New Year’s Eve Promotions and Contests

New Year celebrations are just round the corner. Every business, especially restaurants are gearing up for the big day! While all of these “offline celebrations” can be fun, we see no reason why they can’t be extended to envelope the “online world” as well!

Facebook Contest

The best place to start an online activity is social media. You can conduct a contest on Facebook for a week. The visitors could be asked 7 easy questions. They can be made to visit your website for clues. This could even increase your website traffic engagement apart from creating a buzz around social media. Each of these 7 questions could be asked on seven separate days so that visitors come back to your site for 7 continuous days and even invite their friends when they visit your page. Each day, you can declare a winner so as to keep the momentum going!

Have an Online Sale

If you are dealing with online shopping product, you may even give away promotional codes for people who enter your sweepstakes contest. It could be about anything like, “Write a New Year Resolution” contest. In the process you can collect the email and name of the persons who register and thus expand your mailing list of customers.

Offer a BIG Discount Sale for 24 Hours Only!

This will generate a buzz as people will rush to get the best deal before it expires. If can be anything like a 50% OFF on your branded clothing, or Buy 1 Take 1 FREE. It can be anything which will make people stop in their tracks, look at your offer, pull up their socks and rush for it!

Instagram and Facebook Giveaway

The Instagram contest could be as simple as a ‘follow and repost this graphic to win’! Additionally, the visitor must also like your Facebook fan page to be eligible to enter the contest. The graphic could be any of your products, with contest instructions written on it. That way, if it gets re-posted, people will automatically get to know about the contest and its rules. They can in-turn, take part by following you and re-posting the contest graphic right away.

Twitter Follow and Re-tweet Contest

You may create a special hashtag for the Twitter contest. You may have a question on the lines of, “What do you like most about our products?” The winner would be entitled to a 50$Gift Voucher.

MP4 Video Contest

All you have to do is to film yourself celebrating the new-year in an mp4 video and share it via Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This will definitely increase your engagement level.

Thus many promotions can be run on social media to make the best of the holiday season. For more information on product promotion, advertising, web design and development in New Zealand, contact WebCanny.

Creative way to Kick-Start your Holiday Marketing Campaign

Christmas holidays are here again! There is obviously no better time to engage with your customers, than right now! There are plenty of things you can do towards attaining maximum fan engagement and ‘Rock the holidays together’! So here we go.

Contests in Social media

You can have great promotions via Facebook and email; it could be as simple as completing a sentence!

For E.g. 1) “I love this particular holiday season because ……………………………….” - Complete this sentence and win a prize .

E.g. 2) It could even be a Santa Claus photo contest where fans can send their Santa’s costume photos in a befitting background. The best photo wins!

Wish Lists

Some websites have the option for users to create their own wish lists. The wish list along with trending items can be emailed to customers. These products can even be clubbed with an irresistible Christmas offer! For E.g. 'Buy this and you get this FREE' ! People love that magic word in all caps!

Have an Auto Reply from Santa

Your loyal customers, who have purchased from your online store, need to be thanked. After all, without customers a business would never exist in the first place! You may send them a unique “Thank You” message from Santa. It could even be in the form of an animation displaying their name picked-up from the customer database.

Targeting Customers based on Location

You may geo-target your customers according to the weather conditions. For example, customers living in places with cold weather can be targeted with an exciting winter campaign. Similarly, customers in some other part of the world which is having summer can be targeted with HOT summer offers!

Sending out Post Purchase email

Post purchase email can be sent to the clients along with the billing details. This email will also contain the link back to your web page. You may ask ‘Why?’ That is just in case they want to come back to purchase more and need the URL after all!

Use Social Media

You may also use social media to promote these holiday campaigns. Your media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube and others can be used to get the word out to prospective customers. Remember, social media is an effective, economical and great way to advertise your business!

Fresh Email Content

When you send out emails regarding upcoming campaigns, make sure that you are not sending out the ‘stale’ wordings from the older campaigns. Change the promotional email content periodically.

Update your Website with these LIVE Offers

Last but not the least; you need to update your website with these LIVE offers. This will reach a wider audience. After all you want to ROCK this Christmas don’t you? So make sure that you are firing on all cylinders and are leaving NO stone unturned!

Results will follow. So, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Keep Rocking! For more information on email marketing and mobile friendly and responsive web design, contact WebCanny.

The close relation between Graphic Design and Marketing

Graphic Design is a very creative and interesting field. It involves the use of text, vectors, shapes and images to create interesting designs. These designs can be used to package a company’s product in an attractive and professional way so as to attract more buyers. It can be used to enhance the company’s business communication and advertising, so that more people get to know about it.

