Latest Articles by PeteFick http://www.articletrader.com/ Articles at ArticleTrader en-us Social Networking – Online Only is not Enough http://www.articletrader.com/society/dating/social-networking-online-only-is-not-enough.html http://www.articletrader.com/society/dating/social-networking-online-only-is-not-enough.html Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0500
Join a friend network online. 

Friend networks are a sub-set of social networks but with an emphasis on making friends and meeting people. There are several social networking sites with Global focus but I am interested only in a friend network that is local. This could be local to my country – too wide, local to my sate – still too wide or perhaps to my community. Now that’s what I am after; a friend network within my immediate community. I can explain the reasons…

If you are like me then you don’t just want to make friends online. I want to use the online community to find friends and to communicate with them regularly. I also want to extend my friendships beyond just online. Although the internet has changed so much in recent years and has become much more sophisticated in meeting the needs of social networking users, there is no substitute for in-person contact.

Human relationships are personal. I want to extend my online relationships to the real world. Ideally, I can meet up with people I meet and get to know online and when appropriate to invite one or maybe more of them to meet with me for coffee or some other activity. So it makes sense for me to find a friend network that is local because I don’t want to travel across the country to meet.

So what functionality am I looking for in a friend network or social networking site? The most important capabilities include such things as blogs, a photo gallery, smiles pack, speed dating, search facility, cupid mail, matchmaking, guestbook, ability to limit access to my profile to only my friends etc. I am also keen to enjoy communication channels such as chat, audio/video instant messaging, a whiteboard, a music player and video player. Where can I find such a network in Australia? Well I have found one that might work for me - Linkau.

Once you register, you can select the communities that you with to belong to. If you choose to belong to a national community, you can. If you want to belong to a smaller community such as your town or city, you can. At the moment, there is just one downside – not many people have subscribed yet.

The Linkau network is still new to Australia so there are not yet many subscribers. It supports the concept of community networks and has all the facilities I need. However, I think this will change. I really hope it does and that is part of the reason for writing this article. I would like to encourage more people to join the friend network because if they do then Linkau will take off and I will be much more likely to meet people and mane friends in my local community.

The Online Friend Network is a great place to get started and to make friends online with people of similar interests. If you are anything like me then you want a facility that saves you time, is local to your community and enables you to develop friendships that extend beyond just online.


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If you are looking for a place to make friends in your local Australian community, consider a friend network with community portals.  This will enable you to extend friendships beyond just the internet.

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> Internet Marketing – what is it? http://www.articletrader.com/internet/online-business/internet-marketing-what-is-it.html http://www.articletrader.com/internet/online-business/internet-marketing-what-is-it.html Mon, 25 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0600
Marketing has many definitions and not all are the same. I like to think of marketing as “communicating with customers”. So which customers? To be more specific, I like to think of marketing as communicating with current and prospective customers in your chosen markets. This introduces the term market and this is critical because it begins to draw out differences that relate to a defined group of the population that we will call our “chosen segment”.

Webwings Internet Marketing goes to some lengths to understand the chosen market because it is not possible to apply effective marketing without understanding that this segment really is. With that understanding, communications can be tailored. Let me illustrate the point.

Imagine that you wish to communicate with teenagers in lower socio economic groups. These people have certain beliefs and attitudes and of course they have their own style of communicating. Imagine that you are communicating with retired people from affluent society. The language you would use to communicate with them would be quite different; wouldn’t it? 

I think I have summarized what I think marketing is about and the importance of clearly defining and understanding your target market segment. Now to the internet…

Internet marketing is obviously about communicating with our chosen customer segment online. This brings in the vagaries of communicating in a medium that is quite different to face-to-face, print or television. The internet is a highly interactive medium where customers can achieve their goals very quickly. Website visitors read web pages very differently to the way they read a newspaper or magazine. So the style of communications needs to be tailored to the medium.

I know that this is probably a lot to take in and to think about. At Webwings, we take our clients through rigorous strategy and design processes to reach agreement on the right way to approach the clients market. Then we can get on with what is typically regarded as internet marketing. That is, search engine optimization, online advertising, and search engine advertising.

Most businesses on the web have a website presence. Most do not deliver on the desired business goals. We often find that this is partly to do with lack of context for subsequent web site design. Typically, websites have been developed by technical people – not marketers.

If you have a website that is not working for you, then consider the sophisticated internet marketing approaches from true internet marketing firms like Webwings Internet Marketing in Brisbane Australia.

