you want your website to achieve?
3. Your workload. How much time do you want to spend working on your site?

Budget

This is usually the factor that determines everything else. For most people, they won't really have a set figure in mind, they just want something that works without having to spend more than they have to.

Unfortunately there's no easy answer to guide you. There are solutions to fit almost any budget, but going too low may mean that you have to re-evaluate the results you want to see and how much manual work you have to do to get there.

Your goal

Defining the goal of your site is arguably the key to a successful project. Setting the reason for having your site and key performance indicators (KPI's) will not only allow you to build towards a fixed goal, but give you a way of means of measuring the success of your project.

Your workload

For those of you looking for a budget solution, you may find yourself doing a lot of manual work, where those with more funds may be able to develop tools that automate some of the more repetitive tasks. If you are time-poor you may want to consider extending your budget a little to incorporate some time-saving tools. This may also take into consideration your level of skill and knowledge of web software & languages.

---

Once you have your basic site plan in hand it's time to work out where to go next. There's literally hundreds of options out there, but here's the main three that should cover most projects.

1. Free online tools
2. DIY Development
3. Freelancer or Web Agency

Free online tools

There's some great tools out there that let you put together a great site for next to no money. If you have little or no budget, this is really your only option. Sites like Wordpress (Wordpress.com) offer a free service that lets you get up and running relatively quickly but you'll be limited to pre-made templates unless you have some knowledge of building a website.

If a blog is going to be sufficient and you want to look outside of Wordpress, you might also want to check out Blogger/Blogspot (blogger.com), Livejournal (livejournal.com), Vox (vox.com), Typepad (typepad.com) or Travelpod (travelpod.com).

DIY Development

There are a few software titles out there that make setting up your own custom site relatively simple, but require a lot of manual work to set up and maintain. While you have a lot of flexibility when it comes to design and layout, functionality is somewhat limited and you're restricted to making updates from that computer only.

If this is something you're interested in, you should check out Adobe Dreamweaver or Adobe Flash Catalyst if you want something a little fancier.

Freelancer or Web Agency

If you want your own custom website and don't have the know-how or time to do it yourself you're going to have to look for a web developer of some kind to help you out. Here's what to look out for.

Freelancer

Everyone has a nephew, neighbour or your secretary's second cousin who 'knows how to make websites'. These along with individuals working alone are known as freelancers. Freelance designers or developers often have a limited range of skills (usually either design OR developing), and very few have a solid understanding of both (regardless of what they tell you).

Most freelancers will have connections with other freelancers to partner with as needed. The risk here is that the ongoing support of your site relies on the relationships of your contact, and chances are, they wont be able to fix it themselves if something does go awry.

Since the majority of freelancers work from their home (or other place of work), they have few overhead costs and can charge low rates as a result. The question you need to ask yourself is if the money you're (possibly) saving initially is worth the risk of poor quality work, reduced accountability, limited technical knowledge of all aspects, loose deadlines and the chance of not being able to make changes in the future.

Web Agency

An agency is any group of 2 or more people working under the same business name, and covers small niche service agencies to fully serviced web development teams.

The advantage of the agency is that you usually have the skills of usability, designing, developing and sometimes marketing all collaboratively working together on your project. This means that there are fewer hand-off issues, a single point of reference for development and changes, immediate problem and question support and the solid base of a registered business for accountability.

Digerati Solutions is a full-service web agency (based in the Sutherland Shire and Northern Beaches) - meaning that all design, planning, architecture, development, coding, hosting and support are all provided by our internal team of professionals. We don't have our programmers designing sites and we don't have our designers working on making upgrades to our servers. The team is comprised of specialists in each field so that we can bring the very best skills to each project, and as a result can offer the right strategy for both the small business looking for a low-budget solution or the large corporate looking to build a reliable integral internal system.

Agency rates will vary significantly, but you want to look for a provider that is flexible enough to put together an appropriate solution at almost any price point. You may need to trade in some of the bells and whistles for a low-budget solution, but the fact that the agency is willing to find a solution that could work shows that they care about their service and you the client.

Contacting Digerati is a great first step when thinking about a new website or refurbishing what you currently have. You'll be surprised at how affordable it is. There are no silly questions and there's no problem to big or small for them to handle.

Website in my pocket..

2010-11-20T00:10:00.000-08:00

Every few years, something big happens in the online industry that starts to change the way we do things. The product making the biggest noise in the last few years is around portable web devices - namely smart phones.

A smart phone is a device, that although sold as a phone, largely through communications carriers, offers a host of other functions with the addition of web interactivity being at the forefront. With 174 million sold in 2009 alone (a 15% increase over 2008), the world is on the uptake at a steady rate - but what does it mean for your business?

The non-support of flash from the iPhone was the hottest of topics for a while, but the biggest defining change is the viewing area.

The ability to access the internet any where & at any time, at the push of a button and at virtually no cost, means that people are turning to the web for everything. With a GPS system in most devices, there's no longer a need to remember directions and there's no need to write down addresses or phone numbers any more, because if you forget, a quick search on your phone will give you the answer.

As people rely more on their smart phone, they start to use it as their primary device for sourcing information. If that's the case - what happens when they get to your website? Do you offer a mobile-optimised view so that they can still access your information? Are you considering how they interact with you when they're on the road.

Lets take a look at the Digerati Solutions website (a great place to go if you're looking to build a new website or refresh your existing one by the way).

If you look at the site using your browser on a standard computer screen (1024x768) it may look something like this.

If you look at it on an iPhone it looks like this...

You will notice that although slightly squashed, the primary content is still readable and the information on offer can clearly be seen where to navigate or browse . This is an example of a design that can work in both formats with little real need for change.

Most retail or service businesses will not be so lucky. If we take a site with a lot more content and a lot more happening on the page, you get a different story. Here's a quick look at a few places that have clearly not addressed the issue.

As you can see, its an awkward experience for a user to interact with the site without zooming into a smaller region, at which point they lose the context of the full page.

If your site is similar to this, you may want to consider getting Digerati to help you develop a smart phone optimised version of your site. This basically rearranges the content on your site to hide some of the larger graphic or display areas, and show a clear path to the content that users may be looking for on the run, such as contact phone, store location or functional areas like shipping or order information. There's no need to tell users to visit a different URL, the website automatically determines if a user has a portable device and sends them to the appropriate layout.

Some smart phone optimised sites offer a revised version of ALL of the content, but some cut down the site and only show the key areas, or the most visited areas of the website. Here are a few examples for you to compare with the full version (click on the image to see the full version). You will notice that in these examples, they don't try to show everything you would see on the full website, but take the most important parts of the site and create a streamlined version.

The key for each business is to decide what is appropriate. It's not good enough to simply look at the existing stats to see how many customers use mobile devices, but at the same time, you need to seriously look at your key clients and target clients to determine what is going to make like easier for them - or what's going to make you stand out as a business they engage with over your competitor.

Talk to Digerati today about an appropriate solution for your website - Lets make a website!

Keep them coming back - Part 2. Living Content

2010-10-31T19:41:00.000-07:00

« See also Part 1. Email Marketing

While regular contact will keep you at the front of a client's mind, how can you use your site to get people coming back?

First, we're going to have to look at why someone would want to come back more than once to your site. There are 3 main reasons people re-visit sites.

1. Because they remembered the content they found there was good
2. Because they think you may have new information there this time
3. Because they know there will be new content

The difference between 2 & 3 is perception. If a user visits your site in Sepetember and the last 'latest news' post was January, a user may assume that you update the site infrequently, and also assume that although there might be something new a few months later, the chance is low.

For this article, we want to discuss living content, or content that isn't stagnant. Nothing shows you care less to a potential client than a website that has been neglected, but on the flip side, a website with current, relevant content shows that you not only care about your business, but that you're diligent and committed. Relevant living content is also a great way to make your customers bookmark your site and want to come back to see whats new next time.

