Website and Design

Did your mom ever say to you, “Don’t judge a book by its cover”? Mom we love you, but unfortunately, we can’t help not to judge a book by its cover when we’re talking about websites. I’m certainly not insinuating that a company is not a great company that doesn’t have a good website, but to potential customers it does establish a preconceived notion before ever speaking to the business. How many times have you not done business with a company because their website left a lot to be desired? For me, it’s too many to count. The simple reason is that the website didn’t give me the information I needed when I wanted it and someone else’s did. As a matter of fact, just this week I was looking for caterers for an event I’m hosting out of state. I found several via Google and looked over all of them. After speaking to all of the caterers, I found that I had a bit of a bias toward the one that had the better website and that’s who I ultimately ended up choosing.

Branding: Logos, Colors and Signage

Do you think branding is something just for big corporations? Think again. Whether you’re a small business, an individual selling your wares on Etsy or a large business setting yourself apart with a brand is probably one of the single best business decisions one can make. How can a small business accomplish this on a small business budget? The question you really should be asking yourself is, “How can I not afford to brand myself?” This is the first in a series about creating your brand. This installment focuses on your logo, colors and signage.

Google & SSL Certificates

Have you heard the news? Google announced that websites are now required to have an SSL certificate in order to avoid being flagged as an unsecure site to all Google Chrome users.

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a security protocol used for transmitting private documents via the Internet. It ensures any data passing between the secure link between a server and a client is encrypted and remains private. It’s pretty standard security tech when dealing with the transfer of private information over the web, although there are a lot of websites that don’t have it.