Admit it.  The visual aesthetics is always the first thing you notice when you walk into an establishment.  Be it an office, a shop, or a home, you have to seriously consider the visual environment.  And this is where DNA Life comes in.  DNA Life is a creative agency that specializes in point-of-sale advertising.  They offer a variety of wall coverings, glass coverings, and graphic blinds and portraits.

The DNA Life team understands that visually appealing spaces always draw more attention.  And attention is exactly what you want when it comes to the retail business.  Comprised of experienced marketing communications consultants and graphic designers, the team can create an attractive point-of-sale display that will enhance a customer’s shopping experience.

Wall coverings and other designs can be customized to fit different rooms and surfaces. Visual artworks can breathe a whole new life into an otherwise dull space.  You will be surprised at what a simple wall covering or wall decal can do.

Visit their website at www.dnalife.com.sg. You can browse through their portfolio and see if there’s anything you like.  And if you can’t find what you’re looking for, you can always submit your own designs and DNA Life will customize them just for you. It would be pretty amazing to see your own design as a wall covering, wouldn’t it?

Check out www.asiafashioninc.com. This website is initiated by ex-banker Timothy Chen and photographer Aidan Yeoh, the least expected to start an online fashion business. And worse, both are male with little or no fashion experience.

Armed with a strong vision: to promote and sell well-prices Asian fashion designs to the world of online shopping. They approached Efusion Technology to design and build a web store catering to mid-priced designer wear. At the moment, there are only online stores selling expensive clothes from designers or the very cheap blog shops selling korea or china imported clothes. There is somehow an untapped abundance of Asian designers who already produce good quality clothing that are well-made and affordable.

Inspired by the success of Net-a-Porter and the way it influenced the fashion landscape, Timothy and Aidan decided to start Asia Fashion Inc - an online retail concept lauching today 7 Dec 2011 at 1:11pm. The web store features an online publication to go with the retail element, it is a FLASH-based flipbook converted from the user-friendly MS Powerpoint (so that they can easily manage it).

Asia Fashion Inc will showcase menswear and womenswear from about 15 established and emerging Asian designers from a range of countries in the region. The webstore will allow navigation by Labels > Designers where there is short profile on the Label and their designers. Check out their facebook page http://www.facebook.com/AsiaFashionInc for special FB promotions as well.

* Some contents adapted from Business Times

How To Avoid Critical Email Marketing Mistakes

Me-Mail Marketing
Sending e-mail newsletters and messages that are all about you or your organization (rather than serving your audience) is not email marketing. This egotistical use of e-mail is called me-mail marketing, and it doesn't work.

Me-mail marketing is selfish and alienates subscribers. They will get annoyed, see no value, unsubscribe, and have a negative reaction to the brand. if an e-mail is more about you than it is about your customers, it is not helpful to anyone.

It is okay to talk about your mission or organization, as long as it is helpful, relevant, and educational, and serves and supports the readers. Just he mindful of the intention. Being less egotistical with an e-mail makes a big difference in the results.

Lack of Strategy
Think critically about your use of email as a marketing medium. Define whom you are targeting. What information can be included in the message that would be of value? Where is the call to action? The goal here is to create an e-mail marketing campaign that will:

• Serve the customers
• Support the sales and marketing messages
• Sell from a place of education and value

Neglecting the Core Foundation of Your EMail Marketing
Loren McDonald, Vice President of Industry Relations at Silverpop, has boiled down the core foundation of a successful e-mail program to three Ps:

• Proposition. What value do customers/subscribers get from the e-mail program?
• Positioning. How does your offer differ from the competitors?
• Personality. What tone and image do your e-mails convey?

Be Authentic and Relate to Your Audience
Whether you're 3 famous defense attorney, a respected marketing expert, or a shop owner, you have something valuable to offer your audience. Show that you can relate to your audience's problems by understanding their perspective. Empathy + Personality = Great email!

Think Beyond the Box
Don't stick to any prescribed box of marketing. Have fun with e-mails make them interesting and engaging. The result could be more subscribers forward-ing them to their contacts.

Make Sharing Easy
Insert social media, forward, and share widgets so that recipients can easily share your e-mails with friends. Online marketing multitasks when e-mail has connections to social media, giving your audience choices about how they can interact with your organization. See if your e-mail newsletter service can insert sharing widgets for social media like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Digg, and Linkedin directly into your templates. Have a call to action that is clear and easy. Having one social sharing link increases click-through rate (CTR) 30 percent, while having three or more sharing links increases CTR 55 percent, according to a study by GetResponse.

