4 Excellent Website Security Tips For Businesses

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While you may not think your website is of value to hackers or vandals, it can be compromised at anytime through certain vulnerabilities. Most of the time, website are hacked not to damage the owner, but to use as a staging point for attacks and email relays for spamming others. Proper website security can help protect you and others online from predatory behaviors.

If you’re a client of Cohlab and have one of our websites, be sure you’re on our maintenance program so we can protect your website. If not, our new Trustdyx websites offer sleek designs without plugins or major security holes, making your business website safer than ever.

Get in touch today to learn more.

1. Updates

Whatever server or CMS you use, keeping software and plugins up to date is extremely important. It might seem easy, but modern websites have many moving parts which interact together. When one piece is updated, it may not work perfectly – or at all – with the other pieces.

While there can be downsides to updating, having a professional take care of it can ensure it’s done correctly and everything continues to work smoothly.

The risk to not updating is that hackers exploit those who don’t update, since so many websites use the same or similar products to get the job done.

2. Passwords

You know you should use a variety of complex passwords . . . but, do you? It’s crucial to protect your hosting and website administration area with strong passwords.

Hackers have many ways of stealing or breaking through passwords, from simply stealing and guessing to sophisticated cracking tools and network analyzers.

When considering your password, be sure to use best practices like:

  • Minimum of eight characters
  • Upper and lowercase letters
  • Symbols and numbers
  • No identifying information (i.e. name or birth date)
  • No keyboard strings (i.e. qwerty or 12345678)

Alternatively, with a Trustdyx website, no password is actually needed. Changes can only be made through a proprietary program, making it even harder to hack.

3. HTTPS

HTTPS is a protocol used to provide security over the internet. If you look at the top right of many websites, before the “www” will be “https://”. This means no one can intercept or change the content being transmitted between the website server and your browser. Credit card and login pages should all be HTTPS, but soon every page of a website will need to be as well.

Without HTTPS, an attacker could create a visually similar website and redirect your visitors there, and they would be none the wiser if they didn’t investigate further. The attacker could then steal any information they enter into the fake website.

That’s why our Trustdyx websites offer HTTPS standards as part of their website security package, to protect you and your visitors.

4. Backups

Once you think you’ve taken all the website security precautions you have, the best thing you can do is have a good plan in place for recovery. With regular backups, if something were to go horribly wrong at least you can recover your website to a point earlier in the day or week.

With Trustdyx, every time a change is made to the website, it’s backed up. That means if something were to go wrong, we could restore your site to the exact point before an attacker altered it.

Once you think you have done all you can then it’s time to test your website security. The most effective way of doing this is via the use of some website security tools, often referred to as penetration testing or pen testing for short.

The results from automated tests can be daunting, as they present a wealth of potential issues. The important thing is to focus on the critical issues first. Each issue reported normally comes with a good explanation of the potential vulnerability. You will probably find that some of the medium/low issues aren’t a concern for your site.

4 Ways Your Web Designer May Be Getting Images Wrong

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The proper use of images – while only one facet of web design – is something that’s often overlooked until it becomes a problem. Whether it’s causing people to bounce off of your page due to unattractive image use, leading to trouble with your SEO due to poor use of alt tags or getting you into legal trouble by stealing images, it’s important to pay attention.

If you need assistance with web design or want advice on the use of images, let us know. We’d be happy to chat!

Image Alt & Title

1. Organize Images On The Page

When browsing online, you might open a new page and see an image half above the bottom of your screen and half below. This means the designer didn’t take into account whether the photo made it above the fold or not. Even worse is when the photo is below the fold, because there isn’t anything visual for the website visitor to grab onto.

It’s best to make sure you have one chief image at or near the top of your page or blog post to capture attention, and it should be completely above the fold. You can check this by viewing the page on a few different screen sizes – also, with mobile devices it’s acceptable for the image to not be above the fold due to the narrowness of the screen.

Then a second image or third can be added below the fold as needed to illustrate the purpose of the page.

 

2. Use The Alt Tag

An alt tag is a piece of data you attach to the image. It helps search engines understand what the picture is (since they can’t see) and it’s also helpful for the blind and hard of sight as they utilize assistive technology which reads the page out loud to them. Without an alt tag, it’s as if the image isn’t there or relevant for search engines (which hurts your SEO) and for the blind and hard of sight (which eventually will be a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act).

An example of an alt tag would be “young-boy-rides-horse-in-meadow”.

If you leave the original name of the file – 51381238532351.jpg – or fail to describe the photo well – “boy-horse” – then you’ve gained nothing.

