When Do I Hire a Consultant for my Small Bussiness?

What does a consultant do for a small business?

Consultants are professionals that are hired to do and wear many hats in an organization.The biggest hat is to help with your business model.

Consultants are hired by small business when a small business notices that their company is not running properly. If your company is an established company and your books are in the red, you should think about hiring a consultant.

The consultant can be there to review your business model, analyze operations, improve operations, define current procedures, improve current procedures, and look at a companies policy- just to name a few.

The most important hat a consultant wears is the knowledge to bring more than one option to the table after careful analysis. As a business owner, you should always interview your consultant to make sure their knowledge is a good match for your company.

Why should I hire a consultant?

There are many reasons why a small company should hire an outside individual to assist with their small company.

1. An outside view with no opinion of operations as they stand currently bringing a fresh perceptive
2. Can evaluate your company based on what is seen looking from the outside in
3. Help change profit loss and increase income
4. Look for ways to help you become more efficient thus increasing profit margin
5. Has no association with any employees or business owners thus has no discrimination or preconceived opinion
6. Brings more than one option to the table
7. Consultants are temporary staff on contract; thus eliminating a need for a full time employee

Depending on the scope of the project, will depend upon what your consultant will do for you. For example, if you don't know what current procedures your employees are following and if those procedures are profitable to the company, a Business Consultant will come in and analyze that for you.The job of a consultant is to improve your business model.

Business Consultants can help improve your business model by bringing a fresh perceptive. Looking for more information- See Design by Solutions Services at www.designbysolutions.com.

SEO- MY RANK IS GONE

The Change that will change everything...

Google announced that in April changes would happen to the way the algorithms rank and rate sites. Those changes took effect in April.

The average website owner probably doesn't think the outcome of those results are of any value, but let me tell you first hand; change happened and you better open your eyes.

You can read article after article of what Google ranking factors are, but truth be told you will never get the full scoop or get the rules for the algorithm.
What I can say about the new change is quality content and following the rules are now part of the deal.
1. Content does Matter
2. Descriptions to Images Matter
3.Placement and keywords Matter

On some of the sites that I monitor I have noticed that the content at times will get indexed better than the meta tags in the heading of the page. If the content is good, Google is going to pick up on that. So make quality content, make the content matter, add your keywords, but make everything natural in the same token.

In certain cases, the image alt tag has become part of the indexing. I actually found the image descriptions as part of search results. I have to say, bravo to Google for that! First, you should want to do this because it helps readers that need extra assistance reading your website to have the ability. Secondly, it's a rule; so do it and get rewarded.

Let me know what you have noticed about the ranking and rating by Google.

Google and Mobile

April is the Deadline

April has been a month for change in the World Wide Web. Google has made some changes on how you pages will get indexed and standards to go along with that.

It's important to be aware of those changes and how to deal with those. In order to help companies and web masters gain an edge on this change, Google has made a tool to help you.

You can get developer help at https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/. This is a site by Google which will analyze your current website.
1. Type in your URL
2. Click the Analyze button
3. Results will display


If your site is mobile friendly, once the analyzing is done, Google will display a message that you are mobile compatible.

If you are not, Google will take this a step further and give you a checklist of things that you can look at to correct. Here is an example of what could display if you are not mobile friendly.

Not mobile-friendly
1. Page appears not mobile-friendly
2. Text too small to read
3. Links too close together
4. Mobile viewport not set
5. Content wider than screen

Google takes it a step further for you and gives you even more help. Here is an example of another section of the results page: How Googlebot sees this page

1. This page uses 64 resources which are blocked by robots.txt.

2. Does this screenshot look incorrect? Learn how to let Googlebot view the page correctly.

This page may appear not mobile-friendly because the robots.txt file may block Googlebot from loading some of the page's resources. Learn how to unblock resources for Googlebot.

If you've made sure Googlebot is not blocked, you can see Pagespeed Insights for more details on detected issues. Learn more about the differences between the two tests.

My opinion is this is a great tool and as a web master we all want our designs to be the best possible. Change sometimes is good as long as you can still think outside the box. :)

Stop Words, Domain Names, and the Googlebot

Question: Do keywords and stop words matter when it comes to me picking a domain name?

Your domain name is one of the most important things you will pick when you are a new start up company. There are several things to consider when picking your domain name.

• Can users remember your domain name?
• Is the url easy to say?
• Can it be interpreted differently?
• Is the domain name "an exact match"

When picking a new domain name, you want to pick something that is easy to remember. Your user should not have to have the companies business card in front of you to remember who the company name. We have all experience this; someone named their company xzyab.xxx and you can't remember it . One key factor to remember is use words that are easy to spell, easy to remember, and are made up of keywords. Try to stay with .com's as well over domains like.info, .net, etc.

Pick a domain name that is easy to say and rolls off the tongues smoothly. If you have to repeat it over and over while on the phone with a client, than you know there is any issue.

If you tell someone your domain name, is it going to interpreted differently? For example, your domain might be "blogger4u" but your user types "bloggerfouryou". Making your domain name easy to remember as well as easy to interpret are one in the same; you just need to do it.

If you are lucky, you can find a domain name that is an exact match to what the user might type into the search engine; but this is getting harder and harder as more domain names are being purchased. We call this EMDS domains; Exact Match Domains. If you do enough research and search long enough, you might be able to find one.

