Author: Steve Slisar

We've used educational marketing to help students learn digital skills and how to use accounting, office administration, digital marketing, customer service and online sales skills. These skills help people find work, run better businesses and do a better job for their customers.

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Content Marketing Google Analytics real estate agents Search Engine Optimisation Course Social Media Wordpress Website Training Courses

Why Facebook is #2 and sticky – what real estate agents can do about it

Facebook-as a marketing tool for real estate agents

Facebook is sticky because users stay there

Website visitor information for facebook and why it is so sticky and good social media for real estate agents
Social media giant Facebook’s visitor stats what are your real estate agent website analytics like?

When a website is described as sticky it just means that visitors to the site stay their longer and click on more things. You probably do it because you find your friends, the things they do and the placed they go to interesting. Google and other systems that measure engagement of websites measure this using bounce rate, page views per visit and the time spent on the site each visit and that is something that we make our clients aware of in our quarterly digital strategy progress report for their website.

When you think about your own site, are their interesting places to visit? Are their stories about the people you work with, about your vendors or even about the buyers that others might find interesting? Some people have said to me that writing about real estate is boring but if you look at how popular ANY article that relates to real estate is in the press you’d soon find lots of things to write about and that is exactly what we do.

Content Marketing includes Words, Pictures and Videos

mobile friendly real estate agent websitesContent marketing is the buzz word in digital marketing these days but it has been popular for a long time. It’s commonly also referred to as blogging, business blogging or even newsletters (if you want to go back to more traditional terms). Content marketing refers to the writing on your wesbite but also to the images that you use (and how they are optimised for search engines) and the videos you create. The ultimate goal of all this content creation is to produce something that visitors to your real estate agent website want to see. If you tell a compelling story your visitors will come along on your journey.

Instagram is not as popular as Facebook

Website visitor information for instagram not as popular as Facebook but good social media for real estate agents
Instagram website visitor statistics and anlytics

Instagram was bought by Facebook in 2012 but it’s statistics don’t come close to those of it’s parent. Despite this Instagram is a good social media tool for real estate agents who want to appear as tech savvy and increase their content by taking photos and uploading them. Instagram is a tool that enables people to view great images and videos, like and share them and remain connected to people who they like so if you sell some great houses that you think people would like to know about its a good idea to give Instagram a go.

As a digital agency we can advise on all aspects of digital marketing and provide our clients with regular reports that demonstrate the statistics and analytics but focus on the goals and action points. If you’re a real estate agent and interested in 123ezy website for yourself take a look at our pricing but more importantly give us a call and ask us some questions, we’d love to help.

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Content Marketing Video Analytics Video Marketing

Drop off in real estate video views noticed in agent website strategy

There's a drop off in real estate view stats but they mean more than a flashy responsive mobile optimised website

Videos keep property sellers engaged longer

There's a drop off in real estate video analytics view stats but they mean more than a flashy responsive mobile optimised websiteSome website visitors prefer to read the writing on your website while others prefer to watch videos but no matter which content marketing medium you choose, relevant and useful information on your website will keep visitors there longer and video analytics shows you what’s working.

You can have a sample video that’s freely available and if it’s good your “anonymous” visitors may subscribe and join your marketing list and give you permission to send messages to them in the future. This information is probably common knowledge to you if you have spent some time researching online marketing, but the most important thing for real estate agents to remember is that you don’t have to get it right or perfect the first time.

We provide our premium real estate agents with a regular digital strategy report which reviews their digital performance in all aspects of their campaigns, including:

  • popular landing pages,
  • results of online advertising like Google Adwords and Facebook Ads
  • click-through rates (CTR)
  • subscriber growth
  • social media influence, and
  • video engagement

The image in this post shows the drop off in video views for Derek Farmer, a McGrath Real Estate Agent in Sydney’s Cammeray area. At first glance you see a drop that may appear bad, but these statistics are actually very good. There is always a drop off as people make the decision early on if this video is worth watching for them. If viewers are interested your goal as the presenter is to ensure that viewers stay with you until the very end and as you can see in this chart most viewers stay watching for the entire course of the video – and the video goes for a whole 3 minutes which is a long time for many Internet viewers.

