Is your website a Billboard or Business Development Tool?

In today’s digital age, first impressions about your business start from your website. One of the basic and key elements of the website today is to have most up to date information, easy to open, up and running at least 99% of the time if not 100%, connected to social media network like facebook & twitter and most importantly, customers should be able to easily contact you through your website 24/7.

You can improve your customer’s experience by giving them the option to chat Online with your sales staff through your website. Let your customer provide you with detailed and accurate information about their requirements through online enquiry forms even before your sales team connect with the customer. You also don’t want your team spending time on looking for customer’s historical information while customer is waiting on the phone. Wouldn’t you like your customer to access their information securely through self serve customer care portal?

E-commerce gives you the access to world wide market and you can run you business through online shopfront. You can give your customers complete flexibility to do business with you through database-driven storefronts, secure online payment systems and much more.

It’s worth investing in website optimization; otherwise your website is going to be best kept secret. Make your website visible and reach out to your Customers.

At www.nextgenebiz.com.au we partner with our valued customers to help build their e-business strategies and fully managed solutions right from Web Development stage till we transform their online solutions to Business Development Tools.

Growing Influence of Social networking

As we know, social media is increasingly playing an important role in our lives, such as Facebook, MSN messenger and YouTube.  Especially for teenage generation, these sites are pretty important when it comes to catching up with friends and checking out what’s going on in people’s lives etc. YouTube is pretty important as it provides entertainment such as music videos and funny stuff that is yet to be popular. They can stay updated with the latest and upcoming events that are on Facebook and concerts in YouTube. The social media is a new and upcoming trend that is still waiting for its use to be at its peak.

Social media can have as many flaws as its pros. You have to watch out what you’re posting onto the internet. For instance you went for a job interview, there is a possibility that your perspective employer will search you up on the internet. If you have an inappropriate videos, posts or updates, it will certainly have an adverse impact on your chance to get employed.

Social media is gaining ground each day because it makes sense and it relates to basic human behavior to be able to interact with friends and family with least amount of effort.

Businesses have now started to appreciate the power of social media in addition to search engines and the need to consider Social Media optimization as an integral part of their online marketing strategy

Some businesses have up to 90% of their marketing budget assigned to online campaigns through Facebook and Twitter but it’s important business to balance their marketing strategy by exploring every possible online marketing option e.g. Social Media, email marketing, affiliate marketing , search engine optimization. It’s all about constant evaluation instead of putting all your eggs in one basket.

NextGen ebiz Solutions specializes in development of e-business strategies and solutions for small to medium business in Australia through web redesign, search engine optimization, e-commerce and Internet Marketing. www.nextgenebiz.com.au

New Google Search Update Could Spell More Trouble for Business Websites?

"If you don't update your business website very often, you may want to rethink your online content strategy. Google's search algorithm will now put a higher priority on high-quality content; the search giant has announced a new update that aims to provide users with "the most up-to-date results."

So what does that mean to a business? For Online focussed businesses which are investing time to ensure their website reflects latest offerings and updates, it's a Godsend and an opportunity to get ahead of your competition. If the content about your business doesn't require regular updates then blogging is the best way to make sure you show up in search engines. But the point is, if you have a website, please make sure, you look after it.

NextGen eBiz Solutions Australia helps Small to Medium enterprises to stay ahead in online presence.

Our website www.nextgenebiz.com.au

What is On-Page Search Engine Optimization

 What is On-Page Optimization and how it can affect your website’s Search Engine Ranking.

There are number of factors that affect the page rank of a web site in different search engines. These factors are broadly classified as internal and external page ranking Factors. Site structure and layout is an important part of Internal Page ranking factor that determines the position of a web site where it will rank in the relevant search result.

Few of the points below are helpful when setting up a web site page. One of the common myths about number of pages a site should have is, more the pages – better the rank. However, that is not true. Number of pages may be limited but it is the content that matters. Ongoing update and addition of your website pages helps search engines like Google to count it as fresh content. Updates from time to time such as publishing articles, news, press release, useful tips etc are helpful.

1. Page Size: Less words / sentences on a web page will less likely to get attention during search engine listing because quality content in adequate words are one of the main parameters to count a page as quality page. Most of these search engines counts a page with 400 to 3000 words on a page as good page (Around 2000 to 20,000 characters).