Designer’s Role in Daily Life

The role of a graphic designer is self evident in all aspects our daily life. If we go around the city, we will find various bill boards and hoardings of different businesses, all across the city. Every business has got its own outdoor signage or banner. The buildings are also covered in huge perforated glass. When we visit shops in any of the malls, we notice the extensive branding work put in by the graphic designer as depicted by posters of various sizes. The marketing of various businesses is largely aided through the efforts of graphic designers.

Design of a Logo

A logo is the brand identity of a company. It needs to be designed professionally so as to represent what the company stands for. People must relate to the logo and what it stands for. Logos of brands like Nike, Sony, Apple, Coke, etc are iconic and people relate to them and take pride in buying their products. These logos are simple, yet people buy their products as they can emotionally connect with these products. This is how a graphic designer makes the job of the marketing team much easier.

Graphic Design, Sales and Marketing

Thus we can see that a graphic designer can find work in an advertising, marketing and PR company. He can take up jobs like web design, graphic design, Cartoonist and Illustrator. He can also work as an animator, movie editor etc. As a web designer, he can design the digital landscape via banners posters etc, so as to use the online channels for effective marketing. A graphic designer can also be employed as package designer in the production unit of a company, so as to attractively design the packaging for the company’s products and thus attract sales.

 A graphic designer thus creates attractive brand collaterals so as to effectively market the brand to its desired audience and thus complements the marketing team by enabling them with both online banners and offline brand collaterals so as to effectively communicate to the world about their brand.

For more information regarding Web & graphic design visit here.

How Long should it take to Create a Good Logo

A logo identifies your brand. It must be the best possible one, so as to take your business to new levels. One must get a good graphic or web designer on the job. The time it takes to create your logo is well worth it. However it must be done within a month at the most.

A Few Minutes for a Logo

This is a logo which is designed very fast and under a few minutes. It could probably be sketched on a notepad, by the brand owner himself. It could probably be colored quickly using a few sketch pens and sent off to the designer for digitization. It probably lacks the refinement that comes after careful application of thoughts.

Logo Design in a Day

A logo can be designed again on an urgent basis, probably in a few hours. However, the logo design process must include careful consideration of the media which will be used. Logo must be designed keeping in mind –the websites, outdoor signage, t-shirt print, embroidered logo, indoor poster, business card etc. If a logo is not designed considering all options, it may again need to be altered and thus the company may require rebranding across all business collaterals which can be more expensive and time consuming; taking the time to design a logo is well worth the research and time.

Logos which take a Few Days

When you design a logo, you usually come up with many initial sketches. Some of those impulsive ideas may wear out after a few days, as you narrow in towards the right design. Different fonts are tried out and the best one is selected. Color combinations also need to be checked and the right one needs to be chosen.

Design Process lasting a few Weeks

Taking a few weeks for designing will help you come up with the best logo for your company. Following this idea has the following advantages.

The logo artist will have ample time to research on the design brief and come up with preliminary sketches or concept. The design is refined and colors are added to it. The font is also decided for the particular logo. Finally the logo samples are made ready for approval; suggestions are taken. Once the concerned person in authority gives the go-ahead, the design is finalized. The above process should not take more than a month.

A logo must align itself with the company values. The intended audience also should identify itself with the logo. The logo must thus create the right impression about the company. We can thus conclude that the best designs are those which are thoughtfully designed in a month.  For more information on web designing services contact Webcanny.

Why does your Business need a New Logo

Have you approached your boss with your logo re-design and been turned down? It happens, at least on your first attempt when companies are wary about the costs involved. It is not just about the design cost, but about the re-branding of all associated print, digital, video, web design and other collaterals multiplied by the number branches it may be having in different cities.

So is a new logo worth it? Yes, indeed! It will be definitely worth it because of the below advantages.

Brand Association

A good logo immediately gets registered by the brain; and gets associated with a particular brand. On the contrary, a poor quality logo fails to catch attention and never registers itself in the viewer’s mind. As a result, more amount of money needs to be spent on brand awareness of that old and un-professional logo.

Stand out from Competition

If you skim through the yellow pages, you will find a lot of companies with logos. However, only a few stand out from the rest. This is also one of the great advantages of having a professional logo – you stand above the crowd.

Perceived as High value

It is a well known fact that people actually buy a book by looking at the cover. It is part of human nature. If you have an irresistible logo you can charge slightly more for your product. That’s because people associate it with quality of your products. Similarly, a great logo stands for great products!

Confident Looks

People are always attracted to confident people. This holds true in politics as well. We choose the leader who is confident about what he says and thus makes us believe that he will deliver. The same theory holds good in professional life. We are more inclined to work for a boss who looks confident and talks positivity about the company and its future, even if it’s a start-up business. Therefore, a logo which radiates confidence is more likely to attract customers.

