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Need a new website? WordPress could be the answer

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What is WordPress?

WordPress is the most popular and free open source content management system (CMS) in the world. It allows WordPress developers to create websites, blogs, or apps. WordPress offers over 45,000 add-ons known as plugins. These plugins add features such as online stores, mailing lists, analytics and a lot more.

What is a WordPress Theme?

A WordPress Theme is a collection of files that work together to produce a graphic design of a website. The theme can change the way a website is displayed without changing the code. The theme files are sometimes called template files. There are thousands of WordPress themes available for purchase. You can also hire a WordPress developer to create or edit a theme to customize it for your business.

new website consider WordPress

What is a WordPress Framework?

WordPress frameworks are used as a parent theme template with all of the functionality. WordPress developers can create a child theme to add custom styling and leave the functionality to the parent theme framework or template. The framework is used to reduce web development time and usually has additional features. Canvas, Gantry, and Genesis are common WordPress Frameworks.

What are the features & benefits of a WordPress website?

WordPress is great for businesses with simple structured websites. It has basic installation, set-up, and maintenance requirements to save businesses time and money. WordPress is a useful CMS with a simple web interface for companies that want to provide their visitors with frequently changing content in attractive layouts. WordPress has a large community of users and developers that offer a huge selection of themes, plugins, and widgets with much flexibility.

Can You Create a Mobile Responsive WordPress Website?

Yes, WordPress website can be mobile responsive! Often, outdated WordPress software and themes are the cause of poor mobile sites. Choosing the right WordPress Framework can give you a mobile responsive website and better load time to help the user navigate with ease.

We recommend focusing on mobile first and working your way up to desktop computers. Use Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) for faster load speed, better user experience, and to lower the website bounce rate. Remember, Google will predominantly use the mobile version of the content in the search engine results and ranking.

How to Improve Slow Loading Speeds for WordPress Websites?

According to a report by Microsoft Bing search team, a 2-second longer delay in page responsiveness reduces user satisfaction by 3.8%. It increases lost revenue per user by 4.3% and decreases clicks to the website by 4.3%.

I would recommend good hosting with Private or Dedicated hosting services to reduce the number of site on the server and daily backups. Implement the Content Delivery Network (CDN) to improve slow loading speeds whenever offered by the hosting service. Use an established WordPress theme and framework because they are updated to improve load speed as well as security. You can have a developer optimize the website for speed by optimizing images, the database, and code.

How to Avoid Stale Content & Build a Brand?

WordPress can help you create, publish, update, and archive old content or information. You can use SEO plugins like Yoast or SmartCrawl to improve the content for search engines. Adding widgets can help to populate a page with social media posts or sales promotions. The blog functionality is simple for you to both use, and to update to avoid stale content.

Use WordPress to offer different types of content to potential customers. Reuse content in other formats such as videos, infographics, podcast and PDF downloads. You can build brand awareness and manage an online reputation, too. The reviews plugins can help manage business reviews.

How to Maintain a WordPress Website?

The average lifespan of a website is 2-5 years. The maintenance of a WordPress website is essential to maintain features, functionality, and security. Outdated WordPress website software, themes, and plugins leave sites vulnerable to hackers.

A WordPress website should receive scheduled monthly maintenance to update the software, theme, and plugins. Whenever possible, remove all deactivated plugins from the site. Audit the website for broken links on the website with a broken link checker. Do not hurt your search engine ranking, create a bad user experience, or give the idea that your business does not exist. With proper maintenance, WordPress can provide the answer for your business website needs.

Still have questions? Contact our sales team for a free consultation or submit your questions in the comments section.

DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC Re-develops PA Industrial Equipment, Inc.’s Website

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DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC redesigns and creates a new website for PA Industrial Equipment, Inc.

PA Industrial's New Website
The Home page of PA Industrial’s new website.

