Gaining widespread use around 2005/2006, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, or Rich Site Summary - depending on who you talk to!  Put simply, it gives webmasters the ability to instantly and automatically distribute (or syndicate) their content to subscribers.  RSS is a family of web feed formats that are used to publish regularly updated websites (e.g news or blogs), in a standardised format.

RSS Feeds are viewed by their subscribers in an ‘aggregator’, which can be displayed in either a web-based, desktop-based, or mobile-device-based reader.  Popular readers include Google Reader (web-based), FeedDemon for Windows (desktop-based), and NewsGator Go! (mobile-device-based).

I won’t get into the ‘how’ of setting up RSS Feeds, as that’s just a little too technical for me!  But what I will tell you is that RSS Feeds are fantastic for your end users.  RSS gives people the ability to quickly and easily access the latest news and information from their favourite sites - without the worry of having to visit each site individually.  For users, it’s almost like signing up from an e-newsletter without having to release their personal information and without their email inbox becoming cluttered with junk.

In summary, RSS isn’t suitable for all websites - but is recommended for those webmasters out there who have a well-maintained blog, or a News section that has regularly updated content - as it gves users a quick and easy way to get your important updates.

Originally uploaded by DBG Technologies

On Saturday 17th April, our DBG Technologies team and friends attended the Foundation Daw Park 2010 ANZAC Commemoration Gala Ball at the Entertainment Centre with 450 other guests.

The evening had a Middle Eastern theme to recognise our soldiers currently fighting in the Middle East. The room was decorated with brightly coloured silks, lanterns on each table, harem girls and a camel welcoming guests, and a Middle Eastern inspired menu.

Hosted by Channel 9’s Brenton Ragless, the evening was both a celebration of the fantastic work done by Foundation Daw Park, and a moving tribute to the ANZACs.

One of the highlights of the evening was the Major Auction, with 9 wonderful lots that raised thousands of dollars in support of the Foundation. We put our hand up and purchased a state-of-the-art Scooter World Wheelchair which was donated back to the Repatriation Hospital for use in the Daw Park facility.

A great night was had by all – we can’t wait for the next instalment in 2011!

Short answer:  Google hasn’t indexed it yet.  And this is a process that can take anywhere from a few days, to a couple of weeks.

But, like me, I can hear most of you scratching your heads and wondering:  “What the hell is ‘indexing’?”

Basically, Google has a Googlebot, which is their very clever web crawling robot.  Googlebot continuously crawls through the internet and retrieves new pages and passes them to the Google Indexer.  The Indexer then has to sort through every word on the page of a site, and stores those words in a huge database.  When someone submits a search/query via Google, the indexer uses that database to pull its results. This process can take a long time as first the Googlebot needs to find your new website and then has to analyse it.

To encourage indexing to happen as quickly as possible, we submit all new websites that we create via Google’s ‘addURL’ form.  However there is no guarantee that this will speed the process up, as there is literally tens of thousands of users doing this every day. 

One thing that will definitely speed the indexing process up is getting relevant and trusted backlinks to your website.  These backlinks could come from relevant industry bodies, from your suppliers, or even from local directory listings such as Hotfrog and StartLocal.

Alternatively website owners can submit what is called an XML sitemap of their site to the search engines that tells the Googlebot and other crawlers to check every single page of your site. An XML sitemap is a type of file or “feed” that can be automatically generated using websites such as http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ and others.

I hope this helps you with you search engine success!

Autism SA Recognition Awards

Originally uploaded by DBG Technologies

On Thursday 15th April 2010, we were invited to attend the Autism SA Recognition Awards Ceremony at Government House. The evening was hosted by His Excellency Rear Admiral Kevin Scarce AC CSC RANR, Governor of South Australia, and Mrs Liz Scarce. The awards were held to recognise Autism SA supporters and those people who had made outstanding contributions and achievements within the Autism SA community.

