Web Design Ideas | Seo Articles and Information

Digital Marketing: The Medium of Connectivity

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 13 Jan 2017 07:52:00 +0000

As people are depending on the Internet for many things, and the consumers are more aware of what they are searching for, businesses work diligently to attract the attention of potential clients. They are doing what they can to bring traffic to their corporate site, and they are making certain that the prospective and current customers are able to navigate the site with little to no fuss. It is also crucial for an enterprise to ensure that the available deals are competitive and easy to locate. The business site must be accessible to the consumers as often as possible, just in case they want to find out tiny details about the firm.

This is why Digital Marketing works. Digital marketing efforts result in a corporate site that the target market can access whenever they need or want the services or products of the company. Some of the advantages of digital marketing include Pay per Click and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) services. Both of these are normally provided by digital marketing groups that are growing in number because of the demand for these services.

Any organization that properly utilizes PPC and SEO will reap the benefits of a positive impact on their revenue and sales. These business strategies are proving to be very cost effective, which is the reason why a lot of major firms are incorporating them on their promotional campaigns.

Here are some terms that marketing agencies use in their daily transactions:

Digital Advertising

This term refers to services such as high levels of brand engagement, revolutionary targeting, versatility, insight, responsiveness and speed. A common reason for employing online advertising is that the company gets to quickly act on the purchase behavior of the consumer.

Comprehending the Digital Audience

The business owners have to keep in mind that their businesses are supposed to earn profit, and one of the reasons why digital marketing works is because they need to understand the needs of their potential and existing customers. Every bit of research, data and insight that the marketing department must study will come from the core consumer classes: the young, the wealthy, and the leaders.

Inexpensive Web Design for Startup Sites

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 05 Jan 2017 01:21:00 +0000

For an individual or an entity to build a reputation over the Internet, they must have a blog or an official website to be an interactive portal. Whether the site will be used by one person, a small business or a big corporation, its design is a vital part of it succeeding or not. To add to the complexity, web design is also split into segments like user interface design, multimedia design, interface design, and web graphic design.

Skilled web developers make use of numerous software applications and affordable website design tools to produce websites that will appeal to any target market and adhere to the requirements of the site owner. The simple concept here is that a website which is constructed well and filled with useful content will attract traffic. This traffic is composed of potential buyers that might be converted to sales and profit for the firm.

With this in mind, a startup or small business has to think about the possible costs, time and effort they will spend if they choose to build their website themselves. If they cannot afford to compromise their other corporate activities, they can get inexpensive website design from a third party.

The design of the website is reliant on what the company is involved in, and the theme has to fit their service area. This is the part where the organization has to carefully plan the appearance and purpose of the site. Once the analysis is done, they must choose a perception and theme that is suitable to the persona of their site. Of course, the design has to have formality as it gives the website a professional and sophisticated look which will help the brand in the minds of customers.

Finally, the design of a site builds an atmosphere where users can interact with the company and make purchases. If the firm will hire a third party for affordable website design services, it is best for them to do some research on the service provider and look at their past works. While they may offer low rates, they should not offer subpar service either.

Benefits of Hiring a Content Writing Firm

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 20 Dec 2016 06:44:00 +0000

When a business is in operation, one thing that immediately becomes evident is that there are so many things to do but not enough time to do them. Companies have to work like a machine to stay in business as long as possible with tasks like delivering and developing new services and products, managing the day to day operations, and looking for new clients while keeping the existing ones.

Because technologies and the Internet are evolving at a fast rate, computers are becoming more affordable. This means that more people have the privilege of surfing the Internet from any point that has a connection. The current business trend is for a firm to have an official site to interact with customers and sell their merchandise with the help of writing quality contents. These promotional tools include updating your corporate blog, using social media to interact with the consumers, and maintaining the official site that was built.

Most users who visit your site are looking for useful information, not necessarily to order anything. While you are busy taking care of the other aspects of your business, you can employ a content writing company to take care of the articles in your site since the goal of your corporate website is to promote your brand and its products to customers.

Here are some benefits of hiring a writing firm:

Updated knowledge of what is happening to search engine algorithms.
Google has been penalizing certain websites that make use of Black Hat SEO (Search Engine Optimization using unethical means to make sites rank high). A company that creates good content does not have to worry about this since they are making articles that engage readers and are search engine friendly.

Good content is part of a marketing strategy that gives your company an online voice.

Writing quality contents is great for a promotional strategy where your company can interact with your customers in a professional tone. The veteran content writing firms are familiar with how certain industries function, simply because they have worked with other clients in the past. This will give your potential and existing clients the impression that your company is an expert in your particular field, and will be comfortable doing business with you.

4 Must-haves of an Effective Web Design Company

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 15 Dec 2016 00:57:00 +0000

Are you looking for a trustworthy and extraordinary web design company? How do you know if you are getting a good deal or if they are ripping you off? What makes you think that they will deliver as promised? Should you trust them with confidential product information?

Answer these questions by reading through our major tips for considering candidates for a partner design company. What are the things that you should think about?

Complete and updated Contact Information

If a good design company has nothing to hide, it will gladly encourage people to get in touch with them to gather as many leads as possible. All of the information below must be easily visible from their corporate website:

•    Official Company Name
•    Office Address
•    Email Address
•    Phone Number
•    And if possible, a Google Places link to their office

Another good sign is if they get back to you within 24 hours of your inquiry whether it is via email, SMS or even via their Facebook fan page.

Fast-loading Pages

Any corporate website that loads for more than 4 seconds on normal internet speeds is a goner. Their corporate site is supposed to be one of their best products and if they cannot optimize their store front for fast loading, then you are better off elsewhere.

Leads-capturing Mechanism

If the corporate website has encouraged you to get in touch with them, leave them your email address or better yet, chat with their online team, then you are in good hands. Any web design company who takes online leads seriously shares the same value with you. Live foot traffic on your website is absolutely important and you must act immediately when there is someone on your site. Some good lead capturing mechanisms include:

•    Inviting email newsletter subscription forms
•    Free trials of products where your email address is required to process the trial
•    Online customer support popups like Zopim and Zendesk
•    Sign up sheet for free offers or discounts (again, making you leave your email address with them)
•    Interesting blog that encourages you to subscribe to its newsletter or RSS feed

Easy Navigation

Lastly, a web site for a design company that does not need tutorials or does not make you look for something for more than 5 seconds is a well-designed site. And you want that same editing eye for your projects. You don’t need all of the links you list for your product.

Oh and one last thing, the design team MUST have a mobile-responsive website or else, look somewhere else.

How a Responsive Website and a Mobile Marketing Campaign can restore your Online Presence

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 08 Dec 2016 00:40:00 +0000

If you are one of the online business owners whose website ranking fell, then your online sales could have been affected too. You might be looking for ways to regain your position among search engines as well as increase your sales. There are two ways to solve your problem: convert your website into responsive and implement a mobile marketing campaign.