 

3. Use The Caption

A caption is a way of further explaining an image. While not always needed, particularly complex images which aren’t stock photos may need a caption. If the photo is of staff or a particular location, it’s important to identify the people or place properly.

The caption is also used to provide documentation of where a photo is from . . .

 

4. Source And Link Your Photos

Lastly, be sure source and link the photo back to it’s original photographer, unless you or someone you employ took the photo for your business.

If you take a photo off of the internet, you need to be sure it’s safe to use. Most photos out there belong to someone. You wouldn’t walk out and pick up a dog off the street to take home, because 99% of those dogs aren’t strays.

Certain websites will provide you with photos which are in the public domain, which means you can use them freely. It’s still important to note the web address of the source in the caption, and link back to it to cover yourself. The same goes for photos you may buy off of a service like Adobe Stock Images. While you own the photo, it’s still nice to make sure you’re covered incase anyone ever asks.

If you have any questions about designing your website or the proper use of images, we’d love to chat.

Why You Need A Local Web Design Company On Your Side

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When you’re ready to redesign your website or build the first website for your business, there are a few things you’ll probably look for: samples of work, expertise, partnerships with Google, something bigger than a one-person shop, etc. When you’re looking for that web design company who is the perfect fit for you, don’t forget to check out your local area for great design companies like us! Here’s why.

Customer Service In PersonWeb Design

The biggest benefit of a local web design company is meeting in person with not only the account manager, but also the web designer and content writer.

A national corporation may be able to put you on the phone or let you communicate by email with your designer, but there’s no way they’ll fly you or the designer halfway around the country or world to work together in person.

With a local design company like Cohlab, you can come down to our office or we can meet at yours to discuss the specifics and get a solid footing off of which to build the perfect website of your business.

Targeted Design

The design of a website is largely based off of your industry, but it’s also based off of the needs of your customers and differentiated from your local competitors. A local web design firm is going to know your competitors and understand your customers at a local, personal level a national firm never will.

Localized Content

Also, the content on your website needs to be fresh and engaging and specific to your customers needs. That’s why at Cohlab our writer will meet with you to get the full story, and follow up with any questions they may have as the content for your website is created.

Besides website design, it’s also important to have pages directed at certain search terms, groups and cities in order to better draw them in through search engine optimization. This is an additional service we provide as a local web design company which can help you get ahead of your competitors who use a nation-wide web design firm.

For local website design, give us a call. We’re ready to meet in person with you.

Why Having A Mobile First Website Is More Important Than Ever

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We’ve mentioned before how more people are browsing the internet and completing Google searches on mobile devices than on desktops, and how this number continues to grow. But Google recently began another initiative to serve people a better mobile experience when using Google search. This initiative is being rolled out now, but won’t be fully in effect for a few months.

In some cases, website designers create two versions of a website: one is served to a searcher if they are using a desktop computer, and another is served if they are using a tablet or smartphone to search. These two separate sites often have different amounts and types of content on them, which means Google has two different places to look and two options to serve people. And for the most part Google will serve the desktop site in search results, which can cause confusion once the searcher arrives and the desktop content doesn’t exist on the mobile site.

Why Is This A Big Deal?text-ads-mobile

Google is solving this by beginning to index mobile-websites first, meaning if a mobile site exists, they will prefer this over the desktop site, even if the searcher is on a desktop computer.

If you have a separate mobile and desktop site, and your mobile site doesn’t mirror your desktop site perfectly, you’re going to need to do some work to keep your rank in Google search results.

Wait! Don’t Panic.Equity-mortgage-mobile-contact

Don’t go and call your web designer just yet. In fact, if we are your web designer, you’re good to go as all of our websites are what we call ‘responsive’, which means they are one unified site which adapts to fit whatever screen it is displayed on, whether desktop, mobile or movie screen. Responsive websites have nothing to fear with these changes.

If you don’t have a responsive website, you may have a great web designer who is keeping your mobile and desktop versions of your site up-to-date and in sync. You’ll want to get in touch with them to find out if these changes will affect you, and you’ll want to verify by looking at and using your site on both a desktop and mobile device.

If you don’t have a mobile website or a responsive website, you’ll definitely need to do some work to optimize your site to be mobile first, which means it should be built first to serve those on a mobile device and then desktop visitors.

If you’re not sure how your site is faring, click here to see if your site is mobile-friendly.

If you’re worried about how your site will do as Google continues to implement changes to make the web more mobile-centric, contact us and we’ll be happy to talk you through some different approaches you can take.

4 Traits To Look For In An eCommerce Web Development Firm

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Web development is a complex process, and with eCommerce web development there are many more factors to take into account.

