Website Redesign ROI

The ROI of website redesign can be hard to quantify with no concrete metric that can be used to directly relate to ROI measurement. Like any ROI the calculations are based on cost and results.

Costs

Website pricing really varies. The costs range from free DIY tools to millions of dollars for high-end digital agencies. Web designers can start low for a freelancer or expensive for a complex website from a big web development firm. Generally the price of a website relates to the amount of time it takes to create it, as there are very little or no material costs, since pixels and code aren't bought like inventory the costs are based on the estimates of time required for design, programming, communication, and license purchase.

The content (writing and images) also takes time, whether handled by the web firm or a freelance team or the company itself. This adds up to a total amount of hours that must be used multiply with the hourly rate equating to the total project fee.

Here are some of the major cost factors:

• Project management and communication: How many people required to work on your project.
• Design: Is this an off-the-shelf template being used or something made custom.
• Programming: Is it a standard feature or more custom?
• Team: Are there a lot of specialists required?
• Content: Is it a site that requires a lot of new writing? Is there photography or video production needed?
• CMS Platform: This isn't really a factor because different platforms can still be made use to achieve complex things. WordPress is also used for sites like CNN.com
• Licenses: Important thing to factor in when using some features or functions or images on your site. This can incur an additional cost to the project.

Results

There is a clear distinction between the objectives of the website where revenue generating metrics can be calculated directly from e-commerce sites or in the value of leads for a lead generation website.

There are many factors that affect the calculation for the return on investment, but generally they are:

• The cost of creating the website
• The cost of maintaining the website - post-launch operating expense (content marketing and advertising)
• The traffic - number of visitors is normally a measure of a successful marketing activity not web design.
• Conversion rate - this is a web design metric and not a marketing activity as this has an impact on conversions but together the traffic times the conversion rate equals results.
• The website lifespan.

Just compare objectively costs and returns over a period of time to identify if the right marketing strategies are in place to drive relevant traffic for conversion to occur.

Ensure that you suffer from very little downtime to ensure that your website investment is given sufficient opportunity to display its potential conversion capabilities to your target customers here.

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How to Choose a Programming Language for Your Business

With technology now central to most business processes and as a business owner you might be asking  how do I know that the developers I have engaged is using the programming language that's best for my business? To solve this let's do it in a few bite-sized steps:

What should you ask first?

An early easy check is to just ask the appointed developer if he has done this kind of work before and find out if it was successful. Just check their references and you have to understand that you can't treat all technology you are asking for as a one size fits all solution to work just straight out of the box. Shoes have different sizes and technology also has different fits depending on the specific requirements your business might have. As a result you need to choose a programming language that is flexible and scalable to adapt along with your business needs. This can take a few different versions before it actually gets right.

Are there any specific requirements you need to get from your lead programmer?

First ask what programming language and framework are going to be used and what the thought process is behind that decision. Second ask if they have already checked out third-party libraries for ready made code that can be used off the rack so the programming team isn't spending unnecessary time  to reinvent the wheel when the wheel has already been invented.

Which languages are the safest?

1. Web apps, use Ruby on Rails
2. For iPhone apps use Swift or Objective C
3. For Android use Native Development Kit
4. For a simple website, go with WordPress
5. For e-commerce, use WordPress and WooCommerce or Shopify if you are looking for an all-in-one solution (This is a simple web-store that can function perform most tasks well).

Get online and host with a reliable and affordable web host so you can get any of your ideas online and in front of your targeted audience.

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10 Effortless Ways to Secure Your Wordpress Website

I've had my website hacked once, and believe me it isn't anyone else should experience. When your website gets hacked you end up spending a good amount of time trying to fix things that you don't necessarily understand. Thankfully the hack wasn't deep it and if it was, that would mean all of the effort that I have previously put into my website going up in smoke in a flash. I learned things the hard way, I had to patch multiple things and change my web host and that did the trick and fixed everything. More on the importance of choosing the right hosting plan later below. I do acknowledge that not everyone is as lucky as me. I've got a friend that had not just his site taken down but his whole domain blacklisted.

I did some research and it seems that WordPress site hacking is much more common than we would like it to be and it is steadily rising. A lot of people, like me, have their sites hacked too. Although I shouldn't sound so enthusiastic over this, but it is a sad fact.

Wait didn't we all ask this one question before:

Why would anyone want to hack my site? It is worth nothing.

