Hypermedia: Web Development, eCommerce, Social Media and Online Marketing

Newbiz Solutions Partners with Zoho

2012-02-14T10:00:00.000+11:00

Newbiz Solutions is thrilled to announce our Alliance Partnership with leading Client Relationship Management (CRM) collaboration and productivity software company Zoho.

Zoho.com offers a comprehensive suite of award-winning on-line business, productivity & collaboration applications. Customers use Zoho Applications to run their business processes, manage their information and be more productive while at the office or on the go, without having to worry about expensive or outdated hardware or software.

To date, Zoho.com has launched 26 online, cloud based applications, including:

CRM
Mail, Docs, Tasks & Calendar
Office Suite
Project Management
Invoicing
Account & Book Keeping
Web conferencing, and more

Zoho has received numerous awards, including an InfoWorld 2009 "Product of the Year" award, a 2008 PC World "25 Most Innovative Products Award" and a 2007 TechCrunch "Best Enterprise Start-up."

Zoho.com is a division of Zoho Corporation a privately-held and profitable company. With offices in CA, Austin, New Jersey, Chennai, Singapore, Tokyo and Beijing, Zoho Corporation serves the technology needs of more than 50,000 customers worldwide.

"The Zoho range of products are a perfect fit for our business. They integrate seamlessly and have allowed us to consolidate separate systems, meaning one point of data entry and that data is shared across all our information systems. In the past, we had four separate systems; Accounting, Billing, Client Relationship Management and Project Management. We now have just one - Zoho. After much research to find the system that best fit our processes, Zoho was a clear winner. Naturally we wanted to test it internally and try it out ourselves. Now we can confidently recommend it to our clients to help them collaborate, integrate and become more productive" - Paul Brick, Director Newbiz Solutions Pty Ltd.

For more information on the Zoho Suite of products and to see how they can fit within your organisation, please call Newbiz Solutions on 03 5335 2230 or email paul@newbizsolutions.com.au.

We are updating our website

2012-02-13T09:21:00.000+11:00

Welcome to Newbiz Solutions. We are excited to announce that we are currently creating a brand new user experience for our website; which includes a refreshed website design with a range of content to help our clients better understand the benefits of creating a quality online presence.

In the mean time, please feel free to contact us directly on 03 5335 2230 in relation to the following services we offer:

:: DESIGN ::

Corporate Branding
Business Start-up Logo and Stationary Suites
Marketing Collateral including Brochures, Reports and Flyers
Promotional Material including Banners, Flags and A-Frames

:: HYPERMEDIA ::

Website Design & Development including e-Commerce and Mobile Websites
Web Programming/Coding & Database Development
Content Management Systems including Drupal, Joomla and WordPress
Mobile Application Development
Web and Online Marketing Strategy
User Experience
Information Architecture
Website Prototyping & Wireframing
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Web Video to communicate a message
Online Advertising including Pay Per Click, Online Display, Google Adwords and Social Ads
Social Media Strategy, Marketing and Integration
Client Relationship Management (CRM) Systems
Google Apps Installation, Configuration & Selection of Business Applications
Website Hosting
Domain Name Registration

:: TRAINING ::

Content Management System (CMS) Training in Drupal, Joomla and WordPress
Client Relationship Management (CRM) Training
Google Apps Training
Social Media & Online Marketing

Coka-Cola : Social Media Genius?

2011-10-19T13:25:00.000+11:00

If you are involved in a social network such as Facebook, you will have likely seen your friends posting images of Coke cans with a name on it - either their own or another, such as the following:

Instead of running a campaign spammed with "Like Us" or "Visit our Facebook Page" all over it, Coke have positioned their products so that they fit within our daily lives. And guess what.. People are posting images of their products all over Facebook, Twitter and other networks (like this blog post) with out needing to be prompted to do so. Every day I am seeing an image of a Coke can in my news feed at least 3 - 4 times. Lucky I don't drink much soft drink, but I sort of feel like a Coke now..

