Chart showing how WordPress continues in popularity (2013)

There’s no denying that blogging & website usage has changed in the last few years, with the arrival of social media like Facebook and Twitter.

For many of us, what we used to blog about on our website or in news articles, we now publish to social networks as a short snippet!

But that is not to say that blogging & website news articles are dead. Take this one for example – you’re reading it aren’t you? :-0)

So there is still a place and a point to writing news articles on your website – firstly, it’s always going to be good for your website visitors to see up to date information and secondly, the search engine bots who love to crawl website content, will be kept in work for a few more years!

In fact, research recently released shows that the WordPress platforms continues to climb in popularity. The 2013 study, indicates that WordPress as a blog or Content Management System (CMS) is now being used by 52% of the top 100 blog sites, up from 48% in 2012.

With over 65 million WordPress sites in the world, it’s not too difficult to see why the open source platform’s customer base keeps growing.  Site owners and administrators love it because it’s easy to learn, easy to publish articles with and easy to manage.  And clearly the development community love it – the development team alone is numbered in the several hundreds (the fact that it is open source may explain why), the development roadmap is clearly defined and the user community extremely active and vibrant.

“WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. We like to say that WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.”
[From www.wordpress.org]

To get a sense of WordPress’ growth trend, in 2009, WordPress was the blogging platform of choice on just 32 percent of the top 100 blogs — this has risen to 52% while no other platform has been able to increase their share in a meaningful way:

CMS / Blogging Platform Comparison Chart 2013 vs 2012

WordPress will continue to be popular because it’s loved by so many.  However, the beauty of the technology is that the art of building customised websites has become even more enjoyable.  The ever-evolving platform is intuitive and powerful, yet flexible enough for any purpose.

So if you’re wondering about what kind of website you need, or thinking about a website refresh, talk to Purple Dog about how WordPress can be put to work to maximise your company’s exposure.

Keeping your WordPress website up to date is essential

Consider this scenario; You live in a house that’s insured. It has a smoke alarm installed to protect your family in the event of a fire.

When you go off to work in the morning, you lock your house doors to help prevent being burgled.  Then you get in your car, put on your seat belt, start the engine with a unique key and drive to your office carefully so as to avoid an accident.

You may even stop off enroute and purchase breakfast or fuel using your credit card – and you’re careful to ensure no-one sees the pin number you enter at the checkout.

You arrive at your office, lock the car door, and sit down at your desk where you most probably enter a password into your computer, which has been backing up its files overnight to an external hard disk.

Hopefully you do most, if not all of these things.  Why? Because you want to be safe from “opportunist thieves”, accidents or worse – malicious acts of destruction. All of your actions are precautionary so as to avoid the considerable harm or damage (not to mention the massive inconvenience) that is caused when ‘something bad’ happens – or disaster strikes.

So why would your business website not get the same treatment? 

According to a recent article, in the last few weeks, over 90,000 WordPress websites have been attacked using a technique known as ‘brute force’.  The hackers behind the attacks have combed through WordPress accounts and attempted to guess passwords using a script. Their program cycles through 1,000 common passwords. While this tactic is useless against savvy users, enough people utilize easy-to-guess passwords to make it worthwhile for the hackers.

Cyber crime is making big headlines – make sure your business website is protected!

Three simple steps to avoid a website security disaster

1. Ensure that all admin user name and passwords are hard to guess and are kept safe. Using admin or 12345 is asking for trouble.
2. Make sure all sensitive data such as client credit card details is stored correctly on your server with appropriate protection in place.
3. Ensure that your website is regularly backed up and that operating software is kept up-to-date. Out of date software is a security risk and may contain vulnerabilities.

If you follow this advice – it will be a good start!  Purple Dog offers a free security audit for your website and associated data.  We also offer “update maintenance” packages to update your website whenever updates become available.  This service is cost effective and starts at $95 per update or $120 per year for unlimited updates.

Get in touch to find out more.

Ever struggled to find the perfect domain name for your business? Well, that should be a thing of the past when a new domain name system comes online.

In fact, could this be the end of the internet as we know it and the beginning of something new?  Well, it depends on how successful it is, but it will certainly change the way we search for and find online businesses.