I know, I know our site isn't up there in with the stars of the show. But after reading up a bit it seems that a great majority of attacks are automated where hackers (people who hack our websites) create bots (pieces of software) to crawl the online web space and look for vulnerable websites. Why would they do that? It seems that if they are successful the hacked website gets added to their portfolio, so to speak, and used for whatever objectives that they might have.

Wordpress is awesome, and popular, but it does have its problems. So to say WordPress security doesn't happen automatically. Think of it this way, why go after a CMS that nobody really uses. Going after the most popular one makes the most "hacking sense".

This is the beginner's guide. An absolute must just to make sure that bots don't find you too easy to hack.

This you must do:

1. Secure your Admin account

Don't use an obvious login/username for your administrator account like "admin" for example. This is too easy for anyone to guess, instead try "darth-vader" or "king-alexander". You might be wondering right now hey wait a sec, doesn't Wordpress not allow you to change WordPress once installation has been set? Don't worry there is a way around it all you have to do is:

Create a new user account (Users > Add New), then assign the new user an Administrator role;
Delete your original administrator account (also in users) then you are good to go!

2. Use an Editor account for content work

Using your main Administrator account for editing/publishing work can be risky especially if you are using wifi at a cafe or a public space. You should instead work on an Editor account for all content work you do making the login not so obvious. To do this go back again to creating a new user account (Users > Add New), then assign a new user to be an Editor. Now you are good to go!

3. Use secure passwords

1. Don't use passwords that are easy to guess. 
2. You can sign up for LastPass (don't worry it's free) and set that ultra secure password as your main password.
3. Then use LastPass to generate safe passwords for everything going on with your site.

4. Limit login attempts

Password guessing is a big threat. A bot, or human can make multiple attempts at guessing your password combinations until they get it right. They might not succeed in 10-20 attempts but if you are using a semi-complex password the 100,000th attempt can be successful.

5. Secure your own machine 

Securing your website would be pointless if the machine you are using to access the site is compromised. This is a simple solution that most people overlook. Install good anti-virus software and take good care of your computer.

6. Update WordPress regularly

Updating WordPress is one of those things that everyone knows it is important to do, but it still ends up being forgotten. For every change of a new release of WordPress they release a change log, every bug that has been fixed is listed. Look at it as a manual for hackers who want to target older versions of WordPress. The solution is simpler than you would think it is. Just enable auto-updates for your WordPress sites or make an update manually as soon as you see a notification on your dashboard.

7. Update plugins regularly

Updates shouldn't just be on WordPress make sure you repeat the update process for your plugins.

8. Backup.

Backups won't secure your site from being hacked, but it is an absolute necessity in case things do get out of hand. Backups are invaluable. You can restore your site back to normal no matter what bad things might happen.

I use a free plugin WordPress Backup to Dropbox; or you could do it through a more feature-rich solution VaultPress (this costs money).

9. Choose the best web host you can afford.

Cheap hosting can lead to a host of problems. Think of it as renting a computer that has little management on it. This may not be the issue with your site but it can be the server itself that got hacked.

Some quality recommendations:

1. EVERWORKS
2. Bluehost

10. Download plugins and themes from known sources

Same old rule with email. Only download email you know rule. Same applies with themes and plugins. Go for the tried and tested reputable offers such as ThemeForest and CodeCanyon. They do a fair bit of reviewing for each new theme and plugin submitted there so you should be fine.

Is this a bit too overwhelming to implement all at once? Don't sweat it. Make sure you update your WordPress it is by far the easiest thing to do.

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Easy ECommerce Content Marketing for Absolute Beginners

Ecommerce is gaining momentum in Malaysia these days.

The chances of whatever you are selling is going up against some tough competition. It can feel daunting like David against Goliath. The great thing about it is David won and so can you.

Sure you need traffic that means getting backlinks and getting links to product pages is tough. So you should be excited to know that there is a proven and predictable way to build backlinks, build authority and increase your website traffic. This isn't a buy leads advertisement. This is 100% legit and should increase traffic to your website.

What is it? It's called Ecommerce Content Marketing and it involves a six step sequence of actions you are about to discover below. 

1. Buyer personas

You should start with creating a persona. The chances are that you already have a picture in your mind of who they are. The only thing is you now need to know where they live, what their income, their job, their needs and everything about them to know them better. Don't worry if it isn't 100% accurate but the main idea is to get the ideal so that you know what content you will be creating an most importantly for who.

