If your website is not currently taking advantage of a simple and important web design feature known as the favicon, then you are missing out on some additional brand exposure and instilling brand recognition into your website visitors. The favicon (abbreviation for favourite icon), is a visual representation of your business, and is normally the logo of your business.
So where is the favicon seen?
First and formost the favicon is seen as the little icon in the URL address bar of your web browser next to your website address. When users bookmark or save your website to their favourites apart from the title of the website being stored as a link, the favicon image appears next to your link in the users browser. If they also put your website in to their links bar within the browser or drag the favourite to their desktop for easy access, this favicon is used as the icon representing your business website. As well, in web browser tabbed browsing, the favicon is next to the website name on each tab…
So as you can see this simple, effective, visual reminder, really helps your website stand out of the crowd, and should encourage users to come back and revisit your site.
Some search engines actually check to see if your website has a favicon, and may use this as part of their ranking algorithm as they determine how professional your website is, which could help to determine whether your website should appear above another. So when they check, and they don’t find one in the default location it may also trigger unnecessary 404 Errors (Page not Found) which we would like to avoid.
Now that you can see how important it is to have this little thing in place, how do you get one?
If you already have a website designer please contact them directly and request them to get this implemented for your website, creating the icon logo, locating this on the server, and ensuring it is in the default location and each page of your site has the necessary meta tag pointing to it indicating that it now exists.
If you would like Star 3 Media to get this done for you please let me know as I will have our own internal design/development team do this for $65 + gst during February 2011 as a special offer. This will provide your own customised favicon created and implemented properly across your site.
... the small things do matter!
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
Domain Name Registration - Assisting your Online Marketing with Domain Names
The humble domain name is a very important step in your online marketing activities, normally derived from your business name, there are actually many considerations when it comes to the choice in your domain name registration ... and we would like to also have you think about not just the one domain, but look towards a multi funnel approach to driving targeted traffic to your business by registering multiple domain names.
Search Engines take your domain name into consideration as the primary source of keywords to indicate what your business or service is about. The TLD (Top Level Domain) also provides information about locality or region. For example a .com.au domain name will inform the search engine and users that the website is servicing primarily the Australia public.
Since the importance to search engine visibility relies on a suitable domain name, this is where Star 3 Media can assist you in researching suitable options, providing suggesting based on appropriate research and guide you to making an informed decision to benefit your marketing approach, then perform a domain name registration.
Be careful of abbreviations or acronyms with your domain name, as these shortened versions generally don't contain keywords firstly, so don't help search in that manner, or can also cause other conflict issues as the abbreviation may be confused or associated to other things non related to your own business!
It is feasible to use additional domain names to capture focus areas of your business in the online space and funnel these through to a dedicated micro site about this area in your business. A lot of a time a business with many different areas that they service or represent creates a diluted approach, where as the creation of a focused approach such as a micro website on a key area ensures a more targeted approach around the content and user expectations that match and lead to better conversion. This approach also increases your online footprint creating more visibility in specific industry channels and hence more traffic and hopefully more conversions!
Please feel free to talk to our online marketing advisors for more ideas.
Search Engines take your domain name into consideration as the primary source of keywords to indicate what your business or service is about. The TLD (Top Level Domain) also provides information about locality or region. For example a .com.au domain name will inform the search engine and users that the website is servicing primarily the Australia public.
Since the importance to search engine visibility relies on a suitable domain name, this is where Star 3 Media can assist you in researching suitable options, providing suggesting based on appropriate research and guide you to making an informed decision to benefit your marketing approach, then perform a domain name registration.
Be careful of abbreviations or acronyms with your domain name, as these shortened versions generally don't contain keywords firstly, so don't help search in that manner, or can also cause other conflict issues as the abbreviation may be confused or associated to other things non related to your own business!
It is feasible to use additional domain names to capture focus areas of your business in the online space and funnel these through to a dedicated micro site about this area in your business. A lot of a time a business with many different areas that they service or represent creates a diluted approach, where as the creation of a focused approach such as a micro website on a key area ensures a more targeted approach around the content and user expectations that match and lead to better conversion. This approach also increases your online footprint creating more visibility in specific industry channels and hence more traffic and hopefully more conversions!
