Little Known Ways To Break Insanity
Posted: Monday, April 15, 2013 at 2:07:02 PM EST by Richard Norris
Break the cycle in doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
It is said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. As humans, based on this thought, would find ourselves insane on a daily basis. We do the same thing day in, day out and wonder why our life hasn't gotten any better. This is the case for our websites as well.Everytime I ask a client if they do any form of advertising nine times out of ten they respond that they are in the yellow pages. They re-sign every year because everyone else is doing it so they need to do it to. The client then goes on to say that they spend all this money but there are no real results to justify the money the spend. This has the symptoms of insanity.
Another scenario that you might find yourself identifying with is when I ask my clients if they have made any changes on their website. They say that they haven't, but then wonder why their site isn't performing as well as they want. Now whether that be a lack of education as to why they don't realise that you need to do regular updates on your site. Or they have fallen under the category of insane.
Enough of the doom and gloom. Let's break this cycle of insanity.
Those that are going insane with Yellow Pages. SiteZero is proven to have built and maintained successful Google Adwords campaigns. Google Adwords enables you to advertise on Google. We have done the math and it is more beneficial for your businesses bottom line to run an Adwords campaign than subscribe to Yellow Pages for another 12 months. It has a greater return on your investment plus you are now trying something different to get a different result which breaks the cycle of insanity in your business.
As for those who are insane over regular updates to the website. SiteZero have two cures to your insanity.
- Training
- Content Upgrade Package
This comes by providing you with training. No additional cost is added for training, proving it is the most cost effective way to break your insanity. Training is done at SiteZero, which takes you away from the distractions in your office so you can focus on making your business susccesfful.
Alternitively, SiteZero has a Content Upgrade Package. If the circumstances are extenuating, we can organise to do the updates on your site for you, at a cost. You supply us with all the content and we put it on your site. This wont save you money. However, it will save you time and you will have fresh content on your site regularly, thus breaking your insanity.
SiteZero is committed to breaking the cycle of insanity because it affects your bottom line. We want you business to be successful. therfore, we will do all that we are able to ensure your businesses success. Partner with us in this fight for the sanity of your business.
 About the Author : Richard Norris.Richard is the CEO of SiteZero , an Australian based Digital Marketing Services organization. Richard loves technology and is the Ecommerce evangelist at SiteZero. You can connect with Richard on Google + , Linkedin or at the SiteZero Facebook Page Richard Started his first Business in 1985 and entered the online world in 1998. He’s a bit like “The old man and the sea” of digital Marketing |
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LaunchPad version 4.5 Release Notes
Posted: Friday, May 20, 2011 at 2:12:35 PM EST by Sean BernardLaunchPad version 4.5 Release Notes
This is a minor release with a substantial amount of fixes, new features and usability improvements.
File Management
The File Manager has been updated to allow easier organisation of different types of files.
There are now three sections;
- Image Manager – All images, groups and galleries are now managed in this separate section.
- Video Manager – This is a new feature that will allow you to manage all videos, groups and galleries.
- File Manager – The name File Manager has been attributed to this section which will manage all general files that cannot be used in either the Image Manager or Video Manager.
Video Manager
Using the Video Manager, you will now be able to upload videos to your website in almost any format and it will convert your video into the format that is required and allow you to use this video anywhere on your site, or in a gallery of videos.
One very important thing to note about this new feature is that all of the videos that are converted and displayed on your site will be accessible on almost any device! This means iPhones, iPod Touch, iPad, Android phones, all browsers (Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, etc…) will be able to play your videos with ease.
Video Sitemaps
Videos sitemaps are included with this release to allow search engines like Google to index the videos that are on your website.
Blogs
With the release of our blogging features last year, we received some feedback from our clients with suggestions and requests. As part of the version 4.5 release we have included a number of advancements to the blogging features.
- The information column can now be hidden for a blog to allow the content to be displayed using the full width of the site.
- Automatic notification of comments made to your blog posts are now fully functional and now allows you to automatically approve comments or leave them to be moderated before being displayed with blog post.
- You will notice when viewing your blog now that there is a button that says “Subscribe to RSS Feed” with a small orange icon. This means that now visitors to your blog can subscribe to an RSS feed using their favourite RSS reader.
- You can now save drafts of your blog posts without having them display live on your blog.
