Wednesday, August 31  

The Pros And Cons Of Online Shopping

The Pros & Cons Of Online Shopping

On this morning’s radio show on the ABC I’ll be talking about online shopping.

I’ll jump right into the pros of online shopping:

• Huge choice – you aren’t limited to just those stores in your region.


• Save money – because of lower costs online stores often have greatly reduced prices when compared to a ‘normal’ store.


• Save time – no more long queues, no more trekking from store to store.

My best example of a site that does all three- (3) is the accommodation booking web site www.wotif.com.au. Wotif gives you a huge choice of accommodation at greatly reduced prices and you can search, find and book in just a few short minutes – knowing you have received a great deal.

Hot Tips:

Check out the big auction sites such as www.ebay.com.au and www.ebay.com. www.amazon.com also has an auction facility now.
Check out price comparison sites such as www.pricegrabber.com.


Cons of online shopping

• Shipping fees – be careful that the shipping fees don’t cancel out the savings on the product price.


• No ‘try before you buy’ – you can’t touch, smell or feel the item.


• Security concerns – we covered this in last week’s show. Be careful who you give your credit card details to. Do your homework.


• Cost of returns – ensure the store you buy from has a solid returns policy. If the shoes don’t fit who pays for return postage?

For more information:

• www.choice.com.au


• www.accc.gov.au

As always, if you have any questions or concerns please let me know at brendon@tailored.com.au.

Regards

Brendon

Tuesday, August 30  

Blogging From Word

Blogging From Word

Technology sure does move fast. I have written this blog entry and uploaded it to the Internet from a simple Word document.

It’s as easy as pie. And when things are as easy as pie more people do them. More people add content. Better web sites are developed.

If you have a blog and want to know how to blog from a Word document, visit here.

If you are interested in a blog for your web site (where you can very quickly and easily upload content and changes) then contact us on 07 5598 4898 or at admin@tailored.com.au.

Brendon

My Biggest Frustration

My Biggest Frustration

One of my biggest frustrations with web developers in Australia (or anywhere for that matter) is web developers who subtly mislead clients with what they are doing.

There is a high profile business here in Australia that charges upwards of $20,000 for search engine optimisation (seo) - that is, they develop pages in such a way that the pages appear in the search engine rankings.

That's fine - seo can be a lot of work and $20,000 is not unreasonable for many clients.

But what this business does is trumpet their work as though they get great results, when in fact the results are pretty ordinary. They'll come number 1 in Google Australia for a keyword and make it sounds impressive............ but what their client doesn't know is that for non-competitive keywords (that is, words that don't get searched for much) getting number 1 will take about 10 minutes work.

In fact, it's almost impossible not to come # 1 for poorly searched for keywords.

To then announce what a superb job they've been doing to achieve this ranking is a bit dodgy in my book.

Frustration Stems From This

My frustration stems from this and the follow on - clients get a very poor return, which leads to a general dismay with the industry as a whole. And that then affects the young web developers trying to find a place in what should be a rapidly growing industry.

The Point

I guess the point is this: it's buyer beware. Employ an expert who really does get results that generate a return.

For an excellent article on this check out Search Engine Optimization Rip Offs (And How To Avoid Them).

Cheers

Brendon

Monday, August 29  

$1 million in sales

The $1 million in sales was achieved quite a while ago and was the first book published by SitePoint.com to reach the goal.

I receive probably 5 or 6 emails a day from readers either saying "Thanks for writing it" or asking me a question - I know people always say it, but it doesn't matter about the money. The reward when writing a book like this is in actually helping people grow their business.

It is what motivated me to write the kit in the first place and what motivates me today to answer every single email I receive.

So thanks if you have bought the kit. It's been a big thrill for me to win the Web Design Library award last year for 'Best Book on Web Design' and to achieve well over $1 million in sales.

It still amazes me some that I've written a book that has been so well accepted. Thanks again.

Brendon

The Bar Afterwards

The Bar Afterwards

I went to a corporate lunch on Friday and had an enjoyable afternoon. After the lunch, held at the Casino here on the Gold Coast, I went into the bar for a few drinks with some friends and industry colleagues.

