• They start in the dirt: for gardens, it’s literal soil; for websites, it’s dirt poor rankings and lack of discoverability. 
• The conditions need to be favourable to growth.
• Plant the seeds and give them some time.
• Nurture them.
• Prune the weeds (ie. spam comments and performance issues). 

An abandoned website can pose some liability for the site owner– the business the website represents. It could have outdated information, security exploits, and not adhere to the current legislation. 

I get approached by many website owners and their websites have tell-tale signs of websites in trouble.

Something Major Has Broken

Several years ago, one version of PHP (version 5.6) was in common use. It was replaced by PHP 7 and its sub-versions. That broke a lot of the Internet. Some web hosts have kept support going for the old sites, but that exposes their systems to security exploits. One by one, they’ve been emailing clients with warnings that support for the old system has lapsed. When the support is pulled, some websites will crash entirely. 

The Forms Don’t Work

Website forms are critical to connecting with clients– both current and potential. If the web-based forms no longer work, it’s a sign that something has busted along the way. Some examples of what could have gone wrong: 

• Web forms need spam proofing, often called “Captcha.” if something has changed and the website can no longer connect, the forms won’t work.
• The mail connection may be broken. If the forms need a working mail system, maybe that has broken down. There’s nothing wrong with periodically testing your own forms to make sure the connections are intact.
• The web form license may be out of date. Products like Gravity Forms need to be annually renewed to stay in working order. Did someone renew the licenses?

It’s Not Mobile Ready

This is 2022. The majority of website traffic comes from phones and other mobile devices. Granted: a big screen lets things look their best, but all websites need to look okay on mobile. If a website looks bad on a phone, it didn’t get the mobile readiness (aka responsive) pass. Making the choices required to make a mobile website look great takes work and if it’s not mobile-ready, that was skipped or it fell into disrepair. 

Just another WordPress Website

Remember when people bought VCRs and the clock kept flashing 12:00? They hadn’t finished the set-up. When a site’s slogan or subtitle reads “Just another WordPress Website” it says to the world: 

• We gave up before we were finished
• We launched with the basics, so we likely skipped optimizations and security safeguards.
• We may not know what we’re doing. Don’t take it personally: maybe you hired someone who didn’t know what they were doing.

Copyright 2018… 2017…. 1066….

A copyright, in part, is a legal defence of your web content. More than that, it’s a datestamp that speaks to when your website was last overhauled or updated. I’ve recently seen websites with “Copyright ©2004” A lot has happened with web technology in the last 20 years. An old website may be missing out on many technological advents. At the very least: mobile readiness. An old website may have dodgy security in place. It could have outdated information. A website should have a refresh every three years. If the copyright is much older than that, the site may not have relevant information.

Your Designer Is Gone

Some designers put a link to their website at the bottom of a client’s site. At Web321, we do that unless expressly asked to not include it. Web design is a field where people enter and leave. The low-level skills needed to roll out a website can be adopted by former graphic designers, former writers, and former marketers. If it’s easy to get into the field, it’s easy to get out. Some web designers just pack up. If their site is down, then they are likely gone too. They may be on the beaches of Thailand defending their camera from monkeys, but you’re left with an aging website. 

Your Designer’s Copyright

Web designers often have the “Cobblers Shoes Dilemma.” While their client sites look good, their own sites have aged. Maybe your designer’s website is still going through the miracle of automatic updates and recurring billing, but if their copyright is several years out of whack, maybe they did abandon their own website and, by extension, their clients. I tried following up with one designer to see if they were in business still. According to their website and their social media accounts, they dropped off the Internet five years ago. Poof. Guess the quality of support one gets from a phantom. 

What If Your Site Has Been Abandoned?

Get Control Back

Try to get in touch with your former designer. If that fails, get in touch with the service provider that hosts the website. If you don’t know who is hosting your site, ask for help from a web developer to connect the dots.

If you have the login credentials to WordPress or the web hosting: that’s great. If you don’t, get in touch with the service provider and plead your case. It’s not uncommon for this to happen. If your credit card is attached to the hosting account, then it’s possible for them to consider your claims to be valid. If they won’t go for it, see if you can get access to the domain name and its registration. From there, an updated alternative web host can be used. The domain name can be pointed to the new web hosting. If you have an administrator-level WordPress account for your website, you can get into the site and make a complete duplicate of the site. Pick it up, move it to a new host and voila: control.