Insert/Edit Image
When inserting or editing an image using to a page, blog post, product or category you can again see a preview of all images that are available. Some of you will remember that this feature had to be disabled for some time due to a stability issue. Since making the major infrastructure upgrades that we have completed over the past 8 months we can now re-enable this feature with some very important performance improvements. The first time you load the insert/edit image window it may appear slow, but the next time will be much faster. (This is because all images currently in the library need a special thumbnail to be automatically generated for faster reference by LaunchPad – All new images that are uploaded will automatically create this thumbnail at the point of upload).
eCommerce Location Restrictions
This new feature allows you to specify a single country that you will be accepting orders from. If disable you will be able to accept orders from ANY country.
Robots.txt
The robots.txt file can be edited directly from your website’s administration.
JAZReturns
Due to the announcement by JAZReturns that their product will no longer be available, the integration settings within LaunchPad have subsequently been removed.
NAB Transact
The NAB Transact payment gateway has now been integrated with LaunchPad to allow real-time payments to be accepted through the service provided by NAB.
If you have any questions about the releases and how it affects your website please leave a comment below or contact us here.
Are Your Customers a Good Fit for Your Business?
Posted: Monday, April 15, 2013 at 2:06:08 PM EST by Richard Norris
The value of a good customer is obvious. However, a common occurrence for sales people and the companies they work for in difficult times is to take on customers who are not a good fit. This is a poor choice made under pressure, as it usually costs money, rather than makes money. In order to address this, it’s essential to recognise a bad fit for your business when you see it.
Many business people work out the lifetime value of a customer when they are starting their business; unfortunately, very few of the same people take the time to understand the cost to their business when taking on customers who are not a good fit.
It is important to identify traits or circumstances of potential customers who won’t be profitable, although it is more important to start with examining your business first. By defining certain things about you business you will understand what business isn't profitable.
Define such things as:
- What your business does well.
- What delivers the bulk of your profit.
Focusing on the profitable parts of your business, and ejecting the low-profit, or no-profit, parts of your business is one of the simplest, yet smartest activities a business can do.
Another key area is identifying what level of service you’re prepared to deliver. Finding customers whose expectations fit the service you deliver is crucial. The repercussions of not meeting your customers expectations are costly. If your business does this, you’ll generally find they cost you more than you make. This can happen because you may find that you’re constantly going outside your own processes to keep them happy. Or the customer will become unhappy, and leave after a short period, making the expensive process of acquiring that customer a financial loss. This can also have a negative effect on the reputation of your business.
With some thought and planning, these principles of taking on customers who are a good fit for your business can improve your profitability, but they can make your life easier while you’re at work.
| About the Author : Richard Norris. Richard is the CEO of SiteZero , an Australian based Digital Marketing Services organization. Richard loves technology and is the Ecommerce evangelist at SiteZero. You can connect with Richard on Google + , Linkedin or at the SiteZero Facebook Page Richard Started his first Business in 1985 and entered the online world in 1998. He’s a bit like “The old man and the sea” of digital Marketing |
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| Richard Norris | | | |
The Secret to a High Conversion Rate.
Posted: Monday, April 15, 2013 at 2:00:07 PM EST by Richard Norris
For Rugby League fans, Jonathan Thurston is exciting to watch when he is attempting a conversion. After his team mates have scored a try he lines up in front of the goal posts to attempt to add two points to their score. A conversion on your website has the same idea. You have had a win by gaining a visitor to your site, but you now have to take the opportunity to drive the advantage home. Examples of conversions on your website include when someone subscribes to your newsletter or your blog, or when someone buys something from your site. These are both conversions. Your visitor is just having a look around, but you’ve been able to persuade them to undertake a desired action.
A conversion rate is the percentage of conversions you have based on your total amount of visitors. For instance, if you have 1000 visitors and 300 conversions your conversion rate would be 30%.
The secret to generating higher conversions is rather simple but not a lot people are using it to benefit their business. So without further ado , the secret to a high conversion rate is:
Testimonial's
It's so simple, I know, but few people use this great tool for conversion. Testimonials are important in converting your visitors to customers. Often, people like to think that they make their own decisions in life. People do what they want when they want to do it and people buy what they want when they want to buy it.
However what they don't realise is they are influenced by other people's experiences.
If you hear a bad review on a movie that your friend just saw, chances are you won't go see it. Your work colleague doesn't shut up about how great this new restaurant is that she just visited. So where do you think your going the next time you plan a night out?
