Here’s why testimonials or reviews are important.

Trust

Testimonials can improve your brand’s trustworthiness. If someone has landed on your website via Google and knows nothing about you, the fact that you gave a satisfied customer excellent service and an outstanding product will help build trust in your product or service. Testimonials are almost as good as a recommendation from a friend. And on the flip-side, if you open yourself up to reviews, customers feel you have nothing to hide and have confidence in your brand.

Market research

Reviews and testimonials should be able to tell you at a glance which of your products and services are popular and which ones can be withdrawn. Yes, sales will do this as well, but all they show is what sold – not whether the customer was happy with the purchase (unless, of course, you happen to be on the receiving end of a vicious complaint). Testimonials and reviews also allow you to place well-liked products or service in a prominent position on your site, hopefully leading to more sales.

Quality improvement

While negative reviews are never good news, they can help you fix a situation in which the customer was not entirely happy. It may be that the product or service needs to be improved, or that the customer had a lousy experience with your sales staff. By dealing with complaints swiftly and effectively, you can turn disgruntled customers into local brand ambassadors

Great content

Reviews and testimonials are often keyword rich, user generated content – and there’s nothing Google loves more! So they can improve your search engine optimisation, thus driving more traffic to your site. You don’t even have to lift a finger or pay a cent!

And now here’s a useful tip: you can draw attention to your reviews and testimonials by adding a rating system to allow people to quickly see how each product or service measures up.

If you want more conversions through your website, then call Direct Sites Online today on 02 9557 7623 or email info@directsitesonline.com and we can help turn your customers into your best marketing tool

Obviously, you want people to be able to read your site when they arrive, so the importance of a clear font cannot be overstated.

So what options do you have?

Serif v Sans Serif

Serif fonts have those little dangly bits at the end of the stroke, whereas sans serif fonts don’t (from the French sans = without) Sometimes personal preference comes into play – some readers naturally prefer one or the other – but here are a couple of things to consider.

Serif fonts tend to convey the following qualities: artistic, stately, traditional, conservative or intellectual.

Sans-serif fonts, on the other hand, feel technical, cool, clean, crisp, youthful, modern and uncluttered.

PC v Mac?

Some fonts look different depending on the operating platform. Arial, for example, looks better on a PC, while Helvetic is great for Mac users. Since you don’t know what type of computer your customers are using to browse, you are best to stick to a typeface such as Verdana – which was only invented in 1996 particularly for the Web. It’s a sans-serif font but does have a traditional “feel”. It’s also best to use a font that is pre-installed on both PCs and Macs – if you use an unusual font, and the computer that is browsing your site does not have that font installed, it will settle for a near-enough-is-good-enough option.

Standard serif fonts include Times New Roman or Georgia; standard sans-serif fonts are Arial and Verdana.

Font size

Again, you want people to be able to read the text on your website, so keep your body font size above 10pt, your subhead size about 12pt and your main head above 14 pt. Captions can be as small as 8pt.

Style

Use normal text throughout, with bold or italic for emphasis. But use both of these sparingly, and decide which one – don’t bold some words and italicise others.

It’s OK to use colour to get attention (for example, a red “call now”), but again use it sparingly.

Follow basic rules of grammar, capitalising when needed, but don’t use all caps – which is considered akin to shouting at your reader.

If you want your website to attract attention through good design, including fonts, or you just want advice, call Direct Sites Online now on 02 9557 7623 or email info@directsitesonline.com.

There are approximately 400 million websites out there in cyberspace, growing every day. And many of them are probably your competitors. So if you don’t have a marketing strategy, your online presence will be ignored.

Here are six simple, yet effective, online marketing strategies that every business should  have.

1. A professional website: Sounds obvious doesn’t it? But you wouldn’t believe the number of businesses that have a dodgy website, with links that don’t work, poor grammar and spelling, no call-to-action, unattractive design, non-intuitive structure. The list goes on. And, unfortunately, with all the do-it-yourself options out there, more and more people are trying to design their own website, only to find that it is not generating leads.
2. Search engine optimisation: This goes hand in hand with a professional website. What it does is ensure Google and other search engines can “see” your site. There are several ways to do this, including meta-data, keywords, article marketing and genuine backlinks.
3. A blog: Search engines don’t really like stagnant websites, and a blog that is regularly updated is a great way to keep your content fresh. As an added bonus, if you do it well, you could set yourself up as a subject matter expert, creating opportunities for further marketing (ie guest posting, media interviews and so on)
4. Email Marketing: This is a great way to stay front-of-mind with current and potential customers. You can offer an incentive for them to sign up to a newsletter and voila – you start to build a valuable email database of people interested in your product or service.
5. Social Media: I know we’ve gone on about this a lot,  but we can’t stress enough how vital it is to have a social media presence – at the very least Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. It’s a great way to engage customers and drive them to your website.
6. PPC: Pay per click advertising means you only pay when people click through to your website. Things such as Google Adwords and Facebook advertising is PPC, and are reasonably priced options for online advertising. A word of warning though – you need to choose your keywords carefully, otherwise your target audience won’t necessarily be clicking through.

