How many pages should you have on your website? Part 1

I was asked this question last week and it’s given me an idea: Everyone has their own opinion on what should be included on a business website, but if you are stumped for ideas and need guidance, well hey, that’s what I do, right?

Over the next 5 days, I am going to give me top 5 pages and what you really should include content-wise.

Page 1️⃣ – Home

This goes without saying. Every website needs a page to begin with. 99% of the time, the home page is the most popular page on your website.

So what should this page include?

Your logo

Ideally this should feature on every single page of your website (even the 404 page not found). It tells your users that they have come to the right place to see you.

Your call to action

Again having this prominent throughout all of your pages is a no brainer, but if someone has already visited your website and are ready to take action, then make it easy for them by linking them to your shop, subscription button or your phone number or email address.

Who you are

You can speculate more about yourself in another page, but at least introduce who you are and what makes you different from all of your competitors.

What you do

Again are they in the right place? Give an outline of your product/service as well as any images, videos or a good review.

Focal point

Just text is very offputting, so break it down with a visual of either you, your product or service should feature quite high up on the page. A Smart way of covering a few key points about your business (eg awards, news, products, etc) is to use a carousel (image rotator)

Contact details

There is a contact page, but bearing in mind this is your home page that your user may have visited before and they want to be able to contact you for more information. Again this should really be on every page of your website.

GDPR

Love it or loathe it, if you’re requesting personal data from your users or even if you are tracking how people behave on your website (for example Google Analytics) You need to include a consent banner or window throughout your website asking your user if they consent or not.

Why haven’t my web changes updated?

This is one of the most common questions I get asked when updating a website.

Let’s say you’re working on your website. You have a brand new image in place which should look great on the page, and made a few minor changes to update your content. But then you come to view the live site, and all you see is the same old website. Even clicking refresh doesn’t change anything. Why can’t you see your new content? Ack!

I’m going to get a bit teccie here: When you visit a web page, your browser stores the files from that web page. This includes:

• The location of the site.
• All the files used to build the pge and run any applications
• Any downloads (documents, forms, etc)

Then if you visit that page again, instead of reloading the entire page again from your server, it uses this file to load the page quickly and reduces the bandwidth and time it takes to load the page from scratch every time.

Unfortunately, if you visit a page constantly and its being updated, the browser still loads the old files. Even refreshing a good few times doesn’t seem to prompt the average web browser. A very frustrating situation when the web designer can see the changes but the customer cannot.

So we need to prompt the browser to ditch its old files and look back on the website to reflect the new changes.

• If simple F5 or browser refresh isn’t working, then try holding down the Shift key while pressing the refresh button. Try this a few times to prompt your browser into action.
• Clear your internet cache for your web browser. https://kb.intermedia.net/article/1160 gives a great step by step guide for the most common browsers used
• Close your browser and re-open it on a different page.
• Use a different web browser
• Restart your computer

I hope this helps some poor soul out there. Trust me as a web designer, more people need to be aware of this issue.

6 WordPress Tools you Should be Using

Every other website I have worked on over the last 5 years has been a WordPress website. I do recommend using WordPress, as it is quite a robust platform and ideal if you are planning on adding and updating the website yourself.

Over the 6 years that I have configured WordPress websites, these are a handful of the plugins that I insist on adding along with the basic platform:

WP Cerber Security

I have used other security softwares in the past, but I find that WP Cerber is quite literally the guard dog of your website. It defends against hacker attacks, spam, trojans and viruses.

Among its other many features, it also gives you an insight into intruder activity onto your website and hardens up WordPress with comprehensive security algorithms, spam protection, bot detection and reCaptcha.

Ninja Scanner/Firewall

NinjaScanner and NinjaFirewall is another plguin I use to protect websites. NinjaFirewall is a web application firewall that stands in front of WordPress. It can hook, scan, sanitise or reject any HTTP/HTTPS request sent to a PHP script before it reaches WordPress or any of its plugins. It also gives login protection with either a code or logging in twice.

Even directories, sub-directories and scripts outside of WordPress are protected. It can also sync seamlessly with NinjaScanner which scans your blog for malware or viruses.

Yoast SEO

WordPress in its core form, has no Search Engine Optimisation features. Yoast SEO is one of the best plugins for SEO. You add a page title and meta description for every page, post, product or testimonial on your website. It can also analyse your SEO and readability for each page, Generate XML Sitemaps and verifies your Google Search Console account. There’s also an education center where you can learn to get more out of promoting your web pages.

