October 3, 2016

Domain Related, Hosting Related, SEO Related

Reading Time: 6 minutes

On the internet, email is the standard communication medium. It’s the go-to communication for brands. Email is the most direct channel, it boasts a higher ROI than any other channel and it helps build loyalty and relationships on a much deeper level than any other channel. Right now, more than half the world is connected to an email account. By the end of 2017, email addresses are expected to increase, to about 5 billion accounts worldwide. When sending emails to your small business customers, you need an effective strategy. 1. Welcome Email First impressions are everything. And a welcome email sets the tone for the relationship. So, roll out the red carpet for your customer. According to Experian, welcome emails generate 4x the open rates and 5x the click rates compared to other bulk promotions. Moreover, studies found that subscribers who receive a welcome email increase their long-term engagement with a brand by 33%. Therefore, greet your new customers. Let readers know more about your small business. And tell them what type of emails they will receive in the future. Write in a conversational tone. A welcome email is like a virtual handshake that accepts a new member to your group. It should be inviting and warm. Also, consider the timing of your welcome email. It shouldn’t be two weeks after the customer bought your product or signed up for your newsletter. 2. Adoption Email An adoption email is designed to keep your customers engaged with your products. Once they make a purchase, you want them to actually use it. Adoption emails can be distributed in a timed sequence or to correspond with specific behaviors or actions taken. Like a good concierge, adoption emails acknowledge where recipients are in a progression, offer suggested solutions, and reaffirm motivations for the original purchase decision. These type of email campaigns lead to faster adoption of the products or services being offered, greater incremental revenue, and increased customer loyalty. So, start sending emails with links to video tutorials and how-to guides. And urge customers to contact you if they have any questions or concerns. 3. Thank You Email Build rapport with your customers. Your...

September 26, 2016

Domain Related, Hosting Related, Security

Reading Time: 3 minutes

The name of the organization with seen to remain the same, “ICANN”, but the people is power over the organization is about to shift, without your vote, Oct 1st to an assemblage of the world body politic, mostly compose of despots and dictators. The effect of this is still yet to be seen, but one key person involved in today’s political fray, presidential candidate Donald Trump, opposed the lackluster plan. Basically, the current domain name system as you have grown to know, and trust, is about to go under changes that could easily lead to intimidation and censorship against free speech. Protection of grassroots political speech is also at risk. The world can go on with less adult websites, but the world simply won’t be as good or nice of a place without freedom of speech in other regards. The founders of America frequently stated that the citizenry must always be vigilant and jealously guard their rights and freedoms. This is the attitude now on the podium of Donald Trump; the only candidate opposed to the plan to hand over control of the internet to a conflicted party of those seeking ever more power in the world. U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is currently conducting verbal opposition to the semi-secretively planned transition of oversight of the internet's domain name system (DNS) management from the US-based governance to the UN, a global organization of political stakeholders from around the world; which could abrogate and hand-over control of the internet itself to authoritarian regimes such as China and Saudi Arabia and others; foreseeably threatening online freedom. Internet DNS is basically a directory for internet-connected devices that helps translate domain names to numerical IP addresses. He strongly contends that the US Congress should act swiftly block the handover, scheduled to occur next week on Oct. 1 2016, or as his campaign policy director Stephen Miller stated "internet freedom will be lost for good, since there will be no way to make it great again once it is lost." The ‘handover’ of the internet DNS was proposed in March 2014, implying the transfer of oversight from the nonprofit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names...