Pride & Association with Brand

The best promotion is always done by word of mouth. Customers who love your brand will definitely talk about it. They will eventually identify themselves with your brand and show people that they have purchased your product.

Trust & Customer Retention

A good logo builds trust and professionalism. Your customers will stay with the brand because your logo tells them that you are professional in whatever you do.

So, if you feel that your company needs to have a new logo and your request has been turned down by the management on your very first attempt, don’t despair! Armed with the above valid points, you have a valid case on your hands. Go for it!

For more information on logos and web design service all you have to do is click here, and we will get back to you.

Why Pinterest Marketing is important for your business

Pinterest is the most unlikely tool which people may choose to advertise their business and products. It is definitely the most underrated of all social media when it comes to advertising your products. People are usually in two minds whether to use it or not. But the fact of the matter is that Pinterest can definitely generate more business interest.

Just a web design trends in 2015 is getting better; their marketing trends must also catch up with the help of tools such as Pinterest.

Tips to get the best out of Pinterest:

Create a Pinterest Page: To start with, we need to create a Pinterest page for our business. We need to realize that pinning must be done in a captivating way and with unshakable faith that things will work out.

Have Boards on a Specific Subject – Do not club pictures of different subjects together. Segregate them and post the pins in separate boards. Stay connected with what’s going on in your specific industry and rest of the world. Post your industry specific pins as well as some general interest pictures.

Let the World know: Also share your Pinterest page across all your social media networks like Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, GooglePlus etc. Take a screen shot of your board and post in Facebook. Do the same with Twitter.

Give out Social Proof: The world will trust you even more, if you give out social proof like the number of followers etc.

Checkout your old pins: Have a look at your old boards. Embed links and direct them to your latest post or website.

Visit Others’ boards: Visit other related businesses on Pinterest. Enter your comments and invite them to visit your board and give them a link.

Welcome your Visitors: Have the visitors post pins on your board. Give them incentives. Conduct a contest. They will thus feel encouraged to post on your board. This will result in more traffic on your site.

Know your Competitors: Visit ALL your competitors’ Pinterest pages. This will give you an idea about their followers, post engagement, the kind of postings, their promotions etc. This will definitely help us gain a wider perspective.

Post them on Website: Have your Pinterest posts displayed on your website. It will thus be visible to a wider audience. That way the post will be seen by a wider audience.

The Importance of Hash Tags: They are search friendly elements and therefore must be embedded in your comments across the social media.

Pin-it: Have Pin it buttons everywhere on your blog and website. This will facilitate the sharing of interesting information.

Thus Pinterest can give a boost to our business when utilized effectively. If your business needs an affordable, just click here and we will take care of the rest.

Web Design Trends for 2015

Design trends keep changing with time to facilitate a better customer experience. Here are the website design trends for 2015 which need to be kept in mind while designing great websites.

Mobile Friendliness

Responsive websites are the need of the hour. In fact, after 21^st April 2015, the non-responsive ones are being penalized by Google in terms of their SEO rankings. It is understandable and the right step towards making the web more mobile friendly. The web users can now expect more mobile friendly experiences as more websites will take note of this development from Google.

Responsive Web Design

The problem with the many websites is that they are not optimized for the mobile and therefore serve as a turn-off, for web visitors and potential customers. It is therefore necessary to redo your website and make it more mobile friendly. This is where the responsive website comes in. A responsive site adapts itself to the display device like your smartphone, tablet or laptop and gives the user a seamlessly smooth, effortless and fast browsing experience.

White Space in Design

Give the elements in your website, some space to breathe. Let them be well spaced and easy on the eyes of the beholder. Don’t allow text to be cluttered all over your web page, just a few lines with a link saying “click here more” or a ‘more’ button  will do the job.

Minimalistic Approach to Design

Make your brand stand out, by using a minimalistic approach. Use only those elements which are necessary in your web page. Remove all the clutter and project your brand identity in a more subtle way.

Prominent Background Picture

Let your website have a nice background picture reflecting your niche or business services. The buttons or menu can appear prominently in the foreground. All elements of the web page are balanced, keeping in mind the background picture.

Parallax Scrolling

Parallax Scrolling is a new technique in web design which uses HTML5 and CSS3 technologies to create interesting effects on a website.  It involves the background moving at a slower rate than the foreground, giving us a 3D effect. However, like all the good things – it shouldn’t be overdone.

A Parallax website makes you get noticed, users can effortlessly scroll down the website and you can get a lot of traffic owing to your popularity.

‘Fix’ the Headers

Use fixed headers on your site. This enables the visitors to scroll down and still choose to navigate conveniently, thanks to the navigation bar which is fixed to the top of your website.

Make it interactive with Widgets

Make your website more interesting to the users. Add interactive widgets like ‘chat with our representative’, FM music, moving or slide show images etc. The bottom line is, engage the visitors and make them come back for more. Make it more interesting with a picture gallery relating to your business.

Single Page Scrolling

This is yet another trend where the website loads itself as a single scrolling page. You don’t have to load a new page every now and then for navigating the website.

Have a Split Screen Landing Page

A split screen landing page is another way to attract the visitor’s undivided attention. Here, the screen is vertically divided into two equal halves. The site elements are ranked in order of prominence according to the structure of the design. If there are two things of equal prominence in that website, then they are also placed side by side and prominence is given to both.

As many business websites will be built or re-designed based on the latest trends, their respective competitors will definitely take notice; therefore the following year will see a boom in design trends. For more information on affordable web design contact WebCanny.

Why Small Businesses in Australia need an Ecommerce Website

In the recent past, ‘Shopping’ meant going out to the store or supermarket, picking the things we need, get them billed at the counter and driving back. However, things are changing fast, due to the introduction of internet and ecommerce.

Thanks to the advances in technology it is now possible to go on a shopping spree, sitting right in one’s living room. The necessity for physical travel is totally eliminated. You can sit in the convenience of your home and buy anything you want. If you don’t find what you are looking for in a particular website you can always search and find the site where you get it and order it the same day without any hassles.

Business need Online Visibility

Many of the customers want to purchase online rather than be bothered with the inconvenience of physical travel. It is the right time for small businesses to capitalize on the benefits of responsive web design and get linked with the rest of the world. There is a definite advantage to being accessible in 196 countries, rather than just your city or neighborhood.

Ecommerce Websites

The selling of products and services via the internet is termed as Ecommerce. Many companies have realized the positive impact of ecommerce on their business and accordingly set up their online stores.

What Sells Online?

While you decide to get on the bandwagon, here is a list of top-selling products.

1. Hard cover and E-Books: Books are one of the most popular products sold online. They are either downloaded as softcopy or PDF, or ordered online in Hardcopy format.

2. Computers, Tablets and Laptops: Due to the internet boom, there has been an increase in demand for laptops, tablets and desktops. Thanks to the various programs and applications, our conveniences are increasing by the day and so is the demand for the related computer hardware.

3. Software: As all our office applications are getting automated, there is a demand for Enterprise Resource Management (ERM), designing, web development, billing, virtual office and other software. Thus, many web development companies are responding well to meet the demand and selling software to suit their customers’ various requirements.

4. Consumer Electronics: There is a lot of demand for consumer electronic products like, phones, cameras, TVs projectors etc. The craze for consumer electronics is like no other; people are on the constant lookout for the latest products!

 5. Men’s and Women’s Apparel: Clothing is another product which will never go out of fashion, or rather is the sole ingredient of thereof.

6. Movie, Music, Self Help DVDs: Music albums and movies are one of the all time popular products and also are in great demand online.

7. Beauty Products: Beauty products are conveniently ordered online without the hazzle of visiting the stores again and again.

8. Jewelry:  Jewelry can be purchased online, as per our specifications. There is a wide range of choice and we can find the perfect product as per our requirements.

This clearly shows us the relevance of Ecommerce Web Design and why businesses must have their ecommerce websites to maximize their earning potential. If you like to have information about affordable ecommerce websites, contact click here.

Tips for Building Mobile Friendly Websites

The number of smart phone users around the world will cross the 2 billion mark by 2016. People will make use of their smart phones not only for calling and texting, but also for browsing the web for news, information, and even shopping. It is imperative that businesses must make their websites mobile-friendly or they may lose out on potential customers.

Use Good Framework for Responsive Site

You can use bootstrap for the same. Here the website’s elements are arranged in the form of a grid. The grid shifts and adjusts itself according to the display device like tab or smartphone. Thus the website elements are spaced appropriately to look good on a desktops, laptops, tabs as well as smart phones.

One more advantage of bootstrap is that it is free, open source and properly documented. It also applies a unified approach to web development and you have the same user experience, whether you access the site from a mobile or desktop; and what’s more is that you don’t require a separate URL for the mobile website.

Navigation must be Easy

When the website design is optimized for mobile usage, it must be navigable by the thumb. One shouldn’t feel the need pinch it to make things readable. Even if the site is mobile friendly, sometimes we find that the navigation buttons are very small and the wrong button will get pressed. The average width of a finger is 15mm or 45 pixels and therefore, the button’s selection area must be created accordingly.

