We would like to thank everyone who voted for Ziller in the 2010 Sydney City Business Awards. Unfortunately we were unable to take out the big award but none the less were very proud to once make the finals for the Information and Communication Technology category. We had a great night at the awards dinner and hope to be back next year.
We are very proud and honoured to be the Westpac Surry Hills Business of the Month for July. Ziller are a long term customer the Westpac bank and are proud to be presented with the award.
We are hiring and are looking for a graphic web designer to start in a casual role.
Why you want this job:
- We are a young and friendly team
- Opportunity to grow into a full time role
- We are one of the most advanced web design agencies in Australia
Ziller is a leading web development agency who work with some of Australia’s largest corporations in creating only the best websites. We require a graphic web designer to start in a new role. This exciting opportunity will allow you to learn from the best in the industry while preparing you to progress into a full time role.
Reporting to the Lead Designer, the role will involve:
- Learning the latest design and styling techniques
- Designing website layouts and graphics for assigned web projects
- Styling websites using CSS
- Creation and management of email marketing campaigns
- Working in a team environment
- Having fun while you work
To apply you must have the following skills:
- Good solid knowledge of Adobe Photoshop
- Creative flair and love of interactive multimedia
- Experience in developing websites
- Strong knowledge in HTML, CSS and Javascript
- General understanding of programming languages
- Cross browser testing experience
- High attention to detail
- Hard worker and quick learner
- Speak fluent English
The following skills would be highly advantages:
- Experience in online marketing
- Flash development including actionscript
- Designing in Adobe Illustrator
- Using Linux operating system
- Experience using SVN
SO… what are you waiting for?
Email your resume and cover letter to sales@ziller.com.au.
Email marketing can be a great marketing tool, however it’s so important that it is done right. Ask anyone who uses email regularly and the chance is they get a lot of mail every day, they get email from friends, work related emails, newsletter subscriptions, and let’s not forget spam. Knowing this fact it is pretty obvious that if your going to try email marketing, and try to do it well, you need to be on the ball in every area.
A good example was this afternoon when I was checking my email and received a ‘some-what marketing’ email from a software provider. As I actively use the software I was interested enough to open it up and see what the company was up to however could not believe what I saw.
The first line read:
“Happy summer!”
Living in Sydney and just going through some of the coldest weather since I was born, I didn’t find this too amusing but more importantly I was not that interested in reading on. I simply felt that this email was no longer relevant to me, and that the sender has not put too much effort into making sure this email was tailored for me.
This brings me back to the main point about this post which is segmentation. Sending out generic emails to a big list does not work anymore. People get too much junk in their inbox and if you are not taking to the time to send out emails that are relevant to the user reading them (this includes references to the weather) then your not doing right.
If you are in control of a email marketing campaign for yourself or your company, feel free to email us at sales@ziller.com.au – we are more then happy to try and help answer any questions you have regarding email segmentation.
As web developers, one of the hardest parts of our job is ensuring that a site looks and acts the same across all the major web browsers. A web browser if your not already aware, is what you are most likely using to read this blog post – software that allows you to browse the web.
These days there is quite a range of different web browsers available, including Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, Chrome and more. While they all appear to do the same thing (allow you to browse web pages) how they interpret and display the code behind a website tend to differ. For example you can build a website that looks great in Internet Explorer, but does not even display to a user using Firefox. In this example what do you think a Firefox user is going to think of your website? Users don’t stop to think about cross-browser compatibility when they see a problem on your site – they just assume your site has a problem (which in the end it does).
While creating a Google Analytics account for a client last week using Internet Explorer 8, I noticed a pretty bad issue with the horizontal navigation. Take a look:
This problem only existed in Internet Explorer – if you were using any other browser the site would of looked perfect. Being Google you almost think that this type of thing would never happen however it does and goes to show just how difficult it is to always get these things right.
If you are in the process of engaging a web developer to build your website, I heavily suggest you double check they are testing the site to make sure it works on all the major browsers. I have had times when a client will call asking why their website is not doing what it is meant to – only to find out in some major browsers the menu is missing, or checkout button does not work.
This month our Banana Peel is a little different to previous months but something we thought is worth sharing. If you are not aware each month we pick a site and break it down showing what we think could be done better and differently. This month it’s not so technical but will go to show you how important it is to stay on top of your sites content and keep spam under control.