PA Industrial’s new website emphasizes an improved level of accessibility and internal security as a result of consolidated web hosting services from DaBrian Marketing Group. With the new website, PA Industrial’s team develops online marketing strategies with a degree of transparency that facilitates secure management for the maintenance and growth of the company.

Office Manager, Shelly Arthur gave the following statement: “The team at DaBrian Marketing Group completed our new website weeks earlier than we anticipated. We are pleased to be entering our 40th year of business with one dedicated team managing our website design, hosting and SEO programs.”

PA Industrial Equipment, Inc. specializes in the sale, rental, and repair of forklifts and aerial lifts.  PA Industrial serves numerous counties within Southeastern Pennsylvania – including Berks, Philadelphia, Lancaster, Lehigh, and Northampton. PA Industrial stresses its dedication to high-quality service in the selling and repairing of machinery that is vitally important to manufacturers within the region.

Visit PA Industrial Equipment, Inc.’s new website to learn more about their high-quality repair and sales services as well as the most recent work by DaBrian Marketing Group’s team.

Web Security Can Compromise Your Company

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Why Is Web Security Important?

The more information you have, the more web security is important. It is crucial for your business to have security in place if you have customer’s credits cards on file in a server. If a hacker would get their hands on your customers credit cards, then you business could potentially run the risk of being sued.

Now, granted not many companies keep that kind of information. Most of the information you have on your site are documents of agreements, files made specifically for a client, etc. You wouldn’t feel good if you were the client of another business. Then one day that business got hacked and lost some of your information, and because of them, that information became public knowledge. Not something anyone wants happening.

How Can Web Security Affects Your Company?

A hacker can turn your website against you in minutes, getting your website blocked by common search engines like Google or Yahoo. Once your website is blocked by Google or Yahoo, it is a very long process and sometimes impossible to get it unblocked. A hacker can also send spam emails to all your clients, and potentially leak private client data, all without your knowledge of any of it happening.

Without some good security protecting your company’s website and computers, you could easily find yourself on the 5 o’clock news. There is a laundry list of things you can do to protect your company. Below are some of the basics to help you get started. This should not be the basis of your company’s security, merely a double check that everything is in place to keep you and your business safe.

Tips To Securing Your Website

  • Keep all software up to date. This may sound trivial, but you would be surprised at how many sites get hacked by an old security hole found long ago that was patched, and simply updating it would have fixed it.
  • Switch to HTTPS. An easy enough switch. Provides peace of mind to your customers knowing your secure and thanks to Google recently, you would also be increasing in search rankings.
  • Use strong passwords and change them regularly. This may sound like a simple change to make, but a site is only as strong as it’s weakest link. Making sure all passwords are strong boosts your security.

Tips To Securing Your Computers

  • Get an antivirus. Make sure you get an antivirus for your computer. It can be free or paid. If you pay for an antivirus, once the subscription runs out it is doing nothing for you. Anyone looking for an antivirus, Kaspersky is a good place to start.
  • Update your PC. Having all your software up to date will help make sure it is more secure.
  • Consider using a firewall. A firewall manages all files going to and from your computer. Usually, it notifies you of something that it does not recognize or it knows is malicious.

With these helpful tips, you will be keeping your computer and your website secure. This should not be your only security. Theses tips are only meant to help you get started. We are not responsible if your company gets a virus.

If you have any security questions ask away in the comments below or Contact Us today!

Outdated Hardware and/or Software Affect Internet Browsing

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Your Outdated Device Will Affect Internet Browsing

There are a lot of factors that will affect internet browsing and assist in allowing a website to show correctly. Two factors that people tend to overlook are outdated devices and software updates. These two factors don’t stop your device from working, however, they can affect your browsing experience in negative ways. What might seem like a small, or not needed update might be a critical factor affecting your browsing experience whether it be on your Android Smartphone, iPhone or your computer.