Video analytics guide you to change

Video analytics like these help you make decisions that change the course of your digital strategy by telling you that you need to change or keep doing more of the same. When we work on our real estate agent websites and their digital marketing strategies video analytics is just one of the aspects we review with them regularly.

It’s one thing to have a flashy website with glossy images of yourself and a couple houses you’ve sold but it’s another thing to make regular updates to your website with an end goal in mind. Learn more about how our 123ezy Automated Marketing Response System is helping real estate agents build credibility and grow their online influence.

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Responsive Mobile Website Search Engine Optimisation Course Wordpress Website Training Courses

Responsive Mobile Websites Is What Google Search Will Show

mobile friendly real estate agent websites

They didn’t call it Mobilegeddon for nothing

mobile friendly real estate agent websitesIt’s been almost 12 months since Google made it official that they were going to prioritise mobile websites built on a responsive methodology for their Google Search results and you can see it in the results themselves – Mobile Friendly (if your reading the search results on your mobile phone that is).

Does it really matter? Absolutely! It matters because more and more searches are performed on a mobile phone or tablet and Google’s constant goal is to provide you with fantastic websites based on the keywords you use for your search. If Google takes you to a website on your mobile that you can hardly read because it’s too small, what will your opinion be of Google?

Mobile and Social

Let’s take that one step further. If you are searching for something from your mobile phone and you click on that website to learn more about what a company does the chances that you’ll want to call the company or get directions to them are higher when you do it from a mobile phone, right? That’s why it is a good idea to have a call now button on your website – so prospective customers can call you right there an then!

The reason we mention it in this post for real estate agent websites is that this makes it important to choose an underlying technology that is strong, reliable and capable but that also has a huge programmer base and the support of thousands of developers and millions of companies that use it – and that technology is WordPress.

This blog post from Google should act as a good indicator of the importance mobile is for their development team and the future of searching for things on the Internet.

What about site builders like Wix?

I was speaking with someone recently who discovered an online website builder that enables anybody to build their own website using a tool called Wix, and after exploring the solution I liked the way it worked and how easy it was to create and modify a website. When I did a bit of research however I discovered that the websites created on this platform are not responsive. Here’s the information I read on the Wix website. Does it mean you can’t build an effective website using Wix? No, but when you use a platform like WordPress that has professional content management features, capabilities for multiple users with different access profiles, thousands of developers and millions of businesses using it (sigh) it’s hard to go past.

Connecting with Social and the future

The social revolution has been and gone and is now part of every day Internet life so getting onto that bandwagon is very important. Even though some of the smartest investors, programs and business people don’t currently make money in social media (like Facebook, Twitter etc) these platforms are worth billions of dollars because they have a massive user base and VERY detailed information about every user. Connecting your content marketing to social media should be the first step in a social media strategy but exploring the advertising possibilities may blow your mind.

The technology leaders are currently exploring the capabilities of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality path so it will be very interesting to see how this applies to the real estate industry.

Subscribe if you want us to send you these updates automatically.

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Content Marketing Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)

Content Marketing Differs from SEO

Content marketing for real estate agents

Content and Search Engineering!

It’s important to understand that knowing about online content marketing is vastly different to possessing a knowledge of SEO (or search engine optimisation) and we say this because many people seem to think these two skills sets are one and the same.

Your Content Marketing Strategies Count!

Online advertising may be more accessible than traditional advertising, especially for small businesses, but that doesn’t mean you should leave your online marketing strategies to just anyone.

Your business’ online marketing strategies should be approached in the same manner as you would any other marketing strategy — or, in fact, any other business strategy. For this reason, a business would employ someone who specialises in online marketing.

Online Marketing is NOT the Same as SEO

But too often, business owners mistake the need for an online marketing assistant with SEO experts when really SEO is just one part of your overall online marketing strategy (just like social media). The skills sets are also very different. SEO experts are highly skilled in the technical aspects relating to SEO, but usually do not possess any marketing knowledge; knowledge, which is quantifiably different from SEO.

