by Charles Oropallo | Jan 2, 2019 | Do-It-Yourself, Domains, Internet, Monadnock Shopper News, Security, SEO, Shopper News, The CW Corner, Website Development, Website Updates, WordPress
Customers want specific info about products and services. If there have been no changes since your website launched, they’ll look somewhere else.
New info triggers search engines to re-scan your website and index it according to what it sees as current and popular, relative to other websites in your industry. Distinctive and useful content helps the search engines recognize what your site is about. Posting new content on a regular basis gives the search engines a reason to scan your site more often.
Updating depends on your industry and who your competition is. The important thing is to review your site on a regular basis. We recommend a website review at least once a month.
Ensure your contact information up to date – nothing is worse than nonworking phone numbers or wrong hours. Your navigation hyperlinks all need to work as well. Good testimonials are an absolute plus. Noteworthy news posted can also help broadcasting your latest and greatest developments.
If you’re website doesn’t allow you to easily change the text in it, you should consider updating to one that will.
Keeping your website material up to date will help keep your current clients as well as add new ones.
by Charles Oropallo | Dec 12, 2018 | Email, Internet, Monadnock Shopper News, Passwords, Security, Shopper News, The CW Corner
Compromised email can be an important component of identity theft. People take much of today’s electronic communications for granted.
Think about what’s connected to your email accounts – activities like shopping and even online banking to name a couple. Hackers getting into your email can give them an open doorway into many aspects of your financial and personal life. The losses incurred through compromised email can be enormous.
Good security practices are great deterrents. Start by using strong passwords to mitigate such losses.
Wireless connections can be “sniffed”, meaning hackers can wait nearby and record the information being sent and received over the connection.
Always access your email using encryption. Encryption makes it close to impossible to decode the wireless traffic. With email clients like Outlook, Thunderbird, Apple Mail or even a mail apps on phones, make sure encryption is turned on. With webmail through web browsers be careful to access it using https:// to ensure an encrypted email server connection.
Free wireless hotspots are a haven for hackers. You are pretty safe as long as you are using encrypted connections.
If you don’t understand how to set up and use encryption, call your web hosting, email or device provider for help. Don’t risk potential losses.
by Charles Oropallo | Dec 5, 2018 | Do-It-Yourself, Domains, Email, Internet, Introduction, Monadnock Shopper News, Security, SEO, Shopper News, The CW Corner, Website Development, Website Updates, WordPress
Here we are in the Shopping Season. Lots of business people talk about shopping local. Many don’t walk the talk. Shopping local works when it’s a reciprocal process – when we buy from each other. It isn’t always feasible – but making a best attempt is beneficial for most – and noticed.
The web is mostly about business. Stuff gets sold. It’s about making sales directly online and/or encouraging brick and mortar store visits.
I’m a strong proponent of local shopping. As a web guy – not a financial expert – common sense tells me spending my money in another part of the country (or the world) prospers THAT place at my neighborhood’s expense. Many businesses justify shopping elsewhere for web related services because they’re simply price shopping. Is that really the best deal?
Ask yourself “What is new business worth?” One single piece of business in a year due to a direct referral from your web vendor (or its employees) usually more than covers any perceived difference in web costs. Even if that business is the vendor itself.
Ask us WHERE you’re hosted so you know WHERE your web services money goes. Plenty of truly local businesses are right around you to do local business with.
by Charles Oropallo | Nov 21, 2018 | Email, Internet, Monadnock Shopper News, Security, Shopper News, The CW Corner
We get many questions about spam (Junk E-mail). Spam clutters up your email. It’s also used to deliver online scams and malware/viruses.
A common question is “Any idea of why I’m seeing spam emails in my Inbox?” Spammers most likely got your email address from your friends or acquaintances – people you know and correspond with – whose computers or phones were compromised. Their contact lists get added to the spammers lists. Spammers also get emails from when we purchase online and from finding email addresses on websites.
Spam is difficult to avoid. One way to handle it is to hit the delete key. That’s much the same as just throwing junk mail away that’s delivered by the mail carrier.
However, spam email can be filtered. The good news is that better than 98% can be filtered into a junk email folder.
One filtering problem is determining which are actually spam – Home Depot, Lowe’s, Staples or other vendors are spam to many and not spam to others. Good mail servers allow users to “mark” items as not spam in that case.
There are numerous email servers that behave in just as many ways handling spam. If spam is an issue, check with your email provider about your options for handling it.
Charles Oropallo (Charles@CharlesWorks.com) started CharlesWorks in Peterborough NH in 1998. His team does website design, hosting, search engine optimization (SEO) and related web services.
by Charles Oropallo | Oct 31, 2018 | Domains, Internet, Monadnock Shopper News, Security, SEO, Shopper News, The CW Corner, Website Development
Here’s another scam designed to get you to share your credit card information: the Internet Domain Listing Service. It’s been around many years.
The Domain Listing Service usually involves an invoice you receive either via email or in postal mail. It’s deceptively designed to look like a bill you owe regarding your domain name. There is generally a sense of urgency expressed in it. The invoice coincidentally arrives roughly about the time your domain is due for annual renewal. That’s key to folks falling for it.
What the “service” purportedly offers is listing your domain in places on the web to get your website found – for several hundred dollars or more. We have found little or no evidence of any tangible results for most of these. We’ve actually seen web sites banned in search engines as a result of some “listing” services.
There ARE valid directories on the web that help sites increase search engine ranking. At CharlesWorks we provide this for no additional ongoing inclusion fees.
Carefully read the text in these offerings! It usually reveals that they are just a solicitation and not a required service.
by Charles Oropallo | Oct 24, 2018 | Domains, Internet, Monadnock Shopper News, Security, Shopper News, The CW Corner
There are so many scams out there on the Internet it’s impossible to keep up with them or list them here. Here’s a common one we see nearly every day to possibly hijack your domain name. Your domain name is the unique identifier that gets web visitors to your website – you don’t want to lose it.
Many people receive mail about renewing their domain name. These offerings are designed to look like you owe money to renew domains. In some scams, when you respond to these you may lose your domain. They’re sophisticated and have been around a long time. Reading the text closely usually reveals that they are in fact a solicitation to move your domain elsewhere.
Domain names are usually handled one of two ways. One is through the company you do business with to handle your web needs. They keep the domain locked in a master account of theirs and through that they ensure that the domain name is kept renewed and bill you for that. The other way is for the individual to manage their domain themselves. That method leaves open the possibility of not receiving an email and therefore losing the domain as it expires. Domain expiration allows anyone else to purchase that domain name.
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