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synthasite

From the archives: Tim Peter thinks’ 6 (OK, more like 11) most popular posts this year

by Tim on June 30, 2009

in Customer Service, Marketing, SEO, Social Media, Strategy, social strategy, twitter

Can 2009 really be half over already? We’ve accomplished lots here at thinks Central so far this year, reaching new records in visitors and page views, growing our subscriber count and increasing Twitter friends. But half over?!? Sheesh.

Well, before we move forward to the second half of 2009, now seems like a good time to take a look back at what you all loved so far this year. These posts are the ones you seemed to enjoy the most based on traffic, bounce rate, time spent and comments. And if you’re new to thinks, these should get you started on the right path here.

Enjoy!

  1. Many businesses – especially in service industries – don’t yet have a handle on their online strategy. Which is what led us to ask the following question: Is your business still invisible? Why?
  2. We all want more customers and search engines like Google continue to work for most companies. That’s probably why these two posts get so much attention:
  3. Even for companies more comfortable with online, the rise of the social web is causing many to rethink their strategy. Want to know more about how to apply a strategy to social media? This review of the POST Study by Forrester Research – part of our Book Review of the Week-ish series – seems to be helping many answer that question.
  4. Assuming you have a social media strategy, many still struggle with Twitter. For most, its key identifying traits are the amount of media attention Twitter gets and the perceived difficulty in using the tool to make money. So it should come as no surprise that four separate posts got lots of love from you this year. In no particular order, these are:
  5. Finding useful tools takes time and energy. So it’s no surprise that our posts comparing Jimdo to SiteKreator, Webnode, Weebly and Wordpress and Jimdo adds social features get a lot of love.
  6. Of course, getting customers and keeping customers are two different things. Maybe that’s why articles on how to keep customers, like I heart Zappo’s: The best customer service story you’ll ever hear continue to get so much attention.

Finding customers. Connecting with customers. Keeping customers. Yep. That’s how we roll here at Tim Peter thinks. Stay tuned for the next 6 months for more of the same. Only, y’know, better.

Miss one of your favorites? Or is there something you’d like to see us do better? Tell us all about it in the comments.


Are you getting enough value out of your small business website? Want to make sure your business makes the most of the local, mobile, social web? thinks helps you understand how to grow your business via the web, every day. Get more than just news. Get understanding. Add thinks to your feed reader today.

Or subscribe via email.

And while you’re at it, don’t forget to follow Tim on Twitter.

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Jimdo adds social features (Guide to Small Business Ecommerce)

by Tim on March 27, 2008

in E-commerce

Jimdo website editor

Jimdo announced today that they’ve added social features to their web hosting tool. Take a look at the screencast:

What they’ve added looks similar (in a good way) to the types of activity sharing common within Facebook. For certain types of sites, these could be a real plus. For instance, a local bicycle shop, bookstore or club could get great value by incorporating an online social aspect to their site. Whether a lawyer or doctor (or any profession that must maintain its customers privacy; see Client 9), would find value is unlikely. But, these still represent an intriguing upgrade to Jimdo’s service. Mashable reports on Chris Pirillo’s attempt today to make a simple CMS and notes, “if you want simplicity, you lose on power and features; if you want power and features, then there’s not way it’s going to be simple.” While it’s tough to argue with the underlying sentiment, the features that Jimdo, and folks like Weebly, Wordpress, and SynthaSite, provide offer greater power than you might expect. Are they for everyone? No. But they’re not a bad match for many people.

I’ve got an email out to Matthias Henze, Jimdo’s CEO, to learn whether Jimdo plans to join OpenSocial or something similar. One of the great benefits of social features such as these is allowing your customers to incorporate these items into other parts of the their online life. I’ll update once I hear more.

You can read the original review of Jimdo here and read the review of its competitors, Weebly, Webnode, Synthasite and Site Kreator, here.

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Comparing Jimdo to SiteKreator, Webnode, Weebly and Wordpress

by Tim on January 29, 2008

in E-commerce

Still looking for ways to make your business visible? Here’s another option.

Following my website editor comparison, I got an email from Matthias Henze at Jimdo, asking me to take a look. They’ve got a compelling offering overall, with some really interesting features.

Jimdo website editor

Here’s the quick overview:

  • Jimdo’s clearly the work of a team outside the US. On the positive side, you can work in one of four languages (German, English, Chinese and French) and Matthias tells me “…others to follow soon.” You can also set which of dozens of languages your site content is in, presumably to aid with local search. These are nice touches that I haven’t seen elsewhere.
  • Jimdo offers 500 MB storage for free and 5 GB at the paid level.
  • Business owners can easily embed code for Google Analytics, meta tags and meta description.
  • Excellent support for accessiblity. While this is a more advanced area, it will help you with SEO and in support of disabled users. It also might be a legal requirement depending on your business.
  • Jimdo offers multiple layouts including direct access to the HTML, CSS and images for full-featured editing. I’m not a fan of their default designs, personally, and it might require more design work than the others reviewed. On the other hand, if you have your own design, moving it into Jimdo looks dead simple.
  • On free sites, Jimdo inserts AdSense ads of its choosing. Not ideal for many small businesses, but many not be an issue for all. The big concern is whether those ads display competitors and how Jimdo accounts for that. I’ve got a message out to Matthias Renze to see
  • No email account at the free level. May not be an issue for everyone, but it’s something to consider
  • Jimdo has a somewhat quirky interface, to my tastes, but it’s very simple once you spend a minute with it.
  • You can add a personal domain, email address and eliminate the ads for $6/mo. I like this business model, personally. Coupled with their ad strategy, they should be able to succeed financially, assuming they get enough users.

So, how does it stack up compared with Weebly and Wordpress, my favorites of the bunch? Very favorably. The folks at Jimdo have done a good job of covering the basics for their customers, with some really sophisticated options for those who need them. And if you’re in Europe or Asia and need an edtor that supports your language, Jimdo might just be the best solution for you. As with other solutions, I couldn’t find an easy way to get content out, so that’s worth investigating further. In either case I’d recommend upgrading to their Pro offering to eliminate the ads on the site, gain access to an email address and host your own domain. For $72 a year, it’s well worth the added brand value.

As before, the options available to small business owners to have a site that meets their needs blow my mind. We’ve come a long way from the days of FrontPage or hand-coded HTML. If you don’t have a website today, Jimdo, or its competitors will likely meet your needs. Given these options, why is your small business still invisible?

Are you getting enough value out of your small business website? Want to make sure your business makes the most of the mobile, social, local web? thinks helps you understand how to grow your business via the web, every day. Get more than just news. Get understanding. Add thinks to your feed reader today. Or subscribe via email.

And while you’re at it, don’t forget to follow me on Twitter.

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Comparing hosted services for small business websites

January 10, 2008 E-commerce

Small businesses don’t need fancy web hosting solutions for their websites. Here is a quick caomparison of 5 services designed to get a small business site up and running quickly.

Read the full article →