An organization I once worked for had a staff of about 40 people. Every few days I would get an email from one of them asking me to put a “really important” item on the website’s home page. “Oh, and make sure it’s really visible, near the top if possible.” It didn’t take long for that home page to […]
Making Website Text Easy To Read – Font Size
Is the body text on your website too small? The trend over time has been to increase font size so visitors don’t have to squint to read. Body text size should be at least 16px (pixels). Compare text on the CNN website in 2004 with 2016:
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 […]
When And How To Use URL Shorteners For Small Business Marketing
Use a shortened URL when you have tracking or other codes in your URLs. Users of social media are familiar with shortened URLs, but they aren’t just for situations where you’re trying to save space. This article is about when and how a small business should make use of free URL shortening services in emails and other promotional material. […]
Does Your Site Need A Privacy Policy?
Every website could use a basic privacy policy. That’s because every website uses cookies in some way. For example, you should be taking advantage of Google Analytics, and it uses cookies. And if your site uses cookies, it’s helpful to disclose that as part of a privacy policy because cookies convey information about a visitor. […]
Be Careful Linking To External Images
Never direct link or hotlink to media on another site without getting permission or at least giving written credit and a link back to their site. Direct linking or hotlinking is when your site uses the full URL of images, video, or audio on another site. In other words, the media is not being loaded […]
Does Your Site Need a Sitemap?
Most small business websites do not need a sitemap. As the name suggests, a sitemap (or site map) lists all the pages on your website, but there are two different kinds: XML Sitemaps These are specially-structured files used by search engines and other robots to better understand the content of and the relationship between pages on […]
Do You Really Need A Home Link On Your Site Navigation?
You don’t need a Home link on your navigation, provided your logo or company name is linked to your home page. Keeping your navigation menu as simple as possible makes for a better user experience, and one easy way to minimize navigation is to remove the home page link. This assumes, of course, that you’re linking […]
Which File Type Should You Use For Images?
Use GIF only for animations Use PNG when you need: a transparent background, to keep photos high resolution and fast loading is not an issue, simple graphics with few colours such as logos Use JPG for most photos and for graphics with complex colours (like gradients) If you need a lot of technical details about which […]
Why Multiple Domains On One Hosting Account Can Be A Security Risk
Have only one domain per hosting account. That’s my rule of thumb. If you want to know why, when there are exceptions, and how to best manage multiple domains, then read on! Hosting companies are quick to sell you on the idea of hosting multiple domains on a single account… …and business owners are quick […]
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 […]