Time, the indispensable element of e-business web design, Part 2


E-Business Talk, Web Design Talk
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Last week we talk about the element of time. Our focus is on when is the golden time for the web masters to put their investment, because once you start to burn your money on e-business you have to keep burning it. Surely the web master anxiety neurosis will start to emerge after that. But last time we did not discuss another essential point: how we should do to get a good traffic from the ground?

To be honest, I have to say this issue is always a mystery for website development. You can always find a mountain of paper about how to increase traffic, however how many web masters actually can successfully boost their website traffic from zero. People like to read all kinds of articles about web development, but most of the authors just draw their conclusion through analysis and summary, or the strategies they used are about how to raise the traffic from 100 pv to 1000 pv. It has very limited referential value for the web masters to actually commercialise the website from the beginning…

Furthermore, even I can say I have some experience, but deep inside of my heart, I still don’t know any absolute method to rise up traffic. Many times I tell myself that this must be the way to bump up traffic, but the result comes out always far from expectation.

However, there always be 1 or 2 times you success after fail 99 times. You have to remind yourself: Where have you put your time on? It is only possible for you to find one or two successful methods if you keep trying within limited time. And these methods you find can never be imitated.

Maybe it sounds very mysterious, let us use a practical way to view it. Why it takes long time for the website to be commercialised? The key is on search engines. In order to get a good rank, not matter functional websites or community UGC websites, they all have to consume a lot of time on enriching the websites.

On technology perspective, the strength of website is on outbound links and the number of your web page. The website is competitive in search engine only when these two are abundant. This is also the reason why online-news website and big community forums always have good ranks. If you (or the others users) post a dairy, a story, a comment, a chat note, etc on your newly launched website, the rank of your website surely can not compare with that of the big-scale community forum. In order to lift up the rank, you have to work hard and it takes time to rise up the website’s rank.

Although search engine is not the only source of visitors, the traffic you gain through search engine is stable, even you don’t update the news but just lay down on bed. This is the basic traffic you website suppose to keep and this is your most important “first bucket of fish” as a newly launched website. And the good new is because structure of the internal and external links of newly developed websites are better than that of the mature websites; therefore, it may takes them less time to grow their ranks in search engine.

We take a new website au.ibtimes.com as an example; the internal and external links of this website is very good, therefore the website rank grows very quickly. Moreover, all the news article has iFrame, so each news has it own link, when time plays its role and users start to search the keyword through search engine, they naturally gain traffic.

Last tips about time is, when you start the website one of most important task is purchase the good domain name because lots of good domain names have been taken. So before you think about any new ideal about your domain name, you should concern about time as well.

Edited By Vicky Yin

Time, the indispensable element of e-business web design, Part 1


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To design a website, there are many factors we cannot control, such as luck, but there are also some keys element we can and have to manage well, one of them is time.

Why time is so important? Because most of the successful social networking websites, except Fashion Guide, did not start with finding a nice office, recruiting 10 staffs, holding a nice opening cocktail party and then design the website and waiting for the visitors to rush into it.

The reality is most of the social networking sites are started with a small host computer at home and there is nothing commercial at beginning, because the one started these websites never thought about earning profit through it at first place. Some of them just want to make it as a birthday gift for themselves or they just simply upload the information for their friends.

For example, lots of big IT information websites started with a forum on University BBS. At beginning only few regular visitors discussed together and graduately hundreds of articles were posted every day. Most of the social networking sites are free at the beginning. Because they started from 0, they are able to attract lots of people and have chance to grow greatly.

However, it takes at least 3 years for a website to develop into certain scale. When the small host has changed to big host, few visitors have developed to more than 100 thousands members, and then this is the starting point for the web masters to consider about commercialising their websites. In another word, you start as an amateur, putting your time and interests in it first and when the websites really reach certain level, then you can concern about how to make money. The principle is:” Set up good foundation and then put the money in it.”

There is a very famous saying in e-business industry:” if you want to earn money through website, there are only two moments for you to get in, one is when you have really great idea, and another is when the traffic has reach certain level.” Therefore, first you need to manage your website for at least two years with your passion and efforts and when it achieve good traffic and reputation you can start to raise up found to commercialise the website, you have to take a solid step first, then your further investment can be secure.

