Last week Mark Zuckerberg made a huge announcement, one that is likely to have very big ramifications for any business that uses Facebook as a way to reach more customers. It was such a big announcement that Facebook’s stock took a big dive as investors tried to get their heads around what it meant for the social media behemoth. The plan is simple - make our social media feeds more about our friends and family.

The driving force behind the change is Facebook’s desire to bring back more meaningful social interactions to the platform. Over the past couple of years (and particularly through the American election), Zuckerberg has faced increasing complaints that Facebook was causing more social harm than it did good. Besides social media addiction, the platform’s algorithm was mainly serving us up content that confirmed our previously held viewpoints. That wasn’t what Facebook was created to do, and with this latest announcement, they are trying to make our newsfeed far more positive and personal to our actual daily lives.

But what does it mean to businesses? Well, that’s the bad news. Because the newsfeed will be shifting from a focus on ‘topics’ and ‘relevant content’ to ‘meaningful social interactions’, it’s highly likely that a business page’s organic reach will decrease. We believe the emphasis will become less about topics and engagement on page posts, and more about how those posts are shared amongst your friend group. So where currently, if someone who likes cars likes a post, the post might get shown to someone else random who likes cars, in the future, it’ll be more about those posts being shared amongst friend groups. The organic Facebook game definitely just got harder for businesses.

The bigger unknown will be how this newsfeed change affects sponsored content/advertising on the platform. Given Facebook will want to stay profitable, it seems likely that where companies could get great organic reach previously, now they may need to focus their efforts into paid advertising and sponsored posts. The hardest thing to pinpoint right now is how those sponsored posts will be displayed. Will they stick to the ‘relevant content’ policy, or will there also be an element of the new ‘social engagement’ approach applied to the advertising as well?

As the change rolls out we’ll be keeping a close eye on it, but it’s fair to say that this is a major shift in the online advertising world. By making this change now Facebook hopes to become more relevant and important to it’s users – which may mean that it becomes a more powerful tool for advertisers…or it could mean a huge hit for business engagement. At the end of the day it’s businesses that pay the salaries at Facebook, so our view is that businesses natural reach will drop, but their advertising reach will stay steady…but let's just watch this space.

A few days ago Facebook quietly made an announcement that should have pretty big ramifications for both personal and business users of the platform. The social behemoth has set their eyes on 'engagement bait' - those spammy posts that blatantly beg for you to like, comment or share in an attempt to increase engagement and organically get the post seen by more and more people. Primarily, Facebook have heard their users complaints about the increasing amount of 'spammy' posts filling their newsfeed and are going to do something about it - using machine learning to identify these types of posts, stop them from being shown as much and eventually punish those pages that 'systematically' use this tactic.

Facebook started 'demoting' these types of posts earlier this week, but are rolling out the page-level demotion over several weeks to give those of us with Pages the chance to change our behaviour and not be caught out by the new model. What this means practically is that if you do own a Facebook page, you should definitely refrain from any type of 'baiting' type posts:

• Vote baiting - involves using the 'reaction' buttons to vote on different options
• React baiting - is just asking your followers to use the 'reaction' buttons in some way
• Share baiting - begging for your post to be shared
• Tag baiting - getting people to 'tag' a friend
• Comment baiting - is requesting your users comment in the posts

Recently there has been a real trend for the above type of baiting to be used by businesses for things like competitions and giveaways. These types of posts have always been a little bit borderline, so it probably shouldn't come as a surprise that they'll now likely be punished by the almighty Facebook algorithm!

Our advice - just cut the baiting out of your newsfeed completely. Create content that people are going to want to engage with, click and comment on without the baiting, and you'll not only do better by the algorithm, but you'll also actually be providing your followers with things they WANT to see - which at the end of the day is what social media is all about.

Below are some graphics from Facebook just setting out the various examples of baiting that will be clamped down and you can find Facebook's 'Fighting Engagement Bait' announcement here.

As the sun starts to set on 2017 it's the time of year we all do a little bit of reflecting on our own business, how it went, and what we could do better. For us, that means looking at what YOU were most interested in on our Tech Tips Blog. So, without futher ado, below were the most read articles of 2017.

Hotjar - Visualising Website Data
A surprise entry at number one, our blog post on Hotjar proved the biggest hit of 2017. There is something quite satisfying in being able to track where people scroll and click on your site, and Hotjar's fantastic heat mapping tools visualises that data for you. A great little assist for any New Zealand website designer.

New Websites & Google
The newbies out there who have just got a website live were eager to get straight onto the Google search results this year, and our article explaining how new websites and Google work was another winner.