In mid 2013, the dot coms, dot nets, dot orgs and other “traditional” domain name extensions will have to make room for a new breed of more descriptive domain name extensions such as .music, .family, .shop, .bar and around 1,000 others, with many more to come after that.  These domain name extensions are known as TLDs or Top Level Domains and are likely to change the way we think about the internet foreever, and particularly how we search for services.

The introduction of new TLDs will change how the world uses the Web by allowing a more customised and memorable naming convention.  Thos who get in first are likely to receive a considerable increase in website traffic.  For example, how about a user living in Auckland who wants to find a flower shop close by? Simply type in flowers.auckland ! Or what if you live in Richmond and need a local plumber?  How about typing in richmond.plumber ?  The possibilities are endless.

No matter who you are, as long as you’re a PURPLE DOG customer you can very easily participate in this historic event. We will be amongst the first inline to grab the new domains for our clients.

The new domains will be released in three stages: 1) Sunrise: premium top dollar extensions via auction e.g. google.web, 2) Landrush: registrations from pre-approved vendors (this is where Purple Dog will stand in line) and 3) General Availability: e.g. anyone can register whatever domains are remaining.

We will shortly be announcing how clients can pre-register their expressions of interest for any new domain name extension(s), so watch this space. Meanwhile, if you’d like any specific information, you can contact us here.

Facebook penetration in NZ and AU is over 50% of the population

Every business should have a website, regardless of industry, product or service.  Whether it’s a full blown e-commerce website (online shop), booking system, online product / service brochure or just to display contact information, a website is still the most effective online tool to attract new and engage with existing customers.

Social Media has certainly changed the landscape of the web but despite recent statistics* showing continued growth, I don’t believe it will replace websites any time soon.  I do believe however, that every business should utilise both to maximise the benefits of each.

Recent Facebook figures reveal that 53.82% of New Zealand’s population is on Facebook, compared with around 55% of Australia and a similar percentage for the USA (53.97%).

Whilst NZ & AU’s population is obviously a lot smaller than the US, and therefore the market much smaller, it shows that we’re as keen and eager to participate in the online space as the leaders.  Admittedly, when you cast an eye over the most popular NZ pages on Facebook, the top 100 are the usual suspects; big brands, TV shows and celebrities.  But this doesn’t change the fact that existing and potentially new customers are using it daily to search out and “like” their favourite pages – businesses, brands & service providers as well as all of the non-commercial stuff.  That represents a big opportunity for increased exposure to a whole new community for your brand, company or product.

Facebook user distribution in NZ*

Of 2,288,460 users from NZ, the largest age group of users is currently in the 18-24 and the 25-34 age range, each with around 537,000 users or 23% each, followed by users in the age range of 35 – 44 (17%), 45 – 54 (13%) and users aged 55+ making up the rest (24%).  Of these users 55% are female and 45% are male. In terms of usage, some figures are mind-blowing: As at Oct 2012 ther are 1 billion global users and it is claimed these users uploaded a record 1.1 billion photos during the 48 hours over New Year’s Day and Eve!**

In the last 6 months, Facebook added around 18,000 new sign ups each month from New Zealand and around 145,000 each month from Australia (adding to the AU total of almost 12million). It’s not surprising that Auckland and Sydney represent the two largest connected cities in the Southern Hemisphere, with 68% and 61% of the respective totals.

Come to the party – eat cake

What does this mean for your business? Quite simply opportunity to grow your “fanbase” and engage with your clients in a truly transparent way. Facebook certainly requires more than a “set and forget” mentality – it demands careful strategy and daily involvement in order to attract and retain users, generate interest, referrals for your products or services or event.

If you’re not at the party, you’ll miss out on the cake! The good news is, there are many ways to – not just join the party – but make a grand entrance too – have your cake and eat it!  Purple Dog can help you to maximise and take advantage of all that Facebook – and social media in general – has to offer.  Get in touch with us for an obligation free chat.

*Source: www.socialbakers.com
**Source: www.techcrunch.com

We will be operating a minimal service during the break – yes, we have lives outside of work too!

Phone Support / Office Hours
Closed: 22nd Dec – 6th January
Re-Open: January 7th

Email Support / Emergencies
Available 24/7 via our helpdesk or
support@purpledogdesign.com

Please note that non-emergency enquiries will be dealt with upon our return on the 7th January.

