What is data privacy and why does your business need to be concerned?

The privacy acronym of 2019 was GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), a law that protects data privacy of European Union (EU) citizens. It also affects every American business that does business in the EU. In a nutshell, if your website includes a contact form, a newsletter subscription form, or collects data on visitors via Google Analytics or uses a Facebook remarketing pixel – and your website is accessed by persons from the EU, you need to comply with this law or risk HUGE fines.

In addition, here in the USA, nearly a dozen states have also proposed their own unique privacy bills. Some will allow its citizens to sue businesses for having a contact form without a compliant, up-to-date website privacy policy. As with GDPR in the EU, these laws have long arms, and apply to businesses of any size and location. Several privacy laws, including the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), are already in place to protect the personal information of citizens of certain states with fines that can reach $2500 – $7500 per website visitor.

Websites with as little as a contact form are collecting “Personally Identifiable Information” (PII) and will need to provide a compliant Privacy Policy to its users to avoid fines or lawsuits. Also know that this data privacy protection extends beyond your website. If you exhibit at trade shows or vend at events, you may also be collecting PII on entry forms or newsletter subscription forms.

Only the Tip of the Iceberg

In 2020 more states will propose privacy laws. Unfortunately, that’s a given. Some states are even proposing that consumers have the right to sue businesses directly for not having a compliant privacy policy.

There are also six proposed federal privacy bills that aim to centralize privacy requirements across the US. But, some of these bills would override state laws, others would not, further complicating the compliance issue.

Since multiple and varied state (and possibly, federal) laws can apply to any one business, without a plan it’s going to be difficult to keep up.

A Simple Strategy to Keep Your Website Privacy Policy Up-to-Date

And what if ALL of your policy pages automatically updated as needed?

To be proactive on this issue, we’ve partnered up with a privacy policy generator called Termageddon. They make it easy to automatically update your website policies when the laws change (as well as notify you when changes are coming). And they do it at a fraction of the cost of a privacy attorney. In addition to your website privacy policy, you can use this service to set up and maintain other policy pages. Create your disclaimer, terms of service, and EULA (End User License Agreement) pages as part of this package deal.

The license costs $99/year or $10/month. If we set it up for you, we charge an additional, one-time setup fee of $100 to create the policy pages, insert/test the code on your website, and ensure your policies stay up to date with changes to the law.

Termageddon is the only Privacy Policy generator listed as a trusted vendor by the largest privacy organization in the world, iapp.org.

I signed up with them around the middle of last month, and created privacy policy, disclaimer, and terms of service pages for our website. (You’ll find links to them in our website footer, if you’re curious.) It was easy to set-up, and as promised, when CCPA came on the scene, I received a notice to review recommended changes to my privacy policy. I reviewed the recommended verbiage change in my Termageddon dashboard, saved it, and my website immediately updated. Sweet!

To take advantage of this offer, you have two options:

1. As a Data Privacy Certified Agency Partner with Termageddon, we can set it up for you. We’ll ask you a few questions and then take care of everything on your behalf. Please get in touch with your request via our contact form to get the ball rolling.
2. Or, if you manage your own website and prefer to work directly with Termageddon, please use this link: http://app.termageddon.com?fp_ref=0to60 (Yes, that’s an affiliate link. There’s no additional cost to you, but I will earn a small commission on your purchase.)

The post Your Website Privacy Policy Strategy appeared first on Zero To Sixty Marketing.

The same thing happens day in and day out on your website. It’s a visible representation of your business online. If it’s amateur or outdated, it leaves a bad first impression. It may even leave your audience wondering if your business is trustworthy.

Take this study for example: Participants were directed to search Google for health information relevant to them. Afterward, they discussed their first impressions of the sites they had visited.

Now, when searching for health information, what would be top of mind? Wouldn’t it be whether or not you could trust the information? Logically, should the design of the site be a factor in the trustworthiness of its information? Yet, of all the factors mentioned for rejecting or mistrusting a website in this study, 94% were related to design.

So since the design of your website directly impacts its ability to draw people toward your business, is yours due for a redesign?

How Can You Tell?