A responsive design lets you view your website perfectly across smaller screen sizes. This means, you don’t have to scroll to the left or to the right just to view the next part of the page. With a responsive web design, you can now browse your favorite sites on your Smartphone, tablet, or laptop with a perfect view and a readable content. You can easily see call-to-action buttons on top or side for quick e-commerce transactions. Also, the images and contents are minimal to facilitate faster downloading time.

The convenience of surfing, shopping, and socializing through your Smartphone is getting more attractive among online users and is a demand nowadays in search engines. No wonder why, Google/Yahoo/Bing is preferring websites, which are responsive. So, to regain your rankings, convert your website into responsive and start seeing improvement as you include social media, e-commerce, and other mobile software application features.

On the other hand, the mobile marketing campaign lets you maximize the features in your responsive website design. Start integrating your social media campaign into your mobile software application features. For example, you can feature the mobile application in your Facebook page, and allow users to play it/download it/ share it. This allows you to earn live links and enlarge your online presence, such an instant popularity for your brand. Also, you can easily send messages and post advertisements about your product/service through the social media sites without spending much. This lets you reach your online target market directly and create conversion fast. The mobile marketing strategy allows you to regain your online popularity and increase sales within minimal budget and time.

Converting your website into responsive and launching a mobile marketing campaign might need adjustment on your business, but the benefits are huge. It is worth considering, especially when you need to cope with the buying trends of your target market, and penetrate the growing population of Smartphone surfers. It is strategically wise to invest on updating the features in your website, and integrating social media strategies into your mobile marketing campaign. Being able to directly interact and share information with your target market online is a big step in recovering your business from the impact of search engine algorithm change.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 05 Dec 2016 00:46:00 +0000

Designing Your Website - Upgrade Your Free Blogspot Website

Like to have custom website design? Can't you upload some songs for your online music store? Do you want to feature your product launch video? Does your category list needs a professional look? If you answer yes to all these questions, then it is time to upgrade your Free Blogpost website. You can seek the help of a Web design Company in the Philippines to do the further customization of your site.

If your business requires you to feature singles from the latest albums; then it will be a must to enable your music widget, and get more data storage to upload and showcase your audio files. You can only do this, if you will host your own website.

Another sign that you need to upgrade your blogspot website is when you have produced product launch videos as part of your new marketing campaign. You can either ask a friend to develop a fully-functional website for you, or hire a Web Design Company in the Philippines that is an expert to do the job for you.

The ultimate sign that you should get your own website hosted is when the Services list is scattered all over your main page. When you see posts, photos, and category tabs showcasing a repetitive or random featured products/services all over your main page, then you must consider a custom website redesign.

If you need custom sales tools, try the e-Commerce that will enable integration of online payment gateway. This helps you install PayPal, DragonPay, and other software applications to boost sales management right on your website. The integration will require basic programming skills to connect API systems into your database software, and into the main website.

Should you need a professional Web Design Company in the Philippines to help you implement your plans for your online business site, call (+63) 905 556 2696 (PH). We will be glad to take your business into greater heights.

5 Twitter Marketing Tactics you should be using

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 00:53:00 +0000

According to Statista, there are already 302 million active Twitter users in the first quarter of 2015. Twitter has been widely recognized as an essential tool not only for social networking, but also for social media marketing. All well-known brands have Twitter accounts, and it’s not unlikely that your competitor does too.

Listed below are 5 Twitter marketing tactics that will surely help you get a better lead:

1) Lead Generation Cards

You may not have heard about this feature on Twitter, and if you have, here’s why you need to utilize it. Lead generation cards on Twitter allows your followers to subscribe to your mailing list with just one click of a button. These cards automatically capture the email addresses of the Twitter accounts attached to them, which makes the whole process easier and hassle-free for your audience. According to Arby’s Restaurant Group, Inc., Twitter-generated leads have a 31% higher email open rate than other newsletter recipients, and a 45% higher click rate than the same.

2) Utilize hashtags and trends wisely

There have been instances where businesses had earned bad rep because they didn’t understand the nature of the hashtag they used when tweeting. It’s important to stay intelligent when finding trending topics and hashtags that are relevant to your business, and also to use them sparingly. There are tools you can use for you to determine which tweets you tagged are getting you impressions so you’d know which hashtags you can reuse and reutilize.

3) Timing is key

You’ve probably heard that there are perfect times to post content online. According to Quick Sprout, the best days to tweet for B2B are on weekdays when there is 14% more engagement. For B2C, Wednesdays and weekends are the best days when engagements and click-through rates (CTR) are relatively higher. Tweets published on 12 noon and 6 pm received the highest CTRs, while tweets published at 5 pm receive the highest retweets. This is because people are more likely to use Twitter during lunch breaks or while commuting home. Use this knowledge to your advantage.

4) Interact/tag influencers and experts of your company’s industry

Doing this helps you get discovered by the followers of those influencers and experts who would trust anyone the people they follow trust. It’s in these situations when word-of-mouth is powerful. Interact and engage with these influencers as frequently as possible, but take care not to be over promotional. Look for opportunities to collaborate. If you need serious social media management to boost your but don’t have time to manage your social media channels, then consider outsourcing your work. This way, you get a constant stream of traffic while focusing on what you do best – sell.

5) Share content repeatedly

Wisemetrics has discovered that on average, a second tweet that talks about or promotes a certain subject gets around 86% as much engagement as the first tweet you’ll make about the same subject. So it’s okay for you to share content more than once, especially when only a handful of your followers will be able to see your first tweet. Also, it’s important to keep in mind too that according to SocialBro, Tweets with URLs placed in the middle are 26% more likely to get retweeted than those with URLs placed at the end.

Keep these Twitter tactics in mind and soon enough you’ll be a master marketer of this social media platform!

How internet speed impacts your business productivity

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 17 Nov 2016 05:16:00 +0000

Technology continues to grow and improve at an even faster rate. We can agree that we have reached the age where technology has finally become a huge part of society’s needs.

One product of this which keeps society together is the Internet. The internet is now a huge platform for ideas and possibilities that benefit any business. There’s no denying that the internet has become a necessity.

Businesses today rely on the internet more than ever. This is because the internet is the best way for them to gather information and carry out smooth business transactions. Tasks include: communications, data management, and application usage. Thus, there is a need to maintain a high-speed connection within business firms. To fully understand this need, it helps for businesses to learn about the following things about how having a high-speed connection within the workspace can affect a businesses’ productivity:

Faster Speeds Help Employees. Having a good internet connection will be beneficial to your workers, since it helps them interact among each other faster, especially during projects or team tasks. This also helps them reach out to clients and customers more smoothly. Communications will improve, and collaborations will have even less hassle.

It Helps Relieve Stress. There is nothing more stressful than having a slow internet connection. It makes the worker’s progress sluggish, and the slow speed can lead to very frustrating problems such as losing precious work time before any given deadlines. Webpages take forever to load, and it leads to users to fall under the assumption that there’s something wrong and the end result is that you lose more potential clients and opportunities.

Slow internet connections in general just damage the overall experience for both employees and customers, and no one likes that.