List Segmsentation

Segementation will save your lists. too many organizations email to the same list over and over rather than segmenting it into secific groups to serve relevant content. Why work to build an email list if it is abused with irrelevant mesasge overuse, causing the recipients to opt out? When a single list is slammed with nontargeted messages, unsubwribe rates increase. Do your email marketing a favor and customize messages to different groups. Lists can be segmented by location, demographics, psychographics, buying behavior, sales funnel buckets, and more. Online marketing success comes from listening to and understand-ing the audience. The more you can define lists based on interest, behavior, and patterns, the more relevant your message will be.

When it comes to email lists, quality is more important than quantity. Target the people most interested in the service or product, and track their behavior. Find out not just who opened the e-mail, but how many clicked through to the website, how many converted, and which products or services they looked at. 

Ways to Segment Your List
You can segment with information provided when users opt in or, if you have a robust CRM software package, using the information they provide when they interact with your site. Here are a few basics:  

• Preferences stated at opt-in (See the earlier section about customer questioning.)
• Information self-selected (date of upcoming birth, cars liked, etc.)
• Actions taken in e-mail
• User behavior on the website
• Previous buying history
• Geographic location
• Personal demographics (gender, age, income, etc.)
• Collecting information from online surveys

Segment with Landing Pages
The best way to track user behavior is to link the e-mail to a specific landing page that mirrors the language and the offer in the e-mail. Landing pages are defined as pages that communicate a specific product or service or funnel a particular purpose. Landing pages can be part of a website, or can be specifi-cally designed to support a campaign. Landing pages can be used for:

• Keeping track of results from a specific online ad or special offer code for off-line ads
• Buildling search visibility using a key phrase-rich URL and great content for search engine optimization
• Supporting a new product/service as  a comminication tool that sales reps send (It lives on a website, and has ads directed to it.)

The landing page can be as simple or as complex as you desire. Those who click on a link to a landing page are already telling you something about themselves. Because the landing page has a narrower focus than the rest of your site, users may self-select to give you more information to narrow their search even more. For example, suppose your client sells men's sportswear. In your email marketing you have a link for a big-and-tall sale. Clicking on that link tells you that the user is or shops for someone who is big and/or tall. The landing page for that sale then displays content choices for different sizes and different kinds of sportswear (jogging versus basketball). Based on that user's behavior you can then target him or her with more information about tall basketball sportswear.

If you are doing any split testing, where you are trying out different copy, offers, layotus, and so forth in your emails, then each variable should have separate landing pages (they may look identical visually to the casual user, but are coded with wbe analytics to track the result of each variable tested).

This sounds like a lot of work, but the process gets easier and pays off once you decide which variables and goals yo uwan to test.

Email marketing still works for some organizations and industries as compared to Social media marketing. The bottom line with email marketing, like all online marketing, is that the best practices are what work to support an organization's goals. Here some some effective best practices for preparing your email campaign.

TYPES OF EMAIL YOU CAN SEND

Successful email marketing means sending the compelling, relevant content that the client wants to receive. There are dozens of kinds of email clients might want to receive. Here are a few ideas:

• Welcome series ("You're new to X, here's what you need to know.")
• Surveys of potential new products
• E-mail mini-courses (made up of 5 to 10 e-mails) on your topic
• Step-by-step product tutorials
• Post-purchase care/maintenance
• How to get the most out of X
• A new way to use X
• New features
• Upgrades
• Recalls
• Accessories
• Relevant third-party or partnership offers
• Answers to questions
• New deals
• Trends to watch
• Resourceful newsletter with helpful 1inks, resources, and advice

Formatting

Remember that "web surfers scan, they don't read". The same applies to e-mails. The easiest thing for e-mail recipients to do is hit the delete button before they even open the e-mail. Stop them with these best practices.

Create a Compelling Subject line
The subject line is the first thing a recipient sees. Make the message work. The primary goal of the e-mail's subject line is to motivate the recipient simply to open the e-mail, not accept the offer—yet. There are just 50 characters to entice them; on mobile browsers, half that. You only have a split second to grab your audience's attention. Make sure the subject line is concise and to the point. Don't waste space with excess punctuation (Example: Read This!!!)  Sometimes words that marketers think will work are hackneyed, overused buzzwords like free (Example: FREE Download!!!), instead, entice the audience into opening the e-mail with something they can relate to (Example: Learn How to Blog at Our Free Workshop).

