#WebBuidling Archives

5 Reasons Your Business Needs Social Media

Posted on 17/11/202113/11/2021 by Tushar

From multinationals to people selling their second-hand gear, every type of business is taking advantage of social media â€“ and benefiting from it. So, why aren’t you? If you’ve not seen the value in running a social media campaign for your business, perhaps the points we discuss in this post will convince you to think again.

1. Grow your audience

The more people who know about your business, the more chance you have of getting new customers. Setting up social media accounts and publishing posts enables you to promote your business, for free, to a wide range of people.

While it does take time to build up a following, posting content that people will like, share and comment on is the best way to start growing an audience. When people do these things, their friends and followers will see your posts too and, in turn, they can like and share with others, enabling you to reach a much wider audience.

An important general rule when posting on social media is not to focus entirely on your products and services. Social media is about being social â€“ so, to garner the most interest and get the most engagement, make sure you post about other things, too. You can even share engaging posts from others. Besides promoting yourself, the aim should be to increase other peopleâ€™s enjoyment of social media or add value to their use of it. If you do this, more users will take note of you, follow you and like you.

2. Making new connections

Once you have begun to develop an audience of followers, you are in the position to connect with them. You can share posts inviting them to comment on your products and services, offer them deals, invite them to events and so forth.

Just as importantly, when people make comments on your posts, you should reply. This can really help you build new and potentially promising relationships that increase interest in your company, not just with those who you reply to but with others who read your comments.

3. Develop your brand

Your brand is what makes you unique. Itâ€™s not just the products you sell or the services you offer, itâ€™s how you conduct your business, the values that underpin your operations, the quality of the products and services you provide and the image you project to the public.

Social media enables you to promote all these branding elements so that your followers begin to get a thorough understanding of the kind of company you are and why they should become customers. So, while it is important to get people familiar with your branding (logo, etc.), it is equally important to get your values across. If you believe in great service, only use organic products, make everything by hand, or sell only the coolest gear, get the message out there.

4. Grow your influence

Social media influencers, those with millions of followers, are very powerful people. A single tweet from these individuals can turn an unheard of product into new fashion or condemn a fashionable product into the annals of history.

While businesses donâ€™t quite muster the same leverage as these mega influencers, they are able to influence their followers, their industry and their market niches. And one way businesses can achieve this is through establishing themselves as experts in their fields.

How do you do this? There are two important elements. The first is sharing your success. If you are an expert at something, people will expect you to be successful, so promoting your successes makes people believe that what you have to say is valid. At the same time, you need to share your expertise with others. Posting â€˜how toâ€™ blog posts and videos on social media is the best way to do this as your expertise is being used to help people solve problems. People who need those problems solving quickly become followers. If solving those problems sometimes involves buying your products or using your services, then even better.

If you need convincing, then ask why celebrity chefs make so much money from their own branded products and restaurants? It is because they have been sharing their cooking expertise for years on TV. Those who liked the TV recipes will presume that the food they sell in supermarkets and restaurants will be just as good and go out and buy it.

5. Send customers to your website

At the end of the day, the principal aim of social media is to generate new business and for most companies, the key place to do this is on their website. This is where you will have created the landing pages, product descriptions and calls to action to encourage the user to buy.

It is important, therefore, that you put links on your social media posts that send consumers to the relevant pages on your site. You donâ€™t need to do this for all your posts, but for those for which it is pertinent, such as posts about products, you should.

Conclusion

Whether you are big or small, local or national, creating a social media profile and developing a posting strategy can have a positive effect on your business. It helps people know you exist, lets you build relationships, develops brand awareness, establishes you as an expert and drives new customers to your website.

What Makes An E-Commerce Sites Successful?

Posted on 12/06/2021 by Tushar

When it comes to selling online, the user experience is just as important as the products you stock and the prices you charge. If you want your eCommerce sites to meet user expectations and compete with your rivals, there are certain features which it has to have. Features that make shopping quicker, easier, safer and more convenient are, therefore, essential for today’s eCommerce sites. Here, we’ll look at what they are.

1. Clear menus

People visit eCommerce stores looking for specific items and one of the main ways they do this is through the menu. This is where they’ll expect to see the main product categories and their subcategories. Get the menu right and finding the right link will be quick and easy; get it wrong and the visitor will give up searching, perhaps so irritated by the menu that they never visit the site again.

