The value of Twitter is something that is widely debated as it continues to grow.  The extremes are those who can’t live without it and others that can’t fathom how it’s worth one second of their day.  In the middle are a lot of people trying it out, maybe for their small business, maybe just for fun.

My Twitter use has a very high value to me and if fact it even has a number.  I’ve posted in the past on the benefits Twitter showed me right form the start, how it can drive blog traffic and a big attempt to amount 100 reasons for a business to Twitter (still short, add one!).

My Twitter ROI as of today is:  $13.50 per Tweet

As of the tweet I’ll put out to announce this blog post, I’ll have closed just over $25,200 in business only and directly because of Twitter and my 1,870 updates. That is just plain cool.  Even better is I have many more projects being quoted, referrals being given and connections being made.  Strictly from Twitter.

I’ve received this business from Twitter in a few routes:

• Industry peers. Thanks to Twitter I have connected with numerous other talented web designers and developers that have passed me leads.  Twitter allowed us to connect, view links to work we’ve put out and made them think of Five when there was a project or lead that didn’t fit them.  This has been both humbling and exciting as a some very talented people themselves think enough of our services to recommend us.
• Marketing proffesionals. I’ve connected with internal marketing talent from various companies locally and nationally that have put me on to RFPs, projects and other needs that I would have never known about without a connection via Twitter.
• Twitter friends. It might be baseball related, small business related, music related or another interest I have put out there, but I have connections that are non-web design related.  The replies and conversation might be about about the Minnesota Twins offense, but then a direct message comes out of nowhere with a contact person at a company that needs web help.

Do you have a Twitter ROI or a Value Per Tweet (VPT)?  Share it if you can.  I’m constantly amazed at the value I get from Twitter in news, connections, knowledge, ideas and yes … even sales.  I’m looking to add to my Twitter ROI.

Today’s real estate market has a lot of sellers asking real estate professionals “can you sell my home fast?”.  Rosen Properties is a Minnesota real estate service that provides home buying, selling and renting services in the Twin Cities area.

An Improved Website Across The Board
Rosen Properties had been using a real estate website solution for some time that lacked in many areas.  While it did provide Rosen a presence online it didn’t have enough value to bring in new customers.  Five’s web design and Internet marketing skills went to work on:

• Web redesign to improve consumer trust and 1st impression
• Improve navigation and usability
• Improve search engine optimization and ongoing SEO
• Easy to update website powered by the SMC
• Added a blog to improve SEO and communication
• Stronger tools to market homes for sale, rent and rent to own
• Web analytics and goal tracking

The end result is a well rounded web design and web platform that Rosen can continue to build upon.  In this market where people need foreclosure assistance, credit re-building, rent to own options and a faster way to sell a home, Rosen Properties brings a ton of options.

Make sure you check out the new website:  www.RosenProp.com

There is no doubt that e-commerce websites have their own set of rules.  The fact there is one defined goal for the website, to make a sale, adds a stronger focus to the website.

If you are considering launching an e-commerce website or about to redesign your website, keep these e-commerce web design tips handy.

1.  Keep It Simple
You have a simple goal and that’s to sell.  Make sure your navigation is easy to use and make multiple paths to your “add to cart” pages.  Simple and redundant navigation is the best thing any website can do.  We try to create as many, easy to use funnels to get to product info and purchase.  These navigation items should be your main navigation bar, internal links in content, bread crumb navigation, a product search and site map at minimum. Yes, all of those are basics to a good site.

2. Seeing Is Believing
Most e-commerce purchases are visual.  If you are selling any product that a user needs to have visual trust in, do what you can to have the best photos or graphics of that product.  Many sites loose customers because of poor photos of their product for sale. Some of the things you can do to stand out and ear trust are have photos with enlarge options, alternate shots of different angles and zoomed in photos of product detail elements.  Don’t let your photos kill the sale, let them win it.

3. Answer The Details
Organizing  and displaying the details of your product are a must.  Having “answers” on your product detail pages that clarify measurements, specifications, materials, uses, options and more will get you more sales.  When users can’t find that one last detail to make a purchase, they’ll jump to find another site that answers their need.

