Four Examples of How Your Website Can Be Made More Accessible:

1. Include a font-size changer into the layout of your website, so that if a user has visual impairments he or she can easily choose to increase or decrease the text size of the content of your website.
   
   
2. Provide a way for users to skip repetitive sections of your content – for instance, creating a ‘Skip To Content’ link as the first link on the website, that way assistive technologies can jump directly to the heart of the website and get the information they want without having to sift through the navigation links beforehand.
   
   
3. Include ALT tags (descriptions) of the important images on your website that add to the value of the content. If you have a blind visitor who cannot see an image, they will instead be able to read what content the image contains.
   
   
4. Include a Click-To-Talk button on your website, so that users who have a hard time reading or understanding your content can instantly contact a Live customer care person for further information.

Do you need to make your current website more accessible?
We can provide suggestions for your company website,
click here for a complimentary web accessibility analysis of your company website...

Additional Links and Further Reading:

• What is Web Accessibility – A LIST APART
• The Government of Ontario – Information and Communication Accessibility Law
• How Disabilities Affect Website Use
• Website Accessibility & Disability Statistics
• Microsoft’s – Market for Accessible Technology Report

Part 1 of a 2 part blog on the very basics of Web Accessibility and why it is an important part of your website...

What is Web Accessibility?

Web Accessibility in it's most basic form means that a website can be accessed, understood, navigated, read, seen and heard across all browsing devices by all different people.

• The internet is the largest information exchanging medium in the world. Having a website and/or navigating a website has become a priority and daily routine for people world wide. (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm).

Internet Users are using Laptops, Desktops, Tablets, and Smartphones to look up information on the internet.

Those are not the only devices used to access the web – some of the most overlooked devices are Assistive Technology devices. These devices are used by the disabled population of internet users who have a variety of disabilities such as blindness, motor difficulties (unable to use the mouse or keyboard), or reading disabilities (such as dyslexia). These assistive technologies open websites and offer an alternative way of presenting the content of the website to the users so that they can best understand the information the website offers.

For an example:  A user who visits your website who is blind, would not be able to see the words on your website, but would be able to still get the information he or she seeks by having the website read to them with their assistive technology.

Take a look at this great video created by Treehouse, for a visual introduction to Web Accessibility...

We hope this introduction to assistive technologies and internet use has educated you on the importance of having an accessible website.

In Part 2 of this series, we will discuss accessibility statistics and how you can implement these into your website.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit our website at www.encorewebplus.com

Take a look at the website above, it was created by Microsoft the creators of Internet Explorer in hopes to assist in the elimination of Internet Explorer 6.

Why would Microsoft try to stop users from using their own products? Because Internet Explorer 6 is an out dated internet browser, released 10 years ago. In those 10 years much about the web has changed. Trends, web technologies (HTML5 &CSS3) and standards have evolved and outdated browsers such as Internet Explorer 6 just cannot support the evolution.

This causes issues for web designers and developers who would like to take advantage of these new web features but have to put extra work into their projects just so a small percentage of internet browsers can access their websites without any functionality and visual problems.

Keeping up-to-date with the latest versions of your internet browsers will help to not only make web developers jobs a little less time consuming, but will also benefit you when you reach a website on the internet that does not load correctly, its loading slowly or looks wonky (regardless of how relevant the content of the website is) because your browser is not up-to-date.

As of January 2013, only 6% of the world’s population is using Internet Explorer 6 – which is 5.3 percentage points less than the previous year.  But this is not quite enough, the battle is still being played out but you can join the cause and help by upgrading your browsers and asking your own clients to upgrade their browsers.

Although 6% doesn’t seem like a very large number – to put it in perspective as of June 30th, 2012 there were 2,405,518,376 internet users worldwide. 6% of 2,405,518,376 is roughly 144,331,102 users that are still using outdated software to visit your websites. Depending on what type of business you run and the techsavvy-ness of your own business clients, this could mean a large number of your own target market might not be seeing your website properly or could be having troubles loading content from your website as well…

Food for thought for those who might be experiencing problems loading web pages with their current browsers – if the page looks jumbled together or aligned incorrectly or if a web page is loading very slowly, it might be time for an upgrade!