2. Relevant Page Names: Instead of naming an internal page in numbers/nodes like xyz/1, a relevant page name positively should have a targeted keyword.

3. Avoid Sub Directories: Sub directories should be routed through main directory

4. Targeted Keywords: Web pages should have repetitive occurrence of targeted keywords (at least 3 to 4 times, depending upon the overall length of the page content).

5. Keyword Density : There is a hidden formula generally followed by search engines to measure relative frequency of words mentioned Vs total number of words on a web page ( in terms of percentage) For example if a page has 10 times occurrence of specific word on a 100 words written content, the keyword density is 10%. Both higher and lower keyword density is no helpful for any site. Lower percentage will make it uncounted for and higher can be considered as spam. Therefore, having a balance is important. Optimum value is around 5% to 7%.

6. Main Menu Options: As a rule, site main menu should have some targeted keywords.

7. Location of text: Expert think, targeted keywords and phrases should be at beginning of the page. It helps in getting immediate attention of a search engine.

8. Text Formatting: Search Engines consider text special i.e. headings, bold, underlined. Other than this, title tag of any page, Alt Attribute for each image, Description in Meta tags etc also play vital role.

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NextGen ebiz Solutions specializes in development of e-business strategies and solutions for small to medium business in Australia through web redesign, Responsive websites, Search Engine optimization, e-commerce and Internet Marketing. www.nextgenebiz.com.au

E-Commerce gaining ground in Australia

While Australian e-commerce still has a long road to travel before catching up with US and Europe, a recent study has found that the divide is steadily closing.

Australian businesses are increasingly realizing the importance of e-commerce to stay competitive and their ability to reach out to customers far and wide. But there’s more work to be done to close the gap that remains too large especially in the small business sector.

However, of greater concern is the fact that many small businesses in Australia do not realize that e-business is critical to their competitive success.

As per IDC "Too many small business operators believe that having e-mail and a basic Web site is enough, but it's not”.  E-business is the way of the future that will enable them to meet the challenges of local and global competitors."

With robust growth in e-commerce technologies and security layer technologies attaining maturity level, consumers now feel more confident and secure to shop online. Australian firms are making a strong showing in the business-to-consumer (B2C) sector with strong annual growth.

Even if Australian firms have yet to take full advantage of the e-business revolution, they are starting to get their storefronts online and that’s a good start.

NextGen ebiz Solutions specializes in development of e-business strategies and solutions for small to medium business in Australia through web redesign, Search Engine Optimisation, e-commerce and Internet Marketing. www.nextgenebiz.com.au

Business Success Today lies in - Online Marketing

In your business, in any business, marketing is as fundamental as any other single activity. Whatever you do, make or sell, the process by which you find and keep customers is what fuels every other part of your business. Whatever you have been doing before, in the Twenty First century, online marketing will drive the future of your business.

You Need an Online Marketing Strategy

Your website is the public face of your business. The first place any potential customer will look for you, or your competitors, is on the web. What that potential customer does when she finds your website is now the most important single event in your whole marketing strategy, online or otherwise. Generally, you have ten seconds to win the business or lose it.

Online Marketing for Old and New Customers

You may think your business is well-established; you only need a website as a reference point for your existing customers and a first point of contact for any new potential customers. But your website can be so much more than a billboard for passing traffic. A website can be developed as a tool to do business with and win business from new and existing customers.

Okay, You Have a Website. What Now?

You have a website already. You paid a web design company to build a website and they showed you how you could update it. That was 2 years ago. What have you done with your website since then? The value of a website is much more than having an online presence. The real value of your website lies in how you leverage that website to generate new business.

At www.nextgenebiz.com.au  we partner with our valued customers to help build their e-business strategies and fully managed solutions right from Web Development stage till we transform their online solutions to Business Development tools.

Who’s winning – Consumer and Supplier OR the middle man?

We feel better and excited when buying stuff at special price. It’s one of the most potent selling techniques and directly linked to human psychology. But if we look carefully, we actually buy stuff we may not need at that time but since it’s on special we tend to part with our money earlier than it should be. We buy Christmas gifts 11mths before next Christmas.

