Blogs, Blurbs, and White Papers
Site Abandonment
May 9, 2012
Making your website sticky is a talent, science and skill. Website navigation is integral to this process. Sticky refers to the ability of a website to keep the users attention and complete the call to action. Whether the call to action is the completion of a purchase, input of an email address, or click of a button, the user must stick to the website to fulfill the objective. Naturally, a huge portion of the formula involves offering a product or service that differentiates itself from that of the competition. Website presentations rely heavily on site navigation. Site navigation should be sensible and simple. It should appeal to your customer base. If not, your customers can and will be easily lost to your competition. Many times your website appearance, performance and overall relevancy will be compared directly to your physical business. That said, if your website performs slowly and navigates poorly the same will be considered true for your physical business. Use your websites navigation as a tool to captivate users and prevent site abandonment.
We’ll do these things on your website to make it stickier and complete the call to action.
- Use continuous navigation throughout the website. Make the navigation primary and prevalent on every page. Highlight the current page and use breadcrumbs to display the path used to arrive at the current page. Using a secondary navigation requires even more strategy and planning.
- Employ cool banners and compelling visual images that communicate the message of your product or service and enhance navigation on pages.
- Categorize, rank and list products and services in a logical, visually appealing manner.
- Update consistently. Display sales, promotions, and other recent changes inside the navigation.
- Avoid dropdowns and sliders unless absolutely necessary. When using dropdowns and sliders plan them carefully and strategically.
Site abandonment is inevitable. However, there are many things that can be done to minimize the phenomenon. Minimizing abandonment means completing the transaction. With completed transactions come increased revenues, branding, and online exposure. Using site navigation as a vehicle to reinforce website objectives is imperative.
We will show you how!!!
Social Networking for Business
April 8, 2012
Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, FourSquare, Google+ and various other social networks have demonstrated how vital social networking is to customer service and growing small business. Social Networking sites reach over eighty percent of the online community. With that, it is paramount to utilize the appropriate platform for web and social network development. Ill mention a few popular platforms that allow businesses to communicate with their target audiences. Social Networking done properly can be extremely rewarding as it reinforces company awareness, establishes brand recognition, and effectively manages customer relationships.
BuddyPress is one of my personal favorites. BuddyPress is built on the WordPress platform. Of course this means the software package is open source and cost effective. Buddypress comes loaded with customizable features like activity streaming, multisite blogging, private messaging, extended profiles and more. Tools for metrics are also built into the WordPress stack. Since BuddyPress runs as a WordPress developers build more custom features and plugins according to user needs.
http://buddypress.org/
NING has been around for a spell and is well established. Owners of Ning communities can chose a theme from an amalgamation of designs. Professional developers have access to CSS files which can give the site added panache. NING offers a free 30 day trial after which plans become scalable with fees attached, as much as 59.95 monthly for a professional plan. NING offers video streaming, email marketing and photo editing on its platform. It also integrates with your popular API’s like Facebook, Google+, and Twitter.
http://www.ning.com/
Wall.fm is built for the hobbyist. Its features are conducive to the development of fan clubs and video sharing. This platform is also open source and cost effective. The interface features drag and drop functionality and the ability to add many features like video conferencing, groups, events, blogs, and forums. Themes are free and options for ad support are available.
http://wall.fm/
JomSocial is another one of my best in class favorite open source social networking utilities. JomSocial is built on the Joomla platform which is a very cost effective customizable Content Management System. JomSocial runs parallel to Joomla which is based on PHP, a very secure programming language. JomSocial has over 7000 extensions and plug-ins. If you cannot find a solution within the extensions you can always build your own. Packages and upgrades are also available from $99-$499.
http://www.jomsocial.com/
SocialGo allows businesses to customize features on their own domain. There are a number of features including unlimited website pages, activities streams, blogs and real time chats. SocialGo has a fee schedule attached after a free 14-day trial.
http://www.socialgo.com/
Websology is an Information Technology Consultancy whose core includes eBusiness, eCommerce, and web applications development but is not limited to these technologies. As your IT department we tackle hardware installation, software configuration, networking, system architecture, information management, security and much more.
