BLOG

Don’t make the grave mistake of price shopping for your web design. Going with the cheapest option you can find may seem like a smart move but there is one thing I can promise you. That is, you will be paying for this in the long run. Cheap, template ‘same as’ style websites are very common at the moment. But, for businesses looking to out beat and out perform their competition, they will need a hell of a lot more than your standard, garden variety website if it is to do the trick. It doesn’t matter the size or type of business you have, there are just so many business savvy people who have fallen victim to the lure of a cheap web quote – the end result is not good I’m afraid. Poor web design coupled with bad advice is a sure fire recipe for online failure. Avoid the traps associated with cheap website design by reading this article.

Think Yellow Pages, no way that’s long gone…so what can new business start ups do if they want to grow and improve sales? There are now many avenues that these newbies can look at to grow their business and the most important thing they should be doing is getting a new website and looking at ways to get this site optimised so it appears on the search engines. How else is any new business going to get noticed by potential clients. The yellow pages and local magazines used to be the perfect way to grow your business. Pop an advert in and watch those customers come flooding through the door. That’s all ended now, and for better or worse if you are a small business there is absolutely no other way that you are going to get new business unless you start to wake up and embrace the internet. You are living a fools paradice if you think you can ignore 3 aspects of the online revolution: web design, SEO and social media. These are the 3 things that you better come to terms with if you are going to work for yourself.

How many times have I heard from businesses around Sydney that they are really unhappy with their website and it is hurting their business. They complain that they have had their website for a few years and haven’t been bothered to do anything about it. It’s a real tragedy cause a website can be such a great marketing tool and to let it sit there and do absolutely nothing is a real waste of your companies resources. The best thing business owners can do is stop the damage being caused, pick up the phone and do something about it.

There are so many businesses that launch a website and have no clue how to market it to the public. They feel that just getting a website is enough and that’s simply not true. Having an online presence is really the first step in the online space. Marketing this site and making sure that people buy or engage with it is a totally different ball game and following are 3 tips that all entrepreneurs or budding start ups should follow in order to give your website that best chance of success. By no means does this stop at 3, but this should give you a good idea of the direction to head in.

The temptation, I know in business is to save as much money as possible. But to look around for the cheapest web designer and get a stock standard template design, is really quite harmful and detrimental to your business. I get so many calls from people who are just starting out in business looking for the cheapest web deal they can find. Their first question generally, to me is how much do you charge for a website? Without even giving me a brief or asking about our unique website offerings at Hopping Mad Designs, their only concern is the cost. Now, I am not begrudging a business to look around for a better deal, in fact, I encourage it. But, to base all their online marketing and digital presence purely on cost along is a hug mistake and one that will keep haunting them as the business matures.

Internet access from mobile devices is exploding as more and more people use their hand helds ( iphones and androids) to connect to the internet. All you need to do is look at anyone in a public space and you will see the uptake. It is amazing. Bear in mind this is not limited to Australia, but this phenomenon is world wide. On a recent trip to Singapore I was completely blown away by the amount of time young people spend tapping away on their phones. One thing is certain. This will grow exponentially and how this impacts on your business, if not immediately apparent, should be. The amount of users who are migrating from desktop shopping to mobile shopping is growing at a rate of 18% per year. Designing a mobile responsive website that caters to this wave of new users should be well on your marketing radar and here at Hopping mad Designs we can help you understand more clearly how this will work PLUS convert your existing website into a responsive site that immediately indulges this market – on the other hand, if you are looking for a new website designed, we will make sure that it is developed with mobile responsive technologies.

Have you got that sinking feeling that your SEO company is ripping you off BUT cannot prove it? Are your SEO rankings plummeting and you don’t know what to do? Are you being told the same lies month after month and feel it’s time to make a switch to a better SEO provider?

If your dentist didn’t look at your mouth for a check up and gave you the all clear you would be very angry. This is what many Australian businesses experience when they really look into the practices of their search engine optimisation ( SEO ) company. They get a huge fright to learn that absolutely nothing has been done. In order to help identify dodgy SEO businesses and how they fraudulently represent themselves I have listed a few very dodgy SEO practices that you should be aware of. Knowing about this an advance will help you protect yourself against these shady characters.

I want all business owners to pay close attention to these insanely important social media statistics that apply in Australia in 2014. If you have a website or a business owner I think that you should pay very close attention to the amount of online users who are actively engaging with these social media platforms on a daily basis. These results are astonishing and can open up some great marketing channels for businesses wanting to further expand their customer base as well as promote their brand, product and or service.

Getting a great logo designed should not take more than a couple of weeks. If you are told that it will take longer than this time frame, then you need to be looking at choosing another graphic design agency.

Just got your new website designed and are in a hurry to get it ranking on Google? Be warned. If you are impatient, and want speedy results, then you will end up with your website being banned or penalised from Google’s search results. If you are wanting better search engine rankings for your website, then you need to not only be working with a top SEO provider plus a great web design, but you must also be extremely patient. Fast results in the SEO world can be an issue. To rank properly and secure you position online you cannot be overly anxious about your ranking. Give it time and it will happen for you. Waiting can be a killer if you are the impatient type, especially if you are the type of person that likes to see fast results. But if you push too quickly you will do more damage to your online status and here’s why……

Travel Insurance Plus is an online travel insurance specialist. We have access to a team of over 400 staff, including doctors, registered nurses, social workers, translators, logistical experts, communication specialists and support personnel, available through our Australian 24-hour contact centre.

SEO v PPC, this is the million dollar question. Which approach will deliver the best results for your business and which one gives you the best return on your marketing dollar. PPC is all about paying for your ads on Google. PPS is short for pay per click and you have to pay each time someone clicks on your advert. These adverts appear on the right hand side of the page as well as on the very top where there are 3 paid ads. PPC or adwords is a fast, effective and guaranteed way to ensure that your business is on Google, but it can get very expensive. SEO or search engine optimisation on the other hand is a slower more methodical approach to getting your website on Google and is a complex and quite often misunderstood practice. Every business wants to get more clients and revenue. Both PPC and SEO can facilitate this, but you need to work out which is the best solution for your business and which is going to bring in the most amount of online visitors. Business is full of stress and pressure so making the right choice between the 2 options is going to play a huge part in the success or failure of your campaign. Following are a few things to help you make the right choice – if you ever need help or need to speak to someone about this, why not call us on 02 9360 8514.

Over our 18 years in business, Hopping Mad Designs has had some pretty awesome reviews and testimonials from our clients. This is the first time that I have ever posted some of these reviews and testimonials on our Blog, but I think that some of these are very interesting.

There are so many reasons why your website could be underperforming. Your website may be a real disappointment, and not living up to your expectations. You may have thought that it was going to bring you in heaps more business but it has left you feeling flat with poor sales results and little or no inbound traffic. Following are a few reasons why your website could be underperforming and some great quick fix solutions that should see your website operating at a level that you would like.

Are you looking for the BEST Joomla CMS website design & development agencies in Sydney? Hopping Mad Designs can build you a new website with a easy to use Joomla CMS platform. We have been designing and building websites using the Joomla CMS platform for businesses in Sydney and throughout Australia since 1998 – that is a long time in the web world and we are able to bring all our experience and expertise with Joomla to help make your website a success.