Tag: Darlington

Darlington

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Evolving Company Online Profile

Building reach and increasing the company profile.

Posting on social media has multi-benefits – overall you are building your online profile. Put simply; how your company looks online, when someone ‘Googles’ you. It’s really important, it’s your shop window.

Zedcomms promote clients’ company profile online mainly using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google along with website SEO. We focus on what a prospective customer sees online. Using creative targeted promotional text, and engaging photos with links to specific pages to impress and draw in prospective customers.

In addition, we can target where the customers live, what their interests are and what the potential spending may be. We do this with SEO, tags, categories, promotional text, hashtags and account handles.

Initially, we work to establish the brand online, adjust it to attract the preferred customers and build strong search terms. We have reached this point with BJU a reupholstery company in Darlington.

As we have reached a good online established profile for BJU we are adapting how we communicate with customers as follows.

The next stage is to enhance the brand online, develop the search terms and attract a very targeted customer. This means we change the focus of posts to be less ‘selling’ and more ‘promoting’ the ethos of the brand. An example of this is below:

Selling posts are to the point with a strong call to action – Save £500.

Brand posts are calm and confidently styled to demonstrate the brand ethos – BJU | Darlington.

The confidence of the brand posts may not produce immediate links to the site but rather demonstrate and build the brand that will attract the target customer when they are in the buying cycle – ready to buy.

I hope this is of use to you. Feel free to reach out with any specific questions.

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Gate Automation Specialist Case Study

Electric gates specialist

We first met Mark and his team at Livewire Gates and Doors when we rebuilt the main website. Mark needed help looking after the website. So in 2020, we started updating the website and managing the main social platforms; Google, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

‘Electric gate company in Darlington’

Google No1.

About The Company
Livewire Gates and Doors are a specialist in access automation and bespoke security solutions; electric gates and door automation services for domestic, commercial and industrial properties.

What We Do
We originally rebuilt the Livewire website using historical cached information from the Internet due to the original website being unavailable. We updated the branding with a new logo and optimised the website for search.

Ongoing Service
During the initial meeting, the owner mentioned he wished someone would ‘look after the website’ so we instigated one of our standard service packages that cover website maintenance and SEO of the website along with updates of the main social media platforms; Facebook, Twitter and Google Business.
(Google Business updates• Facebook management and 5 posts• Twitter management and 5 posts• Website maintenance and base SEO ongoing adjustment • 4 update reports per month• Yearly Update and Compare Marketing Analysis).

The client’s requirements were to promote the business in a professional manner, increase the online profile, maintain search ranking status and constantly refresh the company profile within several media platforms.

The Outcome
Technical and marketing suggestions have improved business performance overall. This includes the addition of SSL certificate (more secure domain name which increases search ranking). Update the PHP software on the website, installing the latest software is good for speed, security and search ranking. And the addition of more recently enhanced images of completed works which were not been published previously.

The website is now a much more integral part of the business, customers can see examples of completed gates and doors, the salesperson refers his prospective customers to the site and the search exposure is progressively getting bigger online

Continuous Improvement.
We report our actions to Livewire four times a month along with any additional suggestions to continuously improve the business online profile.

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Benefits of Upgrading to the New WordPress 5.5.

WordPress

New with WordPress 5.5.

Speed. The speed of a website is important, Google prefers faster loading websites as a faster website provides a better experience for the visitor.

With WordPress 5.5 posts and pages feel faster, thanks to lazy-loaded images.  Images give your company story a lot of impact, but they can sometimes make your site seem slow.  So it advisable to make sure you optimise your images, size them about 1000 to 1500 pixels wide and reduce the resolution (they don’t have to be high-resolution images unless you are printing).   In WordPress 5.5, images wait to load until they’re just about to scroll into view. The technical term is ‘lazy loading’.

On mobile, lazy loading can also keep browsers from loading files meant for other devices. That can save your readers money on data – and help preserve battery life.

Search.  Add a  sitemap for search.

WordPress sites work well with search engines, especially if fresh rich content is added.  For example; updates from your company, case studies, answered FAQs etc.  A site map is a way of letting Google and Bing etc to know which pages you want crawling and telling them your site has been updated. This can produce much better search results and in some cases, a multi-linked SERP map (search engine results page map).