Worst comes to worst, if you’ve lost hosting and WordPress access, maybe consider building a new website from scratch: crib what you can from the old site and start the new site. 

If you have lost access to the domain registration: that’s more challenging. Domain name registrars have layers of defenses to prevent bad actors from getting control of domain names. The first play for a bad actor is often to impersonate the rightful owner. It can be difficult to convince a registrar. If that’s ultimately impossible, then rebrand: register a similar domain name and re-do all of the marketing material as well as your email addresses. It’s a worst-case scenario, but sometimes it’s the only recourse. 

Get Help

Some of these steps are painful and difficult to navigate. Most business owners are not web developers or web design consultants– they’re anything but. If you’re out of your league on reviving your website, get professional help. No surprise: rescues like this are common for me. Feel free to reach out: shawn@web321.co or 1-844-493-2321

The post Top 7 Signs A Website Is Abandoned appeared first on Hospitality Web Design.

Growth Hacking is a great option for anyone looking to grow their business fast! For anyone unfamiliar with the term, growth hacking refers to a series of techniques used to add social media followers rapidly and with minimum investment on your part. As growth hacking’s popularity grows, people are coming with more and more ways to draw followers to their brand. The tricky part is usually finding out which technique works best for you. Don’t worry, we’re here to help! 

So, in no particular order, here is a list of 17 of our favourite growth hacking tactics! 

1 – Smart Social Media Monitoring 

In 2020, having a social media presence is absolutely necessary. The disheartening part of being a new company on social media is the fact that every account starts with no followers. So how can you kickstart a social media following? One answer is with strategic social media monitoring.  

This is often overlooked but it’s the easiest and most effective tactic for organic growth! Develop an understanding of your target audience’s online presence and find out who they are currently supporting. Once you find this out: interact with your target audience and interact with competitors. 

Important: Be polite; don’t take it as an opportunity to attack other companies in the same industry. One ethos of the web: “collaborate and compete.” This is doubly true interacting in the same spaces as your competition. Be informative. Be helpful. Create meaningful interactions with the pages and avoid any direct solicitation of your products and services! You’ll have better results creating a meaningful interaction (eg. “this makes sense of X”) rather than a generic comment like “nice picture” or “you might like our page, check it out”. 

2 – A/B Testing with Measured Conversion 

Knowing your customer’s behavioural patterns at the beginning of your venture can be difficult. Your landing page, wording or design elements could be the thing that’s driving potential customers away and you might not even know it. With A/B testing with measured conversion, you can determine your target audience’s behavioural patterns to quantify which test versions are more effective. 

A/B testing can be as basic as changing one word, changing the colour scheme of your CTA buttons or trying out a new blog title. The key lies in tracking it, so you can see whether any given change affects conversion or not. 

3 – Guest Posting & Tools like HARO 

Guest posting is the act of writing blog posts or articles for a website that isn’t your own. Though can take time, it’s a great tool for increasing brand awareness. 

Looking to get started with guest posting? Reach out to credible websites and see if they are interested in including one of your blog posts. If they aren’t accepting guest blog posts, then try a guest blogging platform such as myblogguest.com or place yourself as a potential source for journalists on helpareporter.com. 

If you’re thinking about guest posting, keep in mind. 

• Write blog posts for websites or people that have a similar (or same) audience to your target audience
• Be informative! Apply personal experience and research to the topic.
• Don’t be afraid to work with an old topic. Use juxtaposition to contrast an old idea with something new in the field. 
• Be positive. Try to add new knowledge and insight through your work. Don’t just re-hash established data.
• Include a call to action or a minor pitch at the end to entice people to visit your page. 

4 – Leverage Referral Programs

A great way to grow your business is with a referral program! Referrals allow existing customers to vouch for your business and act as a trusted voice to people in their network. This system is cyclical as it then opens the opportunity for new members to act as the trusted voice to their network and so forth. 