Neither of these where your own decisions. You were influenced by the opinions of others. You fell subject to social proof.
Social proof is when you use the opinions of others to add value to a product, service or event. These opinions are often called testimonials.
Testimonials certify value.
When you use this technique on your website, you automatically put the value of your business in front of all your visitors. Your visitors read that other people are happy with the work you have don, so they think if these other customers are happy I'm going to be a happy customer as well.
How do you get this amazing tool?
Ask…
Over your years of business you would have a number of customers or clients that are so happy with your service that they want to tell other about your business. So just ask them!
Testimonials can be a letter or email from a customer stating that you, or your company, did a great job, and that they are satisfied with the result of doing business with you. Why not stick this testimonial on your website?
Also, video testimonials are great. Most smart phones come with HD video capabilities, so use your iPhone a record your clients saying what a great job you have done. It doesn't have to be studio quality; in fact, if it looks like you have shot it on an iPhone you can still get a great result because it's authentic. People love what's real. You only need to have a look a reality TV show success to see proof of societies love for what's real.
You want more business so go get some testimonials, put them on your website, and watch your conversion rate rise!
| About the Author : Richard Norris. Richard is the CEO of SiteZero , an Australian based Digital Marketing Services organization. Richard loves technology and is the Ecommerce evangelist at SiteZero. You can connect with Richard on Google + , Linkedin or at the SiteZero Facebook Page Richard Started his first Business in 1985 and entered the online world in 1998. He’s a bit like “The old man and the sea” of digital Marketing |
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Get Great Results With Google Places – Part 2
Posted: Monday, April 15, 2013 at 1:59:38 PM EST by Richard NorrisIn the first part of this post I touched on how to set up the basic information for your Google Places Listing.
The idea of this post is to walk you through the remaining fields to complete you listing. The fields that were left are:
- Service Areas and Location Settings
- Photos
- Videos
- Additional Details
The goal is that at the end of this post you will have a 100% completion bar. This means that you have given your listing the best chance of getting great results with Google Places .Let’s tackle the Service Areas and Location Settings (as seen below).
This is based on where your customers go to receive the services your business offers. If customers come to you e.g. shop front or office, you would leave the selection at “No, all the customers come to the business location” (make sure the business address is correct). That is all you need to do for this selection.
However, if you go to your clients at their location, for instance mobile car washing, you need to select “Yes, this business serves customer’s at their locations”. Once you make this selection the screen will expand as shown below.
You have the ability to select whether or not you want your business address to be shown, it’s up to you. If you don’t want your business address shown, make sure you tick the box “Do not show my business address on my Maps listing”. However we recommend that your display your business address.
Once you have decided if you want your address shown, you can move to the important part of choosing your service areas. You will see a map of your business address, as seen below, that when you select an area it will be highlighted so you can clearly see that area you have selected.
So if you service an area 30kms in diameter from your business location enter your business address in and type 30kms. Once you have done this click “Update Preview”. It should look something like this.
Alternatively you can list the areas you want to service. For instance if you were based in Archerfield and you only wanted to service Carindale, Darra, Forrest Lake and Algester, you simply enter in those suburbs one at a time and then click the add button. Then the map will look like the one below.
Whichever Service Area method you choose it doesn’t matter, as long as you choose one.
We are now finished with your Services Area. So we can move on to Photos and Videos. It is important that you have photos on your listing as it gives your potential clients a recognition point to your business. Whether it is a logo or a key product you need to present your viewing audience with something visual to remember your business. To upload a photo simply click the browse button, find the file you want and then click upload.
Note that you can only upload 10 photos and 5 videos.
Not a lot of businesses have a video done, which is why your listing will be more successful with a video. Go the extra mile with a video on your listing so that you have the best chance of getting great results with Google Places.
It is a little bit tricker to upload a video. If you have a video I suggest you upload it to YouTube and then enter the URL in to the video field on your Places editing page. Alternatively, contact SiteZero and we can assist you.
The last thing to do to get a 100% completion is the additional details. This gives you a great oppourtunity to tell your clients what you do. Get a bit creative. If you sell CNC Machining Equipment, type CNC Machining Equipment: Yes. If you don’t sell pink fluffy dice type Pink Fluffy Dice: No.
