Hmmmm

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Creating a Website For Your Business

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Tips From a Professional Web Designer

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 You have a business. You need a website. Where do you start?

We're here to help you out with a little guidance on your trek to getting online with a website for your business. Rest assured you're not the only person to be in this position and since we see a lot of interest in this topic we decided to share some of our experience with you.

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 When you're creating a website for your business there are 2 choices to make at the very beginning of your process. Which one you choose will depend on your budget, your level of technical skills, and your sense of adventure.

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Do It Yourself

If you're on a tight budget and feel confident in your ability with technology you might find yourself in this column.

Keep in mind when considering the DIY route, you'll also need the time to devote to doing it yourself. There is the time required to learn whatever website product to go with. Don't forget about the time to conceptualize your design and turn it into an actual digital work of art.

DIY can be a good option for a starter website. The current crop of website builders have a nice array of design tools that let you create a good looking website without any technical knowledge.

What do you need to DIY?

• Domain (Your website's address)
• Hosting
• Content (text & images)

Actually there's a little more to it but those are the 3 main categories.

Most of the major players in the DIY business include a domain and shared hosting in their website builder packages. You just need to create your content and choose a template to format it.

Here are a few of the DIY website builders vying for your dollars today.

• WIX
• Weebly
• GoDaddy Website Today
• Wordpress.com (different from Wordpress.org)
• Squarespace

Any of these platforms will let you create a website without too much technical knowledge. Many of the low cost versions are limited in one aspect or another. Some limit the number of users allowed in a certain time period. Some limit bandwidth and storage space.

With a DIY package you are also limited in functionality. Most don't allow you to upload any plugins. You are stuck using their themes, although the themes they offer can look really good.

Most of these website builders aren't suitable for eCommerce unless you're creating a small online store. Plan on upgrading to one of the deluxe (more expensive) plans if you need ecommerce.

What about SEO? We wrote a blog post about our experience with Weebly. You can read that Weebly blog post here.

 

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Hire a Pro

Using a Pro is a much different experience than the DIY route. When you hire a web designer to create your website, much of the work involved becomes the responsibility of the web designer, freeing you to concentrate on your business. Let's take a look at what we do for a typical web design project.

• Domain name research & procurement
• Set up Hosting on appropriate plan
• Install and configure Wordpress
• Select and install WP Theme
• Create Child Theme
• Configure Theme settings
• Set default color palette
• Set default typography
• Determine necessary plugins, install and configure
• Create User Interface
• Create pages using Organic SEO tactics
• Use appropriate images and textures
• We take high resolution photographs when necessary
• Review design with client & modify as needed
• Launch site
• Configure Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Google Maps, & Google MyBusiness
• Configure Bing Webmaster Tools
• Configure site to use InfiniteWP for continuous monitoring
• Provide client training
• Configure custom email as needed*
  (optional)

Those things are what you don't get with a DIY website builder.

A responsible web design firm like Team 218 will ensure that the pages of your website are designed and built with solid Organic SEO tactics. This is something that is more difficult to add on after the fact. Without good Organic SEO, your search results will suffer and it will be almost impossible to achieve a good ranking.

When we design a website we include all of the above and we also include hosting and all maintenance for 12 months. We keep a close eye on the site not only to make sure any updates are completed promptly, but also to monitor Search results. We may make many adjustments to a page to affect the SERP.

We are confident we deliver a better result than you can get from a DIY builder.

On top of everything else, we provide the best customer service you'll find anywhere.

We can't speak for other web design firms but we know you'll be happy with one of our websites. Ask any of our clients.

 

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Summary

Buyer Beware

Website builders are in business to make a profit. That's why they have limitations on their lower tier plans. They want you to upgrade. They also don't want to see you leave. Because of this it's very difficult to move your site away from most of the DIY builders. Something to keep in mind if you decide to use one.

What we said in our blog post about our experience with Weebly still applies.

The DIY path to a website is a viable option if you are just starting out and want to get your name on the web. Using DIY services for any serious business website may leave you wanting more. Your DIY website may also appear amateurish due to ads. You will suffer from less than stellar SEO results. These are all things a business owner should not have to deal with.

Our advice? Use this approach only if you absolutely have to and then only as a stop-gap measure. If you decide to go ahead with a DIY plan, take your time and PAY ATTENTION TO THE DETAILS. Check your spelling and grammar and make sure you are consistent and get things like phone numbers and addresses correct. If you get stuck, we'll be here to help you out.

