Recently, Facebook has released a new update allowing for a more organized way to post batches of photos from your smart phone. According to Mashable , Once an iPhone or Android user uploads a set of pictures from their mobile device, the app generates a quick preview of how the photos will be displayed and then allows users to rearrange image order.  This can be done by holding the selected photo and dragging it to the desired position. This update is compatible for selecting up to thirty photos at a time including tags, captions and locations. Now smartphone users are able to control photo order from the convenience of their phones rather than being limited to having this control on just website uploads. According to Mashable, Facebook is positioning photos as more of a platform for telling stories about everyday moments, rather just a place to store albums of hundreds of photos. This places emphasis not only on the large album uploads, but the importance of smaller photo uploads telling a story or updating Facebook friends. These smaller uploads are coined stories, which are different from albums in size, focusing on sharing in the moment with one’s Facebook community. 

When looking to boost the revenue generated by your website consider adopting one or all of the following strategies.

Dangle the Carrot with Inbound Marketing
Visitors to your website have a one-track mind. They want to get what they need and get the hell out. It’s up to you to capitalize on the opportunity to convert a visitor into a customer. The traditional solution to this challenge is to bombard your site visitors with endless calls to action for deals, discounts and more information. But the best solution is to present visitors with the information they seek while receiving something valuable in return. Inbound marketing is a practice that follows several steps to ensure that customers are engaged with the right offers and the right content at the right time.  Leads require cultivation, and inbound marketing nets you the information you need to convert visitors into leads and leads into sales.

Back to the carrot. Think about your website in terms of the value that it offers to visitors e.g. your services, your ‘secret sauce,’ your content. For example if your website hosts an article listing “5 Easy Ways to Grow Followers on Social Media” and the article is getting a lot of traffic from search terms like “Social Media Marketing Ideas” or “Improve my Social Media marketing,” you gain practical insight into the needs of your visitors. Use this insight to create content that will bring in more visitors. Now ask yourself, “what are visitors doing once they find what they are looking for?” If the answer isn’t “contacting my company” then you are missing out on a huge opportunity. 

If we apply inbound marketing to the example above, the scene changes dramatically. With inbound marketing we take a desirable piece of content like the “5 Easy Ways to Grow Followers” article, and convert it into a downloadable format like PDF or eBook. We display a portion of the article content to the visitor upon landing on the page. Then we offer them the complete downloadable file as instant gratification for filling out a simple contact form.  If you prefer to display full articles on your site, you can convert a collection articles into a topical ebook and offer it as the incentive, while keeping the full articles available to visitors.

With inbound marketing visitors volunteer their contact details including the background information you need to facilitate your sales process, in exchange for the valuable resource they were searching for. Smart leads are worth giving away a carrot or two.

Add Value to E-Commerce with Product Bundles
Your e-commerce business is missing out on revenue. It is typical for online merchants to sell out of a handful of products regularly, while the bulk of the products remain on the shelves failing to generate revenue. E-commerce brands are adopting a new strategy to aid in liquidating slow moving products: product bundling.

A product bundle is a package of two or more products sold together for one price on a single sku. The goal of product bundling is to increase your site’s average transaction value and ‘add value’ to popular products. We do this by bundling popular products with less popular but related products on a single sku at a discounted price. For example instead of selling a popular pair of boots for $300 and a slow moving bottle of boot cleaner for $25, you sell a bundle, the boots and the boot cleaner together for $315.

The key to this strategy is bundling your popular products with products that are not only slow moving, but also high margin. Bundling high-margin products allows you to discount the bundle while still clearing a sensible profit margin. In the example of the boot cleaner, assuming that the vendor purchased the boot cleaner at wholesale for less than $15, they are making more money from the sale of the bundle than they would be on a sale of the popular product alone. That being said, the other key to this strategy is to NOT bundle two popular products. Under most circumstances bundling two popular products at a discounted price can only hurt your revenues.

Try bundling products and then posting the bundle to your brand’s Facebook page as a limited time offer. Measure the response, rinse and repeat with different bundles until you discover a few winning combinations. You will find yourself selling out of bundles in no time.

Capitalize on Mobile Traffic with Responsive Design
Share of web traffic is shifting to mobile devices at increasing rates. Take a look at your site analytics and make note of the growth in mobile traffic over the last 24 months. If your site is not optimized for mobile and tablet devices, mobile visitors will become frustrated with the experience and leave your site for a competitor. Visitors can become equally as frustrated with an app or dedicated mobile site experience (e.g. mobile.oniracom.com) that does not support the full functionality of your site.

The solution is Responsive Design, a smart take on user interface design that kills three birds with one stone. The three ‘birds’ are desktop, mobile and tablet device visitors, and the one ‘stone’  is a responsive website. Take a minute to pull up http://oniracom.com on your computer and your phone or iPad. You will notice a few differences between the user interface on each device.

First, the URL for the website is the same whether opened on a desktop or mobile browser. Second, the site content is optimized to be viewed within the bounds of each screen without requiring any double-tapping or pinching. Third, the menu, header, footer and other website features also scale to be device optimized.

With responsive design, all of the design elements and content on the site respond to the browser window through which it is being viewed. All of this happens in real time using fluid, proportion based grids, flexible images and CSS3 media queries. The framework for the layout of the site is based on relative units like percentages, rather than absolute units like pixels. Responsive design is the new standard for website design and should be made a priority for the next iteration of your website.

Use responsive design to capitalize on your mobile traffic, creating a better experience for your site visitors and a smarter canvas for your content.

Need Help Getting Your Website Up to Speed?
Email me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and I will assist you in any way I can!

