Presenting a visually compelling site leads to greater visitor interest. That, in turn, leads to more time on your pages, higher search rankings, more conversions, and higher revenues. But, what design trends do you need to know about to keep your site looking fresh? Glad you asked. We have compiled this list of the top 5 web design trends to look out for in 2018.

1. Animations

For the last several years, different types of animations have seen greater and greater popularity in modern design. A few recent innovations make them easier for websites in 2018. They require less bandwidth, less processing power, and load much faster.

One such effect, “particle backgrounds” consist of javascript in an HTML5 environment. Unlike fully animated backgrounds of the past, these lightweight effects can add beauty, movement, and interest to your page without taking forever to load. These backgrounds immediately attract attention, causing visitors to linger longer. Well executed, these animations can build credibility in your brand and bring visitors back for repeat performances.

More traditional animations also have a place in the web design playbook for 2018, though. As browsers become more advanced, the ability to implement interesting animations becomes more viable. Smaller animations in areas of interest will draw a lot of attention and can explain something much faster than a paragraph of text or a full-blown video. For example, an animation could show product assembly, show something humorous while the page loads, or integrate into unique ways with navigation and page scrolling.

2. Large Fonts and Empty Space

Many people fear empty space in any kind of design. They should not. Unfortunately, for far too long, the common misconception that every piece of relevant content should fit into the space that first loads on a screen have reigned supreme. The content one sees before scrolling down (an area sometimes called “above the fold”) has lost much of its importance thanks to modern technology. The old wisdom had much more relevance in the age of dial-up connections when users might grow impatient waiting for content to load. As a result, anything not immediately visible risked not getting seen.

Today, pages load in seconds, not minutes. That means visitors are more likely to scroll down your page, particularly if what they see presents a compelling reason to do so. Large, striking fonts and large amounts of empty space can actually create visual appeal and prevent the unhelpful, cluttered, information-overload many sites still use. A custom font can add to this appeal, presenting something interesting and readable, but with a unique feeling immediately evocative of your brand’s identity.

4. Mobile Optimization

For years now, more and more people have turned to mobile devices to access the Internet. In fact, more people used mobile devices to surf the web in 2017 than desktops and laptops. So, of course, mobile optimization should be a vital part of every web designer’s plan for 2018.

Over the last few years, the mobile design has really come into its own. Once, sites either served clunky renderings of their main content or provided stripped-down “mobile optimized” versions. Today, many large and medium-sized companies have started adopting a mobile-first strategy for web design. That means designing the site to work best on a mobile device, then scaling it up to suit a desktop. That might mean relying less on large, high-resolution background images, and more on efficient use of space, striking colors, and engaging designs.

4. Colors. Lots and Lots of Colors

As 2017 drew to a close, many sites began using increased color saturation to add pizazz to their pages. After all, in a mobile-first design world, saturating a site with color served as an easy workaround for ditching large, high-resolution background images. This trend will continue for 2018.

Once, only a handful of colors were considered “web safe.” Now, with advances in browsers, monitors, and coding languages, a whole spectrum of colors become available to the daring designer. What site visitors see will more closely reflect the vision of the web designer on most monitors and devices. This bold use of color can help to revitalize existing brands that may have become too conservative to appeal to new customers. It can also let newcomers set themselves apart with brilliant and unique new visual palettes.

5. Asymmetry

Finally, an exciting new trend for 2018 will be the liberal use of asymmetry. Asymmetrical images have been popular for many years, and this will continue in 2018. Asymmetrical page layouts, however, will step to the fore in 2018. These unique designs allow for an unconventional presentation of content and images. They can draw the eye to points of interest in a way that traditional grid layouts cannot. A slanting column of text could draw attention to an important image or piece of content. The text could wrap around a feature, forcing the viewer to observe it. Indeed, this design practice will make the page itself into a visually appealing work of art.

Beyond actual content layout, asymmetry will also find its way into other elements of the design. This may take the form of backgrounds with unevenly distributed color gradients, creative use of shadowing or even slashing, jagged visual elements. While symmetry can be beautiful, it has saturated our collective conscience so thoroughly that we no longer find it interesting in websites. Asymmetrical designs, however, may rouse the viewer (however briefly) from the delirium of their usual mindless web surfing and make them really take notice of what your site has to say.

Host Town USA Can Help You Keep Your Site on the Cutting Edge of Web Design

Whether you want to fully embrace new design trends, or simply keep your site looking fresh, Host Town USA can help. Our Web Design Services team can help you create the beautiful, custom site your brand deserves. Better yet, the consultation is free, and there is no obligation to buy. Take your site in a bold new direction this year with Host Town USA’s Web Design Services.

