Parker Web – Website Maintenance Services

Timeless Website Design: The Key to Long-Lasting Digital Presence

Creating a website design that stands the test of time is no small feat in the ever-evolving digital landscape, where trends come and go at lightning speed. As the online world continues to evolve, it’s crucial for businesses and individuals alike to ensure their web presence remains relevant, engaging, and functional. A well-designed website is more than just an aesthetically pleasing online platform; it is a digital gateway for users to explore and interact with your content, products, or services. A timeless website design requires a strategic approach with long-term and short-term business goals in mind. If done correctly, a timeless design can go a long way in defining a company’s message and business. When Ramsey Chain contacted Parker Web in 2009, we redesigned their existing site by focusing on a high-quality look with matching high-quality content. The resulting website design was a significantly smaller investment when compared to a new website, but it achieved the desired results. Using the same content, a website refresh was completed in 2013. This refresh relied heavily on the previous design and incorporated some new trends in user expectations and some improved product focus. Incorporating some updated branding elements and content trends of the time, this was a much-needed fresh look. Through website maintenance, the partnership with Ramsey Chain has helped sustain its website with small content and image tweaks along the way. Working with a partner that can provide these updates, additions, and changes can make these small refreshes over time a more cost-effective solution to keeping your online presence up to date versus a complete redesign. Click here to learn more about Ramsey Chain and how we assisted with their website refresh. Parker Web prides itself on providing a top-notch website experience. Schedule a call today.

What Are The Most Common Errors On A Website?

Spring is a wonderful time to start cleaning your house or office, but don’t neglect your website! Here are some common errors you can look for: Broken Links A broken link occurs when a link on a site is not working properly and the user is directed to an error page. This can frustrate users, causing them to leave the site, and can also cause a site to be penalized by search engines. You never want to upset the almighty Google! Slow Loading Speed When a website takes too long to load, users are likelier to abandon it and look for an alternative. For example: is your WordPress site using all of its plugins? Removing anything unused and unnecessary will help reduce server response time. Site Layout If a website is poorly designed or difficult to navigate, users may find it frustrating and leave the site. Adding too many images and text to a homepage can be confusing to users, and you should focus on creating a user-friendly design that is easy to navigate- especially on mobile! Outdated Information Recently changed addresses or updated staff members? Keeping your site up-to-date will help avoid customer confusion and assist with search engine optimization. Search Functionality Focus on providing information as efficiently as possible for your users. If a website’s search function is difficult to use or returns irrelevant results, users may have difficulty finding what they need. Security Insecure or vulnerable sites can put users’ personal information at risk, and if someone is concerned about a site’s security they will usually leave immediately. Adding an SSL to your site (the padlock in the browser window) is commonplace, but make sure it doesn’t expire! Strong passwords are critical, and regularly updating software and plugins will help keep your site safe. These are just a few of the most common errors that can occur on a website. It’s important for website owners and developers to regularly check their sites for these issues and address them promptly to provide a better user experience. Schedule a call with us today if you have any concerns. At Parker Web, we’re constantly monitoring for security breaches and aim to keep our clients safe and secure.

Site Vulnerabilities Are A Welcome Mat to Hackers

Hackers have taken advantage of a vulnerability in a popular WordPress plugin that has allowed them to gain full control over millions of websites. The plugin in question is called “Elementor”, and it is designed to limit login attempts to WordPress sites to prevent brute-force attacks. However, a flaw in the plugin’s code has allowed hackers to bypass its security measures and gain access to the site’s database. According to cybersecurity firm Wordfence, the flaw in the Elementor plugin is being actively exploited by hackers who are using it to plant backdoors and upload malware to WordPress sites. This has given the attackers complete control over the affected websites, including the ability to install additional plugins, create new users, and modify the site’s content. The issue has been addressed in the latest version of the Elementor plugin (version 1.6.4), which users are advised to update to as soon as possible. However, many WordPress sites are still running older versions of the plugin, leaving them vulnerable to attack. WordPress site owners are urged to take immediate action to protect their sites by updating the Loginizer plugin and checking their site’s logs for any suspicious activity. Additionally, it is recommended to implement strong passwords, enable two-factor authentication, and regularly backup the site’s data to minimize the impact of any potential attack. At Parker Web, we pride ourselves in providing our clients with the most up to date website experience and acted on this threat immediately. Speak with us today about how we handle website vulnerabilities. Click here to learn more.