Use a Descriptive "From" Address
People are more likely to open e-mails from entities that they recognize, know, like, and trust. In order to save valuable space in the subject line, try to make the "from" address as descriptive as possible. For example, instead of ABC Company, it might be ABC Wedding Planners or a value proposition name like ABC Electronic Deals. Having a descriptive "from" address puts the message and value proposition in context. Some marketers have found that it helps to have a real person's name in the "from" line to create affinity. This "from" address section is an easy area to test and compare approaches for maximum return on investment (ROI).

Set Up HTML E-Mails with Text-Only Mode Backup
Although HTML e-mails (e-mails with graphics) look more appealing, many people receive e-mail in text-only mode. Be sure to include alt text on the graphics that repeats the deal offered, and set up a text version that can be shown in lieu of the image-based version. Since most readers will only be able to see the first few words in the preview pane, put your best and most engaging offer at the very top of your e-mail.

Test in Different E-Mail Clients
It's a good idea to check out prospective e-mails both with and without graphics in the most popular e-mail clients. Also, look at how the e-mails are rendered in the top web-based e-mail providers such as Gmail, AOL, Yahoo!, and Hotmail. Don't forget that more and more people are reading their e-mail on the small screens of their iPhones, BlackBerries, Androids, and other smartphones. If it makes sense for your niche, consider sending text messages with links instead of full e-mails to phones.

Use a Spam Evaluator
Some e-mail service providers have a spam content evaluator that goes through your e-mails before they are sent to determine the likelihood that they will be labeled as spam by filters or users. If this service is not built into your e-mail provider, here are some guidelines to keep your e-mails from getting smashed with a spam hammer:

• Don't use excessive exclamation points (Learn More!!!!!)
• Don't use a lot of capital letters (BUY PRODUCT NOW).
• Be aware of the F-word (as in free), as it can be a big spam-filter flag, if you do use it in your subject line, try not to use it with capital letter or an exclamation point. 
• Don't use too many pictures. Overuse of images can also be a flag for spam.
• Avoid using certain words that are affiliated with high-volume spam use, such as loans, insurance, and prescription drugs.

Do Internal Testing Before the Real Send
Send an e-mail to a "seed list" (a select group of internal people) and have the group open the e-mail on different browsers to make sure that all the links and buttons are working properly and the copy is spelled correctly. Nothing is worse than sending an e-mail with spelling errors, or having a client click on your call-to-action link that sends them to a nonexistent web page. E-mail management technologies often offer a preview and test e-mail functionality, making internal testing very easy and manageable.

Here's are some creative and fun way to marketing your online products using QR code.

What is a QR code?

A QR code is a 2-D barcode that can be scanned by a smart phone's (e.g. iphone) camera and transfer some information. Based on the type of code it is, it might direct the viewer to a website, make a phone call, deliver a vCard or more. Generating a QR is free, try it on http://qrcode.kaywa.com/, a scan of the QR code can:

• Bring the user to a WEBSITE
• Display some TEXT
• Call a number
• Send an SMS

To test a QR code, search for any FREE QR code scanner on your smart phone app store.

Storefront displays.
Few retail businesses are open 24/7. Don't disappoint your potential customers after you've left for the day. Create a <Shop Online Now!> QR code and put it in your storefront window. One quick scan and you've turned a potential lost sale into an online customer who's going to share a lot more of their contact information with you.

Supplement your retail space.
QR codes next to pieces of art could help art galleries move more art, or museums replace those aging audio tape tours. Hardware stores could link to how-to videos on YouTube of how to use specific power tools. Groceries could link to pages that talk about how their products were sourced, and perhaps to interviews of the farmers who grew the food. Electronic shops could bring visitors to review sites so they could get unbiased reviews of stocked products. Or to an e-commerce site where shoppers could buy out-of-stock items. Book stores could link to their own reviews of books on their blog.

Complement your print advertising.
You may have done some magazine or newspaper advertising promoting your online store. Wouldn't it be great if you potential customers can visit your website immediately after seeing that 40% promocode without typing in a lengthy URL? Bring them straight to your product pages with a QR code.

 Try scanning this.