Making the menu work on an eCommerce site, especially one selling a large variety of products, can be a challenge. You need to put it in the most convenient place, choose the right design and configure it to display in a way that customers can find what they want easily. There will also be a need to consider the titles for each category as this can be useful not just for SEO but for making sure you are using the same terms that a visitor would use.

You may also have to consider how you structure the actual website as a subcategory or individual product may need to be included in more than one main category. A pair of trainers, for example, might need putting in both sports and casual footwear categories.

2. Filtering search

Some users prefer using a search bar to the menu and a good website will make sure this preference is catered for. Indeed, search bars and filters are one of the most useful features on any store, enabling the visitor to type in the kind of product they are looking for and then filter the results to find the best one.

Today, there is a selection of plugins and add-ons that will provide this function, letting customers narrow down the range of products displayed by filtering attributes such as brand, price, colour, size, weight, age, condition, etc.

These features are found on many websites, usually with the search bar at the top and the filters at the left. As this has become the expected norm when visiting an eCommerce store, it’s a good idea to use the same layout on your site so that visitors are instantly familiar with how it works.

3. Product appropriate visuals

As shoppers cannot see the actual product, the images you display play a vital role in helping them decide. For many types of product, however, a single image won’t cut the mustard. While one photo might be ideal for a tin of beans on a supermarket store, for other products you may need to provide much more.

If you sell clothing, for example, customers will want a 360-degree view and the ability to zoom in and see fabric, stitching and pattern details. If you sell white goods, electrical items and similar, people often want to see videos that show them how the product is used. Other products may require images that give instructions, such as an illustration of how a device you’re selling is easily connected to a home wi-fi network.

4. FAQs

Customers may love your products and prices but if they can’t get an answer to a question, they’ll shop elsewhere. FAQ sections are essential because they allow you to answer those frequently asked questions that are key to helping customers make a purchasing decision.

For eCommerce sites, there are two types of FAQs you need to display: those for specific products and those relating to the services your business offers. The ones relating to the products need to be on the product page and the ones relating to the business, e.g. questions about delivery and returns, need to go on a dedicated FAQ page that is clearly linked to on all pages, such as in the footer.

Sites like Amazon, which have so many products that it would be impractical to write FAQs for all of them, get around this by enabling previous customers to answer questions posed by others.

5. Product recommendations

Personalised shopping is one of the most effective ways to improve the user experience and generate more sales. More advanced sites, like Amazon, use artificial intelligence powered product recommendation engines that analyse individual user behaviour to recommend products a customer is more likely to want. This type of technology is becoming increasingly more available and there are even WordPress plugins that provide it.

For visitors who are not logged in, other features, like ‘related products’, can help them find better items or even entice them to buy additional goods.

6. Mobile-first site

Mobile shopping is the fastest growing area of UK retail and over the next four years will be worth over £30 billion and account for 40% of all UK internet spending. More customers will visit your site from mobiles and will expect your site to be optimised to work on their device. If it does not, they’ll quickly go elsewhere.

Catering for today’s mobile users means going beyond using a responsive theme and making sure that when you develop your site, you use a mobile-first approach: i.e. you prioritise how the design will work for mobile users.

7. Trust, security and reputation

Trust, security and reputation are vital attributes when trying to convince visitors that your website is the best place to make a purchase. Vital features of such websites include making it easy for customers to get in touch by displaying addresses, phone numbers and contact details; installing an SSL certificate which encrypts users’ payment details and provides your site with the secure padlock icon on browsers; and reviews on sites like Trustpilot, which let new customers see independent and verifiable feedback from those who have purchased from your store in the past. Together, these provide customers with the confidence that your store is trustworthy, secure and has a track record for delivering great service.

Conclusion

E-Commerce stores are upping their game to meet the high expectations of the modern consumer and to ensure they provide a great user experience. The seven features mentioned here will help your website achieve these goals and make sure that your business remains competitive in today’s marketplace.

The Benefits of Cloud Computing for Real Estate Agents

Posted on 30/04/202016/06/2021 by Tushar

The estate agency landscape has transformed over the last decade, with home buyers increasingly looking to the internet as their first port of call. This has led to the rise of disrupter startups that have stormed the market with nationwide online platforms and the promise of low-cost selling. To stay competitive and relevant, traditional estate agencies have had little option but to adopt new technologies themselves, a need accelerated by the impact of the pandemic. For those looking for the right solutions to their IT requirements, the answer lies in cloud technology. Here, we’ll explain why.