It’s More Efficient Overall. No one likes having to load webpages at a slow rate. It makes any user lose precious time, especially when working at busy hours. An example is within development teams, expert web developers need a steady connection in order to produce their outputs faster and so that they can see if something is wrong. Once any errors have been identified, they can quickly go back to it and fix them with the help of the fast connection speed. Web development is being demanded at a faster rate nowadays, so every expert web developer wants to learn and create more efficient ways to improve their sites not only for themselves but for the sake of any future users as well.

At the end of the day, slow internet speeds just hold back any business’s productivity within itself. It is often a better option for any top brass to decide to finally upgrade their connection, but not only keeping with the fact that you’ll need it at the current moment, but for any future needs your company will face. The internet is now something we all rely on to keep our jobs running. We have to make sure that it isn’t causing us any more harm than good.

The benefits of business with internet plans are plenty if you choose the right one, so if you’re actively looking for an internet service provider, it will help to read up on expert reviews.

Knowing the Difference Between Keyword Stuffing and Keyword Optimization

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 05:32:00 +0000

What people type on search engines like Google are keywords. These help the users find the websites that would match their queries, and if yours don’t land on the first 4 or 5 pages, you’re unfortunately not going to get any website visits.

But it’s one thing to responsibly optimize keywords and another to do the dreaded technique of keyword stuffing.

Keyword stuffing is the act of using keywords repetitively on the content or tags of a single webpage in order to achieve a high ranking in search engines. This has been observed to be a search engine optimization (SEO) technique much frowned upon, and thus dubbed as “unethical.”

This leads to the website becoming overly optimized, and for what purpose? To cheat its way to the top ranks. It’s nothing but a desperate move to gain traffic, but a highly ineffective one at that.

Imagine you stumbling upon a webpage that reads:

“This healthy diet delivery service is the answer to all your dieting problems. Healthy diet delivery service is the future because it’s not just any food delivery service; it’s a healthy diet delivery service. E-mail us now to avail of our healthy diet delivery service and get 20% off your first healthy diet delivery service purchase!”

It’s unlikely that you would avail of this product / service, let alone stay on that website for an extended amount of time.

Search engines can already detect keyword stuffing, and have the power to ban a website either temporarily or permanently. So why go through all that trouble that won’t bring fruit?

Instead, focus your effort on responsible keyword optimization, that is, knowing the right keywords for your company. Careful research should be made in discovering what Internet users search for that’s relevant to your business, and the existing competition for those keywords.

Focus on less competitive and highly specific phrases. One or two words won’t be enough to get the ball rolling. There are tools online you can use to know what phrases you can utilize for your webpages such as Google AdWords’ Keyword Planner!

Keywords are essential for successful SEO, and writing great content will reap great rewards.

Image Optimization: What is it, and What is it Good For?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 02:12:00 +0000

Someone who isn’t as involved in digital marketing would not be so familiar with the importance of image optimization.

Images are used to bring life to a text and can contribute in search engine optimization especially from image-based search engines. It drives user engagement and emphasizes the subject of the article.

In publishing articles or any content, images are crucial in accompanying the written text. According to 3M Corporation and Zabisco, 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and around 40% of people will respond better to visual information than to plain text.

So how do you effectively optimize images?

1. Choose the right image, one that is related to the article or what the article is about. If you’d rather not create an image to accompany your text, get one from free image resources online like Flickr.com. You can also grab images from image-based search engines, but you have to make sure it’s Creative Common licensed to avoid problems.

2. Use keywords in the file name. Inputting keywords on your filename will enable search engines to detect relevancy of the image when a user searches the web using those particular keywords. They must be related to the subject of the article and not so complicated. Make use of common image filetypes: JPEG, GIF, PNG, and BMP, but if you’re having a hard time choosing which filetype to use, JPEG is always the best option.

3. Make the file size as small as possible without sacrificing quality. Images have a huge impact on loading times which are important for user experience, so make sure that you scale the images as how you want to show it on your site.

4. Generate a well-written caption. Captions are text that describes the photo. According to KissMetric, “Captions under images are read on average 300% more than the body copy itself.” They are important for image optimization as well, but that doesn’t mean you should add captions to all images. Just provide one that would give value to your reader.

5. Optimize your alt tags effectively. Another way for people to know what your image is without even seeing the image is through Alt text. It sounds very technical as it is a code, but it simply means that if the image is not available for viewing to the reader for whatever reason, alt text – short for alternative text – ensures that these readers know what the photo is, and that search engines can understand the images as well when captions aren’t enough. Your article can achieve higher rankings too in search engines when you put your keywords in the alt text, but take care not to stuff.

The key takeaway here is that while you exert time and effort in generating great articles or blog entries or whatever written content for your website, you must also add in relevant images that will not only capture your target audience’s attention but also maximize your SEO.

Accepting the Traffic We Think We Deserve (Why your Website isn’t performing and what you can do about it)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 11 Oct 2016 02:37:00 +0000

So you’ve made your website and it’s up for potential clients to discover in the massive sea of search engine results. But your site isn’t gaining enough or any traffic for you to function properly as a business. If you’re wondering why that is, here are some reasons to consider:

1) Irrelevance to potential clients

Perhaps you’re not giving people who chance upon your website any reason to stay. Give them something they want and make them see that want as a need. Engage with them enough and you’ll be able to successfully convert them into clients.

2) Poor site design

First impressions do matter especially now that people are becoming more responsive to visual information than to text heavy content. Although the latter can easily optimize your site, people won’t be interested to stay. Thus, no traffic. Design your site to enhance user experience.

3) Failing to understand your metrics

While it’s important to know the data of the metrics you want to measure, it’s even more crucial to understand what they mean. You may be satisfied that you’re hitting your targets but you need to be able to sustain that growth in the long run by knowing what specific content to keep producing and which others to improve.

4) Neglecting to audit website

The only thing constant is change. No website is perfect, and auditing is an important task that needs to be done at least annually. To learn more about website auditing, read our article here.

5) Lack of any promotional effort

You shouldn’t merely make a site just for the sake of making one. The following things need to be optimized to aid you in this: search engine, keywords, and social media. There is too much competition and you need to situate yourself as that choice provider of your service to your potential clients. Create all effort to point people to your site where everything they need to know about your company is stated.

If you seek professional help optimizing your website and increasing traffic, contact 9DotStrategies now!

The Benefits of Responsive Web Design

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 07:53:00 +0000

Why do you need to have a responsive web design for your website? Simply because you need to keep your page rank high in search engines, and then everything else will follow.

A responsive website design is the new requirement of search engines such as Google among websites. Search engines need to address the growing number of mobile users who daily conduct internet transactions through their smaller screen.

A responsive website design allows users to view websites fittingly on mostly 5-inch smartphone screens, and the images and texts adjust accordingly as you move your finger on the screen. The flexibility of responsive website design to adapt the movement of the finger allows heightened user-experience and improved functionality of visual content elements.

