Harrop & Hargrave's new website

Harrop & Hargrave are a Waiheke Island based accountancy firm offering all the services you’d expect from tax and financial planning to… well, accountancy services!

Their service is 100% local – aimed at locals and billed as “city quality at local prices”.

Although the firm has been in business for a number of years (on Waiheke and Auckland), the practice was small and fairly traditional and like many small businesses, they didn’t have a website.

That all changed when new partners joined and recognised the need to upgrade the firm’s business strategy.

A new website, social media profile and other services were commissioned with Purple Dog and a few weeks later, H&H were celebrating their joining the digital revolution!

On the day the new website went live, they received a website contact enquiry from a brand new client, who then immediately signed up with them – how’s that for perfect timing! And proof that our sites get results.

Purple Dog is proud to work with Harrop & Hargrave.  Check them out online:

www.harrophargrave.co.nz

www.facebook.com/harrophargrave

Services provided

• Website design
• Website hosting
• Social media integration
• Email newsletter software integration
• Professional photography
• Google Advertising

Client testimonial

…coming soon.

Website design for any New Zealand business is straight forward with Purple Dog

The plain truth is, many New Zealand businesses do not have a website and are missing out on vital revenue.

A recent article in the New Zealand Herald (Apr 16th 2012) highlighted a survey of 1000 small and medium-sized companies, suggesting that only 38 per cent of businesses in New Zealand’s biggest city, Auckland operate their own website.

The survey said only 31 per cent of Wellington firms (New Zealand’s capital) had a website, while just 27 per cent of Christchurch businesses had one.

But accounting software firm MYOB, which commissioned the research, said that as an international centre, Auckland still had one of the lowest levels of website use in the OECD group of developed countries.

MYOB’s New Zealand general manager, Julian Smith, said the survey indicated a large proportion of Auckland firms that did not have a website, did not intend to establish one.

“They haven’t made the connection between the way consumers search for information and shop in 2012 versus how they did that 10 years ago,” Smith said.

He said that while 38 per cent of Auckland firms had a website, 65 per cent of Aucklanders shopped online.  Online shopping has increased exponentially in New Zealand in the last few years.

“It doesn’t make sense [not to have a website],” he said. According to the survey, 29 per cent of Auckland businesses reported a lift in revenue as a result of having a website.

A further 33 per cent reported improved customer interaction, while 40 per cent reported increased inquiries from prospective clients, the survey said.

It also said 35 per cent of Auckland firms reported that their website had made them more competitive.

“When you look at all the data you see that [businesses in New Zealand] that are doing best are the ones that have websites,” Smith said.

“The single biggest issue that I think businesses don’t get is that you’re invisible to most of the market if you don’t have an online presence and having a website is the best way to control your online presence.”

So there you have it New Zealand – if you don’t have a website, you’re missing vital opportunities.  If your business doesn’t have a website, contact us now to discuss the options.

In our view, every New Zealand business should have a website. We offer straightforward, cost effective and easy website design solutions to get you online. Contact us to find out more.

Article source: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10799084

Facebook's New Timeline Cover

Facebook seems to have adopted the philosophy of “Well, that’s working great. Now let’s change it”!

This time, it’s business pages (or fan pages as some call them) that are for the chop.

If you haven’t already heard about this:

On March 31st 2012: all Facebook Pages  automatically moved to the new Timeline format

What does this mean for your business?

Whether you love or hate Timeline, or Facebook for that matter, you should take a moment to appreciate the opportunity this change will bring about.

• NEW: large banner area at the top of the Facebook Timeline page (See example)
• NEW: custom page(s) in large format (See example)
• No more default landing “tabs”
• Smaller tab tiles to link to custom pages
• Ability to “pin” posts to the top of the posts section (good for announcements)
• An opportunity to refresh your design

If you already have a Facebook page (with custom tabs), you need to review it, see how it’s going to look under the new format and decide how you can best take advantage of the new features.