Testimonials are Key to Credibility

Testimonials have the highest content marketing effectiveness rating – 89% Unless you’re IBM, Apple, Nike, Google, eBay or another category brand leader, you need to build your credibility by associating your business with the respected third parties with whom you partner or do business. You can have a strong value proposition and compelling calls to action clearly laid out on your website, but every potential customer visiting is thinking, “This sounds good… now where do I find proof that what they’re saying is actually true?” The simple answer is in your third party testimonials, references and endorsements. To prove your quality and service claims, you need witnesses. The reputation and legitimacy of your organization is important for users to know before they decide to do business with you. People coming to your website will probably not accept the messages you’re promoting at face value. The fact is, what you say about yourself is less believable than what other people, especially those in positions of respect, say about you. It follows that what others say about you is more believable, so why wouldn’t you include plenty of testimonials and references on your website to make it a trustworthy resource for your visitors? Consider this statistic from a 2013-2014 survey of content marketers published by SocialMediaToday: “Customer testimonials have the highest effectiveness for content marketing at 89%. This tells us that 89% of the real experts, the people who actually implement online marketing for their companies and measure the results, rate testimonials as the single most effective aspect of content marketing. Go ahead and make your promise to your target audience, but be sure to back it up with a variety of third party testimonials and endorsements. Following are six of the most common forms of website testimonials and third party references. 1.  Written Testimonials by Named Sources Quotes coming from named individuals carry more weight than those from anonymous sources. What or who is more credible, an unknown title or a real person representing herself and her organization? For example, when giving credit to a testimonial, instead of citing “office administrator for a major law firm,” cite instead “Anna Marie Medeiros, vice president of administration, Brenner, Rothschild & Clement.” If a person is willing to put their name on a quotation and make it public, you know they are risking their reputation by endorsing a business or product. This is clear evidence of your performance value. Testimonial Tip: For written testimonials, it’s usually best to 1) get permission, 2) write the testimonial yourself but in the client’s voice, 3) have the client sign off or edit. This technique makes it much easier for your customer and will speed up the process for you. 2.  Video Testimonials Real people – real customers talking sincerely as they extol the wonderful benefits of doing business with you is proof that you’re the real thing. If possible, get a respected celebrity customer on video for your business and you’ll have pure marketing gold! In most cases, short video clips can be taken with a good smartphone because all you really need is decent picture quality and audible sound. Spontaneous and candid moments tend to work well in personal shares such as testimonials. You need to make people more comfortable about further engaging with you or your website. Below is an impromptu video testimonial of a Parker Web Services client that we feature on our website. 3.  Third Party References Displaying respected business partners as well as organizational certifications and endorsements on your website engenders confidence in your company’s ability to compete and win in the market. When your company is involved in its industry and community, working closely with well-respected entities or individuals, you should make these relationships known on your website. Borrowing the brand value of respected organizations builds more equity in your own brand. 4.  Case Studies Make the testimony tangible. Tell a true story about how your solution solves a client’s problem or how specific customers receive a superior experience, more convenience and better value from your website and service team. You’re giving visitors solid, provable facts about your products & services as well as a third party endorsement. Your website visitors can take comfort in knowing that you deliver what you promise. 5.  Published Articles and Advice Columns If your business attracts trade media or broadcast coverage and your competition remains comparatively obscure, guess whose brand name gets the first Google search? If you have any relatively recent press coverage in a positive light, make it visible on your website. Invite publishers, editors and reporters in your industry media to consider the newsworthiness of your company’s unique accomplishments and post any positive media coverage you get about your company/product/services. Write expert advice articles that contain valuable information to your customers and work with editors to get them published. Liberally share these expert advice articles online to further build your respect as a thought leader in your market. 6.  Awards Winning recognition for community service, business excellence, best-in-class technology, etc. further builds confidence among prospects in your target audience. Display your industry/trade/community service awards with the appropriate visibility. Don’t brag, but do allow visitors easy navigation to where they can find your company’s accolades. Work on Your Relationships and Deliver! So how do you get powerful testimonials and third party references to use on your website? Simple. If your relationships are good, you ask for them. It’s important to have conversations with your customers or other constituencies about your intentions to use their testimonials to improve your website’s effectiveness. Consider any cross promotional opportunities and be ready to back up your testimonials with swift inquiry responses and great customer service. After all, your customer is staking their reputation on you so you can improve your own. The last word:  Third party testimonials and endorsements are like earned gifts. It’s your responsibility to honor your relationships and reputation by delivering what you promise while your customers and associates back you up. Parker