The premium version’s main features help you rank better with synonyms and related keyphrases, gives real time suggestions for internal links and comes with a redirect manager for deadlinks.

WP Fastest Cache

As WordPress is such a large robust platform useful for any website, the number of files and scripts can bog down the website’s performance. Therefore a Cache plugin such as WP Fastest can dramatically improve your site’s download time and general performance. It can minify your style and javascript files, combines files with reduces the number of http requests and reduce the size of files sent from your server.

The free software with the basic settings can improve your Google PageSpeed score by about 7 points. The premium version goes further with mobile caching, image optimisation and allows you to delete cache logs.

WPFront Scroll Top

If your web template doesn’t have one already, an arrow that allows the user to get back to the top of the page with one click goes a long way (especially on a mobile device) WP Front is a simple no-nonsense plugin that enables an arrow at the bottom of each page. It comes with a library of preset buttons or you can upload your own custom button or create one using FontAwesome

UpDraft Plus

Last but never least, UpDraft Plus backs up your web files and database, very handy if you need to undo a change on your WordPress site or if an update breaks your website (this does happen unfortunately). You can also restore previous backups from their control panel.

The free version should serve you well. The premium upgrade gives you automatic backups, a migration feature and automatic backup before updates.

Conclusion

There are many great plugins available to make your website experience better or more adaptable to your needs. I could name many more but these are the essential plugins that tackle, security, SEO and basically cover your back. But a word of warning: Too many plugins on your website will slow down your site performance and makes it vulnerable to security breaches. A rule of thumb would be to not exceed 20 plugins. If however you are on shared or budget hosting, this should be reduced down to 5.

Resources

My own website 🙂
https://torquemag.io/2018/02/wordpress-plugins-many-many/

Award Winning Web Design

DVH Design has won the CorporateLiveWireAward for Boutique Design Company of the Year 2020.

Assessed by a panel of judges that took into consideration the following for our award:

• Customer satisfaction
• Google, Facebook and Yell.com reviews
• Working with companies on an ongoing basis for 10+ years
• Assisting people with relatively little knowledge of the digital design area

Heartfelt thanks to all my customers for your ongoing support over the years.  We could not have done this without you.

Password Security: Why Mine are Complicated

Password security is essential. So when I configure a website for a client, rest assured that I will give you a complicated password. It will include upper and lower case, numbers, special characters and normally more than once.

This doesn’t always go down so well: I get moaned at, or requested it is changed to a simpler or one that the customers uses everywhere else. I say no.

So if you do find yourself in this situation, where I dig my heels in, these are my reasons:

Unauthorised logins on websites happen – a lot

If you have any type of security software on your website, you may get an email alerting that someone has tried (and failed) to get into the back of your website.

Now I should explain these logins aren’t people, they are mainly automated bots. Basically little programs that try to guess your user’s passwords. They would like nothing more than to get into the back of your website, look for vulnerable code or outdated software. If they do, they will unleash total mayhem.

More can be read about failed logins here

The record I have seen for the most automated logins in one day is around the 600 mark. Please do comment below if you can beat that.

Cleaning up hacked websites is just horrible

I have had to clean up a few hacked websites, everything from rogue files sending out phishing emails to redirects to spammy /malicious websites. It is a very long, tiresome and expensive process.

The few times I have had to undergo this arduous task, I have no doubt that the client would rather have put the money to better use. It is also quite stressful and has me looking over my shoulder for some time afterwards.

I would not be a very good (or professional) web designer

I pride myself on the quality of my work and going by the nearly 20 years I have been up and running, my customers agree. If a client’s site was hacked, that would reflect badly on me. If it happened often, then no doubt my reputation would go down. Not on my watch.

It doesn’t reflect well on the customer

Depending on how quickly it is detected, if your website keeps getting hacked, then in turn you may get a reputation with your customers: “Oh X’s website is down yet again.” This can be offputting and can result in your customers going elsewhere.

Although these constant logins will not effect your website performance they can slow it down considerably.

Conclusion

So all in all, I would rather be moaned at a bit for choosing a long and complicated password than all of the above.

As a basic security measure, you should have a strong password, but you should also:

• Include security and firewall software on your website. This should also provide an activity log that flags unauthorised behaviour. It can also block or blacklist the culprits.
• Install an SSL certificate (secure socket layer). This encrypts any transmission between the browser and your website preventing your credentials from being discovered by the wrong eyes.
• Consider 2 factor authentication (2FA). Not only do you log into your login page, you also have to provide a code. This is provided either by text or an phone app that creates a random code.