Below I’ve selected a few of the most popular internet browsers with links to the newest version for your downloading pleasure! Let’s work together to eliminate old browsers so that the web can continue to grow and develop into a more functional, usable and aesthetically pleasing place for businesses and individuals to strive.

1. Mozilla Firefox version 19.0 
2. Internet Explorer version 10 (for Windows 7 and above) 
3. Internet Explorer Version 8 (For Windows XP)
4. Google Chrome 
5. Opera 
6. Safari (Windows) 
7. Safari (Mac) 
   
   

More Reasons for Upgrading:

1. You will have fewer crashes or freezes
2. More security from viruses and browser hijacking
3. Faster page loads
4. Optional plugins and extensions that assist in better browsing (depending on your choice of browser)

 
Our personal favorite browser at Encore Web Plus is Mozilla Firefox, which browser is your favorite?

This will be the final part to our series on Responsive and Mobile websites. If you’ve been following along, you’ll know by now that both mobile platforms offer their own advantages and disadvantages – and both can be effective in offering consumers and your website visitors a good mobile browsing experience.

The battle between which platform is best is an on-going debate amongst us web designers and developers. Some people would call responsive design a trend, whereas others would say it’s the future of the web – one thing is for certain, mobile technology is not going anywhere anytime soon, so offering your website with mobile support is a must regardless of which route you take.

When dealing with clients who are looking to build a mobile website, I like to have an idea of what they expect their users to be doing with the mobile version of the website and to know the amount of information that currently exists on their full-sized website.

As a designer I see the benefits of both responsive and mobile websites; the debate isn’t so much as to which platform is the best overall, but which platform is the best for each specific project. Which platform will translate my existing content and website into a mobile accessible version most accurately and effectively?

The Responsive

Responsive websites are perfect platforms for businesses who are constantly making updates and changes to the content of their websites, it allows a business to update only 1 set of content pages; and will update on all devices whether it is a tablet, an iPhone or a Smartphone. For example; The Boston Globe is designed and developed using the Responsive platform.

This makes sense for this specific project because every day they offer their readers multiple new stories or updates – it would be costly for them to have to update their website twice so that the content on their mobile version coincided with their full-sized website. Deciding to go with a responsive layout, the company spent a little more money on the initial development, but saved loads of time on updating two different sets of content.

In the case where your business performs updates on a regular basis, it would be a smart idea to look into making your existing website responsive or developing a brand new responsive site from scratch so that those updates in the future will not be an issue for your mobile website.

Examples of Responsive Websites:

http://bostonglobe.com/
 
http://foodsense.is/
 

http://css-tricks.com/

The Stand Alone

The stand-alone mobile website is a good choice for a company who would like to offer company information to a client for instance – somebody whose content is not updated on a regular basis. It would take an initial investment of designing and developing the mobile site, but once the content is written for it, it exists and you only have to update when you want to make a major change. It also encourages the designer and company to develop a version of the website with user context in mind. We have full control over how the website will look, what content, and what features will be available to the user when the website is loaded.

It can be argued that users who are browsing the internet on their mobile phones do not want the exact same content as they would browsing websites on their desktops because they are in different use scenarios, for instance – sitting down at a bus station, looking up a schedule for when the next bus arrives. The user would benefit from having clutter content removed, allowing access to the bus schedule almost immediately. The same user, using a desktop is less likely to require such an immediate interaction with the website, because he or she is at home and likely looking to take a bus in the future – more content and information could be made visible as the user browses the website.

Depending on the size of your company’s website and what features your users would like to have access to, the stand alone mobile website varies in cost; with the large projects costing more money and taking more time to develop – on the other hand, a small stand-alone mobile website could be a fast and affordable option.

Examples of Stand Alone Websites:

 
http://m.travelrepublic.co.uk/
 
https://m.toogethr.com/
 
http://m.ikea.com/

This concludes the Difference Between Responsive and Mobile Websites Series, we hope this introduction to both mobile platforms has helped in creating a better understanding and awareness of the mobile options that are available to you, and how you can gauge which platform will be most effective for your future projects.

Welcome to the second part of our series, in this post we’ll be discussing the advantages and disadvantages of using both a responsive website and a stand-alone mobile website as your businesses or websites main mobile platform.