More than 90% of the online population uses a search engine (especially Google) to find products, services and information, according to iProspect, a search engine marketing firm. Once a search engine visitor types a query into the search box and receives results, marketing studies show that:

• Natural search received 250% more traffic than paid search
• Natural search converts 30% higher than pay-per-click (PPC) paid search
• The first page of search engine results pages (SERPs) get at least 80% of the clicks
• The second page is SERPs get about 10% of the clicks

So if your website isn't found within the top 10 to 30 search results, no one will find you. And if they don't find it, they will not be your customers- they will find your competitors instead.

A lot of our POS clients are asking how to print a logo on the receipt. It is not a straight forward process like printing from MS Words but this guide should get you there.

STEP1:

Right click on your Epson TM-88IV printer and go to <Printer properties>.

STEP2:

Go to <Utility> and click on EPSON Flash Logo.

\

STEP3:

Under <Bitmap Selection> tab, click on <Open file...> to select your black and white bitmap (BMP) logo file.

STEP4:

Go to <Logo Upload> tab and click on <Upload> - <Device> to upload the image to the printer memory.

STEP5:

Do a test print under <Logo Printout> tab by clicking on the <Print> button, you should see your logo being printed. May need some trial and error to align the logo to your desired position.

STEP6:

Under EPOS, go to <Hareware setup>, under <Print Header Logo>, enters the following code.
29,40,76,6,0,48,69,48,48,1,1.
If you are using TMU-220D, please use these code instead,
28,112,1,48

Save your settings and the logo should printer for every receipt.

Each website is built for a different purpose, which could be to sell a business’ products online, or simply as a brochure to show potential customers what a business does, and then to attract them to contacting the business for more information.

This article aims to describe the differences between a static website and a content managed website using a content management system by describing the benefits and disadvantages to SME’s (small and medium sized enterprises.)

We hope that this article helps both business users, and other website design firms to understand more the difference between these two types of website.

Using a Static Website

A static website is a website that is designed, created and then hosted by a website designer and is usually programmed using a static language like HTML or XHTML. Once the website is online, any changes that are needed require a website designer, or someone that knows how to edit, create or delete web pages.

Typically, static websites are much simpler to create a content managed website, due to the fact that no database needs to be created.

Advantages of a Static Website

There are a number of advantages of static websites over a dynamic, content managed website for SME’s, dependent on their business:

• Less cost involved
• Simpler to create and host
• Quick to download on lower bandwidths

Disadvantages of a Static Website

• Could cost you more in the long run depending on the frequency of the updates
• Long change process as you have to wait for a website designer to have the time to make your changes
• Not as much functionality, so you website could be lacking against your competitors

Using a Content Management System For a Website

If a business decides that they want to sell their products online, update their website content when they need to and capture customer details, then a content management system is more than likely to be the best solution.

A content management system is a system that allows users to add, edit, update and delete their website content quickly and easily through the use of an administration section on their website and a database (usually MySQL, MSSQL or Access.) Content management systems use server side scripting languages such as PHP, ASP or ASP.net.

The database is used to store information that the user enters via the administration section, and data is retrieved from it each time a user accesses the content managed website.

A content management system is suitable for all types and sizes of businesses, and it can be used to drive all types of content, including text, documents, sound, video and much more.

Advantages of a Content Management System

• Content can be changed on the website as frequently as is needed, without having to use a website designer or know HTML code.
• Changes can be made immediately due to a much shorter change process
• Can be cheaper than a static website in the longer term
• Easier to budget for ongoing costs than a static website

Disadvantages of a Content Management System

• Initial cost is normally higher than a static website
• May be slightly slower for users on low bandwidths than a static website
• Training may be needed depending on the complexity of a content management system

Conclusion

This article has aimed to describe the advantages and disadvantages of both a content managed website using a content management system (CMS) and a static website.

Both of these types of website offer various benefits over each other, however it is becoming increasingly evident to Efusion Technology, that SME’s want to be able to look after their own website, without having to ask a website designer to make changes to their website.

New technologies are being implemented on an almost weekly basis which is allowing web designers and web agencies to create and install content management systems quickly and therefore with less of a cost implication to their clients.

Efusion Technology uses Joomla or Wordpress which are both a modular based content management system allowing SME’s to choose which aspects of the system they need, such as bulk email, e-commerce, forum, event calendar, download library, news stories or job postings.