2. Identify influencers

You can have the best of everything but you won't have anything if no one is interested or pays an attention to you. It is very crucial to develop a valid audience that will keep up with what you have to offerings and eventually become active buyers. There is a slow boring way to build up a slow following but there's a faster way than that.

This involves influencers. People in your niche who are going to help you with the heavy lifting when it comes to promoting your content. There are some common characteristics such as a blog with an engaged audience, an active social media presence, or they operate in the same niche that has the same audience with you but is non-competitive in nature.

One you got that list going you need to start an outreach campaign that could start with simply following them on social media and subscribing to their blogs, commenting on their blogs and interacting with their audience and promoting them whenever possible.

Over time as you get better at creating content and your authority grows so will your confidence grow and you could probably get away with a more direct approach.

3. Content for traffic

Before that there is a fact that in 2012 Google does not endorse websites with little content and questionable linking profiles. You should invest into obtaining backlinks from reputable, high quality, authority sites; but as you should know these don't come easily you gotta earn it.

Example:

1. List based content - example: top 20 hosting companies in Malaysia.
2. Side by side comparisons - which is better managed hosting or do-it-yourself hosting.

4. conversion content

Content can get you more than just traffic. There are proven content that work hard at the business end of the funnel where when you have already engaged your visitor they engage your visitor to consider converting to purchase. These content examples include: Buyers guide, How to guides, Product videos, Case studies, etc.

Running an Ecommerce store is tough especially when you live or die through traffic generation. This means you need links and these are not easy to come by. A proven way is to get backlinks and social shares from authority sites.

So what types of content do you like? Are you using any of these types of content already? Please share your experience on what works best for you.

Host your Ecommerce now. Find out how you can - click here.

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SME business ideas: Develop an online presence cheap

Here is why you will love this guide:

It is beginner-friendly, up-to-date, fast to set up, and best of all free. :-)

Step 1: Choose the best website hosting platform.

Before you start worrying about color schemes and domain names you have to first decide what platform you are going to build your website with. 

The objective of this guide is to give to you an easy guide to building your first website regardless of what you choose to start with; well almost all of the available services out in the world today should incorporate basically the same principles.

What do I mean by a "platform"?

Back in the days creating a website required prior knowledge of fancy codes (prerequisites: HTML, CSS and even Flash) and they require a great amount of investment in time to learn and were very challenging to master.

HOLD IT! Today much of it has changed and the past has contributed to much of what is today's conception that creating a website from scratch is difficult or requires a lot of coding and design skills - but rest assured that is no longer true!!

IN 2015, there have been a plethora of content management systems (CMS) like WordPress that have been making website creation accessible to almost anyone who have an interest to do so.

A CMS is a user-friendly platform for building websites and managing your own online content, instead of using a bunch of complicated HTML pages, constructed using pure code.

Amongst the most popular website building platforms are Wordpress (50.07%), Drupal (17.07%), and Joomla (6.44%). Just from those you can see that half of the internet is running on WordPress.

Why choose WordPress?

FREE. There isn't any other reason that beats that! The other part to it is WordPress is beginner-friendly, powerful, mobile-friendly, and a massive support community. There are others too such as Drupal which is popular with web developers and experienced coders but comes with a steep learning curve that makes it a terrible experience for beginners, and Joomla which still requires a little bit of technical coding to make it work the way you want, but this works fantastic for online stores.

For beginners, WordPress is a good place to start.

You won't need to install or set up anything because in Step 2 will explain choosing a domain name and finding a great hosting plan for your website;

and in Step 3 you will be guided through a step by step process to install and customize a WordPress website.

Step 2: Choose a Domain Name & 

Website Hosting for your website.

To get a new website online you are going to need two things:

1. a domain name (www.yourname.com)
2. hosting (a service that connects your website to the internet)

As you are already aware the WordPress platform itself is free, but a domain name and hosting will cost you a fee. For a more targeted approach to your Malaysian SME business obtaining a www.yourname.com is relatively inexpensive and should cost you from RM55 onwards a year depending on the availability of the domain name.

Having your own hosting will ensure that your website loads quickly and won't go down for hours at a time (this is really important for everyone who visits your pages).

Where to get a domain name and hosting.

You can get your domain name from here and hosting from here.