Australia’s Next Top Model is a hit reality series that shows a group of models competing to win a modelling contract by completing a range of tasks and assignments. Although we here at Ziller are not big flash fans when it comes to websites, the website is fairly well built and designed, having a clear navigation and good load time. The problem here is the fact that they are allowing anyone to write what ever they feel on the homepage. I am guessing some of you are scratching your heads at this point so let me show you a screen-shot.
The Australia’s Next Top Model website have a forum plugged into their site allowing fans to register and communicate with each other by asking and answering questions. What they are doing wrong is they have inserted a script which pulls the latest posts and displays them right their on the homepage. Take a look again at the screen shot and take notice of the the latest forum content:
For a site of this calibre you would think this kind of thing would not happen, however it did and and goes to show just how careful you must be. The forum used is a phpbb forum and is well known for spam problems – if the forums are not managed properly spam bots will get in their and post content similar to what you see above. If you run a phpbb forum or any other open-source forum for that matter it’s critical to keep on top of spam.
Social media is becoming more and more popular and so the need to stay on top of content on your website is really important. Gone are the days when you had complete control over your website – it’s 2010 and this is where the web is headed. I suggest always applying the latest spam plugins that are available and generally keeping on top of what content is written to avoid embarrassing situations like Australia’s Next Top Model did.
Yes I know – it’s been a while since our last Banana Peel of the month. Things here at Ziller have been a little crazy to start the year, however we are now back and ready to continue into 2010. To kick proceedings off – welcome Bing.com – our March Banana Peel of the Month.
If you are not aware of or have never used Bing, it is a new search engine which was developed by Microsoft and was launched in May last year with serious intentions of taking on the big giant Google. During the launch Microsoft’s chief executive officer Steve Ballmer was quoted:
“Bing is an important first step forward in our long-term effort to deliver innovations in search that enable people to find information quickly and use the information they’ve found to accomplish tasks and make smart decisions”
What a joke.
When Bing was launched, I was looking forward to seeing what Microsoft would come up with and how they would make search better. Now, just the other day I swore I would never use Bing (or Yahoo for that matter) again.
We were launching a clients website for beta testing and during the transfer to a new server, there were some server related coding issues we came across. Naturally, we tried ‘Googling’ the error code as we know it is one great way to solve a problem as often users out there have faced the same problem before and have either blogged about it or posted on a forum. Google returned pages of relevant search results to the problem, however we did not find a solution right away so thought we would go and perform the same search at Bing.
What Bing returned in the serp (search engine results page) amazed me. It’s first 2 or 3 pages returned websites that actually had the same problem. By this what I mean is that the error I was searching for was so common that many websites out there were actually down due to this very same error, they showed a white page with error output – obviously of no help what so ever to me.
When I performed this search at Google, Google was smarter enough to understand that I was searching for a solution. Google returned forums, blogs and websites that discussed the error, while Bing and Yahoo returned only sites that actually had the error. Google still returned these sites in the my search, however they were on page 4 and 5.
Google knew what I wanted and delivered it, the others didn’t.
Sorry Steve, but so much for finding information quickly and using the information I have found to accomplish tasks and make smart decisions. Fail.
Ziller would like to proudly welcome Josh Doolan on board as our new head senior web developer. Josh is a very talented developer with vast experience in a range of technologies and languages including PHP, C#, Flash and AJAX as well as holding a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology and Diploma in Professional Practice. Ziller welcomes Josh on board and wishes him all the best.
How much do you appreciate your customers / clients and how much do you show them this? It’s a fact that people liked to be thanked. If you thank someone for doing something, there is a very good chance they will want to do more of what you thanked them for.
iContact have just shown me what we mean to them. Being a customer of iContact I was just sent a simple email to thank me for my loyal support of their product. While this email was very simple, it was the thought that counted.
Websites do not thank their customers enough for their support. If you run an ecommerce store, think about what it would cost you to dispatch an automatic email to every customer who made a purchase, a few weeks after the product was delivered. What it would cost you compared to what you would get in return would make it more then worth it.
Customers like to be thanked. So thank them.
Recently Ziller needed an upgrade of our office stationery, and so went to Corban & Blair (a client of ours) for assistance. We were able to obtain a range of professional designed stationery supplies for our office and would just like to thank Corban & Blair for the great service. We recommend Corban & Blair to anyone after lifestyle or corporate stationery supplies.