Ask anyone that has dynamic content on their site and they will tell you that it;s not easy work to keep it up to date. It takes time and effort, and the results are directly proportionate to the effort you put in, so here's 4 steps to consider when you're ready to add some action to your site.

Step 1 - be realistic when setting up your site.

Committing to updating your website every day or week can sound like a good idea at the time, but very soon you start to realise just how big the task is, and it can quickly become the dreaded thing that never leaves your to-do list. A few ways to alleviate this can be changing a title from 'This Week's News' to 'Featured News' or making the expectation for each post to be quite short. Partnering with similar businesses to take turns writing content that you can share can also be a good way of reducing work.

At the same time, work out what frequency is going to be appropriate for your business. Imagine going to your preferred news website (say news.com.au). If they only added news once a month, how often are you likely to go back there? Probably never, because you'd never know when it will be updated and you have other ways of getting the information, more conveniently.

Step 2 - work out what your clients actually want to see.

There's no point subjecting yourself to the rigmarole of writing content every week or month if it's not directly relevant to your site or the people using your site. If you run an accounting firm, keep the content relevant to accounting or at least a related industry. If you find yourself writing about lawncare, then you're going to see reader drop-off.

Step 3 - keep content concise & interesting

Boring content is a fast road to a shrinking email list. Keep newsletters short, and only provide a teaser to articles with a link to the full story. That way a user can scan the extract and see if its relevant to them before proceeding to the article (this is also good because it drives traffic to your site). Sometimes it may be more beneficial to miss a newsletter than to send out dull or irrelevant information that was put together at the last minute just to get something out.

Step 4 - ask yourself why?

Similar to step 2, this step is what you should ask when adding anything new to your site. Write out the pros and cons for adding a feature to fully evaluate the ROI (return on investment) of your time and money. If there's not a compelling benefit to adding a feature, don't bother. Once you've added the feature (say a news feed), make sure you ask yourself every time you post something 'is this going to benefit anyone?'

What are my options?

Okay, so what are your options when it comes to living content? Here's a few examples that might work for different sites.

1. Newsletter / Blog
2. Latest News
3. Social Media Feed (facebook or twitter)
4. Photo Of The Day
5. User Generated Content (maybe a topic for a future article)

Some low maintenance options are;

1. A news feed from an third party source
2. A twitter search feed (searches other tweets that include a specific tag or phrase)
3. Randomly selected featured products

Some examples of living content

Here's a few examples of Digerati sites that have regularly updated content

1. The Sea Life
Updated every day with some photos and surf report.

2. Inaburra School
Highlights an event calendar and latest news

3. Olive Tree Media
Latest news & featured products

How can we help you?

Talk to Digerati today if you're interested in bringing your site to life with living content.

Keep them coming back - Part 1. Email Marketing

2010-07-17T20:45:00.000-07:00

Having issues keeping your clients coming back to your site for more? In this series we're going to look at a few techniques that can help keep your customers focused on spending money with you.

There's a few things that every business can learn from the marketing tactics of the big online brands, local and abroad. Amazon, Ebay, Walmart & Travelocity (or WebJet for a local comparison). All of these brands have aggressive online marketing and use strategic techniques designed to draw users back to their websites.

Not all of these techniques are going to work for every business, but you should be able to find at least one that can be tailored a little to suit your situation. Chat to Digerati today about how we can customise a marketing campaign for you.

Part 1. Email Marketing

Of the 5 sites listed, only Ebay sends regular text-based newsletters to members. This is because all of them send frequent purchase related emails on a more regular basis, so the need for newsletters are negated. In exchange of the straight newsletter, these big businesses have realised the value of putting deals or special offers in front of the consumer rather than a page of text.

This may be a surprise to some business owners out there, but the majority of the time, your customers generally don't care what you have to say, all the care about is how you can benefit them. Make sure your email contains something that will have the user saying 'I'm glad I didn't delete that email', and you're going to want to do it within about 10 seconds of them looking at your email (or less).

I suggest leading with some kind of time-limited promotional offer. Maybe it lasts 12 hours or maybe its a deal of the day, but something that leads with a reason to read it now and not later. Follow it with some value added or time-relevant sell. This doesn't need to be a discounted product, but could be highlighting a product that has some topical or current event connection. It may be a product related to an upcoming sporting event, or hallmark event like Valentines Day.

You're going to want to commit to a time line that's appropriate with what you're capable of producing and not annoying your customer base. That may be once or twice a week, it may be every second week, but commit to being consistent, both in your timing and your content.

As soon as you start sending emails with any kind of frequency, you're going to lose some customers - that's natural, but a database of 400 people that read and look forward to your weekly updates is much more beneficial than a list of 1000 people who delete your 'every few months' emails.

Its a good idea to keep these types of emails short. Keep blocks of text to a minimum and make sure you keep the focus on the benefit to the reader. Add images, but keep them to a minimum as well to reduce the risk of them not being seen, or your email ending up in a spam filter.

---

While email campaigns are effective at getting back in front of your customer's vision, it really only useful for those businesses that have a database of people who have opted into a newsletter, but not so helpful if you're just starting the site.

Note though, if you ARE starting a new site, we always recommend that you include at least a way for visitors to sign up to receive latest news or special offers. That way when you decide to do it, you've got your list. There are very specific laws about just creating your own database with email addresses you have in your contact list.

---

Chat with us today about customising a marketing plan to suit you.

Jumping into social media

2010-04-08T02:34:00.000-07:00

Social media (SM) is the new buzz for companies looking at attracting new and untapped revenue, but the opportunity for actually making money seems to be very hit and miss.

Possibly the most well-known of the big players are Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn, but there are literally thousands of sites making up the landscape.

Each site has it's own niche group of users and its own niche market of consumers. It's therefore no great surprise that each needs to be leveraged differently, depending on your marketing goal and objectives. Although it heavily seems to favor the service industries more than say retail, there's examples of almost all industries doing well when the right strategy is used. Sometimes it's the combination of SM sites that form the full brand experience.

Here's a rundown of the 3 mentioned and how someone may use each to gain some exposure. In this example we'll use an imaginary company 'Bill's Photography'. We'll assume Bill is a freelance photographer working from his home in Cronulla trying to get more local projects.

Facebook

Bill would create a professional 'fan' site and post a selection of his work on the site (with due permission of course).
Bill gets his friends to become 'fans' of his business. This means that any time Billmakes an update to the section (either a text note or a new photo), his fans are notified.
Bill would 'tag' people in the photos who are then notified that a photo of them is online and they can make a comment on the photo. A note is made on a 'tagged' persons profile and in turn their friends can see the photo.
Bill's fanpage would link back to his main website which would list a more comprehensive portfolio and encourage people to hire him for specific services.
Adding new photos regularly will keep your name in front of your fans.

Since facebook relies heavily on the friend / acquaintance model, you need to work through your existing networks, and leverage the fact that your clients have loads of friends too, and many of them are likely to be in a similar location as your original client.

Twitter

Bill creates a twitter profile specifically for his business (keep business and personal tweeting separate).
Bill follows a number of globally well known people in his industry.
Bill follows as many local people as he can find.
Bill participates in conversations of people talking about photography and photography techniques.
Bill uses hashtags to index his services & post at least daily about a service that he offers.
Bill offers 'hot' time-sensitive deals which only last a few hours.
Bill searches for people talking about needing photographers and sends a short note if they're local or he can be of assistance in their specific case.
Bill uses a twitter application such as tweetdeck to manage his groups so he knows which are his hot local leads and which are just industry jabber.
Bill re-tweets interesting posts from the industry or tweets that others have made about him / his services.

Twitter is much more of an open global community than a closed local one, but there are generally groups of locals wherever you are. It may be people that follow a local radio station, or community groups. This can be a lot of work, but it can be a good exercise in networking. Just don't try to be a salesman - it doesn't go very far on twitter.

