You may wonder what the  image means on this blog page? You most likely see this image on many websites - particularly those that contain a considerable amount of information that changes regularly. This images refers to RSS.

What is RSS?

Why RSS? Benefits and Reasons for using RSS

How to Set up RSS in your inbox

(With thanks to Smashing Magazine - for great information about making the most of your product images)

An often neglected part of any website is the calibre of the photography. It is not just a matter of picking up a digital camera and snapping away. Whilst you can get away with this perhaps in the content areas of your site the display of your products inside your online store is critical to the success of your online business.

We have some tips below on

• Preparing your product
• Light
• Getting your camera ready
• Editing your photos &
• Bringing in the professionals!

Why?

"Without the ability to touch, hold, smell, taste or otherwise handle the products they are interested in, potential customers have only images to interact with.

Ultimately, the softer, tastier, flashier an d more attractive your products look to shoppers, the more confident they’ll feel about purchasing from you and the better your conversion rate will be.”

...smashing magazine

While any product can look great on a digital camera or in a frame, it is often harder to match your website’s overall look and feel and your company’s image.

Smashing magazine has pulled together some great examples of how some of the big e-tailers display their products, whilst you may not have the budgets of these organizations, sometimes that investment in either external resources or some great digital camera gear pays for itself!

Have a browse through some of these sites for examples of great photography.

Ties.com – great use of zooms and super clear photography
Made.com – images are shown from multiple angles and perspectives
Harry Winston-  - stripped back design that focuses your eye solely on the array of glittering gems before you!
Louis Vuitton  - Hi-res shots and zooms to highlight detailing.
CuffLinks.com– a great site to demonstrate how to showcase small images

So what are some of the key items to look for when taking your photos or better yet commissioning an external resource to do this for you.

Prepare Product

To take quality photographs, the complexity and time required will depend greatly on the type of product you’re shooting. Solid objects can be very easy to manage, they may just need a good clean!

Clothing and other items that can bend, stretch and wrinkle are much harder to photograph and could require hours of ironing and arranging to get a perfect result. Details, like whether a shirt collar is straight, will determine whether the photographs look like they were shot in a serious studio or by an amateur with a point-and-shoot camera. Are you an online business or just selling online at ebay!

Whatever the product, inspect it carefully for tears, stains, chips and other imperfections before beginning.

Get all your products ready to go, ensure that once have made all your camera settings right that you can easily swap your products around within the setting  - particularly important if you are going to use a professional to take your shots.

Organization will be the key to keeping this a cost effective exercise.

Light

To get a great-looking photo, lighting is crucial. Ensure that you are allowing for shadows and reflections – this is often the hardest part for the amateur and where you may decide you need to bring in the professionals to assist with this process as they can make use of light tents and reflectors to showcase your product in the best possible light.

Get your camera ready

Watch out for noticeable light reflections on shiny surfaces. Even though most product photos look very ‘staged’, you don’t want yours to look too artificial.

Obviously, you’ll need a camera to take pictures, so make sure you have a good one. It doesn’t have to be the best or most expensive on the market, but it should at least have manual focus and shutter and aperture controls. These are all standard on most SLR cameras. So the standard digital camera will not suffice for your product shots!

Do you need a tripod?

Most likely yes as you will need to keep the angles consistent for your shots. Your product photos, in fact your entire website will look much better in the long term if you keep your images consistent. Consistent backgrounds, size and angles all contribute to a smooth customer experience.
Once you’ve arranged the product and lighting equipment, take a few test shots until you get an exposure that isn’t too bright or too dark.

Photo Editing

Keep your photos a consistent size when cropping them – make all images either portrait or landscape – but make all of them the same. Portrait images tend to work best in a online store.

Note the size of both your thumbnails and your large image – as you may be able to run a little script to resize them all at once saving time. Talk to us about some solutions for image management.

Bring in the professionals

I have said it before - you do not have to do this yourself, we can recommend some good photographers in your area that have studios set up ready to go - perfect for staging product shots. If you are organised, then this can be a very worthwhile exercise and worth every cent.

Money spent at this stage could help generate thousands online for your store!

For more information on successful product images please visit Smashing Magazine or talk to us, we are happy to make recommendations or talk through how images can work on your site.

Visit  the online store section of our website to view some recent examples - Mary and Me have some particularly good supplier provided images and Woolerina - also has some great examples of images where the background has been removed to enure consistency

back to top

Thank you to all those new fans on Facebook and those who are following us on Twitter - next month we will reveal who won the Chumby! ( What's a chumby? - become a fan on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and see if you can win it!)

