One of the first things your going to find when starting a website is you need a place for your website to live and that is referred to as Web Hosting. The next thing you will find is there is way too many options and people will quickly just go to recognized names like GoDaddy or Name or Gater Hosting as they happened to see a tv commercial about it. I know it seems overwhelming but don’t fret you don’t need to jump into any package just yet. Web hosting isn’t a one size fits all (despite what they claim)...Read More

One of the great things I like about being a Digital Support Specialist is that I’ve been able to do a lot of studying in a variety of areas of technology. These include: hardware, web development, graphic design, and analytics. This enables me to speak with both people who have next to no technical knowledge but use the tools, and those who are developing and designing them. This is an advantage when helping to solve problems with technology, and has really helped me achieve my Adobe Business Practitioner certification. Many times people find something that is a challenge and they know...Read More

You’ve written your articles, filled them with keywords, have the messaging perfect, and you blast it out on every social channel. Next thing you know your message is being liked and loved, and everyone is coming to read your article and give you their business. A lot of times this is what happens, the posts go out and everyone thinks great I’m getting more hits on my website, this is working. After a while you might start to wonder; I’m getting more traffic, my Facebook insights say I’m reaching loads and loads of people, but what was the goal? What...Read More

You might be building out an email that looks great as your building it, but what does it look like for the recipients? Every email client works a bit differently, and this can cause havoc on html emails that are going out. This occurs as each email client renders html and css differently. Ex. Outlook doesn’t support padding but Hotmail doesn’t support margins. This is why you want to test your email structure in lots of environments, and on different devices. If you do not have the devices at your disposal you can always hire someone, or use a service...Read More

If you send out any digital communications and haven’t heard of CASL or Can-Spam, STOP right now, and take a look at these specific resources. Be sure to forward these along to anyone who sends communications out. CASL (Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation) http://fightspam.gc.ca/eic/site/030.nsf/eng/home CAN-SPAM https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business Now that the PSA is out of the way, let’s talk a bit about CASL (as I’m Canadian), and why it’s important that anyone doing digital marketing of any sort needs to be aware of it. I’m only going to go over a few high level points, so to dig deeper check out the two official...Read More

If you are looking to send out Commercial Electronic Messages, then you need to get consent, either implied or express. Double Opt-in is a great method. I always recommend aiming for Express Consent, and using the double Opt-in method. Double Opt-in is a two-step process where people interested in your communications fill out a sign up form, and then receive an email with a link to confirm the subscription. I’m sure you have had this happen to you, you visit your favorite website you sign up for the newsletter, and after it says check your email to confirm. That is...Read More

If you are getting into, or have on going Email Marketing Campaigns or Newsletters, here are just a few things that you might want to keep in mind. Do’s Set expectations for when people join your list. The worst thing you could do is set the expectation you will only be sending out a monthly newsletter, and then start sending out emails on different topics on a weekly basis. This is a quick way to deter people from remaining on your list. Focus on letting them know how often you will be sending emails, the types of emails to expect...Read More

There are various Analytics and Search Engine Optimization services that will load up your analytic systems with referral traffic. The problem is that they aren’t real referral traffic and bloat your data. What these typically are really, is a crawler but doesn’t act like a standard crawler. So you get overwhelmed with referral data that isn’t of any value. If you using Google Analytics you can remove this traffic with filters. Here is an example filter I use on my website as I don’t find value of the data that gets flooded into my analytics account.Read More

There are a growing number of Premium WordPress Frameworks, and that makes it a challenge to sort out where to start. A lot of people get hooked on one framework  and they become very proficient at using that framework, which I think is great. For custom frameworks, there are two Giants I recommend looking at: StudioPress Genesis Framework and Elegant Themes Divi AThemes did a great comparison article of Genesis vs Divi (http://athemes.com/reviews/genesis-vs-divi-pros-cons/ ) Why Use a Premium Framework? In most cases, it has become more efficient to develop a Child Theme of a Premium Framework, than continue re-inventing the...Read More

There are a lot of small businesses and community groups who love Facebook. They jump on, create their group, get some members and a 100 or so likes and they think “Fantastic! I’m reaching all kinds of people, this works for communication with everyone.” Some people believe that a Facebook site or a Social Media profile is better than having a website, and that this is all they need. They search for their exact group name on Google, and they see the Facebook page show up, people are commenting, so it seems like the perfect solution. Well I’m sorry to...Read More