Simplicity in Design

When you are optimizing a website for mobile usage, you must make sure that it loads fast. The website must not contain high quality video or images. The images must be optimized to facilitate faster loading time and a better user experience. Replace the heavy Java Script libraries like mobile jQuery with standalone JavaScript.

Content must be Concise

The user may be accessing the site via a mobile phone and obviously the mobile screen is much smaller. He may not have the time to scroll down and keep reading your website content forever. So keep it short and sweet.

Use Icons

Instead of explaining it in a dozen words, say it by mobile icons. The user will find it easier to just tap the call or email icon, rather than mentioning the same in words in your contact page.

Limit the JavaScript

Do not use excess JavaScript as mobiles may behave differently. It doesn’t mean that one mustn’t use it, but utilize it cleverly enough so that the speed of the mobile site doesn’t get affected.

Access to Basic Information

Make the basic information available to the user. For E.g. if you are a restaurant chain, people will be looking for your nearest branch address, map, contact and home delivery number. So, place your information accordingly.

User Friendly Forms

The forms must not ask for extensive information. They must just ask for a person’s basic information like name and email; the rest can be obtained in future correspondences.

Extensive Testing

The website must be tested extensively on different devices and browsers for making sure that the user experience is good. SolidifyApp, delight.io are some useful tools.

For affordable website design services,  contact WebCanny.

What kind of Websites are ideal for Business?

It is a well established fact that a business needs a website to surge ahead of competition. However one must decide which kind of website is required to cater to one need.

Some people may need a static website and some may need a dynamic one! It all depends on the nature of your business and nothing else. A dynamic website may be more expensive compared to static site. In this changing world of web design, one may need to keep pace with the latest web technologies and adapt accordingly.

Fixed or static Website: This website had a fixed width and doesn’t resize when it is viewed on mobiles and tablets. This could be quite irritating. In this fast changing world, where everything is at your fingertips or in your smart phone, a static website may not be in order. We may even have to pinch and zoom out, in order to view a simple website which can get even annoying at times. Apart from that

Liquid Design: This website layout is made using columns of data which are governed by percentages; these change according to the physical dimensions of the output device. As a result, the content of this website is fluid in nature; it takes shape of the output device – therefore the name ‘liquid’.

Responsive Web Design: The responsive web design is easy to view and can be accessed in a variety of devices! Thus the user doesn’t have scroll up or down in order to view the website. Navigation is easier and the flow of information appears smooth.

How do Responsive websites work?

The websites using responsive content are designed to take the pre determined shape of a browser. In fact the content is also set accordingly. For e.g., if the content is set in three columns, then if the browser resizes, the website content will be re-adjusted to display in two columns.

The quality of images and videos uploaded into the site depends on the internet connection speed. In case of slower connections, low resolution images and video are substituted in place of the heavy files.

Which Website to choose

Companies, who want to go for a new website, or design change, must consider a few points. They must be aware of the type of phones, their target audience is using. If they are using basic phones, then a fixed website will do the job. However, if the target audience is tech savvy and owns smart phones, then you might like to go for a responsive, website.  For more information contact WebCanny.

Tools to Create Web Design Faster

Websites are very essential for companies to advertise online. Without a website, a company may miss out on a lot of business opportunities. Whether it is a small or big company, website will definitely work magic on your overall sales. You can opt for an affordable web design; many companies offer such services and the rates are very competitive.

More and more companies are coming online, and in fact the web designers are getting busier by the day. However, there are some tools designed just for the purpose. These make the job of designing a website much easier.

Adobe Kuler: This is used to find color palettes for your images. This tool helps one identify complimentary colors, by using various color rules. We can thus choose a palette we find appropriate for the project.

Mocking Bird: This tool helps us create website mockups and share them with other online users.

Oto255 : This helps us to choose different variations of a single colour. It is used for graphic and web designing.

CSS Background Maker: This is used to create gradient backgrounds in CSS. It works on Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer 10.

Closure Compiler Service: This helps you compile a bundle of java script files, which go together – at a single go. This also reduces the size of the code and may help enhance page load time.

Know Em Social Media Optimizer: This tool gives one an idea about how their website will look on social media like Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus.

Tweak your Biz Title Generator: This is a very useful tool, given that people pay a lot of attention to a page title. A good title can in fact generate 50% more interest in your website. One just needs to enter the content in order to get appropriate title suggestions.

Photovisi : This helps us create beautiful collages and cute looking shapes. This is helpful when we may feel the need for a side-bar, or perhaps a new website background.

Is my Blog working: This tool helps you to check your server’ status. You can check if your blog is working or not. This is a very useful tool and one may no longer need to be notified by a second person regarding the same.

Yahoo! Smush.it

This is a very useful tool which cuts down the extra file size of a picture. It is a loss less tool and therefore very helpful in optimizing the picture without compromising on the quality.

