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Is Your Branding Relevant?

April 30, 2013 By
Evolution of Logo Branding

Regardless of your business,  you have to stay relevant.  One of the ways you can do that is by keeping your branding current.  As you evolve and your business changes, consider making changes to your website and logo's to reflect those changes. I thought this was a pretty cool infographic showing the evolution of some corporate logos through the years.  Can you imagine the perception of Pepsi or Apple if they were still using the mark they began with? Your mark does not define your business, but it is often the first thing people notice about your business. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Infographic, Marketing, Small Business Website 101

Have A Website You Can Be Proud Of!

April 30, 2013 By
Bad Website Design For Women

If you have a website, you should be proud of it.  It should not only reflect your brand, but it should really work for you.  Do you have a site that looks like it came out of the 80's?  Is your website built with Flash?  Did you 13 year old niece build your site when she took "Web Design" in high school? Your website is often the first impression a potential customer has with your business.  And as they say, you don't get a second chance at that.  People make snap decisions about your website based on looks alone. Have a Website You Are Proud of! You may … [Read more...]

Filed Under: HOW TO, Small Business Website 101, Web Design Tagged With: , , ,

Which CMS to Use For Your Website? [Infographic]

April 18, 2013 By
Infographic: The Most Popular CMS for Your Business Needs by Dot Com Infoway – CMS Development Company

A CMS (Content Management System) is a system designed to help you manage the content of your website.  It is the software that lets you publish, edit and monitor your website content from a central location.  They are user friendly and are intended to help a "non-tech" user control the content of their website. My Preferred CMS is WordPress There are three major CMS options to choose for your business website, WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal.  All three are good.  They help users manage the content of their website in a fairly efficient manner. At Media317, we … [Read more...]

Filed Under: WordPress Tagged With: , , , ,

WordPress Brute Force Attacks 2013

April 15, 2013 By
Hacked by Coldplay Hack Team

Fact or Fiction? If you are on WordPress like I am, some of the reports that I've seen about the increase in hack attempts can be alarming. I received a notification yesterday from my host that there have been a significant increase over the past month. Because WordPress powers close over 20% of the websites on the internet, it is an easy target. Since the core of every WordPress site is the same, there are obvious areas of attack. Upon installation, WordPress defaults to "admin" for the username and since users tend to use simple passwords, brute force attacks are … [Read more...]

Filed Under: HOW TO, WordPress Tagged With: , , , ,

How to Add a Custom Avatar in WordPress

March 4, 2013 By
WordPress_Avatars

Have you noticed the rather odd looking default Avatars that WordPress ships with?  And who is Mystery Man? Change that Avatar You can add a default avatar of your choice.  Add the following to you functions.php and upload the avatar to your images directory. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: HOW TO, WordPress Tagged With: , ,

How to Style the TinyMCE Visual Editor in WordPress

February 7, 2013 By
WordPress as CMS

When editing content in the TinyMCE editor, it would be nice for the text to look like it will once you publish the content.  In previous versions of WordPress, there was no easy way to do this.  You had to do some hacks to get the visual editor to display your style sheet. Style the TinyMCE Visual Editor To style the editor so your content in the dashboard looks like the content your publishing, you simply add the following to you functions.php file of your theme:   … [Read more...]

Filed Under: HOW TO, Small Business Website 101, StudioPress, Web Design, WordPress Tagged With: , , ,

5 Features to Consider when Choosing a WordPress Theme

January 18, 2013 By
WordPress Stickers

There are so many advantage of using WordPress websites over static HTML ones.  WordPress websites are cheaper and easier to build, can be easily updated and edited and allows users to add a number of social plug-ins. This makes WordPress websites the ideal solution for any small business looking to build a formidable online presence without breaking the bank. As WordPress is open source, small business owners can save a lot of money as they do not have to pay licensing fees for installing and using WordPress websites. Moreover, this open source nature allows … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Marketing, Small Business Website 101, Social Networking, StudioPress, WordPress Tagged With: , ,

The Truth About Your Website . . .It’s Leaking!

January 15, 2013 By
OddStockfrom Flickr

One of the problems your website has to overcome is Bounce Rate.  It is the metric of how quickly someone leaves your site.  When the bounce rate is high, that indicates that people are leaving without spending any appreciable amount of time on your site. A Mobile, Responsive Site for Business A high bounce rate can be bad for business.  Keep it LOW! [TWEET] Recent studies have shown an ever-increasing trend in mobile users.  The number of people accessing the internet with a mobile device is growing.  According to a September 2012 study by PewInternet, nearly … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Responsive Design, Small Business Website 101, StudioPress, Web Design, WordPress Tagged With: , , , ,

The Most Effective SEO Tool You Can Use

January 15, 2013 By

We have written a lot about different SEO tools that will help you get found online.  They are all excellent.  But what I am excited about is the tool that I have recently discovered.  Raven Tools! The last post talked about what you need to do get your your website found.  We looked at the absolute minimum set of tools you need to be successful with online search. The problem with all of these tools is that they are all over the place.  You have so much data in so many places that it makes it difficult to understand.  Unless you are a spreadsheet guru, you … [Read more...]

Filed Under: SEO - Search Engine Optimization, Small Business Website 101 Tagged With: , , , ,

How to Get Your Website Found

January 11, 2013 By
Customer Demographics

You have a website.  Now What? A website without traffic is doing your business no good.  Getting your website found is critical if you want to grow and build your online presence. If you follow this blog, you should know that getting found online is a very important topic.  We've talked about the basics and tools that will help you get found for a long time.  We even put together a free email course to help small businesses get an understanding of the basics of SEO so they could get their website found. But How? As a small business owner, finding the time … [Read more...]

Filed Under: HOW TO, SEO - Search Engine Optimization, Small Business Website 101 Tagged With: , , , , , , ,