I just thought I’d take a moment to promote some of the great offers one of our clients currently has on offer.

Warcom, offer awesome deals when you sign up with the various broadband providers that they resell, including, Internode, TPG, iiNet, Westnet, & Netspace.

You can take advantage of their $25 Internode Promo Code offer or there $25 TPG Discount.

They also have various other offers, for the previous Broadband Providers I mentioned.

Check them out, you’re bound to save a few dollars!

All the best,
Matt.

I love blogs. I enjoy reading, looking and hearing people’s work on the daily in areas I’m most interested in: art, design, photography, football (the world game), and music. And I have no doubt that millions of people are continually following their favourite blogs for sources of news and information every day. Statistics say that and its growing by the minute.

In 2009, Technorati released ‘The State of Blogosphere’, a study in the growth and trends of blogging.  It has yielded some interesting stats on blogging in general, some of which are mentioned below:

• More than 133,000,000 blogs have been indexed by Technorati since 2002
• Two-thirds of bloggers are male (Lift your game, ladies!)
• 56% say that their blog has helped their company establish a positioning as a thought leader within the industry
• 51% of Corporate Bloggers – 58 respondents – report receiving a salary for blogging
• 58% say that they are better-known in their industry because of their blog
• 77% of Internet users read blogs

You can draw your own conclusions from these stats, but there is no denying the popularity of blogs and the effectiveness of it as a marketing tool.

Here are just a few ways a blog could help your business:

Create awareness and lift the profile of your brand or business

Once already set up, it is an inexpensive and fast way to spread the word, as opposed to your traditional media like radio, magazines and newspapers. By writing informative and engaging blogs, you are not only letting everyone know that you are an authority in your industry, but you are generating some advertising for your company.

Maintain a good relationship with your clients

A blog is a great way to communicate with your customers. The comments section allows visitors to ‘speak up’ and as a result, learn more about your business by asking questions and interacting with you or with other customers. This will also help you know your customers better.

Drive traffic to your website

Writing regular informative blog entries in time creates a following and people are willing to share links in their blogs or articles when they find a good source of information. These links are very important from an SEO standpoint. The more links that appear from external websites to yours can effectively boost your search ranking. Just the fact that you are writing new content regularly through your blog articles will help alert the search engines.

These are just some obvious advantages of blogging but there are others. Look around and do some research on your competitors. If they are not doing it already, stay ahead of the game and start blogging!

It probably helps that we’ve been in the business of building ‘online businesses’ for going on 10 years now, so we do know a thing or two about building online stores, that others don’t.

Please consider this though… Building an online store is only the ‘first step’ into running a successful online store …

And most web companies seem to forget to tell you about the ‘other steps’ – but here they are!

• Where are you are going to market your products and store online? – We can show you.
• How you are going to ship and deliver your products? - We can help you.
• Will you be needing to email your clients? – We can sort this out.
• How are people going to pay you? Are you going to accept paypal? credit cards? - We can assist.
• You’re going to need to write content for the website. - We can do this too.
• When your business starts growing out of control… And it will, if you work with us – We’ll be here to help you.

.. That’s probably enough for now!

If all of this sounds quite interesting to you would like to work with Insiteful, I’d love to hear from you.

You can reach me directly on: 0431 585 333.

All the best
- Paul

———————————–

nb: A little about me ….

My claim to fame is, I own ‘Warcom – Australia’s Leading Online Networking Store’ .. (Warcom has been around for roughly 12 years now and very profitable for all of them. We currently employ around 10 staff).

I also mentor the owners & directors in the following businesses (all are valued Insiteful clients).

Modbec – Cosmetic Packaging, Cosmetic Bottles, Cosmetic Containers
VieBeuaty – Makeup For The Vicious Vixens
Synergie Minerals – Mineral Makeup and Skin Care
SupplementsDirect – Australia’s Cheapest Online Supplements Store
Thirdgear – Motorcycle Accessories, Mirrors, Bluetooth Communication

I have prepared a quick walk through for those of you who, that host your Interspire Shopping Cart with us.

