February 23rd, 2010
There are a lot of books, articles and advice on how to optimize a web page, how your website should look like, but developing a project we should all remember one thing: there are no ready-to use recipes how to make it work the best. There are general advices, but no one is going to tell you everything about how to make YOUR website work straight away. And there is no one way that works every time and in every condition.
So the only right way is to EXPERIMENT. You should always have several variants and test them. Of course it seems cheaper to rely on your intuition and a heavy baggage of experience and to create the “best” variant at once and use it. But the fact is that what you think attracts your audience may not interest them at all. So experiment. Give several variants; ask them what they like better and they will respond you by their action. And you’ll be surprised, that this strategy, firstly more expensive, will later save you a lot by increasing your ROI dramatically.
We found an interesting resource and want to share it with you. These are results of testing different variants in web marketing. So read them carefully and look for new inspiration and ideas on how to make your site work.
Tags: Marketing B2B, marketing experiments, Marketing strategies
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
February 23rd, 2010
Miracle Technologies Pvt. Ltd. is participating in India Soft 2010, to be held at Jaipur, Rajasthan (10th March to 12th March) and we are sure that this is going to be a really exciting experience. We are ready to announce several products some of which were created right to the time of the fair. So we proudly present Stimulative Technology service which is extremely powerful in increasing the ROI of your website. Also we are going to tell about CRM and an ERP system, business process outsourcing and auctioneering services solution. If you are interested in cutting edge technologies for your web projects, you are going to find a lot of useful information. So welcome and we are waiting for you!
Tags: India Soft, Jaipur
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
November 23rd, 2009
After a flurry of work into some exciting and upcoming developments that are about to be launched we are back again. Enough about that though, that can all wait for the press for you to see elsewhere.
You won’t find us putting in Miracle’s upcoming news in our blog. This can be suicide for a company’s brand, transforming it into a faceless corporation. Let’s face it nobody is as excited about your new up and coming “state-of-the-art”, “revolutionary”, “groundbreaking” product/service as you are. So relax a bit with the sell, sell, sell mode that you are so good at and show your blog readers that you are a few human beings that make up your proficient company.
Blogs are a communication tool that builds brand awareness and nurtures a sense of engagement and not a medium to waffle on about your company; this will only make your customers turn away from you. This distinction needs to be made. Don’t follow the hype and “experts” that have made claims that “the press release is dead” and that they have made way for blogs. Blogs are becoming increasingly important, but they should hold a different communication strategy to the public then that of the press release.
The traditional Press release does need to altered, that much is true. The press release is still vital for company to get in front of the media, it just need to written with smarts so that it can be found through press release optimization and to grab the attention of journalists who see hundreds of press releases per day.
So many get this wrong and end up writing their press release so its looks and sounds like an advertisement. Be weary of this of doing this, the journalist could not care less about the product you sell, the amazing customer service. Instead there are a set of guidelines that should be followed to develop a press release that will be found, grab the attention of discerning journalists.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: david ogilvy, Internet Marketing, pres release, press release copywriting, press release optimization
Posted in Internet Marketing, Press Release, press realease optimization | No Comments »
October 29th, 2009
Outsourcing Software Development has become an integral part of any forward thinking company that understands the importance in being part of a globalized and correlated economy and will seek to expand its global capabilities. Outsourcing software development adds value in terms of time, cost and quality and gives considerable structure to project execution and benefits to all the stakeholders. Good mapping of all organizational processes will be the starting point. Your response to this review should be: “I need to outsource to remain competitive“.
Nevertheless, companies that are thinking about outsourcing their department only for reducing labor costs are blinding themselves to the vast advantages and opportunities that this road can lead their business into. It’s important to keep in mind that off shoring projects these days is no longer just a mean to reduce costs, but has become a tool for adding value to their business by enabling them to concentrate on their core competence.
In an outsourcing engagement, the onsite-offshore hybrid model is the most popular software development model offered by service vendors to their clients. In this model, the outsourcing work is distributed between the onsite centre (usually the client location) and service provider’s offshore development centre. Usually, 20-30% of the work is done at the onsite centre that includes requirement gathering, planning and initial designing, co-ordination, issue resolution, deployment and support. The actual development and testing of the software is done at the offshore centre, based on the requirements provided to them.