1. Better customer experience

For estate agencies concerned about competition from low-cost online agencies, it’s worth noting that, according to Gartner, 86% of consumers are willing to pay more for better customer experience (CX). The issue is that many online estate agencies have already begun to provide great online CX themselves. Migrating to the cloud, however, not just enables you to provide excellent CX yourself, but do so swiftly and cost-effectively.

Migrating to the cloud enables you to provide both buyers and sellers with all the information and help they need without having to visit your premises. There are a growing number of cloud-based tools and technologies to help estate agents offer great CX. These include financial calculation tools, virtual tours, online form completion and submission, customer service chatbots, omnichannel messaging and much more. These provide great CX in that they make the buying and selling of property quicker, more convenient, less stressful and highly engaging. Who wants to look at a photo of a house when they can put on a VR headset? Who wants to wait for a phone call when information can be accessed and answers provided instantly?

All these cloud-based technologies make customers more confident about your services, foster strong relationships and lead to better reviews and online reputations.

2. Using data to improve your business

Data is now a critical component of decision making for businesses, providing insights that can help improve marketing, website design, productivity, cost-effectiveness and more. Analysing that data needs cloud technology. Cloud enables you to cost-effectively store and centrally manage your data and provides you with the AI and analysis tools that can find those insights needed to drive your business forward.

It can help you map customer journeys across all touchpoints, ensuring that communications are consistent and that whoever is dealing with a client is always up to date; it can pinpoint weaknesses in your website, such as poorly performing calls to action or quickly abandoned pages; and It can show you whether your communications are being opened and accessed and if not, predict which channels and times of day are most effective. It can even help predict shifts in the market, changes in consumer behaviour and the impact of changes in regulation, such as the return of full stamp duty, all of which can help you react quickly and make gains before your competitors.

3. Cost-effective

As digital transformation takes place in the housing market, estate agents will face growing IT needs. Developing an in-house infrastructure can be highly expensive, requiring the hiring of IT talent and the purchase of servers. Not just in real estate but across all sectors, businesses large and small have migrated to the cloud in a bid to keep IT costs to a minimum.

In the cloud, you are using the infrastructure of your service provider and this means there is no need for capital investment in hardware. And while there is a monthly fee for your cloud services, this is charged for on a pay-as-you-go basis, so you only pay for the resources (storage, CPU, RAM, bandwidth) that you actually use. This is an exceptionally cost-efficient way to procure your IT.

What’s more, the cloud gives you the flexibility to scale up or scale down on-demand, so if your website gets very busy or you need to carry out a process-heavy data analytics workload, you can be assured that you’ll always have enough IT resources to carry it out without your system crashing. When your period of high demand is over, you can simply scale down again and save money. Doing this in-house would require you to purchase additional hardware which might sit idle except for at the busiest of times.

4. Managed services

As an estate agent, you’ll want to focus on the needs of your business and not spend too much time dealing with IT. With an in-house system, every aspect of your IT will need to be dealt with by your own staff and this includes server management and maintenance tasks that detract IT staff from implementing better services.

In the cloud, server management comes with the service. Your provider will update and patch the operating system on your behalf and ensure that your server is working optimally and remains constantly online for your customers.

What’s more, a good service provider will also offer 24/7 technical support, which means if you have an issue with your cloud services or any of the applications you run on them, you have an expert available, there and then, to help you get it fixed.

5. Remote working

With cloud-based tools at your disposal, the days of telling a customer ‘I’ll check that when I get to the office and get back to you,’ are over. In the cloud, your systems and files are available anywhere with an internet connection and on any device, including smartphones and tablets. This means when carrying out the remote aspect of your job, such as visiting a client’s home, you can access the tools you need and ensure that you have up-to-date information at your fingertips.

It also means you and your staff can work more flexibly and stay productive during disruptions like the lockdown and bad weather days.

6. Stronger security

With the constant risk of hacking, malware, ransomware, DDoS attacks and other threats and a need to comply with regulations like GDPR, IT security is a major concern for all businesses. Putting robust security in place is both expensive and challenging, especially for companies with limited IT budgets.

Cloud vendors, however, employ security experts and utilise the most advanced tools to protect their datacentres and their customers’ systems. They deploy next-gen firewalls with intrusion and malware protection to keep cybercriminals away from your servers and data. They also provide essential security services, such as SSL certificates, email encryption, VPN, 2FA, data encryption and remote backups.

