Onsharp is a Fargo web design and development firm. We build websites and web applications,  and also provide a full range of web services for businesses and organizations here in Fargo. 

One of our offerings is SmartPay, an electronic invoicing solution that allows users to go green, save money, and streamline their office systems. 

Last week at the Hilton Garden Inn in Fargo, area businesses joined us for lunch and a conversation about SmartPay.

Ryan Conley of InterceptEFT spoke. InterceptEFT is our partner for merchant accounts, and co-developer of the SmartPay system. While businesses can choose to use other providers for their merchant accounts, we recommend InterceptEFT for complete security.

Joe Sandin, CEO of Onsharp, also spoke. Then Jennifer Rise of 702 Communications shared her company’s experience using SmartPay.

The businesspeople who came to learn more about SmartPay had lots of questions, and the seminar was definitely interactive. We felt that we'd learned a lot and had some great opportunities to share with our fellow Fargo businesspeople.

If you missed the seminar, you didn't miss your chance to talk about SmartPay or about Onsharp's other services. Come and see us, give us a call, or email and let our representatives contact you.

So you've got a Facebook fan page for your business. Now what?

Your Facebook page can send people to your website, help you interact with your customers, and give you more front page rankings at Google. 

How can you get maximum effectiveness for that page?

• Get some good content there. Onsharp sends blog posts to our Facebook page automatically. You can, too. Depending where you house your blog, you might find it easier to do this from your dashboard, or you might prefer to set it up at Facebook. You can also automate the process by following the step-by-step instructions at Twitterfeed. If we take care of your  website and your blog for you, just contact us if you need help. You can also add content directly at Facebook. Uploading photos and videos is easy at Twitter, and it lets you make a personal, behind-the-scenes connection with your customers. You know how many people tune in to watch someone working in a bakery, tattoo parlor, or auto shop on TV -- they'd like to see what you do, too.
  
• Get some fans. Start by having all your staff suggest the business page to all their Facebook friends. That's just one post on your friend's walls, in amid the Farmville and Mafia requests -- it's not too intrusive. Some will accept the suggestion and become fans, and your interesting content will show up on their walls. Things can just naturally grow from there.
  
• Post some ads. Facebook has an astonishing reach -- hundreds of millions of users. If your product has broad appeal, you can pick up quite a few fans -- and new customers -- by diverting some of your advertising budget in that direction.
• Interact with your fans. Have some conversations, visit your fans, send out some virtual cheeseburgers. Even the most intense job has some downtime during the day, or moments when people might need to take a break. Let your staff know that you'll value their taking a couple of minutes from time to time to represent the company. Many busineses worry about timewasting and hesitate to make this suggestion, but we're betting that some of your staff visit their Facebook pages on coffee break anyway -- why not make that productive time for the company by asking them to drop by your company page when they get back to work?
• Keep track. Use Facebook Insight and your analytics to see how much interest Facebook is creating in your company and how much traffic Facebook is driving to your website. If it's minimal, then you may want to maintain a minimal presence at Facebook. If it's impressive, then you know you need to increase your investment. 

Rep. Pomeroy recently spoke here on the importance of small businesses in job growth. Small businesses have created over 22 million new jobs in the past 15 years, so it's no surprise that experts on both sides of the aisle agree that small business is the growth engine for jobs.

There's also widespread agreement that the web is the growth engine for small business.

How can the internet help you grow your small business?

First, you can open your doors  online for much less than what it costs in the physical world. Even if you plan to grow someday to the point where you need a big building downtown, a business can get started with a good website. As you grow, your website allows you to communicate with customers, get the most for your marketing dollar, and maintain a 24/7 presence where your customers are.

 Second, you can save time and money with web applications. Onsharp offers electronic billing with SmartPay, customer relationship management with SugarCRM, and a myriad of services with the Onsharp Core,including email, calendar management, geocoding, content management, e-commerce integration, and much more. Beyond these basics, Onsharp's crack development team can create solutions just for your company. 

This robust functionality lets a small company look and feel like a bigger company to clients and prospective clients. With the savings in time and money that result from having so many of the basic business functions take place on the web, your company can concentrate on growth.

Call Onsharp today to begin the conversation about what our business can do for your business. 

 

When you need your computer or your website to do something new for you, there's one essential decision you have to make first. It's not how much room you're willing to give to the new software or which software company you should support or even how much to spend. It's this: do you want an off-the-shelf solution, or something designed for you?

Many businesspeople don't even consider this. After all, when you need a chair, you don't begin by contacting carpenters and upholsterers. You go to the store and buy a chair. Just so, when you need new software or a new application, you may go to the store and stand in the software aisle. You read the packages, ask the clerks for advice, or perhaps call friends to see what they think. Eventually, you pick the thing that seems best and install it.

This is not the only way. And it isn't necessarily the best way. Off the shelf solutions can have drawbacks:

• They may not do what you want. You may have a list of characteristics and functionalities you want in a solution, and you may not find anything that has all those characteristics. You may just have to choose the closest thing, or put together several different packages in order to get everything you want. Often, you'll find that the exact functionalities you want don't seem to come in your price range, or that you have to have other software in order to do what you want with one package.
  