This is not all about the importance of Time, I would like to explain it more in next part.

Edited By Vicky Yin

Dining, Hospital, School, experts recommend these 3 industry to build their own business blog.


E-Business Talk, Web 2.0 Talk
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Business Blogs are suitable for almost every industry. For example: CEO Blog, which talks about management concept or previous successful projects of company etc. Promotion Blog, which is suitable during the sale season and also Staff Blog, which is for company staffs to discuss current projects and improve the internal communication. There are 3 industries we strongly recommend to build their Blogs:

Blog for dining industry

For the restaurants, coffee shop, and take away shop etc. From the background design, font and images, the style of Blog should match the shop; hence the customers can have the same feeling inside the shop as browsing the Blog. The Shop owner should be the Webmaster and can catalogs articles into following sections to share with customers.

1. Recipes: Recipes research and creation etc..

2. Customers: News of customers

3. Staffs: Brief introduction of this month’s best employee etc…

4. Shop Decoration: Introduce of shop’s style, interior design and background music etc…

5. Holiday activity: Any special activity for Xmas, mothers days etc…

6. Special events: wedding days, company party etc..

7. Voucher download: Promotion voucher downloads.

The Blog editor should write articles focus on the shop and don’t mix too much with personal feeling. Shop owner can also find a professional copy-writer to write the interesting articles to promote the business image.

Blog for Hospital

Commercial advisement is not a good idea for Hospital, but How about Blog? In the Blog, Doctors can share their professional ideas and experience with their patients. The webmaster can catalogue the articles according to each department. For example: articles for internal medicine, surgery, ophthalmology, dermatology etc.. And each department doctors can regularly upload theirs articles on Blog. The articles needed to be understood easily by patients and according to news, doctors can upload articles which discuss current health issue, for example: miscarriage caused by smoking. Hence the Blog can build a closer relation between doctors and patients and improve hospital’s professionalism and reputation.

Blog for School

Many schools and universities already start use the Blog to communicate with their students. For example: Language school can use Blog with interesting topics to attract students to read, which is different from the traditional teaching method. Teachers can write any articles related to daily-life to teach students the common language skills. And through the interaction from online chatting, videos conference and forums, students will be more interested to participate and improve their learning ability.

Back to main topic, why business needs website? Because website is good tool for marketing, image and touch. And why these 3 industries need blogs? Because Blog is good for interaction, RSS, SEO and Cost. Blog is more flexible then traditional website, and still there is great development potential for industry Blog. There are many different way to develop an excellent Blog, and two Golden rules are honesty and persistence.

Edited By Henry Lu

Besides searching engine, What Google can do for you?


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Google keeps adding the new functions recently, from Gtalk Video chatting, Google Friend Connect to Gmail Tasks. Almost every day we can find new function from Google. How many functions Google has? And What Google can do for our daily internet life with these functions?

Besides searching engine, we can use Google to do many others, from online chatting to booking a lunch appointment with friends and many more. And because internet plays important role in our daily life, we should find out Google’s functions and learn how to use them.

Use Gmail’s Tasks list function to organise your self

Recently a new function called Tasks added on the Gmail. With this function, you can add the email message which you need to follow up to your Tasks List, and hence you can organise your daily tasks and appointment schedule while checking the email. This function can save lots of time for us and is very convenient to use.

There are many more great Google functions, you can find out more detail information on the Google Help Centre: www.google.com.au/help/

Edited By Henry Lu

Eight types of online business for the gold diggers


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Internet is very fair to everyone; no matter you are a big boss or an office worker, you can always find the chance to open your on-line shop and dig the gold. However, since the capital, and abilities of each person is different, the business types they choose are also various. Find your suitable business types, do some preparation for that, and then, you can start your new business on-line.

1. On-line auction
On-line auction is the easiest on-line business type for people to get in. Normally, the people who post the products for on-line auction mainly are individual sellers who just want to have a try or the owners of small scale shops. Because the barrier to enter this business is low, the competition is great relatively. Moreover, on-line auction customers love to compare the price, normally they will choose the products has lowest quote among the same.