Just one last thing: If you are going to write your passwords down store them securely. For added security, invest in password software.

19 Years and Still Going Strong!

Today is the 19th anniversary of DVH Design. We started in a tiny box room in Black Notley as a part-time business. Initially as a sideline to my administration job and then evolved to keep me sane when I had little children.

During that time we have evolved from a Microsoft FrontPage whizz(?) to learning the web code and scripting. We have also taught ourselves various Ecommerce and CMS packages, particularly Joomla, ZenCart and more recently WordPress.

In addition, DVH Design have also added Search Engine Optimisation (the story of how that came to be can be read here). We have also included Responsive website design, AdWords advertising. More recently, we specialise in helping website owners regain control of their own website. For example when their spouse or former web designer break communication. Sadly this has become commonplace over the last few years.

For that reason alone, we have changed our slogan depending on what fitted the company ethos at the time: We have gone from “Web Design Across Essex”, briefly experimented with “Sites not Sights”. Our now more fitting slogan, “Your Online Superheroes” (which is honestly nothing to do with my love of Marvel/DC films!)

But we could not have done any of this without our customers: These have varied from all works of life and backgrounds and from the novice website owner to serial business owners. Some I’ve worked with for a few months and a good few I have worked with for 15 years. I like to hope I have helped them achieve what they set out to achieve to begin with.

Here’s to the future

The last 19 years has been a big learning curve, and I know that learning curve will continue for years to come. DVH Design now have an AdWords expert on Board and will shortly include logo design to our services. There are other services that we are looking to include, so watch this space.

How to Migrate Emails (the stress free way)

Just in case you were thinking: Yes! This website has a new look to it (at long flipping last!). It also sits on a new and more reliable server. As a result I have had to go through the whole migration procedure.

The last time I had to migrate servers was back in 2005 and I believe this was a task during my maternity leave (my son is now 15).

A website migration for a web developer is pretty straightforward, but 15 years worth of emails is anything but. In the days of POP mail accounts, where mail was received from the server for you to keep forever, it was easy but a majority of email is now set up as IMAP which syncs to your PC, tablet and/or snartphone. This means that once you move servers, the emails sitting on that server are lost forever. So it makes sense to back up everything you value.

I have read a lot of how to guides over the years and even directed a few of my customers to use these guides, all with mixed results, but I found this method the easiest (and less stressful) to backup and restore my emails across servers. It will be a bit time consuming, but for argument’s sake, so is any website migration.

So let’s delve into what I have found to be to be the best way to seamlessly migrate your emails between servers.

1. Make sure you have an overlap

By this I mean make sure that both your old and new servers are active for about 7 days. This allows you enough time for the migration process (which takes up to 72 hours) and also allows for checking and double checking for anomalies.

2. Set up your new email settings alongside the old

You do, of course have to set up your email addresses on the new server. Make a note of the password and the new mail settings (these can normally be found under email and client configuration on your new server or your web/I T person can provide you with this). Add these new accounts to your email browser.

I tested this method using Outlook 2016 and I was alerted that I was setting up a duplicate email address. I got around this by adding the suffix ‘(1)’ which was accepted. This apparently also works in Mozilla Thunderbird and other popular email browsers. But I can say from experience that this doesn’t work on Windows Live Mail.

So now you have both your current email address and your new email address, sitting side by side. So lets get onto the third stage:

3. Get Organised.

And what do I mean by that? Two things really: First of all create new folders in your new email account for everything that you would like to keep. So for example, you might create a folder to keep all your new customer enquiries together; or a folder to collate all emails from your accountant, and so on.

Now would also be a good time to remove all the emails that you do not want to keep. This just makes things easier, as does Shift and click or Ctrl and click.

4. Get dragging and dropping

This is the fun part: basically select the emails that you want to move and then drag and drop them onto the folder on your new account.

This will take time, depending on how many emails you have, but keep vigilant, for example when you drop the email into the wrong folder.

Ideally you should be left with no emails in the old account and everything you need in the new.

5. Test a few emails

So now we have all the new emails ready to view in your email browser. But just to be sure, test a few random emails to ensure that they appear and haven’t been mislaid or deleted.

Last step: switch the Domain

When you are ready, change the nameserver (DNS) address. Your hosting provider will be able to give you the necessary information. And then sit tight for 3 days while the new server details update across the globe.

A word to the wise on that last bit: For up to 72 hours, your website will look weird:

you may see both the old and new versions of it; so will other people (who won’t hesitate to inform you about it); Email will struggle to verify; you may not receive email straight away or you may get a constant alert that your server identity cannot be identified.

