Still scratching your head about a website? Take a look at this vide, that was on the TV Show, Kochies Business Builders. It covers a heap of ideas from Business Consultant, Linda Hailey.

At Design House, we have the Technical knowledge and Design Creativeness to build you a website that will work for your business.

Click here to watch the video

Posted in General Tips ~ No Comments

By Ben May

Peter Beattie from Hervey Bay Waterfront Apartments and I have a lot in common - we both love to have the most recent gadgets.  We both purchased the original iPhone when it came out, Peter and I together have had nearly every smart phone / PDA that has come out, from Dell PDAs, to HTC Touch and Diamonds, all very fun phones, but to date, the best phone either one of us have used, is the Apple iPhone - and more recently, the new Apple iPhone 3G.

I also help Peter with some of his IT and integrating it to his website and other things around the place, but just recently we have set up his bookings on a dedicated Windows server at one office where his administration team works, and he is constantly on the road, or at a combination of his units along the Hervey Bay Esplanade. While off-site, Peter needed to be able to remotely log in and access his Bookings and do sales off site, as well as his administration team doing the same.

We set up a simple VPN and Terminal Server which allowed him to connect from any Windows PC that was dialed into the network, and do the work he had to. However, after Peter just recently upgraded to a 3G/NextG Telstra iPhone, that supports high GSM speeds, supports VPN connections - we set up his iPhone to remotely dial in and connect to the bookings.

Also, using the MobileMe technology (Read More Here) Peter can make contacts, appointments and emails on his iPhone, or any of the computers and laptops he uses, and the MobileMe service keeps it all synchronized.

In other words, if one of his Administration team add an appointment at their main office, it will automatically be sent through to his iPhone and all other PC’s around Hervey Bay, and pop up there. Peter can also make appointments from the iPhone and they will be sent back to all the other computers that are connected.

The iPhone is an awesome piece of technology and I love using it to its fullest potential!

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By Ben May

I’ve been discussing this topic with a number of Website Designers and Developers online and it’s interesting to see what other people think, and the discussions that evolve.

When websites first came out, this whole “Search Engine” thing was not to be heard of, really the internet was quite boring, but by the year 2000, people had started to find websites by typing in key words into Search Engines like Google, that would direct them to pages that it could find on the entire internet.

For the last 3 - 5 years, a whole new industry has evolved from the web design sector, and that’s the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) industry. Some companies will pay a fortune for SEO experts to get their website to the top of all the Google searches for the terms they want. Well, that’s great isn’t it? People are now coming to your website after looking for something you must clearly provide. What interested me at the Web Directions South Conference in Sydney a few weeks back, was seminar that got me thinking “are they (people finding your website via Google etc) the right people you want on your website” ?

Sure some of them are going to be hot leads and then customers and that will be great, but there was a large percentage that were only on your site to look for cheap quotes and prices, in other words, time wasters or cold leads. The change in mindset from most businesses has been from “I Need a website” to ” I Need a website and I need it to be at the top of Google!”. While this is still very important to have your website at the top of Google and other search engines, it’s becoming more apparent that your advertising needs to more actively push consumers who are using traditional media, such as radio, paper, magazine and signage to your website and get them there that way.

Simply relying on SEO entirely to find your website is a bad move, you need to actively tell people about your website, and get them there that way as well.

At Design House - all our websites are built with your SEO at mind, we include a very good SEO pack with every website to help get it online quickly and efficiently, creating the desired result for our clients.

Posted in Technology / Photography ~ No Comments