Websites – The Business Place

7 Tips For Business Owners On The Best Practices For Dealing With Web Designers

When business owners hire web designers, such as Peter Brittain, it should create positive working relationships between both, with each client confident that they are going to have the website they desire, and each web designer striving towards having another completed project and a happy client who hopefully will be singing their praises.

Unfortunately, the ideal scenario we have just described does not always transpire, and on some occasions, both the client and the web designer are unhappy with the experience. This can occur for several reasons, and sadly, it can occur because a client has no idea as to how they should deal with web designers.

We must state that this is not an exercise where we are bashing clients and saying that they are the only ever reason web design projects flounder. There can be blame on both sides, and no doubt there are some web designers who do not reach the high standards that the vast majority of web designers do.

However, given that clients are not dealing with web designers every day, may not have had a new website designed before, and we also have to bear in mind they still have a business to run, so they might be unaware or unable to properly deal with their web designer, rather than being deliberately uncooperative.

What Is PHP?

If you have researched anything about building websites you will surely have come across ‘PHP’. As with many terms that have anything to do with technology, PHP is an acronym, but that in itself often confuses people. The reason for that confusion is that PHP does not stand for the same terminology as it once did. PHP once meant ‘Personal Home Page’ but in today’s world of website languages PHP is now an acronym for the words ‘PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor’.

Admittedly it could be argued that is not much clearer, but what we say to that is it is less important to know what the individual letters of PHP mean than to know what it is, what it can do, and what benefits it has for website designers, so let us explore those in more detail.

What Can Be Done With PHP

PHP is an open-source scripting language, that is widely used by those creating websites, and more to the point, it is extremely popular amongst those that use it. It was first introduced in 1994 by Rasmus Lerdorf who gave it the previously mentioned name of Personal Home Page.

10 Of The Best Local Marketing Software And Tools

It is often overlooked that there are far more small to medium local companies who operate within a specific geographical area than there are international or purely online companies whose audience is worldwide. The significance of this plays into many areas of business, and one of those is local marketing.

Local digital marketing experts Tribeca Media say that the way local marketing is planned and implemented may have some generic crossover principles with global marketing but the actions and tools which are used to manage local marketing is going to be different. In particular, how marketing software and tools can help local businesses maximise the ROI of their marketing has many differences. For a start local marketing falls under 5 banners which are:

Social Media
Public Relations
SEO
Online Paid Advertising
Citation Management

Within each of these, there are software and tools which can help local businesses manage and optimise campaigns so let us look at some of the top candidates.

10 Web Design Tips For Maximising User Experience

If you have studied or read anything recently about improving rankings on Google, one of the expressions which you must surely have come across a lot is user experience. User experience, or UX, has become one of Google’s primary focal points, and it means that website design is no longer a matter of just how good a website appears, but also how positive the experience is of those that visit a website.

Thankfully, research, not just in the world of SEO or asking website designers, but also by asking real people, has identified several ways in which user experience can be improved. Read on and you will discover ten web design elements that should be included in any new or redesigned website.

Website Security: Horror stories about data theft are everywhere and today online users want to know that their private information is safe. Ensure that your web design has all the necessary security plugins, certificates, and updates to build trust with visitors from the start.

Website Loading Speed: The first thing any visitor experiences is the load speed of your website so your web design needs to ensure there is nothing within it that will slow down page load speeds, especially the home page. Test it, and wherever possible optimise anything which is creating delays.

4 SEO Trends in 2018

Every successful business in the world right now is taking full advantage of good SEO strategies for their websites, blogs, and their social media profiles. If your business is not doing the same, you might as well be digging your own grave because without good SEO rankings, your business will not be able to keep up with the rest of the competition. High ranking on SEO is going to make sure that your business stays relevant by helping your customers find your products and services online with ease.

SEO might seem very simple when you think about the fact that a lot of businesses are using it but it is actually quite challenging. The most difficult aspect of SEO is the fact that it is in a constant state of evolution. The “best practices” that worked last year might not even be relevant right now. This means, there is a need to keep up with the latest SEO trends if you want to stay ahead of the curve.

Here is a look at the 4 SEO trends that are tearing things up in 2018.

Secure Links
2016 saw Google make the announcement about the fact that secure links (SSL) are going to make a significant impact on the SEO ranking of websites. From being a simple announcement to becoming something that is more of a necessity, browsers like Google Chrome are now marking the websites that do not start with “https” as potentially unsafe for internet users. It’s one of the easiest ways to boost your SEO rankings and a trend that is here to stay.