When implementing a referral program, the most important element will be to offer an incentive program with it. Dropbox is a great example of this; the company allowed both its users and their referrals to add an extra 500 MB upon successfully referring new members. This referral program increased signup conversion by 60%.

5 – Become a Leader on New Platforms 

Social media is an ocean of opportunity, but popular platforms like Instagram and Facebook have plenty of boats. Becoming a leading fashion brand on crowded platforms such as Instagram or Facebook takes much more effort. Incorporating your brand on a new social media platform or a platform that does not have leaders in your industry on there, gives you the opportunity to become the leader. Keep in mind, for this to work, you need to know which social media platforms your target audience uses! 

6 – Add Value with ‘a Freebie’

Similar to food samples at Costco, offering your customers a “Freebie” is a great way to give your customer a taste of what you have to offer before they are required to commit. If your business doesn’t allow for a customer to “try before they buy”, offering a gift to add value is also an option. 

A “freebie” can be a trial period of your service, a sample of a product to try, or a specialty gift to act as a “thank you” for choosing your company. 

7 – Add Personality 

Personality is another great way to increase brand loyalty and viral potential. There are two ways to add personality: Creating or emphasizing a social media style and tone for your brand, or putting a human face to your organization. 

One example of this is Chris Hughes from A Nerd’s World; a web developer and SEO professional in Toronto. Chris has a captivating personal presence and highlights this through his successful YouTube channel. Creating a trusted personality linked to his brand’s name has given him a large social media presence (over 20K subscribers) and growth for A Nerd’s World. 

8 – Run a Contest 

People love a chance to win free stuff! Running a contest is a sure way of generating brand awareness and growth on social media. The key to running a social media contest is to make sure your prize fits with the company’s brand. This helps you attract people who will continue to follow and support your brand after the contest is over. 

Don’t forget to be purposeful with your contests. Have a goal in mind and make sure that the reward, the rules, and the contest structure are aligned with those goals. 

9 – Create Tiers and “Freemium” options 

“Freemium” is a portmanteau of the words “free” and “premium;” it’s a business model that involves offering customers both complimentary and extra-cost services”. 

This strategy attracts people who are interested in the product as well as those who love to see the word FREE! 

10 – Partner with Influential People  

There’s no denying, the word “influencer” has been exhausted after the last few years but that doesn’t mean they aren’t effective! Similar to defining your target audience, targeting the right influencer for your brand and product is the key for amazing results. 

Influencers have spent time cultivating trust from an audience of like-minded people. Their referral can increase conversions and generate sales immediately. Sounds great, right? Well there’s more! Influencers are also skilled at creating great interactive content that can be shared to your platform later. 

11 – Create FOMO  

FOMO is the fear of missing out; the state of anxiety caused by the thought of missing out on something great. Done right, it entices purchase to purchase a product or service to avoid that anxiety. 

Create FOMO by creating urgency; give them an offer they can’t refuse! This is typically done with online contests, special sales and offers, and limited-time promotions to name a few. Another tactic is creating exclusive offers. For example: 25% off select merchandise for those on the mailing list. 

12 – Building Online Communities

A social media presence should be a priority for all businesses. It isn’t just a cost-effective marketing platform; it’s also a way to build a customer-facing online community. Building your online community will involve a few detailed decisions: deciding on a target audience, picking your niche, developing content strategy and creating valuable content. 

There’s no denying that building an online community takes time, especially if you’re starting from scratch, but the results are growth in brand awareness, brand loyalty and trust, direct product/service feedback, and more!

13 – Gamification Strategies (Competitions, Rewards) 

Gamification is the process of adding gaming elements to non gaming environments, such as your online community. Gamification can be any form of loyalty program that creates competition to receive the most incentives. 

The best example of this: Starbucks’ Summer Drink game. This summer exclusive game allows customers to connect their Starbucks account to a board game. Players earn moves with every Starbucks purchase made over a certain period of time, which allows them to move across the board to reveal prizes.

Strategies like the Starbucks Summer Game create engagement in the community and provide instant gratification for consumers, while simultaneously generating more sales for the company. 