To briefly re-cap last week’s post; a responsive website is a website that will adjust its layout according to the users resolution (size of screen), through media queries in the cascading style-sheet – in other words, if you access the website www.joeshmoe.com on your desktop and your iPhone, the website will detect and load the website on your desktop as a larger version then it would on your iPhone (the desktop might have a 3 column layout, whereas on the iPhone it might have a 1 column layout).

The mobile website is a completely separate entity to the main website. It is built up of its own images and content, and typically has its own subdomain or website folder such as follows:

1. mobile.joeshmoe.com
2. m.joeshmoe.com
3. www.joeshmore.com/mobile

If you are still a little lost on the two topics above, feel free to re-visit Part I before reading further. Now, on to the advantages and disadvantages of the Responsive website…

Advantages of Responsive Websites:

• ·Website will adjust and work on many different mobile devices.
• ·You only have to update the content in one place (the main website); once a change has been made it will automatically be changed on the mobile versions of the website.
• ·You will not have to worry about having to scroll (left to right) because the website layout has been designed to display at your devices resolution, the website will automatically adjust.
• ·Simplified navigation for “thumb users”.
• ·Your website will be ready for any new technology trends instantly because it is self-adjusting to resolution sizes.
• ·Centralized link authority (which means SEO page ranks for landing pages will not be counted as two different pages, it will be considered 1 single page)

Disadvantages of Responsive Websites:

• ·The content will remain the same as the full website version; this means you cannot customize the content for mobile users.
• ·If your website is content heavy and wordy, users will have to scroll a lot with their devices to read content.
• ·If website has large images, loading it on a mobile device will take up more bandwidth because it is downloading the website content first than applying layout adjustments.
• ·It automatically assumes that a user on a mobile device wants to use a mobile-friendly version of the website, whereas that user might want to see the full-site as they had once visited on their desktop.

Advantages to Mobile Websites:

• ·Customized appearance and content. You will be able to modify the content of the website so that mobile users are only getting mobile content.
• ·Instant Call button, which allows your mobile visitors to instantly call your contact number from their phones while visiting your website – instant access to customer support or reception.
• ·You can eliminate content that mobile users will most likely not view, clearing up clutter and making it easier for mobile users to navigate your website.
• ·Fast loading, because it is not loading the full-version websites images, it is loading smaller condensed images which take up less bandwidth.
• ·Simplified navigation for “thumb users”.
• ·Allows users to choose between mobile or full-version website.

Disadvantages to Mobile Websites:

• ·You will have to update and maintain two separate sets of content.
• ·As cell phone technology changes, the design may have to be re-visited to support new resolutions.
• ·Decentralized link authority (which means that because you have duplicate content in two different locations on the server, search engines count that content twice as separate entities affecting page views and ranks – if not done properly)

There you have it, some of the major differences between a responsive and mobile website platform - next week we will be posting the third part of the series which will discuss how to best select between a responsive and stand alone mobile version depending on your project size and needs.

Did you find this article useful?

Which of the two types of mobile platforms are you using and why?

Interested in having a mobile website developed? Contact us.

Having a website that is accessible on a mobile phone and tablet is a growing priority for businesses and organizations who would like to increase the number of visitors to their websites, or most importantly offer their users a more functional mobile experience.

According to a study performed by Trinity Digital Marketing, there are currently 6 billion mobile subscribers worldwide. 87% of the entire world population  are using mobile devices – 1.2 billion of those users are browsing the internet with their mobile devices and 8.49% of all global website visits are performed on mobile devices.

People now have the ability to check emails, read blog posts, look up business location and contact information and perform financing all from their cell phones and tablets and are not necessarily browsing the internet from their desktop computers anymore. This has lead web designers to develop two approaches to mobile-ready web design: Responsive websites and Mobile websites.

What is a Responsive Website?

A responsive website is built to detect the size and resolution of the device you are using  and it adjusts the layout of the content and text size to be best suited for viewing on your browsing device.

The responsive elements are built into the cascading style-sheet (css) of your website, with @media queries, you set the website to load a specific set of css rules every time the resolution of the browser changes. For example, you would set a media queries at 1024px and 768px for the iPad tablets -setting specific individual css coding to each resolution. Typically, responsive websites will fluctuate between a 3 column grid (desktop/laptop), to a two column grid (tablets), to a one column grid (for smartphones).