Linked In

Bill would create a detailed profile.
Bill would join industry specific and local groups.
Bill would write articles about his photography projects and maybe some case studies about the background to some of his work.
People in the groups would see Bill as a regular and active photographer, and his insight will help people see that he's not just a point and shoot guy, he really understands his profession.

LinkedIn is a lot more industry focused, but great for networking. Having a LinkedIn profile listed on your site can help clients see that you're interacting with the professional community.

---

Some or all of the above may seem like a completely different language, and to a certain extent it is - even to people that use the services already.

In summary, Social Media relies on manual labour to actually generate anything meaningful, but since very few of your competitors are probably in the space utilising it, so you might as well start before they're all there and the strategy needs to adapt to the new climate.

Talk to us today about how you can leverage Social Media for your own business.

Facebook - worlds' favourite website

2010-03-23T16:37:00.000-07:00

Is it to anybody's surprise that Facebook is now the worlds' most popular website? We think not. For a company with next to no renumeration plan, they still exist!

Our customers have had mixed experiences tapping into the new 'social media marketing', we believe it is a strategy worth considering. But a word of warning not from a web designer but a Facebook user, companies can get annoying on Facebook! Have something worth saying when you open your mouth online.

Please leave feedback on your response to social media marketing.

myCMS 5

2010-01-22T20:30:00.001-08:00

Websites are complicated things. At Digerati we endeavor to make things easier for the customer.

myCMS Version 5 has been a year in the making and will be launched within a month. We are very excited what this means for you and how we can better provide a simpler website system.

Effective Website Launch

2009-10-26T14:34:00.000-07:00

Computers are complicated at best, but when it comes to your email and website there is a lot of unknowns and can be very tricky.

As a web designer and IT company, the trickiest area comes when launching and updating email setup. We suggest the following points when engaging a web designer and setting up your website hosting:

Approve Your Website. Ensure you are 100% happy with the website before launching. This will take pressure off the launch.
You have a right to your name. Not your web designer. When it comes the time to change website and hosting, often other companies will attempt to hold onto your domain name.
Takes time. Launching your website takes up to 24hours to be LIVE, including your email. This process can take a little while to be instant, but working with us we can setup your most effective transition.
Be Proactive. It is very helpful for us to be proactive.

If you have any other questions about launching website, please contact us!

Google Wave - Are you on it?

2009-10-08T17:44:00.000-07:00

Google recently launched a prototype called Google Wave set to replace Email and collaboration. I must admit, I was skeptical, however after seeing a preview I am extremely impressed.

Email has many flaws; spam, business object integration, bounces, identity theft, listed content. Google Wave has set out to create a platform which people/businesses can interact in a brand new wave (I mean way). Discussions are initiated, based on anything, and people you invite into the discussion can contribute LIVE in anyway. Photos can be posted, blogs can be integrated and you can invite others into the discussion.

As the system is just a prototype at this stage, it gives away enough to be very exciting.

Watch this space!

Digerati

myCMS 5

2009-08-29T01:55:00.001-07:00

Digerati are in the process of developing our 5th version of myCMS, promising more features and an easier interface than before!

For more information about what it includes, please contact us!

Digerati

Why Does SEO EXIST!

2008-09-08T19:01:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone out in the cloud!

Recently I have been reflecting on the world of web, considering SEO, flash, where the cloud is moving and how technologies are changing. Where my thoughts headed rested around so what is holding us back, what dictates the future, and how are we going to progress forward past the present.

Search Engines dictate where we are headed far too much, should search rank not be a completely natural process? The monster of Google has unintentionally conceived an entire industry focused on 'higher page rank', 'more click throughs' and inevitably better sales from online focus.

But how? How did they do it?

10 Years ago, on Googles birth... there created was a system, formula, structure of ranking popularity and importance of any website compared to another for 'keywords'... it is quite honestly very complex and highly sophisticated. Over the years it has grown and developed more and more, gathering more data, making more comparisons. From all of this, does it create a more accurate result for what you are after?

Let me be the first to admit that web searching is important, it is key to provide a search that accurately returns results for information you are after on the internet, but should there be a baise for an industry of SEO-ers out there to promise better results?

My response: no way.

SEO holds us back, it is a fixed structure that 'pleases' the search engine/spider, but heres the bad news... too bad its the world we live in. We don't have a choice for the moment about how we connect to the majority of online users needing our products and service.

My solution: I have ideas but someone large and influential needs to implement a new system to compare sites, something that doesn't tie the industry down to a fixed set of rules, structure etc.

Here are a handful of technologies already sorely impacted by search engines; AJAXs, Flash, User Events/Interactivity, CSS Builds.

At The Digerati, we know a lot about search engines, ranks, SEO, and technologies. Should you consider SEO, YES! However, conventional marketing can potentially be far more effective. Should Google be so evil creating these set of rules, absolutely not... but unfortunately the present is as it is.

Talk to us today.

Gift Registry Design Awards

2008-08-13T17:32:00.000-07:00

Our Gift Registry team has recently awarded a handful of Design Awards to Gift Registries around the world. Congratulations everyone :)

If you would like more information about our award, please contact us.

Don't forget, Gift Registries are perfect for birthdays, baby showers and weddings!

The Digerati

2008-08-12T23:32:00.000-07:00

Digerati provide a variety of products and services to a world in need of web services, but what is our direction? Where are we going? Why are we special?

There are lots of buzz words and unknowns associated with your website and the internet. Trust is almost required to get by, but who to trust and why?

At Digerati, with a mixture of changes in house, we endeavor to set a firm focus and vision for us and our clients in the future. Stay tuned for what we have in store in this exciting, innovative context, we all call the internet.

If you would like any information on what this might mean for you? Or would like any more goss, please contact us!

Free Gift Registry in Media

2008-08-12T23:07:00.000-07:00

Free Gift Registry has been recently talked about in our local area. Read the article on Free Gift Registry here;

http://stgeorge.yourguide.com.au/news/local/news/general/caught-by-his-web/1242221.aspx

Moving On

2008-08-05T23:38:00.000-07:00

It's been a very fast 18 months, but sadly our senior designer and project manager Nathan will be moving to the USA as of the 14th Aug 08. He'll be moving with his wife Kellie and baby daughter Isabelle back to live near Kellie's family in Michigan.

THE GREAT NEWS is that although he'll be across the otherside of the world, the wonders of the internet allow Nathan to remain our senior designer and usability advisor.

Unfortunately the time difference makes it a little difficult for Nathan to remain our project manager, so that role will be taken over by Tim Kirkman, who many of you will have met from other projects.

Nathan's last day in the Digerati office will officially be the 8th August.

Layout Options - Part 2. Navigation Style

2008-05-13T18:27:00.000-07:00

In my last article I discussed the use of the full-width design style and have received mixed feedback. Some sent me some good examples of full-width designs and some agreed that it's probably not the best solution unless you're using flash, in which case you have a lot more flexibility.

Today I'm going to discuss something a lot less controversial, but something that is an issue of debate for almost every new website. Website navigation styles can include options such as text, graphical, flash or a combination.

Text Navigation

Text-based menus are mostly found in the corporate or online application website market. This is due to a number of reasons.

1. It's much simpler to update / change
2. It allows a menu to be completely dynamic and can be updated from a CMS
3. There is minimal download time
4. Text can be resized by visitors with vision difficulties
5. There are no issues with printing
6. Search engine following is virtually guaranteed.
7. It's fast for developers to build

The list is quite long - and justifyably so. From my view, the only reason you would opt NOT to use a text menu is if you wanted more design flexibility, or you wanted to hide content from text crawlers (such as search engines and spam robots).

Generally you will find that the larger companies using text nav's are ensuring website loading times are as low as possible

Examples (at the time of writing):
http://www.digeratisolutions.com.au/
http://www.pwc.com/
http://www.microsoft.com/
http://www.ebay.com/
http://www.ato.gov.au/ (although poorly designed)

Unfortunately in these days graphic designers are having a lot more input into web designs, the text-based menu is being replaced by graphic or flash-based (eye-candy) navigation styles.