Direct Sites Online has more than 10 years’ experience in online marketing, so if you want more traffic to your website, call us now on 02 9557 7623 or email info@directsitesonline.com

But if you’ve chosen poorly, you could be in for a lot more headaches than you think.

Here are the three most common mistakes made when selecting a web host – please note, they are all driven by the almighty dollar.

1/ Price over reliability, quality and service: We all love it when things are cheap (even better if they are free), but when it comes to web hosting, choosing based on price alone could be a losing strategy. Remember, you are in business to make money, which means you need a reliable web service. Every minute of downtime affects your bottom line. And then, when you realise your plan is not up to scratch, the time it takes to find a new one eats into the time you have to work on your business. So why not do it right the first time. That’s not to say that there aren’t some reliable services offering competitive pricing, but it pays to spend the time researching them before you jump in feet first.

2/ Web hosting is never “free”: Some hosting services offer a basic hosting plan which is “free” but it means you don’t get a customised URL (your personal “address” on the world wide web), and the features are limited. And when you want to upgrade – or get your customised URL – it will cost money. As author Robert Heinlein wisely put it TANSTAAFL (“There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch”). And then when users realise that they need to pay to get more features, they will pay the same hosting service that they signed up with for “free”, which means you will be sharing with many, many “free” users and there’s only so much bandwidth to go around. It would be like sharing your house with a bunch of freeloaders who eat your food, use your electricity and leave their rubbish all over the place. In other words, a very bad idea. Also, many of them don’t have full 24/7 customer service, so when something goes wrong, it may be a while before you can get hold of anyone.

3/ Long contracts: Web hosting services want to lock people into long contracts, so they offer them as a cheaper rate than if you pay monthly. But contracts are hard to get out of if the service is poor. We recommend you start with monthly payments, check out the service and if you’re happy, move into a longer contract to save money.

Direct Sites Online offer a small but feature-packed selection of hosting options, for a wide range of business needs. Our 99.9 per cent uptime and 24/7 service means your site will be online when you – and your customers need it to be.

For more information or to order a webhosting package, contact us today at info@directsitesonline.com or phone 02 9557 7623.

Your website colours will affect the moods and emotions of your visitors, as well as reflect your business identity. Just think for a moment about colour and what it may signify – “green with envy”, “sad and blue” “red hot lover” (or red hot rage).

Don’t think you need to be bound by the colours of your logo – a logo is just one part of the whole corporate look and feel that needs to be developed around your branding. There are many sites out there that offer colour palettes to complement your logo.

So what do colours signify and what colours would be best for your site?

Red is a powerful and attention-grabbing colour. It passion and fire, love and lust, and has been shown to raise blood pressure and cause perspiration. Red is for a business that wants to be noticed and needs visitors to take action – now. But beware – the downside of red is that it can also be used to symbolise violence, rage, war, aggression and bloodletting.

Pink, however, is red showing its softer side. It’s romantic, calming and feminine and is often used when the target audience is new mums, or young lovers.

Yellow: Yellow is sunshine and daisies. It symbolises youth, vitality, energy and hope. It’s perfect for kids wear or sites promoting healthy living. But used in the wrong way, it can also mean cowardice or illness.

Orange:  Orange is vibrant and warm. It has many of the same attributes as red, but is more cool-headed. It’s a great colour for food-related websites as it has been known to stimulate the appetite.  As a citrus color, it can also symbolize health and wellbeing.

Blue: Blue is considered one of the most calming colours in the spectrum. It’s great for sites that want to show confidence, reassurance, trust and wisdom – business coaches, politicians or educational institutions for example. Blue, however, is considered an appetite suppressant, so food-related business should avoid it at all costs!

Green: Green is another great colour for websites promoting a healthy image. It signifies health, growth, renewal, fertility and wealth. On the downside, however, it can mean jealousy or inexperience.