What is a Mobile Website?

A mobile website is a separate website which can be customized in appearance and in content that is specifically designed for mobile devices. How mobile websites work is as follows:

When a user visits your website on a mobile phone, the website runs a program to detect whether or not the website is being looked at on a tablet, mobile phone or computer. If the program detects that any mobile device is being used, it will redirect that user to the “mobile version” of the site before reaching the full version website, and users have the benefit of browsing a mobile-friendly version of your website – most mobile websites allow for users to switch between the mobile version and the full-site version upon their discretion.

Next in the series, the Pros and Cons of both a Responsive website and a Mobile website!

Do you have a favorite mobile website?
What kind of mobile website is it, responsive or stand alone mobile?

MHUJDHH8ZGRG

1. Balance is King (Content and Keywords)
2. Knowing Your Target Audience (Keyword Research)
3. Using Social Media

Balance is King

When it comes to good Search Engine Optimization practice, it is important to understand that the days of injecting your websites content with as many HOT keywords as possible are gone. Google, Bing and Yahoo ranks are also based on the quality of the content that you have to offer your audience and the amount of attention you have received over social networks and in reputable blog communities. It is important for a small business to offer well written content that is specific enough to reach their target audience without being too wordy or cluttered – think of yourself as being the user of your own website…

As a potential customer, what type of information do you want from the website? What is the most important information to offer? How is your content helping you (the reader)? You can imagine a website that is rich in keywords might have a higher ranking then your own website, but how often do you think their visitors turn into loyal customers?

Knowing Your Target Audience

Keyword research is another important factor in maximizing your websites reach online. There are some really great tools out there too help you scope out which keywords have a low or high competition rate and how many global and local hits that particular search term garners. The Google Keyword Tool will help in performing proper research before you start to optimize your website.

Choosing your keywords wisely will increase the chances of your potential clients finding your website through a search engine. For instance, your company sells Paddle boats to paddle in Fake Lake, Fake City, Canada. Instead of targeting the keywords Paddle Boats, Paddle Boat Services – you would benefit from narrowing your keywords down to more specific terms, such as paddle boats fake lake, or fake lake recreation, or things to do in fake lake. This way you are trying to reach an audience who has a more direct relevance in dealing with your company.

Social Media and Bookmarking

Everyone knows how popular social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn have become. Even if you’re not a user of these websites, chances are you have heard of them through passing or marketing experts mentioning their importance in today’s business market. Setting your small business up with a social media page that is optimized and used to interact and entice your current and potential customers is a good idea. Although it is a slow process in building an audience online, the sooner you make that first step the sooner conversions will happen. Take a look at this infographic done by mediabistro – it shows the impact each social media network has on Google search engine ratings – and the positive benefits of using Social Media in an SEO campaign.

More and more people are using their cell phones to surf the web, they are looking for information and services while on the go. As of May 2012, 53% of mobile devices used have the capability to access the internet. Rogers predicts that by 2014 all cell phones will have this ability.

Viewing a website from a cell phone can be a frustrating experience if the website has not been optimized for a mobile device. Trying to view a regular website on such a small screen can be done, but with much pinching and squinting and scrolling around. A website that is optimized for a mobile device is quick to load, provides easy access to directions, pricing, hours of operation, contact information and other business details all within a couple of clicks.

One half of all internet searches for local products and services are performed from mobile devices. Mobile websites make it easier for on the go visitors to contact you with one click calling, one click email and instant directions. When potential customers can easily find what they are looking for they are more likely to do business with you.

A mobile website is important to your business because mobile phones outnumber Personal Computers by 4 to 1 and this number is rising daily. Your customers are already looking for you using their mobile phones. Having a mobile website is something that every business owner should be looking into.

Considering a mobile website?

If someone is looking for your company on a mobile device they are probably looking for specific information. You need to figure out what that is and offer it in a way that is easy for the user. Information like address, phone number, google map, list of products and services should be easy to find and access by fingertips. Buttons and tabs are better than text links when it comes to navigation. Keeping in mind the size of the screen, the information you present should be condensed with paragraphs a maximum of 100 words.