What’s more, when your data is stored in the cloud, you don’t need to keep copies on removable drives, laptops or other devices that can easily be lost or stolen. This helps prevent the risk of your customers’ personal data being breached.

Conclusion

The shift towards a digital market means estate agents need to digitally transform to remain competitive and relevant. To offer the services that customers want, benefit from the advantages of the latest technologies, stay secure and remain cost-effective, this means migrating to the cloud.

Tips for Consultancy Firms on Developing a Website

Posted on 26/04/202016/06/2021 by Tushar

There are consultancy firms in all sectors but the one thing they have in common is that they are experts in their field. Indeed, as a consultancy firm, your expertise is your product. When it comes to landing new contracts, it’s vital that potential customers can find out everything they need about your business, the expertise within it and the different services you offer. In the digital age, not only do you need a website; you also need to make sure it does the right things. Here, we’ll offer some tips designed to improve consultants’ websites.

Promote your uniqueness

You know better than anyone what makes your company unique and why that uniqueness makes you the best choice for your customers. With many consultancies offering similar services, this uniqueness is your key value proposition and something you need to communicate quickly and clearly as soon as a visitor arrives on your homepage.

To improve how well your website works for you, your USP should be clearly shown, above the fold, on the homepage. It should encapsulate, succinctly, what your company does, who you provide services for and why your business is the right choice.

Doing this right at the start of a visitor’s journey drives potential customers to other parts of your website where you can convince them you are the best company for their needs.

Think carefully about website design

When thinking about how to design or redesign your consultancy website, don’t start with the premise ‘what do we need?’; instead, think about what the customer needs? Putting yourself in the position of a potential customer can help you create a site that has the right design and organisation to help you generate more new business.

It will end up being more user-friendly, mobile-friendly and useful. Not only will its design be better suited to the needs of the user, so will the way information is organised across the site and how it is presented. The more user-friendly it is, the better experience customers will have and this will give them an indication of the quality of the service you offer in your consultancy, too.

The benefits of a blog

Not all businesses need a blog, but for consultancies, they can be invaluable. A blog, essentially, is soft-sell content marketing. Each post should be created to solve a problem that your customers may face. In doing so, you can showcase the unique expertise within your company and subtly mention and link to the services you offer that solve these problems.

Such blogs also have other very useful benefits. Firstly, the use of specialist content can be very helpful for SEO, enabling your website to rank much higher in search engine results so that it attracts even more visitors. What’s more, as each blog post is searchable on the internet, potential customers who may never have heard of your company before might get introduced to your expertise and choose to partner with you as a result.

Of course, blogs can contain a variety of different content: written text, images, infographics, video, etc. – a mix that makes it more engaging and which appeals to different audiences. Blog posts on your website can also be published on social media so that anyone who wishes to read them is brought straight back to your website.

Simple interaction and communication

The easier you make it for website visitors to interact and get in touch, the more likely they are to do it. At the top of the list here, is getting in touch. You need to provide clear and obvious calls to action that anyone will find simple to follow. If there is a ‘call us now’ CTA, for example, use a link that immediately dials your number on mobile phones, saving the user the trouble of having to type it. You can do the same with email links or provide an easy to fill in contact form conveniently located in the footer of every page. Increasingly, businesses are making use of online chat to answer queries in real-time and advanced chatbots are being used to offer this service 24/7.

When it comes to engagement, make it easy for users to bookmark pages and share information with colleagues or on social media. Also, make it easy for them to like your content by providing social media buttons – especially on those blog posts.

A reliable and trustworthy website

If you want your website to be taken seriously, it has to be reliable and trustworthy. Partnering with the right web host and selecting the most appropriate hosting type for your needs ensures your site will always be available, load quickly and respond effortlessly to customer interactions. This all boosts the confidence that customers have in your business.

Also important is choosing a web host that can provide the web security you need to protect you and your customers. You’ll need an SSL certificate to have your site labelled as secure on browsers and which encrypts user data; spam filters to prevent malware and phishing; email certificates to verify your emails are genuine and to encrypt content and attachments; a robust firewall, together with intrusion and malware protection, to keep your server secure; and a backup solution that enables your site to recover quickly from cyberattacks and data loss.