Whilst I was there having a chat I realised, like I always do, that the value of conventions, seminars, lunches, etc isn't always in the convention, seminar or lunch.

The value is in the networking during and after the event. A time when you gather a lot of industry intelligence just by having a beer and a chat with people who you work with in the industry and who are a rich source of contacts.

Cheers

Brendon

Friday, August 26  

Google Launches Talk

Google Launches Talk

Thursday, August 25  

Why People Don't Buy Online (Remove This Barrier & You'll Make More Sales)

Why People Don't Buy Online (Remove This Barrier & You'll Make More Sales)

Wednesday, August 24  

Protecting Yourself From Internet Fraud & Identity Theft

Protecting Yourself From Internet Fraud & Identity Theft

In today's show on the ABC I'll be talking about Internet fraud and identity theft.

Firstly I'll mention the more common Internet frauds.

1. Phishing - the term given to where the web sites of a reputable financial institution (usually a bank) is partly copied and placed onto the Internet. An email is then sent out to many thousands of people with a message along the lines of "We need to verify your details for some reason or another, click the link here and login to your account."

(Note: the criminals are usually pretty smart and may try and appear to be from the sceurity division of your bank. I've had emails before saying "Warning, your account has been accessed by an illegal third party. Please login now and change your password." That is another fraudulent email.)

The link (which I've just made to www.) goes to the copied web site that has embedded fields for your login details. If you enter your login details the criminal can now access your account.

Protect Yourself: Be aware that banks will not ask you to verify your details via an email.
Never visit a banking/financial/credit web site via a link from an email, web site forum or another web site. Type the address in yourself.

Microsoft is trying to help - click here for more details.

2. Pharming - pharming, which involves Trojans, worms, or other technology (including attacking what's called the DNS system) that attack the browser address bar. Thus, when users type in a "valid" web site address they are redirected to the crooks' web sites.

Tools like Netcraft are useful at showing you what site you are really on.

3. Straight Credit Card Theft - this one isn't limited to the Internet of course. Anyone who takes your credit card for a moment - the local restaurant, shoe store or mechanic - has enough access to steal the numbers and expiry dates and even a copy of your signature. And do with it what they will.

Recently 130,000 Australians became casualties of a huge theft of data that compromised the details of up to 40 million people worldwide.

Hackers got into a US-based credit card processing company called Card System Solutions (they process cards for Visa and Mastercard). The crime was discovered by the National Australia Bank's anti-fraud unit who then notified American authorities.

There's about four billion dollars in Australia that is being defrauded each year and 25% of that is white collar crime. Credit card fraud is a big industry. Statistics in Australia show around a third of the fraud undertaken is from friends.

Protect Yourself: Only provide your credit card details to reputable companies. Analyse every transaction on your credit card for irregularities. Keep your credit card in a secure place.


4. Identity Theft - costs the US about $50 billion pa. Generally what people are talking about when they say "identity theft" is where the bad guy obtains your personal details and goes off and applies for credit in your name (of course they can also apply for jobs in your name, rent a house, etc).

Obtaining enough information to "steal" your identity is a fair bit harder than stealing a credit card, so it is a far, far less frequent crime.

Blissful Ignorance

The big problem with identity theft is that the victim is blissfully unaware of the theft sometimes for many years - but the results can be quite disastrous: ruined credit, threatened employment, unable to rent another house, etc.

In June of this year, The Sun newspaper in Britain announced that they had purchased top secret information on 1,000 British bank accounts from a crooked IT worker in India.

Protect Yourself: The Internet Industry Association have developed an excellent document on avoiding online fraud and identity theft (it's a PDF file).

Click this link for more useful tips on avoiding being scammed: from AustralianBusiness.com.au.

From FIDO (the web site for the Australian Securities and Investment Commission) comes this document with some good tips on avoiding email scams and phishing.

The Australian Institute of Criminology released this web page in its efforts to combat online credit card fraud against small business.

