Through a combination of experience, feedback and new technologies we have continued to strive for a better product. Something that can offer more to you, the client, but at the same time become easier and more intuitive to use. We have also looked to incorporate new modules and functionality to add to the library of tasks The Admin Site can help you with.

Behind the scenes there have been many changes to help make The Admin Site run faster and smoother than the older version, however, what we’re excited about are some of the great new plug-ins we have available in version 2.0.

Some of the great new features available are…

New Online Store
Spike has developed their own online store which can quickly and easily be customised to your businesses requirements. The store can connect to a variety of payment gateways including the world renowned PayPal or Camtech gateways. Ask us how our store can be tailored to your businesses.

HTML Newsletter Management Version 4
Many of you have a version of the HTML email / newsletter on your system. Each version of the HTML email / newsletter comes with increased filtering options, record keeping and reporting.

Brand New Photos Galleries
Our new photo galleries make use of the funky new jQuery technology which allows your website’s visitors to easily view hundreds of photos at terrific resolution while navigating easily between the photos.

The Admin Site Version 2.0 allows you to easily upload multiple photos, add comments as well as edit, hide or delete individual or groups of images. You are also able to categorise all of your images into albums and galleries.

You can view an example of the galleries at http://au.blueseptember.org/blue_september_photo_albums.php.

Product Image Zoom
This is a terrific little application which allows your clients to easily zoom in on smaller images in order to see the detail of the product. All you need to do is upload a small image and a large image via The Admin Site and the rest is done for you.

You can view an example of the Product Image Zoom at http://www.pca.org.au/results09/sx/awards/Best-of-Show-Award-3.php

New Video Galleries
Many of you have had the need for video on your website over time, now we have a great application which allows you to either upload your own videos, or grab a video from YouTube and put it into you website. You can have as many videos as you like, listed in a play list which is easy for your website’s visitors to click and view.

We’ve made use of this technology in our new video tutorials which many of you would already be using. We can of course ‘skin’ the player and playlist so that it fits perfectly into your website’s look and feel.

Video Tutorials
With the latest version of The Admin Site comes video tutorials. The video tutorials are never longer than five minutes in duration are aimed at showing your how to quickly and easily use The Admin Site. You are also able to request the creation of a video should you require it.

Improved Search Engine Optimisation
With version 2 of The Admin Site comes the ability for you to control even more aspects of your website which effect your performance in search engines such as Google.

On top of these great new additions to The Admin Site, Spike WebDesign has also been doing a lot of work developing software which helps to streamline our clients’ workflow. If you have tasks which are taking up a lot of your time or repeatedly costing you money, talk to us about how we can automate these tasks and free up your time to focus on more important areas of your business.

“I really need a website”.

“I must get that shopping cart so I can sell my products online”.

“I’ll update my website in the New Year”.

Resolutions and thoughts like this are common ones, especially amongst business owners. However, as the New Year starts and all that comes with it means that your current website, or ambitions of finally getting a website, get swept under the carpet.

We’ll make the assumption that you and your business is good at what you do and you have good customer service, after those two things your company’s website is the most important aspect of your business.

A website:

• Is your primary source of advertising.
• Can become the number one pathway that your clients take to reach you.
• Tells potential clients about your services and why they should use you.
• Can save you thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours by automating mundane repetitive administration tasks (if you have a good content management system).
• Can take your client’s payments online and can also create a terrific flow of passive income.
• Can communicate with you current clients, either by bulk HTML emails, sms text message, blog / news articles or general updates on your site.
• Can easily manage vast databases of information once again saving you time and money.
• Showcase your products and services through photo or video galleries.

When you look at these points, as well as extrapolate these ideas based on your business’ specific needs, it would be negligent not make your website your number one New Year’s resolution.

“I can’t afford a new website”.

“Why do websites cost so much?”

Both of these comments are common and nine times out of ten not well thought out. A basic website might take 5 to 15 hours of work to develop. However, most website companies also have their own software or code which they have developed in their own time which they can plug in to new websites, meaning more than just the 5 to 15 hours go into a website.  More complicated database driven websites can often be anywhere from 10 hours work to upwards of 100 hours worth of work.

So if you are a business owner and want a new website and you get a range of quotes, a good thing to do would be to divide the quoted amount by your hourly rate, just to get a perspective on the price you’ve been given. Sure, everybody has different hourly rates, but this at least will start to help you make an informed decision.

