September 2010 News

In this issue of Website Builder News, September 2010...

  • Training Options
  • Content Editor Upgrade
  • GST Rate Change Implications
  • Christchurch Businesses Affected By Earthquake?
  • Give your DIY website a professional makeover
  • Server backups and redundancy
  • .co Domain Names
  • Social Media Tips - Four Square and Twitter
  • SEO Tip of the Month
  • Reseller Options
  • How to help us promote Website Builder and get a 20% rebate
  • Websites of the Month 

 

Training Options

Free training is available via our YouTube channel.

Our group training sessions are perfect for learning more and asking questions. Introduction course covers all the basics including design, content management, galleries, enquiry forms, shopping carts, domain names, and how to go live. Our Search Engine Optimisation course is great for learning how to get your website higher on Google.

  • Auckland - Website Builder Introduction 2 hours  - 28th September at 10am - $50
  • Auckland - Search Engine Optimisation 2 hours - 28th September at 1pm - $50
  • Wellington - Website Builder Introduction 2 hours - 21st Ocotber 2010 at 10am - $50
  • Wellington - Search Engine Optimisation and Social Media and Intermediate Design Q&A - 4 hours - 21st October at 1pm - $75
  • Christchurch - Website Builder Introduction 2 hours - Early Next Year - $50
  • Christchurch - Search Engine Optimisation 2 hours - Early Next Year - $50 
  • More Locations and Times - Book Your Training Here

One on One Training is available at our offices in Auckland on an appointment basis, or other regions subject to scheduling. Reuben currently has time available in Wellington on 20th October. Other times may be considered in other regions for group or half day training.

 

 

Content Editor Upgrade

 

The latest version of our WYSIWYG TinyMCE editor is now live. You now have access to change your fonts, and other items. The new style picker allows you to apply special styles to your page. Please use font/style features sparingly. Good design practise says less is more. Use plain text paragraphs for your search engine optimised text. Plain text paragraphs also create a sense of "visual balance" from photos placed next to them. Link key phrases and calls to action to other pages. Use headings and bullet points to promote key messages.

 

GST Rate Change Implications

Well it's almost that time for GST changes, and I hope your accountant has scared you as much as I have been. (Remember to print of your debtors/creditors list on the 1st October and claim GST adjustment for customers who pay you after the 1st October. Our invoices are sent at the end of each month, with hosting fees billed in advance. Therefore, all hosting fees on your statement at the end of this month (or on the 1st of October) will have 12.5% GST on them, even though services are provided after 1st October. If you are a not for profit, or do not file GST returns, then we suggest that you might like to change to an annual plan before end of this month, and benefit from a 2.5% saving, in addition to the normal discounts we offer for annual prepayments.

With regards to your own websites, any shopping cart with a GST rate of 12.5% will be automatically updated to 15% early on the morning of the 1st of October.

We are also taking this opportunity to round our hosting plans to the nearest dollar, e.g. a raise of 1 or 2 cents on basic and business plans. The new price of our basic plan will now be $25 (up from $24.99) or $28.75 incl GST (up from $28.11 incl GST).

Those of you with an automatic payment will need to make an adjustment to that, as we don't do direct debits. We suggest that you wait until you receive your October statement on 1st November, then pay that balance in full, then setup an automatic payment for the usual amount to be paid on the aniversary date of your website, which is visible on the item line of your invoice. 

 

Christchurch Businesses Affected By Earthquake?

If your business was disrupted by the Christchurch earthquake, due to your business premises being demolished or closed etc, then please contact us and we will be happy to provide free web hosting while your business gets back on it's feet. It's really important that you keep your website online to maintain your SEO rankings, but we understand it is difficult to keep a business running when there is no income stream. Our hearts go out to everyone who was effected by the earthquake.

 

 

 

Give Your DIY site a Professional Make Over

Our professional web designers can spend a few hours making your website a little bit more professional looking, eg tidying up the rough bits, making a stylish customised banner, cropping photos. We can also search engine optimise your websites or create custom buttons for special calls to action. Perhaps you might just like to use our expertese to see what is possible with our powerful CMS tools. Our hourly rate is $90, and 2-6 hours can be a really good investment in your websites success. You can even sit down with our designers during this process and learn how to do it. Training or professional services, contact us for more information.

 

Backups and Redundancy

We are often asked how secure our servers are, and what backup and redundancy options we have. This is especially important to know considering the recent earthquake in Christchurch and power outages in Aucklands past.

  • We have multiple load balanced application servers, each of which have multiple hard drives and multiple power supplies. Any piece of hardware is prone to error, and even though we have not had any issues for several years, we do have an infrastructure that will support the full loss of a machine as we install a replacement. Our infrastructure also allows us to deal with spikes in traffic. Compare that to other hosting providers who have all their customers hosted on a single VPS.
  • Most of our servers are housed in the Iconz data center in Auckland. This is a high grade data center hosting several other well known hosting brands. This data center has all of the failover internet connectivity and power generators that you would expect.
  • We have live standby servers ready to go at the Maxnet facility in Albany. Not all hosting providers do this, many say they have backups, but they might mean tape backups, or file backups? Can they assure you that these backups can be restored so you will be back to business, with fully functional ecommerce facilities.
  • We use Linux servers which are more secure than Windows servers. We use a custom firewall, that adds an extra level of secrecy and confusion for hackers seeking easy targets.
  • We also keep a minimum of 30 days file and database backups, meaning that we can get your website back to a snapshot from any time in the last 30 days.