I hope that is of some help. As usual, if you have any questions from today's show don't hesitate to contact me on 07 5598 4898.

Regards

Brendon

Tuesday, August 23  

This Plain Ol' Site

This Plain Ol' Site

Hello. I was talking with a fellow today and he mentioned he found this web site quite dull in terms of design.

I agreed with him. The design is a little dull.

And that's what makes us better than most other web developers.

Our focus is on developing what works. Not what looks the best. (You'd hope they'd be one and the same but they rarely are.) And trust me when I say our clients prefer performing web sites to non-performing web sites!

Measure Site Metrics

One of the more important metrics we measure on this site is the average number of pages views per visitor.

This design has provided our best ever average.

We measure number of leads generated. Again, this site wins.

There's A Reason For Everything On This Site

My photo is in the top right for a reason.
We update the site regularly for a reason.
This site has very few graphics for a reason.
'case studies' is the top button on the left for a reason.

There's a reason for everything.

And it's all about providing the visitor with the best possible experience -

• my picture causes the visitor to stay an extra second or 2,
• we update the site so visitors return (and to help search engine rankings),
• we use very few graphics so the site remains very fast loading, and
• the 'case studies' page is our most read page (and probably most important), so it gets the best spot.

So it's good that, as web developers, our site is a little dull. When we find a better looking design that works better we'll use that (and we test quite often).

Cheers

Brendon

Friday, August 19  

Proactive Marketing

Proactive Marketing

I appeared in a local business magazine last week - a profile on me and my life, which included a bit about my business.

I received in the mail today a Price List and details of a CD & DVD duplication service. The owner (Paul) wrote me a personal note and mentioned that he'd seen me in the magazine and enjoyed it.

He also mentioned that he could offer me terrific service and prices if I needed his service.

That's personal (he's stroked my ego by telling me he saw me in the magazine) and proactive (he's not waiting for me to call him). And that's usually very effective.

Are you being proactive with your marketing? It works.

Regards

Brendon

Thursday, August 18  

Using SMS For Business

Using SMS For Business Use

In Australia in 2003 there was an estimated 4 billion text messages sent to mobile phones. That number is predicted to rise to nine billion in 2008.

• Imagine an SMS message sent instantly (and automatically) to your customer confirming the order they've just placed.
• Imagine an SMS message sent to the customers of your restaurant letting them know that there will be a free entree with all main courses orders for tonight.
• Imagine your personal training client receiving an SMS reminding them of their appointment today.

Can your business use SMS to reduce contact costs, enhance communications and increase customer service?

Regards

Brendon

Wednesday, August 17  

Show Notes From Today's ABC Radio Show

Show Notes From Today's ABC Radio Show

Hello. Today on the ABC show we talked about emails, email programs and how to send SMS messages from email.

Firstly, there are about 60 billion emails sent per day worldwide (hate to be the guy counting each one!).

60% of people use Outlook as their email client (what sends and receives their email).

Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail are what we call anonymous email providers. Anybody can sign up without identifying themselves.

Add to the fact they are free, and its really easy to make a new one.If you're a spammer, or you're trying to send a virus, or doing anything dodgy where you would rather not be traced - hotmail and yahoo are excellent options.

It's for these reasons that some systems don't accept their emails - sure, they'll miss out on some legitimate emails. But they suddenly cut a large amount of spam etc out!

Google Free Email Service

Gmail is the Google email client. gmail started with 1 Gig of space to store emails (that's 1,000 MB), but they're giving us all the space they can. If you visit www.gmail.com there is a little counter saying how much space is available - and its going up all the time.

At the moment the amount of space is at 2.5 Gigabytes.

Hackers/Virus Writers Do tend To Target Outlook

Outlook Express actually features the preview pane - what this means, is that the email is opened before you tell it to open.

In some set-ups, the email is opened as soon as its recieved, without any input from you, the user. So, if there is a virus attached to an email - the preview pane can actually run it.

Advice often given to people on the net is "Delete any suspicious emails". With the preview pane, in some situations that's not a choice - the email is already opened once its been previewed.

