Finding staff in the 'new world'

Good staff are in short supply – and the way people look for work is also changing.

As the labour pool shrinks, you need to find new ways to attract staff … and you ignore online options at your peril.

The National Australia Bank advises: “With 70 per cent of jobs advertised online and job ads in newspapers in absolute decline, employers can bet both Generation Y and X, and their parents, are searching for work online. In any given month, over 200,000 job ads are posted on the SEEK website while talent pools and candidate databases are increasing.”

Must Do
Employers are now advertising both in print and online, using consultants and compiling databases of potential employees.

Having an Employment page on your website is increasingly important. And it really does work.

People with skills that are in short supply (eg. chefs, tradespeople) can “shop around” around for a good job with a good employer. When they want to get a better understanding of your business, they will invariably go to your website.

Save Money
All of your job ads should contain your website address. In fact, you can shorten your print ad – and the cost - by directing staff to your site, where they can find full details of the position.

Save Time
You can include an employment form on your website which people can fill out. It saves a phone conversation or the time taken to speak to someone who walks through the front door of your hotel looking for work.

Go one step further and include a screening questionnaire. Some companies get applicants to fill out a questionnaire, and to read and agree to a list of “accountabilities” and company values. The people who are scared off by this list are probably not the people you want in your business.

Employment Magnet
There are ways to make your website an “employment magnet”.

• Include your website address in every ad you place, whether it is an employment ad, a retail ad or a branding exercise.
• Include a link to your employment page from your Facebook Page.
• Keep an ongoing ad on sites like Seek.
• If you undertake search engine optimisation, include key employment terms, such as chef, job and employment as keywords and as internal links.

The Downside
Sometimes you can get swamped by applications, many of which are not suitable.

But let’s face it; having too many candidates is a nice problem to have!

And if you ever need an Adelaide web design and development company to assist you, we would welcome the chance to discuss your needs!

Eight reasons businesses are updating their websites

A large chunk of online budgets are spent on upgrading existing sites. Here are a range of common reasons.

1. Site looks old and tired. 
It looked great a few years ago. But website technology has surged ahead and now your site makes your business look second-rate. Even worse, your direct competitors have upgraded and look great! (In retail, the general rule of thumb is that a major redesign will be necessary every two years, although some work on facelifts every six months.)
2. Technology issues. The most common is that a business chose a “static” site where they rely on a web development studio to make their changes … when they can get around to it. Now the business wants a content management system to be able to do it themselves. They need to add an delete pages, promote new products and services etc.
3. Adding new marketing features to your site. For example, email marketing direct from your
   site.
4. The current site is broken (or riddled with problems). Error messages appear. Little boxes
   with a red “X” inside where a photo is supposed to be. Text runs into graphics. Links don’t work.
5. No traffic. 
No-one visits your site. Or worse, your website statistics show they leave after a few seconds! If this is your problem, don’t throw in the towel. Get active. Think SEO. Think online advertising. Build reputable links. Get help!
6. Potential customers get lost in the site. People finding you through a search engine do not always come in via your home page. Can they find what they need from any page? A periodic rethink of both the site structure and your navigation system is important.
7. Positioning. You’ve changed your positioning in the market. Maybe you have become more female-friendly … but your photos are “blokey” and your colours are dark and unappealing. Or perhaps your product mix has changed to stay up with latest trends. This needs to be reflected in your website.
8. Change in legislation. Laws affect so many Australian companies – whether it is new legislation governing financial planners, the end of solar rebates or changes to smoking laws in hotels. It is important to let clients know about the changes. The younger the customers, the more important that this is quickly reflected on your online presence.

Mobile friendly websites

If you cater to young customers, it makes sense to modify your existing website so that it displays properly on mobile phones.

Check on your own phone and also get staff to show you how your site displays on their phones.

Here are some other tips:

If you are unsure what traffic comes to your site from mobile phones, just look in your traffic statistics. (Don’t have traffic stats? Get your developer to load Google Analytics into the back end of your website and you’re all set to know who is coming to your site, how they are getting there and what they are looking at.)

Make sure your site is configured for both iPhone and Android phones.

Is your home page constructed in Flash, which isn’t compatible with iPhones? Ask your developer to set up auto-detection and divert that traffic through to a non-Flash page.

Keep it simple. Some sites have pages set up specifically for mobile phones. They are stripped down to the bare essentials. For example, for a hotel that might be special promotions, menus and location.

How Much Should You Pay For A Website?

