“In September 2009, Neil Stansfield of Northamptonshire was jailed for over two years for buying own-brand, non-organic supermarket food, repackaging it as well-sourced organic produce and selling it on at a huge markup to highly reputable food retailers.”

For starters…less than 1/3 of NZ businesses have a website.

I thought that was a pretty shocking number considering that 50% of businesses agree that they would be more profitable if they used the Internet for marketing and 66% think the “Internet is a critical channel for marketing and promoting their business”. A website should be part of your marketing strategy but there are other avenues to explore that can generate interest and sales like Facebook and Twitter. At the very least, register your business and yourself on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is “the world’s largest professional network on the Internet with more than 100 million members in over 200 countries and territories.” Doesn’t sound like such a bad place to be, does it?

As for Facebook, it’s hard to ignore the fact that many of our friends, family and acquaintances spend a good amount of time there. According to Facebook’s stats, they have about 500 million active users with about 50% of their active users logging in every day. Whether or not you have a website, set up a Facebook page for your business and start marketing yourself online. You can make announcements, share interesting stories and videos and interact with your customer base as well as potential customers. It only takes a few minutes a day to keep in touch and stay in the mind of those who might eventually need your services.

“Only 19% of businesses are using search engines (like Google) to market their business.”

I know you’re thinking, Google Ad Words and yes, there’s that, but what I’ve discovered with 99% of my new clients is that they haven’t registered themselves with Google as a local business. Do you know how easy that is and how beneficial it can be? If you search on Google, for example, for “freelance web design auckland” you’ll see that my site appears second (after the adverts). The place listings appear high on the page, so even though my site doesn’t actually appear in the regular listings on the first page, my place page listing does. Set up your own place page by going to Google Places.

“⅔ of NZ consumers research online before making a purchase.”

That’s huge. Even if you don’t want to sell your products online at least consider putting information about your products online. If your competitors don’t have their products online you’ll be at an advantage and if they do have their product online you’ll be helping consumers make an informed decision.

I have many more interesting statistics to share with you so get in touch if you’re keen to learn more. Generally I was surprised by Julian’s statistics but hopeful as well. There’s a lot of room for for growth and potential for New Zealand businesses online.

Recently Portugal’s i newspaper won The Best of Newspaper Design™ Creative Competition. It was the clear winner and it’s easy to see why.

You can read the full article here but in short the judges were impressed by the covers which used “techniques like thoughtful cropping of images to add intrigue.” Colour and variety “provided provocation and an intellectual challenge.”

The judges appreciated the size of the newspaper (250 x 345 mm) which was saddle-stitched making it easier to turn pages and read a whole page without entering the personal space those beside you. They praised the typography and the grid layout. “i walks the line between newspaper and magazine with perfect balance.”

And it’s true. When I looked through the images I was immediately drawn to the publication. I wanted to read it, every page of it. It looks like something I’d have a hard time throwing out. And it’s just a daily newspaper!

Wouldn’t you love to see a re-do of our New Zealand Herald? In a time when newspaper sales are dropping it seems obvious that our local paper could benefit by taking a similar approach as Portugal’s i newspaper. Take a look at the New Zealand Herald and you’ll see what I mean. Loud, obnoxious and ugly are the adjectives that come to mind when I look at our newspaper (and I’m not even talking about the writing). A garish blue heading, over-processed images and titles that scream at you like a used car advert. The layout is as familiar as many other newspapers and just as dull. The rest of New Zealand’s newspapers aren’t doing any better or any worse as you can see here.

Of course design alone won’t save the NZ Herald but it could certainly help them stand out from the crowd. I’d love to see our newspaper become an object of desire.

After a couple of months working closely with Cheryl from Carpet Surgeon I’m pleased to announce that the website has gone live! The web design and development was a collaboration with Chery’s web development team and myself. I did the design and they built the site.

It’s unusual that I only have the design of a site to do but this opportunity provided me with the flexibility to be more creative and give each page of the website a special touch. Cheryl was keen to have a layered look on her website so I came up with the idea of having some carpet lay on top of a wooden floor as the background. A stethoscope, prescription, and sticker were added to the header to further invoke the layered look. In the body of the page there are various layered elements like ribbons, the canvas background and the images of the Carpet Surgeon crew. Individual icons were created for each of the services giving each service its own personality.

It was great working with Cheryl and Lorne and I wish them all the best with their new website!

Visit Carpet Surgeon’s new web site

Great news for The New Zealand International Piano Festival (NZIPF) and Lewis Eady. Their piano festival has expanded to include all of New Zealand and their new website has gone live! Check out the site at www.nzipf.com.

The design and build of this website was a collaboration with Etc., Kelley Eady Loveridge’s photography and design company, Sharon Seeto from Lewis Eady, and myself. Kelley created the design of the website and provided the beautiful photography. Sharon managed all of the content and kept us all on schedule. I built the site using WordPress as the content management system (CMS).

I normally choose Worpdress as a content management system for my clients because it’s very simple to use. If you’re used to using a program like Microsoft Word then you’ll be able to use WordPress. After I conduct an hour of WordPress training, my clients are updating their websites without any problems and they’re thankful to have the ability to do so. In the long run, using a CMS will save them money since they won’t need to employ a web designer every time they need to make simple updates to their website. With WordPress they’re also able to add new pages to the website giving them even more flexibility the ability to grow their web site.

Karebou 2009

Karebou 2010

In France they say the shoemaker has the worst shoes and this certainly applies to me…until now. Call it procrastination or call me my most difficult client which is really closer to the truth, but I’ve spent the last twelve months redesigning my website. Most of those designs will never even see the light of day but c’est la vie.

So what’s new about the new Karebou? First and foremost the design has changed drastically. While many people loved my old site for it’s white space and clean look I felt it really needed more actual content to convey all of the work that I do. The first version was highly visual whereas the second version is visual + informational. To boost the informational aspect of the site I’ll be writing articles that address the questions I receive from my clients. By doing this I hope to create a library of helpful tips and information that will help them evolve their websites and their business online.

I’ve finally added some photography work to the site and that’s been a long time coming so I’m relieved that it’s finally out there. I’ve also added more detailed information about the services I offer. I realized early on that one size doesn’t fit all so I’ve expanded my services to include web design, web design and development, blog design and development, branding, graphic design, and finally product photography.

What else is new? Well I’ve added pricing and I hope this is helpful to many out there. I know it’s frustrating not knowing how much a service is going to cost so I’ve provided some rough estimates as a guide. Of course every client and project is different so I prefer to do an comprehensive interview in order to provide a clearer idea of cost. There are so many cheap website companies out there but what many clients don’t realize is that these place typically charge horrendous monthly fees on top of their cheap web site prices so you actually end up paying more in the end. My monthly fees are only $12.50 and that includes hosting, regular maintenance, and software upgrades so I’d say that’s definitely a bargain.

I hope you enjoy the new site!