Graphic Navigation

This style of menu is becoming more and more common as people are making the move to broadband internet, and download speeds mean a lot less than they used to. Generally graphic menus should only be used when there are only a handful of options. The last thing you need is 40 menu options loading a graphic for each.

Graphic menus are best used when tying in graphical elements of a brand to the page layout. You will find that a lot of medium-large brand-heavy companys will take this option for their home page but switch back to text navigation on the internal site pages.

With a few techniques, graphic menus can be used for search engine optimisation, however the code to make it layout just right can be tricky to avoid lengthy code (which slows the page down as well).

Examples (at the time of writing):
http://www.apple.com/
http://www.mcdonalds.com.au/
http://www.kfc.com.au/
http://www.toyota.com.au
http://www.myer.com.au/

You can tell with all of these that the graphical style menu allows them to use the menu itself as a branding agent.

Flash Navigation

Flash menu systems expand on graphical menus and allow a greater amount of flexibility in terms of design and interaction. Where graphic menus allow a graphical style to be implemented, flash allows movement and user interaction.

Flash not only allows a developer to add some form of animation or movement to a menu, but it can even include full video and music. As you can imagine, the drawback of the flash menu is that it takes significantly longer than a text menu, but can be quicker than a graphic menu.

In order to view flash you need to have the flash client installed in your internet browser, and although most new computers come with this installed by default, the majority of people will have to manually install the client before they can see your flash. This becomes an issue if your main navigation requires the user to install software (and maybe restart the browser) before they can use your website.

2 or 3 years ago it was common to see a HTML site with a flash navigation bar, but these days companies are more likely to do all or nothing. Although Adobe flash

The drawbacks of using a flash menu include;
1. Making changes requires the entire flash file to be changed
2. People using older browsers may not be able to install the currnet version of the flash client.
3. Slower
4. Site owners need the original flash file to make changes.

Examples (at the time of writing):
http://www.nike.com
http://www.diadora.com
http://www.billabong.com/au
http://www.lennykravitz.com

As you can see from this list, the entire site is in flash, and although they dont want visitors to have to wait a long time, they generally all target niche markets of younger internet users - the majority of which use broadband internet and will wait for content to load. A big name like Lenny Kravitz can afford to make fans wait, but an up-and-coming unknown artist would probably not have the same success.

Overview

With the variety of clients Digerati have, we have been able to suggest each of these solutions for different solutions - and for different reasons. Even some clients in the same industry suit different navigation styles, and even the same client may warrant changing styles at different points.

The key thing is to look at your target market, and make sure your website remains accessible by those people. There's no need to allow for text resizing if your tarket audience is 12 year old boys, but at the same time you probably need to make the menu simple to use and appealing to the eye, where a website targeting 70 year old guys would need to be quite simple and clear of graphical distractions.

There is generally always one style which will suit your website, so please feel free to talk to us about what we would recommend for your site.

The staff at Digerati Solutions have been providing online solutions for over 10 years, and we keep on top of the current technology to ensure that we can always suggest an appropriate solution for your needs.

Free Online Gift Registry Service - for ANYTHING

2008-04-25T17:22:00.001-07:00

Digerati Solutions has developed a software product free for the world to use. You can create your own gift registry to request the gifts you really want! There are no pre-selected gifts; choose any gift from any store. You can invite friends to use it by collecting their emails from your online contact lists. Customize the look and feel. Plus, and best of all, you can have people contribute $$ to bigger gifts via PayPal. www.FreeOnlineGiftRegistry.com Please give us feedback.

read more | digg story

Layout Options - Part 1. Scalable Full Width Design

2008-04-14T16:10:00.000-07:00

When starting a new site or redeveloping an old one, you need to evaluate the target market and the content you want to show them. These two factors alone will usually dictate the layout style (not the design style) of your site.

The key aspects of the layout include;
Page width: 800px, 1024px, Mobile Devices or Scalable Full width.
Design Width: Fixed block, Repreated Background Over a Fixed Block, Full Width or Fixed Block with Graphic Edging.
Navigation: Horozontal Bar, Vertical Bar, Buttons or Dropdowns.
Navigation Style: Text, Graphics, Flash or a combination.

Over the next few weeks I'll discuss the sections above, but today I'm going to discuss the disadvantages of using scalable full width design.

Scalable Full Width Design

Scalable or 'stretched' designs are becoming increasingly rare, but we're still receiving requests for them irregularly so I thought this article might be a useful resource for people out there that prefer this style of design.

As a general rule Digerati Solutions rarely recommend full-width websites and will usually suggest away from them for a few reasons.

1. Scalable full width designs make it difficult to place content and elements because the size of each block will change depending on the size of the monitor being used.<

2. Generally readable text is no wider than around 600 pixels at 12pt. Anything wider than this makes it difficult to read because our eyes can't track back to the start of the next line efficiently over that distance. On a widescreen monitor at say 1440px wide, the text content section (even at 70%) is still over 1000 pixels wide. Even using a standard 1024 layout, 70% is still over 710 pixels.

To combat this, you generally have to create many text columns (similar to a newspaper), however if you then need to view the page on a smaller monitor (say 800x600) the columns become very thin and again unreadable.<

Click Here to see a readability comparison

3. With only minimal content you can end up with content that fills the width of the page, but only covers around 20% of the page height, leaving a lot of unused space on the page.<

4. Elements can get quite spaced out on the page and related items can look disjointed, making it difficult for visitors to follow.<

5. Often to keep ratios relative, larger images are used to fill space. Any time you use larger images you're ingreasing the file size and slowing down your page.<

Generally the people that prefer the stretched layout style are only thinking about their own viewing experience on their own computer. Often it's a simple matter of education that will convince someone that this is not a good option to allow maximum viewing pleasure for the majority of visitors to your website.

Note: I need to admit that flash can alleviate some of these issues and I remember seeing 1 flash site that used full screen design to good effect. As a ratio however 1 out of thousands is not enough for me to warrant it as a viable option.

Please feel free to leave comments if you disagree with me.

Thanks to: East of the Web and Ellena Ashley for the sample text from the children's story The Dragon Rock. To read the story in full, please visit
http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/DragRock.shtml

It's here - myCMS4!

2008-01-22T15:37:00.000-08:00

Digerati Solutions are excited to present the latest version of our Content Management System to our new and existing customers. We have collated and included over 100 suggestions from clients and staff in order to make the myCMS product even easier to use while providing more functionality!

In our innovative new system, Digerati have committed to producing a system that is simple to use, quick to perform changes and keeps data secure.

myCMS4 has a new intuitive interface that will enable you to:

Browse pages to update much quicker than before

Administer your website structure and navigation (depending on the design of your site)

Store and manage website resources

Securely manage your contributors actions

MyCMS4 is also more customisable for sites that require custom functionality such as appointment scheduling, stock control, customer management, event management, order reporting, testimonials, email marketing and photo galleries to name a few.

We have implemented the latest features and technologies to provide our customers with a system that is quick to use, seamless and intuitive. We have streamlined our processes and code to reduce reloads, added tab browsing on page options, update boxes as well as drag and drop features.

If you would like a demo of myCMS4, feel free to contact Digerati and arrange a meeting.

Inefficient Technology

2008-01-08T16:13:00.000-08:00

Firstly, AJAXs or XHTML content is the functionality which makes appearances seamless, smooth and fancy. It uses complex methods that pull information as you are viewing the website, creating an experience becoming popular with experienced developers on the internet.

Over the years, technology has evolved quickly and has been put under the test of the market place. Some products that were developed have failed to deliver as expected, or the market place has grown so much that the current applications are different to it’s initial purpose.

A good example of its application is the new apple.com.au website - more specifically the http://www.apple.com/trailers/ webpage where Apple are displaying items in the table at the bottom. Have a flick through the different pages. Notice its “nice” transitions, the seamless transitions between the information, and the webpage doesn’t need to reload.