Thank you for your understanding and Happy Holidays.

The growth of mobile is old news
- but how to optimise your website?

Responsive (or mobile optimised) website design is nothing new – it’s been around for years under different names “fluid” or “liquid” web design for example.  Though the techniques are all a bit different, the concept never really took off, despite web designers best efforts of predicting future screen size changes (remember 800 x 600 on your old monitor?).

What has changed in the last few years, is the explosion of hand-held and mobile devices that have introduced a whole plethera of screen sizes and swipe-ability – and catapulted the need to provide an optimal website experience into every website design conversation.

What is a responsive website, or mobile optimised webdesign?  Quite simply, it’s a website that is easy to interact with, read and navigate with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling—whether the visitor is using a desktop computer monitor, a mobile phone, a tablet (e.g. iPad or Galaxy Tab), Kindle or other device – and increasingly in 2013 and beyond – the internet ready TV.

Since this growth is relatively new, many different techniques are in use, particularly because operating systems (e.g. Windows, Android or Apple’s IOS) and browsers (e.g. Firefox and Internet Explorer etc,) have not traditionally agreed on which standards to adopt.  However, that is now changing and best practices and industry standards are emerging.

The rise in global e-commerce presents another challenge in its own right, but especially so when considered in combination with the increased use of mobile devices.  In other words, how to ensure that your online shop is optimised for mobile.  The answer is – it’s tricky! It doesn’t take much to find an online store on your mobile device – but try to zoom a product, add to cart or check-out and you will find that it will usually be a lot more difficult and will take much more time and effort.

What does this mean for your business? First of all, you need to be selling online.  Secondly – you need to ensure that your site is mobile friendly.  Since research shows that online shoppers are a fickle bunch, if they can’t easily find what they want on your site, they’ll go elsewhere. Can you afford to lose another sale?

So how can you optimise your website for your mobile users, and particularly – for mobile shoppers?  Get in touch with us to find out how we can help you!

Living Without Violence’s new website
donated free by Purple Dog Design
under the “free community websites project”

Domestic violence destroys families, homes and lives.

One organisation that’s helping to provide support to those affected is Living Without Violence. The Waiheke Island based branch of the organisation needed a website and Purple Dog was happy to provide a free website, under our free community website project.

The free website project is an initiative set up by Purple Dog Design to give back to the community.  Purple Dog is committed to donating free website design skills and time to any essential community organisation and LWV certainly qualifies – as one of the “under-sung heroes” of our community, with staff who are primarily volunteers, simply wanting to make a difference to people’s lives.

The excellent work done by LWV and it’s dedicated team cannot be underestimated with one in three women experiencing violence from a partner in their lifetime, while on average, 14 women are killed each year by a member of their own family and many  children and young people directly affected.

As well as providing support, advice and safety planning for those who are, or have, experienced family violence, the new LWV website also offers informative articles and a range of interesting and insightful Group Programmes for men women and children, as well as short term Individual and Couples Counselling.

We wish to acknowledge the support that Sol Harris at Purple Dog Design has provided to our agency in developing our website.

Sol generously gifted his time and advice, and we are very pleased with the result. He was always pleasant to deal with and patient when showing me how to manage the site.

Living Without Violence is very grateful for the service.

Kamalesh Lovegrove, Living Without Violence – Waiheke

For more information on Living Without Violence, or to get support for any family violence matter, visit their website:

www.livingwithoutviolence.co.nz

Do you know of an essential community organisation that needs a free website?

They can be based anywhere in New Zealand. Find out more here or get in touch with us

Purple Dog is an Auckland website design business also based on Waiheke island. We provide a range of services to SMEs including website design, website hosting, online marketing and more. If you are looking for a local website design company – look no further! Get in touch to find out more.

Purple Dog Offers Free Website services For Essential Community Organisations

Purple Dog is proud to announce a new project to support Essential Community Organisations by providing free website design, skills, training and time.

Do you work in, or know someone that works in an Essential Community Organisation? If so, read on to find out about getting a free or low cost website from Purple Dog Design.

Most of us work rest and play within a community, whether large or small.  Within our communities are a large number of organisations providing every service imaginable.  Many of these are on the smaller side and offer support services on a not-for-profit basis.  We like to call these “Essential Community Organisations” or ECOs – they  are often funded entirely by local grants or donations.

