Custom Web-Based Application for Customer Check in/out and Inventory Control

One of our clients, the owner of a game-based entertainment arena, was having difficulty tracking its customers from initial payment through to rental gear check in and out, as well as with continued inventory discrepancies.

Documentopia spent some time at the facility observing the existing method and flow. Together with the owner and staff we devised a streamlined process with an easy-to-use touch screen application interface.

Our web-based application allows the arena staff to verify payment by connecting directly to the QuickBooks point of sale system, and check in customers using a bar code scanner, assign rental gear to each player and track returns. The touch screen interface ensures a quick check in process when a number of customers arrive at one time.

The system also provides the staff with realtime stats on arena activity (e.g., number of players on the field, rental gear available and out of action) as well as having a countdown system which flags players who are close to expiration on their rental package.

Being a web-based application, it doesn’t require any local or customized installation and it allows access to the application from any terminal around the arena, or over the internet.

When a company’s goals and strategy change, so too can their website!

Over the past month, we have worked with Snap Prepaid to develop their website beyond its original goal.   We set their website up in 2009 to serve their existing clients as a portal to securely purchase additional handsets and cellular devices from their trusted supplier.

Snap Prepaid, in reviewing their website and overall company strategy, is opening their doors to more dealers and companies in the refurbished device field.  They didn’t need to change the overall website functionality as they were happy with the existing e-commerce site structure and back-end management interface, but wanted to add a new look and feel on the home page that then continued throughout the site.

We designed a new home page that highlighted Snap’s key characteristics in a more visual manner, while also showcasing some of the best deals on the site (which can be edited any time via the content management system).

Re-theming a website like this plus re-writing and editing existing content shows your customers that you are always changing and moving forwards, while adding new content stops the site from stagnating at the bottom of Google search rankings.

Check out their new web design.

Some help for all our favourite & loyal Clients & Friends

The information included in this blog post answers one of the most frequently asked questions I receive when I help a client develop their online presence with a website: “How do I get to the top of a Google search?”

Getting high rankings on search engines (the process of search engine optimization [SEO]) is not a speedy process with immediate and obvious results.  But with time, an ongoing effort, and a clear strategy, you can do a lot of work yourself and guide your website’s Google ranking destiny in the upward direction.

DO understand that any site changes you make to enhance your Google ranking (except paid advertising) can take up to 10 months to start showing positive results.  These things take time but are a worthwhile endeavor.

Please read through my hopefully helpful guide of things you can do, and, as always, let us know if you need any help.

1. Have you set up your Google Places listing?

This is free, easy and one of the best ways to get your name and information on the first page of a Google search when users type in a location (e.g., “fishing, York, England”). Your business will appear on the Google Places map, and if you have created a listing, people can click on the map location marker to learn more about your company.  This isn’t a website, but more like a detailed yellow pages listing.

To set up your Google Places listing, go to: http://www.google.com/support/places/bin/static.py?hl=en&page=guide.cs&guide=28247&from=28247&rd=1

If you really like your Places listing, you can pay to promote your listing in a new Google feature called Boost.

2. Google Adwords – Paid advertising

If you want to quickly improve the number of people who find your site, you can pay to have an ad appear on Google’s non-organic search results (e.g., the listings at the top of the page or to the right of the regular [or organic] results).  Google Adwords lets you set up an advert listing that will be activated to appear on Google when users type in certain keywords that you have identified in your ad campaign.  You can decide your budget (e.g., $2.00/£1.50 per day).  You only pay when a user clicks on the advert and goes through to your website. You can also create a goal page on the website (e.g., the BUY page for an e-commerce site or the DIRECTIONS/MAP page for a venue/location-based website) and we will add code in that page.  Then when a person clicks through from your ad and stays on your website long enough to get to that “goal page”, this will be considered a “conversion”.  A conversion is the best form of identifying success from your Adwords endeavours.

There are a number of factors to consider but with a good understanding of your market place, your clients, and the keywords people will use to try to find you, you can do this! Documentopia has set up a number of these ads for our clients.  If you need help setting up the process, just give us a call.

3. Fresh content

Don’t let your site go stagnant. Yes, we created you a great website that says everything you wanted, at the time you set it up.  But how long ago was that?  The longer your site sits unchanged, the more likely  it is to drop in Google and other search engine rankings.  The complex algorithms that Google uses to rank your website emphasize freshness of content as Google wants to make sure its customers (the people doing the searching) always get the most relevant up-to-date information.

Documentopia has provided several clients with a content management interface where they can edit news, resources or other pages to their website using a simple-to-use editing system.

Or you can always contact us whenever you want to switch up your content if you prefer the hands-off approach.

4. Know the market and industry trends

To enhance your advertising and continue to create effective content on your website, you need to keep abreast of what is happening in the world. Check out Google insights to see what other information you can glean from Google’s vast data banks of search data to identify trends pertinent to your market.