It is important to include calls to action that encourage visitors to further interact with your company. Surfing from a mobile device makes contact by phone a logical step, in fact google reports that 61% of local mobile searches result in a phone call. You can also add a form that allows visitors to request a quote or sign up for your email newsletter.

With over 25 million mobile users in Canada having a mobile website just makes sense.

The symbol on the left is a QR CODE (short for Quick Response code). Remember the bar-code? Well the QR code is a 2-dimensional bar code that was originally designed for the automotive industry. It can hold more information than a traditional bar code and it has been put to use in many unique ways for marketing.

Marketers can use it in places like a bus station, on a businesscard, or any other creative place you can think of.

When you use your cell phone to scan it, the creator of the code can program it to display many different things, such as text, a telephone number, or a website URL. Most new mobile phones equipped with a camera will work. If you have internet on your phone, the hyperlink will open a webpage. A telephone number link can also be used to dial automatically.

Try Scanning it yourself!

Welcome back to our How Search Engines Work Series, this is the last post of the series.

Calculating Relevancy and Rankings

For a search engine to determine how relevant a page is and how to rank it, the search engine is programmed to look for things such as:

• The frequency that a keyword appears in the document
• The section of the document that the keyword appears in, i.e. title, description, content
• Which of the current pages that already rank get clicked on more often

Search engines are extremely complex and use many different factors in calculating relevancy and ranking. Search engines such as Google are constantly updating their algorithm to give ‘better’ results. Each year, Google changes its search algorithm up to 500-600 times.

Another important factor that can influence relevancy and ranking is location. If a search engine determines that the intent of your keyword search is to find a geographic location, then services such as Bing Local and Google Places can display information about a business or organization on a map as part of the search results. Organizations must provide information to these services that will be displayed as part of the search results. Below are some factors that affect how well a web page ranks and if it shows up on a map for a location based search:

• Address
• Business categories
• Keyword in your business name
• Completing your business profile
• Reviews and ratings

Displaying Results

The most common way a search engine displays results is with the page title in bold followed by a meta description below which are elements that are designed into web pages.

Each search engine works a little differently. Both Yahoo and MSN Search results are biased towards commercial results whereas Google is biased towards informational resources.  Google also filters out many pages with similar or duplicate content.

In this two part series, we look at how a search engine searches the internet and delivers results.

When you do a keyword search, you are not trying to ‘match’ your keyword with something on the internet; you are essentially asking a question. Search engines try to answer these questions.

Search engines have four functions:

1. Crawling
2. Building an index
3. Calculating relevancy and rankings
4. Displaying results

Crawling

Web crawlers, also referred to as bots and spiders, find web pages by their interconnecting hyperlinks. If a web page is not linked to any other web pages, then crawlers can't find it.

Indexing

Search engine indexing is the process of a search engine collecting, interpreting and storing data for future use by the search engine. Web search results are displayed quickly because the search engines do this work ahead of time.

For further reading following the following links!

Sources:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/search-engine-algorithm-basics

http://www.seobook.com/relevancy/

http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo/how-search-engines-operate

http://searchenginewatch.com/page/glossary

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_search_engine

http://www.findingdulcinea.com/guides/Technology/Internet/Dulcineas-Guide-to-Searching-on-the-Web.pg_01.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_crawler

http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/10-likely-elements-of-googles-local-search-algorithm/519/

http://www.brickmarketing.com/define-search-engine-index.htm

http://www.seomoz.org/google-algorithm-change

How often do your new customers tell you they found your business’s website? Did they find you with an internet search? Has the same website you’ve had for years consistently helped you get new business?

If you answered no to these questions then your website is probably in need of an update.

Near the end of 2011, Google, the most popular search engine, updated the way it delivers search results. This update was intended to provide fresher content on time-sensitive topics and impacts roughly 35 percent of Google searches. The freshness of your website’s content can especially impact your search engine ranking for certain types of information such as recent events, hot topics, regularly recurring events and frequent updates.

But fresh content is not necessarily better content.

Updating your website with ‘new’ content that does not contain the keywords you wish to be found for may actually hurt your search engine ranking. Updating your website with language that better describes your product/service/organization will, however boost your web page’s search engine ranking for the keywords you wish to be found for.

