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Is Your Website Secure?

Jul 19, 2018 admin 0 Comment

How Do You Know If Your Website Is Secure?

As we launch ourselves into the 21st century with high-speed internet, mobile web searching, and tablet browsing. Have you ever thought that the information you enter on a website could be compromised? Is my website secure? Online security has become a huge priority within the last couple of years for websites that collect data, require a password, conduct purchases or have private information that some may want to keep confidential. Build trust with a secure website and give your customers the peace of mind to purchase, browse, and submit their information without the worry it will be shared. So how do I make my website secure? We will tell you here.

How Can I Make My Website Secure?

A secure website is marked with HTTPS at the beginning of the URL. Chrome has launched a new update this July to alert visitors if the website they’re visiting is secure or “Not Secure”. This can be scary for people looking to make a purchase on a website as identity theft is a real thing. How to get your website secure — you’ll need an HTTPS. You will need to contact your website hosting provider and get an SSL certificate. SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer and encrypts information passed through the internet like transmitting passwords, credit cards, or other personal information to and from your website’s server.

What Is HTTPS?

HTTPS stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure. Your website encrypts the data is transferred over a secure connection. … So, HTTPS does encryption of data between a client and a server, which protects against eavesdropping, forging of information and tampering of data.

How Does HTTPS Impact My Business?

Chrome dominates 59% of the market share of GlobalStats which leads into a recent consumer survey saying 82% would leave a website if it was not secure according to the HubSpot Research. This means 8 out of 10 people would leave your website because it wasn’t secure. Another way SSL impacts your business is Google has announced SSL is now a ranking factor in Google Search.

Do you need help getting your website secure? Get website services to secure your website and protect your customers’ information. Contact us about getting your website protected.

SEO web design

Page Speed, Waiting to Load

May 9, 2018 admin 0 Comment

Waiting For A Website To Load

Have you ever sat staring at your phone waiting for a website to load? Clicking the refresh button in frustration. It’s not your WIFI, its the website. On average, a user will look at their phone a total of 5 hours a day! The way people use their phones now have seriously changed within the past 10 years and is the vessel of obtaining information.

So Why Does Having a Fast Website Matter?

Users tend to be impatient in a world of instant gratification. Web pages that take longer than 6 seconds to load are prone to loss their audience. 1 to 3 seconds could lose 30%, 3 to 5 seconds may lose 95%. If your website is taking longer than 6 seconds, you’ve more likely lost a potential customer.

70% of phone connections will be at 3G or slower thru 2020 (information provided by thinkwithgoogle.com)

Website Speed Test

Check your website for Desktop and Mobile PageSpeed: Google PageSpeed Tool

If your website is producing some low numbers, you may consider a website redesign. Laced Media offers many types of packages that are affordable and specific to your business goal.

Website Speed Test

Users tend to be impatient in a world of instant gratification. Web pages that take longer than 6 seconds to load are prone to loss their audience. 1 to 3 seconds could lose 30%, 3 to 5 seconds may lose 95%. If your website is taking longer than 6 seconds, you’ve more likely lost a potential customer.

70% of phone connections will be at 3G or slower thru 2020 (information provided by thinkwithgoogle.com)

SEO tips

Yelp’s Algorithm & Why Your Reviews Don’t Show

Apr 11, 2018 admin 0 Comment

One of the biggest consumer review platforms online is filtering your reviews. Yelp developed its own algorithm in hopes to filter out fake or spam reviews in order to publish a more reliable customer review source. Unfortunately, some of those positive “legit” reviews are being filtered out as well.

Why Does Yelp Filter Reviews?

Yelp tries to filter reviews that it thinks are likely to be fake or spam. These could be reviews Yelp thinks are malicious, inside influenced, an individual who has never visited the business, or competitors attempting to damage the business’s reputation. Consumer Reviews are highly important to any business and can heavily influence a potential customer to choose you, or look elsewhere.

Yelp will filter out reviews good and bad based on some of these factors:

A reviewer with no photos, profile info, or profile picture
Lack of details in the review
A reviewer with only 1 review
Reviews from an account consisting of all 1 star or 5 stars
Frequency of reviews

How Do I Get My Yelp Reviews to Show?

A few recommendations you can try to help get those customer reviews to show on your Yelp listing:

Click the buttons: Cool, Useful or Funny for the 5 star reviews – normally located at the bottom of the review
Add the reviewer as a friend
Send a message to the reviewer
Respond to the review – I always recommend replying to your reviews, especially the harmful 1 star reviews

Interacting with the reviews and the Reviewers tell Yelp these are “legit” and hopefully sway them to start showing. You’ll want to focus on the 5-star reviews to interact with since this encourages visibility. The more people do this, the better. The customer can also increase the power of their opinion as well with the suggestions below.