If home foreclosures increase, you can start offering “recession deals” to your clients or as political fervor grows during election years, don’t forget to add some fresh content relating to election deals or specials in your website content.

5. Use Google Alerts

A great way to keep up with the changing world – create custom search-related alerts. As Google says,

Google Alerts is content change detection and notification service that automatically notifies users when new content from news, web, blogs, video and/or discussion groups matches a set of search terms selected by the user and stored by the Google Alerts service. Notifications can be sent by email, as a web feed or displayed on the users iGoogle page.

For example ask Google to alert you about any changes that affect the search terms that pertain to your business (e.g., “website development Atlanta”), set the volume (number of alerts per day/week/month, etc) and put in your email address to start receiving alerts.

6. Get other businesses to link to you – Relevant Linking

Why do we want to do this? The Googlebots that explore your site to scan for up-to-date content, not only scan through all your text but they also follow all the links that you have on your website as well as all the links on every website that they list including those that link TO YOUR WEBSITE.

Imagine a website that sells coolers.  They should contact companies who sell camping gear, boat supplies, and picnic items, for example, companies that have a relevant connection to that product.  They need to join a network of companies that tie together in a recreational / food field, which ties well with their product by linking to them on their site and getting links back from others.

DO try to avoid direct reciprocal linking, as this can easily be tracked by Google and seen as a simple link share (which they disapprove of, especially those long pages of links).  Look for 3 way links (e.g., can you add a link on your landscaping business website to a supplier of plants, who links to a lawn supplier who links back to you?).  Things to think about so you don’t get caught out.

Look at your competitors: Who is linking to them?  One quick way to do this is to type “Link:webaddress” in the search box of Google, e.g., “link:www.redwoodpark-york.co.uk” and you will see a list of who links to that site.   This isn’t always up to date so you can contact Documentopia for further more detailed help in who links to your site.

7. And Finally, one of the best feedback resources for a site owner:
Google Analytics

Documentopia has set up the code required to obtain Analytical information about your website’s performance.  If you want access to this information, set up a Google Analytics account then send us your email address so we can give you access to your site statistics.

The kind of information you can expect to get from Analytics:

• See the number of visits your site has received in a set time frame
• The average bounce rate (e.g., how many people click on your site link then leave immediately)
• Number of pages per visit, average time they spend on the site
• The physical location of people visiting your site (by country, by region, by town…)
  
• How they found you (search engine, website-website linking, etc) and what search terms they used.

All of this information, and more, can be used to refine your content, create an effective online ad campaign, and learn more about what your customers want.  If you have a high bounce rate (hard to quantify but its pretty high if your rate is over 65%), you can try to figure out what the problem is.  Do you sell landscaping services but somehow people are finding you when they are looking for potting soil?  Is your site content misleading somehow?  Take a real good look at your site, send it to people who don’t’ know what you do and have them see how easy it is to figure out what services / products you sell.


That’s it from me for now.  As always, never fail to contact me if you have any questions!

And don’t forget to take a break every now and then!

We just completed a new web site with logo development project in record time.

David, of DL Services, approached us for a website to accompany his Craig’s List posts (where he gets most of his web-sourced business) to add a touch of professionalism to his online look.  He and his wife Linda (The D & L of the company name) wanted to demonstrate their services and capabilities with a fresh looking website.

We designed them a logo that highlighted their key service areas (construction of pavestone walls, lawn services and tree work).

From approval of the logo, we developed a website that also incorporated the key themes of the husband-and-wife operated company.

Check out the site and let us know what you think: DL Services.

I was recently visiting my family back in the UK and met up with one of the owners of my fave local pub, the Blackwell Ox, when we got to talking about her family-run catering company, Park Catering.

Until we talked, the company had been running very successfully providing wedding catering and event management for local weddings hosted at Sutton Park (a beautiful estate home in Sutton on the Forest, York).

We talked about their business plan for the future, their potential clients and overall look and feel.  We started with logo development taking a parsley leaf, which tied in with food and also the nature element of the company name and pairing it with elegant fonts.

We then developed a theme for the website, continuing with the green / park flavor of colors in the overall palette.  The website, consistent with all our designs, is free of Flash and other elements that don’t perform well across a number of browsers and devices out there.  But we did add an elegant rotation of food/venue photos on the home page.

Additionally, we incorporated the personal hand written thank you notes that our client had received after they had provided successful wedding planning for their clients on to the testimonial pages, to maintain that close personal touch which has continued to maintain the successful path of Park Catering.

Finally, we set up menu templates and a way for the client to update their own menus and upload them to the website so they could constantly update their clients with their latest sample menus.

Check out the just launched Park Catering website and let us know what you think!