We also have some spaces left for our free in-house training next week, it is a general session, but I will be placing a particular emphasis on how to read your statistic reports. Click here if you would like to book now!

Lots of great new sites in our launch pad - check them out now!

Our launch pad area uses our web application tool to allow us to highlight our case studies in a variety of classifications. We offer this same tool to our clients, but build the database from the ground up to suit you - if you would like to know more about this tool, contact us now

Kind regards
Leanne O'Sullivan - General Manager


Connect with me on Linked in!

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Client Spotlight - CANFA

Each week, we receive an email overview of our clients' site traffic, so that we can keep an eye on their website traffic and monitor in a general sense what is happening web-wise with their business. This highlights to us those business that are successfrully using their tools to build their brand, the reputation and their client base via increased site traffic and site activity (as well as those clients that need a hand!)

This month, I would like to focus the telescope on CANFA - Conservation Farming and No-Till Farming Association Inc.

CANFA is a long term client, having had 2 sites developed with us over the years. What we have seen from them in the last 12 months has been wonderful with great use of regular email newsletters that direct their audience back to their website. Their website is a comprehensive resource tool for their members and followers.

Integration of video and regular news and announcement updates has become a feature of their site - which has seen traffic double over the last 6 months.

Visit their site now - http://www.canfa.com.au - we note that the Conservation Farmer of the Year is to be announced on the 16th September 2010, good luck to the nominees!

 

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Training Program - 2010

August In-House training- General - but with a focus on understanding your reports ( site traffic statistics and more!)
September In-House training- Email Marketing focus - filling up fast!
October In-House training- SEO Techniques - some basics - NEW COURSE
November In-House training- Announcements and Bookings
December- Social Media Techniques - Facebook, Twitter and Linked in - it's not just for your kids!

Contact support today to book your place!

Remember additional help available inside our client member area with how to guides, FAQ's and also video demonstrations.

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Support Centre

Just a reminder that the fastest way to communicate with us is to email support@bosweb.com.au.

This is a group email accessed by several staff to ensure that we do not miss any questions.

Alternatively 1300 721 481 - option '2' is your next fastest option.

This week I was asked to speak at the NSW Top Tourist Park State Conference about web development, online marketing strategies and social media. It was a great opportunity to speak with business owners in the tourism sector, a market segment that has been revolutionized in the last 10 years with the impact of the internet.

Apart from briefly introducing them to Facebook and Twitter, we also spent some time speaking about the importance of the language on their websites - that is it a true reflection of the type of business that they are.

Remember you have a limited window in which to grab your viewers attention and commit them to clicking on the BOOK NOW button, we covered a few key points about web content writing.

• Keep it short and sweet! 2 screen lengths is ample for most small business sites, Unless you have a highly technical business or are a government agency, there really is little need to make your viewer scroll to see all your text
• Viewers are scanning and not reading - you need to HIGHLIGHT your points, use numbered lists or bullet points
• An image is worth a thousand words - capture the essence of your business with great photography, engage a professional if you can - that 2-3 hours of their time is money well spent
• Grammar and spelling - check it! Nothing detracts from a good looking site than sloppy text.
• Be interesting, bring your personality into your website text, you are not writing an instruction manual! Be professional, but also be warm, inviting and in the style and nature of your business. You know how to talk to your customers - imagine you are meeting face to face or on the phone - adjust your writing to suit.
• Bring in the professionals - if you really are struggling, engage a professional to re-write your copy, again money well spent if you can put your best web-face forward!

Email newsletters aren't just printed newsletters delivered electronically. They must be written using a different style for a unique reading environment. These top 10 points will help you publish a successful and valuable email newsletter.

1. Remember that your reader is reading light, not matter (ink). When reading light we blink less often and we're unable to adjust text size by moving the document closer or farther from our eyes. This causes more eyestrain than reading the printed page.

 2. Remember that because of this potential eyestrain, your reader will more likely scan a page, looking for key words or phrases to get the information he/she needs without reading every word. A Sun Microsystems study determined that 79 percent of people who visit Web pages, for example, don't read them...they scan them.

3. Remember that you only have a few seconds to capture your reader's attention. Wow your reader with valuable information that doesn't have a lot of introductory material.