Website prices are continuing to fall. A site that cost $5000 five years ago can now be delivered for up to 50% less.
This article gives you a guide to prices in the current market. But two notes of caution before we start looking at what you can get for your investment:
1. Rock bottom prices that seem too good to be true are just that. Be wary of penny dreadful websites (charging a few hundred dollars), which are often terrible despite the lovely sites displayed on screen. In many instances, the customer is charged for “extras” that most companies include as “standard”. You can be locked into monthly fees or be forced to use their hosting service at an inflated price. And many companies charging unrealistic prices quickly go out of business, leaving you in the lurch! Ongoing support is not front-of-mind as often. The cheaper provider has the attitude of churning through clients to support their operating costs.
2. At the top end of the market, beware of “techno-babble”. Yes, you get a great site, but if you are paying more than $10,000, be very careful that your layman’s knowledge of technology isn’t being used against you.
FOUR BASIC COSTS
1. Domain name (eg. www.boylen.com.au). Don’t pay more than $140 for two years - but less if you just want “.com”. If you go direct and manage it yourself, you can get it cheaper. If you engage a company to do it for you, expect to pay for the service.)
2. Hosting of your site. Think of this as rental of space on the internet. Expect to pay upwards of $250 per annum for a reliable host that won’t crash every second week. (It is worth checking to see if your email set-up includes free hosting.
3. Design. This price guide hinges on complexity. For example, how much does it cost to buy a pub? A basic hotel may sell for under $1 million, but as you start adding features, such as sports bars with full TAB facilities, room reservation systems etc, the price increases. It’s the same principle for a website.
So as a guide, here is what you will find in the marketplace. Naturally every web design company has its own pricing structure:
• One page, template design, no meeting with designers, everything provided perfectly and ready to go … under $750.
• Three to five pages, customised but basic … $900- plus (and more as you add features such as movement, forms, search facilities etc).
• Ten pages, professional, user-friendly and with increased complexity and search engine
optimisation … $1500-plus.
• Content management system site (CMS).This means you can make changes to your site, add pages, alter text and photos etc. Basic … average
of $2500.
• Bells and whistles site. This is not just a website - it is a business management tool, as well as a website for the public. It will be driven by a sophisticated database, allowing you to use the power of e-commerce, restricted access areas, automated email newsletters and offers etc … upwards of $5000.A major “online solution” can easily cost $30,000, with high end solutions costing well over $100,000.
4. Ongoing maintenance. Agree to an up-front hourly rate and get indications of how long it will take for certain tasks to be accomplished, for example, adding a new page, loading a media release or altering a price. Expect to pay anywhere between $60 an hour from budget providers to $180 an hour for high-end programming.
If you have a question about websites, e-commerce or any aspect of the online world, I would love to hear from you.

Internet Policy in Australia

What is the future of the internet in Australia?

The IIA is taking a front seat role and has launched its "manifesto on internet policy and regulation, with principles and recommendations to guide decision making".

"We'll be requesting political parties to respond to its recommendations over the coming weeks," IIA chief executive, Peter Coroneos, said.

"It asks the question, under what circumstances can the Internet in Australia be advanced or hobbled by politicians today."

The report argues that the speed of technological change outstrips the ability of legislation and legislators to keep up.

"Should or can they, regulate the internet to tackle social policy challenges arising in the wake of rapid technological change without damaging our capacity to innovate and compete?

If laws are passed, can they be enforced?

Is technology to blame or are we really dealing with age old human problems that neither laws nor technology can regulate?

These are questions implicit in this document," Coroneos said.

The document offers a reality check to the internet policy debate by urging a return to first principles such as where Australia stands against our western counterparts. It argues we tend to over-regulated in content matters for often symbolic political reasons.

"We lack a local research base to support proposals notably in areas of cyber crime and cyber safety," he said.

The document is the work of the Internet Industry Association.

Given the diversity of IIA's broad based membership there are necessarily a range of opinions within the member base.

Consequently, the perspectives, principles and recommendations contained within do not necessarily imply the endorsement of any individual member organisation.

About the IIA: promoting a faster, safer, fairer, more trusted internet for Australia. The IIA (www.iia.net.au) provides policy input to government and advocacy on a range of business and regulatory issues, to promote laws and initiatives that enhance access, equity, reliability and growth of the Net within Australia.

A PDF copy of the guide is available at

http://iia.net.au/images/resources/pdf/manifesto-2010.pdf

Website launch for a wonderful company

We have just received the most delightful feedback from a client. Our web designers and all the team were truly thankful for Jeanette's praise (especially when she popped in with bubbly and chocolate!)

You might say it was a marriage of her vision and our talent. (yes, it's a wedding site).

Isn't it great to see such a nice person doing so well in business.

See her comments here: www.boylen.com.au/web-services

Eco Friendly Fonts

There have been some excellent news recently about the wise choice of fonts.

The focus has been on choosing fonts that require less toner, which not only saves resourced for the environment – but also for design studios and their clients.

A report out of Europe says the “ink-friendly” fonts are Century-Gothic and Times New Roman, with Calibri, Verdana and Arial also ranking high.

The thickness of lines affects the amount of toner that is required. Obviously the fonts that are both thin and have short horizontal lines (typically serif fonts) and the fonts that use less ink than sans serif.

The promise of savings in the thousands of dollars is enough to make anyone sit up and take notice.

Another interesting idea is to shoot holes in your fonts.

Huh?

During printing, Ecofont promises that it will shoot holes into the letters that you have typed.

“That is fascinating in itself, and all the more so when you realise that this has no effect on legibility,” the company claims.

“But it only really becomes interesting when we tell you that it generally enables you to save up to 25% of ink or toner. Both your wallet and the environment will be grateful to you, because ink and toner are a particularly heavy burden on both.

“You work with your customary font and print using its ink-saving Eco variant with a single press of the button.”

The site is located at http://www.ecofont.com/en/products/green/printing/sustainable-printing-using-ecofont-software.html