If you don’t yet have a Facebook page for your brand – now’s the time to get one.  It’s a great way to promote your brand, products & services.  As a business, not engaging with Facebook is a bit like refusing to accept a free advertisement in a newspaper that’s read by nearly 800 million people!

Purple Dog at the ready!

Here’s an offer you’ll find hard to resist:

Orders will be processed on a first come first served basis!

So get in quick as time is running out!

Additional related service available

• Twitter set up service  / tutorials
• Facebook tutorials
• Link your social networks together (one update to rule them all)
• Integrate Facebook with your website

Contact us for more information

Are you missing opportunities?

• Worried about poor website results?
• Want to know what you can improve?
• Wondering what you’re missing?

Get a free online business health check !

Click here to enquire now or read on to find out more.

When dealing with new clients, I enjoy finding out all about their line of work, why they do it, their loves and hates and what they would like (or need) to change or improve. I’m often surprised at how many businesses are missing out on golden opportunities.

Typically, business owners tend to spend a lot of time and effort developing their business processes, products and skills and delivering services – which is all very understandable, given that these are, after-all, the heart of their enterprise.

However, this can sometimes mean essential marketing practices get left out – either because it’s in the “too hard basket”, there’s not enough time, strict budget constraints, or simply a lack of knowledge or awareness.  Some of the obvious signs;

• Poor website, badly designed, not generating results
• Wrong, little or no promotion
• Lack of social media presence, lack of updates or both

If this sounds a bit like your business – or you’re just curious to find out more, we’d like to offer you a free consultation* to help you understand what aspects of your digital presence could be improved upon, how best to achieve such improvements and at what cost.

We’ll look at your website design, website content, social media presence, emarketing activities and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).  We’ll provide you with our recommendations and it’s up to you to decide what to do next.

Click here to submit your enquiry now or contact us on 0800 1 PURPLE to discuss.

* 1 x free consultation (30 – 60 minutes duration), via phone / Skype or at your premises (if local) at a mutually agreeable time / date.  No further obligation required.

SweetCakes Website - Wedding Cakes Waiheke

Every now and again, “The Gods” decide that it’s time for the Purple Dog webdesign team to be gifted a little treat.  Of course, we love working on all websites, but for some reason, those with a distinctive “foodie” flavour about them are always extra pleasurable!

Our most recent gift from The Gods in this respect, is SweetCakes – a Waiheke Island based, custom wedding cake design business – and yes, we even got to eat some of the cake (well, OK it was technically a birthday cake, but it was still a very yummy cake indeed!)

Tanya Russell, who owns and runs Waiheke’s only specialist wedding cake business, knew it was time to refresh the old website – enter Purple Dog.  Not only did we get to work with Tanya (who was great to work with), but also got to pour over lots and lots of large images of cakes! Oh, the joy, the temptation!

Whilst we enjoyed the many and various cake images, we also created a new, clean website, with distinctive colours and ease of use in mind – to show off all of Tanya’s wonderful, custom made wedding cakes.

Tanya had this to say;

I was recommended Purple Dog to re-design my website, and I can happily say I was not disappointed. Sol was extremely efficient and prompt in re-designing my new site. His ideas were fresh and exciting and my site now has a very elegant and professional look + is very user friendly.

I have been involved with the re-design of a number of other websites, and  Sol has been the most efficient and positive person to work with.

Thank you Sol – my new website is just perfect.
Tanya Russell, SweetCakes – Waiheke Island Wedding Cakes

So if you’re getting married on Waiheke Island, SweetCakes wedding cake service should be on the top of your “to-do” list.

Visit the website and view the wonderful range of cakes!

www.sweetcakes.co.nz

The Award Winning Website

Congratulations to our client Waiheke Island Wine Tours who have recently been awarded the “Top Tourism Site”.

The award, which is given to leading New Zealand travel sites that enhance New Zealand as a travel destination, has delighted Jean Goodbrand & Wayne Eagleton who started the Waiheke Island vineyard tour business just over a year ago. “We were delighted to hear that our website has won the New Zealand Tourism Guide award of the week for the Top Tourism Site” said Jean.

