Small Business Forum

RE: Website Review

Startmarketing.com.au — 2012-02-16T03:47:45-08:00

Great new look teamdf. The web app space is really gathering speed.
It is destined to be a real driver of customer interaction and loyalty even at the small business level. I have many local businesses keen to get their own, such as a local restaurant in North Lakes Qld wanting to take orders via an app and an electronic acupuncture therapist in Redcliffe Qld wants to display vacant session times and take appointments via an app.

Website Review

DFL — 2012-02-02T14:54:36-08:00

We've recently updated our website. It's aimed at small-med business in Aus and NZ. Any feedback would be appreciated.

http://www.teamdf.com

Top 5 easy to use online website builders and tips to getting it right.

Josh — 2011-12-13T04:42:28-08:00

Are website builders as easy as they make out?

The truth is, with even with the simplest of website builders, you will need to do some work.

Here are 5 website builder research tips;

Tip1. Don't focus on finding the perfect design. You will never find the perfect template to start your project. If the website builder is any good, you will be able to modify the look and feel of the site.

Tip2. Prepare some pictures of your business and learn how to crop pictures using a simple picture editor like Snagit from Techsmith (many website builders re-size, but they do not crop your pictures.

Tip3. Prepare some text based material for your website. You don't want Lorem Ipsum (Latin) all over your website do you?

Tip4. Avoid flash website builders (those moving graphics based websites). They can be slow to load and smart phones and search engines don't like them.

Tip5. You want to be found in the search engines so find a website builder that has integrated SEO (search engine optimisation).

That means, it should publish a HTML version of your website, have editable title and description tags and a sitemap.

Here is our opinion of the top 5 easiest Website Builders on the market (in alphabetical order) and a summary of their features:

Google - Yes Google has a website builder. Great for group websites such as family or intranet sites due to the multi-user editing functionality.

Homestead - Would have to be one of the simplest. The downside is that it also produces pretty simple looking websites.

SiteGenerator - Intuitive on-page editing so you can edit the page within the page itslef, no moving around in folders. Australian based and you can create some pretty powerful websites. Search engine friendly.

Webs - A very easy to use website builder producing some good looking websites.

Weebly - Clean looking templates and easy set-up and editing. These guys make it really simple and provide good support.

What's happening with local search?

Josh — 2011-11-25T21:17:26-08:00

Local search is defined as any search conducted on the internet referencing business type and geographic location eg: "Naturopath in Redcliffe Qld".

Some of the largest online businesses have been recently making a huge effort to encourage this kind of search on their platforms.

A number of things occured in 2010 which were important milestones in the rapid growth seen in the area of local search.

The continued rapid uptake of internet enabled mobile phones
Google Places launched in April 2010
Twitter launched Places in June 2010
Facebook launched Places in August 2010

Recent research figures point to 40 per cent yearly growth for local search on mobile internet devices and 28 per cent yearly growth for local search on sites like facebook. This is compared to 9 percent growth for search engines.

Facebook now gets the same number of searches as eBay. With the facebook redesign, the searchbox is now front and centre which has really increased the number of searches taking place on the site.

The two largest primary sources for local search remain the online search engines and Print Yellow Pages. Here is the breakdown for the primary search;

33 percent search engines (up 2 percent year on year)
23 percent print Yellow Pages (down 5 percent year on year)

22 percent internet Yellow Pages (up 1 percent year on year)
13 percent Local Directoy Sites (up 1 percent year on year)
09 percent Other like mobile, social (up 1 percent year on year)

Taking a look at secondary search;

After referencing a search engine as a primary source,

42 percent go to the print Yellow Pages
28 percent Local Directory Sites
18 percent Newspapers (print)
12 percent are NOT using a secondary source.

After referencing print Yellow Pages as a primary source,

41 percent go to Search Engines
28 percent Local Directory Sites
17 percent Newspapers (print)
07 percent Directory Asst.
07 percent are NOT using a secondary source.

Search engines (74 percent) and print directories (58 percent) remain the top combined primary and secondary sources of local business information.

Despite the continuing swing in favour of online search, research also shows that 1 out of 6 searchers are NOT satisfied with their search results due to not being able to find the business they were searching for as well as the accuracy of the data found and the number of businesses listed.

All of the above points overwhelmingly in favour of ensuring that your business has an online presence and can be easily found in an online search.