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Pete Fick is an internet marketing professional and works for Webwings Internet Marketing Brisbane.

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> Delivering Great Customer Experiences Online http://www.articletrader.com/internet/web-design/delivering-great-customer-experiences-online.html http://www.articletrader.com/internet/web-design/delivering-great-customer-experiences-online.html Fri, 21 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0600

The persona we like to use is a one-page document that contains a picture of the customer, a summary of their demographics and some psychographic information to help the reader to understand who this person is.  Let’s say for example, that you were designing a website to sell running shoes.  Many people wear running shoes such as ladies who use them to walk to work before switching to high heels, athletes, aging athletes who are looking for that edge, gardeners, laborers and gardeners.  If your target audience were to be environmentally conscious and disagree with the exploitation of low cost labor in foreign countries, then your communication would be quite different to someone who was looking for the extra marginal performance needed to improve their long distance road race times.


With an understanding of your customer, a good web site designer can get to work on copyright.  What would you say to our environmentally friendly customer when they visited the web site?  Would you sell yourself on the low cost of the shoes due to the saving that you have been able to pass on by having them manufactured in a developing nation?  No.  This would not sell.  Perhaps you might talk about the materials that the shoes are made of and the impact on the environment that will have when you finally discard them.


Really great web site design draws on these customer insights to create the type of experiences that a customer would prefer.  If customers prefer visiting a website that has been well designed to meet their needs than it goes without saying that this will give the website an advantage over others that might be attempting to attract the same visitor.  Good web site design can be a competitive advantage.

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Pete Fick


Pete is a web site designer and search engine optimisation specialist.


Webwings Internet Marketing

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> Unlock Brand Equity through Search Engine Optimisation http://www.articletrader.com/internet/site-promotion/unlock-brand-equity-through-search-engine-optimisation.html http://www.articletrader.com/internet/site-promotion/unlock-brand-equity-through-search-engine-optimisation.html Sun, 18 Nov 2007 00:00:00 -0600 search engine optimisation.We explore this question in more detail below...

Firstly, let's consider what brand equity is. Wikipedia describes brand equity as the value that customers and prospects perceive in a brand. It is all about trust, i.e. how much trust customers perceive in the brand. A high level of trust leads to customer loyalty which has long term benefits for your company. It is also what comes to a customers mind when they think about your brand. The more positive the image in the customers mind, the higher the value.

So how does this value manifest itself; where's the benefit to your company? Well, if customers trust a brand they will be willing to pay a higher price than for competitive brands. In this case it is customers who perceive value in your brand, products and services beyond what they could buy at a lower price. The value accrues in other ways too. Have you ever wondered why companies are often valued more highly in the stock market than their book value? This typically occurs when shareholders perceive value in the business beyond today; i.e. they perceive some future value that is worth paying a higher price for today. We know that it takes time to build brand equity or trust so a strong brand has lasting value.

Why is it important? Fundamentally it is about competitive advantage. It is very difficult to outperform a competitor with a strong brand that has equity. As mentioned before, people pay premiums for strong brands.
OK, enough of the theory. How does this relate to search engine optimisation? Let me explain.

Increasingly consumers are shopping online. They value the convenience, efficiency and anonymity of researching product and service needs online. Recently iProspect conducted research into the attitudes of online shoppers and discovered that businesses that rank highly in the search engines have strong brand equity. Thirty nine percent of search engine users believe that the highest ranked companies are the leaders in their field. So, apart from the obvious benefits of ranking highly in search engines, i.e. the higher number of visitors to your web site, there is also a level of trust being created. Isn't that interesting? Just by placing highly in the search engines, your business could be building trust and long term loyalty with consumers.

Search engine optimisation is critical to success of any online business. Strong positioning in search engines builds brand equity and strong brands create sources of competitive advantage.

At Webwings Internet Marketing, we help business to succeed online and search engine optimisation is critical to that success.

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Pete Fick

Search Engine Optimisation

Webwings Internet Marketing Brisbane

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> Web Sites Do Not Work http://www.articletrader.com/internet/web-design/web-sites-do-not-work.html http://www.articletrader.com/internet/web-design/web-sites-do-not-work.html Fri, 16 Nov 2007 00:00:00 -0600 Most businesses have web sites that simply do not work.  There is too much focus on cost reduction and technical wizardry.  There is a way to turn this around though; let me explain.

The internet channel is relatively new to business and consequently generates less revenue than more established, more traditional channels like retail shops and call centres.  So business owners do not care.  This is a big mistake!  Here’s why.