The Power of Email

In this modern age of social media outlets and countless apps, it is easy to forget about the strongest way to keep in contact with your clients: email. This past year, 306.4 billion emails were sent and received, and this number is only going to increase. By 2025, this number is expected to be 376.4 billion, with over 4 billion global users looking at their email. People of all ages check their email- some as much as 20 times a day! 99% of users check their email every day, and it is often the first thing people check each morning. Email remains a fantastic way to keep in contact with your clients. But what about social media engagement? Posts can get buried in the endless scroll, if they show up at all. Overall engagement for social media, about 0.58%, is incredibly low compared to email open rate, about 22.86% (with a click-through rate of about 3.71%). Email also outperforms social media in regards to conversion rate, engagement rate, and Return on Investment (ROI). ROI for social media is difficult to track due to brands using different methods and ways of tracking, but email marketing returns $44 for every $1 you spend; that’s a 4400% Return on Investment! Ready to get started? We’re standing by and are here to help! Give us a call 877-321-2251 or use our contact form. Optimizing your time and budget with emails can build credibility, increase traffic to your website, and drive purchases. Consumers prefer email over other ways when receiving promotional messages, as well. 60% of consumers polled in a recent survey preferred to subscribe and receive emails, compared to receiving promotions at a store (28%) or from text messages (17%). Visiting a company’s website for promotions was only preferred by 38% of consumers; communication through email is incredibly important for a company now more than ever, and will be for years to come. Interested in more data / want to know where we pulled these numbers from? Check out these links below: https://www.statista.com/statistics/456500/daily-number-of-e-mails-worldwide/ https://optinmonster.com/is-email-marketing-dead-heres-what-the-statistics-show/ https://optinmonster.com/email-marketing-vs-social-media-performance-2016-2019-statistics/ https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/chart/how-consumers-prefer-to-receive-promotions Parker Web prides itself on providing a top-notch website experience. Schedule a call today.