More than just a design, a responsive website reaches across all mobile devices, providing you a wider market to implement your internet marketing campaign for. With the growing smartphone subscribers, you can now reach your target market strategically, and provide them convenient ways to buy and pay for products/services online. The increasing value of responsive website design for search engines makes it the best tool for internet marketing campaign.

How can a responsive website design help your internet marketing campaign? Specifically, a responsive website design offers the following benefits:

1. More back links opportunity. If your website is responsive, you can build and spread links better. Through a responsive website, you can integrate your social media campaign with your on page and off page Search Engine Optimization strategies. For example, you can enable a software app version of your featured product on the Facebook fan page, then embed links towards the main website. Create an organic link building campaign to and fro your mobile app and promote it virally through your social media accounts. If your website is not responsive, then your mobile app and social media channels, cannot deliver optimum results.

2. Prominence. If you want to be on top of the search results, you must adhere to the Google requirements of quality information and excellent user-experience. Redesigning your website into responsive helps you comply with Google standards and customer demands, thus keeping you on top of your field.

3. More inquiries and conversions. If you can keep the number one spot in search results, then more customers will be calling or sending you email to inquire about your featured product/service. If your website or social media page contains the necessary information for product description, price, and payment option; then you are on your way in increasing the revenue of your business.

More back links, prominence, and sales opportunities are what a responsive website design can do for your business. These benefits can improve your overall internet marketing campaign, and enable you to achieve higher revenue at the soonest possible time within minimum budget.

To help you convert your website into responsive, call our Web Design and Development Consultant at 0905562696.

3 SOCIAL MEDIA METRICS THAT MATTER FOR YOUR BUSINESS

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 16 Aug 2016 05:45:00 +0000

Every business dreams of success, but each one has its own definition of such. Success to some may only be average to others. This is because success and performance metrics differ from one business to another, and can also differ from one marketing strategy to another.

Social Media Marketing, for example, has certain metrics you need to track to ascertain your effectiveness in the digital realm.

The following are only some of the metrics you’d need to measure to keep your eyes on the prize:

User engagement: As you speak to the right people, you need to know if they’re actually listening. How many of your audience are currently and consistently interacting with you? How long does an average visitor stay on your website? How many people are retweeting and clicking your links? Take note of the statistics and see how you can improve the numbers further.

Feedback: It’s important that you know if what you’re doing online is being stomached in well by your audience. You can measure this through satisfaction ratings, sentiment analysis, and even just by reading comments on your posts.

Conversion: Measure how much from your online audience are performing your desired actions, and which social media posts are the reason.

Given these, it’s not enough that you should aim for a certain number and pat yourselves on the back when you do. You must always and consistently aim higher than your last goal.

At 9DotStrategies, we can help you achieve success online. Contact us now to inquire about our Social Media Packages. Win in business with 9DS.

Why Effective Design is Essential for Call-to-Action Statements

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 05:27:00 +0000

Call-to-actions are essential for websites, promos, and collateral, but they tend to be neglected or belittled by some businesses who don’t understand its effect on conversion rates.

What are call-to-actions anyway? They are statements that urge your client to do something, and that something depends on you as the service provider. Perhaps it’s to subscribe to your newsletter, or to download a guide, or to purchase your product. It seems like a simple concept and yet it takes skill and knowledge to know how to make them effective.

Consider this:

Much thought is put into creating call-to-action statements. The statement first and foremost needs to be attention grabbing and engaging enough for clients to get hooked. Then, you need to consider the color, the sizing, the placement, and other visual elements to ultimately reel the client in.

Let’s go through them one by one.

Sizing

Sizing is important as it gives due emphasis to the call-to-action. A button that’s as small as your body text would not be distinguished as that button the user is encouraged to press. In fact, there is no encouragement. Increase the size of your call-to-action to make it stand out from the rest of the copy.

Color and Style

A call-to-action needs to pop. It needs to grab a user’s attention the moment he or she lays eyes on your landing page. Using colors that are different from the existing colors of your landing page or your website in general will come as a shock to the user’s eyes that they will automatically look at it even when they don’t mean to. Styling the call-to-action different from the copy’s text—for example changing the font style—is also a way to grab attention. Make your call-to-action stand out from the landing page so that conversion is close to guaranteed.

Placement

Another thing to think about is the placement of the call-to-action. It’s effective to place it above the fold, but with a lengthy landing page, putting directional cues would be helpful for users to find the call-to-action with ease.

Language

A simple “Submit” or “Sign up” as a call-to-action statement is fine, but a bore to read. Statements that are out-of-the-ordinary and are stated in the perspective of the user like “Hit me up!” or “Get me that deal!” are the ones that engage.

When designing your collateral or landing pages, don’t forget that call-to-actions are crucial elements that need to be as effective as they can be to earn you that high conversion rate.

Contact 9DotStrategies today and we'll help you achieve that client-winning call to action button and even assist with your website redesign or other branding concerns.

Why Website Still Works Amidst Social Media Conquest

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 19 Jul 2016 13:00:00 +0000

It has been a common practice of businesses that have existing websites to create a social media presence as an off-page marketing tactic. But some stubborn businesses still believe that having a Facebook Page is unnecessary, while others who have Facebook Pages think it’s enough.

Each has its own pros and cons and it’s going to depend highly on the nature of your business whether to use one or both.

But why is it still essential to have a website up and running when you’re at the mercy of social media?

1) Social media platforms have terms and limitations. There’s a limit to what you can do on social media. You’re constantly competing against different businesses in the same sphere that you need to consistently produce interesting content to get attention.

2) It’s easier to optimize in search engines. You can optimize your social media accounts, but platforms like Facebook ultimately determines how and when users will be able to discover your page. This is usually done through referrals to people who share common interests. With a website, you have full control over who discovers you based on your keyword-rich content.

3) You have full control over it. You’re not bound by the limits of social media, and you get to regulate your website well. Social media is prone to blunders that can tarnish your reputation and credibility if you aren’t careful with what you publish.

4) You become more visible to your potential clients. Social media platforms make it difficult to search for local businesses with users seeing only a few results that match exactly what they had typed. With a website, you have better chances of being listed as a result to a client’s query in search engines, whether it be about the services you offer or the industry you’re in.

5) It builds credibility. Social media accounts can become verified accounts (with check marks attached to the name) but that feature isn’t available worldwide. Also, potential clients trust businesses with working websites more than those who have none.

While having social media accounts is necessary to better reach your audience, a website still trumps as being the most beneficial to your business. If you currently lack a website or are using an outdated one, call 9DotStrategies now to know how to begin building or rebuilding your web presence.

Web Design Trends You Should Follow

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 05 Jul 2016 06:03:00 +0000

Web design has evolved over the years, becoming more personalized, engaging, and visually appealing to provide users a one-of-a-kind experience.

In this article, we have listed web design trends that have grown prevalent, why they work, and why you should utilize them on your own website.

1. One-page scrolling: Think of a highway without irritating bends and turns. This works because all the information about your company, your services, your work portfolio, and other significant details are all in one page instead of the user having to find them all in a drop down menu or in multiple tabs. In a way, it’s kind of like a storytelling, where you let the user explore and experience your website on his or her own.