In marketing, you get to understand demographics and how to reach them effectively through different marketing strategies. For instance, it’s widely believed that younger generations are the more active online than the baby boomer generation, but that’s actually not the case.

The baby boomer generation was really the fad generation — they embraced with great zeal, anything that came along, and they were also far more progressive than the generations before them. If you think about much of the social, political, economic and cultural change that has taken place in the last 50 or 60 years, it was the baby boomers who embraced it.

A marketing expert would know this, but would a technology expert? This is why online marketing assistants need to have skills that go beyond the technical know-how, to skills you find in most traditional marketing professionals.

We’ve helped Derek Farmer Use All

We’ve helped Derek Farmer get to page 1 in Google search by utilising all the skills of our team members:

  • Working with internal and external partners to achieve successful execution of your content marketing strategy
  • Social networks – distributing and tribe building
  • Web analytics monitoring and reporting against key metrics
  • Search engine optimization tasks – improving page content, ensuring site structure is efficient, keyword relevancy, product names and tags etc
  • Email marketing – list maintenance, segmentation, execution, monitoring, reporting.
  • Paid Search – budget control, key word success tracking, ROI reporting
  • Keeping up to date with internet and marketing trends and contribute this knowledge as an integral member of the team

Learn more about Derek Farmer and his online marketing as a residential real estate agent

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Content Marketing Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)

Specific is terrific for your website and online marketing

Niche Marketers are Rewarded by Google

Many website owners believe that they can create content and plonk it anywhere on their website and they’ll be inundated with emails and calls. They are missing the fundamental fact that people who are browsing the Internet have potentially 10-30 other websites to visit until they find the one that they like the most.

Here’s a couple examples of the goals I have for some of our websites.

  1. Get website visitors off your home page (otherwise they’ll bounce)
  2. Get people to take a short tour of what you can do for them (using images and maybe audio)
  3. Give people a reason to interact with your website (like a free sample or information report)
  4. Know the website goal and how to measure it (eg. the number of people visiting the website compared to the number of people who actually get to your Contact/subscription/ordering page etc).

Some fantastic news for you is that Google has all the tools to help you attract website visitors, funnel them to goal pages and measure your success (then perform some optimisation). Advertising with Google costs you money, but most of the other tools are completely free (like Google website optimiser and analytics). See some of the website analytics statistics available for website owners.

A great feature of Google Adwords is that you can actually target very specific potential customers to your website, customers who have typed in very specific search words and/or phrases. Better still you only pay for actual clicks to your website and not the people who just see your add (unless you get a display ad but more on that another time)

So remember that when you promote yourself online you are looking for people who want something very specific so you need to find them and then funnel them to your own specific goals for them. You’ll still attract a wide range of other prospects but you can create your content and make it sound very personalised for what they are looking for. Your 123ezy brand manager can help you create a content marketing strategy and Google Adwords and optimise your website for important keywords.

This post first appeared at EzyLearn in 2008

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Content Marketing real estate agents

Your Personal Real Estate Agent Website: Much More Important Than You Think

Keep an Active Website

I’ve attended some business building and networking events and have been fascinated at the number of people who speak about the importance of good first impressions and having a professional website. What’s most amazing is that many of these people have a website that hasn’t changed in 2 years!

This is amazing because there are some very powerful website content management systems (CMS’s) like WordPress that enable you to get a website and change it whenever you want. You can even update the news section of your website (usually called a blog).

The most important thing about a website though is that it is often the first time potential customers get to know something about you and how you operate your business. Your warehouse and office are things that they may never see, plus, you can use your website to give them some important information that makes them buy from you straight away.

When we set up a professional website for real estate agents using WordPress, we add and modify the images and words regularly as part of their content marketing strategy, but if a member of their staff wants to make modifications they can – and we help them. Finally professional agents can have an online presence and build their online reputation. However, they can also make changes themselves if they want to.