1. Has your business changed recently? When a business changes in significant ways the old website may work against you. Make sure it supports your organizational goals.
2. Does your site have a dated look? A website designed in 2013 will not look current in 2019, and this leads to visitors rejecting or mistrusting your website. They’ll spend less time on your site and you’ll acquire fewer customers.
3. Is your site navigation fast and intuitive? Good navigation means that information is clear and easy to get to, nothing is deeply rooted or hidden, and pages are accessible for the search engines. If your site navigation frustrates your visitors, they won’t stick around long enough to become customers.
4. Can you easily update content on your website without having to call your web designer? Not all that long ago, the majority of websites were static HTML sites. Your options were to learn HTML, buy expensive software, or rely completely on your web designer. But those days are long gone for anyone who’s switched over to using WordPress as the foundation of their website.
5. Can you browse the site efficiently on a mobile device or tablet? You may be able to see your full website on your smartphone, but navigating it could be a nightmare. In 2019 you need a responsive design, meaning that the content resizes and reflows smoothly onto any mobile device. It’s not only good for users of your site, but Google places high priority on mobile usability. Your search results will suffer with a site not optimized for mobile.
6. Do the images positively portray your brand – or are they pixelated, not sized quite right, or in other ways not quite professional? With the default camera installed on your smartphone, you’ll be able to take high resolution images unique to your website. Or you can find quality stock photos on sites such as iStockphoto or Bigstock, and tweak them using Canva to produce unique images.
7. Does the homepage of your website clearly communicate what you do? The most important information needs to be displayed right up front. Although your home page welcomes visitors, the text should not read ‘Welcome to Our Website.’ Think it through … what is the most important thing you want visitors to know about your business?
8. How’s your search engine ranking? According to Search Engine Journal, 93% of all Internet traffic comes from a search engine. Redesigning your site with SEO in mind will ensure that potential customers can find you online.
9. Do your pages load fast enough? According to KISSmetrics, 47% of consumers expect a web page to load in two seconds or less and 40% of people will abandon a website that takes more than three seconds to load.
10. Does your website encourage social media interaction? Again, from Search Engine Journal, 41% of businesses are winning customers through social media channels.

If it’s time to redesign your website, we can help, and getting started is easy.

Did you find this helpful? You’ll find articles like this, plus curated insights from successful business owners and marketing pros in our weekly email newsletter. Sign up today and receive our free e-book “5 Things You Can Fix On Your Website This Week to Get More Customers.”

*********************************************************************

DISCLOSURE: I may be an affiliate for products that I recommend. If you purchase those items through my links I will earn a commission. You will not pay more when buying a product through my link. In fact, I oftentimes am able to negotiate a lower rate (or bonuses) not available elsewhere. Thank you, in advance for your support!

The post Stop Turning Website Visitors Away – 10 Reasons for a Redesign appeared first on Zero To Sixty Marketing.

It’s not just about goals, although setting systems and processes in place to achieve your goals is crucial. No, I’m talking about the project level and task level stuff that you or your team is responsible for. Without a recognizable process, what happens when you or a team member gets sick?

What’s an easy but important thing that you handle day-in and day-out? Can anyone else step in and do this thing if you’re unable to? With no real backup plan or recorded process that someone else can follow, a simple problem can escalate quickly in your absence.

After all, who hasn’t ever been too sick to report to work? Who never takes vacation and ends up out of cell phone range? As a business owner, you know better than anyone else that sooner or later the sh*t hits the fan. The only question is whether or not you’ll be prepared for it.

Teamwork, Business Systems and Processes

Preparation for me has meant moving customer support to a dedicated support desk and hiring a qualified and customer-oriented assistant. We’ve recorded many process videos, written process checklists, and enabled access to shared files. That’s because as a mobile business owner, I can expect to be out of cell phone range from time-to-time. (Honestly, I WANT to be out of cell range at times!) With a team and processes in place, the business can continue to run and customers will always be supported whether I’m at my desk or not.

This past week, our sister organization, OffBeat Business Media could have suffered a setback when the CEO got sick on launch day of a new customer’s podcast. But because we had systems in place, the rest of the team was able to cover … from production to marketing and customer support. Sure, there was a little stress, and we learned of a few things to be added to our processes, but it worked. We got the job done.

Baby Steps

You’re probably not going to document every aspect of your business before the end of the week – and maybe never will. That’s not the point. What is mission critical? What would hurt the most if it didn’t get done? Document that first, then keep going.

Tools We Use

Here are the tools we’re using to create and run our business systems:

Full Disclosure: I’ve included affiliate links – meaning that if you click through to learn more and end up trying the service, I’ll earn a small commission without it costing you anything extra.

Process.st

This is a tool that website agency owners have been talking about for awhile now. I finally jumped onboard this past month after watching a webinar and realizing its potential. Essentially Process.st is an easy way to record your processes as templates, then spin off as many checklists as needed to complete and document that the process (template) has been completed. Think client or employee onboarding, podcast publishing, event planning, or anything that is comprised of multiple steps that must be completed. Because it integrates with Zapier, Process.st essentially integrates with anything – your CRM, project manager, email, calendar, AirTable, etc.

They offer a 14 day free trial of their Business Pro plan, which should be sufficient time to experiment and learn if this tool would be helpful to you. Check it out here: https://processstreet.grsm.io/ztsm

Teamwork PM

Teamwork offers a suite of products, from project management to help desk, CRM, file storage, etc. We use their Teamwork PM and Teamwork Desk products in our day-to-day business operations. We’ve used multiple project management tools over the years, beginning with DeskAway, then Basecamp 2, before finding our way to Teamwork. What’s the difference? Teamwork PM offers task dependencies, sub-tasks, granular privacy selectors, the ability to spin off task lists as templates, integrations with other cloud-based SAAS products, and file categorization.

