Consumers are turning to the Internet to cut shopping costs. This is according to a study by the consumer division of Neotel, the second national fixed-line telecoms network operator.

The company advises people to shop online because by doing so they could save an average of 20%.  It said that, with the latest security technology and encryption techniques, websites were becoming fraud-proof.

Online retailing in South Africa is growing at about 35% a year.

"The Internet not only allows you to harness global information but also conduct commerce with the click of a button."

The Neotel study identified several areas in which substantial cost savings could be made by shopping online. These include:

•    Driving: costs include the amount of petrol spent sitting in traffic, as well as vehicle wear and tear;
•    Time: the most basic shopping trip could cost more than an hour
•    Impulse buys: magazines, chocolates and other small items are strategically placed to tempt customers;
•    Grocery shopping: with 24-hour delivery time for some suppliers, a shopper can get the exact amounts of items wanted and save a day;
•    Banking: the Internet is open 24 hours a day and saves a potentially dangerous trip to an ATM.

Julie Tomlinson, director of mobile business at Sybase SA, said South Africa was the fourth-largest user of mobile Internet services.

She said that, as the network infrastructure in Africa advanced, e-commerce would be used by more people at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale.

Source: The Times
By: Zweli Mokgata

If you have any questions, be sure to email us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Often clients call me not sure of what is required in order to get their website off the ground.  In this article I will give you a breakdown of what will be required from the client in order to get started.  We at Bluepearl Design understand that websites and all that goes with it can be overwhelming.

Below is a check list of the web designers requirements:

1.    We will require a logo
2.    We will require website content and wording
3.    We will require direction in terms of design
4.    We will require FTP details in order to make your website visible on the internet
5.    Keywords in order for us to list you on Search Engines

If you don’t have a logo, we can design one for you.  A logo sets the standard for your corporate Identity and the website is often based on the logo design.  Your logo is your identity and should be designed by a professional.

Writing the content for your website is perhaps the most difficult task you will have to face.  There are specialists out there who do this, however clients are often not willing to pay.  However in our experience, a badly worded website can be as damaging as no website at all.  Using a professional is always advised.

FTP details are simply the username and password, provided by your web hosting company.  We need these details in order to upload your website to the World Wide Web.

Without Search Engine Optimisation your website is practically invisible.  You need to optimise your website in order for your potential clients to find you.

All of the above services we offer.

In saying this we are offering a starter pack, for start up businesses, which includes the following at a discounted rate:

1.    Logo Design
2.    5 page website with contact form
3.    Domain name registration and free hosting for a year
4.    Content writing for website
5.    Search Engine Optimisation setup

All this for only R9990.00. 

The above is also available without logo design and content writing.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to email us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

I received a call last month from a company stating that they could guarantee me the top ranking on Google for the services my company offered.  Well this immediately grabbed my attention because they clearly had not even had a look to see what our services are, if they did they would have noticed we did exactly what they were doing, or what they were attempting to do. The second thing that grabbed my attention was the fact that they could guarantee me the top ranking on Google.  The third thing they mentioned that I found extremely unsettling was the fact they proclaimed to be a Google certified company.  

Firstly you cannot guarantee the top ranking on Google as you never know what your competitors are doing or spending when it comes to Search Engine Optimisation. In order to be above your competitors, you essentially need to spend more than they do.  What these companies are often guaranteeing is a top ranking on your sponsored links on the right.  This is called pay per click, and yes you might be there once every so often as it works on a rotation basis.  So it depends on what budget you have set. The higher your budget, the more often you will appear on the right.  First prize on Google search results however is the main column and this does take time and effort.

The fact that they claimed to be Google Certified company is enough to get them in very deep water.  This is essentially fraud and companies have been prosecuted for this.  Key aspects to look out for when a company claims to be Google Certified are:

1.    On their website they must have a Google Certified logo.  
2.    This logo must link to their Google Certificate which is not hosted on their website
3.    You can use this link to search whether they are Google certified, https://adwords.google.com/professionals/search/. There are only a handful of companies in South Africa that are Google Certified.

If any of the above is unclear or you have experienced a similar incident, please contact us.  We are trying to put an end to this as its tarnishing our industry and these companies need to be stopped.

There has been a lot of hype and advertising regarding Paypal now being available in South Africa.  The truth is Paypal has been available in South Africa for years.  I personally have been using it for well over 3 years.  The difference between then and now is that you are now able to accept payments.  This means you are now able to make money using Paypal in South Africa, and not just spend money.  Paypal is the preferred method of payment for many of your potential customers, so it immediately adds credibility to your site.

The benefits to you are as follows:

•     You can use your PayPal account to make or receive payments for goods and services online.
•    Shop online at merchants in 67 countries and regions.
•    Pay for things and send money without sharing your financial information.
•    Checkout quickly at hundreds of your favourite online stores (not just eBay!).
•    Receive payments from buyers in 190 countries and regions, this means your business just went international.
•    Its cheaper and easier than having to setup merchant accounts and integrate credit card payments.

The exclusive top-up and withdraw service with PayPal allows South Africans to make payments and receive money internationally without sharing their financial or personal information.

You do however have to either use your existing FNB account or create a new one.

For more information on e-commerce websites or adding Paypal payments to your current website be sure to contact us.

Your new website is up and running. Now what? Are you going to sit back and wait for orders of your products or services to come flying in?

What if nothing happens?

Are you going to curse the web designer, forget about your website, return to your old methods of advertising, and be upset with yourself that you believed a website of your own was "the fashionable, profitable way to go"?

Please don't, because a website of your own is definitely what you want.

Why?

* It's less expensive than other advertising.
* You can advertise more at the same time.
* You can eliminate speaking to potential customers who are just browsing.
* You can easily have your designer alter or add to your existing "advert".
* Your website's content is targeted to only the kind of client you need and want.
* Orders, bookings and queries can be received at any time of day or night.