2. The Parallax Effect: Parallax makes the background image move slowly compared to the foreground and produces an illusion of depth. It adds to the web design’s uniqueness, and allows the user to enjoy the experience of scrolling more,

3. Flat design: Flat design is a design that is very minimalist and simple to look at. This works and is prevalent in most websites because it’s easily scalable and manageable.

4. Full screen background images: This design trend makes the webpage more attractive to the user, and thus providing them with a unique user experience as though they’re seeing the product or experiencing the service right before their eyes. 40% of people will respond better to visual information than to plain text according to Zabisco, so that’s about the same percentage of people you’d want to attract.

5. Ghost buttons: Basically, these are call-to-action texts usually encased in a rectangular shape and placed on the web design. Placing these on web pages can give you higher chances of customer conversion because they’re enticing enough for the users to want to click them.

6. Customized loading page: Something that every webpage should actually have is a customized loading icon. It’s visually engaging and lets the user know the progress of the load so that he or she doesn’t feel like time is wasted waiting.

7. Typography: Emphasis on typography, especially when paired with full screen background images, just improves further the aesthetic appeal of your webpage to the user.

If you want all those and more, 9DotStrategies offers a web development and web design service that can easily make users fall in love with your webpages

Own your business before it 'owns' you: Why CRM Matters

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 03 Feb 2016 15:30:00 +0000

As your business grows, it gets harder and harder to keep up with your customers. To make things harder, customers also become more demanding. They often want instantaneous, smooth transactions, and, as if that isn’t enough, they want it at a moment’s notice. If they don’t get it then they’ll like consider getting it from your competitors. This is where using a CRM software can be of great help for your business.

What will a CRM Software do for my business?

A CRM software is like oil to an engine, it helps the gears move more efficiently and effectively. It helps you reduce marketing cost, manage your sales and projects, and provide a customized customer experience. A CRM software isn’t just a fancy addition for your company. It’s an investment, a capital, which continues to give back to your company through increased profits and satisfied customers. A CRM software could do all of these through:

· Marketing Made Easier

A CRM software could keep track of your customer’s purchase behavior, thus making it easier for you to know who your most valuable customers are, who needs more persuasion through promotions, and who isn't very profitable. Through the integrated analytics, you would be able to get quick access to summarized analysis of trends and the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. Through this, you would never have to blindly choose a marketing strategy for each segment as it would provide you data on what works best with who, thus reducing the cost while also increasing the effectiveness of your marketing efforts at the same time.

· Effective Sales Management

Through a CRM software’s sales management tools, you would be able to get an overview and effectively control your company’s sales efforts. You would be able to get information regarding your prospects and your sales team’s efforts. Through data gathered from your data warehouse presented in an easy to understand interface, the software makes it easier for you to prioritize what is important. It gives you data on your sales team’s overall activity as well as their individual performance. You also would be able to tell which of your leads to prioritize through prospect analysis, allowing you to direct your team’s efforts to prospects with a high chance of future sales, reducing time wasted by your team in pursuing leads that don’t have any chance of conversion into customers.

· Efficiency and Teamwork Through Project Management

Communicating with your team is made easier through project management tool, which helps you direct, organize, and keep track of your current projects. You could eliminate the time wasted by your employees in figuring out what has been done and what hasn’t through progress reports, keeping you informed of your team’s progress. You would also be able to set goals and milestones, delegate tasks, and analyze your team’s progress, while also being able to guide them along the way.

A CRM software can be the next big step for your business. It helps you manage tasks, reduce risk, and boost overall productivity that you wouldn’t be able to achieve with manual work, and it’s available at a fraction of the cost.

9DotStrategies’ All-in-One Management Software can do all of those and is available at a fraction of its normal price for a limited time. Start your 30-day FREE TRIAL today!

Handling a Social Media Blunder

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 05 Jan 2016 23:00:00 +0000

Even the most careful of people trip on their feet. That is to say, businesses aren’t exactly protected from making mistakes online. Some do falter, and sometimes it yields grave effects.

Learning how to handle these blunders can help alleviate the situation and can restore your relationship with your audience. Take note of these helpful tips:

Let people talk

Don’t fuel their hate by deleting and suppressing negative feedback. Let them air out their frustrations.

Acknowledge and Apologize

The thing that drives people nuts is when a business doesn’t own up to its mistake and defends itself against negative comments. When you make a mistake, let your pride down and apologize to your audience, especially to those who were directly affected. When people see that you admit your error, their fury will die down eventually.

Reach out

But apologizing isn't the only thing you should do. You have to reach out to your audience to further extinguish the flame. Respond to negative tweets or comments; the more personalized and sincere your responses are, the better.

Monitor the crisis

Usually, the quicker you act, the faster people forget, but that will always depend on the circumstance and the gravity of the situation. Keep monitoring your social media to learn how to manage the crisis more effectively. There are programs you can use to make monitoring easier for you.

Create Powerful Content

After you’re done extinguishing most of the flame, it’s time to create content in form of article, images, videos or infographics to bury all negative effects of the blunder and revive your social media presence.

Seek help when needed

When your business can’t manage the crisis on your own, you can hire an agency that can assist you in responding to the crisis. 9DotStrategies offers an Online Reputation Management service that can help you gain back your former glory.

Remember, it’s best to plan beforehand to limit the damage caused to your reputation. But when disaster strikes, contact 9DotStrategies!

The One Thing You Need to Know About Conversion Rates

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 03:01:00 +0000

Lead conversion is defined as that point when your marketing efforts successfully result in your targeted consumers performing a desired action, whether it’s subscribing or contacting you. The frequency of that happening compared to the number of visits you get on your website is called the conversion rate.

Marketers recognize conversion rate as one of the must-track success metrics for a business, but its significance has also become a subject for debate. Many articles online tell you why you should ignore the average conversion rate at face value, with reasons ranging from it being a skewed percentage, to it being unreliable.

There is actually just one thing to do so that analyzing your conversion rate would be more helpful and meaningful to you and your company: BREAK IT DOWN.

Okay, so how to I "break it down?"

Smart Insights suggests breaking your conversion rate down by channel, by visitor type (is he a new or a returning visitor?), and by task (e.g. sales, customer support). This way, you’ll be given a clearer picture of the nature of your conversion rate instead of just benchmarking it to the industry average or just looking at it at face value. You should also ask “Why?” instead of just declaring “That’s Great!” whenever you see the percentage.

By breaking the information down, you’ll know what specific areas to optimize so that your business’ rate makes more sense.

Still doesn’t seem all that clear to you? Contact 9DotStrategies now and consult with us! To every question, we’ll offer a solution.

Why your business needs CRM in 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 09 Dec 2015 03:04:00 +0000

We've been taught that our business is only as good as the customers who patronize our brand. It's true. Without people buying, using or subscribing to our service, we'll be out of business before long.