Conclusion

As you can see, your website can play a vital role in promoting your consultancy firm and in generating new business. Hopefully, the tips provided here will show you where you can make improvements to your site and your web hosting .

Why Every Builder Should Have A Website

Posted on 17/04/202015/06/2021 by Tushar

Look down any road, these days, and you’ll see some form of building work going on. It’s a busy industry, but one where competition is fierce. Having a website doesn’t only improve your chances of landing more work, it can also lead to customers being willing to pay more for your services. And if the only thing stopping you from getting a website is because you think it’s too difficult or too expensive, read on and we’ll bust that myth once and for all. Here are six reasons every builder needs a website.

1. Stop being so hard to find

Not getting enough enquiries or the right kind of jobs? Most people looking for a builder today will begin their search online. More specifically, they’ll type ‘builder’ and the name of their town in Google and look at the companies that appear in the results. If you’re not on the list, you won’t get the enquiry. The good news, of course, is that if you have a website, you’re likely to get many more enquiries than you currently do.

2. Give customers information immediately

The internet has made the world a faster place. Not only do customers expect things to be done quickly and conveniently; they are no longer prepared to wait for things that are slow or which are a hassle. Why does this matter? Well, if detailed information about your services isn’t available on a website, they’ll see it as a long-winded hassle to ring you up, especially when your competitors’ websites put that information on their screens in a matter of seconds.

This is why simply putting a few details on a listings website is never enough. Even people who find you on there are still expecting a link to your website where they can find out more.

3. Provide information that sells

As an experienced builder, you’ll know better than anyone the type of questions your customers want to know before they decide to choose your business. For example, they’ll want to know the different types of building work you offer and your qualifications, accreditations, skills and experience. A website enables you to answer all these questions in detail and in writing so that customers can be better persuaded to contact you for a quote.

What’s more, put once in writing on your website, it will save you hours having to explain it again and again over the phone or in emails.

4. Show customers how good you are

There’s nothing like a great photo for showing how fantastic a building looks after you’ve finished working on it – and this can be the clincher when it comes to landing a new contract. On a website, you can create a portfolio page with pictures of your best work and can keep adding to it as the years go by. This will let potential customers not just see the quality of your work but help them visualise how the final project will look.

5. Up your prices

While pricing is important, how much you cost isn’t the most important factor in landing a job. Today, 82% of customers are willing to pay more for services that deliver better customer experiences. As a builder, you’ll know what those important customer experiences are, for example, starting projects as agreed, meeting deadlines, arriving on-site on time, staying within budget, leaving premises clean and tidy, finishing the project to specification, etc.

While delivering those experiences is essential, letting customers know about them on your website changes perceptions of the kind of company you are and this can stop relying purely on price to get contracts. You can quote what you are worth because of the quality of the experiences you deliver and customers will be willing to pay for it.

6. Look more professional

Most people expect every business to have a website. When there isn’t one, potential customers will ask why – and this can lead to concerns about whether you are a professional builder or a legitimate company. While you certainly don’t need a website to be professional or legitimate, having one can reassure people that you are, especially when it contains information that establishes trustworthiness.

Simple information, such as a physical address, telephone number and professional website and email addresses, give your business legitimacy. As does a company registration number and VAT number if you have them. A website that contains terms and conditions, testimonials from past customers, photos of previous work, an about us page, etc., all help to convince customers that you are a business they can trust.

With customers spending significant sums of money on a building project, it is important to let them know that you are a professional company and doing this on your website is key to building that trust.

How easy is it to build a website?

It has never been easier or more affordable to build and run a website. Website building software, like WordPress, is free, easy to use, requires no coding skills and comes with thousands of themes and add-ons to give your site the look and functionality you need. Used on 41% of all websites, this professional tool can be installed with a single click here at Anteelo, enabling you to start working on your site in minutes. What’s more, you can host your website with us for less than £1 a week and take advantage of the wide range of services included in the plan, such as 24/7 technical support, daily website backups, professional email, robust security, guaranteed 99.9% uptime and more.

6 Signs That Your Website Is In Need Of An Upgrade

Posted on 19/03/201922/06/2021 by Tushar

Nothing stands still in business and that includes a website. Trends change, new technologies are developed, search engines modify their ranking criteria and customers have ever-increasing expectations. A website that was the best thing since sliced bread when you launched it several years ago may now be due for an upgrade. Here, we’ll look at some of the signs to look out for.

