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Month: July 2016

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Marketing

What Your Business Misses by Not Having a Web Site

In recent years, having a dedicated website for a business has become imperative to growth and sales. The use of a dedicated website, not a Facebook page, can solidify your place within the online world. With more and more consumers moving towards online shopping, owning a website that reflects a business’ values and vision can make all the difference in sustainability. Loss of Business Having no website means a business is missing tons of potential online customers every day. Having a bad website can be even worse, as it tends to make a business look bad. When potential customers visit a site and it doesn’t look or work properly, they are more likely to shop elsewhere and not visit your brick and mortar store in the future. Having a good looking, functional website helps consumers identify a company or business and determine if products or services they want or need are available. Build Local Business More often now than ever, people are using the internet to search for services and products available within a local area. Having a website that has been SEO optimized and includes services and products that are available can ensure that those potential customers are finding you. It is important to utilize services like Google My Business to ensure customers can physically find the business and call if needed. Develop Relationships When businesses have a website, they create a direct point of contact between them and the consumers. Through this method a deeper connection with customers and increased customer satisfaction can be attained. Though a brick and mortar store may keep certain hours, a website is always accessible and allows the consumer to find the information they need. If your business is in need of a professional, functional website with the ease of use customers will appreciate, call us today or contact us through our online form! We would love to help build the web presence needed to grow your business.

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Marketing

Building an Online Presence

The perfect website that exhibits the personality of your brand has been built and filled with content reflecting your mission statement. Products or services you offer have been listed and are ripe for customers to begin utilizing them. However, without building an online presence, even the best startup company or website will remain in obscurity. Building an online presence can take time and dedication. It is rare that a product or brand will become an overnight success and many take years forming relationships with customers and building their image before they achieve success. With a few simple steps and persistence, brand and website owners can ensure they are on the correct path to success. Provide Valuable Content If a website cycles the same content over and over (I.e. products or services) and never adds new content to the site or related outlets, what is enticing clients to return to the site or new clients to check it out? The addition of a blog, podcast or video updates can provide consistent, new content across several mediums. Utilize Social Media Social media has made it easier than ever to connect with a target audience. In the past, businesses were less accessible to the general public. With social media consumers have the ability to voice their concerns, good or bad, about products. Social media platforms allow a broad reach with minimal effort; however, choosing social media platforms that fit your business and marketing model is key. The biggest draw for businesses to adapt to and utilize social media is that companies have the ability to humanize themselves and meet with people on an individual level. Consistency on social media channels through regular posting and replying to individual and community concerns can be the most helpful component in establishing an online presence. Track Progress By tracking website stats and social media engagement, businesses have the ability to see what works for their specific needs. With most social media platforms, tracking is done painlessly for you. Following website analytics and determining what has created peaks of consumer activity is invaluable for growing and maintaining an online presence.

Categories
Marketing

Creating Content for Viral Exposure

In the modern technological world, the most elusive and proven way to develop a following is to write content that will be shared and viewed so much that it becomes a piece of “viral content”. Whether this is a blog, video, photos, or any piece of digital content, the key is creating content that users will want to share with people who in turn will want to share the same content in an endless cycle. There are limits to going viral. No one person can force content to reach the shareability level required no matter how well they produce that content. The key is creating content that people connect with on an emotional or empathetic level and doesn’t have to fall into one simple categorical genre. As we’ve all seen viral content can be anything from images of cats with pizza slices to fail videos. Positive content always has more potential to go viral than negative content. People love to share inspirational messages and creating content that fits that mold will be more palatable to wide audiences. By choosing a target emotion and crafting the message to achieve invoking those feelings the reader feels a sense of connectedness. Tidbits of information are easily digestible in the digital world of today. Consumers don’t have the ability to sit through long content because they will lose interest if the message takes too long to achieve. The key to creating successful viral content is keeping the message short but powerful. The final component to creating viral content is making sure your message is something consumers are willing to share that won’t compromise their sense of individuality and morals. With the growth of social media sites, sharing content has never been easier. With the click of a button content can be sent to thousands or even millions of possible consumers. Though these methods won’t ensure content goes viral, it’s a good starting place for any content hoped to gain traction. Who you know will never outweigh originality or creativity. If you think you have the next viral content idea, get out there and create it!

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Support

Protecting WordPress from Brute Force Attacks

Business people with stress and worries in office

WordPress has long been known as a user-friendly way to create your own website. With the availability of easily installed themes creating a content-ready website can be as simple as a few clicks. As simple as the website creation tool is, it’s not without its vulnerabilities. Among the most prevalent issues WordPress users run in to, brute force attacks have taken center stage. Users may wake up and find they have had thousands of malicious log-in attempts and be fearful that the site they’ve worked so hard to start is no longer secure. In the earliest installments of WordPress, logging into your dashboard was defaulted to the username “admin”. Without changing the username to make it unique your site would be at risk. Today many behind the brute force attacks work assuming that your username is still admin. By inputting the username “admin” and repeatedly attempting different passwords the attack can be successful if the user hasn’t made the effort to secure the log in credentials. Though the threat of a brute force attack can be a scary prospect there are many steps you can take to ensure that even if malicious log-ins are detected, your site is secure. Switch from the Admin Username The most efficient way to change your WordPress username is to create a new user with an updated email and assign the user to the administrator role. Once this is complete you can log in under the new username and delete the old username. Creating a Secure Password When creating a password, it’s important to not use real words or any variation of your website or personal name. Many password generators have become available to the public to create strong passwords using a variety of different characters. Though these are the most basic ways to protect a WordPress site from brute force attacks, advanced users have many other options to fortify their accounts. Limiting IP access to log in pages, using security plug-ins and banning IP addresses are all options to keep attacks at bay and protect

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