Month: June 2015

June 22, 2015

Domain Related

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Not every small business has a website; and perhaps there are some types of businesses that might not require a website, but the rule of thumb remains - if you have a business it is a good idea to have website to help potential customers learn about your business and also most easily look your business up. The internet certainly is the new ‘yellow pages’. We presume you haven’t made that mistake, lol. But beyond that... if your business does compete for attention on the web alongside other businesses, how well does your website ‘rank’ on search engines, and hold your viewer’s attention? Simply speaking many small businesses have websites that are much less effective than others. Many businesses, usually small ones, make the same mistakes. Below we list the most common mistakes; Does your website have a clearly defined call to action? Let’s review your website. If you can, pretend that you are coming to your website for the very first time. Well, that is impossible, but the point is, a new visitor will be seeing your site for the very first time, so it is important to lead them along to what you would ultimately like them to do, which is to become your customer. Many small business websites are fine with letting visitors wander around rather aimlessly perhaps until they wander away and most likely never to return. About 1/3rd of websites are designed fairly well, and the rest could use some help in this regard. read_more Keep in mind cluttered website design, or one with poor navigation, is the most effective technique to encourage your visitors to click off your website as quickly as possible. Your small business will best be served by a simple, easy to read, easy to navigate, and clean website design. It is also of high importance to guide your website visitors by expressing to them what you want them to do. Every page of your website should have a specific purpose and desired response. The layout, text, and chosen graphics should work together in synergy to produce the desired response. Work towards that goal. It is important to get opinions from...

June 15, 2015

Domain Related

Reading Time: 6 minutes

What is HTML5? HTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Mark-up Language. The initial standard was developed in 1990 by the World Wide Web Consortium. HTML 5 is the latest update of this specification used to build websites. Many people are still unaware of many of the benefits of HTML5, so here we will describe some of its top attributes and benefits. HTML is a form of high level programming language used for structuring and presenting content on the Web consistently, across web browsers. HTML5 has been designed to meet the increasing demands presented by today’s rich media and mobile display requirements. Likewise it makes cross-platform mobile application development possible along with new styling options available in CSS3 (Cascading Style Sheets version 3). As HTML5/CSS3 it operates entirely within a web browser, as HTML5 does, it is not dependent on the underlying operating system, which frees applications from the significant development/support overhead to otherwise make it all compatible with Android, iOS, Blackberry, etc. HTML5 is already supported in the latest web browser versions on PCs and tablets; of which about a billion new compatible phone devices are being produced each year. It is quite important not to ignore the importance of HTML5 when considering your mobile site. CSS3: What is it? CSS stands for ‘Cascading Style Sheets’. It is the language of format and design of web pages. It provides website designers the power to site documents that are styled. CSS is compatible with all popular web browsers regardless of device and operating system. It separates the structure of a web page from the details of how elements are displayed. CSS can also be used to tailor a web page specific to a particular screen resolution or device/screen-size. In short, CSS is the language used for implementing front-end web design. read_more HTML5 & CSS Benefits: The most obvious benefit actually lies in its abstraction. As it is generally termed: Write once, run anywhere. HTML5 and CSS3 help businesses design and deploy web content and applications to create visually stunning and accurate web pages which operate across devices, operating systems and web browsers. Without these standards the vast variety of devices...

June 8, 2015

Domain Related, Hosting Related, SEO Related

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Being mobile friendly is the current ‘big thing’ going on in terms of search engine ranking for websites. If you are not just doing simple updates to your website, but rather replacing large portions of it in full, there are considerations to keep in mind. Maybe you are just handing your site redevelopment to a third party? There are several other things at play than what can be visually seen, replacing your site structure could bring down your site’s rankings causing it to drop in terms of SERPs (which are “search engine results pages”) So the following are some tips and guidelines to follow in order to keep your site safe from new Google penalties and to get your site maximum visibility in Google. Unfortunately, we all have to become Google conformists. Our society, our global culture as a whole, unfortunately believes in continuous centralization of power. Resistance is apparently futile. 1. Create a website map of your site The first step is understanding where everything is placed on your website. If you have implemented SEO methodology in the past, then most likely at least a few pages rank well SERPs, and you don’t want to lose those gains when your website structure changes. read_more Screaming Frog - http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/ is a free online tool that details your current website’s map. You can then begin matching it up to your new site design. 2. Concerning Your Website’s Platform Different underlying technology for your website can have influence on your website’s ranking. Is your site straight HTML, HTML5, WordPress, or some other CMS? When you’re creating the new site, are you staying on the same platform, or are your changing it? The platform you or your web developer choose is an important consideration. SquareSpace, Wix, Weebly are easy to setup, but can be limiting for future SEO efforts. WordPress offers a full SEO experience due to the many choices of third party plugins, for example, “WordPress SEO” offered by Yoast. Most importantly, make sure your website/platform has the capability to use 301 redirects, which has the power to re-link the former page location on your old site to your new site (more...

June 2, 2015

Hosting Related, SEO Related

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Dear 4GoodHosting customers , As you probably are already aware of social media (ie. twitter, facebook, etc. ) is an extremely valuable tool for promoting your website content. Other associated services, like ‘addthis’ and ‘sharaholic, make it 1-click simple to share content whether it be images, articles, comments, or other activities from websites to facebook, twitter, linkedin, pinterest and many more social media outlets as well. (as pictured above) You have probably seen this in action already in many places on the internet. If you haven’t done so already, in this blog we are going to show you how to easily set up social media sharing buttons and tools on your website. By doing so you will be extending your website’s visibility and leveraging what is known as “inbound marketing”, or increasing your visibility from the inside-out (free) rather than the outside-in (paid). You already have great content on your site, so you want to leverage that fact. The following social media buttons/tools will help you fully enable that. read_more There are two choices that we wish to promote, notably “addthis(.com)” and “shareaholic(.com)’ Both services have an easy sign up process. The process ultimately gives you a snippet of code that you can inset into your web page html code next to the content that you would like to be socially promoted. Another technique, if you run a Wordpress blog or other popular CMS, is to utilize plugins that such services make available to help share your content easily. Additionally these plugins also enable you to optionally ‘monetize’ your content, if you choose to show advertisements which are typically placed at the bottom of your article/page. We did an internal review of ‘addthis’ and ‘shareaholic’ and decided that shareaolic offers the most advanced features. We subsequently added social media buttons on our company blog posting Shareaholic’s Wordpress plugin. Shareaholic states they currently socially enable over 300,000 websites of all types and sizes. Shareaholic.com guides you through how to implement the top five social networks (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and Pinterest) on your website, blog, and other content. The Difference Between Follow Buttons & Share Buttons Which of the two types...