It's Beautiful Out!

Here in Wisconsin, we put up with a lot of not so desireable weather. That makes us really appreciate days like today. It's super nice out and there are finally leaves back on the trees. The flowering trees are in bloom, too - I love that.

So what does this have to do with your website?

Everything!

Go outside, right now (if it's nice where you are) and take a picture of your building. Now is the time to do it - not in the fall, not in winter but now - mid-spring.

Your "About Us" or "Contact Us" page on your website needs a picture of your building for a few reasons. First, to show that you are an established business with a location - that you're a "brick and mortar" business. Second, so that people can find your location.

If you need help updating your website, let us know - but take that picture!

-Tony

Is Your Website Too Cool for School?

Today I'm reminded of a post from a little while ago:

How You Design Matters
August 24, 2012 Written by Tony Herman

We tend to stay away from all the "latest and greatest" website gimmicks that are out there - meaning, the "cool factor" stuff. We do this because how we look (how Webstix looks) as the website designer is not at all a priority. What matters is how the websites we make work and how well they produce results for our clients.

There's a trap that most website designers fall into. They think that if they create something that's really "cool" for their client, then their client will be really happy with them. Ok, sure - that might work some of the time. The problem is that the "cool factor" wears off - especially when the website isn't paying for itself or making a profit. That's not "cool" at all. They may also find that some of these fancy features don't work in some web browsers or on mobile devices. How is that supposed to be a good thing?

We are sometimes asked to design websites that have this cool thing or that cool thing. This causes us to question what the real goal is. Do they want to be "cool" or do they want to have a website that ranks well and generates sales? In other words, do they value their job?

Problems with "Cool" Websites

Yeah, everyone does want a cool website - we kind of get that. Website can be too cool though.

You see, the more cool stuff you put into it, the more complex it is. The more complex it is, the more there is to break. More things can go wrong. Most cool things are written in a language called JavaScript. It can do some pretty neat stuff, no doubt. It runs on the web browser though. There are several main web browsers out there and they're always coming up with new versions and updates, so there's a very high risk of things not working when you have a lot of complex stuff going on. The technology is getting better with standard libraries/code bases but the chance/the risk still remains high. One bit of code could easily clash with other code. It can be a programming nightmare.

Then bring a mobile website into the equation. Those are different browsers, too. They work differently.

There's also the high possibility that the more "cool" your website gets, the more you're blocking Google from seeing all the great content you have. That'll bring your website rankings down because Google or other search engines might not see it or they might not know how to bookmark pages. You can seriously lose your good rankings by being too cool. Your rankings and traffic could totally tank!

Keep it Simple, Dumb Dumb!

The trend now is simplicity. It's actually called Responsive Design. You've probably seen this already but what it does is actually really amazing (and cool) if you think about it.

The way it works is, the same website template (theme, design, etc.) works on any device. You can even see this work if you change the size of your web browser window and shrink it. The design moves around to accommodate the size of the window. What you get is a design that's more minimalistic but still nice to look at (professional).

Conclusion

In my opinion, doing cool things like Flash animation and all that jazz went out the window 10 years ago. That was the 1990s and early 2000s. It's 2013 now, man! Don't go backwards. Don't wear your 90s clothes now. Update! Simple is better and it makes you more money!

-Tony

Web Help - Website Management Services Prices and Information

When you're searching for website management services, you could be searching for a number of things. It could be a content management system (CMS) or cloud services or even an enterprise information system. Most likely, you are looking for a company to help you manage your website, which means tasks like:

• Updating website content
• Updating website software (patches and upgrades)
• Doing website maintenance
• Adding new users
• Adding new events
• Archiving old content
• Uploading files
• Changing the website navigation
• Fixing website errors and broken links
• Checking for malware and viruses on a website
• Making the website work on mobile devices (a mobile version of your website)
• Search Engine Optimization research and page tweaking
• Promote the website to search engines
• Help with website hosting, domain names and DNS servers
• Posting new content (text and images)
• Fixing old content
• and so forth...

Some people think that once a website is up and running, the project is done and that's all you have to do. They think that from there, the website just runs itself and there's nothing to do. That's very wrong. There's probably more to do once a good website is launched. If you don't do anything, then your website won't do anything and you've just wasted all the money and time you just put into your website.

Serious Businesses Work Their Websites

Companies that want their website to work for them put work into their websites - not just at launch but continually going forward. If you're not promoting your website, adding new content to it, checking it in new versions of browsers that come out or keep up on website software updates (to mention just a few things), then your website will eventually stop working for you. Sure, it might work fine for a little while but soon enough, it's going to need some help.

