iPhone in Australia
While iPhone hasn't been released in Australia yet, there is no reason to wait in making a few tweaks to ensure your site is ready. We've been using the iPhone for a few months and we can quite honestly say there is no comparison to any other mobile device out there - we love it.
Like most mobile devices, internet speed over the mobile network is about 1/10th of normal ADSL WIFI. While browsing within a wifi hotspot is zippy (pretty much the same speed as you'd get on a desktop/laptop and the pages look great), it's the mobile network performance that hurts when you are on the road.
What can I do to improve my website speed?
Imagine if you could compress your website before it was sent to a visitor, so the data being sent over the network was much smaller, then when the visitor receives the data, they unpack it and view.
Sounds too complicated or too good to be true?
It's not - believe us. Your visitors won't need to change or do a thing. As long as they are using a web browser that is less than 7 years old - it will take care of everything. A small change on most PHP capable webservers will let you deliver compressed web pages without having to compromise on your sites look and feel. iPhone uses the latest version of the Safari browser and handles compressed pages effortlessly - so now you can send less data down the pipe and improve the performance not just on iPhone, but on all your visitors connections.
There is a PHP module called zlib that takes care of everything for you.
The process is simple - someone visits your website, and their browser tells the server it's capable of handling zipped/compressed content. The webserver says great, and servers up compressed content which the browser can then unpack.
I understand it's a pretty technical post, but probably worth asking your web host about.
If you'd like to check if your site is being compressed already and/or the potential savings to bandwith and speed improvements you can test your site at this link.
If your web host can't help you - give us a call.
David
Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008
Website, Online Store or both?
Aren't they they same thing?
Well, yes and no, but mainly no.
Yes they are both on the web - so technically they are both websites but...
Stores have a product focus, it means that the traffic you will receive has to compete at a product level for a good Google ranking. That can be tough - can you imagine how many sites are selling things like cosmetics, electronics, everything?
A website is generally about content and information. A productive website should allow you to add content that relates to your business. Blogs/News/Commentary in particular are great ways to be listed for particular topics and for Google to start to see you as an authority within your field.
IMPORTANT POINT!
A lot of people search Google for the answers to questions - not just products. E.G. How to make bread?
If you're selling bread makers, then a few stories on bread making tips could be useful for getting relevant traffic to your site. If you just have products listed, your site is probably going to miss this traffic.
I'm not sure where I got bread making from, but you get my point....
Efront's Online Store System is a great start for product based rankings due to the built in Google optimisation. It means that store owners just need to focus on the external search engine optimisation tactics of quality inbound links while the online store engine takes care of quality page titles, meaningful keyword rich URLs, dynamic sitemaps and META data embeded within the HTML.
WHY NOT HAVE BOTH!
We've gone even further with our latest version of our online store which gives store owners the best of both worlds!
The new Efront Online Store has the same control over product management and sales but is now combined with an integrated content management system (CMS). This gives store owners the ability to add pages, blog stories or news items using the same "Efront Backstage" control system. The best part is, the store and CMS are both underpinned by the same search engine optimisation (SEO) system - so the technical bits of SEO are taken care of automatically.
KEY LEARNING
We've learnt if your site can help people solve a problem or give meaningful answers to a question, it not only helps build traffic - it can be the starting point for building a great relationship with your visitors and you'll have a much better chance of turning them into customers.
If you'd like to learn more just drop us a line or give us a call - we're web people you can talk to!
David
Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Online Store Checkouts
How many usernames and passwords do you have?
If you're a regular user of the internet, you've probably got more than you can count. I really dislike creating new accounts, especially for places that I know I will be unlikely to come back to. More often than not it's online shopping sites, where sometimes you can't even add something to a shopping cart without registering your details.
Think of it this way....
Scenario 1
Imagine you are going down the street to take a look at a new TV.
You get to the store and before you can enter, they want to know your name, address, delivery address. Well believe it or not - this is happening on the web.