The post Web Design Trends for 2018 appeared first on Host Town USA.

Pinterest started in 2008 as a virtual pinboard whose initial idea was used by women sharing their wedding dress preferences. It was used by women then, and continues to be dominated by the female audience now. From wedding dresses to fashion and recipes, it quickly started to ramp up user base amongst the shopping and sharing oriented, and it’s of no surprise that the demographics behind it boast a lucrative favor toward 100k plus incomes and householders making the shopping choices behind the family. Useful for business to know!

The Google+ network originally rolled out amongst the college geeks and graduates, so it was no surprise that this tech savvy lot dominated the job description cloud with “developer,” “engineer,” “design,” “web tech,” etc.  What came with it was the polar opposite of what Pinterest had to offer. Google+ has a male dominated audience, mostly from the ages of 24-34, and employed or mostly knowledgeable in the tech field.

Depending on what services or products you have to offer, you might find it more efficient for your business efforts to focus your energy on one network or the other as an alternative to Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

The post Lookout: Pintrest and Google+ appeared first on Host Town USA.

So don’t be afraid! Not only is Prestashop an easy install made especially fast through Softaculous, but I’m glad to see a plethora of supporting documentation and templates to continue optimizing to your heart’s content.

I will guide you through my firsthand experience of installing Prestashop, including some little errors to be aware of and what they mean.

Preparation To Install Prestashop:

Make sure you have enough allocated MySQL databases. Depending on your hosting package, if you already have a CMS website like WordPress installed, you may need to check your available allocation. One install of Prestashop will take up one additional database if you have that in your allowance. You can check this under your cPanel left-hand sidebar for Database allowances.

Add a subdomain if you want to separate your shopping area from your main URL. For example, shop.domain.com. You can do this through cPanel in the Domains Module; select Subdomains, and complete the form prompts in the frame when you click through.

How To Install Prestashop:

In your cPanel, open Softaculous, which you’ll find in the Software/Services module near the bottom.

In Softaculous, select the Prestashop application. Prestashop is one of the more popular applications, so it will likely appear in the homepage of your Softaculous. In case you don’t recognize their logo, it should also be filed from the left-hand sidebar of categories under eCommerce.

Once you click Install, you’ll be prompted with a single page input form. Check each form field. Make sure you check where you want Prestashop installed; it will give you subdomain or folder options. You do not need to create a folder, Softaculous will create one for you if you choose. Make sure you update your Admin Account settings to your correct email.

<h2style=”margin-top: 10px;=”” height:=”” 15px;”=””>Now Let The Self-Install Commence:

If you tried and failed once, Softaculous will prompt you with a list of existing files that are duplicated with the following error message:

“Installation cannot proceed because the following files already exist in the target folder :”

Simply scroll to the end of the list of files, and check the box that says “Overwrite Files.”

It is likely that your first attempt to install may have failed if you didn’t have any remaining MySQL database allocation. If this is the case, you will see “The MySQL databases could not be selected” come up as an error message.

Hopefully the installation should go smoothly and all within 4 minutes. Softaculous will display a completion message and send you an email of your installation notes.

How To Administrate Prestashop:

To access your “Back Office,” go to yourdomain.com/admin123 as prompted by your Softaculous installation notes. Upon your first visit to the back-end, Prestashop will prompt you to change folder names for security reasons. To do this, leave the Softaculous application and return to cPanel Home; then go to your File Manager in your cPanel, which is located under the File module.

Once in the File Manager, finding the correct file is easy under the visual folder tree. Renaming a folder is as simple as right-clicking to bring up a drop down menu.

Your new Prestashop install should now give you “Back Office” access with these momentary security precautions in place. Simply go to yourdomain.com/admin123XXX, and upon completing the password prompts you will now have access to the Prestashop admin:

That’s it! You’re done. The back-end access is full of intuitive modules to add and navigate around. Honestly speaking, it probably would have taken you longer to read this article than complete the install itself! I managed to run through this install myself in just about 10 minutes with Softaculous and cPanel running. It’s more likely that you’ll manage a smooth install without bumping into any database errors as long as you follow the checkpoints I made at the beginning.

The post How To Install Prestashop appeared first on Host Town USA.

Fortunately, the digital age has made the number of channels for advertising greater than ever before. As a result, there are many ways to market a website that are either free or very inexpensive. Here are ten of the best free ways to start marketing your website.