Write as simply as possible. Studies have shown that online content that is shared most often is readable to most elementary school kids. This is about providing instant clarity. Most readers want a blog to comb through the relevant subject matter and show them something that is worth their attention. A blog entry can be as simple as "Hey, look at this" with a little narrative as to why blog readers should look at the link, photo, or video that is being shared. lf you want to write long essays on the topic, that's great as long as your analytics numbers show that long essays are what your readers want.

Keep it short. Someone once said that blog posts should be like a mini-skirt—long enough to cover the subject, but short enough to keep reader interest. One of the best bloggers in the business, Seth Godin, writes very short blog entries. Check him out at http://sethgodin.typepad.comi.

Plan a writing schedule and keep to it. You'd be amazed at how creative you can be when filled with last-minute panic. Until you've got your sea legs, start with a weekly entry and then grow to three to five posts a week. Some bloggers have "Weekly Wednesday" or "Monday Motivation" or "Friday Funny" themes so they have a clear focus and day of the week , to prompt writing.

Make a list of topics to cover. If you're stumped by what to write about go back to the blog theme and start thinking about your target customers. Think about how the blog can best educate, enlighten, and engage them. Brand, build, and boost your business. Your expertise, ideas, perspective, tips, tricks, and stories won't help anyone if they're all stashed away in your brain.

Look at the calendar. Every industry has annual, seasonal, or in some cases monthly events that are content creation-worthy. In some cases you can create a draft about a seasonal event long in advance and then plug in the latest news at the top of the posting. For example, the fashion industry has a large focus on spring and fall fashion, accountants get very busy around tax time, and professional organizers have a lot of buzz around spring cleaning.

Create editorial departments. Look at pertinent trade magazines to discover which departments you can adapt to regular blog entries. Any time there is big media buzz around a certain topic that relates to the blog theme, put on that journalist hat to blog about related current events to maximize interest and exposure.

Stay informed. There are a number of tools to keep you up to date on the latest industry news so that when news hits, you'll know and can write about it: 

• Create Google Alerts for topic area keywords or phrases (http://www.google.com/alerts).
• Create an industry news dashboard in iGoogle and then customize the feeds. This will allow you to see all the industry news at a glance.

Look to the key phrases for inspiration. There are key phrase clusters around every organization and industry. Use a web analytics package to look at the keywords and phrases that people are using to find your site. See if any of those keywords lend themselves to regular blog entries. Check out Google Trends for the keywords in the given topic area to see which keywords are on the rise and which are declining.

Take advantage of inspiration. Sometimes the muse strikes. Don't forget it. Write it down and post it. If you want to develop the topic more fully later, you can with the knowledge that you've created two blog postings (a short one and a long one) out of one inspiration.

Plan "think pieces." "Think pieces" can sound scary and formal, but it is simply a three-pronged way to write that includes a quick analysis, background material, and personal opinions. All you need is an opening, three points, and a closer—keep it to 400 words maximum and you're done. Remember that, with blogging, done is better than perfect. The web is flexible; you can always go back and edit.

Slice the onion thinly. Don't feel you need to write everything about a topic in a single entry. You can say, "Stay tuned for Part Two," and give readers a reason to come back (or sign up for the RSS feed) to get more of the story.

Author how-to articles. The web is one of the main places people go to find information. How-to articles are great for customer service and to show expertise.

Include educational articles. Web users are in need of authoritative articles about millions of topics. When readers are educated, they feel empowered. When an organization empowers people, a relationship is built that can launch business.

Share your checklists. If you've got a procedure that works, share it. Lists are easy, organized, and very helpful to those web readers who scan rather than read, and they show expertise.

Try a Top 10 list. Thanks to David Letterman, Top 10 lists have become a staple for content creators. For interesting and relevant blog posts, try a Top 10 list of things people don't know about your topic. 

Interview people in your industry. A blog is a great excuse to network with big names. Create an interview sheet with top questions you would like answers to. Interviews can be conducted via phone or e-mail.

Embed videos from YouTube or other sources. Video is more than just eye candy. It is one of the top content creation ways to engage readers. Video links are clicked on and shared more often than any other content on the web. Regularly search for videos in the topic area of your industry, and when there is something worth sharing with readers, post it.

Link to podcasts. if your organization or someone in the industry has a relevant podcast, link to it. Add some opinion ot thepiece being shared on the blog.