Justin Davis is the Sales and Marketing Coordinator at Oniracom. You can follow Justin on Twitter and connect with him on LinkedIn

The super amazing Santa Barbara Veterans Day International Marathon got a new and fancy responsive web design! The site features information about each of the races, which includes maps of the courses, what to do on the day of the race, and more. Head over to the site to register to run America’s Riviera today!

Blind Tiger is a brand new restaurant & bar in the heart of downtown Santa Barbara. We built their entire web presence and designed their full menu and promotional materials from the ground up. They are pre-opening THIS week for Fiesta and will be holding their official Grand Opening during Labor Day Weekend. Be sure to check it out if you’re on State Street!

Brynn Elliott is a singer/songwriter from Atlanta, GA who just released her debut EP titled ‘Notions of Love.’ We designed her logo and complete web presence to fully match her personality and aesthetic. She’s headed on tour with Tyler Ward this summer, be sure to check her out!

Desktop View:

Mobile View:

Proud to announce that we’ve been working with an awesome organization called the Clean Water Tour, who’s mission is to “raise awareness for the global clean water crises by rallying consumers, businesses, government agencies and the investment community around the world’s leading water scientists and researchers.”

They’ve kicked off their very first event today in Austin, TX and teamed up with the world’s leading water scientists, researchers and technologists to form an online membership community that’s dedicated to tackling clean water issues and making an impact around the world. “We’ve designed the Clean Water Tour in an ultra-portable way, bringing the conversation into living rooms, schools, clean-water-friendly businesses and onto mobile phones,” says Conor Quinn, president of the Clean Water Tour.

To help Clean Water Tour with their online presence, we built them a responsive website with their ‘Watering Hole’ community system, several forms of media integration, and more.

We designed download cards, that will be distributed out today at the event in Austin to help promote the app as well as help those at the event easily gain access to the app.

Luke of Cool Hand Look put together an awesome video that will be featured on Christie Digital’s giant screen at the event. See the layout for the Christie Digital on-site screen display and the Clean Water Tour Sizzle Reel below.

Finally, here’s the sweet design of the app we built for Clean Water Tour, which is available to download on iTunes and Google Play today! The app lets you map the world’s water supply, grab a free track from Jeff Brinkman, join the ‘Watering Hole’ community and more! Be sure to download it here and be on the lookout for more Clean Water Tour events — coming to your area soon!

Matisyahu came to Oniracom to upgrade the web presence and produce a new splash page to announce his new Album. We chose StageBloc as the e-commerce partner for the splash page. The page is responsive and features merch bundles and the official lyric video for the single.

Darryl Tell just published a book of poems titled Establishing Shot.

We helped put his website together through a simple and sleek design that features a blog page and a place for his fans to purchase his book. Check out the screenshots below and visit the site here.

Relix Magazine came to us for a brand new design and concept for their site. We built them a custom website with a responsive design fit for mobile, tablet and desktop devices. We’ve been a long time reader & supporter of the magazine, so we’re ecstatic about this new look and functionality!

Relix Magazine has been a publication since 1974, so you can imagine the large amount of content that needed to be migrated over to the new site. Never fear, we were able to swiftly migrate it to their new Expression Engine platform. To grow Relix’s social network audience, we leveraged current audiences, fans and partners for a multi-platform promotion.

Be sure to check the site out on your mobile and tablet devices: 

We’re stoked about the new look and functionality of Relix’s brand new web presence and we are excited to help maintain and manage their web presence with them through the months to come!

Culver City Dub Collective, a long time friend of Oniracom came to us for a brand new web presence. We built them a custom microsite that features their latest album, videos, and includes a full social stream. Culver City Dub Collective includes Adam Topol, Franchot Tone, David Ralicke, Chris Joyner, and Jose Esquivel.

Take a look at the screenshots below, and be sure to visit their site for the full experience. We can’t wait to hear more tunes from the boys at Culver City Dub!

KCON is an awesome Korean Wave festival that takes place in Los Angeles, CA.

KCON came to Oniracom through partner company CJ Entertainment  to develop a new web presence for their 2013 convention. We built the responsive custom website as a hub for fans and potential attendees to learn more about the event. The site also provides valuable information on event schedules, maps and tips for a attending the event. Check out the screen shots and be sure to visit their site and watch our video walk-through below!

We are EXTREMELY excited to announce the launch of Jack Johnson’s new and improved custom responsive website! We have been working hard to modernize JackJohnsonMusic.com with a complete aesthetic and technical overhaul of the web presence.

As you know, everyone in the office has been hard at work preparing the website for Jack’s next studio album release with his new pre-order store launch and 2013 Tour Charity Auction. Jack’s new site has been leveraged with new media/technology and social user-based marketing to increase the reach of promotions for the new album and tour.

With the new overhaul of the site came a nice mobile friendly layout! Check out the images below to see what we mean:

JackJohnsonMusic.com is completely revamped—and much faster if you haven’t noticed already! We hope you enjoy the site as much as we do, and don’t forget to check it out on your mobile and tablet devices!

Oniracom teamed up with Hear it First to integrate its popular music discovery site with the Topspin ArtistLink platform.

We created the new site with the best features available including responsive design and social network integration. ArtistLink integration allows bands and managers to claim their official channel on ArtistLink and edit brand content on HearitFirst.com. We are very excited about how this awesome project turned out.

Take a look at some screen shots and our exclusive video walk-through below!

Andrew Stockdale came to Oniracom to develop an album release campaign based around a google map and a custom SoundCloud player. The page boasts a stream of the entire new album along with an interactive photo stream of Instagram photos tagged with #KeepMoving.

Check out the full video walkthrough below!

Mighty Bright came to Oniracom to build a fresh web presence for their Lux brand of consumer application LED lighting products. We built the site to showcase the many uses of the products, while creating a strong value proposition for Lux.

Check out a full video walk-through below!