VBWebSites Introduces Punchout Catalogs at eVA Supplier Expo

2011-11-15T00:00:00-05:00

Over the years, The VBWebSites Content Management System (CMS) has evolved unlocking many new opportunities for our clients.

With 15% or more of traffic on the web on mobile platforms, it's inevitable that the time has come for business owners to offer their website in a mobile designed platform.

Mobile users will continue to increase and are up from 5% in 2010. Our CMS platform recognizes the users device and shows the site respectively to the user. A user from a standard pc will see the website in it's full design mode. When a user enters the site from their mobile device, the website will render in a mobile design enhanced version.

Take a look from your computer at http://www.commonwealthal.com/ then visit the site from your mobile phone or scan QR code located to the left.

Upon review of traffic reports, a typical bounce rate from Mobile users visiting a standard site was upwards of 60%. With our Mobile version, Bounce rates are now at around 20%. A bounce rate equates to qualified visitors, visitors who remain on the site. The lower the percentage of Bounce Rates, the better.

To learn how VBWebSites can unlock new opportunities for your company or develop your mobile web site, contact us.

Related Blog Post: QR Codes + Mobile Web Design = Smart Marketing

Gearing up for the Season Changes

2011-07-07T00:00:00-04:00

Virginia Beach is home to our first and oldest clients. In this article we discuss marketing for a company in Virginia Beach.

So many businesses face the agonizing challenge of seasonal business. It remains important that companies stay ahead and think ahead instead of waiting for the last minute to position their marketing strategies.

On the web, The general rule of thumb for search engines to "index" your website is 2 weeks. With this in mind, you can better market your company well ahead of the 2 week curve so customers (past, present and future) know about it or can "stumble" upon your website from various searches that may pertain to your industry.

Having the tools to be able to manage your own website is a must these days and our largest increase in website design platforms have been web design with custom content management solutions. Having tools readily available to your company would certainly prove to be a vital aspect of your online web presence.

Here's a Mock Example:

Mock Business Name: VB Heating and Air
Business Type: Heating and Air Conditioning
Business Location: Virginia Beach, Virginia

Heating and Air conditioning companies in Virginia Beach, Virginia know that they see peaks of business in the beginning of summer and in the frigid months of winter. With that being said, location also plays a factor and for this purpose of the mock example we are focusing on Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Knowing that a spike in business is inevitable in October/ November as temperatures drop in Hampton Roads Virginia (greater Virginia Beach) it would behoove the VB Heating and Air owner to start a soft marketing push in September or possibly sooner so VB Heating and Air is ahead of the competition and could see a earlier peak in business. Then a heavier campaign may start shortly thereafter. With this simple tiered marketing plan, it gets to the audience initially and when they see it the next time they hopefully will remember they meant to call and need to call on your services.

Beyond simply updating the website, we would want to include social media, email marketing and possibly online advertising such as adwords. With Google Adwords for instance, we could devise for example, a campaign that would only reflect to users that searched specific keywords within a geographical area. This VB Heating and Air company for instance may only service a 30 mile radius of their corporate office and this could be setup and only reflect ads to relevant search terms within the 30 mile radius.

From campaign to campaign, we help our clients by paying close attention to reporting systems to see what actually works. Our clients spend their advertising dollars wisely.

A good proactive measure you can take is look at Google Trends and search terms related to your company. The example below shows search trends for "

Hampton Website Design

Program Intent: To assist Hampton small, minority and women owned businesses with electronic commerce technology and aid in the stability and growth prospects of Hampton companies, potentially increasing tax revenue and jobs within the City of Hampton, Virginia.

Grant Eligibility: To be eligible for a Hampton E-commerce Grant the applicant must be a for-profit small or minority/women owned business located within the City of Hampton, Virginia.

Small business is defined as a business which is at least 51% independently owned and controlled by one or more individuals who are U.S. citizens or legal resident aliens, and together with affiliates, has 250 or fewer employees, or average annual gross receipts of $10 million or less averaged over the previous three years. One or more of the individual owners shall control both the management and daily business operations of the small business.

Non-minority owned businesses - grants shall not exceed 50 percent of the total project cost up to a maximum of $10,000 once every three years.
Minority owned businesses - grants shall not exceed 60 percent of the total project cost up to a maximum of $10,000 once every three years.

VBWebSites is a Certified and approved provider for this grant by city of Hampton.

Consultation Services – information technology strategic planning, ecommerce needs and marketing assessments, domain name registration assistance, hosting service needs assessments, website analytics, and website security assessments and testing tools.
Web Design and Development Services – custom website design, information architecture and graphic user interface planning, database driven website design and development, content management solutions, usability testing, advanced scripting and programming, custom database development, collaboration and social networking (Web 2.0), website accessibility analysis, and maintenance contracts.
E-Commerce Services – Shopping carts, donation and membership systems, and online security assessments and testing tools.
Internet Marketing Services – email marketing, mobile apps, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, eNewsletters, blogs, RSS, Wikis.
Other e-commerce innovations as approved at the discretion of the Hampton E-Commerce Grant Administrator.

