WPML Multilingual CMS

Run your website in several languages at once with WPML. The only thing you need to worry about is to write the posts, pages and categories.

Once this plug-in is installed, set up and running you won’t need to worry about installing another website on a different URL to accommodate the wishes of your overseas non-English speaking users. With one click you can make a new post or page and enter the translated content and have it shown just by clicking a useful, little language switcher on your website.

This is a very useful and regularly updated plug-in with a crew that is always ready to help. At this moment 90% of the websites we’ve made for our clients are successfully running with this plug-in installed.

Get it on WordPress plug-ins or from the author’s website.

Google Analytics for WordPress

Tracking all traffic from and to your website with one easy to use plugin  for WordPress. Displayed nicely in understandable graphics.

Whenever you’re hearing about Google coming up with something you’d better pay attention. With this in mind we’ve also found a plugin to track all traffic that’s being led to your website using this very nifty plugin that communicates with your Google Analytics account. All you need to do is sign up for a Gmail account (if you haven’t done so already you can do that here). Once you’ve dont that you can apply for a Google Analytics account.

Once you have it all up and running all you can see is  reports of all traffic from and to your website, where it comes from, where on your website it’s coming in and even the average time spent browsing around on your website. The information gathered from your website is displayed nicely in goodlooking graphic charts. Even if you have more than one website you can add multiple websites to your account and track them from one single account.

Get it on Wordpress Plugins or directly from the author’s website.

Google XML Sitemaps

Generating a sitemap XML file to make all major search engines find your website faster and easier. Indexes all pages, posts and categories from your website in one single file.

This powerful little plugin will, once installed, generate an XML file with the complete structure of your website to be read for every major search engine. Every time you update your website it will update the same XML file and tell the search engines that something new is happening on your website. This includes all your posts, pages and categories.
All you need to do is update it once in a while and the rest is all being done while you write posts for your website. No files to be modified, no difficult workflows to go through, just out-of-the-box functionality.

Get it from Wordpress Plugins or directly from the author’s website.

Cforms II

Fully customizable form-maker with functionality to back everything up in your WordPress database. Combine multiple forms to create a multi-page form.

When love to have people coming back every time you write something new to comment on your writings, Cforms II is the solution. It’s extensive functionality allows you to create multiple forms for different purposes. Even when you would like the results to be stored in a safe place it will put everything nicely together with your Wordpress database. No need to worry anymore that all the feedback sent from your website accidentally ends up in your junk mail folder. With a fully customizable interface using your own stylesheets, or ready to go using the preset styles.
Even complete surveys can be made using this plugin with its ability to link individual forms together to creat multi-page forms. All messages that come with a default form, error messages, ‘Thank you’ messages, are also fully customizable in the Wordpress Admin settings panel.

Get it directly from the author’s website.

Summary

YugongYishan partnered with Eggplant Digital in Beijing to develop a new website driven by their events and community.

Eggplant provided the following services to YugongYishan:

• Website Structure design and development
• QA/Testing
• Support and training
• Hosting

Client Background

Yugongyishan celebrated its re opening in the heart of Beijing. The venue owns a 500 m2 surface, a 800 to 1000 people capacity, a 5 meters wide stage and a brand new sound system (meyer sound).

The Challenge

To provide YugongYishan with a rocking website that would provide their followers with all event information, allow them to share photos and exhibit their unique and fresh style.

How We Helped

Eggplant Digital developed a layout which would allow them to seamlessly add events, galleries, exhibitions and pages in both English and Chinese. Not to mention calenders, photos, social networks and search. The important thing for YGYS was that they could update everything on the site themselves. We helped enabled them to run their own website and bring the content they want to their audience.

Overview

1. The website – Grungy, rock website for the best rock venue in Beijing
2. Using Wordpress, we created an easy to update site where YGYS could make all the updates themselves

The Results

YGYS have made the leap from the web duldroms to web freedom. The content, styles and website management has been placed safely in their hands, so they are free to build the brand online with out needing a crash course in technology.