These 3 e-commerce web design tips are just the start to a succesful website selling online.  If you can be the best resource by having an easy to use website, with better product photos and endless details … you’ll find yourself with the sales you desire.

While many companies and organizations rush to redesign their website to improve it’s performance, they overlook a simple change in approach that might make the biggest impact.

A shift is taking place on the web for small business.  Websites and web content are moving to reality, far away from marketing hype.  If a company can change their approach and find ways to bring valuable content to users, then they can improve traffic and ultimately leads.

A Clear View, Show What You Can Do
A buzz word in the web design world is transparency.  To me, this simply applies to the ability to show potential customers and current clients just what you can do for them.  Instead of pitching them that you are “the best, the leader, number one” why not drill into exactly how you can help them?

Example 1: A CPA Firm could use their content to outline their menu of accounting services … and their content might read the very same as 10,000 other CPA websites in their industry.  If they shift their approach, they could provide a summary of how they helped a small business find financial efficiency, position it for growth and help it succeed.

They could show their target market exactly what they ARE doing and make it easy for that user to understand the type of benefits they bring with their service.  Their services mix to create success for a client, instead of a users trying to guess what they need off the standard services list.

Example 2: A Restaurant can show their menu items and a burger is a burger is a burger in print version.  But if you take a short video clip of making your gourmet or special burger, post a series of photos and customer comments on it … you have something to bring hungry stomachs in.

In taking the approach to show the reality of your ingredients, the process and the visual WOW factor, you have created a distinct difference from your competitors websites.

Those are just two quick examples of how taking a better approach to web content and involving ideas, media and real web content can have an impact.  EVERY business out there can find these valuable ways to better illustrate how they can benefit, help and serve their clients and customers.

Build you website visitor a clearer picture on your offering, expertise and process and you will become a clear choice as the one to buy from.

Five Technology is excited to announce the launch of TheHuntingAuthority.com web project.  This hunting community website combined a great web design interface with a ton of features.

Bringing Social Interaction To The Duck Blind
The guys behind The Hunting Authority came to us with the goal of being the best website an avid hunter and outdoors person could find.  Great design, great content, great features and most of all, a voice for the hunter.

We jumped at the challenge to build user profiles so that visitors to the site could create their own profile and interact with each other.

Here are some of the social features we built into the website:

• Account creation with screen name
• Ability to add/edit a bio
• Ability to designate hunting interests, areas and the ability to search other members with similar interests
• Status area to announce what you’re up to
• Bulletin board to leave comments on other members profiles
• Photo gallery to add your own hunting photos
• Ability to embed YouTube or other 3rd party video players
• Ability to write your own blog articles and comment/respond
• Ability to rate and review guides, outfitters and gear
• Ability to show your favorite web links

We packed a ton of great interaction and community tools into the initial launch of the website and already have more features slated as the website takes off.  We built out all of these features on our content management platform.

Hunting Blog
The site features a hunting blog that already is packed with great hunting info, wild game recipes, dog training tips and more.

Setting up a custom blog design isn’t a big deal for us, but the fact we integrated the profile account creation and log-in with the blog was pretty great.  This made the user profile creation just a single log-in for the site and simplified their ability to comment on blog articles.  It’s nice to have your CMS and WordPress play together so nicely, for everyone’s benefits.

Guides & Gear: Give Your Review
Once registered, the website users have the ability to add, rate and review outfitters, hunting guides and the hunting gear they use to hunt with. Users can search for hunting guides and outfitters by searching states or Canadian provinces and then view detailed information.

Working Footer
Lately we have voiced our thoughts on website footers being important.  On this website we put both first, second and even some deeper levels of links and pages into the footer.  You’ll see more of this as we feel its a great usability feature.

Success In The Crosshairs
As you can see, this web design project was no small creation.  The website has many more features than what we touched on here.  If you are a hunter, we encourage you to check out TheHuntingAuthority.com and create a profile. We enjoyed the challenge of the project and look forward to continuing to build out more great features.

We can vouch that these guys are dedicated to having the best hunting website on the Interweb.  Great content, great features and giving those with the passion and knowledge a voice; that’s what The Hunting Authority is about.