In a recent benchmarking report (December 2009), one of Australia’s leading email marketing agencies, Returnity, outlined some key findings from their experience over the year. Three of their top findings included the following:

• A short, sharp subject line of 30 characters or less generates a 24% better open rate than longer subject lines (50 characters or more) within the B2C sector.
• The only keyword to drive higher than average open rates was ‘exclusive’, with ‘free’, ‘win’, ‘$’ and ‘!’ all showing open rates lower than the benchmark.
• The ’stickiness’ of an email was directly proportional to the size of the list it was sent to, indicating that segmentation and content targeting are still the key drivers of high performance.

When it comes to email marketing, it’s very important to get it right first time. If not, you risk alienating your users and encouraging countless people to unsubscribe.

Here are a few important things to keep in mind:

• Promote your brand. The design of your email should look professional and it should match your website design and your brand. Make sure you engage a specialist agency such as Big Click Studios to design your email templates for you. Similarly, if your email clicks through to any landing pages, make sure the design of these pages is consistent also.
• Always be brief. People won’t read too much content in an email. Use headings, bullets and short sections of text. Include lots of links so that people can click through to your website if they are interested in finding out more. They won’t read it in the email.
• Don’t bore people. Only send an email if you have something relevant to say – or don’t send anything at all. Otherwise, when you do have something valuable, you may well be ignored.
• Segment your database. Make sure that you’re sending people information that’s specifically relevant to them. There’s no point sending a 16 year old boy information about walking frames – or sending an 80 year old grandmother information about upcoming hip hop gigs (unless she’s specifically requested the info, of course!). As Returnity’s findings indicate, this data segmentation is very important.
• Your subject line is very important. Avoid using words such as ‘free’ or ‘win’ or using exclamation marks or dollar signs in your subject line – as this might encourage email security systems to classify you as spam.
• Include privacy and unsubscribe information. Besides the fact that this is a legal requirement, you risk damaging your brand if you don’t provide users with the opportunity to unsubscribe from your email.
• Be personal. If you have a user’s name in your database, address them directly. This makes the email seem more targeted.
• Send when the timing’s right. Don’t send email during holidays (such as over Christmas or long weekends) when most people won’t be in front of their computers.
• Create clear calls to action. Always be very clear about what you want people to do. If the call to action is particularly important (such as entering a competition or downloading a document), enter it a few times in the email.
• Structure is important. Put the most important information at the top of your email – where it will immediately be viewed, and put less important information at the bottom. This will give users a chance to view the email in their email preview pane before necessarily opening it. If the offer or information is good, they might take further action.
• Review your statistics. On a regular basis, determine what’s working and what’s not. Don’t continue to blindly send out emails to your customers if you’re not getting any traction. If something does work (such as a special offer or a particular article) pay attention and ask yourself why it did work. If you’re not sure how to interpret email statistics, speak to the team at Big Click Studios. We can help.
• Encourage refer a friend. Give incentives for people to refer a friend (for instance – if they encourage a friend to sign up to your newsletter, they get an extra entry in a competition) so as to grow your database.
• Make it easy for subscribers to change their details. If someone changes their job, and changes their email address, it’s important that you give them a quick and easy option to update their details. Include a link on the bottom of your emails.
• Send at the right time. There has been considerable research done into the best times to send emails, and when people are most responsive. Typically, it’s agreed that the optimal time is on a Wednesday or Thursday.

Want help with your email marketing, or with email marketing design services? Contact us.

Here are five great ways in which your website can generate a return on investment:

1. People can find you.
These days, customers do their research on the web. If you’re there, customers are more likely to find you – especially if you advertise with the right directories, optimise your website for search engines (SEO) and practice some cost-effective online marketing (SEM). The more leads you have, the more potential customers, and the more potential sales you will make.

2. Qualified leads.
Once your customer has visited your website, they are more likely to know whether or not they want your products or services – and can therefore approach you as a pre-qualified lead. This reduces the burden on your sales team and means that you have a greater likelihood of selling to this customer base.

3. Inexpensive advertising.
Once your website template exists – and provided you have an in-built content management system – it should be very easy for you to publish content on your website on a regular basis. This can help you promote new products or services as soon as they are released – or communicate with your customers about special offers or opportunities to buy. This makes you appear current, and gives you a cost effective channel through which to advertise on a very regular basis.