To ensure the best first impression and a trouble-free website experience, we recommend hiring a profession web designer. Yes we're a little biased but we're giving you our honest opinion. Remember - it doesn't cost anything to ask questions. Call, text, email, or use our contact forms anytime. We're always glad to help.

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You can read more about Web Design and finding the right website person on our home page.

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Original post here: Creating a Website For Your Business

Redesigning Your Website

Do websites have a shelf life?

That depends. Most websites are built using technologies and design trends that are current when the site is created. These technologies and trends change over time. Even though your website still functions, it might not be sending the message you want it to convey. It could be time to consider redesigning your website. Ask yourself...

1. Is the design of my website outdated? Your website is designed with a purpose in mind. Is that purpose being conveyed? If not, then it may be time to think about redesigning your website to update your website’s look and feel. We can help you develop a new site that is both stunning and functional.
2. Does my website work across all devices? How about on smartphones and tablets? Your website needs to work across all devices and screen sizes. It needs to be responsive and look good on all devices. We can build a website that is responsive to all screen sizes.
3. Do I have the latest technology? When was the last time you updated your website to the latest technologies? Your website should be built using the most current technologies and design trends. If you are using outdated technologies, your website could be slow to load and hard to navigate. It could be time for an upgrade.
4. Is my website secure? Your website should be built with security in mind. This includes being coded to prevent any data breaches or other attacks. It also means that the site is built with a focus on privacy. We can help you build a website that meets these requirements. Websites are not just static pages of text and images. They are dynamic and can change over time.

Website Redesign

What Should You Expect? Your website is more than a list of static pages. It’s a digital hub of information. That means it must be easy to navigate and offer an intuitive experience for users. But in order to provide a better user experience, you must first know what your visitors expect from your website. What should they see and do on your website? How can you improve their overall experience? Read on to learn the answers to these questions and much more!

1. Why Do Visitors Come To My Website? The goal of every website is to drive users to make a purchase, fill out a form, or find something on the site. If you’re looking to increase sales, you’ll want to make sure that your site offers everything a visitor needs to take action. To find out what people expect from your site, you need to understand their motivations for visiting your site. This means understanding why they come to your site in the first place.
2. What Are The Most Important Pages On My Site? What are the most important pages on your site? What do visitors come to your site to find? For instance, if your company sells products, what page on your site would they visit to find out more about the product? If you sell services, what page would they visit to find out more about how your service can help them? What pages are your visitors most likely to ignore? What do visitors do once they arrive at your site?
3. What Should I Put In My Website Content? How should you write content for your website? To start with, you should always use a writing style that is conversational and direct. Your goal is to speak to your audience as if you’re talking to them personally. This will make your content more engaging, and it will encourage your audience to interact with you.
4. Do I Need To Write Longer Content? There are two ways to write content for your website. You can write short, succinct content on a wide variety of topics. Or, you can write long-form content on a specific topic. Short-form content is perfect for blog posts and other shorter content. Long-form content is better suited for longer pages such as product descriptions, case studies, or FAQs. As you create content, make sure to incorporate keywords and keyword phrases into your text but make sure to do it in a natural manner. Just stuffing your content with keywords is never a good idea and can lead to reduced traffic from Google.
5. Are You Using Google Search Console? The webmaster tools from Google provides a link report which shows all the back-links pointing to your site. This is an invaluable tool to find out what are the top linking root domains, and to see which anchor text they are using. This data will help you to create more relevant anchor text for your internal links, which will improve your internal link profile. When you have the traffic coming in, it’s time to start thinking about how to convert that traffic into leads.

Website Redesign Technical Aspects

If you decide you want to redesign your website there are a few technical aspects to keep in mind. Site Structure. It's important for the new website design to not lose the site structure of the existing site. Use the same page structure or utilize a 301 redirect to send users to a new page. Keep the Same URLs. If you decide to redirect old pages to new ones, make sure that they use the same URL structure as the old site. This way, users will be able to find what they're looking for if they've bookmarked the old URL. Include Links in the New Design. If you're redesigning a large website, it's important to include links in the new design to the new pages so that people can easily navigate the site. Use a Content Management System (CMS) to Manage Your Pages. A CMS makes it easy to update your site with new content and to easily make any changes to your website's design. You should be able to start redesigning your site right away, but be sure to give yourself enough time to get it done right. If you have a lot of pages on your site, you may need to hire someone to create an SEO-friendly website design. Team 218 Web Services specializes in website redesign projects. You can find more information on our Website Design page. We'd be happy to review your unique situation and offer our recommendations for redesigning your website. Call us at 319-333-0815 or email chuck@team218.com.