We live in an online and information-based world now. Your website is people's first impression of your company. There are more mobile devices (smart phones, tablets, etc.) now than ever before. Your prospective customers can look up information about your company from anywhere. People can search for anything anywhere - and you want to show up on that search, right?

Showing up at the top of search engines takes many things working together. Your website must be tuned and optimized to show up well. It needs to show up looking nice on mobile devices, it needs to have landing pages for specific searches and you, of course, need to be actively promoting your website so that you show up before your competition does.

If all of that doesn't sound like work to you, then great - you have the know how and staff to have success on the web.

If all of that sounds like something you don't have time to do or time to learn or have the staff to work on, then you need website management services.

How Do Website Management Services Work?

We've worked out a system to make it very simple for you to purchase and use only what you need. The work gets done quickly and you're quoted on how much time something will take before the work starts.

Yeah, simple... and smart.

Here at Webstix, we're often complimented on how well our system works and how good our people are. If you put in a website maintenance request, you won't get 100 questions back wondering what to do. If we understand what you want done, we'll go ahead and quote it or, per your request, just get the work done pronto! We know you don't have time to waste explaining things in great detail or you could just do the work yourself probably. If we do have questions, we'll ask them, of course - we don't want to do it wrong. If we happen to do it wrong, we'll fix it.

Here's the process:

• You send in your request
• We quote the work
• You approve the quote
• We do the work and report back to you within 24-28 hours (or sooner)

You can even bypass the quote if you want and authorize a certain amount of blocks (a block is a half hour of time - explained below). Typically if we've been working with you and you have blocks in your account and it's less then 2 blocks, then we'll just go ahead and do the work so that it's done quickly.

How Much Does Web Management Cost?

We break up our time into half hour blocks. We call them "Maintenance Blocks." You can use that time for whatever you need done. If it's a quick question and you're already a client, we might not even charge you anything for that.

The more Maintenance Blocks you pre-purchase, the better pricing you get - here's a quick breakdown:

• If you buy 1-5 blocks (1/2 hour to 2.5 hours), there's no discount - you're paying our normal hourly rate of $115/hr.
• If you buy a 6-pack of blocks, then you save 15%.
• If you buy a 12-pack of blocks, then you save 25%.
• If you buy a 24-pack of blocks, then you save 30%.
• If you buy a 48-pack of blocks, then you save 35%.

Find out more about our Maintenance Blocks Pricing here.

We Want Your Satisfaction!

We know that managing a website isn't something most business owners know how to do or do well. The last thing you want to do is try to do it yourself and then months later find out that people using a certain web browser can't view your website because of something that was done with a website update. As in life, there are some things you just leave up to the experts.

If something we do is not done right, we'll fix it and make it right. Enough said.

We want your business for years to come. We want you to be so happy about what we've done for you that you'll tell others. That's our standard.

Why pay just one person/one employee a semi-outrageous salary to do work on your website when you can hire an entire time for a fraction of that cost?

We're offering something that makes sense, is smart, is simple and something that just works. You need the work done and we're here to help!

-Tony

Google is Changing Their Search Algorithm Soon

Happy Monday Morning, Everyone!

There's usually one big update a year. Google does a big change to their algorithm where they clean out certain types of websites that were trying to gain the system. Google actually does 500 or more a year (over 1 per day) but there is usually one big update per year and it's usually in the spring. The next big update, dubbed "Penguin 2.0" (or "Penguin 4.0" - the search community looks at it differently) is expected to hit in the next few weeks:

Google’s Matt Cutts: Next Generation Of The Penguin Update “Few Weeks” Away (searchengineland.com)

In March, Google’s chief web spam fighter Matt Cutts promised that the Penguin Update designed to fight spam would get a big refresh later this year. Today, Cutts gave an update — keep waiting. It’s still a few weeks off. Along the way, there’s some confusion about whether the next Penguin Update will be Penguin 2 or Penguin 4. It’ll be Penguin 4, in how we reckon things. Let’s dive in.

There was actually a smaller update last week that happened but it wasn't "the big one" as some people were thinking. That means this next one is even bigger.

Google's Major Penguin Update Coming In Weeks. It Will Be Big! (seroundtable.com)

This has sent shockwaves through the webmaster and SEO industry over the weekend. We know the next generation Penguin update is a major revision to the existing one. Matt said the previous ones were minor updates. To take you back, we had an update on May 24, 2012 and October 5, 2012. Matt said on Twitter that those were more minor, he would have named them 1.1 and 1.2 and that Google is naming this new update version 2.0.

We are calling it the 4th update to Penguin, but yea, this is expected to be huge. We past the anniversary of the Penguin update and many SEOs and webmasters have yet to recover.

Why Does Google Do This?