Social Websites Get Better Results

Socially interactive websites generate more referral traffic. So much of website maintenance centers on attracting and keeping a steady, growing stream of visitors from your target market going to your website. Your goal is to get them to interact with your brand and generate revenues. Therefore, everything about your offers and calls to action should be about strengthening your relationship with customers, prospects and other users of your website. When you think about it, everything positive in your business is the result of a relationship that enabled a transaction or other favorable initiative to happen. As business relationships are also social relationships, how do you go about nurturing your social relationships with your web users? If you’re one of the B2B holdouts who still thinks social engagement of a business audience is all fluff and of little real impact, consider the fact that Google and the other search engines favor websites with more social referral traffic and rank them higher. This is because people who click shared links in social media are opting to consume the message based on its relevance to their specific interests. Google raises your website’s authority as a trusted resource in your category when people recommend or share your page links. Jayson DeMers writing recently in Forbes makes a few points on why a socially active Internet presence is so important for today’s businesses. “Social media is useful because it encourages more external sites to link to your content, and the more diverse external links you have, the more authority you’ll gain in Google’s eyes. Of course, the catch to this is that you have to have high-quality, authoritative content to begin with. Otherwise, you’ll have nothing to use to attract links.” We couldn’t agree more, which is why we’re so big on blogging and dynamic content. You need to give visitors fresh, relevant content to keep them coming back and a blog offers fertile ground on your website for that very purpose. DeMers goes on, “Social sharing contributes to a brand’s authority much in the same way that external links do. To search engines like Google, any indication of a verifiable external source validating your brand or your content is grounds for an improvement in domain authority. So, if you can get five people to share your Facebook post, that’s great, but if you can get 1,000 people to share it, that’s even better. Likes, shares, favorites, replies, and retweets all count toward this increased authority.” Maintaining lively social action on your website will continually send diverse visitors back and forth between your social pages, your website and the outbound links to which you want to associate your business. Backlink traffic from desired sites to your website can be pure SEO gold. When you devote effort into building social capital from your brand into the content on your sites, visitors will always have something new to check out and additional messages of yours to share.  Then it follows that the more targeted website visitors, the more chances to convert them to paying customers. Keeping your website socially interactive takes commitment just like any other worthwhile marketing endeavor. It begins with having a social media strategy that’s congruent with your overall brand strategy and business goals. Your website should have its social share links displayed with the appropriate emphasis, depending on what type of business you’re in. For example, some websites show live feeds of their Twitter and Facebook page posts. Effective ways to make your website social Lisa Parkin writing in the Huffington Post Business blog offers 4 powerful ways to attract social web user interaction. We highlight them below: Highlight top survey results – People want to know what others think and generally trust reputable consumer opinion survey data. They are apt to share it socially, especially when it validates their ideas. Install social commenting tools – This may seem like an obvious step, but many website owners never get to it. Naturally, 2-way conversations are what stimulate even more social interaction. Include user content – Contests and promotions are fine but a powerful method of showcasing user content is allowing product and service reviews on your website. It provides users a real glimpse into your strengths as well transparency into any weaknesses – areas your customers can help you improve. Make it easy to subscribe – Web visitors should see that you offer valuable information and updates. Make it simple for them to get it. For example, offer users the option to provide their email address OR sign up via Facebook. Parkin offers this key piece of advice as an ideal to shoot for when designing your social website and maintaining its content:  “When a user comes to your site, it’s important that any piece of content is one click away from being shared on social media.” Perhaps not every piece of content on every website should be so fluid, but the more easily shareable, the more people will share, and the more links clicked. We can add a last word by saying that building a strong social following on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, your blog and with email is a whole other vitally important effort which goes beyond today’s post topic. However, if making your website more social has been one of your marketing goals, Parker Web Services has the technical know-how and development experience to customize and maintain website content, including strategically embedded social media, on almost any currently supported platform. Feel free to contact us at 1-877-321-2251. Parker Web prides itself on providing a top-notch website experience. Schedule a call today.