1. Your site doesn’t rank well

One of the first clues that you need a website upgrade is if your site is performing less well than it did in search engine results. Search engines are forever moving the goalposts when it comes to how they rank websites and older sites often come out badly as a result. This can be because many of your earlier pages were created using now outdated SEO techniques which no longer carry much weight or, even worse, are penalised for contravening the latest webmaster guidelines.

While it is important to keep abreast of SEO trends and to update your optimisation accordingly, sometimes a complete overhaul may be what’s needed to bring your site up-to-date and to ensure all your content is fresh and relevant.

2. Your website is chaotic

One of the issues that all websites face is how to manage growth. As the years go by, you’ll make lots of changes to your site, adding pages, posts, products and other features, while removing others.

Sometimes it can be difficult to keep tabs on these changes and they can lead to a number of problems. You may end up publishing duplicate content, have links to content which is no longer there or, perhaps worst of all, having two versions of the same page but with different details, such as pricing, which can cause issues with customers. You may also have features which no longer work properly or which don’t comply with the latest legislation, such as GDPR.

If your site is getting into such a chaotic state, then it can often be better to start from scratch and create one which is better organised and where everything works as it should.

3. Outdated styling

Design trends are continually changing and although you can’t update your website every time a new fashion appears, there comes a time when it begins to look out of date. This isn’t a good thing on the internet where visual impact is so important, so, if your website is still wearing flares and sporting a kaftan, it’s probably time for a makeover.

Typical things to look out for are dated images that no longer depict the modern-day and tired looking layouts, fonts and backgrounds. Updating to something more modern will give visitors the impression that your company is forward-thinking and on point.

4. Not mobile-friendly

Google wants website owners to have a ‘mobile-first’ approach to web design, where the focus is on building the mobile site first and then adding other features for devices like tablets and computers. The reason for this is that although we do most of our browsing, around 60%, on mobile phones, many websites do not function well enough on smartphone screens.

This requires website owners to go beyond using responsive themes as even these don’t always put the needs of the mobile user first. They may render the website in a way that is readable, but often some of the functions don’t work effectively and some of the navigational features are not user-friendly for the thumb-operated screens.

With increasing numbers of people browsing and buying on smartphones, any website that doesn’t provide for these users is going to lose out and find their search engine rankings getting worse.

5. Poor user experience

Where, once, customers simply wanted the cheapest prices, today, many of them will purchase from the website that offers them the best user-experience – even if the price is a little higher. This is great news for those working with small margins but means you will need to upgrade your game when it comes to your website.

Providing a great customer experience covers all aspects of a website. It needs to be easily navigable, have detailed information (i.e. text, images, video and other content) that directly answers the questions customers have. It needs to offer users the opportunity to get quick responses, such as those offered by live chat. It will provide personalised shopping experiences and offers, swift delivery, customer reviews and additional services like wish lists or gift wrapping. It may also offer expert advice in the form of blog posts, engaging content (such as competitions) and even reward schemes for loyal customers. Importantly, a simple and quick checkout process is also needed.

6. Slow loading

Customers expect websites to load instantly, so if yours takes its time to render on their device, you may lose a lot of business. Even a one-second delay has been shown to drop conversions by 7% and up to 40% of visitors abandon a website when the landing page takes more than a couple of seconds to load. Few people are ever going to make it to the checkout if this happens on every page.

If that doesn’t encourage you to upgrade to a faster website, you also need to remember that search engines use loading times as a ranking factor. Speeding up means you’ll rank higher and get more organic traffic, whereas being slow will have the opposite effect. You should also consider moving to a faster hosting package as this, too, can dramatically speed up your site.

Conclusion

Websites are like cars. When we first get them, they are shiny, new and have all the latest features. However, after a few years, they have been superseded by shinier and newer models that have even smarter features. If the signs mentioned in this post apply to your website, then it may be time to upgrade to one which is better suited for today’s internet.

7 Steps to Creating a Secure Website

Posted on 15/03/201922/06/2021 by Tushar

The sheer number of data breaches and cyberattacks that take place means that when developing a website, companies need to adopt a security mindset. Failure to do so can have disastrous consequences, including substantial fines, loss of business and reputational damage. Ensuring your website is secure means grappling with a wide range of security issues and in this post, we’ll look at ways you can overcome many of the vulnerabilities that pose a threat.