The other point to consider is the monetary outlay for your website versus potential revenue generated by your website. If someone were to tell you that if you invested $5,000 and would get $100,000 in return over the next few years I don’t think anyone would turn that offer down. However, you would be surprised how many people baulk at a website quote which is only a fraction of what they would be making if their business becomes successful.

Sounds stupid, right?

“I want to make tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, but I’m only willing to spend a few hundred dollars to achieve it”. For people with attitudes like this I have one piece of advice, buy a Tattslotto ticket. If you want to get the most out of the internet and your website, you have to be willing to invest time, resources and money. Otherwise you are dreaming and will be making the same resolutions next year.

So in short, don’t put off to tomorrow what you could otherwise do today. The sooner you initiate the process of a new website or upgrades to your current site, the sooner you will be reaping the rewards.

Happy New Year!

We have written previously about question you should be asking yourself before you approach a website designer, but they were more focused on the general stuff. We often receive quote requests from potential clients saying something like this:

“We want a website exactly like the one at www.websitename.com. How much?”

Now to you that might sound like a reasonable question, however, I would bet a lot that there has been a series of assumptions you have made, or an understanding or your requirements which are not automatically clear to someone outside of your business.

Let’s take a look at an example, an online store which sells wheels, tyres and parts for cars. To the owner of this store it would seem simple; “I just want to sell my products online!” However, questions that we would ask which would impact our quote are such things has:

• What are the break downs of your products?
• Are there different categories within products?
• Can only certain products be purchased with another item?
• Do you require packages?
• What are your postage costs?
• How do you postage costs changed if a bulk order is made?
• Do you want to use your bank as a payment gateway or would you prefer an online gateway such as PayPal?
• How would you like your products to be searched/found by visitors to you site
• Etc

As you can see already there are a lot of variables which are very important when programming an online store which is functionally capable of handling a businesses demands.

This business owner may not have thought any of this through and thus expects are certain price based on his concept of the store being ‘simple’. He would then no doubt be shocked and somewhat annoyed when he receives a quote which is significantly more than he had imagined.

Now while we have listed all of the above questions, the business owner’s responses may have led us to the realisation that the store is in fact simple, however, many web design companies may not have asked these questions and just assumed that it would be complex. They are within their rights to do this.

What many people don’t realise is that when a website is quoted upon, nine out of ten times a fairly involved requirements gathering phase will need place. The less thought a business owner has given their website, the longer the requirements gathering phase will take. Some companies will not bother starting a requirements gathering phase unless they are commissioned to do so, which again is fair enough.

When wanting a new website, an update from an old website or a component like an online store, treat it like a new business and write out a business plan. How would you see it working? What are your goals for it? How could it be best structured for your clients?

The more thoughtful you are about your requirements, the more accurate a quote you will receive.

They say that they have done their research and found that you are the holder of the trademark, which they are currently protecting on your behalf. At first this seems legit and a number of my clients have been concerned. One particular case we had just purchased a .ASIA domain for a client, then they receive an email telling them that they do not own this and it is being blocked. Then the company kindly offered to secure the domain on our client’s behalf.

Now what would have happened if our client had not asked us to sort it out and had instead consented? First, the Asian company would have contacted us ordering that we transfer the domain to them based on OUR client’s request. Then they would charge our client roughly ten times the going rate for domains, and they would sell it to them on a ten year contract, when the minimum or usual term is one year.

Now, since our client asked us to investigate these emails for them, we replied to the emails kindly declining the offer. We also noted that our client already has the domain and that there is no need for them to ‘buy it again’. This didn’t phase the Asian company. Instead they kept emailing our client, and now us too, notifying that we would lose the address unless we bought it through them.

As you can imagine our client was getting rather worried. We finally managed to make this company ‘go away’ by telling them if they sent one more email the next person they would be hearing from would be our lawyers. Of course, we heard nothing more.

Our client’s domain remained in our possession, their website kept running and we heard nothing more from this specific company.

There are many companies doing this and the best way to handle this situation is to delete the email immediately. If you are at all concerned, forward the email to you webmaster and ask for their opinion.

But remember, if someone is emailing you saying that they have possession of something which you have bought, they are almost definitely dodgy and should be ignored.