If you are a Hampton VA Business owner or know someone that is, have them call VBWebSites for details 757-271-8293 or email Brady@vbwebsites.net

More Details can be found City of Hampton Business Development Website

Capital Concrete Inc. signs with VBWebSites

2010-10-11T00:00:00-04:00

Website design for Capital Concrete in Norfolk, Virginia

Capital Concrete of Norfolk, Virginia signs VBWebSites to establish their web presence.

Capital Concrete, Inc is the only Small Family Owned Ready Mix Concrete Company in the Hampton Roads area completely devoted to the production of ready mix concrete for over 50 years.

Capital Concrete employs over 100 and is known as the leader in concrete!

"We look forward to this project and to be the chosen company to design and develop the Capital Concrete website" Brady Behrman

Best of Hampton Roads Web Design

2010-06-01T00:00:00-04:00

Best of Hampton Roads Website Design / Graphic Design

VBWebSites.net is a winner of the Best Of Hampton Roads Contest for Best Business to Business Web Design / Graphic Design. This annual contest is run by the Virginian Pilot and HamptonRoads.com and covers all of the 757 Area Code which spans from Virginia Beach to Williamsburg and includes all the major 7 cities of Tidewater (Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Suffolk, Portsmouth, Hampton

VBWebSites develops PunchOut Capabilities - First in Virginia - it's a K.O.

2010-01-01T00:00:00-05:00

Contact VBWebSites to enable CXML Transactions for your company

After several years of planning and a year of Development, VBWebSites becomes the first web development company in the state of Virginia that has tackled the development of PunchOut capabilities with extended solutions.

Project: Harper Hardware and Tools

The Basic Plan:

Phase 1: To take their database of 70,000 + items and populate to website.
Phase 2: Make store available to consumers worldwide
Phase 3: Develop platform to work with EVA and ARIBA Network to allow e-procurement via eva.state.va.us

Learn More about Punchout Catalog Development

Basically how this system works is the State of VA has approved vendors, Roughly 45,000. Of the 45,000 Vendors, only about 1,000 have any type of catalog established and only 40 or so have PunchOut capabilities. The companies that have these PunchOut capabilities are Fortune 500 Companies. We are now going to be able to setup PunchOut catalogs for the small businesses that until now had no clear direction on where or what to do.

On to how it works.. In a nutshell: A Buyer from the state (may include Schools, Jails, Police Departments etc.) are able to login to their EVA buyer platform. From this platform they are able to navigate the states site to find approved vendors. From there, they would be able to for instance click on Harper Hardware which would take them to the Harper Hardware site. Our system recognizes that they came from eva.state.va.us. When they go to checkout, all of their cart contents are carried back to the states website where they can now make the purchase seamlessly without the need of purchase orders, credit cards etc.

PunchOut Defined:
PunchOut is an e-procurement software application from Ariba that makes it possible for a buyer to access a supplier's Web site from within the buyer's own procurement application. The buyer leaves ("punches out" from) their company's system and goes to the supplier's Web-based catalog to locate and order products, while their application transparently maintains connection with the Web site and gathers pertinent information. A vendor catalog that is enhanced for this process is known as a punchout catalog. PunchOut enables communication between the software and the Web site so that relevant information about the transaction is delivered to the appropriate channels. Ariba based their product on commerce XML (cXML), which comprises a meta markup language and a protocol for data exchange between applications. RoundTrip, from Commerce One, and products based on Open Buying over the Internet (OBI) are similar to PunchOut, and are sometimes referred to as punchout solutions.

There are a number of different e-procurement models. The earliest model relied on a point-to-point connection such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). In this model, each buyer or seller might have to adapt their transaction mechanisms separately for each trading partner. Two other models, developed to streamline these processes, are becoming increasingly common: the sell-side model, in which the vendor's information is hosted on their own (or a service provider's) server and accessed from within the buyer's procurement system; and the buy-side model, in which the information from multiple vendors is organized into an application that resides on the buyer's server. PunchOut, and similar products based on the sell-side model, allow buyers to access all the information on the vendor's Web site, rather than the selected information that is collected for the buy-side application.

Relevant Websites for for information are:
State of VA e-Procurement - http://www.eva.state.va.us/
Ariba - http://www.ariba.com/

If you currently are affiliated with EVA, then you know and understand the importance of having a PunchOut catalog and e-Procurement. There has been no real answers on how you were to accomplish this, until now! VBWebSites is very excited to have developed this platform. Our system allows you to sell to not only EVA or State buyers but also to the general public if deemed necessary.

More Details on this project - View Details

VBWebsites News

VBWebSites Introduces Punchout Catalogs at eVA Supplier Expo

Gearing up for the Season Changes

Capital Concrete Inc. signs with VBWebSites

Best of Hampton Roads Web Design

VBWebSites develops PunchOut Capabilities - First in Virginia - it's a K.O.