If any of this happens to you, the best advice I can give to you is either sit it out or pick the migration over a long weekend or a time where you are away from your PC.

Conclusion

So there we have it! Migrations are unavoidable and also advisable if your current hosting provider has gone downhill or if you are upgrading or moving to a more affordable or better managed hosting provider. This guide is a more user-friendly and non technical way to retain your vital emails when you do have to make the change.

I do welcome any feedback as I would like to perfect this guide and use it as a resource, especially for my customers.

Here’s the Reality: People are Looking for you Online

This week has been my favourite time of the year. It’s nothing to do with Christmas: It was the interview episode of The Apprentice where the 5 remaining candidates get the pleasure of having every aspect of their progress businesses past and present, business plan and general characteristics by 4 of Lord Sugar’s key aides.

I watch this every year, not because I’m mean, but because nothing gets past these 4 musketeers. They analyse everything from how accurate the candidate’s market research is to how realistic their figures are. And they always look at the candidate’s current business website and for about 80% of the time, there are flaws.

Last year, out of the 2 finalists that went on to become Lord Sugar’s business partners, one hadn’t updated her website for about 5 years and the other one had an accreditation displayed on his website which shouldn’t have been there. ironically both of these budding business owners, went on to become Lord Sugar’s business partners.

This year was no exception: There was the hangover cure guy who boldly claimed on his Amazon page that he’d sold over 1 million sachets, when realistically he’d only sold 47,000 and the Tennis events organiser that had listed half her events on her website as cancelled. And my personal favourite:  Camilla, the nut milk entrepreneur whose original online branding was so provocative that it bordered on soft-core porn.

My son, who was also watching this with me, was looking up their websites on his iPad and we both had a good look. And indeed there are flaws. There were superficial flaws such as a logo that had been cropped to the extent that you couldn’t read the company name, a website that was clearly designed just for desktop users and my critical eye found that one of the slogans was “Just another WordPress site.”

I’m not saying Claude Littner, Linda Plant, et al are looking at your website right now, but like it or not, humans are naturally curious species beings. I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that after meeting someone either in person or interacting with them online, I’m straight onto Google or Linkedin to find out more about that person and their business.  Making it all the more important to keep your website and social media profiles updated.

Even after 18 years of working in the web industry, it kills me when someone dismisses updating their site saying “no one is looking me up online” Wrong. So wrong. People are looking you up whether you want them to or not. If your website or online profile aren’t up to scratch, it is going to reflect badly on you, whether you are #1 in Google #1000.

So take half an hour on a regular basis and look objectively at your website and social media profiles: Are they up to date? Is there anything new you can add? Are you emphasising your achievements? And more importantly, is it truthful? Can you back up your achievements (with accreditations, testimonials and media coverage)?  Even better ask a friend or colleague to take a look. What do they think? Sometimes a fresh set of eyes makes all the difference.

it is the final tonight and I wish the final 2 candidates the best of luck. It is hard to tell who is going to win this year.  I have looked at both of their websites this morning (Sunday) they have both been updated since Wednesday night, so its anyone’s guess.

Bye 2017. Here’s to the Future (Poll)

My blog has remained abused this year. My last entry was announcing my interview with Switch radio, which has been and gone. Sadly it wasn’t recorded by the station so I have no evidence. On the bright side I have been invited back so watch this space.

I haven’t used my blog to my advantage this year for two reasons: The first reason is just pure workload, which is a good thing. Secondly(and not so great) has been for personal reasons. In a nutshell I am in the middle of a divorce, so most of this year has been spent either in mediation or between solicitors. The hardest part is over but this does mean that we will have to relocate premises next year but hopefully still in either Braintree or Notley.

So for sure this has drained me and I have felt down. But I am not out.

I have plans for 2018 and this is where I need your participation in a little product research: I am asked so many times by people I meet at networking and exhibitions to look at websites that are under-performing and offer my advice and recommendations. I am just throwing out ideas but if you could get a detailed analysis report about your web’s responsiveness, performance and ranking (to name a few), would you be prepared to pay for that privilege?

[poll id=”3″]

For an extra measure of cheekiness, could you leave a comment with how much you would be prepared to pay for such a detailed analysis.

I greatly appreciate any feedback.

DVH Design is going to be on the Radio

It’s true! Deb Harrison from DVH Design will be speaking on the Zel-AfriQ show on Switch Radio on Wednesday 18 January 2016.

Along with 3 tracks of my choice, Deb will be talking to Zelma Holt about DVH Design: how we got here, and where we’re going.

