WeMakeWebsites Blog

5 things you don’t want to miss this 2012.

Alex — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:26:33 +0000

Econsultancy.com discussed how our economy, technology industry and marketing will take part in 2012, here’s our summary:

Continued Economy Tech Growth. The Technology industry will continue to grow strongly despite of the uncertainties of global economy and some speculations about the complete fall down of the European market.

New Consumer Internet Trends. Significant 2012 trends include continued increasing connectivity (via mobile phones), more social media influence on news reporting and more easy to use cloud services.

Patent Wars. More and more companies are spending time and effort in strategic patent wars to only become more prominent to consumers.

The Enterprise Cloud. Larry Ellison of Oracle has been pushing his company into the enterprise cloud and SAP are shelling out billions for cloud HR solutions provider, SuccessFactors. Cloud technology will surely grow more in 2012 and targeting enterprise, not just startups.

Online taxes. A much talked-about discussion has been trending over Internet websites that companies are pushing for a nationwide online sales tax law, including Amazon and other retail market websites especially in United States, wherein it is the world’s largest online retail market. This could radically change the rules for online retailers.

Image credit : smallbizbee.com

Our guide to selling more online

Alex — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:12:49 +0000

You can now download this by entering your email address below, in the footer.

There are over 50 tips in the document for boosting the conversion rate and revenue of your website.

You’ll also be subscribed to our mailing list, but can unsubscribe at anytime.

Image credit: Deniz Kumral

Why Using Third Party Sign in on your Website is a Good Idea

Alex — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 17:32:22 +0000

Ever forgotten a password?

Sure you have, and you can bet your customers suffer from the same problem every now and then. You don’t want that happening mid-way through a potential purchase on your website.

If you can, you also don’t want to wary them with yet another username and password combination to remember.

A widely-accepted and increasingly popular solution for this problem is to use Third Party Sign In or “Single Sign-on” using OpenID, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Google and more.

Third Party Sign In allows you to use an existing account to sign in to multiple websites, without needing to create a new password. This will enable you to visit a site faster by authenticating them with a single click, with no need for them to recall a password (unless they are signed out of the service you are using for third party authentication).

For the sample image above (see LiveJournal’s Third Party Sign In), it just needs your OpenID URL, or your Facebook, or your Twitter logins to access your LiveJournal account.

The associated account, i.e. your Twitter account in LiveJournal website, should have settings in it wherein you can remove or revoke the access to your LiveJournal account. (see image number 2 above).

However, not all people feel secure sharing their Facebook logins to multiple sites and they opt for a traditional login.

The site should still have an option to create an account directly on their site by creating a unique username, password and associated email address, such as the third sample image above for Digg.

Spotify Labs release Spotify on Blackberry

Alex — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 11:38:34 +0000

Spotify Labs have released an early version of Spotify for Blackberry, more info here.

Exciting - I was missing listening to music on the move ever since I got a Blackberry three months ago.

On my Blackberry 8900 I’m getting the following error though… :(

This application requires the following modules, which are not installed:
net_rim_media_actions
net_rim_bb_browser_field2_api

Makes me miss my iPhone… no Spotify on the go yet.

p.s. apparently you need min OS 5 on Blackberry to run it, the 8900 comes with 4.

Image credit: tecca.com

Revisited: Econsultancy's Mind-blowing Social Media Statistics

Alex — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:31:20 +0000

Last March 2011, Econsultancy listed 20+ facts about leading social media platforms: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and more. Can you roughly guess the statistics after a year? We’ll wait for Econsultancy’s post on the first quarter of 2012.

To us, the most impressive concerned Facebook, here are our favourites from their list:

2010: Facebook has 350 million active users on global basis.
2011: Facebook officially hit the half-billion member mark last year. According to figures from Socialbakers, there are now some 640m Facebook users worldwide.

2010: 50% of active users log into Facebook each day. This means at least 175m users every 24 hours.
2011: Still citing the 50% active rate, using the official 500m figure, this means at least 250m users every 24 hours. This is more than a 40% increase in 12 months.

2010: 65m users access Facebook through mobile-based devices.
2011: It may well be the year of mobile… for Facebook. Facebook users accessing the site through mobile devices now top 200m - an enormous 200% increase in around a twelve-month period.

Finally, on average each Facebook user creates 90 pieces of content each month.

The full post is here.

