Wordpress Development, Email Marketing Australia, Magento Development, Facebook Design and Development

WordPress have just announced their new theme for 2012 – Twenty Twelve and It looks amazing. We are glad to see full width, home page like feature back in the theme and we think it goes towards the fact that WordPress are positioning themselves as a CMS/blog rather than just a blog. Scroll below for all the features

WordPress Theme Features

CMS like Homepage

We love the new CMS like homepage and puts a clear direction for WordPress that it has now graduated from Blog is now a proper CMS

New TypeFace

Open Sans Typeface really brings out the new theme

Responsive

The theme is responsive on a big focus on Mobiles

Post Formats

WordPress Twenty Twelve keeps post formats consistent on all views. Links, Quotes, asides and images retain the look across the site.

We will be adding a new site with the template to play around with shortly.

To keep up with existing projects, we have now hired a new WordPress Designer pushing our size of dedicated WordPress designers/developers/coders to 7.

This gives us a very good team to manage your wordpress website.

WordPress 3.2

WordPress 3.2 is out which means that our team can now build custom structure for your website. This version brings heaps of improvements. Please view the video below for more details.

Rapid WordPress Development

We are on target to deliver a new WordPress website every week until the end of the year. Which means that we will be delivering 22 WordPress websites this year.

Please keep a look out for our blog as these sites go live and also our blog post which features all the WordPress websites that we have done.

http://www.dzineclub.com/blog/2011/01/wordpress-development-wordpress-design/

At DzineClub we work with multiple CMS platforms to make sure that we are in touch with all the latest technologies. We have dedicated staff who work with platforms such as Magento, Joomla, Drupal and WordPress.

Our CMS of choice is WordPress (for websites) and Magento Commerce (for Online stores) and it consists of our bigger team of development. The reasons we pick WordPress  and Magento is because these platforms are easier to install, develop, deploy and improve on.

This means that as a client you get speedier development, lower total cost of ownership, Quicker updates and integrations. If you need a design refresh in a few months, you don’t have to worry about the content, it will just be a matter of putting a new skin on top.

That, a CMS that is a perfect fit today might not be the best in a few years. This was the case with Joomla a few years ago and now WordPress has taken the crown from our prespective.

Some of the things we look for in a CMS before developing are:

• How easy it is to install
• How easy is it to update
• How easy will it be for the client to use
• How easy is it to put a skin/theme on top
• How far can we push the flexibility of the CMS
• Can the CMS handle meta data and multiple content types (pages, posts, news, whitepapers, images, events, videos)
• How does the CMS handle SEO straight out of the box
• How easy is it to integrate new technology onto the platform
• How does the CMS handle multiple editors and their roles
• Is there a defined roadmap and will it stick around in the future
• Is there a good development base and are there lots of users who support this platform
• What is the security behind the CMS

Based on this, we make a recommendation for a CMS for a client.

We just came across this infograph by the guys at Devious Media on the 3 open source platforms. Our summary follows after the graphic based on the infograph.  Please note that we wont be discussing Joomla as we don’t see a definite future with Joomla.

Drupal:

• More used by Heavy/Large Enterprise companies
• More used by complicated companies
• Decent Developer community
• Good Client List

WordPress:

• Faster Updates
• Twice as many updates than Drupal/Joomla
• Twice as many plugins and themes
• Larger number of developer and user adoption (upto 10 times as much)
• More social
• More Cost Effective
• Lower Total cost of ownership
• Stronger SEO straight out of the box
• Easier to learn to use

Summary

We recommend using WordPress for most sites and have worked with a large number of sites where we have customised WordPress to work as per business needs. Please view our list of sites we have customised for WordPress here:

http://www.dzineclub.com/blog/2011/01/wordpress-development-wordpress-design/

WordPress for Medium to Large Clients

We still recommend using WordPress for Medium to Large Clients because of the level of customisation that can be done in WordPress and how quickly it can be changed and new plugins being added. What Drupal can do for such size clients can easily be accommodated using Plugins in WordPress.

WordPress or Drupal for Heavy Enterprise Clients

For sites such as the main Government site, user payments and memberships, forums, connections to ERP platforms, WordPress is probably not the right option right now. The best solution would be to customise Drupal or use a paid CMS Platform. However if you are developing your site in 6 months or a year’s time, WordPress should be a worthy competitor.

Have you got a website that you are looking at developing and are not sure which CMS is the best to use?

Flick us an email at info@dzineclub.com and we’ll recommend a solution based on our expertise.

To stay ahead of the Social media and technology DzineClub is formally opening its blog posts to Facebook comments.

You are now able to comment on any blog posts using Facebook. Please note that you need to be already logged into Facebook to do this.