Our business was nominated for an award in the Business Partnership Category, which acknowledged ‘exceptional contribution to Autism SA’s ability to better deliver or increase services to people with an Autism Spectrum Disorder and their families in South Australia’.

We were proud to be awarded a Special Commendation in our category, with this excerpt from the awards booklet:

‘DBG Technologies has been supporting Autism SA since 2008 through the development of the new Autism SA website. Developing a new website has been a major project from Autism SA and Dan and his team have shown their support for the organisation every step of the way! Their customer service has been outstanding and when technical difficulties have presented themselves, they have always been just a phone call away. The DBG Technologies team has not only been able to provide technical support, but has also been active in attending Autism SA fundraising events and have generously sourced auction items … that helped to raise thousands of dollars in support of the work at Autism SA.’

When Evolution Business Systems (EBS) decided to launch a same-day support service in Adelaide, they turned to us for help.  As reported in The Advertiser, this is a win-win situation for both of us as EBS can base their Adelaide business at our Pirie Street offices, and it offers us the ability to service our ever-growing client base in Melbourne from their Epsom Street offces.

Another benefit of this office sharing is getting to show the lads at Evolution Business Systems the culinary delights that Adelaide has to offer every time they visit - and we don’t complain about the same being offered when we visit Melbourne!

Click here to read the full story from The Advertiser.

Our latest development, WebSync, allows Leader dealers to power up their business by streamlining orders through an automated web store that is linked to live product levels and pricing from Leader.

Daniel Whisson, our WebSync Programmer, presented to a small group using an interactive presentation.  After explaining benefits and features of the system, Daniel ran through a live demo of the system – showing people how the administrative area of the website could be used to control the entire website with ease in real time. 

The evening was a great success, with almost all who attended engaging us afterwards for further information on how to sign up and implement WebSync for their businesses.

And thanks again to Wicked Catering for their lovely food!

The event began with food, coffee and some light networking, before our internet marketing specialist – Luke –gave his presentation.

Considering that 79% of Internet users use the Internet to research the purchase of products and services, Luke’s presentation was focussed on the benefits of implementing a Google AdWords (or Pay Per Click) campaign within a business. 

Luke highlighted the fact that Google AdWords uses the ‘pull’ approach, in that a business’ ad will appear only when their product or service is relevant to what the audience is searching for.  It provides a very high conversion rate, is highly measurable and has the potential to greatly increase business.  The presentation stimulated interesting discussion among attendees and provided some great questions for our presenter.

This breakfast event also coincided with the launch of our new Google AdWords (Pay Per Click) Management Campaigns.  These packages are specially tailored to assist different types of businesses to achieve online success through leveraging Google.

DBG spots ‘social commerce’ web trend for 2010
Thursday, 07 January 2010 00:00

Australian website specialist DBG Technologies expects businesses this year will equip their websites with “social commerce” technologies to boost sales through greater customer involvement.

DBG managing director Daniel Wilson said more businesses were ordering websites that could include product reviews, ratings and customer feedback. “These websites encourage consumer interaction,” he said. “When used well, these initiatives have the ability to build trust, credibility and loyalty among consumers, making them more likely to purchase from the site.

“Focussing on feedback and other metrics such as page layout, click patterns and sales conversion ratios, businesses can monitor the online behaviour of their customers and make adjustments to their sites accordingly. The net effect is more sales and greater profitability for the business.

“This social commerce functionality also works for the consumer who is able to find information more easily as well as read reviews, testimonials, product ratings and other security measures that give them peace of mind when purchasing.”

Founded in 2001, DBG Technologies is an Adelaide company that specialises in designing and developing e-commerce websites. DBG recently launched WebSync, an eCommerce engine to support the national network of resellers for Australian IT distributor Leader Computers. WebSync provides resellers with a customer self service-equipped website that draws live data about products, prices and stock availability from Leader’s core business system.