Initializr

This is a very useful tool; it produces a clean HTML5 template, fully ready for customization. Thus we don’t have to worry about writing the code to start with.

Responsive Test Environment

This helps us in testing purposes; the advantage is that we can choose our own break points.

There are many tools for making low cost web design;  the ones listed above are just the tip of an iceberg. The point we are trying to make is this; creating a website is a must for improving your sales and get more clients. Get one today! For more information contact WebCanny.

How to improve Facebook likes

Social media sites such as Facebook has huge potential for brand awareness. It can help to boost SEO of a company  website. It provides opportunities to directly interact, build relationship and make connections with customers. For any business Social Media marketing has become an important part of their marketing division. In this article I have shared about how to increase Facebook likes.

1   Post good content like entertainment, fun, inspirational or educational on social media, if its good people will like and share it.

     Get more friends on your friend list, the people you have in your network, the more people will see your post and engage with it.

        Make a blog page on your own site and put social sharing buttons, It will help you to get more likes.

     Regularly share your post among your friends

     Join Facebook groups and actively participate in group posting

     Invite your friends, colleagues  and families to like your Facebook page.

    Add a like box to your website you can get the like box code on developers.facebook.com. This
     Feature  is very important as people can directly your Facebook business page.

    You can also use paid Facebook ads to increase likes for your business page. Your ads will be shown to the people whom you have targeted based upon location & Demography.

     BuildYour own community and fan base by creating a Facebook group.

      Get  he right time to post your content by doing A/B testing by posting at various time intervals.

How to use RSS & Feedburner

Why to use Feeedburner

Feedburner is a google product that is used by blogs and websites to keep tracks of people who subscribe to your blog using RSS, from which browser and country they came, and it has many tools and functionalities to help you share your blog content like email subscribe option.

What is RSS Feeds

 Before learning about Feedburner one has learn about RSS feed. It means really simple site syndication, it really simplifies the web experience it extracts news from your favourite sites and puts then together in a feed reader, so that user can access in one application. Let me explain it to you, there are many news websites on the internet, but people might not be interested in reading all the news in different categories, some might be interested in sports news, some in politics while some in entertainment news. This is where RSS comes into play, in it people can only subscribe to those categories which interests them, suppose I like technology blogs, so in this case I visit the news site and subscribe to technology news and then I start getting technology related news in my feed reader. So in this way I save a lot of time as you don’t have to visit each website regularly and only receive relevant news in our news feed related to  our interests. In RSS users can subscribe to your blog and read content via email or by using any web application like feed readers.   You know Feedburner has lots of great features that every blogger should be using in order to optimize and track their blog posts.

The presence of an orange symbol indicates that a site uses a feed reader and you can subscribe it using any feed reader like Feedly.

How to Use Feedburner for Blogs

Step1- Go to feedburner.google.com  and sign up with a gmail account

Step2- Paste your blog URL in window and click next

Step3- In next page put your title and the address URL where people can find your news feed.

Step4- Click next button and its all done you have now created a Feedburner for your blog.

Many Ecommerce website design company also have blogs which can be used with RRS and Feedburner to help you reach more people.

How to Choose a Good Domian Name

Choosing the right domain name often may seem an easy task, but it should be chosen very carefully after a watchful thought. Below are few points to be considered before domian purchase.

1) Choose a short domain name which is easy to remember by the audience.

2) Don’t use numbers and hyphens in your domain name, it is a bad practice. Hyphens and numbers related domains are not easy to remember and it sounds bizarre. 

3) Choose a unique, brandable domain name which is easy to read, spell and remember by people. 

4) If your company, shop or organization is local and serves only in a particular location, then you can choose to include your city or town name in your domain name example of it would look something like this www.webtrainingauckland.com  

5) Always try to go for a .Com domain name as it covers all countries and is widely used since the inception of the internet. But if you are providing services in only in in one country, then it is best to choose country related domains like.com.au, .co.nz, co.uk etc . These countries related domains are a good choice as it ranks well in the targeted local country.

6) Alternatively, you can also make use of online free web tools like namemesh.com . This tool is very helpful in suggesting some good domain name.

7) You can also include a service based keyword in your domain name. For this you have to identify your main service and use it in your domain name. Example a Java training company can include the keyword Java or training or both Java training in its domain name or any other meaningful and related variation pertaining to these keywords.

8) Be careful when buying a domain for your company, and research whether that name is copyrighted or not. Sometimes brands, names are copyright and unknowingly it can get you in trouble, one can use tool like www.copyright.gov for checking copyrighted names. 