To get yourself set up with an account, you need a Google Local Business Ad account, which you can log into with your Google account. Once logged in you can add you business in, check back after 24 hours and you will be listed. The service is completely free, so I recommend jumping in and setting it up now. Once your set up remind your customers to visit the page and give you a review!

Summary

The World Bank partnered with Eggplant Digital in China to design and develop a complaint monitoring system through which displaced persons and others impacted by the construction of the Yichang-Badong Expressway highway, can send a complaint via SMS, an online form or email.

Eggplant provided the following services to The World Bank:

• Product design and development
• QA/Testing
• Help documentation
• Technical support and training

Client Background

The World Bank is a vital source of financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world. They are made up of two unique development institutions owned by 186 member countries—the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA).

The Challenge

On past road development projects The World Bank has relied on a well established protocol to handle resettlement complaints. However, due to the traversing mountainous terrain in an environmentally sensitive area they sought a solution to strengthen this protocol.

How We Helped

Eggplant Digital provided the resources and technology to create an easier way to handle the resettlement complaints. Today in China, there are over 703 million mobile phone users, therefore it was thought the easiest way for displaced users to make complaints would be via SMS. We provided an infrastructure to send an SMS and created an interface through which the messages could be managed. We also designed and built a website portal through which information could be broadcast about the progress of the resettlement.

Overview

1. The website – used to store and display information on the project environment and resettlement status. Offering downloads as well as summary statistics showing the progress of resettlement.
2. The ‘Complaint Logging System’ allows complaints to be logged in three ways: (1) through a form on the web site; (2) by sending a message; and (3) via e-mail. The system records the details of the message, sender information, date received, and the elapsed time for dealing with the complaint as well as the outcome. Later, when resolved, the complainant is notified of the resolution.
3. Reporting – The system also provides reports to monitor the amount of complaints from the different areas of the project. This can also be exported to excel.

The Results

This project is still currently unfolding and in the coming weeks we will be working onsite in Hubei to help implement the system and train those involed. In the coming months, we will be able to learn and evolve the system with updates being made seamlessly online.

For publishers here’s how you can add that nice little tool functionality to your website if you’re using Wordpress for your articles (like we do):

Sign up for an account at www.sharethis.com and configure your account to fit your information.

Get your button to put on your website and, again, configure it to fit your needs. You can select the services you want to share your content with and even change the text that’s accompanying the button.

Select the service you are going to use it for. You have 4 options to choose from: Any website, Wordpress, TypePad and Blogger (for our how-to we’re going to continue with the Wordpress option).

Press the button “Get the Code” and download the plugin for your Wordpress installation. Put it in your “wp-content/plugins” directory and enable the plugin in the Wordpress Admin panel “Plugins”.

After enabling the plugin go to the ShareThis control panel under “Settings > ShareThis”, copy the code you got on the ShareThis website, paste it into the box provided and click the Update button.

If you feel that only your blog posts need to have this button you can just go to your Wordpress Admin panel > Settings > ShareThis and change the setting on “Automatically add ShareThis to your pages?” to “no”.

For the more experienced Wordpress users, and for those with access to the sourcefiles of Wordpress, you can also set both settings to “No”, get the ShareThis template tag (<?php if (function_exists('sharethis_button')) { sharethis_button(); } ?>) and put it anywhere you want it to appear on your pages. This way you can style it as you want according to the look and feel of your own theme.

Now all pages and posts you have made, and all other ones you are going to make in the future, will have this nifty little button attached to its tail. Readers can now share your content very easy by clicking the button, selecting their service and sending it to their beloved ones.

The main reason for this is that Baidu, China’s most popular search engine with a market share of more than 62 percent, is able to recognise the pinyin words in the URL and then link them to what they stand for in Chinese characters.

It is also worth remember to leave out any hyphenation, and just write the words out in a long string. Otherwise it may interfere with the search engines ability to connect the words meaning together.

Within Wordpress there are two places to make the change to a permalink. Firstly on the posts or pages listing page, you can click on ‘Quickedit’ and then edit the ‘Slug’. Alternatively you can edit the post or page, and just below the title input box there is an editable Permalink.