Website Content Maintenance: Fresh, Frequent & Fashionable

Fresh, relevant website content increases targeted traffic naturally.   Who wants a stale, 3-day old bagel for breakfast when there are fresh ones coming out of the bakery just this morning? Your local café is serving them up with a variety of your favorite toppings – daily, and that’s why you go there. Stop to consider the stale content that has been sitting on your website since it was launched. Are you one of those business owners who launched a nice new site, complete with your first 2 or 3 blog posts, then moved on? If your most recent blog post or content update is dated, say February, 2014, your site is stale and probably getting very little attention from your target audience. Your site basically died last year if that’s the case. What has your company been doing for all this time? What about your social pages? What exactly is your online presence saying about the relevancy of your company within its industry – today? Consumers as well as business people have insatiable appetites for new information that can help or entertain them. Hunger for knowledge needs to be satisfied frequently. Stale websites, like stale bagels, just don’t attract customers hungry for a fresh serving of something good. When returning visitors come to your website, looking for what’s new and find exactly the same content as their last visit, you’ve just given them permission, if not encouragement, to visit your competition’s websites. They’ll visit your competitors to find out what’s new in your market! Make your website the authoritative source!   To be a leader in your market, or the thought leader in your industry, your website needs to reflect your genuine professionalism. Our slogan applies here: “Keep your website as professional as you are!” A big part of website professionalism is publishing industry-leading information – regularly and often enough. Google and other search engines rank your website based on how often you update your content as well as the quality of content in your updates & posts. Matt Richardson, writing for Formstack, explains how search engines like Google work. “Search engines send “spiders” or “bots” around the web to “crawl” sites’ contents and follow their links, noting any changes along the way. These spiders come around on a schedule. If your site gets crawled, say, once a week and they notice a consistent change ever time, they’ll return more often. Hot, frequently updated sites like big news sites will get crawled multiple times per hour. If they don’t see changes after repeat visits, your site appears inactive and they’ll come around less often.” Here’s a real kicker: “If you aspire to show up in searches for the latest trends, but haven’t been updating or blogging consistently, your rankings may lag behind by up to several weeks. This is one reason why blogs are so important for SEO. Blogs let you post a regular stream of content relevant to your topic and search terms.” Because blogs are the most common way organizations keep their audiences informed on a frequent basis, Google has been steadily adding weight to blog content. They’ve designed their sophisticated algorithms to find web searchers’ information based on the contextual, situational and relational quality of the content. In simple terms, Google wants to serve up fresh and valuable content to its searchers. Out of date content is irrelevant, and because it’s easily detected, Google will screen it from top search results. It’s easy to understand why quality of content is important. Now you know why frequency of updates is just as crucial to a visible and high performing website. Blog and news pages are your social share points!   When people find links to your website content in social shares and then click them, it tells Google and the other search engines that your site is attracting attention and this validates referral traffic. Social referrals are a strong indication of being an authoritative resource – people are willing to refer friends and business associates to your blog article or website because it proved to be valuable for them. The search engines index social media content on popular social platforms, like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Google, in particular, has made it very clear that they’re giving more weight to social media signals, both from your company’s own social media pages and other accounts which are interacting with your brand and linking to your site. Social media are great places to engage and introduce your brand to new people, but from there you need a way to “leave the party together.” Your website is the best place online for a more “intimate” relationship. Posting valuable information to your blog gives you a place to which you can readily invite visitors – a place where you control the message and conversation. Your blog is a great platform to share videos as well as written articles. A blog is also a great enabler for the content marketer. It provides you and ideal mechanism to publish content worth sharing socially. You can keep it fresh, relevant and entertaining to your specific audience. Frequency is your friend.   Now the question becomes, how often should you post new content? Matt Richardson offers broad and general guidance. “It’s hard to prescribe an exact formula and depends in which medium you’re posting – on your site, on your blog, or on your social media profiles. For blogs and website updates, generally once a month or more can be adequate for a small business, unless you’re expected to always keep up with the bleeding edge news…”  In reality, many small businesses have increased blogging frequency to weekly or semi-weekly with positive results and no complaints from followers. Your SEO Consultant or Website Maintenance Provider should be able to provide further guidance based on your unique situation. Consult with them or Parker Web Services to get recommendations on frequency of website/blog updates as well as what kinds of content to post. For most businesses, Social