• They may do more than you want. This may not sound like a bad thing. Often, we buy a software package for one thing, and we think of the other stuff it does as free add-ons that we might use someday. However, we're paying for all those added things. If we want an invoicing package, should we have to pay for the calendar that comes with it, which we'll never use? It isn't only the cost of the solution, either. A software package with lots of options can mean a steeper learning curve for your staff and use of more resources in your computer.
• They may not suit you or your company. A solution designed for lots of people to use may not work quite right for you. A solution designed for you will mesh with your workflow, not require workarounds. It won't look as though you've patched it in. Onsharp's SmartPay, for example, is an electronic invoicing solution with a customizable portal. That means that your customers see something recognizable when they go online to pay their bills. This makes them feel secure and makes you look good. "Customizable" means that you save, compared with a system completely built for you, but you still get the benefits of a solution designed with you in mind.

You might find the perfect software package or application ready-made. If not, don't feel that you have to compromise. Call Onsharp at 701.356.9010 to discuss your needs. You may be surprised at how much difference our solutions can make for your business.

The Research and Technology Park and the College of Business at North Dakota State University hosted the inaugural Innovation Week January 25-29 at the campus. The vision for the meeting, which is to take place annually, was to bring together entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and other innovators with NDSU students to increase awareness of and dialogue about new technologies, business start-ups, and innovative approaches to business.

Sandin conducted one of the break out sessions with "Bootstrapping a New Venture While in College: You Can Succeed!" Sandin drew on his own experience with Onsharp for this presentation.

Sharing this information with the campus fits perfectly with Onsharp's mission: from its clients to its employees to its community, Onsharp strives to create success in the lives of all people, businesses and communities that it serves.

 

At Onsharp, we're committed to remaining at the cutting edge of technology. This is important to our clients because it means they can be sure that the solutions we provide are the best possible, and will last the longest without needing to be replaced. 

But this can mean that some of what we do seems a bit mysterious.  If you hear someone here saying, "Hey, can you build that site in php?" -- well, just what does that mean?

Here's a quick guide to the computer languages we use here at Onsharp:

• HTML: Hypertext Markup Language. This is the language that tells your computer's browser how to show a page to you. The English on this page has been marked up (that's why it's markup language) so the computer knows which parts ought to be in a list and which bits should be emphasized. HTML also directs your computer so that you can see pictures and click on links to go to other places on the web (that's the hypertext part).
• CSS: Cascading Style Sheets. This language works with HTML to make beautiful computer pages. The colors, shapes, and where things are on the page are all up to the CSS in a properly-built web site. That's the "style" part. The "cascading" part refers to the fact that your computer follows special rules to determine which style information to apply in particular cases -- that's rather technical, and doesn't affect your experience of the website. But the style part sure does; if it weren't for CSS, this page would just be plain blue letters on white, straight down the page. This is where the art comes in.
• XML: Extensible Markup Language. XML is similar in some ways to HTML, and there is a fusion of the two called XHTML. XML is more versatile than HTML, but it's still a markup language, so it's still used for making pages of English (or other human languages) do what we want them to in a computer. 
• PHP: PHP Hypertext Preprocessor. PHP doesn't exactly stand for something the way HTML and CSS do; it originally stood for "Personal Home Page," but now it's used for much more than personal home pages. It's a language that lets developers put commands into a web page, making a dynamic web page -- that is, a web page that does something. This allows things like searches and calculations to be done from a web page.
• C# and C++: C# is a programming language -- a language that tells the computer to do things. With C#, a programmer can make a button that does something besides go from one place to another in the internet. C# communicates well with databases, so it's great for applications that need to sort through data and make decisions. C# is especially good for the internet, so we also use C++, a related language that will work well in other contexts, too.
  
• Javascript: Javascript, and the related Jscript and Jquery, let designers and developers add extra things to HTML. This is how we can put Google Analytics into our websites, for example. There's a script, a set of instructions for the computer, that tells the computer to count the number of visitors coming to your website. Since Javascript lets the browser respond to things that computer users do, we can use it to make a website let people know when they make a mistake filling out a form, or to build a site that automatically updates a calendar.
• SQL: Structured Query Language. SQL is a database language. A database is an organized collection of information. SQL lets your computer go and find information. You can ask for all the carburetors at a particular price point, or all the accounts that are past due, and the computer will track down that information for you. SQL can be used for a lot of different things.

That's a lot to know, isn't it? Fortunately, you don't have to know all of this. Onsharp has a great team of developers, designers, and web professionals who will use these languages (and new ones, when they're developed) to make sure that your web projects, from webpages to Web 2.0 applications, do exactly what you need them to do.

 

Onsharp offers a range of web 2.0 solutions for your business, including Sugar CRM and our own SmartPay e-billing solutions. Our goal is to offer you the best online tools to keep your business running smoothly.

Recently, we've made some changes to our pricing structure that we think you'll like.

First, we've made changes relative to merchant accounts. Your merchant account allows you to accept ACH debit and credit card payments through your SmartPay system. We still recommend our partner, Intercept EFT, for your merchant accounts, but we've adjusted our system to work with your current merchant account if you prefer it. You won't have to make changes if you already have a merchant account.