The second option is only available if you have already turned on Permalinks, if you find you cannot edit it, then click on the button ‘Permalink’ that appears beside the URL and update your Permalink Settings (also located under Settings > Permalinks).

Finally, for the Permalink settings I always choose the 3rd setting ‘Month and name’ if I am doing a blog and if it is a website I use the custom setting and enter ‘/%category%/%postname%/’.

Hopefully these tips will help with your Wordpress based Chinese langage websites.

Thanks to Duncan Leung for his support on SEO related questions in China!

The Problems With Online Voting Systems

Any online voting system cannot be 100% full proof, if the user really wants to vote mulitple times, there is no 100% bullet proof way we can stop them doing that. But, in order to make it as hard as possible to cheat we have 3 lines of defense.

The Voting Process

Defense Line 1) Stopping robots or programs spamming the voting form

The voter begins the process by choosing the category of award they want to vote in, after this they get the list of options for who they can vote for.

Below the list is an input box for their email address, a message for the user and a validation vote input field. In order to stop a someone writing a script that fills out the form multiple times as if it is a human, we added a ‘Captcha‘.

What is a Captha? A CAPTCHA is a program that can generate and grade tests that humans can pass but current computer programs cannot. For example, humans can read distorted text as the one shown below, but current computer programs cannot.

Defense Line 2) Stopping people voting multiple times

When the user votes, they are required to give their email address. When the system recieves the vote, it generates a special URL that is emailed to the user. The user then must click on that link in their email to process the vote. Until the user clicks on that link, the vote will not be counted.

Each vote is collected into a database, the system will only allow one vote per email address. So once the user has confirmed a vote via email, the user cannot then make another vote using the same email address.

Defense Line 3) Recording the IP address

Another form of security is that the system also records the IP address of the user. This helps us to check whether there have been multiple votes from a single IP address. This may happen under a few circumstances, firstly the same user has persistently voted multiple times by creating new email addresses from which to confirm the vote. The second senerio is that a network of computers in an office goes through the same IP address to access the internet. In this case we could guess that perhaps a whole company has voted for the same person from the same office building.

Not 100% Reliable

It is not very wise to use an online voting system where there is no other form of analysis. The reason it works here for us, is that the final analysis and decision for the winners is made by judges, who actually meet the finalists. The voting is set to be a supplementary way to show the popularity of the finalists with the public, but as there are still loop holes, it is not a full proof method for getting a fair vote.

Click here to learn more about the British Business Awards

Traditional Media Is A One Way Affair

TV, radio, cinema, advertising, billboards etc are about sending a message repeatedly to the viewer. In the past there was not much reason or way for viewers to get a message back to the original message creators! Of course there was a conversation that may occur after a message has been read, for example between friends or family. But it was fairly difficult with traditional media to tune into that discussion. For example after an advertisement has been shown on TV, who knows what the viewers said or thought about after that advertisement had aired?

Is Your Website Static?

So considering that traditional media is working in this one way setting, think about your own website? When was it last updated? When was the last time someone gave you feedback on it? When was the last time you checked how many visitors you have? Is your website using a traditional media method on a new media setting? If the answer is YES, then I think you could be in time for an update!

Here are 5 ways you can get more out of your website:

1) A website is not a static presentation of your company, it is powerful through point for a discussion with your customers!

If you cannot update your website, it is time to throw it out and get something you can update. A website is a tool and if you cannot update it then your tool is broken! Businesses cannot afford to sit on the by lines and not talk to their customers, you need to get yourself out into the discussion and your website is a great starting point.

2) Give Important People In Your Organisation Access To Editing & Writing Content For Your Website!

The knowledge and expertise of your business is in the people within your organistation. If you have been impressed or captivated by one of your employees, then why not let them speak more to your customers? Let them write up case studies, write a blog, send out newsletters or publish articles. All great ways to get more information about your company out there and give your employees a feeling of commitment and responsiblity to talk about your company.