Original post here: Redesigning Your Website

QCPH Golf Outing

The QCPH Golf Outing took place on Saturday (9/18,2021). We were happy to be able to help support this charity event by sponsoring a hole and by donating some golf balls. The Quad City Parrot Head Club held their annual Golf Outing at Sunrise Golf Course in Bettendorf, Iowa with a shotgun start at 11:00am. All proceeds from this event were donated to Birdies For Charity.

This event was open to the public. You did not need to be a member of the QCPH club to play golf or attend the after-golf party. As usual with this event there was a great party after golf was over with entertainment by Dave Ellis, Rich Fricke, Barry Beranek, Bill VanAtta & Rich Wilcox.

We love supporting great events like this that contribute to charitable causes. Learn more about the Quad City Parrot Head Club.

Original post here: QCPH Golf Outing

My New Web Design Page

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Original post here: My New Web Design Page

How To Claim Your Google My Business Page FREE!

"How To Claim Your Google My Business Page FREE!" A few days ago I told you that, if you are a local business owner or someone who owns a local business, then you need to be claiming your Google My Business page (GMB). It is extremely important to you and your company showing up in the local search results. If you know anything about SEO and local search engines, then you know that local search is essential to your business. Why? Because local search will bring you more customers and more business and more traffic and more leads and more money. If you don’t show up in the local search results, then you won’t get any of that traffic.

How To Claim Your Google My Business Page FREE!

If you haven’t already, then you need to claim your Google My Business page. When you claim your page, you will need to verify your business location. To claim your page, go to Google My Business and get started. It’s easy, and it only takes a few minutes. What do I need to know about claiming my business? To claim your Google My Business page, you will need to request a post card from Google mailed to the address of the business. It must be a physical street address, not a PO box. The post card will have a verification code printed on it. Once you receive the code, login to you GMB account and click on verify, then enter the code from the post card.

After You Verify Your GMB You Need To Optimize It

Now that you have a verified GMB listing it's time to start optimizing it. Here are the areas you need to focus on to maximize the effectiveness of your GMB.

Go to the Info tab and fill out as much as you can for the following items:

1. Category: Limit to 3
2. Business Address: Make sure your location is 100% accurate and your map pin is in the correct location
3. Service Areas
4. Hours: Hours you are open
5. Phone
6. Website: Enter your website address
7. Appointment Links
8. Services
9. Products: Add all of your products and include photos
10. Business Attributes: things like women-owned, wheelchair accessible, etc.
11. Description: Use all of the available room to talk about your business
12. Date Business Opened

Go to the Photos tab and upload photos:

Upload your logo Upload photos of your business, your customers or anything else that pertains to your business.

Go to the Products tab and verify your products:

Make sure the products you added are shown correctly and correct them if not GMB gives you 1000 characters for each product description so try and use as many as possible Make sure your products are linked to the correct page on your website

Google Reviews

You need reviews from your customers. One way to get them is to publish a button on your website that will go to the review page for your business Don't offer any type of compensation for a good review. Google will not be happy and may suspend your GMB if they become aware of your scheme Reply to any reviews you get as soon as possible and write your response tailored to each review. Try not to use the ubiquitous "Thanks for your great review" type of response. You are allowed lots of room and you should take advantage of that to talk about your business and include some keywords.

GMB Website

Did you know GMB includes a complete website you can use for your business? This is an alternate website and compliments your main website. It is a free service and this is a great way to promote your business and show off your work. The website has a simple interface and is easy to navigate. And it is mobile friendly! The GMB website automatically takes all the information from your GMB and creates a website for your business. Anytime you create a GMB post or receive reviews or post photos - your Google My Business website is updated. You are limited to some basic formatting and you can't change the layout but this is a great way to promote your business - and again, it's Free!

GMB Posts

Ideally you should post 5 days a week for the most benefit. Your post should include a photo and be relevant to your business. Make sure you read the Posts content policy in order to make sure your post meets Google's criteria for acceptable posts.