The small island business has experienced tremendous interest since its launch, with “heaps of enquiries” and a “high number of bookings” made through their custom designed online booking system software, designed as part of their website by Sol Harris of Purple Dog, a local Waiheke Island website designer.

Recognising the tour itself, the award also specifically mentions the “professionally designed website” which it calls “stylish” and “clean”;

Waiheke Island Wine Tours offer small and highly personalised vineyard tours all year round. Visit top Waiheke Island vineyards in air-conditioned comfort and with full commentary.

Their professionally designed Web site is very stylish and features eye catching imagery to contrast well with it’s clean layout.

www.tourismaward.co.nz

Purple Dog Design’s Sol Harris said “we are very happy for our client who deserves this credit as much for their hard work, as for the tourism contribution they make to Waiheke. We are also delighted to learn that our website and booking software services have been recognised as part of the award too.”

For more information:

• www.waihekeislandwinetours.co.nz
• www.tourismaward.co.nz
• www.purpledogdesign.com

Now you can with the launch of our new affiliate referral scheme! Here’s how it works:

Link to Us

Refer new customers to us and earn a commission payment when they sign up.

The more people you refer to us, the more commission you can earn.

The more you earn, the more you can spend on services with us – and this means you could easily end up with a free domain or free webhosting.

You must be a registered Purple Dog client and have at least one active qualifying service.

Simply log in to your Purple Dog client portal and activate the affiliate account: https://www.purpledogdesign.com/clients/affiliates

We’ll give you a sign up commission bonus of $5 and provide you with an affiliate code.

To refer people to us, copy and paste your affiliate code link anywhere you think other users may click on it – e.g. in your email signature, or on any internet website / discussion forum, or on your website blog / news page…

Commission Payments Qualifying Services

In addition to a sign up bonus, here’s the commission you can earn when your referral buys one of the following:

Website Design Qualifying Services

• DIY website package = $30
• Starter Website Package = $60
• Custom Website Package = $100

Web Hosting Qualifying Services

• PDD Basic = $30
• PDD Standard = $40
• PDD Advanced1 = $50

How Do I start?

1. Read and agree to our Affiliate Terms of Service (below)
2. If you already have a qualifying service, use the following link to activate your affiliate account: https://www.purpledogdesign.com/clients/affiliates
3. If you do not yet have a qualifying service with Purple Dog, you first need to register on our system using the following link: https://www.purpledogdesign.com/clients/register – once you have done this, you will need to order a qualifying service, then you need to activate you affiliate account as above.

Terms & Conditions

1. You the affiliate must be at least 18 years of age.
2. To qualify to receive a commission, yours and the referred account must have at least one Qualifying Service active for 90 days, be in good standing and have not breached our AUP, Terms of Services or these Affiliate Terms.
3. Commissions are paid on new customer accounts only, where the referral link cookie has been correctly tracked.
4. No commission is paid on account renewals, existing customers’ new services, or sign-ups made directly by you.
5. Commissions are one off payments, paid as credits into your Purple Dog Client account.
6. Credits can be used to renew existing, or purchase any new, Qualifying Service(s). There are no cash alternatives.
7. Affiliates agree not to promote using the following methods:
   1. Offer cash back, rewards or incentives.
   2. Spamming of any kind.
   3. Bid on trademark keywords for the purpose of PPC (pay per click) on search engines.
   4. Act on behalf, for or as a representative of Purple Dog.
8. False or misleading advertising or suspected fraudulent activity, or any breach of terms associated with your affiliate account will result in the cancellation of your affiliate account and all commissions due.
9. If you wish to discontinue your affiliate program simply remove your affiliate link.
10. Exclusions: No commission payment is to be made on domain names, SSL certificates or any services not mentioned above. However, you may redeem any credits for these services.
11. Restrictions: Where several services are ordered by the referred customer, a single commission amount is paid (the highest value). Free accounts do not attract any commission.
12. Remittance is made as credit to your existing account, on a monthly basis on the 15th day of each month.
13. Remittance for a referral is completed 90 days after the original transaction and a minimum balance of $50 is required before remittance is issued.
14. We reserve the right to change or cancel this programme at any time without notice.