4. Basis for all advertising.
Once you have a website, you can easily put all of your advertising content on your site – to back up any offline promotions. You can use other channels to encourage interest, and then put all the detail that’s required on your website at very minimal cost. This saves you money in producing costly mail-drops or multi-page print brochures, or in making extensive follow-up calls.

5. Customer service centre.
Your website is available (or should be) 24/7. This means that if a customer has a question about something, they can go straight to your website any time of the day or night – without calling you or your customer service teams. This obviously lowers your staffing burden quite significantly.

However there is, of course, somewhat of an art to ensuring your website is an effective sales channel – and that it delivers return on investment. You need a sound navigation structure, quality web design and branding, and an appropriate content management solution. You need to ensure that these elements are carefully balanced with your business objectives – and that you’re not investing in wasted functionality or features that you won’t use.

To find out more about how you can drive greater return from an existing website – or build a lucrative website from the beginning – talk to the team at Big Click Studios. We’d love to help.

Twitter (www.twitter.com) is known as a micro-blog. Users sign up and post their ramblings/links/ponderings in 140 characters or less to their group of ‘followers’. It was launched in 2006 and has fast become one of the internet’s biggest success stories. People credit it with changing the face of world news, and call it the “new Facebook”.

According to Wikipedia, Twitter is “sometimes described as the ‘sms of the internet’” due to the fact that Twitter is used to send and receive short messages of the kind usually received or sent as SMS.

As well as broadcast messages, Twitter also provides the option to “direct message” a follower – a private message that’s just shared between the two of you.

Who uses it?

Millions of people, all over the world. It’s used by individuals, businesses, big brands, small brands, celebrities and wannabe celebrities.

According to an article published on Mashable, there are currently around 6 million registered users on Twitter. This doesn’t include the huge volume of ‘passive users’ – people who observe Twitter and read posts, but who haven’t registered. According to Oprah, there are over 14 million total Twitterers (and she’s one of them).

What’s the point of it?

Twitter provides rapid, real-time sharing of information – with people all over the world. Someone once described it as being like “group instant messaging, a water cooler and market research all wrapped in one”.

Why is it valuable?

• It’s real-time. People post thoughts as they come to mind, or facts as they come to hand. There’s no editing, reviewing or delays. Information is on Twitter as it happens.
• It breaks news. Details about the Mumbai bombings, for instance, were first spread around the world on Twitter, and news of Michael Jackson’s death hit Twitter before it hit the Australian newspapers. According to Wikipedia, Twitter has also been used in campaigning, legal proceedings, education, emergencies, protest and politics, public relations, reporting dissent, to survey opinion and even in space exploration.
• It’s mobile. People can update their Twitter account from their PCs or their phones – any time of the day or night. This means that the Twitter community is always connected, and never out of touch.
• It’s international. People from all over the world use it – so the perspectives and opinions on Twitter are global as well as local.
• You choose who you follow. This means that information is pre-filtered depending on who you trust. As such, you’re only getting the information that you want to see.
• It’s ruthless. Twitter is fast paced and changes on a daily basis. If you’re not happy with a follower, you can simply ‘un-follow’ them. You have ultimate control over the quality and type of information you see.
• It’s honest and transparent. There’s nothing to hide on Twitter, and false information or exaggerated claims will quickly be publicly slammed – so you can be fairly certain that what you’re reading is based in truth. Also, Twitterers will often include links to third party information to back up what they say.

How can businesses use it?

While Twitter does receive its share of criticism for allowing people to publish “nonsense”, Twitter does have a serious side – and can provide enormous marketing potential. There are countless examples of how the site has helped businesses achieve record sales figures and generate return on investment.

For your business, some of the key benefits of Twitter include:

• Free research. This is perhaps the most valuable aspect of Twitter. It allows you to receive up-to-the-minute statistics and information – and to stay in touch with what’s happening in your industry. By following the right people, you can ensure that you always have access to the right information.
• Free marketing. You can communicate with your followers regarding anything you like: new products, new services, up-and-coming offers, or simply what’s happening in your business on a daily basis.
• Free PR. Twitter is a fantastic public relations channel for any small business. You can position yourself as a thought-leader by sharing valuable articles and information with your customers.
• Free customer service. Twitter also provides you with a fantastic avenue to have a two-way conversation with a customer who happens to be following you. You can respond directly to a comment that they post – or could perhaps send them a direct message suggesting how you will fix an issue that they may have had.

Here’s an example:

Kogi BBQ is a Korean mobile BBQ truck based out of the US: http://kogibbq.com/.
They have over 52,000 people following them on Twitter.

They use Twitter to alert their eager followers as to where their mobile taco trucks are – and when they’ll be in specific areas. Being a mobile business, Twitter is the perfect way to drive awareness and encourage people to pay their truck a visit and make sales.

Still confused about Twitter? Not sure if it’s for you or what you could be doing? Talk to the team at Big Click Studios about how we can help.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It’s all about making sure that your website is designed, written and built in a way that attracts maximum interest from search engines like Google, Bing or Yahoo!. An “optimised” site will appear higher on search engine page rankings when a user searches for certain terms – meaning there’s greater likelihood of that customer finding you, and of them subsequently buying your products or services.

Importantly, SEO is essentially free – and shouldn’t be confused with SEM or Search Engine Marketing (which refers to the paid advertising placements you can purchase in major search engines).

How does SEO work?

While the principles of SEO are fairly simple, the execution can be quite complex – as all search engines are different, and they change their search algorithms (or what they look for) on a regular basis.

In very basic terms, search engines trawl the internet and index websites based on their perceived value to users. While all engines are different, and while the rules are always changing, search engines generally look for a few key things:

• The number of external websites which link to your website.
• The extent to which the keywords used in your website copy match those which the user is searching for. This is important – as your site needs to reflect what a user would realistically search for, not the terms that you necessarily want to use to promote your business. Keywords used in navigation and headings are given more priority and value than words used in page copy.
• Your page titles (the phrase which appears in the top left hand side of your browser) and metadata (more on this later).
• The number of links you have within your website – between pages.

What are keywords (or keyphrases)?

These are the specific words that users will enter into a search engine (such as Google) when looking for a particular product or service. Accordingly, keyphrases are strings of words which users might search for.

For instance, here are some of the terms that users might search for if looking for Big Click Studios:

Keywords:

• Design
• Web
• SEO
• Branding

Key phrases

• Central Coast web design
• Sydney web design
• Web development
• Online Marketing

Through optimising our website using these keywords (i.e. integrating them into the copy and page titles), we have been able to achieve number one rankings for our site. For instance, if you search for “central coast web design” in Google, our website is the first non-paid listing that displays:

Obviously, “owning” keywords is impossible – and SEO is a competitive business. The more websites out there that use the same words as you, the more difficult it will be. The trick is to use the right words, and the ones that will necessarily get the most impact – not those which are the most popular.

What is metadata?

Metadata refers to the text (meta keywords and a meta description) which your website developers can insert into the code of your site to ensure it is as optimised as possible. Keyword metadata used to be one of the main ways in which sites were index – though isn’t referred to so much these days. However, search engines can sometimes take a meta description that’s been inserted into your code, and display it along with your website in the results page.

Can SEO backfire?

It definitely can. One of the tricks of SEO is to strike a delicate balance between “optimisation” and overdoing it. If a search engine believes your website isn’t genuine (i.e. only built to capture search leads rather than genuinely adding value), you could end up being blacklisted. This would obviously be a branding and marketing disaster for any small business.

Can I optimise an existing website?

Absolutely. While it’s obviously better to optimise a website as it’s being developed (to ensure you have the right navigation and set up), it’s definitely possible to optimise a website that already exists. In fact, SEO should always be an ongoing process. To some extent, it will always be based on trial and error – so it’s important to regularly examine what’s working, and what’s not – and making ongoing modifications to boost your rankings.

So if you are interested in optimising your website, it’s important that you speak with experts – like Big Click Studios – who can help you implement a workable and safe SEO solution.

Here are 10 important ones to consider:

1. Be where your customers are
With a few exceptions, chances are that your customers spend a significant portion of their day – or at least their week – on the internet. Here are a few stats to keep in mind:

• The internet is the world’s second most commonly used medium after television (Internet Statistics Compendium, 2006).
• Worldwide, approximately 1.5 billion people use the internet (Internet World Stats, 2008).
• Most importantly: search engines are the way most people (85%) find new sites, and the way most businesses find new sources for products and services (Direct Marketing Association).