Another example of Coke using social media and fitting within our daily lives would be their use of RFID technology in wrist tags at the Rock'nCoke 2011 festival. A RFID Reader was set up at 28 different points throughout the festival that allowed festival goers to "Like" certain activities just by swiping their wrist tag.

So if your business is looking to embrace social media, it is important that you realise the reasons why people use social networks in the first place (normally to socialise.. go figure!). So the question is, how can your product or service fit within the daily lives of people and prompt them to start a conversation with out actually directing them to "Like our Page" just for the sake of it...

It is worth planning out your campaign strategy before just jumping straight in. For example.. What are your goals? What is your message? What is the information flow? What is the purpose? What do you want out of it? What value does it provide your audience?

And remember to try to integrate the physical world with the virtual world, just as Coke have done.

Genius? I think so!

Planning your new website - Part 2 : Planning

2011-10-11T10:00:00.000+11:00

In this series, we will explore the website design process right from early planning to maintenance and updates. So subscribe to the blog and share it with anyone who might be about to go through the website creation process.

So I have already established in my website planning introduction post that you should not just jump straight into trying to create a website. In this post, I am going to outline some considerations for the initial planning phase. This will help prepare you for your first meeting with your Website Designer or Developer. At the end of the post is a link to our Basic 5 Page Website Planning Checklist.

1. Planning

a. Research & Analyse the websites of your competitors/peers
The best thing about planning a website is that a lot of your initial research can be done in a few hours online. Just by visiting the websites of your competitors and peers, you will get a good understanding of any trends. You should be looking at them from a critical standpoint. Note down anything that you find annoying, distracting, interesting as well as ideas that you think work well. For example, if you are hoping to create an online store, and you were researching other online stores, you would look at aspects such as the process to find products, the process to add items to your cart and check out. You would note down design elements, and being an online store, what measures do they have in place to display secure shopping?

You should also be looking at the types of content that these sites have. Is it mainly text, video, images, audio or a mixture? Once again, what works well to communicate the message?

After analysing a number of competitor/peer websites, you should start to see some trends and you can rank the sites in order for most user friendly to least user friendly.

b. Research & Analyse the needs and requests of your target audience
One of the best aspects of Social Media is the amount of information that people give openly and honestly online. The first place I would start to research what my target audience needs and wants would be a social media platform such as Twitter. You can search for topics and trends by using their hashtag feature (try it, type #onlineshopping into the Twitter search box). Also by looking at forums about relevant topics, you can start to see what people are talking about, both positive and negative. This information is gold, large companies spend thousands of dollars on surveys, focus groups and other market research which isn't always accurate. You have access to all this just by listening in on conversations online. For an interesting article about a survey results versus social media analysis, read the article Using Social Media to Ask the Right Questions.

You should also do some key word analysis at this point. By using a tool such as the free Google Keyword Research tool, you can look at the number of times certain keywords are being searched for, as well as some variations of the keyword you typed in. This is an important step prior to writing your content, as the results here could potentially change the way your write. An example here is where there are technical words used in an industry only by those in that industry. By completing some keyword research, you might find variations that your customers actually use. By identifying these common keywords, you can then filter them through out your website so that it helps with your search engine ranking, as well as your website usability. Think about a user navigating your website, and they see one of these keywords in the navigation, a menu or a heading. This word can act as a trigger, and help them find what they are looking for. So these keywords can also be used as trigger words within your website.

c. Plan Your Website Structure
By now you should have a list of trends from competitor/peer websites, as well as a list of information that people are requesting through your social media analysis. You can now start to create your content. The very first thing to do now would be to create a site map of the sections you will have within your website. This is like a hierarchy of your website which starts with the most important pages at the top (i.e. Home, About Us, Products, Services, Contact) then adding sub categories below. The way you organise the website is very important as it can make a difference between a website that is user friendly and one that is not. The difference here can be huge, do you want a site that converts traffic into sales, enquiries, leads or a site that turns people away. Remember the use of your keyword research here, those trigger words could be used in your navigation or menus.

d. Create Your Content
After creating your website structure, you can start to create your content. Content should not only be looked at as text. Images, video, audio are all very important ways to communicate online. You should have some ideas of the type of content you need to produce from your earlier research. Remember to use the results of your keyword research as well. Where possible, these keywords should be used in headings, page titles, internal links, image alt and title tags and regular paragraph text.