Instead of users coming to a website to learn about a service, then calling or emailing for more information or an appointment, an eCommerce site contains the entire sales process, and needs the requisite abilities and security to make sure the transaction goes through smoothly, quickly and safely.

eCommerce web development isn’t something you want to trust to just any web developer. A firm like ours can help you build a responsive, secure eCommerce website, so contact us for more information!

Let’s go over 4 traits you’ll want to look for in an eCommerce web development firm.

4 Traits To Look For In An eCommerce Web Development Firm

1. Responsive Web Designmoney-card-business-credit-card-50987

When browsing the internet on your phone, you’ve likely searched for a product, clicked on a search result and been taken to a hard to navigate website. It might even take you to the home page instead of the product you were looking for!

These problems arise when a website isn’t designed to be responsive. An eCommerce web development firm will make one website which will react to whichever kind of device it is being viewed on rather than build a mobile and a desktop site.

2. Site Optimization

Statistics show that 40% of users will abandon a website which takes more than 3 seconds to load. This is especially true for mobile users, who make up nearly ¼ of all eCommerce sales.

In order to keep those customers on your site you’ll want to optimize it to run as quickly as possible by using an eCommerce web development firm. This is not only on the ‘back-end’, but also in the way information, pages and menus are organized and displayed.

3. Search

It’s important to make sure your eCommerce web development firm knows the importance of having a search function on your website. 30% of visitors to eCommerce sites use the search function to find the products they need.

The firm should also be able to employ ‘faceted search’, where users can sort results by color, size, price, manufacturer, etc.

4. Security

All eCommerce web development firms should make sure the sites they build support SSL to encrypt information. This is true not only for credit card and other payment information but also personal information like addresses, phone numbers, emails, etc.

After internalizing these 4 traits, you’ll be able to find a great eCommerce web development firm to work with. Be sure to contact us if you’d like more information about eCommerce websites, or are ready to create or reimagine yours!

4 Ways To Simultaneously Succeed With Web Marketing

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Web marketing can be tricky business, especially if you don’t have the staff or bandwidth to devote to it.

Digital marketing firms like ours have the expertise and time to devote to working on your web marketing and search engine optimization to help bring you new and repeat business. Let’s look at 4 ways you can help your business succeed with web marketing, either on your own or with the help of a digital marketing firm.

4 Ways To Simultaneously Succeed With Web Marketing

1. Knowledge CardCohlab Google Business Listing

Your Google Knowledge Card might be a potential client’s first interaction with your web marketing, or it could be how a returning client is able to quickly access your phone number or website.

A knowledge card, seen here, is a way for Google to quickly display the gist of a business to a searcher on any device. On a larger display the knowledge card appears on the right-hand side of the screen, on a smaller device it appears above search results but below other forms of web marketing, like paid ads and map results, if there are any.

Having an up-to-date knowledge card allows you to display your correct phone number, address, accurate hours, as well as reviews, photos and other great information. This is a really effective web marketing technique to make sure your company is known, especially over other companies with similar names.

2. Back-End Optimization

Another huge piece of web marketing is optimizing the many parts of your website you might not normally think of adjusting.

Page descriptions don’t actually appear on the pages of your website, but they do appear in the Google search results, and so needs to be an accurate reflection of what people will find on the page when they arrive; the same goes for your page title. Both of these also need to be between a certain number of characters to fit in the space Google provides.

The text on your page should also be separated by headers, defining different sections. Google likes to see headers, especially when one contains your chosen keyword/phrase for the pages. The headers also need to cascade in size, depending on the topic.

Images are another important piece of web marketing. The images should be unique to your website, as well as tagged with an “alt tag” and “caption” which are both accurate and contain the keyword for your page.

And don’t forget to make sure any links in your page are working and are related to the topic. If you have a blog on how KFC chicken is the best fast food in the world, there shouldn’t be a link to the dolphin page of your local zoo on that page anywhere; for effective web marketing, the links should be to another page you have written about different fast food chicken and a link to the KFC page.

3. Content/Keyword Optimization

Content should pretty much be over 300 words for any page, but different lengths are good for different types of pages/blogs, so you’ll need to experiment.

Each page should have it’s own, unique keyword/phrase related to the topic of your website as a whole, and the keyword/phrase should make up about 2-3% of the words on the given page for effective web marketing.

4. Reputation ManagementCohlab Reviews

Another key driver of web marketing and traffic to your website is your online reputation. You’ll need to get control of reviews of your business from across the web, whether the reviews are on Google, Facebook, Yelp, Yellow Pages, Houzz, Fandango or elsewhere. Ask your happy customers either in person or via email to give you a review on their chosen site, and be sure to collect those reviews on your website. At Cohlab, we actually have a great tool, Cohlab.Reviews, which can do a lot of this automatically for you.