Grow Your Own Business With Our Free Tips

A question I am often asked is “how can I increase visitors to my website?”  This is a popular question because most people understand that a higher number of website visitors usually translates to an increase in sales.

For most clients, this is a straightforward issue of marketing, optimisation, and which methods to choose from. However, for others, it encompasses a range of issues that can impact on repeat visitors (equally important as new ones) and can go much deeper; does the business have a good product or service offering?; Is it well positioned within the marketplace?; Does the business have good internal processes and customer service?  And so on.

While all of these things really go hand-in-hand, this article concentrates on the former scenario of a business looking at marketing and optimisation techniques. If you’re interested in some of the latter issues mentioned above, I talked about some of these in a previous article here.

So, how do you increase website traffic? One thing is clear: there is no silver (or magic) bullet. There are many ways to generate increased traffic to your website, and undertaking any of them, particularly together, can certainly make a positive difference.

This article looks at five common fundamentals;

1. An optimised website (organic growth)
2. Content is still King – Just keep it fresh
   
3. SEM – or Search Engine Marketing (Pay Per Click growth)
4. eMarketing opportunities
5. Traditional & supplementary methods

Increase your site visitor traffic

1. An Optimised Website (organic growth)

The first and most obvious point is you need a website! You may scoff at this comment, but according to Nielson research, 44% of small businesses don’t have a website, choosing instead to invest their budgets elsewhere.  Many of these believed that a website was either not relevant or not important to them – and others because they simply hadn’t got around to it.

Being that I run a website design company, I’m not going to dwell on this viewpoint. Suffice it to say, while it maybe true that not every business needs a website, I believe every business should have a website – unless you don’t want to be found online, don’t want to increase your business profile and don’t care about competing in an ever-crowded marketplace!  In which case, congratulations, you must have a bullet proof business and you can stop reading now !

Assuming that you’re already set up with a website, or you are planning to be (and if so, please do consider our website design services), how can you ensure your website is “Optimised”?

There’s so much talk of SEO or Search Engine Optimisation – you would think it’s the new elixir of life! Well, perhaps it is for your online business – when viewed dispassionately and approached sensibly.

The simple truth is, if Google, Yahoo or Bing search engines can’t access and “read” your website properly – your ranking in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) will suffer.  To avoid this, your site needs to be well designed, well set up and “Search Engine Friendly”, incorporating key search phrases that are relevant to the business and general site content.

A full SEO check on your existing site is worth a small investment since it considers these and many other factors in determining how you are likely to fare and which areas you could improve.

In terms of the Purple Dog website design offering, all the site we produce are fully SEO compliant.  In terms of our SEO service for existing websites, we look at both the technical and aesthetic aspects, as well as analysing your existing search terms and keywords to ensure your site is the best it can be.

In the next step, let’s look at what you can do for yourself.

2. Content is still King – Just keep it fresh

Recently, Google announced that their latest search engine algorithms have been tweaked to favour search results that reflect the freshest content.  In this respect, it goes without saying that if your website is kept up-to-date with regular articles, news feeds, announcements and more, the better your ranking in SERPs.

Personally, I think this has been a long time coming – and that’s why as a website design company, we work with website platforms that incorporate modern and easy to use Content Management Systems (CMS) – such that you are able to keep the pages and news feeds up to date yourself.

As I wrote in this article,

So what can you do?  As a webdesign and emarketing company, we advise our clients to write at least one relevant and interesting article, once a week.  More if you can manage it.  But we realise that your core business may not be in writing great articles on your website!  And that you’re probably busy running your business…

So if you can’t do it yourself, you can always ask a staff member to do it for you.

An alternative approach is to think of the content of your site. Could you update your page content regularly? Or perhaps add that new testimonial your customer wrote for you? What about asking a business colleague to write a review of your service or an PR article as a guest writer?

Failing any of that, you could approach someone to write news or PR articles for you.