2. Speed to market
Unlike other forms of marketing, your website has the potential to be a living, breathing thing. Provided you have content management capabilities built into your site, you can update it any time. This can enable you to be extremely current and respond to changes in the market as they happen. For this reason, it’s essential that you choose an experienced web design agency who can design this capability for you.

3. Price
Your website is one of the best investments you will ever make – and can be extremely cost effective. While you do pay for quality web design, web development and SEO consulting services, a website certainly doesn’t require the same enormous investment as TV or radio advertising, and it also has the potential to deliver very low cost leads over time.

Plus, websites are flexible. You can start out small – and expand your website as your budget expands. And by investing in strategic initiatives like SEO and online advertising – or by registering with the right online directories - you can very easily and cost effectively drive users to your site.

4. Measurable
Importantly, your website is completely measurable. By integrating proprietary analysis tools, or free software like Google Analytics into your site, you can determine who is going to your URL, how long they’re staying for, which pages they’re visiting, and what they do while they are there. This enables you to discover quite in-depth information about your target audience, and determine how they are relating to you. You can also take advantage of this information to optimise your website over time.

5. Independent
Provided your website is well designed and structured in the first place – you should be able to manage it independently, in house. This makes you don’t need to be tied to an advertising or marketing agency for ongoing updates or promotions. Instead, you can assign ongoing marketing duties to your team. As well as reducing costs, this can make things more efficient and fast-paced – very important for a small business.

6. Credibility
A website provides credibility and certainty for your customers. You’re not just a random contractor or an anonymous voice on the end of a telephone. With a professionally designed and built website, you appear as an established and credible business.

7. Competition
Chances are that your competitors are already online. If they’re not, it’s a fantastic opportunity for you to seize market share. If you’re thinking of building a website, make sure you do your research and find out what your competitors are doing. Think about what you would do differently – and why a potential customer would choose your website over theirs.

8. 24/7 client service
A website can enable you to service the needs of your customers – any time of the day or night. People can easily find out about your products and services – without having to call you or request more information. You can also publish regular updates to your site, and can also set-up members-only areas, where existing customers can get exclusive updates that make them feel valued.

9. Pre-qualified leads
Importantly, your website can function as an effective way to qualify customers as part of the sales process. Once customers have visited your website and reviewed your information, they will know whether or not your business is right for their needs. This means that when they contact you, they are already pre-qualified sales opportunities – reducing the strain on your sales teams.

In addition, by encouraging users to submit their details into online forms or tools, you can capture their information for ongoing marketing.

10. Convert customers online
If appropriate, your website can even become a self-functioning sales tool. By integrating online purchasing tools, you can easily close the loop on the sales cycle – without any of your staff having to be directly or immediately involved. This can significantly reduce the burden on your sales or customer service teams.

If you’re thinking of building or updating your website, make sure you get the right help. Speak to Big Click Studios about our website design, website development and SEO services.

These days, a vast portion of Australian businesses have websites. With so many agencies and web design professionals out there, it’s certainly not difficult to establish a website and enter the online space. The difficult bit is getting it right.

If you are re-designing your website, or entering the online space for the first time, here are 10 important tips to keep in mind.

1. Make everything about the user

A good website is focused entirely on the needs of the user. It doesn’t matter whether you’re building a Government website that provides information on public policy, or a small business that sells bricks to tradesmen. Putting your user first is essential.

Ensuring your website is user-centric involves:

• Thinking in-depth about who your target audience is – or who you want them to be.
• Considering what your users want from your website. Are they looking for information on your products or your services? Are they simply looking for contact information so they can call you directly – or will they be looking for greater detail?
• Making sure that the structure and design of your website reflects the needs of your users. The most important sections should come first in your navigation, and should be incredibly easy to find.
• Making general information about your company a low priority. Put information about your products and services – and what they mean to your user – in front of information about your company structure, history or values.
• Designing and writing your website in a way which appeals to your users. Address them in the first person. Show you understand their needs and problems. Show how you provide a solution.