For a drawback of this technology on the same site, click the buttons at the top that include: Just Added, Exclusive, Just HD etc. Watch the animation that holds the page until it loads the content. The information that is displayed at this point will not be found on Google or any Search Engine.

The reason for this is because Google (as with most common search engines) only caches the initial html server response and reads it on a text level. If you have data loading on complex runtime procedures or through time delayed methods via javascript, not in html (ajaxs and xhtml), your information will not be found in the search engine cache.

Apple developers have been intuitive enough to understand this downfall and have employed a solution similar to our approach of including alternate sources for search engine data collection.

Although the new technology of AJAX, XHTML, Flash and advanced javascript can ultimately make any website look great, it takes an experienced development company to be able to use these yet concurrently keep the fundamental functionality of user accessibility, search engine optimisation and W3C standards compliance.

Talk to Digerati today about your existing (or new) website and whether it is an effective presence to search engines, or how we can assist you with the effective integration of new technology.

Keeping Up Appearances

2008-01-03T21:31:00.000-08:00

If I told you that I listen to all of my music on cassette tape you would probably laugh at me. Similarly, if I told you that my portable file storage format is a packet of 5.25” floppy disks (you remember the big black ones?), you would no doubt label me an eccentric and probably shield me from any by-standing children in case my disease was contagious.

If you are using Internet Explorer 6, Netscape 8, Firefox 1, Opera 8.5, Safari 2 or any versions before them, then you’re among approximately 35% of the internet population using outdated browsers (according to w3schools.com stats of Dec 2007). If you have you screen resolution set to 800x600 pixels or less you are one of around 17% of internet users operating below the standard screen size.

As with the cassette tapes and floppy disks, there may be a time and place for each of them (it’s hard to see where, but I’ll allow that there may be some situations), however the vast majority of the world has moved forward, and as a general rule it is accepted that both of these formats have been superseded by far superior alternatives.

The issues of browser type and screen resolution are the 2 most frustrating aspects of the internet to any web design and development studio, large or small. These areas are the most significant contributors to the internet being unable to move forward at the speed of innovation and technology – and in most cases, it doesn’t need to be the case. Many older browsers (such as Internet Explorer 6 and older Safari versions) do not support technology which is becoming widely used, and as such many agencies will need to forego some ‘features’ in the pursuit of compatibility. This reluctance to leave internet users behind is causing the internet to evolve slower than it could, and is in turn reducing the potential effectiveness of the internet as a whole.

Online technology is increasing exponentially. With the arrival of the .Net framework almost any developer (web or not) can now produce powerful online applications in whatever language they are most comfortable with, which means a lot more people are developing, and a lot companies are trying to ‘get more out of the system’. In all cases, the product is useless unless the end user is able to actually ‘use’ the products that are being developed, and to allow for this, browsers are constantly adding support for new technology - from code provision to file support. When a user upgrades to the latest browser, they are allowing their computer to effectively use the best of what is currently available.

Unfortunately, not all browsers support all new technology, and some have opted not to support some that they probably should have. This in itself causes significant friction for developers trying to offer bigger, powerful and faster online tools because they have to start adding work-arounds to support the shortcomings of a specific browser or bite the bullet and not support a browser all together.

New browsers such as Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 7 are able to self-update, to avoid falling behind the crowd, so once you’ve installed the latest version, you can sit back and forget about having to update because it will take care of itself.

Some of the features supported in the newer browsers but not the older ones include; semi-transparent PNG files, RSS reading, custom toolbar, advanced javascript support and default inclusion of plugins such as flash and java. Some features that are waiting to be included in soon-to-be-released browsers include; CSS3, increased RSS feed services, support for new Silverlight (Microsoft’s answer to flash) files and advanced file download management to name a few. These tools will all allow added flexibility to design and functionality, and ultimately make the users experience a lot more effective and enjoyable.

Some usability features such as tabbed browsing and integrated search toolbars have been introduced into newer versions as well which don’t really affect the page itself, but offer a less cluttered approach to the tools that are commonly used.

In fairness I need to note that as with all new technology there will be some teething issues and a bug here or there, and I don’t recommend upgrading as soon as a new version is available. I do however believe that 6-8 months is more than enough time to allow for significant problems to be resolved and an ideal time to upgrade.

I would recommend having at least 2 browsers installed on each computer to allow for quick transfer to an alternative if needed. This may be necessary if care hasn’t been taken during development to ensure cross-browser compatibility.

Below is a list of the current versions of the 4 major browsers, and a link to a page where you can view the upgraded features and download the necessary files.

Internet Explorer 7 was released in November 2006
Note: You will need a verified version of Windows to install IE7.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/ie/getitnow.mspx

Firefox 2 was released June 2006
http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/products/firefox/

Opera 9 was released in June 2006
http://www.opera.com/download/

Safari 3 was released in June 2007
http://www.apple.com/safari/download/

Interface Perfomance Vs Pleasure

2007-09-10T00:28:00.000-07:00

Operating Systems (Windows XP, Vista, OSX) have been constantly been improved over the years to please visually. Whether it's funky transparency, anti-aliasing, lively navigation or animated effects, this all uses the computers resources to make your experience of the interaction more enjoyable.

How much does the designer consider the interface to be enjoyable, more efficient for work, performance friendly and simple? Does a navigation that expands smoothly over your mouse help your computer experience or is it a detriment to your efficiency and the computer's performance. Like everything, an important balance is required.

Being a business that rests a heavy focus on great Web Design, we need to consider the separation between an operating system and the web, two very different platforms, with two different purposes and interaction expectations.

We have been closely watching some design trends by extremely talented individuals producing navigation, page interaction, and rich graphical interfaces that match the style of screen found in new operating systems. Flash integration was the only way of achieving such navigation in the past, but now-a-days it is critical that websites are search engine compatible and that you can be indexed by search engine spiders.

Cast your eyes on this: http://www.ajaxdaddy.com/demo-css-dock-menu.html does it not look like OSX's navigation?

In our eyes (Digerati), this is the now future of Internet interaction, except we can't leave behind the fundamentals:

The user must have an expectation of how to use the website.
It must be conventionally structured (layout).
The resolution (screen size) needs to fit 99% of your audience.
The performance required needs to be low as possible.
It must be usable by most browsers.

Talk to Digerati Solutions Sydney, Web Design, Website Production, Sydney Australia today about effectively livening your only presence.

An exciting time for good designers

2007-08-08T22:23:00.000-07:00

The boom of Web2.0 web design has left the internet a much better place to look at, BUT, do you get the impression that websites are starting to all look the same? The green gradient is becoming so over-used that I'm starting to wonder if my monitor is starting to show signs of age and just tint everything to a pale hue of grass.

The overwhelming response to the 2.0 look should have web design forecasters rubbing their hands because any mass take-up of any design based schema will actually be its own downfall. Looking back though history, design fads quickly became dated (frangipanni flowers in from the early 2000's, airbrushed artwork from the 80's, thick brown & cream stripes fromthe 70's, etc..). The reason for this is that people don't want to be the same as everyone else. They want to stand out and be noticed among their competitors. If they all look the same, then there is no difference. As soon as a fad is set, the wheels are set in motion to begin breaking the mould, and its the few companies that probably started the trend in the first place that are also the first to leave.

The good news is that designers with vision are in an ideal position to produce work that is modern and visually appealing but at the same time, quite different from the Smiths down the road (who still hopefully look the same as everyone else).

By looking through a designers portfolio you should be able to see diversity and evolution. Any web design company who recycles the same 'look' for multiple sites probably doesnt have the vision to 'see' something beyond the fad.

At Digerati, we pride ourselves on our evolving designs and fresh looks for each of our clients. Each new project, we start with a clean sheet, so that each site is a new work of art that we can proudly display in our portfolio.

Please contact us if you'd like to chat about how we can help you take your website to the next step.