This completes this series of posts on Google Places. But if you have any questions about anything you have read please contact me and I will be happy to help you in getting great results with Google Places.
| About the Author : Richard Norris. Richard is the CEO of SiteZero , an Australian based Digital Marketing Services organization. Richard loves technology and is the Ecommerce evangelist at SiteZero. You can connect with Richard on Google + , Linkedin or at the SiteZero Facebook Page Richard Started his first Business in 1985 and entered the online world in 1998. He’s a bit like “The old man and the sea” of digital Marketing |
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| Richard Norris | | | |
Get Great Results With Google Places - Part 1
Posted: Monday, April 15, 2013 at 1:59:10 PM EST by Richard NorrisIn my last post we went over what Google Places is and also why it is important for businesses to have. This post is a guide on how to set up your Google Places listing to achieve the best result possible.
First things first, you need to login to your Google Account. Once logged in, you then need to go to the Google Places page.
A page may come up with the headline, ‘What happens if you lost access to your Google Account tomorrow?’ This is an automated message Google puts up if you haven’t accessed your account for some time. If you enter in the country you are based in and a mobile number you will be able to continue. Sometimes Google will list an email address, so check that you receive emails from the listed email address, make the necessary changes and then you can continue. Otherwise, you will then be taken directly to your Google Places dashboard.
From your dashboard, you can view the performance of your listing. For an in depth look at what this means for your business and how to use it, contact us and we will walk you through what you need to know.
If you go to the right hand side of your dashboard you will find a section called ‘Your business info’ in that section there is an edit button, as highlighted in the image below.
Clicking this link will lead you to the page as seen below where you will be able to edit your listing. If your business is found with Google it will auto-fill some details, if not you will need to enter it in yourself.
Please ensure that if Google auto-fills some details you check to see if those details are correct. Change them if they are wrong.
The first section of this page is called Basic Information. Fill out everything up to and including the website field.
Once you get to Description field, you need to write one or two sentences describing what your business does. You can only use 200 characters, so choose wisely. If your aren’t a wordsmith I suggest that you have a look on your home page and have a look for one sentence that best describes your business then just copy and paste it into the description field, this sentence may also be on your about us page.
The following section is called categories. Essentially categories are the keywords that you use to find you listing. Now before you go crazy listing all your keywords, Google only allows you to have 5 categories. One of these categories needs to be on the list Google provides i.e. one that automatically comes up when you type in the category field (as seen below).
Have a search around for as many keywords on this list that relate to your business as possible. For the remaining keywords I suggest that you use your top performing keywords which should be identified on your Analytics Report that SiteZero sends you each month. If you don’t receive your analytics or aren’t sure where to find your top performing keywords contact SiteZero and we will assist you in getting that information.
In the next post I will address how to properly set up the Service Areas and Location Settings, Photos, Videos and also Additional Details. Your homework is to fill in the Payment Options and Hours of Operations fields.
Before you sign out you need to know how to save your listing. You can do this by clicking the ‘Submit’ button at the bottom of the page. If this is the first time you have edited you Google Places listing, Google will ask you to verify your listing. You can select different methods of verification, but I recommend that you make the selection that Google call you. Before you get too excited, it’s not a real person. An automated voice will give you a passcode, which is a series of numbers that you need to write down.
It’s highly important that the number you have put in is a direct line to you, because it is a robot they will only say the digits regardless who is on the other line. So don’t give a number your receptionist picks up or a number with your own automated answering service attached to it. If you don’t have such number select for Google to send you a postcard. To get verification make your selection and click ‘Finish’, expect the phone call in a matter of seconds. So don’t click finish if you have to visit the bathroom. The postcard will come in about 2 weeks, so you have plenty of time to visit the restroom.
Clicking finish will take you to a new page where you need to enter the passcode Google. To finalise everything, enter in your passcode and then click submit. Now you are all set in continuing making your Google Places listing as effective as possible.
Keep an eye out for my next article so you can finish setting up your listing and start getting great results with Google Places.
| About the Author : Richard Norris. Richard is the CEO of SiteZero , an Australian based Digital Marketing Services organization. Richard loves technology and is the Ecommerce evangelist at SiteZero. You can connect with Richard on Google + , Linkedin or at the SiteZero Facebook Page Richard Started his first Business in 1985 and entered the online world in 1998. He’s a bit like “The old man and the sea” of digital Marketing |
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| Richard Norris | | | |