This model offers an array of benefits. The outsourcing company is able to release resources for high value-added and priority work and can concentrate on their core business knowledge while delegating technical tasks, maintenance, research or routine tasks to the offshore software development company. Above all, off shoring is about sourcing the talent needed to sustain the innovation engine of a company by adding significant technical knowledge.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: ActiveX, Application conversions, GUI design, IT Outsourcing, offshore software partner, Offshoring, outsourcing engagement, Outsourcing in India, Platform porting projects, Remote database administration, Remote Linux, Remote software maintenance, Software QA and Testing, Technical Documentation, VCL
Posted in Business, Outsourcing and Offshoring | 1 Comment »
October 27th, 2009
Recently Cameron Chapman touched on some crucial mistakes that can be made in E-Commerce Design. What I can’t stress enough is the importance of getting your e-commerce right. It is not enough to just have a store online to sell your products and services. Users need to have the best possible shopping experience and customer service online, just as is required if they were to shop in a mall.
Web site usability has become an important element of successful Web sites. Web sites must be easy to use. Hard-to-use sites frustrate customers, forfeit revenue to on-line retailers, and erode the image of the company’s brand.
Once you have succeeded in attracting a consumer to your site and have induced them to look into buying an item from your E-commerce store, the last thing you want is to frustrate the customer enough into forcing them to leave. It is so easy to do. Care must be used when designing your E-commerce store.
I have split Chapman’s 15 mistakes into three critical areas:
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: E-commerce
Posted in E-commerce, Internet | 1 Comment »
October 26th, 2009
“What would email look like if we set out to invent it today?”
That was the question raised by Google when developing the new Google Wave, a real time platform for communication and collaboration which combines aspects of email, instant messaging, wikis, social networking, and project management into one centralized tool. Apart from if it would really replace the conventional e-mail, as was implied in the question, Wave is being greeted with great enthusiasm and interest by people all around the world, and your company should pay attention to that.
At Twitter, Google Wave has been in the trending topic list for many weeks. About three weeks after 100,000 Google Wave’s invitations were released to the public by previous subscription, Stephanie Hannon, product manager for Google Wave, announced last Sunday via Twitter the new round of invitations. Users are crazy to have one of those. Having the opportunity to be one of the first to try out the system has been so difficult that in USA the blogger Hagan Blount promoted a sale for his invitation at eBay. According to the Wall Street Journal, he received offers up to US$27,000. The auction was however withdrawn afterwards, as it did not comply with eBay’s rules.
The excitement surrounding Google Wave can be summarized in one simple word: innovation.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: business marketing, google wave, interactive platform, protocol, search engines, technology
Posted in Internet | 1 Comment »
October 23rd, 2009
A brand’s online persona is the first impression for potential leads or clients, which counts for a lot in cyber space. Study after study demonstrates that web surfers have notoriously short attention spans. Failure to capture someone’s attention, or worse, if pegged with a negative association off the bat, odds are you won’t get a second chance to make your case. For this reason it is vital that you keep a positive online reputation intact.
The first step is to monitor your brand all over the internet. Make sure you find out about everything that is being said about your brand. First things first, you need to monitor all the keywords that are associated with your brand. This can be your brands, products, brand abbreviations, company director, public relations officer, also common misspelling of all of these variables.
Second step is to monitor your online reputation on a wide range of two-way internet mediums. This will be social networks, blogs, groups, forums, social media sites, consumer websites, and maybe most importantly on SERP’s. Use to RSS feeds to track these comment mediums with ease.
The most important step and technique is how to react to the negative comments. This can be described as damage control. The truth is that there will many different circumstances and not all negative comments will be the same.
There are the “trolls” and the “rager”, usually focused on degrading others, ranting, making jokes etc. These types of comments do not deserve a response, but mediums that host them should be monitored for information. Responding to specific comments could potentially exposure the comments more. Consumers hate being overly marketed to and a very aware of the marketing and PR practices that companies try to implement. Stay away from exposing your brand as being overly concerned with laughable comments it can only make your brand look worse in the eyes of consumers.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: brand comments, Brand Management, brands, Customer Relationship Management, online brand management, online reputation management, online strategies
Posted in Brand Management, Brand reputation management, Internet Marketing, Social Media Optimization | 3 Comments »
October 20th, 2009
Diwali, the festival of lights, is the most widely celebrated festive occasion in India. It marks the triumph of good over evil hence strikes accord with people from all beliefs and cultures.
Last week all Miracle family members celebrated the Diwali with great enthusiasm. The staff had a great time together, participating on games and sharing sweets and snacks.
Tags: celebrations, company, customs, diwali, festival, india, tradition
Posted in Inside Miracle Technologies | No Comments »
October 20th, 2009
Social Media in small businesses is becoming more common, many are aware of the potential benefits that can be developed. Many are still lagging behind as the recent survey by Citibank has portrayed (Reuters, 2009). 86% of small businesses in the US (under 100 employees) do not use social networking sites or do not find them useful in generating business leads or to expand business, can you believe that?! I sure can.