The bottom line is, a fresh website is more likely to get better results – and not just from Google – your customers and website visitors will appreciate up to date information too!

Google Pay Per Click Advertising

3. SEM – or Search Engine Marketing – PPC growth

Search Engine Marketing or SEM has seen a massive increase in uptake in recent years, as more businesses switch to spending their advertising budget online. When we think of SEM techniques, Pay Per Click (PPC) is often the most popular and that’s what we’ll discuss here.

With careful planning and use, you can increase visitors to your website through PPC advertising.  In a nutshell, PPC allows you to target specific locations, demographics and search keywords (criteria), and display your associated advertisement when these parameters are matched.

As the name suggests, for each ad click, you pay a fee.  This fee will be the “bid amount” that you have entered when setting up the ad.  Although bid amounts are not the only deciding factor (a “quality score” is also used), generally speaking, the higher the bid amount, the more likely your ad will appear above other advertisers also targeting the same criteria.

Google Adwords is a common and widely used PPC advertising platform and it offers a range of tools to manage multiple campaigns, set daily budgets and keyword bids, along with a comprehensive suite of other tools (e.g. keyword analysis).  As Google themselves point out “Adwords is an art as well as a science” and in this respect, you can easily spend a lot of time (and money) perfecting your art.

Purple Dog offer free Google Adwords vouchers on selected products and services to help kick start your online Google Adwords advertising.  We also provide a full managed Google Adwords advertising programme. Just get in touch to find out more.

Email Marketing Campaign Snapshot

4. eMarketing Opportunities

Although SERPs have traditionally been the focus for online ads, a large – and growing – number of other sites also now offer PPC advertising, for example social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube.  These offer additional exposure opportunities, depending upon your target audience and product.

However, you don’t need to sign up to their PPC programmes in order to have a social networking presence. So if you’re not already subscribed to the various sites (e.g. Twitter and those mentioned above), that’s something you can do immediately. It’s free, and a great way to connect with a large and growing audience.

It can get “messy” having to keep 3, 4, 5 or more news feeds updated though, so if it all seems a bit daunting, we offer a set up and connect service; we’ll set up your Social Network profile and link your sites together, so that you can manage everything easily, from one place.

Also worth a mention here are other High Traffic sites that offer targeted marketing opportunities (e.g. auction sites, online newspaper sites etc). There are plenty of them out there and all of them will be happy to take your PPC budget! Choosing the right medium can be a bit of trial and error and it does largely depend on who you are targeting and what you are selling.

If you prefer a more in-house approach, a good method of increasing traffic to your website is through email marketing.  As the saying goes, “it’s easier to up-sell an existing client, than find a new one”.

So if you have new products and services or your existing ones change regularly (e.g. special offers), email marketing is a great way to keep in touch with your customer database and keep them coming back to your site with new offers, announcements, reminders and general news.

Purple Dog has a great email marketing system available for our clients that offers easy to use, professional, automated create / send newsletter tools. A free demo is available, just get in touch.

5.  Traditional & Supplementary Methods

Most businesses understand the need for a mixed marketing approach in order to maximise ROI. Contrary to popular (internet marketing) belief – traditional advertising is still alive and kicking – Radio, TV and print advertising may set you back a small fortune, but can still be a good choice for passive audience targeting.

A simplistic yet relevant point: If you are selling cakes, it makes sense to advertise in food related media that targets your market. If you’re selling to a specific community, it’s a good idea to advertise in the local newspaper and directories.  Your advertising should drive people to your website where you can qualify the sale.

Perhaps the biggest downside to traditional advertising is that it’s more like a lucky dip. You serve up the offer and hope someone sees it, remembers it and follows it up! There’s little in the way of reliable stats to show who’s looking at your ad, and you’ll be lucky if you can capture all of the data for the “how did you hear about us” question on your enquiry form.  But if you enjoy playing Lotto and you choose the right time, the right product and placement, this approach can still yield valuable results for your site.

