Blog

Key to Success in Social Media Marketing in 2018

By Shan Balasuriya Posted Date: 2018-03-15

 

The amount of visual content shared has increased to 3 billion images and 10 billion videos between Facebook Messenger, Instagram and Whatsapp. And Video is further projects to account for 75% of mobile traffic by 2020.

How you can protect your business from credit card fraud:

By Shan Balasuriya Posted Date: 2017-12-11

Accepting and processing credit card payments is a standard with almost any business today. This is especially true for businesses that sell products and services online. Sadly though, cyber criminals are aware of the surge in credit card use online and attempt to profit from this illegally. Credit card fraud is a major threat to your business and can affect your reputation while also incurring a financial loss.

Discussed below are some tips that can help you protect your business from credit card fraud...

Conversion rate optimisation strategies to help boost your sales:

By Shan Balasuriya Posted Date: 2017-11-27

As a business with that markets its products or services online using paid advertising such as Google AdWords (or even paid social media marketing like facebook Ads) – It is essential that you create returns from your paid digital marketing efforts. You must not only make a profit but also look at ways to significantly increase the margin of profit that you gain via these marketing channels; this is where conversion rate optimisation comes into play.  

When it comes to marketing your business and selling products or services online it is essential that you implement conversion rate optimisation strategies to improve your returns. The first step is to provide your customers with an offer (whether it’s a product or service, or even a special deal). Once you have decided on your offer the next and most important thing is to have a sales funnel.

People don’t always make a purchase during their first interaction online and a sale usually happens over time. This is where the sales funnel comes in, it is a system to build a relationship with the customer, show them value of the product and how it solves a problem they are facing (show them value) and then attempt to convert them through to a purchase. Before even looking at conversion rate optimisation you need to ensure you have a solid sales funnel in place.

Discussed below are some conversion rate optimisation strategies that you can implement into your sales funnel in order to improve the returns you get from paid digital marketing efforts...

Tips to marketing your business in 2017!

By Shan Balasuriya Posted Date: 2017-11-13

When it comes to digital marketing, in order to achieve the best results and execute an effective marketing strategy it is vital that you are up to date with the latest marketing trends and potentially new marketing channels. Even if your business maybe performing well and already has a good marketing strategy in place, it’s important to be aware of new ways people engage with content so you can remain competitive within your industry.

Discussed below are 5 digital marketing tips to help your business remain competitive in 2017...

How to make your small business startup appear bigger:

By Shan Balasuriya Posted Date: 2017-10-30

As a small business startup, you are generally limited in resources and sometimes unable to have separate departments or even a physical office. But customers like to see a professional image and like to know that they are purchasing products or services from a reputed company they can rely on. One of the things that play into this trust factor is the size of the company - generally larger businesses are likely to have better customer support.

Even organisations that are massive corporations today were once a small business with limited resources. Google and Apple for instance were both started in a garage by entrepreneurs with limited business knowledge, but now are one of the largest companies in the world.

The problem with the perception of ‘Small’ is that people are trained to think that the size and scale of your business directly relate to the quality of your products or services, the reliability, cost and after-sales support. People assume that because you don’t have a big office with a dedicated team of employees that you aren’t professional.

Discussed below are some tips on how you can make your business appear bigger to your customers...

Starting an online business - The how to guide!

By Shan Balasuriya Posted Date: 2017-10-09

When it comes to starting an online business there are overall set of strategies to execute in order to ensure its success. Many people have been able to start and grow and online business by making use of the steps outlined below. Anybody from a new entrepreneur to a veteran can make use of this process to ensure success:

1. Find a need and provide the solution: A lot of people thinking of starting an online business tend to look for a product they can sell first and then a market to sell it to. This is not the best strategy; instead it’s always best to start with identifying the market. Find a group of people who are searching for a solution to a problem and can’t seem to find it. Make use of social media and online forums to see what questions people are asking for and what they are looking for. Perform keyword research to figure out what people are actually searching for. Identify and check your competitors’ websites, take note of what they are doing to fill the demand (or solve the problem their customers face). Find out what they are doing to make themselves stand apart from the rest. Once you have all this information you can use it to create a product for a market that already exists and do it better than all the competition...

How to protect your business from cyber-attacks in 2017

By Shan Balasuriya Posted Date: 2017-10-02

With the increased dependency of businesses on the internet and online services, the vulnerability to cyber-crime is also increased. Hackers and online criminals are finding more innovative ways to steal data, scam and even hold information hostage from businesses in order to get a quick payout.

As a small business that operates using online services and stores data on the cloud it is essential to have measures in place in order to protect your business. If you become a victim of cyber-crime it can negatively impact your day to day operations, destroy your brand reputation while also affecting your bottom line in addition to other losses that could be incurred.

Discussed below are some useful security tips to protect your business and its data from online criminals...

The must have features of a mobile responsive design in 2017:

By Shan Balasuriya Posted Date: 2017-09-25

The use of smartphones and mobile internet has been increasing steadily over the last few years. The Deloitte mobile consumer report at the end of 2016 showed that 84% of Australians own a smartphone which is an average of about 16 million smart phone users. In 2017 this number is set to rise, which means it is absolutely essential that every business with an online presence must consider mobile device compatibility in order to remain relevant.  

In addition to making your website mobile friendly (which is now a basic standard), you can make use of some good features of mobile responsive design in order to stay ahead of the competition. Discussed below are some of these great responsive design features you can use...

How user experience (UX) can be improved by better navigation:

By Shan Balasuriya Posted Date: 2017-09-18

It is common knowledge based on a variety of research conducted that the attention span of the average website visitor is only a couple of seconds (generally under 30 seconds). This means that website visitors expect to be able to quickly find the information they are looking for otherwise they will drop out (known as a bounce). A lost website visitor could have been a customer and is a missed opportunity of a sale.

Intuitive and user friendly navigation is absolutely essential in ensuring that a website visitor is able to find what they are looking for with ease - giving them a smooth transition between pages and content. When ‘navigation’ is mentioned a majority would think of just the menu in the header of a website, but navigation comprises of a visitors entire journey between pages and content on a website. A website navigation that is carefully planned can result a significantly improved user experience (UX) and a potential increase in conversions too.

Discussed below are some best practices and things to consider when planning your business website navigation...

What is mobile responsive design & why your business needs one?

By Shan Balasuriya Posted Date: 2017-09-12

Traditionally to cater to the large mobile user base, a website would have a separate mobile version of it designed. This involved building a mobile website that looks and feels like the desktop one but with a unique layout designed for tablets and smaller screen devices such as phones. These mobile sites were then hosted on sub-domains which the user would be re-directed to depending on what device they are accessing the website from (example: m.domain.com.au).

This way of serving mobile websites was not ideal and resulted in many issues such as...