Website Crucial Elements - Blab Solutions

Website Redesign - Blab Solutions

Do I Need a Website Redesign?

If you haven’t tried this yet, do it now: whip out your smartphone or tablet and navigate to your website. You’d be surprised how many business owners have never done this. So now that you’re there, what do you see? Teeny-tiny text? What are the graphics doing? How easy is it to navigate? If you are dismayed by what you see, then we urge you, right now, to consider a website redesign.

Getting a website makeover isn’t just a cosmetic luxury, it’s a business necessity. The Internet has progressed a million miles in the last five years alone and the dizzying pace of change, particularly with regards to the march toward a more mobile web, is not going to stop any time soon. Here are some signs that you need a website redesign:

1. Your Website Isn’t Optimized for Mobile Devices. As we hinted very bluntly above, if you cannot view your own business website on your mobile device, neither can your customers. If that’s the case, they are going to go elsewhere. There’s no time to “wait and see” on this one, within just a few months, more people will be surfing the web from their smartphones and tablets than from their desktop computers. And if you’re not going where the eyeballs are, your website will become invisible. For this reason alone, you may need a website redesign.

2. Your Website is Invisible to Search Engines. Try this test: Go to Google, Bing or any other search engine and search for one of the products or services you provide, or even your company name. Does your website show up on the first page of search results? If not, your website needs some serious search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is a very critical reason for a website makeover. The vast majority of business websites gather traffic from organic search, but customers only look at the first few entries on the first page of results—they seldom scroll down and almost never click through to another page of search results.

3. Your Website Hasn’t Changed with Your Business. Another reason you might need a website overhaul is that it hasn’t kept up with changes in your business. Outdated information can confuse and irritate your customers and cause problems for your staff at the very least.

4. Your Website Design Looks Dated. Everyone needs a wardrobe update now and then and your website is no exception. It isn’t 2007 anymore, and if your customers have been seeing the same old, same old for these last few years, it can get boring. Not only that, but it tells customers that other things besides your design might not be current. We can help you with fresh, responsive website design that looks great and adapts to whatever medium your customers are using including smart phones and tablets.

5. Your Website Doesn’t Bring Value to the Customer. A potential visitor may visit your website once, but if they do not find anything helpful, useful or valuable to them, they will not return. So in addition to current product and service information, we can help you enrich your website with customer-focused content that keeps them coming back for more!

If you need a website makeover, we can help you achieve this! Contact Blab Solutions today and let’s get started!

How to set up Google's two-step authentication for Gmail

When it comes to data you want secured, your email accounts are probably close to the top of the list. Though email is technically an unencrypted medium, the average hacker might not go to too much trouble to grab a single message — but they'd love a peek at your history full of password resets, not to mention getting potential access to your bank accounts or other private information.

Strong passwords can help, but to be as secure as possible, you want to enable two-step authentication.

What is two-step authentication?

Two-step authentication is the most prevalent way to secure your accounts: It asks you to authenticate that you are who you say you are by supplying not only your password, but a unique code supplied from your phone or an external app. It ensures that those accessing your accounts have access to your physical devices as well as your virtual passwords, and makes a simple password crack or social engineering hack a lot more insufficient in actually accessing your personal data.

How to set up your Google account with two-step authentication

Google was one of the first companies to offer two-step authentication for its user accounts; the company even created an option for third parties who want to offer two-step support for their services called Google Authenticator. Companies like Facebook, Tumblr, and Dropbox all use Google's service, as does Google itself.

As such, Google's experience with two-step authentication makes it a remarkably simple process to set up. Here's what you need to do.

1. Visit Google's 2-Step Verification page and click on Get Started.
2. Enter your Google email and password (or just your password, if you're already logged in to Google).
3. Click the Start setup button.
4. Add a phone number that Google can send the six-digit verification code to. (For semi-obvious reasons, this shouldn't be your Google Voice number: If you use that phone number, you might end up locked out of your account.)

5. Verify your phone number by entering in the six-digit code Google sent you.

6. Choose whether or not to add your current computer as a trusted device.

7. Confirm that you wish to turn on two-step verification.

And you're set! Google will now send your phone a six-digit code for any app that uses Google's web interface to authenticate your account.

How to use Google Authenticator

If you don't want codes sent via text message, you can also enable Google Authenticator; this allows you to receive a randomly-generated code from programs like Authy or 1Password or Google's own authenticator.

You can use Google Authenticator for a slew of different services in addition to your Google Account; you just need to make sure they have code generation turned on. Each service has a slightly different way of enabling this, but in general you should find it under the Security section of your preferences.

