Monthly Archives: April 2015

3 Reasons Your Business Needs A Mobile Friendly Website

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mobile content marketingThe sight of commuters on the train, coffee drinkers in the cafe, or employees on their lunch break engrossed in their smartphones or tablets has become ubiquitous through recent years, and is a social trend that should force business owners everywhere to take their mobile content marketing seriously.

However, the single most important aspect for any business with aspirations of engaging with a mobile audience is to have a mobile friendly website that seamlessly resizes all the content to fit whatever screen it is being viewed on.

Not only are those that don’t seen as outdated by visitors, they will also find their Google rankings suffer on mobile searches too. As the internet goes mobile, failing to adapt means being left behind, and all the mobile content marketing in the world won’t help if your website is stuck in the dark ages.

What follows is why your business needs a mobile friendly website.

A mobile friendly public

The days when laptop or desktop internet usage accounted for the majority of time spent online are over, with the tipping point for mobile usage surpassing browsing on more static machines coming in early 2015.

Put simply, more people are using their phones and tablets to browse the internet than are using laptops and computers, and they expect your website to work on their devices.

Responsive websites take all of your content, be that copy or images, sliders, or even products for sale, and automatically resize it to fit the screen it is being viewed on, while menus too are adjusted to enable the user to easily navigate your site.

In truth, the average mobile device user now takes this for granted, and will only notice when it doesn’t happen, at which point they will most likely leave even your best mobile content marketing efforts unread and go elsewhere.

While the obvious benefit here is to the user with the site becoming easier and more enjoyable to navigate than the full web version when viewed on a mobile device, there is a certain search engine giant who will also like your new responsive website more than your old one.

Google responds to responsive

On April 21st, 2015, Google launched a brand new mobile algorithm that rewards responsive sites in their mobile search results.

Those searching for products and services on Google using their mobile device will get results that take into account which sites are mobile friendly, with those that aren’t finding themselves omitted from the search, no matter how good their mobile content marketing.

Google’s new algorithm looks to see whether a site’s text is readable without zooming, if the content is sized so no horizontal scrolling is required, and that links are far enough apart that the correct one can easily be tapped; all criteria that a responsive website should have no fear of fulfilling.

If you want to be rewarded for your mobile content marketing efforts, you will now need a mobile friendly website to rank in mobile Google searches.

Adjusting to fit your market

If you needed any more convincing of the need for a mobile friendly, responsive website for your business, take a look at your competitors.

The chances are they have already made the shift, meaning they have a massive advantage over you when it comes to reaching the ever growing mobile internet user demographic.

As well as providing a better user experience and being more visible on mobile Google searches, your competitors will also be saving time and money behind the scenes that can be put to use in their mobile content marketing campaign.

Before the advent of responsive design, site owners had the option of providing a mobile version of their site, although this meant paying for, maintaining, and constantly updating two separate versions of the same site. If you are still doing this, a responsive website will eliminate the need, allowing you to maintain one version of your site that will function perfectly on any device.

With more people browsing and buying on mobile devices than desktop or laptop, Google rewarding mobile friendly devices to such a degree that those without the functionality are excluded from mobile search results, and your competitors most probably already on the mobile friendly website train, can you and your mobile content marketing afford not to join them?

Check out our One minute tip on Mobile Marketing on Youtube here:

So your website has been hacked- now what? + a guide to preventing the worst case.

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Getting hacked seems like an improbable occurrence, especially for a small or micro sized local businesses.

However, in 10 years or so in this industry, I have seen it happen to a handful of Calgary and area small and medium sized business.

This is the type of email you never want to get- trust me.

This is the type of email you never want to get- trust me.

What does being hacked look like?

In one case, the website was replaced by a merry, if not loudly playing song and a cartoon that said “You’ve been hacked from Tunisia.” This was the least serious of the cases.

In another case, the website had a hidden page that was selling generic pharmaceutical products, to which the large pharma company’s trademark enforcement team responded with a serious legal letter requesting a cease and desist. We had less than 5 days to remove the code or face the consequences.

In still another case, the website became blocked by Google for having malicious content, which seriously hurt the company’s credibility, not to mention the lost traffic and stain in Google’s eyes.

In still other, more common cases, email accounts have been suspended for a day or two for sending spam, unbeknownst to the account owner.

What can I do to avoid being hacked?

Have a good password:

Although they’re absolutely harder to remember, a good password should have one uppercase character, a special character and ideally not contain any entire words. Good passwords should be hard to guess and be at least 8 characters.

Change your passwords:

Passwords should also be changed regularly, at least every few months.

You should change your email password, your administrative login password and your FTP password.

Update your website’s version and any plugins:

Because of the lack of perceived value or understanding around why updating versions of your platform and plugins are so important, many businesses don’t allocate a budget- until it’s too late.

If you have a Content management system, like wordpress, joomla or drupal, you need to regularly update your website version as well as plugin versions to avoid being compromised.