Supplementary methods

• Make a video & post to YouTube.  You should also consider making a video (or several) to post on YouTube.  Since it is now the second biggest search engine, it’s a great way to be found and get noticed.  You could make a low budget commercial, or interview the staff, perhaps a guided tour of your product / service or anything you can imagine! If you make it funny, you’ll probably get thousands of hits and some of these will translate to website traffic.

• Link Building: I’ve placed this here as I consider it a supplementary activity.  Although some practitioners would claim that link building is the best thing since sliced bread, I think it’s something that should be undertaken carefully. Search Engines do place a higher emphasis on sites with a high number of links because if the site is popular, it generally equals a higher SERPs listing.  While this may be the case, there are good arguments against adding your website URL to any old site.  YES you should definitely pro-actively and organically seek to exchange links with partner sites, your suppliers, perhaps clients and all relevant associates. But be warned, if you cross the line, by using so called illicit “Black Hat” techniques or hire someone who does (e.g. that persistent firm that promises 1,000 legitimate links in 3 days), your site could be punished (removed from SERPs) leading to a catastrophic loss of traffic (fall in sales) and lengthy and complex re-establishment battles.

• The “Basic Stuff” you’re already doing: There are so many other simple things you can do to encourage visitors to your site; (that’s also free and easy) e.g. sponsor a local radio show, a football team or a charity, speak at trade fairs and conferences, remember to hand out your business card at every (valid) opportunity; make sure you have an email signature displaying your web address; car signage (if you’re into that); web address on your voicemail message; perhaps employing a PR company to win coverage for you in publications; And, don’t under-estimate the value of word of mouth advertising – a happy customer may only tell 1 or 2 friends, but an unhappy customer may well tell 5 or 6 or more, reducing your chances for repeat and referral business.

Short of all of that, if you’re really brave, you could try door knocking! Hey, it works for politicians (just don’t kiss the babies!)

If you’d like to discuss anything mentioned in the above, you can leave a comment or get in touch with us.

If you ever needed a reason to update your website regularly, here it is: The new Google Search algorithm gives websites with the freshest content a higher search result score.

We’ve been saying this to our clients all along “post regular updates on your website to get better search ranking”.

Of course, just having an updated site is not the be all and end all of good Google SERP (Search Engine Results Page) ranking, but with Google notching up a nod to sites that are fresh, it’s not hard to see that you can improve your ranking by keeping your site up to date.

Search results, like warm cookies right out of the oven or cool refreshing fruit on a hot summer’s day, are best when they’re fresh. Even if you don’t specify it in your search, you probably want search results that are relevant and recent.

Those are the words of Amit Singhal, the author of the recent post on the official Google blog.  He goes on to say;

We completed our Caffeine web indexing system last year, which allows us to crawl and index the web for fresh content quickly on an enormous scale. Building upon the momentum from Caffeine, today we’re making a significant improvement to our ranking algorithm that impacts roughly 35 percent of searches and better determines when to give you more up-to-date relevant results for these varying degrees of freshness.

So, the new algorithm will affect 35% of all Google searches – that’s over one third, and that is massive.  There is no doubting that by having an up to date website, you will reap the rewards when someone is Googling your keywords.

So what can you do ?  As a webdesign and emarketing company, we advise our clients to write at least one relevant and interesting article, once a week.  More if you can manage it.  But we realise that your core business may not be in writing great articles on your website!

If you can’t do it yourself, you can always ask a staff member to do it for you.

An alternative approach is to think of the content of your site. Could you update your page content? Or perhaps add that new testimonial your customer wrote for you? What about asking a business colleague to write a review of your service or an article as a guest writer?

Failing any of that, you could approach someone to write articles for you.

The bottom line is, a fresh website is more likely to get better results – and not just from Google – your customers and website visitors will appreciate up to date information too!

If you’d like any advice on the best approach to take, just get in touch.

If you don’t already have a website for your business, or you need a new one, now’s the time to act and save $$$s.

For a limited time we are offering a 20% discount on selected website packages that include; website, webhosting and domain name registration from only $399 !

You can be online for Christmas if you act now!

For all the details, check out our specials page here.

November Only. Conditions Apply.