4. Write short. Short means about 50 percent less than you write for a printed newsletter. Each article should be about two page-downs at the most with a maximum sentence length of 15 to 20 words, maximum paragraph length of five sentences, and a maximum article length of four paragraphs. Remember...these are maximums!

5. Remember to write in a conversational tone. Newsletters are written with "friendly authority". Let your personality show through and readers will more likely invest their time reading what you have to say.

6. Remember to use lots of bullet points and numbered lists. Lists are easy to scan and they help the reader absorb each item one at a time.

7. Remember to limit each article to a single concept. Add resources such as web sites where longer articles or more information can be found.

8. Remember that email newsletters are easily forwarded. Never write anything that you wouldn't want the whole world (including your competition) to read.

9. Remember that email newsletters only cost you your time. Send your newsletter out consistently and reap the marketing rewards of regular contact. Email newsletters are one of today's most economical and successful marketing tools. Use it!

10. Remember that newsletters are considered a news source. Unlike other direct mail pieces, newsletters enjoy the same status as newspapers and other news media. Respect this privilege. Be sure your information is accurate and newsworthy.

Enjoy the marketing advantage while maintaining integrity to your readers.

These tips were picked up from http://www.powerhomebiz.com/vol24/emailnewsletter.htm

Happy New Financial Year!

I hope you started 1/7/10 with renewed vigour for the possibilities ahead - we did!

This week saw Facebook pass 500 million users - an unbelievable number. What will this mean in the future for the online world and the impact on social media. We have been tweeting quite regularly this year and Brendon has some thoughts below and in his latest blog post.

With the election approaching we will again see the increasing role that social media plays in our world, in communicating messages to our audience and in the efforts to persuade or guide our decisions, be they voting decisions or buying decisions!

On a quick note our ecommerce course for next week is full and we have created a new in-house session covering SEO basics - and if you don't know what SEO means - then this course is for you!

We have had some great sites go live recently - make sure you visit the Launch Pad.

Kind regards
Leanne O'Sullivan - General Manager


Connect with me on Linked in!

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Bosweb Systems and Social Media

We are very much into Social Media and the advantages it provides to networking and marketing your online business.

Each day we tweet & update information of interest that may educate, assist your business or give you some idea’s on the benefits of the concept of ‘Social Media’. 

We recommend our clients follow us on Twitter for urgent announcements and include our latest tweet and facebook stream at our website so that viewers can follow us - even if they are not quite in the Twitterverse as yet!

In addition viewers at our website can Retweet case studies or our blog posts and Facebook Users can ‘Share’ and ‘Like’ what they see. Have a look at the Central West Catchment Authority case study for a good example of this in action.

For a brief video introduction to Social Media visit our latest blog post - Social Media in Plain English

We also invite you to connect with us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Simply click on the icons below!

Contact Us today to see how we can integrate these services into your website!

What to know more about these tools - book into our December in house training course

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Training Program - 2010

Limited places in September for email marketing.

July In-House training- eCommerce special - FULL 
August In-House training- General
September In-House training- Email Marketing focus - filling up fast!
October In-House training- SEO Techniques - some basics - NEW COURSE
November In-House training- Announcements and Bookings
December- Social Media Techniques - Facebook, Twitter and Linked in - it's not just for your kids!

Contact support today to book your place!

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Support Centre

Just a reminder that the fastest way to communicate with us is to email support@bosweb.com.au.

This is a group email accessed by several staff to ensure that we do not miss any questions.

Alternatively 1300 721 481 - option '2' is your next fastest option.

No one really knows what “Social Media” is as many people use the term for different things. This video however explains in plain English what I consider social media to represent.

Since Twitter's launch in 2007, it has seen huge growth and has become one of the dominant players when it comes to social media. If you're trying to establish an online presence, and have no idea what Twitter is - or aren't using it in some way to promote your brand - you haven't been paying attention.

"Twittering" has become a national phenomenon with its use trailing slightly behind Facebook's. Recently Twitter shared some interesting statistics at "Chirp", the Twitter developer conference.

    – 105,779,710 registered users of Twitter

    – Approximately 55 million Tweets being sent daily

    – 180 million unique visitors monthly

    – Signing up 300,000 new users daily

    – Twitter's search engine getting 600 million searches daily

For more stats, see http://tinyurl.com/2b8749v. Another Report, "Twitter Usage in America: 2010" by Edison Research, that presented three years of tracking date from national telephone surveys, found Twitter's awareness has exploded from 5% of Americans in 2008 to 87% in 2010. Another stat shows that 51% of active Twitter users follow companies, products or brands on social networks. For the complete report see: http://edisonresearch.com/twitter_usage_2010.php.

Having said that, the problem all along has been how to take all of this growth and turn Twitter into a service that generates revenue. It has always been free to use, but like any company, Twitter's objective is to make money. Enter "Promoted Tweets", Twitter's new advertising program. It's very similar to Google Adwords. Advertisers bid on keywords and when a search is done on Twitter, triggering one of those keywords, an ád will be shown at the top of the results page - at least in phase one of the rollout. Only one promoted Tweet will be shown on the search results page.

Twitter's pricing model will eventually use the "Resonance Score" in some way down the road, but they first need to collect the data so they can "better understand the value of promoted Tweets."

Before you get too excited, understand that the initial launch of Promoted Tweets is limited to a handful of customers. The Initial test pool includes customers such as: Starbucks, Bravo, Virgin America, Best Buy, Sony Pictures. These are big companies with very deep pockets.

Advertising to Twitter users is not a new concept. There are other third party advertising programs already in place, such as www.SponsoredTweets.com and http://paymetweets.com, among others, who have been selling ads in Twitter streams for a long time. How will Twitter's new ad program affect them? Twitter recently announced they will not allow third parties to inject ads into timelines. A bold move on Twitter's part, and putting them in a good position to be the dominant player when it comes to Twitter ads. For more see http://tinyurl.com/2b3wpp6.

Everybody will be holding their breath to see how Twitter users respond to this new advertising program. Some feel it's an invasion of their privacy, and other loyal users fear Twitter has sold out to "Commercialism". Whatever your feelings, ads are coming to Twitter - and who can fault a company for trying to earn a profit.

About The Author

Merle's Mission Blog - "Rants, Raves and Random Acts of Kindness" a self-proclaimed "Internet Junkie" with a passion for net marketing, affiliate marketing, social networking. An avid Blogger and writer with several niche sites to her credit. Find out more at merlesworld.blogspot.com & follow on Twitter at twitter.com/msmerle

End of Financial Year already! I seem to remember I was just coming back to work from Christmas only a few weeks ago. Where does the year go.

Last newsletter I announced a new member to our team - Andrew Newman. He has proved to be a great asset to our support team and I know that many clients have already had the opportunity to work with Andrew on their web site.

In this newsletter, we are please to announce another new member to our in-house team - Jason Rankmore. Jason is joining our web team as a Graduate Web Developer. We are looking forward to seeing his work in our newest sites.


Kind regards
Leanne O'Sullivan - General Manager

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Our new website launched

Finally our new website has gone live!

In addition to a complete makeover, we make extensive use of web applications, blogs, announcements, literature items and our photogallery tool.

Haven't visited yet? Check out www.boswebsystems.com.au, especially the 'Launch Pad' and 'Mission Control' for overviews of our products, hints and tips.
 
If you see features you like - talk to us today

Not following us on Twitter or Facebook? Follow bosweb now!

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Training Program - 2010

Limited places for ecommerce training in July and also September for email marketing.

July In-House training- eCommerce special - filling up fast!
August In-House training- General
September In-House training- Email Marketing focus - filling up fast!
October In-House training- General
November In-House training- Announcements and Bookings Focus
December- Social Media Techniques

Contact support today to book your place!

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Support Centre

Just a reminder that the fastest way to communicate with us is to email support@bosweb.com.au.

This is a group email accessed by several staff to ensure that we do not miss any questions.

Alternatively 1300 721 481 - option '2' is your next fastest option.

Brendon came across this great article that is worth summarising and repeating in our blog.

The foundation of any great website will always remain content.

It is the key to a successful site.

The greatest looking site, with the best SEO strategy will still fail if once people arrive there they do not buy, enquire or interact with you in some way.

It is like the grooviest, most expensive TV campaign, radio ad or newspaper blitz to get you inside your favourite retail outlet.  You may go in - but you may not buy!

and it is really is all about the buying, or the ordering or the feedback form or the interaction, isn't it!

For those not following us on Facebook or Twitter - the article link is here. 

It outlines the various steps that are needed to make a great site, content, usability ( can your viewers use your site easily), SEO, Social Media and then at the very top PPC - Pay per click.

If you would like to speak more with us about revamping your site content - contact us now!