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Content Marketing Email Marketing

How Google Analytics Will Help Generate More Revenue

Split Testing and Personalised Email Marketing

I recently wrote about using web analytics to determine your website’s conversion rate, which can be used to generate sales leads but for those still unconvinced on the usefulness of analytics, I thought we’d break it down a little further.

Jump On Board the Web Analytics Train

If you’re not on board yet, here are four reasons why you should be!

  1. Search engine optimization: like it or not, SEO is still plays a huge part in how your customers arrive at your website. Using analytics you can see exactly what keywords and key phrases your customers are searching. Know this, and you’re able to create content that makes it almost impossible not to sign up for that newsletter, download an ebook, etc.
  2. Socially active: everyone knows that social media can drive traffic and result in leads, but what platform is best? Analytics answers this question without even breaking a sweat. For some businesses Facebook is the must-have platform, but for other businesses LinkedIn is more useful, so why waste your time on the wrong one if you don’t have to?
  3. A/B split testing: by combining the new-fangled world of web metrics with old school metrics like A/B testing, the internet doesn’t combust, but does, in fact, make fine-tuning your call-to-action strategies a cinch — particularly which ones to use and which ones to ditch.
  4. Personalise email marketing: ever wondered how to increase the open-rate of your newsletters and emails? Wonder no more! Say a user arrives at an ebook download and then subscribes to your newsletter — does that mean they’re interested in a certain product or service? Probably, so why bother them with irrelevant information? This is a particularly useful given the sheer number of emails most people receive today.

By now you should be asking yourself how and where you can find this analytics train so that you can board it. Your 123 brand manager will make sure your real estate agents website is setup for Google Analytics and highlight the most useful information for you.

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Content Marketing Google Analytics

Google Analytics needs time and attention

Attention is What You Want From Readers

If you’re an average reader, I’ve got your attention for about 15 seconds, so here goes: many things we’ve been taught about the web are wrong. One of the biggest mistakes – thinking that clicking is the same as reading.

Not your average reader? Perhaps I’ve got you a while longer… I’ve mentioned on the EzyLearn blog that every business owner should be monitoring their web analytics – and it’s particularly important if you are counting on your website to bring in new enquiries and leads because it enables you to modify the journey and strategy to gain maximum benefit.

What Does Web Analytics Help You With?

Web analytics allows you to determine things like where your visitors originated from, your click rate and your bounce rate.

Google considers any visitor who spends less than 30 seconds on your web page before clicking elsewhere to have “bounced” – and the number of people who bounce from your website is your bounce rate.

Clicks and Conversions

Your click rate is the number of people who have clicked through to your website from a search engine, banner ad, or third party link. The goal is to keep your click rate high and your bounce rate low – this is supposed to demonstrate high engagement with your website, your business or your brand; it’s also supposes to guarantee conversions.

Except that it doesn’t – a fact that’s becoming clear to organisations with large web presences, as web users become more sophisticated as the way we use the web has evolved.

According to Tony Haile, of US company Chartbeat, which provides real-time analytics for companies like Time Inc, Forbes and NBC Universal, businesses should be looking towards something he calls Attention Web and away from clicks and bounce rates.

Time and Attention

Attention Web is not just valuing the number of clicks, but valuing the time and attention visitors give your site. “Time is a rare scarce resource on the web and we spend more of our time with good content than with bad,” Haile says.

For business owners this means you need to give your customers and clients, good, valuable content and start valuing the time they spend reading and engaging with it. Do this and your conversion rate will soar – and in turn, your bounce rate plummet.

***

A key cornerstone of our websites for real estate agents offer is the tools to measure how your online presence is performing. Read more about how we measure performance.

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Content Marketing Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)

Is Google Your Sugar Daddy

Content Marketing in Your Google Plan

I wrote in an EzyLearn post about marketing action plans, where I mentioned referral marketing and/or networking as a marketing strategy in your marketing plan. That may seem silly to some people, since networking doesn’t always translate to sales straight away, but we’ve discovered another reason why you should include it in your marketing plan: Google!