Web Page Speed for People and Search Engines

  Help more people see your properly displayed website faster. Web page load speed has a major effect on how many visitors actually see and stay on your website. When someone clicks a link to your site they want immediate results. Waiting more than 3 or 4 seconds is too long for many people when their experience with other websites is virtually instant rewards for page links clicked. Take it from two of the world’s largest online retailers. Amazon reported a 1% increase in revenue for every 100 millisecond improvement in page load speed. That calculates to about $890 million in additional annual revenue! Similarly, Walmart.com experienced a 2% increase in conversions for every 1 second of web speed improvement. Slow Website Hazards Other studies have shown decisively how problematic a slow loading website is for today’s consumers and web searchers. Akamai, a leader in web performance technology reports the following: 47% of people expect a web page to load in two seconds or less. 40% will abandon a web page if it takes more than three seconds to load. 52% of online shoppers say quick page loads are important for their loyalty to a site.   Speed should always be a key consideration for any work performed on your website. Page load speed not only impacts your online conversions when people find your site, but is also a big factor in how Google will index and rank your web pages so more people can find you. Having a first rate website and being easily searchable on the web is one of the best ways you can keep your new business pipeline full. Your search visibility and online rankings can be raised in a number of different ways. Ideally, all of them should be practiced as they will help you build authoritative status in the search engines. What is often overlooked in website development is proper code and programming that reduces server response time and greases the skids for search engines. Proper file compression, minimizing HTTP requests, optimizing images and other development best practices help pages load faster and display properly in all currently supported browsers. Having a website built by a first-rate developer is the ideal starting point for any website because from there we can focus on the critical aspects of on-page SEO including keyword research and content creation. The Value of Web Page Speed According to Brandt Dainow, a web analyst consultant at ThinkMetrics, “Speed seems to have been forgotten by the web design industry around the time broadband arose. Prior to that, in the 1990s, everyone was very aware that web pages took time to download and bore that in mind when designing websites. Speed was so central to design that major development tools like Dreamweaver kept a running total of download time in the status bar as you coded so that you could see the impact of your changes on the site’s speed. Designers didn’t like casting aside their lovely creations because they were too slow, but they accepted the commercial realities of the world they inhabited and learned to compromise between appearance and performance. “… While designers might have forgotten about speed, users haven’t. There’s a direct connection between website speed and the site’s appeal. Sites that render in under five seconds are four times more likely to get a conversion than sites that take longer. This situation is even worse in the mobile market. In mobile, the critical time span is only two seconds, and you will get 10 times more mobile conversions if you meet this limit. Since search engines want to send people to sites that people like, search engines reserve the higher rankings for faster sites.” When visitors land on your site, will it open immediately and provide a clean, intuitive user interface that functions as intended? Having a fast-loading website is like giving your visitors nothing but green lights on their cyber commute into your online city. All of the data paths are unclogged and standards based program applications work as they’re supposed to without “roadblocks” and “detours.” In short, you’re giving your visitors a great User-experience. You’re also telling search engines that you’re working with a professional development team. Your two audiences: human beings and search engines. It should be obvious to anyone why serving your human audience is important to your business. Most web designers tend to focus primarily on people-pleasing – the artistic elegance and visual aspects of a website, often at the expense of speed. Their first priority is to show the client a beautiful graphic design to get an approval. Once the initial design is approved, developers who code the site will judge its functionality from how it appears on their own device as they test for appearance. Are they also concerned with how fast it will load, look and function on someone else’s device? And very importantly, are they programming the site or using the CMS according to best practices for the search engines? Good website practices are all about building relevant, useful pages that load quickly and look good on all devices. An Easy Speed Test from Google If you’re a website owner, there’s an easy way for you test your website’s speed by entering the URL into the search bar on this page: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/ The test will analyze the page you enter and provide a report of any problems along with recommendations for improvements. Should you be experiencing problems with slow loading pages, website error messages and low traffic volume, it might be due to improper development practices. The success of your online marketing will rest largely on your developer’s technical understanding of what affects server response time and page load speed. Your website’s maintenance service provider should be able to ascertain the efficacy of your site’s programming and help you improve both user experiences and SEO results. Do you have questions about the technical structure affecting the speed of your website? Feel free to contact us about a review

