Blog Category: website management

Creating a Company Knowledge Base - What to Think About?

08 October 2012

As your company grows beyond its founders and its first generation of employees, ensuring that the intellectual capital, knowledge and expertise that your company is built on is passed on effectively becomes an important challenge. I worked at a company that had a fantastic knowledge base, which was constantly used and regularly updated.

With at least 30 new employees every six months, this vital resource proved incredibly valuable in ensuring that skills were passed on, standards were maintained, and that even the company culture endured from generation to generation. A knowledge base is not just a collection of PDFs in the HR folder – it has to be a system that encourages use, and remains relevant year after year.

If you’re facing the problem of creating a knowledge base for your company, here are a few things to think about as you approach this task.

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Top 5 iPad apps to help you manage your website

28 May 2012

For web startups in today’s world, technology has certainly helped curb the burden of yesteryear. Even when speaking in terms of Dotcom businesses specifically, the last decade has ushered in a wave of advancement unlike any witnessed before. Creating a website today and managing your business is made easier with a wide assortment of tools, like iPad applications.

Managing a website requires knowledge, the correct platform, and the right tools. With an app to assist in the management,  the platform and the tools are taken care of, and the amount of knowledge needed is reduced. In other words, if you use the right applications and tools for a web business, starting and maintaining a business website is something that anyone can do, no longer a skill confined to those with degrees in computer science and years of experience.

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5 black hat SEO tips you should avoid using

04 April 2012

If white hat SEO is ethical optimization, then obviously black hat SEO is its polar opposite. When you complete a black hat technique, you are being dishonest or a little unscrupulous in your attempt to game a search engine into giving you a higher ranking. These methods are widely used by upstarts who are seeking a quick rise in the ranks, typically the most popular amongst affiliate marketers. However, for longevity as a website owner, black hat tactics will leave you at the bottom of the barrel.

There are just as many black hat tactics as there are white hat tactics, and sometimes people enter into a black hat scheme with the best of intentions, believing that they’re doing nothing wrong. So just to be clear, if you’re attempting to deceive people or to manipulate results in any way, shape or form, then you’re performing a black hat technique.

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7 Useful Tips to Prevent DDOS Attacks on Your Website

14 March 2012

As long as the internet has been around, so have hackers and all-around unsavory individuals whose motives are malicious to say the least. While a lot of hackers break into computers and data banks for the obvious reasons, including money and secretive information, others just intend to ruin your computers and your internet experience.

One type of hacker attack you may fall victim to as a website owner is a DDOS attack. DDOS, standing for Distributed Denial of Service, is an attack wherein a hacker attempts to render a computer or an entire network unavailable to its users. As you can guess, the motives for this type of attack are all over the place, from hacking banks and trying to get financial info to throwing a monkey wrench in someone’s otherwise pleasant day.

These attacks are real and can easily affect you and your site. If your site isn’t targeted personally, it can still be targeted via your web host and you and every other subscriber may be in danger. Luckily, though, there are a few great ways in which you can protect yourself from a DDOS attack.

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How do you choose brand vs domain name for your new website?

18 January 2012

A lot of people ask me this when starting a new website, and I usually give them the same answer: Go with keywords. There are many reasons for this, which I’ll get to in a minute, but first let’s have a look at the case for using a catchy brand name as your domain.

There are plenty of websites that use a phrase or name that isn’t a common English word, and they are wildly popular. But they’re popular because they’ve spent millions of dollars on above-the-line advertising to associate that phrase or word they’ve made up with their business activity. A classic example is Wonga.com.

Wonga.com is a microlender - one of the first to gain a real foothold on the internet. You’d never naturally associate the meaningless word “Wonga” with borrowing money, which is why Wonga has spent so much money on catchy jingles, expensive TV ads, content network banners, etc. Personally I think they could have got a lot more bang for their buck by calling their business “QuickCash” or something - but they didn’t ask me for some reason.

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What is a website production company?

19 September 2011

You often think that your website just does not have the same appeal as your competitor’s sites. All the information you need is on the site but it just not look as professionally put together as you know it should look. The point is that you spent a lot of money having a web developer put the website together for you so although it really works well it just lacks a little lustre. It is just not doing it for you.

