digiCreative Blog
How to Write a Blog
Often I get asked "how do I write a blog post?". I thought the following articles may be helpful in answering the question:
How to Create a Good Website Homepage
The job of your website home page is to:
1. Attract visitors through Google (Google still does over 90% of search in NZ)
2. Tell people how they can benefit from your services
3. Get them to take the first step by clicking to the next page
Most visitors won’t read a lot of text. Make sure you have good headlines. Long headlines are fine. Also people will look at pictures and video, and the captions below them.
Calls to action are what prompt a visitor to solve their problem by taking the next step. This next step can be as simple as clicking through to your next page. Have a call to action on every page, to take the visitor to the next step. Also include your contact details, to make it easy for visitors to get in contact.
If you feel like your website home-page isn’t generating the results you want, get in touch with Matthew to have a quick chat about it.
Eight Website Promotion Tips
1. Optimise for Google: If your website has a high search engine ranking, you will receive more visitors. Be sure to use key-search-phrases in your page title, headings, and opening paragraph of text.
10 Website Usability Tips
1. Use intuitive navigation. A website that is easy to navigate is imperative! Make your navigation obvious and consistent throughout your site. Remember if users can’t find what they want in 3 clicks, they’re gone.
2. Don’t be too clever. Fluffy designs that do not support real user needs are not recommended. It is better for your website to be useful to your visitors, then to be full of “bells and whistles”.
3. Easy to read text. Make sure your text is easy to read, has a good contrast with your page background, and is not cluttered with annoying gimmicks.
4. Communicate clearly. Be sure to mention who you are, what you do, what you are offering, how it will help, and what you want visitors to do.
Understanding Google Analytics Jargon
If you have Google Analytics setup on your website, you will be emailed monthly statistics reports (or be able to view them online). On the first page of the report, you will see the following metrics:
Web-based Intranet
Would you like an easy way to securely share documents, calendars, videos, etc with your staff? A company intranet may well be the answer and a whole easier to set-up then often assumed.
A company intranet allows you to easily collaborate and share information internally. This allows you and your staff to easily login and view (or edit) areas like:
• Pages – ideal for information, such as internal policies and procedures. As well as text, you can easily add images, calendars, maps, documents or videos.
• Announcements – ideal for internal news or announcements
• File Cabinets – ideal as a file storage repository, allowing staff to easily find shared files
• Lists – ideal for keeping track of action items from a meeting or project
The setup process is usually very straightforward. You simply choose from a variety of layout templates to use, which we can customize with your organisation’s brand. We then install your intranet, and provide staff training on how to use the system, so that you can get the most benefit from it.
You’ll also receive at the end of each month a statistics report about your intranet usage. This will not only help you see the systems uptake, but also provide valuable information we can use to help users find what they are looking for easier.
We would love to discuss the system with you in more detail, or perhaps setup a demo. Please contact us to find out more.
Top 10 Tips for a Charity Website
1. Know Your Website Purpose
This is key. Everything else leads back to your website’s purpose and goals. Your website goals could include converting visitors to members, providing info to existing members, building your email newsletter, building awareness, and collecting donations.
The Next Generation of Websites
The world is moving at an increasingly alarming rate! What used to be an eight hour drive is now a one hour flight, the daily walk to the letter box is now a click on the Inbox button and the screeching of a dial-up modem is now the connect anywhere convenience of wireless internet. But how does this affect the future of your website?
Though the traditional ways still exist (for the most part), the options available to you and your customers are ever increasing. One trend that has become clear is the increase of internet usage from mobile phones.
In 2007, 25% of all mobile phone users world wide accessed the internet from their phone and 30% of internet access was exclusively from mobile phones (more info). And these figures are set to grow, grow, grow especially in the Asia-Pacific region which is expected to account for 43.9% of all mobile subscribers by 2013 (more info). But don’t be fooled, this is not just for the younger generation, “the most rapid growth has occurred among consumers 35 and older” (more info).
So how can you and your website respond to this change?
MyTag MyTown
Recently we've been working on a website for MyTag MyTown with AlphaMedia Productions.
A few new websites..
We've launched a few new websites recently, what better time than now to check them out:
