The Internet has made a huge shift in recent times from the place to put brochure-ware websites on, to a place to where you can really interact with people in a vast number of ways.

More and more companies are looking to their sites as a real way to bring new clients into the business without the costs associated with traditional advertising or marketing methods.

As with any advertising or marketing efforts you need to be able to track it’s success (or failure). There are many great tools that can give you this information, and most are low cost, and even free. If you don’t have analytics software running on your site you need to talk to your designer and get them to get it up and running so you can continually tweak your site to make it an effective part of your marketing efforts.

By using analytics software and keeping a close eye on the traffic to and from your site you will know what keywords are and aren’t working for you on your website, what pages people come into your website on, what pages people leave from, and how long they have spent on your site. With this information you can better channel your visitors to the information they are looking for, and ultimately to a call to action where they either buy your product or service, or contact you for more information.

If your current designer can’t help with analytics software or you’d like more information, please drop us a line. We would love to have a free chat with you and show you how easy it is, and the benefits that this software can bring.

I met with a client just recently who had been getting a website built with another company. When they rang back to say they wanted to use Mayhem Design to finish the site they asked if I would be willing to come into their office and meet them in person. We always do this when we can as we believe that it is the best way to get an idea of what people want to achieve from their website.

When we were sitting over coffee and talking about the site, the client mentioned that the previous web designer would only communicate by email. No phone calls. No meetings. Only emails. I can’t believe that a customer service company would operate in this way.

At Mayhem Design we are happy to get together with you to discuss your web needs. Give us a call if you’d like to get together for a chat about how we can help you get the most out of the Internet.

Well, as with all good things, this blog is going to be something I am going to have to plan into my week otherwise days go by and I’m not writing anything.

My thoughts for today come from some work we have been doing for a client recently. When you are getting a website set up make sure you know why you are paying for what. A client of ours has been paying a hosting company for the hosting of their site (almost $400 per year) but wasn’t clearly told what her credit card was also being billed for to the tune of another USD$100 per year. It turns out that what she was paying on her credit card covered the whole cost of the hosting, and the middle-man hosting company was charging the almost AU$400 per year for not doing anything. While I believe that there is nothing wrong with a mark-up, I think this goes beyond the realms of fair business practice.

So my advice … make sure you know what each invoice is for, and for how long each renewal is.