I had a client send me photos from their smartphone the other day, to use in a slideshow on their website. Problem was, the slideshow is wide and not very tall, while the images were narrow and really tall. We had to crop the photos and several of them really didn’t work at all when […]
Check The Mobile Friendliness Of Every Page On Your Website
Is your website completely mobile-friendly? On one of my webinars recently, 7 small business owners volunteered to have their websites assessed. Only one of them failed the Google Mobile Friendly Test. So far, so good. The problem was: ALL of the mobile-friendly sites had at least a few serious design or readability flaws on smartphones and tablets. Look […]
Check Your Spelling Because It Matters
Spelling errors on a business website say something about its owner(s): lack of attention to detail, lack of knowledge, lack of pride in their business; even more so when the misspelled words are related to their business. Would you trust this dog trainer? Unless you have other information about this person, like recommendations from people you trust, […]
Keep All Your Domains With One Registrar
Register all your domains with a single domain registrar Sometimes it is better to put all your eggs in one basket. And domain names are a good example. Here’s what happens: you have an idea for a domain name and you grab it right away using the first registrar you find. Problem is, five years ago […]
4 Resolutions Every Website Owner Should Keep
If you own a small business website, here are 4 New Year’s resolutions you should be making (and keeping) right now: Establish and maintain a backup routine – save to two locations not on your server Write at least one post/article per month, and include an image or video with each Install and regularly study Google Analytics along […]
How to Use Google Analytics Annotations
The tweet about your website’s newest article has done very well and you see the spike in traffic on Google Analytics. But a year from now, are you going to remember what that spike was about? Probably not. Which is why you should use Google Analytics annotations. This very handy feature allows you to make […]
Know Who Provides Your Web Services
Often when I meet a new client or student with an existing website, they don’t know their details about the four key web services: Hosting Email Domain registration Internet access Either they can’t easily find the login details or worst-case they can’t find a service’s username and password at all. Even the name of the company providing the […]
Take Your Website Codes on Vacation
Heads of state travel with security cases filled with vital state documents, files, and codes. You should approach your website and general online presence with the same care. When you go on vacation, make sure you have all vital information securely stored for easy retrieval should the need arise. I would recommend using a secure thumb […]
Email Your Mailing List Now If It’s Been More Than Three Months
Flooding your subscribers with mailings is not a good idea, but neither is emailing them too little. Aside from missed opportunities, there’s a tendency for people to forget what lists they’re on, and if they haven’t seen anything from you for a long time, they may think it’s spam and unsubscribe you. Worse still, they […]
Check Your Hosting Account Login
If you host your own website, are you able to login to the hosting account? At some point, you or your web designer will need access to the interface that controls the hosting account, so make sure you have that information available and that it’s up to date. This is not the login to manage your domain […]
An Overview of Site Back-Ups
You can also listen to this article The three most important points about backing up your website are: Automate the process so you don’t need to remember to do it Store the back-ups somewhere other than on the server where your website is hosted Make sure you’re backing up everything you need to get […]