During testing one of our client’s website, there were issues with how the site rendered on their iPhone. They were having issues with how some elements on the page were appearing. As most of our clients would do, they turned to us for answers. After hours of thorough mission critical updates that were directly related to their poor browsing experience, we advised them to update their device’s software and that resolved the issues for most. Others weren’t so fortunate however, they had to upgrade or purchase a new device because of outdated hardware.

browers-2015
Image from the following blog: Browser usage between March 2014 – March 2015

According to Circle Studio, Internet Explorer is the 3rd, 4th, and 5th most popular browser being used today. The problem with this is that 2 of the 3 Internet Explorer browsers (versions 8 & 9) are no longer supported because of their inability to render HTML5 code which is the new standard for creating websites. Now do you see the problem with using outdated browsers?

outdated browser
Fig 1. A website in Internet Explorer 8. Not what you thought. Everything else is updated. To view the correct display of this website, see figure 2 below.

Why it matters to you?

Have you ever browsed the internet and stumbled onto a site that had jumbled text or graphics? Did it look anything like Figure 1? If not, congratulations your device’s hardware and software are most likely up to date. If you did see something like Figure 1, then the hardware or software of your device might be outdated and needs to be updated. This can be an issue not only for your company when you are trying to market your website but it can also be an issue if people are trying to get to your site. If these potential customers do need to update their device’s hardware or software, they might find your website hard to use if they are on an outdated browser. Another reason this is an issue is because most people surfing the web are using outdated browsers; about 14.5% of those are using a previous version of their current browser, and 8.5% are using, even more, outdated versions. So let’s resolve this issue.

updated browser
Fig 2. Same site as Figure 1. On IE11, the latest software and updated hardware.

How to resolve the issue

One way (highly recommended) is to take your device to a professional like your IT tech or a local computer shop and they will update the software on your device. If your device is utilizing Microsoft XP or Vista operating systems then it is time to get a new device as they are no longer supported. Below are some general guidelines to assure your internet poor browsing experience is rectified:
  1. Schedule regular operating system and software updates.
  2. Make sure you’re using the latest browser versions
  3. When a new Windows Operating System is released, your hardware is out of date. Time to get a new computer.
Do you have any questions regarding updating your computer? Leave a comment below or Contact Us today!

Commercial vs Open Source CMS

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What is a Content Management System (CMS)?

A content management system (CMS) is an interface that a user can log into and allows publishing, editing and modifying content, organizing, and deleting as well as maintenance from a central interface. Such systems of content management provide procedures to manage workflow in a collaborative environment. It also allows you to do all of that in an environment that does not require you to know code. Open Source Content Management Systems account for roughly 50% of all websites that exist. There are lots of different kinds of Content Management Systems, but we will be talking about 2 different kinds that most, if not, all Content Management Systems fall under.

What is a Commercial Content Management System?

Commercial refers to being the opposite of free to use, meaning you must pay to use the software. For example, when you buy “Microsoft Office Word” you can’t edit the code to modify it. Depending on how you look at it, it can be a good or bad thing. Using commercial software always means you must use their software and use what they provide and that nothing else is compatible with it other than what they offer. For example, if you wanted to integrate Salesforce with your site, chances are you wouldn’t be able to because the features most likely would not be there.

What is Open Source Content Management System?

Open source refers to that anyone can use it for free. Most times you are able to literally open it up and edit their code and modify it as you like. Depending how extensive the changes are, you could release those changes as an attachment / plugin for free or paid. The big factor in using an open source Content Management System is that it has the backing of a community, and if you want something, chances are you can find a plugin / attachment that is already made and tested and that gives you the functionality that you want. Now that we know what they are, let’s get down to what the differences actually are.

Advantages of Using Open Source CMS

Let’s start off with the advantages of open source Content Management Systems (CMS). There are a lot of advantages, but we are going to focus on some of the main topics on why users usually choose to use open source. Since open source is free to use, that is probably the biggest reason anyone uses it. Another reason is that it is backed by a community of users that regularly provide support / updates / help on the software to achieve your end goal. Another advantage of open source it that anyone can make changes to it so that means you can customize it to fit your different needs making it more flexible.