Outsource to experts. Get guest bloggers to write and keep content diverse. Diversifying writers helps create fresh content and can appeal to more readers. guest writers gain exposure and the blog owner gets content- it's a win-win.

Get the best blogging advice every day. Sekking help will inspire the content development process. Get blogging advice or inspiration from people who do it professionally. Make ProBlogger (www.problogger.ent) regular reading.

So What is Google Places?

Just imagine that as Yellowpages busines listing complete with powerful Google maps. The most important thing is that - THIS IS FROM GOOGLE, so it directly affects your Google search ranking. In fact Google Places actually pushes most organic search results down. Take a look below...

Getting yourself listed in Google Places

First thing is to check if your business is already listed. Simply do a search in http://maps.google.com. Let's say you are St. John Ambulance in Singapore, we can do a search either by address or organization name...

Viola! If it is found, you will reach the profile page. See the link above the map? If it states "Business owner?" that means you can proceed to claim ownership, else it will states "Owner-verified listing" which means someone else has already claimed it. Check with your organization if it was claimed by someone internally.

By clicking on the "Business Owner" link, you can proceed to claim ownership of this listing. Continue with updating your business information and Google will provide a few options of validation.

You can choose to validate by PHONE, SMS or POSTCARD, they are all FREE anyway. Try the PHONE validation - it's the fastest.

What if my business is not found?

No worries, just simply go to http://www.google.com/places/ and add yours in!

After all these are done, get you customers to leave their comments via Google places. All comments are visible from the search results. If you have accumulated enough positive comments, that is obvious for anyone to click on it.

Summary

Well it is easy, free and effective to add your business in Google Places. However try not to abuse the system by posting positive comments of your own or create multiple listings. Just remember, Google's artificial intelligence can detect all these and ban your listing.

Every wise business owner agrees that the world today has become extremely competitive and in order to be successful in this competitive world of business one needs to find ways to create an edge and stand out from their competitors. In lieu of this situation, it has become totally imperative for a business to come up with their very own business web site. There are many various online templates that you can choose to create a web site for your business. Nevertheless, a wise decision would be to come up with your very own customized web design for your very own business web site. Every other company comes up with a web site does not always get to enjoy the perks of having a business web site in this global world mainly due to their lack of attention to their web design. A nice and well thought up design of a business web site can actually help you a great deal in nurturing your business and bringing in a lot of fruits.

In case you are one of those business owners who try on saving some bucks on your web site and work helplessly on creating your very own customized web design of your business web site then here is a warning for you, do not let your business go down the drain because a bad and stinking design of a business web site is good enough to do that. While, on the other hand, if you put in some initial investment in hiring the services of a professional web designer to create and optimize the web site for your products and services then you are surely headed in the right direction as this investment will return to you in the form of higher sales and increased profitable gains. Well, if you belong to this field and understand the pros and cons of web designing along with the changing challenges of the cyber world then you can do the job yourself. Nevertheless, it holds great significance that you thoroughly communicate the needs and demands of the company with your web designer and communicate well with him what you expect to have from the web design of your business web site.

In addition, a good design of a professional business web site will give your business, your products and services a wider exposure as the internet technology ranges out to the various parts of the world. With such a huge exposure you are sure to attract, attain as well as retain a large number of customers and maintain a good customer base. As your business web site is your first impression to the world, a good web design makes sure that your first impression is a good one. If your prospect customers like your business web site and are satisfied by your services then there will be greater chances for them to return back to you over and over again whenever they need.

For a straight 6 months, we are ranked number 1 by TOPSEO in the Web Development Company category. We were number 1 for Oct 2010, Nov 2010, Dec 2010, Jan 2011, Feb 2011 and now Mar 2011. We will continue to excel in our web development deliverables and strive to be the best of the best in this trade.

Nowadays, in this trendy world, people get very uptight when they do not look entirely presentable. This would also be the case in web designing.

Every individual would definitely want their website to look good, if not, to the best they can. Here are a few things we could look out for when wanting to create a professional looking webpage.

Color Schemes and Themes.

When designing, always choose matching colors. An example of a matching color would be to have a dark background, with visible words and designs. With the dark theme, try not to mix too many bright colors into the design. What we should NEVER do, is to mix two very different colors, such as purple and yellow. Now, of course, it would depend on the purpose of the website, but those two colors are too striking for one who wants it to look more professional.