7 Key Features To Focus On When Searching For New Hosting For Your Removalists Website

There are several reasons why at some point you might need to look for a new hosting service for your removalists business website. These include:

You are a new business that needs hostin\
g for its first-ever website.
You are an existing removalists business and need a new website designed along with new hosting.
You are having a new website designed, but your current hosting service cannot provide the features necessary to host your new site effectively.
You are an existing business unhappy with your existing hosting company’s service.
You feel the fees charged by your current hosting company are too high and are looking for a hosting option that offers better value for money.

There may be one or two other reasons that you can think of, but the point is, regardless of the reason you are looking for a new hosting service, the choice of your new one needs careful thought. What is key here is that you must bear in mind that the better service and features your new hosting company offer you, the better it will be for your website. More than that, it should enable you to provide a better experience for any visitors to your website.

One example of that is page load speeds. A poor hosting service will not have the capacity or the technology that can guarantee fast page loading speeds. If your visitors start getting fed up waiting for your website to open you will soon lose them, and worse than that, Google will notice this and they will react in the only way they know how, and that is to downgrade your rankings.

What Is Linux?

It is almost certain that if you have used a computer or the internet for some time you will have been in a scenario where Linux was playing a part in what you were doing. Now, you might be thinking that not only do you not know what Linux is, but you are also 100% certain that you have never used it.

That is a reaction that many people have, and it is not unreasonable simply because Linux is not something that is immediately recognisable nor is it especially prominent. However, we can say with as close to certainty as we can that you and billions of others come into contact with Linux almost every single day.

Linux is used by Google, Facebook, and Twitter, which are in the Top 10 of the most visited websites on the internet. To give you an idea of just how many visits they get, their respective daily visitors are 29 billion for Google, 7 billion for Facebook, and 1 billion for Twitter. Many others use Linux, so it is a fair assumption that every internet user has some kind of interaction with Linux daily.

Linux Basics

Linux is an open-source operating system. Operating systems are used to manage all the hardware that is found in devices with the most obvious ones being desktop computers and laptops. Other examples of operating systems include Windows and Mac OS and the primary function of all of them is to allow hardware and software to communicate effectively.

What Is An SSL Certificate, And Do I Need One?

SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer, and it is a digital certificate that is used to confirm and authenticate a website’s identity. It is also used to encrypt information which is sent to the server on which the website is hosted. You can identify a website that has SSL, by looking at the address bar which will have ‘https’ at the front of the URL. A website without SSL will not have the ‘s’ at the end. You should have one because, in these days of data theft etc., Google sees having SSL as important, and it is now a ranking factor.

Can YouTube videos help bring traffic to my website?
Absolutely. YouTube just happens to be the second biggest search engine on the internet so if your product and services lend themselves to video then it can be an excellent source of traffic. Even if you offer an intangible service, such as accounting, or legal services, there is still plenty of opportunities to create informative videos for the sort of questions that get asked.

How To Prevent Websites From Being Hacked

Many unwanted events can cause the progress of a business to be stalled and if you are a business owner, doubtless you may have had to overcome some of them. One that can cause a multitude of problems for you is if your website is hacked. Apart from the logistical, legal, and financial problems that it can cause for your business, a hacked website can cause significant stress and confusion for all concerned.

Much of that confusion can stem from the fact that most business owners are not website security experts. If your home is burgled you will at least know how the thief got in as evidenced by the smashed window or the broken door lock. However, if your website is hacked, and a website security expert starts reeling off terms like bots, keylogging, cross-site-scripting, and SQL injection, you might understandably shake your head wondering what the hell they were talking about.

What is often frustrating to business owners after the event (the event being their website being hacked) is when they realise that some relatively simple and inexpensive steps could have prevented it, or at least minimised the damage caused. The phrase ‘prevention is better than the cure’ could have been invented for the issue of website hacking. So, let us look at some methods of preventing websites from being hacked.

Regularly Update Software, Apps Related To Your Website

One of the most common routes to inners of websites that are used by hackers is vulnerable software. Your website almost certainly relies on software and applications to function and any one of them could present a security hole. Most reputable software manufacturers will take action to rectify any security risks their products are deemed to have and will publish those updates. As such you should be checking regularly for those updates and install them immediately.