Here's the setup screen for your Google accounts:

When you click to enable code generation, you'll be presented with a barcode; scan this with Authy, 1Password, or Google Authenticator to add the account.

Once you've added your account, use the code generated by your app of choice to activate two-step code generation back on the original service.

Is your Website Mobile Friendly? Test it here!

What has Google said?

"Starting April 21st 2015, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal."

"This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results."

Why is Google making the change?

Love Google, or hate it, the search engine giant repeatedly states that it wants users to have a fantastic online experience. Hence, the update to Google’s algorithm places greater emphasis on users navigating easily on a mobile devices. Why? Because Internet use from mobile devices has been rising sharply year on year.

We know that the mobile web is growing, if not exponentially, then certainly rapidly. In light of that fact, Google’s decision seems fair and rational.

What’s the worst that could happen?

Any website that is deemed as not responsive will plummet in their rankings. Does this mean that you have to make your website responsive? No, you don’t, and Google doesn’t have to rank you... Google is not the Internet, but let’s face it, failing to rank well on Google is not a great way to run a successful website.

There are some obvious new restrictions, and some that aren’t so obvious: you cannot, for example, use software that isn’t commonly found on mobile devices, such as Adobe Flash, you cannot display text that can’t be read without being zoomed, you cannot force users to scroll horizontally & you need to ensure there’s adequate space between links.

What should you do?

The good news is, finding out whether to meet Google’s definition of mobile-friendly is easy.

Google have provided a useful tool that will check the responsiveness of your website in seconds:

If the site is responsive, Google gives you the thumbs up. If not it will tell you why not.

Contact us today or get a quotation or email us on ben@blabsolutions.net for more info.

How bad is it going to be?

Some people will notice no change, some will see their sites drop out of the rankings altogether.

And the impact on rankings will naturally depend on just how much mobile traffic you receive.

10 Reasons Why You Should Hire A Professional Website Designer

Your web site is the Internet face of your organization. You want to make it as professional and appealing to your target audience as possible.

10 Reasons why you should hire a professional website designer:

1. Saving you time – Hiring a professional gives you the benefit of hiring an expert who knows successful, efficient ways to create a web site quickly.

2. Making it unique – There are about millions, even billions of web sites on Internet. How are you going to make yours stand out? A professional designer is able to create a web site that is unique to your business, pleasant on the eye, have clear and easy navigation, load efficiently, and work properly in all the major browsers.

3. Making it easy to use – A professional web designer will keep your visitors in mind by making it easy for them to navigate and travel around the web site without getting confused.

4. Getting ahead of your competition – Having a professionally designed web site gives visitor’s confidence in your products and services. Competition is fierce of the Internet and first impressions are very important, your web site should shake hands and smile at your site visitors.

5. Communicating your message – A professional web designer is experienced in knowing how to communicate your message. Be it through the use of colors, fonts, graphics etc., a professional web site should convey a clear consistent, compelling message that represents your business.

6. Making it Search Engine friendly – One of the most important factors about a web site is its presence in the search engines. A professional designer will know how to design your site so that it is Search Engine Friendly.

7. The difference between home made and professional – There is a huge difference between a home made web site and a professional web site. Having a professional web site will provide you with a sense of security about your products and services that no home made web site can do. Who knows that extra sense of security will help you sleep better at night.

8. Making you the expert – A professional designer will know how to make you look like the expert in your field by suggesting resources, source material, news articles and content that will make your company look knowledgeable in its field of business.

9. Making you trustworthy – A good web designer will be able to find ways to convey your trustworthiness through the use of images or text. This lets site visitors know there is a real human on the other side that is worth doing business with.

10. Greater credibility – Having a professionally designed web site will enable your small business to compete with larger companies. A professional designer will be able to make a smaller company look like a larger company; therefore, giving small companies as much credibility as the large companies.

How to Get More Likes on Your Facebook Page

1) Fill out your Facebook Page with searchable information

To grow your number of Facebook fans, every section of your page should include content that's relevant and helpful, but also searchable. Remember: All of the content on your page will be indexed by search engines, helping you attract more fans to your page.

By no means should you go on a keyword-stuffing spree, but rather, spend time optimizing each section of your page with keywords appropriate for your business.

Once you’ve created your Facebook Page, make sure the about section of your page includes:

• An overview of what your business has to offer
• A link to your website
• Any other information that will help prospects understand your business better

2) Include Facebook Like Boxes on your website and blog

Making your Facebook Page as discoverable as possible includes promoting your Facebook presence using the marketing channels you already have, and removing any barriers for existing contacts to like your page.