Second, we offer a new tier of services for those with smaller numbers of invoices. You can send out as many as 35 invoices for the low price of $19 a month.

This means that consultants, freelance professionals, and small companies can have thecustom look and power of SmartPay at a very affordable rate.

It offers larger companies a chance to try SmartPay out, too. Some businesses like to use SmartPay with a segment of their customers first, to let staff become accustomed to the system before making changes across the company.

Since there's just one low set-up fee and you're charged simply for the number of invoices you send out each month, you can ramp it up and roll SmartPay out for all your invoices as soon as you're ready, with no additional set-up or changes.

The first pricing tier is also great for seasonal businesses, since your monthly fee automatically adjusts to your needs.

Call us today to discuss your needs, and to learn how SmartPay can work for you, or visit SmartPay for more details.

Starting the new year with a new web design? Onsharp always begins by sitting down with you and determining your needs. But you might like to think about it yourself first. If so, here are some things to ponder. 

First, what is your website going to do for your business? The design for Wildlife Pursuit TV grabs the visitor's attention. Then it hooks fans up with the facebook page, videos, the gallery -- it's a general invitation to join in the excitement of Wildlife Pursuit, but it also allows visitors to join the community and buy products. With music and info for fans, it's a fun place to hang out.

Next, think about your brand. Your website is often the first point of contact with your customers. The overall look communicates what your company is like -- and studies show that you have just a few seconds to make it clear before your visitors make up their minds whether to go or to stay and explore further.

Daub & Bauble's site has a fashion-conscious look that suits their home decor and care products. Vistors can tell immediately that Daub & Bauble make hip, elegant things for the home.

Just imagine if the colors and styles of these two designs were switched -- both would be far less effective. Give some thought to your company's image and identity. Of course, choosing a local company like Onsharp means that we'll probably know your Fargo business, but pulling out a few words that describe the impression you want to give your visitors can help you articulate your ideas  to our designers.

Finally, consider the emotional impact you want to make. While the message communicated by your website has to suit your industry and make it clear what your company does, no two companies are just alike. You want to appeal to your customers -- both your current customers and those who don't yet know that you're just perfect for them.

The site for Creative Curb Appeal, above, is designed to evoke a sense of calm. The photo and the color scheme create a peaceful, luxurious image that is designed to appeal to homeowners.

 

Peterson Salt has a clean, fresh look and a lively, energetic feeling. Both sites are for companies that provide essential services to homeowners, but the feelings evoked by the sites are different.

Give some thought to your new website's purpose, the main point you want to communicate, and the feeling you want visitors to have when they arrive. Then give us a call, and meet with us to take the first step toward a website that does exactly what you want it to do.

Happy New Year! You've had a look at your website reports, and now it's time to plan your online marketing strategy for the upcoming year.You may be looking at a morass of numbers and charts and graphs, some of which don't mean that much to you. 

How can you use the information from your reports to determine the best strategy for your website?

• Do you like what you see? If your traffic is increasing, your rankings are where you want them, and business is good, then it makes sense to do more of the same. If your strategy doesn't seem to be getting the results you want, then it's time to think about doing something different. Too often, decisions about updating your web site are based on emotional responses. Onsharp's 3-D process can prevent that by making sure the Discovery phase, using measurable data, precedes the decision making.
• What's working, and what needs work? Your web analytics can tell you a lot about your visitors. In order to fine-tune your strategy, you should look at things like the conversion rates of visitors arriving from different sources, the cost per conversion of different Adwords campaigns, and the bounce rate (the percentage of people leaving without exploring your site) on different pages. Then you can do more of the things that work best, and less of the things that don't work as well. Streamlining your web strategy, and responding to changing conditions, can maximize the return on your investment.
  
• Success builds on success. Increased user-friendliness at your website, more valuable content for your visitors, and updated design or development when you need them -- all of these things not only make your website better and more appealing to your visitors, but also increase your website's success with search engines. If you have an inspiration, let us make it a reality.

Onsharp can help you understand your analytics and make SEO decisions. We can also help you get from a strategic plan to a successful website. Contact us at info@onsharp.com or 701.356.9010.

For 2010, don't mess around with resolutions to get organized or laugh more often. 

Jump right into the serious stuff. The second decade of the 21st century is beginning, and it's time for all of us to get our businesses online and flying.

Onsharp has ten resolutions that will make a real difference for your business, and we'd love to help you achieve them. 

Choose one or all, and call us today to get ready for your profitable new year. 

• If you don't have a website, get one. No excuses.
• Make sure your design is a modern one that enhances your company's image.
• Get your website's code updated to current standards, for accessibility and predictability.
• Get your content updated -- no more outdated information, typos, or text copied from your company brochure.
• Make usability the #1 priority at your website -- your customers will love you for it.
  
• Install analytics so you really know how people are using your website.
• Include your website, blog, email, and social media in your marketing plan.
• Use your online presence to support your brick and mortar shop, and vice versa.
  
• Encourage staff to get engaged with customers online.
• Use online applications like SmartPay and SugarCRM to make your business more productive.

Happy New Year!