Securing Your Website: The Importance of SSL
In today’s digital age, the internet plays a pivotal role in every aspect of our lives. Whether for personal use or business, websites have become the primary means of communication, information sharing, and online transactions. However, online security has become a paramount concern with increased reliance on the virtual world. One crucial step in ensuring your website’s and its visitors’ safety is to implement SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encryption. In this blog post, we will delve into the significance of SSL and why every website owner should prioritize its adoption. If you’re ready to take your website’s security to the next level, we encourage you to contact us to set up SSL right away. The Fundamentals of SSL SSL is a security protocol that establishes an encrypted link between a web server and a user’s browser. This encryption ensures that all data transmitted between the server and the browser remains confidential and cannot be intercepted or tampered with by malicious third parties. SSL not only protects sensitive information such as login credentials, credit card details, and personal data but also guarantees the integrity and authenticity of the website. 1. Data Protection and Privacy When visitors land on your website, they trust you with their personal information. Whether submitting contact forms, signing up for newsletters, or making online purchases, users expect their data to be kept private and secure. SSL encryption encrypts the data during transmission, making it unreadable to anyone attempting to intercept it. This fosters trust and confidence among your visitors, enhancing the overall user experience and encouraging repeat visits. 2. Search Engine Ranking Boost In recent years, major search engines like Google have actively encouraged website owners to implement SSL. Websites with SSL certificates are given a ranking boost in search results, which means they are more likely to appear higher in search listings than non-secure websites. This SEO benefit alone makes SSL critical in improving your website’s visibility and driving more organic traffic. 3. Trust and Credibility Imagine you visit a website and see a “Not Secure” warning next to the website’s URL in the address bar. It’s an immediate red flag. Without SSL, browsers alert users that the connection is not secure, which can scare away potential visitors. On the other hand, when your website displays the padlock symbol and the “https://” prefix, it reassures users that their data is safe and builds trust in your brand or business. 4. Protection Against Cyber Attacks Cybercriminals are constantly on the lookout for vulnerable websites to exploit. SSL significantly reduces the risk of data breaches, man-in-the-middle attacks, and other malicious activities. SSL is a strong deterrent, protecting your website and your users from potential cyber threats. Conclusion In conclusion, SSL is no longer a luxury but a necessity for every website. It’s not only about securing sensitive data; it’s about building trust, credibility, and a solid online presence. The advantages of SSL extend beyond safeguarding data; it impacts SEO rankings, visitor confidence, and, ultimately, your online success. Don’t wait for a security breach to take action. Contact us today to set up SSL on your website and provide your users with the highest level of protection. We are committed to ensuring your website’s security and helping you establish a secure digital presence.
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.
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
Are your website images giving visitors a bad impression?
Stock and Do-it-Yourself Photography can do more harm than good. We humans are visually wired creatures. Therefore, great photography is the anchor and hook of most good website designs. On the other hand, bad photography can be a turn-off and repel the very people you want to engage. You need to figure out what separates good photography from bad photography. Many commonly used stock photos insult our intelligence or make us cringe; portraying real adults as living in a fantasy world. Business isn’t fantasy. It’s hard reality. To save time and money, some website owners will snap the best shots they can with a smartphone or point & shoot digital camera but the images are often very disappointing. Amateur do-it-yourself pictures can reflect poorly on your people, products and company itself. A real image of your business in action, strategically planned, professionally shot and well positioned can tell an entire story or instantly bring home a key message to a website visitor. Sometimes a spontaneous photo, capturing a moment, can be serendipity for a great hero image. Truly, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” As information architecture and concise word choice can help lead a prospective buyer to take action, pictures of real people in real places using real products make an online message more believable and enticing. Following are just a few reasons why you should invest in the right kind of photography for your website: Pictures of your people help website users picture themselves engaging with your business. They like to see the real people with whom they’re dealing. Pictures of your location and offices/showrooms will make face to face visits more welcoming. Pictures of your people making your products in your location lets your web visitors feel better about your quality. Pictures of your products offer visitors an instant way to qualify their interests in color, style, make, model, etc. Naturally, crisp, clear images are required to sell anything by e-commerce. Picture Planning Bad or useless pictures can be worse than no pictures on a website. Following a few simple guidelines will help you produce highly effective pictures based on your priorities. Let’s examine what works. Nielsen Norman Group’s eye-tracking studies have documented a dramatic gap in how users approach website images. Mainly, they found that: Certain kinds of pictures are ignored. Decorative and large feel-good images are mentally filtered out from actual content scrutiny. Some pictures are viewed as important or critical content. For example, “real people,” i.e., the actual individuals representing your business usually fall into this category. According to Nielsen Norman, the classifications of “good” website photo use include: People photos – IF they’re real people (opposed to stock images with models). Product detail photos – multicomponent images like craft sets get much more viewing time than wide angle whole product, low detail shots like flat screen TVs. Big photos – especially real products and places proprietary to your business. Information-carrying images – pictures that show something relevant to what your visitors are doing and thinking. The common conclusion of these website user-photography studies is this: “Users pay close attention to photos and other images that contain relevant information but ignore fluffy pictures used to ‘jazz up’ Web pages.” This means there are good photos and bad photos (and useless photos) when it comes to website design. You Call the Shots! There are 3 basic ways to acquire the photography you’ll need for a great website design: Professional Custom Photography, Stock Photography and DIY (Do It Yourself). Here we advise you to apply careful consideration. We’ll look at each method and weigh its merits. Professional Custom Photography is listed first because in our experience, it’s the best choice in just about every situation. Today’s advanced optics and digital photography technologies have actually helped lower the cost of this top tier way to get the images you need for a successful website design. The relative ease of digital capture and intense competition among many professional photographers allows you to get proprietary custom images for your business at significantly less than what it used to cost. Of course it’s very important to check the reputations, references, portfolios, pricing and terms of any photographer you would consider hiring. Do it Yourself Photography (DIY) can be effective in some situations. Thumbnail photos on common real estate listings come to mind as an example. It makes no economic sense to send a paid professional photographer out on multiple locations to set up gear and shoot house photos that change up constantly. Self-serve digital photography with a good point and shoot camera or even a modern smartphone is economical if you need a fast and flexible method for capturing custom images on the fly. Stock Photography can provide some bang for the buck if you can pinpoint an exact story-telling image or find good highlight images for use in style sheets and other design elements. A major downside to stock photography is that your chosen images might be widely seen on other websites. Other issues with stock images are they tend to look sterile, overly staged or plain old phony. Stock photos will often clash with the authenticity of your messages so be very careful of the images you choose, especially from a branding standpoint. The Parting Shot Our overall recommendation regarding photography is this: For the majority of your photographic needs, invest in custom professional photography. Almost all stock images are ignored as “dress up” and irrelevant to the visitor. If you’re like most of us, you wouldn’t trust yourself to take a critical photo or group of photos that will be prominently displayed and have lasting value in public view, right? So use your best judgement and strive for the highest quality possible when it comes to your image. Keeping your pictures fresh, new and consistently relevant with your key messages is another important consideration. Maintaining your website for the best user experience involves keeping your photos changing enough to keep returning visitors interested