Please feel free to talk to our online marketing advisors for more ideas.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Star 3 Media is on LinkedIn - Follow our Company
Perth, Western Australia based website design and development company On Star 3 Media is now on LinkedIn.com
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 80 million members and growing rapidly, and is really like a business version of Facebook. LinkedIn connects you to your trusted contacts and helps you exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader network of professionals. With our LinkedIn profile you can follow and connect with our staff and organisation as a whole and gain the benefit from following our company and receiving our special offers via this medium.
Also find out about our sister companies, and our activities on Facebook, FourSquare, Twitter and Blogger.
To follow us on LinkedIn search for Star 3 Media or visit the link:http://www.linkedin.com/company/star-3-media
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 80 million members and growing rapidly, and is really like a business version of Facebook. LinkedIn connects you to your trusted contacts and helps you exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader network of professionals. With our LinkedIn profile you can follow and connect with our staff and organisation as a whole and gain the benefit from following our company and receiving our special offers via this medium.
Also find out about our sister companies, and our activities on Facebook, FourSquare, Twitter and Blogger.
To follow us on LinkedIn search for Star 3 Media or visit the link:http://www.linkedin.com/company/star-3-media
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Star 3 Media on Facebook - Find us: Star 3 Media
Yes, your favourite Perth website design and development company Star 3 Media is continuing their Social Media updates for 2011 with a revamp of their online presence on Facebook. You can 'Like' our company Fan Page on Facebook by searching for us as: Star 3 Media
We'll be evolving our Facebook activity pretty quickly, and will have a lot of useful information, links and special offers for you to take advantage of.
With over 700,000+ Facebook users in Perth and 550 Million and growing world wide we hope to find a few friends out in Facebook.
Remember the whole idea of Social Media is a communication channel, and we want to connect with all our clients, future prospects, staff and friends and keep them up to date with what Star 3 Media is currently doing and planning to do in the near future. We want to hear from you, and love your feedback.
So remember to tell your friends about us as well as we grow our fan base and spread the word!
We'll be evolving our Facebook activity pretty quickly, and will have a lot of useful information, links and special offers for you to take advantage of.
With over 700,000+ Facebook users in Perth and 550 Million and growing world wide we hope to find a few friends out in Facebook.
Remember the whole idea of Social Media is a communication channel, and we want to connect with all our clients, future prospects, staff and friends and keep them up to date with what Star 3 Media is currently doing and planning to do in the near future. We want to hear from you, and love your feedback.
So remember to tell your friends about us as well as we grow our fan base and spread the word!
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Star 3 Media on Twitter @Star3Media
A bit of cross platform promotion this morning, as we let you know about Star 3 Media being on Twitter.
If you don't have a Twitter account and just want to see what we are saying you can visit the Twitter website to see our posts: http://twitter.com/Star3Media or see the latest tweets to the right hand side of our blog page within our Twitter Application window.
For those of you already on Twitter, please follow @Star3Media, and we'll follow you back as we will love to communicate with you and catch up online.
You may be in one of our #FF FollowFriday posts which will increase your exposure, and we're here to also provide valuable industry information, and details about our own company. So follow @Star3Media so you can get discounted services, find out about new seminars and hear about our success stories.
If you don't have a Twitter account and just want to see what we are saying you can visit the Twitter website to see our posts: http://twitter.com/Star3Media or see the latest tweets to the right hand side of our blog page within our Twitter Application window.
For those of you already on Twitter, please follow @Star3Media, and we'll follow you back as we will love to communicate with you and catch up online.
You may be in one of our #FF FollowFriday posts which will increase your exposure, and we're here to also provide valuable industry information, and details about our own company. So follow @Star3Media so you can get discounted services, find out about new seminars and hear about our success stories.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Star3 Media on FourSquare
When you come to visit Star3 Media (www.star3media.com.au) in our offices at: Suite 90, City West Business Centre, 102 Railway Street, West Perth, WA 6005 remember to 'Check-in' using the social media platform FourSquare.
Star3 Media location on FourSquare: http://foursquare.com/venue/7057732
We are encouraging our clients, visitors, seminar attendees and staff to join us online via www.FourSquare.com and connect to our business.
