Tag Archive for: Digital Certificate

Meta, SEO and Brand Awareness

So, you’ve hired someone to ‘boost’ your website, to hopefully make your website rank higher in search engines and allow people ‘searching’ to find you.

Well, it’s not as simple as that. How many websites will rank from 1 to 10 on the Google web results page? Well, 10.

How many businesses like yours, are operating? Inserting Meta Tags, working on your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is only part of the equation. I’ve dealt with clients who complained because they weren’t getting enough ‘hits’ online from their website.

Your website is, again, only part of the equation.

If you have a weak Brand, or your website isn’t maintained / kept updated with the latest trends, contact information etc, what would be the point of having that presence in the first instance?

For example, if you operate a restaurant, you would ‘want’ to be constantly updating your menu, social media and perhaps provide a functional booking system that allows people to make bookings online. There’s nothing worse than driving for an hour (or more) to a destination, only to find out that you are either closed, or booked out. How many times have you called a restaurant and the phone was engaged – or not even connected? Give people a choice.

There are cases where your online presence could either make or break your business, especially if you neglect your website and don’t update contact details, for example.

At the end of the day, you need to balance your website ranking, with your Brand. If people know your business, and visit your website organically, the search engines will naturally boost your page, because they can see you have a good Brand, and a good reputation with clients – based on the fact that they already know you.

When you start a business, and want to build your Brand, make sure that you can get all the Social Media Usernames that are the same. These usernames don’t necessarily need to be the same as your business name, but try and incorporate the usernames (call it a ‘pet-name’ for your business) into your business. That way, you are building your Brand Awareness.

Done right, your website can boost your business. Just don’t rely on search rankings to boost your business.

Now, go and build your Brand Awareness!! And don’t forget those social media usernames!

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WordPress 5.0

In the age of DIY tools, the internet still manages to confuse a lot of people.

Anybody can download a copy of WordPress and build there own website. It really isn’t that hard, but then again, is it?

Unless you know what you are doing, you are going to be constantly on your phone (or sending emails) to your host, telling them that there is a problem and that there must be something wrong with THEIR hosting. If there’s one thing people never do, it’s accept that they messed up. Having the tools to do something is one thing, but if you cannot manage the tools, you’ll run into problems.

Problems CAN be solved, but what if problems were never ‘created’ in the first place? I get it, I do. People want to save money. They register a domain name, find an extremely cheap hosting company, sharing their website on the same server as hundreds of other people – sharing resources, and they are attempting to build their own website because their friends or someone else online has told them it’s just ‘too easy’ to build your own.

I’m not going to sit here and tell people who they should host their websites with, or tell people they shouldn’t build their own websites – because, people can. But, can you?

The WordPress Platform does use a lot of resources. Theme Developers, although very talented, need to develop themes that are not only functional, but also can be used by an end-user without waiting minutes for pages to load.

There’s a balance that we need to make, and even though I’ve been doing this for a day or 2 (I joke), I still need to explain to people that with WordPress, you can’t always have your cake AND eat it.

As the video on this page, by Stefan Mischook explains, the new WordPress update (5.0), is attempting to challenge the new breed of online website development (tools) such as WIX and SQUARESPACE.

Also, as Stefan states in the video, the update will not do away with the ‘need’ of a WordPress Professional, because (as an example), people will still need help from those of us that understand coding.

Another issue is Plugins. There will always be plugins that are not compatible with your theme and other plugins. WordPress Professionals can ‘make’ them compatible, via customization.

At the end of the day, if you feel confident in building your own website – give it a go. Be sure to download and use a ‘maintenance’ plugin, so nobody can see what you are doing on the backend, and if you need help, Contact me or search Google for a WordPress Professional closer to you.

If you’re interested, watch the video. Stefan answers some common questions people have asked him.

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Testimonials – And Why I Say No

Occasionally, I get the odd email asking me for testimonials, also asking for the names of people and or names of websites I have developed, or assisted with development.

While I believe in the right for people to either like my work or not, I don’t see the necessity to promote the work I’ve done – for several reasons.

  1. Competition. In the good old days (been doing this for 20 years), people used to contact website owners, telling them how bad you are – even to the point where they’d say something along the lines of ‘he built me a site that turned out to be so buggy, that I had to have it totally rebuilt’. After a period of time, you get the contacts and word of mouth works more in your favor. Plus, the quality of work you can do increases, because your focus is more on ‘the work’, rather than trying to find new work.
  2. Security. Any reputable website developer, let alone WordPress professional, will not want anybody knowing that they are the architect securing a particular website, for numerous reasons – of which I won’t discuss here. What I will say though, is every website is different. My main focus whilst auditing websites, is security. I see so many ‘developers’ out there that are building websites for people, be it personal or for business, but lack the most important thing of all – security. If you’ve had a website built by anyone over the past 4 years, and it isn’t secured – ask them why.
  3. Fake. News. I hate the term, but it’s true. Do yourself a favor when you read some testimonials. Highlight some text, right click it and search Google for it. Any images – people for example, right click the image and search Google. Most times – not always though, you’ll see a persons face used in a testimonial that is used all over the web. Again, Fake News. Fake testimonials mean one thing. Desperation. They’ll take your money and run.

I’ve never had to advertise, and I stopped using testimonials 15+ years ago. I work at home, by myself. I don’t have the overheads that some companies do. I learned HTML, CSS and JavaScript in the late 1990’s. I dabbled and became interested in PHP and SQL about five years later. When WordPress came along, I got right into it and never looked back.

You could argue ‘why have this website then?’. Good point. Simple answer. People can connect with me, personally and professionally. Also, it might answer the question some may have, ‘what does Robert Crain do?’. And to be honest, I like having my name out there :)

Anyway people, just think about what I wrote. I’m not asking you use my services – just be careful who you choose to work with.

Interested? You may not be when you find out my rate is $88 per hour, minimum 3 hours. I can do a lot in 3 hours.

Have a great day!

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