14 – Build Your Email List Pre-Launch 

An email list of engaged users who are excited about your brand or product release is a great asset to your business. The question is, how can you generate an email list of users interested in your brand before launch date?

One technique to generate an email list before you launch is by using the calls to action in your guest blog posts to direct readers to your email signup page. This page should be designed to attract visitors to convert and add themselves into your mailing list. 

Another great means of adding people to your email list is to offer them something in exchange. Find something of value to your target audience, and offer it to them in exchange for joining your email list. 

15 – Repurpose Content

Repurposing content is a great way to be consistent online when you’ve hit a creative slump. You do have to remember that not all content can be repurposed. Anything topical, that’s tied into a specific time, trend, or event shouldn’t be repurposed. It’s better to repurpose things like general concepts, facts, or marketing tactics that are still up to date. 

Recyclable content goes beyond pictures, infographics and videos. It also includes blog posts or other articles that you may have written in the past. Just tweak them a little to bring them up to date.

16 – Content Promotion Strategy 

Creating content is one step, but the real priority is getting it seen. Start by promoting it on all appropriate platforms. Not all posts are built the same, so if you’re looking to share a post across all social platforms, make sure it is edited to work for all platforms. (Ex: adjusting image size, rewording language, adjusting calls to action) 

If you’re a newer brand, share your blog posts and content in your newsletter. Not only are you getting your content seen, but you could be reaching new potential followers.

17 – Website Pop-Ups

Pop-ups are an effective strategy markets use to garner conversion rates higher than 40%. Depending on how much content you have on the page, passive viewers may not scroll down to where you can convert them. A pop-up puts important information like  announcements or your email list sign up right in front of their eyes. 

But aren’t pop-ups annoying? Not when they’ve been strategically set at the 30% mark of the page! This allows engaged readers to scroll through the site as normal, only giving them the pop-up at the point where they expect to be hooked. This way they’re more likely to convert to the CTA you just put in front of them.  

About Us 

Web321’s Web Design Subscription Plan makes it possible for small businesses to get a professionally designed, lovingly maintained website for just $321 a month. This done-for-you service includes absolutely everything a small business needs to have a compelling, safe and secure website and online presence.

For more information, check out our website https://web321.co or @web321co on all social media channels. 

The post 17 Ways To Win at Growth Hacking  appeared first on Hospitality Web Design.

On November 1, many provinces and territories across Canada may be turning the clock back an hour for the last time. Before automation in technology, we were required to remember two special dates that required the hard labour of changing our clocks by an hour. This quirked its way into two sayings we’ve engraved into our brains “Spring Forward” and “Fall Back” – a way to depict which direction to move the hour based on the season. 

However, even with technology advancements that meant automatic daylight savings time changes on our laptops and cellphones, provinces and territories across Canada have still chosen to get rid of the practice.

The End of An Era 

Though it isn’t official across the country, many provinces and territories have had conversations individually to scope whether or not Daylight Savings Time will continue in their respective regions. 

At the moment, British Columbia is under work to remove daylight savings time after 93% of a sample size of 220 000 people stated they were in favour of the decision. Following British Columbia’s lead in this conversation is Ontario while areas in Eastern Quebec, Nunavut, and all of Saskatchewan have already made the move to Standard Time. Though there are plans to remove Daylight Savings Time in BC, there are provinces headed against the grain, which may complicate time zones moving forward. 

But, why are there so many people interested in removing daylight savings time? 

Daylight Savings Time Disasters 

The top reason why people have shown disdain towards daylight savings time is the impact the time difference has on our health. The time period of up to a week after the time change has proven to have an impact on our physical and mental health. 

Physically, our bodies are exhausted – for the obvious reason that we lost an hour of sleep, however, the effects of one less hour of sleep have been very dangerous. The number one complaint the day after and within an adjustment period of a week is the feeling of grogginess or being “tired”. This has resulted in an increase in car crashes and heart attacks. 

Mentally, our bodies are distracted and our focus is shifted on ourselves. Studies show that there are spikes in depression and feelings of distraction that cause cyberloafing, lack of work productivity, and unhealthy dietary trends (such as overeating).

Projected Impact on Business 

With all of the negative impacts and side effects of daylight savings time, it only makes sense that there is resistance towards it – but what does this mean for business? 