We'll be offering incentives for frequent visitors as well as "Tips" that are left. See if you can also get a photo of yourself in front of one of our signs and become the Mayor of Star3 Media!
If you would like to find out how your business can use FourSquare for online marketing please contact our online marketing group Search Group on 1300 100 000.
Star3 Media location on FourSquare: http://foursquare.com/venue/7057732
We are encouraging our clients, visitors, seminar attendees and staff to join us online via www.FourSquare.com and connect to our business.
We'll be offering incentives for frequent visitors as well as "Tips" that are left. See if you can also get a photo of yourself in front of one of our signs and become the Mayor of Star3 Media!
If you would like to find out how your business can use FourSquare for online marketing please contact our online marketing group Search Group on 1300 100 000.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Capturing consumers at a point of abandonment
Have you ever heard of a '404-Error' before?
If you have ever visited a page of a website that has been moved, deleted or renamed, or if you typed in part of the address wrong yourself or even clicked on a broken link, you’ll see an error telling you that there’s no page at that address. The technical name for this is a ‘404’ error - Page Not Found, and they’re very important to handle correctly.
When your website doesn’t have its own custom 404 error page, website users will see the hosting company's default error screen which as a general rule isn't all that useful, and starts to create a sense of frustration for website visitors, and in many cases becomes the point of abandonment for the user leaving your website. Once you've spent all the time and effort in driving traffic to a website we certainly don't want to see the user leave without spending time on your site!
It's actually possible to customise your 404 error pages that website visitors will see on your website. This allows you to make the page look exactly like any other page of your website maintaining your branding and professional appearance along with access to your site's navigation menu, but at the same time displaying a clear message to your visitors telling them that the page they were looking for has not been found. A simple statement to include on the page is: “Sorry, it looks like we couldn’t find the page you were looking for”. I also recommend the inclusion of a simple on-page site map or search box, so that the user can quickly locate the area or page of the website that they want to go to and you direct them along their way.
Remember that a 404 error page may be the first page a user sees of your website and it’s an error page. They might assume the entire site is down, where actually the only problem is that a page has been renamed. Users don't tend to expend the energy thinking about what the issue might be and problem solving this for you!
Some websites even use the 404 page as another place to push their products onto visitors. “We couldn’t find the page you were looking for… so why not have a look at these other items instead…”
I've even seen a few funny customised 404 error messages from companies used to generate 'viral' marketing, and encourage discussion about their company online such as the following:
Every website hosting operating system, and development application has a different manner in which they can implement customised 404 Error Pages, and some are definitely more complex then others. Star 3 Media like to provide well rounded website solutions to improve your online marketing efforts and can tailor a customised 404 Error Page to suit your brand requirements.
Our sister Perth SEO company Search Group (www.searchgroup.com.au) recommends monitoring error pages like your 404 error page in your website, using website analytics to determine what drives traffic to this point and identifying and resolving these problems whether internal or external causes.
If you would like to engage Star 3 Media to discuss a revamp or new website for your business please visit our website: www.star3media.com.au for further details or phone one of our experienced website account representatives on 1300 100 333.
Website Monitoring - Is your downtime affecting you?
There are a lot of factors when it comes to running a business online, but reliability of your website hosting is perhaps one of the most important factors - get it right and it is smooth sailing, working in the background and something that you will never worry about. Get it wrong, and you can be left hanging, with loss of business and loss of email communication.
Star3 Media like to keep their client's websites online front door open 24x7 to their website visitors. With advanced monitoring systems and technical staff on hand, to provide feedback and advice. If you find that your current hosting company is letting you down and your website is offline more than it is online, then talk to the team at Star3 Media on 1300 100 333 or visit the website www.star3media.com.au to see what solutions are available for you.
All our own internal client websites are monitored around the clock, and appropriate management and maintenance plans are in place to support a quality hosting solution.
Our sister Perth SEO company Search Group www.searchgroup.com.au advises clients on the importance of selecting suitable hosting arrangements to house their websites to promote local search activities particularly. They have found many entry level businesses who have been advised to get hosting over seas as it may have been cheaper at the time, but ended up costing them money in the long run - with the time difference over seas, many maintenance routines to servers and network infrastructure that may be planned for the middle of the night when there is relatively no traffic in the US, is right in the middle of the working day for Australians, which is not helpful! As well, the distance factor in round trip traffic leads to longer page rendering times that local hosting circumvents. But key to the recommendation is the local lookup factor as an assistance to promoting the local business factor association with the search algorithms.