Why My Website Doesn't Show On Google
In third place was one of our simple search engine optimisation blogs. Plenty of business owners wonder why their site doesn't show on Google and we did our best to explain why.

Payment Gateways - PayPal versus Stripe
A hit with anyone taking payments over the net, our comparison of Stripe and Paypal also drew plenty of attention. Which should you use? It's a horses for courses scenario for sure.

Facebook Mobile Studio
Rounding out the top five was a quick look at Facebook's mobile studio. Proving once again that social media remains a hot topic for all NZ businesses.

So there you have it - our most read articles and blogs of 2017. We'll be back in the New Year to keep providing you simple, understandable tips to help your site hum online.

1) It's not mobile friendly
This one should almost go without saying. If your site doesn't scale well to mobile - you've got a gigantic problem. Our 543 website gets over 60% views on mobile devices these days, so making sure your site is easy to use on a phone is crucial. If it's not responsive or mobile friendly, you're going to lose customers AND lose search rankings. This isn't negotiable...if you're site isn't mobile friendly - contact us....now.

2) You can't edit it easily
Times have changed, and websites should be super easy to edit these days. If you're finding your backend clunky, struggle to use it, or your website designer hasn't given you easy access to it - you should think about giving the site a revamp. It's pretty important to keep your website design up to date, and to do that you should be able to make changes yourself. If you can't - make a change.

3) The competition has moved forward
Take a look at your competitors websites. Are they flashier? Do they appear higher in search results? Could you see a customer choosing them over you because the website is easier to use or looks better? If so, then it's time to invest in revamping your site. Stay ahead of the game, keep up with your competition online and you should see an improvement in sales.

4) It's not generating sales, or it could generate more
When was the last time a sale came through your website? How many are you getting per month? Do you think there is more opportunity to grow your sales online? These are all really important questions for a company. We've had clients who changed their website and branding and had an instant uptick in conversions on their site. More of the people landing on their site starting contacting them and engaging their services. It's great for us to see, and a real reminder that you should always keep your site moving forward.

5) It's more than two years old
Having an older website isn't an absolute deal breaker, but after about two years time then it's likely technology and styling has probably moved forward. If you've had your site live for more than two years, it might be a good time to  have a look around at the competition and give your website another critical look. Look at it from the point of view of the customer, and potentially get someone else to give you feedback.

REMEMBER: Just because YOU love it...doesn't mean everyone will
Our last piece of advice is never get an emotional attachment to your site! You should really love your site, but don't fall into the trap of thinking that it's perfect because it's yours. We've changed our site every few months and loved every version of it...but we've identified areas we can strengthen or change it up - and made those changes.

The bottom line is - keeping moving forward. We've tried to make our pricing low enough that a change in site every few years won't break the bank (what's $1,200 every 3 years to stay at the top of your game?). Your website can be a fantastic tool, it's easy to change, and a great place to start a rebrand, so why not get in touch with us today about an affordable website revamp.

Over the last few years there has been a real move towards individuals being able to work anywhere for any client on the planet. We are one of the lucky industries that have no real need to be in a certain physical location to do a fantastic job for our clients. As long as we have an internet connection we can build a site or run online advertising for anyone in New Zealand, or across the globe. However, there can be a real sticking point for some clients wrapping their head around how hiring a Napier web design company could work if they are based elsewhere in the country. It's a pretty understandable thought process, so we thought it was worth doing a little blog on how it all works from our end, and the benefits that come along with being based in one of NZ's fastest growing regions.

THE HOW
By email: how we work with our clients varies from company to company. For some, they love just having communication via email, which is all good at our end. They email us a brief, send through examples and changes they want made, and we get those changes made for them with minimal hassle.
By phone: other clients are verbal and would prefer to pick up the phone and chat through their project with us. That works just as well as far as we are concerned. We're more than happy to talk through things and take a brief verbally.
In person: some local clients really do appreciate the face to face, so we often head out and meet up with clients. We get around the country a fair amount to put in a bit of face time if clients would like it - New Zealand is such an easy place to get around these days it's a pleasure heading to Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington or wherever we need to go really. There's also the opportunity to Skype or video conference regardless of where we might be based any day of the week - technology is certainly making the world smaller.