For us, it was a good switch, especially since it integrates seamlessly with Teamwork Desk, the tool we rely on to manage our help desk for website support. Learn more about Teamwork PM here: https://www.teamwork.com/partner/gwlpqdad9k

AirTable

I can’t say enough good things about AirTable. It’s Excel on steroids … way more than a detailed spreadsheet. AirTable is a database that’s easy to use, with unlimited ways to configure then share views of your data. You don’t have to be a data nerd to love it.

We’re using one AirTable base to keep track of all support information for our website care plan customers via an integration set up with Teamwork PM and Zapier. Another base compiles our SEO keyword research per customer. Then there’s one we use to track our digital assets to stay on the right side of copyright law. I’m in the process of setting up another one as an organization calendar that will display recording dates, launch dates, membership events, and social media posts. By configuring views, I can offer exactly the information each department needs – no more, no less, while only entering the information once.

Follow this link to learn more about AirTable: https://airtable.com/invite/r/GeETzxwC

Google Drive, Evernote, MS Word

These are good starting points and we’ve relied on them for years. But as our business processes grow in scope, as our team and customer base grows, I’ve found them to be incomplete as an overall solution. Now we integrate Google Drive as storage for our Teamwork workspace. Customer notebooks in Evernote hold notes on the fly that relate to their branding, message, email campaign, or code notes per website. Much of this will likely migrate into Process.st over time. MS Word – I keep threatening to eliminate our subscription. It might get opened a few times per year. There are so many better tools for the job.

A business can succeed or fail on how well its systems and processes are thought out, and how well they’re implemented. But that’s only half the battle. Make sure to also document your processes so that they’re easily understood and shared. Prepare yourself and your team so that they can handle whatever is needed when you or another key player is completely unavailable. It’s only a matter of time.

Did you find this helpful? You’ll find articles like this, plus curated insights from successful business owners and marketing pros in our weekly email newsletter. Sign up today and receive our free e-book “5 Things You Can Fix On Your Website This Week to Get More Customers.”

The post Do You Have a Process for That? appeared first on Zero To Sixty Marketing.

When your car needs servicing, generally you’ll be notified by some idiot light on the dashboard. Ignore that light at your own peril. One tiny bit of maintenance now for $29.95 can save you thousands in repair bills later.

The same concept is true for your website. Maintenance is key. Your website is made up of thousands of lines of code and multiple pieces of software that all must integrate seamlessly for it to perform at its best. With updates pushed out daily on one or more pieces of that puzzle, it’s easy to let things slip. That can quickly turn into a mess that will be expensive to fix.

Website Problems = Lost Opportunities

When visitors go to a website and find things wrong with it, they usually don’t stick around. Do you? If pages take forever to load, links don’t work, or you see “404 page not found” you go elsewhere, right? Yet too many website owners never check their website to see how well it functions. Problems on the page, as well as things like downtime can lose you potential customers. But a well-designed, properly functioning website can and should help you produce revenue.

Website Maintenance for the Win

Website performance, its load time, downtime and uptime, is dependent on WordPress software and plugins being up-to-date and functioning properly. The quality of your website hosting also comes into play, but that’s a topic for another blog post.

Your website’s growth, keeping its content fresh, design changes as needed, and monitoring of your site’s analytics is all dependent on having someone who will make sure all updates to your website are done professionally and without errors.

Our Website Maintenance Workflow

At Zero To Sixty Marketing LLC we take great care to first backup the website, and check the website after our updates for any issues. We keep a record of all plugins as they are updated so if there is ever an issue we see what plugin version was changed and revert back. This information is included in a monthly maintenance report, along with your website performance grade and results of security scans. In the event we catch an issue, it becomes a support ticket and we address it before you even know there’s a problem.

Yes, but Why Shouldn’t I just Do This Myself?

If you have a system in place that includes performance and security monitoring, daily backups, records of what gets updated and when, an understanding of how to revert or restore your WordPress installation, then you’re good to go.

But if you’re like the majority of website owners who either neglect updates altogether or don’t have a plan in place to fix what can go wrong during an update, DIY can be costly. An update gone wrong can easily take your site offline, and without a record of what changed and when, it will be more difficult to fix. You may end up losing content changes, sales orders, contact entries, etc.

It Costs More to Fix Than to Maintain

Inexperience and neglect can damage the look and functionality of your website. You can try to fix it yourself, possibly creating more work and further damage. Or you can pay the sometimes hefty price for someone with the experience to fix it. Just like your car or your computer, it costs more to fix it than to simply maintain it properly. Regular oil changes help keep your car running properly; regular site maintenance helps keep your website looking and functioning at its best.

Call in a Professional

As a business owner, you’re already wearing multiple hats. I know that’s true for me, and it’s why I no longer try to do it all myself.

So why not deal with what you know best and let us deal with what we know best? Would you try to fight a court battle without a lawyer? Then why try to maintain your own website if you’re not a web professional?

By securing an experienced web professional to update and maintain your site properly you are actually saving potential lost sales and visitors.

If you’re interested in securing a maintenance contract for your website, contact us to learn how we can keep your site in proper working order.

The post Is Your Website Costing You Opportunities? appeared first on Zero To Sixty Marketing.