Direct Sites Online has more than 10 years’ experience in web design and can find a colour scheme that is perfect for your business. Contact us today on at info@directsitesonline.com or phone 02 9557 7623.

If you are already on LinkedIn, but not sure what to do next, here are a few secrets to help you boost your LinkedIn networking:

1. Customising your URL: Let’s face it, it looks much more profession to promote your Linked in Profile with a customized URL, rather than with that bizarre combination of numbers you got when you signed up. And using the same name across all social media networks adds to your brand awareness. You can get a custom URL by clicking Profile > Edit Profile in the main navigation bar. At the bottom of the window showing your basic information, you’ll see a Public Profile URL. Click “Edit” next to the URL and on the right hand side of the new screen you will see a link to “customise your public profile URL” click it, write in the new URL and specify what you’d like your address to be. When you’re finished, click Set Custom URL.
2. Customize your website link: LinkedIn lets you display links to up to three URLs. While you get several choices to identify the websites (ie personal site, company site and so on), it’s even better to customize those. To do this, select Edit Profile again and then in the same box as above, next to “websites” click edit. Then choose “other” from the drop-down menu. A new box will appear that lets you name the website and enter the URL. When you’re done, click Save Changes.
3. Add your blog feed: If you have a business WordPress blog, you can add the feed to your LinkedIn profile. To enable this setting, select “more” in the main navigation bar and select “applications”, then “more” again. This will bring you to a page with various LinkedIn Apps. Click the WordPress one, click “add application” and enter the link to your feed. The blog will then appear in your profile and will update each time a new post is added.
4. Add connections: There’s not much use having a social network profile if you’re not networking.  So mine your email contacts and check out Linked In’s recommendations, then stalk you friends and colleagues connections and see if there’s anyone interesting there. If you know the person, you can send a direct invite (and don’t forget to personalise it) and if you don’t you can ask your friend to virtually introduce you.
5. Become anonymous: If you are doing some serious stalking, maybe to research competitors, job hunting and checking prospective clients/suppliers, you might not want people to know you have been looking at their profiles. To make yourself anonymous, click “settings” under your name in the top right hand corner, then click “privacy controls” and “select what others see when you have viewed their profile. Then click your preferred level of privacy. Once you’ve finished, make sure you switch your settings back— remaining anonymous on LinkedIn kind of defeats the purpose.
6. Ask for recommendations: Social networks are no place for the shy. Ask colleagues, peers, friends, workmates, clients, anybody you know to recommend you, and their recommendations will appear on your profile for all the world to see how brilliant you are.
7. Hide recommendations: If you get a recommendation that you don’t want to be on your profile, it’s an easy fix. Select Profile > Edit Profile and go to the position with which the recommendation is associated. Click “manage”. Uncheck the box next to the recommendation that you want to hide, and click Save Changes.
8. Block your recent activities from competitors: If you don’t want your competitors (or current employers if you’re on the hunt for a new job) to see what you are up to you can hide this activity from select people. Select Settings > Account > Customize the updates you see on your homepage. In the pop-up window under General, uncheck the box that says New Connections in your network. Scroll down and, under Groups, uncheck the box next to Groups your connections have joined or created. Click Save Changes and you’re set.

Hopefully, these hints will improve your LinkedIn experience and you’ll be on your way to making Linked In work for your business.

If you don’t have the time, or are daunted by social media, Direct Sites Online’s social media packages can help. Call us today on 02 9557 7623 or email info@directsitesonline.com.

So how does it work? Put simply, each search engine uses a different algorithm to rank results. They look at various components of your site including the title, meta tags, keywords in the URL, keywords in the text, headings in the text, number of pages, and external links into the site.

Unfortunately, there are many SEO “experts” out there who would have probably made a great living as snake oil salesmen.

For example, some software used to promote you site can actually negatively affect your rankings. As can “cloaking” techniques which shows different content to search engines than to real live visitors. These are known as “black hat” SEO, and while they may work in the short term, may be disastrous later on.

Another vital thing that is often overlooked by these “experts” is that the number of visitors to your site is irrelevant if they are not targeted. For example, you might end up ranking high for “cheap widgets” but when visitors come to your site, what they actually see is “premium widgets”, so they leave immediately.

Which is why it is important to invest in an SEO company – such as Direct Sites Online – which will only use “white hat” SEO techniques to manual optimise your site for the necessary keywords, which will drive real potential customers to your business.

A good thing to look for when choosing an SEO company is whether it offers some kind of guarantee. But be careful if the guarantee is something like “number one spot in just one week” – this is a very good indication that their methods are not quite right.