The podcast will be published on our blog after the event but do feel free to have a listen live at Switch Dunmow Online  at 7.30pm on Wednesday.

Merry Christmas from DVH Design

So we are at the end of 2016 and a lot has been going on behind the scenes at DVH Design.  This year has seen us contribute to our Social Media Channels.  Now during the week you can see our regular updates on:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Linkedin
• Instagram
• Google +

But this week, we have also set up a YouTube channel.  From the new year, we will be posting interactive how to’s on subjects from setting up Email to simple ways to make your website work for you. Please do subscribe to our channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7GIwu_euemSTHYmcC3GDbw

We are also studying to become a certified Google Partner.  We have completed one exam, we just have one more to go.  But although our main focus is Search, we would also like to become certified in Display Network, Video and Shopping.  These are the best Channels for our current client base.

There are more exciting things planned for DVH Design:  on Wednesday 17th January, Deb Harrison will be interviewed on Switch Radio in Dunmow on Zelma Holt’s Zel-AfriQ show.

Also DVH Design will be exhibiting at the Business Expo Essex at Chelmsford City Racecourse on Wednesday 22nd February.  Please do come and meet us for a chat and a coffee and see how we can help you with your website woes.

We haven’t featured much on our blog this year, but we ae also in the process of revamping our website.  This will reflect our current services, portfolio and our new slogan.  So please do stay tuned.

So 2017 is going to be an exciting year and we hope you can join us.  In the meantime, have a very Merry Christmas and prosperity for 2017.

So where exactly is Number 1 in Google Nowadays?

Once upon a time, website owners were constantly bombarded with wannabe SEO “experts” namely from another country that could promise to rank them number one in Google.  A lot of people took it for what it was:  a steaming pile of bull; while some went along with this expert and may have got some rankings but only for a very short term.  After which, Google had wised up that yet another fool was gaming the system and dropped the offending website from its listings.

You don’t really get that nowadays, do you?  There is a reason for that:  The natural listings for Google now start halfway down the page.

It was an ideal world when you could rank your website with little or no effort without having to pay a penny, but since then Google (et al) came up with Cost-per-click where adverts were made for specific keyphrases and you just pay when someone clicks onto your ad.

To make things more difficult, the search engines other branches including, videos, images and business search.  Great news for the searcher, not so great for the website owner.

Let me give you an example:  We have recently had our patio laid so the trade is still quite fresh in my mind, so let’s do a Google search for “Landscape Gardeners in Colchester”

Ok, the top 4 positions are all paid adverts.  All well tailored to match my query and to help me make an informed choice.  Google have also identified that I am looking for a trade in a specific area so they’ve also included a map showing some of the local businesses in that specific area, couresy of Google MyBusiness.  But this is the first page, above the fold and so far there is no sign of any natural search listings yet.  So lets come down the page.

 

So Google My Business (Used to be Google Places) list the top 3 landscapers in Colchester and provides a link to their website and directions.  Below that begins the first top 10 listing of the organic listings followed by 3 more paid adverts at the bottom of the first page.  I might add, that the number one listing in hese results is a directory of tradesmen in that local area.

Lets try another example:  I do a lot of work for an office furniture supplier.  My son could do with a snazzy new student desk, so let’s try with “student desk uk”.

 

A slightly different format as I am searching for an object not a company but Google assumes that I might be looking to buy a desk so other than the top 2 listings being paid adverts once again Google have also provided a little box listing the top products for Student desks for the UK from their shopping channel.  These are also paid ads also known as PLA’s (Product Listing Ads).

the number 3 position in this case (circled above) is now the top natural listing which is Amazon, followed by Argos, Ikea and then Desk Warehouse.

Ok one last try,  another company fresh in my mind, Videographers in Colchester once again.  Zap.

Now this is interesting.  A videographer in Colchester is named again courtesy of Google My Business (this is a full profile).  Below they list similar companies that people have listed for.  But the top 4 adverts are (you guessed it) paid adverts.

I should add that when I did the same search yesterday there were only 2 adverts listed,mainly because by early evening, most people’s daily budgets have been reached.  Even so, top of the natural listings is by no means top.

So why would you now pay to be top of the Google search results when in effect the top is halfway down?  Simple answer: you wouldn’t.

If you really are advertising your company on a tight budget, then Google My Business is your best bet.  If done correctly this will get you on the first page for your trade and area, but if top is your sole aim, then contact an AdWords specialist (preferably a certified one) and heed everything they tell you.

Hopefully by the time you read this, I’ll be listed on there as well.