You mention this fact to a friend who runs a really great website that not only looks good but works like a dream in every aspect. He tells you about a website production company who built the site for him. So what is a website production company?

The answer is pretty simple to explain as it is a company that incorporates both web design and web development when they build websites for their customers.

Building a first class and efficient website requires two basic skills, one of which is you need good graphics on your site. The second is that you need all the programming necessary to make the site work efficiently.

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What is the difference between web design and web development

09 September 2011

When you browse the Internet you always come across various websites that look really outstanding. Every bit on information is clearly there to be seen without having to search for it.

The site is uncluttered and pretty self explanatory but more importantly it catches your eye because it really does look good. You can bet your bottom dollar that the site has been created by a web designer, by someone who really knows how to make websites look brilliant. This is because they have a background in graphic design which is a very necessary skill when it comes to creating good looking websites.

The website may look brilliant but you then notice that although everything needed to make it look good is on the site, it does not actually work that well. The chances are that although the web designer used his graphic skills to build the site he lacked the necessary web development skills to make it work as well as it could.

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Why you need to hire a web producer and not a web designer

02 September 2011

To get a website looking brilliant and working in the best possible way means you need to have an expert who has fundamental and up to date knowledge of both web design and web development. In short you need to hire the services of a professional web producer.

A web producer has the basic two backgrounds of web design and development which means that they are able to combine these two very necessary skills when they create and build a website. They are very capable graphic web designers and they are skilled computer programmers. They are able to create great looking websites which work well because they are skilled in the two disciplines which are fundamental to building websites.

A well built website works well on all platforms whether SEO or from a code point of view. However, by using the services of a web producer, you not only benefit from this as they have far more expertise which is available to you. A web producer, much as a film producer makes the whole thing happen. They are able to bring the whole project of creating and building a website together by getting everything up and running in the most efficient way.

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Why it is essential to work with a web producer on your new business website

26 August 2011

If you have decided that it is time for your business to reach a larger audience and that the only way you will achieve this is by having a website built for you then your best option is to seek the advice of a web producer. By contacting someone who knows about all the different aspects of creating a new website you will avoid the many pitfalls that so many people encounter when they have their first sites built for them.

A web producer knows how to draw up a plan of your website and what it would take to get it looking good and working as efficiently as it possibly could using all the latest technology that is available. This means that you will attract not only a larger audience to the website but that it will be a place they will want to come back to again and again. This in turn means you stand a better chance of drumming up that extra business you need to make a successful go of it.

Web design can be an expensive business, so getting it right from the word ‘go’ is important. You need to know that all the latest technology is put into the website you want to create. Websites can either work very well, moderately or not at all when it comes to drawing in new clients. You need to be sure that you get the right person to create this for you.

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What makes a good web hosting company?

05 August 2011

A good web hosting company is not impossible to find it just takes a bit of research, which of course means you have to allocate some time in order to find one that you can rely on. You need to find a company that won’t let you down.

Web hosting is an essential service which everyone needs to get their websites connected to the World Wide Web. They provide the data centre that enables connectivity to all websites. Individuals and businesses alike require their services no matter how large or small the website happens to be.

There are many forms of web hosting packages available. Some of them are free of charge while others cost a small amount of money. Companies who provide these services get most of their revenue from advertising which explains the low cost of it.

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What to write in a Privacy Policy for your first website

22 June 2011

All websites need to have a privacy policy written into them because it lets users know up front what kind of information you are going to ask from them and how you are intend on using it. Having a privacy policy means that you are reassuring the visitors to your site that their information will be used securely and not sold to telemarketers.

Once you have established just what type of information you will be asking visitors to give you enables you to know just what to include in your policy. Remember you may not only be asking them for the personal information like names and addresses or telephones numbers but you may also need to ask to have sensitive credit card and bank account info as well.

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What needs to go into a Terms and Conditions page for your retail website

22 June 2011

The Terms and Conditions page of your retail website needs to include certain notices about credit card use, refunds and returns which are known as ‘transaction conditions’. An example of this could be that you only accept returns up to 30 days after they have been purchased.

You need to also make clear that you reserve the right to change your ‘terms and conditions’ at any time. Another inclusion would be disclaimers, which are statements to the customers that you are not liable for certain types of losses which may occur, an example being that anything purchased that later gets damaged in transport when being returned to you via a third party.

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