It is affordable, has good customer service and comes with some good deals. When you get a domain name you will also get a personal email account(s): you@yourname.com which is more professional sounding than a generic Gmail or Yahoo Address.

Step 3: Set up your WordPress Website.

Once you have setup your domain name and hosting you should be well on your way. Now is the time to get your website up and running. The first thing you will need to do is install WordPress to your domain.

Installing WordPress.

Some hosts provide 1-click-installation. But to install WordPress Manually. All you have to do is:

1. Download WordPress from here.
2. Create a new folder on your desktop and unzip WordPress in it
3. Look for a file named wp-config-sample.php and rename it to: wp-config.php
4. Now open the wp-config.php (with notepad for example) and fill the following lines: (1) define ('DB_NAME','database_name_here'); - Database name (if you don't know it ask this from your hosting support), (2) define ('DB_USER', 'username_here'); - Your hosting username, (3) define ('DB_PASSWORD','password_here'; - Your hosting password. After you have filled the gaps, save the file.
5. Now log into your hosting ftp (download FileZilla for that). The FTP address is usually ftp.yourdomain.com, username and password are the same that you used to register your host.
6. If there is any file name "index" - delete it. After that upload all the files from your WordPress folder to your FTP server. (You should be able to use "drag n drop" function in FileZilla.
7. Once you have completed the previous steps go to your URL: yourname.com/wp-admin/install.php

You should see a form and fill it in and you are ready!

Choosing a theme/template for your website

Once you have successfully installed WordPress to your domain, you will see a very basic yet clean website:

But you don't want to look like everyone else now do you? ;-)

This is why you need a theme. Go to your name.com/wp-admin and you should be able to find over 1500 free themes, along the side bar on the left for "Appearance" and then "Themes".

If you want something more professional you could find a professional website designer or head over to ThemeForest.net where there is a really big library of themes to choose from with varying costs!

But before you do that take time to browse free themes as they are very professional.

IMPORTANT: Changing themes won't delete your previous posts, pages and content. You can change themes as often as you want without having to worry about losing what you have created previously.

How do you add content and create new pages?

Easy just look along the sidebar in the WordPress Dashboard for "Pages" > "Add New" and once you have clicked on it you will find a screen that looks a lot like Microsoft Word. Add text, images and more to build the page you want and then save it when you are done.

Adding pages is similar to adding new postings. Click "Appearance" > "Menus" in the sidebar of the WordPress Dashboard and find the page you have created and add it to the list by clicking the checkbox next to it and then "Add to Menu".

Setting up a static front page.

Some people have frustrations where they say that their frustrated that their home page looks like a blog post. You can fix that by making your home page "static:.

A static page is a page that doesn't change as the name implies, and unlike a blog where the first few new articles show up at the top every time, a "static" page will show the same content overtime someone comes to the site - very similar to a home page you have designed.

To set up a static front page:

Go to "Settings" > "Reading" and choose a static page that you have created. "Front Page" denotes your home page, "Posts Page" is the front page of your blog (if your entire site isn't a blog).

If you don't choose a static page on your own, WordPress will take your latest posts and start showing them on your homepage.

Installing plugins to get more out of WordPress

"Plugins" are extensions that are built to expand WordPress capabilities, adding features and functions to your sites.

Basically shortcuts to add to your website without having to build the feature from scratch.

How to start installing a new plugin?

Go to "Plugins" > "Add New" and simply start searching. There are over 25,000 different free plugins so you have got a lot to choose from!.

Installation is easy - once you find a plugin you like just click "Install".

Congratulations - you are ready to launch!

If you have followed the steps in this guide, you should now have a fully-functional WordPress website!

I hope you have found this guide useful.

Share this page if you like it and if you have any issues leave a comment and I will try to solve them for you!

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How to create a winning online marketing campaign

Have you come across a website and noticed it hasn't been updated for the past few years, pictures look outdated and the layout of the website isn't very appealing; giving the impression that the website has been neglected. When navigating to a competitors website it looks fresh, graphics are crisp, content is current and there is consistent communication through their social media; chances are people are likely to choose their competitors.

On the Internet you have less than 8 seconds to make an impression on a customer, and dependent on the impression you have imparted on them it gives them motivation to continue on. A website should load quickly, and should have features that can give your business scalability and flexibility, because anything less would likely lead an internet customer (potential lead) to move on before any of your carefully prepared content has been presented.