But why do we buy stuff? Is that we think we need it and it’s on special OR it’s on special and we may need it? 

Now comes the Daily deals phenomena, it takes our temptation to the next level and logic is left far behind in the race. Seller knows that the more time they’ll give to customer less chance they’ll have to close the sale.

And here comes the quick card swipe feature where you can just skim your credit card in front of the machine and there goes your money. I wish it was that easy to earn money!!

How do we know if we are getting the real value through the whole special pricing gimmick or retail giant’s price wars?

So who’s winning the game and who’s loosing out? Is that middle man winning and customer & supplier loosing out?

I think e-commerce is showing the way on how to bring real value to consumers by bringing suppliers and consumers in direct contact. Also cutting the cost of sale for any business and adding to their bottom line. That means overall every one is a winner in this new digital age.

At www.nextgenebiz.com.au we specialize in developing cutting edge performance based e-commerce solutions.

Things to remember when building a new eCommerce site

A Smart, attractive and efficient business website is key consideration for any online business. Traffic on any business site really depends upon its overall appearance and presence.

Ecommerce website designing is about getting as many online users to find the website and procure the provided service/product.

Few points to be considered when building an ecommerce site are:

(A) From business owner’s Point of View:

1. Explore the alternatives and know exactly what you want. Read related articles, latest trends and blogs. Take expert opinion from an ecommerce specialist.

2. Make sure that ecommerce is an actual need of your business. Products that are sold because of their taste, touch or feel are not good fit for e-business sites. Moreover, there are marketplaces like eBay and Amazon available, some business products are better to be sold through these sites instead of having a dedicated ecommerce site.

3. Do research about competitive site’s presentation, marketing and sales strategies. How they offer special discounts and sales periodically.

4. Technology used to develop ecommerce websites must allow flexibility and scalability in case you need to make changes or add new features. Moreover, selected technology should be SEO friendly.

5. Try to make a simple structure and flow for the site. Customer should not get confused while searching or buying a product.

6. Choose the website hosting provider very carefully. It should be authentic and secure.

7. Start developing in parallel, strategy for advertising & marketing of the site.

From visitor’s viewpoint:

i). Navigation should be easy and site should be compatible with major web browsers like IE, Mozilla Firefox, Opera etc.

ii). Product categories and price structure should be clearly defined if there is more than one item.

iii). Site should have easy but advanced product search options. Technologies like Ajax are helpful with typing fields, where suggestions comes as drop down list while typing.

iv). Error proof payment system is one of the best ways to gain customer trust and helps with re-visits and re-purchases.

v). Integration of quote calculator is also helpful to calculate customer’s budget vs. total selling price of all cart added items.

vi). View colour variation option help different type of visitors to see the site in their favourite eye friendly colour combination. It also helps to maintain a fresh look of your website.

vii). For global reach, site should be designed with ability to select multiple languages.

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We at NextGen ebiz offer combination of online marketing techniques, innovative design & strong application development capabilities to provide best output and results to enhance site rankings and ultimately business over the internet.

Are You Making Most of Your Online Investment ?

The first place many people will look for you, or your competitors, is on the web. What a potential customer does when she finds your website is now the most important single event in your whole marketing strategy, online or otherwise.

You have ten seconds to win the business or lose it.

For any business these will be critical elements of your marketing strategy:

·         How do you promote and grow new business revenue?

·         What is your “Marketing Mix” from all the available options?

·         How do you measure the success of your strategy?

·         Has your marketing strategy evolved to include digital media – online marketing?

At NextGen eBiz, we can help analyse your current marketing activity and we can then develop a customized, cost effective and objective-driven online marketing strategy completely aligned with your business objectives and budget.

NextGen eBiz offers fully managed E-commerce solutions backed by combination of multiple Internet Marketing techniques including Search Engine Optimization ( SEO) , Social Media Optimization ( SMO ), Ad Word Campaigns, Affiliate marketing and Emailmarketing to achieve measurable outcomes for your business.

Contact us for more info at sales@nextgenebiz.com.au or 1300 139 779

Monitor Where You’re Site Stands Today

It is always important to check your website log regularly to track where visitors are coming from and the search terms they are using to find your site. More importantly you should be aware of your website’s current ranking on Search engines e.g. Google. There are tools like Google toolbar or Alexa that helps you to check your website ranking against a keyword.

