Further cementing ourselves as the largest website design firm operating in Queensland is our recent expansion to Hervey Bay with the successful purchase of the 7 Levels website design business. 7 Levels have been the leading website design and development company in the Hervey Bay area for more than 10 years and we are proud to now welcome their website design clients to the Allcorp family.
Of course we are still maintaining our class leading studios in both Cairns and Townsville. This new acquisition is an expansion to a new studio presence in the Hervey Bay region with new staff to manage the growing demands of the thriving tourist community. We want to make sure that all of our valued existing clients are aware that they will still be dealing with the same great Allcorp people locally and that we will still be offering the same greatservice as always.
This expansion is great news as itmeans that, as we grow, we can increase our staff levels and gather evenmore insights into ensuring we are providing client services of thelatest and greatest trends and technologies. This expansion alsosolidifies our reputation as a business that is strong in themarketplace and is here to stay and grow with our client needs. We arehere for the long haul and will continue to grow bigger and offer aneven greater range of services to our valuable clients.
Work. Work. Work. Contracts piling up on our desks and bigger white boards requiring purchase to fit the ever expanding job queue. Please bear with us, we have a crazy amount of work coming through the door and we keep needing to get more staff to help service everyone. But don't worry, we would always neglect ourselves before we had to let a client go hungry.
What has been happening? This whole year has been extremely busy it seems. Lots of our current clients have been making the wise decision to get out of phone book advertising and use this budget to promote their website with our ever expanding search engine optimisation services. Our SEO team are currently working with more than 127 businesses in the Cairns and Townsville regions with the Google love being enjoyed by all. 100% of our website SEO clients are on page 1 of Google which is a great statistic and even better news is that we are keeping them there.
The other big ticket item on every businesses' wish list is mobile device friendly websites. Every business needs one of these and it is true that every new website contract we do has these included as a standard project. It has become one of those 'of course you need this' items that maybe only 3 years ago wasn't all that important. This alone goes to show how fast things move and change. (Even more reason to have Allcorp looking after it and keeping an eye on what's new to keep your business at the cutting edge.)
These two big changes are what has made everything so busy with us and we appreciate that everyone is being patient while we do the best job possible for you. After all, if you want the whole project done properly there's really only one choice!
There is something else that is a big deal for us here. It involves what we only just got back from our lawyer and sent off this week - a signed and witnessed contract between us and another business in another city of Queensland, a contract that will move Allcorp even further ahead as the website industry market leader in the state... but more on that on the settlement - don't worry, Allcorp will still be the same great people as always.
Once again we have had many phone calls and emails from clients who have been puzzled by their recent visit from their Yellow Pages representative where misinformation about the client Google ranking and reliance on the submission of your yellow pages advertisement for the year were concerned. While we aren't particularly sure on how they are selling this and the exact wording they are using, recounts we are hearing from clients suggest they are blatantly saying that if the client doesn't book a bigger yellow pages advertisement, or if they cancel their yellow pages advertising completely, their website search engine ranking will suffer and they will drop off the first page of Google.
This is clearly incorrect. Your Yellow Pages phone book advertisement has absolutely nothing to do with your website search engine ranking.
Many of our clients are currently working with our SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) team to achieve proper results in Google and we are achieving this through working with the actual website and fine tuning content to achieve optimal results. We spend countless hours rewriting copy of websites, reviewing analytics, third party directory listing, tracking and ensuring that our SEO client websites are kept ranking high in Google searches. And they are. For a phone book company to deliberately spread misinformation that their print advertisement is solely (or in any way) responsible for keeping a website ranked shows either ignorance on the yellow pages representatives part or just plain desperation to try and sell a dying product.
If you are trying to achieve better results with your website search engine ranking then you need to talk with the Allcorp SEO team. When it comes to SEO we are working with more clients than any other local North Queensland company and ensuring that the search engine positioning of these clients is maintained. We provide our SEO clients with regular tracking reports to show how the website is performing and have developed a maintenance schedule where we perform the required maintenance to the website to keep it favoured with Google.