Themes must always suit the company or rather, the organization / etc. If the website was made to cater for a food company, it would be wise to stick to that particular category, rather than to revert to a different theme, such as machinery.

Fonts should be used in regard to the formality of the website. A simple sans-serif font would suffice in most cases. Exceptional cases such as design and art groups might want to use fanciful designs and fonts. Of course, that’s only if you know what you’re doing.

Finally, we must always try to think of our visitors, see the way they see. The resolutions and file sizes of the pictures must not be too large in terms of size. This is to allow maximum compatibility and cater our visitor’s needs.

So, planning is something we should always do, before attempting something.

TOPSEOs, an independent on search vendors ranked us (Efusion Technology) as the top ranking #1 Web developer in Singapore for Nov 2010 and Dec 2010 consecutively. They graded base on PROCESS, STANDARD COMPLIANCE, SCALABLE, ROBUST AND SECURE, MAINTENANCE and we scored full marks for all. The award greatly increase our credibility and is really a recognition of our professional service.

“EFUSION TECHNOLOGY is honored by this recognition from topseos and we will continue to work hard to maintain and go beyond this position that we have secured”, said Lau Wee Kiat, IT Consultant.

EFUSION TECHNOLOGY is included in this list for its consistent performance and the superior services rendered to its clients.

As part of the evaluation process, clients of EFUSION TECHNOLOGY are asked to give feedback on general and project specific questions such as: 

• Rate your overall experience.
• What type of needs analysis was conducted before work initiated?
• What content management system, MVC frameworks, standards were considered prior to coding?
• How often were you advised of the progress of development and how were you able to review the work and offer your input?
• How much of your personal involvement was required in this process?

“The whole industry looks to us to identify reliable and accurate benchmarks and EFUSION TECHNOLOGY has proven by its performance that they deserve to be on this coveted list”, shared Jeev Trika, partner at topseos.

Efusion Technology with our team of dedicated professional web designer and developer will continue to strive for excellence in this industry. Please continue to give us your support in year 2011. Have a great year ahead.

More information on why we are the best web developer. http://www.topseos.sg/rankings-of-best-web-development-companies-in-singapore 

Read from Straits Times (30 Nov 2010) that Internet-savvy shoppers spend $690m online, 15 times more than in 1999. That is a good sign for all inspiring web entrepreneurs in Singapore!

The figure is derived by adding up all individual online transactions made with Singapore credit cards throughout the year (local and overseas sales)

It also disclosed that the biggest sectors were clothing and footwear, and consumer electronics which accounted for more than 60% of Singapore residents' online transaction last year.

Our emall.sg also recorded an average of 3-5 new stores added each day. Emall now has more than 4000 listed local online stores.

Exisiting online stores like fairprice.com.sg, fareastflora.com abd bestorganicfood.sg are all experiencing increased sales. The same trend can also be seen in Malaysia and Hong Kong.

So what are you waiting for? It is time to jump on the bandwagon and start your own online business.

Your web site is where your business resides. It is like the headquarter of an offline company. Hence, it is important to practise good design principles to make sure your website reaches out to the maximum number of visitors and sells to as many people as possible.

Make sure you have clear directions on the navigation of your website. The navigation menu should be uncluttered and concise so that visitors know how to navigate around your website without confusion.

Reduce the number of images on your website. They make your site load very slowly and more often than not they are very unnecessary. If you think any image is essential on your site, make sure you optimize them using image editing programs so that they have a minimum file size.

Keep your text paragraphs at a reasonable length. If a paragraph is too long, you should split it into seperate paragraphs so that the text blocks will not be too big. This is important because a block of text that is too large will deter visitors from reading your content.

Make sure your website complies to web standards at www.w3.org and make sure they are cross-browser compatible. If your website looks great in Internet Explorer but breaks horribly in Firefox and Safari, you will lose out on a lot of prospective visitors.

Avoid using scripting languages on your site unless it is absolutely necessary. Use scripting languages to handle or manipulate data, not to create visual effects on your website. Heavy scripts will slow down the loading time of your site and even crash some browsers. Also, scripts are not supported across all browsers, so some visitors might miss important information because of that.

Use CSS to style your page content because they save alot of work by styling all elements on your website in one go.

For anything to work as expected, care must be taken to make firm, workable plans to execute it and the same goes for web design. With a well thought out web site design, you will be able to create a site that generates multiple streams of revenue for you. In fact, many websites turn into online wasteland because they are not well planned and do not get a single visitor. Gradually, the webmaster will not be motivated to update it anymore and it turns into wasted cyberspace - that is a fact for most static corporate websites.