Always use anti-virus software to keep your emails safe.

Send SMS Messages From Email

This is as easy as pie (and something I'd recommend very strongly for businesses to use). Keep in touch very simply and easily with your current customers via sending an SMS via email. The cost is pretty good - about 18c per message (which is cheaper than the average I get charged when sending an SMS via the mobile).

There are numerous providers around. We use Distribute IT who we have found to be excellent.

Do a search. Find one you are happy with a give it a go!

As always, if you have any questions from today's show don't hesitate to give me a call on 07 5598 4898 or via email to brendon@tailored.com.au.

Regards

Brendon

Tuesday, August 16  

Caribbean Business Going Digital

Caribbean Business Going Digital

It's always good to see what others are buying online to see if other areas of the world are consistent with our experience. And yep, they are.

Top 10 items purchased over the Internet (Puerto Rico): of those surveyed:

1. Airline, cruise line tickets, car rental, and hotel reservations: 35%
2. Books: 34.2%
3. Electronic products: 31.2%
4. Tickets (movies, events, concerts): 30.8%
5. Music: 25.8%
6. Clothing & accessories: 25%
7. Computers / computer programs: 24.6%
8. Movies / DVDs: 23.8%
9. Articles for home & decorating: 23.1%
10. Office supplies 18.5%

Of those I've purchased 8 out of the 10. How about you?

Cheers

Brendon

Trump Enters The World Of Blogging

Trump Enters The World Of Blogging

I see Donald Trump (I can never believe that people actually take this guy seriously) has entered the world of blogging. I see blogs as a critical component of a company's web and PR strategy and it's no surprise to see guys like Trump jump on board the blogging bandwagon.

But the thing about blogging is that it has to be real. It has to be honest. You can't go editing responses. You can't go and have someone else write your blog pretending to be you.

And Trump has made his first (and a major) mistake.

If you have a blog keep it real, honest and authentic. Otherwise you are watsing your time and your reader's time.

Regards

Brendon

Monday, August 15  

Inspiration

Inspiration

I found it! Below is part of a speech given by Theodore Roosevelt in Paris in 1910.

I'd forgotten most of the speech but just stumbled upon it now.

It’s Not The Critic Who Counts

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled,
Or where the doer of deeds could have done better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena,
Whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood,
Who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again,
Who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause,

Who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

Regards

Brendon

Saturday, August 13  

Web Use Study - Use More text

Web Use Study - Use More Text

Hello. Hope you are well.

Some recent research reveals that participants in an eye-tracking study found that participants were more likely to correctly recall facts, names, and places when they were presented with that information in a text font.

However new, unfamiliar, conceptual information was more accurately recalled when participants received it in a multimedia graphic format.

Other interesting finds:

• short paragraphs performed better than long ones
• the standard one-column format performed better in terms of number of eye fixations
• people absorb headlines and copy better if the headline and copy are the same font size (with the header bolded)

The usability issues with web sites are extraordinarily complex and deserve the greatest of attention. Better usability results in longer stays, longer stays = more sales.

Regards

Brendon

Friday, August 12  

Aussie Kids Using The Internet More

Aussie Kids Using The Internet More

Australian children and teenagers are increasing their use of the Internet.

Kids and teens use the Net about 6.3 hours per week on average, up from 5.3 hours per week in 2003.

Older teenagers are the heaviest users: teens 15 to 17 spend 15 hours per week online.

That's understandable - with the increasing use of broadband (the percentage of children accessing the Web through a broadband connection jumped from 25% to 62%) kids can do so much more online - think chatting, gaming and downloading music.

Cheers

Brendon

Thursday, August 11  

Adding Value After A Speech

Adding Value After A Speech

I did a public speech last night to about 30 members of the Ashgrove The Gap Rotary Club. It was a nice night with a nice bunch of people who work hard to support their local community.

After the speech I got to thinking how I could provide some added information from the speech - to that end I put together this page - Ashgrove The Gap Rotary speech.