Direct Sites Online’s guarantee is that we will follow accepted practices that will help search engines find relevant results for people looking for your product or service. Because we know that search engines regularly change algorithms and it’s just not possible to accurately predict the future.

We use techniques that we know have worked in the past, and we anticipate they will work for most businesses.

Direct Sites Online offers a wide range of SEO packages for our clients – from simple link building to our premium service.

If you need more traffic to your website, contact us today at info@directsitesonline.com or phone 02 9557 7623.

Remember, to the casual observer, your website is an online shopfront, which means it has to be be eye-catching, well-maintained, and always offering something new. It’s easy, however, to get caught up in the day to day running of your business and neglect your website. But, like a neglected storefront, this means it can quickly become out-of-date, unattractive and ignored by potential customers.

Well, the good news is that Direct Sites Online can help, and the even better news is that we make it as painless as possible.

Here’s a checklist to help you decide if a revamp is in order:

1/Does your website meet its objectives? Was it developed as an e-commerce site? Or to get people to send an email? Make a phone call? Visit a bricks-and-mortar store? Or simply as an exercise in branding? Whatever its purpose, now is the time to evaluate its effectiveness.

2/ Does it align with your business strategy? It isn’t unusual for business to evolve, meaning business plans are revisited and strategies are refined. And your online presence needs to evolve with you.

3/Do your customers like your site? The only way to find this out is to ask them, so set up a simple survey using a free tool such as survey monkey or zoomerang and ask them what works and what doesn’t. You may be surprised.

4/ Do you have a blog and/or an e-newsletter? These are both great ways to keep your content current AND position yourself as a subject matter expert.

5/ Does your website direct people to your social media presence? Your website is just one facet of your business’s online strategy. The others – at the very least – are Facebook, Twitter and Linked In. And if you run an arty or crafty business, then Pinterest is a must.

6/ Is it appealing and user-friendly? Be honest here – maybe get the opinion of people who have never visited the site. And remember what was considered appealing in website design just a few short years ago is often considered garish and over-the-top these days.

If you answered no to the above questions, then your site is probably overdue for a revamp. Contact Direct Sites Online today at info@directsitesonline.com or phone 02 9557 7623.

In fact, forecasts predict that by next year there will be 1.7 billion mobile internet users worldwide. That’s a lot of potential customers.

But if your site either won’t – or is slow to – download on a mobile phone, or is hard to read on a small screen, you could potentially lose thousands of dollars in sales.

Firstly, you need to be aware that Flash or Javascript does not work on all mobiles, so if your main website is built using these codes, it’s a safe bet you are already missing out on potential customers.

What else can you do to make your site mobile friendly? Here’s five tips.

1. Get your developer to install a plug-in which can transform your mobile-unfriendly site into a mobile-friendly site in minutes.
2. Write clear content so that when a potential customer is reading your copy on a small device, the benefits and the call to action are immediate – they don’t have to scroll down reams of text.
3. Practice good design by keeping things uncluttered and simple with good use of white space and easily scannable layout.
4. Create user-friendly navigation so customers can find their way around even on the smallest of screens.
5. Don’t use too may images that may take time to download.

Direct Sites Online has the expertise to create mobile-friendly websites – or turn an “unfriendly” site around. So if you can’t read your site on a smart phone, contact us at info@directsitesonline.com or call 02 9557 7623

Whether this is by blogging to show off your expertise, or using Facebook or Twitter to speak to your target audience, business need to harness the power of social media.

Sure, unless you have been living under a rock for the past few years, you know all of the above. But finding the time, or having the expertise, to put it into practice is a whole other thing.

And it does take time and knowledge of the medium to set up your profiles, regularly update your posts and tweets, and ensure your brand reputation.

That’s why Direct Sites Online has jumped feet first into the platform and is thrilled to be able to offer social media packages for all existing and future customers.

Our affordable packages include Facebook page and Twitter Profile designs that reflect your brand; social media strategy; social media management; Facebook ads.

And if you’d rather manage social media in house, but don’t know where to start, we can even spend 30 mins chatting with you to clarify you social media marketing needs, challenges and opportunities and then draft a marketing plan for you to implement.

Our plans are typically 10-15 pages long and are full of information about website marketing including social media, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, posting ideas, a marketing calendar and more.

If you want to add some force to your marketing mix through social media, give Direct Sites Online a call today on 02 9557 7623 or email info@directsitesonline.com.