8 Vital Reasons to go for a Website Re-design for your Business

Good design- Your old website might not have a good design or old fashioned look, a good design attracts eyeballs and builds trust with the visitors.

User experience – One can go for a website redesign in order to provide good user experience to visitors and customers. There are various factors like pop-ups, color combination, quality and relevant content, use of images, frustrating 404 error pages etc that account for user experience. If the sites user experience is not good then bounce rate will increase which is not good.

Purpose & services- Sometimes the services that the company is providing changes or the products which the company is selling might change then in that case a website re-design might be required.

Switch to Online Business – A restaurant, hotel or a popular store shop might be having a basic website for information, but to increase presence and sales they might want to add Online services like ordering food online, booking a room online or opening an online store then in such cases a re-design will come handy.

Responsive- After the recent Google update you might want to make a mobile-friendly website. A responsive site is very important as it opens up on screens of different sizes; it enhances user experience and site usability.

Rebranding- Sometimes companies change their brand names due to reputation related issues or for better marketing goals, then in such cases a new makeover of the site may be required.

Site Speed – Website speed and page load time is a crucial factor as far as user experience is concerned nobody likes to visit a slow site that takes minutes to load. Slow speed may be due to multiple factors like large images, http requests, uncompressed code, videos, flash used, Iframes, lengthy coding etc so to overcome all these change in design may be required.

Traffic – More traffic means more leads and sales, doesn’t that sound good to ears. Well if a site is getting a low traffic then also a re-design may be considered as a suitable option.

How to find good topics for blogging?

Are you confused about finding a good topic for your blog post? Finding a good topic for blogging is very essential; below I have enlisted techniques to find a suitable topic for blogging.

Finding Niche

Finding a niche for your blog is the first step to blogging. Identify the industry and the Domian for your blog and also the audience that you are going to target. For instance it could be a blog related to WebDesign, Finance, Travelling etc. Try your level best to focus on one industry like if I choose Travelling then I will write blogs only relevant to travelling and touring and not about finance and marketing.

Keyword Research

Identify your main keywords that are relevant to your blog. For this I use keyword research tool by Google and select suitable keywords having high search volumes. Keyword Research is very important because it is useless to focus on keywords which users are not searching at all. So try to select long tailed keywords with high search volumes and less competition.

Choosing Topics

Choose topics that will entice your targeted audience. Don’t choose generic topics, target specific topics, ideas and target long meaningful keywords rather than short and generic ones. Don’t just choose topics related only to your niche blog, also choose topics that have some co-relation with your niche eg- your niche could be web design but you can also write about SEO, Digital marketing as they are related terms indirectly.

Use Suggestion Tools

 There are many keyword suggestion tool to give you new ideas like Hubspot Tool. It extracts various relevant blogging topics directly from various search engines and presents us with some really useful topics.

Another excellent tools is Buzz Sumo, this one is my favorites tool, as it has a of customization options and gives a lot of information and insights about backlink associated with the post, social media presence in the form of like and shares, and tweets. It gives a list of trending topics of the past and present based upon your searched keyword. For example I typed the keyword “real estate advice” in the Buzz Sumo tool and threw the following list of ideas as seen below. The below ideas can be used to find a good blogging topic to write on.

Google Trends

This is a free tool from Google which give ideas about latest trending topics and phrases  in the fields such as Technology, Sports, Entertainment, Web development, Health Business etc.  It gives you details about search query terms for which these topics are trending, and based upon these keywords one can decide a suitable and viral Blog topic. The best part about this tool is its visualized data based upon region and time shown in form of maps and graphs.

Quora Questions

Quora is the most popular question/ answer site, where all its questions as well as answers are created by readers themselves. Sometimes questions are very engaging, humorous and controversial which are worth reading. It has thousands of questions on hundreds of topics, most of them with well written answers. Based on these questions one can get a fair bit of idea about starting a new Blog topic.

WebCanny Video Launched :Leading Web Design and Development Company

By Choosing WebCanny, you are opting to partner with one of Australia's and New Zealand’s leading Web Design and Development Company. Since beginning operations in May 2009, we’ve had explosive growth in New Zealand, with over 3000 small to mid size businesses on board for their web design, hosting and emails with proven expertise and reliability.

Digital Marketing Strategies

Digital Marketing is an essential marketing strategy for any business to stay ahead of competition. With increasing mobile internet users, the potential customers are constantly online. Having said this, digital marketing gives you an edge over your competitors to grow your business online.

Here is a list of digital marketing strategies that a business owner can implement to help their business grow.

Digital Marketing Strategy #1: Every Business should have Website

“Website Requirement Analysis” is a process that assists in analyzing challenges and opportunities with respect to the business model of the website.

Digital marketing Strategy #2: Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process to improve the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engines in "organic" results.