Google Outlines My Referrals

We were recently at our web stats using the Google Analytics app for Android, when we discovered that even Google separates the traffic to your website from other websites as ‘referrals’. This really highlighted the fact that you can be receiving referrals online from any news or content you make available on the web.

How to Create Great Online Content

The most accessible way to create good content online that will drive independent referrals for your business is to maintain a blog. If you publish a few posts each week that are highly relevant and highly targeted to your readers (your customers), the more likely they are to tweet, like or share your content with their friends, families, and colleagues.

Use YouTube

You could even take it a step further. Maybe you’re an IT consultant and you’re looking for other ways to connect with your customers and provide them with informative content – why not create a few YouTube tutorials that you can embed in your website and share on your social media platforms. With a little care, and some thought to the execution, you’ll set yourself apart from the other IT guys who only talk in gigabytes and mainframes.

Move Up the Google Rankings

The other upside of creating regular content is that you’ll move your way up through the Google ranks, which in turn, will bring you more referrals from Google, too. SEO also plays a big role in your Google rankings, but only so long as you’re creating the quality content that people want.

If you truly want a Google Sugar Daddy, then you need to keep pushing relevant, informative content online, so you can engage with your customers and clients online. Read about Automated Response Marketing Systems (ARMS) as another way of generating regular website visitors (Google likes returning visitors too)

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News Remote Extensions Telephone System Features

Work from home as a teleworker with VoIP

Virtual Assistants, Teleworkers, Remote Contractors and VoIP

Skype is synonymous with VoIP because it was around when the Internet grew up and it was free. It’s free because on-net calls don’t cost you anything and it’s the same with the virion VoIP system, calls from one number to another number in your CloudPBX phone system are free no matter where you are.

We’ve recently received calls from companies who are working smarter and more efficiently with their staff by downsizing from their big office to a smaller office and having their team members work from home, teleworking.

When they initially spoke with us they were not sure if a phone system can handle this type of setup but they were pleasantly surprised when they discover that VoIP gives them:

  1. Flexibility of remote VoIP handsets,
  2. Power of a professional business telephone system features, and
  3. Low call rates of VoIP

Typical VoIP Business Telephone System Call Flow Scenarios

To demonstrate more precisely how many of our customers utilise a VoIP business phone system with the CloudPBX we have created some rudimentary call flow diagrams. These call flow diagrams show you how a small business can take advantage of sophisticated features and work with their staff from their home offices.

The cost to expand your business telephone system

[quote]With virion VoIP you can order an extra phone number by sending us an email![/quote]

We’ll setup the new number, configure your CloudPBX, setup the VoIP handset and ship it to your location. Within a short amount of time you’ll have the extra service and your staff can get on with serving customers. The cost of these services is very low and will simply appear on your next monthly invoice.

 

 

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Call Queue Case Studies Cisco Business Telephone Systems Line Hunt Telephone System Features VoIP Features

CloudPBX Business Telephone System for Bookkeepers

Case Study for CloudPBX

We recently had a bookkeeping business order a business telephone system for their key administration people and they wanted it all in the cloud. They wanted features like Line Hunt, Remote Extensions, Softphones on Mobile devices, and Call Queues and the challenge was that each person in the admin team where located from their own home offices – enter the CloudPBX.

Key benefits of cloud based online services is that your business telephone system is located in a secure data centre, your staff’s VoIP telephone handsets are located on their desks and the two talk to each other via the Internet. If you have a team in remote locations yet you still need them to be part of the same telephone system then CloudPBX is the best solution for you.

Want Cisco VoIP Handsets?

Our customer had their mind on Cisco VoIP telephone handsets and they wanted to take advantage of our Cheap Telephone System offer so we provided them with some Cisco phones from our rental stock and they worked perfectly. Because they took advantage of our low rental rate for their business phone system Cisco handsets they only needed to pay for their VoIP call services.

3 handset Business Telephone System

For a low minimum monthly fee our bookkeeping business received:

  • 4 telephone numbers,
  • 3 handsets,
  • unlimited calls to local and national numbers,
  • free calls between handsets (even though they’re in remote locations),
  • cheap calls to mobiles and
  • a business grade telephone system that has all of the call handling features most businesses desire.