The other thing I could do, of course, is to record the speech and then have it available as an mp3 file for easy listening. I'll do that next time.

Cheers

Brendon

Wednesday, August 10  

Email Matters - Show notes from radio show

Email Matters - (Show Notes from this morning's radio show)

**** For those who want to listen to my segment on the radio each Wednesday at 11.15 am Australian Eastern Standard Time, please go to www.abc.net.au/goldcoast. You'll see a link to 'Listen to Coast FM' on the side menu bar. ****

For sending email newsletters, and keeping in touch with your readers, check out:

• http://www.readnotify.com - Lets you know when people read your emails, and provides quite a few other details.
• http://www.didtheyreadit.com - Provides a similar service.
• http://www.constantcontact.com - Complete e-newsletter system, with extensive statistics and tracking features.

A quick note on email viruses:

• Email viruses are now twice as prevalent as they were in 2001, with one email in every 200 containing a virus.
• In 2005, from May 3rd to 7th, the percentage of emails carrying the 'sober' virus was actually greater than the percentage of legitimate emails!

Other security risks:

• Be aware of Phishing attempts - much like fishing, these people will send a lure in front of you and wait for a bite.
• If you receive an email "from your bank", be aware that banks will NEVER ask you for passwords or personal details via something as unsecure as email.
• Emails that have a link to a "sign in" or "log in" page - never click the link! Always type the web address of your bank into your address bar yourself! This prevents sneaky redirections to pages that LOOK like the one you expect, but actually send your log-in details to somebody else.
• Phishing and Pharming attempts are very common with banks, e-Bay, and Paypal.
• Check this page out for more information on Phishing, and how to prevent it: http://symantec.com/homecomputing/library/phish.html

A note on spam:

• We all hate spam, right? Ever wonder why you get so much?
• 40 % of all email is spam!
• The reason we get so much is that it actually works!
• Turns out that 11% of people buy items offered in spam email!

Virus Protection:

• Every computer should have some form of virus protection.
• It is important to keep your virus definitions up to date.
• Virus definitions are like a rule-book that lets the software identify new virus outbreaks.
• New viruses come out on a daily basis, so if you don't update regularly, you are vulnerable!

Hope that is of some interest.

Brendon

Tuesday, August 9  

A Little Story About Friendship

A Little Story About Friendship

4 years ago my wife Mel started this web business. It got off to a slow start as she eagerly awaited the first sale. After a few days that first sale came through.

Mel's best friend Ange bought a jar of cream for a friend of hers who had eczema. I remember her telling Mel what a great site it was and how well the cream worked.

Mel was thrilled with the sale and the feedback and happily continued on.

Ange Turned 40 On Saturday

Ange turned 40 on the weekend. Mel flew down to Melbourne for the party - she stayed at Ange's place.

As she was getting ready in the guest bathroom Mel needed some toothpaste. She opened up Ange's bathroom cabinet and there, on the bottom shelf, was a 4 year-old unopened jar of eczema cream!

I think that's quite a cute story. One friend recognising another needs a boost and giving it to her by buying something she doesn't need. And then lying about it!

Heh, maybe it's not so nice a story after all!

Regards

Brendon

Friday, August 5  

Are you flash with Flash?

Are you flash with Flash?

Hello. We're developing a pitch for a local company and I'd like to add a little Flash piece to the presentation.

If you're a regular reader and a Flash 'worker' please contact me at brendon@tailored.com.au for a little work.

Cheers

Brendon

Thursday, August 4  

Yahoo! Goes For AdSense Soft Spot

Yahoo! Goes For AdWords Soft Spot

Hello. For those people interested in online Pay Per Click advertising, it is interesting to note that Yahoo! will be offering a facility whereby web site owners who runs Yahoo's PPC ads on their site (called AdSense if you run Google AdWords on your site) will be able to say what sort of ads they don't want shown.

You see, at the moment if I run AdWords on this web site the ads shown would be relevant to the topic of the site. So on this web site there would be ads for web developers and web strategists on the site - and that would be just plain silly of me.