When too much experience is limiting

2007-07-02T00:44:00.000-07:00

It is frustrating working with someone that knows it all isn’t it? I especially feel this when their opinion, that has been so affirmed, is out-dated or redundant.

It is easy to do. You have found your niche, the system that makes money and it works but how old is it? Has it been out-dated? Does it still have that efficient edge? Is your style still fresh?

The internet evolves at a rate that it is hard to retain a website that is cutting edge for more than a year. Working in a medium that demands openness and awareness is not found in many other industries. Does your web service company produce fresh products? Does your website still look as attractive as the new sites that are being released?

At Digerati, the team combined has around 20 years experience in designing and producing websites. We know what has come and gone, but we especially know what works and the fundamentals that are timeless. We design in the WEB 2.0 style and functionality, this is constantly changing and growing into a theme suited to how the user best knows how to use the internet.

Talk to us today about what we think of your website. We can tell you how we can improve design, layout, language, sale tunnels and rich functionality assisting the users experience.

Usability & Aesthetics

2007-05-21T18:13:00.000-07:00

Since the introduction of Web2.0, cutting edge website aesthetics seems to have taken a turn for the better. The minimalist look has come into fashion somewhat, and animated clipart seem to be appearing less. Unfortunately however with the increasing prevalence of broadband, the cross-link between aesthetics and usability seems to be weakening just as rapidly. Designs are becoming a lot more visually oriented, but people are taking less care in areas such as efficiency, speed and most importantly simplicity for website visitors.

According to Nielsen online research (March 2007), users spend on average 45 seconds at each website they visit. If this is the basis of comparison, then your visitors need to find what they're looking for on your site within at least 30 seconds (giving them time to actually read the information). If your website takes 20 seconds to finish loading, you're going to hope your visitors can find the page they're looking for within your site within 10 seconds. Once you start to apply these times to actual use, you can start to see how much difference it makes to have an efficiently built website. The difference between a page that loads in 5 seconds and one that takes 20 can be the difference between a visitor leaving to look elsewhere or providing what they need.

Far too many modern web designers have come out of college with graphic or multimedia design degrees and a load of experience producing eye-candy. Unfortunately these designers are also damaging the functionality of the world wide web. A website needs to be designed differently to a brochure or catalogue, the graphic heavy, high resolution, wow-factor designs are usually the same designs that make visitors sit and watch numbers tick away before they're allowed to start sifting through content. A website needs to be seen as a lot more than just a pretty picture. Efficient design takes into consideration the user appreciation for the branding of the company (ie that the site looks nice and visually pleasing), while not detracting from the performance of delivering content to the screen.

Visitors will visit a website because they want something, and the majority if the time this will have been determined before they even start typing your URL or the keywords into their favourite search engine. It may be as simple as finding a phone number, it might be to place an order, or it might be to research your company's work to learn something more of what you do. Whatever the reason, you want to make it clear how to find the information they're looking for. Pre-emptive design is a focus of the work Digerati Solutions offer. This style of design looks at the 80 percent brackets. Target the style, layout and function of your site so that 80% of your visitors will be able to find what they're looking for with 1 click (or at least know they're on the right track with 1 click). This involves adding aids such as quick link boxes which will allow visitors to jump directly to an area of interest.

The website visitor always needs to be the focus of any website. Your target demographic may determine the style of the design, but essentially, the functionality and 'flow' of the site (how the menus work) need to be intuitive and not stray too far from familiarity. People enjoy what is natural and obvious, so it makes sense to design and develop with that in mind.

Stretching Web Concepts

2007-05-14T23:27:00.000-07:00

As an graphic interface: HTML, Javascript, CSS and concepts such as AJAX, SEP and Table-less Design are a fairly limited in terms of there use. However, companies such as Google.com, Microsoft.com and most ISP Homepage sites rely heavily on all these technologies to achieve interactivity and customizability. Would this be considered true WEB 2.0, community based customizability on the Internet.

What happens to users with old browsers which do not support Javascript but Gecko? Users don't have width optimised to their 1024 resolution? CSS isn't enabled or Javascript isn't enabled? A user has a slow Internet connection? Or their colour depth doesn't reach their graphic needs.

I am sure these companies have considered these ramifications however, there is a point you leave a customer out and there experience of the service you provide online is not meet. We at Digerati understant there is a time for these features however I do not believe it is time for such improvements and demands on machines.

WEB 2.0 can be achieved well before these demands are placed on a users system.

If you feel your web development service provider has limited your site to resource high users, please chat to us and we can perform some analysis on your website.

Crowd-Sourcing - What the crack?

2007-04-29T19:25:00.000-07:00

Recent trends on the Internet have been to use the crowds. mySpace use crowds, YouTube use crowds, every WEB 2.0 application relies on users, community and customisable features.

The newest concept using WEB 2.0 is the Federal Police in the UK. The government have published cold cases in the hope that the public can help them crack the cases. Video have been uploaded to YouTube, information on what, where, how and who is all public. By using the Internet as a means to build a collaborative environment, now-a-days is the only way is Crowd-Sourcing. Can you imagine how popular mySpace would be if no one uses it? It's the cornerstone of it's purpose.

So how does this relate to you?

Need a collaborative environment?
Need to bring people together?
Got a cause and need to constructively build movement?

Talk to us today about the range of applications we can use to capture the Crowd-Sourcing concept into your required solution.

The Google Story

2007-04-25T15:10:00.000-07:00

I recently read the Google Story and if you haven't heard it before, it is seriously amazing. Two guys, the founders of Google, while at Uni doing their PHD learned that there was no relevance in current search engine results, there was no formula of rank to determine which page is more important than others. Over that year the two guys set out to download the Internet, index the results and return highly fast & relevant results. The conclusion of that year saw google.harvard.edu available on the Universities' intranet.

Googles' name comes from a spelling mistake of Googol. (Great name though!)

Over the next two years Larry and Sergey set out to make Google public on the global scale and meet the demand of searches the had gathered. They used old computers in a complex array of load balancing to achieve this. But in the end they had no money to continue. Of course they didn't, they didn't have any income opportunity providing free searches.

A few angel sponsors and seed funding went by but it wasn't until they meet up with the founder of Cisco Systems and other large corporations in Silicon Valley did they invent another ground breaking way of how information is sort and marketing is performed.

Sit back at this very moment and consider, what if there wasn't Google, what if they wasn't relevant ad marketing on Google. This product has changed the way we use the Internet.

There's a few motives for me writing this article, mainly to just tell you a good story but here are a few take home points.

Meeting the niche in their market. This is the best way to be successful. Find something, be DAMN good at it. This is Googles approach.
Google started with nothing and achieved lots. Do you have a great idea? Lets help you make it a reality.
We know how Google ranks, we know it as good as the best. Come talk to us about eMarketing your website.
Digerati Solutions are on the fringe of producing a very big product. Want to support us? Please contact Digerati.

What the deal with SEP?

2007-04-12T19:13:00.000-07:00

Most people are now familar with the term SEO or Search Engine Optimisation, but theres a new wave of cutting-edge developers that are now offering SEP or Search Engine Preparation.

SEP is a style of web development which supports SEO in the fact that it is essentially a subsection of SEO, but it also makes the job of optimising your website a lot easier.

In short, SEO is the whole package, a seemingly unlimited number of steps to take to ensure that your website can be indexed and listed by search engines. SEP is a subset of SEO in the fact that it's still focusing on the same end result, but while customer-side SEO usually focuses heavily on content and the text in your pages, SEP is the code and the development behind the website, that you dont usually see.

As an example...
If you've done research on SEO you'll be aware of how header tags work, and how important they are in terms of making specific text 'relevant'. SEP takes this a step further, and can make images have the same impact, but with more keywords.

With advances in CSS and the evolving WC3 and browser standards, its important to ensure that your website is developed with all of the new technological tools, but at the same time you cant afford to compromise compatability, speed and efficiency. The team at Digerati Solutions pride ourselves on our advanced SEP development and customer-centric functionality.

The content you add to your website is always going to be crutial, but when combined with SEP, you've got the whole page working for the same cause, and not just 1 small text area.

So next time you talk to your developer - ask them if they understand the fundamentals of SEP web development.

Online Design Funamentals

2007-04-04T18:14:00.000-07:00

The question that has annoyed me for many years as a web designer is 'Why don't people think like a customer when they build websites'?

Design fundamentals have been around forever. Nature works on the principals of instinct and 'the desired outcome for the least work'. We need to start to think this way when we design online services. We need to think like a consumer when we sell, not the other way around.

Online shoppers are much more fickle when it comes to purchasing than their in-store counterparts. Generally we walk to the back of the supermarket to buy our bread and milk, simply because the store owners know we will walk past hundreds of other products on the way there. Online shops do not, and can not expect to operate the same way.

I've put together a list of 8 fundamental design rules that all websites (shops or otherwise) should adhere to.

1) Make it FAST. This covers not only the time it takes for the pages and images of the website to load, but the whole process of using the site should be extremely fast - especially for the shopper who knows what they want. The majority of online shoppers will continue to shop at the same place as long as they feel that they are getting what they need, and can get it without a fuss.

2) Keep it simple. Don't try to be all things to all people. Pick your market, and do it well. This doesn't necessarily mean that you only sell 1 product, but it means that if you're starting to compromise usability and speed for diversity - you will usually lose.

3) Navigation should be simple and clear. Theres nothing worse than a website that is hard to find what you're looking for, especially if you know it's there. Fancy fonts and buttons have their place, but it's NOT in the navigational part of the site.

4) Don't give people too many options. Find the 3 or 4 main things that people want to do on your site, and build your site around those things. Move everything else out of the way. Just think - if a visitor came to my site and i only wanted him to look at 2 things, what would they be? Generally the answer to that question should be the overall target of our website.

5) Invest in the design. Knowing 'how to use Photoshop®' is not enough to give someone the ability to design a website. Generally, I find graphic designers are some of the worst web designers because they think in terms of design and aesthetics, not functionality. A good web designer understands how customers think and how elements need to join together. A good design will win you a large chunk of the market initially, so spend that bit extra to give your site the edge over your competition.

6) Don't take a 'set and let' approach. Having a lot of content on your site can be great, but if you never update it, never change it, never show any sign of moving forward, then your customers will notice. Don't add a 'newest products' section if you're only going to add a new product every 6 months, and don't add a 'latest news' section if you don't intend to keep on top of keeping it current. Some people spend thousands of hours and dollars developing their site, then leave it to do its own thing. All of the effort dies once it starts breathing. I'd go as far as saying that businesses should be redesigning their whole site look every 2-3 years.

7) Don't expect to get rich overnight. Online users are cautious about new services that cost money. Trial periods are a great way for people to try-before-you-buy. Especially with websites that require a huge userbase. Theres no point charging $100 to be a member of a networking site with 3 other members - theres no pull, and no initial incentive. Get the in the door & show them how good it is first.

8) Make sure its a good idea. Too many online ideas are only half-baked. Generally as a designer and online advisor, I will try to persuade some people to develop an idea further before talking to me. I have told at least 4 clients that they should not go ahead with their project. 2 have listened to me and 2 have not. Of the 2 that did not, they have both lost substantial money in development costs and ongoing fees that have not been recovered.

These pointers can be - and generally should be overwhelming to the average business owner. This is why a team such as Digerati Solutions, a team that doesn't just 'do websites', will be your best friend. The team of professionals at Digerati can help to guide you through the complex world of online business, as well as show you some groundbreaking ways of doing your business more efficiently and to a wider market.

Don't waste your investment. Use the internet to make your business better, faster and more efficient. Every day you delay - your competitors could be stealing your clients one at a time.

Online Payments - Are they safe?

2007-03-29T15:26:00.000-07:00

Of course its safe! Do you think major international banks would be willing to allow websites to interface with their customers money if it wasn't? Highly doubt it. I believe the question, "Are they safe", reflects more on Store than the payments itself.

New research has uncovered that 70% of Adults are willing to make purchases over the Internet and will spend over $228 billion. For retail businesses this is great news! So what factors change a users perception of what is 'safe'?

I believe it is an increase of awareness and public/media approval of large online stores such as Amazon, eBay and Dell has helped this margin. Users don't necessarily look for an SSL Certificates, Policies and Terms; don't get me wrong these are important but I feel to get more of the public interested in Online Payments we need to look at it from a different perspective.

I believe retail stores need to focus on these fundamentals first:

The Products Marketing - Do you sell it to them?
Can you imagine a Online Shopper finding a product they need so bad they have an anxiety attack not being about to find their credit card? Security, policies, terms ain't being considered.
Shopping Cart - Ease of use
Does your Shopping Cart have clear instructions? Are the buttons clearly labelled or positioned? Does it collect too much information about a customer? Do you use the bouncing ball approach to progress?
What are the potentials that stop someone continuing, you need to remove all of these to ensure your product is actually sold.
Word of Mouth - Buyers selling
"I went to x inc. Online Store yesterday, it was so easy! I found what I needed, put my details in, paid and it arrived next day. I also got all these e-mails about its progress. You gotta check it out!" This is your best form of marketing. Friends to friends. Your customers selling for you. Do a good service and you will reap the benefits.
Deliver what they expect
A user will only have a expected experience if they are satisfied. How are they satisfied? You meet their expectation. Do this by using normal web techniques of shopping carts, processes, e-mails and service.
You will only be successful if you deliver.

We at Digerati Solutions have developed a product that meet all commerce needs and more. myCommerce is a product that we deploy into websites that require any transaction or ordering process for their customers.

Chat to us today about building your online store to what it should be because we build online potensial.

The product set launch

2007-03-13T19:49:00.000-07:00

Digerati Solutions are about to release all our products into one myCMS.com.au package. This Content Management Tool, is a lot more comprehensive, a whole lot easier to use and its the one stop complete website tool for Marketing, Tracking Customers, Selling Online and Updating your website.

This myCMS package includes:

The base myCMS - Website building tool.
myCommerce - Sell Online
myCustomers - Customer Relations Management
myCampaign - Market to your clients online via email, measurably!

This launch is occurring in the next month or two. Please contact us for more information. In the meantime if you need the straight myCMS product with Web Design, Application Development or Hosting, also contact us.

CSS based SEO Improvements - does it work?

2007-03-07T13:18:00.000-08:00

Of course it does, have you ever thought of the fact that your logo is an image? And google doesn't read the text of an image to determine your company name. I understand there is also the title, the domain, the text which has your business name but what about the all important h1 to h6 tags.

At Digerati Solutions we deliver HTML Cutup Solutions that don't just have images as buttons but actually as text. And when the page is loaded, CSS imports the image.

We haven't seen any CSS problems with browsers, only that a:hover tags may get mixed up and the button/image flickers on global hover attributes.

Chat to us about how we can SEO optimise your website to be true HTML in the eyes of google.

eMail Campaigns aka. "Spam/Junk Mail"

2007-03-04T13:47:00.000-08:00

I've been hyping up our new product, myCampaign to all our customers on our existing myCMS product. And every single person commented on the use of a marketing terms for what they know as spam. I find it interesting... with all the laws, all the filters and all the misconceptions people aren't willing to sell their products to their clients via email (anybody out there, come chat to me, we have a great product!)

I want to take this short opportunity to explain the pro's/con's of email marketing and hopefully get you to reconsider your conceptions of this means. Let's begin with the pro's:

It's direct - target a very specific market and your guaranteed to hit it.
It's measurable - you can track openings, bounces (hard/soft), link clicks and unopened.
It's attractive - HTML & CSS are great tools to build an ascetical appearance.
You can unsubscribe to the spam, whenever!

Now for the con's:

Misconceptions of spam (email campaigns complying with law requires two step sign up).
It's annoying.

