Happy Chinese New Year!!!

The Year of The Tiger begins on February 14th.  Wayang Times predicts that drama, intensity, change and travel will be the keywords for 2010. The Year of the Tiger will bring far reaching changes for everyone. New inventions and incredible technological advances have a good chance of occurring. For all of the Chinese horoscope signs, this year is one to be active – seizing opportunities and making the most of our personal and very individual talents. Everything happens quickly and dramatically in a Tiger year – blink and you could miss an important chance of a lifetime!

One of the most challenging things for any busy business person to do is to keep up to date with technology and related trends.

Over the past few years we have seen a MASSIVE increase in the use of Social Marketing to promote business on line.  Many business owners have heard of Facebook and Twitter but fewer know how to use them to build their brand.

Over the Christmas break we noticed that friends kept picking our brains regarding Social Marketing because they know we use it!  Common questions were:

• How do I use Facebook to promote my business?
• What's a Facebook Fan Page?
• I've heard of this thing called Twitter - tell me more.....

Instead of telling everyone one-at-a-time, we have some course ideas in place but we need your input too!  Click here and tell us what you would like to know more about.

Register your interest today in upcoming courses. Click here to complete a quick online survey and we will advise you when a course becomes available.

Business Tips - Drop Box

When we build websites our client's often have large photos to send us. Most of you have probably discovered by now that emailing that large photo, say 10MB doesn't work.

"Why not?"  I hear your cry!  Well there are a couple of reasons: 

1. 1.  When non-textual "content" is emailed, it gets "UUEncoded".  This is the technique that turns no-text into a stream of text - goobledegook, but text non the less.  This process typically increases the email size by 50% so your 10MB file becomes 15MB.
    
2. Most mail servers limit email size to 10MB so now your email with the image is way too big.
    
3. Most people are connected to the Internet via ADSL which has a "phat" pipe bring information down but a skinny pipe sending it back.  Microsoft Outlook struggles with this unless you increase the mail timeout and this can sometimes result in people getting your larger emails 2 or 3 or even 20 times!  YAY :(

Fortunately there is a better way:  Drop Box!

Drop Box (www.dropbox.com) is a website that allows you to upload and download large files for free.  Even on skinny ADSL connections, Drop Box only uploads 1 copy to the website.

Once uploaded, you can share a folder with others who can download your files.

There is even a desktop program and an iPhone application if you want to get really serious.

The way we use Drop Box is to create a folder for each client and share it with them.  Drop Box will email our client a link when they can upload their files.

Once our client has uploaded their files, they will email us telling us to check their folder.

If you need more storage space, your free account can be upgraded....

Drop Box is a fantastic tool for any company moving large files around.

Disclaimer - we use Drop Box because it is good - not because we have been paid to promote it!! If you need assistance or more information regarding Drop Box, contact us today on 9200 4431 or admin@insilico.com.au

Latest Websites

Soroptimist International of Helena Content Management System www.si-helena.org.au

Advanced Entrypoint Automation Content Management System www.entrypointautomation.com.au

insilico Content Management System www.insilico.com.au

Is Your Website Being Found?

So, you've finally done it! You've built your first website for your business! Now you can just sit back and all that business will fly in through the door, won't it?

What? It won't?

What do you mean that there are 7 million other pages about businesses just like mine? But the Internet is the way of the future - how can there be 7 million people ahead of me?

Now you need to promote your website!!  There are several ways to do that, but before we do that, is your website being found?

Don't know? Then try this simple test:

Open a web browser - any web browser will do. Go to your favourite search engine - I'll use Google. Type your website address into the search box, starting with www & click the search button.

You should see your website at the top of the list of search results. If not, you might need to submit your website to the search engines for indexing.

Do it now:

• Google: http://www.google.com.au/addurl/
• Yahoo!: http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit
• Bing!: http://www.bing.com/webmaster/SubmitSitePage.aspx

This can take up to 7 weeks, so lets keep going...