We at Zedcomms always add a site map to our client’s sites using plugins such as Yoast or All in One SEO but now this feature is included with the latest WordPress software.  WordPress 5.5 includes an XML sitemap that helps search engines discover you’re most important pages from the very minute you go live.

So, more people will find your site sooner, giving you more time to engage, retain, and convert them to subscribers, customers, or whatever fits your definition of success.

This is a good move for WordPress.

Tip – Hit update just once; When updating your WordPress site to 5.5, click the update button only once. It looks like it has not responded, wait a while and it will do the job.  Hit it a few times and the site may get – lest say confused.

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SSL Certificate

SSL Certificate

Not secure URL

SSL Certificate

I find myself talking about SSL Certificates often recently. I recommend installing these security verification certificates on almost all websites, established or new.  The title doesn’t really do justice to the benefits, so here are the main reasons to set up an SSL Certificate for your business website.

Better customer trust and better search ranking.

1. The main function of an SSL certificate is to protect the website server to client communication. On installing SSL, information is encrypted. In layman’s terms, the data is locked and can only be unlocked by the intended recipient (browser or server). While dealing with sensitive data such as IDs, passwords, credit card numbers, etc., SSL helps you protect against the hackers. As the data is turned into the undecipherable format by SSL

2. SSL Affirms Your Identity
The second task of an SSL certificate is to provide authentication to a website. Identity verification is one of the most important aspects as far as web security. There is no doubt about the fact that the internet is increasingly deceptive.

When you want to install an SSL certificate, you must go through a validation process set by an independent third party called a Certificate Authority (CA). Depending on the type of certificate, the CA verifies the identity of you and your organisation. Once you have proved your identity, your website gets trust indicators vouching for your integrity. When users see them, they know who they’re talking to.

Such verification makes sure that no imposter creates a fake website pretending to be yours. In technical terms, this is called Phishing. Thus, SSL helps users drive to your real website, saves users from frauds and enhances your reputation.

3. Better Search Engine Ranking
Google uses HTTPS as a positive ranking signal.  In 2014, Google made changes to its algorithm in order to give the upper hand to SSL HTTPS-enabled websites. This has been evident in various studies conducted by SEO experts around the world. One such study shows a strong correlation between HTTPS and higher search engine rankings. Your site with SSL is verified, therefore more trustworthy, therefore ranked higher by Google. This carries less weight than high-quality site content, content is still king.

4. SSL Helps You Satisfy PCI/DSS Requirements
If you accept online payments, you must know a thing or two about PCI/DSS requirements. To receive online payments, your website must be PCI compliant. Having an SSL certificate installed is one of the 12 primary requirements set by the payment card industry (PCI). Therefore, SSL is essential—whether you want it or not.

5. SSL Improves Customer Trust
SSL certificates are vital from a customer trust point of view. The easy to identify signs inform the users that the data they send will be secured. Once they know that you’re a legitimate entity, they’re far more likely to do business with you or even revisit your site.

6. Google Made SSL Mandatory in 2018
To give a safer web browsing experience from 2018 onwards, Google has decided to flag the websites which do not have an SSL Certificate installed on their website. If anyone fails to comply with this rule, all the popular web browsers used around the globe like Google Chrome Safari Firefox Mozilla will punish them by giving a warning message of ‘Not Secure’ on the URL bar. It could be possible that in the near future website may even get blocked to load on the browser. No matter which website you have, from a personal blog to any shopping portal SSL is mandatory and by not following with it may result in loss of visitors.

7. How safe would you feel if your browser warned you about a website being “not secure”? Because that’s what will be shown in the upcoming version of Chrome if you don’t have an SSL certificate.

Two Real Results

I installed two SSL Certificates on service businesses website in Darlington two years ago.  Both have increased customer engagement in the last two years.  One is a builder,  he is receiving a few valuable leads from his website per month.  The other is a restoration company who now receive on average three leads per week.  And both are attracting higher levels of site visitors.

Google Ranking and Indexing Update.

As you add an SSL certificate to your website the URL (the http://www.)  changes from HTTP to HTTPS.  Only a slight change but it is a different address.  Therefore your website indexing will need to start over.   You may experience some ranking fluctuation, expect a drop in search ranking and the way Google deliver search results.  The good news is that Google will eventually figure this out and re-rank you  – refreshing :-).  Google says; Changing address from http to https. Google will figure out your changes for you.