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With online shopping more popular than ever these days AND the holidays around the corner, it's important that you ensure your website is holiday-ready! We've come up with a few checklist items for your online presence. Get the technical stuff out of the way - be sure your host and package can handle the increased site traffic. If customers encounter a crashed site or a even a slow site (we're talking a page that takes more than 2 seconds to load), statistically you won't see

The holidays are a great time to boost your annual sales and end your year off with a bang! But to do that you'll need to attract customers to your online store and let them know you have some incredible offers for them. We've put together a few tips to holiday-ify your website for maximum success. Update your online store and call-to-action - there are tons of holiday widgets available to make your online shop festive. Your call to action (ex. SHOP NOW!) should be bold, eye-

A homepage explainer video is one of the most efficient ways to cram a whole lot of information into a small space. As an added bonus, people who view these little videos are four times more likely to convert (i.e. use your service). These explainer videos should describe what you do and what you offer in 60-90 seconds. Since this is most likely the first thing a new customer will view when they visit your web page, it's crucial to get it right! Be sure you write the script u

If you do any maintenance on your website, be sure at the bare minimum you regularly update your home page. This is the landing page that anyone who navigates to your site should see first. It lets your viewers know who you are, what you do and where they need to go to find any other information they need. Once upon a time, the goal was to get all of this information above "the fold", which is what the majority of viewers will see before they have to scroll down. Incidentally

An important maintenance item for your website, is to regularly check for "404 Errors". It is much better to catch them quickly, rather than leave it to your users to find them, because if they do you risk losing a client plus these dead links can damage your SEO rankings. A 404 Error is the HTTP (the basic code that websites are written in) status code when the website requested is not available. Typically this occurs when a link is clicked or when an address is typed in. Th

Creating a beautiful, user-friendly website is only one part of a successful online presence. Who you choose to host your site can make a world of difference in terms of user experience. A host essentially stores your website's information on a server so it can be viewed by users once you connect your domain name to that host. Host costs can vary significantly depending on the type of server they use. But quite often, you get what you pay for. A shared server is typically the

So much is done online these days... many people have an expectation that all aspects of a businesses service are available online. A booking calendar is an excellent, efficient way to grow your business and accept new clients online. There are many booking apps available that can be easily integrated into your site. We will caution that like many apps, there are usually more features available for the paid versions of these apps, but that the basics can be covered by free ve

A fresh, new website that features all your newest products and services and engages your clients feels so good! But after a while, that content becomes old. So how do you avoid a stale website? The answer is a regular system of tests and checks. Your site should be living and constantly evolving. Dedicate a couple of hours every two weeks to finding areas where your site could use improvement with three questions in mind: How can I improve conversions? How can I increase use

Got a couple of ideas for your website, but not sure which one will work better? Try a split test! Split testing is when you temporarily direct your website traffic to two different versions of your site. Analytics or surveys can help determine which version results in better conversions. For example, you can create one landing page with a very minimalist design and another with a more traditional design that has more information on the home page. Next, track which site your

Your businesses website can be a great source of information for your clients and potential clients, but only if they can find the information they are looking for easily. It is worth while getting feedback from your website users or using an auditing service to track what is working for your site and what is not. Depending on the current climate, what was turning into great conversions one month, might not be doing the same a few months down the road. Keep an ear out for que

You recently built a new website for your business. You made sure you followed all the SEO advice, but you're still not sure if your website is working for you. Search rankings are a good indication, but they take time. So, how do you know if your site is improving in standing? How do you know if those little improvements you made are converting to sales and where you could use improvement? Analytics. Analytics are a great tool that allow you to track the number of visitors t

Ever heard of the term "hero image" but have no idea what it is? Let us enlighten you. A "hero image", sometimes referred to as a "hero header" is the large, usually high-quality image at the top of a website page (the header) that gives users their first idea of what your business is all about. It can be different for your home page than other pages, but many times it remains the same. The hero image is meant to grab the attention of your site visitors right away. It often c

Is social media enough for a small business? Well, we suppose that depends on whether or not you want to grow your business. If you do, then a website will greatly increase your chances of expansion. Little more than 50% of small businesses actually have a website. This in itself is one reason why you should consider building a site for your company; set yourself apart from the competition! Second, while social media certainly helps with SEO rankings (how you rank on internet

UX - It's a term you may have heard when talking about websites. But what does it mean? UX is one of, if not THE most important things to consider when building a website. It stands for User Experience and refers to how your online visitors interact with your website. The goal is to create the most seamless, intuitive experience your clients can get. That means, they come to a site with a question and can find the answers to this question with little to no effort. Creating an

When building a website, once of the first and MOST IMPORTANT steps is to select your domain name. This is the address users would type or search to get to your website (for example, conceptcomputers.ca). There are a lot of things to consider when choosing your domain, because it will affect how well users can access your site and how searchable it is on search engines. When crafting your domain, remember to: 1. Keep it simple - The shorter and easier to spell the better 2. U

Want to know one of the best ways to keep your clients engaged and up-to-date on your products and perhaps refer you to other clients? Email marketing. Marketing studies have shown that 73% of millennials prefer to receive business communications via email and that 99% of consumers check their email on a daily basis. Email marketing allows you to: - personalize content - collect feedback - direct clients to your site - advertise in a cost-efficient manner - advertise to a per

So you got yourself a beautiful website and you figured you would do any content updates yourself. But... when you went to update some text and/or change an image, website-mageddon happened and now your site looks like a bomb went off. Sound familiar? There are a lot of balls to keep in the air when maintaining a site. Building in more or less text may change the dynamic of a page, it may throw off the alignment of other elements or change the relevance of other surrounding e

What is HTTPS (vs. HTTP) and why should you use it? When building a website, you want to ensure that your data, and any you receive is secure. This is especially important if you are dealing with sensitive information (i.e. personal client or payment information, passwords, confidential files etc.). http(s) is the protocol by which information is sent between a web browser and a website. You will notice it at the start of a website address, for example: https://www.conceptcom

Happy Summer! A season when everyone is out and about, enjoying the beautiful sun... and less likely to sit indoors at their desktop computer surfing your site. Have you thought about how mobile-friendly your site is? Statistically, more than half of the world's internet traffic is mobile. So that means that if your site isn't mobile, friendly, you are losing over 50% of your potential clientelle. Keep in mind, that mobile-friendly doesn't just mean being able to see your sit

What is alt text and why is it important? Alt text (also called alt descriptions) are the words that appear when an image fails to load. It can also often be seen when you roll your mouse over an image. The text should accurately describe the image and how it relates to the main body text or page it accompanies. There are three important functions of alt text: 1. It makes your site more accessible. Visually impaired users use alt text to understand the image on the page. 2. I