To the sellers have big amount of products, the fees to post products is also very high. It is very common for the sellers to spend thousands dollars one month just for posting and advertisements. Plus the procedure fee charged from on-line auction platform, the cost of on-line auction business won’t be much lower than to rent an entity shop.

However, some sellers build their reputation through on-line auction and then set up their entity shop or company. To the one who is lack of capital, on-line auction is still a sound way to start the business gradually.

2. Community business
This type is for the one who starts their business from running on-line club and managing the on-line community. So far they are more like to be network engineers or the related experts who involved in Internet in the early days. At the time when they involved in web world, although they have abilities to build up their community forum, instead of having a practical mode to earn profit, their management and expectation is a bit unrealistic.

Nine out of ten on-line companies set up at that time had declared to withdraw when the initial capital was used up. And the remain ones had sort of “belief” towards the Internet world, and they also had some sense of mission towards their community. Later on they found that it is a really good way of earning by providing products to the community users according to their needs. And gradually they started to build their reputation and became the key person in certain field in their on-line community. Firstly, they boost the traffic and build reputation and then they provide the professional information which the community interested about following the Internet principle” Content is King”. If their words really carry weight, the product they sell surely will have high customer trust as well.

3. Making own brand
It is the dream of many designers to create their own brand, but the talented designers are over abundant. To become the next LV or Armani is nearly impossible in this situation. However, Internet provides the possibility for the designers to create their own brand. The good thing for the Internet is, it can gather scattered individuals through web. Therefore the designers can find the chance to display their talents to their net friends who has interest. Since it sounds possible for them to manage their own brand with limited capital, many designers started to join this trend. No matter the students in design colleges or many “silent” designers are all busy with building up their own brand on the web. Compared with the era which unknown designers have to work for the others to live, Internet has given all the small brands new hope of survival.

4. Business for special needs
To open an outdoors shop, it is very important to find a good location. Therefore the competition for the shop owners to get the primes location is always fiercely. However, to the shops who sell the products which are not that popular, even it is located at the best area; they still cannot attract many customers to earn enough for the rental. But on the Internet, you don’t need to worry about the location. As long as the owners can call the customers who have needs to come to their own websites, they can always find the way to do the business.

On the web world, no matter what is it, you can always find someone provide it. To the owners, they don’t need to worry that the rental is too high for they to afford; To the customers, they don’t need to complain that the things they need are too difficult to find, the Internet has given both of them a hand.

5. On-line branch
Although many owners consider that their services are better than the big companies, their business has been undercutted by the big shopping malls and their chain stores. But through web, they can find back customers who has recognized their products and their services.

To the owners of small scale shops. Internet has helped them to find their customers in this fierce market competition. While more and more customers rush to the big shopping malls, CBD, the one visits the small shops which is located in relatively outlying area is less and less. However, Internet helps another type of customers who don’t go out that much to find the shops provide good service and run by reliable, friendly owners, to both customers and sellers, this is no doubt a win-win methods.

6. International sales
To most of the people, running international business through Internet is still unrealistic. Although Internet has no boundary, if you cannot speak their languages, how can you do the business with the foreign costumers. However, to the one has international trade background, Internet is a really good tool. They don’t need to go oversea to be international traders; they can just make the deals through the web. In the past, owners need to send the samples to oversea for the customers to check, but now they have their own space in the websites to display their products. The oversea costumers can just browse the pictures and then counsel the companies with mail or telephone. It makes the deal easier to be done.

Nevertheless, through Internet, the sellers can do retail business directly with their foreign costumers. Of course there is one premise: owners need to know at least their language first, they should have the ability to read the message their oversea costumers send to them. If they can write their product introduction with their languages the chance for them to earn money out of their country is much higher.

7. Supplier direct selling
Facing too many competitors, the suppliers always have to consider the channel flows. Moreover, the cost of whole channel flows also raise up, it is not easy to strengthen the band nowadays. In the past, the supplier can only know the market reaction through the retailers, the deviations in between makes it difficult for them to adjust their product positioning.