Feel free to take these tips and run, or, if you’d like more details on how we can help take your web marketing to the next level, contact us. We’d love to help.

Google Introduces Changes To Make Being Mobile Friendly More Important

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If your website isn’t mobile friendly, or easy to use on multiple different devices (desktops, laptops, tablets or mobile phones) Google will begin penalizing it by ranking it lower on mobile search page results.

In April 2015, Google first started ranking non-mobile friendly websites lower, but now, in May 2016, the strategy has been amped up. Let’s explore a bit more what this might mean for you.

Why Is Being Mobile Friendly Important?stocksnap_gs53c70s0a

More Google searches are now executed through mobile devices than through desktop computers. So if your website isn’t mobile friendly, visitors will organically gravitate away from you and move to websites which are easier to navigate.

Being mobile friendly is part of a movement called ‘responsive web design’, wherein no matter what type of device your website is seen on, even a device which has not been manufactured yet, your website should adjust in size appropriately. Being responsive will entice visitors to stay on your website, which will organically increase your search pagerank.

Having a responsive website is very important, because 95% of people do not go past the first page of search results, and 60% of clicks happen within the top three search results.

How To Tell If Your Website Is Mobile FriendlyStrata-mobile-home

A mobile friendly website is one which has a minimum or no need for scrolling, resizing or squinting to see content, no matter what device a user might be on. The website will have a single URL so that the adjustments to certain devices are automatic; a user shouldn’t have to click to visit a mobile website.

How To Become Mobile Friendly

If you’re not a web developer yourself, you’ll likely need to hire a responsive website design company to help you out. A company like Cohlab Digital Marketing will be able to either convert your current website or build an entirely new website, creating a responsive design, and laying the groundwork for optimization of your website to make it rank better in search engine results.

At Cohlab, we have worked closely with many businesses to help them achieve great success in their responsive and mobile friendly web design efforts. We are happy to answer any questions you may have!

How A Responsive Web Design Firm Improves Your Search Ranking

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A web design firm, especially a responsive web design firm, can help your business in a lot of ways, from helping choose fonts and colors, to organizing your menus and content.

But certain things a responsive web design firm does have a huge impact on your search rankings. So when you are choosing a new designer, make sure they can help you out in the following ways.

How Does A Responsive Web Design Firm Increase My Ranking?Rankings

Speed

Studies show that if a website takes more than 3 seconds to load, 57% of your visitors will move on. Those users either close the window, frustrated, or hit the back button, looking for a different, faster answer or result.

As a business owner, you want to serve your customers well. If the doors to your business had a 3 second wait before opening, you’d probably have a lot fewer walk-ins. The only people who would come in are those who are already determined to buy something; it would be hard to get new business.

Check with your web design firm and make sure the speed of your website is up to par.

Future Proofing

A responsive website design effectively “future proofs” your site. Whether someone comes to your website on a desktop, iPhone, laptop, tablet or any other device, your website should automatically adjust to properly fit the screen your visitor is using.

This responsiveness is not “set in stone;” in fact, it’s the opposite. No matter what type of device your website is seen on, even a device which has not been manufactured yet, your website should adjust in size appropriately.

Most Google searches and browsing time is now done on mobile devices, so having a responsive website for the many sizes of screens out there is important so you don’t exclude any potential customers.

Clicks Beget Clicks

Having a responsive website design which is also fast will help improve your rankings, which means more people will be able to visit your site. Those visitors will have a better experience, staying on your website longer and possibly sharing or linking to your content or merchandise. This will also improve your ranking!

Having a responsive website with a good rank is very important, because 95% of people do not go past the first page of search results, and 60% of clicks happen within the top three search results.

“Cohlaboration” With Cohlab

At Cohlab, we have worked closely with many businesses to help them achieve great success in their responsive web design efforts. We are happy to answer any questions you may have and provide Cohlaborative digital marketing solutions to meet your company’s needs.

3 Bold Lies: You Get What You Pay For With SEO Prices

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When you are unfamiliar with search engine optimization (SEO), the pricing structure can seem arbitrary. Even though it can be difficult to understand without experience, be wary of firms who seem to promise something which doesn’t quite seem right or possible at all, or at least given their SEO prices, because you get what you pay for. Let’s go over 3 bold lies told about SEO ‘black hat’ firms tell to watch out for.