Website Serviceability is a Key to Growth

  Can your website change at the speed of business?   Making sure your website is easy to update is like greasing the skids at a boatyard: without sufficient lubricant, the boat you want to slide easily into the water will get hung up, and just sit there on dry land waiting for some superior force to push it down the skids. A website that is not easily serviceable is in a similar state. It sits there useless until someone can finally figure out how to update it to reflect the current state of business. The need to continually update an active business website is a no-brainer. Every business owner knows, and every web developer will tell you, that keeping a site current is of utmost importance. By now it is well known that the more often a site is updated with new, quality content, the higher it will be ranked by search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and others. Despite this knowledge, however, a great many business websites stay virtually the same as the day they were launched for far too long; and those that do change are often updated long after their business has undergone significant changes. These sites never catch up to reality.  Why? Oftentimes it’s because they are not easy to service. If this describes your current website, there are a number of things you can do to make sure your site has a high serviceability rating. Choose web development tools that are easy to understand and update.   Website Serviceability depends on how your site was developed in the first place. You should consider the long-term maintenance implications of the software or systems used to build or redesign your site prior to building or redesigning it.  There are risks in using less well known and harder to manage development tools, and you should be aware of them. If your site is relatively complex and was custom developed using raw HTML, XML or other development languages, chances are its content can only be managed and updated by the developers themselves or by IT pros who are familiar with the programming languages used.  But what if the developer goes out of business or moves out of state? And what if your business can’t afford the luxury of a web dedicated IT professional in house? A better choice is to choose a CMS (Content Management System) development tool anyone can use and anyone can maintain – especially if serviceability is your goal. For example, WordPress is a program originally designed for blog creation and maintenance. In recent years, it has become the industry’s leading CMS and site building tool due to its robust content management capabilities, ease of use, depth, and flexibility. It requires that you already have a domain name and hosting service, but after that, designing and setting up a site is relatively easy. A WordPress-developed site can be easily updated in-house by virtually anyone, and it can be seamlessly tied to your CRM system for added user-oriented functionality. If WordPress is not your CMS, what CMS is your developer using?  Is it well known, easy to use? Does it support other popular business management programs? Use one or more of the following links to see how your CMS stacks up in comparison to others: http://trends.builtwith.com/ http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/content_management/all http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/programming_language/all   A dedicated maintenance team is critical to your site’s serviceability—and your success.   Website development is very project-focused.  Website maintenance, on the other hand, is very task-focused.   These are two different types of work flow and work management styles.  Development is extremely creative, much like the vision that goes into new car design.  This creative vision is the heart and value of what website development firms deliver. Maintenance is much more technical and mechanical, with a much smaller, narrower focus. It requires a repetitiveness that is not usually a strong suit of creative firms.  A company dedicated to maintenance—much like an auto repair shop—is focused on repetitive tasks day in and day out.  Your site’s serviceability will be well served by a team whose primary focus is maintenance. Enhancing user experience is your top priority.   The prime function of your website is not to serve you; it is to serve your customers (who in turn serve your business with its lifeblood – revenue).  When people enjoy using your site, and derive value from it, its value to your company increases many fold. Conversely, when the information or functionality of your site is out of date, inaccurate or otherwise behind the times, users will be frustrated and, in all likelihood, will not return.  It’s your responsibility to keep your site current in real time, so that it provides users a rewarding experience. This can only be accomplished if your site is easily serviceable. Helping you do that is our top priority. Parker Web Services specializes in fast, knowledgeable and affordable website maintenance services.  It is vital to keep your website up to date and looking as professional as you are. With regular and ongoing website maintenance, your site functions as a source of client attraction, lead generation, increased revenue, and streamlined daily operations. Being able to service it should be the last thing you have to worry about. Our proactive approach stops website crashes, out-of-date applications, malware attacks, and anything else that slows down your business success on the internet. Do you need help with optimizing your website serviceability? We’re here to help. Call 1-877-321-2251 or contact us online. Parker Web prides itself on providing a top-notch website experience. Schedule a call today.