Restoration of backups in the event of a major catastrophe will be completed quickly and swiftly by our team, to ensure minimum disruption to your online business activity. If you require a personal website restoration service, then we can also do this for a small fee.

 

 

 

.co Domains and International Domains

You can now purchase .co domain names for just US$30 per year. We have heard that Google is treating these suffixes the same way they do .biz and .com, and are not treating them as Columbian.

Do you want to purchase international domains a little cheaper? Now you can for just US$15 with our affiliate OpenSRS.

Available suffixes include: .COM .NET .ORG .INFO .BIZ .TEL .ASIA .AT .BE .BZ
.CA .CC .CH .CO .DE .DK .ES .EU .FR .IN .IT .LI .ME .MOBI .NAME .NL .TV
.CO.UK .ME.UK .ORG.UK .US .WS

Search and register an International domain from around US$15 per year.

Once you have purchased one of those domains, you will still need to login and change the nameservers or a-record to ours and also setup the domain name against your webspace in the CMS using the "nameserver setup" method.

or Search and Register an .nz domain for NZ$29+gst

 

Social Media - Four Square

Lets take social media to a new level. There are lots of people with smart phones now, including Iphone, Blackberry, Android, Palm and more. All off these devices allow you to install a free application called "FourSquare". FourSquare allows you to tell all your friends where you are, and provide feedback on what is happening. Now that might not be something you're interested in, but consider this. It has had particular success in the tourism and entertainment industry. All of the people who do use it, are busy creating an upto date database of eating, travel and accommodation tips. So if your B&B or restaurant is not in there, or is getting a bad rap, then you might not even know about it. It's only when you install it and look around your neighbourhood that you see just how many people are using it. Then it is quite self evident why you should borrow someones smart phone and "check in" to your establishment, and see what's being said.

 

Social Media Tip 2 - Twitter

Once you have signed up to twitter, to create your twitter account, you would be best to then use a different application/website to access your twitter account. Both of these applications will make reviewing your "mentions" much easier. They also allow you to save favourite keyword searches so you can monitor mentions of your website address or brand keywords, or competitor keywords. Try using www.hootsuite.com or www.TweetDeck.com

 

Search Engine Optimisation Tip of the Month

The more websites who link to you the better, as every inbound link to your website is an endorsement of your business. However, the higher ranking of the website linking to you is more imporant that the quantity of websites linking to you. Quality is better than quantity. For example, if you had a link from the NZ Herald, it has to be better than a link from someones personal blog.

Just to clarify the finer points, a link to your website, is not something you do to your website. It is something you need to ask someone else to do to their website. Many people get this confused. If you add links to your website, you take people away from your site, this is bad. If someone else links to your website, then they bring people to your website, this is good. Inbound links = good. Outbound links = bad. When making outbound links, always use a links page, never link from your home page or template.

 

 

Start your Own Website Builder Business

 

Our reseller program enables you to setup and sell websites under your own brand. Web Widgets provides you with all the tools and services you need to do this. Web Widgets remain at arms length. Only your contact details and brand are shown to your customer. They won't know anything about web widgets nor free website builder. This program is perfect for website designers, or sales people looking for new opportunities. The reseller program does have a $1000 setup fee, but you immediately get 25% discount on our hosting fees and can purchase domains for only $22/year. We also give you full administrative access to our system. Alternatively consider our affiliate scheme.

Learn more about reseller program

 

Help us promote our Website Builder (earn 20% commission ongoing)

Anyone who refers friends to our service, or sets up a 2nd or subsequent website gets a 20% discount off their web hosting fees. Refer 5 friends, and you pay nothing for your website hosting. Refer more than 5 friends, and we will start paying you.  

Terms - live websites only, based on equivalent hosting plans, payouts subject to minimums.

How to promote

  • Ask your friends to include your login email address on the form when they signup
  • Create a trial for your friends, using their email address, but put your login email in the referred by area.
  • Contact us to tell us who you have referred (after they have created their trial)
  • Create an affiliate link, refer top right within the CMS, then copy and paste into your page
  • Add a page, on the right under tooltips, see "Website Creation Affiliate Link"

More information about affiliates and reselling here

 

 

Websites of the Month

Here's a selection of some of our recent Go Lives. DIY websites are always a mixed bag, so we encourage you to view several example sites if determining if Website Builder is right for you.  

 

Do you want a more professional look and feel for your website? A more professional look will instill greater trust in your customers, and encourage them to stay longer on your website or make a purchase. Please use our online quote or contact us.

Do you have any feedback on our newsletter or CMS products? Please let us know.

Best regards,
Reuben Jackson (CEO)
Web Widgets - Free Website Builder

Posted: Mon 13 Sep 2010

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