Consumers are turning to the internet to dream and research.  They dream about their holidays, their home renovation or their garden upgrade.  When they are more serious, they research their specific needs on web sites that they found while dreaming or on search engines. 

To keep costs down, many businesses turn to low cost web site design agencies.  These agencies are competent at developing web sites and have the technical capabilities but most have no concept of user based design.  What I mean by this is that they do not design the web site for the target customer. 

Best practice web site design centres on the customer persona.  What is a persona?  It is typically a one page document that clearly describes the target customer.  It contains such things as a photo, age group, socio-demographics, beliefs, values and attitudes.  With this knowledge, user based designers can target the website to appeal to the target customer.

This is the context for good copyright.  Once the target customer has been defined, the copyrighter can create communications that resonate with this target group.  More than that, they appeal to the psychology of the customer.

Finally, few web sites have a clear call to action.  What do you want the visitor to do when they visit the site?  Is this obvious when you visit the web site?   Is the call to action compelling for the target customer?

So, most web sites don’t work because they are not designed to meet a customer need.  They are more likely to be designed to look pretty or to take advantage of the latest technical fad.  These technical capabilities are only useful when they contribute to achievement of the web site goals. 

Do not compromise on good web site design. It does not pay.

Pete Fick
Web site design
www.webwings.com.au



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Pete Fick

Web site design

Webwings Internet Marketing

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> Web site Hosting - beware website reviews http://www.articletrader.com/internet/web-hosting/web-site-hosting-beware-website-reviews.html http://www.articletrader.com/internet/web-hosting/web-site-hosting-beware-website-reviews.html Fri, 16 Nov 2007 00:00:00 -0600
Like most webmasters, I created a list of things I thought were of importance when selecting a company to host my web applications. I chose to prioritize around performance and reliability and if I were to select a provider today, I would still choose these attributes but would look out for more. Let me explain...

Naturally I thought I would find the most suitable web hosting solution by searching on Google for reviews. This worked! I cam across many great reviews and found a few really performing well in many. In fact, two or three consistently rated highest. I thought I was on to a winner. Then I discovered something disturbing.

Some of the web hosting companies create their own websites to review web hosting providers and then, as you might suspect, rank their own services very highly. The more review websites they create the more prevalent their own services seem to rate. To the unsuspecting shopper, this can be disastrous. You may well end up selecting a company that does not perform relatively well at all but worse than that, you now have your important information being managed by people of dubious behaviour. So how do you get around this?

I found that the best way to find a web host is to look for user reviews. These have proven to be the most reliable. Try some of the bloggs as well. You can get some great information on those web sites. There is nothing like reading about the experiences of real users to get a good insight into the quality of the service.

Finally, when you have been using the services of a web hosting company for some time, give back to the community by rating your service provider on some of these websites.

Beware when selecting a web hosting provider - not all is as it seems! I would select my provider from user reviews and would rate customer service as high as performance, reliability and cost.

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Pete Fick

Web Site Hosting

Webwings Internet Marketing

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> Turn your Bathroom Around http://www.articletrader.com/home-and-family/home-improvement/turn-your-bathroom-around.html http://www.articletrader.com/home-and-family/home-improvement/turn-your-bathroom-around.html Wed, 24 Oct 2007 00:00:00 -0500
Bathroom vanities are the centre piece in every bathroom. As you enter the room, your eyes are drawn to the vanity and very often the experience is undifferentiated. Yet this is not necessary. There are so many different styles of bathroom vanities in the market today that the buyer is bound to find something that not only differentiates, but also provides the experience they are looking for.

Two of the more stylish bathroom vanity styles are the glass vanity units and the timber bathroom vanities. The glass vanity units are often coloured today and are normally supported by stainless steel or chrome brackets and contain chrome plated taps and accessories. Some of the most stylish timber vanities have matching mirrors which are integrated with shelving or cabinet doors. This is great for storage or for placing ornaments.

Finally, bathroom vanities can create such a different mood and experience for the visitor. So when the time comes to sell the house, people will notice (and could be pleasantly surprised) by a modern stylish bathroom vanity. It very well could be factor in their buying decision.

It's time for Australians to turn their bathrooms around. Consider replacing your plain old white bathroom vanities with one of the more modern and stylish options in either timber or glass. Then you can enjoy starting and finishing your day the right way.


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Vanity Ware
Bathroom Vanities

Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]>