In our set list of tools that we have at our disposal to effectively perform this service for our clients there is absolutely no requirement to place a print advertisement in the Yellow Pages. It has absolutely no impact on a website search engine ranking.
If you would like to find out how we can work with you in achieving real results with search engine rankings contact our Townsville or Cairns studio today. We can show you real case studies of clients we are working with and show you tracking reports and summaries of how we have kept the leading businesses in Cairns and Townsville efficiently ranked in Google.
As many of you are aware by now, Allcorp Advertising has become the leading force in Search Engine Optimisation and Search Engine Marketing in the region of North Queensland. In the past 2 years alone we have helped over 100 businesses attain a high level of search engine ranking and this month alone we are working with a dozen more.
The reason behind this is that businesses are realising that many consumers make their buying decisions based on Google alone. We have seen this trend come into acceptance with the volume of service request calls coming from our more than 500 clients on the subject of SEO increasing dramatically in the last 3 years. It is obvious that the world has changed.
What a lot of people are also attaining a realisation of is that their business is no longer geographically bound to their location. New boundaries are being pushed and new customers are being found in other cities and towns.
For instance if you own a product retail outlet in Townsville and can sell and deliver your product to Cairns why not target some search engine marketing to encompass the Cairns region? If your hypothetical Townsville store sells springs you may have gained a solid Google presence with the search keyword of "Townsville Springs" but it is also easy to make your website just as Google friendly with the search keyword of "Cairns Springs" - even if you don't have a store there!
The same is true for any location. An Ingham business can advertise their wares and services to Townsville, a Cairns business can advertise their products to Mackay and so on. We have helped many of our clients attain the level of Google saturation and new markets have been untapped where there were none before.
It is always satisfying when this type of work is done for a client and soon after its completion the client calls in amazement that they just received an order from an area that they have never had before all because their business is found there through a Google search.
The marketing savvy business can adapt to these new trends early on and gain a bigger slice of their market pie right now.
Well it is certain that your competitors may not like it so much. After all, this new marketing has closed the gap between cities so much that it has also brought in new competitors. Where we were previously competing with the people in our city or town alone we are now competing with every other business in the whole region. But is it reallywise to not advertise and compete on this new playing field? Do you really think your competitors won't be or aren't already throwing their hat in the ring and starting their own high impact campaign in this new market economy?
The time to start drawing up your own marketing territory is now and at Allcorp we have more experience than any other local web development and marketing company to help you take what's yours competitively and fairly.
If you want to talk about expanding your advertising footprint into into these new environments or even just increase the exposure you have in your own city or town contact us today for an obligation free chat about what we can do to help you.
At Allcorp we were very excited to end the financial year on a high not only with revenues but also with our invitation to participate in the 2013 Australia Classic Rally in Cairns as a pace car with one of our own cars. The Australia Classic event was held over the weekend of June 22nd and 23rd and a total of 46 classic and modern prestige cars entered the event which took them on a whirlwind tour of the best driving roads in North Queensland. In total the event covered more than 600kms with contrasting backdrops from the great ocean drive of the Captain Cook Highway to the rainforest and outback.
Allcorp had the responsibility of acting as the lead pace car with our Porsche 911 Turbo and we were responsible for keeping the event running smoothly for the 46 entrants running closely behind.
We were thrilled to be a part of this major North Queensland event and looking forward to more involvement in next years rally.
For more information on the Australia Classic visit www.australiaclassic.com.au
As a company that works with clients on over 100 new website projects each and every year througout North Queensland we have seen what we believe is every type of client case scenario there is. Over the last 13 years we have developed a skill set that enables us to work with all client needs and ensure that the project flows smoothly from beginning to end.
There is one type of client scenario that happens every now and then where a client wants to ensure everything about the website is absolutely perfect before publishing the website online. Normally we have seen this instance where a client will need to get the opinion of their colleagues, their families and what seems to be in all probability the tick of approval from their pets before they will publish the website. While we understand the need to make any business website accurate (our own internal proof reading and approval process shows how this is of a high importance to us) it is not worth procrastinating to the extent where the website never gets published and when it finally does, it may be out of date.