Use Your Current Internet Service Provider

Our client uses Telstra as their ISP in two of the locations and iiNet in another and despite the variety of different hardware used at the remote sites their new business phone system worked easily. It is important to note that the quality of your VoIP telephone service is dependent on your broadband Internet so if your Internet goes down your telephone system won’t operate so we always recommend a business grade broadband plan.

Virtual Assistants and Cloud Bookkeepers

Many of our clients are virtual assistants or independent contractors who run their businesses from their home so we’re always proud to promote our CloudPBX as a service that enables all of these remote workers to be connected to your business telephone system and able to respond to customers needs quickly.

Request a Quote for a Business Telephone System

If you are starting a new business, relocating or just want to upgrade your telephone system to one that has powerful PBX features, low cost and great support, then Request a Quote from us.

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Small Business Phone System Plans Telephone System Features VoIP Support

Is your Internet Speed Good Enough for a VoIP Phone System?

Speedtest Internet for VoIP phone system
Speedtest Internet for VoIP phone system

VoIP Business Telephone Terminology

We’ve received a lot of interest from our cheap phone system offer and in the information we provide prospective customers we realise that VoIP technology and terminology can be very confusing for first time users.

It’s true that VoIP rates are cheap, VoIP phone systems are cheap and the capability of being able to move office and keep the same phone numbers (programmed in your phone system) is fantastic. The other features you can read about here: VoIP Services.

Broadband Internet Speed is Important for Business Grade VoIP

One of the most important things to understand is how dependant your VoIP Phone System is on your Broadband Internet Connection. There are several ways of testing the speed of your Internet service and you can even get a little nerdy and get to know about voice codecs to see how many conversations you could have at the same time using a VoIP system (concurrent conversations).

Learn more about testing your Internet Speed and how many concurrent calls that enables you to make.

Learn more about VoIP Business Telephone Systems

VoIP Business Telephone System Handsets

Small Business VoIP Telephone System HandsetsVoIP handsets enable your small business to take advantage of the functionality and flexibility of a hosted CloudPBX. These handsets can be located in remote offices like staff or contractors homes or even interstate or international offices.

Learn more about Business Telephone System Handsets

Business Telephone System Call Flow Scenarios

Business Telephone System Call Flow Configurations - smallestDo you want to see how most people handle the calls with their business telephone system? These call flow scenarios enable you to quickly choose from the most common choices and can help you get a good solution quickly.

Business Telephone System Scenarios

[button link=”http://virion.com.au/services/cloudpbx-hosted-pbx/” bg_color=”#0e6bf5″]CloudPBX Features[/button] [button link=”http://virion.com.au/servicesupport/request-a-quote/”]Request a Quote[/button]  [button link=”http://virion.com.au/order-cheap-phone-system-now/” bg_color=”#0cba06″]Sign Up Now[/button]

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Assisted Call Transfer Gateways & ATAs Group Pickup IP Handsets IP PBX equipment News Telephone System Features Voicemail-to-email VoIP Call Rates VOIP Equipment

Siemens Gigaset C470IP – Registering a Handset

C470IP VoIP Phone System
C470IP VoIP Phone System

C470IP is a very simple IP PBX with basic VoIP functionality however it can connect up to 5 additional handsets. Multiple handsets can be registered to be used with a single VoIP phone number (endpoint) or multiple endpoints.

Configuring a C470IP System

Most IP PBX’s can be configured by entering the IP address of the device. An IP Address looks something like 192.168.0.2 and it’s just a location for a device that is located on your local network.

To get the IP address of your Siemens C470IP system, press the blue “Paging Button” that normally gets each of the handsets ringing. You’ll see the IP Address displayed on the handset.

Type that address into your browser and the normal password is 0000. You can then log in to the admin area, setup phone numbers, handsets and manage how calls are handled – things like which phone number rings on which handset.