Digital marketing Strategy #3: Search Engine Advertising

Search Advertising is a method of placing online advertisements on web pages that show results from search engine queries

Digital marketing Strategy #4: Social Media Networking

Social media optimization (SMO) is the use of a number of social media outlets and communities to generate publicity to increase the awareness of a product, brand or event.

Digital marketing Strategy #5: Email Marketing

Email marketing is directly marketing a commercial message to a group of people using email. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing.

Digital Marketing Strategy #6: Blogging

A blog is a discussion or informational site published on the World Wide Web. Blogging is an interactive form of publishing content on the web.

These strategies when implemented on your website will definitely make a difference. Try this and see your business grow!

How to Globalise a Website and Business?

Website globalisation is trying to reach company’s global efficiency by making the website in multilingual. This is also known as website translation. In today’s world website globalisation is a requirement. This will help your products to reach to most of the countries across the world and this helps in business expansion.
Market Analysis – First a thorough study about the market or the target customer is required, as per the geographic, culture, economy and attitude of the visitors for targeting the exact market :
Keyword Research – Research Structure of the website- Use the best structure for easy and stress free navigation and access of the website.
Effective Content- Use the relevant content for the website by analysing visitor’s behavior.
Translate the content as per the requirement- Use tools for translating the text content as per the visitor’s requirement. This will increase the traffic and usability of the particular website.
Optimise the content – We can optimise the content and images by applying the key words in the way of search engine guidelines

One of the main benefits of having an eCommerce Website is the fact that your products and services are available worldwide.
However to make sure that you can turn this multinational traffic into conversions you will need to accommodate them. i.e, your website should operate on a operating on a multi-channel level. This means your website has to be localized. What we mean by localizing is, translating the content on the website to local language. It’s just not about the language, it is about the target audience, the culture and the market comparision.
Last but definitely not the least, to go about Global Expansion, you require a good Customer service and a team that speaks native language.

Is your Website “Mobile Friendly”?

As per Google’s new algorithm change on 21st April 2015, nicknamed Mobilegeddon, if your website is not mobile friendly, your search results will be severely affected. Google will rank you higher if your website is mobile friendly, or responsive. A recent study from Google shows over 50% of searches are now done from mobile devices, and visitors expect to see a mobile friendly site.
A Responsive Website re-sizes your desktop website for mobiles of any screen resolution. Google recommends Responsive Design as best practice for mobile-optimised websites.

Advantages of Responsive Design:

1.It will work on any device – Laptop, Smartphone, Tablet or Desktop
2.Easy Maintenance
3.Higher Conversion
4.Cost-effective
5.Enhanced User Experience
6.SEO Friendly

WebCanny : Main factors to be checked before launching a website

WebCanny maintains professionalism in each and every step of web design process. Our specialists here will test the website design, functionalities and the outlined points mentioned below will be considered:

1. Web Analytics to Track Visitors
2. Testing Contact Forms
3. Removing Spell Check
4. Removing Broken Links
5. Meta Tags
6. Set up a 404 Page
7. Avoiding Code Error
8. Setting up 301 Redirect
9. Page Titles
10. URL Structure
11. Site Map
12. Social Media Icons
13. Robots.txt
14. Fav Icon
15. Copyright
16. Privacy Policy

Benefits of Mobile Friendly Websites

Your website is the most important marketing tool. Technology changes quickly. It is important to make the website up to date with these changes.
Your website may not be Mobile friendly:
Mobile internet use is increasing rapidly and optimising your website for a Smartphone or tablet is critical to your website being seen. A mobile website can be accessed anywhere, any time. This level of constant connectivity provides an exceptional opportunity to connect with your customers.

To improve usability for customers and to keep it up to date
Keeping it up to date with the technology and making the website user friendly, so your visitors don’t opt out of the website.
If the content management system or a particular functionality implemented on the website may not be that easy to use for the customers . If the website is redesigned regularly, the customer experience will be good and this inturn increases your visitors and potential customers

WebCanny, Australia and New Zealand's Leading Web Design and Development Company offers the best value, professionally designed, SEO friendly websites.

WebCanny, you are opting to partner with one of Australia’s leading Web Design and Development Companies. Since beginning operations in May 2009, we’ve had explosive growth in Australia, with over 3000 small to mid size businesses on board for their web design, hosting and emails with proven expertise and reliability.
We help our clients to expand their business and online presence using SEO friendly websites and an easy-to-use CMS. However don’t just take our word for it, please take a look around our website and see for yourself. You’ll find everything you need to quickly and efficiently, and most importantly, economically design a visually stunning website that will get results for your business. Most people start on the testimonials page: www.webcanny.com.au/testimonials