The website industry is a design industry that follows trends. What looks amazing and cutting edge today will eventually look dated and old. This is the reality of design trends. Because websites are technology based, and because technology moves so quickly, the life expectancy of a cutting edge website design is shortened. Obviously having Allcorp, the leading website designers in the area, design and produce your website means you will have the finest website design for the longest period possible but procrastinating unnecessarily over the final concept before authorising its publishing only wastes this time frame.
We have had some clients that have been fine tuning and fiddling with the content of their website design for more than 8 months. Always changing little things here and there to make sure it is exactly right before they send it up online where everyone can see it. The trouble is that the only people seeing this website are us and our client and client’s board of approvers. The website meanwhile is aging and falling behind before it is even launched.
Websites are not like the printed pages of a book. They are changing and evolving things that can move and grow along with a business. While it is very important to make sure the website content and images used are correct before making the website live it is also worth remembering that content can be added later or changed later simply and quickly. With this medium a business can have the website online doing its job promoting the business efficiently and making sales while the fine tuning process takes place. At Allcorp we work with clients over the long term and ensure that satisfaction is achieved.
In the last few months we have had a number of clients enquire about developing a newsletter management program so that they can produce a regular newsletter and send it to an administered database of their clients and potential clients. Using our newly developed web based software we are able to add on a control panel to any of our client websites where they can log in via a secure password portal and use our simple to use template system to generate a newsletter, promotion flyer or specials list and then send it to all subscribing email addresses in their database.
Using this system we design the template for the publication so that it matches the business identity and all our client has to do is fill in the gaps with their information or specials and promotions, proof the final version and then with one click send the document to all of their subscribing customers.
It's a great way to keep in touch with a client base and using our system is a very time efficient way of generating these regular communications in a professional way.
The email database can be controleld by the client with bulk updates of new contacts and email addresses readily available via the control panel. We also opt in an unsubscribe function where receivers can remove themselves from the database via the click on a button saving a lot of administrative time and effort.
With full training on how to use the program and a manual provided on how to best produce the email to mail out our clients have found this a very simple way to stay in touch with their client base.
If you would like to have a similar system developed for your website contact us today and let us make this add on work seamlessly with your current business promotions. Sending out this type of newsletter, flyer or promotional catalogue costs nothing and lets you reach your captive audience simply and effectively.
Our predictions of an even smaller phone book being delivered this year were proven true today when seeing multiple copies of this 1970's style of advertising and marketing publication, having been freshly delivered to the residents of our street, left to lay in the rain and bloat, but still smaller than ever before.
Thankfully business has realised that this type of advertising is a less effective use of money compared to newer marketing trends and this is why the book will continue to become smaller and smaller.
Let's face it, no one really uses it as much anymore. It doesn't seem to address today's modern environmentally friendly way and it seems whenever the delivery happens the books are mostly discarded on bin day.
Like most people we know you can opt out of receiving this publication. Simply visit the website below and enter your details to not receive this book anymore. (Click on the image to visit the website)
Content management websites are websites that run from a third party operating program such as Wordpress, Joomla and Typo3 among a seemingly endless parade of other software developers' products in today's marketplace. These third party operating programs enable a user to choose from a library of predefined website designs and then publish this website design as their own business website with no more than a copy and paste of their company logo into the determined logo position from the design template. It all sounds simple enough and in our 13 years of experience as the leading internet development company in Townsville and Cairns we have provided hosting packages to businesses using these systems and have even helped people set them up.
