News for website managers

Google tools for website owners

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Here are a few tools provided by Google that can help you get the most out of your eKit WebManager website: These can easily be setup by us on any eKit website for you to use.

Analytics

Google Analytics is an free analysis tool to help you review and analyse the information about the visitors to your website.

At a basic level, it can help you see how many visitors you are getting to your website and where they are from, but it is a very powerful tool to and can help you to:

Analyse which parts of your website work well
Test different page styles and processes out.
Understand your various marketing campaigns

Webmaster Tools

Though stilll very much related to Search Engine visibility, Webmaster tools helps you manage and understand your website and it's performance from a more technical aspect.

You can submit and have validated your website's sitemap file. This file is generated automatically by your eKit WebManager CMS and contains an index of all your pages.

Google Webmaster Tools can also help find basic errors on your website and also give you an insight into how your website is viewed by Google and into any problems preventing this from happening properly.

The Google Webmasters page links to these tools and a number of other resources to aid business website owners.

Google Adwords

Google's online advertising service is called Adwords. If you are wanting to advertise your site on Google, then Adwords is the place to go!

Google Adwords is a flexible services that allows you to dip your toe into the world on online advertising, and as you expand your campaign, it has all the right tools to help you monitor ads, manage ads and asses their performance.

Google Adsense

If your website has sufficient traffic, then there may be the option to display advertisements on your website from those who use Googles ad services.

This is a business decision as it can change the way your website is used by your visitors. I don't tent to like or promote Adsense (or other methods of website ads), but they do work in places - otherwise why would ebay and Amazon use them?

If you want to chat about how your site can benefit from Google tools, then comment below or give us a call.

Thanks and see you again soon.

Woody

Backup,Recovery and security

Sat, 7 Jul 2012 00:00:00 GMT

I have been in I.T. all my life and have seen many tears shed over a broken copmuter or device, but they are rarely tears for the hardware - They mourn their DATA!

In the age when so much of our resources and things precious to us are in the digital world, you need to make sure you are backed up.

Think recovery, not just backup!

We backup your website data every night and have tested recovery procedures in place in the event that the worst happens.

The same goes for your office based Data and systems - Go through the motions of simulating the situation after a fire, a system failure (dure to hardware or virus etc) and then document the RESTORE proceudre.

This might take few man-hours for the smallest of offices or could be a significant project for Larger businesses.

Stay Safe :-)

Woody

The Mobile Web and Responsive Web Design

Wed, 1 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

In the next year or so , the Internet bigwigs say that mobile devices will be responsible for the majority of all internet data. I believe them!

This means that unless you have a website specifically designed to work well with small screens, touch screens, high PPI devices, then you will be preventing users from using your website easily, or preventing them from using it at all!

An much better alternative (in most cases) to having a separate website specifically for mobile devices, is having a website with a Responsive Design. This term, coined by Ethan Marcotte, describes a site that can recognise and respond to the capabilities of the visitors device.

This technique initialy delivers a site that is ideal for small/less capable devices and then by design, recognises when a device is larger and has more advanced features. It then responds to these by changing the way the site looks, behaves and delivers content appropriate for the screen size.

In the world of the web, this is called Progressive Enhancement.

All our new customer websites use a responsive design (As of eKit CMS version 5.0) When you update your website using eKit CMS, you are creating content that is delivered in the best format for any device type or web browser that your visitor is using.

Feel free to contant me if you have any questions on The Mobile Web or Responsive Web Design.

See you again soon,

Woody