2. Plan. Plan. Plan

Building a website is a lot like building a house. You can’t begin laying the bricks or painting the walls without having a solid plan in place, engaging the right team, or doing the background research.
Before you begin any development, it’s essential to speak to an expert agency, and have an in-depth brainstorming session. Think about what you want to achieve with your website, what’s important to you, and what’s important to your users.

Then, before any design or development work begins, you need to consider several key factors:

• How much content you have, which content is the most important, and how your website will fit together based on this content.
• How your brand will work online – or whether it needs to be adapted to suit the online space.
• How the various components of your site will work together on a page-by-page level. Which sections will link where? Will you be using forms or tools? How will they work?
• What technology platform and framework is right for your business. This will obviously depend on the technical sophistication of your users.
• When will you launch your website? Is there a key time that it would make sense to go live – such as the release of a new product or service?

3. Test. Test. Test (and as often as possible)

Too many businesses overlook this aspect – forgetting to test their website with users at any stage of the development process. Often, they then wonder why people don’t stay long on their site, or why no-one bothers to visit in the first place.

When it comes to testing, make sure you don’t leave it until your website is completely designed and developed to see how it resonates with your users. Test as you go.

To begin with, get a sample of website users together, and see how they feel about your proposed structure, design and page layout. Does it work? Would they change anything? Take their recommendations on board – and then test again. See if there is an improvement in how they feel about your site once it is modified.

Importantly, don’t be afraid of criticism when it comes to your design or content. It’s often difficult to see your business when you’re working in it day-by-day. This initial feedback from your users can help you create a website that genuinely gets results.

4. Choose the right team

When it comes to your website, it’s essential to get it right first time. You need to put your brand in the hands of a team like Big Click Studios. Too many businesses rush into publishing a website which ends up negatively impacting upon their brand – and having to re-build in a few years’ time.

5. Don’t forget about content

Lots of businesses forget about the content component of their website until it’s too late. Remember that people are visiting your site for information – and that the way your content is written and structured plays a key role in how they perceive your brand and relate to you. Make sure that every piece of content on your site adds value to your user.

6. Have a plan for updating your site

Websites should be living, breathing things – especially if you want your users to come back to your site again and again. As such, make sure you have the resources to update your website on a regular basis. Or, at the very least – make sure that you set up someone to answer and respond to any queries that come through your website – especially if it’s via a contact us form.

7. Be appropriate

Don’t get carried away with gimmicks or build functionality into your website simply for the sake of it. Think seriously about whether your business really needs eCommerce functionality – or whether your money would be better spent investing in quality photographs and descriptions of your products to help users do their research before they come into your store. For every component or piece of functionality that you’re considering, ask yourself – ‘will this generate a return on investment?’ and ‘what does this mean for my users?’.

8. Measure it!

Just as plenty of people forget to test their website, too many also forget to test and measure a site once it is live. To ensure the ongoing success of your website, it’s essential to review your site statistics. Look at who is visiting, how long they are staying for, and what they are doing on your website. Where are they coming from? Which pages are getting the most clicks? Are people filling out forms on your site, or do they start entering their information, and then give-up half way through?

By reviewing these statistics, you can make the necessary tweaks to ensure the long-term success of your site. If something’s not working, you can fix it. You can prioritise the pages which are getting the most hits – and de-prioritise those which aren’t.

9. Make sure search is part of your strategy

Today, it’s absolutely essential that your website is found by search engines. Otherwise, what’s the point? If you’re a small or mid-size business without a widely established brand, this is particularly the case.

To boost the rankings of your website, you need to determine which keywords are important to your business, and integrate these into your site in several ways. The ranking of your site can also be affected by the way it is structured, designed, and how it is linked to other websites.

Speak to the team at Big Click about how a search engine optimisation strategy can work for your business.

10. Promote it!

Importantly, once your new site is launched, tell people about it! Send an email out to all your contacts announcing your new site. Put your URL on the bottom of your email footer. If you’re on Twitter, LinkedIN, Del.icio.us or Facebook, call out your new site – and encourage as many people to bookmark your site as possible.

To find out how content can make a difference to your business – and about how Big Click Studios can help, give us a call on 1300 677 924.