The main advantage of the content management website is that it supposedly allows the website administrator access to make changes and updates to any of the website content at any time using a 'simple' user interface or control panel. The biggest disadvantage we have seen with these programs is that they are entirely reliant on the support of the third party software developer to function. If the software developer stops making software updates available or ceases to exist completely then the website will start to fall apart. We have seen countless examples of people running into trouble with these third party software distributors from the minor, such as certain website functions not working properly, to the scarily common major problems of websites becoming vulnerable to hackers and having some form of defacement happen to the website or the website sending out junk email to millions of recipients causing the website and emails to become blacklisted across the internet. Sometimes we have spent days working to undo damage maliciously performed to someone's content management system website where these events have occurred.
The other problem with the third party content management system websites is that they are often not all that simple to manage properly. We noticed this when we acquired the hosting clients of an absorbed company during a business sale over 2 years ago. The hosting clients we acquired were mostly using a third party website content management system to manage the content of their websites and had all been trained how to use the software by the original website developer. As an average we have had 9 out of 10 of these clients who were using this third party operating system to manage their website contact us and ask us to perform the website updates because they had forgotten how to make the updates that they had been trained to do, they didn't have the time to make the updates or they made the updates but, as is often the case, the updates looked poor on the actual website. This in turn resulted in them appointing our developers to make the updates and/or fix the errors that had been made.
While a third party content manegement system is designed to be 'easy' for an end user to manage it is cumbersome and hindersome for a website developer to use so the updates end up costing more because of the time it takes for our developers to do compared with updating a non content management website.
There are benefits to content management systems for websites but there are also many negatives that need to be considered. Many of these negatives can carry huge costs to repair and can also potentially damage a business reputation if the website is hacked.
The solution that we have found in our experience of working on over 2,000 website projects is to adapt a content management system to be a part of a website rather than developing a website around a content management system. This means the website has the freedom to not be bound by the constraints of working with a third party software template and can be professionally designed to suit a business image. We can then develop our own programming and software to make certain parts of the website manageable by a website administrator using our own software to do so.
Our content management pages allow clients to update the website pages that have the installation and we ensure that things such as image sizing, font formatting and font sizing all remain automated and consistent with the rest of the website. This means that the pages that have been updated by our client will look the same as the other professionally designed pages of the website. Because we make the program that manages this part of the website we can also provide a guarantee that it will always be updated and it will remain secure from hackers, viruses and hijackers. We can also provide full support to our clients and offer assistance in how to use our update system. In developing our content manager we have made it visually similar to that of the common range of Microsoft programs so the icons and controls of the program that manages the website page looks the same as a Word Document.
This makes it easier for our clients to make changes to the website with its familiar user interface. We can adapt this system to any of our websites. If you have been considering setting up a third party content management system website or want to upgrade your existing website so you can make changes to it yourself contact our Townsville or Cairns teams to discuss the best way to do this so that the end result looks great, is safe from attacks and is guaranteed to work for the long term. Doing this the correct way first will save you time, money and potential stresses and business reputation damage in the future.
Whether we love it or hate it, social media such as Facebook and Google+ are here to stay. With all personal opinions aside it is important that businesses embrace these social media outlets and have a presence within them for not only will it help attract new customers but it will also help maintain relationships and contact with existing ones.
Best of all, they're free to use.
We have been working closely with many of our Townsville & Cairns clients in setting up and marketing business Facebook and Google+ pages. Mostly we have been setting these up for clients as an added weapon in the ongoing search engine optimisation (SEO) fight as having a properly set up social media campaign will, believe it or not, increase your website's favour with the mainstream search engines.
There are guidelines in place as to how to set up your business social media and if not done properly there can be problems with the longevity of the page. For instance setting up a business page as a personal page is only going to result in the page finally being taken down when it eventually gets weeded out. This could be in 6 months or 2 years or even more so by this time the reputation the page has achieved and the likes and followers that have joined will be lost. As you can see, it is important to set these up properly the first time.
Give either our Cairns or Townsville studios a call and talk to us about some assistance with getting your business social media friendly. It doesn't cost much and has no ongoing expense and we can help design and shape the visual image of the social media pages in a way that reflects and maintains the standards of your other advertising.