The first thing you need to check, is whether or your server is running php4 or php5. By default, our servers are running php4 and Interspire run’s on php5.

Let’s get started.

In order to confgure your server for php5, checkout the images below. This is your ‘cPanel‘ for your web server, (which is usually located at http://www.yourwebsite.com/cpanel) – ask us if you can’t find it.

Step One: Click the circled (in red) PHP Configuration Link.

Interspire Shopping Cart - Server Settings - PHP5

That link will then bring you to this page (the full version of it anyway).

Change Server Configuration from PHP4 to PHP5

Step Two: If php4 or system default is selected, simply select php5 and click update and that’s it.

Easy hey?

If you’re still stuck – give us a yell!

All the best.
Matt.

Insiteful and our brother company – Warcom, have recently been conducting a friendly ‘Twitter SEO Off’  with Jimboot (from StewartMedia) for the search phrase:

‘Google Caffeine Is Incredibly Fast!‘

As you will notice in Jim’s video, the speed at which both companies start ranking on the first page of Google is seriously – blazingly fast.

Over the coming weeks, our SEO Ninja’s will continue to update this blog post with the various methods we implement and the results achieved.

Stay tuned & Game On!

- Paul.

It has been a pleasure working with Terri Vinson and her team in getting the site up and running.

If you’re in the cosmetics industry (especially the Mineral Make Up industry) head over to the site today and speak with the girls about stocking Synergies fantastic range of products.

- Matt.

Who is this website for?

Coming up with a look and feel is always the joint collaboration among the client, the project manager, in some cases a creative director and the designer. Sometimes, each of these individuals is indulging too much on their own agendas that the most important group is forgotten – the target users.  It is important that the people responsible never lose sight of who this website is for from start to finish.

Preparation

Before the designer even starts to move a pixel, think long and hard about the purpose of this website. What do you want it to achieve? It is not all about creating a cutting edge design that will win awards and wow in the world wide web. It is also about putting in consideration the structural and design aspects that would contribute to an intuitive user experience. The placement of key elements such as the navigation, content and functional features should be carefully planned so your end user always gets the information they need, or the most important information you give, with no effort.

A concept plan in the form of a wireframe helps all parties involved have a clear understanding of the layout. It also speeds up the design process knowing where each element would roughly be placed. The wireframe should also include a list of information hierarchies, the pages and sub pages that will make up the content of the whole website. This way, the designer is able to optimise the real estate of the main pages and layout the elements as best as possible without making drastic changes in the later stages of the build.

Choosing a style

Web concepts are usually a reflection of the client’s branding. The fonts and colours used are based on the existing logo and other marketing materials for consistency. With regards to the design style and structure, it helps when a client provides the designer with a list of websites that they think would be suitable for what they are trying to achieve. Through this, the web designer can gauge their vision and follow an artistic direction that would enhance the website’s purpose.

It would also be an advantage if the client gives the designer a website list of all their competitors. This would not only prevent copying what already exists within your industry, but also recognising the standard in which to strive for to become a leading presence online.

Balance between style and function

The design process is all about taking into consideration the collaborative ideas of all involved, while recognising who your target users are and how they will use the website. Too many websites put too much emphasis on style over function, or vice versa. It is crucial to create a balance.

If done right, web concept creation is one of the most exciting stages of the whole production. Find a good web design company that will listen to your ideas, and the experience to realise this idea into a product that would impress your target users and give your brand or your product the professionalism it deserves.

Having recently re-designed several sites using Interspire such as Supplements Direct and Thirdgear we found the system a breeze to use and amazingly easy to setup.

So if you’re looking to setup and online store, why not take advantage of the FREE BigCommerce TRIAL today and then come back and see speak to us, about creating you a fresh and professional theme.

All the best.
Paul.

Insiteful were commissioned to redesign a website that was uninteresting, out of date and resembled a lot like a template website.

Because of careful planning and improved design execution, we have built a website that is engaging and easy to use for Supplements Direct’s target users.

To view the website, click here.

Cheers,
The Insiteful Team