Find out more about your local hosting options with Star3 Media by calling 1300 100 333 today.
Star3 Media like to keep their client's websites online front door open 24x7 to their website visitors. With advanced monitoring systems and technical staff on hand, to provide feedback and advice. If you find that your current hosting company is letting you down and your website is offline more than it is online, then talk to the team at Star3 Media on 1300 100 333 or visit the website www.star3media.com.au to see what solutions are available for you.
All our own internal client websites are monitored around the clock, and appropriate management and maintenance plans are in place to support a quality hosting solution.
Our sister Perth SEO company Search Group www.searchgroup.com.au advises clients on the importance of selecting suitable hosting arrangements to house their websites to promote local search activities particularly. They have found many entry level businesses who have been advised to get hosting over seas as it may have been cheaper at the time, but ended up costing them money in the long run - with the time difference over seas, many maintenance routines to servers and network infrastructure that may be planned for the middle of the night when there is relatively no traffic in the US, is right in the middle of the working day for Australians, which is not helpful! As well, the distance factor in round trip traffic leads to longer page rendering times that local hosting circumvents. But key to the recommendation is the local lookup factor as an assistance to promoting the local business factor association with the search algorithms.
Find out more about your local hosting options with Star3 Media by calling 1300 100 333 today.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Introducing Perth Web Design company Star3 Media
Who is Star3 Media?
Perth, Western Australia - specialist website design and development agency Star3 Media (www.star3media.com.au) has a long history of creating beautiful website designs and customised development for businesses in Perth. Star3 Media produce a range of graphic design, print related services as well as online marketing solutions to meet your business needs and most importantly - your businesses budget. Working alongside sister company Perth SEO specialists Search Group (www.searchgroup.com.au) we develop SEO friendly website designs ready to enhance your online marketing activities.
Our Services
Star3 Media provide custom programmed point of sale (POS) solutions and payroll solutions making your retail business more efficient and keeping you from being bogged down in paperwork!
We also offer the following:
Contacting Star3 Media
Address: Suite 90, Plaistowe Mews, City West Business Centre,
102 Railway Street, West Perth, WA 6005
Phone: 1300 100 333
Fax: 1300 100 111
Email: support@star3.com.au
Our Evolving Blog
Star3 Media will be continuing to regularly update our blog to provide tips, techniques and advice in regards to website design, development, hosting, domain names, SEO, SEM and Social Media as they evolve. We welcome your constructive comments along the way and hope you follow along with our informative series of posts.
Perth, Western Australia - specialist website design and development agency Star3 Media (www.star3media.com.au) has a long history of creating beautiful website designs and customised development for businesses in Perth. Star3 Media produce a range of graphic design, print related services as well as online marketing solutions to meet your business needs and most importantly - your businesses budget. Working alongside sister company Perth SEO specialists Search Group (www.searchgroup.com.au) we develop SEO friendly website designs ready to enhance your online marketing activities.
Our Services
Star3 Media provide custom programmed point of sale (POS) solutions and payroll solutions making your retail business more efficient and keeping you from being bogged down in paperwork!
We also offer the following:
- Web Design
- Graphic Design
- Logo and brand development
- Customised Programing
- Website Maintenance
- Marketing Merchandise
- Point of Sale System (POS)
- Professional Photography
- Flash and animation design
- Application Development
- Sound Studio
- Online Hosting Service
- Domain Name Registration
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Contacting Star3 Media
Address: Suite 90, Plaistowe Mews, City West Business Centre,
102 Railway Street, West Perth, WA 6005
Phone: 1300 100 333
Fax: 1300 100 111
Email: support@star3.com.au
Our Evolving Blog
Star3 Media will be continuing to regularly update our blog to provide tips, techniques and advice in regards to website design, development, hosting, domain names, SEO, SEM and Social Media as they evolve. We welcome your constructive comments along the way and hope you follow along with our informative series of posts.
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