10. Press Releases

Press releases may seem old hat, but they are still hugely effective. In the modern age, you need not send releases directly to multiple media outlets. Instead, post on distribution sites that share the news with multiple outlets. Some do charge, so it is important to determine either an appropriate budget or stay clear of these. Others, however, are absolutely free to use. If the site in question is new, interesting, or noteworthy in some way, a media outlet may pick up the story and provide some free exposure.

If the site is for a local operation, such as a retail store or service provider, submit the release directly to local outlets, as well. Local TV news, newspaper, and regional publications often need additional public interest pieces. So, a well-crafted website that does something new and different, or represents an interesting new product or service, could be just what they need.

9. Google Local Business Listings

Claiming, verifying, and regularly updating a Google Local Business listing can provide enormous benefits with zero expense. Anybody who has noticed local businesses with maps and hours in a boxed area of their Google search results knows how eye-catching these listings can be. Google does not charge for this service, but it is really only effective for local businesses with a physical location where customers would visit. Completely online operations will see less benefit from such a listing, and may end up with unwanted visitors, but some still swear by the boost such listings give them. However, for the right kind of operation, Google Local Business Listings are invaluable.

8. Get on Social Media

For years now, social media has had a huge impact on search engines’ website rankings. Sites with much more discussion on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram rank higher in search results. Google and other search engines believe that if a site receives a lot of attention on social media that probably equates to relevance for related search queries, too. Of course, engaging with potential customers via social media can generate huge benefits by itself.

So, to tap into this win-win scenario, you need to create pages on relevant social platforms and update them regularly. Some ideas might include creating polls for customers, new product or service announcements, thoughtful or humorous observations, etc. Successful (and free) social media campaigns usually require an understanding of the target customer and finding creative ways to actually keep them engaged with your brand.

7. Cross-Market with Established Brands

With cross-marketing, you use the established customer base of another business to swell your own client list. Done correctly, this will simultaneously provide benefit to both brands. For example, a dance studio and wedding dress boutique might advertise together, hoping to capture couples that like to dance and plan to marry, and couples planning to marry that wish to look good for their first dance at the reception.

The tricky part of cross-marketing: finding a cooperative advertising partner. Many small to mid-size companies will have natural skepticism of your intentions when suggesting such an alliance. You must approach such potential partners with a well-thought-out plan that highlights the mutual benefit and downplays any potential pitfalls. However, when possible, such cross-marketing alliances can generate long-term marketing wins for all parties involved.

6. Get Involved with Online Forums

Another classic trick worth exploring, online forums relevant to your brand’s product or service can generate a lot of traffic. Posting on such forums allows you to reach into another site with an existing following and leave backlinks other can follow. This does two things: it exposes your brand to that site’s audience, and also creates backlinks to the site.

Google and other search engines use these backlinks in their algorithms much the same way they use social chatter. The more links back to a site (within reason), the more the search engine believes that site represents a trusted authority on which other sites rely. As an authority, your site should have content more relevant to search queries, so search engines rank it higher.

5. Use Google Analytics

Google offers many free or affordably priced services to site owners. Among the most powerful, Google Analytics helps you to understand exactly what visitors do when they visit your site, how they got there, and why they might leave. It can track total visitors, give insights into their locations around the world, follow them as they visit different pages of your site or bounce to other sites, and even provide demographic information. All of this, in turn, allows you to make tweaks to the look, feel, content, layout, and other elements of your site in order to improve its appeal to visitors.

When visitors stay longer, Google takes notice and ranks your page higher. When visitors quickly and easily find things they want, they may purchase, share information about your site with others, create backlinks, etc. This also makes your page rank higher in search results. Using data derived from Google Analytics to improve your site’s user experience (UX) might not seem the most obvious tool for marketing, but used properly it can generate some of the biggest gains of any of the ideas on this list.

4. Learn and Implement SEO Best Practices

Going hand-in-hand with proper use of Google Analytics, search engine optimization (SEO) can also have enormous impacts on site visits. Unfortunately, SEO does have something of a learning curve, and is more of an art than a strict science. It requires site owners to provide interesting, engaging, content filled (but not over-filled) with relevant keywords. You must present that content in an engaging and easy-to-use format. And, just when you think you have it figured out, the search engines will tweak their algorithms to provide more relevant and useful results.

Some will still give the bad advice from over a decade ago that all you have to do for good SEO is cram as many keywords into a page as possible. This technique, called “keyword stuffing” did work in the earliest days of the Internet. However, today such practices will hurt site rankings. On the other hand, social media engagement, using alt tags on photos, and ensuring adequate amounts of relevant content on each page of a site have become important. Becoming familiar with SEO best practices, and staying abreast of changes, are two keys to ranking highly in organic search results and generating more traffic.