Your content should always be written for your user, not yourself. You might want to sell, but the user does not want to be sold to. So you should write your content so that you are illustrating the benefits of a product or service, giving examples to the user of what it is like after they have bought the product or service. You might need to give some free helpful advice or other information of value to build trust with the user. But always remember, a website and its content should always be created for the end user, not you.

e. Create a Website Design/Development Brief
Once you have your research, site structure and content in order, it is time to bring it all together and create a Website Development Brief to give to potential website development companies. As a guide, you could use the following headings to form the structure of your website development brief::

Project Summary

- What is the purpose of this project. Summarise your goals, time frames and budget.

Your Business/Organisation Background

- Provide an overview of your business, including your products and services.
- Include any information about existing website including features and traffic statistics.

Competitors/Peers

- List your competitors/peers and their websites from your research, along with your notes and observations.

Target market

- Provide an overview of your target market with your notes and observations.

Project Scope

- What is included in this project
- What is NOT included in this project
- Include your site structure
- Include your design requirements
- Include any features you require (i.e. online store with 5000 products.)
- Include any other services that will be required, such as website hosting, email and a domain name.

Technologies

- If there are specific technologies that need to be used
- Include any information about other existing systems that the website needs to integrate with.

Budget and Timeline

- What is your budget
- When does the site need to be online?

f. Select a Designer/Developer

This is a hard decision to make, but the difference here could be the difference between a website that is an asset for your business, that communicates your message and converts sales, leads, enquiries and a website that just costs you money.

You should really ask yourself a few questions after meeting with a website design and development company. Following is a checklist that will form the structure of another post within this blog. But it should give you an idea of some important steps in making the right decision.

Understand the risks & potential problems

IT is a high risk industry
Many IT projects that run overtime/over budget

Understand how a service based industry works

How do development companies make money
Time based billing
Pricing structures

Understand the talk of the trade

Scope Creep

Research their business

What is their mission?
What are their goals?
Will they be there in 5 years time?
Do they have a portfolio of past jobs?

Value, not price

Don’t cut corners
You will get what you pay for
Think Value for Money, not cheapest option
You will end up paying more in the end
Constant updates
Overhaul whole site to re-brand/design
You don’t always ‘see’ the quality
Good websites don’t always just have fancy designs
What is it worth?
Not getting the results
Lost sales

Be wary of the “Yes Men/Women”

These will be the people who promise the world and deliver a peanut
Jobs run over time & budget
They buy the job by quoting low
Inexperience means they will just do what you ask, not what is best for your business

Do they understand your business?

Do they know your user groups?
Is there an interest?
They should be able to provide advice and feedback

Flexibility

Meeting times
Pricing
Delivery

Consider Your Gut Feeling

What was the sales process like?
Do they understand the needs of your business and your industry?
How is their communication and are they accessible?

Set clear expectations and guidelines

Ensure there is a Contract with expectations
Set Project Milestones
Create Project Deliverables
Communicate your expected results and Return On Investment

If you follow the above closely, you will be well on the way to ensuring a successful website project.

The next stage in the website creation process is Design and Development. So make sure you subscribe to this blog so you can be notified when it is up online. Please feel free to share with anyone who might find the information useful.

Resource Link: Basic 5 Page Website Planning Checklist

Regards,
Paul Brick

Planning your new website - Introduction

2011-10-07T18:37:00.000+11:00

The one where we compare the website creation process to a new born baby.