Let me know if you think of more con's, I'm stuck for now.

Hopefully this pro/con explanation of email Campaigns might help change your thoughts. If you would like to chat to someone about this great medium to market with, contact us at Digerati Solutions.

AJAX - huh?

2007-02-24T15:08:00.000-08:00

It's not the cleaner, so what is it? AJAX stands for: Asynchronous JavaScript and XML.

It isn't some new technology but it is a new way to use existing methods to build rich, user-friendly, desktop style of interacting with a web page.

A good example of an AJAX application is Digerati's Shopping Cart build into myCommerce for Goodbuddy Sports website. Notice the page doesn't 'reload' with information but appears to be working in the background? This is pro, it becomes RICH.

Javascript triggers an XML request to the server in the background and makes XHTML/CSS changes in real-time. You don't have to install it, you don't have to enable it and it doesn't have browser compatibility issues.

Technologies it uses are:

JavaScript
XML
HTML
CSS
Dynamic Server Side Technology (ASP.net, ASP, PHP, JSP etc.)

If you want to start your website on this new style of WEB 2.0 applications. Chat to Digerati today and we can begin discussions.

SEO - Search Engine Optimisation, Whats the fuss?

2007-02-24T00:48:00.000-08:00

It is a huge fuss, and here's why:

People Search Yahoo 200 Million times/day
People Search Google 350 Million times/day
People Search LookSmart 75 Million times/day

Insane numbers! This just proves that your ranking in the major search engines is critical to build your online potential!

Most recently, the highest keyword searched was "valentine's day".

What if you had the highest rank? What if you had an online store which converted leads to sales effectively? What if you made a lot of money from simply pursing the art of SEO.

At Digerati Solutions, every site we build, we consider the effects of SEO. If you want to build your online potential, talk to us about how we can build the monopoly of SEO pages, Adwords, Blogs, Website Keyword Considerations and Web Building Techneques to build up your position.

Talk to Digerati about SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) Today!

How do I choose a Web Design/Development Company?

2007-02-24T00:35:00.000-08:00

I must admit there are a lot out there! But which one is the right one for you? How do you know? How do you trust them? They all focus on different niches, what am I trying to achieve?

The last question is key? What are you trying to achieve? Do you want the website to:

Generate Sales/Leads and How
Market via Email and Search Engines
Hot Graphic Design
Reliable Functional Development

All companies will SAY they do all of the above, but how good are they? At Digerati Solutions we strive to build your online potential through considering all of the above. It is critical that before you start talking to a Web Development Company you do the following:

What is the market you are trying to target?
What are you attempting to achieve in this market?
If you have a current website, what is currently working?
Ensure marketing campaigns line up the website.
How do you want to maintain it? Would a Content Management System be helpful?

The solution to the above is really important, it helps us, it helps you and we WILL find the right solution.

Talk to Digerati Solutions today and Contact Us, we look forward to working with you!

Tim Faase
- Digerati Solutions - Web Design, Development and Hosting.

Are you riding the next wave?

2007-02-23T04:01:00.000-08:00

During the web boom of 1999/2000, everyone needed a website. No matter how it looked, its purpose, the information it displayed or how it ran in line with your business, you needed a website.

A lot of large website companies grew during this period of "Gotta be on the wave to make it" but did they produce what you required? Does it line up with your branding/products? Does it generate sales/leads? Is it worth while?

Digerati Solutions are servicing the next wave of refurbished websites. We build sites that maximise your online potential focusing on:

Lead Generation/eCommerce
Brand and Strategy Alignment
Search Engine Optimisation
Website Design
Production
Product Integration
Hosting

Chat to us today about how to get blood out of your stone (website), measurably. Digerati solutions provides the complete online solutions.

eCommerce - Does it work to put my business online?

2007-02-23T03:49:00.000-08:00

eCommerce is a funny market, businesses are on the fence in terms of going down this track and not. There has been plenty of success stories, regrets, mistakes and unknowns.

Lets just have a look at the top 3 online businesses in American during 2004:

amazon.com = $5.3b US

dell.com = $3.2b US

officedepot.com = 3.1b US

Information sourced from; "Internet Retailer - 2005 Edition".

Digerati Solutions are in the progress of building our third software product myCommerce.

Our product will be on the market for sales in late March 2007. Please contact Digerati Solutions for more information.

Content Management System (CMS) - myCMS

2007-02-23T01:39:00.000-08:00

I could guess there are more than thousands of CMS products out in the market. But what do they deliver? What product best suits my needs? And what is most cost effective.

To start... what even is a CMS? A CMS is a Content Management System, this product is designed to update the information, pictures, video, links and web pages in a website. The best example of a CMS is mySpace.com. Users can change the information on their website to what ever they wish.

SO... why would I want one? Control. Affordable long term. Effective.

Why wouldn't I want one? Don't want responsibility. Expense. Can't find Product. Unknown.

myCMS, a product by Digerati Solutions handles all your Content Management Needs.

Just to note a few:

myCMS Web page, Site Navigation and Publishing Control.
myCMS Template Control
myCMS Time Delayed Changes
myCMS Administrative Publishing Approvals.
myCMS Easy Content Changing, just like Microsoft Word. No, EASIER!
myCMS Real file resource management
myCMS Comprehensive User Management
myCMS Integrated Reporting - Geo Location, Visits/Hits, Referrals, New/Returning.

Our product handles all your needs, if you don't believe us! Contact us!

Web Design - New Benchmark

2007-02-22T14:11:00.000-08:00

Web design has changed over the years, constantly the industry is producing the "next best". How does Digerati Solutions provide the best looking websites? We are constantly looking out for this next best.

We believe the next best is: www.microsoft.com

It's the best because its open/sharp, inviting, easy to navigate. It also has been optimised for 1024px resolution and uses the latest technology, ajax. Plus a very consistent brand appearance

But what are the down sides you ask? Graphic intensive (slow to load), Relies of Javascript (navigation would break), Not Perfect (W3c HTML & CSS Not Compliant) and Scrolling Can be Required (1024 is wider than most monitors).

At Digerati Solutions, we consider all pros and cons technically and aesthetically when exploring your interface's appearance. Web Design for your Website is critical to get right, talk to us!

mySpace - Affordable and "Professional?"

2007-02-22T12:57:00.000-08:00

A recent client of mine expressed some interested in developing a professional community (WEB 2.0) site where youth can be involved in the life's of people doing it tough BUT had no budget to work in.

I felt the light bulb go in my head: mySpace! or myCMS!

a. The Market already exists for their niche.
b. It's customisable with various mediums (HTML, Pictures, Video, Blog).
c. PayPal can be integrated for donations.
d. It's Free! (Except for our Consulting and Development Time :-) )

There are a LOT of WEB 2.0 resources out their which focus on community building. So what is WEB 2.0 your asking. In a nutshell it's a web-based application that builds community, user innovation and integration. You may have heard of these applications being sold to Google?

The project hasn't been completed as yet but I'll assure you we will give you the stats on the outcome.

Talk to us today about how Digerati Solutions can build your online environment with an affordable and strategic solution. myCMS - Content Management System is a highly recommended tool for managing the interface for your website.

Tim Faase
- Digerati Solutions Director

Digerati Solutions

2007-01-05T14:50:00.000-08:00

Digerati Solutions

Digerati: Web Consulting - Website Design - Development & Hosting

First off, Digerati Solutions is a Web Consulting - Design - Development & Hosting company from Sydney, Australia. Focusing on web applications designed to help you manage and grow your business and potential. We have a few products... myCMS: Content Management Software - myCampaign: E-Mail Marketing Software - myCustomers: Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Please feel free to contact our Digerati web staff on our website for more information, we would LOVE to chat with you.

We endeavour to put to paper what our company is wrestling/learning/growing in. I hope that this is an environment in which we can find out what others are struggling with also.

Cheers,

Tim Faase
- Digerati Solutions