THE BENEFITS
The cost: this is the major one. By being based out of the major centres our overheads drop immediately - which means we can pass on those cost savings to our clients. We're also grounded in a more sensible approach to pricing for small businesses, so by choice we'll never push our prices too high.
The people: cities like Napier, Hastings, and the like are built on a backbone of small business. That means that the people tend to have a real street smarts to go with the education they bring back to the Bay. You won't get outrageous plans from 543 for a marketing plan that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars - you'll get a smart, practical and affordable plan that works. We're friendly, helpful and truly motivated to help our clients with realistic advice and budgeting.
The innovation: we're lucky to be based in a city that is constantly innovating. Whether it be events like the Art Deco Festival or growth in the food and beverage industry, the local scene is constantly moving forward. When companies like Kiwibank and Xero identify Napier as a place to bring their business, that's a fantastic way to be surrounded by smart people and smart ideas. The net result for our clients is that we are constantly wanting to move forward for them and for ourselves.
The convenience: it almost seems counter-intuitive to think that an agency outside of your city would be more convenient than one locally - but the reality is it can be. Because 80% of our clientele comes from outside of our home base, we have to have impeccable communication processes in place. We're extremely responsive, and whenever you have an issue we'll be there to answer an email or a phone call. In this regard we've turned the only weakness of being in a different location to the majority of our clients into a huge strength. If you want to feel like you are a top priority - we definitely recommend giving 543 a try.

​All in all we love supporting Hawkes Bay business and being a Napier website design company and are incredibly excited to be bringing the passion and professionalism we pride ourselves on to more and more of New Zealand's small businesses, no matter where they are in the country. So whether you're based in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin or anywhere in between, make sure you get in touch with us and have a chat. You'll love our pricing, and will find that using a design/online advertising company outside of your city might be the best move you've ever made for your company.

As businesses increasingly begin to sell their products and services online, we are getting more and more questions about payment gateways and how you take payment from your e-commerce website.

The first thing to understand is that an online store or e-commerce website is very similar to a physical retail store in some respects. At a physical retail store, you'd walk in, pick a product off the rack, take it to the checkout and either hand over some cash or pay through an EFTPOS/Credit Card machine. The shop owner will be paying someone for the privilege of using that machine (particularly for credit card transactions), so that's while you'll often see stores either charging more for credit card transactions or not offering them at all. Online, it's the same story. A customer will come to your online store, click on the product they want to buy, head through to an online checkout and then provide their credit card details through a payment gateway. That gateway takes care of all the security and the $$ transaction, but as far as the customer is concerned, they've just paid you for the item they are buying. As an online store owner, you'll end up having to pay that payment gateway provider somehow, and how each gateway works for you as the store owner is slightly different in each case. Below are a couple of the options we use both ourselves and with clients.

PayPal
If you've shopped online you've probably come across PayPal at some point. It's globally recognised, has a very good track record, and is very simple to use.

• Sign Up - one of the best things about PayPal is that the sign up process is very easy. Answer a few questions and you're basically good to go.
• Pricing - PayPal has simplified their pricing in NZ recently - at the time of writing you'll only pay on the transaction (3.4% + 45c per transaction). So if you sold a $10 item online, you'd pay 79c ($9.21 into your pocket). You can find PayPal's fees at this link.
• Getting your money - the one downside of PayPal is that you'll need to draw down your money from your PayPal account manually. You'll receive the funds into your PayPal account (less the transaction fee), and they'll stay in that account until you sign into PayPal and make a lump sum withdrawal to your verified bank account.
• Integration - integration with the CMS that 543 uses is really simple (just sign in basically), and PayPal works equally well with software like Xero. By creating a PayPal 'bank account' in your Xero reporting software, all the transactions will be recorded and it is super easy to reconcile. You can also connect PayPal up to your Xero invoicing if you want to give the option for any invoices you generate to be paid online.
• Other bonuses - because PayPal effectively acts as a bank account, you'll be able to use your PayPal ID to pay for transactions across the internet with other stores. That means no need to add your credit card details over and over again.
• PROS - globally recognised and trusted. Super easy to use & integrates easily with Xero etc.
• CONS - have to draw funds down yourself. Can be confusing to some users as the PayPal portal gives users the chance to 'sign in'.

Stripe
Stripe is the new kid on the block in New Zealand, but has been established overseas for a while now. 