How to Show Yelp My Reviews are Legitimate

As a consumer, I would want my review I spent time writing to show. Here are a few recommendations to share with your customers to beat the Yelp Filter:

Write more reviews ( a lot more)
Fill out your profile and add photos
Connect with other members on Yelp
Write more details in your review
Leave “Tips” for the business you’re reviewing too
Become a part of Yelp Elite

Though doing these will never guarantee your reviews will show but it’s a step in the write (pun intended) direction!

Need some guidance with reviews and reputation management? Contact us to find out more on how we clean up an online reputation.

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Why Am I Not Showing in Map Search?

Mar 20, 2018 admin 0 Comment

3 SEO Tips For Small Business With Big Results

It is more important than ever for small businesses — or any business, to do Search engine marketing. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the biggest and bestest investments you can do for your business. To grow your business and strengthen your placement in whatever industry you’re in, acquiring new customers and building your brand should be a top priority.

Running a small business is no easy task — we know from experience as we were all there at one point. The list of responsibilities and duties are endless with sometimes things falling between the cracks. Unfortunately, it’s very common for to businesses to push SEO to the back of the priority list.

This can be a huge detriment to a small business. SEO lets your online content work to help find and draw in new customers and increase traffic to your pages. People use search engines to find what they are looking for, decide what they want, and answer questions. Optimizing this process can optimize every element of your business from the ground up.

How Important is SEO for Small Businesses?

Shopify has reported that e-commerce sales are expected to reach $4.5 trillion by the end of 2021. With this kind of online business traffic its absolutely necessary to drive customers to your content and products. While not all your investments in SEO will pay off immediately — sometimes taking a year or more to gain revenue profits. SEO is no comparison in the long run. The overall, long-lasting benefit for your business can be game-changing. Here’s a few tips to get you started:

1. Local SEO Is Important

Local business When someone searches, “best Chinese restaurant near me” or “tattoo shops Santa Rosa,” the immediacy of these results can mean everything. With the rise of zero-click searches, you don’t even need to leave Google to get all the information you need. Contact information, reviews, and Google Maps directions will come up instantly on Google.

Keep these steps in mind when trying to optimize how you appear in local searches.

Build backlinks from local companies
Create location-based content
Encourage local reviews and engage with local influencers and social media
Optimize for local keywords
Take advantage of Google My Business page features

2. Get Into Snippets

Featured snippets are seriously important in SEO and will continue to be as long as people keep searching for answers. Snippets are sections of a websites content that pop up on Google when you ask a question — in hopes to answer your question. This is position zero and where everyone wants to be. Getting featured on snippets requires careful attention to header tag, relevance, and formatted content designed to rank with featured snippet.

3. Keyword Research for Popular Search Queries

Keyword research is very important to your marketing plan. Local search results often rely on quality, relevant, industry-specific keywords to draw in traffic and local visibility. The importance of keyword research is so important that it is necessary for all venues of digital marketing. With Google’s Keyword Planner, you can find industry-relevant keywords and local keywords to build a focus campaign.

Keywords are constantly changing due to fluctuations in trends and online behavior, social media, new events, and even pop culture.

While you may have a well put together list of relevant keywords right now, chances are they will different in the future. This is why constant SEO management is important.

Get A Free Website & SEO Audit

Is our job to know everything about digital marketing… so why not get FREE advice on your current website.

SEO tips

Googling Your Business Can Hurt It’s Ranking in Google Search

Jan 2, 2018 admin 0 Comment

SEO cloud, web search, search engine optimization

Learn How Customers See Your Business In Google Search

Many companies want to know how well they rank in a Google Search for services and products they offer. A majority will Google themselves to see where they rank — and can be very disappointed. Google uses a wide range of factors to deliver customized results with every search. Googling yourself will not give reliable results on how customers see your business in Google search based on customized search.

Customize Search To Answer Your Questions

Google’s has refined their search results in such a way that it uses data you never thought it would. The goal for Google search is to deliver an answer to a questions or provide the best possible result to a search. So, Google will use information it has collected over time and include it in any of the future searches. Keywords Googled, phrases, or even websites visited.

How Does Google Know...

Google search has an extremely complex algorithm. Its purpose is to index (record and categorize) the world wide web. There are a lot of variables that go into how Google will return a search results list. Google is very hush hush on their algorithm though sometimes someone spills the beans. Here are a few examples of what may impact page rank in the search results for search queries:

Metadata, Descriptions, Headings and Titles
Previous searches and relative keywords
A well structured website with link building
Geolocation in reference to what is searched
and endless more factors…

What is An Algorithm?

Google algorithms is a computer programming that is set to deliver information in a very complex and specific way. Google’s search engine returns millions of results for you to choose from but how does it know what to list and what order to list it in? An algorithm.

Tips On Finding Your Current Position in Ranking

When Googling yourself, try using a Private Window or Incognito. This will eliminate some factors Google will typically use in search to make the results more relevant to your previous searches. Though this is not an indefinite way to see how you truly show for your potential customers, it’s closer to what they may see when Googling services you offer.

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