1. A comprehensive security approach

Right at the outset of the development process, there should be a disciplined approach to building a site that is end-to-end secure. This is particularly important when the site is being developed by different teams, each working on separate areas. Even if each team is working with security in mind, doing so without an understanding of what other teams are doing can result in data becoming vulnerable. To prevent this, there needs to be someone with oversight of security so that, once all the separate elements are put together, the final website remains comprehensively secure.

2. Validate all data

Not validating the data inputted by your users puts your website at risk from various, havoc-wreaking, forms of attack. These include SQL injection, cross-site scripting, command injection and other similar threats. Data validation, therefore, should be built-in to ensure all information inputted is not going to cause harm.

3. Scan your website from the outset

Scanning is fundamental to ensure your website is secure. It enables you to find previously undiscovered vulnerabilities and security holes so that you can fix them. You should scan regularly during the development process and, once launched, you should continue scanning on a daily basis and after each time you make an update to your website or system. Some web hosts will provide a website scanning service for you.

4. Update apps immediately and use clean code

Hackers send out millions of bots a day looking for websites using outdated, vulnerable applications they know they can break into. Updating your software to the latest version or applying a security patch removes these vulnerabilities and makes your site safer. Importantly, the sooner you update, the quicker you become secure. Auto-updates are the safest and most hassle-free way to do this.

To reduce the number of vulnerabilities overall, it is always good practice to delete unnecessary data, databases and software from your server.

Website developers should also make sure they do not use applications with known vulnerabilities. Older platform versions, themes, plugins, etc., should be replaced with the latest clean versions prior to being installed.

5. Use strong passwords

Everyone knows that the sophisticated software used by today’s cybercriminals makes it easy to crack weak passwords. Enabling users to keep default passwords or use weak passwords puts your company at risk of attack. For this reason, there’s no excuse not to enforce strong passwords on your site. Indeed, implementing two-factor authentication where, for example, a code is sent to the user’s phone, can make security significantly tighter. And as virtually everyone has a mobile phone these days, such methods of authentication shouldn’t be too much of a burden on your users.

6. Rigorous permissions management

The issue with weak passwords is exacerbated when administrator permissions and privileges are not well managed. If these are given to non-essential users and third-parties, the website becomes increasingly vulnerable to attack. Organisations need to have a clear policy in place about how permissions are managed and this should include precautions which ensure that the higher the level of privilege a user has, the stronger their authentication process needs to be.

7. Encrypt your data

If you store personal data about your users, the best way to keep it secure is to encrypt it. This way, even if your database is breached and the information stolen, the hackers won’t be able to access it. If you sell directly from your website, you should also encrypt the user’s financial data while it is in transit from their browser to your site. This prevents it from being stolen on-route. You can do this by installing an SSL certificate.

Conclusion

Security is essential for all websites in order to protect your company and your users from today’s sophisticated cybercriminals. To make your website secure, you need to put things in place during its development, rather than bolting them on at the end of the process. Hopefully, the points raised in this post will help you develop a secure site of your own.

7 Proven Methods for Boosting Website Traffic

Posted on 24/01/201919/06/2021 by Tushar

According to retail analyst, GlobalData, over 50% of UK consumers now shop online, with spending predicted to grow 30% by 2024. Indeed, by 2021, Statista forecasts 93% of internet users in the UK will be shopping online. While this is fantastic news for online businesses, it comes hand in hand with a growth in competition as more companies launch websites: 84% had them in 2018 compared to 70% in 2007. To be successful in such a competitive marketplace, companies will need to find ways of increasing website traffic and in this post, we’ll explain some of the main ways to achieve this.

1. Online advertising

For companies with new websites or those which struggle to get listed in search engine results, online advertising is often the chief method of attracting customers to your website. The main way to advertise is with Google and Bing, using paid search ads that appear in search results or display ads that appear on other websites. Alternatively, you can also advertise on social media sites. All of these options allow you to target specific audiences and track the progress of your campaign, helping to ensure your advertising budget is spent effectively. It can, however, be an expensive strategy.

2. Content marketing

Internet users aren’t always looking for products or services; quite often what they are seeking is information or ideas to help them solve problems. Providing content on your website which solves those problems can massively boost the number of people who visit as it can be found in search results and shared on social media. If that content subtly mentions and links to a product or service that you supply, it increases the chances of a sale. Take, for example, someone with a small garden looking for ideas to spruce it up. They find a blog article from a garden centre called ’10 ideas for revamping a small garden’ in which they find a picture of a table and chair set they like, together with a link to the product page. From this article, the visitor solves their problem and the garden centre makes a sale. This technique is widely used by businesses in all sectors.