Stop words are words that are defined by bots to stop indexing upon reviewing them. If you don't know which words are stop words, do you research and find them. Using words such as I, a, and, etc... are stop words. Believe it or not, there are quite a few on the list. Do the research.

Keywords in your domain name can help you when getting indexed verses using stop words. Do try to include one to two keywords in the least in your domain name.

To some it up, yes according to the current research keywords and stop words, along with some of the other factors noted in this article do effect how your domain name is viewed. Doing the research and hiring a Web Master can help with making your site a success.

Website Security

Security is for everyone

Internet security and website security are almost one in the same. If you are a business owner or do business using a website, it's not only proper ethics but it's almost mandatory.

Simple Things You Should Do

Some of the most simplest things that you should be doing are the things that you avoid doing the most. That's ok, now you know and can get on top of this.

Theory: "If I do my operating system updates it will crash or mess up my computer; I can't afford to lose that down time."

Fact: Your Operating System provider, whether it is IOS or OS (Windows and Mac), sends updates to your computer to keep it from crashing. Avoiding to do those updates can cause crashes, bugs, and vulnerabilities.

That is the whole purpose of the update, the manufacturer found something wrong and is pushing the fix to you. How easy can it be? Click that button and do those updates as they present themselves. When it comes to your website security, you are only opening the door to be hijacked. That means your customers that do business with you are at risk too.

Theory "If I don't understand what my virus protection is saying or I don't have time; than I will just close it for now. I mean come on, my computer is running fine right now!"

Fact Any type of protection program flags the user as soon as the threat is there. Yes, that means the threat is there already. Hopefully you have a virus program that quarantines, but if not than your computer is probably already infected. Once again, that means the customer's that do business with you are vulnerable too.

Theory "My software needs updates, but I don't see the reason for doing the update. Who has the time?"

Fact Just like with your operating system, it is critical to complete any updates from your software vendor. Don't leave your computer an easy target for hacking just because you didn't take the time to do updates.

One of the most important things is to know your computer and know what programs are on your computer.If you don't know what a program is used for, it's time to learn so you can protect yourself.

The list of simple things can be extensive, so we won't go into detail on all of them; but think about what your computer's status is right now.

More Complicated Security

We won't go into every way you can protect your website, but we will discuss some simple aspects. Form validation is one of the things on the top of the list. Your browser is a program. The information transfers to the server and back to the client. Simple JavaScript can be added to a form to require validation. Talk to your Web Master about form validation.

Uploading to your website is another risk. Make sure that the risk of the upload is worth the possible damage that could be caused. An example of this is having a client upload personal documents. Only allow certain file extensions to be uploaded. Make sure that what is uploaded is necessary to conduct business.

Get a SSL to go with your site. So what is SSL? SSL, Secure Socket Layer is a way to encrypt information that is being sent to and from the server and client. With the certificate the information is encrypted while in route; meaning if the information is hacked, it becomes difficult for the hacker. This is a good idea if you are using credit card numbers, social security numbers, address, and any other potential harmful information that could put you or your clients at risk for fraud.

The subject of securing a website could go into great detail; but now you have some simple things to start with.

The right and Wrong of SEO

I have to give some credit to a great article written by David Hilgendorf. If you are wanting to start looking into SEO (search engine optimization), this is a great first step summed up in an easy article. These are always the first steps I take when introducing a new client into SEO. Enjoy! SEO: How Do You Rank?

Brain over Website

Think like your clients and users

Facing the ever changing technology and advancements in web design can be overwhelming, but we must think outside of the box when it comes to design. You want you clients to think outside the box, so shouldn't you also think outside the box? There are many ways to accomplish this, but the most important thing that any Web Master can do is "be constantly educated". Think like your users, not like a designer! So what does that mean?

That means that you need to find a way to always stay on the cutting edge for your clients. This means that every day you design you must be open to new ideas, new information, and be willing to change styles.

Constant education doesn't necessary mean going back to college or taking expensive courses to further add to your portfolio of knowledge. Constant education means the "goal of being open to new ways, new ideology, and new ways of doing business better".

With the Internet, free resources are always available.

*Read others blogs, subscribe to those blogs when you find value

*Spend at least one hour a day reading or finding out something new even if it is a small piece of information

*When you find a topic that interest you, find a book on the topic.

*View tutorials on You Tube. Subscribe to those that brings insights.

*Follow people, authors, or even companies that promote a fresh ideology.

Simply put, there are so many resources out there to get the knowledge to think like your clients and users. From coding techniques, to designing, there are many people out there that want to share ideas and information.

Thinking like your clients and users can sometimes be hard.

I was very surprised by this recent article that I read about Neuro Web Design. According to acodez (November 2014), "Recently a research was done in neuroscience that focused into how people, their decision making, and their motives that lead them to take action". After reading this article, I was amazed at how many of thy myths listed in the article I actually do as a user; not a designer- a user. Read this article, I think you will enjoy- Nuero Web Design/

There are six principles listed in this article which I think you will find useful.

A picture that replaces a thousands of words

Gain or loss

Creative speaking

World of like, share, and comment

keeping up the promotions

Each single penny matters

Happy studying!

The essence of knowledge is, having it, to apply it; not having it, to confess your ignorance. Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)