September 19, 2016

Domain Related

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Currently, the European Union has some of the worst copyright laws in the world. If left unopposed, this could quickly leak over into Canada too. The new proposals include the unprecedented new “Link Tax” for publishing giants, allowing them to charge fees for reposting links that contain 100 character snippets of “copyrighted” text. On September 14th, 2016 the EU Commission presented these new rule proposals to the European Parliament. Earlier leaks hinted the rules were worse than originally feared, and the recent announcement proved it. Not only Europeans, but everyone simply has to help stop this now. Despite online opposition leading up to this point from over 100,000 Internet users, and many dozens of civil society groups, the EU Commission has charged full force ahead with its’ abusive anti-free-speech and anti-free-association plan. We must demand that our so called “decision-makers” and the entirety of the government absolutely reject such crazy Link Tax proposals, along with any other forthcoming disastrous copyright measures. We must all speak out now or the internet as we know it will be much more corporate and state, rather than grassroots controlled. In addition, the EU Commission’s new rule proposals include invasive and expensive methods for 1) monitoring and 2) “filtering” user content. In other words, the censoring of content and creativity online. In more detail: The “Court of [In]Justice” of the European Union has ruled that it can now be illegal for websites merely to *link* to copyrighted content - such as news articles. Again, we are talking about the “mere act of linking” (or perhaps even just printing a link) to copyrighted content can in and of itself be a breach of copyright. Today’s decision went against the previously published advice of the CJEU’s own Advocate General, who stated earlier this year that the simple act of linking should never be made illegal. Although the CJEU created a narrow exception where links are not posted for profit, the sweeping ruling will affect any commercial enterprise, even news startups and small-audience hobby bloggers, that share links with their readers, especially those who monetize their websites by selling advertisements. The ruling will be directly binding on the...

September 12, 2016

Domain Related

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Twitter is now adding ‘read receipts’, typing indicators, and automatic web-link previews to its “direct messages” giving it chat-like functionality. These new dynamic Twitter Direct Messages allow you to see who is reading and responding to your messages. Below is a recent tweet from Twitter itself: New! Direct Messages are more dynamic than ever with read receipts, typing indicators, and web link previews. pic.twitter.com/VEU92V5Gqj — Twitter (@twitter) September 8, 2016 Over the years that Twitter has been mainstream, the “tweet” has morphed from a simple 140-character text message now beholden to more creative expression featuring: hashtags, images/photos, videos, vines, and now more. Twitter has added the ability to poll your community, react quickly and cleverly with GIFs, and share and enjoy Periscope broadcasts in Tweets. You can now do a lot in a Tweet. In the coming months Twitter will be making changes to simplify tweets including what counts towards the 140 character limit. For example, @names in replies and media attachments (like photos, videos, & polls) will no longer use up valuable characters. Here’s a summary of planned changes: · Replies: When replying to a Tweet, @names will no longer count toward the 140-character count. This will make having conversations on Twitter easier and more straightforward, no more penny-pinching your words to ensure they reach the whole group. · Media attachments: When you add attachments like photos, GIFs, videos, polls, or Quote Tweets, that media will no longer count as characters within your Tweet. More room for words! · Retweet and Quote Tweet yourself: We’ll be enabling the Retweet button on your own Tweets, so you can easily Retweet or Quote Tweet yourself when you want to share a new reflection or feel like a really good one went unnoticed. · Goodbye”.@: These changes will help simplify the rules around Tweets that start with a username. New Tweets that begin with a username will reach all your followers. (That means you’ll no longer have to use the ”.@” convention, which people currently use to broadcast Tweets broadly.) If you want a reply to be seen by all your followers, you will be able to Re-tweet it to signal that...