Handset registration process

When you get another handset to use with your system you can register it using the following procedure:

Turn on additional handset

On the phone menu, Navigate to Settings > Handset > Register H/Set

Enter your system PIN, (default is “0000”)

Press and hold INTERCOM button on base station until handset is registered (it will show an icon like the phone is ringing).

 

Great for Virtual Assistants

You can then go into your IP PBX admin and rename the handset to something that makes more sense to you. For example if you operate a home based business as a virtual assistant you can have one line for home and a couple others for your own business and any business you’re answering calls for.

We’ve had quite a bit of interest from virtual assistants who are using these phone systems because they are cheap and enable them to take advantage of cheap voip rates and have some great features like group pickup, assisted call transfer and can be combined with the VoIP service features like voicemail-to-email.

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Marketing Numbers News Small Business VoIP FAQ's virion business voip phone systems VoIP Service VoIP Support

It’s Clear You Want to Port Away

Phone Numbers are no longer attached to your local Telstra exchange

port your landline number away from Telstra for VoIP business telephone systems

Many companies are moving to VoIP and enjoying the benefits of a digital telephone service and the most obvious benefit is to be able to take your phone number anywhere you want. In the olden days your telephone number was linked to the copper wire that comes into your home or office, but these days a phone number is virtual – it doesn’t matter where you are. Many larger companies have a different phone number for each state that are all answered in a central location. These days phone numbers are completely separate to the cabling that carries the voice signal.

Mobile and Landline Phone Numbers

There was a time in the early days of mobile phones where mobile phone carriers could keep a customer for many years because we didn’t want to change our phone numbers – changing carriers meant you had to change your mobile phone number! Many small business owners still believe that they need to change their landline phone number if they move their office location but that is not the case with VoIP – you can take your number with you now.

Port Away

When you move your phone number from one carrier to your new carrier it’s called Porting Away and it happens quite often. In our experience most request to port away involve those customer who want to move away from Telstra (mainly because they are a huge supplier and have most of the landline customers) and those carriers who tied customers into long-term and expensive plans (we won’t name names).

If you are interested in porting away from your existing phone number carrier just use the PAF (Porting Application Form) from our VoIP Support site.

Wholesale Account Number

When you Port Away the application form asks for the account number for the phone number you want to port away and many customers believe this number appears on the monthly phone bill, but it doesn’t. Often you’ll need to call the leaving carrier, let them know that you are porting away from them and need to get the wholesale account number for the phone number you want to port away. Once we have this information the whole process now takes half the time it use to.

Special Offer for Small Businesses

If you are ready to move your telephone system to VoIP and start saving money but also getting all the features of a digital phone system, visit our VoIP Partner website and learn how you can get a VoIP Phone System for $1 per month.

 

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News

Mobile Websites a MUST for Google Search

Responsive Websites for Real Estate Agents

WordPress plugins are available for websites built using the WordPress CMS (Content Management System) and they enable the website to be viewed better on a mobile phone compared to a desktop computer and even a tablet. Statistics provided by Google (which you can check out and dive into yourself) show that we are one of the world leaders in mobile phone adoption.

Interestingly just under 25% of Australian smartphone owners used the website browsing capabilities of their phone to perform job searches! but that’s another story.

We made the decision to use WordPress for our website several years ago because it is used by millions of website owners around the world and supported by plugin and template developers. With the importance of Google searches to bring inquiries to your business and the adoption of Smartphones every business needs to have a website that:

  1. Looks Professional
  2. Can be viewed easily on a smartphone
  3. You can update yourself if you want

Check out the Google OurMobilePlanet website and get all sorts of interesting stats for yourself.

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News virion business voip phone systems VoIP Features VoIP Service

CLI or Calling Line Identifiers

CLI - Calling Line IdentificationOn our new Cumulus VoIP Call Plan we provide CLI overstamping at no additional cost so everyone who calls you back calls your main switch number – it’s a great way to manage a callers experience.

With CLI we are able to “overstamp” each of your Direct Indial Numbers with your main telephone number so that call recipients see your main phone number and return the call using that, rather than the direct indial number. You also have the ability to hide your number. This service is available on some plans, please check our VoIP Plans for more details.