Over the last year or two it is a regular occurrence that a client, who we are designing a website for, will come to us saying that they’ve been contacted by a Search Engine Optimisation company who is promising big things. This frequently occurring situation is the instigator for the writing of this article. Hopefully this article will save us (Spike WebDesign) time in phone calls explaining what the SEO companies are really offering, and be informative to the general punter who doesn’t have the expertise or understanding.

Firstly, let me start by saying that there are a number of really great SEO companies around who achieve really solid results. However, I have yet to encounter a SEO company which tells ‘the whole story’. I would like to relay two recent encounters to you.

Not long ago I was asked by a friend, who is the GM of an international company, to sit in on a meeting with a SEO company claiming to be the ‘Nations leading SEO Company”. They were not informed that I was from an outside website design company so I got to see the beast at its best.

The SEO company had definitely achieved some great results for previous clients and that was not in question, however, during their extremely hard sell sales pitch they told many half truths and quoted statistics which they ‘heard’ we true. As the meeting went along there were various ideas put forward as well as ominous warnings of ‘if you don’t use us then you are doomed’ and ‘you can’t afford not to use us’. However there were two questions that had not been answered and I was dying to ask.

The first question was: “How much do you cost?”

The Answer…

“Our fees start at $10,000 per year”.

Wowzers! They start at that? This isn’t building a new website folks. It also isn’t rebranding or any kind of logo work, and that was their starter amount. After I picked myself off the floor and did a quick calculation that I could have created my friend’s entire website for a once off fee, including search engine optimisation, for less than their annual starter rate, I asked my second question.

“So if we were to use your services but after three or four years for some reason could no longer afford to pay you, would there be any lasting effect or infrastructure built that will stand our website in good stead? Or will we just fall off the Google map?” (Smiling sweetly the whole time).

The Answer…

“Well.. you would, uh… you would fall off the map!”

And there it is ladies and gentlemen. The cornerstone of most SEO companies and the major area where SpikeWebDesign differs from them. They make your website totally dependent on their service and just like any drug, when you stop forking out the cash, the high is no longer there and you plummet.

We don’t like to create ‘SEO junkies’ who rely on us, thus we create infrastructure that is lasting and we also teach you how to increase your website’s search engine optimisation yourself.

The second story I’d like to relate occurred when a new client was considering moving to a SEO company because they apparently had lower fees. However, hidden behind unclear wording was the truth. Again my client would have been trapped into a never ending loop of recurring fees, in this case hundreds of dollars in monthly fees. They also believed that they were being offered a deal on domain names, when the truth of the matter was that they were actually being charged nearly three times the going rate.

Our client wasn’t to know any better. SEO companies often use confusing lingo that only those in the website industry can see through. On some occasions these companies even tell blatant untruths such as convincing clients that you can own (read ‘purchase’) specific search terms which will get you listed number one in Google.

The pitch that allows SEO companies to exist and to continue to makes truckloads of money is that they promise to make your money back and then some. Their favourite term is ROI, Return On Investment. What’s wrong with this? Nothing. However, every single business investment you make should be making or saving you money so promoting this fact isn’t an excuse to charge exorbitant rates.

How much should SEO cost? That’s a good question and the answer depends on your website as well as your competition. However, you should not be paying thousands of dollars monthly or annually to companies who are not building you a solid base. You should not enter into an agreement with a company which means you are totally reliant on them and at the mercy of their pricing decisions or company direction.

Find a company like Spike WebDesign who have no on-going fees and who can optimise your website and online profile and then give you the tools to continue the process yourself. Spike WebDesign’s content management system, ‘The Admin Site’, allows you to have complete control over all on-site optimisation on your website, plus has the inbuilt functionality to further your off-site optimisation needs such as link partnering.

My final point before I sign off is an important one. Do not believe anyone who guarantees you that they can get you listed number one in Google. So many companies make those statements but to them I ask:

• Does that guarantee go for any keyword and phrase I choose?
• Does that mean on Google.com as well as Google.com.au
• Are we talking number 1 in Google’s organic results (the ones on the left)?
• Will your SEO process compromise the integrity of the content on my website? (This is an important one, always design your website for your users, not search engines).

There is no magic method of attaining top rankings in Google or other search engines. It primarily comes down to the level of competition within your industry/keywords. For example, if your company made towels and was called ‘Micro Soft Towels’. You would never rank well in Google due to the power and size of Microsoft’s website.

There are far too many smoke and mirrors salesmen in the SEO world who rely on their customers’ lack of knowledge. Do your research, don’t believe everything you are told and get more than one quote.

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