Google does these updates so that they give out better results when people do a search. That's their #1 goal. I saw a lot of commercials over the weekend about the "Bing Challenge" where you do a search and decide which results you like better. Bing is coming on strong and Google needs to keep up. Also, there's the new Facebook search and that's where everyone is (on Facebook). Google needs to adapt to keep up.

Also what happens is the Internet Marketing/SEO community figures out what works with Google and what doesn't. There's a lot of money to be made with the top search results. Google tries to get the results that shouldn't be at the top off the top by looking for patterns in what these websites do to try to reach the top (black hat/gray hat techniques).

What's Going to Happen?

It's kind of fun to watch Google algorithm changes go through and see everyone's reaction. Yes, many people are devastated. Others are happy, though. We just have to wait and see.

What we do know is that Google wants:

• Very good, original content. Thank "bookmark worthy" content.
• Social signals - this means mentions of your website showing up in places like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other social bookmarking websites.
• Genuine interest in the topic your website covers.
• Links to your website. I put this lower on the list because this is getting more and more difficult to manufacture. They want authentic links.
• They want to see this good content published regularly.

We'll wait and see what happens with this one but we just wanted to get the word out that it's coming. The best thing you can plan to do is write some awesome content for your website and keep doing that over and over. If you don't, your competition will.

-Tony

Everything About Maintaining Your Website

Just having a website up and running isn't really enough. You have to do maintenance to make sure it keeps running fine and to make sure that all the time and effort you put into creating your website doesn't go to waste. Once it's up, maintaining it isn't as much work but it has to be done. It's like maintaining a building or your home - if work isn't done to keep it up, it's going to eventually fall apart.

You might wonder why a website would eventually fall apart if left alone. Well, the online world is evolving/changing all the time. You may put your website up on a server and then the core software on the server changes (due to keeping up with security patches to counter attack hacks and to add new features or improve efficiency) and then find your website not running well or not even showing up right. Besides the server, web browsers update as well. Standards change. For example, websites that looked good in Internet Explorer 7 don't work well with Internet Explorer 10 and so on.

A Poor User Experience

Having information that's not up to date on your website or having issues with the website/web page not looking right will not provide your customers with a good experience when they stop by your website. Your website is very often the first impression people get about your company or organization, so it's vital that it always looks its best.

You should always be updating your website and keeping it looking fresh and new. Think about the websites you visit most often. Take Facebook for example. People go there a lot because the information there is always new. No, your company website doesn't have to be Facebook but it should have new content on it regularly for the same reason.

What Content Should You Add to Your Website?

Here are some ideas to help you decide what content to put on your website - or what you might call website maintenance activities:

• Company news - Did you get a mention in the paper or trade magazine? Have you been at a trade show? Do you have new employees? Constructing a new office? Look around, there's probably some news to post on your website.
• Industry news - What's going on in your industry? Post at least one news item per month about your industry. If you don't have any news like this to publish, maybe you're not looking hard enough (that's right, I went there).
• Create a download - Write an e-book (PDF) or come up with a spreadsheet that does something cool.
• Update your products or services - This one's important. Make sure all the information on your website is up to date - especially the things you make money on. If a product is being discontinued, you should mention it.
• Employee additions - If you hire new employees, that's news. Of course, don't publish news about firing employees.
• Giveaway or content - Get some buzz going by giving away something. It can be something you buy or else do a trade with one of your vendors or customers and use that item or service in the contest.

Ask your staff for ideas - they will often have a few or can help you brainstorm ideas for content.

Check for Broken Links

A part of making sure that your website's content is up to date is making sure there are no broken links when your website links to other websites or between pages on your website (internal links). All outgoing links should be tested a few times a year. If search engines see a website that's full of broken links (either internal links or links to other websites), they are not going to want to give your website as a top result. Your website will fall in the rankings and not be seen as an authority or valuable resource if there are a lot of broken links. You ideally want no broken links at all.

We can help check your website every month for broken links if you like.

Website Statistics Analysis / Analytics

Is your website getting traffic? How much? Do you know? You're paying for it - you should know. Enough said.

Reputation Management

If you don't have a Google Alert set up for your company name, you won't find out about issues with your company's or organization's reputation. Your company could be getting bad press and you wouldn't even know about it until it's too late. You have to stay on top of this to protect your assets.

Technical Website Maintenance

Besides updating content and images, there's the technical side of your website that you should be maintaining or getting some help with. Don't trust that your website host is doing everything for you. Your website could go down or get deleted and that's the wrong time to find out that backups were never done.

Website Backups

Your website host should at least be doing a full backup once a week with incremental nightly backups. Are they? Ask them. Have them do a test restore of a backup from time to time (monthly) to make sure that backups are working.

Website Monitoring

Do you know when your website (web server) is not running? It's a good thing to know because you'll find out how reliable your hosting is. You can sign up for a website monitoring service or else ask your host to provide you with monthly reports.

