18 Jun 2010 Launching a new web store
We’ve had fun this week giving birth to our client’s new ‘baby’ – her fledgling online gifts business
one for you / one for me.
Like most web businesses, we often work with start-ups — a brand new business with an idea, and sometimes little else. That’s a challenge. But with a client as energetic, passionate, witty and determined as this one, our job is not only easier — it’s great fun and very rewarding.
Whilst we do our part in getting traffic to the site as soon as possible (keyword research, optimised site, AdWords campaign advice) there is a lot more to be done. And this client is a natural at both the online and offline things, that can only be done by the business owner, to start building momentum on the site.
She uses her extensive personal network, writes witty readable blog posts, runs little Facebook competitions, sends targeted emails about specific products and more. She’s going to have a great online business (supported by us her web partners). And she deserves it.
By the way, we haven’t even met her face to face yet. But we are looking forward to that next month when she’s in Melbourne for a couple of trade fairs.
01 Apr 2010 The Brunx is Launched!
The Brunx is a new blog for people who own and manage websites, especially in small and medium sized organisations.
A lot of our peers are writing blogs, but here’s something we’ve noticed: most “web people” write blogs for other “web people”. There’s a ton of great material in these blogs, but they’re not much use to you if you don’t know what Javascript is, or HTML5, or the difference between SEO and PPC. We think there’s an audience out there that’s not being catered for. Surely, we decided, there’s room for a blog that presents useful, up-to-date information about the web to people who aren’t web professionals.
The Brunx is for you if…
- You’ve just started a small business. You know the web is crucial to the success of your business, but you’re not a web expert and you need some reliable advice that you can understand.
- You own a business and have been running a website for a while, but it’s not really working for your business in the way you’d hoped.
- You have a successful website, but you want to do more: bring in more traffic, explore this “social media” you’ve been hearing so much about, or even use the web to automate your internal processes.
- You’re the designated “web person” within an organisation, and you need help to get the most out of your website, sometimes in the face of internal opposition or apathy.
- You’re in the web industry, and you’re looking for a resource you can be confident recommending to your clients.
What you’ll find on The Brunx
The Brunx is a work in progress. Blogs evolve to fit their audience, so the only thing we know for sure is that things will turn out differently from what we expect! But having said that, here are some of the things we’re planning:
- Tips on working with a web designer to build a successful website
- Advice on ways you can extend your web presence beyond your website
- Recent developments in the web and how they affect you, explained in language you can understand
- Easily digestible guides to specific areas like strategy, design, online marketing, copywriting and usability
- Real-life stories and interviews about the ups and downs of building successful websites
We’ll be starting off with one post a week. The Brunx is for you, so let us know what you’d like to see.
What you won’t find on The Brunx is a whole lot of thinly veiled advertising for our own businesses. Yes, we’ve created The Brunx in part so that people can get to know us and what we do. But we really want people to read the thing, and we know they’ll only do that if they find the information useful, trustworthy, and hopefully a bit entertaining!
Why The Brunx?
“The Brunx” is a nickname for Brunswick, the suburb of Melbourne where our business are based, and where some of us live. We love the energy and diversity of Brunswick, and we think it’s a catchy name. That’s all there is to it!