September 5, 2016

Hosting Related

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Intel has recently unveiled its ”7th-generation” core processors, with the promise of improved performance. (Credit: Intel Corporation) A new 7th generation processor die is pictured to the left. The new processors have new numbered codes to identify them as 7th generation, but, these codes also mix the “Core m” name in the with the “Core i” branding. “Core i” processors have always been powerful processors for high-end laptops and “Core m” processor are typically used in in smaller and less-powerful devices. However, processors which were formally called the m5 and m7 and now listed under the i5 and i7 lines. Intel stated on their website that the renaming decision is intended to make it simpler for consumers to select a processor - but we think the naming convention will just befuddle our customers. Consumers can still identify the ‘Core m’ chips in the ‘Core i” range by looking out for a ‘Y’ in the number. Here is an example for the uninitiated: “Core i5-7Y54” is a former “m” chip, but the original “Core i” line will continue with model codes such as “i5-7200U”. New product class now known as“Kaby Lake“: “Kaby Lake” is the code name for Intel's 7th generation Core processors. It is a relatively a minor upgrade over 6th-gen “Skylake” release, yet it is still an significant improvement which makes 2017's pc and laptop market ever more interesting. Kaby Lake is a minor upgrade which means there are really no major structural changes to overall design and what the processor capable of. Previously, each generation saw a reduction in process size, smaller and lower power consumption and a more powerful architecture. read_more These trends in how we consume and create content, in how we communicate and interact, reflect what Intel terms the “ immersive internet” . The immersive internet is found on a powerful enough computer to deliver ever more lifelike experiences, in games or general use. From Intel’s own recent press release, here are the 7th generation’s improvements: Faster and more responsive: Intel’s engineering and manufacturing teams have drawn even more out of our 14nm process technology with what we call 14nm+. 7th...

August 29, 2016

Hosting Related, SEO Related

Reading Time: 11 minutes

As a website owner, the impact of your website speed on traffic, conversions and revenue should not be underestimated. A report by Akaimi found that 46% of people on the internet expect a wesbite’s pages to load in less than 2 seconds and 40% of people will abandon a web page if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. Many other studies have been published on the impact of website speed, another study found that a 1 second delay in site loading time resulted in a 6% conversion decrease, and 12% decrease in page views and a 15% decrease in customer satisfaction. As you might already know Google uses website speed as a ranking factor. So, having a slow loading website will negatively impact the following: Brand image and perception in the mind of your visitors Traffic & page views Conversions Sales Before you start optimizing your website to load faster, there are two things you should consider: First, go and check your current website load-time via Pingdom or Google PageSpeed Insights. This helps you to compare the speed increases once you have tweaked your site. Secondly, make sure to back-up your site as some of the methods require tweaking/editing files that can mess up your site. Here’s how to back up WordPress website and here’s how to backup any other… Here are the tweaks, in no particular order. Just pick ones that you think can be easily performed first. 1) Remove Unnecessary Plugins & Add-ons Unnecessary plugins and add-ons can reduce your website speed by A LOT, and it’s especially important to pay attention to them if you use blogging CMSs like WordPress or Drupal. For reference, you might be able to increase your page load times for 4 second to 1.5 seconds. It’s very important to note that it’s not just about the number of plugins you have installed on your website but about the quality as well. A website with 50 plugins can load much faster than a website with 10 plugins if the website with fewer plugins have crappy plugins. Generally, you want to avoid plugins that load a lot of scripts and styles, plugins...

August 22, 2016

Domain Related

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Mobile advertisements are the new big market arena and will likely stay that way for a long time. That is, perhaps until we become telepathic? Mobile ad spending will account for more than 60% percent of the industry by 2017. Smartphones, tablets,even watches are already what today’s shopper uses to discover products and services across the internet. Perpetually siphoning in endless content and digital social venues. Shopkeepers and service providers have already smelled the blood. Nowhere is this shift to mobile more noticeable than with Facebook. Facebook interaction is also mostly happening over mobile devices; more than a billion daily active users/losers. Over 80% percent of ad revenue on Facebook revenue is mobile. If you are hoping to rope in conversions/customers from FB advertising, the double your mobile. First, beware of the common FB advertising money-pit-falls. Don’t Ignore call conversions As people are naturally staring at their phone in hand whenever noticing an interesting digital advertisement, they usually prefer to call rather than type. The number of mobile advertisement call conversion to businesses is expected again to triple over 35 billion inquiries by 2019. Call conversions are not something most digital marketers have given much attention to - yet click-to-call and ‘whatsapp’-type free-voip functionality is heavily re-landscaping the marketplace. Today’s supercomputer phones are still phones. Even better, click-to-call is therefore the easiest conversion path for consumers considering a purchase. Motto of this paragraph is to make sure to optimize your FB ad campaigns for call conversions. · Include an easily-readable phone number or call button on every ad or banner on your website. · Test your ad’s “call now” button; your ad’s main call to action. · Do your best to accurately measure “cost per lead” to prove and/or improve ROI, return on your “advertisement” read_more Location, ditto, ditto Somebody close to your store or business is going to most likely be a higher-quality lead; rather than someone at a different state, or country. (chuckle) So FB now offers “geo-targeting” options to help you get your advertisement into the eyes of the most lucrative prospects, and even at the right time. For example, you can aim your ads to consumers...

