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Blog Articles
Web Hosting
10
Jul

The DSS Top Web Hosting Picks and Top We Avoid

Web Hosting is important as it’s where your website is going to live and provide essential email service. Making sure you have a company you enjoy working with is vital as you will likely work with them for years. The DSS Top Web Hosting Picks #1. GreenGeeks The best Shared Hosting Platform and customer service combination I have ever seen. I’ve never had a problem deploying a website. They offer both live chat support and a ticketing system with really great response times. They offer shared hosting and WordPress Optimized Hosting. Monthly packages are $10 per month outside of introductory...
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26
Jun

Lets Try to Simplify Web Hosting

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)...
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The DSS Advantage
05
Jun

The DSS Advantage

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...
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Why Outsource to a Vendor
24
Nov

Why Outsource to a Vendor?

Outsourcing work to other vendors has become standard practice for many organizations. Whether it’s because of time deficits, or the need for a specialist to complete a role, outsourcing has become critical to the success of many businesses. Speaking from personal experience, I am leveraged quite often to help clients with their design work. Jobs such as brochures, websites, printable one pagers, and even updates to existing client content aren’t out of the question. Don’t be under the impression that outsourcing is a last effort attempt to meet a looming deadline, or taking the easy way out. Think of it...
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Visual Content in your social media
03
Nov

Visual Content in Your Social Media

Are you using more visual content in your social media marketing efforts? Here are some reasons as to why you should be: On average, articles containing relevant images, or infographics, have 94% more total views than those without. (Source) Visual content is 40 times more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content. (Source) Facebook posts with images, see 2.3 times more engagement than those without images. (Source) Based on a study by Buffer, tweets that included an image, received 150% more retweets than tweets without. (Source) Articles that contain an image once every 75-100 words,...
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Intro to Social Campaign Tracking
28
Oct

Track your Social

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...
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Starting a business page on Facebook & Linkedin
20
Oct

Starting A Business Page on Facebook & LinkedIn

It’s finally happened, you’ve started your own business! You have a great website, business cards, and your trusty email. So, how do we get people to actually find you exist in the sea of online business? Being part of social media is becoming a necessity for businesses. Determining which social site is the right fit not only for YOU but for your customers and prospects is crucial. You will also need to develop a strategy for participation, along with goals you want to accomplish with your social media. Many people starting out will no doubt come across the two major...
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Creating Multi Client Emails
23
Sep

How does your newsletter really look to the people you are sending it to?

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...
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CASL What You Need to Know
15
Sep

Sending Commercial Electronic Messages?

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...
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Do you Double Opt-In?
08
Sep

Double Opt-in; the greatest way to get consent to send communications

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...
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