It was brought to our attention just today that a phone book advertising representative was trying to sell one of our clients some of their products and services for the next year and made some very inaccurate statements about how businesses can achieve and maintain high rankings in search engines. It was relayed to us that the representative of the phone book did a Google search for a product our client sells while with the client and proceeded to find theoptimised result showing the website that we had designed and optimised on page one of the search engine. Where things went wrong is when the phone book advertising representative explained to our client that they would lose that search engine ranking if they didn't continue their marketing package with thephone book. This is completely incorrect. The website and the optimisation process that the website author (Allcorp) undertakes is the only thing that will make that website achieve its search engine ranking.
We sincerely hope that the phone book advertising representative was simply confused by how these things work and not attempting to lie to our client and scare them into wasting money on something they don't need.
If any of our clients have any questions about how search engines work please contact us at either our Townsville or Cairns studios first to get the most accurate information.
Any hopes we may have had to gradually ease back into the year from our vacations were promptly stripped away from us and all of our staff as soon as we returned back to work in January. The month simply flew by and new orders were taken from many new and existing clients even though we had to stress a waiting period of a few weeks before work could be commenced.
There were a lot of new website orders from our clients, mostly big projects, showing that the market place of North Queensland has a lot of confidence in the internet being the most important advertising method. Many clients had told us that they had reduced their budget, some dramatically, for other once mainstream advertising mediums such as television, newspaper and phone directories and syphoned this budget mostly towards internet development. As a standard for almost all new projects these days the important areas of mobiledevice friendly websites and search engine optimisation (SEO) were also packaged with these new orders.
The terrible weather conditions from Oswald also showed us that theinfrastructure of the internet and mobile phone networks in Northern Australia really need some redundancies in place. Having no internet and no mobile phone coverage for all of Queensland north of Gladstone really is unacceptable. For this to go on for almost 2 days is almost like third world conditions. Not that we really had much to complain about when comparing to the south east for the same period. One thing this really did prove to all of us is just how much we rely on our mobile phones and internet for news and information. Further importance is then placed on business to keep pace with this reliance and keep their internet and mobile marketing in the current era.
All in all, with the bad weather hopefully behind us, we're looking at a busy month of production ahead and hope to show everyone some new and exciting things next month.
It seems that 2012 went in the blink of an eye. With so much production work and services agreements passing from both our Cairns and Townsville studios the workload seemed to keep everyone so busy that the weeks just flew by.
In 2012 we introduced some very important new services and products to give our North Queensland clients the edge over the competition and also helped them keep up to date with industry trends. One of the more important products introduced was our search engine optimisation and keyword maintenance services. In 2012 we worked with more than 50 clients in contrasting industries and managed to achieve dynamic search engine rankings for every one of them. With our newly structured maintenance services we have managed to maintain the search engine results for all of them.
2012 also saw the introduction of our mobile device friendly website design program where we can develop automatic redirections for client main websites to direct users of portable devices such as smart phones and tablets to a scaled down secondary version that is designed to fit on the screens properly. This service introduction alone proved how businesses in North Queensland are keen to stay ahead of the latest marketing trends with 1 in 3 of our clients opting to package these mobile device friendly websites with their existing website designs and all of the new clients we worked with in 2012 had these included as part of their website package.
Not forgetting our core website design services as still being the bread and butter of our company, in 2012 we worked on more than 60 brand new website design projects and even more existing client website upgrades or redesigns showing that the name that North Queensland relies upon when it comes to everything website and internet development is Allcorp. Our now more than 13 years experience in the region has done many things including instilling local business confidence in our brand and expertise.
On top of the above we also worked with clients on many new photo shoots with our in house photographic studio and produced great corporate photographs to showcase our clients' products and services. Our copy writing team were also hard at work churning out market relevant wording for all of our new projects and our new social media products helped get our clients class leading exposure on facebook, twitter and google+.
All in all it has been a roller coaster year and we are set to make 2013 even more exciting with lots of new development in the pipeline to help our clients get the most out of their marketing.
All of these projects have been managed from start to finish by our local team. At Allcorp we are the local choice for professional website design.