Remember that girl in the U.S. who posted a comment about hating her job (and her boss) on Facebook, forgetting she’d actually befriended him a few weeks prior? The scathing reply from her boss – and her online sacking – quickly flew around email boxes all over the world.

You’ve probably heard (or used) the term “Stalkbook” - and no doubt you know someone who has discovered something fascinating about a partner, an ex, or a friend, online.

According to Nielsen Online NetView in March 2009, social media sites are flourishing. There are 4,979,000 unique users on Facebook, 2,79,000 on MySpace, 679,000 on Twitter, 543,000 on Bebo, and 258,000 on LinkedIn.

Considering most of these brands and websites have only existed for 5 or so years, these numbers are incredible.

So how has the internet - and social media in particular- changed our real life relationships?

Here are 5 key ways:

1. We’re more global - These days, the whole world is connected – regardless of where we are, or what time zone we exist in. We can share content, photos or stories with people on the other side of the world, virtually overnight. Innovations such as Skype also mean that our international interactions have transcended voice or email – and have a new dimension to what they did several years ago.

2. We have broader networks – as well as narrower networks. Tools like Facebook, MySpace and Bebo have reconnected us with people that we wouldn’t necessarily see in real life. We can find out what’s happening in the lives of people we went to school or university with, or with whom we once shared an office. Yet ironically, social tools have also made our networks more defined in many ways. Often, we’re asked to put our connections into certain categories (“friend”, “colleague”, “employer”, “school friend”, etc). We have our “favourites” and we can easily set up exclusive groups or invite lists. Social media tools have made it easier to categorise and segment our friends – especially by suggesting people we may know, and highlighting shared friends.

3. Everything’s faster. These days, the speed by which we get to know someone – or at least what they look like, where they work, who their friends are, what movies or books they like, and where they choose to holiday – is rapid. Before going on a date, we can Google someone to get their vital statistics. We can follow them on Twitter to find out what they have to say, or (if connected), view their pics on Facebook to see where they hang out and who they hang with. Much of the “getting to know you” legwork is done for us. Whether or not this means more meaningful – or shallower relationships – in the long term is a big question – and subject for extensive debate.

4. We’re mobile. Thanks to mobile technology – iPhones, Blackberries and SmartPhones, our online relationships cross-over more frequently into “real life”. How often have you been sitting at dinner with a friend, and checked your email or Facebook account when he or she goes to the bathroom? Mobile technology means we’re connected to our online friends anywhere, and any time – even when we’re seeing them face to face.

5. Cross-generational - Importantly, social media tools are connecting generations in new ways. You may have seen the recent Optus TVC which shows a woman in the hairdresser with her daughter. Mum asks daughter how her party went the previous night – and when the daughter gives a nonchalant reply, Mum utters the very knowing line: “Hmm, that’s not what it said on Facebook.” With both parents and children now connected online, new levels of openness and transparency are established.

Got any questions about this article? Want to know more?
To find out how digital technology can make a difference to your business – and about how Big Click Studios can help, give us a call on 1300 677 924.

While the statistics would no doubt vary slightly here in Australia, the overall trend is undoubtedly the same: when it comes to our time, the internet is definitely where it’s at.

Yet there’s no question that the way we design for the internet has evolved immeasurably over the past two decades.

Back in the 1990s, in the midst of the dotcom boom, the internet was flooded by sleek, online brochure-ware; static sites with generic navigation that had simply been reproduced from print collateral.

As technology evolved, websites gradually developed into much more organic, valuable tools – built specifically for digital environments. Companies dedicated to web development sprung up everywhere. New jobs were created – for digital developers, producers, designers, copywriters, information architects and user experience experts. The businesses that succeeded were the ones who prioritised the user experience – and took navigation and information architecture very seriously. Clients also began investing in content management systems – which enabled them to gain control over their websites, and publish content on an ongoing basis.

Then of course, we welcomed Web 2.0 – social media technology – which has shifted the entire emphasis of the web, and web development, to users. Interaction, sharing and evaluating other people’s content is now the norm. A website or online application is valued on how users rate and interact with it - not what the owner or company has to say about itself. The internet has become more honest. Barriers have been broken down, and free tools and templates are everywhere. Content management systems are now freely available - as are networking and exchange tools like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

So what does this new, free, user-focused environment mean for web design?

Essentially, it all comes down to content.