Literally thousands of websites provide resources with information about search optimization. That information changes regularly, so you will have to keep learning as you go. Although not the easiest thing on this list to do, the good news is that learning and implementing SEO best practices is usually free.

3. Email

Often under-appreciated, email marketing campaigns provide an important channel for regular customer engagement. Email marketing allows you to communicate directly with your site visitors often for free. Several email service providers allow low volume emailers to use their services free of charge. From there, you send a message to your existing or potential customers, advocating for your brand. This can keep you top-of-mind, share specials, describe upcoming events, or spread company news. These emails can boost engagement and make your brand feel personally interested in the readers.

Granted, open and click rates will often seem very low. Do not let this discourage you, and be sure to compare your results against industry averages to put it in better perspective. Tweak your subject lines and content to maximize engagement. But, remember that some of the biggest companies in the world spend millions each year on email campaigns alone. They clearly see the value of this tool, and it is one that you should never overlook.

2. Post Videos

A few years ago, YouTube became, by some measures, the second largest search engine in the world. It is not, strictly speaking, a search engine, but rather a video hosting site. Yet, because of its relationship with Google, YouTube video content appears in many search results ahead of other, more traditional written content. Thus, a frequently viewed video on how to change a tire may easily appear much higher on search results than a written description of the same topic. Plus, many people go directly to YouTube whenever they want to learn about something, skipping Google, Bing, or Yahoo! all together.

Virtually everybody that has a mobile device has a perfectly adequate video camera in their pockets all the time. Moreover, uploading and editing videos has become increasingly simple with YouTube’s video editor built right into the site. Given its incredible reach and ease of use, failing to use YouTube makes no sense for companies trying to drive traffic to their sites. And, you can make videos about virtually anything. Share your company culture, demonstrate a new product, talk about the value of your service, or make a full-blown commercial. Video content boasts such strong and immediate engagement that virtually any subject can get views and drive traffic to your site.

1. Start a Blog

Of all the activities one can do to drive additional traffic to a website, few are more effective than blogging. Blogging hits many of the components in modern SEO best practices. This includes providing a platform for keywords, lots of content, and a means to engage with site visitors. Blogging can serve as the basis for regular social media updates. It can announce new products and services, comment on recent events, and inform and educate visitors. It can be the place where you embed your YouTube videos. Best of all, a well-executed blog helps to establish a brand’s knowledge, expertise, and credibility. A few recent articles can serve as the foundation for a periodic newsletter email campaign. Do a press release and simultaneously post it in your blog.

As you can see, a blog can work in conjunction with almost every other item on this list. It can be the foundation of your entire marketing push, informing and facilitating every other element. In fact, you are reading a blog right now

The post 10 Ways to Start Marketing Your Website appeared first on Host Town USA.

If you want to get the most of of WordPress, and keep system resources, costs, and your visitors’ page load times low, you will need to build and maintain that site as efficiently as possible. In this post, we will show you some ways to ensure that your WordPress site is running in top shape at all times.

Keep your WordPress installation updated at all times

WordPress, just like any other widely used and open source content management system is subject to bugs and security flaws. The majority of issues that I see on a daily basis are simply due to out of date WordPress installations.

WordPress now includes the ability to automatically update itself for any maintenance releases. While this does not apply to major releases such as 3.9 to 4.0, it will update your site automatically for minor and maintenance releases such as security issues.

Clean out those themes and plugins

Often, users will simply deactivate plugins and themes instead of fully removing them. Although deactivated, the files are still there and can lead to various bugs and security issues.

When not using a plugin or theme, be sure to fully remove it. You can always reinstall it if you find a need for it in the future.

Avoid bloated themes and plugins

Many users will go for a single plugin that does everything but the problem with that is that there are a lot of other options within the plugin or theme that they will never use. Avoid plugins or themes that are an “all in one” solution and instead of going for something that does everything. For example, if you just need to display a small Twitter widget, go for a widget that does just that, not something that includes various other things such as extra share buttons in your post or an entire page of Twitter posts. While those elements are not being shown, the code itself will usually use more system resources.

Some themes and plugins may also be poorly coded in which they will use up more resources than necessary. Although they may be attractive, there is most likely a theme or plugin that will look just as good, but use half the resources of a poorly coded theme. A good starting point in this would be to only purchase themes from reputable sources.

More and more caching

Caching can be critical in improving the performance of your site. Caching simply allows dynamic elements to be run a single time and then serve static elements to all of the users allowing for less system resources, and a quicker page load time for all visitors.