Check Your Domain Name Expiration

From time to time, we hear about or see company websites not be available simply because the domain name expired. Make sure the contact information attached to your domain name is up to date so that you are notified by your registrar before this happens. You might be in the situation where the person that bought the domain name no longer works for your company. Maybe they used their email address which isn't receiving emails anymore. If your domain registrar sends email to that account with a notice that your domain name is expiring, you won't know.

The best practice in this case is to have the domain name registration's Administrative Contact (the main contact) be set to something like This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it - which is the "info" or main account for your domain name. Of course, you have to make sure that yourself (if you're the owner) and at least 1-2 other people get any email that comes into that account. Test that account and make sure it works.

Also, check what that expiration date is by doing a whois look up. Set a reminder in a calendar to renew your domain name. Use this as a fail safe in case somehow you don't get those email notices.

Keep Up With Software Patches and Updates

This one's super important. Make sure that any software/scripts running on your website are up to date with the latest patches. This helps minimize security compromises (a nice way of saying "hacks"). If this does happen to your website, then find out how to clean up hacks.

Test Your Website's Download Speed

Do you know if your website loads quickly or slowly? Find out! Use the Google PageSpeed checker. If you need help fixing things technically, then let us help you.

Getting these things fixed is very important. Your website's speed does affect how you rank. Think about it... if you are Google, you want to give people the best results, right? Well, if two pages are equal but one loads twice as fast, you're going to give that as a better result, right?

Check for Errors

Checking for errors is yet another factor that goes unnoticed. A website generating a lot of errors on the server is going to load more slowly. Your load time (speed) is definitely affected. When software doesn't work right, it's going to be slow and it may be causing errors that you're not aware of. Your server error_log files need to be checked once a month.

You should also have accounts set up with Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Tools. If you want to rank well with these leading websites, you have to find out how they are viewing your website. If there are errors or reasons why they would want to delist your website, they are most likely going to use these areas to send you messages to let you know. These tools should be checked monthly as well if not more often than that. You don't want to find out six months down the road that Google or Bing had delisted your websites.

Form Testing

Does your website have a "Contact Us" form or payment form or other kind of form? It's important to test them and make sure they work or you could be losing leads or sales. You'd hate to find out months later that a form hasn't been working. Test them every few weeks for sure.

SSL Certificates

Make sure your website's SSL certificate (security for shopping carts or for sending sensitive information) is valid and up to date. Make sure pages that are supposed be secure are fully secure (the broken lock symbol should not be there). We can help test for this as it should be done often.

SEO Maintenance

There's even such a thing as SEO (Search Engine Optimization) maintenance or SEO maintenance plan. If you're serious about making sure your website ranks high or if you need it to, then there are certain SEO maintenance tasks that should be done every month.

SEO maintenance is mostly about information and data. Here is a list of things you should know every month:

• How much traffic did the website get?
• Where did the traffic come from?
• What keywords were used?
• What are your rankings for your top keywords?
• What new keywords can you capitalize on?

Knowing this data will help you determine what to do in order to rank higher or maintain your current rankings. With this data now in hand, you can do the following:

• Tweak current pages to rank better with good keywords.
• Decide what content should be written and posted.
• What content should be improved - or even what content should be removed.
• Know how many links you'll need to get to maintain your rankings.

We can also include information about what changes have been made at search engines (they constantly change how they rank websites) and give you advice about other things you can do to help boost your rankings.

Beyond telling you what to do, we can also do the work. We can tweak pages, get you links (the right way) and even have you work with a copywriter to post fresh, new content on your website.

Need Help?

Does this list look maybe slightly overwhelming yet? This list isn't meant to scare you... well, maybe a little. It's meant to make you aware of all that going into properly maintaining a website. It's work. If you first thought that you could launch a website and be done with it, we think you're wrong.

The bottom line is, your website is a tool. With any tool, you have to maintain it if you want it to work as well as it can. Without proper maintenance of your website, it's simply going to fall apart - that much is clear.

We're here to help! Webstix is fully staffed with a team of experts that can help you with maintaining your company website. We have a simple pricing plan that lets you keep time in the bank (your website maintenance account), essentially. This means that you're only paying for what you use. Our team performs backups of work before they start working and they test your work. We're great at sending you a report when the work is done and you get updates if you work is taking some time. We always send you a quote and wait for your approval (or you can pre-approve work if you want).

If you'd like to get on a website maintenance schedule where we do the monthly tasks for you, we can certainly send you a quote and set you up so that you don't have to worry about these things. We can do all or some of the things mentioned above to help you make sure you get all the return you can on your investment (your website).

Contact Webstix today to learn more!

-Tony

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