For any small business owners, the internet can be a powerful marketing tool as there is a great pull factor with the attraction of the ability to reach millions of potential customers with one advertising campaign. However exhilarating it may sound it can also be overwhelming. One burgeoning question is how do you make sure that you are seen in the thick of the crowd? Why are there clear distinctions between companies where some are very effective online, but others aren't? Like most advertising plans there are multiple methods to creating great online marketing campaigns.

Unfortunately it won't be a simple task and I won't be giving you false promises to say that it will be. Creating an online advertising campaign requires effort and dedication like most other traditional methods of advertising. 

In this article we will look into:

1. What are the pre-stages to planning required;
2. Tools required;
3. the importance of having the right management;
4. and choosing a good hosting provider.

The pre-stages to planning required before you create an online marketing campaign.

1. Before beginning any marketing campaign it is important to find out what is the purpose and goals to the campaign;
2. You will need to identify what resources are available and ready to be allocated without proving to be too much of a burden to ongoing business operations and constraining cash flows;
3. identify where your customer bases are and what habits they perform daily;
4. conduct a risk analysis on the target positions, and risks involved in the inherent venture;
5. consider the nature of your competition, and what they are doing;
6. and identify the characteristics of your product/service (whether it would be beneficial to demonstrate the product/service through video or an image?)

Develop a brand name and image before starting communications.

Develop a fixed image that reflect your company ideals and culture of your company;

combine your ideas, with your company name and logo so that you can use them in your online marketing;

and there should be a certain degree of standardization to allow for potential leads to continually meet preconceived expectations.

Tools required.

Social media - the peer pressure provided through key social media influencers adds weight behind a product, service, or cause as current users are dependent on provided reviews (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, YouTube, and etc.;

SEO - this tool isn't dead and still provides a great deal of amount of relevance in your online marketing campaign, it will help greatly to have your online marketing campaign to search for on major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing;

Less intuitive point - choosing the right hosting provider for your website.

Advertising campaigns and marketing initiatives however innovative they are won't be effective without a reliable central reference hub that directs all customers and leads to participate in the product or service your small business wants to sell. Choose an external hosting provider to outsource your IT needs to reduce your overall business overheads, and pay one flat fee with unmetered data transfers to avoid any surprise fees.

Final point: Track your results.

Performing any activity or task should be fully reflected upon to learn and provide an accelerated growth curve for the company in its future endeavors. Launching an online marketing campaign can be either rewarding or costly. It requires attention to detail and a great amount of planning, but the upside could extend potential company growth.

© photo by Yahoo

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Increase your MAIL Server Performance Process

Dear All Valued Customers, 

In order to better serve you and improve our MAIL Servers' performance processes, we take account security very seriously. There are a number of things you can do to help increase our servers' performance. To ensure that your important email accounts remain safe and to prevent email accounts getting hacked, we strongly recommend following these steps regularly:

To keep your account safe, here are a few tips on how to create a strong password:

1. Use a unique password for each of your importants accounts

Use a different password for each of your important accounts, like your email and online banking accounts. Re-using passwords is risky. If someone figures out your password for one account, that person could potentially gain access to your email, address, and even your money.

2. Change your password often

If someone has figured out your password, they might be accessing your account without you knowing. Regularly changing your password helps limit this type of unauthorized access.

3. Use a mix of letters, numbers, and symbols in your password

Using numbers, symbols and mix of upper and lower case letters in your password makes it harder for someone to guess your password. For example, an eight-character password with numbers, symbols and mixed-case letters is harder to guess because it has 30,000 times as many possible combinations than an eight-character password with only lower case letters.

4. Don't use personal information or common words as a password

Create a unique password that's unrelated to your personal information and use a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols. For example, you can select a random word or phrase and insert letters and numbers into the beginning, middle, and end to make it extra difficult to guess (such as "sPo0kyh@ll0w3En"). Don’t use simple words or phrases like "password" or "letmein," keyboard patterns such as "qwerty" or "qazwsx," or sequential patterns such as "abcd1234" which make your password easier to guess.

For Technical Enquiries, kindly contact our Critical Velocity Support Team at our :-

Office: +603-7806-3550

E-mail: cvs@everworks.com

Hope you have a good hosting with EVERWORKS Solutions.

photo of girl  Some rights reserved by Baba G

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