3) Give your customers easy ways to contact you, write about you and show how they feel about you

Your heart rate may increase at the thought of letting your customers speak out about you or your product on your actual website, but the truth is without that information and discussion you are missing a valuable way to improve. Possible ways to get more feedback from your audience are company or product blogs, forums, contact forms, 24 hour online support.

4) Find out where your customers hang out online, and go hang out there too

In order to help move discussions to your website, think about where your potential customers are hanging out online. Perhaps it is on websites such as Linkedin, or forums connected to your product or services, or networking groups. Where ever it maybe, contributing to a discussion in those places and linking back to your website could help make useful new connections.

5) If you are not sure where to start, get some pro’s in to help

It can be a daunting task just to think about new technology or new concepts, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t act as soon as possible. The first steps can be the most difficult, but after you have the right tools and the direction, you will be on the path to having a website that serves your oragnisation better.

Simon Adriatico – CMO @ P1.cn

P1.cn is China’s elite social networking site for the very (very) good looking. Solely targeting China’s rising affluent class or to be more specific those who are making RMB 100,000 +¬¨‚Ć annually. P1.cn is an invite only site that has managed to get 500,000 subscribers of the biggest brand loving show offs China has to offer. In order to maintain a fixed focus on their core user group and to keep a sharply defined edge that resonates with their audience, P1.cn has come up with a list of top 10 laws social marketing that keeps the organisation inline.

1) Don’t Do One Night Stands

Social marketing is about building, refining and committing to a relationship with your users. Campaigns are unlikely to be successful overnight or even over a month period. It is the sustained effort to communicate back and forth with the user group that gets the results.

2) People In Social Networks ‘Do’ Things

It is important to be aware of what the members within a social network are actually doing. In this way, marketing efforts can be designed to facilitate members in what they enjoy. This is likely to make more impact on them and encourage the discussion to go outside the members network, bringing about greater brand awareness.

3) Be Nice

Within a social network with like minded people, manners are important. Talk in a way that will encourage people to talk back. This point reminds me of chat rooms in the late 90’s, it was always the guy who came in and started swearing at everyone, who got hurled with abuse and ultimately kicked out of the group.

4) Build Scalable Campaigns

Generally speaking a key idea of a social network is that it should grow. Obviously networks will come in different sizes, but the hope will always be that there are more users, more conversations, more interactions and more fun. Keeping in tune with this, marketers should think out their campaigns in order to make them scalable, so that they can grow with a network.

5) Have A Conversation

A conversation is a constant process of feedback and revision, it is not a one sided viewpoint. Marketers should be seeding conversations with what they want to say, but perhaps more than that, they should be listening to what feedback they are getting and making sure they revise the message to push the conversation along further.

6) Influence Not Interference

Social networks are about people using tools and doing things that they want to do. Anything that gets in their way becomes an interference that could potentially diminish opinions. It¬¨‚Ć comes down to this idea of seeding a campaign into a social network, rather than just planting it directly in front of the users face. Furthermore, if marketers can influence the ‘real’ influencer’s in a social network, then they could be onto something really successful.

7) Tit For Tat

A social network of ‘one’, would not be much fun. Having a profile on social network is only cool, when you know there are people who might look at it. Making sure campaigns are a two way approach where everyone benefits is important in providing an experience suitable for a social media.

Good Social Ideas Can Spread, Recruit & Multiply

Generally speaking there is more potential for social ideas to spread faster than with traditional media, however the strength of the idea will determine how far and how fast it will spread. If your idea sucks, then don’t expect much impact, throwing ideas around with those who have experience first is a good way to catch the bad ones before they go to far.

9) Be Measurable

There are many ways to measure what you do on the web, in fact you can have numbers coming out of your ears. But it is still hard to effectively measure ‘word of mouth’. P1.cn message here was to experiment and keep coming up with new ways to try to trace actions through the discussions.

10) It Is Social Mixing Not Direct Marketing

Throw out the idea of stepping into a network and directly marketing your product, you’ll be smelt out a mile away. The point is to offer something constructive to the group that facilitates the discussion. Try to mix into the network and be a constructive member, otherwise it is all to easy to be tuned out.

Are you good looking enough to get signed up to P1 Network?

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