Plugins such as W3 Total Cache can easily configure caching for you with just a few simple clicks.

Use a CDN for all static content

A CDN will allow you to serve your static files from various locations depending on your visitor which will allow much quicker page load times. Aside from the user’s perspective, your server will also be able to offload those resources to another service that is specifically tuned to do exactly that, allowing a lower effect on server resources.

Services such as MaxCDN are able to cheaply boost the performance of your site, and are very easy to set up within plugins such as W3 Total Cache.

Make regular backups

Ensure that you always have backups ready to go if anything were to happen to your site. If something happened to cause you to lose all of your data, or you made a change that completely breaks your site, you will have a backup ready to go.

Most users don’t understand the need for backups until they need them, so proactively make backups when changes are made, as well as incremental backups every week, month, year, etc. Several plugins such as BackUpWordPress will be able to easily back up your WordPress site with just a couple clicks.

In addition to making regular backups, be sure that you are also storing them off of the server. Many times when a user is compromised, it will also affect the backups as well. Storing the backups in a location such as Google Drive or Dropbox will ensure that your backups are always readily available.

Maintain like a madman

Of course, once you have everything set up, be sure to continuously maintain your site at all times. Even if the site is a purely informational site that isn’t updated much, keep checking up on it to ensure that everything is running smoothly often. Sometimes you may notice a small issue that if discovered early, can drastically affect whether that small issue turns into a big one later down the road.

Running a website is much more than simply tossing it up and leaving it there. Treat it like a pet that continuously needs love and care.

The post Efficiently Hosting a WordPress site appeared first on Host Town USA.

According to data from Eisenberg Holdings, for every $92 the average company spends to get customers to their site, they spend just $1 to convert them. So much attention is paid to driving traffic, to getting attention, that what really matters – getting people to convert – is ignored.

If you have a website, boosting sales is no rocket science. In fact, simple little tweaks – that can sometimes take minutes to implement – can double your revenue. Here are 5 little tweaks you can implement today that are proven to give you a sales boost:

1. Give Your Website a Speed Boost: The speed of your website can make or break your business. Research shows that a one second delay in site speed results in a 7% loss in conversion. For perspective, a one second delay in site speed could cost Amazon $1.6 billion in sales annually.

There are several ways to go about giving your website a speed boost, but having a good web host is the most important; for that, with a rating of 10/10 when they underwent our rigorous checks, Host Town USA is definitely unrivaled!

2. Use Trust Seals to Increase Your Website Trust Factor: Many people are not buying from you because they don’t trust you, and a simple tweak can change that. Research conducted by Econsultancy/Toluna shows that a whopping 48% of people look for trust seals on a website to determine if it can be trusted before they pay online.

With the increasing threat of viruses, hackers, and online scammers, it’s understandable that many people won’t just pull out their credit cards. Fix this by using trust seals on your website, and watch your sales soar. The Norton trust seal is the most-regarded, followed by the McAfee and TRUSTe trust seals.

3. Use Elements of Social Proof: Nobody wants to be a lone wolf. If people perceive that others are not interested in your brand, they are less likely to be interested as well.

Research reveals that 88% of consumers trust reviews as much as personal recommendations and nearly 9 in 10 consumers read reviews to determine the quality of a business.

4. Introduce Elements of Scarcity: One of the most powerful techniques for boosting sales on a website is to introduce elements of scarcity. A study by WhichTestWon revealed that a countdown timer on a product page led to a 9% increase in conversion, and the right introduction of scarcity to sales campaigns have always led to increased sales.

Whether it is in form of limited offers, countdown timers, or special bonuses for people who act fast, introducing elements of scarcity can give your business a much needed sales boost.

5. Make it Clear and Focused: Data from Nielsen Norman Group shows that the average web user leaves a web page within 10 – 20 seconds, but pages with a clear value proposition can get people to stay longer.

If people can’t stay on your website, they won’t buy. Work on having a clear and focused website, and ensure that your offer is properly presented. This will result in a sales boost for you.

The post Boost Sales from Your Website appeared first on Host Town USA.

Working at a hosting company, we deal with hacked accounts on a daily basis.  Hackers are sophisticated individuals with expert knowledge in the internet and computers, something not all site owners have.  Hacks and Denial of Service Attacks happen all over the world, every day, taking down sites, servers, even entire networks with shocking efficiency.  In headlines this month, we see huge websites like the New York Times, Twitter, The Washington Post, and The Financial Times becoming victims of hackers.