Better Mobile Application Development
March 29, 2012
First Quarter 2011 Websology Consulting began building for mobile devices. Android has improved its development stack. Building on android devices requires a development stack of software that included:
Android Software Development Kit
Eclipse Integrated Development Environment
Android Development Tools
With these software packages, a few add-ons, and proper configuration we can begin mobile development. Android SDK includes a platform for Linux, Mac, and Windows. The add-ons depend upon the version of the Android operating system and model of the mobile device. See how easily this can become confusing.
Android Integrated Development Environment
AIDE allows developers to build mobile applications on the mobile devices. AIDE is cool because its compatible with Eclipse, older Android versions, and legacy Android devices. This means previous development projects can be improved. AIDE also adds value to high powered Android devices. For instance, The Asus Transformer Prime which features Quad Core Processing.
Let’s face it, we are connected to our mobile devices. Development platforms like AIDE solidify that relationship. AIDE lacks many of the bells and whistles of Eclipse but it works. AIDE is not full feature. However it manages to make our mobile devices even more relevant; facilitating another technological shift, churning and changing of the guard making our desktops and laptops secondary devices. While our tablets and smart phones move up to primary devices. Taking the place of their larger counterparts.
Intimate Media 2012
January 3, 2012
2012 will be huge for small businesses. Registration for these businesses will increase exponentially across the country. Existing small companies will face stiff competition.
Competition at this level will decrease market share for big firms. Especially firms that suffer technology. Private, public, social, and personal data platforms are vital. 2012 will ease richer, and deeper media from diverse sources.
Cloud, and virtual computing; 3D development, and nanotechnology are part of the evolving platform that will deliver “intimate media”. In 2012 we will go from real time to right know. Intimate media will incorporate virtual reality, holograms and much more. Every nuance of your being will be digital and ready to broadcast.
What about security, privacy, civil liberties and liabilities?
When you are intimate you are not concerned with those issues.
What Does This Mean For Your Quality Of LIFE?
Let’s link and plan your Intimate “Media” project.
Cut Em Up
December 27, 2011
An experienced blade smith noticed a niche in the culinary market for knives. Quentin Middleton built his blade smith hobby into a business Middleton Made Knives. Middleton’s passion for knives and artistic creativity enables him to make Chef quality knives in his backyard 12×16 shop for one on one clients.
Suddenly, internet cuisine piqued his marketing manager, and friends curiosity. He decided to spread the word on Facebook. He created a Facebook Fan Page for Middleton’s knives inviting 700 people. Within 48 hours 400 people responded and became fans. Predominately professional and home chefs will wait six to eight weeks and pay $300-$400 dollars for his custom made knives. Selling out of Middleton Made Knives is commonplace for Whisk, a small shop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY. Managers at Whisk sell the knives quicker than Middleton can make them.
Middleton Made Knives
After taking a quick look at the header HTML the Chief Information Officer will be busy. He’s a happy, rhythmic and hearty CIO. Plus he has Google’s API, CSS, and Jquery built into the header. Google’s API lives on the AJAX platform and will be digesting information from the site and storing it on Google’s servers. Along with the data from social media this knowledge will be vital as MMK revenue will increase exponentially, along with competition. Meeting the orders and maintaining the quality of MMK products will require precise examination of the information available from digital sources. Paired with the human capital MMK possesses, it would be difficult to put too much sugar in the forecasts and not enough butter in the manufacturing.
Middleton’s online strategy is efficient and effective. Their online presence takes advantage of social media through Facebook and Twitter. MMK’s website is clean, visually appealing, easy to use, and the shopping cart is sufficient. Middleton identified his market, professional and home chef’s that desire American handmade knives. Using data generated from social media analytics MMK will be blessed with the ability to further customize the client’s online experience from demographical data. Statistical information will be vital to MMK’s expansion. Extraction, and analyses of data gathered from social media, will be paramount in the requirements modeling function, and process engineering activities. Many small businesses find ERP, CRM, SCM, and HRM systems costly and intimidating. Knowing what the data means is the CIO’s Dessert. Now let’s eat.
Congratulations