While the 'spiders' crawl over your website to add it to their database, you can tell other websites about your shiny new website too!

Google Local Business Centre is a good place to start. Click here to add your details now - Google will contact you to confirm your details and then they'll add you to the directory.

Add as much information about your business and services as you can as this information is scanned when people are searching Google so more is better.

Yahoo! has one too!

Do you belong to an association like Master Builders? Do you have a listing on their website? Can you add your website? Then do it now?

And do you belong to any networking organisations? Add your website there too!

And why are we doing all of this? Because the search engines like links - the more links to your website the more important they think it is.

Email admin@insilico.com.au NOW if you would like to receive a list of free online business directories that you can register your website on.

OK - so what else?

There's SEO - Search Engine Optimisation - getting found in the search engines because your website contains what people are searching for.

And how do we know what that is?

Well... we don't... but the people you want to attract to your website are the people who want what you have to sell, right?

So it's important to put words on your website that tell people what you do in ways that they (the people searching) will understand.

It's no good calling it a 'pneumatic wood fastener' if everyone calls it a 'nail gun' - so use the common vernacular... er... I mean speak plainly. :)

These are just a few of the things you can do to get your website found, but there are more - not all of which are for people in business - they require web people.

We're web people so we can help... we have a couple of products that can improve your website visibility.

Our Search Engine Optimisation package is designed to help you tailor your website to the things that your potential clients are looking for.

Each week we will review your keywords, measure their rank in Google, Yahoo! and Bing, look at the ways to improve your position.

And each week we'll send you the report along with any recommendations we might have that we think will make a difference.

All this for just $260 per month (incl. GST) for a 3, 6 or 12 month contract.

And if you've got some changes to your website that you've been meaning to get around to, you can always upgrade to our Web Service Agreement. For just $70 per month more, you can get 3 hours of changes to your website included in the deal. Separately, that would cost nearly $600 but you can get it for $330 per month!

So what are you waiting for? We can have your website looking shiny and new AND being found for just a few hundred dollars a month. Call us today on 9200 4431 to get started.

“ In 3 short months ASB Marketing now sits proudly on the first page of searches and more importantly, we have been equipped with the skills to manage and understand the maintenance required to ensure this standing. We would strongly recommend Insilico to business people intent on increasing their customer base.” David Johnson, General Manager, ASB Marketing www.asbmarketing.com.au

CHINESE YEAR OF THE TIGER SPECIAL OFFER The first 6 people to sign up for a 12 month Search Engine Optimisation Agreement during February will receive an additional 6 months for FREE!!!! (valued at $1560) ***Not valid with any other offer***

Web Bling Offer

Have some fun with your website in March and celebrate St Patrick's Day with some Web Bling to be sure, to be sure.

We are offering a choice of three themes to add to your website.

For our clients with a Web Service Agreement you can have the Web Bling added to your site for half an hour of your monthly quota.

Choose 1 of the following options for just $49.50

March Web Bling - Added to your website 10th March - 18 March

Option 1 - Group of balloons with greeting card attached. Moves from bottom to top of the page.

Option 2 - Colourful pop-up banner - "Happy St Patricks Day"

Option 3 - Leprechaun that moves from left to right of the page

If you require a special promotion on your website we can help with that too! Phone Naomi on 9200 4431 today to discuss your requirements.

Closing Thoughts

So, what do you think?  Do you like our new newsletter format published more frequently?  Drop us a line - we'd love to know!

We're also trying to find articles and products that you can us in your business (like Drop Box in this newsletter) and we have a few in mind.  But if you have a favourite, drop us a quick note telling us what it is, where to get i and how you use it - but careful not to spill these business secrets :P

When looking for a closing thought for this newsletter, I found this gem from Michael Dell, founder of Dell Computers:

"Our business is about technology, yes.  But it is also about operations and customer relationships."

Paul O'Neill

Technical Director