So, how do you protect your site?  Like any security measure, there is no absolute guaranteed way to keep your website safe, but I have a few suggestions that will tighten up the security on your hosting account.  It is important to understand that the security of your website and hosting account is in your hands.  Like any hosting provider, we offer a high level of security on the network and server, but in regards to your account, you have the most power to prevent unwanted access.

1.       Keep everything on your server up to date.

It does not matter if you are not using that software or theme currently, if you have it on your server, you need to keep it updated because even inactive subscriptions could open up vulnerabilities to your account.  The most common reason for updates is to install security patches to current versions of software, so take advantage of that.

If you are not using something, uninstall it.  This will prevent the risk of someone accessing your account through something you do not actively monitor.  The bonus to this is that you will be able to reduce your overall resource needs by ridding your account of extraneous software.  If you are using it, or plan to use it in the future, be sure to update it regularly.

2.       Use and rotate complex passwords.

Remembering passwords can be annoying, but it is necessary.  For the security of your account, you need to use complex and unique passwords and rotate them regularly.

To make your password memorable, but complex, try using a phrase you can easily recall.  For example, I will use, “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done…” because I can always remember the last line of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, but you can use whatever phrase you like.  Take that phrase, and abbreviate it with the first letter of each word:

iiaffbttidtihed

Then capitalize some letters in a way that you will remember:

IiaffbTTIdtIhed

Now, add some numbers and symbols:

I!a55bTTIdtIhed

BOOM. Secure password with a pneumatic built in.

If you cannot remember your passwords, do not store them in an unprotected document on your computer.  If someone hacks your computer, they will find your passwords.  If you want to store your passwords so you don’t have to remember them, try an application like KeePass (http://keepass.info/) which will store all your passwords in an encrypted file.  The only password you will have to remember will be the master password.  Just make sure you aren’t using a simple password as your master password!

Also, don’t use the same password for everything.  Keep a variety of passwords.  That’s where tools like KeePass will be really helpful in keeping you organized.

3.       Consider an upgrade.

Please don’t take that to mean that shared hosting is not secure, because all servers at Host Town USA are secured to the same high standards.  However, VPS or Dedicated hosting packages will offer you more separation from other accounts and more control over the server itself.

That can be a double edged sword, because it means that your access level could compromise the site, so if you are not confident, or are not working with an experienced developer, make sure you don’t make too many changes to anything server-side.

4.       Check your code.

Checking your code means more than just updating your HTML for site changes.  It also means testing any changes you make prior to making them live.  You want to ensure that there are no holes written into any custom coding.

While you are reviewing new code, take the time to review old code as well.  If you see any unfamiliar code, it is possible someone has hacked your account and is using it without your permission.  By keeping up with your website’s code you can ensure that you know when changes are being made to your files.

In addition to the coding, check your access logs to ensure that the only IP address attempting to log into your server is your own.  If you notice something askew, update your passwords and block that IP address.

5.       Check your file permissions.

When you create a file, it will at times open the access to the world.  Yep, the entire world.  Ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but if your permissions are set to 777, that means that anyone can access and change your file permissions.

This is just enough of a crack to let a hacker through, so make sure that you have everything set properly.  Ideally, you want your permissions set to 755 (or 644 depending on the purpose of the file) which means that you can access and change the file, but others can just see and use it.

If you’d like some more details on file permissions, our Support Center has a basic explanation of them as well as some details on changing them.

The above suggestions are just to get you started in securing your site.  There is a lot of information out there, and diligence is required to keep your hosting account secure.

While you may not have the resources to have someone monitoring your account 24/7 like our Systems Team monitors our servers and network, it’s not a bad idea to get in the habit of checking in on your account daily, even when you aren’t updating any of its information.

The post Keeping Your Website Safe appeared first on Host Town USA.

Step 1: Work out how your redesign is going to build trust between yourself and your audience.

Any website relaunch must focus on how it is going to make your audience trust your brand. There are two real ways you can build trust on your website and I discuss them both below.

The first thing you need to do if you want your website to be considered credible and trustworthy is to continually up-date it with original, high quality content. This is because clients read your websites content to determine if they want to do business with you.

Original content helps clients find you in the first place and establishes you as a leader in your chosen industry. You don’t just want your visitors to see you just as a website which sells something, you want your visitors to trust your website as an authority. The content can’t simply be released all at once either, it needs be released organically every few days for the whole year.