A website should be seen as a living, breathing entity, that requires planning in advance and care once online. However, to be able to complete this planning, the process to develop and maintain a new website needs to be clearly understood – something that is not commonly known. To illustrate the importance of planning, let’s think about a process that most people will understand quite well, and I guarantee every person has been through at least once in their life; the new born baby process.

While the conception is not always planned, a parent still has the better part of 9 months to plan and organise the arrival; Day 1. However they do not only plan for Day 1. Planning (whether formally in writing or as an informal thought process) will be set in place for at least the first year. What clothes are they going to wear? What will they eat? Where will they sleep? How will their nappy be changed? What support might be needed? What changes will occur within your household to accommodate this new person? And how often will all these tasks happen?

Introducing a new website into your organisation and the online world should be no different to introducing a new baby into the real world. Consideration needs to be given to what will happen after it arrives, or goes live. To help you with your knowledge of the website creation process, and subsequently your planning, following are the typical stages taken to plan, design, develop, maintain and introduce a new website into the online world. Awww, isn’t she cute...

1. Planning

2. Design & Development

3. Putting Your Site Online

4. Monitor & Analyse Traffic

5. Content Management

6. Extensibility, Enhancement & Interactivity

7. Routine Maintenance

Over the coming weeks we will explore each of the above stages in the website development process in more detail. We will also post some handy resources and downloads to help you work with your website design and development partner and ensure a successful website launch. You can subscribe to this blog to receive notifications when we post new updates.

Regards,
Paul Brick

Thank you Steve Jobs

2011-10-06T13:33:00.001+11:00

Very sad day. RIPStevejobs - thanks for your contribution to the way we live our lives.

Change LinkedIn Postcode

2011-07-14T04:03:00.001+10:00

Change Liked In Postcode to reflect Correct Area http://ping.fm/iZ2fh

2011-07-08T11:30:00.001+10:00

Does Adwords really work? Test it out with a free $50 voucher, we have 10 to give away with any keyword consultation. http://ht.ly/5z1Uc

2011-07-08T09:20:00.001+10:00

Aussie business slow on Social Media - http://ht.ly/5z1de. You can make a start in August - free Social Media workshop http://ht.ly/5z1yV

2011-07-08T08:45:00.001+10:00

Does Adwords really work? Test it out with a free $50 voucher, we have 10 to give away with any keyword consultation. http://ow.ly/5yqj1

2011-07-07T20:30:00.001+10:00

Remember when Twitter was a Joke? http://ow.ly/5ypIT

2011-07-07T16:00:00.001+10:00

A man who chases two rabbits, catches none. Is this true in your business?

2011-07-07T15:00:00.001+10:00

66 Days to fix bad habits, start creating positive habits. http://ht.ly/5yn6o. My 1st positive habit - gym at On Track Fitness @lifesontrack

2011-07-07T14:00:00.001+10:00

A very easy to read article with expert tips on effective ways use Social Media to connect and not just make noise - http://ht.ly/5ymE1

2011-07-07T13:00:00.001+10:00

The carbon Tax - If you pollute less, it will cost you (and the environment) less - http://ht.ly/5ymb9

2011-07-07T12:00:00.001+10:00

How do you reward customers for their loyalty? A well planned and measured rewards program could keep them coming back http://ht.ly/5yldK

2011-07-07T11:00:00.001+10:00

What do you use for your Business Accounting? We use MYOB, it does the job but does not integrate with our web systems. http://ht.ly/5yl5b

2011-07-07T10:00:00.001+10:00

Are you a Small Business with out a web presence? You are not alone http://ht.ly/5ykMB

2011-07-07T09:00:00.001+10:00

Business owner? Make sure you read this: http://ht.ly/5xPun. Then register for a free B31 Ballarat Social Media workshop http://ht.ly/5xPBP.