Today, the role of a web designer is to create an environment in which content – of all forms – can shine. Design is the container – and content is the substance.

Importantly, content is not just about copy, or words. It can also be a beautiful piece of design, an interactive video, a game, or perhaps an engaging story. Today’s web designers and developers are responsible for creating the templates through which this content can be supported and highlighted – as well as facilitating maximum user interaction and involvement.

Quite simply, engaging content means that users will keep coming back to a website on a regular basis. They will download, interact, share and request more.

Make it interesting, and they will come.

Content is also of crucial importance when it comes to optimising a site for search engines. Using pertinent terms in your navigation, page titles and heading copy can determine how easily your website is found and picked up by search engines – and subsequently, your online users.

However, when it comes to content, lots of businesses are daunted by the prospect of producing effective content on a regular basis. Where will it come from? How will we ensure it reflects positively on our brand? How do we control what users say about us?

To help, here are five tips for producing and managing your website’s content.

1. Know your audience.

This is perhaps the single most important consideration when it comes to producing content for your own website. Do some research into who is currently visiting your site, how long they spend there, an on what sections. Think carefully about who you want to visit it in the future. What content would resonate with these people? What’s likely to prompt them to take action? Are they internet-savvy teenagers who need fast and frequent updates in bite-sized chunks? Perhaps they’re time-poor mums and dads who need quick solutions and reliable, trusted advice? Or maybe you’re targeting an older demographic who have time to read and absorb longer pieces of content.

2. Make it interesting.

Before you publish anything, think to yourself: “is this worth sharing?” Don’t publish anything that you think won’t engage a user, or prompt anyone to share this content with friends. Create content that you would want to read – and which adds value. For instance – perhaps you run a business that provides car servicing and maintenance. While technical details about car engines might be a little beyond most of your users, they might be interested in tips about how to change their oil, info on some great places to go 4WDriving in Australia, or a quick lesson on the regulations surrounding car seats for kids.

3. Cross promote.

Spread the word about new content in as many ways as possible. This could be via an email newsletter with links through to your website – or via social sites such as Twitter, Facebook or MySpace. Put links to new content on your email footer. Set up a company blog. Encourage people to click through wherever and whenever you can.

4. Make it regular.

There’s nothing worse than websites that don’t get updated on a fairly regular basis - and which sit stagnant for 12 months, simply because everyone ran out of time. That said, don’t publish content just for the sake of it. Make sure that everything you publish is valuable – but do try to keep the updates coming, no matter how small they may be.

5. Think outside the square.

These days, publishing effective content is about far more than copy – or articles. You can also engage users by hosting short videos on your site, publishing your PowerPoint presentations via SlideShare, sharing photos on Flickr – or even encouraging your users to submit their own content or comments.

Got any questions about this article? Want to know more?
To find out how content can make a difference to your business – and about how Big Click Studios can help, give us a call on 1300 677 924.

*Source: North American Technographics Media and Marketing Online Survey, Q2 2008

This is good news for many Central Coast businesses that are able to take advantage of Sydney’s blurring boundaries to compete against their Sydney rivals, with distance no longer being a factor.

Big Click Studios is one such business. We have used the shortening distance between the Central Coast and Sydney to promote our web design firm’s attributes to businesses and organizations in the nation’s biggest city. With the Central Coast just over and hour from Sydney by car or train, our Erina location means we are closer to some of our clients than they are to some of their suppliers with a Sydney address.

However, the best aspect of providing web design services to businesses in Sydney, Newcastle and the Central Coast, is that computers make us capable of operating as outsourced hubs for each client. Location has ceased to become a deciding factor for some many businesses we now do web design and development work with.

The beautiful Hawkesbury River signals where the Central Coast ends and Sydney begins. This river’s cool waters are punctuated by steep, bushland terrain seen from the F3, Pacific Highway and train line. The Central Coast’s scenery and lifestyle provide an excellent setting from which to operate Big Click Studios.

Our growing list of web design projects completed for Sydney clients proves distance is nothing in business today. Outstanding customer service and pride in the superior web development we provide are the currency for operating in today’s marketplace.

Here are some pictures of the day and don’t forget to visit http://www.findmylocal.com.au to register for your complimentary listing and to stay up-to-date.