• Sign Up - again, Stripe is really easy to sign up for, just make sure to have all your business details ready when you go through the process.
• Pricing - Stripe has come into the NZ market lower than PayPal with a per transaction price of 2.9% plus 30c. So if you sold a $10 item online you'd pay 59c ($9.41 into your pocket). You can find Stripe's fees at this link.
• Getting your money - unlike PayPal, Stripe will automatically pay your funds across to your bank account (once they have cleared). You'll be able to login and see a full summary of all the transactions, which have cleared and when they are expected to clear and land in your account etc.
• Integration - Stripe integrates really well into the payment side of most applications and certainly in the 543 CMS it's a simple matter of signing in. Because Stripe acts more as a direct payment portal, rather than a bank account, it doesn't integrate quite as well as PayPal into Xero. The descriptions that come across into Xero can be a little confusing for reconciliation, but there are ways around this, and we're picking this will improve in the not too distant future. Connecting Stripe up to Xero invoicing is also really easy - and reconciling that when you do connect it is extremely straight forward.
• Other bonuses - developers really seem to like Stripe. That means alot of plugins etc accept Stripe, and it's growing really quickly globally.
• PROS - payment straight through to your bank account (once confirmed). Easy to use. More in depth reporting and developer functionality. Low fees.
• CONS - doesn't integrate into Xero as smoothly as it could.

Other Options
There are a bucketload of other payment gateway providers out there (basically every bank will have some sort of option - Payment Express, PayMark...the list goes on). When you talk to your bank, they'll recommend the one that they use, but they'll all have different pro's and con's. The reason we've looked at PayPal and Stripe are because they are a perfect starting point for small to medium sized businesses. They are robust, easy to use, integrate into the CMS we use effortlessly and only charge per transaction. We've found alot of gateways (particularly with the major banks) charge a monthly fee plus a transaction fee. They'll have other upsides - like payment straight into your account - but the first thing you should always do is chat to your website designer or developer about what will or won't work with the site they are building/have built for you. Technology is a bit like a jigsaw puzzle, and while you can mash pieces together to get something to work, it's always best to use gateways and facilities that fit and work well together.

Like anything, do your own research and chat to your designer. Listen to the opinions of the experts, and you're bound to be better off in the long run.

One of the most common questions we get asked when we put a site live is "why can't I find my website on Google?" It's a natural enough question - we think it's entirely understandable that once your site is live you'll want to be able to find it. Unfortunately, the reality isn't quite as instant as we'd all love it to be!

It's important to remember that while Google is smart, it's still trawling millions of websites every day. It finds those websites, tries to decide what they are all about, then compares them to other websites in similar topic areas to decide which are the most relevant. After doing all of that it decides an order to put the websites into and presents that back to us as our search results. It's very clever stuff.

Step 1:
The first thing that needs to happen is for Google to find your website address and acknowledge your site exists at all. Over time this will happen automatically...in one of Google's many crawls across the internet it'll find your new url/domain/website address and put it into it's database. If you want to speed that process up, you'll need to submit your site to Google using their Webmaster Tools (ask your web designer about these, or just Google "submit site to Google"). If you've got a really unique company name like "Jiggy Jumpy Jobs" and your website url is unique as well ie "jiggyjumpyjobs.co.nz", then pretty much as soon as Google has crawled your site you'll be able to search "Jiggy Jumpy Jobs" and your site will pop up at the top of the list. However, if you have a generic company name or website address (eg "New Zealand Jobs" - newzealandjobs.co.nz), then you'll have to wait longer for your site to appear high in the search results. Why? Because Google will compare you against all the other New Zealand Job websites out there.

Step 2:
Once Google has done an initial crawl and your site has made it into their database, you'll be eager for it to move up the rankings in the important search terms your company works in. So Jiggy Jump Jobs will obviously want to hit the top of that New Zealand Jobs search, because that will get alot more search hits (and potential customers) than just a jiggy jumpy jobs google search. That's where online advertising and in particular search engine optimisation comes in.  By saying the right things in the right places and constantly monitoring your website you can try to shortcut to the top of those important results. It's something that can't really be covered in one blog post, and you'll usually need some expert advice on it, but it's definitely worth considering.

The summary and tips

• Choose a website url that is going to help you in BOTH the general search terms as well as one about your business. Using 543 an example, "websitedesign.co.nz" would be the perfect generic url, and "543.co.nz" would be really easy for searches looking to find 543 specifically - so we combined the two into "543websitedesign.co.nz". That url gives Google specifics about our company AND the more generic, descriptive search term. If you're a local business, think about including your city or region in the website address as well. As an NZ company, you should also be thinking about using .co.nz rather than .com.
  
• Once your site goes live submit your site to google, yahoo and bing.
• Give it a few weeks. Every site takes a bit of time to appear in search results, so patience is a virtue.
• Advertise on Google & Facebook early. If you want to cut out the delay in appearing in search results, pay for some advertising so you sit at the top of the pile immediately.
• Run a search engine optimisation plan. The monthly cost should more than pay for it further down the line when your site is getting tons of traffic from being at the top of the search list.