The other way you can build trust with your customers is to have an active social media presence. Customers now expect a certain amount of engagement and interactivity before they will be prepared to hand over their money. By communicating with customers via sites like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram you give your business a human face and and give off the perception that you are interested in hearing your customers feedback. In the weeks leading up to your redesign it is highly recommended that you review the way your business uses social media and make a real attempt to engage with your customers across various platforms.

Step 2: Study your current analytics to work out which parts are worth keeping and what needs changing.

Most websites have analytics installed but very few business know how to leverage the data that they provide to increase traffic and sales. If the only number you focus on when you look at your website’s stats is the total number of hits then you need to change your approach.

When analyzing your websites data, focus on which pages are attracting the most hits and which ones are keeping visitors around for the longest. Then try and isolate what is making those pages more successful than others. Focus too on where your traffic is coming from and which of your marketing strategies is being the most successful. Don’t be afraid to change things up and experiment to see what provides the best results. What you learn should ultimately influence your redesign.

Analytics metrics to look for:

• High bounce rate
• Low time on page
• High exit rate

Step 3: Plan out what you want, when you want it and how you plan on getting there.

When thinking about your new design, a really good exercise is to list what you like about other websites and then consider how you might integrate their strengths into your own website. Often while scrolling through other websites you will start to get a feel for what your site does well, and what it does poorly. Pay close attention to how other websites approach design, functionality and user engagement and then use what you learn to make your new design as good as it possibly can be.

Before you can begin, you have to work out what is it exactly, that you want your website to do? What do you want your website to achieve? Your goals should be specific and realistic. Make your goals too vague and you won’t know what you’re doing, make them to lofty and you will just set yourself up for failure.

The key question you need to ask yourself is what is my website for?

• Is it to build brand awareness?
• Is a means to communicate with your customers?
• Is it to act as a sales funnel?

Every website has a slightly different purpose so you need to figure out what your website’s purpose is. For example if you decided your websites purpose was to increase customer engagement you might say one way it could do that would be by having social media apps integrated into the website itself.

Setting time limits on when you want different aspects of your design completed is also really important. At the start of the process you should map out a timetable which sets out what needs to be done and by when. The timetable should also include who is accountable for what parts of the build. The deadlines should be optimistic but not unreasonable.

Put your redesign plan into action using the new BoldGrid.

Once you have completed the above three steps, the only thing left to do is to put your plan into action. One of the best ways to do just that is to use the new BoldGrid WordPress Website Builder. BoldGrid uses a drag-and-drop editing system making it perfect for beginners and those who don’t want to work with code. BoldGrid also comes with free premium themes which will allow you to build a high quality, custom site in minutes. It comes fully supported and makes full use of the WordPress content management system meaning that anyone who has used WordPress before won’t face any sort of learning curve. So if you do plan on redesigning your website we highly recommend you use BoldGrid, you won’t be disappointed.

The post Planning For Your Website’s Redesign appeared first on Host Town USA.

In addition to building a social networking powerhouse, Google’s aim with its “+1” button — the equivalent of Facebook’s “Like” button — is to determine the social value of websites, or, in other words, they want consumers to add personalized recommendations to Web content and business sites. At present, it actually looks like Google may just pull it off. Since its June 28 release, more than 20 million people have already jumped onboard Google+. With such an unbelievable early adoption rate, many internet marketing professionals are beginning to wonder if those “+1″s will also start affecting how businesses use search-engine optimization, or SEO.

Google+ combines many popular features of Facebook and Twitter into a centralized social hub. There’s a group video chat feature called “Hangouts,” and a user-defined topical news feed (like Twitter’s hashtag) called “Sparks.” But maybe the most unique feature — and SEO-relevant — is “Google Circles,” which gives users the ability to share content with specified groups, or “circles” of people. As users build these circles, they’ll be able to see the sites that members of their circles have +1’d in Google’s search engine results pages, or SERPs.

While “+1″s are currently appearing in the search pages for users that are logged in to their Google accounts, it’s too early to say exactly how “+1″s will affect users who aren’t logged in. Looking at how Facebook and Twitter “Likes” and “retweets” currently affect where a site appears within search pages, one has to assume these +1’s will be as influential, if not more.

As search engines evolve to make searching more social, the main value added of “Likes” and “tweets” showing in SERPs is the concept of something I like to call, “trusted endorsements.” If someone searches for a product or service, there’s a good chance that customer reviews and recommendations will play some role in their decision making process. When looking at these reviews, users trust the opinions of strangers. They assume that these reviews are honest, but there’s always a hint of lingering skepticism.

Now imagine the same user is searching for the same product or service, but instead of having to rely on the opinions of strangers, they see recommendations from friends, co-workers or family members. Just like in real life, the opinions of people in their “circles” influence the decisions they make. That’s the potential Google+ holds.