If you have a website or blog, use Facebook’s various social plugins to get people to 'Like' your page without having to go over to Facebook.com.

While Facebook's Like Button allows users to like individual pieces of content on the web and share them on Facebook, the Like Box is designed only for Facebook Pages. The Like Box is a great way to leverage social proof to amplify your page. It displays your page's number of Likes along with the faces of some of your Facebook fans.

3) Invite existing contacts to Like your page

Chances are, you already have friends, family, and existing customers who would be more than willing to connect with your business on Facebook. All you need to do is ask. Whether in person, via email, or via Facebook, try asking for Likes and positive reviews. Just be cautious about over-promoting to uninterested connections.

You can also encourage existing connections to become fans by making it more likely that they'll see a suggestion on Facebook to like your page. How? You'll have to upload a list of emails to Facebook, and those from that list who are on Facebook will be made more likely to see a suggestion to like your page in places like "Recommended Pages." Your contacts who aren't on Facebook won't see this suggestion.

To upload a list of email contacts through Facebook, open the "Build Audience" menu (located at the top right of your Facebook Page) and select "Invite Email Contacts."

From there, you can upload a maximum of 7,000 contacts per day per page -- and a maximum of 5,000 contacts at a time.

4) Invite employees to Like your page

People are more likely to Like pages that already have some sort of following, and your employees can help your business build its initial numbers. After all, they are your strongest and most effective brand advocates.

Ask them to like the official Facebook Page. Then, encourage them to share, Like, and comment on the content your team posts on Facebook, too. Employees who really want to share the love might include a link to your Facebook Page in their email signatures or on their personal social media profiles.

5) Incorporate Facebook into your offline communication channels

Have a physical storefront? Think about ways to encourage patrons to become Facebook fans. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Place stickers in your front windows promoting your page's name.
• Include your Facebook URL on your receipts.
• Run a promotion where customers who become Facebook fans on the spot get small discounts.

Market your business offline? Include links to your Facebook Page and other social media profiles on printed ads, flyers, coupons, catalogs, business cards, and direct mail assets.

6) Cross promote on Twitter and LinkedIn

Add a link to your Facebook Page on your business's Twitter and LinkedIn profiles (and your personal profile, for that matter). Tweet about your Facebook Page occasionally to encourage your Twitter followers and LinkedIn connections to stay in contact with you on another network.

Add your Twitter link to your Facebook Page, and occasionally tweet about your Facebook Page. Don’t stop with Twitter and Facebook; you could also cross-promote on LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube, etc. Just be sure that your cross promotions are sparing and strategic. You don't want to spam the other audiences that you've worked so hard to develop.

7) Post valuable content

The best way to increase your following on Facebook is by treating your fans like people and that means consistently delivering content that is valuable to them. Delivering value really comes into play with the content you create and share with your fans, and how you interact with them.

It's all about building long-term relationships with your Facebook fans. They might not remember one individual post to Facebook, but if they notice you consistently publish high quality, helpful, and relevant posts to Facebook, they'll think of you as a valuable resource.

So, how do you know what to publish? If you’re in tune with your buyer personas, you probably have a good idea what types of content your ideal customers like. If not, or if you just need some inspiration, consider spending a week taking note of the types of content in your own News Feed that compels you click, comment, or share. What inspired you? Use your observations to inspire future posts.

8) Be active

Getting more Facebook Likes isn't just about profile optimization and an initial push. To continue growing steadily, you need to maintain an active, ongoing presence.

Not only does this mean posting educational, insightful content on a regular basis, but it also means monitoring your presence and interacting with your fans. Ask questions, answer questions, and participate in discussions with those posting on your page. Find, follow, and build relationships with others in your industry. Create a presence worth following.

9) Use Facebook Ads to expand your reach

Growing your Facebook Likes organically is the best way to drive engagement and, ultimately, convert fans into customers. But if you have the budget for it, incorporating some paid advertising into your Facebook strategy can help augment the hard work you're already putting in.

Facebook offers a type of ad called a "Page Like Ad," which contains a CTA suggesting that users Like your Facebook Page. These ads can appear in users' News Feeds or in the ad column on the right-hand side of their web browser when they're on Facebook. Here's what a Page Like Ad looks like on a mobile News Feed:

If you’ve exhausted your existing contacts and want to reach people who don’t know about your page yet, but would be interested in hearing from you, you can use Facebook’s granular targeting capabilities to reach your ideal buyer persona(s) and grow your audience.