That said, you obviously need to utilize all the tools we can use to boost customer engagement,

Without the right tools to nurture your customers, you're in danger of missed engagement and lost sales opportunity.

You don't want that.

What your business needs is an all-in-one management software that features marketing automation, sales and project management.

What's the deal with CRM

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is the process of storing, tracking, and analyzing all of the interactions you have with your prospects and customers. A CRM tool helps you simplify, centralize, secure and scale your customer engagement.

Explain it to me softly

Let's say that you need to give gifts to 5 of your nephews this Christmas. Now, instead of just knowing their favorite toy, you also know their hobbies and favorite color, you also know the exact model they want at the exact store they saw it. With this information, you'd be able to give them personal gifts that they'll truly cherish.

Luckily, we have things like address books and calendars to remember important details. But what if you have 100 nephews (as if 5 isn't enough headache). This is when everything becomes a burden. Favorites are forgotten, presents and cards become less thoughtful, relationships become strained the once uncle-worshipping nephews has placed you into the black netherworld of forgotten people.

Now imagine this in your business. See what I mean?

I'm interested in this CRM, how does it benefit me?

While CRM can be a big investment, it's understandable that you want to be absolutely sure that it's something that your business really needs.

Here are the 10 signs that you need a CRM System.

There’s no clear-cut way to see how your sales team is communicating with your leads and clients.

You need to go around and ask your sales who they’re contacting and how calls are going to get an idea of how each person is performing and if they’re meeting benchmarks.

There’s limited insight into what kind of conversations are converting leads to customers and what kind of conversations are costing you leads.

When you lose someone from your sales team, you also find that you lose some of your leads, too.

There isn’t an established way to nurture or track leads, so each sales rep just tracks what they personally deem important.

You want to save some of your contacts’ data in specific formats that aren’t supported by your main contact management database, so you end up saving some in different programs and then make a note of that in your primary database with a connection to the other documents. This results in data for one lead in at least two different locations.

There isn’t an established way to learn what worked well for nurturing a lead and what didn’t.

When a contact’s record is updated, often times the wrong information is changed (and this is realized after the file has been saved).

Because data are kept on office hard drives, in emails, and in random documents or files, data is lost frequently.

Your hard drive has crashed twice, taking all your data with it. Bummer!

Any of these situations ring a bell? Unfortunately, many companies still function this way... but yours doesn't need to be that way.

STOP THE MADNESS!!!

Sign-up for a free CRM demo today and see how this new technology can boost your business's productivity and sales.

THE MOBILE GENERATION SEO

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 17 Apr 2015 02:42:00 +0000

Attention Webmasters! No more will the mobile phones suffer being just a tiny little dinkus when it comes to search engine results consideration! With Google’s new algorithmic policy, SEO strategists around the world will now have to widen their horizon and embrace the so called “Mobilegeddon”.

You probably know by now that Google is on the top of the world as the largest mobile platform provider, mobile search provider, and recently - the largest mobile app store. If that doesn’t give them the say when it comes to the future of mobile phones, we don’t know what will.

The catch phrase here is: ARE YOU READY TO ADAPT?
GOOGLE SEARCH ALGORITHM WILL NOW FAVOR MOBILE-FRIENDLY SITES

So what does it mean to be a mobile-friendly site? Simply run your website through Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test page and you’ll find out on the spot.

However, the tool is not faultless as Google made it a point to display a disclaimer feedback on the results page for potential issues on the results. Nonetheless, for an online mobile-friendly assessment tool, the test is still nothing short of amazing.

Alternatively, you can just use your mobile phone and check to see if your website has a “mobile friendly” label on the left side before the summary. If you found one, then congratulations! You will receive extra cookie points from Google.

If you are using Google Webmaster Tools, then you should also try running your site with Google’s Mobile Usability Report where you can see important recommendations that will improve mobile use.

Here’s where it all goes down.

Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal.

This is exactly what Google said. If you’re reading this right now for the first time, then be wary as the changes will take place in a few days’ time.

THERE WILL BE A “SIGNIFICANT” CHANGE

You probably have a clue right now as to how much this update will affect the internet sphere, but to give you a bigger shoe to fill, consider this statement from Google:

This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact on our search results.

When Google says it's significant, you can bet your Grandma that it actually is. The update will irreversibly change the way every conscious web user uses the internet. Google considers mobile so significant that they are willing to change entire algorithm patterns for it, so we should watch out for changes in the way that mobile search function works.

For obvious reasons, the change will render non-optimized pages crippled with low page rank and potential desktop rankings. Any page that isn't mobile responsive will cease to rank on the top page. Total chaos for those unprepared, if you ask me.

THE ALGORITH CHANGE RANKS EACH PAGE INDIVIDUALLY
The algorithm change will analyze mobile compatibility on a page-by-page basis, rather than a website-wide basis. So what does this mean to all of us? If your site has some optimized pages, and some non-optimized ones, then Google will analyze them separately and promote the page that is optimized.

If your website is responsive (adapts to any screen) and well-designed, then it shouldn’t really be an issue. It is understandable that a website will have some optimized pages and others that aren’t.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TODAY
If you suddenly find yourself scrambling just to get your website to be mobile-friendly and are unable to decide between a responsive design and a dedicated mobile - hey, you don’t have to do it on your own! Simply visit a web development company like 9DotStrategies who specializes in web design and development (among other things) and we’ll transform your website into a mobile friendly one in no time.

CUSTOMIZATION
Developing a separate mobile website lets you optimize it for mobile users. Mobile sites have lesser content, a different navigation system, and other unique mobile-only options. The work is started by the web designer and followed through by the web developer and programmer for implementation.

However, it’s not cost effective to design for different resolutions so creating a responsive website instead can be better in handling any resolution with changes in CSS files. Any platform, whether computer or mobile device will display the website in the best possible way.

THE BOTTOM LINE
It’s the new age! If you’re website is to compete with others out there, then you need to have it redesigned either as a mobile-friendly interface or redeveloped altogether as responsive website. Your pick! But make it fast! It’s only a couple of days before the change begins.

Visit www.9dotstrategies.com today and you can glide through the Mobilegeddon unscathed and at the top.

Search Engine Optimization and Link Building for 2015

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 03:46:00 +0000

For search engines that crawl the vast expanse of the web, links serve as the roads between pages. Today, it seems like they lost their significance as a successful page-ranking highway.

Google’s webmaster trends analyst John Mueller dropped a bomb when he answered the question: “Is link building in any way good?” declaring that “In general, I’d try to avoid that”. *Silence*

Link building has long been a pillar of effective and successful SEO process, so Mueller’s answer is utterly shocking for link builders and web owners alike. He went on to say that while Google does take links into consideration when ranking, it shouldn’t be the only thing relied on. According to him, the aim should be to make your content strong enough to be able to “stand on its own”, allowing users to share it to their own websites and blogs.

He explained that aside from links, Google evaluates many other factors in its ranking consideration, he even goes on to say that building links can even cause your website to rank lower in search engines.