Again, what if nothing happens?

There is plenty you can do to improve the 'findability' of your website - and a lot of it only costs time on the internet!

What can you do?

* Choose your web designer carefully.
* Check how other websites they have designed are ranking on Google - and not just for the name of the business, but also for various other keywords pertaining to their line of business.
* Join forums (that allow you to include your website link in your signature) related to your line of business, and when posting be sure to include keywords that relate to your business.
* Choose your free classified advertising sites carefully - type in various search words or phrases related to your business, and whichever free classified websites come up in the first few pages of Google results, are the ones you want to place your adverts with.

Take the time to make your website work for you, and you will be rewarded.

Article by Teresa Schultz

A recent study from web-design.co.za has yielded some interesting results.  Below you will find the average cost of web design in South Africa.  The below article re-affirms our competitve pricing in the market place!

'Over the years, we've had some potential clients tell us we're expensive, and others ask if we inadvertently left off a zero on our quote because we're so cheap. Eventually, towards the end of 2009, our curiosity got the better of us and we decided to investigate.

We anonymously emailed 100 web design companies and asked for a web design quote. Of course, websites vary in scope and spec, so in order to get consistent quotes, we requested the website be a standard 5 pager with no animation or fancy programming.

Click here to read further

INITIAL RESULT

Of the 58 web design companies that even bothered responding, the website prices ranged substantially.  Specifically, a standard 5 page website was quoted between R 600.00 and R 28 200.00.

At this point, our curiosity was piqued even more. We wanted to know why there was such a wide range of web design prices, so we decided to investigate further. We looked through the online portfolios of every web design company that had quoted us and what we found was consistent with our suspicions. The work standard of these web designers differed considerably.

So in order to compare apples with apples, we then split the quotes up into 3 categories, those with good quality work, those with average quality work and those with bad quality work.

Our finding were as follows..

GOOD WEB DESIGNERS...

The 8 web designers that offered good quality websites, charged an average price of R 7 268.13 for a 5 page website. Generally we found these prices were justified. They offered good quality web design with clean coding that would likely do ok in the SERPS (search engine result pages). There was one company that charged excessively high, but another that charged exessively low, so it balanced out in the end.

OK WEB DESIGNERS...

The 22 web designers that offered ok quality websites, charged an average price of R 5 260.11 for a 5 page website. They offered ok web design (nothing exciting) that might do ok in the SERPS. Apart from one web design company that had to have been smoking crack to demand such a high price, we found the rest were either justified or quoting a little too low.

BAD WEB DESIGNERS...

The 28 web designers that offered poor quality websites, charged an average price of R 3 330.40 for a 5 page website. Barring the one or two web designers that were practically giving away websites, generally, we found the quality of work in the bad category so poor, that we think these web designers should find new careers - because any amount of money they charge a client will be too much for what they offer.

CONCLUSION

So for clients, the moral of the story...
Most of the time, you get what you pay for, a lot of the time you waste your money, and occasionally you find a diamond in the rough. It's important to be discerning, when you choose a web design company. Don't look at price alone, go through web design company's online portfolio / example work before making a decision.

Lastly, be wary of web design companies that will give you an excessively low price on web design in the event that you host with them. Often the hosting packages are so astronomical that in the long run, you have paid for the web design over and over again.'

Article by Roxane Lapa of .COZA Web Design
www.coza-web.co.za

Firstly it gives you time to run your business instead of spending extensive hours maintaining and editing your site. We also know that your site and the information on it, is important to you, but most importantly, your visitors want content that is current and will help you with your Search Engine Optimization. There is nothing more frustrating than old, outdated content!

Websites are a very important tool to your marketing mix.  You wouldn’t have an old advert placed in a newspaper advertising out of stock products, old prices and incorrect contact details, so why do it with your website.  Your website opens up your ‘store’ to an international audience, and millions upon millions of potential viewers.  Feeding them with incorrect or out of date information will lower your businesses credibility.

Bluepearl Design will manage, maintain and improve your website, and fix any issues should they arise.  We will also optimize your website to improve your website rankings on various search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.  What we will do for you in summary, is make the website work for you, and have your website live up to its full potential!

We are proud to announce the launch of our brand new website, packed full of features and new services. We  offer Graphic and Web Design solutions, Website Development & Search Engine Optimization, but we have equipped ourselves to deal with an assortment of additional cutting edge services including:

Website Maintenance
Digital Illustration
e-Commerce Website Development
Virtual Tours
Mobile Application Development
Digital Marketing
And more....

All the features on the website we can do for you.  From the scrolling of the banners, to the flash animation.  The new Bluepearl website is a Content Management System website which allows us to easily update and edit content and add features. The possibilities are endless with a Content Management System.

Through the course of the next month we will be improving the site, adding features and making minor adjustments, so be sure to check back.

So you have your website, out there on the internet... Now what? How do you make your website work for you? How do you get the most out of your website? There are over 233 million websites on the World Wide Web, how do you differentiate yourselves from all this clutter? Bluepearl Design is equipped with tools and services to ensure you get the most out of your website.

Search Engine Optimization and Digital Marketing are 2 services that should always be considered part of the web design process.  If you do not do any form of S.E.O or Digital Marketing, there is no way a prospective client will find you, bar a website address on a business card or brochure.

Think of S.E.O or Digital Marketing as your store window.  Think of the potential customer as a window shopper walking down the main street.  If your store window is shut, card boarded up with no products on display, no name on the front of the building, with no description, is the window shopper likely to go in?  What SEO and Digital marketing will do for you is provide you with that shop front, that shop window to attract customers into your ‘store’.

It will increase traffic to your website, which means you will receive more enquiries, which leads to more sales.