I’ve bought a few things online over the last couple of weeks, including replacing broken wine glasses, finding a favourite and scratched album from the 70s that has been re-released on CD for the first time and tracking down replacement earphone foam covers. I’d have to say it’s been an interesting experience.
I had a conversation yesterday with a customer about a service offered by a another website, and it was a timely reminder of the copywriting rule to never make assumptions about your customers or their knowledge.
In any industry, there tends to be a base level of knowledge, and often a lot industry specific language that can be confusing or make no sense to customers (unless they’re in the same industry of course).
In my last blog, I mentioned how many websites don’t include their contact number or address on their website, and simply have a form for users to fill out if they need to contact the site owner.
Frequently, the impact of that on site visitors is that they don’t trust the site, and why would you buy from someone who doesn’t want to be contacted.
In ecommerce, trust is everything, if shoppers don’t trust a site, they won’t buy!
It might seem odd for a web design and development company to be writing a blog with tips on how to design a website. The reality though is that while we can develop concepts and recommend best practice implementation, while we have many years of experience in building effective websites, and in some cases have extensive experience in developing sites for a particular industry, for all that we still don’t know your business and your target market as well as you. So while a web developer can provide sound technical and commercial advice, ultimately we take our direction from our customers.
The purpose of this blog is not to provide tips on the technical aspects of creating and coding a site, but to give you as a business owner or manager an understanding of some elements that make an effective web page and to help you in your discussions with your website developer.
I’m a big fan of concise “how to” blogs and articles that provide good tips on how to achieve something without having to spend hours researching and reading. As the web gets ever more congested with competing sites, the need to stand out and be the site that converts to sales or inquiries is becoming evermore important, so I decided to start writing about how to achieve better conversions on your site.
SaaS Content Management Systems (CMS) vs Open Source Software such as Magento - Part 1
by Chris Sutton
A question we often get asked by potential clients is what is the difference between open source systems such as Magento, Wordpress etc., and proprietry SaaS CMS systems. At SiteSuite we've been developing our own SaaS online business suite for over 13 years, as well as having some experience in the use of Magento in particular. Over the course of a few blogs we'll share our knowledge and experience
Predicting trends in technology, or just about anything else, is always fun. Sometimes predictions can be wildly off the mark, but often there are clear trends that give some certainty to prediction.
One such trend is the growing use of HTML5 to build effective web apps that will make many native apps redundant.
One of the more challenging aspects of running an online store is how to manage your shipping logistics.
To help make this process easier one of of SiteSuite's major product releases in 2012 was a direct integration into the Temando freight quoting and booking system.
For most businesses now a website is a vital part of sales, marketing and branding efforts.
Visitors go to your website for a particular reason, and in most cases that’s not to see the latest trends in web design, but to find out about your products or services. So you need to ensure that you answer their questions easily and quickly and use your website to sell your product or service
For webmasters, Flash was a revolution because static web banners and other non-animated content could “become alive” and interactive; engaging customers had never been so rewarding. Everything from video to games, to interactive banners and entire websites built with Flash, the platform’s penetration is massive. But in 2010 all that changed.
I was asked recently to evaluate a large sports promotion website for a friend. The site features hundreds of pages, all with original content but the pages aren't optimised and accordingly the site isn't performing well in search engine rankings. Built on the Open Source CMS platform, Joomlah!, I soon discovered that the site's back-end management was a nightmare.
Australian retailers are doing it tough but visiting retail stores at a local large-scale shopping centre shows that staff are sometimes contributing to the problem by offering poor or indifferent service. eCommerce retailers need to watch themselves too. Customer service and a demonstration of product knowledge - among many things - go a long way to establishing your business as an authority and a worthy place to shop.
Just over a week to go to the start of the inaugural SiteChallenge programme, and we’re getting excited!
What is SiteChallenge? It’s a 12 week, completely online programme that will help you unlock the mysteries of managing a successful online business. You will have the opportunity to learn new skills, and work with like minded people to make your online activity a success.
A recent project had me learning about personal video recorders and then trying to find a retailer who could answer a few simple questions before I made the purchase. Sound simple? Not to an untrained, disinterested group of sales people spread across different shops. Retailing is fun, so why do so many 'too cool for school' 20-somethings find it all so difficult?
Finding time for social media/networking engagement and activity is a common issue among SMEs. How many hours each week are required to maintain an effective presence? What are the repurcussions of ignoring the company Facebook page and Twitter comments?
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