LINK BUILDING PITFALLS

Links aren’t actually good guys turning to the dark side, although they linger in silver lining as Google actually view link building as a form of soft link manipulation. Its persona (harmful or not) depends on how it’s utilized by SEO specialists.

In any given minute, Google scours the internet, finding the most relevant pages based on a user query and ranking them according to quality and authority. All inorganically gained signals of authority/quality like links can disrupt the accuracy of the results and ultimately harm your ranking. Mueller may be coming from this position when he stated his claim.

When Google launched the Penguin Update in April 2012, an update started assessing low-quality or spammy links. Too many links, or the same kind of links as well as low-quality or irrelevant links can cause your website to catch algorithmic or manual penalty. This is the case with Mueller saying that link building can harm your website ranking.

If that’s the case, then it’s all about the right use of links. If an SEO specialist utilizes link building legitimately, with complete understanding of the factors leading to success, then you shouldn’t be worried about any penalties stemming from illegitimate use.

Most SEO professionals know that links are one of the most significant factors when building web ranking and utilizing ranking algorithm, so not applying their use potentially decreases the chance of your website’s ranking higher in search engines. Your competitors are building their own links anyway, why lose the chance?

THE RIGHT WAY OF BUILDING LINKS

image from www.jacobking.com

Going back to what Mueller said, he described that “good content” is the key. The better the content, the more people will read it and eventually link to their own websites. Honest and legitimate links from reputable sources is the surefire way to build high rank in search engines.

However, this method takes extra time and money - two things that web owners have, but don’t want to expend.

And they wonder why they have low page rank.

Trust, credibility and authority. These are the top factors that Google considers most valuable in its ranking algorithm. When a website has multiple links, it means that it generally contain valuable information, and that makes it more valuable by proxy.

You may use links to mimic this status, but it won’t convey real credibility because it’s just you doing random link building to boost your website’s status - this is something that Google can detect and eventually use to penalize your website, causing low ranking.

GREAT (NOT GOOD) CONTENT IS THE KEY FOR SEO

Contrary to popular belief, everybody actually wants to read. People like to read meaningful content that benefit their interest. When you browse through the internet, you will notice blocks of texts and headlines that gets you irritated or good ones that jumps right at you and makes you want to share with your friends.

This is the best way to legitimately boost the page ranking of your website.

If only writing great content is that easy.

Blog posts, infographics, and videos are some of the most shared content. You need to plan carefully and invest extra money in hiring professional creative/marketing writers to compose your web content. The higher your content quality, the more people will read it and link to their own pages. This will get you natural links that will boost your page ranking.

Use social media to spread your content and allow people to easily locate it and share with their networks and link to you - if you have outstanding content, it will be enough to gain thousands of new links on its own without risking a penalty. You need to produce original, informative and entertaining material every time in order to execute this scheme, but in the long run you will be perceived as a higher authority in your industry.

The Tinsel Shop Wins Extraordinary Entrepreneur Video Contest

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 18 Aug 2014 09:06:00 +0000

9DotStrategies, aside from being a full-service web development and digital marketing firm, has its support to people with entrepreneurial spirit.

It is with pride that we present you http://tinselshop.ph/, our newest project awarded to our Extraordinary Entrepreneur, Kristine Marie Padilla. Padilla won a 150,000Php worth of e-commerce website from 9DotStrategies upon winning from our Extraordinary Entrepreneur Facebook Video Contest last April of this year. Her website launched this August 15, 2014 with the help of our dedicated team of experts. Visit http://tinselshop.ph/!

Tinsel Shop Website Screenshot

The Tinsel Shop Wins Extraordinary Entrepreneur Video Contest

“We are all extraordinary as a person, but one will stand out beyond extra”

In the competitive world of business, an entrepreneur is not simply the person who starts and operates the business; an entrepreneur is someone who sees opportunities, grabs them while taking a tremendous amount of risk in between. He/she should be someone who is creative enough to imagine the future, wise enough to make decisions, and is brave enough to explore the unknown.

But what does being an extraordinary entrepreneur mean? That is what 9DotStrategies explored on when it launched its Extraordinary Entrepreneur Video Contest last January.

The mechanics of the contest is simple: upload a video, which defines what an extraordinary entrepreneur is, and show it. Whoever achieves the highest score based on the criteria for judging wins a dazzling P150, 000 worth of e-commerce website.

The search was long and hard, but among the entrants, one has depicted it more than the rest. She is a motion graphic artist for one of the top television networks in the Philippines for almost 10 years, the owner of the clothing store, “The Tinsel Shop”-- Mrs. Kristine Marie Padilla.

What inspired you to start the business?

“It is a family business,” Padilla said. Apparently, Padilla’s interest started while she was growing up since her family is engaged in the garments business as well. In 2008, she was able to launch The Tinsel Shop online. She joined some bazaars in 2009 in order to gain more sales and popularity in the market. By 2012, she was already able to put up a shop in Ali Mall and open up another one in Robinsons Metro East in 2013.

How were you able to manage your time between your family, friends, and business?

“When it comes to business, I have trusted my employees that is why I don’t have to visit my shops all the time”. She also added that she does not waste any time and she does multiple tasks. She makes designs for her Tinsel products during the dead hours of her job at the network. Tuesday is her rest day and she makes sure that Sunday would be nicely spent with her family. As someone with multiple roles in life, she was able to juggle them all through her sheer dedication and time management.

What do you think is the hardest obstacle for an entrepreneur, and how were you able to surpass it?

“Of course, roller coaster sales. Also, funds”. As an entrepreneur, Padilla is aware that every business is a risk, but she overcomes problems with her thought of “kapit lang”. It is never an option to give up, and there is always a sign of relief once she realizes that she had already beaten the challenge.

In your video, what do you mean by ‘beyond extra’? What is it that you have more?

“We are all extraordinary as a person, but one will stand out beyond extra! And that’s me”, she stated. Padilla showed her youthful and creative outlook in life through her video that reflects how she manages her business. She explores the world through her imaginative mind and seeks to make her products unique. Padilla stated that unlike other entrepreneurs she is fully aware of the significance of new technologies, keeping up with the trends and relating with her market.

How do you become extraordinary or “beyond extra” as an entrepreneur?

“In business, I do not consider what I want, but what my market wants”, she said. Thinking in a way how her market would respond helped in the bloom of Padilla’s business. She also added that her past jobs had helped her develop art skills.

How do you stay at par with the competition? What serves as your competitive advantage?

“I make sure that my products come differently and with a twist that is why I personally design them (some are bought outside the country). I also want to be the first to offer the product in the market”. She also added that her product ideas evolve from watching shows and doing research related to the industry.

You mentioned that you started in the online business, so what do you think serves as the perks of having your own website?

“Aside from having no required permit, online purchasers cannot ask for discounts. It also saves my business, when there are few sales on shops”. Undeniably, websites and online shops create wider awareness and reach of the target market and it shows strong credibility in public, which she also mentioned.

What joy does entrepreneurship bring to you as an individual?