The crucial point of planning your site is optimizing it for revenue if you want to gain any income from the site. Divide your site into major blocks, ordered by themes, and start building new pages and subsections in those blocks. For example, you might have a "food" section, an "accomodation" section and an "entertainment" section for a tourism site. You can then write and publish relevant articles in the respective sections to attract a stream of traffic that comes looking for further information.

When you have a broader, better-defined scope of themes for your website, you can sell space on your pages to people interested in advertising on your page. You can also earn from programs like Google's Adsense and Yahoo! Search Marketing if people surf to those themed pages and click on the ads. For this very reason, the advertisement blocks on your pages need to be relevant to the content, so a themed page fits that criteria perfectly.

As Internet becomes more widespread, advertising on the Internet will bear more results than on magazines or offline media. Hence, start tapping in on this lucrative stream of profit right away!

For ease of updating your website, get a Content management system (CMS) - it is as easy as blogging.

Now since you already have a beautiful website, so what's next? Go get visitors!

Many successful websites depend on returning visitors to account for a major part of their traffic. The more often they return to a site, the more trust they have in that site, thus making returning visitors easier to be converted into paying customers. The credibility issue somehow will just melt away. Therefore, keep your visitors coming back to your site with the following methods:

1) Start a web log (blog)

Keep an online journal, or more commonly known as a blog, on your site and keep it updated with latest news about yourself. Human beings are curious creatures and they will keep their eyes glued to the monitor if you post fresh news frequently. You will also build up your credibility as you are proving to them that there is also a real life person behind the website.

2) Start a forum, chatroom or shoutbox

When you start a forum, chatroom or shoutbox, you are providing your visitors a place to voice their opinions and interact with their peers -- all of them are visitors of your site. As conversations build up, a sense of community will also follow and your visitors will come back to your site almost religiously every day.

3) Hold puzzles, quizzes and games

Just imagine how many office workers procrastinate at work every day, and you will be able to gauge how many people will keep visiting your site if you provide a very interesting or addicting way of entertainment. You can also hold competitions to award the high score winner to keep people trying continuously to earn the prize.

4) Carry out polls or surveys

Polls and surveys are other forms of interaction that you should definitely consider adding to your site. They provide a quick way for visitors to voice their opinions and to get involved in your website. Be sure to publish polls or surveys that are strongly relevant to the target market of your website to keep them interested to find out about the results.

5) Update frequently with fresh content

Update your site frequently with fresh content so that every time your visitors come back, they will have something to read on your site. This is the most widely known and most effective method of attracting returning visitors, but this is also the least carried out one because of the laziness of webmasters. No one will want to browse a site that looks the same over ten years, so keep your site updated with fresh bites!

People are always asking "What is a good Website Design?"

When it comes to your website, extra attention should be paid to every minute detail to make sure it performs optimally to serve its purpose. Here are seven important rules of thumb to observe to make sure your website performs well.

1) Do not use splash pages

Splash pages are the first pages you see when you arrive at a website. They normally have a very beautiful image with words like "welcome" or "click here to enter". In fact, they are just that -- pretty vases with no real purpose. Do not let your visitors have a reason to click on the "back" button! Give them the value of your site up front without the splash page.

2) Have a simple and clear navigation

You have to provide a simple and very straightforward navigation menu so that even a young child will know how to use it. Stay away from complicated Flash based menus or multi-tiered dropdown menus. If your visitors don't know how to navigate, they will leave your site.

3) Do not use excessive banner advertisements

Even the least net savvy people have trained themselves to ignore banner advertisements so you will be wasting valuable website real estate. Instead, provide more valueable content and weave relevant affiliate links into your content, and let your visitors feel that they want to buy instead of being pushed to buy.

4) Avoid using audio on your site

If your visitor is going to stay a long time at your site, reading your content, you will want to make sure they're not annoyed by some audio looping on and on on your website. If you insist on adding audio, make sure they have some control over it -- volume or muting controls would work fine.

5) Have a clear indication of where the user is

When visitors are deeply engrossed in browsing your site, you will want to make sure they know which part of the site they are in at that moment. That way, they will be able to browse relevant information or navigate to any section of the site easily. Don't confuse your visitors because confusion means "abandon ship"!