I've had a client, from time to time, ask why they should keep paying their monthly subscription. Fair question. As business-people, we all need to be looking at our expenses and trimming where necessary. First though, let me ask a question. 

Why have a website?

With nearly 90% of all purchases starting life as an internet search there's really no question why. The fact is, whether it's a new hair product, a vacation, a car or even a house, we all head to one of the search engines to start our hunt. And if a business doesn't have a solid web presence, then they're already well behind the pack. So, back to the original question...

Why continue paying every month?

What the client is really asking is, WIIFM (What's In It For Me)? And, again, that's a fair question. Some business-people see adverts on somewhere like Craigslist for a website for $299. Awesome, right? Unlikely. Often these are made by someone "in a galaxy country, far, far away...", who often fails to grasp simple English, and has different waking times to you. Plus it's likely a small 5 page site with zero bells and whistles.

But it's cheap! Of course.

Wow - already January 17, and, to our embarrassment we look at the date of my last post..... The truth is, it's been pretty busy since late last year and then with Christmas and New Year, the blog got a little neglected. And now we're neck deep in revamping our CitrusKiwi site as it needs an overhaul. There have been things we were never totally happy with and we have tons new content going on it; so keep checking back! Expected launch date is the month's end (hopefully this month!! LOL!)

Every year...

We recommend that you look very critically at your site at least once a year. If you're one of our clients, then you'll be getting regular updates about traffic and rankings. From the traffic reports you can determine which pages visitors most frequent, and then you can spend time honing those pages to new-client-producing dynamos! And the others possibly need work too, or at least a more enticing linking to capture people's attention.

FAQs

One page we really encourage clients to have is a FAQs page. Many site owners think they shouldn't give "valuable" info away for free. The truth is, most of it is available somewhere

I was asked this week, whether, 1) A "mobile type" website is needed at all, and 2) if so, what type? That's a great question and, at least, showed that the asker was engaged with basic website design ideas, or, at the very least, wanting to know. As the old saying goes, "The stupidest question is the one never asked!"

Do I need a mobile version of any type?

First part - "Do you need a mobile ready version of your site?" An unequivocal, "YES!" There is no doubt that a website that is not easily viewed on a mobile device is already at a serious disadvantage. And, with 60% or more searches conducted on some type of mobile device, that puts your business in a bad internet state.

Which type to have?

The 4 types are in the headline - Mobile, Responsive, App, or Nothing. They all work a little differently, and all have pluses and minuses.

Mobile

This was the first way we did mobile ready sites, and some still do. You'll see a URL starting with m.<domainname>.com. There's 2 main drawbacks of this way. Generally you end up running 2 separate sites (though not always) which means

I quite regularly hear clients and non-clients alike boldly proclaim their website is safe because it's small and insignificant. It doesn't have sensitive data such as credit card or social numbers on it. The reality is quite different.

The 3 main hacking reasons

Malicious "joyriders"

For want of a better term (and to be polite!) I'll liken them to someone who steals your car, races it round town, then crashes it into something and runs off. These hackers are in it to either hack you because you're there, to see if they can, or to deface your site, either with nasty stuff or to promote something that's "dear" to them.

This sort of hacking is usually very evident when you, or you client, visit the site.

Data thieves

These hackers are out for information, stuff they can either make use of - credit card details, social numbers, etc - or stuff they can sell - proprietary info, membership lists, etc. Unlike the "joyriders", being hacked like this is often hidden and goes undetected for quite some time. Recent examples of this are the wll known fiasco at Target, and, even more recently, Dairy Queen.

"Mule" trainers

Again, some literary license