by Charles Oropallo | Nov 13, 2019 | Do-It-Yourself, Internet, Monadnock Shopper News, SEO, Shopper News, The CW Corner, Website Development, WordPress
I’ve mentioned SEO (Search Engine Optimization) throughout many articles. While it is important – I believe it’s the most abused area of website development.
SEO scammers are excellent liars!It’s important for your business website to be found in the search engines. That is best and most inexpensively done by having pertinent material in your website so the search engines see your website as pertinent or closely related to a topic.
There are many unscrupulous individuals and companies out there selling just plain bogus SEO. It’s often impossible to discern the truth. There are no regulations or meaningful certifications in this field.
As an example – let’s say you receive a dozen Viagra spam messages in a month. Does that mean you need it? Certainly just because a number of spam messages are saying you need something doesn’t turn it into a fact.
Why would you believe the same about SEO regarding your search placements on the Internet? Our web clients are bombarded with spam and with phone calls saying they need this and that for their websites. Some fall prey to these sales pitches and some even go out of business as a result of spending hundreds of dollars each month on scams.
Your web developer should care about you as a client – should want you to be as successful as possible and not up-selling you right out of business.
The worst part of the SEO scams is they can oftentimes hurt your placement with the search engines.
Don’t fall prey to the scamsters selling these bogus “services”. Check with your web developer FIRST about such offers to find out if they are for real or whether you actually need them.
by Charles Oropallo | Oct 16, 2019 | Do-It-Yourself, Domains, Internet, Monadnock Shopper News, Shopper News, The CW Corner, Website Development
Two components of a website are the domain and hosting. Websites are accessed easiest with these.
Domain names are labels typed into web browsers that point to a particular website. Usually they’re a word or words pertinent to the website. Each domain is unique. There can only one of each in the world.
Hosting is a server space for a website. It’s available 24-7 for anyone anytime it is accessed. Websites usually contain coding that shows what the site visitor would view as a website.
Finally, the website coding can reside in the hosted web space. That’s what makes the site appear. Or the coding may just jump off (redirect) to go to a different address.
My favorite analogy is to a house. There’s an address (domain name). It’s rented each month (hosting) so one can show off its furniture (web coding). It doesn’t matter whether there’s a little or lots of furniture – they pay rent (hosting).
No Written Hosting or Domain Contracts Required at CharlesWorksDoes your web company require hosting or domain contracts? Reputable ones won’t. They’re willing to ALWAYS provide the best service to you instead of just before contract renewals.
Contact your hoster to determine whether they’ve locked you in or you’re free to move where you can get the best service.
by Charles Oropallo | Oct 2, 2019 | Internet, Monadnock Shopper News, Security, Shopper News, The CW Corner, Website Development
Website visitor safety is extremely important. I’ve mentioned terms here before like SSL, encryption, security and so on. 
These involve that little green or grey lock in front of the web address in your browser. Clicking on that tells you whether the encryption is valid and what site it’s issued to.
Providing encryption was traditionally expensive for website operators. However, it can be had for free these days. There’s no reason not to have it.
Encryption refers to a method on website servers that helps ensure you are actually on the website you think you are on. This greatly reduces the risks of fraud.
Ripping you off is a top priority for many nefarious individuals and organizations on the web. One method is tricking you into giving your credit card or other personal information on a “fake” site or web page. These pages often look exactly like those of your bank’s or credit card company’s or even your email’s login pages.
There’s usually a small one-time charge for initial setup. Website owners should check with their hosting company or web developer to ensure website encryption (SSL) is included in their monthly hosting at no extra charge. If need be, it’s worthwhile to move to a company whose hosting provides this.
by Charles Oropallo | Sep 4, 2019 | Do-It-Yourself, Internet, Monadnock Shopper News, SEO, Shopper News, The CW Corner, Website Development, Website Updates, WordPress
Your website is an important investment. Whether you made it yourself or paid to have a professional develop it for you – you wouldn’t want to lose it. We have taken on clients who were with the largest company in the world who lost their website because of having no backup. The terms for doing business with that company even state they are not responsible for the loss of the website.
I couldn’t imagine not backing sites up. Nowadays the technology is ever present to back everything up. In the not too distant past, hard drives were much more expensive than they are now. Hard drive space is extremely inexpensive nowadays – so there’s no excuse for a company to not make backups.
One third of today’s sites are on a platform called WordPress. Security updates happen often and changes can be readily made to WordPress sites – so they need backups at least every day. Whether there’s a server catastrophe or simply one of your employees blowing up your site while making changes – it can be recovered.
Definitely protect your website investment by hosting with a company that provides daily backups of your WordPress website every night for at least a month. That will avoid having to restart your website from scratch.
by Charles Oropallo | Aug 21, 2019 | Internet, Monadnock Shopper News, Shopper News, The CW Corner, Website Development, Website Updates
It’s always great to get referrals from others. That’s why it’s important to deal with a web company that understands your community and reciprocates by referring business to you.
Businesses built upon reciprocity help each other with success. Photo by Charles Oropallo.As a point of curiosity I usually ask when the last time was that a company received referrals from their web hoster or web developer. Usually the answer is never. I am amazed to usually find out at that point that even their local folks they give their web business to don’t bother to refer others back to their own clients.
You need a web developer that does that as a rule rather than as a request. You need a developer that one or more of its staff are in high powered networking chapters and experienced at referring business back to their own clients.
That’s what reciprocity is all about. You need a web company that practices that at every opportunity.
One way that can be done is if the web development company has a directory they can be part of. That helps clients get found on the web and increase their web traffic by keeping information about them on thousands of sites on the Internet.
If you have been feeling that your relationship with your web company is rather one sided, it’s time to deal with one that cares about you!
by Charles Oropallo | Jul 17, 2019 | Do-It-Yourself, Email, Internet, SEO, The CW Corner, Website Development, Website Updates, WordPress
This week is a closely related follow up to last week’s article. As I mentioned then about a lack of a phone number, it seems like it would go without saying that a website trying to sell something should have an email contact someplace on it.
Last week I was referring to a web developer’s website with no telephone number or email address on it. Some developers put forms on their sites to try to get out of displaying an email address. The main issue with forms – besides the fact that form output is more often than not considered spam by many mail servers – is that people generally don’t want to fill them out. It’s much easier these days to click on an email link and send off an email saying exactly what you want to say. Of course you can speak it even more clearly but email may be the next best thing.
If you can’t find an email address to contact someone, my advice is to just move along to the next prospective web developer on your list. You want to deal with a web development company that makes it easy to be reached.
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