Design Experts

The AusIndustry Small Business Online Program (SBOL) is an exciting new federal government initiative equipping small businesses with the skills to be active and effective in the online world. Developing eBusiness capability is particularly valuable for small businesses in Regional areas to allow them to compete on the national and international stage.

There are a range of seminars in the series from business planning to email marketing.  Design Experts got involved and Tim has been delivering workshops right across Central Vic.
It’s not too late for you to get involved in the SBOL program; there are still spaces in upcoming workshops and the new calendar of seminars will be released any day.  Workshop all cost $25 or less – Enroll with a SBOL partner below:

Continuing Education Bendigo (CEB)
Bendigo, Echuca, Wedderburn, Kerang, Castlemaine

The Sunraysia Rural Counselling Service
Mildura, Swan Hill, Donald, Wycheproof

The Centre
Mansfield, Wangaratta, Euroa, Benalla, Bright

“Look what I did!” -DIY Workshop success

Our first round of graduates of the ‘DIY Website’ seminars have completed their projects and are now growing their businesses through their new websites.  Take a look at some of our success stories – these guys would never have believed they could go from web novice to ninja in just a few short weeks…

KnA Embroidery - Coming Soon.
RJS Consulting
Mini Jods - Coming Soon.

In the next few weeks Design Experts  are on the road...on the 29th and 30th of July we will be exhibiting at the forth annual Australian Business IT Expo (ABITE) in Melbourne and then following it up a week later at The Brew Biz Fest - Central Victoria 2010 in Bendigo.

Here's the media release about Tim's seminar at ABITE.  Drop by our stand and say Hi...

Media Release - Regional design experts lead the way

 

The fourth annual Australia Business & IT Expo (ABITE) opens Thursday 29 July at the Melbourne Convention Centre.  A feature of the two day event is the comprehensive seminar program with nine presenters from across Australia, all leaders in their field.  Tim Gentle, Managing Director of regional Victoria’s Design Experts will present ‘Email Marketing - Doing it legally, doing it smart’ at 2.30pm on Friday 30 July.

 

A marketer for 15 plus years and a specialist in effective on-line solutions, Tim Gentle has delivered 200 plus workshops, many in country Victoria, to help small businesses maximize their potential online. Tim’s Australia Business & IT Expo (ABITE) seminar will focus on creating, sending, tracking and managing email marketing to powerfully communicate with existing clients and generate new ones.
 
Two years ago, Tim and his wife Kylie, who both have rural backgrounds, established Design Experts in Echuca and are proud to be based in Regional Victoria.   Their original tiny team has grown to include 9 full-time staff and a network of consultants and partners. This week they opened a second studio in Bendigo. Design Experts don’t just measure their success on their size or the sheer volume of websites they have built, but also on the diversity of their clients from right across Australia.

 
Despite their regional address, or maybe because of it, Design Experts find themselves building web solutions for many big city based businesses.  "It must be the country air that provides my team with the creative space required to develop our clients’ online marketing solutions" Tim Gentle, Design Experts Managing Director said.  “Or it could be that we don’t need to deal with train delays, road tolls, elevators and car parks in the morning, so we are calm and relaxed from the get go” Tim continued.
 
Tim Gentle has a Masters in Multimedia, Bachelor of Business, Trainers and Assessment Certificate and is also Workshop Leader for Small Business Victoria.  Tim and the members of the Design Experts team will also be at their exhibition stand throughout the entire Australia Business & IT Expo.  

 

Recently I attended a presentation by Andrew Doutch - www.andrewdouch.com.au; let's just say that I was very impressed.

The presentation focused on how Andrew (or know to his students as Douchy) using web 2.0 technology to educate his students.

3 years ago, Douchy was approached by the Principle of Wanganui Park Secondary College, in Shepparton to research how he could use emerging technologies to connecting students and teachers.  He has come a long way since then, winning numerous awards and watching the average grade of his students increase dramatically.

His own biology podcast has a listening audience of more than 3000 students and he has inspired and helped numerous other teachers at his school and in other schools to create podcasts, vodcasts, screencasts, websites, discussion boards and blogs.

After listening to Andrew, who gave us 100's of tips on how to follow in his foot steps, I decided to start playing with the technology to better serve our customers.

For example, Design Experts have created "personalised screen-casts" or "online video support tutorials".  That way, our clients can learn first hand how to resolve their issue by watching a personalised video that we record for them and upload to their personal directory.  If it is a common question, then we upload the video the the public folder, for example "adding metadata to a webpage"

Some of the tools that were mentioned were, that you might find interesting;

www.go2web20.net - a list of the worlds web 2.0 tools and applications
www.Jingproject.com - record screencasts
www.podamatic.com - create podcasts
www.ipadio.com - use mobile phone to create audio blogs

If you are interested in exploring these technologies in your business, school or organisation, Design Experts would be more than happy to help, or I can put you in contact with Douchy who offers consulting services to get you on the right track.

Cheers for now

Tim Gentle

Well it's on again and yes, Design Experts have put up their hand to support the event!  We'll be there and we'd love it if you could be there with us!



Log onto Cellar & Store for more details.

I have just touched down in Adelaide, South Australia after a 48 hr whirlwind visit to our client "Arid Recovery", located in Olympic Dam, Outback SA.  Just waiting for my Melbourne flight...

The visit was actioned to ensure we could launch www.aridrecovery.org.au; and we did! 

Established in 1997, the Arid Recovery program is centred around a 123km² fenced reserve from which all feral cats, rabbits and foxes have been eradicated.This has provided an area of complete protection into which four species of locally extinct mammals have so far been reintroduced.