Conclusion:

As you can see, by following these simple steps, you can learn How To Claim Your Google My Business Page FREE!. This will give you a place on the web to promote your business where millions of people are searching every day. If you have questions or need help with your GMB, let me know and I'll be happy to help.

Original post here: How To Claim Your Google My Business Page FREE!

Website Protection Tips

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Website Protection - Threats Are Everywhere

What to do about website protection? The news has been reporting huge increases in cyber attacks in the last few weeks. Make no mistake about it, there are people out there actively working to hack your website. You need to be proactive with your website protection strategy.

Small business websites don't have the resources to throw at online security and are particularly vulnerable to hackers. There are steps you can take to protect your website without spending a dime. Since we work primarily with WordPress sites we'll focus on WordPress specific tips.

Install an Anti-Virus Program on your PC

(Not specifically WordPress related) You don't need to pay for a good anti-virus program these days. A Google search for "free antivirus" will turn up quite a few options. We currently use the free version of Avast Mac Security and have good results.

Email

(Not specifically WordPress related) You've heard it many times - don't open email attachments unless you are absolutely certain they are from a trusted source. Even then, be very careful with email attachments. Your trusted sender may have been hacked. One more reason to have a solid anti-virus program in place.

If you receive an email from a trusted source but for any reason you are suspicious of the email, pick up the phone and call them or text them to verify they actually sent the email. Hackers have gotten sophisticated enough to intercept email so if you use email to ask the sender if they actually sent the it, chances are you'll be talking to the hacker. It's getting crazy out there folks - be careful.

If you're sending email via your WordPress website you should utilize one of the many SMTP plugins.

WordPress Login

WordPress is susceptible to brute force attacks from hackers. A brute force attack is simply an attempt to gain access to the website by guessing at a username and password over and over (usually employing some software to run these login attempts unattended).

Brute force attacks are common on WordPress sites. They're easy to mount and just as easy to defend against. First, we need to make sure all of our passwords are strong. By "strong" I mean made up of a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers, and special characters. Here are some guidelines for creating strong passwords:

1. Never use the same password twice.
2. Use a different password for every site you have a login to. This will slow down a brute force attack considerably.
3. Use a mix of upper and lower case letters.
4. Use numbers and special characters where appropriate.
5. Use a mix of uppercase, lowercase, and mixed-case letters in your password. This will make it more difficult for an attacker to guess your password.
6. Use a mix of uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and special characters in your password.
7. Two easy ways to help guard against these attacks are to not use the default name for your admin account and to rename your wp-login.php file. You’d be amazed at the number of WordPress websites using the login user name of “admin” – terrible idea as far as website protection goes.

Since you can’t rename users in WordPress you’ll need to create an additional user account with admin privileges and then delete the original admin account.

Renaming your wp-login.php file can easily be done using a plugin like Rename WP-Login.php or Protect Your Admin. The capability to rename your login is also available in iThemes Security plugin.

Keep Your Site Updated

WordPress updates are released frequently for the WordPress core files, themes, and plugins. Make sure you keep your site up to date by applying updates when they become available. Many of these updates contain patches to security vulnerabilities and failing to update could expose your website to security threats.

Remember this when applying updates to your WordPress website. Always install updates in this order: Plugins, Themes, WordPress Core Files.

WordPress Security

There are lots of internet predators out there trying to do bad things with your website. You need some defense to combat these lowlifes. One of the best we've found is Wordfence. We install Wordfence on every site we build. There is a Pro version which costs $99 per year but the free version is excellent and plenty for most Wordpress sites. Install it and use it!

Another WordPress security we really like is iThemes Security. This plugin has lots of options and has been a rock-solid performer for us.

Backup Your Website

Site backups are an important step in your overall website health strategy. Your hosting provider may make periodic backups but you should make the effort to backup your site as well. We use UpdraftPlus and it's another default plugin on the WordPress websites we build.

Use a VPN

The kind of security a VPN provides is on the way from being a luxury to becoming a necessity on the modern internet. While directly hacking a computer using its IP address is difficult today, thanks to the various firewalls employed by service providers, an IP address can still be used as a starting point to access location data that can then be used to dig up further sensitive information. What makes a VPN effective is that it encrypts your internet traffic before it reaches any server outside of your device. We recommend visiting VPNRatings.com for lots more information on VPNs.

These few steps will go a long way in preventing website headaches and should keep your site running strong.

Having problems with your WordPress website? Get in touch and we'll be happy to help.

 

 

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Original post here: Website Protection Tips