To see how it works, just go down to the bottom of this post, where it says Facebook Comments and comment away 🙂

Mobile Devices are taking over

500,000 android devices are being activated every day.  Mobile brings a new way of interacting with data and viewing information wherever you are. It’s easy to use and get online.  The problem with current websites are that they are not made for mobile devices however mobile usage is growing exponentially every day.

Our Mobile Website Development Methodology

We develop a site that works both on iPhone and Android.

This is how we work with mobile website development.

• We research if you need one for start. Everyone will need a mobile site at some stage but you might be best waiting 3 months.
• If you can leverage a mobile website, we don’t want to copy your exact website. Mobile users will have different requirements than normal web users. You want to put specific converting copy in mobiles. So we will find out the best sections of your site to turn into mobiles.
• We create wireframes and send it to you
• We build the site and test it
• We finalise the site and go live

Mobile website Platforms – iPhone and Android

We develop websites on HTML5 and CSS3 which works into both iPhone and Android. So our mobiles websites are platform independent. The websites will look great in both iPhone and Android.

Mobile Websites with WordPress

If you have a website with a wordpress CMS we can utilise the existing mobile themes that natively work with wordpress or we can build a custom one that works with the existing data that you have with wordpress.

CMS Driven Mobile Content

Depending on whether or not you have a CMS, you might leverage with a custom CMS created specifically for you to improve your content.

Mobile Website Gallery

Here are some of the mobile websites that we have built in the last month.

Pointpal Mobile Website

MonstaG Mobile Landing Page

DzineClub Wodpress Mobile Blog

Since DzineClub looks at end to end services, we always get asked what we really do. The answer is that we believe that it is a whole process and we provide services around everything digital.

Here is a quick graphic that explains all the services we provide:

Getting New Leads/Prospects/Traffic

We help you get your traffic through SEO, SEM, Facebook Marketing, Linkedin marketing and Email Marketing.

Online Development

We help you engage these leads through a variety of applications and channels including Websites, Online Stores, Mobile Websites, Facebook Apps and Pages and Catalogues

Conversion

We can help you then turn these visitors into leads/customers using Conversion Forms, Shopping Carts and Downloadables. At this point we will also look at cross-sell and up-sell opportunities to maximise your conversion.

Retention

Once the conversion happens, we get into phase 2 where we put Nurturing Programs, surveys and automated emails to help you retain these customers for when they need your products/services at a later stage.

So what is our distribution of Clients

90% of our clients use more than one services from us. Ranging from Online Stores, Websites, Email Marketing, Web Hosting almost all of our clients use multiple services.

Here is how they use us:

DIY Online Store: 10+ Clients
Keyword Rank Checker: 5+ Clients
DzineMail Email Marketing: 15+ Clients
Website Hosting: 25+ Clients
CMS Platforms: 20+ Clients

We will post all the examples of our services over the next week so that you get a better idea of what we offer.

PointPal WordPress Website now Live

Imagine no more bulging wallets or purses -  and no more lost rewards and store club cards. Imagine being able to join new rewards programs right from your phone. Imagine never having to sign up for another program again. You can do all this with PointPal and best of all, its free to use. Head down to their site to view the demo, sign up for a free trial or to receive a quote.

We have just got memberships with the best WordPress themes websites out there and with Developers license, it means that we can offer that to you as clients for no extra costs.

So if you have been liking any WordPress theme from any reputable wordpress theme website, feel free to reach out to us at info@dzineclub.com for more information on how you can use that on your website.

Not sure if you should use a Theme or have us develop a custom theme for you, here is a quick guide

Budget for WordPress website:

If you are low on budget then go with a pre built theme otherwise get it custom built. Using a theme means that you will be up quicker and will save the time needed to build a custom look. There are hundreds of Themes to choose from so chances are that you will be fairly unique.

Flexibility for WordPress website:

This is a grey area as some themes provide better flexibility than your standard themes. However most of the themes we develop for our clients are completely flexible, so you can change anything on the site. So for the ultimate flexibility it is worth building your own template.

Time to launch the website

Custom themes take time. Plus with tens of variations of browsers to test on, it is a fairly daunting task. So if you want to get up and running quick, you are best off with a pre-built theme.

Click here to view all the wordpress websites that we have built for our clients.

We have just gone live with a new wordpress site for El Kool Koala.  El Kool Koala are a Backpackers in Taganga, Colombia.

Old Website

Their old web site was not maintained properly and was difficult to make changes to.

New WordPress Website

The new website makes it easy for them to make changes manually and has the following features

• Adding photo galleries
• Adding and changing pages
• Adding and changing content on teh pages
• Integrating Google Maps
• Posting all the Backpacker reviews on the website