I stayed the night in Roxby Downs, which is located 9km away.  Roxby Downs is a mining town located in northern South Australia. The town was purpose built to service the Olympic Dam mine which contains one of the largest known ore bodies in the world today. The Olympic Dam mine is owned by BHP Billiton, the mine produces copper, uranium, silver and gold.

I want to wish Gill and the Arid Recovery Team the very best and thank them for their hospitality. 

Arid Recovery website is yet another "Design Expert - Working in Harmony" success story. Considering that Arid Recovery is all about "Working in Harmony with Nature"; it's a fitting match!

Design Experts came out on top amongst the most popular category in this 2009 Powercor Australia Campaspe Murray New Business.

It's been a lot of hard work, a lot of tears & laughter- it couldn't have been done without my team. We would like to thank all of our clients for their support & we hope that we have helped you grow your business as well.

From L-R The Design Experts Team : Morgan Davies, Gabby Quirk, Douglas Thomson, Kylie Gentle, Tim Gentle & Blair Stonehouse

Design Experts were thrilled to launch one of our most innovative website projects yet when we unvailed www.viewstreetbendigo.com to a captive room of 70 people at the Capital Theatre on Monday 2nd November 2009.

The website brings together a showcase of all the services we can deliver our clients into one location!

A virtual tour of the street has hotspots which allow browsers to "step inside" the shops and restaurants and take a look around. We produced a promotional video that is available online to view or use in other media like TV or DVD. It has a directory of traders, a BLOG, an employment page and history of the street, just to name a few.

I'd suggest you all pop on and check it out and then visit View Street Bendigo in person!

News - View Street Bendigo Website Launch (446 KB)

View Street Invite (504 KB)

Twitter - www.twitter.com can be described as a ‘micro-blog’. 

Twitter is one of the more popular social media service available on the internet.  The main benefit I feel that Twitter provides is it allows you to link to individuals and networks that are interested in the same information that you are interested in.

Types of Twitter updates could include, your location, handy tips you have found online and asking questions you would like answered.

You will need to sign up and create a Twitter account before you can ‘Tweet”.  You can create a Twitter account for yourself, your business, your club etc. Once signed up, you can then update your status.  

Once you understand some of the more advanced tools Twitter has and use some of Twitter 3rd party websites you can really start to enhance your Twitter presence.

For example, you can automatically feed your Twitter status with information you have filtered off the web.  You can set up auto responders, you can be added to Twitter directories and even enhance your Twitter homepage with sexy graphics and keywords.

To maximise your Twitter presence I suggest you complete this Twitter Online Tutorial or http://bit.ly/Cp9a.  The cost is around AUD$40, but well worth it.

On the flip side, here is a comical look at Twitter - http://tinyurl.com/d32yf8 - it’s a classic!

Once you have completed the Tutorial you will be shown how to get full use out of Twitter.  Here are just a few of the Twitter Tools you’ll learn about.
 
www.mytweetspace.com  -  sex up your Twitter homepage
www.tweetlater.com  - auto response
www.twollo.com  - find and follow twitters
www.google.com/alerts  - filter news/blogs and set up feeds
www.bit.ly  – create small url
www.twitterfeed.com  – Set up RSS feeds to you twitter account
http://search.twitter.com/ - find people
www.twellow.com – Twitter Yellow Pages
www.dossy.org/twitter/karma/ - Manage your Twitter followers

At the time of writing this Design Experts BLOG I am sitting in the passenger seat driving with Kylie along the Hume Hwy returning from Sydney. My laptop is in my lap and my 3G Internet in full force. Currently in my Twitter account, I have 88 Twitter followers and I am following 71 other Twitters. Only time will tell if I set up my Twitter account correctly. You can see how successful my Twitter account has turned out by visiting http://twitter.com/timgentle
 
What I am focusing on is quality links, not just quantity; I am trying to link with other web designers and social media gurus from around the world.  I do fear however, that Twitter will turn out to be just another way we will receive SPAM if it is not managed correctly, but only time will tell.

Recently I presented on Social Media in Cairns, Australia to the Nuffield Scholarship Strategic Planning Conference.  They are interested in using tools like Twitter to tap into the younger Generation.

I wouldn’t call myself a Twitter junky; but it is hard to ignore. What I am hoping Twitter will do, is to drive more traffic to Design Experts website and help grow the business.  I have also benefitted from some of the tips I have received by following others Twitters.

Cheers

Tim Gentle
Managing Director
www.DesignExperts.com.au
Twitter Tutorial - http://bit.ly/Cp9a

Do you know what Keyword clouds are?

Keyword Clouds are a visual depiction of keywords used on a website, keywords having higher density are depicted in a larger fonts.

We suggest that you check that your website has the keywords that you are targeting in Google, Yahoo come up as ‘large fonts’.  It’s FREE and takes 1 minute.

Visit Keyword Density Checker, enter your domain name and click submit, it's that simple.

If you are unsatisfied with the results you get after checking your website, then contact Design Experts to seek assistance.
 
If you have one of Design Experts latest Content Management Solutions, you can add metadata (keywords) to your webpage yourself by clicking on the 'add meta data to web page' tab in the Action Box (right hand side) when editing your webpages, see below.



TIP - If you are adding metadata/keywords to a webpage, you must try to include these 'keyword' in your content as well!

This is just one tip to improve your ranking in search engines.

Cheers

Tim Gentle
Web Architect