These ECOs provide targeted support services for a wide range of subjects; from animal welfare, to anti-domestic violence, child support, helping homeless persons, low income families… and the list goes on.

Purple Dog, in the spirit of wanting to give back and support the community, and in recognition of the outstanding service these groups provide, has launched a project where essential community organisations can receive a free (or low cost where applicable) website, training and consultation time .

Eligibility

To be eligible to apply, the organisation must be;

• located in New Zealand
• a registered charity or significantly recognised organisation (either globally, nationally or locally)
• staffed by at least 1 full time member of staff (or equivalent)
• funded by donations, grants or equivalent
• not-for-profit & NGO

The Offer

• A free website (or reduced cost where applicable) with Content Management System included
• Design to be agreed
• ECO staff to provide the content / images
• ECO staff to self manage
• Free training to 1 person
• Option to include other useful low cost add-on services
• Communications to take place via phone / Skype / Email

Fine print

• This offer is genuine and made in good faith. We are committed to providing a free website to organisations that meets the criteria.
• Organisations not meeting the criteria will be considered on merit and may be offered low-cost alternatives.
• All applications will be dealt with on a first come first served basis.
• Obviously we have limited resources and cannot promise to fulfill every request.
• Purple Dog reserves the right to decline an application and we reserve the right to cancel or amend this offer at any time.
• Offer does not include any existing costs you may have (contractual or otherwise) or any additional or new hosting / disbursement or other fees that might be incurred on you behalf.

How To Apply

Please complete the following application form.

Ensure that you include all the details relevant for your organisation and we will be in touch.

New Waiheke Wine website

Purple Dog is proud to officially announce the launch of the Waiheke Wine website.

With 23 vineyards and counting on Waiheke, the new website serves as an important place to find out where to sample wine, dine and stay. There is also a wealth of knowledge on the local climate, geology, soil and grape varieties for those with a keen interest in viticulture.

Visitors to the site can read more about the individual vineyards, check awards won, which wine varietals are sold and perhaps most importantly, find out what the opening hours are, how to get there and what facilities are offered.

The mobile friendly website produced by Purple Dog, who also designed the structure and functionality, includes the provision for the 23 vineyard owners (or members) to log in and manage their own individual profile pages, update the content and change images.

With graphic design elements provided by Rebekah Fraser, content from the Waiheke Island Wine Association team and photography provided by the vineyard themselves, the website is a collaborative effort and offers a rich, attractive and easy to navigate source of information that will be invaluable for tourists, locals and wine enthusiasts alike.

Visit the website: www.waihekewine.co.nz

Purple Dog Design is a professional service provider and website design company located on Waiheke Island and Auckland, New Zealand.  We provide website design, webhosting and online marketing services to businesses on Waiheke, Auckland and across New Zealand, Australia and Europe.  If you would like to talk to us about your project requirements, we are only a phone call or email away.

Embassy Steakhouse Restaurant Website screenshot

If you love steak and you live on Waiheke, you’re in luck! A new steakhouse restaurant on the island has opened offering a quality, varied menu.

The Best Steak On Waiheke is promised – and you can take your pick of the different cuts or if steak is not your thing, you can choose from other meat, fish and vegetarian dishes.

Purple Dog Design is pleased to launch the new website for Waiheke’s Embassy Steakhouse – and we can testify that the food is fantastic too!

Since we are a waiheke website design business, we felt it was important to test the product, so we stopped by for a meal on the opening night.

We can honestly say that that as well as great food, the staff and service were excellent. So if you’re based on Waiheke, or you’re visiting the island, make sure to make a reservation with Embassy Steakhouse.

Barbara Palmer the owner of Embassy Steakhouse is delighted with her new website;

“Sol has done a wonderful job for us – he’s extended himself to provide more than we expected and we’re very pleased with the new website and the results.

We would highly recommend Sol and Purple Dog Design.”

Visit the website: www.embassysteakhouse.co.nz

About Purple Dog Design:

We are a website design & marketing business based on Waiheke Island and Auckland.  We are proud to offer highly consultative, personalised business services to SME’s – so if you have a project in mind, talk to us!

Services Provided; Website design, website hosting, email services, Google apps services, email marketing, social media, and more!