Website Portability – Keep it Under Your Control

3 things you need to launch, host and move your website   Whose responsibility is it to keep and maintain all the access tools to an organization’s website? Let’s say your business has “outgrown” your current web design shop. They’re unresponsive and don’t seem that interested in your business. You’ve hired a new web designer and you’re excited about your new design already in the works. When you’re just about ready to launch the new site, you discover a problem. Your former marketing manager never provided you the file with all the required technological resources to make a vendor change. You were lucky that she renewed your domain name registration a few extra years, otherwise your current site would be down and you wouldn’t even know why. This problem may sound elementary and easily avoidable to some, but to many business owners who rely solely on other people to “handle” their websites, getting back online after a DNS, hosting or security interruption can be a time-consuming hassle. It’s often amazes us how many website owners turn their entire platform over to an employee or third party with no central controls over its portability and security. Getting back to the “Whose responsibility is it?” question, the onus should always be on the website owner, not the service provider, to maintain the necessary access tools for portability and maintenance.  This keeps the business owner aware of and responsible for systems and services that could anchor the site to a particular technology or even an unwanted vendor. Losing website access tools & credentials happens too often, and when it does, web designers and agency vendors need to hold clients’ hands through the meticulous process of recovering or recreating Domain Name Registration and Hosting credentials. This process always takes up extra administrative and project management time (money). Keeping your website live, functioning and portable, thereby maintaining complete control of your own website, requires knowing a few technical aspects of how a website is allowed on and served to the Internet. Getting everything in order for you to move your website from one vendor to another is really very simple once you understand 3 basic things: Domain Name Registration Hosting FTP Information Let’s take them one at a time and then see how they all tie together. 1. Domain Name Registration  Who are you and where can we find you? For simplicity’s sake, think of the terms “Web Address,” “URL” and “Domain Name” as synonymous. These terms all refer to your website address. Hopefully, you did everything possible to secure “yourcompanyname.com” as your web address by registering it as your Internet Domain name. Going further, it’s always a good idea to buy and register several domain names based on iterations of your company, product and brand names, and use them for strategic and targeted purposes. It’s relatively inexpensive to buy and register a name that has never been claimed or registered. Typically, it only costs about $15 per year, per domain name, or less with multiple registrations and multi-year terms. So, let’s say you decide what your primary website address should be. Is it even available for you to use? You can find out immediately and freely by going to a DNS (Domain Name Service) company like GoDaddy or Network Solutions. The first thing you’ll see on their home page is a place to search for a web address (domain name) to see if it’s available for sale or owned by someone else. Once you determine and choose your website address, also known as your URL (Uniform Resource Locator), you purchase and register it for your sole use. The company from which your purchase your domain name is known as the “registrar.” It’s vital to keep accurate records of this because your domain name registration assures that everyone who enters your web address into a browser, or is sent there by a search engine, will land only on your website. Most companies that register and point domain names can also host your website but you may want to use a different hosting option for various reasons. So whether you register your domain names at GoDaddy, Network Solutions or another organization, just make sure to keep your user ID/customer number and password in a safe, retrievable place. Otherwise your domain name could expire and you’d be unable to change host servers as needed. 2. Hosting – Where Your Website Lives Your website needs to reside on a server somewhere, whether it’s your own Internet-connected network or at a dedicated web hosting company, of which there are very many. You have myriad options for hosting your website with different levels of security and services options. Here again, you will need to keep accurate records of your hosting company login credentials so that your web service providers can access your website’s “back end” control panel to make changes. You should also keep good records of all hosting company transactions and changes performed on your website by all parties. These records can be valuable for determining the source of any hosting or coding issues, speeding up the process of identifying sources and solutions to any problems that may arise. When determining your website hosting solution, consider these fundamental concerns: Loading speed – How fast will my website load and display properly? Slow uploads cause potential visitors to abandon their visits. Uptime – How reliable is 24/7 access to my website? Does the hosting company provide an uptime report? Are they down more than 2 or 3 hours in a year? Check their track record! Security – Have client sites been attacked by malware or viruses? Are you on the same server shared with dubious other websites or on a securely managed, dedicated server?   These are a few of the key considerations for choosing a website hosting option. Hosting packages and costs vary widely but as a general rule, web hosting should not be a significant cost of doing business. 3. FTP Information – The Ignition Keys Your