If your website is like so many, and is built using open source software like wordpress, there are new versions being released regularly. These updates are intended to fix bugs and protect against vulnerabilities that could lead to being hacked or viruses.

This follows the same logic as the updates released by your browser or the operating system on your phone.

There is actually a hidden war between hackers and technology providers going on beneath our noses. Each update is intended to provide more security and is quickly compromised.

This post isn’t intended to scare you, but to let you know that being hacked is more common than you think.

I hope this post has been informative and convinced you to put security measures in place proactively instead of reactively.

 

Embracing the Art of “Not Knowing” in Business

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in-the-unknownBusiness is a funny thing. It’s a space where knowledge, expertise, and excellence are revered more so than any other facet of our lives. We all strive to become the experts in our industries, the “thought leader.” But what happens when our know-it-all attitude becomes stale and we find ourselves bored in our work? What happens when we no longer feel challenged? It’s a dangerous position to find ourselves because when we are no longer challenged, we also lose motivation for creativity and innovation. Finding yourself in that place is certainly bad for business.

Ask yourself, what is more important – knowing or not knowing? The answer certainly isn’t black and white. Of course, when you are selling a product or service it pays to have a great amount of knowledge about that product or service. It helps maintain your reputation and your credibility that you know what you’re talking about, and that your advice can be trusted. However, we don’t need to take that to the extreme where we pretend to know everything. Products and services should always be changing, evolving, and with that so should your knowledge be ever changing and evolving. Admitting you don’t know something is a vulnerable place, but it’s also the catalyst for growth. It’s also the perfect opportunity to display your human side and be relatable – “I don’t know the answer to that, but I’ll find out for you.”

Business, learning, and growth should all go hand in hand. It should be encouraged to ask questions and challenge your existing products. Strive to make your business agile so that you and your employees can create and innovate as you go along. It is about creating a business culture that encourages what Liz Wiseman calls “The Perpetual Rookie”, which means embracing curiosity, humility, playfulness, and being deliberate in everything you do. In rookie mode, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

It’s been proven that being challenged at work increases employee satisfaction. That goes for yourself, as well. Embracing the “I don’t know” of a situation takes you back to square one, but it also will instill in you a feeling of challenge and excitement in figuring the problem out. It will also lead to greater product innovation and creativity, which I think we all can agree, is very good for business.

3 Pro Tips for Choosing your Business Domain Name

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internet marketing strategyWhatever your business or industry, choosing the right domain name for your online presence can have a big effect on your future success. While the wealth of options available to you mean there might not be one single best choice for your needs, making a bad decision can certainly hinder your efforts; your internet marketing strategy, your lead capturing, and ultimately your sales.

A good domain name should be unmistakeable and represent accurately what your company is all about, and there are certain ways to help ensure your chosen domain achieves these aims.

Once you’ve settled on what you decide to be the best domain for your business, you can even think about which others might work in your internet marketing strategy too.

Read on to find out how all this can be done.

Ease of use

Crafting the perfect internet marketing strategy, only to have it undermined by an awkward domain name, would be almost criminal in the modern business world. If you want people to remember your domain name and ensure it will always be typed in correctly, it has to be as catchy and simple as possible.

This means anything overly long should be avoided, as are aspects that can be commonly mistyped. These include double ‘L’s or ‘T’s, unnecessary points, dashes, underscores, or numerical figures.

Company initials are good for shortening long company names, easy to remember, and are very difficult to misspell. If your company’s initials are already taken, anything else you choose should be short, sweet and to the point.

Pros and .coms

For companies based in the United States, the .com domain is still the most desirable suffix for those wanting to be seen as an authority figure in their industry. Luckily, here in Canada, the .ca domain is just as recognized, and can actually be of benefit to your company image if you’re looking to serve mainly local customers.

Depending on the nature of your business, the recently released batch of new gTLDs (generic top level domains) can also help you to project the right image from the extension on your domain name. Although .gov has long been used by government sites, .edu by educational facilities and .org often used by non-profits, the options now include such evocative terms as .guru, .consulting, .world, and .ninja, extensions that are regularly played with in the world of the modern internet marketing strategy.

Smart use of any of these can result in a more memorable domain name for your business than .com ever could, meaning a little time and research before deciding on yours is highly recommended.

Domain event

If you are planning different campaigns, either as part of your internet marketing strategy or offline marketing, another tip is to create multiple domain names that include different keywords related to your business. These could be your location, your product or service, the benefit your product or service gives to your customers, or a combination of any of the above.

By registering bestpizzaincalgary.com or imhungrynow.ca, you can use them as a split test to see which yields the better results, both as part of your internet marketing strategy and on print material like flyers or distributed menus.

We’re often asked ‘what’s in a name?’ When it comes to domains, with all the options out there and the pitfalls inherent in choosing a bad one, there’s actually quite a lot. Take the time to make sure you get yours right.

To watch one of our one minute tips on this same subject, follow us on Youtube!