Mr. Wilson said the economic turbulence of 2009 had shown companies the shortcomings of a “brochureware” website. “Businesses will focus more on converting sales with their websites rather than having basic, brochure-style websites with little or no interactivity,” he said.

“Already we’ve seen more businesses wanting websites that are a tool for sales by first ensuring the conversions as customers request websites with fewer bells and whistles, such as Flash animation.

“This trend is evident in the increasing demand for websites that integrate with back-end business systems, so visitors to the website see live data from the store, product catalogues or point-of-sale software. We’re also finding businesses are now seeking iPhone applications, mobile-friendly websites and online services to give visitors more choices about how they seek information.”

Press Release thanks to Impress Media

DBG recruits top jobs performer for fast growth 2010
Thursday, 14 January 2010 00:00

Fast-growing SA-based web specialist DBG Technologies has recruited a dedicated sales executive with skills honed in the tough disability employment sector during the Global Financial Crisis.

As Business Development Manager, Tamara Caire’s role is to build recognition of DBG among businesses that can benefit from its website development and search engine optimisation services. After recording a strong performance last year, DBG expects even faster growth in 2010 as businesses increasingly invest in websites to strengthen their online sales capability.

Tamara brings extensive sales experience to DBG after two-and-a-half years with employment placement agency Interwork, where she found jobs for people with disabilities, a challenge that became much more difficult after the collapse of the global economy in late 2008.

Despite the tough economic and employment environment of the past year, during her tenure at Interwork, Tamara was acknowledged as the top performer in a State-wide “Job Placement” initiative.

Tamara said the business development role with DBG was a challenge. “After two and a half years in the disability employment sector, I was looking for something new that offered me a bit of growth,” she said.

“That role was about selling the benefits of employing people with disabilities. Disability can range from depression and bipolar syndrome to physical and mental disabilities. It is often perceived as a big risk by employers. My job was to break down these barriers to encourage them to test one of our jobseekers. Once a person was placed, we would continue to review their performance for 26 weeks.

“We had some really good outcomes in terms of social confidence and working skills. It was very rewarding to watch our people come out of their shells.”

Tamara said DBG represented a complete change of pace. “Online is a constantly growing and evolving area of activity, so it involves a lot of growth and change,” she said. “For me, it is a new industry, a set of innovative services and a chance to really extend the sales and marketing skills I have developed at Interwork and previous roles. DBG is a great opportunity.”

DBG managing director Daniel Wilson said Tamara’s greatest strength was as a “people person”. “Customers don’t buy a product, they buy confidence in a person,” he said. “Tamara is very mature and well-organised. She will do a great job. She is very thorough and her enthusiasm is infectious.”

Caffeine isn’t a new search engine but instead, is the next evolvement of the current Google search engine. Caffeine has been best described as making some modifications “under the hood”.

Google’s Matt Cutts mentions in a video interview with Web Pro News that engineers were working hard to ensure that the user experience would remain largely the same, but as with any upgrades and modifications there were bound to be some instances where rankings appear a little differently.  It’s expected that the interface will remain the same but that some power users would probably notice some differences in search results where regular users would remain largely unaffected.

As for whether this is a response to the release of Bing, Matt mentions that Google have had a team of engineers working on Caffeine for months and that this update was in the works long before Bing was announced.

Google “Caffeine” is technically a re-writing of the indexing system that creates the large database of web pages from around the globe. Basically it means Google will find, index and rank data much faster and allow real time and semantic indexing to be a lot more powerful. To make sure that everyone is happy with the updates Google have released a version of Caffeine in the Google sandbox and are asking searchers to provide feedback on their observations, you can test it out here.

As Google is accepting feedback on the changes, they expect a slow, incremental deployment of Google “Caffeine” over the coming months to make sure it’s a win / win for everyone involved.

We guess only time will tell how the updates are received and will be interesting to keep an eye on searcher activity on Bing as these two internet giants battle to be the King of Search. However for now that crown remains firmly placed upon Google’s head!