“There is joy each time I make a sale and I would think, “Yes! Alam ko ang uso!”. Basically, it is all about self-gratification. She would be flattered every time her customers say she looks young. Keeping a youthful appearance and attitude has helped her relate to teenage customers. Though she juggles a lot of work in her hands, it is all worth it at the end of the day.

What is your dream for your business?

“To dress up the whole world!”, exclaimed Padilla. She wanted her shop to be present in all malls and to see how people appreciate her craft. Though it may seem extravagant, she continually strives to turn this big dream into a reality. “Hindi ka din naman forever employee”, she answered when asked about plans of being a full time entrepreneur. In spite of her successful career as an artist, she is fully aware of the constraints of being an employee, especially in today's ever evolving and competitive world.

What is the “secret recipe” for your business to be successful?

“Well, success is subjective and it varies with different people’s perspectives; but for me, the secret recipe is to ‘keep going on’ and ‘staying young”. Since Padilla’s target market is teenage girls, she has to ‘think young, stay young, and be young’ in order to provide the right needs, wants, and trends. She also encountered a lot of challenges, but she just kept going on to arrive at where she is now and sit on her throne of success.

With her story, being an entrepreneur may seem tough, but rewarding. You need to have a lot of courage to take risks, but along the way you would find it exciting and and worth it when all your hard work pays off in the end. As what Padilla had said, it is gratifying when people love and are pleased with all your hard works. In entrepreneurship, you are your own boss, you can control your own time, schedules, and is free in doing whatever you want, just never forget your values and business ethics. Business is a gamble, and sometimes even the smallest thing can make the difference, it can either make or break you, but in taking these risks, you learn to grow and expand your horizon.

Everyone is extraordinary, we have our own way of thinking, of working, of dreaming as we are all unique in this world. In this vast jungle we live in, being ordinary is out of the question, being extraordinary is a must. At times, to stand out among the rest; we must go beyond what is extra.

#ChickenSad: ERP Transition That's Costing a Lot of Sad Faces for ChickenJoy Fans

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 15 Aug 2014 08:32:00 +0000

Switching from one Enterprise Resoucre Planning (ERP) software from a new one, it has been since August 1 when Metro Manila citizens are having a shortage of Jollibee Chickenjoy and other food products from the largest food chain business in the Philippines. What caused such shortage in Chickenjoy of Jollibee? Is it due to the ERP migration glitch or the development company’s poor project management?

According to Rappler.com, about 72 Jollibee stores in Metro Manila were temporarily closed in the first two weeks of August due to the shortage of Chickenjoy supplies or none at all.

"Some of our stores are operating with a limited menu as we are currently upgrading our systems. Rest assured that we are committed to having all our products available again within a few days in all our affected stores", explained a representative of Jollibee through its Facebook fan page on August 7.

The Inquirer mentioned on its website that Jollibee Foods Corporation (JFC) filed a stock exchange report that the disruption of supply was due to a problem in the IT migration as they switch to a new system, but issues will be resolved within the next few days. JFC said that the transition affected their operations such as product loading, vehicle dispatching, and sales order taking.

The shortage of Chickenjoy, Spaghetti, and Yumburger among its food chain outlets received mixed reactions from local customers. The hashtag #ChickenSad went viral in social media channels and even caught the attention of leading newspaper media.

Rappler.com shared some insights on the JFC's system switch problem:

1. System migration- JFC reportedly switched from one ERP system to another to manage its database and operations. The sudden migration was conducted in one blow and affected 72 stores in Metro Manila or more. The sudden migration was thought to have glitches due to poor project management planning, User-Acceptance-Test (UAT), migration planning, back up planning, and overall staff expertise execution. Should the project implementation team conduct the ERP migration in test batches/parallel run, bugs could have been fixed easier and within a controlled environment. Also, the old ERP system should have served as a support, while the tests are being run and bugs are fixed during the UAT/migration/action plan.

2. Questionable staffing- Issues arise whether the IT team who handles the JFC project is equipped enough to execute a major ERP migration. Also, questions arise whether the team has the expertise to properly manage the JFC project.

3. Lack of back up planning- It has been two weeks, but JFC still struggles with the supply of its popular food products as well as its customer service management. Questions arise whether JFC has prepared for a probable operational lag while their system is in transition, and the need for alternative management support.

4. ERP- JFC as having nationwide supply chain stores as well international franchise stores, should have given more time in planning for the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software switch. The complexity of the processes involved in shifting the business operations system from one ERP to a new one should have allotted at least two to three years in completion instead of one year. Complications are expected to rise when User-Acceptance-Test (UAT), parallel run, migration series are rushed. Also, when the project is handled by developers who have no or minimal experience in ERP development-migration, disaster awaits the client.

5. Local IT support team- Nothing beats the dedication, competence, and reliable qualities of a neighbor.
When working on a big project, it is wise to seek the help of a trusted partner in the local industry. If you can find a qualified and experienced IT company in the Philippines who have trained staff to handle the ERP project, why go overseas? Business processes and corporate culture are better understood by a neighbor who knows how you operate for years. Thus, entrusting the core system of your business should be handled by a trustworthy colleague in the IT industry. Think of total quality, excellent project management, accurate result, and 24/7 IT support. It sounds difficult to find such IT company in the Philippines, but just search and you can have one. When you consider the value that these bring, price becomes a second priority.

JFC's current situation prompts related IT companies in the Philippines to check their readiness in handling big companies who wish to shift from one ERP systemto another. This question brings into light the availability of professional ERP developers or IT personnel in the Philippines to accommodate local businesses. Also, the proposition that let Philippine-based IT companies work with local clients to facilitate a full-service development project with reputable quality standards.

Are you still #Chickensad? Let's help JFC overcome this system glitch by remaining loyal. Know more about Acumatica, an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) development company that 9DotStrategies are partnering with, call our Business Analyst at +1-510-936-8878 (US Direct) or +63 02 846-6845 (PH). We will be happy to guide you in your system transition plans.

Source: http://www.rappler.com/business/features/66087-jollibee-chickensad-costly-it-problem

Designing Your Website - Upgrade Your Free Blogspot Website

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 03 Jul 2014 02:02:00 +0000

Another sign that you need to upgrade your blogspot website is when you have produced product launch videos as part of your new marketing campaign. You can either ask a friend to develop a fully-functional website for you, or hire a Web Design Company in the Philippines that is an expert to do the job for you.

The ultimate sign that you should get your own website hosted is when the Services list is scattered all over your main page. When you see posts, photos, and category tabs showcasing a repetitive or random featured products/services all over your main page, then you must consider a custom website redesign.

If you need custom sales tools, try the e-Commerce that will enable integration of online payment gateway. This helps you install PayPal, DragonPay, and other software applications to boost sales management right on your website. The integration will require basic programming skills to connect API systems into your database software, and into the main website.

Should you need a professional Web Design Company in the Philippines to help you implement your plans for your online business site, call 1510.936.8878 (US) or 632.846.6845 (PH). We will be glad to take your business into greater heights.