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Mobile websites in Devonport!

Michelle — Fri, 11 May 2012 02:08:46 +0000

We had a fabulous business breakfast at the Elimata Devonport this morning. The success of the event was in no part due to Lynn Laycock’s awesome skills at being an MC – very entertaining. The Devonport Chamber of Commerce & Industry plus AusIndustry hosted the annual event which was very well patronized.

The audience was warm and engaged, I just love presenting up here in the North West Coast – they are super switched on. We had loads of questions about mobilizing your website and online marketing in general. SMiK Mobi was a bit of a hit Interested ? You can get more information here:

http://smikwebdesign.com/Smik-mobi – its all about making your website USABLE on a mobile!

Before leaving the beautiful Devonport we had coffee at Bellas and currently as I write this, we are at drift, the bluff Devonport – what a magic spot!
Thanks Devonport, you rock!

Website -> Social Media -> Mobile Web

Michelle — Thu, 10 May 2012 06:21:12 +0000

This week I have the honour of being the guest speaker at the AusIndustry Annual Office Professionals & Managers Breakfast for Devonport Chamber of Commerce and Industries. While trying to decide what to fill the 15 minutes with, an idea started to gel. For the last 4 years we have been sharing our knowledge with local businesses to help them improve their presence online – wow, have things changed in that 4 years.

Having a website used to be the main game, then Social Media became the place to be online to grow your business, now with the rise of web connected mobile devices you need to have a mobile version of your website so you can make the most of all those people looking for you on their phones and tablets.

In 2012 a business hoping to do well online should cover all three of these modalities. You need a website of your own – it gives your business some legitimacy and you ‘own the platform’, you aren’t at the whim of ‘facebook like changes or worse’. Social Media is where all your customers/clients live so it’s important for your business to have a presence there too – you can develop relationships with your customer base and grow your business via recommendation.

The new kid on the block when it comes to doing business online is mobile! The number of mobile devices (smart phones and tablets) is astounding as is the amount of web surfing/browsing. Google recently revealed that 61% of of people that ring you have research your business first on their MOBILE phone. We all know how hard it is to find things on web pages on the mobile – you are forever expanding and reducing the screen to be able to navigate. What many businesses are missing is this: if a client is looking for you on a smart phone they probably want to ring you, send an email to you, find your address or see a basic run down of your services/products. As a business owner you can make if super easy – have a mobile version of your website created! That way when a potential new client comes across you on their smart phone they will be instantly re-directed to the mobile version of your website, which – and this is the secret – only offers them the actions they would likely want on a phone!

Our web development business in Launceston - SMiK Web Design - is now offering these kind of ‘action based’ mobile websites, so if you have a website that is hard for your clients to navigate on a smart phone do them a favour and go check out SMiK Mobi..

So this is what I will be sharing with the breakfast – I hope they get a lot from it.

Online Marketing Coaching – In the North East of Tasmania!

Michelle — Wed, 02 May 2012 03:25:58 +0000

Simon and I are busy working hard at Anabel’s of Scottsdale, we are coming to terms with Google Places, Facebook, keywords & link building, just to name a few things. Andrea, Sean & Deb are spoiling us rotten – not sure all this training in the country is good for our waist lines = love country hospitality.

Next is Raylene at Proud Aid in Bridport, and finally we are back in Scottsdale this evening with Jan at Rhu Bru/Beulah. Can’t wait to get started helping with the online business portions of their businesses, although I’m not sure my waist will survive a full day of North East Tasmanian hospitality

Father and son using iPad app, paper by fifty three :)

smikteam — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 11:41:36 +0000

Pinterest & my mum!

Michelle — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 01:45:37 +0000

Bridport businesses learning social media

smikteam — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 09:42:43 +0000

We are having a fabulous time running a social media workshop in Bridport Tasmania, with some awesome local businesses.

What a fabulous place!

Business and Employment have funded this training to help local regional businesses to make the most of social media..

Derby Tasmania Gets Social Media

simon — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 09:30:45 +0000

Derby Tasmanian had it’s hey day early in last century when Tin mining was in full swing. Since then the town has been on a slow decline. But its amazing where you can find an online businesses.

As part of our continuing tour of North East Tasmanian spreading the Social Media word Michelle was invited to present a brief two hour Social Media workshop in Derby. Our expectations for Derby and it’s patrons were low we didn’t expect to find many people who would be interested in Social Media. But as usual the online world continues to amaze us.

Rangeview Seeds run by Peter Coxhead turned out to be quite a surprise. Peter told me that about half of his anual income came through the web and his online store. Since he has been running the business he has increased the product range by almost 300 seed varieties.

PR: 2
Google Index: 23,000
Backlinks: 1
Bing: 1,760
Rank: 1655132
Twitter: 0
Facebook: 28
Google +1: 0

Although the stats above aren’t great there are a few notable aspects of the site (as of April 3, 2012). Firstly the number of pages indexed is huge and yes they are all part of the site. The CMS/shopping cart being used plus the number of crossed linked pages on the site have meant that site looks very large to google even though it only has around 500 products. That does mean that there is duplicate content in the index but google doesn’t seem to worry about duplicate content under the same domain.

Secondly Peter does use Social Media, at the moment its only facebook but the site has a small but growing presence. Hopefully following the seminar he will also employ twitter, google plus and an email Champaign via mailchimp .

Social media in Bridport Tasmania :)

Michelle — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 06:59:16 +0000

We are off to deliver a workshop for Business and Employment in Bridport, Tasmania. The workshop is aimed at small businesses to help them develop a social media marketing plan..

We love doing these workshops in regional areas because you just never know who will turn up. Last week we had a great session at Derby, which included a gentleman who was already using the Internet to sell seeds – & very successfully too!

This would scare me if I was a Japanese whaler!

smikteam — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:51:06 +0000

Doing Social in Derby, Tasmania!

smikteam — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 09:12:10 +0000

Simon and I are very lucky to be hanging out with lots of Derby businesses talking about just what social media can do for your business online..

Business and Employment Launceston are providing this training to the local businesses as a free service! This is just one of the many ways they are helping the small business community!

P.S. Derby rocks – get out here!