Content is king, so be sure to have useful, well-written and unique content that will focus on top keywords or keyword phrase. Be sure to have a unique, keyword focused Title tag on every page of the site.

Regular content update can help improve your website’s ranking. Add new, useful content to site pages on regular basis. Content freshness adds relevancy to any site in the eyes of the search engines. If content of a site does not change often, please consider having a blog section because search spiders like fresh text. Blog at least three times a week with good and unique content to feed those little crawlers.

Other absolute tip is about Java script drop down menus, image maps or image links, be sure to put text links somewhere on the page for the spiders to follow. Use keywords and keyword phrases appropriately in text links, image ALT attributes and even the domain name.

If content is king, then links are queen. Build a network of quality back links using shortlisted keyword phrase as the link. Remember, if there is no good, logical reason for that site to link then it should not be linked. Links to site and within a site should use shortlisted keyword phrase. In other words, if your target is “blue widgets” then link to “blue widgets” instead of a “Click here” link.

Flash and dynamic graphic work shares a common problem of non-recognizition by search engines. It is either all or nothing. Do not use Frames and Flash while designing a page. However, from SEO point of view, AJAX can be a better alternative to it. The URL file extension does not matter, it may be .html, .htm, .asp, .php, etc. and it will not make a difference as far as SEO of a site is concerned.

When building links, think about quality, not quantity. One good, authoritative link can do a lot more than a dozen poor quality links and can actually hurt the site image.

Sitemap is another one and is an important part of SEO process. Build a good sitemap for your website; it helps visitors reach to a particular page web page with only few clicks. Moreover, search engine crawler will easily search a site with good structured sitemap.

These are some of the tips to help rank your website higher up in search engine results.

Stay tuned for more updates and tips!
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We at NextGen ebiz offer combination of online marketing techniques, innovative design & strong application development capabilities to provide best output and results to enhance site rankings and ultimately business over the internet.

How to retain your customer base in these changing times?

Recent wave of profit downgrades by retail giants has sent a shockwave across much of the retail industry. Especially small retailers are feeling most of the pain. Issue here is their expense bills keep coming while customers come in to look around and then go online to buy from overseas stores.

Do customers always get what they want when they order online? Or they’re willing to compromise a bit for better price? And prepared to wait even longer in holiday season to receive the goods and loose all the excitement of having it straight away.

We can never compare the feeling and excitement of buying at the shop where you can touch and feel what you like as compared placing an order through virtual world and then hope for the best.

One of the reasons for this growing trend to shop online is the perception that you can get better product at cheaper price.

As a retailer, you have an enormous advantage over online shopping in terms of personal touch, real products and assurance that if something goes wrong, where to go back. You can easily extend this advantage by offering choice to your customers between buying at store at listed price or buy at lower price from your online store and wait 3-5 days.

That’s exactly the difference between real shops and online shops. In this instance while you’re giving customer a clear choice, they will also see the value in buying from the store they already know. From time to time, you can also offer some unique specials or range of products at your stores not offered online to maintain your store’s edge over online option and vice versa.

This strategy will not only give choice to your customers but will extend your reach far and beyond and offer credible competition to overseas online stores.

So it’s not all doom and gloom for retail industry, it’s how well you evolve to meet the demands of changing times. It’s same as 20yrs back, when businesses started with efpos to give choice to their customers with no cash. And now you would need to incorporate e-commerce in your business model to give choice to customers who want pay less but also prepared to wait.

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NextGen ebiz Solutions specializes in development of e-business strategies and solutions for small to medium business in Australia through web redesign, optimization, e-commerce and Internet Marketing. www.nextgenebiz.com.au

Is Digital marketing ready for Small business

With digital marketing moving at the speed of light, things are changing so fast that people who don’t keep track of technology have no idea what happening around them. Lack of any standards makes things even more confusing.

We talk about helping small business to take advantage of digital marketing which includes various ways of reaching out to their customer which they wouldn’t be able to otherwise.  But I don’t think small business owners can realistically comprehend how to leverage digital media cost effectively and tie up with their business objectives.

