SiteBeat: January 2013

Happy New Year! This month's SiteBeat highlights HEROweb's resolutions and business goals for 2013, reveals how smart design principles can boost your mobile eCommerce sales, and provides a bevy of other tips, announcements, and info to help you start 2013 on the right foot. Have fun planning in the New Year, and best wishes for a healthy, happy, and prosperous 2013!

HEROweb's New Year's Resolutions

In the spirit of the New Year, HEROweb has identified several themes and objectives to guide us in the months ahead as we strive to bring you innovative technology solutions, outstanding service, and the features and functionalities you need to be successful in your businesses and in your lives.

2012 was a grueling year for HEROweb and pushed our heroic super-powers to the max. With a turnover of half of our staff during a year that saw our customer base increase, we found ourselves huffing and puffing down the home stretch to keep 400-plus websites running smoothly. We had some great successes, but we also know we can do better in delivering consistent and timely services. We learned quite a lot in 2012, and we begin the New Year energized and excited about where our business is going and very mindful of the areas where we need to keep our attention in order to best serve our customers.

With that introduction, we are pleased to share our top goals with you:

1. Commit ourselves to building a staff of highly-trained web development experts.

2. Create rich tools for mobile and video deployment.

3. Release key features that our customers are asking for.

4. Focus the HEROweb marketing services on developing educational resources and training. We are going to limit our deliverable services to providing SEO (search engine optimization) and we will only be providing PPC services to existing PPC customers.

5. Release our MightyMerchant API and redefine the scope of custom development that we provide.

An API is a set of instructions that allows other programmers to connect with our system. Currently, a significant percentage of our resources goes into managing and maintaining the custom database projects of a small number of customers. We are committed to building a feature-rich platform that has a broad range of tools and functionality for our diverse range of customers to build their businesses. We are no longer going to do custom implementations that are only relevant to a single customer.

A key factor in our success is that Michael and Staci will be concentrating their energy on organizational initiatives to move the business forward. The trade-off is that they will be operating in a limited capacity of providing direct customer support. We realize this approach will be a change for some customers, but we are confident that for the long-term health of our platform, this is an important step for us to take.

January Mobile Website Promotion Ending Soon!

HEROweb's discount on mobile website development is ending soon! Any customers that schedule mobile website development during the month of January will receive 20% off the initial development cost. Just let us know if you're interested, or if you would like to discuss how your business might benefit from mobile optimization.

Phone HEROweb toll-free at 1-888-257-2567, or locally at 541-746-6418, or contact us via email.

How Smart Design Can Boost Mobile eCommerce Sales

Simply having a mobile website in today's competitive mobile landscape is a step in the right direction. But a poorly designed mobile website may actually be hurting your business. As you are investigating mobile websites, you may encounter free or low-cost options that promise to give you a mobile website. But if this solution doesn't recognize smart design principles it may not help you as much as you think it will.

HEROweb has posted an article on our site that outlines the many design principles we consider when building a mobile website for our customers.

Visit HEROweb.com's Learn section to read our article, and find out "How Smart Design Can Boost Mobile Ecommerce Sales."

Alert: Beware of Misleading Domain Registration Offers

In recent weeks, several of our customers have received spam email and/or mailings from domain companies demanding payment to renew their domains. The most prevalent offender is Domain Registry of America. One of our customers faxed us a copy of a domain renewal document from DNS Services that looks legitimate, but it is not.

If you are unsure about a solicitation you receive regarding your domain, please contact us. In general, anything you receive via postal mail is suspect.

2013 Event-Based Marketing Calendar

Now is the perfect time to plan out your event-based marketing calendar for the year. Getting a grip on when seasonal events such as holidays or sporting events occur throughout the year will make it easy to know when to send out those all-important reminders about sales and promotions.

HEROweb has created a list of event-based dates covering each month of 2013, including holidays, civil and religious observances, and sporting events. Refer to this resource whenever you need to get your gears turning for your next promotion.

View HEROweb's Event-Based Marketing Calendar: Key Dates for 2013

New Employee: Jessica Chestnut, Web Projects Assistant

HEROweb extends a warm welcome to our newest staff member, Jessica Chestnut. Although originally from the south, Jessica has called Oregon home for almost 22 years, the past four of which she has spent in the Eugene-Springfield area. Jessica is convinced that she is never leaving. Before relocating to Eugene, Jessica spent time in Corvallis at OSU cheering on the Beavers while earning a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, with an option in Marketing and a minor in Writing. Welcome to HEROweb, Jessica!

Read Jessica's bio on our site to learn more about our newest team member.

Customer Spotlight - Kipsters Gymnastics, Dance & Fitness

One of the pleasures of creating our monthly newsletter is the opportunity to highlight some of our fantastic customers. Each one of you operates a truly unique business, and has the passion and desire to be successful. This month's profile is no exception to that rule.

Casilda Figueroa is a life-long Eugene, Oregon resident who has worked in our numerous community centers to provide fitness programs to children. She applied her 17 years of experience to open Kipsters Gymnastics, Dance & Fitness, to serve adults and children of all ages.

Read our Customer Spotlight on Kipsters Gymnastics, Dance & Fitness to find out more about how Casilda got her start in business.

Welcoming New HEROweb Customers, Redesigns & Mobile Sites

Check out these great new additions to the HEROweb family!

New Sites
RainBabyGear.com - Rain Baby Gear offers fun, colorful rain- and snow-proof apparel and accessories for kids, adults, and four-legged friends--all made of BPA-free fabrics.

Mobile Sites
HEROweb mobile sites are tested on a range of devices and operating systems, including Android, iOS and Windows Mobile.

ThePondOutlet.com - Pond Outlet now has a mobile version of their website, which mirrors the entirety of the large and robust PondOutlet desktop site.

Redesigned Sites
PleasantHillFoundation.org - The Pleasant Hill Foundation is an educational foundation whose goal is to support the education of students in the Pleasant Hill School District.