1. “We Can Make Your Website Rank #1 On Google.”Organic Local Search on Google

What a load of hooey! No honest SEO firm can guarantee your website will rank #1 on any search engine, no matter the price. Google’s webmaster guidelines state very clearly to be wary of firms and consulting agencies which guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.

While everyone would love to rank first, it is simply never guaranteed and never should be. In fact, reputable companies will admit outright they can’t guarantee results.

2. “We Can Fix Your SEO In 1 Month.”

The Internet is a living, breathing beast. Change is constant, with websites moving up and down in search engine rankings as users find value in their information or layout.

SEO requires constant monitoring and adjustments to strategy based on Google’s ever-changing algorithms as well as the changing needs of your customers. A firm’s first obligation is to make your online presence useful to customers and second to improve your alignment with Google’s algorithm. Search engine optimization does not happen in a vacuum; your competitors are also constantly working and improving which can place them above you in search results if you don’t keep up.

One month is a completely unrealistic timeframe to work on an SEO campaign for two reasons: 1. If you stop working on it after 1 month, you will fall behind; and, 2. One month is simply not enough time to have any sort of impact. Most work done needs 3-6 months before results can be seen. No amount of money can create long-lasting, effective search engine rankings in 1 month.

You need a firm who can work with your company for the foreseeable future and make recommendations and improvements as you go.

3. “We Use Foreign Contractors To Save You Money.”Money

While this one might not technically be a lie, it is still a terrible tactic for a good search engine optimization firm to pursue.

Yes, using foreign workers may save money in the short-run, but the quality is going to be much lower. Google’s rules change quickly and are intricate. Experience in the field as well as a strong grasp of the language surrounding SEO are paramount to executing a strategy.

You get what you pay for, and often outdated tactics will get your website penalized in the rankings by Google.

You Get What You Pay For With SEO Prices

When hiring a firm, do your homework. The second you hear one of these lies, or feel their SEO prices don’t match their promises, it’s time to start looking at other options.

Always be sure to check out a firm’s website and reviews to make sure they can do the things you are looking for.

Cohlab Digital Marketing has great reviews and tons of information about search engine optimization. If you’d like to learn about our pricing, let us know.

A Responsive Web Design Company Gets You Results

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You’ve probably seen it before. You’ll search for something online on your mobile phone, click on the result and be taken to a website which is hard to navigate. You can’t find what you want, or you have to pinch-zoom in to read anything, or it’s one of those mobile-specific websites and it doesn’t have the content you were actually looking for.

A company which designs responsive websites will help you build the website your customers are looking for, including consistent and usable website appearance across multiple platforms as well as higher ranking in search engines.

What Is Responsive Web Design, Really?

Mobile First

Responsive web design starts with considering the mobile display as the primary way people view your website. More people now use mobile phones to browse the internet than desktops so it makes sense to design for mobile first.

The site should be functional but uncluttered so when it responds to a mobile device the branding is not lost in the process. This allows mobile users to load your website faster and find what they need quicker.

Fluidity

So you know you should build your website as optimized for mobile, but which mobile device should it be designed for? The answer is: none of them.

“When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup.                                                                                  

When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle.                                                                          

When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot . . .                                                                       

Become like water my friend.”                                                                                                                                      

– Bruce Lee

Your website should be fluid. As we said earlier, decluttering your web design while maintaining functionality is key, which means your website should have a focused and concise message. This helps mobile devices load the website faster and it makes your website leaner and meaner on a desktop as well. The end result is an experience focused on the key tasks a user wants to accomplish, which is good for the user and good for your business.

A Responsive Web Design Company Gets You Results

You now have a website which flows like water into any device which views it, responds quickly and is focused on your core message. How does this get results for your company?

  • Cost effectiveness: Responsive web design makes your website last longer so you don’t have to update it as often. And having one website rather than one mobile and another desktop site saves you money on hosting, support and maintenance fees.
  • Improved conversion: An optimized and consistent site, no matter which platform it’s viewed on, provides a better experience for the user which is more likely to lead to them engaging with you.
  • Future proofing: Responsive web design is a safe bet as it adapts to any device on the market, and any conceivable device which will come on the market in the future.
  • Search engine optimization: Managing search engine optimization (SEO) for separate mobile and desktop sites is time consuming, more expensive and doesn’t produce great results. Having one site to manage and optimize means you will rank higher.

“Cohlaboration” With Cohlab

At Cohlab, we have worked closely with many businesses to help them achieve great success in their responsive web design efforts. Our team can help you with your blog topics as well as provide you with comprehensive SEO and responsive web design services. We are happy to answer any questions you may have and provide Cohlaborative digital marketing solutions to meet your company’s needs.