After all, I don't want to work hard on this site so we attract more and more visitors just to see them click away to a competitor (a competitor I showed them via an ad on my site).

Regards

Brendon

Wednesday, August 3  

VoIP - How To Save Thousands Off Your Telephone Bill

VoIP - How To Save Thousands Off Your Telephone Bill (Show Notes from this morning's radio show)

**** For those who want to listen to my segment on the radio each Wednesday at 11.15 am Australian Eastern Standard Time, please go to www.abc.net.au/goldcoast. You'll see a link to 'Listen to Coast FM' on the side menu bar. ****

(I can't put the show up on this site as an audio file as it is copyright to the ABC - I've asked already.)

Voice Over IP simply means transmitting voice over the Internet rather than the ordinary telephone service. Easy.

Voice Over IP ("IP" means Internet protocol - just think of that as the Internet) can save you hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars each year in telephone costs.

Here's how it works:

1. To get started you need a Broadband connection (a fast Internet connection). You need that because the quality of the sound is way, way better than if you have a slow Internet connection.

Here on the Gold Coast you can get a decent Broadband connection from a company like Onthenet.com.au for about $49 per month. The big players like Bigpond.com.au have the same sort of deal for about $69 per month.

Step 2: A way to talk over the Internet.





Any person with Skype installed on their computer can call you for free (and you to them).

From a normal phone the call costs the person. But if you make calls to a 'normal' phone the charges are very small: about 3 cents a minute anywhere in the world (you pay by putting some money into your account).

To use Skype I use a $25 headset from Dick Smith on my computer.

Third Option

I've had a friend trialling a recent third option here in Australia and it looks the best option. It's called engin and this is how it works.

1. Buy the engin voice box for $149. (OzVoip sell it for $129 at the moment.)

2. Plug the voicebox into your phone (your 'normal' home phone will do) and computer.

3. Create an account with engin. My friend is signed up for the $29.95 per month deal and for that he gets a phone number and $25 worth of calls to national and local numbers.

And here are the rates he gets charged:

• Local and national – 10 cents untimed calls (Telstra charge me 16 cents for local calls and approximately 40 cents a minute for STD calls)
  
• Calls to mobiles - 29 c per minute (I get charged about 65 cents a minute by Telstra on my normal phone line)
  
• International calls – 3.5 c per minute
  
• To other engin phones - free

The quality is excellent - you wouldn't know any different from a normal phone. Using engin has halved his phone bill.

I compared my last phone bill here in the office with what I would have paid had I been using engin and the difference was almost $200. That's $200 a month!

engin is the one I would recommend for most people who have Broadband and want a simple and effective solution. The quality is outstanding, you plug in a normal phone and it comes with a heap of features.

• If you have a Broadband connection it is time to review VoIP as a way to slash your phone bill.
  
• If you have a web site with customers in the US it's time to review VoIP.

For more information.....

For more information check out http://www.ozvoip.com/ (the best and friendliest people who really know VoIP inside-out here in Australia). Their phone number is 02 9016 3844.

Any questions please let us know at admin@tailored.com.au or on 07 5598 4898.

Regards

Brendon

Tuesday, August 2  

Speaking Of Easy Marketing Tips.....

Speaking Of Easy Marketing Tips.....

....here's one.

Sell benefits, not features.

Years ago my wife and I went to buy a new car. This car was a BMW. I said to the salesman, in front of my wife, "We'll buy it. All you have to do is explain to my wife how safe the car is."

The salesman looked at my wife standing there with 2 small children and said "It is a safe car."

And that was that.

He never made the sale.

The Right Answer

The right answer was "Yes, it is a terrifically safe car. Because of this, this and this your children will be safe and protected in case of a side on collision. The blah and blah protect them, and you, in a front or rear end collision. You and your children are much less likely to be injured in an accident in this car - tests show this, this and this."

The feature is the safe car shell. The benefit is less likelihood of injury.

You're not selling fitness equipment - you're selling a better body.
You're not selling an eczema cream - you're selling smooth skin.

Remember what you are selling.

Cheers

Brendon