News & Trends Archives | Page 5 of 157

October 14, 2019July 27, 2019

Why You Should Move To HTTPS

HTTPS – Google loves it, but for informational websites, moving to HTTPS adds to your costs. Expect to pay $129 to $229 for a SSL or secure socket layer certificate to be able to have your website use HTTPS in the browser bar.

For me at this time, I am not moving to HTTPS and it is mainly due to the additional cost. I do not have e-commerce on my website and I only use a contact form for prospects, so do not feel that I must have this extra security. But, Google loves the security and encryption that HTTPS affords for websites. At some point in time, the use of HTTPS on your website may be a ranking factor for organic results, but for now, it is not.

E-Commerce Sites MUST be HTTPS

If your website has e-commerce, you take payments or log users into a secure area, you really need to be using HTTPS at this point in time, no exception.

New Websites Should Embrace HTTPS

Any new websites we design are all in HTTPS. At this time I do not feel that existing informational websites should move to HTTPS, but that day may be coming soon.

To find out more about how we can help you, I invite you to visit our website to browse our service offerings and read more content on topics that will help your business grow.

October 7, 2019July 27, 2019

What Chat App Is Best For Your Site?

The Role of Social Media on Your Website: If You're Not Using It- Lose It

Seems simple, just install code and you’ve got a chat app. But not so fast. I am finding out from personal experience that not all chat apps are alike.

I started out with Drift and still have that chat app on my website. What I found as I used the app was it slowed my website to a crawl for load time. I think much of this is the code is installed in the head tag as instructions state, but may be better installed before the ending body tag </body>.

What is happening on my site is the page is taking so long to load and the navigation does not operate until the chat app function appears – I consider this very bad. Drift must have made a code change to the asynchronous code recently as the page load time was not an issue before but started about two weeks ago. As a result I have been actively looking for a website chat app replacement.

I have tried three Tawk.to, MyLiveChat, and now Pure Chat. I am using Pure Chat on my website right now and so far I do like the free version. What I consider important for a website chat app are the following:

Easy to install
Able to configure colors
Has a rock solid mobile app
Does not impact page load speed

So far Tawk.To and My Live Chat were too complicated for my needs and cumbersome to use. Pure Chat has easy set up and I do like the mobile app which is simple to use.

April 1, 2019March 28, 2019

How We Bill For AdWords Services

In my industry – professional pay per click account management the typical way to charge clients is 10% of their scheduled 30 day ad spend in the Google Ads control panel.

If a client has a setting of $150 a day for clicks, this translates into a 30 day budget of $4,500 to be paid to Google for clicks.

The typical account manager will bill $450 for the month for their management fee.

We operate differently – we bill by the running ad group number or ad spend and bill based on a service grid we post on our website. Our fee for this same client would be not $450 but rather $260 for 2.8 hours of service. That is more than a 42% lower fee than what is charged by the typical agency or manager.

We have priced our services to be small to medium sized business-friendly and know that your investment in our services will be repaid by increased leads and phone calls.

In our case, a lower price does not mean less quality or less skill – it is just our way of billing and doing account architecture that works for us and helps clients to have professional service without significantly adding to their overhead.

You can view all our pricing online at http://www.mccordweb.com/search-engine-marketing/google-ads-quick-start.php

March 25, 2019

Helmet and Goggles Reviewed

Feel the rush! Feel the wind in your face, Experience the exhilaration of flying high in an open cockpit. Helmet and Goggles is a new business owned by one of my friends, Lee Fox, and offers special one-of-a-kind adventures.

Lee is a retired commercial pilot and owner of this World War II era plane. He offers rides in his biplane from Shannon Airport in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Check out his website at https://www.helmetandgoggles.com/ and book your flight today.