Image Source

5 Tips on How to Make your E-Commerce Buttons Stand Out

Alex — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 13:26:38 +0000

“Add to Cart” and “Buy Now” buttons are the first step in a customer committing to buy. You need to entice customers to click the button, so make sure they are effective. Here are some tips:

Words, Language and Urgency. Effective words and language will make a huge impact with website visitors. Make the words direct, simple and short. Preferably use familiar phrases such as “Buy Now”, “Add to Cart” or “Add to Basket”. Some may include the price, such as “Buy Now for $9.99 only!” for extra pull. If your website runs in different languages, make sure to that the texts on the buttons will change according to the chosen language.
Use phrases to instill urgency, “Buy Now” and similar phrases can be powerful especially if used in conjunction with a store promotion.
Placement. An effective button should be placed clearly from any clutter to make it stand out and get more clicks. Make sure you have enough white space around the button and surrounding elements.
Font, Size and Color. To ensure that visitors can notice the buttons, it is important to consider color. Make the button obvious, but not so garish that is conflicts with the site’s colour scheme. For font types, generally you should use Sans Serif typefaces, such as Arial, Helvetica or Tahoma, as they have good spacing between letters and they are easier to read on screen. You may opt for bold font style or in capital letters.
Prioritize. If there is a secondary option and therefore two buttons under one product (for example, “Read More” “Add to Cart”), ensure that “Add to Cart” button has priority. How? There are a lot of ways, but the most common are the button’s color and size. Make the “Read More” button in less bright or smaller, while the Add the Cart’s color should be bold and large.
Icons and Images. Icons such as for shopping carts are good visual cues and are widely understood. Use unique buttons that have intuitive icons, and have them follow your site’s branding to create a stronger impression.

Three Simple Rules for Improving E-Commerce Sites

Alex — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 10:50:04 +0000

Just found this choice post from Dr. Bonny Brown, who is director of research and public services for Keynote Systems, Inc.

Based on his advice, here are three tips for improving your e-commerce offering:

Poor user experience leads to bad satisfaction. For example, ensure that out of stock items are labelled as such earlier on, to prevent irritation. And capture your errors, preferably with e-mail alerts - customers will be instantly turned off if they see errors or become frustrated with how a site functions.
Follow the leader - sites like amazon.com are top for a reason, they behave and are optimised for customer satisfaction and higher sales. The process for developing our own e-commerce platform is based on looking at what is working on big online retail sites and making it possible for smaller retailers to achieve the same.
Get customer feedback - you’ll be suprised what you find when you start asking and listening to what customers say. Make it easy for them to interact with you on your site and find the time to sit down with customers and watch them use your site. What you think is obvious might not be. You may be suprised where customers get stuck, what you thought was easy to use might not be so, and this will be harming your potential sales.

Image credit: silicon.com

2012 Online Marketing Trend Predictions

Alex — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 01:08:01 +0000

Here are five 2012 marketing trend predictions according to Econsultancy.com.

1. Online marketing will begin to drive in-store retailing. Technology such as Google Wallet and near field communications will allow brands to track the impact of online activity on in-store sales. Google’s paid search for mobile enables brands to serve relevant ads to consumers while they are in the store vicinity, as well as providing directions to the store.

2. Online marketing will be driven by smart multichannel attribution. Many predicted that by 2011, brands would be able to have a complete, single view of their customers. Thanks to improved analytics technology such as Google Funnel, an evolution of Google Analytics, this will soon become a reality.

3. Google may entirely dominate the search market. The current search market share of Google is 90% plus it owns 98% of the mobile search market globally. With over 100 innovations from Google in the past year, Google continues to grow and become a dominant influence on consumers. With 90% current market share (98% for mobile), next year they could well and truly leave Bing and Yahoo! behind.

4. Brands will invest more in getting to know their customers. With the 2012 economy prediction looking gloomy, the demand for discounts is expected to increase again. Some brands will be looking for a stronger promotional strategy. Some clever brands are going beyond offering discounts by offering deeper understanding of their customers’s drive to buy in order to gain loyalty from the customer and maintain a good relationship with them.

5.Facebook won’t master social commerce. Facebook hasn’t been successful in social commerce so far, with Facebook Deals closing only four months after launch. Brands should consider Facebook as a social medium to understand and communicate with customers and to build brand reputation, not as a direct selling tool.

WeMakeWebsites launch new website for the Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion

Piers — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 15:12:32 +0000

We’re pleased to announce the launch of our most recent website for the Centre of Economic and Social Inclusion (or as they’re more commonly known, Inclusion), the UK’s leading not-for-profit company dedicated to tackling disadvantage and promoting social inclusion in the labour market.

Its one of our biggest sites yet and includes all sorts of good stuff, like event bookings, pay wall access, subscriber content and more.

To find out more about the project, checkout our portfolio.

Visit the new site here: www.cesi.org.uk

Eating Mince Pies at the Mince Pie Project launch at Divertimenti

Alex — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 23:49:52 +0000

On Monday we attended the launch of the Mince Pie Project at Divertimenti in Kensington, opposite the V&A.

Celebrity chefs who have made mince pies for the auction include Anna Hansen (Modern Pantry), Bruno Loubet, Fergus Henderson (St John’s), Michel Roux Jr and Raymond Blanc, to name a few, the full list is here.

The auction is in support of Action Against Hunger and the Jamie Oliver Foundation.

There’s some more info and photos from the Mince Pie Project launch here.

The auction starts on Friday and you can follow the leader board here.