Scenario 2
You stop at a petrol station to fill up and before you can buy you need to set up an account, username and password - so that next time you come you can save a minute.
Chances are that next time you go to that store...
- you won't be able to remember the email address you used
- you may not even have the email address you originally registered with
- you won't be able to remember the password you used
- your address / delivery details may have changed
My guess is that for at least 80% of purchases, making your customers register before they can buy takes your customers longer than just filling out the checkout form and represents another hurdle the customer must go through before doing business with you.
I think it's one of those things that many people add to their stores only because they've seen other stores do it. If you want to build a customer base - use email subscription to send offers and let customers checkout as they please, not just when they've negotiated a registration and login process.
Something to think about?
David
Posted on Monday, January 14, 2008
Set your postage free!
One of the key factors in creating a successful online store is simplicity. To be honest, it applies to everything on the web (and life!).
When most people think about increasing their online store sales, they think of vouchers, discount codes, referral programs, frequent buyer points... blah, blah, blah. From our experience, most of these require significant effort and deliver little return.
The reason? They are too complex, and require the customer to do too much, and/or the pay back is not immediate for the customer. How many coupons have you got that you've never used?
One of the best ways to increase sales online is really simple - offer free postage. The first reaction we get when we mention this to clients is "but what if someone orders a heap of products - I can't afford to pay for the postage!". When we hear this, we know they haven't fully understood the concept.
Here's 5 quick reasons you can and should offer free postage on your online store....
1. You can factor most of the postage cost into your product price
2. Customers are likely to purchase more if they don't have to worry about the postage costs (no checkout price shock)
3. The buying process is simpler, which helps avoid abandoned shopping carts
4. It gives you something broad to promote that will benefit every customer, not just a special on a specific product
5. It's easy to do, easy to understand and easy to sell
It doesn't matter whether you run it as a temporary promotion or a permanent special - it gives you something that you can put in your yearly marketing plan - another bit of marketing ammunition.
Set your postage FREE!
David
Posted on Thursday, January 10, 2008
Adding Stumbleupon to Blogger
StumbleUpon allows you to channel surf the internet and find great websites, videos, photos and more based on your interests. StumbleUpon learns what you like and makes better recommendations.
You just tell Stumbleupon what you are interested in and it will present you with websites that relate to those topics. You can even submit your own sites to Stumbleupon to generate traffic. If your content is genuinely interesting, people will rate it - otherwise you may find that after an initial burst of traffic from Stumbleupon, things die off.
There are millions of blogs out there today, and one of the most popular online blogging tools out there is Google's Blogger. Blogger allows people to easily manage their blogs without the need for special software or in most cases hosting. This article you are reading now is published through Blogger!
We've done a lot of customisation work on various online tools like Blogger and MySpace including the integration of a StumbleUpon button. It's a button that allows members of StumbleUpon to easily recommend your article for others to read - increasing your audience size and traffic.
We still get requests today for help and information on how integrate StumbleUpon to Blogger - so here are the instructions for the latest version of Blogger.
Adding StumbleUpon to Blogger
Before starting, log in to Blogger and make sure you save a copy of your template somewhere in case you make a mistake.
1. Click on Template
2. Select the "Edit HTML" option
5. Find the following line...
<p><data:post.body/></p> -it's around line 663
6. Replace with....
<p><data:post.body/></p>
<a class='timestamp-link' expr:href='"http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=" + data:post.url + "&title=" + data:post.title' title='permanent link'>
<img border="0" src="http://www.stumbleupon.com/images/su_micro.gif" alt="Stumble Upon Toolbar" align=""/>
</a>
(You may want to replace the link to the StumbleUpon icon in the code above [ http://www.stumbleupon.com/images/su_micro.gif ] with the link to your version of the image and where it is uploaded)
7. Save Template and that's it. To see the changes just republish your blog.
Hope this helps and happy new year to all!
David
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008