Small businesses that use social media correctly will be using it as a relationship marketing tool rather than a point of sale tool. To do this, it does take a considered effort and time to start creating the social networks that your business can benefit from. As within the physical world networks and relationships take time develop. Small businesses need to make time or hire SMO professionals to develop social media strategies that suit their business.
There are many social media outlets such as blogging, networking, and bookmarking. What is important is that a company does not get excited and start creating profiles all over the web and jump straight into writing a blog.
A business must get try and optimize the way they communicate their brands message through social media the first time. It is important that the message in which the company is communicating is integrated consistently with the current brand image and positioning. Social media has many mediums in which to communicate across; small businesses need to be made aware of how one should communicate consistently along these mediums.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: blog marketing, Customer Relationship Management, Internet Marketing, online strategies, relationship management, small business marketing, small businesses, SMO, social media, social media marketing, social media optimisation, social networking
Posted in Customer Relationship Management, Internet Marketing, Social Media Optimization | 1 Comment »
September 16th, 2009
Much is being said about Findability strategies for brands and websites. But what does it really mean to be findable? Findability could be defined, in its essence, by one straightforward phrase: The best way to find a user is to be found by him. In theory this can sound simple, but not in practice.
Morville (2005) point out that “Findability precedes usability. You can’t use what you can’t find”. Many marketers desire to have the ideal web design solution for their company, accompanied by an appropriate information architecture and usability structure. Of course this is important to be considered when having an online presence, but along with that, strategies to increase the users capability to find the websites they seek as well as being able to find relevant content within the pages must be put in practice.
There is a big difference between a customer’s behaviors when impacted by online media vs. mass media. For instance, when you are watching the television and a commercial break is on, the message that you receive turns to be totally invasive. In the web, things work in a different (although not opposite) way.
As much as a banner or pop-up ads can be invasive, the user usually accesses the url of the brand he/she is willing to see: they open a favorite browser and type the brand url or search for the brand name in a query box. That’s were we meet the concept of findability.
This strategy is connected with the keywords that are used to find the website, and they can present an excellent performance in search engines, as long as you know how to use them. The ideal scenario for a brand is to be among the top results in the search engines’ ranking. But you shouldn’t count on only this strategy for achieving results. There are other tools – such as web advertisements – that can be used to impact the consumer in several web locations. That’s why the digital strategic planner needs to think about the whole picture, in the whole digital project, and not only in website itself.
Findability strategy can be designed using frequent SEM tactics, Public Relations practices and keywords usage. Analyze the most researched keywords and find out which of those best suites with your website and brand. Simple keywords like Kitchen and Books – commonly researched words – can only increase traffic in the website. Findability concept is about increasing qualified traffic, to find people who are really interested in the brands, products or services that a company is offering. In this strategy – and in the whole digital project – it is always good to keep in mind that it is better to have 10.000 accesses with 5.000 conversions than having 100.000 accesses with 500 conversions.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: findability, online strategies, SEM tactics, usability, UX
Posted in Internet Marketing | 3 Comments »
What to do when people are talking about your brand on the web
October 23rd, 2009A brand’s online persona is the first impression for potential leads or clients, which counts for a lot in cyber space. Study after study demonstrates that web surfers have notoriously short attention spans. Failure to capture someone’s attention, or worse, if pegged with a negative association off the bat, odds are you won’t get a second chance to make your case. For this reason it is vital that you keep a positive online reputation intact.
The first step is to monitor your brand all over the internet. Make sure you find out about everything that is being said about your brand. First things first, you need to monitor all the keywords that are associated with your brand. This can be your brands, products, brand abbreviations, company director, public relations officer, also common misspelling of all of these variables.
Second step is to monitor your online reputation on a wide range of two-way internet mediums. This will be social networks, blogs, groups, forums, social media sites, consumer websites, and maybe most importantly on SERP’s. Use to RSS feeds to track these comment mediums with ease.
The most important step and technique is how to react to the negative comments. This can be described as damage control. The truth is that there will many different circumstances and not all negative comments will be the same.
There are the “trolls” and the “rager”, usually focused on degrading others, ranting, making jokes etc. These types of comments do not deserve a response, but mediums that host them should be monitored for information. Responding to specific comments could potentially exposure the comments more. Consumers hate being overly marketed to and a very aware of the marketing and PR practices that companies try to implement. Stay away from exposing your brand as being overly concerned with laughable comments it can only make your brand look worse in the eyes of consumers.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: brand comments, Brand Management, brands, Customer Relationship Management, online brand management, online reputation management, online strategies
Posted in Brand Management, Brand reputation management, Internet Marketing, Social Media Optimization | 3 Comments »