However, through Internet, suppliers can hear the voice of costumers directly and communicate with them as the manufacturers. It helps them to know the market needs and produce the product which fit the needs of the market more. For the suppliers, to sell product on-line is totally different from making a big order, the profits from selling one or two products is very small, but it opens a new sales channel and a new web costumers service system which can face to the consumers directly.

8. Vertical portal website
Building up a one-stop shop is the ambition for many on-line business owners. But the requirement of setting up this type of business is really high. First, owners should have sufficient capitals and then they need very powerful platform and technology to serve many costumers at the same time in one website. Managing a vertical portal website is like running an on-line supermarket. The running cost of a supermarket is much higher than that of a small shop; this business type is definitely not for everyone.

Currently the most powerful vertical portal e-business websites are the e-market run by few big portal sites, only few owners who have very strong technology and professional knowledge can find the way to involve in this business type.

Edited By Vicky Yin

Increase website benefits and strengthen brand image


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In the past, when the marketers are doing web marketing, most probably, they will decide website contents, website structure, page layout or other related issues by their personal feeling or experience. However, in Web2.0 era, the consuming behaviors of the clients have become more complicated. Therefore, strengthen brand image has become the key to keep the customer loyalty. In order to catch the eyes of the customers more precisely, the marketers have to update their website more quickly and effectively. They have to know which elements in the website are actually more attractive to the customers. In the past, the web marketers have put lots of focus on developing the technology; however now they concern more about how to communicate more effectively with their clients on the internet, strengthen their brand image and improve the brand loyalty. ‘Web optimization” is emerging area which aims to help the website to meet the needs of the customer and manage the brand for the companies.

E-Business all happen on digital platform like on-line shopping
Marketers have to break the traditional marketing media mind-set

Now many advertisers still underestimate the power of web marketing, they still hold this old idea that “internet is something only for young men” but, in fact, this idea is definitely wrong. The greatest advantage of web marketing is its interactivity. Through interaction, customers can involve more and business owners can also gain lots of useful information from customers as well. This information definitely will help the owners to make a good marketing plan. Therefore, in order to response this new market environment; marketers should not rely on their traditional media mind-set to make their plan and strategy; they have to fully recognized the fact that nowadays the consumption of customers all happen on the digital platform.

Web optimization strategy
Narrow the ‘confidence gap” among the company marketers.

 

Some experts have mentioned that many marketers have confidence gap toward web media. Although among the total media consumption time, around 30% is used in web browsing; the budget used in web only occupied 5 % of the budget used in all media. The main reason is that lots of marketers worry about that affectivity of web marketing. According to one survey, the conversion rate of the web costumers is only 2%-3%. At the same time, the dropout rate of the customers when they are browsing the website reaches 70%-80%. The marketers found that boost the web traffic cannot solve the root problem, only method which can bring the actual benefits to the company and narrow the confidence gap is to optimize the website, catch the attention of the target clients, and meet their needs.

Manage well the website content
Unified brand image and information

 

Many companies have developed their content management platform system, it can built-up the unified management platform for company inner website, official website, dealers/agents/business partners outer website, and help the companies to manage well all the separate but important information and brand experience.

Good content management platform can automate the business working flow, and simplifies the content editing and management. It helps each branches submit their contents easily even if they don’t have much knowledge of IT technology. It also reduces the round trip operation between each department and accelerate the time to the market.

Attraction optimization
Successfully increase the conversion rate

Web is a tool can be innovated, measured, analyzed and improved; it is also a key media which can help companies to manage their brands and keep the customer loyalty. Nowadays the companies have to face this great challenge: how to assist the company to maximize their online operation performance.

When the web operation performance is unsatisfied companies always choose to change the whole things, but actually many time, it is unnecessary. Many times, by slightly modifying some designs, the problem can be solved. Companies should consider doing the several variables test, optimizing the functions, developing online sales and registration with the help of the professional companies to find the most attractive page setup, include page arrangement, picture content and text.

Edited By Vicky Yin

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