For example, if your business has changed since you built your website and you have never updated your website content to reflect these changes then your website is stale. If your business has added new products or services since your last website update then you need to add search engine optimized content describing these new offerings. That news page on your website with the most recent entry of 2008 is not helping you to be found on the internet, and if no one can find you on the internet then you don’t exist!

Encore Web Plus can help you with your website and give you that long overdue freshness update. Click here to open our website renovation request form.

What Is A Blog?

The word “blog” is short for “Web Log”. Articles appear in chronological order with the newest one appearing at the top. A blog can be a place to write news or opinions, a personal diary or a tool for public relations. A blog can be whatever you want it to be.

Three Popular free, web based blogs are:

• Blogger
• Tumblr
• WordPress

Why Are Blogs Important?

Brand Building

You can assert yourself as an expert in your field, your business or your industry. The more people read your blog, the more they will believe what you are saying. However, good bloggers don’t focus on themselves; they work at adding value for their readers and putting their knowledge on display.

Building Trust

If you consistently produce truthful, quality content, you will earn your readers’ trust. Just as getting loyal customers to patronize your business takes effort, so too does growing your blog following.

Increased Search Traffic

Another reason a blog is important is that it can be used to drive traffic to your website. You can use each carefully crafted post to lead your blog visitors to your business website. How does this work? With consistent blogging, you are building an archive of content that can be found with a search engine. Find creative ways to include keywords that define your business, your business name and links to your website in each of your blog posts. Blogging means more content. More, new content being produced consistently means an increased likelihood that you will be found by internet searchers. Don’t just let your blog visitor’s journey end at your blog; send them to your website where you can convert them into a customer!

Email marketing is a crucial part of business marketing. E newsletters can help your business increase new sales and build loyalty with existing customers.

Email marketing is permission marketing. People have given you permission to send them emails and this is a privilege. With e-newsletters, you will save on the cost of paper and postage and be able to reach more people.

In starting an e-newsletter, you will first want to decide on goals and choose a category or theme for the topics you want to focus on. You could send out coupons or tell subscribers about special offers or promotions. If you are setting up some kind of program for customers to participate in, an e-newsletter is a great way to engage your subscribers. Good stories about your company or industry, tips and quotes are also good ideas for e-newsletter content. Sending out information that entertains or informs is usually a better strategy for engaging your subscribers than a direct sales pitch. Try to think about how you can add value and not waste your subscribers’ time.

Make subscribing and unsubscribing easy. You can use a form on your website where people can subscribe to your newsletter. If you ask for too much information in your form, people may get frustrated and close the window before they sign up.

A good example of effective email marketing is the hpshopping e-newsletter. HP (Hewlett-Packard) has an email newsletter that reaches more than a million subscribers for its online store at hpshopping.com. It has been driving consumers to the website and toll-free telephone sales center for 13 years!

When trying to decide on how often you intend to send out your e-newsletter, consider if the content you are offering has some added value that your contacts will want to read. There is no magic number for how often you should send out emails. If your subscribers think you are overcrowding their inboxes, they will delete your messages or unsubscribe. You can even ask your contacts how often they will like to receive your newsletters and to rate the value of the content you are sending them.

When sending out your e-newsletter, always include a plain text version, and test everything before sending, because you can’t take it back.

With an email marketing service such as Constant Contact you will avoid spam filters and your emails will look goo to more people. You can see who opened your emails, and track who clicked on any of the links in your emails.

MailChimp is another email marketing services that also has a forever free plan for less than 2000 subscribers and up to 12,000 emails per month as well as a pay-as-you-go option.

Most business people have always used Internet Explorer to look at the Internet, but that is changing.

There are several alternatives to Internet Explorer. Each browsers listed below has a slightly different look and feel but all of them are free to download. Each browser was designed with its own distinct set of features because each development team wants you to choose their browser over their competition. Although good website developers should test a website in all the popular browsers, websites do look slightly different in each browser as each interprets web pages in a slightly different way. All of the browsers including Internet Explorer started off following most of the web standards but Microsoft Internet Explorer scores very low on its compatibility with the new HTML5.

Below are some points of comparison for each browser.