A big reason why users usually use open source is because they have a lot of other software they want to work with their site. Security is usually a big concern and often a misconception that open source does not mean secure. If your site is in the right hands, than it can be made as secure as commercial software.

popular open source CMS’s (wordpress, drupal)
Popular open source CMS (WordPress, Drupal)

Advantages of Using Commercial CMS

The main reason a company wants to use commercial software is because they are worried about security, which is a good concern. Commercial definitely has you secure from the start. That is something you don’t need to worry about. Since it is developed by only 1 company and not a community it often has a  clearer path of where the software is going and what it will include next. Since the software is developed by one company that means they have a definite line of support for you to reach.

Conclusion

That was a brief overview of the differences of commercial Content Management Systems (CMS) and open source Content Management Systems (CMS). Commercial Content Management System usually is the choice if you want assurance of security and support. If you are looking for a cheaper option, you can go with Open Source Content Management System (CMS). It can be as secure as a Commercial CMS, plenty of integrations, community support and best of all it’s free!

Which Content Management System do you prefer to use if you use one? Fire in the comments below!

Why Should you Update your CMS?

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Before we get started on why we need to keep your website up-to-date, let’s get to the “why” behind why the updates come about. Updates are made generally to fix incompatibility, security, and bug issues. We can’t forget the most known update, when updating adds more features. If you don’t update your Content Management System (CMS), you might be missing out on fixes, new / fixed features, as well as, leaving yourself open to a security risk.

Why Bug Fixes Are Made

Bug fixes are released because there was some vulnerability in the code that was not caught before. It is easy to miss this because a website’s code might be 10,000+ lines of code long. It’s like watching a movie the 2nd time and catching something you missed before. If you don’t update your CMS, you could be leaving yourself open to be hacked. If you hold customer information, then you have a bigger risk of losing all or a vast majority of your clients if you do get hacked.

Dangers To Update Your CMS

I have 10+ updates and I want to update now! — Hold on there, don’t rush and wildly update your CMS without a plan. Updates come with new / fixed features and they might remove some old features, too. When that happens, and you are updating past a few versions, chances are your site will break. If your site is having issues check out one of our past blogs to help fix it.

Outdated WordPress Admin Interface
Outdated WordPress Admin Interface

What To Do Before Updates

Before you update anything, always make a full backup of your site in case it does go down. Depending on the size of your site it might take a few minutes or a few hours. Once that is done, update the CMS core first. It is the most important part of your site. It is your sites engine and needs to be in top condition. If something is going to break, chances are it will be here.

Now that your site’s core is updated, you need to update any plugins/extensions. If you’re updating more than 1 version, something might break which is why you should do the smart thing and schedule the update to you when your site has the least traffic. You usually start on a Friday and if needed, you then have the weekend to fix it. Just make sure your developer is reachable in case something breaks, so they can reprogram it to minimize downtime.

Lastly, the theme updates. These may get messy and often go against the principle. Updating the theme you are using often isn’t a smart thing to do. When the theme is updated, your custom code (if any) will most likely be removed. This forces you to reprogram much of your site. Generally, themes don’t update often, but if yours has one, back everything up first and then do the update. After any update, look over your site to assure nothing is broken. If everything’s good, then you’re all okay! If something broke, then roll it back to your backup, and notify anyone who would possibly update the site to not do that update.

Conclusion

Even if you have 1 update or 10 updates to make, always make sure to backup your site before each one. Remember, updating it can also cause issues to arise on your site, so be sure to schedule it during your site’s lowest traffic time. By doing that, you will prevent 90% of issues and protect yourself from being hacked. If you are interested in starting a wordpress blog site, check out this article.

Have a question about updating your CMS? Fire away in the comments below!