First and foremost, there will no longer be a transitional period that comes with daylight savings time. The week of adjustment and feeling back to oneself will no longer hinder business, bringing a general flow throughout the year. 

Productivity

An end to Daylight Savings Time means employee productivity would remain the same all year, saving companies money from worker hours lost to exhaustion.

More Sales

The removal of Daylights Savings Time would also mean customers would no longer be adjusting to a time difference – suggesting more projected sales for businesses. 

Communication

Without the twice-yearly time change, communication within a single time zone might improve, but the grey area comes with communication between zones. For businesses that do business or have employees across Canada, working out which provinces have changed their times versus which have not may impact communication between provinces.

The post Turning the Clock, One More Time (Daylight Savings Time)  appeared first on Hospitality Web Design.

With every change to the algorithm, if not detected immediately, can lead to severe impacts on your website performance and discovery. In some instances, small businesses have had their websites penalized and others have recovered from past penalizations.  

How your business can be affected by updates of the Google algorithm:  

•       Website traffic (these changes can be drastic!) 
•       Search visibility and Google page rankings, or lack thereof 
•       A reach to new consumers – this sounds great in theory, but the effects of this are new user behaviour towards your products and services

How to stay strong despite Google Algorithm changes:

Content Makeover  

The first question to ask yourself is: do I have enough content on my website? The Google Algorithm had affected websites that had minimal content in relation to their number of links. 

Creating new, fresh, and informative content regularly on your website will increase the amount of organic traffic that is directed your way. The longer and more credible your information is, the more exposure it will have. By the way, taking inspiration from other websites is okay to do! Cite your sources or give examples with links to your external sources and watch Google do its magic! 

Tip: When creating content for your website, answer the questions up front and give your viewers the answers at the first opportunity in an article. The further down your information is– the more buried it is– the more likely it is to get lost in the search results. 

Lean on Metadata

Metadata is information about information. When you look at a file, the contents are accompanied by things like the filename, when the file was created, when it was modified, its file size. Photos get accompanied by “EXIF” data that covered dimensions, device, composition details, sometimes even the lat/long of where the photo was taken. 

HTML has metadata too. All of a web page is made up of HTML tags. They look like this: 

<a href=”https://web321 title=”Best on the Web”>Web321</a>

There are critical pieces: the tag itself (a hyperlink, a bold tag, etc.) and the content wrapping the text in use. There is other data in the HTML that can get read in by search engines. Search engines use metadata to give something context. 

The title element can be added to HTML to give it more context. Beyond catering to search engines, the title tag is read in by non-visual web browsers used by the visually impaired. It can be handy for describing your element in a way that suits a search engine that may be too long-winded or awkward were it to appear visibly on the page. 

The alt element can be added to images. 

<img src=”/images/picture100.jpg” alt=”A yellow rose as photographed by Jane Smith in August of 2019”/>

It can describe the image both to non-visual screen readers and search engines. Search engines are getting really good at interpreting images for their content, but it’s still hard work and it can be wrong. Adding the alt tags spoon-feeds the information to the search engines.  More on images: https://moz.com/learn/seo/alt-text 

 Nofollow Links 

Using nofollow links is beneficial to implement because they boost your domain authority and ultimately drive traffic to your website. If you look at the HTML source code for a hyperlink, it looks like this:

<a href=”https://hospitalitywebdesign.ca/”>

When Google indexes a website, it follows the links that are present. If they lead away to another website, Google will merrily turn its attention to that other website. There is a way to say to Google, “Hey! Don’t look over there!”

<a href=”https://yahoo.com/ rel=”nofollow”>

The rel=”nofollow” is read by Google and Google will not index the content on the other site. This can also be used internally if there is a compelling reason to show users content that you want Google to discount. 

There’s another factor to nofollow: if you share links on other sites through a backlinking exercise, the sites that do not use nofollow are more valuable than those that allow Google to follow links. This is best seen in social media. Social media is a frenzy of activity and link sharing. Why doesn’t that create love from Google? Almost all of the links in social media (Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, etc.) get the rel=”nofollow” added. Google reads the phrase used in the hyperlink but doesn’t give authority to the linked site. The social media site becomes the magnet for those searches moreso than the details page on the linked site. Google appears to be factoring that into the search algorithm and you will seldom find social media links in Google search results. 