So how do you optimize for recommendations?

Google has built upon some of the best features of existing social media sites in an attempt to make search less about computer algorithms and more about real people. Google+ and the +1 button are empowering users to influence other peoples’ online activity.

This isn’t SEO in the traditional sense, optimizing for these trusted endorsements is an entirely new strategy altogether. Now more than ever, marketers must focus on providing the best customer experience possible, and encourage +1 recommendations everywhere they can.

The post How Will Google+ Affect SEO? appeared first on Host Town USA.

Don’t be like me.  Don’t live in regret.

I, too, was convinced that I could never learn to use Joomla!.  But, then again, I was intimidated by all content management systems (CMS) before I started really trying to learn them.  I didn’t think it was something I could figure out much less something I could excel at and even become a resource from which others could learn.  Then, a friend of mine, Christi, taught me WordPress.  (Christi’s currently the Technical Team Lead in our Design Department, so she’s an awesome source from which to learn.)

It was a snowball effect from there.  I built a lot of sites with WordPress and loved it.  But, I wanted to learn more, so I ventured into some of the other free software we offer through Softaculous.  I was still intimidated by Joomla! though.  Everything I read about it made it something I wanted to learn, but it is so different from other CMS software I had been working with, I was convinced it was beyond me.  The truth of the matter is, of course, that I didn’t put in the time and effort to learn something new.

But, a few months ago, I decided to install Joomla! on two of my personal blogs and give it a try.  From that moment on, I was challenged to change my perspective.  But, more importantly, I discovered something:  Joomla! is actually very easy to use.  It also comes with a lot options that aren’t available in other CMS software.

I think the most confusing part of Joomla! for most people is the lingo.  It’s different from other sources, but the meaning behind the words is the same.  Once you have a firm grasp of what everything means, it all starts to click into place.  So, in order to help get you started in using Joomla!, we are going to explain what Articles are and how they are used in Joomla!. This will help demystify the software and afford you a bit more comfort when reading up on what Joomla! is and how to use it.  So, study up, there will be a quiz at the end. (Probably. But, probably not.)

Articles = Web pages. 

Don’t be confused because it says “articles”.  The truth of the matter is that articles are both static pages and individual posts or listed posts (if you are going for a blog).  They are all referred to as Articles in Joomla!

When using Articles as static pages, you first need to create an article.  This tells Joomla! that you are going to have a page based on that title.  I always start my Joomla! designs by brainstorming on paper (Yep, pen and paper.  Call me old fashioned, but it really helps me see what I’m doing) the pages I would like to see on the site.  Joomla! is easiest when you have an idea of the content you will want on your website.  While you can of course make changes and update the information, it is best to have an idea of where you want the site to go before starting to build the site.

If your intention is to have the article act as a static page, you will need to take one more step when creating the article.  You will need to go into the “Article Options” (either while you are creating the article, or by clicking on the article title in “Article Manager”.  Everything that is set to “Use Global” should be changed to “Hide” or “No”.  This will prevent odd information, like the article title, creation date, and author from showing up on the pages you create.  While this is perfect for a blog page, it can be confusing on a static page.

My suggestion is to create blank Articles for the pages you want to see on your site.  So, for example, if you want a page on your site titled “Reviews” you would first create an article (Content – Article Manager – Add New Article) make the title “Reviews” and then leave the content area blank.  You can then add this to the menu (Menus – Main Menu – Add New Menu Item) and select “Single Article” (Menu Item Type – Articles – Single Article) for the Menu Item Type.  This will allow you to select the article you just created and will generate the blank webpage on your site.  You can then add modules to customize the appearance of the page.

If you are looking for a blog look, you can go through the same process of adding the page to the menu, but instead of selecting “Single Article” you have a few options to have a page of posts.  You can select featured articles, which will pull up articles that you label as “featured”.  This, however, may be a problem if you are using an image rotator or another module that pulls from the featured articles.  Then everything you want in your blog would also be pulled by that module.  A better option would be to select “Category List” which will pull from a selected category.  If you are only having one blog page, you can create a category called “Blog” or something to that effect and use the “Blog” category when selecting which category that page should pull from.   Choosing “Category List” will also allow you to have multiple blog pages by selecting a different category for each page.  You will just need to create a category for each of those topics.  (Content – Category Manager – Add New Category).

So, remember, when working with Joomla! an article is a web page.  You can set up any article in any manner through the use of the menu options and modules.  This will help get you started in the world of Joomla!

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