Mozilla Firefox

• Has 36.3% of worldwide usage share of web browsers
• Is based on the now defunct Netscape Navigator
• You can cut and paste text into the search bar on the top right of the browser using a right-click and “paste & search” all in one step
• Updates are automatic
• Uses memory efficiently

Google Chrome

• Has 37.3% of worldwide usage share of web browsers
• You can do a Google search in the same place you enter a website URL
• Updates are automatic
• Uses a lot of memory when many tabs are open
• You can drag tabs around
• Has an incognito mode similar to Safari that won’t leave traces of your activity such as items in your history or cookies

Safari

• Has 4.4% of worldwide usage share of web browsers
• Is the browser that comes with Apple laptops and desktops
• Even though it was developed by Apple, there is a Windows version
• There are no automatic updates; you must download them manually
• You can drag tabs around
• Has a private browsing mode

Opera

• Has 2.3% of worldwide usage share of web browsers
• Has less bells and whistles; it is simple
• Has been noted for originating many features later adopted by other web browsers
• Is more popular in Europe

(Internet Explorer has 18.9 % of worldwide usage share of web browsers)

If you have a website or want to get one, it is important that your website displays consistently across all of the browsers, so that your potential customers are able to view your products and services as they were intended. Encore Web Plus does extensive browser compatibility testing when developing business websites for customers.

Choosing a domain name for your business is an important decision. Here are some ideas to consider when choosing the WWW address for your business.

A domain name should be memorable. If you are telling someone your web address, it should be meaningful and relatively easy to spell out. Using your business name and adding a .com on the end is not always the best choice. Instead, consider choosing a URL with one of your best keywords in the domain name as this can help your search ranking.

Try not to use too many words in the website name and make sure your domain name makes sense when you read it. Don’t end a word and start the next word with the same letter, for example www.roofingguru.com. You will find people typing www.roofinguru.com instead. Also, try to avoid using numerals in your domain name.

The top level domain .com is by far the most popular; however, you may want to consider buying the .net, .org or .ca versions of your domain and redirect these to the .com version.

Avoid domain names (or business names for that matter) that are very similar to an existing website. Do a web search for the website name you are considering and see what is out there before you make any decisions. This is important for avoiding copyright or trademark infringement.

Choose a domain name that will have value in the future. A domain of www.construction-conference.com is a much better choice than www.construction-conference-2012.com.

Don’t assume the best URLs are taken. Many domain names that have been registered for years come back on the market after their owners fail to renew them, so keep checking.

Finally, avoid embarrassment with domains like www.thebooksexchange.com (“The Books Exchange”) or www.therapistfinder.com (“Therapist Finder”).

So you have a shiny new website and you want to share it with everyone. What’s the best way to do this? Well one way is by getting backlinks.

Backlinks are links on other websites that lead to your website. They are also known as inbound links or incoming links. For example, if you click on the link below a new window will open with a directory listing for Encore TeleSolutions on hotfrog.ca.

Encore TeleSolutions on hotfrog.ca

The web page with this listing has a link to www.encoretelesolutions.com which is a backlink for Encore TeleSolutions’ website. Unless you give someone your websites’ address on a business card or in an email, people will not know about it. Getting backlinks is a way to reach people you have not met. Getting a free listing in a directory such as hotfrog.ca is one easy way to get a backlink. Sharing the link to you website on social media such as Twitter or LinkedIn is another way to get backlinks.

The more backlinks you have, the more likely your website is to be found. The number of backlinks you have also impacts your search ranking on search engines such as Google because more back links means that your website is more popular and relevant.

So you are a trades person or contractor who works with your hands. You’re not a ‘desk jockey’ and you don’t sit in an ivory tower.

Maybe you would go as far as saying you’re a ‘git-r-done’ kind of person. Why then do you need social media for your business?

Well you probably started your business by doing work for a few people you knew. You did a great job, they were pleased and they recommended you to someone else.

Many successful businesses were built on referrals, and this is one of the ways social media can help. Sites like Yelp and ChecktheTrades provide references by allowing customers to write reviews of your company that others can see online. Just as people are more influenced by people they know, so too when they read good reviews about your business, they are more likely become a customer.

Taking this a step further, when you share with people on your Facebook and they re-share photos of your projects or updates on completed jobs, they may share with others in their networks. People these days spend more time on the internet on their computers, tablets and smartphones. Let them know your business is thriving by sharing on social media.