In fact what they are getting is number of different messages telling them what’s good for their business from startup digital marketing companies without having any understanding of business objectives.

Till date small business are only able to get the grasp on is, have a good website and maintain wherever  whenever possible. Beyond that it’s all smoking mirrors with flashing lights. So they just have to take their chances.

It’s critical for any business to be able to develop new business when they really need it. Otherwise the business doesn’t have enough oxygen to survive much longer without constant flow of new business revenue.

Digital marketing so far is catering to cashed up large enterprise customers. What we need is customized, simple to understand digital marketing solutions for small business. And digital marketing industry is still in it's infancy and it will take sometime before things start to shape up in a meaningful way for Small to medium business.

NextGen eBiz Solutions Australia specialises in developing e-business strategies for small to medium business which align with their business objectives and outcomes. – www.nextgenebiz.com.au

Are we advancing into 21st century or turning into jungle animals?

Do we realise where’re we heading with this fast changing technology landscape? We don’t talk to each other instead tweet or write on walls like graffiti writers doing their artwork in the dark of the night.  And what about emails? That’s too hard!!

With the advent of video conferencing and its further refinement, we may not have any need to get out of our chair while we meet people from around the world.

So eventually we’re not going to see real people anymore, only signs of some activity behind the walls. I am pretty sure, animals have developed this type communication much before us and that’s why we don’t see polar bears for example not talking to each other and may be using some kind of bearbook or poletwitt!!!

So what does that mean, are we slowly going to become invisible to each other and to anyone visiting us from other planet?  Giving the same impression we get when we go to Planet Mars.

Technology should have its limits. We cannot allow our generations to turn into something we don’t know. I know big technology giants are moving at such a pace that our poor politicians look like a generation from Stone Age, still fighting for vested interests and not knowing that mammoth is coming to destroy their habitat.

We do need some standards and controls on how the technology can benefit us not swallow us.

Is there any future for real shops?

Do we call this an alien online invasion or 50 meter high tsunami wave that seems to sweep away real shops, corner stores, mum & dad business and even shaking the foundations of once ever growing big retail chains.

It is certainly affecting some areas but isn't that same as any other evolutionary process. If you look back 30yrs, we used to go for shopping on main street of our suburb. When big shopping centres start to emerge, it was hard to imagine shopping in a closed suffocating environment. What this did to small business, corner stores? They got crushed under huge building blocks.

Eventually we all got used to shopping in huge building blocks even if we have inhale 20 tons of carbon monoxide just to find parking. And we still don't mind that. We also seem to accept the fact that paying 200% more for shopping in a glamorous environment is ok. Big chains felt pride in showing off their billion dollar profits year after year on the back of hardworking Australians trying to make both ends meet.

We all know thing can't keep going in one direction. It will realign till it becomes a level playing field for small and big business. And the real shops will continue to exist and thrive so long their business stays competitive and evolve with the changing times.

By www.nextgenebiz.com.au - We specialize in building ebusiness strategies for small and medium businesses in Australia and New Zealand.

What a 15yr old thinks about Shopping

Shopping is a good thing. Depending on whom you are. But if we didn’t have shopping, then the economy would be almost like Greece at the moment and I know for a fact that nobody wants that. So for the country and other connecting countries to avoid it, the economy needs consumers where they can shop for goods and services and things like that and give back to the banks so the economy can stay afloat we will all be able to survive. Without shopping, we would not have a future.

As a fifteen year old kid, I like shopping. Well sometimes. Whether it’ll be a new jacket, new shoes or just window shopping. When I can’t be bothered going out to the shops, I just sit online and browse on store’s websites. Some of them are good and some are bad. What I look for at online stores are that they look good and at the same time it is easy to navigate your way through the site. As well as that, I also look for is that the site should have a wide variety of whatever I am browsing through whether it’ll be shoes or clothes etc.  

For example, I went to one of the leading fashion chain's website. Though I like the store, I don’t really like the online store. This affects the company as people are looking for simpler ways of looking for items rather than wasting time in stores and most of the time you don’t even get the item of clothing that you wanted.          

It’s critical for online stores to ensure they design their online shop front as if someone is walking into real store and they should be able find they looking for with ease.