Hint: Sharing your new blog post through social media is a nofollow as well.

Responsive Websites 

Have a responsive website without loading pages. The Google algorithm doesn’t favour websites with loading pages and more often than not, will not show your webpage. Beyond the algorithm not favouring your website, the responsiveness of your website will directly correlate how much traffic will come to, or stay on your website. 

Beyond favouring responsive websites, the algorithm has been updated for mobile websites as well as desktop websites. As more than 50% of website traffic is done with a mobile device, the importance of a responsive mobile website has increased. 

The Google algorithm for mobile websites accounts for relevance and timeliness more than actual content! Though this sounds like it may be counterproductive the purpose is to keep the user experience high. 

Google Search Console Insights 

The Google Search Console allows you to keep in check with the new content that you’re putting on to your website. Keep track of your content performance through metrics depicting the views, how long people stayed on the page to interact with the content and who is sharing the content to their social media platforms. 

Whether you love or hate Google and its tracking of your website, it does it anyway. Google Search Console lets you peek at some of the metrics they uncover. 

 Having access to the Google Search Console allows you to track regularity patterns of your page views and content interactivity. By viewing these metrics, it makes it more noticeable when changes happen and helps to pinpoint the cause for these changes. 

Google Analytics

While Google Search Console gives your site a health check-up on its search opportunities, Google Analytics gives you hard data on who comes to the site. Why, when and where: important questions to understand online success. 

Why: Understanding why a user comes on to your website reveals the basic questions of what is the user’s need and what is their intention? Looking at this information will allow you to see what products are being looked at, how long they’re looked at, if there was an abandoned cart or follow through to purchase. This information is key for acknowledging where website issues are and if changes to the page need to be made. 

Other information that comes from Google Analytics is the comparison of “clicks” versus “impressions”. Clicks are the number of visits from a Google search while impressions are the viewership of links from a Google search with no clickthrough. If your impressions are higher than your clicks, the question then shifts from why to why not? 

When: Looking at when people are viewing your website may reveal just as much information as to why people are on your website. Your products may have more of a draw during holidays; when there are promotions being advertised; or when world events are happening. 

Or, more simply, your website may have more traffic during the workday between Monday and Friday than on the weekends. This year has changed user habits but it hasn’t turned them on their heads. Google Analytics and Google Search Console will reveal pattern changes and how a business may need to adapt in response.

For example, if you sell coffee creamers, pumpkin spice flavoured creamer will be viewed more during the months of September-October than it may in December!

Where: Exploring where your views are coming from can be impacted by Local SEO. Local SEO is a strategy that directly benefits your business by being more visible in search results and creating more online leads. With this in mind, if you are experiencing viewership from other regions of the city, this information allows you to acknowledge new markets to tap in to! 

In short, Google harnesses results based on location, so results that you may experience at work can be very different from the results you get at home! 

How Web321 Can Help 

1. A Managed Web Presence 

 We understand that you have a business to run and keeping track of Google analytics is another task that would be added to your list. Or, maybe you are new to tracking Google analytics and aren’t sure what insights are out of the ordinary. That’s where we come in! Web321 manages your website’s analytics and creates monthly reports for you to assure everything is on track.

In addition to tracking your analytics and search results our managed web presence provides your website with optimal response times and unlimited content updates. 

2. Booster Packs – Content Creation 

Web 321 offers various Booster Packs to our clients with the aim of boosting the performance of your website. A notable Booster Pack that we offer is our content creation package. This package is designed to refresh your online presence with specially curated infographics, relevant photos optimized for your website, blogs and articles that boost your online authority. 

Web 321 is your go-to hub of website management tools to help improve your business with a monthly subscription model. Our signature plan is $321/month with add-on booster packs available to maximize your web presence. 

To see if this service is right for you, visit our website at https://web321.co to book a free demo or email us at contact@web321.co for more information. 

The post Keeping Up With Google Algorithms appeared first on Hospitality Web Design.