August 15, 2016

Domain Related

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Tim Berners-Lee is a famous name on the internet. Back in the early 1900’s Tim was the programmer, at the right place at the right time, who first successfully served a webpage from a web server to a client computer through the newly invented “http” (“Hyerptrext Transport Protocol”). The web was initially dreamed to be a decentralized democracy, enabling free speech forum of all networked computers around the world. However, in recent years, the attraction to big brand services, such as Google, Youtube, Facebook, Yahoo, you name it - has caused a ‘centralization of the internet” - making it ever more easy for those corporations, and America’s “NSA” to spy on the bulk of your online activity. Now Tim is again wishing to help restore the web to a decentrailized, more open, more free, more private internet. He is spearheading a project named “Solid”. The goal of it is to let you solely “own” your personal data. Digital Trends recently reported this in detail. With “Solid”, you store your data in “pods” (personal online data stores) that are hosted wherever you would like. But Solid isn’t just a storage system: It lets other applications ask for data. If Solid authenticates the apps and — important — if you’ve given permission for them to access that data, Solid delivers it. The paragraphs below offer a quick summarization: Solid’s name is derived from the phrase “social linked data” and it stores your data in personal online data stores, or pods. You can then choose which applications have access to your data and how much of it they can see. According to the website for Solid, the system is "modular and extensible"; and relies as much as possible on existing W3C standards & protocols. Development of the project is taking place at MIT and the Qatar Computing Research Institute. Solid has similarities to ”Diaspora”, a social network that was built on a decentralized architecture, but which failed to become the “Facebook killer” data ownership and privacy advocates were hoping for. Thank you for reading the weekly 4GoodHosting.com blog.

August 8, 2016

Domain Related, Hosting Related, Security, Security Related, SEO Related

Reading Time: 4 minutes

You may have heard of the 3 more popular content management applications: Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla - but you are not sure which one is best for your needs. Perhaps you remain curious; so we will focus the the two ‘other’ choices besides Wordpress: Drupal & Joomla. Each particular CMS will provide the basic functions of: adding, deleting, and publishing various types of content. Each program has different strong points (and weaknesses) which should be considered whole-cloth, prior to making your ultimate decision. First write down your business’ objectives and goals. This should be is the first step in selecting the best CMS application suited for your particular business needs. Ultimately, optimally serving your business’ unique target audience. Choosing the right CMS (by the way, easily confused with CNS (Central Nervous System)), is the backbone for your project it will save you a great deal of headaches later. A reliable web host, with super customer support, also saves you from initial and future headaches. With 4GoodHosting.ca you can get both ultra-reliable hosting and the CMS of your choice for free: Joomla, Drupal, or of course; Wordpress - or any of the 200+ free scripts we offer you with any of our hosting package. Drupal: In 2016, there is an estimated 1 million+ websites built atop the Drupal CMS. Drupal is common to government offices, universities and colleges, Non-government Organization, Canadian & otherwise global enterprises. America’s White House website is taking advantage of Drupal’s strong website security features. Drupal is a comprehensive, expandable, powerful content management framework suitable to be the foundation of virtually any type of website. Drupal’s Advantages: * Tested Enterprise-level security; advanced control over URL structure * Lots of functionality - including advanced menu management, graphics modification utilities, poll management, and administration/users management * Built for high performance; pages load fast because of its defaulting caching features * Ability to handle large amounts of content & data * Extensive selection of themes, modules & extensions * Ideal for community platform sites (requiring multiple users - admin, editors, logged in users requiring customized content, private groups, etc.) * Large robust community generally responsive to inquiries and concerns. * Good SEO...