3. Social media marketing

If businesses don’t want to pay for advertising on social media, they can always use these sites to promote their brand, their web content and their products or services. Social media is great for posting links to your website and with the ability to use eye-catching images and video, it can be a highly effective way to increase traffic, especially as other users can spread the word by liking and sharing your posts.

4. Improve SEO

Search engines are the main way consumers find the things they are looking for online, so optimising your website for them is vital if you want to improve the chances of your web pages ranking well in search results.

While the crucial factor in SEO is providing high-quality, fresh and relevant content on your pages, you must not overlook all the other key ingredients. These include having a well-structured, easily navigable website and placing relevant keywords in the titles, subheadings, meta descriptions and content.

5. A mobile-friendly website

A mobile-friendly or responsive website is a necessity in today’s online market. The main reason for this is the fact that users spend more time online on their phones than they do on laptops or other devices. Increasingly, users are also shopping more on mobiles too. According to Statista, at the end of 2018, smartphones generated the largest share of online retail revenue in the UK with many sources predicting the amount spent using mobile devices would double over the next few years to around £40 billion.

There are many reasons for this growth: there are more phone users, there is better internet access away from home, there are easier ways for people to pay using their phones and, importantly, more companies are providing mobile-friendly websites. For businesses, the last point is crucial, as without a mobile-friendly site, the growing market of smartphone shoppers won’t be able to fully access your store. That’s an issue which also makes search engines downrank sites which aren’t mobile-friendly.

6. Make use of email marketing

Email marketing has the highest ROI of any marketing technique and is very inexpensive to implement. There are various ways to grow an email list, such as using a pop-up that offers an incentive to sign up (e.g. 10% off your first order) or asking customers to sign up during the checkout process (e.g. ‘Get updates of our new products and latest offers’).

Once visitors have signed up, you can send marketing emails to them for free with links to your website included. Today, many companies combine email marketing with the use of personalised product recommendation software which tracks what a visitor has been looking at on the website and sends out emails with links to relevant products. This personalised form of email marketing can significantly increase traffic to your site.

7. Security and speed

Two other factors which can affect traffic numbers are security and speed. If your website is marked as ‘not secure’ on browsers, many users will not visit even if it appears in search results. Additionally, according to Google, 53% of visitors will abandon the site if it takes over three seconds to load on their devices. Solving these problems requires the installation of an SSL certificate on your website to make it secure and ensuring that the site is optimised to make it faster. Speed can also be increased by ensuring that your site is hosted on high-performance servers and that your hosting package provides all the resources to cater for the traffic your site needs.

Conclusion

The first step to increasing online sales is getting more people to visit your website. This has become increasingly difficult to achieve as growing numbers of businesses go online and compete for customers. That said, the internet market continues to grow, with more people spending more money online. Hopefully, the ideas presented here will help your business generate more online traffic.

1. Grow your audience

2. Making new connections

3. Develop your brand

4. Grow your influence

5. Send customers to your website

Conclusion

1. Clear menus

2. Filtering search

3. Product appropriate visuals

4. FAQs

5. Product recommendations

6. Mobile-first site

7. Trust, security and reputation

Conclusion

1. Better customer experience

2. Using data to improve your business

3. Cost-effective

4. Managed services

5. Remote working

6. Stronger security

Conclusion

Promote your uniqueness

Think carefully about website design

The benefits of a blog

Simple interaction and communication

A reliable and trustworthy website

Conclusion

1. Stop being so hard to find

2. Give customers information immediately

3. Provide information that sells

4. Show customers how good you are

5. Up your prices

6. Look more professional

How easy is it to build a website?

1. Your site doesn’t rank well

2. Your website is chaotic

3. Outdated styling

4. Not mobile-friendly

5. Poor user experience

6. Slow loading

Conclusion

1. A comprehensive security approach

2. Validate all data

3. Scan your website from the outset

4. Update apps immediately and use clean code

5. Use strong passwords

6. Rigorous permissions management

7. Encrypt your data

Conclusion

1. Online advertising

2. Content marketing

3. Social media marketing

4. Improve SEO

5. A mobile-friendly website

6. Make use of email marketing

7. Security and speed

Conclusion

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